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Law and Tradition in Classical Islamic Thought

Palgrave Series in Islamic Theology, Law, and History

This groundbreaking series, edited by one of the most influential scholars of Islamic law, presents a cumulative and progressive set of original contributions that substan-tially raises the bar for rigorous scholarship in the field of Islamic Studies. By relying on original sources and challenging common scholarly stereotypes and inherited wisdoms, the volumes of the series attest to the exacting and demanding method-ological and pedagogical standards necessary for contemporary studies of Islam. These volumes are chosen not only for their disciplined methodology, exhaustive research, or academic authoritativeness, but also for their ability to make critical interventions in the process of understanding the world of Islam as it was, is, and is likely to become. They make central and even pivotal contributions to understand-ing the experience of the lived and living Islam, and the ways that this rich and creative Islamic tradition has been created and uncreated, or constructed, decon-structed, and reconstructed. In short, the volumes of this series are chosen for their great relevance to the many realities that shaped the ways that Muslims understand, represent, and practice their religion, and ultimately, to understanding the worlds that Muslims helped to shape, and in turn, the worlds that helped shape Muslims.

Series Editor: Khaled Abou El Fadl is the Omar and Azmeralda Alfi Distinguished Professor in Islamic Law at the UCLA School of Law, and Chair of the Islamic Studies Program at UCLA. Dr. Abou El Fadl received the University of Oslo Human Rights Award, the Leo and Lisl Eitinger Prize in 2007, and was named a Carnegie Scholar in Islamic Law in 2005. He is one of the world’s leading authorities on Islamic law and Islam, and a prominent scholar in the field of human rights.

Titles Custom in Islamic Law and Legal Theory: The Development of the Concepts of Urf and Adah in the Islamic Legal Tradition

Ayman Shabana The Islamic Law of War: Justifications and Regulations

Ahmed Al-Dawoody Shi’i Jurisprudence and Constitution: Revolution in Iran

Amirhassan Boozari Constructing a Religiously Ideal “Believer” and “Woman” in Islam: Neo-traditional Salafi and Progressive Muslims’ Methods of Interpretation

Adis Duderija Fatigue of the Shari’a

Ahmad Atif Ahmad Law and Tradition in Classical Islamic Thought: Studies in Honor of Professor Hossein Modarressi

Edited by Michael Cook, Najam Haider, Intisar Rabb, and Asma Sayeed

Law and Tradition in Classical Islamic Thought

Studies in Honor of Professor Hossein Modarressi

Edited by

MICHAEL COOK , NAJAM HAIDER, INTISAR RABB, AND ASMA SAYEED

LAW AND TRADITION IN CLASSICAL ISLAMIC THOUGHT

Copyright © Michael Cook, Najam Haider, Intisar Rabb, and Asma Sayeed, 2013.

All rights reserved.

First published in 2013 byPALGRAVE MACMILLAN®in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC,175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Cook, Michael. Law and tradition in classical Islamic thought : studies in honor of Professor

Hossein Modarressi / Michael Cook, Najam Haider, Intisar Rabb, Asma Sayeed. pages cm.—(Palgrave series in Islamic theology, law, and history) 1. Islamic law—Interpretation and construction. 2. Modarressi Tabataba’i,

Hossein. 3. Islamic law—History. 4. Islamic law—Philosophy. 5. Shi’ah—Doctrines. I. Haider, Najam Iftikhar, 1974– II. Rabb, Intisar A. III. Sayeed, Asma. IV. Title.

KBP440.74.C66 2012340.5�909—dc23 2012002453

A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.

Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India.

First edition: January 2013

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Transferred to Digital Printing in 2013

Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2013

ISBN 978-1-349-29507-4 ISBN 978-1-137-07895-7 (eBook)DOI 10.1007/978-1-137-07895-7

Contents

List of Figures and Tables vii

Acknowledgments ix

Series Editor Preface xi

Introduction xiii

Part I Source Studies

1 The Abū Bas.īr Tradition: Qurʾānic Verses on the Merits of the Shīʿa 3 Etan Kohlberg

2 Criteria for Emending the Text of the Qurʾān 21 Behnam Sadeghi

3 Muʿāwiya in the H. ijāz : The Study of a Tradition 43 Najam Haider

Part II Shīʿī Tradition

4 The Kitāb al-was.iyya of ʿĪsā b. al-Mustafād: The History of a Text 67 Hassan F. Ansari

5 Women in Imāmī Biographical Collections 81 Asma Sayeed

6 Why Incline to the Left in Prayer? Sectarianism, Dialectic, and Archaeology in Imāmī Shīʿism 99 Michael Cook

Part III Islamic Legal Traditions

7 Dissent and Uncertainty in the Process of Legal Norm Construction in Muslim Sunnī Law 127 Baber Johansen

Contentsvi

8 Islamic Legal Minimalism: Legal Maxims and Lawmaking When Jurists Disappear 145 Intisar A. Rabb

9 Cultivating Human Rights: Islamic Law and the Humanist Imperative 167 Khaled Abou El Fadl

Part IV Philosophical Traditions

10 Yah.yā b. ʿAdī’s Discussion of the Prolegomena to the Study of a Philosophical Text 187 Robert Wisnovsky

11 Two Commentaries on Najm al-Dīn al-Kātibī’s al-Shamsiyya, Copied in the Hand of David b. Joshua Maimonides (fl. ca. 1335–1410 CE ) 203 Sabine Schmidtke

12 Logic in the Khayrābādī School of India: A Preliminary Exploration 227 Asad Q. Ahmed

Part V Historical Traditions

13 The Eastern Travels of Solomon: Reimagining Persepolis and the Iranian Past 247 Roy P. Mottahedeh

14 Al-H. asan b. Mūsā al-Nawbakhtī on the Views of Astronomers and Astrologers 269 Wilferd Madelung

15 Conversion and Law: A Muslim-Christian Comparison 279 Richard W. Bulliet

Part VI The Scholarly Output of Professor Hossein Modarressi

Bibliography of Works by Professor Hossein Modarressi 293 Compiled by Intisar A. Rabb and Hassan F. Ansari

A Bibliographical Note on the Persian Works 301 Hossein Kamaly

Contributors 305

Index 311

Figures and Tables

Figures

2.1 Number of Roots Occurring a Certain Number of Times 23 2.2 Flowchart of Variant Readings of Q6.57 25 6.1 The Boundaries of the Meccan Sanctuary with Directions

to Qat.ar and Kufa 102 6.2 The Kaʿba and the Center of the Sanctuary from a Point

about 8 Miles from the Boundary in the Direction of Qat.ar 103 11.1 Plate I: MS Firkovitch Yevr.-Arab. II 812, f. 7b 225 11.2 Plate II: MS Firkovitch Yevr.-Arab. II 812, f. 7a 226 12.1 Tree I: Sample of Relevant Logicians and Logical Works from

al-T. ūsī to the Farangī Mah.allīs 232 12.2 Tree II: Sample of Relevant Farangī Mah.allī Logicians and

Logical Works 233 12.3 Tree III: Sample of Relevant Khayrābādī Logicians and

Logical Works 235 15.1 Conversion to Islam in Iran 281 15.2 Hypothetical Conversion Rate to Christianity 284

Tables

1.1 The Verses and Their Position in the Abū Bas.īr Tradition 7 6.1 Chart of Distances from the Boundary of the Sanctuary

to Mecca on Various Roads 101

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University and its chair, M. Şükrü Hanioğlu, for their generous financial support of this project. We would like to express special thanks to Amineh Mahallati for her help and suggestions for the cover art and support of the project; to Roy Mottahedeh for his contributions to the cover art, his help in composing the introduction, and his general contributions to and support of the project; and to Sheila Canby, Jeri Wagner, and Julie Zeftel at The Metropolitan Museum of Art for granting per-mission to use the cover art. We also express our gratitude to Wilferd Madelung, Andras Hamori, and Tariq al-Jamil for their helpful contributions to the introduc-tion. Finally, we gratefully acknowledge our debt to Khaled Abou El Fadl, the editor for the Palgrave Series in Islamic Theology, Law, and History, as well as to Burke Gerstenschlager, Kaylan Connally, and Katherine Haigler at Palgrave Macmillan, for their work in bringing the current volume to press.

Series Editor Preface

This is the first edited collection of scholarly studies to be published in the Palgrave Series in Islamic Theology, Law, and History. It is a volume that I take great pride in introducing to the readers of the series. This single volume includes articles by some of the most prominent scholars in the field of Islamic Studies, covering a broad array of topics in Islamic theology, philosophy, law, and history. In many ways, the collection contained in this book represents an illuminatingly informa-tive survey of some of the most compelling scholarship being done in the Western academy in the field of Islamic Studies. The editors of this book have already writ-ten an introduction setting out the contributions made by each author, and I dare not burden the reader by repeating the same information. Read cover to cover, this volume will leave its readers with a sense of having been treated to an enlightening and enjoyable engagement with the Islamic tradition. This collection is distinctive not just because of the range and significance of the topics treated, but also because of the unparalleled caliber of the scholars contributing to the work. The articles in this volume are model examples of the kind of serious and rigorous scholarship so urgently needed in the field of Islamic Studies.

The contributors to this volume are some of the most illustrious and renowned scholars in their respective fields. This by itself makes the present collection attrac-tive to any series editor, and makes this book indispensable to any worthwhile library as well as to all serious students of Islam. But further to this, the promi-nence of the contributors is a notable testament to the importance and eminence of the scholar being honored: Professor Hossein Modarressi of Princeton University. This is another reason why I take special pride in introducing this volume to the readers of this series. I have the privilege and honor of being one of Modarressi’s many admirers, students, and disciples. I can attest to the profound impact that this stoic, soft-spoken, brilliant, and masterful sage of the Islamic tradition has had upon all those who have had the good fortune of studying under or working with him. Modarressi’s profound humility and ethical probity is matched only by his encyclo-pedic knowledge, unparalleled scholarship, generosity, and kindness. Considering the weight and extent of his impact upon the field of Islamic Studies, this volume is a fitting, but relatively modest, acknowledgment of his achievements and his legacy.

Aside from considerations of fidelity and admiration, it is fitting for the Palgrave Series in Islamic Theology, Law, and History to honor Modarressi because of what he and this series represent. Through his teaching and writings, Modarressi truly epitomizes the realization of the scholarly standards that this series was created to

Series Editor Prefacexii

uphold. As all those who are familiar with his work will readily attest, Modarressi’s scholarship sets a standard that is truly hard to follow, but his never-ending quest for learning and investigation is infectious and inspirational. The authors in this col-lection have all been touched and inspired by Modarressi’s works, and regardless of whether they are able to uphold the same standards, without a doubt, Modarressi’s legacy lives on in every article included in this volume. And for that, this volume represents a very special event in the history of the series. Both the contributors and the honoree enhance the reputation and mission of this series.

Khaled Abou El Fadl Los Angeles, California

November 2011

Introduction

Hossein Modarressi’s scholarly path has traversed three centers of academic excel-lence: Qum, Oxford, and Princeton. He started in the “seminary” ( h. awza ) system in the Iranian city of Qum, where he received a complete traditional education in the classical Islamic sciences, with a focus on Islamic philosophy, theology, and law. He also pursued a modern secular education in state schools, at the University of Tehran, and elsewhere, culminating in a PhD in Islamic law from Oxford University. It is rare that one person can master disciplines and make key contributions in such disparate worlds. Professor Modarressi’s command of scholarship and assistance to scholars in each makes him truly exceptional. As a jurist and a historian of Islamic law, his expertise is well recognized in Iran’s scholarly circles and unparalleled in the Western academy. If the former arena offers scholarly breadth and the latter critical depth, it is fair to say that Professor Modarressi has succeeded in combining the two with his keen acumen to achieve a three-dimensional grasp of Islamic law and tradition. We might even say that his long-practiced expertise has produced a further dimension: the scholarly intuition arising from sustained, comparative study and engagement with these two academic worlds. He effortlessly exhibits a sharp sense of what scholars in the legal context have referred to as the spirit or “taste” of the law ( dhawq al-sharī aʿ ). And he has managed to spread an appreciation of that taste to others. This volume brings together the work of a small number of Professor Modarressi’s students and colleagues from his time in Europe and the United States in acknowledgment of the enormous impact that he has had on so many scholarly trajectories.

The encounter between the two worlds in which Modarressi made his mark begins in Iran. Modarressi was a scholar who, already in 1977, had reached the highest levels of training in Iran’s traditional educational system, and he was a well-known historian of Iran. He had long been interested in Western scholarship as well as that of the rest of the Muslim world, and his curiosity led him to intellectually engage with scholars globally. On a visit there that year, Roy Mottahedeh met him at a history conference in Hamadan, attended by local and Western historians. The two became instant friends. Modarressi offered to help obtain manuscripts for this historian from America who had limited ability to access many of the documents and histories abundant in Iran (a generous tradition that Modarressi would con-tinue with his future colleagues as well). The two would develop a lasting scholarly exchange and enduring friendship.

Sometime later, Modarressi decided to pursue a higher degree from a Western institution. Though Mottahedeh was then at Princeton—known for its program

Introductionxiv

of Islamic Studies—he felt that he was not qualified to instruct his friend. Instead, Modarressi chose to attend St. Antony’s College at Oxford University. There, he worked with Wilferd Madelung to complete his doctorate in 1983. Yet, even Madelung hardly considered himself a teacher to Modarressi, who was already a recognized Islamic law scholar upon arrival at Oxford and received, during his time there, increased recognition from the scholars of Iran. True to form, Modarressi’s dissertation on kharāj (land tax) was a model of exhaustive research, covering the doctrines of all sects and schools in the Islamic tradition.

Modarressi arrived at Princeton as a visiting professor in 1986 and was tenured the next year. He was a teacher’s teacher. Unfailingly collegial and helpful to his new peers, he devoted time to reading their drafts and improved them in fundamental ways. On occasion, he offered lengthy comments written around the margins of an ill-drafted page in mouse-tail style ( dum-i mūsh ), invariably revealing new per-spectives and sources for the particular issue at hand. It was also commonplace for Modarressi to offer gentle caveats that saved his colleagues and students from embarrassing errors in their teaching or research. More often than not, these caveats would begin with a delicately generous, “As you know . . . . ” Though not intended ironically, this preamble was inevitably registered as such in the conscience of the beneficiary. His grasp of the Islamic tradition was so extensive that one colleague would remark—only partially tongue-in-cheek—that he felt “lucky to have some colleagues who know an awful lot about many things, and one colleague who knows everything.”

As a devoted teacher, Modarressi deploys his encyclopedic memory along with his deeply analytic mind for the benefit of his students in other ways as well. In preparation for classes, he typically mines the sources and consults colleagues for readings to offer the best translations and analyses, and to set the tone for instruc-tive conversations. In some respects, he also learns from his students insofar as their interests have drawn him into new fields, which he takes care to master in order to teach. One of his most remarkable qualities is his exacting standards as a teacher. Students often recall their trepidation about submitting work to a professor whose knowledge of their chosen subject far surpasses what they hope to gain in a life-time. Yet, his advising exhibits patience alongside exacting conscientiousness. For his advanced students, he teaches seminars tailored to their interests and labors through the lengthy prose and footnotes of their dissertations. Predictably, he prods them to be critical of the sources, expansive in scope, and cognizant of interdisci-plinary links.

Modarressi’s intellectual and pedagogical contributions have taken shape in the context of teaching and research appointments at several institutions over the past quarter-century. In addition to his position as Bayard Dodge Professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University, he has served as Mahdi Senior Research Scholar at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia and as the Golestaneh Fellow in Islamic Studies at St. Antony’s College at Oxford. He has also taught at Yale Law School, at Harvard Law School, and at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris. His presence as a teacher, scholar, and mentor in these institutions has itself helped to transform the field of Islamic Studies. It has become a field that recognizes the importance of the full landscape of early Islamic

Introduction xv

history and law—including parallel developments in what would evolve into Sunnī, Shīʿī, and Khārijī contexts. To be sure, while the focal points of his own scholarship have been in Islamic law and Shīʿī tradition—whence the title of this volume—the range of his knowledge and teaching extends far beyond the contexts of law and Shīʿism. Furthermore, marking Modarressi’s scholarly method is an approach that takes stock of a wide range of early sources, without presupposing the inevitability of its outcomes. To this approach and to his scholarly achievements he joins the virtues of generosity and humility. Through executing stellar scholarship, he has exerted considerable influence on the field, distinguishing him as a scholar-teacher of towering intellect and of magisterial scope.

* * *

When he arrived at Princeton, Modarressi had already published extensively—writ-ing in Persian, Arabic, and English—and he has continued to publish prolifically ever since. A list of his numerous and wide-ranging publications is included at the end of this volume.

His publications are in Persian before 1980, and shift to include contributions in English, beginning with the appearance of Kharāj in Islamic Law in 1983. Some of his early writings discuss regional and political history, many of them meticulously documenting the religious landscapes, monuments, and families of Qum across the centuries. Two major contributions in particular, Qum dar qarn-i nuhum-i hijrī, 801–900: Fas.lī az kitāb-i Qum dar chahārdah qarn ( Qum in the 9th/15th Century: A Chapter in the Fourteen-Century-Long History of Qum ) along with Turbat-i pākān: Āthār va bināhā-yi qadīm-i mah. dūda-yi kunūnī-yi dār al-muʾminīn-i Qum ( Blessed Grounds: Edifices Lying within the Contemporary Limits of the City of Qum, Abode of the Faithful ), provide indispensable works of reference. Taken together, these articles and monographs on Qum attest to Modarressi’s regard for this city as a longtime center of intellectual life in the Muslim world. Further, Modarressi and a number of his Iranian friends and colleagues, among them the late Iraj Afshar, avidly collected inscriptions, and deciphered and interpreted obscure texts in manuscripts. They also composed sophisticated local histories, thereby furthering nuanced scholarship on the sociopolitical, economic, and intellectual history of Iran. Modarressi’s anno-tated editions and analyses of Safavid-era diplomatic correspondence, decrees, and endowment deeds also confirm his sustained attention to the multiple elements of text and context that make up the narratives of history. These works in turn pro-vide keys to uncovering broader trends in disparate areas of research, from Persian administrative history to the arts of letter-writing in the sixth/twelfth century.

While Modarressi’s Persian contributions in the field of Iranian history remain untranslated, a number of his influential English monographs on Shīʿī studies and law have been published in Persian. The availability of this scholarship in Persian is a significant development that allows the fruits of Modarressi’s career in the West to be harvested in the land where his intellectual journey began.

Over the last 25 years, Modarressi’s scholarly interests expanded in a number of directions. With his first book in English, Kharāj in Islamic Law , Modarressi substantially changed the landscape of studies in Islamic law and tradition in the

Introductionxvi

West. He shifted from the regional and political histories of his early career to English writings revolving around broader themes of Islamic law and Shīʿī tradi-tion, with excursions into Qurʾānic studies, history, and theology. In that first work, he deals comprehensively with the highly charged issues of early Islamic taxation. His Introduction to Shī ʿ ī Law (1984) provides an indispensable reference point for students and other researchers interested in the study of Shīʿī law. In it, he offers frameworks for analysis of Shīʿī law by depicting distinct periods of intellectual activity and political reality in ways that move beyond a reductive discussion of “early” and “late” periods. In particular, he outlines the development of key legal doctrines along themes of rationalism and traditionalism from the earliest periods of Islamic legal writing until today. In “Some Recent Analyses of the Concept of Majāz in Islamic Jurisprudence” (1986), he identifies ways in which Muslim schol-ars draw on insights from Arabic linguistics in their use of figurative language in legal interpretation. In each of these contexts, one of Modarressi’s most important contributions lies in broadening the scope of scholarly research in the West. His work takes for granted that serious scholarship must address the views of all Muslim groups that have left us literary records of their intellectual and other activity.

In taking on some of the most challenging and controversial topics in the field, Modarressi has also highlighted the diversity of early Islamic historical writings and jurisprudential thought, both Sunnī and Shīʿī. Often, his contributions docu-ment the way in which later understandings inverted earlier ones. “Early Debates on the Integrity of the Qurʾān” (1993) draws on varied historical evidence to illustrate polemical uses of h. adīth literature and to investigate the question whether early Muslims believed the Qurʾān as collected in the time of ʿUthmān to be complete. Crisis and Consolidation (1993) surveys early legal, theological, and political sources to comment on similarly important questions about the nature of leadership in the collective memory of the early Shīʿī community. The latter work remains among his most significant and influential publications.

Modarressi’s scholarship is further distinguished by his efforts to present the sources themselves. His latest book, Tradition and Survival (2003), brings together decades of meticulous collection and analysis of written Shīʿī heritage dating to the first three centuries, that is, from the time of ʿAlī to the end of the Minor Occultation (329/941). Far more than a bibliographic survey, this work sifts through thousands of sources to point out the most influential contributions of earlier schol-ars and show the impact of each on shaping Shīʿī law and tradition; it also draws attention to turning points in law and theology. This is a work whose writing became possible only after decades of meticulous collection, research, and analysis. Already, this work has established itself as an indispensable reference, providing a starting point and methodological resource for any work on Shīʿī law and tradition.

In significant respects, Modarressi’s writings have connected a millennial schol-arly tradition in the Muslim world with the much younger one of Islamic Studies in Europe and America, where the field has achieved prominence only in the last two centuries. Early researchers in the West labored with scant access to the sources and inadequate analytical tools for a thorough treatment of the complex history of Islamic law and tradition. Modarressi has worked with a far richer array of

Introduction xvii

sources—for example, identifying for the first time in Tradition and Survival Shīʿī texts traceable through multiple written records to periods beginning as early as the first/seventh century. This was akin to discovering long-lost ruins of a civiliza-tion about which archeologists had believed all traces to have long since perished. Thanks to Modarressi’s reconstitutions, we can now discern the topography of the city and even hear echoes of the conversations of its inhabitants.

* * *

Unusually for a Festschrift, the contributors to the present volume represent three generations of scholars. A substantial number were graduate students at Princeton, where they had the distinction of being Modarressi’s pupils; some were also his PhD advisees. A second group of contributors have been his colleagues at Princeton and elsewhere; some are his contemporaries, some are junior scholars whose careers he has advanced in more ways than one. The third and most senior generation is repre-sented by a single scholar, Wilferd Madelung. His presence in this volume gives us particular pleasure: it is rare indeed for a Festschrift to include a contribution by the PhD adviser of the honoree.

The first part of this volume is devoted to the study of early sources, a subject at the core of much of Modarressi’s scholarly output. Etan Kohlberg examines a tradi-tion preserving an encounter between the sixth Imām, Jaʿfar al-S.ādiq, and one of his students, the Kūfan traditionist Abū Bas.īr. Tracing the growing prominence of the account in early Shīʿī literature, Kohlberg argues that the account was central to the formation of a distinctive Shī ʿī identity. Behnam Sadeghi focuses on the text of the Qurʾān itself, evaluating claims of early emendations to the text. And Najam Haider traces the disparate portrayals of the first Umayyad caliph, Muʿāwiya b. Abī Sufyān, in the Sunnī sources and the subsequent use of one particular tradition in Muslim legal polemics pertaining to the ritual prayer.

The second part turns to the Shī‘ī tradition, the scholarly area most associated with Modarressi’s output. Hassan Ansari examines the history of a short work attributed to ʿ Īsā b. al-Mustafād on the subject of the was.iyya , which classical sources conceived as referring to the Prophet’s designation of ʿAlī as both his successor and the first Imām. Asma Sayeed examines representations of female h. adīth transmitters and scholars in selected Imāmī biographical literature. She highlights differences between Imāmī and Sunnī patterns in women’s religious education, concluding that varying “social cultures” associated with h. adīth transmission are largely responsible for the differences noted. Michael Cook concludes the section by tackling a thorny problem that stems from Shīʿī traditions prescribing tayāsur (inclining to the left) in the direction of the prayer. In the course of his analysis, Cook finds an example of early modern antiquarianism in a Shīʿī setting.

The contributions in Part Three cover Islamic legal traditions and address controversies surrounding varied legal methodologies in different contexts. Baber Johansen traces traditions of legal pluralism and dissent in us.ūl al-fiqh (jurispru-dential) discussions, highlighting the construction of legal norms in novel cases. Through an analysis of the works of Muslim jurists writing at the height of the

Introductionxviii

era of systematization of Islamic jurisprudence, he draws attention to the human element of “contemplation ( ta aʾmmul )” that these jurists insisted was necessary for law to be a continuing and evolving enterprise. Intisar Rabb likewise exam-ines legal norms, considering an intriguing hypothetical first proposed by Muslim jurists writing during the same period of systematization: What would happen if all jurists disappeared? She uses the thought experiment to consider attitudes concerning the core requirements for an Islamic legal tradition and to draw paral-lels between Imāmī Shīʿī law in the aftermath of the greater Occultation, Sunnī law in the absence of jurists, and American law in a regime of “legal minimalism.” In a different vein, Khaled Abou El Fadl explores the intersections and tensions between the universal human rights tradition and the Islamic legal tradition. He makes the case that while each of them constructs normative, expansive world-views with goals concerning human welfare, on close examination, the two are not mutually exclusive.

Part Four takes up the Islamic philosophical tradition. Robert Wisnovsky pres-ents a description, transcription, and translation of a philosophical work by the fourth/tenth-century Christian philosopher Yah.yā b. ʿAdī that was previously thought lost. This text offers a pedagogical guide to the organization and purpose of studying philosophical works in that era. Sabine Schmidtke highlights intersections between Jewish and Islamic thought in logic and philosophy from the “late” (post-sixth/twelfth century) period through a study of the writings of David Maimonides. Through an analysis of holdings on logic in the Firkovitch Collection at the Russian National Library in St. Petersburg, Schmitdke presents writings on logic also oth-erwise thought lost. Finally, Asad Ahmed traces the development of logic in the Indian scholarly context, focusing specifically on the Khayrābādī tradition. His study maps the overlapping and cross-cutting links between Indian scholars on logic over a span of nearly 700 years.

The fifth and final part comprises historical studies. Roy Mottahedeh traces the symbolic association of the Prophet Solomon with notions of power and prestige in the Persian and Islamic traditions. Specifically, he draws out the ways in which the preservation and transformation of Persian pre-Islamic monuments informed Islamic historical memory. Wilferd Madelung details the place of astronomers and astrologers in the broader intellectual spectrum of the third/ninth-century Muslim world through an analysis of the writings of al-H. asan b. Mūsā al-Nawbakhtī, as preserved by the Muʿtazilī scholar, Ibn al-Malāh. imī. Finally, Richard Bulliet builds on his earlier work on the impact of conversion on Muslim social institutions with an analysis of the relationship between conversion rates and the development of legal systems in Islam and Christianity.

A bibliography of Modarressi’s writings concludes the volume. This is followed by Hossein Kamaly’s short essay on Modarressi’s Persian scholarship. We include this to acquaint his European and American readership with a corpus of his writings to which they are less likely to have immediate access and to call attention to this important facet of Modarressi’s scholarly contributions.

What the editors and contributors have in common is that, in different contexts and in different ways, they have all benefited from the extraordinary extent and depth of Modarressi’s knowledge and understanding of Islamic law and tradition in

Introduction xix

all its manifestations. They have also been at the receiving end of his generosity in offering insights and sources to which access would otherwise have been difficult or impossible. Having received so much, we see this volume as an opportunity to give a little back.

Michael Cook Najam Haider

Roy Mottahedeh Intisar Rabb Asma Sayeed

Part I

Source Studies

Chapter 1

The Abu Bas.ır Tradition: Qur’anic Verses on the Merits of the Shı‘a *

Etan Kohlberg

Al-Kulīnī’s al-Rawd. a —the eighth and last volume of his renowned al-Kāfī — contains an account of a meeting between the sixth Imam Ja‘far al-S.ādiq (d. 148/765) and his follower Abū Bas.īr. The account begins with an introductory passage, in which Abū Bas.īr tells the Imam that, though he is old and approaching death, he remains ignorant of his fate in the next world. The Imam reassures him that no believer will be punished by God, adding: “This (exemption from punishment) applies only to you (i.e., the Shī‘a), and not to the rest of mankind.” Next, Abū Bas.īr complains about the term “Rāfid. a” by which the Shī‘a are addressed by their enemies. Abū Bas.īr takes it to be a term of abuse, but the Imam explains that it is in fact an honorific. 1 He goes on to tell Abū Bas.īr that since the Shī‘a alone follow the ahl al-bayt (family of the Prophet), God will accept the good deeds of the righteous among them and will forgive the sins of those among them who do evil. The Imam then asks: “Abū Muh.ammad, have I made you happy?” ( hal sarartuka? ), to which Abū Bas.īr replies: “May I be made your ransom, tell me more!” ( ju‘ iltu fidāka zidnī! ). This leads to the main part of the account in which the Imam cites ten different passages from the Qur’ān and explains how each one relates to the Shī‘a. Many of these passages are introduced with the formula: “God has mentioned you in His book” ( la-qad dhakarakum allāh fī kitābihi ). Each explanation is followed by the Imam asking: “Have I made you happy?” and Abū Bas.īr responding with “May I be made your ransom, tell me more!” In conclusion, the Imam makes two pronouncements. First, he says that every verse that mentions the inhabitants of Paradise refers to the Imams and their Shī‘a, and every verse that mentions the inhabitants of Hell refers to the enemies and opponents of the Imams and their Shī‘a. Second, only the Imams and their Shī‘a belong to Abraham’s religion ( milla ). 2 Al-Kulīnī provides two versions of the ending. In the first, the Imam asks: “Have I made you happy?” but Abū Bas.īr’s

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answer is not reproduced. In the second version, Abū Bas.īr’s answer is: “This is suf-ficient for me” ( h. asbī ). 3

This account is of interest not least because of the identity of the Imam’s interlocu-tor. Abū Muh.ammad Yah.yā b. (Abī) l-Qāsim al-Asadī known as Abū Bas.īr (d. 149–150/766–767) was a prominent Kūfan follower of the fifth Imam Muh.ammad al-Bāqir (d. 114 or 117/732 or 735) and his son al-S.ādiq, and arguably the most prolific transmitter of Shī‘ī traditions of his generation. Because of his trustworthi-ness and his knowledge of Shī‘ī law, he was one of a small circle of disciples entrusted by al-S.ādiq with providing answers to queries of a legal nature. 4 The account, which may be called “the Abū Bas.īr tradition,” is preserved in a number of versions. The following is an attempt to analyze these versions and to place the account within the broader context of exegetical traditions on the merits of the Shī‘a.

1. Versions of the Abu Bas. īr Tradition

1.1. Al-Kulīnī, al-Kāfī

Al-Kulīnī (d. 329/941) introduces the Abū Bas.īr tradition with the following isnād (chain of transmission): a number of our colleagues ( ‘ idda min as.h. ābinā ) < (i.e., transmitting from) Sahl b. Ziyād < Muh.ammad b. Sulaymān (i.e., al-Daylamī) < his father. 5 Sulaymān was the author of a kitāb (notebook of traditions). As has been noted by Modarressi, this kitāb was transmitted by his son Muh.ammad. 6 It is thus not inconceivable that the Abū Bas.īr tradition was included there, and if so, it can be dated to the second half of the second/eighth century.

In the version recorded by al-Kulīnī, it is Sulaymān al-Daylamī who tells the story. He recounts that he was at the home of al-S.ādiq when Abū Bas.īr arrived and goes on to describe what transpired at the meeting. According to his account, the Imam cited ten Qur’ānic verses in the following order:

1. Q40:7: “Those who bear the throne, and all who are round about it, praise and glorify their Lord, believe in Him, and ask forgiveness for those who believe” ( alladhīna yah. milūna l-‘arsha wa-man h. awlahu yusabbih. ūna bi-h. amdi rabbihim wa-yu’minūna bihi wa-yastaghfirūna li-lladhīna āmanū ). 7 The Imam explains that those for whom forgiveness is sought are the Shī‘a, to the exclu-sion of all others. 8 Elsewhere, those who are meant are said to be the shī‘at āl Muh. ammad (followers of the family of Muh.ammad) 9 or the shī‘at Muh. ammad wa-āl Muh. ammad . 10

2. Q33:23: “Among the believers are men who were true to their covenant with God. Some of them have fulfilled their vow, and others are still waiting; they have not changed in the least” ( mina l-mu’minīna rijālun s.adaqū mā ‘āhadū llāha ‘alayhi fa-minhum man qad. ā nah. bahu wa-minhum man yantaz. iru wa-mā baddalū tabdīlan ). The Imam explains that the believers (i.e., the Shī‘a) were true to their covenant to show love and loyalty ( walāya ) to their Imams, and did not forsake the Imams for others. 11

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3. Q15:47: “They will be like brothers, reclining on couches face to face” ( ikhwānan ‘alā sururin mutaqābilīna ). This verse, which forms part of a pas-sage describing the delights awaiting the believers in Paradise, is interpreted by the Imam as referring solely to the Shī‘a ( mā arāda bi-hādhā ghayrakum ). 12

4. Q43:67: “On that day close friends will become enemies to one another, except the God-fearing” ( al-akhillā’u yawma’ idhin ba‘d. uhum li-ba‘d. in ‘aduwwun illā l-muttaqīna ). The Imam explains this in exactly the same way as he explained the previous verse ( mā arāda bi-hādhā ghayrakum ). 13

5. Q39:9: “Are those who know equal to those who do not know? Only those possessed of understanding remember” ( hal yastawī lladhīna ya‘ lamūna wa-lladhīna lā ya‘ lamūna innamā yatadhakkaru ulū l-albābi ). The Imam explains: “We are those who know, our enemies are those who do not know, and our Shī‘a are those possessed of understanding.” 14

6. Q44:41–42: “A day when a patron will be of no avail whatsoever to his client, and they will not be helped, except those on whom God has mercy” ( yawma lā yughnī mawlan ‘an mawlan shay’an wa-lā hum yuns.arūna illā man rah. ima llāhu ). According to the Imam, “those on whom God has mercy” are ‘Alī and his Shī‘a. 15 In another tradition on this Qur’ānic passage, al-S.ādiq tells his disciple Zayd al-Shah. h. ām that those on whom God has mercy are actually the Imams; yet thanks to them, their Shī‘a will also benefit from His compas-sion ( wa-lākinnā nughnī ‘anhum ). 16

7. Q39:53: “O my servants who have transgressed against yourselves, do not despair of God’s mercy. God forgives all sins; He is forgiving and compassion-ate” ( yā ‘ ibādiya lladhīna asrafū ‘alā anfusihim lā taqnat.ū min rah. mati llāhi inna llāha yaghfiru l-dhunūba jamī‘an innahu huwa l-ghafūru l-rah. īmu ). This, says the Imam, refers exclusively to the Shī‘a ( mā arāda bi-hādhā ghayrakum ). 17 The same interpretation is found in al-Qummī’s Tafsīr ( nazalat fī shī‘at amīr al-mu’minīn khās.s.atan ). 18 A different view appears in a tradition that Abū H. amza al-Thumālī (d. between 148/765 and 150/767) cites from al-Bāqir. 19 Two versions are mentioned: according to the first, the verse refers only to Fāt.ima’s offspring; 20 according to the second, it refers to the followers of these offspring ( shī‘at wuld Fāt.ima ). 21

8. Q15:42 (=Q17:65): “You have no authority over my servants” ( inna ‘ ibādī laysa laka ‘alayhim sult.ānun ). Al-S.ādiq explains that the ‘ ibād of this verse are the Imams and their Shī‘a. 22 Elsewhere, only the Shī‘a ( hādhihi l-‘ is.āba ) are said to be meant. 23

9. Q4:69: “They will be with the prophets, the truthful, the martyrs, and the righteous on whom God has bestowed favor; good company are these!” ( fa-ulā’ ika ma‘a lladhīna an‘ama llāhu ‘alayhim mina l-nabiyyīna wa-l-s.iddīqīna wa-l-shuhadā’ i wa-l-s.ālih. īna wa-h.asuna ulā’ ika rafīqan ). For al-S.ādiq, the truthful and the martyrs are the Imams, and the righteous are the Shī‘a; and he exhorts the Shī‘a to act righteously, in conformity with the epi-thet al-s.ālih. ūn that God bestowed on them. 24 A different gloss is attrib-uted to the third Imam al-H. usayn b. ‘Alī (d. 61/680), for whom this verse constitutes a proof that every single Shī‘ī speaks the truth and is a martyr ( s.iddīq shahīd ). 25 The belief that both Imams and Shī‘a are martyrs is often

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encountered in Shī‘ī texts. According to Shī‘ī scholars, the Imams are martyrs because they were killed or poisoned, while the Shī‘a are granted this rank because they lead a virtuous life. 26

10. Q38:62–63: “They say: ‘Why do we not see here men whom we used to regard as wicked? Did we take them (wrongly) as an object of mockery, or have they escaped our sight?’ ” ( wa-qālū mā lanā lā narā rijālan kunnā na‘udduhum mina l-ashrāri a-ttakhadhnāhum sikhriyyan am zāghat ‘anhumu l-abs.āru ?). According to the Imam, those referred to are the Shī‘a: their ene-mies, when they reach Hell, will realize with astonishment that those whom they had regarded in this world as wicked are in fact enjoying the pleasures of Paradise. 27

1.2. Al-Qād. ī al-Nu‘mān, Sharh. al-akhbār and Da‘ā’ im al-islām

The Abū Bas.īr tradition is recorded (without an isnād ) in two works of the famous Ismā‘īlī jurist al-Qād. ī al-Nu‘mān (d. 363/974): Sharh. al-akhbār and Da‘ā’ im al-islām . 28 The former comprises traditions on the merits of the Imams up to al-S.ādiq, while the Da‘ā’ im al-islām became the official legal code of the Fāt.imid state from the time of the caliph al-Mu‘izz (r. 341–365/953–975). The same text of the Abū Bas.īr tradition appears, with only minor variations, 29 in both works, allow-ing us to ascribe a single version to al-Nu‘mān. There are a number of differences between this account and that of the Kāfī : only al-Nu‘mān’s text contains the state-ment that Abū Bas.īr had become blind by the time of his meeting with al-S.ādiq, 30 while only the Kāfī has the passage about the Rāfid.a. 31 In response to the Imam’s repeated question “Have I made you happy?” Abū Bas.īr replies in al-Nu‘mān’s ver-sion with “yes” ( na‘am or balā ) before adding “so tell me more” ( fa-zidnī , occasion-ally with “may I be made your ransom”). There are differences in the order of the verses cited, and two verses mentioned in the Kāfī (Q15:47, Q43:67) are missing from al-Nu‘mān altogether. The concluding passage in al-Nu‘mān’s text contains only the first of the two pronouncements by al-S.ādiq found in the Kāfī , and the wording is somewhat different. 32

1.3. Ibn Bābawayh, Fad. ā’ il al-shī‘a

This short work by the traditionist and jurist Muh.ammad b. ‘Alī Ibn Bābawayh (d. 381/991) consists of 45 traditions on the merits of the Shī‘a. The Abū Bas.īr tradi-tion (no. 18) has the following isnād : Muh.ammad b. al-H. asan b. Ah.mad b. al-Walīd (d. 343/954–955) < Muh.ammad b. al-H. asan al-S.affār (d. 290/902–903) < ‘Abbād b. Sulaymān < Muh.ammad b. Sulaymān < his father Sulaymān al-Daylamī. 33 The text follows that of the Kāfī , with only minor deviations. 34 The major difference between the two versions is that four of the ten Qur’ānic passages that al-S.ādiq cites and inter-prets in the Kāfī (Q33:23, Q15:47, Q43:67, Q39:9) are missing from Ibn Bābawayh. It may well be that a copyist omitted these passages at some stage of the transmission. The alternative, however, cannot be ruled out, namely that Ibn Bābawayh preserves an earlier version, and that the four passages in the Kāfī are a later addition.


1.4. Al-Mufīd (attrib.), al-Ikhtis. ās.

The Ikhtis.ās. consists largely of traditions and preserves some older Shī‘ī texts. It has traditionally been regarded as a work of the Shī‘ī theologian and jurist Muh.ammad b. Muh.ammad b. al-Nu‘mān known as al-Shaykh al-Mufīd (d. 413/1022), though this is in all likelihood a misattribution. 35 Here too, the Abū Bas.īr tradition appears with a complete isnād : Muh.ammad b. al-H. asan b. Ah.mad b. al-Walīd < al-H. asan b. Mutayyil < Ibrāhīm b. Ish. āq al-Nihāwandī < Muh.ammad b. Sulaymān al-Daylamī < his father Sulaymān. 36 Abū Bas.īr speaks in the first person (as in al-Nu‘mān’s Sharh. ). The introductory passage closely resembles that of the Kāfī , while the con-cluding passage consists of a single tradition, cited on the authority of the fourth Imam, ‘Alī Zayn al-‘Ābidīn (d. 94–95/712–713). The main body of the tradition deviates from the Kāfī at several points: the first Qur’ānic passage listed is Q42:5 (rather than a conflation of this verse with Q40:7); Q15:47 is missing; and there are differences in the order of appearance of the Qur’ānic passages. Particularly note-worthy is the discussion of Q39:53: the Imam cites a Shī‘ī qirā’a (variant reading) of this verse in which the word lakum is added after yaghfir . 37 Abū Bas.īr, who had evidently never heard this qirā’a before, wonders about it (“This is not how we read it” [ laysa hākadhā naqra’uhu ]), to which the Imam replies: “If God were to forgive all sins, whom would He punish? By God, (in this verse) He refers only to us and to our Shī‘a.” 38 This exchange is only attested in the Ikhtis.ās. , and it is the only instance of a Shī‘ī qirā’a in the various versions of the Abū Bas.īr tradition.

1.5. Anon., Faraj al-karb

In the A‘ lām al-dīn , a work of belles lettres ( adab ) by the Shī‘ī author and exegete al-H. asan b. Abī l-H. asan al-Daylamī (fl. eighth/fourteenth century), 39 the Abū Bas.īr tradition is quoted from an anonymous work entitled Faraj al-karb . 40 The Faraj may well have included the tradition in its entirety, but al-Daylamī only cites it from the end of the introductory passage. The main body of the tradition comprises nine out of the ten Qur’ānic passages found in the Kāfī (only Q38:62–63 is missing), but in

Table 1.1 Th e Verses and Th eir Position in the Abū Bas.īr Tradition

Verse Kāfī Shar h. Fa d. ā’ il Ikhti s. ā s. Faraj

Q40:7/42:5 1 2 1 1 1Q33:23 2 1 – 2 2Q15:47 3 – – – 4Q43:67 4 – – 3 3Q39:9 5 7 – 5 9Q44:41–42 6 4 2 9 8Q39:53 7 6 3 8 7Q15:42 8 8 4 7 6Q4:69 9 5 5 4 5Q38:62–63 10 3 6 6 –

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a different order. Only in the Faraj does the tradition end with Abū Bas.īr declaring: “I went away (from al-S.ādiq’s home) happy.”

As can be seen from this analysis, the Abū Bas.īr tradition is a composite text comprising a number of exegetical passages on the merits of the Shī‘a, each passage highlighting a particular merit. It is the combination of these passages that gives this tradition its persuasive force. The number of Qur’ānic verses, and the order in which they are quoted, do not substantially affect the tradition’s core message. This, coupled with changes that regularly occur in the process of transmission, may lie behind the difference between the number and position of the verses quoted in the various versions. By the same token, it is difficult to tell which version comes closest to the original text.

2. The Abu Bas. īr Tradition and Shī‘ī Exegesis

The Qur’ānic passages adduced in the Abū Bas.īr tradition are only a small fraction of the verses that early Shī‘ī exegetes interpreted as referring to the Shī‘a. 41 Yet these passages, as seen through the interpretative lens of the early exegetes, depict some of the major characteristics of the Shī‘a. In the following sections of this chapter, the verses interpreted in al-Kulīnī’s version of the Abū Bas.īr tradition will be compared with interpretations of other verses dealing with similar themes. These themes may be summarized as follows: the Shī‘a are the God-fearing ( muttaqūn ) ( Kāfī no. 4 in my enumeration), the righteous ( s.ālih. ūn ) ( Kāfī no. 9), and those possessed of understanding ( ulū l-albāb ) ( Kāfī no. 5); they show loyalty ( walāya ) to their Imams ( Kāfī no. 2); Satan has no authority over them ( Kāfī no. 8); their sins will be forgiven and they will benefit from God’s mercy ( Kāfī nos. 1, 6, 7); they will enjoy paradisia-cal bliss ( Kāfī nos. 3, 10).

2.1. The Shī‘a as God-Fearing ( muttaqūn )

The first adduction of muttaqūn in the Qur’ān occurs at Q2:2. According to a tra-dition on the authority of al-S. ādiq, the muttaqūn of this verse are “our Shī‘a.” It is they who are described in the next verse (Q2:3) as “those who believe in the unseen ( al-ghayb ), pray as they should, and mimmā razaqnāhum yunfiqūna .” This last phrase, usually rendered as “spend from that with which we have provided them,” is interpreted here as meaning that the Shī‘a announce what the Imams have taught them ( mimmā ‘allamnāhum yunbi’ūna ). 42 This tallies with the view that it is incum-bent on the Shī‘a to proclaim their faith. Such a view cannot easily be squared with the need to conceal one’s beliefs ( taqiyya ). 43 This difficulty is resolved in a variant of this tradition, where the Imam’s words mimmā ‘allamnāhum yunbi’ūna are followed (as a gloss?) by “they recite what we have taught them of the Qur’ān.” 44

The tension between concealing and revealing the Shī‘ī faith also comes to the fore in an exegesis on Q2:2 from the Tafsīr that is ascribed to the eleventh Imam al-H. asan


al-‘Askarī (d. 260/874). 45 Here the muttaqūn —identified as shī‘at Muh. ammad wa-‘Alī —are said to ward off ( ittaqaw ) and reject unbelief and sin, and to guard against ( ittaqaw ) revealing the secrets of God and His legatees, 46 while also prevent-ing the concealment of knowledge from those who deserve to receive it. 47

An interpretation of the muttaqūn as referring to the Shī‘a is likewise found in an exegetical tradition on Q19:85 (“on the day that we shall gather the God-fearing (from the grave) and send them to the Merciful as a deputation” [ yawma nah. shuru l-muttaqīna ilā l-rah. māni wafdan ]). The Prophet is reported to have told ‘Alī that on the Day of Resurrection some people will rise from their graves with faces as bright as snow; they will be given she-camels of light carrying golden saddles crowned with pearls and sapphires, and will ride on them until they reach God’s throne. In reply to ‘Alī’s question as to the identity of these people, the Prophet declared: “These are your Shī‘a and you are their Imam.” 48 In a somewhat different formulation, the Prophet tells ‘Alī that “these are your devoted Shī‘a and our devoted Shī‘a ( shī‘atuka wa-shī‘atunā l-mukhlis.ūn ), and you are their Imam.” 49

2.2. The Shī‘a as Righteous ( s.ālih. ūn )

The nearest equivalent that I have discovered for the interpretation of s.ālih. ūn as the Shī‘a occurs in an exegetical tradition on Q98:7 (“those who believe and do righ-teous deeds are the best of creation” [ inna lladhīna āmanū wa-‘amilū l-s.ālih. āti ulā’ ika hum khayru l-bariyyati ]). In this tradition, the Prophet on his deathbed informs ‘Alī that the verse refers both to him and to his Shī‘a. The tradition is reported on the authority of Yazīd b. Sharāh. īl al-Ans.ārī, described as a secretary of ‘Alī ( kātib ‘Alī ). 50 According to Ya‘qūb b. Maytham al-Tammār, it was included in the Kitāb ‘Alī 51 as well as in a book—or in several books—written by his father Maytham, who was executed in 60/680 by the Umayyad governor of Kūfa for his outspoken sup-port for ‘Alī. 52 The tradition is further cited by the Companion Jābir b. ‘Abd Allāh (d. c. 78/697–698). 53 The Prophet is also said to have made this announcement on an earlier occasion at the home of his wife Umm Salama (d. 59–60/679–680). 54

2.3. The Shī‘a as Those Possessed of Understanding ( ulū l-albāb )

The interpretation of ulū l-albāb as referring to the Shī‘a is found not only in the exegesis to Q39:9, 55 but also in the exegesis to Q2:269, 56 Q39:21, 57 and Q13:19. In one representative account, ‘Alī b. ‘Uqba b. Khālid 58 and Mu‘allā b. Khunays 59 meet al-S.ādiq at his home. He greets them, sits down, and declares: “By God, you (representing the Shī‘a) are ‘those possessed of understanding’ in the Book of God” ( antum wa-llāhi ulū l-albāb fī kitāb allāh ) before citing Q13:19. 60

2.4. The Shī‘a Show Love and Loyalty to Their Imams

In Q14:37, Abraham says to God: “And cause people’s hearts to turn to them” ( fa-j‘al af ’ idatan mina l-nāsi tahwī ilayhim ). Shī‘ī tradition interprets this as a request that

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the hearts of the Shī‘a should turn to the Imams. 61 According to a variant reading, the request is that the hearts of the Shī‘a should love the Imams ( tahwā ilayhim )—an allusion to the principle of walāya . 62 Another relevant verse is Q19:58: “And among those whom we guided and chose” ( wa-mimman hadaynā wa-jtabaynā ). The seventh Imam Mūsā al-Kāz.im (d. 183/799) declares that the reference is to “our Shī‘a, whom God guided to love us ( hadāhum allāh li-mawaddatinā ), and whom He chose for our religion.” 63

2.5. Satan Has No Authority over the Shī‘a

Commenting on Q16:99 (“he has no authority over those who believe and who trust in their Lord” [ innahu laysa lahu sult.ānun ‘alā lladhīna āmanū wa-‘alā rabbihim yatawakkalūna ]), al-S.ādiq states that Satan has no authority to turn the believers away from the walāya , although when it comes to (other) sins he can harm them just as he can harm others ( fa-ammā l-dhunūb wa-ashbāh dhālika fa-innahu yanāl minhum kamā yanāl min ghayrihim ). 64 This is in line with a statement of al-S.ādiq on Q15:42: when asked how this verse could apply to the Shī‘a, given that there are sinners among them, he explained that Satan will be unable to render unbelief attractive and belief hateful in their eyes. 65

2.6. The Sinners among the Shī‘a Will Enjoy God’s Mercy

Exegetical traditions that address the issue of the sinning Shī‘ī are associated inter alia with the following verses:

1. Q9:102: “They have mixed a righteous deed with an evil one. God will cer-tainly 66 forgive them” ( khalat.ū ‘amalan s.ālih. an wa-ākhara sayyi’an ‘asā llāhu an yatūba ‘alayhim ). Al-Bāqir is reported to have told his disciple Khaythama al-Ju‘fī that this verse was revealed concerning Shī‘īs who have sinned ( shī‘atinā l-mudhnibīn ). He went on to state that when the word ‘asā is pronounced by God, it indicates that the event in question will necessarily occur ( al-‘asā min allāh wājib ) (and that the Shī‘a will therefore be pardoned in the world to come). 67

2. Q4:48 (=Q4:116): “God does not forgive the association of any partner with Himself. He forgives whomever He wants for anything short of that” ( inna llāha lā yaghfiru an yushraka bihi wa-yaghfiru mā dūna dhālika li-man yashā’u ). In commenting on this verse, the Prophet is said to have told ‘Alī that those who will be forgiven are “your followers and sympathizers” ( shī‘atuka wa-muh. ibbūka ). 68

3. Q25:70: “Except those who repent, believe and do righteous deeds. For their evil deeds, God will substitute good ones” ( illā man tāba wa-āmana wa-‘amila ‘amalan s.ālih. an fa-ulā’ ika yubaddilu llāhu sayyi’ātihim h. asanātin ). Al-Bāqir explains to his disciple Muh.ammad b. Muslim al-Thaqafī (d. 150/767) that on the Day of Resurrection the sinning believer ( al-mu’min al-mudhnib ) will


be brought to the place of reckoning. God Himself will undertake his inter-rogation, without telling anyone about it. He will inform the believer of his sins, and after the latter has acknowledged them, God will order the angels who write down men’s deeds to change the record so that what had been evil deeds will now be reckoned as virtuous ones. When the people read this, they will declare: “This servant has not committed a single offense.” The man will then be sent to Paradise. Al-Bāqir concludes by stating that this is the inner meaning ( ta’wīl ) of Q25:70, adding that the verse only applies to sinners who are Shī‘īs. 69 In a similar tradition al-S.ādiq, addressing Sulaymān b. Khālid (d. mid second/eighth century), 70 states that once the believer has confessed his sins God will tell him: “I have kept (your sins) concealed ( satartuhā ‘alayka ) 71 in this world and will forgive you your sins today.” At God’s command, the angels will change the record of the man’s actions so that instead of sins, it contains virtuous deeds; when this is shown to the people, they will be astounded to see that he had not committed a single offense ( sayyi’a ). 72 That God would act in this fashion was already promised to the Prophet in the world of preexistence. 73

4. Q55:39: “On that day neither man nor jinn will be asked about his sin” ( fa-yawma’ idhin lā yus’alu ‘an dhanbihi insun wa-lā jānnun ). In Ibn Bābawayh’s Creed , those referred to are said to be “the Shī‘a of the Prophet and the Imams.” 74 The eighth Imam ‘Alī al-Rid. ā (d. 203/818–819) is reported to have declared in explication of this verse that if someone believes in the truth (i.e., is a Shī‘ī), but commits a sin and does not repent of it in his lifetime, then he will be punished during the barzakh (the period between death and resurrection); when he is brought back to life, no sin will be left about which he may be questioned. 75 In a Shī‘ī reading ( qirā’a ) of this verse, the word minkum appears after lā yus’alu , yielding the following: “On that day none of you (i.e., none of the Shī‘a) shall be questioned about his sin.” 76

2.7. The Shī‘a in Paradise

The following examples are representative of the identification of the dwellers of Paradise as the Shī‘a:

1. Q56:10–12: “Those who have won the race, those who have won the race, they are the ones who are brought near (to God), in the gardens of delight” ( wa-l-sābiqūna l-sābiqūna ulā’ ika l-muqarrabūna fī jannāti l-na‘īmi ). In a Prophetic tradition, the verse is said to refer to ‘Alī and his Shī‘a, who will be the first to enter Paradise. 77 In other traditions, the verse is said to refer to ‘Alī alone. 78

2. Q74:38–39: “Every soul shall be held in pledge for what it has done, except the Companions of the Right” ( kullu nafsin bi-mā kasabat rahīnatun illā as.h.āba l-yamīni ). The Companions of the Right are said to be the Shī‘a of ‘Alī 79 or of the ahl al-bayt . 80 In a lengthy tradition in al-Kulīnī’s Kāfī , Mūsā al-Kāz.im

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identifies the as.h. āb al-yamīn as “our Shī‘a” 81 or (in a variant) as “we and our Shī‘a.” 82

3. Q83:25–28: “They are given to drink of pure wine sealed with a seal of musk—that is everyone’s desire—and mixed with the water of Tasnīm, a fountain at which those drink who are brought near (to God)” ( yusqawna min rah. īqin makhtūmin khitāmuhu miskun wa-fī dhālika fa-l-yatanāfasi l-mutanāfisūna wa-mizājuhu min tasnīmin ‘aynan yashrabu bihā l-muqarrabūna ). In an account cited on the authority of the Yemenite Jewish convert Ka‘b al-H. abr (also known as Ka‘b al-Ah.bār) (d. 34/654–655), 83 this verse is adduced as proof that the Qur’ān refers to the Shī‘a; it is they who will drink from the fountain of Tasnīm. 84 Muh.ammad b. Abī l-Qāsim Muh.ammad al-T. abarī (d. after 553/1158–1159), who cites this account, declares that the Shī‘a should inscribe it in letters of gold, since it is recorded with a Sunnī isnād (and is thus particularly valuable in polemics with non-Shī‘īs). 85

4. Q88:8–9: “On that day there will be contented faces, well pleased with their deeds” ( wujūhun yawma’ idhin nā‘ imatun li-sa‘yihā rād. iyatun ). Those referred to are said to be shī‘at āl Muh. ammad . 86

2.8. Conclusion

The Abū Bas.īr tradition is noteworthy in that it comprises an unusually large num-ber of Qur’ānic verses that Shī‘ī exegetes take to refer to the Shī‘a. It also deals with many of the principal themes concerning the Shī‘a that are elaborated in early tafsīr . There are both apologetic and polemical elements: its main thrust is to reinforce the self-image of the Shī‘a as a select group of believers, whose unique position finds expression in the words of the Qur’ān; at the same time, it seeks to present the adver-saries in a negative light. 87 These characteristics place our text squarely within the mainstream of classical Shī‘ī tradition. This, together with the fact that its protago-nist is the venerable Abū Bas.īr, may well account for its prominent position within the exegetical literature.

Notes

* I am grateful to Frank Stewart for his helpful comments on this article. 1 . For more on this see Kohlberg, “The Term ‘Rāfid. a’ in Imāmī Shī‘ī Usage,” Journal of the

American Oriental Society 99 (1979): 677–679, reproduced in Kohlberg, Belief and Law in Imāmī Shī‘ ism (Aldershot: Variorum, 1991).

2 . For similar pronouncements on Abraham’s religion see, for example, Barqī, Kitāb al-mah. āsin , ed. Jalāl al-Dīn al-H. usaynī al-Muh.addith (Tehran: Dār al-Kutub al-Islāmiyya, 1950), 1:147, nos. 54–56 > (i.e., quoted in) Majlisī, Bih. ār al-anwār (Tehran: Dār al-Kutub al-Islāmiyya, 1956–74), 68:87–89, nos. 15–17; Furāt b. Ibrāhīm, Tafsīr Furāt al-Kūfī , ed. Muh.ammad al-Kāz.im (Beirut: Mu’assasat al-Nu‘mān, 1992), 2:377, no. 506 > Majlisī, 68:98, no. 4; Kulīnī, al-Kāfī (Tehran: Dār al-Kutub al-Islāmiyya, 1955–57), 1:435, no. 91; Nu‘mān, Sharh. al-akhbār fī fad. ā’ il al-a’ imma al-at.hār , ed. Muh.ammad al-H. usaynī


al-Jalālī (Beirut: Dār al-Thaqalayn, 1994), 3:484, no. 1400; Ibn Shahrāshūb, Manāqib āl Abī T. ālib (Beirut: Dār al-Ad. wā’, 1985), 4:132 > Majlisī, 46:33, no. 28. For millat Ibrāhīm see Paret, Der Koran: Kommentar und Konkordanz (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1971), 30–31.

3 . Kulīnī, 8:33–36, no. 6 > Majlisī, 68:48–51, no. 93. For al-Kulīnī (or Kulaynī) and his Kāfī see Amir-Moezzi and Ansari, “Muh.ammad b. Ya‘qūb al-Kulaynī (m. 328 ou 329/939–40 ou 940–41) et son Kitāb al-kāfī : Une introduction,” Studia Iranica 38 (2009): 191–247. As noted by the authors of this article, there is clear-cut evidence that the Rawd. a formed part of the Kāfī , despite doubts expressed by some late Twelver Shī‘ī scholars (“Kulaynī,” 232).

4 . See Kishshī, Rijāl al-Kishshī (Karbalā’: Mu’assasat al-A‘lamī li-l-Mat.bū‘āt, n.d. [1962?]), 153, 206; Modarressi, Tradition and Survival: A Bibliographical Survey of Early Shī‘ ite Literature (one volume to date, Oxford: Oneworld, 2003), 395; cf. Kohlberg, “Imam and Community in the Pre-Ghayba Period,” in Authority and Political Culture in Shi‘ ism , ed. Said Amir Arjomand, 25–53 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988), 36, reproduced in Kohlberg, Belief and Law in Imāmī Shī‘ ism . That the Abū Bas.īr of our account is identical with Yah. yā b. (Abī) l-Qāsim is maintained in Ardabīlī, Jāmi‘ al-ruwāt (Qum: Maktabat Āyat Allāh al-‘Uz.mā al-Mar‘ashī al-Najafī, 1982–83), 2:336. There are several other early Shī‘ī transmitters known by this byname. The best known among them is Abū Muh. ammad Layth b. al-Bakhtarī al-Murādī, who likewise transmitted from al-Bāqir and al-S. ādiq (see Ardabīlī, Jāmi‘ al-ruwāt , 2:34–35; van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra [Berlin and New York: W. de Gruyter, 1991–97], 1:331–332; Modarressi, Tradition , 315–316; Sayyārī, Revelation and Falsification: The Kitāb al-qirā’āt of Ah. mad b. Muh. ammad al-Sayyārī , ed. Etan Kohlberg and Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi [Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2009] [English], 58, no. 5 and index).

5 . For the expression ‘ idda min as.h. ābinā see H. usayn ‘Alī Mah. fūz.’s introduction to the first volume of the Kāfī , 50; Amir-Moezzi and Ansari, “Kulaynī,” 212. For Sahl b. Ziyād see Sayyārī (English), 66, no. 23 and index. For Muh.ammad b. Sulaymān al-Daylamī see Sayyārī (English), 57, no. 3 and index. For Muh.ammad’s father Sulaymān al-Daylamī (a transmitter from Ja‘far al-S.ādiq and Mūsā al-Kāz.im) see Modarressi, Tradition , 373–374.

6 . Modarressi, Tradition , 374. 7 . In al-Kulīnī’s text, the words wa-yu’minūna bihi are missing. This is probably the result

of a conflation with Q42:5 ( yusabbih. ūna bi-h. amdi rabbihim wa-yastaghfirūna li-man fī l-ard. i ). On the relationship between these two verses see Sayyārī (English), 216–217, no. 479.

8 . Kulīnī, 8:34. In a somewhat different formulation, this also appears as a separate tradi-tion (Kulīnī, 8:304, no. 470 [Yūnus (i.e., b. ‘Abd al-Rah.mān) < unidentified transmitter < Abū Bas.īr]; Najafī, Ta’wīl al-āyāt al-z.āhira [Qum: Madrasat al-Imām al-Mahdī, 1987], 528, no. 4 [Yūnus b. ‘Abd al-Rah.mān < Abū Bas.īr] > Katkānī, Kitāb al-burhān fī tafsīr al-qur’ān [Tehran: Čāpkhāna-i Āftāb, 1954–55], 4:92, no. 10, Majlisī, 24:209, no. 5). Al-S.ādiq is reported to have given the same explanation to his follower Sulaymān b. Mihrān al-A‘mash (Furāt, 2:376–377, no. 506 > Majlisī, 68:97–98, no. 4).

9 . Qummī, Tafsīr , ed. T. ayyib al-Mūsawī al-Jazā’irī (Najaf: Mat.ba‘at al-Najaf, 1966–67), 2:255 > Majlisī, 68:78, no. 139.

10 . Najafī, 531, no. 13 > Majlisī, 23:364, no. 26, 24:208, no. 1. 11 . Kulīnī, 8:34–35 > Katkānī, 3:303, no. 6. For a different Shī‘ī interpretation of this verse

see the sources cited in Katkānī, 3:301–303, nos. 1–5. 12 . Kulīnī, 8:35. This also appears as a separate tradition on the authority of Sulaymān

al-Daylamī (Furāt, 1:225–226, no. 303 > Majlisī, 68:56–57, no. 103). See also ‘Ayyāshī,

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Tafsīr , ed. Hāshim al-Rasūlī al-Mah.allātī (Qum: Čāpkhāna-i ‘Ilmiyya, 1960–61), 2:244, no. 22 (Abū Bas.īr < al-S.ādiq) > Katkānī, 2:347, no. 6, Majlisī, 68:36, no. 76; Kulīnī, 8:214–215, no. 260 > Majlisī, 68:81–82, no. 142.

13 . Kulīnī, 8:35 > Katkānī, 4:152–153, no. 1. 14 . Kulīnī, 8:35. 15 . Kulīnī, 8:35. For this interpretation see also Ibn Mans.ūr al-Yaman (attrib.), Kitāb

al-kashf , ed. Rudolf Strothmann (London: Oxford University Press, 1952), 23. 16 . Kulīnī, 1:423, no. 56 > Majlisī, 24:205, no. 3 (with al-Majlisī’s explication), 47:55, no.

93; Ibn Shahrāshūb, 4:400 > (in a somewhat different version) Majlisī, 24:257, no. 3. For Zayd al-Shah.h. ām see Modarressi, Tradition , 401–402. Cf. Shādhān b. Jabra’īl, Kitāb al-fad. ā’ il (Beirut: Mu’assasat al-A‘lamī li-l-Mat.bū‘āt, 1988), 137 (for Abū Yamāma read Abū Usāma, which is the kunya of Zayd al-Shah.h. ām). There are numerous exam-ples of the same verse being taken as referring to the Imam(s), to the Shī‘a, or to both (cf. Kohlberg, “Imam and Community,” 32).

17 . Kulīnī, 8:35 > H. uwayzī, Tafsīr nūr al-thaqalayn , ed. Hāshim al-Rasūlī al-Mah. allātī (Qum: Mu’assasat Ismā‘īliyān, 1991–92), 4:491, no. 70.

18 . Qummī, 2:250 > Majlisī, 68:14, no. 15. 19 . It may have formed part of Abū H. amza’s Tafsīr (for which see Modarressi, Tradition ,

377) and is cited in H. irz al-Dīn’s attempted reconstruction of the work (Abū H. amza al-Thumālī, Tafsīr al-qur’ān al-karīm li-Abī H. amza Thābit b. Dīnār al-Thumālī , recon-structed by ‘Abd al-Razzāq Muh.ammad H. usayn H. irz al-Dīn [Qum: Mat.ba‘at al-Hādī, 1999–2000], 287, no. 264).

20 . Ibn Bābawayh, Ma‘ānī al-akhbār (Najaf: al-Mat.ba‘a al-H. aydariyya, 1971), 106, no. 4 > Katkānī, 4:78, no. 2, H. uwayzī, 4:490–491, no. 69.

21 . Qummī, 2:250 (Abū H. amza < al-Bāqir) > Majlisī, 23:80, no. 16, 68:14, no. 15. The tradition is also cited in Najafī, 518, no. 21 > Katkānī, 4:78, no. 4, Majlisī, 24:258–259, no. 8. Here three of the four MSS on which the edition is based (as also Katkānī and Majlisī) have wuld Fāt.ima while the fourth MS has shī‘at wuld Fāt.ima . It might be sug-gested that the word shī‘a before wuld Fāt.ima was added at a later stage, after the adoption of the doctrine of ‘ is.ma (protection from error and sin) of the Imams (see EI 2 , s.v. “‘Is.ma” [W. Madelung]).

22 . Kulīnī, 8:35. 23 . Barqī, 1:171, no. 137 (‘Alī b. al-Nu‘mān < unidentified transmitter < al-S.ādiq) > Majlisī,

68:94, no. 36; ‘Ayyāshī, 2:242, no. 17 > Katkānī, 2:344, no. 6. Cf. ‘Ayyāshī, 2:243, no. 18 (Abū Bas.īr < al-S.ādiq) > Katkānī, 2:344, no. 7; Ibn Mans.ūr al-Yaman (attrib.), 37.

24 . Kulīnī, 8:35–36 > H. uwayzī, 1:514, no. 388. See also ‘Ayyāshī, 1:256, no. 190 (an excerpt from the Abū Bas.īr tradition) > Katkānī, 1:393, no. 8, Majlisī, 68:32, no. 69; T. abrisī, Majma‘ al-bayān fī tafsīr al-qur’ān (Beirut: Dār Maktabat al-H. ayāt, 1961), 5:153 > Majlisī, 68:32; Kohlberg, “Imam and Community,” 32.

25 . T. abrisī, Mishkāt al-anwār (Beirut: Mu’assasat al-A‘lamī li-l-Mat.bū‘āt, 1991), 96; Majlisī, 82:173, no. 6 (from al-Rāwandī’s Da‘awāt ).

26 . For further details see EI 2 , s.v. “Shahīd” (E. Kohlberg). 27 . Kulīnī, 8:36 > Fayd. , Tafsīr al-s.āfī (Beirut: Mu’assasat al-A‘lamī li-l-Mat.bū‘āt, 1982),

4:307, Majlisī, 8:354–355, no. 6, H. uwayzī, 4:467, no. 75. See also Qummī, 2:243 > Katkānī, 4:62, no. 2, Majlisī, 68:13, no. 14, cited in Bar-Asher, Scripture and Exegesis in Early Imāmī Shiism (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 221; Furāt, 2:361, no. 491 (an excerpt from the Abū Bas.īr tradition). See further Sayyārī (Arabic), 121, no. 468 and the references in Sayyārī (English), 213.

28 . Nu‘mān, Sharh. , 3:464–467, no. 1356; Nu‘mān, Da‘ā’ im al-islām , ed. Asaf A. A. Fyzee (Cairo: Dār al-Ma‘ārif, 1963–65), 1:76–78. For al-Nu‘mān see Daftary, “Al-Qād. ī


al-Nu‘mān, Ismā‘īlī Law and Imāmī Shī‘ism,” Le shī‘ isme imāmite quarante ans après: Hommage à Etan Kohlberg , ed. Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi, Meir M. Bar-Asher, and Simon Hopkins (Turnhout: Brepols, 2009), 179–186. Many Twelver Shī‘ī authors regarded him as one of their own, and often quoted from his works (Daftary, 180–181).

29 . For example, in the Da‘ā’ im it is the narrator who describes the conversation between Abū Bas.īr and al-S.ādiq, while in the Sharh. Abū Bas.īr speaks in the first person. In both works, the Imam cites Q33:23 before Q40:7, but in the Da‘ā’ im he then comes back to Q33:23.

30 . There are conflicting reports as to whether Abū Bas.īr was born blind or only lost his sight in old age. See Kohlberg, “Vision and the Imams,” Autour du regard: Mélanges Gimaret , ed. Éric Chaumont, with the collaboration of D. Aigle, M. A. Amir-Moezzi, and P. Lory, 125–157 (Louvain-Paris: Peeters, 2003), 141–146.

31 . This may not be fortuitous, since the Ismā‘īlīs do not appear to have subscribed to the view that this term denotes praise.

32 . Appended to al-Nu‘mān’s version is a statement which the Imam is said to have made in al-Abt.ah. (near Mecca) when hearing a group of pilgrims: “How much clamor there is, and how few (true) pilgrims!” ( mā akthara l-‘ajīj wa-aqalla l-h. ajīj ) (see further Kohlberg, “Vision,” 145–146). It is doubtful whether this forms part of the Abū Bas.īr tradition.

33 . Ibn Bābawayh, Fad. ā’ il al-shī‘a , ed. (with a Persian translation) Amīr Tawh. īdī (Tehran: Intishārāt-i Zurāra, 2002), 56 > Majlisī, 68:52. The entire tradition (with a facing Persian translation) appears at 56–64. In referring to this text, al-Katkānī (Katkānī, 2:344, no. 8) says that it is taken from Ibn Bābawayh’s Bishārāt al-shī‘a . This may, in fact, be another title for the Fad. ā’ il (cf. the discussion in Sayyārī [English], 237–238, no. 551). Al-Najafī cites an excerpt from Ibn Bābawayh, but does not reveal from which of his works it is taken (Najafī, 518–519, no. 22). For ‘Abbād b. Sulaymān as a transmitter from Muh.ammad b. Sulaymān see Ardabīlī, 1:430.

34 . As in the Kāfī , the first Qur’ānic passage in Ibn Bābawayh is a conflation of Q42:5 and Q40:7, but the wording is different: wa-l-malā’ ikatu yusabbih. ūna bi-h. amdi rabbihim wa-yastaghfirūna li-lladhīna āmanū (Ibn Bābawayh, Fad. ā’ il , 60). In Ibn Bābawayh, Q44:41 is not followed by Q44:42 but, in what is presumably another conflation, instead continues with Q26:89 ( illā man atā llāha bi-qalbin salīmin ) ( Fad. ā’ il , 60). The alternative ending in the Kāfī , in which Abū Bas.īr says “ h. asbī ,” is not reproduced.

35 . For al-Shaykh al-Mufīd see EI 2 , s.v. “al-Mufīd” (W. Madelung); Tamima Bayhom-Daou, Shaykh Mufid (Oxford: Oneworld, 2005). For the Ikhtis. ās. see McDermott, The Theology of al-Shaikh al-Mufīd (d. 413/1022) (Beirut: Dar al-Machreq, 1978), 27, 34. Those who question al-Mufīd’s authorship of the Ikhtis.ās. include Abū l-Qāsim al-Khū’ī (d. 1413/1992) (see his Mu‘ jam rijāl al-h. adīth. [n.p.: Markaz Nashr al-Thaqāfa al-Islāmiyya, 1992], 8:197), Hossein Modarressi, who refers to the work as “pseudo-Mufīd” (“Early Debates on the Integrity of the Qur’ān: A Brief Survey,” Studia Islamica 77 [1993]: 5–39, 18, note 75), and Hassan Ansari (“L’imamat et l’occultation selon l’imamisme: Étude bib-liographique et histoire des textes,” PhD diss. [Paris: École Pratique des Hautes Études (Sorbonne), 2009], 109, note 521 and the studies cited there).

36 . Mufīd (attrib.), al-Ikhtis. ās. (Najaf: al-Mat.ba‘a al-H. aydariyya, 1971), 101–104 > Majlisī, 47:390–393, no. 114; referred to in Majlisī, 68:51. Al-H. asan b. Mutayyil al-Qummī was an authority of Ibn al-Walīd and the author of a Kitāb al-nawādir (Ardabīlī, 1:220–221); Ibrāhīm b. Ish. āq al-Nihāwandī al-Ah.marī was accused of extremism ( fī madhhabihi rtifā‘ ) (Ardabīlī, 1:18–19; Modarressi, Crisis and Consolidation in the Formative Period of Shi‘ ite Islam [Princeton, NJ: Darwin Press, 1993], 23, note 30).

37 . In the printed edition of the Ikhtis. ās. this word is missing, but it is clear from the context that it should be there. A qirā’a with lakum is attested in Sayyārī (Arabic), 123, no. 473

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and Najafī, 519, no. 23 (where yaghfiru lakum jamī‘an al-dhunūba should perhaps be emended to yaghfiru lakum al-dhunūba jamī‘an ).

38 . Mufīd (attrib.), Ikhtis. ās. , 103. In Majlisī (at 47:393), both the Shī‘ī qirā’a and the exchange between al-S.ādiq and Abū Bas.īr are missing. For this type of exchange between Imam and disciple see Sayyārī (English), 43–44. For Shī‘ī variant readings see in general Sayyārī (English), 41–45 and the literature cited there. Cf. Encyclopaedia of the Qur’ān , ed. J. D. McAuliffe (Leiden: Brill, 2001–6), s.v. “Readings of the Qur’ān” (Frederik Leemhuis).

39 . For whom see Encyclopædia Iranica , ed. Ehsan Yarshater (London: Routledge and Paul Kegan, 1982–), s.v. “Deylamī, Abū Moh.ammad” (E. Kohlberg).

40 . Daylamī, A‘ lām al-dīn fī s. ifāt al-mu’minīn (Beirut: Mu’assasat Āl al-Bayt li-Ih. yā’ al-Turāth, 1988), 452–454 > Majlisī, 27:123–125, no. 111. At Daylamī, 461, what is presumably the same work is cited under the title Mufarrij al-karb . The work is not mentioned in al-T. ihrānī’s al-Dharī‘a ilā tas. ānīf al-shī‘a (Beirut: Dār al-Ad. wā’, 1983). It is unlikely to be the Faraj al-karb wa-farah. al-qalb of al-Kaf ‘amī (for which see T. ihrānī, 16:156, no. 423), since al-Kaf ‘amī lived a century after al-Daylamī.

41 . Muh. ammad b. al-‘Abbās known as Ibn al-Juh. ām (alive in 328/939–940) is said to have devoted an entire work to this subject. This text (now lost) is entitled Ta’wīl mā nazala fī shī‘atihim (see T. ūsī, Fihrist [Beirut: Mu’assasat al-Wafā’, 1983], 181, no. 652. Ibn al - Juh. ām’s best-known work is the Ta’wīl mā nazala min al-qur’ān al-karīm fī l-nabī wa-ālihi , of which extensive fragments survive; see Sayyārī [English], 35, 36 and index). For arguments used by Shī‘ī authors to explain the absence of any explicit mention of the Shī‘a in the Qur’ān see Bar-Asher, Scripture , 88–93; Encyclopaedia of the Qur’ān , s.v. “Shi‘ism and the Qur’ān” (Meir M. Bar-Asher), at 4:595–596.

42 . ‘Ayyāshī, 1:25–26, no. 1 (Sa‘dān [the nickname of ‘Abd al-Rah.mān] b. Muslim [for whom see Sayyārī (English), 140, no. 235] < unidentified transmitter < al-S.ādiq) > Katkānī, 1:53, no. 2, Majlisī, 2:21, no. 59. The beginning of this tradition is cited in Fayd. , 1:79, Majlisī, 67:17.

43 . See Kohlberg, “Taqiyya in Shī‘ī Theology and Religion,” in Secrecy and Concealment: Studies in the History of Mediterranean and Near Eastern Religions , ed. Hans G. Kippenberg and Guy G. Stroumsa, 345–380 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1995), 373–378.

44 . Ibn Bābawayh, Ma‘ānī , 21, no. 2 (Sa‘dān b. Muslim < Abū Bas.īr < al-S.ādiq) > Katkānī, 1:53, no. 3, Majlisī, 2:16–17, no. 38, 92:375, no. 3, H. uwayzī, 1:26, no. 5. Majlisī and H. uwayzī have yabuththūn (“to propagate”) for yunbi’ūn . See also Qummī, 1:30. For mimmā ‘allamnāhum yabuththūn see further T. abrisī, Majma‘ , 1:83 (Muh.ammad b. Muslim < al-S.ādiq). The understanding of rizq as knowledge (sustenance for the soul) was upheld by an anonymous scholar, who glossed mimmā razaqnāhum yunfiqūn as mimmā ‘allamnāhum yu‘allimūn . This gloss was quoted by Abū Nas.r ‘Abd al-Rah. īm b. ‘Abd al-Karīm al-Qushayrī (d. 514/1120), son of the renowned S.ūfī Abū l-Qāsim al-Qushayrī (Qurt.ubī, al-Jāmi‘ li-ah. kām al-qur’ān [Cairo: al-Hay’a al-Mis.riyya al-‘Āmma li-l-Kitāb, 1987], 1:179).

45 . For this work see Bar-Asher, “The Qur’ānic Commentary Ascribed to Imām H. asan al-‘Askarī,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 24 (2000): 358–379.

46 . Cf. Kohlberg, “Taqiyya,” 351–360. 47 . ‘Askarī (attrib.), Tafsīr (Qum: Madrasat al-Imām al-Mahdī, 1988), 67 > Najafī, 33,

no. 3, Majlisī, 2:64, no. 2. 48 . Najafī, 307–308, no. 14 > Majlisī, 68:140–141, no. 84. Similarly Furāt, 1:247, no. 334 >

Majlisī, 7:194–195, no. 61. 49 . Qummī, 2:53–54 > Katkānī, 3:24–25, no. 2, Majlisī, 7:172–173, no. 2. The words

wa-shī‘atunā l-mukhlis.ūn are missing from Majlisī. In Katkānī the text has wa-l-mukhlis.ūn fī walāyatika .


50 . Ibn al-Juh. ām > Najafī, 831, no. 3 > Majlisī, 68:53, no. 95; H. askānī, Shawāhid al-tanzīl li-qawā‘ id al-tafd. īl , ed. Muh.ammad Bāqir al-Mah.mūdī (Beirut: Mu’assasat al-A‘lamī li-l-Mat.bū‘āt, 1974), 2:356, no. 1125 > T. abrisī, Majma‘ , 30:203. See further Ibn Shahrāshūb, 3:68 > Majlisī, 38:8, no. 13. Yazīd is mentioned as an associate of Muh. ammad b. al-H. anafiyya in T. abarī, Ta’rīkh al-rusul wa-l-mulūk , ed. M. J. de Goeje et al. (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1879–1901), second series, 674, 731.

51 . For Kitāb ‘Alī see Kohlberg, “Authoritative Scriptures in Early Imāmī Shī‘ism,” in Les retours aux écritures: Fondamentalismes présents et passés , ed. Évelyne Patlagean and Alain Le Boulluec, 295–312 (Louvain-Paris: Peeters, 1993), 300–301; Amir-Moezzi, Le guide divin dans le shī‘ isme originel: Aux sources de l’ ésotérisme en Islam (Paris-Lagrasse: Verdier, 1992), 187 = The Divine Guide in Early Shī‘ ism: The Sources of Esotericism in Islam , trans. David Streight (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994), 74; Modarressi, Tradition , 4–12.

52 . Ibn al-Juh. ām ( kutub abīhi ) > Najafī, 831–832, no. 4 > Katkānī, 4:490, no. 2, Majlisī, 23:390, no. 100, 27:130–131, no. 121 ( kitāb abīhi ), 68:53–54, no. 96; T. ūsī, Amālī (Najaf: Mat.ba‘at al-Nu‘mān, 1964), 2:19–20 ( kutub abī ) > Majlisī, 68:25, no. 46. For Maytham al-Tammār see Modarressi, Tradition , 42–44, 398; for Kitāb/Kutub Maytham see Modarressi, Tradition , 43–44. His son Ya‘qūb was a mawlā (client) of ‘Alī Zayn al-‘Ābidīn and a follower of al-Bāqir (T. ūsī, Amālī , 2:20 > Majlisī, 68:25, no. 46).

53 . Ibn al-Juh. ām > Najafī, 832–833, no. 5 (Abū H. amza al-Thumālī < Abū Ja‘far [i.e., al-Bāqir] < Jābir b. ‘Abd Allāh) > Katkānī, 4:490, no. 3, Majlisī, 68:54, no. 97. A similar report, with a Sunnī isnād , is also cited from Jābir b. ‘Abd Allāh (Furāt, 2:585, no. 754 > H. askānī, 2:361–362, no. 1139; T. abarī, Bishārat al-mus. t.afā li-shī‘at al-murtad. ā [Najaf: al-Mat.ba‘a al-H. aydariyya, 1963], 122 > Majlisī, 68:133, no. 65). In this tradition, the Prophet tells those present that, on the Day of Resurrection, ‘Alī and his Shī‘a will be triumphant ( al-fā’ izūn ), and Q98:7 is then revealed in confirmation of these words. See also Nu‘mān, Sharh. , 1:202, no. 167 (on the authority of ‘Alī’s great-grandson ‘Abd Allāh b. Muh. ammad b. ‘Umar b. ‘Alī). Cf. Barqī, 1:171, no. 140 (Jābir < al-Bāqir) > Majlisī, 68:30, no. 59; Irbilī, Kashf al-ghumma fī ma‘rifat al-a’ imma (Beirut: Dār al-Ad. wā’, 1985), 1:322 (without isnād ).

54 . T. ūsī, Amālī , 2:283–284 (Yah.yā b. al-‘Alā’ al-Rāzī [for whom see Modarressi, Tradition , 393–394] < al-S.ādiq) > Majlisī, 68:70–71, no. 130.

55 . For which see (besides the Abū Bas.īr tradition) S.affār, Bas. ā’ ir al-darajāt , ed. Muh. sin Kūčabāghī al-Tabrīzī (Qum: Maktabat Āyat Allāh al-‘Uz.mā al-Mar‘ashī al-Najafī, 1984), 54–56 (nine traditions); Furāt, 1:245, no. 330, 2:363–365, nos. 492–496; Kulīnī, 1:212, nos. 1–2; Nu‘mān, Sharh. , 3:500, no. 1435; T. abrisī, Mishkāt , 98–99; Najafī, 511–512, nos. 1–4; Kohlberg, “Imam and Community,” 32; Bar-Asher, Scripture , 107.

56 . Sayyārī (Arabic), 26, no. 92. 57 . Sayyārī (Arabic), 122, no. 472; Nu‘mān, Sharh. , 3:500, no. 1434. 58 . In some versions: ‘Uqba b. Khālid. Father and son were both disciples of al-S.ādiq; see

Modarressi, Tradition , 193–194, 388–389. 59 . A Kūfan confidant of al-S.ādiq, executed in 133/750 by order of the ‘Abbāsid gover-

nor of Medina Dāwūd b. ‘Alī. See van Ess, 1:320–321; Kohlberg, “Taqiyya,” 355–357; Modarressi, Tradition , 326; Sayyārī (English), 70, no. 34.

60 . Barqī, 1:169, no. 135 > Katkānī, 4:70, no. 13, Majlisī, 68:93, no. 35, H. uwayzī, 4:480, no. 24; ‘Ayyāshī, 2:207–208, no. 25 > Katkānī, 2:287, no. 4, Majlisī, 68:35, no. 74; Nu‘mān, Sharh. , 3:473, no. 1373. See further ‘Ayyāshī, 2:208, no. 26; Najafī, 231, no. 8.

61 . Furāt, 1:224, no. 301 > Majlisī, 23:224, no. 38; ‘Ayyāshī, 2:233–234, no. 41 > Katkānī, 2:320, no. 13, Majlisī, 68:86–87, no. 11; ‘Ayyāshī, 2:233, no. 39 > Katkānī, 2:320, no. 11, Majlisī, 68:85–86, no. 9; T. abrisī, al-Ih. tijāj (Beirut: Mu’assasat al-A‘lamī li-l-Mat.bū‘āt, 1989), 160 > Majlisī, 32:97, no. 67. Cf. Bar-Asher, Scripture , 194–195.

Etan Kohlberg18

62 . For this qirā’a see Sayyārī (Arabic), 71, nos. 274, 275 and the references given in Sayyārī (English), 153–154.

63 . Najafī, 305, no. 12 > Majlisī, 23:223–224, no. 37, 24:374, no. 102. In contrast, Zayn al-‘Ābidīn states that those meant are the Imams (or the ahl al-bayt ) ( nah. nu ‘unīnā bihā ) (T. abrisī, Majma‘ , 16:48 > Fayd. , 3:286; Ibn Shahrāshūb, 4:129 > Fayd. , 3:286, Majlisī, 24:147, no. 21, H. uwayzī, 3:351, no. 114).

64 . ‘Ayyāshī, 2:270, no. 69 > Fayd. , 3:155, Katkānī, 2:384, no. 7, Majlisī, 63:255, no. 123, H. uwayzī, 3:86, no. 225. See also Qummī, 1:390; Najafī, 263, no. 23. Al-Najafī explains (264) that the believers of this verse are the Shī‘a.

65 . See the references given above, note 23. 66 . This translation reflects al-Bāqir’s understanding of the verse. 67 . Furāt, 1:170–171, no. 218 > Majlisī, 68:55, no. 100; ‘Ayyāshī, 2:105, no. 105 > Katkānī,

2:155, no. 3, Majlisī, 69:172–173, no. 19. In ‘Ayyāshī as cited in Majlisī, shī‘atinā l-mudhnibīn is replaced by shī‘atinā l-mu’minīn . This could be a scribal error (due to the graphic similarity between the two words), or it could be the result of a reluctance to refer to the Shī‘a as sinners. For Khaythama see Sayyārī (English), 160, no. 298. For this sense of ‘asā see, for example, Muqātil, Tafsīr Muqātil b. Sulaymān , ed. Ah.mad Farīd (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiyya, 2003), 1:252 (to Q4:99), 2:269 (to Q17:79) ( wa-l-‘asāmin allāh wājib ); T. abarī, Jāmi‘ al-bayān ‘an ta’wīl āy al-qur’ān (Cairo: Mus.t.afā al-Bābī al-H. alabī, 1968), 5:185 (to Q4:84); ‘Ayyāshī, 2:105–106, no. 106 (to Q9:102); T. ūsī, al-Tibyān fī tafsīr al-qur’ān , ed. Ah.mad Shawqī al-Amīn and Ah.mad H. abīb Qus.ayr al-‘Āmilī (Najaf: Dār Ih. yā’ al-Turāth al-‘Arabī, 1957–63), 5:189 (to Q9:18), 8:170 (to Q28:67) ( qīl: inna ‘asā min allāh fī jamī‘ al-qur’ān wājiba ); Lane, An Arabic-English Lexicon (London: Williams and Norgate, 1863–93), s.v. ‘asā , at 2049a.

68 . Ibn Bābawayh, Man lā yah. d. uruhu l-faqīh , ed. H. asan al-Mūsawī al-Kharsān (Najaf: Dār al-Kutub al-Islāmiyya, 1957), 4:295, no. 892 > Katkānī, 1:374–375, no. 4; Najafī, 141–142, no. 22 > Majlisī, 68:140, no. 82.

69 . T. ūsī, Amālī , 1:70–71 > Najafī, 382–383, no. 20, Katkānī, 3:175, no. 3, Majlisī, 68:100, no. 4; T. abarī, Bishārat al-mus. t.afā , 7. For al-Thaqafī, a Kūfan jurist and a prolific transmitter from al-Bāqir and al-S.ādiq, see Modarressi, Tradition , 344–345; Sayyārī (English), 57, no. 3.

70 . A Kūfan jurist and expert on the text of the Qur’ān, who lost an arm fighting alongside Zayd b. ‘ Alī (d. 122/740) against the Umayyads. See Modarressi, Tradition , 374–375; Sayyārī (English), 100, no. 121.

71 . Cf. van Ess, 5:446. 72 . Barqī, 1:170, no. 136 (to Q25:70) > Katkānī, 3:174–175, no. 2, Majlisī, 68:148–149,

no. 97. 73 . S.affār, 85–86, no. 11 > Majlisī, 17:153–154, no. 59; Kulīnī, 1:443–444, no. 15 (alluding

to Q25:70) > Najafī, 383, no. 21, Katkānī, 3:175, no. 6, Majlisī, 17:154, no. 60. 74 . Ibn Bābawayh, Risālat al-i‘tiqādāt (Tehran: lithograph ed., 1899–1900), 94 (trans.

Fyzee, A Shī‘ ite Creed [London: Oxford University Press, 1942], 75–76) > Majlisī, 7:251, no. 9.

75 . T. abrisī, Majma‘ , 27:98 > Fayd. , 5:112, Majlisī, 7:81, H. uwayzī, 5:195, no. 42. Cf. Qummī, 2:345 > Fayd. , 5:112, Majlisī, 6:246, no. 77, H. uwayzī, 5:195, no. 41; Kulīnī, 3:242, no. 3, cited in Halevi, Muhammad’s Grave: Death Rites and the Making of Islamic Society (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), 216. For the period between the moment of death and resurrection and the shifting interpretations of the term barzakh see Halevi, 197–233 and index.

76 . Sayyārī (Arabic), 150, no. 551; Furāt, 2:461–462, no. 604 (Maysara < al-Rid. ā) > Majlisī, 8:353–354, no. 3, 92:56, no. 31; Ibn Bābawayh, Fad. ā’ il , 100–102, no. 43 > Majlisī,


7:273–274, no. 45, 8:360, no. 28; Najafī (citing Ibn Bābawayh), 638–639, no. 20 > Majlisī, 24:275–276, no. 61, 68:144, no. 91. According to the traditions cited in these sources, it was Ibn Arwā (i.e., ‘Uthmān) who removed the word minkum from this verse.

77 . Mufīd, Amālī (Najaf: al-Mat.ba‘a al-H. aydariyya, 1947–48), 175–176 > Majlisī, 68:20, no. 33; T. ūsī, Amālī , 1:70 (> Najafī, 643, no. 6 > Majlisī, 24:4, no. 13) > Fayd. , 5:120, Majlisī, 35:332, no. 1, 68:20, no. 33, H. uwayzī, 5:209, no. 20; T. abarī, Bishārat al-mus. t.afā , 7, 88–89; Irbilī, 1:312 > Majlisī, 35:335.

78 . Ibn Bābawayh, ‘Uyūn akhbār al-Rid. ā (Najaf: al-Mat.ba‘a al-H. aydariyya, 1970), 2:65 (‘Alī: fiyya nazalat ) > Majlisī, 35:335, no. 14; Irbilī, 1:320 > Majlisī, 35:332, no. 2.

79 . Qummī, 2:395 > Fayd. , 5:250, Katkānī, 4:403, no. 1, H. uwayzī, 5:458, no. 24 ( al-yamīn amīr al-mu’minīn wa-as. h. ābuhu shī‘atuhu ); Furāt, 2:514, no. 672.

80 . Barqī, 1:171, no. 139 > Katkānī, 4:403, no. 2, Majlisī, 68:29, no. 58; Furāt, 2:513, no. 671; Ibn al-Juh. ām > Najafī, 737, no. 8 > Katkānī, 4:403, no. 3, Majlisī, 7:192, no. 55, 24:8, no. 23.

81 . Kulīnī, 1:434, no. 91 > Katkānī, 4:402, no. 1, Majlisī, 24:338, no. 59. 82 . Najafī, 737, no. 7 (according to one manuscript). Similarly Furāt, 2:513, no. 670 (on the

authority of al-Bāqir). Shī‘ī exegesis of some verses from Sūra 56 (al-Wāqi‘a) contains fur-ther examples of as.h. āb al-yamīn as the Shī‘a. See Qummī, 2:348 > Fayd. , 5:122, Katkānī, 4:277 (to Q56:27); Ibn al-Juh. ām > Najafī, 651, no. 13 > Katkānī, 4:285, no. 7, Majlisī, 24:1, no. 1, 68:53, no. 94; Ibn al-Juh. ām > Najafī, 651, no. 14 > Katkānī, 4:285, no. 8, Majlisī, 24:1, no. 2, 68:53, no. 94 (ending); Kulīnī, 8:260, no. 373 > Katkānī, 4:285, no. 4 (all to Q56:90–91). See in general Amir-Moezzi, Guide divin = Divine Guide , index, s.v. as. h. āb al-yamīn ; Kohlberg, “In Praise of the Few,” in Studies in Islamic and Middle Eastern Texts and Traditions in Memory of Norman Calder , ed. G. R. Hawting, J. A. Mojaddedi, and A. Samely, 149–162 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 149–150.

83 . For whom see EI 2 , s.v. “Ka‘b al-Ah.bār” (M. Schmitz). 84 . T. abarī, Bishārat al-mus. t.afā , 50–51 > Najafī, 778–779, no. 11, Majlisī, 68:128–129, no. 59. 85 . T. abarī, Bishārat al-mus. t.afā , 51 > Majlisī, 68:129, no. 59. 86 . Najafī, 787, no. 2 > Katkānī, 4:454, no. 7. 87 . Cf. Kohlberg, “In Praise,” 149–156.

Chapter 2

Criteria for Emending the Text of the Qur’an Behnam Sadeghi 1

1. Introduction

A number of premodern and modern scholars have proposed emendations to the text of the ‘Uthmānic Qur’ān. 2 However, discussions of the principles that should underpin such work remain meager. It is therefore desirable to delve into methodol-ogy more deeply than has been customary. The methodological question is this: By what criteria should one assess a proposed emendation? The answer will necessarily depend on one’s model of textual error. This is because any attempt to go from the given text to the original one will use a model of how and why the text could have changed in the first place. 3 Some previous writings on this topic tend to conceive of error according to a “unitary model” that focuses on one specific kind, namely, what may be called an “error of the hand,” a type of scribal mistake that can gener-ate a difficult text, that is, a text that is obscure, seemingly incorrect linguistically, or anomalous. I call for a variegated model that takes into account a wider range of possible errors, and in the course of evaluating some specific emendations, I discuss types of mistake that have not been yet considered. I show how the failure to take into account the different kinds of textual error can cast doubt on a proposed emen-dation that is otherwise supported by the unitary model.

It is convenient to broach the problem through a critique of the most interesting relevant work done so far, namely, a lucid recent essay written by Devin Stewart. 4 Stewart discusses some proposed emendations, accepting some and rejecting others. While doing so, he lays out criteria for what constitutes a good proposal. His article has the merit of being reflective and methodologically conscious, more so than the writings of others who have done similar work. It is an engaging contribution to a hopefully burgeoning discussion on the theory behind emendations. The need for

Behnam Sadeghi 22

such introspection is palpable in a field that has become an airfield for flights of fancy. 5

One way to engage with Stewart’s criteria is by discussing their application to specific cases. Here I treat two emendations that he says “have a high probability of being correct,” and I argue that they do not. 6 Both apparently involve what he takes to be “Qur’ānic passages where the received text does not make sufficient sense and an apt emendation can provide a superior reading.” 7 In both cases, he follows this procedure: “If the text as it stands indeed appears to be corrupt, one searches for an emendation that involves minimal or explainable changes to the rasm or ductus , fits the immediate context, concurs with parallel passages, if any, and gives an improved reading.” 8 The process thus involves two steps: showing that the received text is wrong, and showing that there is a suitable alternative that is graphically like the received text—the similarity making it easy to see how a scribe could have mistakenly read or written one text instead of the other. Attributes that make an alternative reading suitable include fitting the context and matching parallel passages.

The two steps of this schema are broadly sound, but the manner in which they are understood and applied requires significant modification. To begin with, one needs to add the important caveat that a reading that agrees with a parallel text is not necessarily better. This is so because of the phenomenon of assimilation of par-allels , a common cause of textual change that generates errors that actually agree better with parallels than with the original text. I will come back to this point, as it is important for both of the emendations that I will now discuss. One also needs to consider other forms of error, such as assimilation of nearby terms . 9

Another caveat concerns cases in which “the received text does not make suf-ficient sense,” especially in regard to once-occurring words ( hapax legomena ) and expressions. There are no Arabic books beside the Qur’ān that are contemporane-ous with it. Philological research on hapax legomena, dependent as it is on later literature, reveals later meanings of the words, which due to linguistic or social change might not reflect their Qur’ānic meanings. (Etymological research is an even less reliable guide to meaning: words very frequently acquire meanings differ-ent from their prototypes in the parent language.) Words could thus become dif-ficult to understand if their meaning or usage changed after the time of the Prophet; yet in such a case an emendation that “makes sufficient sense” replaces the correct (i.e., original) text with a wrong one. Such a pitfall can arise frequently, consider-ing that the list of words used in a book will have more rare words than common ones. 10 In the Qur’ān, for example, there are about 4,000 morphemes that occur just once (accounting for about half of the list of distinct morphemes), 1400 morphemes that occur twice, 650 morphemes that occur three times, etc. 11 One might choose to look at roots instead of morphemes, and when one does so, a similar decreasing trend emerges. As Figure 2.1 shows, there are 320 roots that occur just once, 190 that occur twice, 117 that occur thrice, 84 that occur four times, etc. 12 For every number between 1 and 100, the figure shows how many roots occur with that fre-quency. (Roots occurring more than a hundred times are not shown.) The upshot is that while, as could be expected, a lot more of the Qur’ān is made up of common

Criteria for Emending the Qur’an 23

roots than uncommon ones, the list of roots contains more uncommon roots than common ones.

One would expect some of the hapax legomena to have undergone changes in meaning or usage after the Prophet, considering that Qur’ānic Arabic is dis-tinct from classical Arabic and differs even from the Arabic used in the h. adīth literature. 13 So, a difficult hapax legomenon will not necessarily require an emen-dation. But what if there is another passage that uses, in a similar context or expression, a different word instead of the difficult hapax legomenon? Should the hapax legomenon be necessarily discarded in favor of this other word? Even here it is not safe to say that the hapax legomenon is erroneous, since the Qur’ān is full of repeated texts that differ in one, two, or a few words, and usually this phenomenon does not involve any textual difficulty. Given the pervasiveness of such cases, and given the large number of hapax legomena, naturally some of these altered repetitions will involve hapax legomena whose meanings or usages have changed over time.

These observations concern the manner in which the twofold criteria are fleshed out. But there is also a part of my critique that concerns not how the criteria are understood and applied, but rather whether they are satisfied to begin with in the two cases studied here. By bringing into play evidence that Stewart has not considered, I show that in both instances the received text is plausible. Because the given text makes sense, Stewart’s own first criterion is not satisfied. The case studies, therefore, not only illustrate the methodological points, but also shed light on certain ideas in the Qur’ān. Furthermore, the first case study illustrates the effects of the standardization of the skeletal text ( rasm ) of the Qur’ān on its recita-tion and the influence of local textual traditions in this canonization process. In particular, one discerns the influence of the Ibn Mas‘ūd tradition upon some of the ‘Uthmānic readings in Kūfa. While conforming to the ‘Uthmānic skeletal text, some of the Kūfan reciters were influenced by Ibn Mas‘ūd’s readings. The first case study shows how reading the ‘Uthmānic skeletal text with a disposition formed by the Ibn Mas‘ūd tradition produced a strained reading.

350

300

250

200

150

100

50

0

0 20 40 60 80 100

Figure 2.1 Number of Roots Occurring a Certain Number of Times.

Behnam Sadeghi 24

2. The First Case Study: Denial of Punishment and Punishment of Denial in Sura 6

2.1. Introduction

The first case concerns Q6.57. Before stating the proposed emendation, it is neces-sary to provide some background about the disputed point. The verse is as follows:

Qul innī ‘alā bayyinatin min rabbī wa-kadhdhabtum bihi, mā ‘indī mā tasta‘jilūna bihi: ini l-h. ukmu illā li-llāhi. [ Yaqus.s.u/yaqd. i/yaqd. ī bi -] l-h. aqq [a/i] , wa-huwa khayru l-fās.ilīn. Say: I have clear proof from my Lord, but you have rejected it. I do not have with me that which you ask to be hastened: the decision rests with God alone. He [ the disputed point ] the truth. And He is the best at distinguishing who is right. 14

There is a difference between the version of the Companion of the Prophet, Ibn Mas‘ūd, as reported by al-A‘mash—henceforth labeled IM—and the ‘Uthmānic text. IM gives or yaqd. ī bi-l-h. aqqi in transliteration, meaning judges according to the truth . This reading seems to have been popular in Kūfa during the first cen-tury. 15 By contrast, the ‘Uthmānic text—henceforth labeled U—has . 16 In comparison with IM, U lacks the yā’ at the end of the first word and the bā’ at the beginning of the second one. The skeletal difference is such that the two texts cannot represent alternative spellings of the same words; the words are necessarily different. For this reason, this may be called a skeletal morphemic difference. 17

U has been read in two ways. One reading is U1, yaqd. i l-h. aqqa , meaning ful-fills the truth , determines the truth , executes the truth , gives what is due , or, if one were to accept a questionable yet popular gloss in the works of exegesis, gives the judgment of the truth . U1 was popular especially among Iraqi readers. 18 The other reading for U is U2, yaqus.s.u l-h. aqqa , which means tells the truth . U2 was popular among H. ijāzī reciters. 19 Thus, U1 shares with IM not only the verb qad. ā , but also prominence in the city of Kūfa, an important “coincidence” that I will eventually explain below. U1 and U2 both conform to the ‘Uthmānic skeletal text; thus their difference is morphemic (different words) but not skeletal. The Seven Readers conform to this skeleton, some espousing U1 and others U2, and so do some other authorities. The three readings are shown in the following diagram. The variants prompt two questions corresponding to the two points in the diagram marked with question marks: What was the original ‘Uthmānic reading, U, and what was the Prophet’s reading?

U1’s yaqd. i l-h. aqqa is reminiscent of IM’s yaqd. ī bi-l-h. aqqi , since the verb is the same but for the absence of yā’ at the end. Now, IM’s version is linguistically correct, reads naturally, and is attested elsewhere (Q40.20 and 40.78), which at least shows that it is plausible. Unlike IM, however, U1 is difficult. The main difficulty is the absence of yā’ . Normally, such an absence would make the verb jussive ( majzūm ), but that would be wrong here. Rather, the authorities say that the yā’ is dropped to make the writing conform to the pronunciation, citing other instances in the


Qur’ān of this phenomenon. 20 Nonetheless, such an occurrence is highly anoma-lous, and it remains true that U1 is difficult. 21

Is it possible to determine which, between U1 and U2, is the correct reading of U, that is, the original one? It has been shown that U1 is difficult. The possible meanings of U1, fulfills the truth , determines the truth , or gives what is due , are feasible; however, U2’s tells the truth is particularly apt: it fits the context and mirrors other instances in which “the truth” occurs in the sūra , as will be shown later. In light of these consider-ations and others (to be mentioned later) in favor of U2, I offer the hypothesis that U1’s yaqd. i l-h. aqqa represents an attempt to fit yaqd. ī into the somewhat unaccommodating ‘Uthmānic skeletal text. This entails that the ‘Uthmānic skeletal text existed before the U1 reading came into being. I postpone to the end the question of what may have led a reader of U to prefer the verb yaqd. ī and hence U1 despite the ensuing difficulty. In short, the proper ‘Uthmānic reading is U2, while U1 is a misreading. But to take U2 as the original ‘Uthmānic reading does not settle whether it was also the Prophetic reading. Addressing that question requires weighing U2 against IM. In other words, to say that U2 is better than U1 if one adheres to the ‘Uthmānic skeletal text begs the question of how this skeletal text itself compares to that of IM. 22

The question now is this: Which is the original reading, U2 or IM? This brings us finally to Stewart’s emendation. He compares the two and chooses IM. 23 His two-step argument involves establishing (1) that U2 is apparently wrong, and (2) that IM is plausible and fits the context. I will argue that he is right about the latter but wrong about the former: U2 is both linguistically sound and well suited to the context. In addition, I’ll show that it is easy to see how a scribe or somebody who read and dictated the text could mistake U2 for IM. To be sure, a rebuttal that is structured in this form does not prove that IM is secondary, but it does show that it is not “clearly a better reading.” 24 There is no good reason for thinking so, and IM is merely plausible. First I will consider Stewart’s point that IM is plausible—briefly, since he and I agree. Then, I will refute his view that U2 is not.

. .yaqdi bi-l-haqqi

. . .

. .yaqdi l-haqqa

yaqussu l-haqqa

PropheticPrototype

-

Figure 2.2 Flowchart of Variant Readings of Q6.57.

Behnam Sadeghi 26

IM is indeed plausible. It fits lexically. The reading gives yaqd. ī bi-l-h. aqqi , “He decides/judges according to the truth.” Stewart says in its support that the phrase occurs also in Q40.20 (cf. 40.78), a parallel that was cited already in the premodern period in support of U1. 25 The repetitive nature of the Qur’ān makes it understand-able if the same clause occurred in the verse at hand. Moreover, IM fits the context. The context is the opponents’ denial of the revelations about God’s retribution and the Hour. They sardonically ask that the punishment be hastened ( tasta‘ jilūna ). The point is that it is God who rules on the dispute ( yaqd. ī ), or alternatively it is He who decides or determines ( yaqd. ī ) when and how to fulfill the threat of the punishment or the Hour. Furthermore, immediately before this point it is stated that the decision on the Hour is God’s alone ( ini l-h. ukmu illā li-llāhi ), and, immediately after, the terminal clause of the verse declares that God is the best at distinguishing who is right ( wa-huwa khayru l-fās.ilīn ). Several people—for example, Abū ‘Amr b. al-‘Alā’ and Devin Stewart—have cited these surrounding phrases that are linked to the idea of judgment in order to corroborate the verb yaqd. ī . 26

2.2. The Lexical Correctness of U2

But U2 is also plausible. At the most basic level, one would like to know if the lexical meaning of yaqus.s.u fits the clause in which it appears. Stewart thinks not. He takes the word yaqus.s.u to mean “he relates, tells, narrates a story” and concludes that “one does not generally say ‘to narrate the truth.’” 27 As another argument, Stewart writes that the Qur’ān uses the verb qas.s.a only to talk about the past, making the verse at hand anomalous.

One can hardly disagree with Stewart’s point that “narrates the truth” seems odd; one narrates a story or narrative . But does yaqus.s.u have to mean narrate ? And does yaqus.s.u take as its object only a story as Stewart supposes? And does the Qur’ān use the verb qas.s.a only for the past as he believes? The answer is negative to all of the above. To be sure, there are instances of the verb in the Qur’ān in which narrate gives the best translation—cases concerning the accounts of bygone prophets and communities. However, there are also many instances in which narrate would be a poor rendering:

• One usually does not “narrate a disputed point.” So in Q27.76, from the con-text it seems that clarify , settle , or explain would be the right interpretation, as noted already by some premodern exegetes: 28

Inna hādhā l-Qur’āna yaqus.s.u ‘alā banī Isrā’īla akthara lladhī hum fīhi yakhtalifūna ; Verily this Qur’ān clarifies/settles for the Children of Israel most of their disagreements.

• One does not “narrate signs” or “revelations.” So, in Q6.130 and 7.35, the sense is recite , deliver , convey , or explain :

rusulun minkum yaqus.s.ūna ‘alaykum āyātī ; messengers from among you, conveying to you my signs.


• One does not “narrate a prohibition.” So, in Q16.118, the sense is mention , tell , tell about , state , explain , or specify :

Wa-‘alā lladhīna hādū h. arramnā mā qas.as.nā ‘alayka min qablu ; We have forbidden the Jews what We have mentioned to you previously.

• One does not “narrate a messenger.” So in Q40.78 and 4.163–4, even though the object is earlier prophets, narrate is not a good translation. Given the con-text, the right translation is tell about or mention :

Wa-la-qad arsalnā rusulan min qablika minhum man qas.as.nā wa-minhum man lam naqs.us. ‘alayka ; We did send messengers before you: some We have mentioned to you and some We have not. wa-rusulan qad qas.as.nāhum ‘alayka min qablu wa-rusulan lam naqs.us.hum ‘alayka ; messengers We have told you about previously and messengers We have not.

• In addition, in Q28.11 the meaning is follow : Fa-qālat li-ukhtihi qus.s.īhi ; She said to his sister, “Follow him.”

Clearly, the uses of the verb qas.s.a in the Qur’ān reveal a variety of meanings besides narrate , including some or all of the following: tell , tell about , make known , explain , settle , make clear , clarify , specify , convey , and follow . In none of these senses does the verb require a narrative as its direct object. Some of these meanings happen to be mentioned by Edward Lane in his Lexicon as well, including explain , make known , recite , deliver , and follow . 29 All of them, with the exception of follow , fit U2 very well. Thus, Sher Ali’s translation of U2 as “He explains the truth,” Pickthall’s “He telleth the truth,” Abdel Haleem’s “He tells the truth,” Yusuf Ali’s “He declares the truth,” Rodwell’s “He will declare the truth,” and Muhammad Asad’s “He shall declare the truth,” are all lexically valid. So is Qatāda’s gloss, “He tells the truth,” yaqūlu l-h. aqqa . 30 Nor is qas.s.a used (as Stewart asserts) only to talk about the past. This point is proved in Q6.130, 7.35, 12.5, 27.76, and 28.11. All indications are that qas.s.a in U2 is lexically suitable.

There is a lesson here. If yaqus.s.u had been a hapax legomenon, or if it had occurred in the Qur’ān only in the sense of “narrate,” one might not have been able to learn some of its other meanings, and its use in Q6.57 would have been difficult, leading some scholars to emend it erroneously. Only because the word happens to occur elsewhere in the Qur’ān in senses that fit the verse at hand was it possible to vindicate it. The difficulty of a hapax legomenon might thus represent a limitation of our knowledge rather than a textual error.

2.3. The Contextual Suitability of U2

Not only is yaqus.s.u l-h. aqqa unproblematic in terms of lexical meaning, but also the context supports it—both the immediate context and that of the sūra as a whole.

Behnam Sadeghi 28

The key lies in the mention of “the truth,” al-h. aqq , which acquires a completely different function depending on the choice of IM or U2. This section argues that the connotation of “the truth” associated with U2 fits the immediate and broader contexts in Sūra 6. The next section considers parallels in other sūra s.

For IM, truthfulness describes the manner in which God judges: God judges according to the truth, which is to say, justly. By contrast, U2’s point is that, con-trary to what the deniers say, God speaks the truth in His revelations when threat-ening punishment. That theme occurs in the present verse and pervades much of the sūra , resulting in several uses of the word al-h. aqq to make the same point. The verse at hand concerns those who scoff at the Hour, denying ( wa-kadhdhabtum ) the catastrophe that may befall them as it did previous afflicted communities. They mockingly ask that the punishment be hastened ( tasta‘ jilūna ). 31 Indeed, the oppo-nents’ rejection of Muh. ammad’s message about divine retribution is the primary theme of the first 73 verses of the sūra (Q6.1–73), expressed in vocabulary that is found also in the present verse, including the verbs kadhdhaba and ista‘ jala . 32 It is against such denials that the sūra insists on the truth of the warnings about impend-ing retribution. Significantly, three other verses in this sūra use the word al-h. aqq in making the point that the threat of punishment is real. The opening pericope of the sūra states, “They denied the truth when it came to them ( kadhdhabū bi-l-h. aqqi lammā jā’ahum ). Soon enough they will hear news of just the thing they mocked. They should note how many generations we have destroyed before them” (Q6.5–6). More to the point, a later passage states, “They say: ‘There is nothing but the life of this world; we will not be resurrected.’ If only you could see them when they are put before their Lord: He will say, ‘ Is this not the truth ?’ ( a-laysa hādhā bi-l-h. aqqi )” (6.29–30). Even more directly, and only nine verses after the disputed point, the text says: “He is able to send you punishment . . . Your people denied it, and yet it is the truth ( wa-huwa l-h. aqqu )” (6.65–6). Thus, U2 fits the immediate and larger contexts. And the three verses mentioned above, including the one near the disputed spot, use al-h. aqq , “the truth,” in a manner similar to U2 and unlike IM.

The phrase “with clear proof,” ‘alā bayyinatin , with which the verse begins pro-vides another contextual indication of U2’s suitability. It occurs only six other times in the Qur’ān (Q11.17, 11.28, 11.63, 11.88, 35.40, 47.14). It can refer explicitly to God’s revelations and scriptures (Q11.17, 35.40), and can be used in an immediate context of divine punishment (Q11.17, 11.28, 47.14), or be cited by prophets whose communities will soon be destroyed, namely, Noah (Q11.28), S.ālih. (Q11.63), and Shu‘ayb (Q11.88). The association of this phrase with the revealed words of God makes it understandable why it would be juxtaposed, in the verse at hand, with the truth of the threats revealed by God. In fact, a similar thing happens in Q11.17 (‘alā bayyinatin . . . innahu l-h. aqqu ).

Another contextual element is the terminal phrase of the verse, which states that God is the best at distinguishing who is right, or the best settler of disputes, khayru l-fās.ilīn . I mentioned above that the word fās.ilīn fits IM. However, there are also four considerations that favor U2.

First, it is not necessary to consider the occurrence of fās.ilīn in the terminal phrase as being prompted by yaqd. ī , “He judges.” It could just as well resonate with the seven other instances of f-s.-l which make this the sūra with the most occurrences


of the root f-s.-l . (The sūra alone has 19 percent of the 43 instances of f-s.-l in the Qur’ān.) In fact, there is an occurrence nearby, just 25 words earlier. Verse 55 reads wa-kadhālika nufas.s.ilu l-āyāti wa-li-tastabīna sabīlu l-mujrimīn .

Second, the meaning of U2 fits the ending with fās.ilīn . This is supported by the ways in which the Qur’ān uses the relatively few occurrences of the verb fas.ala . The uses in the sense of “depart” are irrelevant and may be ignored (Q2.249, 12.94). That leaves only three other instances, Q22.17, 32.25, and 60.3:

Inna llāha yafs.ilu baynahum yawma l-qiyāmati ; Inna rabbaka huwa yafs.ilu baynahum yawma l-qiyāmati fī-mā kānū fīhi yakhtalifūna ; yawma l-qiyāmati, yafs.ilu baynakum .

All three occurrences mention yawma l-qiyāmati , the Day of Judgment. In the third case there is an ambiguity, as is illustrated by the difference in the translations of Pickthall and Yusuf Ali: the former has, “He will part you,” while the latter gives, “He will judge between you.” The first two instances of yafs.ilu , however, are clear. Both refer to religious disputes, and both promise that God will distinguish who is right. 33 The judgment is about whose religious views are right, not just about how punishment is meted out (i.e., fairly or not); hence my interpretation of the termi-nal phrase in Q6.57 as “He is the best at distinguishing who is right,” or “He is the best settler of disputes.” From the context, the dispute is with those who reject Muh.ammad’s message about the Hereafter. The terminal phrase thus reinforces U2’s point that this message is true and the deniers are wrong.

Third, U2’s yaqus.s.u and the terminal fas.ala can keep similar company in other verses; so, it is not surprising for them to be associated here. Compare Q32.25 and 27.76:

Inna rabbaka huwa yafs.ilu baynahum yawma l-qiyāmati fī-mā kānū fīhi yakhtalifūna Inna hādha l-Qur’āna yaqus.s.u ‘alā banī Isrā’īla akthara lladhī hum fīhi yakhtalifūna

Both verses are about settling “that which they disagree over.” The first verse uses yafs.ilu and the second uses yaqus.s.u to refer to the idea of settling or clarifying. 34 Thus, the appearance of both verbs in the verse at hand is not without mutual resonance.

Fourth, as Abū ‘Alī al-Farsī (d. 377/987) has noted previously, fās.ilīn could hark back to yaqus.s.u , which indicates speech, just as elsewhere in the Qur’ān f-s.-l can refer to speech as opposed to judgment. Abū ‘Alī gave the following examples: Q86.13, 11.1, and 7.32. 35

2.4. Parallels for U2 Outside the Sūra

Many other passages besides the ones already quoted from Sūra 6 state that God’s promises about divine retribution or the Hour are the truth ( h. aqq ), and several of these also refer to denials of the retribution as Q6.57 does. See, for example, Q7.44, 10.4, 10.53, 10.55, 18.21, 21.97, 31.9, 31.33, 40.77, 41.53, 42.17–18, 45.32, 46.17, 56.95, 69.49–51, and 78.39. All of these verses employ “truth” in a manner similar

Behnam Sadeghi 30

to U2 and unlike IM. Among these parallels, perhaps the one most similar to the disputed verse is Q42.17–18. This passage combines the scoffers’ sardonic chal-lenge that the Hour be hastened ( yasta‘ jilu ), the truthfulness of the Hour and the Scripture (with the word al-h. aqq used twice), and the error of those who deny the Hour:

Allāhu lladhī anzala l-kitāba bi-l-h. aqqi wa-l-mīzāna wa-mā yudrīka la‘alla l-sā‘ata qarībun, yasta‘ jilu bihā lladhīna lā yu’minūna bihā wa-lladhīna āmanū mushfiqūna minhā wa-ya‘ lamūna annahā l-h. aqqu alā inna lladhīna yumārūna fī l-sā‘ati la-fī d. alālin ba‘īd . God is the One who sent down the Book with truth , and also the balance. What will make you realize that the Hour may be close? Those who deny it ask that it come soon , but those who believe in it fear it; they know that it is true . Surely, those who dispute concerning the Hour are far astray.

This text is similar to our Q6.57 in both word choice and theme, notably in its use of the verb yasta‘ jilūna and its focus on denial of the Hour. And it uses the word al-h. aqq in a manner that is similar to U2 rather than IM. Other passages that say that God speaks the truth ( h. aqq ) or that His message or promises are the truth ( h. aqq ) include Q33.4 ( wa-llāhu yaqūlu l-h. aqqa ), 34.6, 38.84 ( wa-l-h. aqqa aqūlu ), 2.91, 2.144, 10.76, 10.94, 10.108, 11.17 (incidentally, containing ‘alā bayyinatin like the verse at hand), 11.45, 11.120, 13.1, 13.19, 22.54, 28.13, 28.48, 28.53, 30.60, 32.3, 35.5, 35.31, 40.55, 43.29–30, and 47.2. These passages, too, use h. aqq in man-ner that is similar to U2 and unlike IM.

2.5. Finding the Original Version: Four Types of Error

It has been shown that IM and U2 both make sense and fit the context. But which version is the original? It is possible to imagine scenarios in which the difference between IM and U2 is not due to a scribal error (say, if the Prophet recited both versions), in which case it would not make sense to ask which is the original. If, however, we assumed that there was a scribal error, with or without the Prophet endorsing the resulting textual diversity, which version would likely be the original one? Given the current state of our knowledge and based on the analysis of this one variant, it is not possible to provide a definitive answer; however, some relevant evi-dence should be examined. One may ask which is easier to imagine, a scribal error that changes IM to U2 or one in the opposite direction? Answering this question requires taking into consideration four types of error that seem potentially relevant here: (1) changes due to assimilation of parallels, (2) changes due to assimilation of nearby terms, (3) failings of short-term memory that are not due to the last two mechanisms, and (4) “errors of the hand.”

Assimilation of parallels refers to textual changes that arise when a scribe’s famil-iarity with a parallel makes him or her write the text more like the parallel. 36 IM becomes a candidate for assimilation of parallels if one can find a sentence that uses the verb yaqd. ī in a similar context. There is indeed a close parallel in Q40.20: wa-llāhu yaqd. ī bi-l-h. aqqi . There is a close but less exact one in Q40.78: fa-idhā


jā’a amru llāhi qud. iya bi-l-h. aqqi . On the other hand, U2 becomes a candidate for assimilation of parallels if one can find a sentence that uses the verb yaqus.s.u in a similar context. But there is no close parallel that uses the verb; only remote parallels do so. These include Q18.13 ( nah. nu naqus.s.u ‘alayka naba’ahum bi-l-h. aqqi ), Q3.62 ( inna hādhā la-huwa l-qas.as.u l-h. aqqu ), and Q11.120 ( wa-kullan naqus.s.u ‘alayka min anbā’ i l-rusuli mā nuthabbitu bihi fu’ādaka wa-jā’aka fī hādhihi l-h. aqqu ). It follows that IM is a much better candidate for assimilation of parallels than U2. If the error was due to assimilation of parallels, U2 should be considered the original.

Assimilation of nearby terms happens when a scribe is inf luenced by words that appear nearby. 37 IM becomes a candidate for assimilation of nearby terms if one can find another instance of the verb qad. ā nearby. Indeed, that verb occurs four times in the sūra , including twice near the disputed spot. Only 11 words later there is la-qud. iya (Q6.58), and 61 words later there is li-yuqd. ā (Q6.60). There are two other occurrences of the verb earlier in the sūra , though not nearby (Q6.2, 6.8). On the other hand, U2 becomes a candidate for assimilation of nearby terms if one can find another instance of the verb qas.s.a nearby. But there is only one instance in the sūra , and it is not nearby, being located in verse 130. It follows that IM is a candidate for assimilation of nearby terms whereas U2 is not. If the error was due to assimilation of nearby terms, again U2 should be considered the original.

Sometimes a scribe’s short-term memory fails, and one word is switched with another without this being caused by the above mechanisms. When this happens, usually a frequent word does not change to a rare word. Change in the opposite direction is more likely. 38 In the case at hand, neither word is rare. The verb qas.s.a occurs 19 times elsewhere, whereas the verb qad. ā occurs 63 times. Some may con-sider the three-to-one ratio as favoring U2 as the original. If so, however, this repre-sents no more than a slight edge, not enough to conclude anything.

The fourth kind of error seems to be the only one taken into consideration by Stewart. It subsumes (but is not limited to) what nowadays would be called “typos.” In the kinds of change described previously, the scribe may or may not recognize the error if they were asked about what they wrote. But in this fourth type, they certainly would. It would be as if the scribe wrote “no single meaning” (as I once did while copying a quotation) and when you questioned them right away, they told you that they meant to write “no settled meaning.” In other words, the scribe writes something that they do not intend at the moment they write it—whether they later come to accept the new version is another matter. The mind would seem to play a significant role in the case of “single” vs. “settled,” but most such errors are more like hte vs. the , where the mind plays a relatively limited role, hence the label “error of the hand.” Errors of the hand tend to yield obviously wrong texts, as is familiar to us from our own experience with typos, though occasionally the result is linguistically tenable. However, neither IM nor U2 is obviously wrong or even slightly implausible. Thus, if this sort of error did occur at the disputed point, it would have belonged to the category of errors of the hand that are tenable, and it could have gone equally in either direction, from IM to U2 or the other way around. It would be worth investigating how likely this category of errors (sensible errors of the hand) is.

Behnam Sadeghi 32

In summary, for the first two types of error only U2 could be the original text. For the third kind, either could be the original (although perhaps U2 is very slightly more likely). For the fourth type, sensible errors of the hand, either could be the original, though it is not clear how probable this category of mistakes is. So, at pres-ent, U2 has a good claim to being the original, but one cannot dismiss IM either. A systematic study of the codex of Ibn Mas‘ūd might lead to a more decisive verdict, if it is found for example that at disputed points, significantly more of the ‘Uthmānic readings cannot be explained as cases of assimilation (as compared to Ibn Mas‘ūd’s readings), or if there is a pattern of Ibn Mas‘ūd using more frequent words.

Finally, I reject the following argument in favor of IM: it might be said that in trying to decide between IM and U2, one should use the U1 witness as a control, which would tip the scale in favor of IM since the agreement of U1 and IM is best explained by their shared ancestor having the verb yaqd. ī . 39 Such a conclusion would be sound if all other things were equal, that is, if there were no indica-tion of how the concurring readings could have arisen independently or how one could have influenced the other. However, in this case there are three reasons why the concurrence of IM and U1 does not mean derivation from a common ances-tor. First, it was already noted that U1 seems to presuppose the ‘Uthmānic skel-etal text. If it postdates the divergence between the text types of Ibn Mas‘ūd and ‘Uthmān, which give respectively IM and U, it cannot be used as an independent witness for distinguishing between the two. Second, the use of the verb qad. ā in U1 could reflect assimilation of parallels or nearby words, just as I demonstrated above for IM. In fact, already in the premodern period, the same parallel (Q40.20) was cited to justify U1, underscoring how easily such an assimilation could have taken place. 40 Third, at least in the case of the Kūfan reciters who favor U1, like H. amza and al-Kisā’ī, their reading was not independent from IM: it derived from IM. This is not mere speculation. Comparing the text of the codex of Ibn Mas‘ūd as described by al-A‘mash with the ‘Uthmānic readings reveals the persistent (direct or indirect) influence of Ibn Mas‘ūd’s text upon the Kūfan readers H. amza and al-Kisā’ī. In the case at hand, the difficulty of U1 betrays the strain of trying to read the ‘Uthmānic skeletal text with a disposition shaped by Ibn Mas‘ūd’s IM. It is well known that Ibn Mas‘ūd’s codex used to be popular in Kūfa. 41 U1 probably originated when Kūfa was completing the transition to the parallel ‘Uthmānic textual tradition.

3. The Second Case Study: Heavenly Comestibles

Stewart justly dismisses another author’s reduction of the houris to grapes. 42 However, his own playing down of the perks of paradise is not persuasive either. I am referring to his demoting of heavenly bananas or plantains ( t.alh. ) to dates ( t.al‘ ). The verse in question, Q56.29, has wa-t.alh. in mand. ūdin , “and clusters of bananas.” 43 Stewart recommends wa-t.al‘ in mand. ūdin , “and clusters of dates.” In doing so, he agrees with the reading ascribed to ‘Alī. 44 The suggestion derives


plausibility from the facts that the difference is in a single letter and that the two letters have fairly similar shapes.

Stewart’s first justification is this: “It seems odd that bananas are mentioned here, for they do not occur elsewhere in the Qur’ān.” 45 In other words, t.alh. is a hapax legomenon. But there is nothing wrong with hapax legomena; there are many of them in the Qur’ān, just as in other books. 46

His second reason is that dates “would have been an important feature of the environment in which the Qur’ān was revealed.” So, the problem with bananas is that they were not staples like dates. But it is a misunderstanding of the Qur’ānic Paradise to assume that it is limited to things that were common in and around Mecca. Quite the opposite, Paradise is resplendent with novelties. Its inhabitants wear “bracelets of gold” and “green garments of silk and brocade” (Q18.31). They are served in “vessels of silver and goblets of crystal” (Q 76.16). There are rivers of milk, honey, and wine (Q47.15). It is safe to say that rivers of milk, honey, and wine were not important features of the environment in which the Qur’ān was revealed; thus, if bananas were not, that should not bar them from Paradise either. After all, in Heaven there is “every kind of fruit” (Q47.15), not just mundane staples like dates, though the staples are available too (Q55.68). 47 If bananas are a problem, then so are all the other marvels. At any rate, it is not clear just how common bananas and plantains were in Arabia, although the Qur’ān itself mentions dates, olives, grapes, and pomegranates more often. 48

Stewart goes on to support “dates” with a parallel passage, as reportedly ‘Alī had done. 49 The parallel is the mention in Q50.10 of tall palm trees (located on earth, not in Heaven) “with clusters of dates,” lahā t.al‘un nad. īdun . He writes that the use “of the adjective nad. īd , cognate and synonymous with mand. ūd , suggests the equivalence of t.alh. and t.al‘ .” 50 But here we have a botanical similarity in nature, not just a verbal parallelism in literature. Since bananas and dates both actually come in clusters, referring to “clusters of bananas” and “clusters of dates” need not imply equivalence. Even if the physical similarity did not exist, there would be nothing odd about the verbal parallelism, since in the Qur’ān it is exceedingly common for a sentence or phrase to be repeated except for changes to one, two, or a few words. There is normally no need to emend anything when this happens.

Stewart does not consider possible meanings of t.alh. beside bananas. While early exegetes usually glossed t.alh. as bananas or banana trees, the word was also applied to a tree species in Arabia that could have been mentioned for the fragrance of its blossoms, its shade, or its beauty. 51 This would fit the Qur’ān’s descriptions of Paradise, which mention shades (Q 4.57, 36.56, 56.30, 76.14, 77.41) and allude to fragrance (Q76.5, 76.17). 52 And it would not be the only reference to a tree: the lote tree is mentioned immediately before (Q56.28). There would be nothing odd in mentioning an aromatic and pleasant tree as the heavenly counterpart to Hell’s arguably foul-smelling Zaqqūm (Q37.62, 44.43, 56.52). 53 The possibility that t.alh. is a tree is strengthened somewhat by the expression ard. t.alih. a for “a land abounding with the tree t.alh. ,” and the expression ibil t.alih. a for a camel made sick by eating of the t.alh. tree. 54

Which is likely to be the original, t.alh. or t.al‘ ? As in the first case study, the answer depends on the type of error that occurred, if any. Let us consider them one

Behnam Sadeghi 34

by one. First, assimilation of parallels: the received text ( t.alh. un ) becomes a candidate for assimilation of parallels if one can find a sentence that uses t.alh. in a similar con-text. Such a passage does not exist since t.alh. appears nowhere else. So, the received text cannot have been generated by this mechanism. On the other hand, the pro-posed text ( t.al‘un ) could have occurred to the author of the ‘Alī traditions by way of the assimilation of the parallel in Q50.10 ( t.al‘un nad. īdun ). 55 Second, assimilation of nearby terms is irrelevant here, since neither word makes an appearance in the vicinity of the disputed spot. Third, failures of memory that are not due to assimila-tion: within this type of error, the direction of change tends to be from a rare word to a common one. Unlike the once-occurring t.alh. , the word t.al‘ appears four times. Thus, for this type of error, the received text ( t.alh. un ) is perhaps slightly more likely to be the original than the proposed text ( t.al‘un ). Fourth, errors of the hand : if this were the error, either version could be the original. The upshot is that of the three relevant types of change, one does not fit Stewart’s proposal, another is slightly unfavorable to it, while the third accommodates it and the received text. There is no discernable reason for rejecting the text as it stands, although it is not possible to disprove textual change either.

4. Conclusion

Scholars who have written on emendations to the Qur’ān have not taken into account the fact that involuntary textual change does not occur by just one mecha-nism. It can take different forms, and therefore, given a variant, there may be more than one candidate for what caused the textual change. Given two contrary readings at a disputed spot, one kind of error might favor one reading, while another type might favor the alternative or leave either choice feasible. In weighing variants, one should evaluate the different causes that demonstrably account for textual changes in the premodern era. In particular, I have enumerated four common types of error that are relevant to the two cases discussed here. Given several credible mechanisms that could have caused a change, one should not choose one of them in an arbitrary fashion. Rather than prejudging the matter, one should consider each mechanism and determine which version, if any, it favors. The decision whether to accept an emendation comes at the end of this procedure, as it depends on knowing which type of error occurred or could have occurred in the case at hand.

This procedure sometimes leaves the choice between two alternatives unsettled. For example, suppose a variant is supported by a parallel. Since the Qur’ān contains repetitions, the corroboration provided by the parallel may suggest that the variant is the correct reading, and that the given text resulted from an error of the hand. But it could also be that the given text is correct and that the variant represents an assimilation of the parallel. Which version one takes to be the original thus depends entirely on which mechanism one picks as the cause of textual change—assimila-tion or error of the hand—a choice that is not always clear. Indeed, in the two cases examined in this essay, no absolutely definitive indication could be reached. This is because some types of error, if they occurred, could have worked in opposite


directions, leaving both the given and the proposed texts feasible. Is there, then, a way out of indeterminacy? A stronger indication can arise in cases in which the dif-ferent mechanisms for textual change all work in the same direction; though even in such a case caution is needed. This could happen, for example, in the case of a textual variant that simultaneously is difficult (hence being a possible error of the hand), is a candidate for assimilation, and is not made up of rare words. I gave an example of this in the first case study: U1 is inferior to U2 because it is difficult, not a rarity, and unlike U2 a candidate for assimilation. In addition, there may be cases in which although the different mechanisms of textual change work in opposite directions, one mechanism is nonetheless much more likely than the other.

But when should one consider emending the text to begin with? Instances in which the tradition itself preserves a plausible variant may call for practicing textual criticism. In the absence of a variant, however, what does it take to consider a text corrupt? This problem should be approached with greater caution than has been customary among scholars who have proposed emendations. In general, a hapax legomenon is not problematic. Even if it be difficult or obscure for the modern reader, that might signal an archaism or a case of poetic license. If a difficult word appears elsewhere in a similar sense, that assures us that it is not lexically wrong; but if it does not, that does not mean that that the hapax legomenon is erroneous and needs to be emended. Furthermore, if a word is employed in a parallel passage in a manner that is similar to its use in the verse at hand, that can show that the usage is possible. But if it is not corroborated in this fashion, that does not mean that it is wrong and requires emending. In fact, corroboration by a parallel passage is double-edged: it shows that the word’s occurrence in the sentence at hand fits the Qur’ānic repertoire of expressions and could indeed represent the original wording, but it also makes the word a candidate for assimilation of parallels, indicating that it could be secondary.

Notes

1 . I thank Devin Stewart and the editors of the volume in which this article appears for their written comments. A note on the dates: a hijrī year overlaps two consecutive years in the Gregorian calendar, of which I give only the first.

2 . For the literature and an introduction to the field, see Devin Stewart, “Notes on Emendations of the Qur’ān,” in The Qur’ān in Its Historical Context , ed. Gabriel S. Reynolds (London: Routledge, 2008), 225–48.

3 . In this essay, I use the word “error” in a purely technical sense to refer to inadvertent changes as a scribe wrote a text, and I do so without prejudice to the question of whether the Prophet came to endorse the resulting text. If the Prophet did approve of the text, then such a so-called error should be considered the correct text.

4 . Stewart’s article is cited in endnote 2, above. 5 . Undisciplined conjectural emendations tend to proliferate because they are free of

reasonable constraints. Qur’ānic Studies is not the only field that requires weeding. Emanuel Tov has highlighted the need for pruning the overgrowth of the emendations proposed for the Jewish Bible, “most of which can now be considered unnecessary.” He

Behnam Sadeghi 36

says that most scholars agree that “emending the biblical text should be a last resort when solving textual problems.” He warns that “it may be that an apparently incorrect or unsuitable reading was, nevertheless, the original one” (emphasis mine). See Emanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible , 2nd rev. ed. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001), 356.

6 . Stewart, “Notes on Emendations,” 233. 7 . Stewart, “Notes on Emendations,” 229. 8 . Stewart, “Notes on Emendations,” 229. 9 . For assimilation of parallels and assimilation of nearby terms in the Jewish Bible, see

Emanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible , 261–63. For references to the litera-ture on the assimilation of parallels and nearby terms in New Testament manuscripts, see Behnam Sadeghi and Uwe Bergmann, “The Codex of a Companion of the Prophet and the Qur’ān of the Prophet,” Arabica 57, no. 4 (2010): 343–436, 388, footnotes 85 and 87. For assimilation of parallels and nearby terms generating differences between Companion codices, see Sadeghi and Bergmann, “Codex,” 388, 391–92, 401–403. For a likely example of assimilation of parallels in the h. adīth literature, see Behnam Sadeghi, “The Traveling Tradition Test: A Method for Dating Traditions,” Der Islam 85, no. 1 (2008): 203–42, 222.

10 . More of a book is made of common words than uncommon ones, but if one elimi-nates repetitions and simply looks at the list of words used, there are more uncommon words than common ones. For the frequency distribution of rare words, see Harald Baayen, “Word Frequency Distributions,” in Quantitative Linguistics: An International Handbook , ed. Reinhard Kohler et al. (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2005), 397–409.

11 . Behnam Sadeghi, “The Chronology of the Qur’ān: A Stylometric Research Program,” Arabica 58 (2011): 210–99, 245, 279, Figure 27.

12 . I obtained these numbers by analyzing the word-by-word tagging of the Qur’ān created by Rafi Talmon and Shuly Wintner, available from http://cl.haifa.ac.il/projects/quran/. Existing errors or discrepancies in the reckoning of roots in the Wintner-Talmon data-base will certainly not change the trends.

13 . Fred Donner, Narratives of Islamic Origins: The Beginnings of Islamic Historical Writing (Princeton, NJ: Darwin Press, 1998), 55–61.

14 . My translations of the Qur’ānic passages are often based on those of other translators. I have consulted the following: M. A. S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur’ān: A New Translation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004); Arthur Arberry, The Koran Interpreted (London: Oxford University Press, 1983); Muhammad Asad, The Message of the Qur’ān (Gibraltar: Dar al-Andalus, 1980); Abdalhaqq Bewley and Aisha Bewley, The Noble Qur’ān: A New Rendering of Its Meaning in English (Norwich: Bookwork, 1999); Thomas Cleary, The Qur’ān: A New Translation (Chicago: Starlatch Press, 2004); Rashad Khalifa, The Quran: The Final Scripture (Tuscon: Islamic Productions, 1981); E. H. Palmer, The Qur’ān: Translated by E. H. Palmer (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1900); Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Qur’ān: Text and Explanatory Translation (Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb al-Lubnānī, 1971); J. M. Rodwell, The Koran (London: Dent, 1978); George Sale, The Koran (New York: Garland, 1984); Mohammad Saeed Shakir, The Glorious Qur’ān (Qum: Ansāriyān, 1998); Mawlawi Sher Ali, The Holy Qur’ān: Arabic Text and English Translation , 14th ed. (Surrey: Islam International, 1989); ‘Abdullāh Yusuf Ali, The Meaning of the Holy Qur’ān (Brentwood, MD: Amana, 1991).

15 . IM ( yaqd. ī bi-l-h. aqqi ) was found in the codex of Ibn Mas‘ūd (d. 33/653) according to an important report of al-A‘mash quoted by Ibn Abī Dāwūd. I have argued elsewhere that this tradition is likely to contain reliable information (see the citation below). IM


has also been ascribed to Ubayy b. Ka‘b (d. 30/650), al-Nakha‘ī (d. 96/714, Kūfa), Ibn Waththāb (d. 103/721, Kūfa), T. alh. a (d. 112/730, Kūfa), Ibn ‘Abbās (d. 68/687), al-A‘mash (d. 148/765, Kūfa), Sa‘īd b. Jubayr (d. 94/712, Kūfa, Mecca), and Mujāhid (d. 102/720, Mecca). The reading was clearly common in Kūfa, probably due to the popularity of the codex of Ibn Mas‘ūd in that city. This list does not include any of the Seven Readers, which is to be expected since IM has a skeletal morphemic differ-ence with the ‘Uthmānic version. See Ibn Abī Dāwūd, Kitāb al-Mas.āh. if , 2nd ed., ed. Muh. ibb al-Dīn Wā‘iz. (Beirut: Dār al-Bashā’ir al-Islāmiyya, 1423/2002), 314; Sadeghi and Bergmann, “Codex,” 390–94; ‘Abd al-Lat.īf Muh.ammad al-Khat.īb, Mu‘ jam al-qirā’āt (Damascus: Dār Sa‘d al-Dīn, 1422/2002), 2:440–42.

16 . On the origin and dissemination of the ‘Uthmānic text, see Michael Cook, “The Stemma of the Regional Codices of the Koran,” Graeco-Arabica 9–10 (2004): 89–104; Hossein Modarressi, “Early Debates on the Integrity of the Qur’ān: A Brief Survey,” Studia Islamica 77 (1993): 5–39; Sadeghi and Bergmann, “Codex,” 364–70, 375–77, 394–99.

17 . For skeletal morphemic differences, see Behnam Sadeghi and Mohsen Goudarzi, “S. an‘ā’ 1 and the Origins of the Qur’ān,” Der Islam 87, no. 1–2 (2010 nominally; 2012 online): 1–129, 2–3, footnote 2.

18 . U1 ( yaqd. i l-h. aqqa ) has been ascribed to Ibn ‘Āmir (d. 118/736, Damascus), Abū ‘Amr (d. 154/770, Bas.ra), H. amza (d. 156/772, Kūfa), al-Kisā’ī (d. 189/804, Kūfa), al-Sulamī (d. 74/693, Kūfa), Sa‘īd b. al-Musayyab (d. 90s/708–18, Medina), and ‘Alī b. Abī T.ālib (d. 40/661). Among the Seven Readers, the Iraqīs are all in this list, except ‘Ās.im (d. 127/744, Kūfa). The role of Kūfan reciters is apparent, and it is linked with the circulation of IM in Kūfa. See al-Khat.īb, Mu‘ jam al-qirā’āt , 2:440–42. The regional patterns for U1 and U2 among the Seven Readers have been noted by scholars before. See, for example, Abū Ja‘far Muh.ammad b. Jarīr al-T. abarī, Jāmi‘ al-bayān ‘an ta’wīl āy al-Qur’ān , ed. S. idqī Jamīl al-‘At.t.ār (Beirut: Dār al-Fikr li-l-T. ibā‘a wa-l-Nashr wa-l-Tawzī‘, 1415/1995), 7:276; Abū al-Barakāt ‘Abd Allāh b. Ah.mad al-Nasafī, Madārik al-tanzīl wa-h. aqā’ iq al-ta’wīl , ed. Sayyid Zakariyyā (Riyadh: Maktabat Nizār Mus.t.afā al-Bāz), 1:318.

The reading has been ascribed to Ibn Mas‘ūd as well, probably incorrectly. The attri-bution could have arisen from a corruption of IM, or it could have originated in a mis-understanding: if an authority said that Ibn Mas‘ūd’s reading supports U1 as against U2, that could be easily be misunderstood as saying that it was U1.

19 . U2 ( yaqus.s.u l-h. aqqa ) has been ascribed to Nāfi‘ (d. 169/785, Medina), Ibn Kathīr (d. 120/737, Mecca), ‘Ās.im (d. 127/744, Kūfa), Abū Ja‘far [Yazīd] (d. 130/747, Medina), Ibn ‘Abbās (d. 68/687), Ibn Muh.ays.in (d. 123/740, Mecca), ‘Alī (either ‘Alī b. Abī T. ālib or al-Kisā’ī, probably the former), Mujāhid (d. 102/720, Mecca), al-A‘raj (either H. umayd b. Qays, d. 130/747, Mecca, or ‘Abd al-Rah.mān b. Hurmuz, d. 117/735, Medina, Alexandria). From this list, the U2 reading seems particularly associated with the H. ijāz. See al-Khat.īb, Mu‘ jam al-qirā’āt , 2:440–42.

20 . Al-Khat.īb, Mu‘ jam al-qirā’āt , 2:440–42; Abū Ja‘far Muh.ammad b. al-H. asan al-T. ūsī, al-T. ibyān fī tafsīr al-Qur’ān , ed. Ah.mad H. abīb Qas.īr al-‘Āmilī (Qum: Maktab al-I‘lām al-Islāmī, 1409), 4:153–54; Abū ‘Abd Allāh Muh.ammad b. ‘Umar Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Mafātīh. al-ghayb , 3rd ed. (Beirut: Dār Ih. yā’ al-Turāth al-‘Arabī, 1420), 13:9; see also the editor’s annotation in Ibn Abī Dāwūd, Kitāb al-Mas.āh. if , 314, footnote 4. Other instances of such deletions in the Qur’ān include the omission of the wāw in sa-nad‘ū l-zabāniyya (Q96.18) and the yā’ in fa-mā tughni l-nudhuru (Q54.5). See the following endnote for a discussion.

Behnam Sadeghi 38

21 . Muh.ammad Muh.aysin has compiled a list of 21 cases in which all of the reciters in the ‘Uthmānic tradition deleted the letter yā’ from the writing where it would normally be expected, plus five cases of deletions of wāw agreed upon by most readers. The agree-ment of readers from different cities that are not disposed to concur supports Muh.aysin’s thesis that the skeletal oddity, along with the skeletal text in general, predates them all and goes back to the codices sent out by ‘Uthmān. Twenty-six cases may seem a lot—enough at first sight to cast doubt on my claim that U1 is anomalous. However, note two things: first, many of the cases in Muh.aysin’s list are aberrations motivated by rhyme and rhythm, a consideration that does not apply to Q6.57; second, in the Qur’ān there are 731 cases of ī followed by the definite article and 313 cases of ū followed by the definite article, which leaves no doubt that U1 is highly anomalous. See Muh.ammad Sālim Muh. aysin, al-Fath. al-rabbānī fī ‘alāqat al-qirā’āt bi-l-rasm al-‘Uthmānī (Riyadh: Jāmi‘at al-Imām Muh.ammad b. Sa‘ūd al-Islāmiyya, 1415/1994), 260–63.

Some might say that it is not just the missing yā’ that makes U1 anomalous. Mujāhid considered U1 difficult on account of meaning. He reportedly argued that if the verb were yaqd. i , it would have to go with bi-l-h. aqqi rather than al-h. aqqa , and hence the verb must be yaqus.s.u . But al-Nah.h. ās points out correctly that this does not necessarily follow since yaqd. ī need not mean “judge.” See Ibn Abī H. ātim al-Rāzī, Tafsīr , ed. Muh.ammad al-T. ayyib (S.aydā: al-Maktaba al-‘As.riyya), 4:1303; Ah.mad b. Muh.ammad al-Nah.h. ās, Ma‘ānī al-Qur’ān , ed. Muh.ammad ‘Alī al-S.ābūnī (Mecca: Jāmi‘at Umm al-Qurā, 1988), 2:434–35.

22 . Stewart does not discuss U1, and evaluates U2 as the alternative to IM as I am about to do now. He does not seem to be aware of the existence of U1. For example, he writes that al-Suyūt.ī, in his Tafsīr al-Jalālayn , endorses IM. In fact, al-Suyūt.ī merely glosses U1, which Stewart seems to have mistaken for IM. Al-Suyūt.ī’s gloss is al-qad. ā’ al-h. aqq , a gloss for U1 that is common in the tafsīr literature. (Stewart also mistakenly writes that al-Suyūt.ī mentions no other reading. But al-Suyūt.ī also mentions U2; he writes fī qirā’a yaqus.s.u ay yaqūlu .) See Jalāl al-Dīn Muh.ammad b. Ah.mad al-Mah.allī and Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūt.ī, Tafsīr al-Jalālayn (Beirut: Mu’assasat al-Nūr li-l-Mat.bū‘āt, 1416), 137.

23 . For many scholars, preferring an existing textual variant is not called an emendation; normally, “emendation” is used when the textual tradition itself does not offer the pro-posed reading as one of the variants (Tov, Textual Criticism , 352). This terminological distinction does indeed seem useful; however, in this essay (and perhaps only in this essay), I adopt Stewart’s convention for the sake of convenience. It is worth noting that, ceteris paribus, the bar for making emendations should be set higher than that for pre-ferring a textual variant, since in the latter case there is more evidence for the preferred reading.

24 . Stewart, “Notes on Emendations,” 232. 25 . Badr al-Dīn Muh.ammad b. ‘Abd Allāh al-Zarkashī, al-Burhān fī ‘ulūm al-Qur’ān , ed.

Muh.ammad Abū l-Fad. l Ibrāhīm (Cairo: Dār Ihyā’ al-Kutub al-‘Arabiyya, 1376/1957), 1:338.

26 . For the argument the famous Bas.ran reader, Abū ‘Amr b. al-‘Alā’, gave for his reading see, for example, al-T. ūsī, T. ibyān , 4:152–53; Ibn Abī H. ātim, Tafsīr , 4:1303; Abū ‘Abd Allāh Muh.ammad b. Ah.mad al-Qurt.ubī, Tafsīr , ed. Ah.mad ‘Abd al-‘Alīm al-Bardūnī et al. (Beirut: Dār Ihyā’ al-Turāth al-‘Arabī, 1405/1985), 6:439; al-T. abarī, Jāmi‘ al-bayān , 7:276; Abū Ish. āq Ah.mad al-Tha‘labī, al-Kashf wa-l-bayān , ed. Abū Muh.ammad b. ‘Āshūr et al. (1422/2002), 4:153; Ibn ‘At.iyya, al-Muh. arrar al-wajīz fī tafsīr kitāb al-‘azīz (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiyya, 1413/1993), 2:299. For Stewart’s use of the same argument, see Stewart, “Notes on Emendations,” 232.

27 . Stewart, “Notes on Emendations,” 232.


28 . The word yaqus.s.u is glossed as yubayyinu and other similar terms. The earliest authorities cited are Muqātil and Ibn ‘Abbās. See Abū al-Layth Nas.r b. Muh. ammad al-Samarqandī, Tafsīr al-Samarqandī , ed. Mah. mūd Mat.arijī (Beirut: Dār al-Fikr), 2:591; Mans.ūr b. Muh. ammad al-Sam‘ānī, Tafsīr al-Qur’ān , ed. Yāsir b. Ibrāhīm (Riyadh: Dār al-Wat.an, 1418/1997), 4:112; al-H. usayn b. Mas‘ūd al-Baghawī, Tafsīr , ed. Khālid ‘Abd al-Rah. mān al-‘Akk (Beirut: Dār al-Ma‘rifa), 3:427; al-Nasafī, Madārik al-tanzīl wa-h. aqā’ iq al-ta’wīl , 1:318; Abū al-Faraj Ibn al-Jawzī, Zād al-masīr fī ‘ ilm al-tafsīr , ed. Muh. ammad b. ‘Abd al-Rah. mān (Beirut: Dār al-Fikr li-l-T. ibā‘a wa-l-Nashr wa-l-Tawzī‘, 1407), 6:79; al-Qurt.ubī, Tafsīr , 13:231.

29 . Edward Lane, An Arabic-English Lexicon (Beirut: Libraire du Liban, 1968). 30 . Muqātil b. Sulaymān, Tafsīr (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiyya, 1424/2003), 1:349. 31 . The verb ista‘ jala occurs 17 times in the Qur’ān, usually in a similar sense. 32 . The sūra ’s preoccupation with the skeptics’ denial of divine retribution or Muh. ammad

is manifested in a variety of ways. It can be explicit. Some of the verbs used in the sūra in references to rejection include kadhdhaba (Q6.5, 21, 27, 31, 34, 39, 49, 57, 66, 147, 148, 150, 157), jah. ada (6.33), a‘rad. a (6.4, 35), na’ā (6.26), s.adafa (6.46, 157), h. ājja (6.80), iftarā (6.21, 24), kafara (6.30, 70, 89), jādala (6.25), and khād. a (6.68). (The frequent occurrences of kadhdhaba and the denial motif have been noted previously by Joseph Lowry.) The theme of rejection of retribution can also be implicit, involving ancillary themes: Consolation is provided to the derided Prophet. Mention is made of what might (not) convince the scoffers, such as signs and miracles or angels descend-ing. The irony that the denial of doom will bring about doom is touched on a number of times. And the dismissive words of the deniers are quoted, such as their asking that the punishment be hastened (6.57 and 6.58), their labeling the message as “fables of the ancients” (6.25), etc.

Angelika Neuwirth has noted that the sūra has three parts: (I) verses 1–73, (II) verses 74–153, and (III) 154–65. Denial of divine retribution is conspicuously the focus of part I. In the other sections, the theme of denial also appears, though without being linked per se to the Hour or divine retribution. See Joseph Lowry, “When Less Is More: Law and Commandment in Sūrat al-An‘ām ,” Journal of Qur’ānic Studies 9, no. 2 (2007): 264–84, 282, footnote 31; Angelika Neuwirth, Studien zur Komposition der mekkanischen Suren (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1981), 290–291.

Here are some explicit references in the sūra to punishment or resurrection, though implicit references abound as well: kam ahlaknā min qablihim . . . fa-ahlaknāhum bi-dhunūbihim (Q6.5), fa-h. āqa bi-lladhīna sakharū minhum mā kānū bihi yastahzi’ūna (6.10), ‘āqibatu l-mukadhdhibīna (6.11), ‘adhāba yawmin ‘az.īmin (6.15), yawma’ idhin (6.16), wa-yawma nah. shuruhum (6.22), wa-in yuhlikūna illā anfusahum (6.26), idh wuqifū ‘alā l-nāri (6.27), dhūqū l-‘adhāba (6.30), jā’athumu l-sā‘atu baghtatan (6.31), ātākum ‘adhābu llāhi aw ātākumu l-sā‘atu (6.40), fa-akhadhnāhum bi-l-ba’sā’ i wa-l-d. arrā’ i (6.42), idh jā’ahum ba’sunā, akhadhnāhum baghtatan (6.44), fa-qut.i‘a dābiru l-qawmi (6.45), qul ara’aytum an atākum ‘adhābu llāhi baghtatan aw- jahratan hal yuhlaku illā l-qawmu l-z. ālimūna (6.47), wa-lladhīna kadhdhabū bi-āyātinā yamassuhumu l-‘adhābu bi-mā kānū yafsuqūna (6.49), wa-ndhur bihi lladhīna yukhāfūna an yuh. sharū (6.51), wa-kadhālika nufas.s.ilu l-āyāti wa-li-tastabīna sabīlu l-mujrimīna (6.55), mā tasta‘ jilūna bihi (6.57), qul law anna ‘ indī mā tasta‘ jilūna bihi la-qud. iya l-amru baynī wa-baynakum (6.58), thumma yab‘athukum fīhi li-yuqd. ā ajalun musammā thumma ilayhi marji‘ukum (6.60), thumma ruddū ilā llāhi mawlāhumu l-h. aqqi alā lahu l-h. ukmu wa-huwa asra‘u l-h. āsibīna (6.62), l-qādiru ‘alā an yab‘athu ‘alaykum ‘adhāban min fawqikum aw min tah. ti arjulikum (6.65), wa-‘adhābun alīmun (6.70), ilayhi tuh. sharūna (6.72), li-tundhira umma l-qurā (6.92), ‘adhābun shadīdun (6.124), l-nāru mathwākum

Behnam Sadeghi 40

(6.128), liqā’a yawmikum hādhā (6.130), muhlika l-qurā (6.131), in yashā’u yudhhibkum (6.133), inna mā tū‘adūna la-ātin (6.134), wa-lā yuraddu ba’suhu (6.147), dhāqū ba’sanā (6.148), and inna rabbaka sarī‘u l-‘ iqāb (6.165).

33 . I would thus translate the first two Qur’ānic quotations as follows: “On the Day of Judgment, God will distinguish who among them is right” (Q22.17); “On the Day of Judgment, your Lord will distinguish who among them was right about the matters over which they used to disagree” (Q32.25). In his gloss on Q32.25, al-Bayd. āwī gives the same interpretation for yafs.ilu as mine. See ‘Abd Allāh b. ‘Umar al-Bayd. āwī, Anwār al-tanzīl wa-asrār al-ta’wīl , ed. Muh.ammad ‘Abd al-Rah. mān al-Mar‘ashlī (Beirut: Dār Ih. yā’ al-Turāth al-‘Arabī, 1418), 4:223.

34 . I would translate the two Qur’ānic quotations, respectively, as follows: “On the Day of Judgment, your Lord will distinguish who among them was right ( yafs.ilu ) about the matters over which they used to disagree” (Q32.25); “This Qur’ān clarifies ( yaqus. s.u ) for the Children of Israel most of the things over which they disagree” (Q27.76).

35 . Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Mafātīh. al-ghayb , 13:9. 36 . “One’s knowledge of other passages shapes one’s memory of the verse at hand, gen-

erating substitutions, additions, and deletions that hark to the parallel” (Sadeghi and Bergmann, “Codex,” 388). For more references on this type of textual change, see end-note 9.

37 . “It is more likely for a word to be used by mistake at a certain point if it is used in a nearby passage. A word is on the scribe’s mind if he heard it a moment ago or if he expects to hear it soon due to prior familiarity with the passage at hand. Such a word can insinuate itself into the writing” (Sadeghi and Bergmann, “Codex,” 388). For more references on this type of textual change, see endnote 9.

38 . Sadeghi and Bergmann, “Codex,” 389. 39 . Already in the premodern period, IM was cited to corroborate U1. See the following

endnote. 40 . See al-Zarkashī, al-Burhān fī ‘ulūm al-Qur’ān , 1:338. 41 . Mah.mūd Rāmyār, Tārīkh-i Qur’ān , 2nd ed. (Tehran: Amīr Kabīr, HS 1362/1983),

340–53. 42 . Stewart, “Notes on Emendations,” 242–44. 43 . Stewart, “Notes on Emendations,” 232–33. The phrase has been translated variously:

clustered plantains, clustered bananas, Talh trees with flowers (or fruits) piled one above another, fragrant fruits, banana trees (with fruits) one above another, serried acacias, aca-cias flower-clad, and clustered acacia. So, not everybody accepts bananas or plantains—a point to which I will return.

44 . For the reports about ‘Alī, see al-T. abarī, Jāmi‘ al-bayān , 27:334, al-Mīrzā H. usayn Taqī al-Nūrī al-T. abrisī, Mustadrak al-wasā’ il wa-mustanbat. al-masā’ il (Beirut: Mu’assasat Āl al-Bayt li-Ih. yā’ al-Turāth, 1408–09/1987–88), 4:226; ‘Alā’ al-Dīn ‘Alī b. H. usām al-Dīn al-Muttaqī al-Hindī, Kanz al-‘ummāl , ed. S.afwat al-Saqqā (Beirut: Mu’assasat al-Risāla, 1409/1989), 2:519; Muh. ammad Bāqir b. Muh.ammad al-Majlisī, Bih. ār al-anwār , 2nd ed. (Beirut: Mu’assasat al-Wafā’, 1403/1983), 8:109, 89:66. Referring to the bananas reading, Bellamy reports, “‘Alī said that this made no sense.” The sources do not mention ‘Alī saying any such thing. I thus emend Bellamy’s statement to the follow-ing: “‘Alī thought that this made no sense.” This is speculation, however. It is equally pos-sible that ‘Alī thought that bananas made sense but remembered having heard “dates.” See James Bellamy, “Some Proposed Emendations to the Text of the Koran,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 113, no. 4 (1993): 562–73, 562.

45 . Stewart, “Notes on Emendations,” 233. 46 . See above, the Introduction, for documentation.


47 . The proposed t.al‘ appears four times in the Qur’ān, but never in the context of Heaven: Q6.99, 26.148, 37.65, 50.10.

48 . In the premodern period, bananas and plantains were cultivated in Arabia, especially Yemen and Oman, and in Abyssinia, but the chronology is not clear. See Andrew Watson, Agricultural Innovation in the Early Islamic World: The Diffusion of Crops and Farming Techniques, 700–1100 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 51–54, 171–72; cf. G. R. Smith, “Z. afār,” EI 2 . Watt writes that bananas came to be grown in Medina sometime after the Prophet (W. M. Watt, “al-Madīna,” EI 2 ). Nowadays, bananas are produced in Yemen and elsewhere (A. K. Irvine, “H. arāz,” EI 2 ; Mustafa Al-Shihabi, “Filāh. a,” EI 2 ; G. R. Smith, “al-Yaman,” EI 2 ; G. Rentz, “Djazīrat al-‘Arab,” EI 2 ). For agriculture in the Qur’ān, see Patricia Crone, “How did the Quranic Pagans Make a Living?,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 68, no. 3 (2005): 387–399.

49 . For the reports about ‘Alī, see endnote 44. 50 . Stewart, “Notes on Emendations,” 233. 51 . Lane, Lexicon . 52 . For the reference to camphor in Q76.5, see Hanne Schonig, “Camphor,” Encyclopaedia

of the Qur’ān . 53 . The Qur’ān does not mention the smell of the Zaqqūm. But a Bedouin reported that it

was a real tree in Arabia with “a pungent odour” (Lane, Lexicon ). 54 . Lane, Lexicon . 55 . Alternatively, one may consider the variable letter ( h. ā’ vs. ‘ayn ) as the variant instead of

the whole word. Seen this way, the rest of the two words are identical ( t.al ), forming a parallelism; and thus the four instances of t.al‘ can all be considered parallels that could be assimilated in the verse at hand.

Chapter 3

Mu‘awiya in the H. ijaz : The Study of a Tradition Najam Haider

Mu‘awiya came to Medina and led them [the Medinans] in prayer, without reciting the basmala 1 and without performing a takbīr 2 when he descended (for prostration) and when he arose (from it). After he completed the prayer [lit. recited the taslım], the Emigrants and Helpers called out to him, “O Mu‘awiya, you have robbed your prayer! Where is the basmala? Where is the takbīr when you descend and when you rise?” He led them in another prayer (s.alat ukhra) in which he said [the basmala and takbır] for which they had censured him . 3

Mu‘āwiya b. Abī Sufyān (d. 60/680), the first Umayyad caliph, is a figure of con-siderable dispute and controversy in the Muslim historical tradition. 4 He was (at least according to the Sunnī tradition) a Companion of the Prophet and thereby an authoritative conduit of religious knowledge. At the same time, he was a pivotal figure in the first civil war and took up arms against the fourth of the “rightly guided” caliphs, ‘Alī b. Abī T. ālib (d. 40/660). After ‘Alī’s death, Mu‘āwiya claimed the caliphate and established the first dynasty of hereditary rulers in the Muslim world. This drew the ire of his contemporaries in Mecca and Medina who treated him with aloofness (at best) and hostility (at worst). The strained relationship between Mu‘āwiya and the Companions is evident in a number of accounts pre-served in the Muslim historical and legal sources.

In this study, I examine one account of this variety (quoted above) in which Mu‘āwiya is accused by H. ijāzī Companions of deviating from the proper form of the ritual prayer (subsequently referred to as the “prayer leadership tradition” 5 ). The analysis that follows focuses on two aspects of this tradition. The first involves its origins and includes a survey of similar accounts. In these texts, the caliph’s behav-ior oscillates between a strong assertion of legal authority and a pandering for local support. The portrait that emerges is one of a contentious figure having a strained

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relationship with the inhabitants of the H. ijāz. The second aspect pertains to the use of the prayer leadership tradition in Muslim juristic works where it is integrated into polemics surrounding the recitation of the basmala in the ritual prayer. For reasons that will become clear below, jurists were particularly interested in the tradition’s negative portrayal of Mu‘āwiya. Together, the two parts of this study provide insight into the creative and dynamic ways in which the meaning (and uses) of traditions evolved over time.

1. Origins and Historical Context

The prayer leadership tradition is part of a larger corpus of accounts that discuss Mu‘āwiya b. Abī Sufyān’s three reported visits to the H. ijāz as caliph. The first of these took place during the H. ajj (pilgrimage) season of 44/665 just a few years after his consolidation of power, and it proved largely uneventful with no reports of overt hostility or violence on the part of the locals. 6 The second, dated to 50–51/670–71, 7 signaled a shift in Mu‘āwiya’s political ambitions with the death of al-H. asan b. ‘Alī (d. 49/669), the fourth caliph’s son, senior member of the Prophet’s clan of Hāshim, and potential rival for the caliphate. It was during this trip that Mu‘āwiya first actively campaigned to secure the oath of allegiance for his son, Yazīd. He returned to the H. ijāz for a third time in 56/676, a few months before the pilgrimage, to confront those who refused to accept his succession arrangements. 8

While the sources characterize Mu‘āwiya’s initial visit as a religious pilgrim-age, perhaps intended to f launt his newly acquired power and status, they frame the final two trips in highly political terms. A number of reports document his attempts to intimidate the locals by traveling with a large retinue of soldiers 9 and delivering threatening speeches from the pulpit. 10 The tensions culminate in a series of hostile encounters between Mu‘āwiya and recalcitrant high-profile Companions, particularly al-H. usayn b. ‘Alī (d. 61/680), 11 ‘Abd Allāh b. al-Zubayr (d. 73/692), 12 ‘Abd al-Rah. mān b. Abī Bakr (d. 53/672?), 13 and ‘Abd Allāh b. ‘Umar (d. 73/692). 14 Some historical sources preserve detailed conversations in which the caliph tries to convince these men to take the oath of allegiance to Yazīd in order to avoid future bloodshed and chaos. 15 They respond by echoing the gen-eral H. ijāzī sentiment that none of the previous caliphs had appointed their sons (although many were worthy candidates) and advising him to leave the decision to the consensus of the broader community. 16

There are other examples of Mu‘āwiya’s frustrations with the inhabitants of the H. ijāz (in particular, the Medinans), stemming from their refusal to accord him the deference to which he felt entitled as caliph. One such incident involved his desire to transport symbols of religious authority such as the Prophet’s clothes, 17 staff, and pulpit to Damascus in 50/670. 18 This incited mass protests and accusations that such a transfer of relics was sinful. The sentiment was reinforced by an unex-pected solar eclipse, which the Companions interpreted as a sign of God’s anger at the caliph’s hubris. 19 Rather than allaying Medinan concerns, Mu‘āwiya responded

Mu‘awiya in the H. ijaz 45

with a provocative letter that cast himself as the protector of the Prophet’s legacy and described the H. ijāzīs as the unruly murderers of ‘Uthmān. 20 In light of such encounters, the circulation of a tradition in which the Prophet proclaims, “If you see Mu‘āwiya on my pulpit, kill him!” by two Medinan Companions, Jābir b. ‘Abd Allāh 21 and Abū Sa‘īd Sa‘d b. Mālik al-Khudarī, 22 is hardly surprising. 23

Much of the information about Mu‘āwiya’s visits is found in collections of early traditions as opposed to historical chronicles. 24 As will become apparent in the second part of this chapter, accounts preserved in these collections were particularly influen-tial in the construction of legal polemics. In general, these accounts depict a dynamic and conflicted relationship between the caliph and the H. ijāzīs that alternates between two modes. In the first, Mu‘āwiya is an arrogant leader who criticizes the H. ijāzīs and claims a unilateral legal authority, while in the second, he is a humble and deferential ruler who routinely submits to the judgment of more knowledgeable Companions. In the remainder of this section, I explore each of these modes in greater detail. I conclude by locating the prayer leadership tradition among the “deferential” accounts before turning, in the next section, to its use in the juristic literature.

1.1. The “Assertive” Mu‘āwiya

A significant proportion of the visit traditions depict Mu‘āwiya as assertive and patriarchal, initiating confrontations with the H. ijāzīs from the pulpit, exposing their faults, and expressing displeasure at their religious complacency. He is rou-tinely critical of their smugness and lack of religious knowledge. This is reflected in his persistent questioning of Companions on issues such as proper ritual practice or acceptable social etiquette. The importance of these exchanges does not lie in their actual substance; rather they are significant because they reflect Mu‘āwiya’s attempts at asserting his authority as caliph. 25

One of the clearest examples of the assertive Mu‘āwiya occurs in accounts that focus on hair extensions ( qus.s.a ), the use of which was apparently popular among Medinan women. 26 According to one report, Mu‘āwiya vigorously condemned this practice as originating from the Jews and argued that it had been explicitly prohib-ited by the Prophet. He did so not in the course of a private meeting or intimate conversation, but during a sermon when he dramatically pulled out a “layered bun of hair” and declared:

O people of Medina, where are your scholars? I have heard the Messenger of God prohibit this kind (of object) saying, “The Banū Isrā‘īl were destroyed when their women did this.” 27

Variant versions of this account provide additional context, indicating that the speech was delivered from the pulpit of the Prophet’s mosque in Medina 28 and that it elicited no reaction from an audience that consisted of prominent H. ijāzī Companions. If these Companions were permitting the use of hair extensions, then Mu‘āwiya’s speech served as an assertion of caliphal authority over matters of ritual law. If they agreed that extensions were prohibited, then the criticism exposed their

Najam Haider46

religious laxity in allowing the practice to persist in the streets of the holy cities. 29 In either case, the incident embodied Mu‘āwiya’s willingness (if not eagerness) to challenge the legal authority and moral standing of the H. ijāzīs.

The assertive Mu‘āwiya also appears in more personalized settings and private encounters. In one account, he enters a room (perhaps in a mosque) where he finds ‘Abd Allāh b. al-Zubayr and ‘Abd Allāh b. ‘Āmir. 30 The latter rises in deference while the former remains seated, prompting Mu‘āwiya to say, “He who likes to be treated like God by the rising of a worshipper, takes his seat in the Fire.” 31 In this encounter, Mu‘āwiya expresses a personal modesty, casting himself as a pious man unconcerned with the trappings of power. At the same time, he claims a certain authority by outlining the proper protocol for interacting with men of political importance. He also functions as an arbiter with the power to choose between con-flicting views by endorsing the behavior of one Companion (Ibn al-Zubayr) and (potentially) admonishing that of another (Ibn ‘Āmir). 32

In other reports, the assertive Mu‘āwiya solicits the opinions of Companions on legal issues ranging from proper dress to the permissibility of certain drinking vessels. These traditions generally consist of a series of questions and answers, as in the following exchange:

Mu‘āwiya said, “Do you know that the [Messenger of God] prohibited drinking from gold and silver vessels?” [The group of Companions] said, “By God, yes!” 33

In some variants, Mu‘āwiya confirms the responses as if providing a caliphal seal of approval for the views expressed by Companions. 34 His purpose here is not to acquire information or to clarify ambiguous matters, but rather to emphasize his final and decisive authority in legal matters. A similar dynamic is evident in traditions where Mu‘āwiya issues rulings from the pulpit in Mecca on topics such the wearing of gold and silk clothing 35 and the ramifications of forgetfulness during prayer. 36

Overall, accounts that adhere to this first mode of representation portray Mu‘āwiya as a confident and, when necessary, confrontational 37 figure with an expansive view of the political and religious powers of the caliphate. 38 He is quick to expose mistakes, make legal judgments, and exercise his caliphal prerogative to settle juristic disputes.

1.2. The “Deferential” Mu‘āwiya

In contrast to the assertive portrayal of Mu‘āwiya, a significant number of the visit traditions describe the caliph as deferential, quietly submitting to the criticisms of the H. ijāzīs and offering little in the way of opposition or resistance. In many instances, he is condemned by the Companions for a lack or incomplete grasp of religious knowledge and alters his actions to conform to their expectations. 39

The deferential Mu‘āwiya often appears in reports detailing the rituals of the H. ajj. One account relates his questioning of ‘Abd Allāh b. ‘Abbās on the perfor-mance of the taslīm 40 toward all four corners of the Ka‘ba. After observing the practice, Mu‘āwiya approaches and quotes a tradition in which the Prophet limits


the taslīm to the two southern corners. Ibn ‘Abbās responds that “none of its corners are forsaken” without citing any textual evidence or presenting any further explana-tion. 41 It is important to note that Mu‘āwiya here grounds his opinion on a tradi-tion while Ibn ‘Abbās does not. 42 The situation seems analogous to that of the hair extensions (discussed earlier) where the caliph criticized the Companions for their tolerance of a forbidden practice. In this case, however, Mu‘āwiya does not press Ibn ‘Abbās any further and instead remains silent.

The deferential Mu‘āwiya is also frequently depicted as pandering to or flattering the H. ijāzīs. The most conspicuous examples are found in reports of his encounters with the “Helpers” ( Ans.ār ) 43 in Medina. In a typical instance, he happens upon an informal gathering of Helpers and inquires about the traditions they circulate among themselves. 44 When they voice an interest in sayings that praise their own virtues, Mu‘āwiya quotes the Prophet as stating, “He who loves the Helpers, God—the Mighty and the Powerful—loves him, while he who hates the Helpers, God—the Mighty and the Powerful—hates him.” 45 In this exchange, the caliph actively solicits the good graces of a politically influential and historically significant portion of the Medinan population.

The deferential Mu‘āwiya appears regularly in accounts that discuss aspects of the daily prayer. When Mu‘āwiya shortens the noon ( z. uhr ) prayer in Mecca during the pilgrimage, for example, the Companions raise strong objections and demand his performance of the full prayer. Rather than claim a caliphal prerogative to deter-mine proper ritual practice, 46 Mu‘āwiya accepts this corrective and does not shorten subsequent prayers. 47 Such is also the case with the prayer leadership tradition (quoted at the start of the chapter), which focuses on the inclusion of the basmala in the prayer recitation and the use of a takbīr prior to prostration. A variant of this episode, with a slightly different rendering of both Mu‘āwiya’s prayer and the objec-tions of the Medinan population, reads as follows:

Mu‘āwiya performed the prayer in Medina for which the recitation was audible. He pronounced the basmala audibly in the Fātih. a 48 but did not pronounce it for the (second) sūra 49 through the end of the recitation. 50 He also did not offer a takbīr when he bent down for prostration through the end of that prayer. When he finished the prayer [lit. recited the taslīm ], Emigrants who had observed this yelled out from all directions, “O Mu‘āwiya, did you rob the prayer or did you forget?” When he prayed after that, he recited the basmala for the sūra after the Fātih. a and pronounced a takbīr before he bent down for prostration. 51

Rather than claim a right to pray in a manner of his choosing (as might be expected with the assertive Mu‘āwiya), the deferential Mu‘āwiya acquiesces to the congrega-tion’s demands and recites the basmala and the takbīr in subsequent prayers.

1.3. Locating the Prayer Leadership Tradition

The survey of the visit accounts presented above leaves us with a better understand-ing of the broad historical context that produced the prayer leadership tradition. Specifically, it fits into the category of traditions in which Mu‘āwiya interacts with

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the H. ijāzīs in a deferential manner and grants them a broad religious authority. Although it is possible to further investigate the provenance and composition of the Mu‘āwiya visit accounts, this exercise lies outside the scope of the present chapter. 52 Of greater relevance here is the fact that many premodern jurists accorded these traditions a considerable degree of credibility and utilized them as reliable indica-tors of the original ritual practice of the Prophet. In the second part of this study, I analyze the role of this (and similar) tradition(s) in juristic polemics that center on the controversy over the basmala .

2. The Debate over the Basmala

The daily prayer is a cornerstone of Muslim ritual practice that garners a universal consensus (among the law schools) as to both its frequency (five times each day) and its basic structure (17 mandatory cycles or rak‘a s and similar required steps). There are dis-agreements, however, on a range of secondary issues, including (but not limited to) the placement of the hands while standing and the raising of the hands to the ears during the takbīr . 53 The Qur’ānic recitation ( qirā’a ) during prayer is of particular importance with jurists requiring a corrective measure or even the repetition of a given prayer for mistakes. In fact, jurists devote entire sections of their legal works to this topic, covering issues such as (a) the selection of Qur’ānic chapters for the first two prayer cycles, (b) the need for reciting entire chapters as opposed to smaller fragments, and (c) the audibility or silence of the recitation in certain prayers and prayer cycles. 54

A central controversy pertaining to the Qur’ānic recitation is the uttering of the formula, “In the name of God, the Beneficent, the Merciful” (the basmala ) at the start of the prayer prior to the recitation of (the rest of) the Fātih. a . 55 Although the issue may seem innocuous and minor, debates over the basmala are intricately linked to discussions about the integrity of the Qur’ānic text itself. Jurists must first determine whether the phrase is part and parcel of the Qur’ān or simply a device inserted at the end of one chapter to denote the start of the next. The Fātih. a mer-its particular attention in these debates given the broad consensus concerning its recitation in the first two cycles of every prayer. If the basmala is the first verse of the Fātih. a , then its inclusion in the prayer recitation is self-evident, and the central question becomes the manner of its recitation (audible vs. silent). If, on the other hand, it is not a part of the Fātih. a , then its incorporation in the prayer recitation is extraneous and requires some other justification.

The remainder of this study explores the use of the prayer leadership tradition in juristic discussions of the basmala . Before turning to the tradition itself, however, it is first necessary to examine the central parameters of the legal debates surrounding this issue. Consequently, the section that follows outlines the primary arguments put forward by the Mālikī and Shāfi‘ī law schools.

2.1. The Mālikī Discourse

The Mālikīs assert that the sole function of the introductory basmala is to indicate the start of a new Qur’ānic sūra . 56 As a result, the phrase is not a part of the Fātih. a


and should not be recited (either audibly or silently) in the prayer. Mālikī jurists rely on two lines of reasoning to support this view. The first is grounded in textual evidence (i.e., traditions dealing with the structure of the Qur’ānic text and the form of the daily prayer), while the second is predicated on the living tradition ( ‘amal ) 57 of Medina. 58

The earliest articulation of the textual argument is found in the Muwat.t.a’ of Mālik b. Anas (d. 179/796), the eponymous founder of the Mālikī law school. 59 Mālik quotes two accounts that depict the Prophet and the first three caliphs as beginning the prayer recitation with the line, “Praise be to God, Master of the Worlds” (Q1:2). 60 A third tradition praises the Fātih. a as an especially blessed Qur’ānic chapter (linking it to Q15:87 61 ) but does not count the basmala as one of its verses. A similar approach informs Sah.nūn’s 62 (d. 240/855) narration of Mālik’s rulings in al-Mudawwana al-kubrā , which includes two reports that the Prophet “began the recitation with ‘Praise be to God, Master of the Worlds,’” 63 and a third that claims the first three caliphs “did not recite the basmala when they began the prayer.” 64 Cognizant of the potential for ambiguity, Sah.nūn notes that (in these cases) the basmala was recited “neither silently to oneself nor audibly.” 65 Most sub-sequent Mālikī jurists cite these traditions (taken from Mālik and Sah.nūn) as clear and definitive evidence for the basmala ’s omission from the Fātih. a .

Over time, the scope of the Mālikī textual argument expanded from the prayer recitation to the relationship between the basmala and the Qur’ānic text. The fifth/eleventh century jurist Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr, 66 for example, offers a series of explana-tions for the basmala ’s presence in the earliest written copies of the Qur’ān. 67 He then quotes numerous variants of a report (not mentioned by Mālik or Sah. nūn) in which the Prophet describes a “dialogue” (subsequently referred to as “the dialogue tradition”) that occurs during the ritual prayer between God and a worshipper, where each verse of the Fātih. a serves as a formulaic response to a specific divine question. 68 These traditions exclude the basmala but still manage to divide the Fātih. a into seven verses (as required by the exegesis of Q15:87) by placing a “verse stop” between the words alayhim and ghayr in Q1:7. This is the numbering conven-tion associated with the Qur’ānic reading of Medina, Syria, 69 and Bas.ra as opposed to that of Kūfa and Mecca. 70 Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr concludes that the basmala is not a part of the Fātih. a since the chapter already consists of seven clearly demarcated verses. 71 Rather than the accounts mentioned by Mālik and Sah. nūn, Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr considers the dialogue tradition as the strongest and most conclusive proof of the correctness of the Mālikī position. 72

The Andalūsī scholar Muh. ammad b. Ah. mad al-Qurt.ubī (d. 671/1273) artic-ulates a variant of the textual argument in his exegetical-juristic work entitled al-Jāmi‘ li-ah. kām al-Qur’ān . He focuses primarily on disagreements over whether the basmala is the first verse of every sūra (the Shāfi‘ī position) or foreign to the Qur’ān except in the case of Q27:30 (the Mālikī position). 73 Al-Qurt.ubī deems the second view (attributed to Mālik b. Anas) more authoritative, inas-much as it is based, counterintuitively, on the lack of a consensus among the scholars. Specifically, he states that the Qur’ānic text must be verified by cer-tain ( qat.‘ī ) knowledge and established through multiple independent chains of transmission ( tawātur ). This level of proof requires a uniform agreement among Muslims regarding the inclusion or exclusion of a particular verse. The lack of

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such a consensus in the case of the basmala proves that the phrase is external to the Qur’ānic text. Similarly to Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr, al-Qurt.ubī combines the stipulation that the Fātih. a must contain seven verses (Q15:87) with a general Mālikī embrace of the Medinan/Syrian/Bas.ran numbering of the Qur’ānic verses. 74

The second and more foundational justification for the Mālikī position draws on the living tradition of Medina. Mālik does not explicitly invoke this argu-ment, but it is implicit in his reliance on reports narrated and preserved by Bas.ran (as opposed to Medinan) chains of transmission. 75 Dutton explains Mālik’s exclu-sive use of Bas.ran traditions by arguing that “there were no h. adith s on these matters in Medina because there was no need for them.” 76 In other words, the practice of omitting the basmala was so broadly accepted in Medina that Medinans never felt the need to circulate supporting traditions. Mālik was therefore forced to rely on Bas.ran traditions. 77

While it may be true that Medinans of Mālik’s time did not recite the basmala , there were certainly Medinan traditions in circulation that dealt with the issue. These reports, however, endorsed the audible recitation of the basmala . 78 Mālik was undoubtedly aware of this contradictory textual evidence and preferred the Bas.ran accounts precisely because they aligned with the Medinan practice during his lifetime . El Shamsy’s work suggests that this was typical of Mālik given his belief that normative legal authority was imbued not in reports about the sayings of the Prophet but in the practice of the Medinan community as a whole. 79 As will become clear below, the apparent disparity between Medinan practice and Medinan tradi-tions created an opening for competing schools to question the integrity of Medinan ‘amal as a source of law. 80

A number of Mālikī jurists forward a line of reasoning that relies on the nor-mative authority of Medinan living practice to reconcile contradictions in the textual evidence. Ibn Abī Zayd (d. 386/996), 81 for example, alludes to reports of early authorities reciting the basmala audibly and silently at the start of the prayer. 82 He then offers contradictory traditions that seem to support the omission of the phrase altogether. 83 In order to resolve this textual confusion, Ibn Abī Zayd turns to Medinan ‘amal that excludes the basmala from the Qur’ānic text and rejects its recitation in the ritual prayer. 84 A similar logic informs Abū Bakr b. al-‘Arabī’s (d. 542/1148) discussion that begins with a vast catalogue of traditions that support a range of (both Mālikī and non-Mālikī) views. 85 Faced with these contradictions, Ibn al-‘Arabī cites the living tradition of Medina as the best indicator of proper practice and the strongest proof for the basmala ’s omission. 86

Mālikī jurists were keenly aware of the problems associated with relying on traditions to support their stance on the basmala . There were simply too many inconsistencies in the evidence that could be (and were) used by rival law schools to advocate competing views. The primary Mālikī justification, therefore, rested on the normative authority of Medinan ‘amal . 87 Such an argument was first articulated by Mālik, further developed (in the case of the basmala ) by Ibn Abī Zayd and Ibn al-‘Arabī, and ultimately employed by Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr and al-Qurt.ubī to dismiss opposing traditions unequivocally and without detailed explanation.


2.2. The Shāfi‘ī Discourse

In contrast to the Mālikīs, the Shāfi‘īs hold that the basmala is an integral part of the Fātih. a and concentrate their efforts at affirming its Qur’ānic nature. Once this fact is established, they address the recitation in the prayer, arguing that the basmala should be recited in a manner identical to any other Qur’ānic verse. If the prayer recitation is audible, it should be recited audibly, and if the recitation is silent, it should be recited silently.

The foundation for most Shāfi‘ī discussions of the basmala was laid by Mu- h. ammad b. Idrīs al-Shāfi‘ī (d. 204/820), the eponymous founder of the school, in his al-Umm . 88 Rather than presenting a detailed explanation of the issue, al-Shāfi‘ī cites traditions that fit into one of three categories: (a) those that state that the Fātih. a must be recited in prayer, 89 (b) those that depict the Prophet and the first two (or three) caliphs as “opening recitation with ‘Praise be to God, Master of the Worlds,’” 90 and (c) those in which important Companions (e.g., ‘Abd Allāh b. ‘Abbās) and jurists (e.g., Sa‘īd b. Jubayr) clearly state that the basmala is the first verse of the Fātih. a . 91 On the basis of this evidence, al-Shāfi‘ī affirms the basmala ’s place in the Fātih. a and (implicitly) 92 argues for a consistency in the prayer recitation (e.g., the recitation of the basmala should agree with that of the other verses in the Fātih. a ). 93

Subsequent Shāfi‘ī jurists offered similar textual arguments, featuring traditions that supported their views and refuting those of their rivals. In al-H. āwī al-kabīr , ‘Alī b. Muh.ammad al-Māwardī (d. 450/1058) 94 quotes the proof texts offered by Mālikī (and H. anafī) jurists in excising the basmala from the Fātih. a . 95 He then provides a series of explanations that either neutralize the meaning of those accounts or restrict their scope. 96 This is followed by seven Prophetic traditions that unambiguously affirm the basmala ’s place in the Qur’ānic text. 97 Al-Māwardī also draws support from historical accounts of the compilation of the first mus.h. af . Specifically, he claims that ‘Uthmān’s Qur’ān included the basmala at the start of every chapter and asserts that its broad acceptance constitutes a consensus in favor of its inclusion. 98 In terms of recitation, al-Māwardī quotes traditions that depict the Prophet perform-ing both the audible and silent basmala 99 and concludes that the Shāfi‘ī position best reconciles these apparent contradictions. Accounts that favor an audible basmala refer to audible prayers (i.e., fajr , maghrib , ‘ ishā’ ), while those that support the silent basmala refer to silent prayers (i.e., z. uhr , ‘as.r ). 100

Al-Māwardī’s discussion is generally representative of the majority position in Shāfi‘ī law, although some jurists differ slightly in terms of focus and the amount of space they devote to the issue. At one end of the spectrum, al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111) 101 succinctly summarizes the dominant Shāfi‘ī stance without citing any evidence or acknowledging divergent opinions. Yah.yā b. Sharīf al-Nawawī (d. 676/1277), 102 by contrast, offers a detailed defense of the introductory basmala , utilizing ambiguous traditions to support the Shāfi‘ī stance and dismissing those not open to reinter-pretation as unsound or weak. 103 Al-Subkī (d. 771/1370) 104 focuses on the circum-stances of revelation and presents arguments predicated on the integrity of the Qur’ānic text. He is particularly invested in countering the (Mālikī and H. anafī) claim that the very existence of a controversy surrounding the basmala precludes its

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inclusion in the Qur’ān. The primary strength of the Shāfi‘ī position (according to most of the school’s jurists) lies in its ability to reconcile overtly contradictory tradi-tions that support both the silent and the audible basmala .

At this point, the extent of the divide between Mālikīs and Shāfi‘īs over the basmala should be fairly clear. Mālikī jurists forward arguments predicated on traditions in which the Prophet and the Companions omit (or do not recite) the basmala and a reading of the Qur’ān that allows for seven verses in the Fātih. a (without the inclusion of the basmala ). The central proof of the Mālikī position, however, is the living tradition of Medina whose authority decisively outweighs (and serves as the arbiter for) any contradictions in the textual evidence. The Shāfi‘īs, on the other hand, rely overwhelmingly on textual arguments, meticu-lously reconciling contradictory traditions to confirm both the basmala ’s inclu-sion in the Fātih. a and its audible or silent recitation in the prayer.

2.3. (Re-)Enter Mu‘āwiya

The differences in the nature of the underlying evidence and argumentation offered by each of the law schools leave the Shāfi‘īs at a distinct disadvantage. Specifically, their use of written accounts is (by definition) subject to a greater degree of doubt and uncertainty than the Mālikī reliance on Medinan ‘amal that claims a direct and continuous connection to the Prophet through the generational transmission ( tawātur ) of knowledge. Given this fact, it is not surprising to find jurists (both Shāfi‘ī and non-Shāfi‘ī) who questioned the integrity 105 of Medinan ‘amal and dis-puted its normative authority. 106

It is at this point that we return to the account at the center of this study, namely, the prayer leadership tradition, and explore its potential for undermining the reli-ability of Medinan ‘amal . This tradition was embedded in the earliest layer of Shāfi‘ī discussions of the basmala and first recorded by al-Shāfi‘ī himself. It is worth quot-ing again in full:

Mu‘āwiya came to Medina and led them [the Medinans] in prayer, without reciting the basmala and without performing a takbīr when he descended (for prostration) and when he arose (from it). After he completed the prayer [lit. recited the taslīm ], the Emigrants and Helpers called out to him, “O Mu‘āwiya, you have robbed your prayer! Where is the basmala ? Where is the takbīr when you descend and when you rise?” He led them in another prayer ( s.alāt ukhrā ) in which he said [the basmala and takbīr ] for which they had censured him. 107

Al-Shāfi‘ī also cites a slightly differing version of the incident in the following account:

Mu‘āwiya performed the prayer in Medina for which the recitation was audible. He pronounced the basmala audibly in the Fātih. a but did not pronounce it for the (second) sūra through the end of the recitation. He also did not offer a takbīr when he bent down for prostration through the end of that prayer. When he finished the prayer [lit. recited the taslīm ], Emigrants who had observed this yelled out from all


directions, “O Mu‘āwiya, did you rob the prayer or did you forget?” When he prayed after that, he recited the basmala for the sūra after the Fātih. a and pronounced a takbīr before he bent down for prostration. 108

The first point to note here is that al-Shāfi‘ī did not employ these traditions to con-test the integrity of Medinan ‘amal , 109 but rather to discuss whether a prayer must be repeated if the basmala is consciously omitted. 110 The first account suggests that Mu‘āwiya repeated the disputed prayer, this time reciting the basmala and perform-ing the takbīr , while the second implies that he changed his practice for subsequent prayers. Most modern commentators follow al-Shāfi‘ī’s lead and mention these tra-ditions primarily when dealing with the issue of prayer repetition. 111

By contrast, the seventh/thirteenth-century Shāfi‘ī jurist al-Nawawī makes the prayer leadership tradition part of an attack on the conceptual integrity of Medinan ‘amal . Specifically, he questions the assumption that Medinan practice at the time of the Prophet was synonymous with Medinan practice at the time of Mālik. In order to ascertain the original practice of Medina, he argues, it is necessary to rely on traditions that refer back to the time of the Companions. 112 He then quotes a vari-ant of the prayer leadership tradition as proof that the Helpers and the Emigrants in Medina originally recited the phrase both at the start of every sūra (including the Fātih. a ) and between individual sūra s during the ritual prayer. 113 The section concludes by listing alternate chains of transmission that reinforce the veracity of the account. 114

This line of reasoning is further elaborated not by a Shāfi‘ī but by the late Zaydī jurist ‘Abd Allāh b. Ah.mad b. Ibrāhīm al-Sharafī (d. 1062/1652) in his al-Mas.ābīh. al-sāt.i‘a al-anwār . Al-Sharafī breaks with the majority Zaydī opinion (identical to that of the Shāfi‘īs) that prescribes the audible basmala for audible prayer cycles and the silent basmala for silent ones. Instead, he favors the audible basmala in all prayers (the minority Zaydī and majority Imāmī position) 115 based on (a) Qur’ānic arguments involving Q17:46, 116 Q17:110, 117 Q2:200, 118 and Q48:26 119 and (b) tradi-tions drawn overwhelmingly from the preeminent Zaydī collections. 120 Al-Sharafī next addresses some of the factors that led the other law schools to either neglect this view or reject it outright. He argues that the audible basmala was the origi-nal practice of Medinan Qur’ān readers as clearly evidenced by the prayer leader-ship tradition. 121 It was ultimately perverted by Mu‘āwiya who—out of hatred for ‘Alī—ordered his provincial governors to kill anyone who recited the basmala aloud in prayer. According to al-Sharafī, this persecution led to the gradual replacement of the audible basmala with the silent basmala or its omission altogether. 122

By employing the prayer leadership tradition in this manner, al-Sharafī is able to attack the Mālikīs and the Shāfi‘īs, while simultaneously confronting dissension among the Zaydīs themselves. With respect to the two Sunnī schools, he notes that the text supports the audible basmala without explicitly specifying whether the remainder of the recitation is audible or silent. This suggests that Medinan prac-tice initially aligned with the Imāmī and (minority) Zaydī position in favor of the audible basmala for all prayer cycles. It only changed under the duress of Umayyad persecution. The strength of such an argument is augmented by the fact that the prayer leadership tradition was first recorded by al-Shāfi‘ī himself. In addressing

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Zaydī opposition to the audible basmala , al-Sharafī is able to link the silent or omit-ted basmala to Mu‘āwiya, the patriarch of the Umayyad dynasty and one of the figures most reviled by the Shī‘a.

The arguments of al-Nawawī and al-Sharafī are aimed at undermining two Mālikī positions: (a) that the basmala should be omitted from prayer recitation and the Qur’ānic text and (b) that Medinan ‘amal constitutes a normative source for law. They claim that the living tradition of Medina was corrupted so that it held no greater authority than the practice of any other city. Although the prayer leader-ship traditions always contained the potential for this line of reasoning, it took five centuries before they were applied in this manner.

3. Conclusion

In this chapter, I examined the emergence and use of a tradition that describes an encounter between Mu‘āwiya and a number of Companions over the form of recitation in daily prayers. In the first half of the chapter, I explored the historical context of the prayer leadership tradition by surveying the broader genre of accounts that purport to describe Mu‘āwiya’s visits to the H. ijāz. At times, he is depicted as forcefully confronting the Companions on matters of ritual law, while at others he is viewed as willing to defer to their religious authority. There are undoubtedly multiple explanations for this discrepancy. The accounts likely reflect later polemi-cal controversies over ritual law. They were also certainly influenced by debates over the legal authority and political legitimacy of the Umayyads. A definitive identifica-tion of the multiple factors that helped shape this genre of traditions, however, lies beyond our analytic focus.

In the second half of this chapter, I analyzed the ways in which jurists utilized the prayer leadership tradition in the course of legal polemics over the recitation of the basmala . In its earliest appearances (in the work of al-Shāfi‘ī), this account played a role in ascertaining the necessity for repeating a prayer in which the basmala was not recited. While this remains its primary usage among most Shāfi‘ī jurists, al-Nawawī transformed it into an attack on the Mālikī notion of the pristine, unaltered living tradition ( ‘amal ) of Medina. Some centuries later, it was utilized by the Zaydī jurist al-Sharafī to criticize both the Mālikī omission of the basmala and the Shāfi‘ī prac-tice of reciting the silent basmala in silent prayer cycles.

In a number of respects, this chapter raises more issues than it resolves. We are left to wonder why the prayer leadership tradition was not used more generally to dispute the normative status of Medinan ‘amal . After all, such an argument would have fit well with al-Shāfi‘ī’s general critique of Mālik’s legal methodology. In actuality, the prayer leadership tradition was only employed in this manner by two (relatively) late jurists from differing schools of law. Was it an ineffective critique in the seventh/thirteenth century because the focus of Mālikī discourse had shifted to a text-based approach? And why did subsequent Zaydī and Imāmī jurists not cite such a powerful piece of evidence in their discussions of the basmala ? At the very least, we would expect the Zaydīs to draw on this tradition in their persistent


legal debates with both the Shāfi‘īs and the Mālikīs. Ultimately, however, this line of argumentation remained at the margins of juristic discourse over the basmala ’s Qur’ānic status and its recitation in the prayer.

Notes

1 . The uttering of the phrase, “In the name of God, the Beneficient, the Merciful.” 2 . The uttering of the phrase, “God is great.” 3 . Al-Shāfi‘ī, al-Umm , 9 vols., ed. Mah.mūd Mat.arajī (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiyya,

1993), 1:212–13. Additional variants of the same episode can be found in ‘Abd al-Razzāq, Mus.annaf , 12 vols., ed. Ayman Nas.r al-Dīn al-Azharī (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiyya, 2000), 2:60, and al-Bayhaqī, al-Sunan al-kubrā , 11 vols., ed. Muh.ammad ‘Abd al-Qādir ‘At.ā’ (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiyya, 1994), 2:71, 72.

4 . For a general biography of Mu‘āwiya, see R. Stephen Humphreys, Mu‘awiya ibn Abi Sufyan (Oxford: Oneworld, 2006).

5 . A h. adīth (pl. ah. ādīth ) is a text that purports to describe the actions or statements of the Prophet. A khabar (pl. akhbār ) is similar to a h. adīth but encompasses a broader set of authority figures, including the Companions of the Prophet and their successors. In the course of this chapter, I use the term “tradition” to refer to both of these categories of texts.

6 . Al-T. abarī, Tārīkh al-T. abarī , 11 vols., ed. Muh.ammad Abū al-Fad. l Ibrāhīm (Cairo: Dār al-Ma‘ārif, 1960), 5:215; al-Ya‘qūbī, Tārīkh al-Ya‘qūbī , 2 vols., ed. ‘Abd al-Amīr Muhannā (Beirut: Mu’assasat al-‘Ālamī, 1980?), 2:131. The lack of such reports does not necessarily mean that he was warmly welcomed into the region. As will be dis-cussed later, there is an air of hostility that permeates his dealing with the Medinans and Meccans.

7 . Al-T. abarī, Tārīkh , 5:241; al-Ya‘qūbī, Tārīkh , 2:138; and Ibn Sa‘d, Kitāb al-T. abaqāt al-kabīr , 11 vols., ed. ‘Alī Muh.ammad ‘Umar (Cairo: Maktabat al-Khānjī, 2001), 6:27. All three place the visit in 50/670 although al-T. abarī notes that there is disagreement as to whether Mu‘āwiya led the H. ajj or came to the H. ijāz at all.

8 . This visit is universally attested to and differentiated from the pilgrimage of that year. See al-T. abarī, Tārīkh , 5:301–304; al-Ya‘qūbī, Tārīkh , 2:150; Ibn Sa‘d, T. abaqāt , 6:27.

9 . Al-Dhahabī dates these tactics to 51/671 (Mu‘āwiya’s first trip) but al-T. abarī and Ibn Sa‘d place them in 56/676 (Mu‘āwiya’s second trip). The latter is more likely as the visit was intended to secure the oath of allegiance for Yazīd from a reluctant population. He was not in the cities to perform the H. ajj; in fact he left before the start of the pilgrimage. See al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-islām , 70 vols., ed. ‘Umar ‘Abd al-Salam Tadmurī (Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb al-‘Arabī, 1987–), yrs 41–60:147.

10 . Al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh , yrs 41–60:149, and Ibn Sa‘d, T. abaqāt , 6:27. 11 . Al-H. usayn was the grandson of the Prophet and the third Imām according to the

Imāmī Shī‘a. He was killed in the southern Iraqi town of Karbalā’ in 61/680–81. There is extensive literature on al-H. usayn. See, for example, the biographical entries in Ibn Sa‘d ( T. abaqāt , 6:399–460) and al-Shaykh al-Mufīd ( al-Irshād , 2 vols., ed. Mu’assasat Āl al-Bayt [Qum: al-Mu‘tamar al-‘Ālamī, 1992], 2:27–135). See also EI 2 , s.v. “al-H. usayn b. ‘Alī” (L. Veccia Vaglieri).

12 . Ibn al-Zubayr was the first male child born in Medina after the Prophet’s migration. He claimed the caliphate during the second civil war ( fitna ) and exercised indepen-dent sovereignty from 61/681 to 73/692. At his peak, Ibn al-Zubayr controlled most

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of the Muslim world outside of Syria. See al-Mizzī, Tahdhīb al-kamāl , 35 vols., ed. Bashshār ‘Awwād Ma‘rūf (Beirut: Mu’assasat al-Risāla, 1992), 14:508–11, and EI 2 , s.v. “‘Abd Allāh b. al-Zubayr” (H. A. R. Gibb).

13 . The son of the first caliph and a prominent Companion in his own right, he converted to Islam between the battle of Badr (2/624) and the conquest of Mecca (8/630). His refusal to take the oath of allegiance to Yazīd is explicitly dated to Mu‘āwiya’s second visit to Medina in either 50/670 or 51/671. See al-Mizzī, Tahdhīb , 16:555–61.

14 . He was the son of the second caliph, an early Companion, and a prominent h. adīth transmitter. See al-Mizzī, Tahdhīb , 15:332–41; EI 2 , s.v. “‘Abd Allāh b. ‘Umar” (L. Veccia Vaglieri).

15 . For these conversations, see al-T. abarī, Tārīkh , 5:303–304; al-Ya‘qūbī, Tārīkh , 2:138; al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh , yrs 41–60:148–49.

16 . It is not lost on any reader familiar with early Islamic history that three of these men were sons of previous caliphs and that each considered himself a worthy candidate for the position.

17 . This appears to have taken place during one of his early trips to Medina (Ibn Sa‘d, T. abaqāt , 6:18).

18 . Al-T. abarī, Tārīkh , 5:238–39. 19 . Al-T. abarī, Tārīkh, 5:238–39. 20 . For more on ‘Uthmān b. ‘Affān’s murder (35/656), see Martin Hinds, “Kūfan Political

Alignments and Their Background in the Mid-Seventh Century,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 2 (1971): 346–67, and his “The Murder of the Caliph ‘Uthman,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 3 (1972): 450–69.

21 . Jābir b. ‘Abd Allāh b. ‘Amr (d. 68/688) was a prominent Companion of the Prophet and one of the leading voices for the Ans.ār (Medinan residents, called “Helpers”). For more on the term “ Ans.ār ,” see note 43 below. For more on Jābir b. ‘Abd Allāh, see Ibn Sa‘d, T. abaqāt , 4:382–92, and al-Mizzī, Tahdhīb , 4:443–54.

22 . Sa‘d b. Mālik b. Sinān al-Khudarī (d. 74/693) was a Companion of the Prophet and a prominent Ans.ārī h. adīth transmitter. For more on Sa‘d b. Mālik, see al-Mizzī, Tahdhīb , 10:294–300.

23 . Ibn Asākir, Tārīkh madīnat Dimashq , 70 vols., ed. ‘Alī Shīrī (Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, 1997), 59:155–58.

24 . Here I am differentiating between early historical works (e.g., al-T. abarī’s Tārīkh or al-Balādhurī’s Ansāb al-ashrāf ), which provide general information about Mu‘āwiya’s political machinations, and early collections of traditions (e.g., Ibn H. anbal’s Musnad or al-Nasā’ī’s al-Sunan ), which offer specific details about his encounters in the H. ijāz. The latter are of particular interest in the remainder of this chapter as they convey two quite contradictory portrayals of the caliph’s relationship with the Companions.

25 . Patricia Crone and Martin Hinds argue that the caliphate was initially envisioned in a manner akin to the Shī‘ī view of the imāmate. While their conclusion (based largely on panegyric court poetry) may not represent the attitude of the general Muslim population in the first/seventh century, it does suggest that the Umayyads viewed themselves as the ultimate authorities in both religious and political mat-ters. This sentiment is prominent in the assertive Mu‘āwiya traditions. See Crone and Hinds, God’s Caliph (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 97–105. Muhammad Qasim Zaman, by contrast, depicts the Umayyads (and early ‘Abbāsids) as fostering a collaborative relationship with proto-Sunnī scholars. Their interven-tions in the religious affairs of the community were minimal and almost invariably sided with the predominant scholarly sentiment. See Zaman, Religion and Politics under the Early ‘Abbāsids (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 137–38.


26 . Qus.s.a is defined as hair of the forefront of the head or forelocks in al-Turkī’s foot-notes to al-Nasā’ī, Kitāb al-sunan al-kubrā , 12 vols., ed. ‘Abd Allāh b. ‘Abd al-Muh. sin al-Turkī (Beirut: Mu’assasat al-Risāla, 2001), 8:333.

27 . Al-Bayhaqī, al-Sunan , 2:479; al-Nasā’ī, al-Sunan , 8:333. 28 . Al-Nasā’ī, al-Sunan , 8:333–35. Variants are also found in Ibn H. anbal, Musnad

al-imām Ah. mad b. H. anbal , 8 vols., ed. Samīr T. āhā al-Majdhūb (Beirut: al-Maktab al-Islāmī, 1993), 4:129, 131, 133, 136–37, and 140–41.

29 . The accounts suggest that hair extensions were widely available in the region, and Mu‘āwiya seems to have had little trouble in acquiring one to serve as a prop in his sermon.

30 . ‘Abd Allāh b. ‘Āmir b. Rabī‘a al-‘Anzī was a Companion of the Prophet, who died around the year 80/699. See al-Mizzī, Tahdhīb , 15:140–41. For ‘Abd Allāh b. al-Zubayr, see note 12 above.

31 . Ibn H. anbal, Musnad , 4:129 and 131. 32 . Although it is possible to interpret this text as simply emphasizing Mu‘āwiya’s per-

sonal modesty or his desire to clarify protocol for dealing with a caliph, the overall tenor of the traditions cited in this section suggests a conscious attempt to claim a degree of authority over the Companions.

33 . Ibn H. anbal, Musnad , 4:133–34. 34 . Ibn H. anbal, Musnad , 4:129–30, 135, 138–39. 35 . Ibn H. anbal, Musnad , 4:134–35, 140, 141. 36 . Ibn H. anbal, Musnad , 4:139, and al-Nasā’ī, al-Sunan, 1:310–11. While the location

is not explicitly specified in the two variants of this account, the primary narrator (and eyewitness) is Muh.ammad b. Yūsuf al-Qurashī (d. mid first/seventh century), a client of ‘Uthmān who spent his entire life in Medina (al-Mizzī, Tahdhīb , 27:61–63).

37 . I use “confrontational” in the sense of willing to engage and even refute the views of important Companions. These encounters rarely escalated to the level of outright argument, but bear in mind that Mu‘āwiya was accompanied by a group of soldiers (see note 9), an intimidating tactic that hardly encouraged the free exchange of ideas.

38 . The issue of Umayyad contributions to the law remains controversial. Crone and Hinds argue that the Umayyads and their supporters saw themselves as wielding a degree of religious authority ( God’s Caliph , 43–57). Dutton devotes an entire chapter in his The Origins of Islamic Law (Surrey: Curzon, 1999) to legal controversies in which Umayyads played an important role (130–53).

39 . The assertive and deferential accounts appear side by side in the same collections. While there does not appear to be a correlation between the depiction of the caliph and the subject matter of an account, the potential influence of geographical rival-ries and tribal loyalties cannot be discounted. An adequate discussion of this topic requires considerable additional research into individual transmitters and chains of transmission that lies outside the limited scope of the current chapter.

40 . The term literally means uttering the formulaic greeting “Peace unto you” directed in this context toward God via the Ka‘ba.

41 . Ibn H. anbal, Musnad , 4:137 with a similar variant on 4:133. 42 . It is certainly possible that Ibn ‘Abbās’s view was based on prophetic practice and that

he could have defended his position by either citing a text or articulating a parallel type of argument. Mu‘āwiya did not, however, ask him for proof of any kind. The caliph’s deference in this instance contrasts sharply with his assertiveness in the pre-vious section.

43 . This term (lit. Helpers) refers to those Medinans who adopted Islam at an early stage and provided critical aid to the Prophet after he emigrated from Mecca. They were

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not members of the Prophet’s tribe of Quraysh and often constituted a distinct and independent center of power.

44 . Ibn H. anbal, Musnad , 4:139–40. 45 . Ibn H. anbal, Musnad , 4:139–40. 46 . See Crone and Hinds, God’s Caliph , 43–57 (on Umayyad assertions of legal author-

ity); Dutton, Origins , 130–53 (on Umayyad inf luence in certain areas of the law); Zaman, Religion , 212–13 (on the veneration of Mu‘āwiya as a legal authority among proto-Sunnīs). See also notes 25 and 38 above.

47 . Ibn H. anbal, Musnad , 4:132–33. 48 . The opening chapter of the Qur’ān. 49 . In the course of this chapter, I translate the term sūra (pl. suwar ) as “chapter.”

Although this is not an exact translation of the Arabic word, it rightly conveys the sense of a distinct and internally coherent unit of text within a larger work.

50 . The Qur’ānic recitation in the prayer comprises two readings for each of the first two cycles of prayer. The first of these is the Fātih. a , while the second is left to the supplicant’s discretion. In this account, the phrase “(second) sūra ” refers to the sec-ond reading, which may consist of a few verses from a long Qur’ānic chapter or the entirety of a shorter one.

51 . Al-Shāfi‘ī, al-Umm , 1:212. 52 . We might, for example, correlate portrayals of the assertive and deferential Mu‘āwiya

to the differing political circumstances surrounding his three visits to the region. Recall that the first visit occurred in 44/665 immediately after his ascension to the caliphate and in the midst of considerable opposition to his claims outside of Syria. The assertive Mu‘āwiya traditions ref lect the strained relationship between the caliph and the H. ijāzīs at this time. In these traditions, he f launts his authority over them and publicly criticizes their religious practices. A change in the broader political climate preceded Mu‘āwiya’s second (50/670) and third (56/676) trips to the region as he struggled to secure support for his son’s succession. In some cases, Mu‘āwiya forced individuals to take the oath of allegiance to Yazīd under duress. More often, however, he seems to have favored a policy of appeasement as ref lected in the deferential Mu‘āwiya traditions where he f latters the Helpers or acquiesces to the legal authority of H. ijāzī Companions. These conclusions about the dating of assertive and deferential traditions are conjectural and should be treated as such. A number of scholars continue to question the veracity of any text ascribed to authori-ties in the first two Islamic centuries, while others have made compelling arguments for the dating of some accounts to as early as the late first/seventh century. For a rep-resentative example of the former (skeptical) position with respect to historical texts, see Patricia Crone’s Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987). For the view that texts can be dated to the second/eighth and (in some cases) the first/seventh century, see Harald Motzki, The Origins of Islamic Jurisprudence , trans. Marion Katz (Leiden: Brill, 2002), and Hossein Modarressi, Tradition and Survival (Oxford: Oneworld, 2003), vol. 1.

53 . For more on the placement of the hands in prayer, see Yasin Dutton, “‘Amal v H. adīth in Islamic Law: The Case of the Sadl al-Yadayn (Holding One’s Hand by One’s Sides) When Doing the Prayer,” Islamic Law and Society 3 (1996): 13–40. Dutton also addresses the placement and raising of the hands in Origins , 45–47.

54 . For a typical juristic treatment of the Qur’ānic recitation, see Ibn Qudāma, al-Mughnī , 8 vols., ed. Muh.ammad ‘Abd al-Qādir ‘At.ā’ (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiyya, 2008), 1:381–93. Bear in mind that discussions of the issue differ slightly from jurist to jurist.


55 . The Islamic legal tradition has generated a vast literature dealing with the reci-tation of the basmala in the context of prayer. In this chapter, the term “issue of the basmala ” will refer to the recitation of the basmala at the start of the Fātih. a in each cycle of the five daily prayers. Other matters discussed by jurists involving the basmala include: the recitation of the basmala before the second Qur’ānic selection in each of the first two prayer cycles, the recitation of the basmala if the worshipper’s second selection spans two sūra s, and the recitation of the basmala in the second and subsequent prayer cycles (where applicable).

56 . All the law schools agree that the basmala appears in a nonintroductory capacity in Q27:30 (“It is from Sulaymān, and it is ‘In the name of God, the Beneficent, the Merciful’”). Their disagreements concern whether the introductory basmala is an integral part of each Qur’ānic chapter at its start. The one exception is Q9 ( sūrat al-barā’a ) from which every law school excludes the introductory basmala .

57 . For a comprehensive discussion of the origins, development, and critique of Medinan ‘amal as a source of law, see Ahmed El Shamsy’s unpublished doctoral dissertation entitled “ From Tradition to Law ” (Harvard, 2009), particularly 10–14 and 33–46. See also Dutton, “Sunna, H. adīth, and Madinan ‘Amal,” Journal of Islamic Studies 4 (1993): 1–31 and specifically 5–14.

58 . The textual argument is “first” in the sense that it was the first view explicitly articu-lated by Mālikī jurists in their legal works. As El Shamsy shows, however, the “sec-ond” argument based on ‘amal was the dominant line of reasoning in Mālikī legal discourse (“ Tradition ,” 42–43).

59 . Mālik b. Anas, al-Muwat.t.a’ ( riwāyat Suwayd b. Sa‘īd ), ed. ‘Abd al-Majīd Turkī (Beirut: Dār al-Gharb al-Islāmī, 1994), 85–86. Suwayd’s recension of Mālik’s work is unique in its use of these traditions to establish the school’s position. The recen-sions of Yah. yā b. Yah. yā al-Laythī and Muh. ammad al-Shaybānī utilize similar evi-dence but do so in discussing the audibility or silence of a supplicant’s recitation in a group prayer. See Mālik b. Anas, al-Muwat.t.a’ ( riwāyat Yah. yā b. Yah. yā al-Laythī) , 2 vols., ed. Bashshār ‘Awwād Ma‘rūf (Beirut: Dār al-Gharb al-Islāmī, 1996), 1:136; Mālik b. Anas, al-Muwat.t.a’ ( riwāyat Muh. ammad al-Shaybānī ), ed. ‘Abd al-Wahhāb ‘Abd al-Lat.īf (Beirut: al-Maktaba al-‘Ilmiyya, 2003), 60.

60 . I am using the Kūfan numbering system, standard today in most of the Islamic world. The Medinan numbering system, which is preserved by North and West African Mālikīs, would consider this verse Q1:1 rather than Q1:2.

61 . A majority of both Sunnī and Shī‘ī exegetes hold that the phrase “seven oft-repeated” from Q15:87 (“And We have bestowed upon you the seven oft-repeated [ sab‘an min al-mathānī ] and the Glorious Qur’ān”) refers to the Fātih. a . Al-T. abarī (d. 311/923) offers three interpretive possibilities: (1) the verse refers to the seven longest chapters of the Qur’ān, which are “oft repeated” because they contain parables and narra-tive warnings, (2) the verse refers to the Fātih. a , and (3) the verse refers to seven of the positive qualities of the Qur’ān. Al-T. abarī accepts the second as the correct interpretation. See al-T. abarī, Tafsīr , 7 vols., ed. S. alāh. ‘Abd al-Fattāh. al-Khālidī (Beirut: al-Dār al-Shāmiyya, 1997), 4:646–48. Al-Qurt.ubī (d. 671/1272) proposes a fourth possibility (i.e., the verse refers to the entirety of the Qur’ān given that it may be divided into seven sections) before settling on the standard interpretation. See al-Qurt.ubī, al-Jāmi‘ li-ah. kām al-Qur’ān , 20 vols. (Cairo: Dār al-Kātib al-‘Arabī, 1967), 10:54. For another Sunnī example, see Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 606/1209), al-Tafsīr al-kabīr , 32 vols. (Tehran: n.p., 198–), 19:206–10. For Shī‘ī examples, see Fad. l b. al-H. asan al-T. abrisī (d. 548/1153), Jawāmi‘ al-jāmi‘ , 2 vols. (Beirut: Dār al-Ad. wā’, 1985), 1:801–803; idem, Majma‘ al-bayān , 10 vols. (Cairo: Dār al-Taqrīb

Najam Haider60

Bayn al-Madhāhib al-Islāmiyya, 1997), 6:146–48. Most scholars simply take for granted the fact that Q15:87 refers to the seven verses of the Fātih. a .

62 . Sah.nūn, al-Mudawwana al-kubrā , ed. H. amdī al-Damirdāsh Muh.ammad, 9 vols. (Sidon: al-Maktaba al-‘As.riyya, 1999), 1:186. Sah.nūn was a jurist from Qayrawān who played an important role in the spread of Mālikism in North Africa and Spain in the third/ninth century. For more on Sah.nūn, see EI 2 , s.v. “Sah.nūn” (M. Talbi).

63 . See Ibn Mājah, al-Sunan (Karachi: n.p., 1952–53), 1:267; al-Bayhaqī, al-Sunan , 2:75. In the second tradition, the first three caliphs are cited alongside the Prophet.

64 . See Mālik, al-Muwat.t.a’ ( riwāyat Suwayd b. Sa‘īd ), 85. 65 . Sah.nūn, al-Mudawwana , 1:186. 66 . Yūsuf b. ‘Abd Allāh b. ‘Abd al-Barr (d. 462/1070), al-Ins.āf fī mā bayna al-‘ulamā’ fī

qirā’at bismillāh al-rah. mān al-rah. īm min al-ikhtilāf , ed. ‘Abd al-Lat.īf b. Muh.ammad (Riyadh: Ad. wā’ al-Salaf, 1997); idem, al-Istidhkār , ed. ‘Alī al-Najdī Nāsif (Cairo: Mat.ābi‘ al-Ahrām al-Tijāriyya, 1971–73).

67 . Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr, al-Istidhkār , 2:154. 68 . Muslim b. al-H. ajjāj al-Qushayrī’s Jāmi‘ al-s.ah. īh. , 5 vols., ed. Muh.ammad Fu’ād ‘Abd

al-Bāqī (Cairo: Dār Ih.yā’ al-Kutub al-‘Arabiyya, 1955–56), 1:296–97. As mentioned above (see note 59) Mālik cites this tradition in the versions of the Muwat.t.a’ transmitted by Yah.yā b. Yah.yā al-Laythī and Muh.ammad al-Shaybānī but does so when discussing the audibility/silence of recitation in a group prayer.

69 . For a description of the Syrian text, see Anton Spitaler, Die Verszählung des Koran (Munich: Verlag der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1935), 31 (table 1). For a comprehensive discussion of variant noncanonical readings (including the Syrian text), see Intisar Rabb, “Non-Canonical Readings of the Qur’ān,” Journal of Qur’ānic Studies 8 (2006): 84–127.

70 . The Kūfan/Meccan reading counted the basmala as the first verse of the Fātih. a and did not place a break between alayhim and ghayr . For a succinct summary of com-peting views with regard to the Fātih. a , see al-Dānī’s al-Bayān fī ‘add āy al-Qur’ān , ed. Ghānim Qaddūrī al-H. amad (Kuwait: Markaz al-Makht.ūt.at wa-l-Turāth wa-l-Wathā’iq, 1994), 231. The difference in the counting of verses is also mentioned by al-Qurt.ubī ( Jāmi‘ , 1:91–107) and al-T. abrisī ( Jawāmi‘ al-jāmi‘ , 1:15–16).

71 . Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr, al-Istidhkār , 2:172–73. 72 . For Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr’s preference for the dialogue tradition, see al-Istidhkār , 2:154.

For examples of other arguments and traditions, both in favor of and against the Mālikī view, see Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr, al-Istidhkār , 2:173–74, 179–82.

73 . al-Qurt.ubī, Jāmi‘ , 1:93–94. The basmala is quoted in Q27:30 (see note 56). 74 . In his al-Bayān wa-l-tah. s.īl , Ibn Rushd al-Jadd (d. 520/1126) (20 vols., ed. Ah.mad

al-H. abābī [Beirut: Dār al-Gharb al-Islāmī, 1984–], 1:365) presents an argument similar to that of Mālik, Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr, and (to a lesser extent) al-Qurt.ubī.

75 . A number of modern scholars emphasize Mālik’s reliance on ‘amal even in cases where he does not state it outright. El Shamsy, for example, asserts that the estab-lishment of the normative authority of ‘amal was the primary driving force in the composition of the Muwat.t.a’ . See El Shamsy, “Tradition ,” 31–32 and 42–43. Dutton details two categories of ‘amal including ‘amal naqlī (passed down generationally from the Prophet with no differences) and ‘amal ijtihādī (practices for which there were differences of opinion within Medina, dating from a time after the Prophet’s death). The former was the more authoritative of the two and the underlying ratio-nale for omitting the basmala from the ritual prayer. See Dutton, Origins , 7–8.

76 . Dutton, Origins , 197–98, note 82. He makes the identical point in “Sunna,” 19, note 68.


77 . Dutton insists that there were no Medinan traditions on the issue. Specifically, he writes that the basmala was one of a number of practices:

that were not recorded initially in the form of h. adīth but were nevertheless known generally amongst the people and understood to have originated in the time of the Prophet. Other practices, however, although recorded in authentic h. adīth s . . . were not acted upon by their transmitters because they did not repre-sent the sunna . In other words, they were either exceptional instances or earlier judgmentsn that had later been changed, or otherwise minority opinions that held little weight, and which, even though they derived from the Prophet, were nevertheless outweighed by other judgments also deriving from the Prophet (Dutton, Origins , 45).

Dutton offers a similar argument in “Sunna,” 19. 78 . For some examples of Medinan traditions that support an audible basmala , see

‘Abd al-Razzāq, Mus.annaf , 2:59, and Ibn Abī Shayba, Mus.annaf , 9 vols., ed. Sa‘īd al-Lah.h. ām (Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, 1989), 1:361. For Medinan accounts of the prayer leadership tradition that favor the audible basmala , see al-Shāfi‘ī, al-Umm , 1:212–13, and al-Bayhaqī, al-Sunan , 2:72. Most other variants of the prayer leadership tradi-tion are primarily transmitted by Meccans.

79 . El Shamsy, “Tradition ,” 42–43. 80 . El Shamsy points out that this avenue for criticizing Mālik was pioneered by his

students, Muh.ammad al-Shaybānī and al-Shāfi‘ī ( “Tradition ,” 48–54). 81 . A prominent traditionist Mālikī jurist from Qayrawān, pivotal in the spread of

Mālikism in North Africa. For a detailed study of his life, see Sayeed Rahman’s unpublished doctoral dissertation entitled “The Legal and Theological Thought of Ibn Abi Zayd al-Qayrawani ” (Yale, 2009).

82 . Ibn Abī Zayd, Kitāb al-Nawādir wa-l-ziyādāt , 15 vols., ed. ‘Abd al-Fattāh. Mu-h.ammad al-H. ulw (Beirut: Dār al-Gharb al-Islāmī, 1999), 1:172–73. Although Ibn Abī Zayd refers to the opinions of legal authorities and implies a familiarity with the textual tradition, he does not quote them in their entirety.

83 . Ibn Abī Zayd, Kitāb al-Nawādir, 1:172. 84 . Ibn Abī Zayd, Kitāb al-Nawādir, 1:173. 85 . Ibn al-‘Arabī, Ah. kām al-Qur’ān , 4 vols., ed. Muh.ammad Bakr Ismā‘īl (Cairo: Dār

al-Manār, 2002), 1:18–19. 86 . Ibn al-‘Arabī, Ah. kām, 1:18–19. 87 . See El Shamsy, “Tradition,” 37–46, especially 42–43. Dutton argues that ‘amal was

always more authoritative than textual evidence (“Sunna,” 8). See also note 75. 88 . Al-Shāfi‘ī, al-Umm , 1:210–13. 89 . Al-Shāfi‘ī, al-Umm, 1:210. 90 . Al-Nasā’ī, al-Sunan , 1:469–70. Although this account seems to support the omission

of the basmala , al-Shāfi‘ī interprets it as an indication that “they [the Prophet and the caliphs] began recitation with the Umm al-Qur’ān [the Fātih. a ] . . . not that they omitted (the basmala )” (al-Shāfi‘ī, al-Umm , 1:210). In other words, al-Shāfi‘ī argues that the Fātih. a was initially identified by the phrase, “Praise be to God, Master of the Worlds.”

91 . This last grouping includes the three variants of the prayer leadership tradition quoted at the start of this chapter (al-Shāfi‘ī, al-Umm , 1:212).

92 . This point is made explicit by Abū Ish. āq al-Shīrāzī (d. 474/1083) in his al-Muhadh-dhab fī fiqh al-imām al-Shāfi‘ī (6 vols., ed. Muh.ammad al-Zuh.aylī [Beirut: al-Dār al-Shāmiyya, 1992–96], 1:242), where he forcefully argues for a uniform treatment of all Qur’ānic verses. Al-Shīrāzī’s argumentative framework is similar to that of his contemporary al-Māwardī detailed below.

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93 . The overall Shāfi‘ī approach is centered on preserving the integrity of the Qur’ānic text. This is evident at the end of al-Shāfi‘ī’s discussion of the basmala where he emphasizes that the Fātih. a (along with every other sūra ) must be recited in its entirety with every letter in the place in which it was originally revealed by God. The order of the verses cannot be changed, a forgotten verse cannot be recited out of order, and no verses from different sūra s may be arbitrarily inserted on the basis of personal discre-tion (al-Shāfi‘ī, al-Umm , 1:213–14).

94 . ‘Alī b. Muh.ammad al-Māwardī, al-H. āwī al-kabīr , 24 vols., ed. ‘Ādil Ah.mad ‘Abd al-Mawjūd and ‘Alī Muh. ammad Mu‘awwad. (Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, 1994), 2:104–109. Al-Māwardī was a prominent Shāfi‘ī jurist who spent most of his life in Iraq and maintained close links with the ‘Abbāsids ( EI 2 , s.v. “al-Māwardī” [C. Brockelmann]). The H. āwī is a commentary on Ismā‘īl b. Yah.yā al-Muzanī’s (d. 264/878) Mukhtas.ar . Al-Muzanī, a pupil of Shāfi‘ī, spent most of his life in Egypt and is regarded as one of the most important early Shāfi‘ī jurists ( EI 2 , s.v. “al-Shāfi‘ī” [W. Heffening]).

95 . Al-Māwardī, al- H. āwī , 2:105. 96 . Al-Māwardī, al- H. āwī , 2:105–106. 97 . Al-Māwardī, al- H. āwī , 2:105–106. 98 . Al-Māwardī acknowledges the counterargument that the basmala was only used in

the early mus.h. af s to mark the start of each sūra , but responds that if the verse was writ-ten within the text, then it must have been considered a part of the text (al-Māwardī, al-H. āwī , 2:106–107). For the presence of the basmala in two early (dated) mus.h. afs , see Behnam Sadeghi, “The Codex of a Companion of the Prophet and the Qur’ān of the Prophet,” Arabica 57 (2010): 343–436, and Yasin Dutton, “Some Notes on the British Library’s ‘Oldest Qur’an Manuscript,’ ” Journal of Qur’ānic Studies 6 (2004): 43–71 and, particularly, 50 and 64. See also Arthur Jeffery, Materials for the History of the Text of the Qur’ān (New York: AMS Press, 1975), 49, and Rabb, “Non-Canonical,” 93, where the presence of the basmala in the earliest variant codices is taken for granted.

99 . Al-Māwardī, al- H. āwī , 2:108–109. 100 . Al-Māwardī, al- H. āwī , 2:109. 101 . Al-Ghazālī, al-Wajīz fī al-fiqh madhhab al-imām al-Shāfi‘ī , 2 vols. (Egypt: n.p.,

1899?), 1:42. 102 . Yah.yā b. Sharīf al-Nawawī, Majmū‘ sharh. al-Muhadhdhab , 18 vols., ed. Zakariyyā

‘Alī Yūsuf (Cairo: Mat.ba‘at al-Imām bi-Mis.r, 1966–69), 3:290–313 and particularly 290–302. Al-Nawawī was born in Syria and is regarded as one of the highest-ranking Shāfi‘ī juristic authorities of his time. See EI 2 , s.v. “al-Nawawī” (W. Heffening).

103 . The final argument articulated by al-Nawawī that centers on the validity of Medinan ‘amal is discussed herein.

104 . ‘Abd al-Wahhāb b. ‘Alī al-Subkī, Raf ‘ al-h. ājib ‘an Mukhtas.ar Ibn al-H. ājib , 4 vols., ed. ‘Ādil Ah.mad ‘Abd al-Mawjūd et al. (Beirut: ‘Ālam al-Kutub, 1999), 2:83–91.

105 . El Shamsy argues that al-Shāfi‘ī (especially after his move to Egypt in 198/814) pointedly criticized Mālik’s assertion of a singular Medinan ‘amal by highlighting its internal discrepancies and exposing instances where it contradicted views ascribed to Companions. The result was an amorphous and vague ‘amal that “contains multiple contradictory voices” without “any systematic method for adjudicating between them” (“Tradition,” 51). For the entirety of El Shamsy’s discussion of al-Shāfi‘īs critique of ‘amal , see “Tradition,” 47–55.

106 . Dutton summarizes the following argument—ascribed to al-Layth b. Sa‘d (d. 175/791)—against Mālikī claims for the superiority of Medina:


The Companions had spread out throughout the new lands of Islam, taking with them their knowledge of the Book and the sunna , and exercising their best judgement . . . when they knew of no specific guidance on a matter. Furthermore the first three caliphs had been concerned to avoid dispute among the Muslim troops and had sent directives to them on even relatively unimportant mat-ters . . . but they had never told anyone to go against the practice of any of the Companions, whether in Egypt, Syria or Iraq, if this had been the constant prac-tice of these Companions up until their death. In other words, the Companions had come to different decisions on various matters but they had had a right to do so, and if the first three caliphs had not forced people to follow the Companions of a particular place, why should anyone else? (Dutton, “Sunna,” 12).

This argument does not attack Medinan ‘amal as much as it attempts to elevate the living traditions of other cities.

107 . Al-Shāfi‘ī, al-Umm , 1:212–13. 108 . Al-Shāfi‘ī, al-Umm, 1:212. 109 . This contestation would not have been surprising given the numerous instances where

al-Shāfi‘ī criticized both the normative authority and integrity of ‘amal (El Shamsy, “ Tradition ,” 47–55).

110 . Al-Shāfi‘ī, al-Umm , 1:213. 111 . See, for example, Ah.mad Yūsuf al-Daqqāq’s commentary in Musnad al-imām

Muh. ammad b. Idrīs al-Shāfi‘ī , ed. Ayyūb Abū Khashrīf (Beirut: Dār al-Thaqāfa al-‘Arabiyya, 2002), 65–66.

112 . Al-Nawawī, Majmū‘ , 3:299–302. 113 . Al-Nawawī, Majmū‘ , 3:302. 114 . Al-Nawawī, Majmū‘ , 3:302. 115 . The Imāmīs consider the basmala a special verse of the Fātih. a that merits the distinc-

tion of audible recitation in every prayer cycle. For the Imāmī position, see al-T. ūsī, al-Nihāya , 3 vols. (Qum: Mu’assasat al-Nashr al-Islāmī, 1991), 1:302–303. The Imāmī and Zaydī (minority and majority) views are summarized in Haider, The Origins of the Shī‘a (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 71–74 (on the Imāmīs) and 74–77 (on the Zaydīs). I intend to explore the links between Medina and Imāmī juris-prudence in a future article.

116 . Al-Sharafī, al-Mas.ābīh. al-sāt.i‘a al-anwār , 3 vols., ed. Muh.ammad Qāsim al-Hāshimī and ‘Abd al-Salām ‘Abbās al-Wajīh (S.a‘da: Maktabat al-Turāth al-Islāmī, 1998), 1:155, 156. A similar interpretation of Q17:46 is also found in Furāt b. Ibrāhīm al-Kūfī, Tafsīr Furāt al-Kūfī , ed. Muh.ammad al-Kāz.im (Tehran: Mu’assasat al-T. ab‘ wa-l-Nashr, 1990), 41–42. Q17:46—“And We place upon their hearts veils lest they should understand it, and in their ears a deafness; and when you mention your Lord alone in the Qur’ān, they turn their backs in aversion.”

117 . Al-Sharafī, al-Mas.ābīh. , 1:147–48. Q17:110—“And be not loud-voiced in your worship nor silent therein, but follow a way between.”

118 . Al-Sharafī, al-Mas.ābīh. , 1:157. Q2:200—“And when you have completed your devo-tions, then remember God as you remember your fathers or with a more lively remembrance.”

119 . Al-Sharafī, al-Mas.ābīh. , 1:155. Q48:26—“When those who disbelieve had set up in their hearts zealotry, the zealotry of the Age of Ignorance, then God sent down His reassurance upon His messenger and upon the believers and imposed on them self-restraint, for they were entitled to it and worthy of it. And God is Aware of all things.” Al-Sharafī does not mention Q15:87, which is covered in other Zaydī exegetical works

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such as Abū al-Fath. al-Nās.ir b. al-H. usayn al-Daylamī’s Kitāb Burhān fī tafsīr al-Qur’ān (MS dating from 1046/1637), fols. 4b–5a. For Q15:87, see also note 61 above.

120 . These include (a) three versions of a tradition (included in Ah.mad b. ‘Īsā b. Zayd’s Amālī , preserved in ‘Alī b. Ismā‘īl b. ‘Abd Allāh al-Mu’ayyad al-S.an‘ānī’s Ra’b al-s.ad‘ , 3 vols. [Beirut: Dār al-Nafā’is, 1990], 1:242 and 245) that attributes the disappearance of the basmala to Satan (al-Sharafī, al-Mas.ābīh. , 1:146, 1:147, and 1:149), and (b) a tradition in which the Zaydī position is directly ascribed to the Prophet (al-Sharafī, al-Mas.ābīh. ,1:147). For variants of the former traditions, see Zayd b. ‘Alī, Musnad al-imām Zayd (Beirut: Manshūrāt Dār Maktabat al-H. ayāt, 1966), 104, and al-S.an‘ānī, Ra’b , 1:247. For a variant of the latter account invoking the authority of ‘Alī rather than the Prophet, see al-S.an‘ānī, Ra’b , 1:242.

121 . Al-Sharafī, al-Mas.ābīh. , 1:157–59. 122 . Al-Sharafī, al-Mas.ābīh. , 1:158–60.

Part II

Shıʿı Tradition

Chapter 4

The Kitab al-was.iyya of ʿĪsa b. al-Mustafad: The History of a Text 1

Hassan F. Ansari

From the early days of Shīʿī thought on the issue of the Imāmate, there have been writings on the subject often bearing the title of Kitāb al-imāma , 2 alongside writ-ings on the concept of the sacred bequest, bearing titles such as Kitāb al-was.iyya or Kitāb al-aws.iyā ʾ (“Book of the heirs”, i.e., the Imāms). Was.iyya is an old Shīʿī con-cept, broader than the evolutionary notions of Imāmate and Caliphate, but gradu-ally becoming synonymous with the Imāmate and the doctrine of investiture ( nas.s. ). These concepts originate in the belief that the Prophet had designated ʿAlī as his “heir” for a variety of tasks. The concept, then, simultaneously encompassed the responsibility of the Prophet in the naming of his heir, the status of ʿAlī as the object of this nomination, and the question of the succession of the Prophet and the sacred heritage of the prophecy. 3

The writings devoted to these issues were collections of h. adīth s or theological discussions about the fact that ʿAlī and the other Imāms who descended from him are the heirs of Muh. ammad and, after him, responsible for the prophetic legacy at the head of their community. The extension of the “legacy” of ʿAlī—to which some writings are exclusively dedicated—to other Imāms seems to show a change in the original sense of the term. Thus was developed the theory according to which every lawmaking prophet had legatees who had as their task the custody of the prophetic legacy until the appearance of the next lawgiver. The “last prophet,” being no excep-tion, also has legatees of this kind, who have thus never been absent from history. 4

One consequence of this theory was the predestined nature of the status of the Imāms, each duly appointed by his predecessor in a line going back to the Prophet (indeed, according to some currents of Shīʿism, to God 5 ). Under this doctrine, pre-sented as part of the concept of the pact of the Imāmate ( ʿahd al-imāma ), each Imām has a duty to explicitly designate as his successor an Imām predestined for this task. 6

Hassan F. Ansari68

While the most significant example of this literature is the Ithbāt al-was.iyya , a work attributed to the historian al-Masʿūdī (d. 346/957–58), one of the oldest writ-ings of the genre is the Kitāb al-was.iyya attributed to ʿĪsā b. al-Mustafād, a Shīʿī traditionalist. This latter work can be reconstructed on the basis of quotations pre-served in later writing and which we shall examine in this chapter. In this text, ʿAlī is described as being the object of the investiture by the Prophet and in charge of the latter’s bequest. Before we turn to this work, it is useful to offer a list of Shīʿī writings, particularly Imāmī, which were dedicated to this subject and held in par-ticularly high esteem in Shīʿī circles: 7

1. Kitāb al-imāma and Ithbāt al-was.iyya 8 by Abū Jaʿfar Muh.ammad b. ʿAlī b. al-Nuʿmān al-Bajalī al-Ah.wal al-Kūfī al-S.ayrafī, known as “Muʾmin / S.āh. ib al-T. āq,” disciple of the Imām Jaʿfar al-S.ādiq (d. 148/765) and Shīʿī theolo-gian. 9 Al-T. ūsī identifies him as Muh.ammad b. al-Nuʿmān al-Ah.wal and says that he is called Shaytān al-T. āq (“the devil of the T. āq quarter”) by his adver-saries and Muʾmin al-T. āq by the Shīʿa. It is clear that al-T. ūsī got his informa-tion from Ibn al-Nadīm’s famous Fihrist . 10

2. Kitāb al-was.iyya wa-l-imāma by Abū l-H. asan ʿAlī b. Ri ʾāb al-Kūfī, disciple of the Imāms Jaʿfar al-S.ādiq and Mūsā al-Kāz.im (d. 183/799). 11

3. Kitāb al-was.iyya wa-l-radd aʿlā munkirīhā (or ʿalā man ankarahā ) by Abū Mu-h.ammad Hishām b. al-H. akam (d. 179/795), one of the greatest Shīʿī theolo-gians of the time of the Imāms in Kūfa and Baghdad. 12 He reports traditions from the Imāms Jaʿfar al-S. ādiq and Mūsā al-Kāz.im. 13 Ibn al-Nadīm stresses his expertise in Shīʿī theology and insists on his mastery of rational specula-tion ( naz. ar ). 14 In addition, different sources 15 allude to one or more works of Hishām on the subject of the Imāmate without offering any specific work titles. 16 These may refer to the above mentioned work or to other writings of his on this subject.

4. Kitāb al-was.āyā by Abū Jaʿfar Muh.ammad b. ʿĪsā b. ʿUbayd b. Yaqt.īn, narra-tor living in Baghdad, who transmitted from the Imām Muh.ammad al-Jawād (d. 220/835). This book may be a juridical compendium on the question of the will ( was.iyya ) and inheritance or on was.iyya in the sense that concerns us. To be certain of this would require a more detailed study of the work. Al-T. ūsī considers the author “weak,” and adds that he has been accused of extremism ( ghuluww ). 17

5. Kitāb al-aws.iyāʾ wa-dhikr al-was.āyā by ʿAlī b. Muh.ammad b. Ziyād al-S.aymarī (d. probably 280/893–94 or 281/894–95). This work is quoted twice by Ibn T. āwūs (d. 664/1266) in Muhaj al-daaʿwāt and Faraj al-mahmūm . The manu-script he possessed would have been copied in the time of al-S.aymarī him-self. 18 This work was one of the sources of the Ithbāt al-was.iyya attributed to al-Masʿūdī. 19

6. Kitāb al-was.iyya of Ibrāhīm b. Muh.ammad b. Saʿīd al-Thaqafī (d. 283/896–7), a famous Shīʿī historian and author of the Kitāb al-ghārāt . Originally from Kūfa and living in Isfahan, he converted from Zaydism to Imāmism. 20 Ibn Shahrāshūb cites two books by him entitled K. al-was.iyya fī l-imāma s.aghīr and K. al-was.iyya fī l-imāma kabīr , evidently mixing up the information given

The Kitab al-was.iyya 69

by al-T. ūsī who lists three work titles, namely, K. al-was.iyya , K. fī l-imāma kabīr and K. fī l-imāma s.aghīr . The confusion must be due to Ibn Shahrāshūb; it seems that al-Thaqafī only authored one K. al-was.iyya . 21

7. Kitāb al-aws.iyā ʾ by Abū l-Nad. r Muh. ammad b. Masʿūd b. Muh. ammad b. ʿAyyāsh al-Sulamī al-Samarqandī, known as al-ʿAyyāshī (f l. end third/ninth, early fourth/tenth century). 22 The work title is mentioned by al-Najāshī, Ibn al-Nadīm, and al-T. ūsī. 23 The latter two add a Kitāb al-was.āyā that was probably in the juridical domain rather than on the question of suc-cession. 24 Al-T. ūsī, 25 following Ibn al-Nadīm, lists among the works of al-ʿAyyāshī Kitāb al-anbiyā ʾ wa-l-a iʾmma and Kitāb makhabbat al-aws.iyā ʾ (in another version makhabba reads as mah. abba ; this may also be mih. na , as appears in Ibn al-Nadīm). 26

8. Kitāb al-aws.iyā ʾ of Abū Jaʿfar Muh. ammad b. ʿAlī al-Shalmaghānī, known as Ibn Abī al-ʿAzāqir (executed in 322/934), Imāmī scholar and leader of an esoteric current of thought at the end of the third/ninth and beginning of the fourth/tenth centuries. 27 According to al-Najāshī, he enjoyed a high position among the Imāmīs, but as the result of serious disagreements with Abū l-Qāsim al-H. usayn b. Rūh. al-Nawbakhtī, third “representative” of the Hidden Imām, he was isolated within the community of the faithful and finally executed in Baghdad. 28 The conflict of al-Shalmaghānī with al-Nawbakhtī, at least from the year 312/924–95 onward, was centered on the question of the representation ( wikāla ) of the Hidden Imām and the problems to which it was prone at the political, social, and religious level. These tensions caused division in several inf luential Shī ʿī families and pro-duced splits in Shī ʿī intellectual circles in Baghdad. It is in this context that al-Shalmaghānī, accused of antinomianism ( ibāh. a ), of believing in reincar-nation ( h. ulūl ), and of pretending to divinity ( iddi āʿ ʾ al-ulūhiyya ), was con-demned to death by the caliphal authorities. 29 Al-Masʿūdī mentions four of his works, among them a Kitāb al-ghayba and a book on was.iyya ( kitābuhu fī l-was.iyya ), adding that he had included some quotes from the latter work in his book, now lost, al-Maqālāt fī us.ūl al-diyānāt . 30 Quotes from the Kitāb al-aws.iyā ʾ of al-Shalmaghānī are found in other sources, and it seems highly probable that the Ithbāt al-was.iyya that is attributed to al-Masʿūdī is nothing more than a paraphrase of this book, augmented with numerous additions. What is certain is that this work of al-Shalmaghānī has had a long-lasting inf luence on the literature devoted to the Imāmate and the Occultation. 31 It is likewise possible that the Kitāb al-anbiyā ʾ wa-l-aws.iyā ʾ min Ādam ilā Mahdī , mentioned by Ibn T. āwūs in his Faraj al-mahmūm , whose author is called Muh. ammad b. ʿAlī, may be none other than the Kitāb al-aws.iyā ʾ of al-Shalmaghānī. 32

9. Risālat ithbāt al-was.iyya li- Aʿlī b. Abī T. ālib by Abū al-H. asan ʿAlī b. al-H. usayn b. ʿAlī al-Masʿūdī al-Hudhalī, a famous historian and author of al-Tanbīh wa-l-ishrāf as well as Murūj al-dhahab . There are debates about whether he was a member of the Shī ʿī or, specifically, Imāmī community; 33 for example, al-Najāshī includes him among the Shīʿī scholars. 34 In any case, it is almost certain that he is not the author of the famous Ithbāt al-was.iyya , which has

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been attributed to him and published numerous times. 35 The Risālat ithbāt al-was.iyya , cited by al-Najāshī, appears to differ from the Ithbāt al-was.iyya , to the extent that they are probably independent works. 36

10. Kitāb al-aws.iyāʾ and Kitāb al-anbiyā ʾ, attributed to Abū l-Qāsim ʿAlī b. Ah.mad al-Kūfī (d. 352/963), a prolific Imāmī scholar and author of al-Istighātha , a published work devoted to the refutation of the first three caliphs. 37 Al-Najāshī notes that he became an extremist at the end of his life, that his faith was “corrupted” ( fāsid ), and that many of his writings were produc-tions of this deviant thinking. 38 Al-T. ūsī writes that at first he was a faithful Imāmī and authored many useful books, including the Kitāb al-aws.iyā ʾ. He was later contaminated by “mixing” ( takhlīt. , i.e., the mixing of good and bad doctrines), 39 converted to the doctrine of the extremist Shīʿī group, the Mukhammisa , 40 and wrote books tainted with both extremism ( ghuluww ) and mixing ( takhlīt. ). 41 Ibn al-Ghad. āʾirī directs the same severe criticisms at al-Kūfī. 42 By contrast, Ibn al-Nadīm praises the proficiency and knowledge of this figure and also mentions his Kitāb al-aws.iyā ʾ. 43

11. Kitāb ithbāt al-was.iyya li-Aʿlī by the renowned al-Shaykh al-S. adūq, Abū Jaʿfar Muh.ammad b. ʿAlī b. al-H. usayn b. Mūsā Ibn Bābawayh al-Qummī (d. 381/991–92). 44

The Kitab al-was.iyya of ʿĪsa b. al-Mustafad

In the Kāfī of al-Kulaynī, 45 a narration in the form of a h. adīth is transmitted by a Shīʿī traditionist called Abū Mūsā ʿĪsā b. al-Mustafād al-D. arīr, on the subject of the bequest left to ʿAlī. It is a will ( ʿahd ) that contains numerous predictions about the events that followed the death of the Prophet. The isnād of the account contains unidentifiable transmitters alongside others known to belong to esoteric and extremist currents. ʿĪsā b. al-Mustafād narrates this rather lengthy h. adīth from the Imām Mūsā al-Kāz.im. The report contains a dialogue he had with his father, the Imām Jaʿfar al-S. ādiq. In it, al-S. ādiq relates a story about a testament of divine origin, revealed in the form of a “written document” ( kitāban musajjalan ) to the Prophet and transmitted to ʿAlī. This testament was therefore in the hands of the first Imām and contained an account of events that would take place from the death of Muh. ammad until the Imāmate of ʿAlī. The document is said to be a sealed sheet ( sah. īfa makhtūma ), miraculously transmitted to the latter as a sacred bequest, and ʿAlī, from whom, according to this account, the Prophet asked for loyalty, was to respect the content of this testament.

The testament thus show similarities with other secret “books” of the Imāms that Shīʿī literature identifies as al-Jāmi aʿ, al-Jafr, al-Sah. īfa , or again Kitāb Aʿlī . 46 In addi-tion, other Shīʿite sources also mention a “sealed sheet” ( s.ah. īfa makhtūma ) containing a will. 47 Thus the story of ʿĪsā b. al-Mustafād appears to belong to a living tradition.

The Kāfī does not tell us whether the text formed part of a longer document, but some time after al-Kulaynī (d. 329/941) another text was attributed to ʿĪsā b.


al-Mustafād in the Imāmī community that was recorded by the famous Imāmī transmitter Hārūn b. Mūsā al-Tallaʿukbarī (d. 385/995). Quotations of two large fragments of this text are preserved in al-Sharīf al-Rad. ī’s Khas.ā iʾs. al-a iʾmma . 48 ʿĪsā b. al-Mustafād is again presented as a transmitter of Imām Mūsā b. Jaʿfar, and he reports a dialogue between the latter and his father, Imām Jaʿfar al-S.ādiq, on a similar topic. But here ʿĪsā is not only a simple transmitter; at some point the disciple enters into a discussion with his master, the seventh Imām, Mūsā al-Kāz.im. In this report, in addition to the question of the testament of the Prophet given to ʿAlī shortly before the death of the former, the final episodes in the life of Muh.ammad in rela-tion to the issue of the Imāmate and his own succession, as well as his relationship with other Companions, are narrated in the form of a factual chronicle. It should be noted that the two versions reported in al-Kāfī and Khas.ā iʾs. al-a iʾmma are completely distinct and do not seem to have a common source.

In the version of al-Sharīf al-Rad. ī, the name of ʿĪsā b. al-Mustafād is not directly mentioned. Instead, the name of the transmitter occurs in two forms: ʿĪsā al-D. arīr and Abū Mūsā al-D. arīr al-Bajalī. Both must be identical with ʿĪsā b. al-Mustafād, who is mentioned in al-Kulaynī’s work. It is interesting to note that Hārūn b. Mūsā al-Tallaʿukbarī is separated from ʿĪsā by a single link, whereas al-Kulaynī, the teacher of al-Tallaʿukbarī, transmits from ʿĪsā through five links. In any case, al-Tallaʿukbarī’s chain of transmission is otherwise not attested. On the other hand, al-Kulaynī reports elsewhere in his al-Kāfī a juridical h. adith of a certain ʿ Īsā al-D. arīr (could he be ʿĪsā b. al-Mustafād?), separated from him by four links and transmit-ting from the Imām Jaʿfar al-S.ādiq. 49

In the fifth/eleventh century, shortly after the death of al-Sharīf al-Rad. ī and during the lifetime of al-Najāshī (d. 450/1058) and of Ah.mad b. al-H. usayn Ibn al-Ghad. āʾirī (d. early fifth/eleventh century), there is talk of a “ Kitāb al-was.iyya ” by ʿĪsā b. al-Mustafād. Al-Najāshī calls him “ʿĪsā b. al-Mustafād Abū Mūsā al-Bajalī al-D. arīr.” 50 This name is thus a combination of the two names put forward in al-Kāfī and Khas.ā iʾs. al-a iʾmma . Strangely enough, al-Najāshī presents our man not as a disciple of al-Kāz.im, but of the latter’s grandson, the Imām Muh. ammad b. ʿAlī al-Jawād. In addition, he undermines the reliability of this transmitter by remark-ing “it was not so” ( wa-lam yakun bi-dhāka ). Did al-Najāshī know him as a histori-cal figure, or is he judging him only on the basis of the account of the was.iyya ? We cannot be sure, but the fact that, apart from the two sources mentioned, the name ʿĪsā b. al-Mustafād does not appear in any other old Shīʿī source seems a valid reason to doubt his historical reality. In other words, the existence of this person is based solely on two accounts whose origins are more than vague.

In any case, al-Najāshī also attributed to him a book entitled Kitāb al-was.iyya . He specifies two chains of transmitters for this book; the first is said to be Egyptian and “shaky” ( mud. t.arib ) while the second is, for the most part, identical to the first. What is confusing is that while the two chains have much in common, their diver-gent elements have no connection to Egypt. It is the parts that are common to both chains that are in fact Egyptian. 51 Since the majority of the two chains is identical, it seems likely that the text was reported in a single version, at least in al-Najāshī’s transmission. However, it is unknown whether the latter knew the text itself, or only its routes of transmission.

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Still, none of these isnād s have links with the chains of the reports mentioned by al-Kulaynī and al-Sharīf al-Rad. ī. In the two isnād s given by al-Najāshī, there are five intermediaries 52 between al-Najāshī and ʿĪsā b. al-Mustafād. Thus, illogi-cally, the number of intermediaries varies depending on the sources, which is more than problematic according to the rules of the “generations of transmitters” ( t.abaqāt al-rijāl ). On the other hand, one wonders whether the Kitāb al-was.iyya cited by al-Najāshī is identical to the accounts, apparently taken from a work with the same title, reported by al-Kulaynī and al-Sharīf al-Rad. ī. The text of al-Najāshī does not provide any clue to answer this question, especially as his ʿĪsā b. al-Mustafād reports from al-Jawād, while that of our two other authors reports from al-Kāz.im.

According to his Kitāb al-rijāl (also known as al-D. uaʿfā ʾ ), Ibn al-Ghad. āʾirī also knew a Kitāb al-was.iyya . 53 From his presentation, however, one may conclude that he doubted the veracity of the transmission from Imām Mūsā al-Kāz.im, as he notes that these reports differ considerably from the Kitāb al-was.iyya . Perhaps he had noticed the discrepancy between the story narrated by al-Kulaynī and the version of the Kitāb al-was.iyya in question. On the basis of his statements, it is question-able whether he had seen the book and whether he was thus able to distinguish it from the earlier accounts in terms of contents and scope or not. Ibn al-Ghad. āʾirī further writes that the isnād of the book is not solid, probably referring to the isnād recorded by his friend and colleague al-Najāshī. In addition, the reliability of ʿĪsā b. al-Mustafād, according to Ibn al-Ghad. āʾirī, seems to be based on the legendary nature of the story as narrated by al-Kulaynī. Ibn al-Ghad. āʾirī therefore probably did not hear of him through other independent sources.

A contemporary of al-Najāshī and Ibn al-Ghad. āʾirī, al-Shaykh al-T. ūsī (d. 460/1068), also mentions one ʿ Īsā b. al-Mustafād in his Fihrist . 54 His record seems to be the most accurate existing on our subject. According to al-T. ūsī, ʿĪsā had a book, apparently devoted to juridical matters, which was transmitted by ʿUbaydallāh b. ʿAbdallāh al-Dihqān. Given the generation of the latter, it is plausible to accept that ʿĪsā’s account went back to Imām al-Jawād, as mentioned by al-Najāshī.

These two independent pieces of information taken together suggest that per-haps Ibn al-Mustafād as a historical person was indeed a transmitter from the ninth Imām, Muh.ammad al-Jawād. However, it does not seem that al-T. ūsī is talking here of the Kitāb al-was.iyya of Ibn al-Mustafād. The fact remains that these legal traditions that al-Shaykh al-T. ūsī refers to left no trace in the Shīʿī literature of h. adīth , and that al-T. ūsī did not include our character among the followers of Imām Muh.ammad al-Jawād in his Kitāb al-rijāl .

Comparing the case of ʿĪsā b. al-Mustafād with other similar cases, it is conceiv-able that he was a rare and obscure transmitter of al-Jawād, whose traditions were reported by al-Dihqān, and who was more or less forgotten by later traditionists. It is also interesting to note that in the Kitāb al-rijāl attributed to Ah.mad b. Muh.ammad b. Khālid al-Barqī (d. 274/887–888 or 280/893–894)—which contains, according to Hossein Modarressi, a list of transmitters of h. adīth s in al-Barqī’s (authentic) Kitāb al-mah. āsin 55 —the name ʿĪsā b. al-Mustafād is not mentioned while in his Kitāb mah. āsin , al-Barqī cites the reports of al-Dihqān, the disciple of ʿĪsā b. al-Mustafād, through the intermediary of the renowned Muh.ammad b. ʿĪsā b. ʿUbayd and others. 56


Thus, one could accept the historical existence of ʿĪsā b. al-Mustafād, at least through al-Dihqān’s book. However, the description of him in al-Kāfī and later in Khas.ā iʾs. al-a iʾmma could not have reflected reality. Recall that al-Kulaynī’s account in the Kāfī is of obscure origin, dates back to Imām Mūsā al-Kāz.im and not Muh.ammad al-Jawād, and includes a highly suspect isnād (which was the reason for Ibn al-Ghad. āʾirī’s doubts). Nevertheless, this account was apparently the foundation for the later appearance of a Kitāb al-was.iyya attributed to Ibn al-Mustafād, which is perhaps first attested in the Khas.ā iʾs. of al-Sharīf al-Rad. ī. The account, which was available to al-Sharīf through the intermediary of al-Tallaʿukbarī, probably did not include the version of al-Kāfī ; but it was the latter that apparently served as the foundation for most of the later fabrications. At the same time, based on the narra-tive of al-Sharīf, one can in no way conclude that the Kitāb al-was.iyya he had at his disposal was the same as the one al-Najāshī and Ibn al-Ghad. āʾirī were to mention later, especially given the differences in their isnād s. Yet, the fact remains that there was some similarity between all these accounts.

What makes this puzzle even more fascinating is that long after the time of al-Najāshī and Ibn al-Ghad. āʾirī, another version of the Kitāb al-was.iyya attrib-uted to ʿĪsā b. al-Mustafād became famous in the Imāmī community. This ver-sion, substantially different from those of al-Kulaynī and al-Sharīf al-Rad. ī, is quoted by Ibn T. āwūs in his Kitāb al-T. uraf , possibly in its entirety. 57 Ibn T. āwūs does not indicate the isnād of this work. However, the latter’s recension is cited, this time with isnād , in the Mis.bāh. al-anwār fī fad. ā iʾl imām al-abrār attributed to a certain Hāshim b. Muh. ammad, 58 proving that the recension of the T. uraf is identical to that known by al-Najāshī and Ibn al-Ghad. āʾirī. In this isnād , Ibn ʿAyyāsh al-Jawharī (d. 401/1010–1011) transmits from Ibn Qūlawayh al-Qummī (d. 368/978–979 or 369/979–980). Ibn ʿAyyāsh was one of al-Najāshī’s teachers, although the latter, knowing his master’s reputation for “weakness,” preferred not to transmit anything from him. 59

In one of al-Najāshī’s two chains for the Kitāb al-was.iyya of ʿĪsā b. al-Mustafād, there is mention of Ibn Qūlawayh, who is quoted with only one intermediary. This intermediary may have been Ibn ʿAyyāsh, whom al-Najāshī would have avoided naming, due to his apparent “extremist” tendencies and accusations that he trans-mitted many forged h. adīth s and narratives. It is therefore possible that he played a significant role in the transmission and expansion of the Kitāb al-was.iyya of ʿĪsā b. al-Mustafād. On the other hand, Ibn T. āwūs, when quoting ʿĪsā, does not allude to the title of the latter’s work nor does he disclose his own source. By contrast, al-Bayād. ī (d. 877/1472–1473), when adducing quotations from ʿĪsā’s work through the intermediary of the T. uraf of Ibn T. āwūs in his al-S. irāt. al-mustaqīm , explicitly names the Kitāb al-was.iyya of ʿĪsā. 60

What is more, as we have just seen, Mis.bāh. al-anwār includes the same quotations with the same isnād as that of the Kitāb al-was.iyya in al-Najāshī’s text. We may thus conclude that the source referred to by Ibn T. āwūs was the Kitāb al-was.iyya attrib-uted to ʿĪsā b. al-Mustafād or an intermediate work. Ibn T. āwūs, apart from a few short sections, devotes his entire work to the narratives of ʿĪsā b. al-Mustafād: sayings reported from the Imam al-Kāz.im, who in turn reports from his father al-S.ādiq, or else from the dialogues between ʿĪsā and al-Kāz.im. These traditions, which are also

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found in al-T. uraf , thus come, directly or indirectly, from a version identified as the Kitāb al-was.iyya of ʿĪsā b. al-Mustafād that was also known to al-Najāshī.

Ibn T. āwūs (or his source) was fully aware that the Vorlage he had of the work was missing a certain number of the sayings of ʿĪsā on this topic, and that is why he set himself the task of filling the gaps in his source. It is to this end that he uses the work of al-Sharīf al-Rad. ī, identifying his source explicitly on two occasions 61 and utilizing it elsewhere without mentioning his source. 62 It is possible that he had copied this latter part from the Kitāb al-was.iyya itself, which would then suggest that al-Sharīf also included quotations from the Kitāb al-was.iyya in his work. 63

The same phenomenon can be encountered with respect to al-Kulaynī’s ver-sion. 64 However, the differences between the versions of Ibn T. āwūs and al-Kulaynī’s Kāfī suggest that Ibn T. āwūs’s source cannot have been the Kāfī , but instead was the Kitāb al-was.iyya . In any case, the fact that Ibn T. āwūs was obliged to complete his text with the versions of al-Sharīf (and perhaps of al-Kulaynī) clearly shows that the latest version that Ibn T. āwūs possessed did not contain the older versions in their entirety. At the same time, the parts common to the different versions prove that the Kitāb al-was.iyya , as it was available to Ibn T. āwūs, constituted an extended version of the earlier sayings.

Thus the history of the text used by Ibn T. āwūs can be traced back as far as al-Najāshī. Since Ibn T. awūs’s version does not contain the essential part of al-Sharīf ’s version, we may conclude that the latter was an intermediary stage between the ver-sions of al-Kulaynī and Ibn T. āwūs. In other words, the text of the Kitāb al-was.iyya attributed by al-Najāshī to ʿĪsā b. al-Mustafād and quoted in al-T. uraf is a text that has undergone a progressive development—with some parts also omitted—going from al-Kāfī and Khas.ā iʾs. al-a iʾmma up to al-Najāshī and finally to Ibn T. āwūs. To summarize, at a first stage a text most probably attributed to ʿĪsā b. al-Mustafād was transmitted by al-Kulaynī. Another similar though not identical text was trans-mitted some time later by al-Sharīf al-Rad. ī. A little later still, during the time of al-Najāshī and Ibn al-Ghad. āʾirī, another larger book, different from the two earlier versions but still attributed to ʿĪsā b. al-Mustafād on a similar subject, came to be known in Imāmī circles. This book, preserved by different transmitters, was known under the title of the Kitāb al-was.iyya . Al-Najāshī, Ibn al-Ghad. āʾirī and al-T. ūsī seem to have transmitted exclusively the isnād of this book, while it was only with Ibn T. āwūs and the Mis.bāh. al-anwār that the isnād and the matn of the work were adduced. It is therefore not known how the book as it was available to Ibn T. āwūs was composed on the basis of an old narrative attributed to ʿĪsā b. al-Mustafād that was dedicated to the notion of was.iyya and had become in its final stage an enthrall-ing account of the events marking the end of the life, death, and succession of the Prophet.

But we can say in conclusion that a short narrative on a mysterious “sealed sheet” containing the testament of the Prophet to ʿAlī, reported by al-Kulaynī in his Kāfī , led to the appearance of a sizeable Kitāb al-was.iyya attributed to ʿĪsā b. al-Mustafād as reported in the T. uraf of Ibn T. āwūs. Some additions seem to originate with (a) earlier Shīʿī texts dealing with early notions prevalent in Kūfa at periods predat-ing the Imāms Jaʿfar al-S.ādiq and Mūsā al-Kāz.im (e.g., the injustice suffered by ʿAlī from other Companions, and particularly the first three caliphs), or (b) other


beliefs that apparently originated with later doctrinal and juridical notions that were foreign to early Shīʿism.

It is therefore evident that the text has many different sources. The text of the Kitāb al-was.iyya as reported by Ibn T. āwūs is remote from the original nucleus of the testament ( al-was.iyya ) reported by al-Kulaynī. The book in its last and most devel-oped stage is in fact a religious account of the death of the Prophet and his succes-sion and of the Prophet’s testament to ʿAlī in the presence of the archangel Gabriel and other angels. Its central core is the Imāmate of ʿAlī, along with predictions about him and his descendants. 65

Notes

1 . This chapter is dedicated to an early Imāmī text that is lost, and I drew inspiration to further develop the methodology set forth by my ustādh Hossein Modarressi in Tradition and Survival: A Bibliographical Survey of Early Shī iʿte Literature (Oxford: Oneworld, 2003). Thanks are also due to my colleague Sabine Schmidtke for having helped me in finalizing this article. This publication was prepared within the framework of the European Research Council’s FP 7 project “Rediscovering Theological Rationalism in the Medieval World of Islam.”

2 . See Āghā Buzurg al-T. ihrānī, al-Dharī aʿ ilā tas.ānīf al-shī aʿ (Beirut: Dār al-Ad. wā ,ʾ 1403/1983), 2:320–43. For a list of works devoted to the Imāmate or to the proofs ( dalā iʾl ) or miracles ( mujʿizāt ) of the Imāms, see Hāshim b. Sulaymān al-Bah. rānī, Madīnat maāʿjiz al-a iʾmma al-ithnay aʿshar wa-dalā iʾl al-h. ujaj aʿlā l-bashar (Qum: Muʾassasat al-Maʿārif al-Islāmiyya, 1413–16/[1992 or 1993–1995 or 1996]), 1:31–41 (list of 104 old titles). See also M. A. Amir-Moezzi, La religion discrète: Croyances et pratiques spirituelles dans l’ islam shi iʿte (Paris: Vrin, 2006), chapter 6.

3 . See M. A. Amir-Moezzi, Le guide divin dans le shî iʿsme originel: Aux sources de l’ ésotérisme en Islam (Paris: Verdier, 1992), index, s.v. was.iyya . On questions of was.iyya , nas.s. , and their relationship to inheritance ( wirātha ), see Hossein Modarressi, Crisis and Consolidation in the Formative Period of Shī iʿte Islam: Abū Jaʿfar ibn Qiba al-Rāzī and His Contribution to Imāmite Shī iʿte Thought (Princeton, NJ: Darwin, 1993), 122, note 93. For a detailed study of the history of the notion of the Imāmate and was.iyya , see the introduction to my L’ imamat et l’Occultation selon l’ imamisme: Étude bibliographique et histoire des textes (Leiden: Brill [forthcoming]). On the juridical notion of was.iyya , see R. Peters, EI 2 , s.v. was.iyya.

4 . On the long history of this idea, see, for example, al-Qāsīm b. Ibrāhīm al-Rassī, “ al-Radd aʿlā al-rāfid. a,” in Majmūʿ kutub wa-rasā iʾl , ed. ʿAbd al-Karīm Jadbān (Sanaa: Dār al-H. ikma al-Yamāniyya, 1422/2001), 1:515–16, 522 et seq.; al-Masʿūdī, Murūj al-dhahab wa-ma āʿdin al-jawhar , ed. Yūsuf Asʿad Dāghir (Beirut: Dār al-Andalus, 1385/1965 ), 1:49–50, where the question of the succession of the prophets is approached from the Shīʿī point of view. In Ithbāt al-was.iyya , attributed to al-Masʿūdī (the work is not his, as explained below), this succession is presented in all the sacred history of humanity ( Ithbāt al-was.iyya li-Aʿlī b. Abī T. ālib [Beirut, 1409/1988], particularly 99 et seq.). On the expression “legatee of the legatees” ( was.ī al-aws.iyā ʾ ), naming the Shīʿī Imāms and most particularly ʿAlī, see Kitāb Sulaym b. Qays , ed. Muh.ammad Bāqir Ans.ārī Zanjānī (Qum, n.d.), 156; Yaʿqūbī, Ta rʾīkh (Beirut: Dār S.ādir, n.d.), 2:179; Muh.ammad b. Yaʿqūb al-Kulaynī, al-Us.ūl min al-Kāfī , ed. ʿAlī Akbar Ghaffārī (Tehran:

Hassan F. Ansari76

Dār al-Kutub al-Islāmiyya, 1377–81/[1957–61]), 1:173; Qād.ī Nuʿmān, Daāʿ iʾm al-Islām wa-dhikr al-h. alāl wa-l-h. arām wa-l-qad. āyā wa-l-ah. kām aʿn ahl bayt Rusūl Allāh , ed. Asaf A. A. Fyzee (Cairo: Dār al-Maʿārif, 1383/1963), 1:63. It is said that the Kūfan tradition-ist, Jābir b. Yazīd al-Juʿfī, called his master, Imām Muh.ammad al-Bāqir, by the title of “legatee of the legatees”; see Abū Jaʿfar Muh.ammad b. ʿAmr al-ʿUqaylī, Kitāb al-D. uaʿfā ʾ al-kabīr , ed. ʿAbd al-Muʿt.ī Amīn Qal ʿajī (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1418/1984), 1:194. For a historical view of the concept in Islamic history and particularly its lit-erature, see ʿAskarī, Maāʿlim al-madrasatayn (Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Aʿlamī, 1410/1990), 1:212–31.

5 . For example, Saʿd b. ʿAbdallāh al-Ash ʿarī al-Qummī, al-Maqālāt wa-l-firaq, ed. Muh.ammad Jawād Mashkūr (Tehran: Muʾassasat Mat.būʿātī ʿAt.āʾī, 1963), 104–105.

6 . See, for example, al-S. affār al-Qummī [attributed to], Bas.ā iʾr al-darajāt fī fad. ā iʾl Āl Muh. ammad , ed. Muh. sin Kūcebāghī (Tabrīz: Shirkat-i Chāp-i Kitāb, 1960), 488–95 passim; Ibn Bābawayh (“The Father”), al-Imāma wa-l-tabs.ira (Qum, 1404/1984), 21–24 passim; Kulaynī, Kāfī , 1:279–96; Ibn Bābawayh, Kamāl al-dīn wa-tamām al-ni ʿma , ed. ʿAlī Akbar Ghaffārī (Tehran: Maktabat al-S. adūq, 1390/[1970]), 21–23; Muh. ammad b. Ibrāhīm al-Nuʿmānī, al-Ghayba , ed. ʿAlī Akbar Ghaffārī (Tehran, 1397/1977), 51–57.

7 . See also Hāshim b. Sulaymān al-Bah. rānī , H. ilyat al-abrār fī ah. wāl Muh. ammad wa-ālihi l-at.hār , ed. Ghulām Rid. ā Mawlānā al-Burūjirdī (Qum: Muʾassasat al-Maʿārif al-Islāmiyya, 1411–15/[1990 or 1991–1994 or 1995]), 2:448–49; also Hāshim b. Sulaymān al-Bah. rānī, al-Tuh. fa al-bahiyya fī ithbāt al-was.iyya , ed. Mah.mūd al-Argānī al-Bihbahānī al-H. āʾirī (Mashhad: Maktabat Amīr al-Muʾminīn, 1428/2004).

8 . Muh.ammad b. al-H. asan al-T. ūsī, Fihrist kutub al-shī aʿ wa-us.ūlihim wa-asmā ʾ al-mus.annifīn wa-as.h. āb al-us.ūl , ed. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-T. abāt.abāʾī (Qum: Maktabat al-Muh.aqqiq al-T. abāt.abāʾī, 1420/[1999 or 2000]), 388–89, No. 595.

9 . Najāshī, Rijāl , ed. Mūsā al-Shubayrī al-Zanjānī (Qum: Muʾassasat al-Nashr al-Islāmī al-T. ābi ʿa li-Jamāʿat al-Mudarrisīn, 1407/1987), 325–26, No. 886; see also Josef van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra: Eine Geschichte des religiösen Denkens im frühen Islam (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1991–97), 1:336–42; Hossein Modarressi, Tradition and Survival: A Bibliographical Survey of Early Shī iʿte Literature (Oxford: Oneworld, 2003), 338–39.

10 . Ibn al-Nadīm, Fihrist , ed. Rid. ā Tajaddud (Tehran: Maktabat al-Asadī, 1350/1971), 224. 11 . Najāshī, Rijāl , 250, No. 657; for a number of historical narrations related to this docu-

ment, see Modarressi, Tradition , 199. 12 . See W. Madelung, EI 2 , s.n.; van Ess, Theologie, 1:349–79; T. Bayhom-Daou, “Hishām b.

al-H. akam (d. 179/795) and His Doctrine of the Imām’s Knowledge,” Journal of Semitic Studies 48 (2003), 71–108.

13 . Najāshī, Rijāl , 433–34, No. 1164; T. ūsī, Fihrist , 493–95, No. 783. 14 . Ibn al-Nadīm, Fihrist , 223–24. 15 . For example, Ibn al-Haytham, al-Munāz. arāt, ed. and trans. Wilferd Madelung and Paul

E. Walker as The Advent of the Fatimids: A Contemporary Shi iʿ Witness (London, 2000), 62; ʿAbd al-Jabbār, al-Mughnī fī abwāb al-tawh. īd wa-l- aʿdl , ed. T. āhā H. usayn [et al.] (Cairo: Wizārat al-Thaqāfa wa-l-Irshād al-Qawmī, al-Idāra al-ʿĀmma li-l-Thaqāfa 1961–), vol. 20, part 1, 273; Abū T. ālib al-Hārūnī, al-Di āʿma fī tathbīt al-imāma , ed. Nājī H. asan [as al-Zaydiyya of al-S.āh.ib b. ʿAbbād] (Beirut: al-Dār al-ʿArabiyya li-l-Mawsūʿāt, 1986), 27.

16 . Modarressi, Tradition , 262–63, Nos. 3 and 4, listing citations of Hishām in later sources. 17 . Najāshī, Rijāl , 333–34, No. 896; T. ūsī, Fihrist , 402, No. 612. We should also men-

tion that ʿAlī b. al-H. asan b. ʿAlī b. Fad. d. āl al-Kūfī, Shīʿī traditionist, was the author of a Kitāb al-was.āyā , according to al-Najāshī and al-T. ūsī, and of a work called al-Aws.iyā ʾ,


according to Ibn Shahrāshūb. From the list of his works in bibliographies, it seems clear that the latter has made a mistake and that this book must have been a juridical compendium. See Najāshī, Rijāl , 258; T. ūsī, Fihrist , 273, No. 392; Ibn Shahrāshūb, Maāʿlim al- ʿulamā ʾ , ed. Muh. ammad S. ādiq Bah.r al-ʿUlūm (Najaf, 1961), 65.

18 . Etan Kohlberg, A Medieval Muslim Scholar at Work: Ibn T. āwūs and His Library (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1992), 132, No. 82.

19 . See H. asan Ans.ārī, “Muʿammā-yi chand kitāb: Az Kitāb al-aws.iyā- yi Shalmaghānī tā Ithbāt al-was.iyya- yi Masʿūdī,” in http://ansari.kateban.com/entry1196.html [consulted August 4, 2011].

20 . Najāshī, Rijāl , 16–17, No. 19; T. ūsī, Fihrist , 12–13, No. 7. 21 . Ibn Shahrāshūb, Maāʿlim , 4. 22 . On him and his famous Koranic commentary, see M. M. Bar-Asher, Scripture and

Exegesis in Early Imāmī Shiism (Leiden/Jerusalem: Brill/Magnes, 1999), parts 1–6. 23 . Najāshī, Rijāl , 350–53, No. 944; Ibn al-Nadīm, Fihrist , 245; T. ūsī, Fihrist , 397, No. 605. 24 . Ibn al-Nadīm, Fihrist , 245; T. ūsī, Fihrist , 398, No. 605. 25 . T. ūsī, Fihrist , 396–99, No. 605. 26 . Mih. na also appears in the Maāʿlim of Ibn Shahrāshūb, 100. 27 . For more on him, see, for example, al-Masʿūdī, al-Tanbīh wa-l-ishrāf , ed. de Goeje (Leiden:

E. J. Brill, 1893–94), 343; al-Masʿūdī, Murūj al-dhahab , 2:108; Ibn al-Nadīm, Fihrist , 164, 425; Muh.ammad b. Muh.ammad al-Mufīd, al-Masā iʾl al-S.āghāniyya (= Mus.annafāt al-Shaykh al-Mufīd Abī ʿAbd Allāh Muh.ammad b. Muh.ammad b. al-Nuʿmān b. al-Muʿallim al-ʿUkbarī al-Baghdādī, Volume 3), ed. M. al-Qād. ī (Qum: al-Muʾtamar al-ʿĀlamī li-Alfiyyat al-Shaykh al-Mufīd, 1413/[1993]), 58; Muh.ammad b. al-H. asan al-T. ūsī, al-Ghayba , ed. ʿAbbād Allāh al-T. ihrānī and ʿAlī Ah.mad Nās.ih. (Qum, 1411/1990–91), 307–308, 324, 373, 391–92, 405–12; Yāqūt H. amawī, The Irshād al-aríb ilā maʿrifat al-adíb; or, Dictionary of Learned Men of Yáqút , ed. D. S. Margoliouth (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1907–27), 1:298–307; Yāqūt H. amawī, Mujʿam al-buldān (Beirut, 1399/1979), 3:359; Ibn Athīr, al-Kāmil fī l-ta rʾīkh (Beirut: Dār S.ādir, 1385–1387/[1965–1967]), 8:290–94; Muh.ammad b. Ah.mad al-Dhahabī, Siyar a lʿām al-nubalā ʾ, ed. Shuʿayb Arnaʾūt. (Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Risāla, 1981–88), 14:566–69 and 15:102, 222–23. See also Louis Massignon, La passion d’al-Hallaj (Paris: P. Geuthner, 1975), 1:362–68.

28 . Najāshī, Rijāl , 378–79, No. 1029. On the parallels of his fate with that of the mystic al-H. allāj, see Amir-Moezzi, Religion discrète , 173, note 120.

29 . See Hossein Modarressi, “Khānidānhā-yi h.okūmat gar-i Shīʿī dar Baghdād dar avākhir-i ghaybat-i s.ughrā,” appendix to the Persian translation of Crisis and Consolidation : Maktab dar farāyand-i takāmul (trans. Hāshim Īzadpanāh, Tehran: Kavīr, 1386/2007), 325–27, 337–38; cf. also Louis Massignon, “Les origines shiites de la famille vizirale de Banu l Furât,” in Mélanges Gaudefroy-Demombynes: Mélanges offerts à Gaudefroy-Demombynes par ses amis et anciens élèves (Cairo: Impr. de l’Institut français d’archéologie orientale, 1935–45), 25–29; Vera Klemm, “Die vier Sufarāʾ des Zwölften Imams: Zur formativen Periode der Zwölferschia,” Die Welt des Orients 15 (1984), 126–43 (English translation in Etan Kohlberg, ed., Shī iʿsm [Aldershot: Variorum, 2003], article 6); Jassim M. Hussain, The Occultation of the Twelfth Imam, A Historical Background (London: Muhammadi Trust, 1982), 79–134; Ansari, L’ imamat et l’Occultation , chapter 2, part 13.

30 . Al-Masʿūdī , Tanbīh, 343. 31 . See H. asan Ans.ārī, “Muʿammā-yi chand kitāb.” 32 . Kohlberg, Medieval Muslim Scholar , 113, No. 33; Ans.ārī, “Muʿammā-yi chand kitāb.” 33 . See Ch. Pellat, “Masʿūdī et l’imāmisme,” in Le shī iʿsme imāmite , Actes du colloque de

Strasbourg (6–9 May 1968) (Paris: Vrin, 1970), 69–90; Muh.ammad Jawād Shubayrī, “ Ithbāt al-was.iyya va Masʿūdī s.āh. ib-i Murūj al-dhahab ,” Intezār-i mawʿūd , No. 4, http://

Hassan F. Ansari78

www.entizar.ir/page.php?page=showarticles&id=60 [last consulted August 4, 2011]. See also T. Khalidi, Islamic Historiography: The Histories of Masʿūdī (Albany: SUNY Press, 1975), 138 and 163ff.

34 . Najāshī, Rijāl , 254, No. 665. 35 . See the discussion of Mīrzā H. usayn Nūrī, Khātimat al-Mustadrak (Qum: Muʾassasat Āl

al-Bayt, 1408–/1987–), 1:115–27. 36 . Shubayrī, “Ithbāt al-was.iyya ”; Ans.ārī, “Muʿammā-yi chand kitāb.” 37 . Tehran, 1373/[1994]. See L. Giffen, “Abu’l-Qāsem Kūfī,” Encyclopedia Iranica , 1:364. 38 . Najāshī, Rijāl , 265–66, No. 691. 39 . For this term and its technical meaning, see Modarressi, Crisis, 23 and note 28. 40 . On the Mukhammisa, see Saʿd al-Ash ʿarī, Maqālāt, 56–60, 63; Abū H. ātim al-Rāzī,

al-Zīna fī l-kalimāt al-Islāmiyya al-Aʿrabiyya , ed. ʿAbd Allāh Sallūm Sāmarrā’ī in al-Ghuluww wa-l-firaq al-ghāliya fī l-H. ad. ārat al-islāmiyya (Baghdad: Dār Wāsit., 1392/1972): 307; see also Massignon, Passion , 1:518; Massignon, “Salmān Pāk et les prémices spirituelles de l’Islam iranien,” Opera minora: Textes recueillis, classés et présentés avec une bibliographie, par Y. Moubarac (Beirut: Dar al-Maaref, 1963), 1:471; Heinz Halm, Die islamische Gnosis: Die extreme Schia und die ʿAlawiten (Zürich: Artemis, 1982), 218–23. On supporters of this sect more or less at the time of Abū l-Qāsim al-Kūfī, see al-T. ūsī, al-Ghayba (Najaf, 1965–66), 256; al-Muh.assin b. ʿAlī al-Tanūkhī, Nishwār al-muh. ād. ara wa-akhbār al-mudhākara , ed. ʿAbbūd al-Shāljī (Beirut: Dār S.ādir, 1971–73), 4:3 54; Yāqūt, Mujʿam al-buldān , 4:447; Abū Bakr al-Kh w ārazmī, Rasā iʾl (Beirut, 1970), 172.

41 . T. ūsī, Fihrist , 271–72, No. 390. 42 . Ibn al-Ghad. āʾirī, Rijāl , ed. Muh.ammad Rid. ā al-H. usaynī al-Jalālī (Qum, 1422/2001), 82,

No. 104. 43 . Ibn al-Nadīm, Fihrist , 243. 44 . Najāshī, Rijāl , 389, No. 1049. 45 . Kulaynī, Kāfī , 1:281–83. 46 . Modarressi, Tradition , 4–7, 17–20; Amir-Moezzi, Guide divin , 185–89; Etan Kohlberg,

“Authoritative Scriptures in Early Imami Shīʿism,” in Les retours aux Écritures: Fondamentalismes présents et passés , ed. E. Patlagean and A. Le Boulluec (Louvain-Paris, 1993), 295–312.

47 . For example, Bas.ā iʾr al-darajāt , 197, 199–200, 206; Kulaynī, Kāfī , 1:235–36, 279–81; Ibn Bābawayh (“The Father”), al-Imāma wa-l-tabs.ira , 12, 38–39; Ibn Bābawayh al-S. adūq, Kamāl al-Dīn , 231–32, 268; cf. T. ūsī, Ghayba, 150–51; see also Najam Haider, “The Was.iyya of Abū Hāshim: The Impact of Polemic in Premodern Muslim Historiography,” in The Islamic Scholarly Tradition: Studies in History, Law, and Thought in Honor of Professor Michael Allan Cook, ed. A. Ahmed, M. Bonner, and B. Sadeghi (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 49–84.

48 . Sharīf al-Rad. ī, Khas.ā iʾs. al-a iʾmma , ed. Muh.ammad Hādī al-Amīnī (Mashhad, 1406/1985–6), 72–75.

49 . Kulaynī, Kāfī , 7:276. 50 . Najāshī, Rijāl , 297–98. 51 . Cf. T. ūsī, Rijāl , ed. Jawād al-Qayyūmī (Qum, 1415/1994), 431, No. 6185. 52 . Or even six, see Najāshī, Rijāl, 232, No. 616; cf. Najāshī, Rijāl, 374–75, No. 1022. 53 . Ibn al-Ghad. āʾirī, Rijāl , 81. 54 . T. ūsī, Fihrist, 188. 55 . See Modarressi, Tradition , xvii. 56 . Al-Barqī, al-Mah. āsin , ed. Jalāl al-Dīn Muh.addith (Urmawī) (Tehran, 1370/1950),

1:193; 2:356.


57 . Kohlberg, Medieval Muslim Scholar , 382, No. 646; see also Kohlberg, 62–63, No. 57. 58 . See Muh. ammad Bāqir al-Majlisī, Bih. ār al-anwār (Beirut, 1403/1983), 78:304. The

chain of transmission given in Mis.bāh. al-anwār is highly problematic (as is the case with the chain provided by al-Najāshī); see now my recent study “Dushwāra-yi bāzsāzi-yi mutūn: Namūnayi Kitāb al-Was.iyya-yi ʿĪsā b. al-Mustafād,” available at http://ansari. kateban.com/entry1833.html [last accessed March 30, 2012]. Nothing is known about Hāshim b. Muh. ammad, the alleged author of the Kitāb al-Mis.bāh. . It cannot be excluded at this stage that the author of the Mis.bāh. had used Ibn T. āwūs’s T. uraf as one of his sources. The Kitāb al-Mis.bāh. is extant in several manuscripts. For the Marʿashī manuscript (# 3691), see al-Sayyid Ah.mad al-H. usaynī, al-Turāth al- ʿarabī al-makht.ūt. fī maktabāt Īrān al- āʿmma (Qum: Manshūrāt Dalīl-i Mā, 2010), vol. 11, 426–28. Another manuscript is preserved in the collection of the library of the Kharsān family; cf. http://totfim.com/fa/default.aspx?modulename=viewbooks&ItemID=IRQ-001–1885–00 [consulted August 16, 2011].

59 . See Najāshī, Rijāl , 86. 60 . Al-Bayād. ī al-Nubāt.ī al-ʿĀmilī, al-S. irāt al-mustaqīm ilā mustah. aqqī l-taqdīm (Tehran,

1384/1964–5), 2:89–95; see also Majlisī, Bih. ār, 22:476. 61 . Ibn T. āwūs, al-T. uraf , ed. Muh.ammad Rid. ā Ans.ārī Qummī, in Mīrāth-i islāmī-yi Īrān ,

ed. Rasūl Jaʿfariyān, vol. 3 (1375/1416/1996), 179–80. 62 . Ibid., 182–84. 63 . Furthermore, elsewhere Ibn T. āwūs reports a saying that is nearly identical to that

related by Kulaynī in al-Kāfī , without naming the latter as his source. It differs in style from other traditions that go back to the Kitāb al-was.iyya of ʿĪsā. See Ibn T. āwūs, T. uraf , 177–79.

64 . Ibn T. āwūs, T. uraf , 181, t.urfa No. 18. 65 . The preserved fragments of the work have now been collected and edited in an uncriti-

cal manner as Kitāb al-Was.iyya : Min al-us.ūl al-riwā iʾyya al-muʿtabara, riwāyat Īʿsā b. al-Mustafād, Abī Mūsā al-Bajalī al-D. arīr al-mutawaffā sanat 220 [sic] aʿn al-imām Mūsā b. Jaʿfar, ed. Qays Bahjat al-ʿAt.t.ār (Mashhad: al-Maktaba al-Mutakhas.s.is.a bi-Amīr al-Muʾminīn ʿAlī ʿalayhi al-salām, 1429–/[2008 or 2009]). A translation of this was pub-lished as Tarjuma-yi Kitāb al-Was.iyya: Az us.ūl riwāyī-yi muʿtabar-i shī aʿ , trans. ʿAbd al-H. usayn T. āli ʿī (Mashhad: al-Maktaba al-Mutakhas.s.is.a bi-Amīr al-Muʾminīn ʿAlī ʿalayhi al-salām, 2011).

Chapter 5

Women in Imamı Biographical Collections 1

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It is reported on the authority of Abu al-H. asan ‘Alī al-Rid. a that Sa‘īda, the servant of Ja‘far, was among the people of merit and excellence (min ahl al-fad. l). She had learned statements from Abu ‘Abd Allah [i.e., Ja‘far al-S. adiq]. She had in her possession the was.iyya of the Prophet. Ja‘far said to her, “Beseech God who has made you known to me in this world to marry me to you in the Hereafter.” She used to live near the home of Ja‘far and was not seen in the mosque [of the Prophet] except that she was reciting bless-ings on the Prophet whether she was leaving for Mecca or returning from it.

And ‘Alī al-Rid. a said that her last words were, “We are satisfied with the reward [that God just gave us] and promised immunity from punishment.” 2

This notice about Sa‘īda, a companion of Ja‘far al-S.ādiq (d. 148/765), the sixth Shī‘ī Imām, provides an intriguing view of female religious learning and author-ity in early Shī‘ī history. Privileged with access to the Imām’s teachings, Sa‘īda was known to have learned some traditions ( h. adīth ) from him, including the was.iyya of the Prophet, a text dealing with his will and testament. 3 The entry, albeit brief, raises many questions about women’s religious participation in early Shī‘ism. This chapter engages with a few of these questions through a study of selected early and classical Imāmī biographical works, a genre that focuses on transmitters of religious knowledge.

Throughout Muslim history, biographical literature has been a medium through which scholars negotiated and articulated criteria for membership and authority in their respective religious communities. 4 It is also a genre in which authors have regularly documented women’s contributions, thereby providing valuable sources for understanding their religious participation. While our understanding of Muslim women’s history in the early and classical periods has been enriched by recent analy-ses of these sources, the research has almost exclusively focused on women in Sunnī

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biographical collections. 5 Devin Stewart’s recent study of women in the Imāmī compendium Riyād. al-‘ulamā wa-h. iyād. al-fud. alā’ of Mīrzā ‘Abd Allāh al-Is.fahānī (d. ca. 1130/1718) is a rare exception to this rule. 6 My chapter builds on Stewart’s findings and considers patterns that emerge when we examine a broader selection of Imāmī biographical literature. These works reflect a range of women’s activities, from preservation of the Imāms’ teachings to legal and hermeneutical engagement with texts central to Imāmism. The patterns of women’s religious engagement in Imāmī works are distinct from those in the Sunnī sources underscoring the neces-sity of understanding the social histories of each of these sects on their own terms. This chapter first summarizes the evidence from selected early and classical Imāmī biographical compendia and extracts salient characteristics of women’s participa-tion. My analysis then looks to developments in Imāmī legal and intellectual history to explain the distinct trajectory of women’s religious learning that emerges from the early and classical sources.

Early and Classical Sources: An Overview of the Evidence

Three of the four earliest extant Imāmī rijāl works contain entries for women. The Ikhtiyār ma‘rifat al-rijāl , al-T. ūsī’s (d. 460/1067) abridgement of the earlier Ma‘rifat al-rijāl of al-Kashshī (fl. early fourth/tenth century), commemorates four women, less than 1 percent of the total entries. 7 The entries offer anecdotal and vivid snap-shots of the women’s interactions with various Imāms. In some biographical works, the entries on women are grouped together. In the Ikhtiyār , however, they are inter-spersed with the entries for the male authorities.

The first entry for a woman is devoted to H. abāba al-Wālibiyya, whose extended lifespan of over a century attracts attention. She reportedly was a contemporary of the first Imām, ‘Alī b. Abī T. ālib (d. 40/660), and lived to the time of the eighth Imām, ‘Alī al-Rid. ā (d. 203/818). 8 The principal anecdote in this entry concerns a visit to the third Imām, H. usayn b. ‘Alī (d. 61/680), who greets her warmly and then asks what prevented her from visiting earlier. H. abāba points to a mark left by lep-rosy ( baras. ). H. usayn puts his hand on the mark and recites a prayer, thereby healing her. In this same encounter, H. usayn affirms to her that their community (of Shī‘īs) is the only group adhering to the right path ( millat Ibrāhīm ).

A second woman, Umm Khālid, possessed great eloquence ( balīgha ). 9 Her entry describes a meeting between her and Ja‘far al-S.ādiq, wherein she inquires about Kuthayr al-Nawwā’, whose reliability and character Ja‘far al-S.ādiq denounces. 10 Umm Khālid is identified as a supporter of Zayd b. ‘Alī (d. 122/740), and we learn that her hand was amputated, presumably due to her affiliation with his cause. The third woman, Sa‘īda, is presented in the introduction of this chapter. She had been a servant of Umm Farwa, the mother of Ja‘far al-S.ādiq, and it is likely that her learn-ing traditions from him was incidental rather than the product of a close teacher-disciple relationship. 11 Nevertheless, she is noteworthy as it was rare for a servant, likely a former slave, to have learned the text of the was.iyya . 12

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Finally, the entry for H. ubbā (identified simply as the sister of Muyassar) describes her as someone who settled in Mecca in total isolation from her family for a period of more than 30 years. Her brother approached Ja‘far al-S.ādiq saying, “May I be your ransom! My sister H. ubbā has continued her residence in Mecca until her close family members have died. Her [remaining] relatives are missing her, and only few of them are left. They fear that they will die just as the others have and they will not see her [again]. If you tell her [to return home], then she will accept your words [of counsel].” Imām Ja‘far is not immediately persuaded. He first tells Muyassar to leave his sister alone and asserts that it is only through her prayers that the family is prevented from harm. But Muyassar persists, and the Imām finally approaches H. ubbā with the words, “What is keeping you from the mus.allā of ‘Alī, in which ‘Alī himself used to pray?” 13 Only through such an appeal to ‘Alī’s memory is H. ubbā finally persuaded to move from Mecca.

Taken together, these four entries attest to the independence, devotion, and sacrifices of a few women to the Imāms and their cause. Two additional early rijāl works also contain a few entries for women. The Rijāl of al-Najāshī (d. 450/1058–59) identifies two women out of approximately 1,270 authorities. These are ‘Ulayya bint ‘Alī, the granddaughter of H. usayn b. ‘Alī (d. 61/680), and Kulthūm bint Sulaym, who narrated from ‘Alī al-Rid. ā. 14 Al-Najāshī notes that both had a written text ( kitāb ) from which they narrated. 15 Al-Najāshī’s work documents those who possessed written texts, and male authorities in al-Najāshī’s compilation are also credited with such collections. The third work, al-T. ūsī’s Rijāl , provides lists of women who narrated from the Prophet and the 12 Imāms (there are a total of 63 such women). Al-T. ūsī gives little other information about these women aside from a listing of their names. 16 Among those who narrated from Muh. ammad, al-T. ūsī includes women such as ‘Ā’isha bint Abī Bakr (d. 58/678), Asmā’ bint Abī Bakr (d. 73/693), and others who are not authoritative transmitters in the four early authoritative Shī‘ī h. adīth compilations. 17 Thirty-eight women are listed as authorities from Muh. ammad and three from ‘Alī b. Abī T. ālib. Most of the other Imāms narrate to only one or two women. 18 Three of the Imāms have no women listed as authorities for their traditions. Finally, al-T. ūsī’s Fihrist , the fourth of the formative rijāl works, lists Imāmī scholars who authored written works (e.g., tas.ānīf , kutub , or us.ūl ) and contains no entries for women. 19

The brevity of the entries in the early rijāl works and their limited quantity permit fairly limited conclusions about the scope of women’s participation and the nature of their religious authority in this period of Shī‘ī history. We discern, for example, that the Imāms engaged directly with several women, giving them advice, knowledge, and comfort. We can also ascertain that some of them were considered authoritative with respect to the preservation and transmission of traditions within the Shī‘ī community. However, we cannot always know whether these women were actually considered scholars (or just deemed reliable transmitters of a few tradi-tions). It is also not possible to understand how these women went about learning or disseminating knowledge (e.g., were there assemblies of learning in which they participated as students and teachers; did their sympathies with ‘Alid causes affect the ways in which they learned or disseminated traditions?). Here it is worth noting how issues of gender impact our analysis. The entries for many of the men in the

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early dictionaries are also anecdotal and brief. Nevertheless, because there are many more entries for men and because these entries can be supplemented with informa-tion about these men from other historical sources, we are able to emerge with a more complete composite picture of male participation in the early Shī‘ī tradition than is possible for women.

Imāmī scholars after the fifth/eleventh century recognized that the objectives and scope of early rijāl works rendered them useful for identifying close associ-ates of the Imāms and a number of other early authorities and for knowing the extremist tendencies ( ghuluww ) of some partisans of the Imāms. However, these works proved of limited utility for another important legal endeavor, namely, the systematic assessment of narrators who appeared in chains of transmission ( isnād s) of the numerous traditions in circulation. The proliferation of traditions after the Occultation ( ghayba ) (260/874) made the task of assessing their reliability an even more urgent one. 20 By the eleventh/seventeenth century, this realization as well as the ideological impetus to rely more on authenticated traditions of the Imāms in the derivation of law led to greater study of the narrators found in isnād s of the major Shī‘ī collections. 21 Biographers cast their nets wider to scrutinize all transmitters of traditions included in the Shī‘ī h. adīth corpus. The Jāmi‘ al-ruwāt of Muh. ammad b. ‘Alī al-Ardabīlī (d. 1001/1593) is a well-known representative of this trend. Eighty-eight women are listed in al-Ardabīlī’s compendium. 22 Yet, here as well, the entries for women are limited to one or two lines on each woman’s significance or transmission activity. Chronological information is not provided; however, many of them can be readily identified as belonging to the first few generations of Muslims. 23 Twenty-two of the eighty-eight women are actually nar-rators who appear in the four most important early Shī‘ī collections. Women such as ‘Ā’isha bint Abī Bakr and various wives of Muh. ammad are among those listed; as in the case of al-T. ūsī’s Rijāl , these women are included not because of their sig-nificant transmission activity insofar as Shī‘ī sources are concerned but to identify them as Companions. Finally, some women are mentioned as being associated with an Imām but are not known for h. adīth transmission. 24 Two other eleventh/seventeenth-century rijāl works, Naqd al-rijāl of al-Tafrīshī (f l. ca. mid-eleventh/seventeenth century) and Majma‘ al-rijāl of ‘Īnāyat Allāh al-Quhpā’ī (f l. early eleventh/seventeenth century), do not meaningfully change this picture of rather limited roles for women as h. adīth transmitters in the Imāmī tradition. 25

Given the brevity of information about women in the compendia considered thus far, the Riyād al-‘ulamā’ wa-h. iyād. al-fud. alā’ of Mīrzā ‘Abd Allāh al-Is.fahānī emerges as an unusual testament to women’s religious participation in Imāmī Shī‘ism. Unlike the eleventh/seventeenth-century works discussed earlier, which focused on h. adīth transmitters, al-Is.fahānī’s work includes jurists and other notable Imāmī scholars from the rise of Islam up to the early twelfth/eighteenth century. Further, his section on women gives us colorful glimpses of women’s lives. Since this section has been translated and analyzed in detail in the aforementioned article by Devin Stewart, I present only a summary and refer readers to Stewart’s study where relevant.

Al-Is.fahānī’s section on women contains 19 entries, a small fraction of the total of 2,491 entries. Stewart remarks that the low representation of women may be


because al-Is.fahānī did not complete this section. Indeed, as Stewart points out, al-Is.fahānī ends his last entry mid-sentence suggesting that he may have intended to augment this section. In spite of this drawback, al-Is.fahānī preserves an extraordi-nary record of the active participation of Imāmī women in various fields of religious learning. Three of the 19 women date from early Islam. Among them, Sukayna bint al-H. usayn (d. 117/736) is praised for her beauty, high character, and literary and poetic talents; her various marriages are referenced as well. 26

Al-Is.fahānī’s selection gives greater attention to women who lived sometime between the fifth/eleventh and twelfth/eighteenth centuries. Strikingly, up to 15 of the 19 women are praised for their legal discernment (four of them are described as “ faqīha ,” i.e., female jurist) and/or hermeneutical engagement with various texts central to the Imāmī tradition. 27 For example, the sister of the scholar Rah. īm al-Is.fahānī wrote out a commentary ( sharh. ) of the Lum‘a al-Dimashqiyya . The Lum‘a al-Dimashqiyya , composed by al-Shahīd al-Awwal Shams al-Dīn Muh. ammad b. Makkī al-‘Āmilī (d. 786/1384), ranks among the most influential in Imāmī legal scholarship. The commentary that Rah. īm al-Isfahānī’s sister copied out was the Sharh. al-Lum‘a of al-Shahīd al-Thānī Zayn al-Dīn al-‘Āmilī (d. 966/1559). Al-Is.fahānī relates that he himself saw the commentary, that this woman had beau-tiful handwriting, and that she had studied with her father and brothers. 28

Not surprisingly, nearly all the women are related to prominent male scholars who likely provided these women with educational access and training. Āmina Khātūn, the daughter of jurist Muh.ammad Taqī al-Majlisī (d. 1070/1659) and the sister of the renowned Muh.ammad Bāqir al-Majlisī (d. 1111/1699), excelled in her religious learning such that her husband (a jurist in his own right) would seek her help in understanding passages of Qawā‘id al-ah.kām , ‘Allāma al-H. illī’s (d. 726/1325) legal text. 29 In a similar vein, Umm ‘Alī, the wife of al-Shahīd al-Awwal, and Fāt.ima, his daughter, are rendered as exemplary for the women of their community; they exhibit piety, uprightness, and are so knowledgeable in law that al-‘Āmilī encour-ages other women to seek their counsel. 30 Through these and other examples of women’s religious learning, al-Is.fahānī expands our understanding of the oppor-tunities that Imāmī women availed, particularly in the era between the Greater Occultation (329/941) and the Safavid period contemporary with his life (up to the early twelfth/eighteenth century).

A Distinctive Imamī Pattern: Analysis of the Data

This survey reveals that women’s religious learning in Imāmī Shī‘ism followed a distinct trajectory. While women’s religious learning is documented from the time of the early Imāms onward, it does not appear that h. adīth transmission evolved as a central arena for women’s learning in the manner that it did in Sunnī communities. Rather, from the fourth/tenth century through al-Is.fahānī’s time, it is women’s legal discernment and commentarial contributions that attract the attention of biogra-phers. The analysis below examines this trajectory in greater detail. I incorporate

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comparisons with early and classical Sunnism to call attention to how divergent approaches to h. adīth transmission in turn impacted the activities of women as well as their representation in the two sectarian milieus.

The evidence presented above can be analyzed according to three chronologi-cal phases: the pre-Occultation period (up to 260/874), from the beginning of Occultation to the Safavid period (260–907/878–1502), and the Safavid period itself (907–1135/1502–1722). This chronological breakdown does not do justice to numerous intellectual and political evolutions in Shī‘ī history. 31 Nevertheless, it provides a basis for highlighting factors that are likely to have produced the aforementioned patterns in the selected biographical literature.

As the early rijāl literature reveals, in the pre-Occultation period, when the Imāms were able to provide direct guidance for their community, women did not figure prominently as authoritative transmitters of their traditions. During this era, the dispersion of religious authority in the early Shī‘ī context was more closely regu-lated than in post-Occultation phases, and the transmission of reports was the prov-ince of a more limited set of disciples of the Imāms. 32 Norms in early and classical Muslim societies that restricted interaction between the sexes would have meant fewer women would rank among the Imāms’ close associates. 33 In these contexts, and given the widespread persecution of those sympathetic to the Imāms, the public dissemination of Shī‘ī traditions is not likely to have been a task charged to many women. 34 In the few cases where women did indeed have close relationships with the Imāms, it may have been more difficult for biographers to gather information about them. As Stewart has noted, features such as the absence of full names of women (and references to them only in terms of their relations to male scholars, e.g., sister of X or mother of Y), may result from a desire to shield women from public attention. 35 The tendency may have been more pronounced in the minority Shī‘ī community wherein secrecy about one’s affiliation was a survival strategy.

A different view of early Shī‘ī women’s h. adīth participation emerges from some Sunnī sources that indicate that women loyal to the ‘Alid cause were known for narrating traditions. The fact that these traditions were ultimately not included in authoritative Imāmī compilations reinforces the notion of the strict regulation of religious authority during the period of the Imāms. Sunnī biographical and h. adīth literature records that a number of female descendants of ‘Alī and other women sym-pathetic to his cause narrated reports. These include women such as Umm Salama, a favored wife of Muh.ammad, who was well known for her alliance with ‘Alī and who is also one of the most authoritative of female Companions in the Sunnī sources. Ibn Sa‘d (d. 230/845), in his T. abaqāt , includes biographies of several descendants of ‘Alī b. Abī Tālib in his “listing of women who did not narrate from the Prophet but from his wives and from others.” Among them are ‘Alī’s daughters, Umm Kulthūm and Zaynab, and his granddaughters, Fāt.ima bint al-H. usayn and Sukayna bint al-H. ūsayn. 36 Of these women, only Zaynab bint ‘Alī (d. 62/682) appears as an author-ity in the major early Shī‘ī collections (she is credited with only a few traditions). Nafīsa bint al-H. asan (d. 208/824), Prophet Muh.ammad’s great-great-granddaughter, extolled as an ascetic learned woman in both Sunnī and Shī‘ī historical literature, is another outstanding example of a female ‘Alid religious authority. Such was her fame that her tomb became and remains a popular visitation site in Cairo. According


to Ibn Khallikān (d. 681/1282), the leading Sunnī jurist al-Shāfi‘ī (d. 205/820) acquired h. adīth from her. 37 Yet, she does not appear as a narrator in the Imāmī sources consulted here (nor is she numbered among the authoritative transmitters in the six canonical Sunnī collections). 38 Most importantly, Fāt.ima, the daughter of Muh. ammad and wife of ‘Alī, a figure who looms large in Shī‘ī hagiography and other literary and historical traditions, does not figure prominently in the four main Imāmī collections either. This is notwithstanding other, shorter collections of traditions on her authority. 39

The picture of closely regulated control over transmission authority during the period of the Imāms in the Shī‘ī context contrasts significantly with the early history of Sunnī h. adīth transmission. Indeed, in the Sunnī sources, the first phase of signifi-cant female participation encompassed the decades immediately after the death of Muh.ammad. During this time, numerous female Companions contributed reports about Muh.ammad arising from their interactions with him. The canonical Sunnī collections record the contributions of approximately 112 female Companions to varying degrees. These women related their traditions in the unregulated, ad hoc environment that prevailed after the death of Muh.ammad during which knowledge seekers accepted the authority of Companions primarily on the basis of their first-hand experiences rather than on the depth of their religious knowledge or their legal discernment. Among these, ‘Ā’isha bint Abī Bakr stands out as one of the three most prolific transmitters and is credited with close to 1,400 traditions. 40

The diffusion of h. adīth transmission authority accompanied by widespread oral transmission of traditions (as witnessed among Sunnīs soon after the death of Muh.ammad) does not appear to have occurred among the Imāmīs even after the Occultation. Al-T. ūsī’s Rijāl , for example, lists comparatively fewer transmitters for post-Occultation eras (ca. 260/873 up to al-T. ūsī’s life in the mid-fifth/eleventh century) than for earlier periods. 41 Rather than promoting h. adīth transmission and its ancillary disciplines, Imāmī ‘ulamā’ of the post-Occultation eras until the early Safavid period (260–907/878–1502) inclined toward theological and legal concerns and discourses—a predilection reflected in the scholarly production of this period. 42 With respect to women’s religious learning, just over half of the female scholars documented by al-Is.fahānī in his Riyād. date to these centuries. All of them claim scholarly genealogies with many emerging from families of leading Imāmī scholars such as al-T. ūsī, Ibn T. āwūs, and al-Shahīd al-Awwal. As noted above, these women are generally praised as scholars ( ‘ālima s) and a few of them as jurists ( faqīha s). In this cohort of pre-Safavid women, none is termed muh. additha , though several are said to have received certificates ( ijāza s) of learning. 43 Thus, it appears that while men of the scholarly elite were increasingly engaging the women of their homes in religious learning, it was not h. adīth transmission that prevailed as the primary arena for women’s involvement. As I discuss in greater detail later, these patterns in women’s religious education were a by-product of prevailing theological and legal inclinations in the Imāmī scholarly circles of those centuries.

The trend of educating women continued into the third phase, namely, the Safavid period, wherein women’s scholarly participation increased in the areas of legal learning, h. adīth sciences, and commentarial production. Thus, al-Is.fahānī remarks on the insightful notes and exegetical activity of women such as H. amīda

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(d. ca. 1087/1676), the daughter of Muh.ammad al-Rūydashtī, and Āmina Khātūn (fl. eleventh/seventeenth century), the daughter of Muh.ammad Taqī al-Majlisī, both profoundly engaged with legal texts central to the Imāmī tradition. 44

In these two phases as well, the Imāmī pattern differs significantly from what has been observed in classical Sunnī communities wherein h. adīth transmission evolved as the central arena for women’s religious education. 45 From the fifth/eleventh to the early tenth/sixteenth century, as Sunnī traditionalism prevailed over other theologi-cal and legal inclinations, women’s participation in this arena experienced a major revival in urban centers such as Baghdad, Damascus, and Cairo. 46 Here it is impor-tant to briefly distinguish between the terms “traditionalism” and “traditionism.” “Traditionism” is more apt for Imāmī Shī‘ism where it designates a tendency to favor traditions ( h. adīth of the Prophet and Imāms) and has significance primarily for the derivation of Islamic law. “Traditionalism,” on the other hand, connotes a worldview, and I use it to designate a broader intellectual, theological, and cultural movement among Sunnīs from the fourth/tenth to the tenth/sixteenth century. In Sunnī contexts, h. adīth transmission served to maintain cohesion and continuity within Sunnī ‘ulamā’ family networks. Furthermore, it was an activity that allowed Sunnī rulers, men and women of the scholarly elite, and the lay classes to forge socially valuable bonds rooted in the common pursuit of religious knowledge. Their activities are a characteristic marker of urban centers of the Seljūk, Ayyūbid, and Mamlūk eras (ca. fifth/eleventh to ninth/fifteenth centuries).

Returning to the Imāmī context, we can readily point to the persistent persecu-tion faced by Shī‘īs as one explanation for the fact that h. adīth transmission did not evolve into a communal activity providing social cohesion as it did for the Sunnīs. Shī‘ī communities, aside from those under Shī‘ī rule, generally did not have the liberty to convene public h. adīth assemblies and create a deep-rooted, well-endowed institutional infrastructure for the propagation of Shī‘ī h. adīth studies. 47 This expla-nation, however, cannot fully account for the trends, as it is clear that some Shī‘ī families of ‘ ulamā’ produced female scholars (albeit not muh. additha s) in the pre-Safavid period. Furthermore, even Shī‘ī communities that enjoyed the protection of the Safavid state did not develop a public, communal tradition of h. adīth transmis-sion that mobilized women.

In light of these factors, we must consider the possibility that other variables influ-enced the social culture of h.adīth transmission, even among the scholarly classes where h.adīth transmission was an important arena of religious learning and where several women are known to have received religious education. The contests between Imāmī traditionists and rationalists are a vital avenue for exploring this question of the social values associated with types of religious learning because the two ideologies assigned different weight to the importance of traditions in the derivation of Shī‘ī law. 48 Whereas rationalists asserted the primacy of reason in ascertaining the validity and application of traditions, traditionists tended to eschew such human agency favoring instead a reliance on the apparent meaning of reports. The rationalist position neces-sitated a higher level of hermeneutical engagement with texts and independent reason-ing whereas the traditionist position focused more on faithful transmission of texts.

In Imāmī Shī‘ism, rationalists generally prevailed in the struggle between these groups. Imāmī traditionism exercised significant influence for two relatively short


periods: from approximately the mid-third/ninth century until the mid-fourth/tenth century and then again from eleventh/seventeenth century till the second half of the twelfth/eighteenth century. The latter period is generally referred to as the era of the Akhbārī revival. The long, complex history of the interaction and struggle between traditionism and rationalism in Imāmī Shī‘ism has generated significant scholarly analysis, particularly with respect to its impact on the central enterprise of Shī‘ī law and theology. 49 It is relevant to this chapter in terms that have not yet attracted scholarly attention, namely, the social history implicated in this struggle and its impact on the community beyond the male scholars who directly engaged in the disputes.

In an insightful analysis focusing on Sunnism, Ahmed El Shamsy notes that a complex social process entailing the dissemination, reception, and promulgation of ideas must occur for a theological vision (be it traditionist, rationalist, or otherwise) to be established as orthodox. 50 The process cuts across social strata and implicates the ruling elite and scholarly classes, as well as ordinary believers. In Shī‘ī contexts as well, the disputes between traditionists and rationalists, two dominant, opposing theological-legal visions, reverberated beyond ‘ulamā’ circles and likely impacted the broader culture of religious education. The strength of rationalist influence for much of Imāmī history bolstered education consistent with the rationalist view, namely, a focus on legal, hermeneutical engagement with texts and a view that h. adīth were important to the legal enterprise, but that transmission of them was not an end in and of itself.

In the absence of direct discussions about the influence of the traditionist/ratio-nalist debates on women’s education, the analysis below is inferential, but nonethe-less consistent with developments outlined above. As previously discussed, Jāmi‘ al-ruwāt of al-Ardabīlī and the Riyād al-‘ulamā’ of al-Is.fahānī were both composed in the context of the Akhbārī revival. Yet, neither dwells on the achievements of women as transmitters of reports. Al-Ardabīlī reflects Akhbārī concerns insofar as he provides a more complete list of female narrators than early authors of rijāl works. However, he does not venture further. His entry for Fāt.ima, the Prophet’s daugh-ter, is likewise brief. He acknowledges her exalted, infallible status and states that her sayings constitute absolute proof and that she is above comparison with other women. Reference to collections of her traditions is missing thus leaving readers unaware of the extent of Fāt.ima’s contributions to the Shī‘ī h. adīth corpus. 51 While Fāt.ima is rendered thus, Umm Salama is simply identified as the wife of the Prophet and a Companion. 52 Though Umm Salama did not narrate in any of the four canonical Shī‘ī collections, she is among the most revered of Muh.ammad’s female Companions, ranking second only to Khadīja, Muh.ammad’s first and beloved wife.

Al-Ardabīlī’s stark minimalism in the women’s entries reflects a different proj-ect from that of some classical traditionalist Sunnī biographers such as Yūsuf b. ‘Abd al-Rah.mān al-Mizzī (d. 742/1341) and Muh.ammad b. Ah.mad al-Dhahabī (d. 748/1348). Al-Ardabīlī confined himself to legally oriented works. As a genre, these are sparser than works that include reports with more detailed narrative con-tent in genres such as fad. ā’il (virtues of Prophet Muh.ammad and other notable Muslims) and siyar (biographical/historical traditions). His databank for women, therefore, would not have been extensive. By contrast, al-Mizzī and al-Dhahabī

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drew on a broad range of compilations, and their biographies for women are notice-ably richer and more evocative. The efforts of such Sunnī biographers shed light on the contributions of a number of female Companions and Successors and ulti-mately cast them as muh. additha s par excellence . These early generations of women are precursors to Sunnī muh. additha s of the Seljūk, Ayyūbid, and Mamlūk periods. During these eras, Sunnī traditionalism (in contradistinction to Imāmī tradition-ism) was limited not just to demanding priority for traditions as a source of law but rather articulated a culture and worldview that promoted the age of Prophet Muh.ammad and the pious early generations as the Golden Age. 53 Sunnī traditional-ism’s emphasis on the importance of h. adīth transmission, veneration and emulation of esteemed Companions and Successors, and ascetic piety drew in various social strata including rulers and ‘ulamā’ (male and female), as well as peddlers and small merchants. 54 As such, it was a broader social enterprise than Imāmī traditionism which was largely restricted to the plane of legal discourse about the sources of Shī‘ī law. In the Sunnī context, the endeavors of scholars such as al-Mizzī and al-Dhahabī lent strength to traditionalism by casting early generations of men and women in terms that promoted traditionalist values.

Additional support for the idea that the Akhbārī revival had a different social impact from Sunnī traditionalism can be found in the Riyād. al-‘ulamā’ . The term “muh. additha ,” among the more common honorifics for female scholars in the clas-sical Sunnī biographical literature, is mentioned only once, in the entry of Bint al-Shaykh ‘Alī al-Minshār. Even as al-Is.fahānī notes her h. adīth transmission, it is but one of the many qualities that he praises. 55 A similar approach characterizes his description of H. amīda, the learned daughter of Muh. ammad al-Rūydashtī, one of al-Is.fahānī’s teachers. 56 She is commemorated in superlative terms for her religious learning, mystical insights, and the fact that she taught other women. It is clear from al-Is.fahānī’s comments that H. amīda was well-versed in ‘ ilm al-rijāl ; it is the demon-stration of this knowledge through her critical engagement with the texts that elicits his praise. Thus he notes that she authored commentaries on works of h. adīth , such as the Is.tibs.ār of al-T. ūsī, and states that his own father referred to H. amīda’s glosses and found them beneficial. 57 H. amīda stands out further as one of the few women to be credited with her own composition—in her case a work on h. adīth transmitters entitled Rijāl H. amīda . 58 Thus, al-Is.fahānī’s Riyād. al-‘ulamā’ suggests that even during the stable, secure Safavid era that witnessed the Akhbārī revival, h. adīth transmission did not gain traction as an enterprise that provided social cohe-sion and mobilized women in significant numbers.

Two modern compendia, the A‘yān al-Shī‘a of Muh. sin Amīn al-‘Āmilī (d. 1371/1952) and the Mu‘jam rijāl al-h. adīth of Abu’l-Qāsīm b. ‘Alī al-Khū’ī (d. 1413/1992), provide a final avenue for exploring the value associated with h. adīth transmission as compared with other types of religious engagement. 59 The A‘yān al-Shī‘a of al-‘Āmilī is a monumental effort at documenting thousands of notable persons in Shī‘ī historical memory from the first decades of Islam through the early twentieth century. As such, the work provides a fuller range of the accomplishments of women and adds to our knowledge in several respects. There are approximately 197 women commemorated by al-‘Āmilī who generally fall into one or more of the following categories: members of the ahl al-bayt (descendents of ‘Alī or one of the


other Imāms), narrators of h. adīth , scholars who demonstrated legal knowledge or contributed commentary, members of the ruling elite, female Companions, and finally, rhetoricians devoted to the Shī‘ī cause.

If we chronologically plot the women included in the A‘yān , we note that those credited with legal discernment lived after the fourth/tenth century with several of them thriving in the Safavid era. In the pre- ghayba period, high praise is gener-ally accorded to women whose rhetorical skills and strong personalities made them symbols of Shī‘ī resistance and devotion. Thus, in this cohort, Zaynab, the daughter of ‘Alī and Fāt.ima, emerges as the most impressive exemplar. 60 In an entry replete with lengthy, evocative descriptions, ‘Āmilī describes Zaynab’s fortitude in the face of persecution and tragedy. She was known as “ Umm al-mas.ā’ ib ” (the bearer of calamities), as she had to suffer the death of her grandfather, the Prophet, followed closely by the trials and death of her mother, the murder of her father, the poison-ing of her brother, al-H. asan, and the martyrdom of her brother al-H. usayn and his supporters at Karbala. After the Battle of Karbala, Umayyad attempts to humiliate her and other prisoners were met with her unrelenting defiance articulated through her eloquent speeches in which she denigrates those who deserted the Shī‘ī cause and upholds the honor of the martyred. Furthermore, the survival of ‘Alī Zayn al-‘Ābidīn, the only one of al-H. usayn’s sons to survive Karbala, is owed to her coura-geous and strategic maneuvering as she physically protected him after the Umayyad governor Ibn Ziyād ordered his execution. Her bravery thus ensured the continu-ation of the line of Imāms after the death of al-H. usayn. Further, there are some women about whom little is known except that they spoke eloquently in the face of Sunnī oppressors. Thus, first/eighth-century women such as Āmina bint Shurayd, Asmā’ bint ‘Aqīl, and Bakkāra al-Hilāliyya are commemorated through excerpts of their eloquent, poetic defenses. 61

Al-Khū’ī’s Mu‘ jam , encompassing 23 volumes with a total of 15,676 entries, ranks among the most comprehensive treatments of narrators in the Shī‘ī tradition. Al-Khū’ī meticulously collates evidence from major Shī‘ī h. adīth and rijāl works and also corrects and clarifies ambiguities with respect to narrators who appear in isnād s under alternative names. His section on women contains 134 entries, again less than 1 percent of the total. 62 Not surprisingly, his list overlaps with those of ear-lier biographers and mentions only ten additional women as narrators of traditions who do not have entries in al-Ardabīlī’s Jāmi‘ al-ruwāt . Zaynab bint ‘Alī, Umm ‘Alī, and Fāt.ima Umm Muh.ammad are three women on whom al-Khū’ī bestows comparatively higher praise. 63 Here too, Zaynab bint ‘Alī is commended for her staunch, outspoken criticism of tyranny against her brother and their family during the Battle of Karbala. Umm ‘Alī and Fāt.ima Umm al-H. asan, also mentioned by al-Is.fahānī, are praised for their fiqh . Strikingly, even in this work devoted to h. adīth transmitters, al-Khū’ī accords greater praise to the three women whose reputations are not in this arena while he uses more neutral terms to describe women who were known to narrate reports. The works of al-‘Āmilī and al-Khū’ī show that up through the modern period, Imāmī Shī‘īs have inclined toward elevating the model of the faqīha . In keeping with this trend, Iran has produced dozens of mujtahida s (high-ranking female jurists) equipped to issue rulings on a range of topics in Islamic law. 64 Further, the praise of Zaynab bint ‘Alī’s eloquent defiance of her oppressors

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highlights a different avenue for Imāmī women’s religious participation. Her exem-plary conduct forged a new model of a female rhetorician who could compose, in short order, articulate, passionate defenses of the Imāms, their families, and of the Shī‘ī cause in general.

Conclusions

This analysis sheds light on the range of women’s religious participation in early and classical Shī‘ī history. A comparison with Sunnī history reveals that trends in women’s religious education and authority differed significantly in the two sectar-ian milieus. While the minority and persecuted status of Shī‘īs is one factor that helps account for these divergences, we must also look to the reverberations of legal-theological debates within Shī‘ism. Those debates likely shaped the social percep-tions of different types of religious learning and extolled women who evinced legal discernment and critical, interpretive engagement with texts. In keeping with these inclinations, the genre of ‘ ilm al-rijāl in Imāmism did not function to glorify and perpetuate the female h. adīth transmitter as an exemplar in the manner of classical Sunnī literature. The evidence from early and classical Imāmī biographical works, though sparse, enables a more nuanced understanding of the development of Imāmī women’s religious participation than was heretofore available through consultation only of hagiography and devotional literature.

Notes

1 . I would like to thank Hossein Modarressi for his comments on an earlier draft of this chapter and for sharing his own notes on one of the women examined here. This chapter constitutes a dhayl of my doctoral dissertation on Sunnī women’s h.adīth transmission written under the guidance of Professor Modarressi. All mistakes, of course, remain my own.

2 . Muh.ammad b. al-H. asan al-T. ūsī (d. 460/1067), Ikhtiyār ma‘rifat al-rijāl (abridgement of Rijāl al-Kashshī (d. ca. 368/978) (Qum: Mu’assasat al-Nashr al-Islāmī, 1427/2006).

3 . See Muh. ammad Bāqir al-Majlisī (d. 1110/1699), Bih.ār al-anwār (Tehran: Mat.ba‘at H. aydarī, 1956–70), 22:455–503 for an extensive collection of reports on the was.iyya of the Prophet Muh. ammad and its variant texts.

4 . There has been a steady stream of literature on the biographical genre since the mid-twentieth century. For an overview, see EI 2 , s.v. “Ridjāl” (G. H. A. Juynboll). For a study of how this genre functioned across diverse intellectual, sectarian, and political milieus of early and classical Islam, see Michael Cooperson, Classical Arabic Biography : The Heirs to the Prophet in the Age of al-Ma’mūn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). For a more focused examination of biography and the construction of religious authority in Shī‘ism, see Liyakat Takim, Heirs of the Prophet (Albany: SUNY Press, 2006).

5 . The following studies have analyzed Sunnī female h. adīth participation: Jonathan Berkey, The Transmission of Knowledge in Medieval Cairo (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992), 161–81; Omaima Abou-Bakr, “Teaching the Words of the Prophet: Women Instructors of the H. adīth (Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries),” Hawwa 1, no. 3 (2003),


306–28; Bulliet, “Women and the Urban Religious Elite in the Pre-Mongol Period,” in Women in Iran from the Rise of Islam to 1800, ed. Guity Nashat and Lois Beck (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2003), 68–79; Asma Sayeed, “Shifting Fortunes: Women and H. adīth Transmission in Islamic History,” unpublished PhD diss., Princeton University, 2005; and Mohammad Akram Nadwi, Al-Muhaddithat : The Women Scholars in Islam (London: Interface, 2007).

6 . Devin Stewart, “Women’s Biographies in Islamic Societies: Mīrzā ‘Abd Allāh al-Is.fahānī’s Riyād. al-‘Ulamā’ ,” in Rhetoric of Biography : Narrating Lives in Persianate Societies , ed. Louise Marlow, 106–39 (Boston: Ilex Foundation, 2011).

7 . There are 494 entries for individuals in the Ikhtiyār . Additionally, there are entries for groups of people (such as an entry for the Zaydiyya and an entry for “ ghulāt during the time of Abū Muh. ammad al-‘Askarī”).

8 . Al-T. ūsī, Ikhtiyār , 107–108. 9 . Al-T. ūsī, Ikhtiyār , 208–209.

10 . See Majlisī, Bih. ār , 46:250 for a report about the sectarian inclinations of Kuthayr al-Nawwā’ (he was affiliated with the Batriyya sect, who did not acknowledge the sole authority of the Imām. See EI 2 , s.v. “Batriyya” for an overview and a brief men-tion of Kuthayr al-Nawwā’s role in this sect). For a brief biography of Kuthayr, see ‘Alī al-Namāzī al-Shāhrūdī, Mustadrakāt ‘ ilm rijāl al-h. adīth (Tehran: Mat.ba‘at H. aydarī, 1994), 6:301–302.

11 . For the identification of Sa‘īda as the mawla (servant) of Umm Farwa, see Muh.ammad b. Ish. āq al-Kulaynī (d. 329/941), Kāfī (Tehran: Dār al-Kutub al-Islāmiyya, 1983), 6:232 (in the second report of the section “ Bāb Idrāk al-Dhakāh ”).

12 . Al-T. ūsī, Ikhtiyār , 308. See Maria Dakake, Charismatic Community (Albany: SUNY Press, 2007), 220–22 for comments on women as trustees of testaments and other val-ued documents in early Islam.

13 . This is a reference to Kufa, H. ubbā’s hometown. 14 . For their entries, see Ah.mad b. ‘Alī al-Najāshī, Rijāl al-Najāshī (Beirut: Dār al-Ad. wā’,

1988), s.v. “ ‘Ulayya bint ‘Alī b. al-H. asan,” 2:830, and s.v. “Kulthūm bint Sulaym,” 2:189. 15 . For a discussion of the existence and survival of early written records (termed “ kitāb ”

or “ as.l ”), see Hossein Modarressi, Tradition and Survival (Oxford: Oneworld, 2003), xiv–xv.

16 . Al-T. ūsī, Rijāl al-T. ūsī (Qum: Mu’assasat al-Nashr al-Islāmī, 1994). For male narra-tors as well, al-T. ūsī provides only their names in many cases. The entries are arranged chronologically according to the lifetimes of the Imāms. The women’s entries follow the men’s entries in each section.

17 . See al-T. ūsī, Rijāl , 51–53. Other such women whom al-T. ūsī lists and who are known for transmitting in the Sunnī canonical collections but not in the Shī‘ī ones are Zaynab bint Jah.sh and Sawda bint Zam‘a.

18 . Imāms who narrate to one or two women and the page references for the lists of women in al-T. ūsī’s Rijāl are as follows: al-H. asan b. ‘Alī (d. 49/669) (p. 96); al-H. usayn b. ‘Alī (d. 61/680) (p. 102); ‘Alī b. al-H. usayn Zayn al-‘Ābidīn (d. 95/713) (p. 120); Muh.ammad b. ‘Alī al-Bāqir (d. 114/733) (p. 151); Mūsā b. Ja‘far al-Kāz.im (d. 183/799) (p. 347); Muh.ammad b. ‘Alī al-Jawād (d. 220/835) (p. 380); and ‘Alī b. Muh.ammad al-Hādī (d. 254/868) (p. 394). Imāms ‘Alī b. Mūsā al-Rid. ā (d. 203/818) and H. asan b. ‘Alī al-‘Askarī (d. 260/874) have no women listed as narrating from them. There is also one woman, namely, Fāt.ima bint Hārūn, who is included as an authority who nar-rated in the post-Occultation period (p. 452). Ja‘far al-S.ādiq narrated to thirteen women (pp. 327–28), and as noted earlier, ‘Alī narrated to three women.

19 . Al-T. ūsī, al-Fihrist (Qum: Mu’assasat al-Nashr al-Islāmī, 1996).

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20 . For a greater elaboration of this point, see the article by Liyakat Takim, “The Origins and Evaluations of Hadith Transmitters in Shi‘i Biographical Literature,” American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 24, no. 4 (Fall 2007), 26–49. See also Ja‘far al-Subh.ānī’suseful introduction to the evolution of the genre of ‘ ilm al-rijāl , which prefaces the Rijāl al-Najāshī , pp. “alif” to “yā’”.

21 . This eleventh/seventeenth-century traditionist tendency is labeled as the Akhbārī revival in modern studies. I discuss the tendencies of rationalism and traditionism in greater detail below.

22 . Muh.ammad b. ‘Alī al-Ardabīlī, Jāmi‘ al-ruwāt (Qum: Maktabat Āyat Allāh al-‘Uz.mā al-Mar‘ashī al-Najafī, 1982). The women’s entries are listed at the end of the work (see al-Ardabīlī, 2:455–59). Al-Ardabīlī’s two-volume compendium is not indexed, and I have not counted the male transmitters.

23 . Although birth and/or death dates for the women are not given, al-Ardabīlī names the Imāms from whom they transmitted. These classifications, in turn, provide an approxi-mate chronological framework.

24 . These include women such as Ghanīma bint al-Azdī and Qanwā bint Rashīd, both of whom were associated with Imām Ja‘far al-S.ādiq (see Ardabīlī, 2:458). It is likely that such women were in the household of the Imāms as servants.

25 . Mus.t.afā b. al-H. usayn al-H. usaynī al-Tafrīshī, Naqd al-rijāl (Qum: Mu’assasat Āl al-Bayt, 1998) and ‘Īnāyat Allāh al-Quhpā’ī, Majma‘ al-rijāl (Is.fahān: n.p, 1964). Al-Tah. rīr al-T. āwūsī , another classical compendium, contains what survives of the rijāl work entitled H. all al-ishkhāl of the classical h. adīth scholar Ah.mad b. Mūsā al-T. āwūs (d. 673/1274f). Compiled by the scholar H. asan b. Zayn al-Dīn (Ibn al-Shahīd al-Thānī) (d. 1011/1602), the Tah. rīr al-T. āwūsī is a close study of the narrators documented in al-T. ūsī’s Ikhtiyār with a view to a more definitive classification of their authority. As such, its entries for women are limited to the aforementioned four who have entries in the Ikhtiyār .

26 . Mīrzā ‘Abd Allāh al-Is.fahānī, Riyād. al-‘ulamā’ wa-h. iyād. al-fud. alā’ (Qum: Maktabat Āyat Allāh al-Mar‘ashī al-‘Āmma, 1980–81), 5:409–10. Sukayna bint al-H. usayn is among the better-known early Muslim women (for an overview, see EI2 s.v. “Sukayna bint al-H. usayn” ). For a contemporary Sunnī biography of her, see ‘Ā’isha ‘Abd al-Rah. mān (Bint al-Shāt.i’), Sukayna bint al-H. asan (Cairo: Dār al-Hilāl, n.d.). See also Jean-Claude Vadet, “Une personnalité féminine du H. igāz au Ier/VIIe siècle: Sukayna, petite-fille de ‘Alī,” Arabica 4 (1957), 261–87.

27 . In some cases, it is difficult to ascertain the extent of a woman’s legal learning. One such case is that of Fāt.ima, the daughter of H. amīda, who did not author any works but is praised for being knowledgeable. See al-Is.fahānī, Riyād. , 5:405.

28 . Al-Is.fahānī, Riyād. , 5:409. The sharh. of al-Shahīd al-Thānī is entitled al-Rawd. a al- bahiyya fī sharh. al-Lum‘a al-Dimashqiyya .

29 . Al-Is.fahānī, Riyād. , 5:407. For a biography of Jamāl al-Dīn Yūsuf b. ‘Alī b. Mut.ahhar al-H. illī, among the most renowned Imāmī scholars, see EI 2 , s.v. “al-H. illī.”

30 . Al-Is.fahānī, Riyād. , 5:403–404. For these notices, al-Is.fahānī likely relies on their biog-raphies as provided by al-H. urr al-‘Āmilī (d. 1104/1693) in his Amal al-āmil fī ‘ulamā’ Jabal ‘Āmil (Baghdad: Maktabat al-Andalus, 1965), 1:193. (In this biographical diction-ary, the entries on Umm ‘Alī and Fāt.ima bint al-Shahīd al-Awwal appear to be the only two entries accorded to women.)

31 . See Hossein Modarressi’s outline of Shī‘ī law according to eight phases for a more detailed analysis of the history and development of this legal tradition. Modarressi, Introduction to Shī‘ī Law (London: Ithaca Press, 1984), 24–58.


32 . For discussions of qualifications of early Shī‘ī transmitters, see Takim, Heirs of Prophet , chapter 4; and Etan Kohlberg, “Shī‘ī H. adīth,” in Arabic Literature to the End of the Umayyad Period , ed. A. F. L. Beeston et al. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 299–303.

33 . This is notwithstanding the possibility that gender norms were more relaxed in the earliest periods of Islamic history, as suggested in recent studies. Indeed as we see in the anecdotes recorded in the Ikhtiyār of al-T. ūsī, these women interacted with Imāms. Yet we cannot conclude from these limited incidents that normative interactions between the sexes were completely unrestricted.

34 . See Dakake, Charismatic Community , 213–35 for her analysis of early Muslim women’s identification with the cause of the ‘Alids.

35 . Stewart, “Women’s Biographies,” 124–25. 36 . References to their biographical entries in Ibn Sa‘d’s T. abaqāt (Leiden: E. J. Brill,

1904–18) are as follows: Umm Kulthūm, 8:339–41; Zaynab bint ‘Alī, 8:341; Fāt.ima bint al-H. usayn, 8:347–48; Sukayna bint al-H. usayn, 8:349. Ibn Sa‘d also mentions a number of other women who narrated from ‘Alī. See the following entries in Ibn Sa‘d, T. abaqāt : Umm Mūsā, 8:356; Umm Khidash, 8:356; and ‘Amra bint al-T. ibbīkh, 8:358.

37 . Ibn Khallikān, Wafayāt al-a‘yān , ed. Ih. sān ‘Abbās (Beirut, 1968), 5:423–24. 38 . Her absence as a prolific transmitter may be due to her residence in the area of modern-day

Cairo. During her lifetime (in the mid–late second/eighth century), this area was far from other, more prominent centers of learning such as Damascus, Basra, Kufa, and Baghdad, making it less likely that transmitters would encounter her and study traditions with her.

39 . See Modarressi, Tradition and Survival , 17–22 for a list of compilations of traditions on the authority of Fāt.ima as well as those about her life and virtues.

40 . For a more detailed discussion of the participation of female Companions and Successors in h. adīth transmission, see Sayeed, “Shifting Fortunes,” chapters 1 and 2 (see pp. 33–43 for an analysis of ‘Ā’isha’s h. adīth transmission).

41 . See al-T. ūsī, Rijāl , 408–52 in his section “ Bāb man lam yarwi ‘an wāh. id min al-a’ imma .” Here al-T. ūsī lists 509 transmitters. There are 5,290 in the centuries before the Occultation; Ja‘far al-S. ādiq alone is said to have narrated to 2,224 individuals (for the section on those who narrated from Ja‘far al-S.ādiq, see al-T. ūsī, Rijāl , 153–328).

42 . Modarressi, Introduction to Shī‘ī Law , 32–50. This is notwithstanding the relatively short-lived period of traditionist influence in Qum from approximately the mid-third/ninth to the mid-fourth/tenth century. As I discuss below, from the Occultation until the early Safavid period, factions favoring deeper engagement with h. adīth as a legal source did not exercise extensive influence in Imāmism.

43 . It is unclear whether these are certificates for legal learning or for h. adīth transmission. Here it is worth noting that terms employed by biographers include “ ‘ālima ,” “ fād. ila, ” and “ faqīha ” and are intended to convey rank as well as the level and types of learning acquired by the subjects of the biographies. The term fād. ila is one that occurs frequently in the biographies of women. Due in part to its generic connotations (as a person of pref-erence) and also due to evolving understandings of religious education, it is difficult to precisely translate “ fād. ila .” In al-Is.fahānī’s work, “ fād. ila ” seems to distinguish women who are not at the highest rank of scholarship (signified for male scholars by terms such as ‘allāma , ‘ālim kabīr , or muh. aqqiq ). H. amīda bint Muh.ammad al-Rūydashtī, one of the most accomplished female scholars in al-Is.fahānī’s work, is designated “ ‘allāmata ” (al-Is.fahānī, Riyād. , 5:404–405). Also see Stewart, “Women’s Biographies,” 119–23, for his insightful comments on the terms that occur in women’s biographies and the impor-tance of being sensitive to their multiple connotations.

Asma Sayeed96

44 . For H. amīda’s biography, see al-Is.fahānī, Riyād. , 5:404–405. For Āmina Khātūn’s biog-raphy, see al-Is.fahānī, Riyād. , 5:407.

45 . This is notwithstanding the important role of Islamic mysticism in incorporating women. Two studies that focus on mysticism, Sufism, and women are Annemarie Schimmel, My Soul Is a Woman (New York: Continuum, 1997) and Rkia Cornell, Early Sufi Women (Louisville, KY: Fons Vitae, 1999). Additionally, some early Muslim women, such as Umm al-Dardā’ al-S.ughrā (d. ca. 81/700), ‘Amra bint ‘Abd al-Rah.mān (d. 98/716), and H. afsa bint Sīrīn (d. 101/719) acquired reputations for legal learning and Qur’ānic interpretation. Biographical references for them are as follows: for ‘Amra bint ‘Abd al-Rah.mān’s biography, see al-Dhahabī, Siyar a‘ lām al-nubalā ’ (Beirut: Mu’assasat al-Risāla, 1981), 4:507–508; for that of Umm al-Dardā’ al-S.ughrā, see al-Dhahabī, Siyar , 4:277–79; and for that of H. afsa bint Sīrīn, see al-Dhahabī, Siyar , 4:508–509.

46 . With respect to historical trends, the level of female h. adīth transmission among Sunnīs had declined in era of the Successors (ca. early second/eighth century) and continued to be negli-gible till the mid-fourth/tenth century. I’ve analyzed these trends in my dissertation “Shifting Fortunes,” chapters 2 and 3.

47 . Here I refer to the well-known practice of endowing institutions, professorships, and student stipends for the study of h. adīth , which became more widespread during the Seljūk, Ayyūbid, and Mamlūk periods. See, for example, Stephen Humphreys, “Politics and Architectural Patronage in Ayyubid Damascus,” in Islamic World from Classical to Modern Times , ed. C. E. Bosworth et al., 151–74 (Princeton, NJ: Darwin Press, 1989). Stewart makes similar observations with respect to the training and qualifications of the women in Riyād. al-‘ulamā’ and notes that there was greater interest in h. adīth learning under the Safavids.

48 . For a historical overview of the debate, see Hossein Modarressi, “Rationalism and Traditionalism in Shī‘ī Jurisprudence: A Preliminary Survey,” Studia Islamica 59 (1984), 141–58. See also EI 2 , s.v. “al-Akhbāriyya” (Wilferd Madelung), and Encyclopedia Iranica , s.v., “Ak-bārāya” (Etan Kohlberg).

49 . A few of these studies include Juan Cole, “The Akhbari-Usuli Controversy Reconsidered,” Iranian Studies 18 (1985), 3–34; Robert Gleave, Scripturalist Islam : The History and Doctrines of the Akhbārī Shī‘ī School (Boston: Brill, 2009); Etan Kohlberg, “Aspects of Akhbārī Thought in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries,” in Eighteenth-Century Renewal and Reform in Islam , ed. N. Levtzion, 133–60 (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1987); Andrew Newman, “Development and Political Significance of the Rationalist (Us.ūlī) and Traditionalist (Akhbārī) Schools in Imāmī Shī‘ī History from the Third/Ninth to the Tenth/Sixteenth Century,” unpublished PhD diss., UCLA, 1986; Newman, “The Nature of the Akhbārī/Us.ūlī Dispute in Safawid Iran. Part 1: ‘Abdallāh al-Samāhijī’s Munyat al-Mumārisīn ,” and “Part II: The Conflict Reassessed,” in Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 55 (1992), 22–51 (for part I) and 250–61 (for part II); Devin Stewart, “Genesis of the Akhbārī Revival,” in Safavid Iran and her Neighbors , ed. Michel Mazzoui, 169–93 (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2003).

50 . Ahmed El Shamsy, “The Social Construction of Orthodoxy,” in The Cambridge Companion to Classical Islamic Theology , ed. Tim Winter (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 97.

51 . See note 39 for a reference to compilations on the authority of Fāt.ima. 52 . A notation after her entry [the Arabic letters mīm and h. ā’] signifies that her name also

appears in the rijāl work composed by Muh.ammad Mīrzā al-Astarābādī (d. 1028/1619). 53 . See Asma Afsaruddin, “Reconstituting Women’s Lives: Gender and the Poetics of

Narrative in Medieval Biographical Collections,” Muslim World 92, no. 3/4 (Fall 2002), 461–80, for her observations on the selectivity of medieval Muslim biographers.


54 . The literature on Sunnī traditionalism is extensive. See, for example, George Makdisi, “The Sunni Revival,” reprinted in History and Politics in Eleventh Century Baghdad (Aldershot, UK: Variorum, 1991). William A. Graham, “Traditionalism in Islam: An Essay in Interpretation,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 23, no. 3 (Winter 1993), 495–522, and Jonathan Berkey, The Formation of Islam (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), chapters 15, 20, and 23.

55 . Al-Is.fahānī, Riyād , 5:407. 56 . Al-Is.fahānī, Riyād. , 5:404–405. 57 . Al-Is.fahānī, Riyād. , 5:405. 58 . The work is listed among the ‘ulūm al-rijāl works in Āghā Buzurg al-T. ihrānī, Dharī‘a

ilā tas.ānīf al-Shī‘a (Tehran: Mat.ba‘at al-Gharī, 1936–), 10:114. See also Āghā Buzurg al-T. ihrānī, Mus.affā al-maqāl fī mus.annafī ‘ ilm al-rijāl (Tehran: n.p., 1959), 162–63 for al-T. ihrānī’s biographical notice on H. amīda, which draws primarily on al-Is.fahānī’s Riyād. .

59 . Muh.sin al-Amīn al-‘Āmilī, A‘yān al-Shī‘a (Beirut: Dār al-Ta‘āruf, 1986) and Abu ’l-Qāsim al-Mūsawī al-Khū’ī, Mu‘ jam rijāl al-h.adīth wa tafs.īl t.abaqāt al-ruwā (Qum: Markaz Nashr Āthār al-Shī‘a, 1989). The modern Qāmūs al-rijāl of al-Tustarī also devotes consider-able attention to women and gathers information from a range of sources (201 entries for them can be found toward the end of the twelfth volume of his work). However, his focus is on the early (pre- ghayba ) period and thus does not provide the expanded view available in al-‘Āmilī’s A‘yān . Further, al-Tustarī also evinces a more polemical tone and a concern to place women of early Islam with respect to their sectarian inclina-tions. His entry for ‘Ā’isha bint Abī Bakr, for example, dwells on her betrayal of ‘Alī (12:290–305); with respect to Umm Khālid, who is granted an entry in the Ikhtiyār , he points out that she was likely a Zaydī rather than an Imāmī (See al-Tustarī, Qāmūs al-rijāl [Qum: Mu’assassat al-Nashr al-Islāmī, 1989], 12:201–202). Another mod-ern work that contains a section of brief biographies of prominent early women (not all of them h. adīth transmitters) is ‘Alī al-Namāzī al-Shāhrūdī’s Mustadrakāt , 8:544–602. Two modern biographical works focusing only on Shī‘ī women are Muh.ammad H. assūn, A‘ lām al-nisā’ al-mu’mināt (Qum (?): Intishārāt-i Usva, 1990) and Z. abīh Allāh Mah.allātī, Rayāh. īn al-sharī‘a dar tarjumah-‘ i dānishmandān-i bānūān-i Shī‘ah (Tehran: Dār al-Kutub al-Islāmiyya, 1954). The more recent interest in uncovering Shī‘ī women’s h. adīth participation is also evinced in the following two-part article: Mahdī Mahrīzī, “Sahm zanān dar nashr-i h. adīth ,” ‘Ulūm-i h.adīth 26: vol. 7, no. 3, 52–68 (Part I) and 26: vol. 7, no. 4, 140–62 (Part II).

60 . Al-‘Āmilī, A‘yān , 7:137–42. 61 . Their entries in al-‘Āmilī’s A‘yān occur as follows: Āmina bint Shurayd, 2:95; Asmā’

bint ‘Aqīl, 3:305, and Bakkāra al-Hilālīyya, 3:589. Much of the material about women’s eloquence in early Shī‘ī contexts is drawn from the early work of Ibn Abī T. āhir T. ayfūr (d. 280/893), Balāghāt al-nisā‘, which commemorates the rhetorical skills of several early Muslim women.

62 . For the section on women, see al-Khū’ī, Mu‘ jam , 23:170–201. The total number of entries does not account for the entries numbered separately for both men and women, but which ultimately refer to the same narrator.

63 . The entries for the three women in al-Khū’ī’s Mu‘ jam are as follows: Zaynab bint ‘Alī, 23:190–191; Umm ‘Alī, 23:179; and Fāt.ima Umm al-H. asan, 23:196.

64 . See, for example, Mirjam Kunkler and Roja Fazaeli, “The Life of Two Mujtahida s: Female Religious Authority in 20th Century Iran” (forthcoming).

Chapter 6

Why Incline to the Left in Prayer? Sectarianism, Dialectic, and Archaeology

in Imamı Shı ʿism 1 Michael Cook

1. The Traditions

In a chapter of miscellaneous traditions ( nawādir ) near the end of the “book of prayer” ( kitāb al-s.alāt ) of his celebrated collection of Imāmī Shīʿite traditions, Kulaynī (d. 329/941) has the following tradition: 2

ʿAlī b. Muh. ammad rafaʿahu qāla: qīla li-Abī Aʿbdi ’ llāh ʿalayhi ’ l-salām: lima s.āra ’ l-rajul yanh. arifu fī lʾ-s.alāt ilā ’l-yasār? fa-qāla: li-anna lil-Kaʿba sittat h. udūd, arbaʿa minhā ʿan 3 yasārika, wa-’thnān minhā ʿalā yamīnika, fa-min ajl dhālika waqaaʿ ’ l-tah. rīf 4 ilā 5 ’ l-yasār. ʿAlī b. Muh.ammad, 6 without a (full) chain of transmission, 7 said: Abū ʿAbdallāh [Jaʿfar al-S. ādiq (d. 148/765)] was asked: “How does it come about that a man inclines to the left in prayer?” He answered: “Because the Kaʿba has six boundaries, four of them on your left, and two of them on your right; it is on account of this that the inclination is to the left.”

What are we to make of this tradition? First, the chain of transmission as given is very incomplete, which led Muh.ammad b. ʿAlī al-ʿĀmilī (d. 1009/1600) to describe it as very weak. 8 So for ʿĀmilī, the tradition is not necessarily to be taken as the word of an infallible imam, and we can follow him in this. Second, the question is inter-esting: it implies that there was a well-known practice of turning somewhat to the left in prayer, 9 but that those who did this might not know why they were doing it.

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This presumably means that they inclined to the left of the qibla , if we understand it to be the direction of the Kaʿba. Third, the answer is a bit obscure. It seems the inclination to the left is being linked to the fact that there are more “boundaries” of the Kaʿba to one’s left than there are to one’s right, but what are we to understand here by a “boundary” of the Kaʿba? It is almost as if we are being asked to think of the building as having six sides. 10

The idea becomes much clearer if we turn to a similar but longer tradition that is not found in Kulaynī. Here it is as it appears in a work of Abū Jaʿfar al-T. ūsī (d. 460/1067): 11

wa-sa aʾla ’ l-Mufad. d. al b. ʿUmar Abā ʿAbdi ’ llāh ʿ alayhi ’ l-salām ʿan al-tah. rīf 12 li-as.h. ābinā dhāt al-yasār aʿn al-qibla, wa- aʿn al-sabab fīhi, fa-qāla: inna ’ l-h. ajar al-aswad, lammā unzila bihi min al-janna wa-wud. i aʿ fī mawd. i iʿhi, juiʿla ans.āb al-h.aram min h.aythu yalh.aquhu 13 ’ l-nūr, nūr al-h.ajar; fa-hiya 14 ʿan yamīn al-Kaʿba arbaaʿt amyāl, wa- aʿn yasārihā thamāniyat amyāl, kulluhu ’thnā aʿshar mīlan; fa-idhā ’nh. arafa ’ l-insān dhāt al-yamīn, kharaja aʿn h. add al-qibla li-qillat 15 ans.āb al-h. aram, wa-idhā ’nh. arafa dhāt al-yasār, lam yakun khārijan aʿn h. add al-qibla. Mufad. d. al b. ʿUmar 16 asked Jaʿfar al-S. ādiq about the inclination of our companions to the left of the qibla and about the reason for it. He answered: “When the black stone was brought down from paradise and set in its place, the boundary-stones of the sanc-tuary were placed where the light—the light of the stone—reached. So they extend four miles to the right of the Kaʿba and eight miles to the left of it, twelve miles in all. Thus when a person inclines to the right, he goes beyond the limit of the qibla owing to the paucity of the boundary stones of the sanctuary, and when he inclines to the left, he does not go beyond the limit of the qibla .”

The chain of transmission, of course, is no better than it was before, 17 but it is now explicit that the question is about the qibla . Above all, the answer is con-siderably clearer. 18 The “boundaries” of the Kaʿba are now the boundary stones of the sanctuary. 19 The point is obviously that if we face the Kaʿba, presumably from Iraq, 20 or more specifically Kūfa, 21 then the sanctuary extends twice as far to the left of the Kaʿba as it does to the right of it. So if we want to maximize our chances of facing toward some part of the sanctuary, 22 then we do better to aim to the left of the Kaʿba than to its right—in other words, we aim for the middle of the sanctuary. 23

This explanation is grounded in an unusual conception of the qibla . In the context of these traditions, the qibla is not the Kaʿba itself but rather the sanctu-ary as a whole. This idea too appears in Imāmī traditions from Jaʿfar al-S. ādiq, for example: “God made the Kaʿba the qibla for the people of the mosque, He made the mosque the qibla for the people of the sanctuary, and He made the sanctuary the qibla for the people of the world.” 24 Here the mosque is al-Masjid al-H. arām, the space in the middle of which the Kaʿba sits, and the sanctuary is the wider consecrated region around Mecca. So if we are outside this region, the entire sanctuary is our qibla . We can call this the doctrine of the nested qibla s, or simply “nesting.” It contrasts with the standard view that the qibla is either the Kaʿba itself or—for those at a distance—the direction of the Kaʿba ( jihat al-Kaʿba ); we can call this the “Kaʿbatist” view. The nesting doctrine is mainly an Imāmī con-ception, though not exclusively so. 25

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2. The Jurists

We should now turn from the traditions to the legal literature of the Imāmīs. To begin with the nesting view, we find it regularly discussed by the jurists. Many early authorities supported it, including Abū Jaʿfar al-T. ūsī, 26 though by no means all of them adopted it. 27 With the passing of the centuries, however, it tended to fall out of favor; it has little support among the later jurists, whether those of the pre-S.afawid era, 28 those of the S.afawid period, 29 or their successors, 30 and would seem to have been forgotten outside scholarly circles. 31

As might be expected, the practice of inclining to the left has a similar trajec-tory among the Imāmī jurists (Sunnī parallels are again very rare). 32 They consis-tently refer to it as tayāsur , 33 “inclining to the left”—a word that does not appear in our traditions. Again, early jurists often support it, 34 though there are exceptions. 35 Later jurists, by contrast, tend to be half-hearted in their endorsement of it, 36 or to reject it altogether, 37 and today it would seem no longer to be practiced. 38 (As might be expected, the most vigorous defense of the doctrine comes from an Akhbārī scholar who is concerned to rescue our traditions.) 39 The dependence of tayāsur on the nesting doctrine is often mentioned; 40 and tayāsur is naturally linked to our tra-ditions, implicitly or explicitly. 41 The jurists also bear out two assumptions we made in our understanding of the longer tradition. One is that tayāsur is not something to be practiced by Imāmīs wherever they are found, but rather by those of Iraq, or of lands lying beyond it in the same direction such as the Jazīra, Fārs, the Jibāl, and Khurāsān. 42 The other assumption is that the practice is in the nature of a precau-tion ( istiz. hār ) intended to minimize the risk of missing the qibla . 43

3. Geography

The basic idea of the tradition thus makes some sense. But does it make good sense? Here there are two questions we should ask. The first is whether the topography of the sanctuary is in fact as described in these traditions, and the second is whether, if it were so, it could explain the practice of inclining to the left.

The historians of Mecca detail the boundaries of the sanctuary on each of the roads leading to Mecca, and give the distance of each from Mecca itself. Leaving aside the place-names, we can tabulate the information as in Table 6.1. 44 Here the

Table 6.1 Chart of Distances from the Boundary of the Sanctuary to Mecca on Various Roads

On the road from . . . Miles to Mecca

Medina 3Yemen 7Judda 10T. āʾif 11Iraq 7Ji ʿrāna 9

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shortest distance to the boundary of the sanctuary is the three miles on the road to Medina, and the longest the 11 miles on the road to T. āʾif. Thus, as we look toward Mecca from the northeast, in other words from the direction of Iraq, we might be tempted to think of these as the key distances determining the virtual silhouette of the sanctuary for us. This, it seems, would more or less explain the tradition, and perhaps whoever put it into circulation was thinking in this way. But if we look carefully at a map, we see that while the road to T. āʾif is indeed the relevant one on the left, what should concern us on the right is the road to Judda. Now the effect is ruined: the silhouette extends ten miles on the road to Judda as against 11 on the road to T. āʾif, a difference so small that the basic idea of the tradition does not work. The same point is made in a different way in Figure 6.1 . Here the boundaries of the sanctuary are copied from the map published by ʿAbd al-Malik b. ʿAbdallāh b. Duhaysh; 45 of the two broken lines, one indicates the direction of Kūfa, the other that of Qat.ar. For a person facing the Kaʿba from some point on the gently slop-ing line, the silhouette of the sanctuary is indeed asymmetrical: the Kaʿba is well toward his right, just as the tradition describes. But this is the view from Qat.ar, not Kūfa. The direction of Kūfa is marked by the steeply sloping line, and for a person standing at some point along this line, the Kaʿba appears roughly in the center of

N

To K

ufa

To Qatar

The Ka‘ba

0 5

Approximate scale in miles

10

Figure 6.1 The Boundaries of the Meccan Sanctuary with Directions to Qat.ar and Kufa.


the sanctuary. 46 So the tradition does not in fact hold up when confronted with the local topography.

Even if it did make topographical sense, could the tradition satisfactorily explain the practice of inclining to the left in prayer among Imāmīs in Kūfa? Here we fall foul of trigonometry, as can be seen from Figure 6.2 . Let us suppose that a person happens to be located seven or eight miles from the boundary of the sanctuary in the direction of Qat.ar (for convenience let these be English miles). From his point of view, the silhouette of the sanctuary extends about five miles to the right of the Kaʿba and about nine miles to the left, and the center of the sanctuary is thus some two miles to the left of the Kaʿba. In the spirit of the tradition, he therefore inclines slightly to the left, seeking to face in the direction in which he believes that the center of the sanctuary lies, and thus maximizing his chances of facing at least some part of it in his prayer. The amount by which he turns to the left—the angle between the two broken lines—is about 8°, not a lot, but enough that a normal person could be aware of the difference. But the further he moves from the sanctu-ary, the smaller the angle. What then if he is located not seven or eight miles from the boundary of the sanctuary, but rather seven or eight hundred miles away in Qat.ar? Then the appropriate inclination to the left would be less than a fifth of one degree 47 —far too little for a normal person without scientific instruments to

N

The center of the sanctuary

The Ka‘ba

0 5

Approximate scale in miles

10

Figure 6.2 The Kaʿba and the Center of the Sanctuary from a Point about 8 Miles from the Boundary in the Direction of Qat.ar.

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be aware of. 48 Kūfa is about the same distance from Mecca as Qat.ar, and thus the tradition does not work in these terms either. Unlike the topographical objection, the trigonometrical objection was not lost on the Imāmī jurists, though it seems to appear only in S.afawid times. 49

4. Astronomy

If the explanation of the practice of inclining to the left given in the tradition does not work—and we have seen that it fails on two grounds—then what alternative explanation could we suggest? The tradition tells us that the source of the problem is in the H. ijāz, but that got us nowhere; so instead let us entertain the hypothesis that the problem could lie in Iraq.

If we confine ourselves for the moment to the works of the scholars who endorsed tayāsur , we see that the topic often finds its place next to the accounts of the astro-nomical signs ( ʿalāmāt , amārāt ) 50 that the Imāmī jurists list region by region as pro-viding simple rules for finding the qibla —for example, that in Iraq one should have the polestar ( al-jady ) behind one’s right shoulder. 51 Thus, in most of these works, tayāsur appears immediately before, 52 immediately after, 53 or even in the middle 54 of the discussion of these signs. In none of the works in question is any explicit connection made between tayāsur and the signs; where a reason is given for tayāsur , it is always the asymmetry of the sanctuary. But there is no difficulty in assuming the intention of the texts to be that an Imāmī observing tayāsur might first orient himself toward the Kaʿba by means of these signs, and then turn slightly to the left to compensate for the asymmetry. In other words, the direction given by the signs would be that with reference to which one inclines to the left. 55 On this understand-ing, the point of tayāsur remains as stated in the traditions; we have simply answered the question how one knows how to face the Kaʿba in the first place.

There is, however, a more drastic way in which one might imagine the relation-ship between tayāsur and the signs. One might think of them as rules of thumb that could be relied on to give an approximate orientation toward the Kaʿba, but no more. 56 We could then suppose that, in the particular case of Iraq and the lands associated with it, the signs were known to yield a direction a bit too far to the right, so that it would be appropriate to instruct anyone using them to incline a bit to the left. Here, we would have an explanation of tayāsur that has nothing to do with the asymmetry of the sanctuary. Two questions would now arise. The first, and entirely beyond my competence to answer, would be whether it was in fact the case that the signs for Iraq and associated lands were such as to orient the believer too far to the right. The second would be whether the Imāmī jurists who supported tayāsur were thinking along these lines, and I see no evidence in the texts that they were.

Nevertheless, if we cast our net more widely, we can find indications of such an understanding among scholars who did not themselves support tayāsur . In an encounter that took place between two learned and intelligent scholars of the seventh/thirteenth century, Nas.īr al-Dīn T. ūsī (d. 672/1274) challenged al-Muh.aqqiq al-H. illī (d. 676/1277) with a dilemma ( ishkāl ) regarding tayāsur to which we will come


shortly. 57 In the epistle he wrote in reply, the Muh.aqqiq stated at one point that if you do not know the direction of the Kaʿba you have to go by the signs, but that doing so does not guarantee that you will be facing exactly in the direction of the qibla . 58 A later scholar, al-Fād. il al-Hindī (d. 1137/1725), likewise speaks of the signs as approxi-mate, 59 as does Najafī (d. 1266/1850); 60 this goes back to the Muh.aqqiq’s epistle. But neither the Muh.aqqiq nor those who echoed his argument said that tayāsur was simply a correction of an erroneous direction of the Kaʿba derived from the signs. The Muh.aqqiq was making a good-faith effort to make sense of a doctrine he did not himself believe in—not at least in this epistle or in most of his other works. In this context, his point was that, given the fact that one can go slightly wrong with the signs, and assuming the view that the entire sanctuary is the qibla , it would be in place to incline a little to the left of the direction in which the signs point one, and thereby to maximize one’s chances of facing the sanctuary. 61 In other words, the problem with the signs was not that they systematically oriented one too far to the right, but simply that they were not foolproof.

This encounter between Nas.īr al-Dīn T. ūsī and the Muh.aqqiq provides the occasion for a general comment on the manner in which the medieval scholars approached the problem of tayāsur . The dilemma posed by T. ūsī when he attended a class given by the Muh.aqqiq was as follows. The idea of inclining to the left is inde-terminate unless one first specifies the direction relative to which the turn is being made. If that direction is the qibla , then to incline to the left of it is wrong; whereas if the direction remains unspecified, then the notion of turning to the left has no meaning. 62 The Muh.aqqiq replied at the time, but may not have been entirely satis-fied with his reply, since he later composed a short epistle to T. ūsī on the subject; this epistle is preserved in a law book written by a later scholar. 63 We do not need to go into the details of the Muh.aqqiq’s argument; the point here is that the approach of both sides is entirely dialectical and juristic, and not in any way historical. As Majlisī (d. 1110/1699) was later to remark, the Muh.aqqiq, for all his dialectical acuteness, did not solve the basic problem. 64

5. The Kufan Mosque

If the fault was not in the stars, could it lie in something more mundane? Kūfa in the early centuries of Islam was the center of Imāmī life, and the religious focus of the city was the Kūfan mosque. Now we know from a couple of eschatological traditions that the early Imāmīs had a problem with the orientation of this mosque. In one of these traditions, ʿAlī (d. 40/661) condemns the person (or persons) who will demolish and rebuild the Kūfan mosque, changing the qibla of Noah ( al-mughayyir qiblat Nūh. ), and looks forward to a further demolition of the mosque at the hands of the qā iʾm 65 —the Imāmī redeemer identified with the Twelfth Imām. The rebuilding condemned here is presumably that of Ziyād b. Abīh in the time of Muʿāwiya. 66 In the other tradition, ʿAlī says that the qā iʾm will correct the orienta-tion of the Kūfan mosque ( sawwā qiblatahu ). 67 Unfortunately, these traditions do not tell us whether the Imāmīs considered the qibla of the mosque to deviate to

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the right or to the left. But if there was reason to believe that the Kūfan mosque was oriented too far to the right, this would provide a plausible explanation for the practice of inclining to the left.

This was not the kind of idea that the medieval scholars could be expected to come up with, but by the S.afawid period things had changed. As noted above, the trigonometric problem arising from the explanation of tayāsur given in the tradi-tions had become familiar, and a new kind of thinking now appeared. As Majlisī puts it, what comes to mind on the question ( alladhī yakht. iru fī dhālika bi’ l-bāl ) is the idea that the reason for the practice of inclining to the left could be the devi-ant orientation of most of the mosques in Kūfa and other parts of Iraq. 68 Thus, he continues, the qibla of the mosque of Kūfa is about 20° too far to the right. 69 Since most of these mosques were built in the time of ʿUmar (ruled 13–23/634–44) and other such usurpers ( khulafāʾ al-jawr ), it would have been dangerous for the imams to object to them; so they ordered their followers to incline to the left, the reason they gave them for this being in the nature of a smoke screen. 70 At this point, however, Majlisī had to resolve a doctrinal problem. There was a well-established principle that one could know the true qibla through the orientation of a mosque that an infallible person ( maʿs.ūm ) had built or prayed in. 71 Majlisī describes the view that the orientation of the Kūfan mosque was a case in point as that of most Imāmī scholars, 72 and it is not hard to find examples of this persuasion. 73 Majlisī now goes on to refute this view. ʿAlī (ruled 35–40/656–61) did not build the mosque, nor do we know that he prayed in it without inclination; 74 in fact, says Majlisī, there is the evidence of archaeological remains ( al-āthār al-qadīma ) to the contrary, 75 and at this point he gives a cross-reference that we will soon follow up. 76 He adds that it would appear from the sources that the present mosque of Kūfa is not the one that was there in the time of ‘Alī, 77 and supports this with a reference to two eschatological traditions. 78 It is clear from all this that Majlisī was thinking historically, although to allow himself to do so he had to free himself from any doctrinal compulsion to see the qibla of the Kūfan mosque as necessarily correct. 79 What is not clear is just how he sees the chronology of the Kūfan qibla , for as he indicates, the current mosque may not be the original one. But the fact that no less a figure than Majlisī cham-pioned these views ensured that they had some attention from posterity, although their impact on later juristic writing was limited. 80

Let us now follow up Majlisī’s cross-reference. It takes us to a short epistle by one of his teachers, the Amīr Sharaf al-Dīn ʿAlī al-Shūlistānī, a sayyid from Fārs who lived in Najaf, just a few miles from Kūfa, and is said to have died there around 1060/1650. 81 We can summarize what he has to say insofar as it concerns us as follows. 82 His starting point is the idea that one can ascertain the direction of the Kaʿba from the orientation of a mosque going back to an infallible imam. He comments that one can only do this if one really does know that the infallible imam in question had it built—or alternatively, if it was built before him, that he did at least pray in it without inclining to the right or left. The question of the mosque of Kūfa is accordingly a difficult one, since it was built before the time of ʿAlī, 83 and its qibla wall and the niche ( mih. rāb ) known as the niche of ʿAlī ( mih. rāb amīr al-muʾminīn ) are inclined to the right ( fīhimā tayāmun ). This was something that Shūlistānī found puzzling, and his puzzlement was increased by the contrast


with the tomb of ʿAlī in Najaf, which was oriented far to the left. He put it down to the tomb having been built by someone other than an infallible imam, but who believed in inclining to the left. 84 So Shūlistānī would incline to the right at the tomb of ʿAlī, and to the left in Kūfa, since it was related that ʿAlī had prayed there in the mosque, but not that he prayed straight ahead without inclining either to the right or to the left. Now in the middle of the qibla wall there was a large abandoned niche at which people no longer prayed, 85 and this was not known as a niche of ʿAlī or of any of the prophets or imams. In the course of time the mosque had gone to ruin, its columns had fallen over, and its original paving ( farshuhu ’l-as.lī ) 86 had been hidden by stones and dirt. Then the Vizier Mīrzā Taqī al-Dīn Muh. ammad decided to free the mosque of the debris ( kathāfāt ), to restore the southern side of the mosque, and to clear the dirt and stones that had accumulated in its court ( s.ah. n ) down to the level of the original paving ( ilā ’ l-farsh al-as.lī ). 87 When the work was undertaken, it was revealed that the niche and door that had been known as the niche and door of ʿAlī were not in fact linked to the original paving; instead, there was a gap of nearly two cubits ( qarīban min dhirā aʿyn )—about a meter—in elevation between them. 88 By contrast, the abandoned niche in the middle of the qibla wall turned out to be fully joined to the original paving. Moreover, a large door came to light close by that was likewise joined to the original paving. All along the qibla wall were columns and bays ( ust.uwānāt wa-s.uffāt ); 89 but around the niche was a bay double the normal size, with no trace of a column in the middle. The vizier ordered the surface of the niche to be removed the better to whitewash it ( li-yubayyid. ūhu ); when this was done, it could be seen that it had been whitewashed ( bayyad. ūhu ) three times, and likewise painted red ( h. ammarūhu ); 90 each time, it had been oriented to the left ( amālūhu ilā ’ l-yasār ). 91 The vizier was amazed at this discovery, so he summoned Shūlistānī and showed it to him in the presence of a distinguished company, who were just as surprised. It occurred to Shūlistānī that this niche was in fact the niche of ʿAlī, first because it was joined to the original paving, and second because it was located in an outsize bay in which the scholars and other members of the elite could gather behind the imam. In the same way he took the door to be ʿAlī’s door through which he would come to the mosque from his residence, again because it was joined to the original paving. Since the wall was already there before ʿAlī came to Kūfa, with the niche as part of it, and its orien-tation was false, what ʿAlī did was to incline to the left ( tayāsara ) in prayer there, as did the Muslims after him, orienting the “white and red” to the left ( h. arrafū wa-amālū ’ l-bayād. wa’ l-h. umra ilā ’ l-yasār ) 92 so that people should know that ʿAlī inclined to the left there, and using the red to indicate that he was killed there. The repeated application of these coats was the consequence of their repeated ero-sion and the roughness of the surface ( kathāfa ). When the mosque went to ruin, the columns and bays disappeared, the original paving was covered over, and a new paving took its place. At this time someone constructed the small niche and opened up a small door nearby at the new floor-level ( ʿalā ’ l-sat.h. al-jadīd ), and these then came to be known as the niche and door of ʿAlī. Shūlistānī explained his theory to the vizier and the rest of the company, and they all thought he was right. They then prayed there, inclining to the left in accordance with what they had seen in the niche. The vizier ordered the niche to be specially decorated. However, the

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architect was negligent, the work was overtaken by the events that took place in Iraq, 93 and the niche remained as it was, like any other niche. 94

But do we in fact have reason to believe that in early Islamic times the Kūfan mosque was oriented too far to the right, as Shūlistānī tells us of the niche he identified as ʿAlī’s? There is little literary evidence regarding the orientation of the mosque in the early centuries of Islam, 95 and unlike that of Wāsit. it has scarcely been excavated. 96 In the absence of such direct evidence, two indirect arguments might be advanced to fill the gap. The first would be that we could presume the layout of the mosque today to preserve that of the mosque built by Ziyād b. Abīh in the time of Muʿāwiya 97 (though hardly that of the original mosque). 98 But this presumption of continuity is in itself less than compelling. The second and more serious argument is that the mosque is closely connected to the residence of the governor ( dār al-imāra ), which fortunately has been extensively excavated. The presumption is thus that the mosque of Ziyād must have had more or less the same orientation as the governor’s residence. 99 If we accept it, we can infer that since the time of Ziyād the orientation of the mosque has been around 9° to the right of the meridian—or in other words, that it has deviated some 13° to the left of Mecca, not to the right. 100 This would shed no light on the practice of inclining to the left in prayer in the time of Jaʿfar al-S. ādiq, or at any time thereafter. It would seem, then, that Shūlistānī, for all his archaeological acuteness, did not solve the basic problem. But this is a difficult conclusion to maintain. It is one thing to reject the archaeological inferences of the S. afawid scholars, and another to suppose them mistaken about the orientation of the Kūfan mosque in their own time. Both are very clear on the point. While Shūlistānī makes no attempt to quantify the orien-tation of the existing mosque, the ancient niche, or the repaintings that reoriented it to the left, his account of the orientation of the southern wall with reference to the polestar implies a major deviation. 101 Majlisī, as we have seen, speaks of a deviation of about 20°. 102 Moreover, their testimony is confirmed by that of their contemporary, the Ottoman traveler Evliyā Çelebi, who describes the qibla of the mosque of Kūfa as oriented to the west, toward Jerusalem. 103 To reconcile the discordant evidence, one would have to suppose that the Kūfan mosque of early Islamic times as known to us through the indirect evidence of archaeology and the Kūfan mosque of S. afawid times as it was visible to Shūlistānī and Majlisī were different buildings.

6. The Intellectual Significance of S. afawid Archaeology

Whatever we make of this conundrum, Shūlistānī’s explanation is in a significant way a very modern one. It is not that he is unconcerned with the rights and wrongs of legal doctrine—the problem of inclining to the left obviously matters to him as a matter of ritual correctness. But the way in which he approaches the question is thoroughly historical. Moreover, he does so by invoking concrete evidence from outside the closed universe of texts, the testimony of archaeology. 104


Can we begin to put this in a wider intellectual context? The originality of Imāmī thought in the S.afawid period is surely relevant. 105 One aspect of this is the onset of the Akhbārī controversy—a debate that, as Kohlberg has put it, “greatly increased the sophistication of Shii thought.” 106 More specifically, there had been a major row about the qibla in the early S.afawid period; 107 though the details are of no direct concern to us, the result was no doubt to render the qibla a “hot topic.” 108 Thus we can surely hope to link Shūlistānī to other aspects of S.afawid thought in his time.

But at this point let me digress to make some remarks about an even larger topic, the emergence of modern thought. We tend to associate it with the rise of rational-ism, and this is by no means wrong, but it is not the whole story. By temperament, rationalists are most at home at the level of rarified abstraction. They are not good with history and archaeology, which are a mass of messy particulars; in other words, these are pursuits that might arguably fit better with an Akhbārī than an Us.ūlī intel-lectual culture. Modern writing in these disciplines owes far more to antiquarians than it does to rationalists; it was antiquarians who developed the methods of his-torical philology and archaeology with which we now reconstruct the past. This rise of antiquarianism is a development of the last few centuries. It had not happened before, and when it did happen, in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, it happened independently in two widely separated parts of the world, Europe and East Asia. No major cultural movement of this kind took place in the civilizations located in between: those of the Orthodox Christian societies of eastern Europe, of the Islamic world, and of Hindu India. As Trigger writes in his history of archaeological thought, antiquarianism “failed to develop in the Middle East, even where Islamic peoples lived amid impressive monuments of antiquity.” 109 The generalization is correct, but as this chapter shows, we can still hope to make a few dents in it here and there. 110

Notes

1 . An earlier draft of this chapter with the title “A Puzzling Tradition about the qibla in the Kāfī of Kulaynī” formed the basis of a short talk I gave at the International Symposium on Kulaynī held at the shrine of H. ad. rat-i ʿAbd al-ʿAz.īm in Shahr-i Ray on May 7, 2009, at which time the unchecked draft was translated into Persian and pub-lished (M. Cook, “H. adīthī muʿammāyī dar bāb-i qibla dar al-Kāfī-yi Kulaynī,” trans. H. . Islāmī, ʿUlūm-i h. adīth 14, no. 1 [1388 shamsī ]). I am much indebted to Hossein Modarressi for his extensive comments on the draft.

2 . Kulaynī, Kāfī , ed. ʿA. A. al-Ghaffārī (Tehran: Dār al-Kutub al-Islāmiyya, 1362–63 shamsī ), 3: 487–8, no. 6. For this sense of nawādir , see Māmaqānī, Miqbās al-hidāya , ed. M. R. al-Māmaqānī (Qum: Dalīl-i Mā, 1428), 2:152.6, 153.7 and note 4; Kulaynī has no chapter on the qibla .

3 . Here the text of the tradition as quoted in T. ūsī, Tahdhīb al-ah. kām , ed. H. . al-Mūsawī al-Kharsān (Najaf: Dār al-Kutub al-Islāmiyya, 1958–62), 2:44, no. 141 has ʿalā for ʿan . T. ūsī has the tradition from Muh.ammad b. Yaʿqūb, that is, Kulaynī.

4 . We would expect inh. irāf , or perhaps tah. arruf , rather than tah. rīf . 5 . The Tahdhīb has ʿalā for ilā . 6 . Kulaynī transmits from two scholars of this name (see Burūjirdī, Asānīd kitāb al-Kāfī

(Qum: Muʾassasat Āyat Allāh al-ʿUz.mā Burūjirdī, 1385 shamsī ), 1:48 nos. 21, 22). It

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would appear that the one in question here is likely to be the first, namely, his maternal uncle ʿAlī b. Muh.ammad b. Ibrāhīm al-Rāzī al-Kulaynī (see 3:319.14). For a list of the isnād s of the form ʿAlī b. Muh. ammad rafa aʿhu appearing in the Kāfī , see 3:430.3.

7 . For the sense of the verb rafa aʿ here, see al-Shahīd al-Thānī, Sharh. al-bidāya , ed. M. R. al-H. usaynī al-Jalālī (Qum: Manshūrāt al-Fayrūzābādī, 1414), 32.22: wa-yakhtas.s.u’ l-marfūʿ [in contrast to the muttas.il ] bi-mā ud. īfa ilā ’ l-maʿs.ūm bi-isnād munqat. i ʿ.

8 . He says of this and another tradition that we will come to: al-riwāyatān d. aʿīfatā ’ l-sanad jiddan (ʿĀmilī, Madārik al-ah. kām [Qum: Muʾassasat Āl al-Bayt, 1410], 3:120.10). This judgment is quoted by Majlisī in one of his works ( Mir āʾt al-ʿuqūl , ed. H. al-Rasūlī et al. [Tehran: Dār al-Kutub al-Islāmiyya, 1404–11], 15:481.20) and adopted without attribution in another ( Malādh al-akhyār , ed. M. al-Rajāʾī [Qum: Maktabat Āyat Allāh al-Marʿashī, 1406–7], 3:437.1). Such is in fact the consensus of the Imāmī scholars; as will be seen, even Yūsuf al-Bah. rānī, who is well disposed toward these traditions, accepts the weakness of their transmission ( al-H. adā iʾq al-nād. ira [Najaf: Dār al-Kutub al-Islāmiyya; Qum: Muʾassasat al-Nashr al-Islāmī, 1377–1409], 6:384.19).

9 . Sunnī sources preserve a long Kūfan tradition in which Shaʿbī sets out a series of parallels between the Rāfid. a and the Jews, one of them being that both turn a bit away from the qibla : al-Yahūd yuwallūna aʿn al-qibla shay aʾn, wa-kadhālika ’ l-Rāfid. a (Lālakāʾī, Sharh. us.ūl i ʿtiqād ahl al-sunna wa’ l-jamā aʿ , ed. A. S. H. . al-Ghāmidī [Riyadh: Dār T. ayba, 1994], 1550.19 [no. 2823]); and Ibn al-Jawzī, Mawd. ūāʿt [Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1995], 1:253.9); for yuwallūna other versions read tazūlu (Abū Bakr al-Khallāl, Sunna , ed. ʿA. ʿA. al-Zahrānī [Riyadh: Dār al-Rāya, 1994], 1–3:498.3 [no. 791]; Ibn Taymiyya, Minhāj al-sunna , ed. M. R. Sālim [Cairo: Maktabat Dār al-ʿUrūba, 1962], 1:15.7) or zālū (19.12). This suggests that the early Sunnīs of Kūfa were aware of the Imāmī practice.

10 . What appears to be a representation of a six-sided Kaʿba is found in a miniature in a mid-sixteenth-century S. afawid Fālnāma from the Pozzi collection now in the Musée d’Art et d’Histoire, Geneva (Inv. 1971–107/37, see B. Robinson et al., L’Orient d’un collectionneur [Geneva, 1992], 65, 96, 124 no. 92, 256; I owe this information to Oleg Grabar). Conceivably our tradition could be behind this representation. A similar approach would be to think of the Kaʿba as including part or the whole of the H. ijr, an idea well known to the early sources (see, e.g., Azraqī, Akhbār Makka , ed. R. S. . Malh. as [Madrid: Dār al-Andalus, n.d.], 1:312.7, 312.10, 313.10, 315.10, 315.16, 315.22), and not forgotten by later scholars (see, e.g., Ibn Qudāma, Mughnī , ed. ʿA. ʿA. al-Turkī and ʿA. M. al-H. ulw [Cairo: Hajar, 1986–90], 5:229.12, and the commentary that follows, 229–30; al-Shahīd al-Awwal, Dhikrā al-Shī aʿ [Qum: Muʾassasat Āl al-Bayt, 1419], 3:169.15). If we then take three sides of the Kaʿba proper and replace the fourth with the H. ijr, taking it rather arbitrarily to have three external sides, that would yield six sides. The H. ijr is to one’s right as one looks from Iraq.

11 . T. ūsī, Tahdhīb , 2:44–45, no. 142; it is also found in Ibn Bābawayh, Man lā yah. d. uruhu al-faqīh , ed. H. . al-Mūsawī al-Kharsān (Najaf: Dār al-Kutub al-Islāmiyya, 1957–59), 1:178, no. 842, with minor variants, and with an extended chain of transmission but substantially the same text in Ibn Bābawayh, ʿIlal al-sharā iʾʿ (Najaf: al-Maktaba al-H. aydariyya, 1963), 318, bāb 3, no. 1. The chain of transmission of this latter version is not encouraging: it includes ʿAbd al-Rah.mān b. Kathīr ( kāna d. aʿīfan , kāna yad. aʿu ’ l-h. adīth , laysa bi-shay ʾ, see Ardabīlī, Jāmi ʿ al-ruwāt [Qum: Maktabat Āyat Allāh al-ʿUz.mā al-Marʿashī al-Najafī, 1403], 1:453a.4), and his nephew ʿAlī b. H. assān ( ghālī d. aʿīf , d. aʿīf jiddan , fāsid al-i ʿtiqād , see 566b.19).

12 . Again, we would expect inh. irāf or tah. arruf rather than tah. rīf . Muh.ammad Taqī Majlisī in a Persian translation of the tradition renders tah. rīf as inh. irāfī ( Lawāmi ʿ-i s.āh. ibqirānī [Qum: Dār al-Tafsīr (Ismāʿīlīyān), 1414–19], 3:474.11).


13 . The Faqīh and the ʿIlal alike have lah. iqahu for yalh. aquhu . 14 . The Faqīh , but not the ʿIlal , has fa-huwa for fa-hiya . 15 . The ʿIlal reads li- iʿllat for li-qillat , an obvious corruption. 16 . For Mufad. d. al b. ʿUmar al-Juʿfī, the leader of the heterodox Mufawwid. a and by main-

stream Imāmī standards a notorious heretic, see Hossein Modarressi, Tradition and Survival: A Bibliographical Survey of Early Shī iʿte Literature (Oxford: Oneworld, 2003), 1:333–37, no. 146. He was the author of a lost Kitāb iʿlal al-sharā iʾʿ in which the tradi-tion would have been in place (see 335, no. 6).

17 . For the negative judgment of Majlisī, following ʿĀmilī, with regard to the isnād of this tradition, see above, note 8. In a responsum on tayāsur the Muh.aqqiq agrees that the traditions on the subject are weak, and after quoting Mufad. d. al’s tradition as the wajh al- h. ikma , he singles out his low standing as the reason for its weakness (Muh.aqqiq, al-Masā iʾl al-Kamāliyya , apud Muh.aqqiq, al-Rasā iʾl al-tisʿ , ed. R. al-Ustādī [Qum: Maktabat Āyat Allāh al-ʿUz.mā al-Marʿashī, 1413], 295.6, 295.13, 296.1: li-anna ’ l-Mufad. d. al b. ʿUmar mat. ʿūn fīhi ; and see Miqdād, Kanz al- iʿrfān , ed. M. B. al-Bihbūdī [Tehran, 1384–85], 1:85.17).

18 . Murtad. ā al-Ans.ārī nevertheless remarks on the obscurity of the explanation given in both this and the preceding tradition ( mā dhukira fīhā [ sc . fīhimā ] min al-ta lʿīl min al-mutashābihāt , Kitāb al-s.alāt [Qum, 1415–20], 1:191.8).

19 . This equation is made by Muh. sin al-Fayd. in his comment on the shorter tradition ( Wāfī [Isfahan: Maktabat al-Imām Amīr al-Muʾminīn ʿAlī, 1406–16], 5:1:542.14).

20 . Muh. sin al-Fayd. in his comment on the longer tradition equates the “companions” to whom Mufad. d. al refers with “the people of Iraq” ( Wāfī , 5:1:543.8).

21 . As al-Shahīd al-Awwal points out, Mufad. d. al was a Kūfan, and most of the transmitters from the imams were Iraqi ( Dhikrā , 3:185.11).

22 . I put this in probabilistic terms, but to my knowledge the first to do so explicitly is Kāshif al-Ghit.āʾ ( fa’ l-mayl ilā ’ l-yasār ab aʿd aʿn ih. timāl al-khurūj aʿn al-h. udūd , Kashf al-ghit.āʾ , ed. ʿA. Tabrīzīyān et al. [Qum: Būstān-i Kitāb-i Qum, 1422], 3:104.8).

23 . I take this to be the point the scholars are making when they refer to tawassut. in this context (Ibn Fahd, al-Muhadhdhab al-bāri ʿ , ed. M. al-ʿArāqī [Qum: Muʾassasat al-Nashr al-Islāmī, 1407–13], 1:317.13; Fayd. , Wāfī , 5:1:543.10; Najafī, Jawāhir al-kalām , ed. ʿA. al-Qūchānī et al. [Beirut, 1981], 7:377.5; and cf. al-Shahīd al-Thānī, Masālik al-afhām [Qum: Muʾassasat al-Maʿārif al-Islāmiyya, 1413–19], 1:155.16: li-yatawassat.ū ’ l-h. aram ). In Muh.aqqiq, epistle on tayāsur , apud Ibn Fahd, Muhadhdhab , 315.19, we find the wording in urīda bi’ l-tayāsur wasat. al-h. aram ; Ustādī’s edition of the Muh.aqqiq’s epistles prefers the reading tawassut. at this point (Muh.aqqiq, Rasā iʾl , 330.17). Ah.mad al-Narāqī speaks of tawsīt. ( Mustanad al-Shī aʿ [Mashhad: Muʾassasat Āl al-Bayt, 1415–20], 4:193.19).

24 . T. ūsī, Tahdhīb , 2:44, no. 139; Ibn Bābawayh, Faqīh , 1:177–78, no. 841. For similar tra-ditions from Jaʿfar al-S. ādiq, see T. ūsī, Tahdhīb , 2:44, no. 140; Ibn Bābawayh, ʿIlal , 318, bāb 3, no. 2. The latter runs: “The house [ i.e ., the Kaʿba] is the qibla of the mosque, the mosque is the qibla of Mecca, Mecca is the qibla of the sanctuary, and the sanctuary is the qibla of the world.”

25 . For a Sunnī form of the nesting traditions ascribed to the Prophet, see Bayhaqī, al-Sunan al-kubrā (Hyderabad, 1344–55), 2:10.1 (Bayhaqī regards the tradition as unre-liable); see also Azraqī, Akhbār Makka , 2:19.5; D. A. King, World-Maps for Finding the Direction and Distance to Mecca (London: Al-Furqān and Leiden: Brill, 1999), 47; and Encyclopaedia of Islam , 2nd ed. (Leiden: E. J. Brill; London: Luzac, 1960–2009), art. “Makka,” 181a (D. A. King). The fact that this is transmitted by the Sunnīs is used by Burūjirdī to reject the Imāmī nesting tradition he quotes (“Risāla fī ’l-qibla,” Fiqh-i Ahl-i Bayt 6, no. 23 [1379 shamsī ], 15.11, cf. 14.6; for the rationale behind such

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rejection, see 15, note 41; this article was drawn to my attention by Intisar Rabb). The doctrine is sometimes ascribed to Mālik (see, e.g., H. at.t.āb, Mawāhib al-jalīl [Cairo, 1328–9], 1:510.12, with the comment hādhā ’ l-naql aʿnhu gharīb , and cf. Burūjirdī, “Risāla fī ’l-qibla,” 13, note 31); but I have not seen it in an early Mālikī source. The idea is also found among the Ibād. īs (Shaqs.ī, Manhaj al-t.ālibīn [Cairo and Muscat, 1979–84], 4:72.3, 72.8).

26 . Mufīd, Muqni aʿ (Qum: Muʾassasat al-Nashr al-Islāmī, 1410), 96.5; Sallār, Marāsim , ed. M. al-Bustānī (Beirut: Dār al-Zahrā ,ʾ 1980), 60.13, 61.1; T. ūsī, al-Jumal wa’ l-ʿuqūd , ed. M. Wāʿiz.zāda Khurāsānī (Mashhad, 1347 shamsī ), 61.16; T. ūsī, Khilāf (Qum: Muʾassasat al-Nashr al-Islāmī, 1407–17), 1:295.6, 295.12 (invoking ijmā ʿ al-firqa , sc . the attitudes of the early Imāmī community), 296.4; T. ūsī, Mabsūt. (Qum: Muʾassasat al-Nashr al-Islāmī, 1422–5), 1:119.10, 120.12; T. ūsī, Nihāya (n.p., 1342–3 shamsī ), 1:73.15; Ibn al-Barrāj, Muhadhdhab (Qum: Muʾassasat al-Nashr al-Islāmī, 1406), 1:84.12; Kaydarī, Is.bāh. al-Shī ʿa , ed. I. al-Bahādurī (Qum: Muʾassasat al-Imām al-S. ādiq, 1416), 61.19, 62.4; Ibn Abī ’l-Majd, Ishārat al-sabq , ed. I. Bahādurī (Qum: Muʾassasat al-Nashr al-Islāmī, 1414), 86.1 (where the editor’s emendation of the text is to be rejected; from the manuscripts as quoted in his note 2, it seems clear that some words have dropped out before fa-tawajjuhuhu ilā ’ l-h. aram ); Shādhān b. Jabrāʾīl, Izāh. at al- iʿlla fī maʿrifat al-qibla , apud Majlisī, Bih. ār al-anwār (Tehran; Qum, 1376–92), 84:75.11, 75.18 (mentioning only the nesting view); Ibn H. amza, Wasīla , ed. M. al-H. assūn (Qum: Maktabat Āyat Allāh al-ʿUz.mā al-Marʿashī al-Najafī, 1408), 85.6; Muh. aqqiq, Sharā iʾʿ al-Islām , ed. ʿA. M. ʿAlī (Najaf, 1969), 1:65.8 (here he seems to endorse this view, describing it as ʿalā ’ l-az. har ); and Muh. aqqiq, epistle on tayāsur , apud Ibn Fahd, Muhadhdhab , 1:313.15 ( al-bah. th al-awwal , in which he refuses to allow the doctrine of the nested qibla s to be dismissed, partly on the ground that it is a premise of the doctrine of tayāsur , see 314.8—but this is for the sake of argument, see 317.4); and see his responsum on tayāsur , apud Muh. aqqiq, Rasā iʾl , 296.2 (endorsing a Kaʿbatist view). See also Abū ʾl-Futūh. -i Rāzī, Rawd. al-janān , ed. ʿA. A. Ghaffārī (Tehran: Kitābfurūshī-yi Islāmiyya, 1382–87), 1:359.8.

27 . See Murtad. ā, Jumal al- iʿlm wa’ l- aʿmal , ed. R. al-S. affār (Najaf, 1967), 62.21 (specifying the qibla as the Kaʿba or its direction, jiha ); Abū ʾl-S. alāh. al-H. alabī, al-Kāfī fī ’ l-fiqh (Isfahan, 1403), 138.14, 139.1 (speaking only of the Kaʿba or its direction); Ibn Idrīs, Sarā iʾr (Qum: Muʾassasat al-Nashr al-Islāmī, 1410–11), 1:204.5 (doing likewise, but also quoting a tradition from Jaʿfar al-S. ādiq without naming him— wa-qad ruwiya —and without comment; cf. Yah.yā b. Saʿīd, al-Jāmi ʿ lil-sharā iʾʿ [Qum: Muʾassasat Sayyid al-Shuhadāʾ al-ʿIlmiyya, 1405], 63.1, offering no general statement—has something dropped out?—and quoting a similar tradition without further discussion of the question); Muh.aqqiq, al-Mukhtas.ar al-nāfi ʿ (Qum: Muʾassasat al-Baʿtha, 1413), 70.2 (identifying the qibla with the Kaʿba or its direction, and going on to mention the doctrine of the nested qibla s with the remark that it is weak, fīhi d. aʿf ); Muh.aqqiq, Muʿtabar (Qum: Muʾassasat Sayyid al-Shuhadā ,ʾ 1364 shamsī ), 2:65.3 (likewise citing the doctrine in second place, and proceeding to take a stand against T. ūsī’s views on the subject); al-Fād. il al-Ābī, Kashf al-rumūz , ed. ʿA. al-Ishtihārdī and H. . al-Yazdī (Qum: Muʾassasat al-Nashr al-Islāmī, 1408–10), 1:131.6, 131.10 (concluding a discussion of the two positions by endorsing the view that identifies the qibla with the direction of the Kaʿba —wa-huwa ashbah —and opining that the dispute is in fact largely without substance, ghayr muthmir ). The ʿAllāma states that the view identifying the qibla as the Kaʿba or its direction was that preferred ( ikhtiyār ) by the early Imāmī jurist Ibn al-Junayd ( Mukhtalaf al-Shī aʿ [Qum: Muʾassasat al-Nashr al-Islāmī, 1412–19], 2:61.1).

28 . ʿAllāma, Irshād al-adhhān , ed. F. al-H. assūn (Qum: Muʾassasat al-Nashr al-Islāmī, 1410), 1:244.13 (simply specifying the qibla as the Kaʿba or its direction); ʿAllāma, Mukhtalaf ,


2:61.4 (endorsing the Kaʿbatist view as the stronger in his view, al-aqwā iʿndī ); ʿAllāma, Muntahā ’l-mat. lab (Mashhad: Majmaʿ al-Buh.ūth al-Islāmiyya, 1412–26), 4:162.3 (giv-ing the Kaʿbatist view pride of place; his use of lanā makes it clear that it is his, 162.8); ʿAllāma, Qawā iʿd al-ah. kām (Qum: Muʾassasat al-Nashr al-Islāmī, 1413–19), 1:250.12 (stating only the Kaʿbatist view); ʿAllāma, Tabs.irat al-mutaaʿllimīn , ed. M. H. al-Yūsufī (Tehran, 1990), 39.5 (likewise stating only the Kaʿbatist view); ʿAllāma, Tadhkirat al-fuqahāʾ (Qum: Muʾassasat Āl al-Bayt, 1414–27), 3:6.1, 6.9, 8.9 (stating the Kaʿbatist view and rejecting the nesting view); ʿAllāma, Tah. rīr al-ah. kām , ed. I. al-Bahādurī (Qum: Muʾassasat al-Imām al-S. ādiq, 1420–24), 1:185.5 (endorsing the Kaʿbatist view as aqrab ); ʿAllāma, Talkhīs. al-marām , ed. H. al-Qubaysī (Qum: Markaz-i Intishārāt-i Daftar-i Tablīghāt-i Islāmī, 1421), 19.6, 19.10 (stating the Kaʿbatist view, and mention-ing nesting with wa-qīla ); al-Shahīd al-Awwal, Dhikrā , 3:158.15, 160.10 (implying the Kaʿbatist view), 159.12 (suggesting a reconciliation of the two views, and saying that traditions that have become widely known among the Imāmīs, ishtaharat bayn al-as.h. āb , are not to be rejected), 160.12 (saying that the disagreement is of little consequence, qalīl al-jadwā ); al-Shahīd al-Awwal, al-Durūs al-shar iʿyya (Qum: Muʾassasat al-Nashr al-Islāmī, 1412–14), 1:158.13 (endorsing the Kaʿbatist view against the nesting view ʿalā ’ l-aqwā ); al-Shahīd al-Awwal, al-Lumaʿ al-Dimashqiyya (Tehran: Markaz Buh.ūth al-H. ajj waʾl-ʿUmra, 1406), 10.6 (stating only the Kaʿbatist view); Miqdād, al-Tanqīh. al-rā iʾ ʿ, ed. ʿA. al-Kūhkamarī (Qum: Maktabat Āyat Allāh al-ʿUz.mā al-Marʿashī, 1404), 1:173.10 (say-ing that practice in accordance with the Kaʿbatist view is better, awlā , but cf. 176.15); Ibn Fahd, Muhadhdhab , 1:308.9 (rejecting the arguments for the nesting view). Note that the ʿAllāma, unlike the Muh. aqqiq, appears consistently on one side of the issue.

29 . Karakī, Jāmiʿ al-maqās.id (Qum: Muʾassasat Āl al-Bayt, 1408–15), 2:48.4 (preferring the Kaʿbatist view as the more sound, as.ah. h. al-qawlayn ); al-Shahīd al-Thānī, Masālik , 1:151.11 (explaining that the view preferred by the later scholars— al-muta aʾkhkhirūn —is the Kaʿbatist one); al-Shahīd al-Thānī, Rawd. al-janān (Qum: Būstān-i Kitāb-i Qum, 1422), 512.8, 513.6 (pronouncing the Kaʿbatist position the more correct, as.ah. h. al-qawlayn , and referring to it as the view of most if not all of the later scholars); al-Shahīd al-Thānī, al-Rawd. a al-bahiyya , ed. ʿA. and ʿA. ʿAqīqī Bakhshāyishī (Qum: Maktab-i Navīd-i Islām, 1380 shamsī ), 1:89.12 (pronouncing the Kaʿbatist view the more sound, as.ah. h. al-qawlayn ); Muqaddas, Majmaʿ al-fā iʾda wa’ l-burhān , ed. M. al-ʿArāqī et al. (Qum: Jāmi ʿat al-Mudarrisīn fī ’ l-H. awza al-ʿIlmiyya and Muʾassasat al-Nashr al-Islāmī, 1402–16), 2:57.11, 58.4 (adopting the Kaʿbatist position and seeking to interpret the nesting traditions in accordance with it); Muqaddas, Zubdat al-bayān (Qum: Muʾtamar al-Muqaddas al-Ardabīlī, 1375 shamsī ), 102.6, 103.6, 104.7, 104.9 (taking the Kaʿbatist view and scarcely giving a hearing to the nesting view); ʿĀmilī, Madārik , 3:118.16 (stat-ing that the Kaʿbatist view is held by most of the later scholars), 119.6 (endorsing this as the view that one goes by, al-muʿtamad ), 120.12 (noting the reconciliation of the two views suggested by al-Shahīd al-Awwal, and remarking that there is no problem with it, lā baʾs bihi ); Bahāʾ al-Dīn al-ʿĀmilī, al-H. abl al-matīn , ed. B. al-Mūsawī al-H. usaynī (Mashhad: Majmaʿ al-Buh.ūth al-Islāmiyya, 1424), 2:230.10 (stating the Kaʿbatist view), 231.14 (describing it as the view of jumhūr al-muta aʾkhkhirīn ), 232.11 (report-ing the nesting view), 233.8 (seeing no harm in reconciliation of the two views as pro-posed by al-Shahīd al-Awwal); Muh.ammad Taqī Majlisī, Lawāmiʿ , 3:475.13 (describing the nesting view as that of the early Imāmī scholars , mutaqaddimīn-i ʿulamāʾ-i Shī aʿ ), 475.17 (describing the Kaʿbatist view as that of the later scholars, muta aʾkhkhirīn-i ʿulamāʾ ); Muh.ammad Taqī al-Majlisī, Rawd. at al-muttaqīn (Qum: Bunyād-i Farhang-i Islāmī, 1393–99), 2:191.6 (drawing a similar contrast), 192.11 (showing a reluctance to dismiss the view of the earlier scholars); Sabzawārī, Kifāyat al-fiqh , ed. M. al-Wāʿiz.ī al-Arākī (Qum: Muʾassasat al-Nashr al-Islāmī, 1423), 1:79.5 (stating only the Kaʿbatist

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view); Muh. sin al-Fayd. , Mafātīh. al-sharā iʾʿ , ed. M. Rajāʾī (Qum: Majmaʿ al-Dhakhāʾir al-Islāmiyya, 1401), 1:112.3 (giving the Kaʿbatist view pride of place, and noting the nesting view with wa-qīla ); Fayd. , Wāfī , 5:1:542.7 (favoring the Kaʿbatist view in the context of the reconciliation of al-Shahīd al-Awwal); Majlisī, Bih. ār , 84:51.6 (presenting the Kaʿbatist view as that of most of the later scholars), 52.6 (suggesting the possibility that the Imāmī traditions supporting the Kaʿbatist view might reflect taqiyya , given the prevalence of the doctrine among the Sunnīs), 52.12 (concluding the discussion with the observation that the issue is a problematic one, lā takhlū min ishkāl ); al-Fād. il al-Hindī, Kashf al-lithām (Qum: Muʾassasat al-Nashr al-Islāmī, 1416–24), 3:133.12 (reconciling the positions in a manner that denies substance to the nesting view).

30 . Bah. rānī, H. adā iʾq , 6:374.8, 375.1, 375.9 (showing unusual sympathy for the tradi-tions, and strongly endorsing the reconciliation of the two views); Kāshif al-Ghit.āʾ, Kashf , 3:100.5 (stating only a Kaʿbatist view); Najafī, Jawāhir , 7:322.9 (declaring the Kaʿbatist view the stronger, al-aqwā , in agreement with the prevailing view among the later scholars); Yazdī, al- ʿUrwa al-wuthqā (Qum: Manshūrāt Mītham al-Tammār, 1427), 2:43.5 (explicitly rejecting the nesting view); Khwānsārī, Jāmi ʿ al-madārik (Tehran: Maktabat al-S. adūq, 1405), 1:260.5 (a long and technical discussion the bottom line of which is not clear to me); H. akīm, Mustamsak al- ʿUrwa al-wuthqā (Qum, 1406), 5:176–78, note 2 to 176.1 (setting out both views but coming down strongly against nesting); Muh. ammad Amīn Zayn al-Dīn, Kalimat al-taqwā (n.p., 1413), 1:308, mas aʾla 58 (this Akhbārī scholar adopts the Kaʿbatist view and explic-itly rejects nesting); Muh. ammad al-H. usaynī al-Shīrāzī, al-Fiqh: Kitāb al-s.alāt (Qum: Dār al-Qurʾān al-H. akīm, n.d.), 1:242.18 (tending to favor a third view, namely, that the Kaʿba is the qibla for those within the Meccan mosque, while the latter is the qibla for everyone else, see 240.10). For further discussions of the nest-ing view, see Bihbahānī, Mas.ābīh. al-z. alām (n.p.: Muʾassasat al-ʿAllāma al-Mujaddid al-Wah. īd al-Bihbahānī, 1424), 6:386–89; Jawād al-ʿĀmilī, Miftāh. al-karāma , ed. M. B. al-Khālis.ī (Qum: Muʾassasat al-Nashr al-Islāmī, 1419–27), 5:266–72; ʿAlī al-T. abāt.abāʾī al-Karbalāʾī, Riyād. al-masā iʾl (Mashhad: Muʾassasat Āl al-Bayt, 1418–23), 2:255–58; Ah. mad al-Narāqī, Mustanad (Mashhad: Muʾassasat Āl al-Bayt, 1415–20), 4:152–55; Murtad. ā al-Ans.ārī, Kitāb al-s.alāt , 1:130–5; Rid. ā al-Hamadānī, Mis.bāh. al-faqīh , ed. M. al-Bāqirī et al. (Qum: al-Muʾassasa al-Jaʿfariyya li-Ih. yāʾ al-Turāth; Muʾassasat al-Nashr al-Islāmī, 1417–25), 10:8–25.

31 . Those collections of rulings published by senior clerics for their lay followers that I examined make no mention of nesting in their treatments of the qibla (Burūjirdī, Risāla-i tawd. īh. al-masā iʾl [n.p.: Sāzmān-i Intishārāt-i Jāvīdān, n.d.], 178–80; H. akīm, Muntakhab al-rasā iʾl [Tehran: Kitābfurūshī-yi H. āfiz., 1380], 43–44; Khūʾī, al-Masā iʾl al-muntakhaba [Beirut: Dār al-Andalus, 1970], 70–71; Khūʾī, al-Masā iʾl al-muyassara [Beirut: Dār al-Muʾarrikh al-Gharbī, 1994], 78, no. 2; Khumaynī, Tawd. īh. al-masā iʾl [n.p., n.d.], 111–12; Marʿashī, Risāla-i tawd. īh. al-masā iʾl-i jadīd [Qum: Kitābkhāna-i ʿUmūmī-yi H. ad. rat-i Āyat Allāh al-ʿUz.mā Marʿashī Najafī, 1409], 128–30; Muh.ammad H. usaynī Shīrāzī, Risāla-i tawd. īh. al-masā iʾl [n.p., n.d.], 142–44; Sīstānī, Tawd. īh. al-masā iʾl [Qum 1413], 173–75; Muntaz.irī, Risāla-i tawd. īh. al-masā iʾl [Qum: Markaz-i Intishārāt-i Daftar-i Tablīghāt-i Islāmī, 1362 shamsī ], 139–41; Nās.ir Makārim Shīrāzī, Risāla-i tawd. īh. al-masā iʾl [Qum: Madrasat al-Imām ʿAlī b. Abī T. ālib, 1422], 132–34; also the comparative surveys of such works of Khumaynī and others, Risāla-i tawd. īh. al-masā iʾl-i muh. ashshā-yi imām Khumaynī (shish marjiʿ ) [Mashhad: Hātif, 1382 shamsī ], 293–96, and Muh.ammad H. asan Banī Hāshimī Khumaynī, ed., Tawd. īh. al-masā iʾl-i marājiʿ [Qum: Daftar-i Intishārāt-i Islāmī, 1376–77 shamsī ], 409–14). The same is true of Khumaynī, Tah. rīr al-Wasīla (Najaf, 1387), 137–38.


32 . According to T. ūsī, the Bas.ran scholar H. ammād b. Zayd (d. 179/795) used to say that one had to incline to the left in Bas.ra ( yanbaghī an yutayāsara iʿndanā bi’ l-Bas.ra ); T. ūsī has this from a Kitāb al-zawāl of Abū Yūsuf ( Khilāf , 1:297.3; the information is repeated in Abū ʾ l-Futūh. -i Rāzī, Rawd. , 1:360.1, and Fad. l b. al-H. asan al-T. abrisī, al-Mu tʾalaf min al-mukhtalaf , ed. M. al-Rajāʾī [Mashhad: Majmaʿ al-Buh.ūth al-Islāmiyya, 1410], 1:96, no. 41). Tirmidhī informs us that ʿAbdallāh b. al-Mubārak (d. 181/797) thought that inclining to the left was appropriate for the people of Marw ( ikhtāra . . . ’ l-tayāsur li-ahl Marw , al-Jāmiʿ al-s.ah. īh. , ed. A. M. Shākir [Cairo: Dār al-H. adīth, n.d.], 2:175.2 [no. 344]; see also al-Shahīd al-Awwal, Dhikrā , 3:168.4, whence Sabzawārī, Dhakhīrat al-ma āʿd [n.p., 1274], 219.31).

33 . Outside the specific context of our practice, the terms tayāmun and tayāsur are often used by the Imāmī jurists for inclining to the right or left in prayer (see, e.g., ʿAllāma, Tah. rīr , 1:187.11; al-Shahīd al-Awwal, Dhikrā , 3:166.21, 167.2, 167.20, 168.3, 174.18, 177.12, 177.18; Karakī, Jāmiʿ , 2:52.5, 52.20, 55.15; al-Shahīd al-Thānī, Rawd. a , 1:92.1, 93.13; Sabzawārī, Kifāya , 1:80.6; Fayd. , Mafātīh. , 1:114.6). The terms are similarly used by Sunnī jurists (see, e.g., Sarakhsī, Mabsūt. [Cairo, 1324–31], 10:192.24, 193.2, 193.3, 193.14, 193.17). Taqī al-Dīn al-Subkī has a Masaʾla fī ’ l-tayāmun wa’ l-tayāsur fī ’ l-qibla in which the terms appear repeatedly ( Fatāwā [Cairo: Maktabat al-Qudsī, 1355–56], 1:159–65); for example, he remarks that the qibla of the mosque of Ibn T. ūlūn in Cairo deviates to the west, and that one should accordingly incline to the left when praying in it ( al-s.awāb al-tayāsur fīhā , 164.3).

34 . Mufīd, Muqni aʿ , 96.6; Sallār, Marāsim , 61.2; T. ūsī, Jumal , 62.6; T. ūsī, Khilāf , 1:297.6 (again invoking ijmāʿ al-firqa ); T. ūsī, Mabsūt. , 1:119.15; T. ūsī, Nihāya , 1:74.15; Kaydarī, Is.bāh. , 62.6; Shādhān b. Jabrāʾīl, Izāh. a , apud Majlisī, Bih. ār , 84:77.19; Ibn H. amza, Wasīla , 85.11; Muh.aqqiq, Sharā iʾʿ , 1:66.3; Yah.yā b. Saʿīd, Jāmiʿ , 63.12; see also ʿAlī al-Rid. ā (attrib.), Fiqh al-Rid. ā (Mashhad: al-Muʾtamar al-ʿĀlamī lil-Imām al-Rid. ā, 1406), 98.7 (clearly an endorsement of tayāsur , but with a wording that is unclear to me, cf. Majlisī’s comment, Bih. ār , 84:50, note 3). These jurists often specify that the inclination should be slight (thus T. ūsī in all the works cited uses the wording al-tayāsur qalīlan or an yatayāsara qalīlan ; similarly Kaydarī, Shādhān b. Jabrāʾīl, Ibn H. amza, the Muh.aqqiq, and Yah.yā b. Saʿīd).

35 . Murtad. ā does not mention the doctrine ( Jumal , 62–63), nor do Abū ʾl-S. alāh. al-H. alabī ( Kāfī , 138–39), Ibn al-Barrāj ( Muhadhdhab , 1:84–86), or Ibn Abī ’l-Majd ( Ishāra , 86). Ābī mentions it once as T. ūsī’s view ( Kashf , 1:131.10) and once with wa-qīla (132.6), but does not endorse it. Ibn Idrīs rejects it as part of the nesting view ( Sarā iʾr , 1:204.15), as in effect does the Muh.aqqiq ( Mukhtas.ar , 70.12; Muh.aqqiq, Muʿtabar , 2:69.14; Muh.aqqiq, epistle on tayāsur , apud Ibn Fahd, Muhadhdhab , 1:317.4). In his responsum on tayāsur the Muh.aqqiq explains that in his Sharā iʾʿ ( sc . 1:66.3) he had followed T. ūsī in deference to the claim of the latter that there was consensus on the question ( li-makān daʿwāhu ’ l-ijmāʿ , Muh.aqqiq, Rasā iʾl , 295.9), and he later observes that in the light of the weakness of Mufad. d. al’s tradition the view to be relied on is that one should face the direction of the Kaʿba ( fa-idhan al-mu aʿwwal aʿlā anna ’ l-istiqbāl ilā jihat al-Ka bʿa , 296.2).

36 . ʿAllāma, Irshād , 1:245.7 ( wa-yustah. abbu lahum al-tayāsur qalīlan ilā yasār al-mus.allī , referring to the Iraqis); ʿAllāma, Qawā iʿd , 1:251.11 (the same); ʿAllāma, Mukhtalaf , 2:64.12 (endorsing the view that tayāsur is recommended rather than obligatory, wa’ l-aqrab annahu aʿlā sabīl al-istih. bāb ); ʿAllāma, Muntahā , 4:171.3 (endorsing the same view, wa’ l-ashbah al-istih. bāb ); ʿAllāma, Tah. rīr , 1:187.5 ( yustah. abbu ); ʿAllāma, Talkhīs. , 19.9 ( yustah. abbu ); al-Shahīd al-Awwal, Dhikrā , 3:184.1 ( ishtahara bayn al-as.h. āb istih. bāb al-tayāsur ), 184.14 (setting some store by the fact that the view is widely known among

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Imāmī jurists, al-ʿumda al-shuhra bayn al-as.h. āb , but giving the impression that he is nevertheless uncomfortable with it), 185.7 (declaring it a matter of ijtihād ); al-Shahīd al-Awwal, Durūs , 1:159.9 (categorizing it as a widely known doctrine, al-mashhūr istih. bāb al-tayāsur , though he makes no mention of it in his Lum aʿ , 10). The point of note in the position taken by the ʿAllāma in the Irshād and Qawā iʿd (and by implication in the Talkhīs. ) is that he combines rejection of nesting with adoption of tayāsur —how, he does not tell us; al-Shahīd al-Awwal does the same in the Durūs . By contrast, in the Tadhkira the ʿAllāma states that T. ūsī’s position is based on his view that one faces toward the sanctuary ( huwa binā aʾn ʿ alā madhhabihi min anna ’ l-tawajjuh ilā ’ l-h. aram , 3:9.7), and in the Muntahā he tells us that tayāsur presupposes that one faces toward the sanctuary ( innamā yakūnu aʿlā taqdīr an yakūna ’ l-tawajjuh ilā ’ l-h. aram , 4:171.4), whereas, he continues, if we take the Kaʿbatist view, which he prefers, then tayāsur falls by the wayside ( fa-lā yatamashshā fīhi dhālika ). The discussion of tayāsur in the Tadhkira has no clear bottom line; the same is true of those of Ibn Fahd, Muhadhdhab , 1:310.18; Miqdād, Tanqīh. , 1:175.12; Fayd. , Mafātīh. , 1:113.17; and al-Fād. il al-Hindī, Kashf al-lithām , 3:145.4. Kāshif al-Ghit.āʾ remarks of tayāsur that al-qawl bihi binā aʾn aʿlā ’ l-musāmah. a qawī ( Kashf , 3:104.9); here musāmah. a , indulgence, is the opposite of

mudāqqa , strictness (see 104.1). 37 . Karakī, Jāmiʿ , 2:57.5 ( kāna ’ l-iʿrād. aʿn hādhā ’ l-tayāsur istih. bāban wa-jawāzan aqrab

ilā ’ l-s.awāb ); al-Shahīd al-Thānī, Masālik , 1:155.17 (saying that it rests on weak tradi-tions and is based on a view that is not put into practice, mabnī aʿlā qawl lā aʿmal aʿlayhi ); al-Shahīd al-Thānī, Rawd. , 535.4 ( kāna ’ l-iʿrād. aʿnhu awlā ); Muqaddas,

Majmaʿ , 2:73.19 (expressing amazement at the doctrine as presented by the ʿAllāma and others; he does not mention tayāsur in his Zubda , 102–110); ʿĀmilī, Madārik , 3:131.16 ( kāna ’ l-iʿrād. ʿ an hādhā ’ l-h. ukm wa-tah. rīrihi aqrab ilā ’ l-s.awāb ). Bahāʾ al-Dīn al-ʿĀmilī makes no mention of the issue (cf. H. abl , 2:237.12), nor do Sabzawārī ( Kifāya , 1:79–80), Yazdī (cf. ʿUrwa , 2:46–47), or Zayn al-Dīn (cf. Kalima , 1:309). Jawād al-ʿĀmilī gives a remarkably full list of the authorities on both sides of the question ( Miftāh. , 5:311.14). For further discussions of tayāsur , see Bihbahānī, Mas.ābīh. , 6:409–12; ʿAlī al-T. abāt.abāʾī al-Karbalāʾī, Riyād. , 2:269–72; Ah.mad al-Narāqī, Mustanad , 4:191–95; Murtad. ā al-Ans.ārī, Kitāb al-s.alāt , 1:190–93; Rid. ā al-Hamadānī, Mis.bāh. , 10:58–62.

38 . It finds no mention in Burūjirdī, Risāla-i tawd. īh. al-masā iʾl , 178–80, and the other works of this genre cited above in connection with the nesting doctrine. Burūjirdī likewise makes no reference to it in his “Risāla fī ’l-qibla.”

39 . Yūsuf al-Bah. rānī argues that unopposed Imāmī practice in accordance with the tradi-tions redeems them—they are majbūratān bi- aʿmal al-as.h. āb ( H. adā iʾq , 6:384.19, jabara being to set a broken bone in splints so that it can mend). He goes on to quote the view advanced by ʿĀmilī in relation to a different issue that since certain traditions with weak chains of transmission are observed unopposed in the practice of the community, it is obligatory to follow them ( hādhihi ’ l-riwāyāt wa-in d. aʿufa sanaduhā, illā anna aʿmal al-t.ā iʾfa aʿlayhā, wa-lā mu āʿrid. lahā, fa-yanbaghī ’ l- aʿmal ʿ alayhā , 385.4, quoting ʿĀmilī, Madārik , 3:93.7, and cf. 82.14; Bah. rānī considers ʿĀmilī to use this argument opportunistically). This approach has a measure of precedent in the deference we have seen to be shown by al-Shahīd al-Awwal toward traditions that are well known among the Imāmī scholars ( Dhikrā , 3:159.13, 184.14), and in T. ūsī’s invocation of ijmāʿ al-firqa ( Khilāf , 1:297.6). At the same time Bah. rānī dismisses ʿĀmilī’s view ( Madārik , 3:130.15) that tayāsur risks gross deviation from the qibla ( al-inh. irāf al-fāh. ish ) as a misguided attempt to pit ijtihād against revealed texts ( ijtihād fī muqābalat al-nus.ūs. , H. adā iʾq , 6:385.7). A later scholar remarks that the rule making tayāsur a recommended practice is not without merit ( lā yakhlū min quwwa , Najafī, Jawāhir , 7:377.1).


40 . T. ūsī, Nihāya , 1:74.15; Kaydarī, Is.bāh. , 62.6; Ābī, Kashf , 1:132.6; Muh.aqqiq, Mukhtas.ar , 70.12 ( wa-huwa binā aʾn aʿlā anna tawajjuhahum ilā ’ l-h. aram ); Muh.aqqiq, Mu tʿabar , 2:69.14; Muh.aqqiq, epistle on tayāsur , apud Ibn Fahd, Muhadhdhab , 1:317.4, and cf. 314.8; ʿAllāma, Muntahā , 4:171.4; ʿAllāma, Tadhkira , 3:9.7; Karakī, Jāmiʿ , 2:56.15; al-Shahīd al-Thānī, Masālik , 1:155.14; al-Shahīd al-Thānī, Rawd. , 533.19 (and see 534.9, where he says that Kaʿbatism precludes tayāsur ); ʿĀmilī, Madārik , 3:130.17; al-H. urr al-ʿĀmilī, Wasā iʾl al-Shī aʿ (Qum: Muʾassasat al-Nashr al-Islāmī, 1426–27), 4:308.15 (and cf. Fayd. , Wāfī , 5:1:543.8); Majlisī, Bih. ār , 84:53.1; Majlisī, Malādh , 3:437.3; Majlisī, Mir āʾt , 15:482.11. But as we have seen, there are occasional instances of schol-ars who combine a Kaʿbatist position on the qibla with acceptance of tayāsur , a sub-tle point emphasized by Ah.mad al-Narāqī ( Mustanad , 4:193.1) and Najafī ( Jawāhir , 7:377.15).

41 . Implicitly in, for example, ʿAlī al-Rid. ā (attrib.), Fiqh , 98.7; Mufīd, Muqni aʿ , 96.5; Sallār, Marāsim , 61.1; Kaydarī, Is.bāh. , 62.6; explicitly in, for example, T. ūsī, Nihāya , 1:74.16; Shādhān b. Jabrāʾīl, Izāh. a , apud Majlisī, Bih. ār , 84:77.20; Muh.aqqiq, Muʿtabar , 2:69.16; Yah.yā b. Saʿīd, Jāmiʿ , 63.12; ʿAllāma, Mukhtalaf , 2:64.15; ʿAllāma, Muntahā , 4:171.7.

42 . So, for example, Mufīd, Muqni aʿ , 96.6 (limiting tayāsur to the people of Iraq, the Jazīra, Fārs, the Jibāl, and Khurāsān); Sallār, Marāsim , 61.2 (naming the same regions); T. ūsī, Jumal , 62.6 (speaking only of the Iraqis); T. ūsī, Khilāf , 1:297.3 (speaking of those who pray to the qibla of the people of Iraq); T. ūsī, Mabsūt. , 1:119.15 (speaking of the people of Iraq); T. ūsī, Nihāya , 1:74.15 (speaking of Iraq and the east); Kaydarī, Is.bāh. , 62.6 (speaking of the people of Iraq); Shādhān b. Jabrāʾīl, Izāh. a , apud Majlisī, Bih. ār , 84:77.19 (speaking of the people of Iraq and those people of the east who pray to their qibla ); Ibn H. amza, Wasīla , 85.11 (speaking of the people of Iraq alone); Muh.aqqiq, Sharā iʾ ʿ, 1:65.18 (speaking of the people of Iraq and those near to them); Yah.yā b. Saʿīd, Jāmiʿ , 63.12 (speaking of the Iraqis and easterners alone); al-Shahīd al-Awwal, Dhikrā , 3:184.1 (speaking of the people of the east), 185.11 (speaking of the Iraqis).

43 . Mufīd, Muqni aʿ , 96.8 ( li-yastaz. hirū bi-dhālika fī ’ l-tawajjuh ilā qiblatihim ); Kaydarī, Is.bāh. , 62.6 ( istiz. hāran ). The wording of Ibn Idrīs in presenting the doctrine (which he rejects) is helpful: the point of the practice is to guard against missing the direction of the sanctuary ( li-yakūna dhālika ashadd fī ’ l-istiz. hār wa’ l-tah. arruz min al-khurūj min jihat al-h. aram , Sarā iʾr , 1:204.12).

44 . Azraqī, Akhbār Makka , 2:130.10, in the chapter entitled dhikr h. udūd al-h. aram al-sharīf ; Fākihī, Akhbār Makka , ed. ʿA. ʿA. Ibn Duhaysh (Beirut: Dār Khad. ir, 1994), 5:89.3, in the chapter entitled dhikr s.ifat h. udūd al-h. aram min jawānibihi . Some of the figures in Yāqūt, Mu jʿam al-buldān (Beirut: Dār S. ādir; Dār Bayrūt, ca. 1957), 2:244a.30 differ, especially that relating to the road from T. āʾif, and I have left them aside; likewise I have not attempted to use the data cited from the H. anafī jurist Abū Jaʿfar al-Hinduwānī in Sarakhsī, Mabsūt. , 10:191.12.

45 . ʿAbd al-Malik b. ʿAbdallāh Ibn Duhaysh, al-H. aram al-Makkī al-Sharīf wa’ l-a lʿām al-muh. īt.a bihi: Dirāsa taʾrīkhiyya wa-maydāniyya (Mecca: Maktabat wa-Mat.baʿat al-Nahd. a al-H. adītha, 1995), 356, map 45. Ibn Duhaysh is the learned editor of Fākihī’s Akhbār Makka . I cannot claim to have worked over the detailed scholarship behind this map, but I find it much more convincing than the schematic representations of the shape of the sanctuary that I have seen elsewhere (H. H. Bindagji, Atlas of Saudi Arabia [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978], 51; Encyclopaedia of Islam , 2nd edition, art. “Makka,” 165, figure 5).

46 . That is to say, the center of the silhouette of the sanctuary as seen from his point of view; given its irregular shape, the sanctuary has, of course, no unique center.

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47 . If we call the angle of inclination �, and take the distance as 800 miles, then tan � is 2/800 � 0.0025, which according to my mathematical tables puts θ between a fifth and a tenth of a degree. Better, � is to 360° as 2 is to 2π � 800, giving a value of about 0.13°.

48 . Nevertheless al-Fād. il al-Hindī seems ready to contemplate even more microscopic shifts in orientation ( Kashf al-lithām , 3:141.20).

49 . Karakī, Jāmiʿ , 2:57.4 ( al-budʿ al-kathīr lā yuʾmanu ma aʿhu ’ l-inh. irāf al-fāh. ish bi’ l-mayl al-yasīr ); similarly al-Shahīd al-Thānī, Rawd. , 534.13, 535.3; ʿĀmilī, Madārik , 3:130.15; Fayd. , Mafātīh. , 1:113.18; Majlisī, Malādh , 3:437.1, 437.9; Ah.mad al-Narāqī, Mustanad , 4:193.19, and cf. 191.4; Khwānsārī, Jāmi ʿ , 1:260.4. In another work, Majlisī makes the point in a less laconic fashion (Majlisī, Bih. ār , 84:53.4).

50 . Of the two terms, the first is Koranic (Q16:16, a verse mentioning stellar guidance). 51 . See, for example, T. ūsī, Jumal , 62.8. There are already traditions from the imams on

this role of the polestar (see, e.g., al-H. urr al-ʿĀmilī, Wasā iʾl , 4:310–11, chapter 5). 52 . So Mufīd, Muqni aʿ ; Sallār, Marāsim ; T. ūsī, Jumal ; T. ūsī, Mabsūt. ; Kaydarī, Is.bāh. . The

order is the same but the continuity broken in Ibn H. amza, Wasīla . Page references for the discussion of tayāsur in the various sources have been given above.

53 . So Shādhān b. Jabrāʾīl, Izāh. a ; Muh.aqqiq, Sharā iʾ ʿ; ʿAllāma, Muntahā ; ʿAllāma, Tah. rīr ; al-Shahīd al-Awwal, Durūs ; Fayd. , Mafātīh. . The same arrangement is found in Muh.aqqiq, Mukhtas.ar , and Muh.aqqiq, Muʿtabar , though I take him to be rejecting tayāsur in these works. The order is the same but the continuity broken in T. ūsī, Nihāya , and Yah.yā b. Saʿīd, Jāmi ʿ.

54 . ʿAllāma, Irshād ; ʿAllāma, Qawā iʿd ; ʿAllāma, Talkhīs. . 55 . This understanding is explicit in the Muh.aqqiq’s epistle ( apud Ibn Fahd, Muhadhdhab ,

1:315.4), as in the paraphrase in Miqdād, Tanqīh. , 1:176.12, and in Sabzawārī, Dhakhīra , 220.34. It is presupposed in Karakī, Jāmi ʿ , 2:56.15; al-Shahīd al-Thānī, Rawd. , 534.11; Muqaddas, Majmaʿ , 2:73.19; al-Fād. il al-Hindī, Kashf al-lithām , 3:146.13; Najafī, Jawāhir , 7:374.10.

56 . Contrast the observation of al-Shahīd al-Awwal that the signs ( amārāt ) derive from astronomical laws ( ʿilm al-hay aʾ ) and yield certainty regarding the direction of the qibla ( al-qat. ʿ bi lʾ-jiha , Dhikrā , 3:162.10; the paraphrase in Fayd. , Mafātīh. , 1:112.16, speaks of qawānīn al-hay aʾ ).

57 . Ibn Fahd, Muhadhdhab , 1:312.6. 58 . Muh.aqqiq, epistle on tayāsur , apud Ibn Fahd, Muhadhdhab , 1:314.15: lākin muh. ādhāt

kull aʿlāma min al- aʿlāmāt bi’ l- ʿud. w al-mukhtas.s. bihā min al-mus.allī laysa yūjibu muh. ādhāt al-qibla bi-wajhihi tah. qīqan, idh qad yatawahhamu ’ l-muh. ādhāt wa-yakūnu munh. arifan aʿn al-samt inh. irāfan khafiyyan (the text in Muh.aqqiq, Rasā iʾl , 329.12 reads khafīfan for khafiyyan ; cf. also 315.9, 316.11). As this quotation shows, the fault need not lie in the signs, as opposed to the humans who have recourse to them.

59 . See al-Fād. il al-Hindī, Kashf al-lithām , 3:146.14 ( fa’ l-maʿnā anna ’ l- aʿlāma taqrībiyya, lā tah. qīqiyya, fa-idhā urīda ’ l-tah. qīq, lazima ’ l-tayāsur aw ustuh. ibba ).

60 . Najafī, Jawāhir , 7:374.10 ( al- aʿlāmāt al-taqrībiyya ), 377.13 ( taqrībiyyat al- aʿlāmāt ). 61 . Muh.aqqiq, epistle on tayāsur , apud Ibn Fahd, Muhadhdhab , 1:315.10 ( fa’ l-tayāsur

h. īna iʾdhin istiz. hār fī muqābalat al-h. aram ), and see 315.13. For a better text of this pas-sage as a whole, see Muh.aqqiq, Rasā iʾl , 330.6.

62 . The text is as follows: al-amr bi’ l-tayāsur li-ahl al- Iʿrāq lā yatah. aqqaq maʿnāhu li-anna ’ l-tayāsur amr id. āfī lā yatah. aqqaq illā bi’ l-id. āfa ilā s.āh. ib yasār mutawajjih ilā jiha; wa-h. īna iʾdhin immā an takūn al-jiha muh. as.s.ala wa-immā an lā takūn; wa-yalzam min al-awwal al-tayāsur ʿ ammā wajaba ’ l-tayāsur ilayhi, wa-huwa khilāf madlūl al-āya, wa-min al-thānī aʿdam imkān al-tayāsur, idh tah. aqququhu mawqūf aʿlā tah. aqquq al-jiha ’ llatī


yutayāsar aʿnhā (Muh.aqqiq, epistle on tayāsur , apud Ibn Fahd, Muhadhdhab , 1:312.16; Ustādī’s edition has the reading bi-id. āfatihi for bi lʾ-id. āfa (Muh. aqqiq, Rasā iʾl , 327.7). The verse in question is either Q2:144 or Q2:150. For a rather different version of the dilemma, see ʿAbdallāh Afandī al-Is.bahānī, Riyād. al- ʿulamāʾ , ed. A. al-H. usaynī (Qum, 1401), 1:103.14.

63 . Muh.aqqiq, epistle on tayāsur , apud Ibn Fahd, Muhadhdhab , 1:312–17. The epistle was printed long ago by the editor of the lithograph of al-Shahīd al-Thānī, Rawd. al-janān (n.p., 1303), to which I have access in a modern reprint (using the pagination of the reprint, the epistle occupies a leaf between pages 199 and 200, at a point correspond-ing to al-Shahīd al-Thānī, Rawd. al-janān , 536.18, in the modern edition; and see the editorial note at the foot of the last page of the lithograph, on the right). It has more recently been edited by Ustādī (Muh.aqqiq, Rasā iʾl , 327–32), and also printed sepa-rately with a fā iʾda by ʿAlī al-ʿAlīyārī (al-Muh.aqqiq al-H. illī, Risālat tayāsur al-qibla [n.p., n.d.]).

64 . Majlisī, Bih. ār , 84:53.12 ( wa-huwa rah. imahu ’ llāh, wa-in bālagha fī ’ l-mujādala wa-itmām mā h. āwalahu, lākin lam yanfaʿ fī h. all ʿumdat al-ishkāl ).

65 . T. ūsī, Ghayba (Najaf: Maktabat al-S. ādiq, 1385), 283.4, from Fad. l b. Shādhān; quoted in Majlisī, Bih. ār , 52:332–33, no. 60.

66 . For this rebuilding see K. A. C. Creswell, Early Muslim Architecture , 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969), 1:46–48.

67 . Nuʿmānī, Ghayba , ed. ʿA. A. al-Ghaffārī (Tehran: Maktabat al-S. adūq, n.d.) 317–18, no. 3; quoted in Majlisī, Bih. ār , 52:394, no. 139.

68 . Majlisī, Bih. ār , 84:53.14 (note that the whole passage, 53.4–54.1, appears in Majlisī, Malādh , 3:437.6–438.10, with minor differences that I note only when significant); also Majlisī, Bih. ār , 100:433.12. Majlisī makes explicit mention of two local mosques (the Masjid al-Sahla and the Masjid Yūnus, 84:53.17, but for the former contrast 100:433.10). We could add the cases of Wāsit. (described in this note), Bas.ra (as sug-gested by the view of H. ammād b. Zayd, see note 32), and Marw (as suggested by the view of Ibn al-Mubārak, see note 32); and see P. Crone, Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987), 198, note 131, and D. A. King, “Al-Bazdawī on the Qibla in Early Islamic Transoxania,” Journal for the History of Arabic Science 7 (1983). Reporting on the excavations carried out at Wāsit., Creswell gives plans of the mosque in successive incarnations (Creswell, Early Muslim Architecture , 2nd ed., 1:135, figure 72, and figure 73 facing 136). These show the ori-entation of the oldest mosque as about 54° to the right of the meridian, or about 24° to the right of Mecca (from Wāsit., Mecca is about 30° to the right of the meridian); the second mosque, by contrast, is oriented only about 14° to the right of the meridian, or about 16° to the left of Mecca. For anyone praying in the oldest mosque, it would thus be appropriate to incline to the left; 24° is a difference large enough for people to be readily aware of it. Unfortunately, these mosques are undated, but Creswell reports Fuad Safar’s plausible view that the first mosque is that of H. ajjāj (134). This archaeo-logical record invites comparison with the statement of Jāh. iz., in a list of the misdeeds of the rulers ʿAbd al-Malik and his son Walīd, together with H. ajjāj and his client Yazīd b. Abī Muslim (for whom see Encyclopaedia of Islam , 2nd ed., s.n. [P. Crone]), that they changed the qibla of Wāsit. ( h. awwalū qiblat Wāsit. , Jāh. iz., Rasā iʾl , ed. H. . al-Sandūbī [Cairo, 1933], 296.16, and see Crone, Meccan Trade , 198, note 131)—a change that Jāh. iz. considers to have been an error ( ghalat. , see Rasā iʾl , 297.1).

69 . Majlisī, Bih. ār , 84:53.16 ( inh. irāf qiblatihi ilā ’ l-yamīn azyad mimmā taqtad. īhi ’ l-qawā iʿd bi- iʿshrīn daraja taqrīban ; the qawā iʿd in question are mathematical methods, al-qawā iʿd al-riyād. iyya ). In another passage, however, he remarks that the mih. rāb of the Kūfan

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mosque is oriented about 40° to the right of the meridian ( ʿan yamīn nis.f al-nahār ), whereas according to mathematical methods ( bi-h. asb al-qawā iʿd al-riyād. iyya ) the devi-ation of Kūfa ( inh. irāf al-Kūfa ) from the meridian is only 12° (100:433.5); for this latter he also gives 12° 31ʹ (84:87.8, citing astronomical works, kutub al-hay aʾ ). Consulting my atlas, however, I make the Kūfan qibla about 22°, not 12°, to the right of the merid-ian, and this would fit the figures quoted in ʿAlī Zamānī Qumshaʾī, “Qibla-i ʿIrāq az dīdgāh-i Muqaddas-i Ardabīlī,” in Maqālāt-i Kungri-yi Muqaddas-i Ardabīlī (Fārsī) (Qum: Daftar-i Kungri-yi Muh.aqqiq-i Ardabīlī, 1375 shamsī ), 365–66. For the math-ematical methods to which Majlisī refers, cf. the account of the various astronomical methods ( al-qawā iʿd al-hayawiyya ) given by Narāqī, Mustanad , 4:169–86.

70 . Majlisī, Bih. ār , 84:53.18, and cf. Bih. ār , 100:433.12; both passages use the term taqiyya . The same idea recurs in ʿAbdallāh Afandī al-Is.bahānī, Riyād. , 1:104.1. ʿAlī al-T. abāt.abāʾī al-Karbalāʾī remarks that this idea does not make sense, since recourse to taqiyya on the part of the imams would rather have meant ordering the Shīʿites to conform to the false orientations of the mosques built by these evildoers in order to avoid standing out and being killed ( Riyād. , 2:272.12).

71 . For statements to this effect, see Kaydarī, Is.bāh. , 62.13; Shādhān b. Jabrāʾīl, Izāh. a , apud Majlisī, Bih. ār , 84:82.1; Ibn H. amza, Wasīla , 85.15; Yah. yā b. Saʿīd, Jāmi ʿ , 63.9; Karakī, Jāmi ʿ al-maqās.id (Qum: Muʾassasat Āl al-Bayt, 1408–15), 2:52.15, and cf. 49.13; al-Shahīd al-Thānī, Rawd. a , 1:89.14; Kāshif al-Ghit.ā ,ʾ Kashf , 3:102.12; Yazdī, ʿUrwa , 2:47.5, spelling out that it makes a difference whether or not one knows the infallible person to have prayed at the mih. rāb without tayāmun or tayāsur ; Zayn al-Dīn, Kalima , 1:309.19, making the same point, and adding knowledge that the mih. rāb was not changed in the course of subsequent rebuilding; Shīrāzī, Fiqh : Kitāb al-s.alāt , 1:259.12.

72 . Majlisī speaks of akthar as.h. ābinā ( Malādh , 3:438.6); but a parallel passage lacks akthar ( Bih. ār , 84:53.21).

73 . Shādhān b. Jabrāʾīl, Izāh. a , apud Majlisī, Bih. ār , 84:82.6; al-Shahīd al-Awwal, Dhikrā , 3:167.8; Karakī, Jāmi ʿ , 2:52.16; Mah.mūd al-H. usaynī al-Shūlistānī, Risāla dar tah. qīq-i qibla (British Library, Or. 11,000), f. 15b.13; ʿAlī al-ʿAlīyārī, fā iʾda , apud Muh.aqqiq, Risālat tayāsur al-qibla (n.p., n.d.), 18.13; Shīrāzī, Fiqh : Kitāb al-s.alāt , 1:259.16. Note also the authorities listed in Jawād al-ʿĀmilī, Miftāh. , 5:287.16. Mah.mūd al-H. usaynī al-Shūlistānī wrote in 999/1591 ( Risāla dar tah. qīq-i qibla , f. 18a.8); for the manuscript, see G. M. Meredith-Owens, Handlist of Persian Manuscripts 1895–1966 (n.p.: The Trustees of the British Museum, 1968), 25 (where the author’s name is wrongly given as Muh.ammad). The work has no formal title, and the one I use is derived from the author’s description of his work ( īn risāla-īst dar tah. qīq-i qibla , f. 1b.11).

74 . For another dismissal of the orientation of the Kūfan mosque, see Kāshif al-Ghit.ā ,ʾ Kashf , 3:102.14.

75 . The parallel passage specifies that this is evidence he has seen and heard about (Majlisī, Malādh , 3:438.9).

76 . Majlisī, Bih. ār , 84:53.23. The editor helpfully supplies the volume and page numbers. 77 . Majlisī, Bih. ār , 84:54.3; and see Majlisī, Malādh , 3:438.15. 78 . Majlisī, Malādh , 3:438.17. For the first of these traditions, see above, note 65. 79 . For comparison, among the Sunnīs we find the view that the orientation of the Kūfan

mosque was validated by the agreement of the Companions ( ittifāq al-s.ah. āba , Ibn Muflih. , Mubdi ʿ [Damascus: al-Maktab al-Islāmī, 1974–79], 1:404.7; ijmā ʿ al-s.ah. āba , Subkī, Fatāwā , 1:161.26, with special reference to the presence of ʿAlī). The omnipres-ence of the Companions thus made it harder for Sunnīs to disinvest from the deviant orientations of early mosques than it was for an Imāmī like Majlisī.


80 . They were, however, paraphrased at some length by Bah. rānī ( H. adā iʾq , 6:385.15); see also Najafī, Jawāhir , 7:375.13; Narāqī, Mustanad , 4:194.23; Murtad. ā al-Ans.ārī, Kitāb al-s.alāt , 1:161.13; Rid. ā al-Hamadānī, Mis.bāh. , 10:61.8, and the quotation taken indi-rectly from the Bih. ār that follows (61.16).

81 . Majlisī, Bih. ār , 100:431–32. For Shūlistānī, see ʿAbdullāh Afandī al-Is.bahānī, Riyād. , 3:388–92 (for the approximate death date, see 389.21). He was already active in 996/1588 (392.6, mentioning three works dating from that year written in his hand); at the same time, Āqā Buzurg al-T. ihrānī states that Shūlistānī has ijāza s dated 1063/1652f ( al-Dharī aʿ ilā tas.ānīf al-Shī aʿ [Najaf; Tehran, 1936–78], 17:45, no. 242, in the entry on our epistle, to which he gives the title Fī qiblat masjid al-Kūfa ). He would therefore seem to have died at an advanced age. ʿAbdullāh Afandī mentions our epistle among Shūlistānī’s works, describing it as a risāla mukhtas.ara fī ah. wāl qiblat masjid al-Kūfa wa-mā yunāsibuhā wa-fī qiblat al- Iʿrāq , and noting that a complete text is to be found in the Bih. ār ( Riyād. , 3:391.20). This Shūlistānī is to be distinguished from the Mah.mūd al-H. usaynī al-Shūlistānī who wrote a short work on the determination of the qibla cited above, note 73. Both epistles are listed in King, World-Maps , 135, 136. For Shūlistān, the district north of Kāzarūn where our Shūlistānī was born, see Encyclopaedia of Islam , 2nd ed., art. “Shūlistān” (V. Minorsky).

82 . Majlisī, Bih. ār , 100:431.5. Elsewhere Majlisī gives a very brief summary of the epistle, without naming its author ( Malādh , 3:438.11).

83 . That is to say, before ʿAlī’s reign as Caliph in Iraq (35–40/656–61). 84 . He says: wa-h. amaltuhu aʿlā annahu kāna banāhu ghayr al-maʿs.ūm min al-qā iʾlīn bi’ l-

tayāsur (Majlisī, Bih. ār , 100:431.13). I take it that min al-qā iʾlīn bi’ l-tayāsur qualifies ghayr al-maʿs.ūm , not al-maʿs.ūm .

85 . Majlisī says in his summary: z. ahara mih. rāb qadīm fī wasat. al-masjid munh. arifan aʿn bināʾ al-masjid ilā ’ l-yasār ( Malādh , 3:438.11). In describing it as inclined to the left, Majlisī must be anticipating the information on the decoration of the niche that Shūlistānī gives later in the epistle; nevertheless Shūlistānī does not indicate that the actual walls of the niche had been built with an orientation different from that of the rest of the mosque (as I understand is not uncommon in Iran).

86 . Lane renders farrasha ’ l-dār as “He paved the house,” or “he spread in the house baked bricks, or broad and thin stones” (E. W. Lane, An Arabic-English Lexicon [London; Edinburgh: Williams and Norgate, 1863–93], 2370a). I take my cue from this.

87 . The reference is to the restoration of the mosque of Kūfa in the reign of the S. afawid Shāh S. afī I (ruled 1038–52/1629–42), at a time when the S. afawids held Iraq for a few years from 1033/1623 until they lost it back to the Ottomans in 1048/1638. Mīrzā Taqī al-Dīn Muh.ammad, better known as S. ārū Taqī, had been vizier since 1044/1634 (G. Rettelbach, Der Iran unter Schah S. afī (1629–1642) [Munich: Dr. Dr. Rudolf Trofenik, 1978], 172 and 346, note 346), and was murdered in 1055/1645 (H. R. Roemer, “The Safavid Period,” in The Cambridge History of Iran [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968–91], 6:293).

88 . I follow Creswell in taking a cubit as 51.8 centimeters ( Early Muslim Architecture , 2nd ed., 1:48). Compare Creswell’s report that an excavation at the side of the present mosque found that “the half-round buttresses of the present mosque went down some 2 m. into the ground, at which point there was a break in the brickwork where they rested on the half-round buttresses, slightly differing in size, of an earlier mosque, which I take to be that of Ziyād” ( Early Muslim Architecture , 2nd ed., 1:48).

89 . I owe the rendering of s.uffāt as “bays” to Oleg Grabar. 90 . Majlisī paraphrases this as t.uliya bi’ l-h. umra , and says that the number of repaintings

was in the teens ( Malādh , 3:438.12).

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91 . I am not sure how we are to visualize what Shūlistānī is telling us here. 92 . Reading al-yasār for al-tayāsur . 93 . A reference to the Ottoman reconquest of Iraq in 1048/1638. 94 . The whole epistle, together with the comments of Majlisī that follow the text, is repro-

duced in local writings on the antiquities of Kūfa (Burāqī, Taʾrīkh al-Kūfa , ed. M. A. al-ʿAt.iyya [[Qum]: al-Maktaba al-H. aydariyya, 1424], 41–43; Kāmil Salmān al-Jubūrī, Masājid al-Kūfa [Najaf: Maktabat Āyat Allāh al-H. akīm al-ʿĀmma, 1977], 57–60).

95 . See the survey of the sources in S. ālih. Ah.mad al-ʿAlī, al-Kūfa wa-ahluhā fī s.adr al-Islām (Beirut: Sharikat al-Mat.būʿāt lil-Tawzīʿ waʾl-Nashr, 2003), 65–77; for a bibliography of the mosque, see M.-O. Rousset, L’Archéologie islamique en Iraq: Bilan et perspec-tives (Damascus, 1992), 135–36, no. 190. Balādhurī in his version of the story of the role of an archer in the layout of the mosque (for which see Creswell, Early Muslim Architecture , 2nd ed., 1:24) implies that the qibla lay to the west (the other three direc-tions being referred to as al-shimāl , al-janūb , and al-s.abā ; Balādhurī, Futūh. al-buldān , ed. M. J. de Goeje [Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1866], 276.6). Creswell risks a plan of the first Kūfan mosque showing it oriented about 35° to the right of the meridian ( Early Muslim Architecture , 2nd ed., 1:23, figure 14), or about 13° to the right of Mecca; this is a much smaller disparity than in the case of the first mosque of Wāsit., but still palpable. However, he does not give any authority for this orientation. Unfortunately, no histo-ries of Kūfa survive to match those of Mecca.

96 . For the soundings made in 1938, see Kāz.im al-Janābī, Takht. īt. madīnat al-Kūfa (Baghdad, 1967), 114. Janābī stresses the limited character of this work (107).

97 . This is the view of S. ālih. al-ʿAlī ( al-Kūfa, 77) and the assumption of Creswell ( Early Muslim Architecture , 2nd ed., 1:48). We read that in the time of Muʿāwiya the mosque was built by Ziyād in the form it has “today” ( buniya azmān Muāʿwiya b. Abī Sufyān bunyānahu ’ l-yawm aʿlā yaday Ziyād ), but it is not clear whose day is intended (T.abarī, Taʾrīkh al-rusul wa’ l-mulūk , ed. M. J. de Goeje and others [Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1879–1901], series I, 2492.7; trans. The History of al-T. abarī (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1985–2007), 13:73). For a sobering survey of the little we know of the his-tory of the mosque over the centuries, see Janābī, Takht. īt. , 120–24.

98 . It would seem that unlike Majlisī, Shūlistānī was not aware of the rebuilding of the mosque by Ziyād (compare Majlisī, Bih. ār , 84:54.3 and 100:431.7).

99 . Note particularly the archaeological finding that “the wall of the mosque and the outer wall of the Dār al-Imāra were one piece of work” (Creswell, Early Muslim Architecture , 2nd ed., 1:48). Cf. also H. Djaït, Al-Kūfa: naissance de la ville islamique (Paris: Editions G.-P. Maisonneuve et Larose, 1986), 102–103.

100 . Creswell in the second edition of his work has a plan of the mosque as rebuilt by Ziyād b. Abīh showing it oriented about 9° to the right of the meridian ( Early Muslim Architecture , 2nd ed., 1:47, figure 16), or about 13° to the left of Mecca; the orientation would seem to be based on that of the present mosque (see his postscript, 48). Kāz.im al-Janābī has a plan of the mosque based on archaeological research, but he does not indicate the orientation ( Takht. īt. , 114, figure 4). Later, however, he provides a plan showing the mosque together with the governor’s residence, and marks the orienta-tion (140, figure 9); from this plan, the mosque is oriented about 8° to the right of the meridian, much as in Creswell’s plan. A detailed plan of the governor’s residence shows its orientation, and by implication that of the mosque, as about 12° to the right of the meridian, or about 10° to the left of Mecca (M. A. Mustafa, “Preliminary Report on the Excavations in Kūfa during the Third Season,” Sumer 19 (1963), first of the plans facing page 44; this plan is reproduced in Creswell, Early Muslim Architecture , 2nd ed., figure 18, facing page 54). Janābī himself speaks of a small deviation of 17° from the qibla


( inh. irāf qalīl ʿan zāwiyat al-qibla bi-miqdār sab ʿ ʿashrat daraja , Takht. īt. , 114), and refers to the plan (on the same page); but as mentioned above, the orientation is not shown on this plan. Assuming he means a deviation of 17° to the left , this would still leave the mosque oriented about 5° to the right of the meridian. Djaït’s sketch-plans show an orientation ranging from about 12° to about 16° to the right of the meridian (Djaït, Al-Kūfa , 98, 101, 112). All this is reasonably consistent. However, in the first edition of his work, Creswell had given a plan of the mosque of Ziyād with the same orientation as the original mosque, that is to say about 35° to the right of the meridian, or about 13° to the right of Mecca (Creswell, Early Muslim Architecture: Umayyads, Early Aʿbbāsids & T. ūlūnids , 1st ed. [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1932–40], part 1, 37, figure 8; for the plan of the original mosque, see 16, figure 6, reproduced in Early Muslim Architecture , 2nd ed., 1:23, figure 14). This was presumably an error, tacitly corrected by the changed orientation of the mosque of Ziyād shown in the plan included in Creswell’s second edition. This error has, however, led to considerable confusion. Thus Janābī gives plans of the mosque in the time of Ziyād according to the views of Creswell ( Takht. īt. , 126, figure 6) and Ah.mad Fikrī (128, figure 7), and here the orientation is shown as about 33° to 35° to the right of the meridian, or some 11° or 13° to the right of Mecca; this fits with the fact that, as can be seen from Janābī’s bibliography, he knew only the first edition of Creswell ( Takht. īt. , 190; he also reproduces Creswell’s plan of the first Kūfan mosque, 112, figure 3). Likewise Kuban took his plan of the mosque of Ziyād from Creswell’s first edition (D. Kuban, Muslim Religious Architecture [Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1974–85], part 1, 13, figure 2; he does know Creswell’s second edition, see the “Select bibliography,” ix), and Johns in turn took his from Kuban (J. Johns, “The ‘House of the Prophet’ and the Concept of the Mosque,” in J. Johns, ed., Bayt al-Maqdis: Jerusalem and Early Islam [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999], 65, figure 10).

101 . Majlisī, Bih. ār , 100:431.8. He writes that the southern wall and the niche known as that of ʿAlī do not conform with putting the polestar behind one’s right shoulder, but are oriented so far to the right that the polestar is “in front of” ( quddām ) one’s right shoulder.

102 . See note 69. 103 . He writes: Ve bu câmi iʿn kıblesi doğar gün batısı tarafınadır (Evliyā Çelebi, Evliya Çelebi

Seyahatnâmesi , ed. R. Dankoff et al. [Istanbul: YKY, 1999–2006], 4:267a.15), and again Ve bu câmi ʿ kadîm olmağile kıblesi gün batısı tarafına, Kudüs-i şerîfe doğrudur (283b.12; the mosque is “ancient” in that its first builder was Adam, 283b.5). Evliyā Çelebi’s visit took place in 1065/1655 (see 9a.9 and 283b.33). The text is that of the manuscript recognised as the archetype, and very likely an autograph ( Seyāh. atnāme , MS Istanbul, Saray, Bağdat Köşkü 305, f. 161b.5, f. 171a.2; for this manuscript, see M. van Bruinessen and H. Boeschoten, Evliya Çelebi in Diyarbekir [Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1988], 5–6). Niebuhr visited the mosque in 1765 and gives a small plan of it, but with-out indicating the orientation (C. Niebuhr, Reisebeschreibung nach Arabien und andern umliegenden Ländern [Copenhagen; Hamburg], 1774–1837, 2:261–64 and tab. xlii, item B).

104 . In this respect Shūlistānī contrasts strikingly with a contemporary Imāmī resident in Mecca, Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn b. Nūr al-Dīn al-Kāshānī (for whom see ʿAbdullāh Afandī al-Is.bahānī, Riyād. , 2:399–400). This Kāshānī was present in Mecca at the time when the Kaʿba partially collapsed as a result of a flood in 1039/1630, and wrote a little work describing its subsequent restoration of which we possess both Arabic and Persian ver-sions (for the Arabic see Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn b. Nūr al-Dīn al-Kāshānī, Mufarrih. at al-anām fī ta sʾīs Bayt Allāh al-h. arām , ed. ʿA. ʿA. Nas.s.ār and H. . L. Māl Allāh [Tehran: Dār Mash ʿar, 1428], which supersedes Kāshānī, “Mufarrih. at al-anām fī taʾsīs Bayt Allāh

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al-H. arām,” ed. M. R. al-Ans.ārī, Mīqāt al-h. ajj 5, no. 10 (1419): 312–35; for the Persian, see Kāshānī, “Risāla-i Mufarrih. at al-anām fī taʾsīs Bayt Allāh al-H. arām,” ed. R. Jaʿfarīyān, in Mīrāth-i Islāmī-yi Īrān, ed., R. Jaʿfarīyān [Qum: Kitābkhāna-i H. ad. rat-i Āyat Allāh al-ʿUz.mā Marʿashī Najafī, 1373–78 shamsī ]; the Persian version gives the date of composition of the work as 1040/1631, see 392.4). Like Shūlistānī, Kāshānī gives a vivid account of his role in the reconstruction of an ancient monument against a background of sectarian tension; but at the point at which he sees the foundations of the Kaʿba exposed, he betrays no interest whatever in archaeology (see Kāshānī, Mufarrih. a , ed. Nas.s.ār and Māl Allah, 44.2; the passage does not appear in the Persian version, cf. Kāshānī, “Risāla-yi Mufarrih. at al-anām ,” ed. Jaʿfarīyān, 376.14). I owe my knowledge of this work to ʿAmmār Nas.s.ār, who kindly gave me a copy of the new edi-tion of the Arabic text.

105 . Elsewhere I have tried to characterize this with regard to one limited aspect of Imāmī thought (M. Cook, Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000], 282–83).

106 . E. Kohlberg, “Aspects of Akhbari Thought in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries,” in Eighteenth-Century Renewal and Reform in Islam , ed. N. Levtzion and J. O. Voll (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1987), 153; and see 147 on the “renaissance of the old Imami literature” brought about by the Akhbārīs. This is not, of course, to say that an Akhbārī training is any guarantee of interest in archaeol-ogy; Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn al-Kāshānī was a pupil of the Akhbārī scholar Muh.ammad Amīn al-Astarābādī in h. adīth (ʿAbdullāh Afandī al-Is.bahānī, Riyād. , 2:399.8).

107 . A. J. Newman, “Towards a Reconsideration of the ‘Isfahān School of Philosophy’: Shaykh Bahāʾī and the Role of the Safawid ʿUlamā,” Studia Iranica 15 (1986): 180–85; A. J. Newman, “The Myth of the Clerical Migration to Safawid Iran,” Die Welt des Islams 33 (1993): 99–101, 105; King, World-Maps , 134–38. Note that the Kūfan mosque seems to have been involved.

108 . The phrase is King’s ( World-Maps , 134). 109 . B. G. Trigger, A History of Archaeological Thought , 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 2006), 77. The implication that premodern Muslim scholars might have developed a genuinely antiquarian interest in the monuments of the ancient Near East is perhaps asking too much: East Asian antiquarianism showed no interest in culturally alien civilizations.

110 . I would like to thank Patricia Crone and Oleg Grabar for helpful comments on a draft of this chapter. I owe some of my references to Eli Alshech, for whom I set a Generals paper on tayāsur a good many years ago.

Part III

Islamic Legal Traditions

Chapter 7

Dissent and Uncertainty in the Process of Legal Norm Construction

in Muslim Sunnı LawBaber Johansen

The first time I started to think on the subject of this contribution to the Festschrift for Professor Modarressi was in a workshop on “Comparing Legal Traditions: Rigid and Flexible Legal Systems in the History of Mediterranean Societies” organized in Venice in April 1999 by the Center for Mediterranean Studies. I still remember the brilliant paper that Professor Modarressi gave, and a long and very pleasant discus-sion we had that afternoon on the workshop’s subject. I never published my text. I feel honored to be invited to participate in the Festschrift for Professor Modarressi and I think it might be appropriate to submit one aspect of my present thoughts on this subject to his critical attention.

1. Divine Norms and Their Human Interpretation

The history of Islamic Law is characterized by a constant debate about the appro-priate relationship between the revealed texts of the Qurʾān, the inspired acts and sayings of the Prophet (sunna), and their human interpretation by jurists and judges. The tension between the sacred texts and their human interpretation unfolds in the jurists’ debates about the methods that scholars can licitly use to construct legal norms. The forms and foci of these debates differ according to the historical periods in which they take place. The terminology used by the jurists of different periods is a useful instrument for deciphering different approaches to the role of human

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reasoning in the law. My chapter will present a hitherto neglected category of legal reasoning that was meant to ease the tension between rational thought and divine norms and that played a major role in Muslim legal thought since the fifth/eleventh century. My contribution does not aim to present a comprehensive study of this con-cept, but rather to sketch out some of its functions for the legitimization of human reasoning in the understanding of divine law.

2. Reason and Revelation in Legal Debates of the Second/Eighth Century

In the second/eighth century, Muslim legal thought was, on the one hand, very much focused on the practical side of religious obligations, such as rituals ( iʿbādāt), religious punishments (h. udūd), caliphal authority, relations with non-Muslim polit-ical entities, contract law, family, and succession.1 In two of the Sunnī law schools whose roots reach back into that period, the H. anafīs and the Mālikīs, “legal opin-ion” (raʾy) of the individual jurist remains, until deep in the third/ninth century, one of the most important tools of norm construction.2

A “legal opinion” does not have to be based on cogent proofs. The judicial chron-icles of al-Kindī and al-Wakīʿ show how, in the second/eighth century, judges in the garrison towns of Egypt and Iraq decided cases in the light of their own reasoning. The collection of cases, masā iʾl, that these judges decided became foundations of local learned traditions, which in turn shaped the understanding and the func-tion of law in these towns.3 Joseph Schacht has stressed the role of the judges for the formation of early doctrine in his Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence.4 This early doctrine is the point of departure for the slow formation, between the second/eighth and the fourth/tenth centuries, of Sunnī law schools, focused on their par-ticular doctrines as well as a school-transcending classical legal theory. The develop-ment of the law schools has been favored but cannot be explained by the Abbasid caliphs’ creation of an empire-wide administration of the judiciary.5 The growing importance of systematic doctrines with clear and hierarchical authority structures characterizes the development of the third/ninth and fourth/tenth centuries.

When regional schools of law began to form in the Hejaz, Iraq, and Syria, and later developed into personal schools of law, the jurists of these schools engaged in debates about the criteria for including norms and cases in their doctrines or excluding them from it. In his Origins, Schacht adduced an impressive number of examples for this process of setting aside norms and cases as well as methods of norm construction.6 But certainly the most important evidence for this selec-tive rejection and acceptance of circulating norms is the way in which Shāfiʿī suc-ceeds, in the third/ninth century, in establishing the reports from the Prophet (h.adīth) as authoritative texts with divine authority. He thus creates a hierarchy of sources of legal norms, consisting of (1) the Qur āʾn, (2) reports on the normative praxis of the Prophet (sunna), (3) consensus (ijmā ʿ), and (4) analogical reasoning (qiyās) that applies conclusions drawn from sources 1–3 to new cases and problems in order to

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produce new norms. The first rank is taken by God’s revelation, the second by the Prophet’s inspired actions and decisions, the third by consensus, and the fourth by analogical reasoning, often identified with a fifth source of licit norm production, “the individual effort of legal reasoning” (ijtihād).7 The four sources together con-stitute “knowledge” ( iʿlm). In other words, no procedure of legal norm production that is not based on at least one of these four or five sources of legal norms is part of legal knowledge or even licit.8

Schacht comments on this success as follows:

It went parallel with the further elaboration of doctrine within the living tradition of the ancient schools, but partly also represented the means by which definite changes in the accepted doctrine of a school were proposed and supported. These efforts were sometimes successful in bringing about a change of doctrine, but often not, and we find whole groups of “unsuccessful” Medinese and Iraqian doctrines expressed in traditions.9

3. The Prophet’s Norms as Revealed Texts and the Legitimacy of Dissent among Jurists

Shāfi ʿī’s insistence on the overriding force of transmissions from the Prophet pre-sented a new outlook on the law that disqualified the doctrines of the older law schools from Iraq and the Hejaz. He declared that ijtihād is illicit if it is not based on at least one of the four sources of the law (us.ūl). Anybody who does so, said Shāfiʿī, would “make the legal opinion (raʾy) of every human being, the ignoramus and the scholar among them, a source of law (as.lan).” As far as a question or a case is con-cerned for which no text in the Qurʿān or the normative praxis of the Prophet exists, such a person would put himself in the place of the lawgiver, and he would, in such cases, claim to be equal to the scholars of God’s book and His Prophet’s normative praxis (sunna). He would claim that others would have to follow his opinion and thereby “would put people in a horrendous situation.” Shāfi ʿī holds that the politi-cal authorities ought to interfere to prevent any claim to ijtihād that is not based on revealed or inspired texts and analogical conclusions from them. He states that anyone

who exerts his individual legal reasoning and follows his legal preference (yastah. sin) without [basing his opinion on] any [of the four legal sources] [thus] orders [people] to follow someone who may err and he puts him in the place of God’s Prophet whom God has ordered us to obey. If the person who does so belongs to the people who enjoy their reasoning capacity and gives such a talk after he knows what he is saying, I hold (arā) that the political authority should prevent him from doing so.10

In other words, Shāfi ʿī denounces those who do not follow his legal reasoning concerning the cogent character of the transmissions from the Prophet as heretics and invites the political authorities to forbid them from expressing their legal opin-ions in public.

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Even though his hope in this respect was disappointed, his attacks on the doc-trines of the jurists from the Hejaz and Iraq discredited their methods of norm construction. The method of giving legal preference (istih. sān) to a norm because of its practical or moral superiority over a norm derived from analogical reasoning was widely used by H. anafī and Mālikī authorities. Shāfi ʿī declares it to be forbid-den by God, h. arām.11 The method continued to be used but increasingly had to be justified by declaring it to be a sort of hidden analogy. Shāfi ʿī’s refusal to accept Mālikī istis. lāh. 12 is another case in point.

Shāfi ʿī justifies his attacks on older techniques of norm construction through his insistence on the importance of the Prophet’s normative practice (sunna) as expla-nation (bayān) of the Qurʾān, a doctrine that assigns to the Prophet’s sayings an authority that gives him the status of a lawgiver.13 The Prophet’s orders and deci-sions, if recognized as authentic, have to be treated as cogent norms of the shari aʿ. Ijtihād, at least in Shāfi ʿī’s view, should be restricted as much as possible to analogi-cal reasoning, and such analogies ought to, whenever possible, use revealed texts as their point of departure.

It is evident that during the third/ninth century doctrines that based fiqh on the norms of the prophetic lawgiver were growing in importance. Not only did the Shāfi ʿī and H. anbalī schools of Sunnī law exemplify this tendency, but the collec-tions of authentic h. adīth in the second half of the third/ninth century testify to the importance of this development as well. From the fourth/tenth century on, H. anafīs and Mālikīs adapted their theoretical arguments about the hierarchies of legal norms to the special ranking of the Prophet’s norms within sharī aʿ and fiqh. At the same time, it is evident that the schools of law whose doctrines were based on legal reasoning (raʾy) as the dominant method of norm construction could never fully adapt a concept of law that was to base the law on the overriding authority of h. adīth. Such complete adaptation of Shāfi ʿī’s hierarchy of norms would have destroyed the coherence of their own teaching.

Efforts to create a normative pluralism that would harmonize the coexistence of different schools of thought and legitimize dissent between them date from the second half of the second/eighth century. Particularly successful was the doctrine developed in Basra during the second half of that century, that is, during the first decades of the Abbasid empire, during which time regional law schools began to be formed and increasingly gained influence on the centralized administration created by the Caliphs. The judge ʿUbaydallāh b. al-H. asan al-ʿAnbarī (d. 167/784),14 focus-ing on judges and jurists who applied their “effort of legal reasoning” (ijtihād) to new cases and new problems, coined the maxim “every (qualified) mujtahid does the right thing” (kullu mujtahid mus.īb). This notion was widely accepted by the jurists. Shāfi ʿī applied it systematically in his writings to mujtahids as long as they base their reasoning on one of the four sources that he classifies as “knowledge.”15 ʿAnbarī claimed that this formula should apply to each field of knowledge, but it came to be acknowledged only for the legal debate on disputed norms and cases, the ijtihādiyyāt. Within the field of debated cases and norms, such a doctrine rendered possible a normative pluralism legitimizing the point of view of all schools of law while at the same time allowing them to apply a policy of selective refusal concern-ing the norms and methods of other schools. It is in this way, constructing new legal


doctrine and deconstructing old ones, that the law schools develop their important legal differences that constituted an ever-growing field of dissent to which ijtihād applies. It is probably one of Schacht’s main weaknesses that he constantly under-estimates these differences.16 Coulson suggests, in a more justifiable approach, that the doctrines of the different schools of law “appear as essentially distinct systems.”17

The classical doctrine as developed in the fourth/tenth and fifth/eleventh cen-turies supported and protected the dissent among the schools of law. It transformed the notion that all mujtahids do the right thing into a technical legal norm based on consensus. According to this norm, which I quote from the fourth/eleventh-century Transoxanian H. anafī jurist Abū Bakr b. Muh.ammad b. Abī Sahl al-Sarakhsī (d. 409/1090) and the sixth/twelfth-century H. anafī jurist Kāsānī (d. 587/1191), all judicial decisions by all judges who are mujtahids have to be implemented by all judges, if they concern cases on which judges and jurists can licitly disagree. This holds true even if the judge who implements the first judge’s verdict disagrees, on doctrinal grounds, with the judgment in question. If the second judge were to cancel the first judge’s verdict, he would act against the consensus of the jurists, that is, against the final authority on all legal interpretation.18 This legal norm implies, of course, doctrinal differences between the two judges concerned. It suggests that, as far as doctrine is concerned, they are entitled to reject for themselves the other’s ijtihād. But they are not entitled to question the other’s right to express his decision or his ijtihād, and they are not entitled to replace it with their own judgment when it comes to judicial decisions.

Whereas a judge’s verdict that concerns the field of dissent has to be executed by other judges, the muftī who has doctrinal differences with another muftī is, accord-ing to the doctrine of the famous seventh/thirteenth-century Egyptian Mālikī, Qarāfī (632–682/1228–1285), under no obligation to accept the other muftī’s fatwā.19 Equally, an arbiter’s decision, even if based on ijtihād, can, according to Kāsānī, be canceled by the judge without further ado.20

The principle that the judge’s decision of a case according to his own individual reasoning has to be executed by other judges is not always followed. Qarāfī states that certain H. anafī and Shāfi ʿī norms so bluntly contradict the basic principles of Mālikī law that a Mālikī judge may cancel them.21 But the general legal principle according to which all judgments in the field of dissent and ijtihād have to be imple-mented by other judges is upheld. The judiciary decisions thus feed into the field of dissenting opinions and enlarge the scope of ijtihād.

4. Dissent, Uncertainty, and Contemplation (Ta aʾmmul) of the Law

Within this protected field of dissent, judges are to follow their own norm construc-tions. I will focus, in the rest of this chapter, on the way in which two major jurists of the late fifth/eleventh and the early sixth/twelfth centuries discuss the theoretical basis for the validation of the dissent among jurists and judges. These discussions, in my view, show an innovative justification of analogy and “the individual effort of

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legal reasoning” (ijtihād) based on a complex concept of the relation between divine norms and their human interpretation. The concept in question is “contemplation” (ta aʾmmul). To the best of my knowledge this concept has not been studied in detail. It allows jurists not to rely solely on rational thought in human interpretation and construction of norms. They use the concept as a nonrational justification of anal-ogy and individual legal reasoning in order to gain a greater margin of action in their norm construction. The concept has clearly psychological undertones.

The first scholar whose work I refer to is the famous theologian, mystic, and jurist of the Shāfi ʿī school of law, Abū H. āmid Muh.ammad al-Ghazālī (450–505/1058–1111), who has left us, apart from his pathbreaking contributions to ethical, philo-sophical, theological, and mystical debates, a two-volume book on the us.ūl al-fiqh, the Mus.t.as.fā,22 which I will use for this chapter. The second one is al-Sarakhsī, a H. anafī jurist from Transoxania whose works have exerted an important influence on the H. anafī discussions in the Middle East of later periods and continue to be discussed and published until today in the Arab world, Turkey, and Central Asia. His monumental 30-volume commentary, called al-Mabsūt., is an outstanding con-tribution to the doctrine of the H. anafī school. He too has left us a two-volume text on us.ūl al-fiqh.23 It is on these two texts that I base my remarks on his doc-trine. For comparative reasons I will refer to Ibn ʿAqīl (431–513/1040–1119), a major H. anbalī scholar from Baghdad, and the Egyptian Mālikī jurist Qarāfī. Ibn ʿAqīl’s al-Wād. ih. fī us.ūl al-fiqh24 discusses many of the questions and terms treated by Sarakhsī and Ghazālī in a slightly different light and Qarāfī’s al-Ih.kām fī tamyīz al-fatāwā aʿn al-ah.kām wa-tas.arrufāt al-qād. ī wa l-imām25 is an important contribu-tion to the notion and the limits of the concept of normative pluralism in Islamic law.

I am interested in the challenges to which these jurists react when they defend the notion of ijtihād within the framework of a legal doctrine that sees Islamic law as based on Qurʾān, Sunna, and consensus (ijmā ʿ). Such a concept seems to leave little room for a norm-construction process based on judges’ and jurists’ effort of defin-ing norms in the light of their individual legal reasoning. What margin of action does such a theoretical framework leave for the individual judges and jurists for the innovative interpretation of the revealed norms? What is, finally, the status of the legal norms produced in the judiciary process and in the legal literature?

Sarakhsī explains that judges are entitled to use their own legal reasoning in the production of legal norms because they are the “successors of the Prophet” as far as dispensation of justice is concerned.26 If they change their legal opinion it is an act analogous to the abrogation (naskh) of the revelation. Both interpretations justify legal norms resulting from ijtihād through putting the judge in the shoes of the Prophet. As far as the legal validity of a mujtahid ’s judgment is concerned, says Kāsānī, it represents God’s decision.27 As we will see, that is the answer given by Sarakhsī, Ghazālī, and Qarāfī as well.

But how can the judge take the place of God or the Prophet? What entitles him to reinterpret the law? Sarakhsī is the first, according to my present knowledge, to adduce in a detailed and extensive way the concept of contemplation (taaʾmmul) to answer this question. The use of the concept is, of course, not restricted to the law. The eighth/fourteenth-century dictionary Lisān al-Aʿrab defines the word as follows: “Contemplation: to carefully consider something (al-tathabbut). I contemplated


something [means]: I examined it (naz. artu ilayhi) in order to ascertain [its charac-ter] (mustathbitan lahu). The man contemplated [means]: he ascertained carefully and without haste the thing and looked into [it] (tathabbata fi l-amr wa l-naz. ar).”28 To carefully ascertain (tathabbata) is explained as “ascertaining the thing and the opinion (raʾy) about it.” And the second form of the verb, thabbata and tathbīt, refers to the tranquility of the heart that stems from the satisfaction with proofs after their careful consideration.29 The eleventh/seventeenth-century Dictionary of Technical Terms and Distinctions by al-Kaffawī identifies “contemplation” with “the use of thought (isti ʿmāl al-fikr).” And much as the Lisān al-Aʿrab, this dictionary refers to the psychological dimension of the term. In defining “reflection, meditation” (tadabbur), the dictionary identifies this term with “contemplation” when it states that “reflection” is “the heart’s unrestricted activity of looking into the indicants (dalā iʾl) [for the solution of a problem] . . . . The same holds true of “contemplation” (taaʾmmul).”30

This concept is to be found in the works of most major jurists of the fifth/elev-enth and sixth/twelfth centuries. Ghazālī and Ibn ʿAqīl use the word to indicate a nonrational foundation of Muslim jurists’ capacity and prerogative to produce new legal norms without transgressing their competencies and without endangering the predominance of revealed norms. I start with a presentation of Ghazālī’s approach to ijtihād and his use of the contemplation concept, refer briefly to Ibn ʿAqīl’s use of it, and then return to Sarakhsī’s effort to use reflection on the new concept as a way of freeing the law from a stifling reduction to cogent proof texts.

5. Ghazalı on Ijtihad, Disputable Proofs, and Contemplation

Ghazālī divides the field that is open for speculative reasoning (naz. ariyyāt) into two subsections: those based on assumptions (z. anniyyāt) and those based on categorical and cogent proofs (qat. iʿyyāt).31 The fields for whose norms categorical, demonstra-tive, and indisputable proofs exist constitute dangerous minefields for the jurist who applies his own reasoning to them in order to develop new norms or doctrines. They are, in fact, totally controlled by the lawgiver and leave no space for the judge’s or the jurist’s ambition to construct innovative interpretations of the law or related fields of religious knowledge.

These indisputable fields are divided into three parts: the theological field (kalāmiyya), the foundations of the law (us.ūliyya), and the norms of the applied law ( fiqhiyya). The doctrines of the theological field are “entirely rational” ( aʿqliyya mah. d. a). There is only one correct solution for each controversial question. Not to find it will turn the scholar who applies his reasoning to this field into a sinner.32 The problems of us.ūl al-fiqh are enumerated by Ghazālī as follows: consensus (ijmā ʿ) has to be recognized as a cogent argument. The same holds true for analogical reasoning and even for the reports from the Prophet reported by few transmitters or even by a single one (khabar al-wāh. id). It is equally held that there is only one correct answer for each question because the proofs for the norms of this field are

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categorical, demonstrative, and cogent (qat. iʿyya). Those who err about the correct answers commit faults and sins. Even an important part of the norms of the applied law ( fiqhiyyāt) constitutes risky terrain. All jurists have to respect the obligatory prayers, the alms tax, the pilgrimage, fasting, the prescribed punishments of the law (h. udūd), and

all the things from God’s religion that are definitely and categorically (qat. aʿn) known. The right [solution] in them is one and it is known and whoever acts contrary to them is a sinner.

[Once this is known] one looks [deeper into the matter] and if [the jurist] denies the purpose of what is necessarily known [and accepted] of the purpose (maqs.ūd) of the sacred law, such as denying the prohibition of wine or of theft, or the obligatory character of the praying and fasting, then he is an unbeliever. Such a denial is brought forward only by someone who attributes lies to the sharī aʿ. He is not an unbeliever, but he commits a mistake and is a sinner, if he [denies the norms] that are not known by necessity but by examination through speculative reasoning (naz. ar), such as con-sensus being a cogent argument (h. ujja), much as the conclusion by analogy and the reports from the Prophet transmitted by a small number of transmitters, and also [if he denies] those fiqh norms that are known through consensus, because they too are categorical and indisputable (qat. iʿyya).33

But those parts of fiqh-related norms and doctrines that are not based on cogent norms and proofs are not protected in the same way:

What lies beyond are the fiqh norms based on assumptions (al-fiqhiyyāt al-z. anniyya) for no categorical, cogent proof (dalīl qat.ʿī) is available [for them]. [Such] fiqh norms constitute a [licit] object of ijtihād. In these norms, according to our judgment, there is no specific correct solution and no sin is committed by the mujtahid, as long as he perfects his effort of norm-production through individual legal reasoning and as long as he is qualified for it.34

In other words, theology, us.ūl al-fiqh, and fiqh norms based on revealed texts are protected by a doctrine that makes any mistake in them not only a mistake, but also a sin and, in extreme cases, transforms the bold scholar into an unbeliever. Concerning these cases, the scholar uses his reason at his own risk, as they are clearly massively protected against ijtihād.

Those parts of fiqh, on the other hand, that are not based on revealed texts or categorical and indisputable proofs constitute the objects to which individual legal reasoning, conjectures, and assumptions licitly apply. In dealing with them, jurists and judges deal with signs and are obliged to interpret them according to their assumptions and conjectures.35 There are no cogent proofs in this field.36 Therefore, fiqh’s analogical conclusions cannot be confounded with the philosophical or ratio-nal syllogism.37 The qualified scholars’ opinions and their individual legal reasoning may licitly be used in the construction of norms and proofs in this field. Ghazālī insists that the Companions of the Prophet have already used this procedure when-ever they were facing an event that called for a new rule and for which they had no prophetic or Qurʾānic precedent.38

He points out that an intelligible meaning that can be discovered in a Qurʾānic verse can be treated as if this meaning were in itself a part of the Qurʾānic text.39


Analogical reasoning in this field of the fiqh ought to be based on the rationally intelligible meaning of texts.40 One has to accept, as the Companions of the Prophet already did, that in this form of reasoning assumptions and conjectures have to be treated as if they were knowledge.41 Consequently, every qualified jurist or judge who applies his legal reasoning to an appropriate object in order to construct legal norms for its regulations does the right thing in this field.42 As there is no categori-cal and cogent proof in this field, the jurist or judge is under no obligation to look for it.43

The proofs based on assumptions and conjectures (dalīl z. annī), as used in this area of fiqh, do not stand on their own. They depend on the mentality, context, or social or political setting of the person who finds them convincing:

They are not proofs in themselves. They differ through the relation (id. āfa) [to which they are put]. Many a proof convinces the thought (z. ann) of Zayd and the very same proof does not convince the mind (z. ann) of ʿAmr, though he is well acquainted with it. Yes, often [it happens] that the proof produces persuasion (z. ann) in one person at one moment but not in the next moment. Even more (bal), it may happen that in one person in one moment and concerning the same problem you find two proofs that contradict each other, though each of them if it were standing alone would provide persuasion (z. ann). In categorical and indisputable proofs one cannot even imagine [such] contradiction.44

Ghazālī concludes:

Ergo, there is no proof in the field of assumptions and conjectures according to [this] investigation ( aʿlā l-tah. qīq). What is called proof is [called so] in a permissive way ( aʿlā l-tajawwuz) and in relating it to the inclination of his [the jurist’s or judge’s] soul. In fact, the root mistake in the debate on this problem is that jurists give weight to the conjectural proofs to the degree that they persuade themselves that these are proofs by themselves, not relational proofs. This is a clear mistake whose nullity is pointed out by the categorical and indisputable proofs.45

This does not prevent these nonproofs from establishing valid ijtihād. In the field of assumptions and conjectures there is no rule set by God. Rather, in this field, God’s norm is established through the individual legal reasoning of the mujtahid. It does not exist before the mujtahid professes it, and it becomes visible only through the mujtahid ’s uttering of it.46 This implies that many equally valid norms of God exist in the field of the law that consists of conjectures and assumptions,47 because all the norms produced by valid ijtihād are God’s norms, as God has left the field open for the production of norms by qualified mujtahids. The same reasoning is defended by the H. anafī jurist Kāsānī and, with great legal skill and in the context of a debate about the relationship between general and individual legal norms, in the seventh/thirteenth century by the Egyptian Mālikī jurist Qarāfī.48

As a necessary consequence of the licit use of individual ijtihād,49 Ghazālī defends dissent among jurists and judges and states that the Prophet’s Companions already practiced it.50 He holds that God himself approves of such dissent as long as it does not put into jeopardy the belief in God’s oneness and unicity.51 He insists

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that the lay people, the nonscholars, should be excluded from the debates about this dissent.52 But he admits, against Shāfiʿī’s teaching, that the muqallid should be admitted as judge, because in this field of fiqh everything is based on conjecture and assumptions, and therefore muqallids could perform the same tasks as mujtahids.53 He argues that one conjecture cannot annul another conjecture because they dif-fer according to their relations to persons, and such a norm cannot be superior to another norm based on the same type of proofs that depend on mentalities, context, and political, social, or economic setting.

Ghazālī clearly justifies the normative pluralism of that part of the applied law ( furūʿ al-fiqh) that is not based on revealed texts or on foundational elements of the structures of the law. He does so in pointing out that this part of the law is open for ijtihād and dissent because it knows no valid proof. From an intellectual point of view, he seems to say that there is nothing valuable in these legal discussions about ijtihād. But their practical results, the resulting legal pluralism, are irreplaceable and it is finally God who through these debates creates norms through individual legal reasoning. But one cannot help but see that, for Ghazālī, the sphere of the indisputable proofs (qat. iʿyyāt) is intellectually and from a religious point of view incomparably superior to everything that happens in the field of conjecture and assumptions (z. anniyyāt).

Ghazālī refers to contemplation (taaʾmmul) mainly in epistemological debates about forms of knowledge. In his introduction to the Mus.t.as.fā, a short introduction into Greek logic, he discusses “contemplation” first in the context of his treatment of axioms, when he stresses that axioms are independent of speculative knowledge, proofs, and “contemplation.”54 When he discusses contemplation in the main part of his book he stresses that the self-evident form of knowledge (badīhī) provided by necessary knowledge is in no need of contemplation.55 He assigns to “contempla-tion” a limited but important task in the field of ethical and moral examination of one’s obligations. He states that reason and rational comprehension do not create in and by themselves normative obligations. If they were to do that, then all reason-able human beings would recognize their obligations (wujūb). But in fact they need speculative knowledge (naz. ar) and contemplation (taaʾmmul) to do so. Without the contemplation issuing from reason they would be unable to understand God’s signs and the Prophet’s miracles and the ties of these signs and miracles to their own persons.56

This epistemological treatment of the concept of contemplation resembles the approach that is characteristic also for the H. anbalī Ibn ʿAqīl, who treats “contempla-tion” (taaʾmmul) as part of acquired knowledge that depends on reasoning based on indicants (istidlālī) in order to understand what is absent or hidden from the senses and from speech.57 For Ibn ʿAqīl, “speculative knowledge, which is the contempla-tion” (wa-kadhālika al- iʿlm al-naz. arī alladhī huwa l-taaʾmmul),58 has the capacity to distinguish between the true and the null and void (al-h. aqq wa l-bāt.il) and to sepa-rate the indisputable from the doubtful argument (al-fas.l bayna l-h. ujja wa l-shubha): “Through the thought of the heart and its contemplation and its gaze, the heart seeks the knowledge of these things.”59 These activities can result in achieving the goal and in failing it; in other words, much as ijtihād, they are licit forms of legal reasoning, but they don’t guarantee the truth of the results at which they arrive.


Ibn ʿAqīl shares with Ghazālī the notion that the sharī aʿ norms lack a rational basis. None of the norms of the sharī aʿ, he writes, “can be proved in a rational way.” They can only be recognized by the contemplation of reason (bi-taaʾmmuli l- aʿql).60

Much as Ghazālī, Ibn ʿAqīl thus assigns to contemplation a distinctive capacity for moral and ethical judgment that is not to be found in purely rational proofs. Contemplation also has special qualities in strengthening metaphorical interpreta-tions of texts at the expense of the literal sense of the text.61 This nonliteral text interpretation (taaʾwwul) may be used fruitfully in finding new aspects of texts that can be used for analogical reasoning and for ijtihād constructions.

6. Sarakhsı: Contemplation (Ta aʾmmul) as Emancipation from Rigid Text Fetters

In a close interpretation of the famous letter in which the Caliph ʿUmar advises Abū Mūsā al-Ash ʿarī on the procedure of judging and on the judge’s capacity to under-stand the cases before him and the legal means to decide them, Sarakhsī evokes the need for contemplation (ta aʾmmul):

Even the most learned jurist will be tested by events that he does not find mentioned in the Qurʾān or the Sunna. The revealed texts exist in determined numbers but the events are innumerable. The jurist will, therefore, be bound to use contemplation (ta aʾmmul). The way [of practicing] his contemplation has been alluded to in the h. adīth [quoted by Caliph ʿUmar]. [The Caliph] said: know the things that are like those [you have to decide] and know what is similar [to them] and measure the things accordingly. This is the proof adduced by most of the jurists . . . [for the recognition of] analogical reasoning as a cogent argument. All things cannot be found in the Qurʾān and the Sunna contrary to what the Z. āhirīs assume.62

Contemplation, in this context, seems to refer to the reflection of similarities in meaning between things and situations that would allow analogical reasoning to produce new norms. The means of such reflection are mostly to be found in the contemplation of the way in which language expresses meaning. This reflection helps the jurist to decipher the true meaning of polysemous utterances (mushtarak)63 or of those with many different meanings (mujmal).64

In both cases, contemplation gives access to elements that will help to discover the true meaning of a term, utterance, or sentence. Also, the distinction between metaphorical and literal meaning of a text depends largely on contemplation. The use of taʾwīl, according to Sarakhsī, is the field of textual interpretation, in which the Companions of the Prophet have no greater authority than the scholars who live centuries after them. It is different from ijtihād, for which contemplation concerns texts that are the source (as.l) of the rules of the sacred law. The understanding of these texts depends on the difference in the conditions (ah. wāl) under which they were revealed: “Therefore, they have obviously the privilege to have witnessed the situations (ah. wāl) [in which] God’s speech was addressed [to humans]. [To have witnessed these situations] gives the Companions an advantage compared to all

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those who did not witness [these situations].”65 In the nonliteral interpretation of the aspects of language and the meaning of speech, on the other hand, the Companions have no advantage over all those who know the meanings of language well as the Companions did:

One should not say—continues Sarakhsī—that these are internal and hidden things (umūr bāt.ina) and that we have only been ordered to construct the rule (bi-binā ʾ al-h. ukm) according to the external, literal sense ( aʿlā mā huwa l-z. āhir), because the construction of the rule according to its external, literal sense is correct according to our doctrine, but [only] if it is impossible to take the two [i.e., the literal and the nonliteral sense] together. But if one compares [the two approaches] it is not difficult to see that to take into consideration the literal and the nonliteral sense together is preferable to the sole use of the literal sense.66

To interpret language with the tool of legal analogies, according to Sarakhsī, is most of the time fruitless if compared to the results that contemplation brings to light, “because the way of knowing the name is the speculative approach of the conventions (mawd. ūāʿt) produced by philologists, not by the legal analogies.” In this context, Sarakhsī points out the legal consequences of this approach by referring to Abū H. anīfa’s debate concerning the question whether same-sex relations should be understood as fornication in the legal sense or as a different type of action altogether, whether all intoxicating drinks should be punished under the prohibition of drink-ing wine, etc.67 He stresses the merits of the study of language that enables humans to contemplate (taaʾmmul) the meanings of language and the information on past and present that language contains in order to understand the purpose (maqs.ūd) of this information. He goes on to separate this study from religion: “This has nothing to do with the sharī aʿ rule. The comprehension of the meanings of language existed in the period of ignorance before Islam. It remains today among non-Muslims who do not know the rules of sharī aʿ.”68 Contemplation of the meanings of language, then, is a human, not a specifically religious, practice.

Contemplation allows a better understanding of dogmatic differences within the law. The use of taʾwīl and metaphorical textual interpretation also allows a better understanding of historical reports. But the discussion of legal institutions, such as marriage, would be helped by contemplation. It is important, says Sarakhsī, to understand that, in discussions of the marriage contract, the terms of property transfer do not keep their literal sense; they are only comprehensible through con-templation on the use of metaphors in legal speech. The analogical reasoning of fiqh is of no use in this context.69

Contemplation also helps, according to Sarakhsī, to distinguish between mutawātir transmissions from the Prophet, which are transmitted by a number of transmitters sufficiently important to exclude the notion that they could have con-spired to spread nonauthentic transmissions, and mashhūr transmissions, which are transmitted originally by a small number of transmitters but that have been received positively by the scholars and used to regulate the practice of Muslims. In the first generation, a mashhūr report had the status of a report transmitted by one person; in the following generations it ought to be treated as mutawātir. But mutawātir reports have a higher status than mashhūr transmissions. Whoever denies the authority of


the first is a heretic, because tawātur, according to the scholars, produces neces-sary knowledge (and the authenticity of the Qurʾān is partly based on this form of transmission), but nobody who denies the authenticity of a mashhūr transmis-sion risks the same designation. Mashhūr reports produce, as Sarakhsī says, “the knowledge that brings about the tranquility of the heart” ( iʿlm t.ama nʾīnat al-qalb), but not certain knowledge ( iʿlm yaqīn). A doubt concerning the authenticity of the mashhūr remains and makes it impossible to treat it as a source of certain knowl-edge. Contemplation about the knowledge transmitted by these two categories of reports weakens the mashhūr and strengthens the mutawātir. But because in the second and third generation of Muslims the mashhūr transmission had been backed by the consensus of the scholars, it ought to be considered as a norm that obliges believers to obey but does not oblige them to believe in its truth.70 In the same way, contemplation serves to understand the difference between fard. and wājib, between religious obligation to believe in the truth of a command and to act accordingly, and a purely legal obligation to act according to the norm even if the actor is free not to believe in the truth of the transmission or of the cause of the obligation.71

In a way that reminds of Ghazālī and Ibn ʿAqīl, Sarakhsī sees contemplation as the most efficient way to understand one’s moral and ethical obligations to God. In a chapter on “The Clarification of the Cogent Legal Argument and Its Legal Effects” (bāb bayān al-h. ujja al-shar iʿyya wa-ah. kāmihā), he cites the Qurʾānic verse, “in it there are clear verses” ( fīhi ayātun bayyinātun), and says:

The unconditional sense [of this verse] in the sacred law is to be understood as some-thing that brings about knowledge in an indisputable form. Therefore, the miracles of the Prophets have been called signs (āyāt). God has said: “We have given Moses nine clear signs.” He also said: “So go with our signs.”

It may be objected to this interpretation that there are people who reject the mes-sage of the messengers after having seen the miracles and after having understood them [the signs]. If these [miracles] were to bring about knowledge in an obligatory way and indisputably, nobody would surely have denied them after having been an eyewitness to them. To this objection, we reply: these signs do not produce the knowl-edge by constraint.72 If they did that, there would be no reward and no punishment for [their recognition and obedience to them]. They only produce the knowledge by taking into consideration the contemplation of these signs in a just and not in an arbitrary way. With such contemplation, the knowledge concerning the signs is established in an indisputable way and those who deny it only do so because they turn away from contemplation.73

Sarakhsī explains the refusal to recognize analogical reasoning as a source of law by the Muʿtazilī theologian Naz.z.ām, as well as by Dāwūd b. Sulaymān and the Z. āhirīs,74 through their denial of contemplation. On the other hand, Sarakhsī sees the privileged position of the Prophet’s Companions in matters of ijtihād based on the fact that they were more careful in their contemplation than were later genera-tions of Muslims.75

Contemplation is seen by Sarakhsī as a major element in the development of norm construction by analogical reasoning (qiyās). He turns against the thesis that analogical reasoning, in order to be licit, has to be based exclusively on Qurʾān or

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Sunna. If no revealed text (nas.s.) can serve as solution to a legal problem, Sarakhsī holds that the “legal opinions” (raʾy) of the jurists determine the analogy of the case to the meanings that can be found in the scripture.76 Contemplation, in Sarakhsī’s view, has the task to single out, among the attributes of a norm, the one that enables the jurists to apply the rule of the norm of the text to other cases (was.f muaʾththir, iʿlla muaʾththira). The jurist acquires the capacity to perform this task if he contem-plates on the meaning of the text (maʿnā l-mans.ūs.) so as to find in it the attribute that will enable him to apply it to other cases.77 If this meaning is hidden, it is acces-sible only to contemplation.78

Even if a legal norm has to be derived from the Qurʾān, the meaning of the revealed text has to be established through one’s reasoned opinion (raʾy) in order to base the analogical reasoning on it. Such analogical reasoning may have two aims: either to expand the rule of the revealed rule to similar cases or to arrive at the state in which tranquility fills the heart (t.amaʾnīnat al-qalb) of the scholar. This state is reached if one understands the meaning which underlies the rule in the revealed text. This hidden meaning is accessible only through contemplation: “The heart sees the absent through contemplating him, much as the eye sees the one who is present through looking at him. Don’t you see that God said, in explaining the status of the person who neglects (taraka) contemplation: ‘The hearts in their bosoms are blind, not their eyes’?” Sarakhsī concludes:

In fact, if he contemplates the meaning of the revealed text until he understands it fully, his chest will widen and tranquility will fill his heart. That is the result of the light that God has put into the heart of every Muslim. To deprive [a Muslim] of this contemplation and to order him to stay on the site of the text without seeking the meaning in it is a sort of incapacitation (h. ajr) and renders him inept to realize the meaning of the widening of the chest and the tranquility of the heart that are estab-lished by God’s word, “those who could draw conclusions from it would know it.”79

The meaning underlying the revealed texts is the object of contemplation. To find it is either a legal task, because it enables the jurist to establish norms through ana-logical reasoning, or it is a religious and psychological emancipation that provides the Muslim with the tranquility of the heart to which he aspires. In both cases it does assign a wide field of action to those who choose to contemplate the mean-ing of legal norms. It allows them to multiply the analogies on which analogical reasoning can be based and to develop new norms where no texts exist on which to base them:

It thus becomes clear that the contemplation of the meaning of the revealed text that is established through the allusions provided by the master of the sacred law (s.āh. ib al-sharʿ) is analogous to the contemplation on the meaning of the language that is established through the convention brought about by the one who has laid down this convention. For those who are deeply rooted in knowledge, it is licit to contemplate such topics in order to reach a better comprehension of the way in which metaphorical speech is used so that the [same] expression will be considered a metaphor in another context in the same way. The same holds true for the [contemplation of the] meanings of the revealed text for the purpose of establishing the rule of the text in all places that we know to be like the one in the revealed text.80


New events also require new rules:

It is well known that there is no revealed text for each new event (h. āditha). The revealed texts are restricted in numbers (madʿūda mutanāhiya) and there is no end for the events that are going to happen until the end of time (qiyām al-sā ʿa). Calling them “events” [originating in time] (h. āditha) is an indication that there is no revealed text for them because [an act] for which there is a revealed text is an established precedent. The Companions of the Prophet relied on a revealed text for each event [they had to cope with]. Within the limits of our capacity, we are under the obligation to know the rule of each event through a [cogent] argument.81

Conclusion

Contemplation, whether it provides access to the meanings of language, distin-guishes between forms of transmission from the Prophet, helps to understand the many ways in which analogies can be constructed in the absence of cogent arguments, or clarifies the categories of obligations and duties, renders the believ-ers capable of reflecting on and accepting their moral and religious obligations. It qualifies them for the interpretation of revealed texts according to their underlying meanings and for the construction of norms for new events that have not yet been regulated by a divine text or an appropriate analogical ruling. As such, contempla-tion is an indispensable element of the law’s unfolding. Without contemplation, not even the miracles of the prophets would create belief, comprehension, and obedi-ence, many distinctions of the law would remain incomprehensible, and metaphors used in legal speech would be taken in their literal sense. In other words, it is not just the miracles, the clear signs, the revealed texts that matter. There must be a human response to them, based on the readiness to contemplate these signs, events, and texts. The lawgiver must be understood and one must react to his norms and rules; this comprehension and reaction is based on contemplation. Within the limits indicated by Ghazālī, that is, in the field of conjecture and assumptions that govern the claims of human beings (h. uqūq al- iʿbād), the capacity of judges and jurists to interpret revealed texts and to construct new rules grows steadily by expanding the ways in which analogies can be built on the meanings that contemplation discovers in revealed texts or in analogies.

The growing importance of the concept of contemplation indicates that major jurists do not restrict Islamic law to a hierarchy of divine norms but are clearly aware of the fact that human beings need to give them meaning for their own life. The reflexive way in which, through the concept of “contemplation,” such claims are reintegrated into the body of legal doctrine is a fascinating trace of the learning process of the jurists. Not only did they understand the importance of the jurists’ acquired knowledge of society and culture for their interpretation of the law, but they also gave it a theoretical status, beyond case law, through integrating “con-templation” into the legal doctrine as an important element of doctrine and norm formation, something that belongs to the law as one of its constituent factors.

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Whereas in Ghazālī’s view the relational character of the proofs of ijtihād is mainly seen as an intellectual weakness, in Sarakhsī’s approach it acquires a positive, enabling significance, important for the unfolding of new forms of law in history. It may be that this difference in approach has held the notion of “contemplation” alive in H. anafī fiqh, where, until deep into the nineteenth century, it continued to be an important part of legal reasoning.82

Notes

1. For the Umayyad period, see Steven C. Judd, “Al-Awzāʿī and Sufyān al-Thawrī: The Umayyad Madhhab,” in The Islamic School of Law: Evolution, Devolution, and Progress, ed. Peri Bearman, Rudolph Peters, and Frank E. Vogel (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005), 10–25. See in particular p. 17 on the paucity of h. adīth in legal discussions of the period, pp. 15–16 on the importance of the legal practice of the Muslim commu-nity as a source of norms, and p. 16 on caliphal authority.

2. On the application of “legal opinion” (raʾy) as a licit source of norm production in third/ninth-century Mālikī texts, see Sah.nūn b. Saʿīd al-Tanūkhī, al-Mudawwana al-kubrā (Cairo: Mat.baʿat al-Saʿāda, 1323AH), 7:7–10, 12–25, 27–30, 53–54, 62, 101, 103, 119–122; 5:11–64 passim. For a historical analysis of the importance of raʾy for Andalusian Mālikīs during the third/ninth century, see Maribel Fierro, “Proto-Mālikīs, Mālikīs, and Reformed Mālikīs in Al-Andalus,” in The Islamic School of Law, ed. Bearman, Peters, and Vogel, 57–76.

3. Baber Johansen, “Wahrheit und Geltungsanspruch: Zur Begründung und Begrenzung der Autorität des Qadi-Urteils im islamischen Recht,” in La Giustizia nell’Alto Medioevo (Secoli IX–XI), ed. Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo (Spoleto: Presso la Sede del Centro, 1997), 975–1065. For information on the qād. ī’s casuistry in the chronicles, see Johansen, “Wahrheit und Geltungsanspruch,” 985–86, note 16.

4. Joseph Schacht, The Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1950) [corrected reprint, 1967], 98–104.

5. Johansen, “Wahrheit und Geltungsanspruch,” 975–1015.6. Schacht, Origins, 67: ribā rules abandoned by the Medinese; p. 100: on abandoned doc-

trines of early Egyptian jurists; pp. 141–42: on abandoned Iraqi doctrines; p. 234: on doctrines ascribed to Abū Bakr and ʿ Umar abandoned in favor of the teaching of Ibrāhīm al-Nakhaʿī; p. 241: on unsuccessful attempts to introduce new doctrines through ascrib-ing them to ʿAlī.

7. Muh.ammad b. Idrīs al-Shāfi ʿī, al-Risāla, ed. Ah.mad Muh.ammad Shākir (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, n.d.) [clearly a copy of the Cairo edition of 1940], 39, no. 120; 40, no. 122; 22, no. 58; 88, nos. 291, 292; 212, no. 570; 322, no. 881; 343, nos. 927, 928, 929; 404–405, no. 1109; 406, no. 1111; 424, no. 1165; 425, no. 1171; 426, no. 1172; 427, no. 1174; 429, no. 1180; see also 430–35, 448, no. 1232 and 452, no. 1234.

8. Shāfi ʿī, al-Risāla, 39, no. 120; 41, no. 131; 357, no. 963; 359, nos. 966, 967; 363, no. 980; 599, nos. 1815–17.

9. Schacht, Origins, 66. Cf. pp. 54–55. On unsuccessful doctrines, see pp. 69, 101; on tra-ditions as a threat to continuity and uniformity of doctrine, see p. 96; and on dissent as a necessary result of ijtihād, see p. 97, all in Schacht, Origins.

10. Muh.ammad b. Idrīs al-Shāfi ʿī, Umm (Beirut: Dār al-Maʿrifa, n.d.), 6:201–202.11. Shāfi ʿī, Risāla, 504; see also Shāfi ʿī, Umm, 7:93–94, 300–301, and cf. Schacht, Origins,

121.


12. Noel J. Coulson, A History of Islamic Law (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1964), 91–92.

13. Shāfi ʿī, Risāla, 86, no. 284; see also 73, no. 236; 33, no. 102; 79, no. 258; 104, no. 308; 108–109, no. 326; 82, no. 269; 88, no. 292.

14. Josef van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra: Eine Geschichte des religiösen Denkens im frühen Islam (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1992), 2:161–64. See also Abū H. āmid Muh.ammad al-Ghazālī, al-Mus.t.as.fā min iʿlm al-us.ūl (Cairo: Maktaba Tijāriyya, 1365/1937), part 2, 106–107.

15. Shāfi ʿī, Risāla, 488–98, nos. 1381–1426; Shāfi ʿī, Umm, 7:106–107.16. Schacht, Origins, 7. Even Schacht’s effort, in Introduction, 29, to admit “an increas-

ing differentiation between the schools” hardly does justice to the doctrinal differences between schools. See Joseph Schacht, An Introduction to Islamic Law (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964).

17. Coulson, History, 97–101.18. Abū Bakr Muh.ammad b. Abī Sahl al-Sarakhsī, Kitāb al-Mabsūt., 2nd ed. (Beirut: Dār

al-Maʿrifa, n.d.), 16:108; see also Abū Bakr b. Masʿūd al-Kāsānī, Kitāb al-Badā iʾ ʿ fī tartīb al-sharā iʾ ʿ (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, n.d.), 7:6, 14. See also Sherman Jackson, Islamic Law and the State: The Constitutional Jurisprudence of Shihāb al-Dīn al-Qarāfī (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 171.

19. Abū al-ʿAbbās Ah. mad b. Idrīs al-Qarāfī, al-Ih. kām fī tamyīz al-fatāwā aʿn al-ah. kām wa-tas.arrufāt al-qād. ī wa l-imām, ed. ʿAbd al-Fattāh. Abū Ghudda (Aleppo: Maktab al-Mat.būʿāt al-Islāmiyya, 1378/1967), 70, 84, 122, 144–45; see also Jackson, Islamic Law and the State, 145–52, 171–77. On the difference between muftis who can refuse and criticize each other’s fatāwā and the qād. īs who cannot cancel each other’s deci-sions, see Qarāfī, Ih. kām, 182, and Jackson, Islamic Law and the State, 171.

20. Kāsānī, Badā iʾ ,ʿ 7:3.21. Qarāfī, Ih. kām, 114, 130–31, 142–43, 222–23, 225–26; see also Jackson, Islamic Law

and the State, 186, 213, 229.22. See note 14.23. Sarakhsī, Us.ūl, ed. Abū al-Wafāʾ al-Afghānī (Beirut: Dār al-Maʿrifa, n.d.) [the original

edition was published at Hyderabād at the Lajnat Ih. yāʾ al-Maʿārif al-Nuʿmāniyya, 2 vols].24. Abū al-Wafāʾ Ibn ʿAqīl, al-Wād. ih. fī us.ūl al-fiqh, ed. George Makdisi (Stuttgart and

Beirut: Franz Steiner Verlag and Orient-Institut der DMG, 1996), 4 parts, part 1: Kitāb al-Madhāhib.

25. See note 19.26. Sarakhsī, Mabsūt., 16:65, 108, 111.27. Kāsānī, Badā iʾ ʿ, 7:4.28. Ibn Manz.ūr, Lisān al-Aʿrab, 3rd ed. (Beirut: Dār S.ādir, 1414/1994), 11:27.29. Ibn Manz.ūr, Lisān al-Aʿrab, 2:19.30. Al-Kulliyyāt: Mujʿam fī l-mus.t.alah. āt wa-l-furūq al-lughawiyya, ed. ʿAdnān Darwīsh and

Muh.ammad al-Mis.rī (Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Risāla, 1413/1993), 287.31. Ghazālī, Mus.t.as.fā, part 2, 105.32. Ghazālī, Mus.t.as.fā, part 2, 105.33. Ghazālī, Mus.t.as.fā, part 2, 106.34. Ghazālī, Mus.t.as.fā, part 2, 106.35. Ghazālī, Mus.t.as.fā, part 2, 55–59, 63, 66, 81, 109–110, 112.36. Ghazālī, Mus.t.as.fā, part 2, 56–57, 62, 66, 81, 109.37. Ghazālī, Mus.t.as.fā, part 1, 60; part 2, 54, 57–58, 62, 74.38. Ghazālī, Mus.t.as.fā, part 2, 56, 58, 61–64, 69, 71, 74, 78, 108.39. Ghazālī, Mus.t.as.fā, part 2, 69.

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40. Ghazālī, Mus.t.as.fā, part 2, 67.41. Ghazālī, Mus.t.as.fā, part 2, 69, 74.42. Ghazālī, Mus.t.as.fā, part 2, 56–57, 66, 109, 112, 115, 117.43. Ghazālī, Mus.t.as.fā, part 2, 110.44. Ghazālī, Mus.t.as.fā, part 2, 110.45. Ghazālī, Mus.t.as.fā, part 2, 110.46. Ghazālī, Mus.t.as.fā, part 2, 104, 109, 111, 117, 121.47. Ghazālī, Mus.t.as.fā, part 2, 103, 109, 110, 111.48. Qarāfī, Ih. kām, 28, 30, 65–66, 85, 122; Kāsānī, Badā iʾ ʿ, 7:4.49. Ghazālī, Mus.t.as.fā, part 2, 56, 81.50. Ghazālī, Mus.t.as.fā, part 2, 65, 66, 67.51. Ghazālī, Mus.t.as.fā, part 2, 66.52. Ghazālī, Mus.t.as.fā, part 1, 116, 138; part 2, 59.53. Ghazālī, Mus.t.as.fā, part 2, 121.54. Ghazālī, Mus.t.as.fā, part 1, 33, 44.55. Ghazālī, Mus.t.as.fā, part 2, 86, 126.56. Ghazālī, Mus.t.as.fā, part 1, 40.57. Ibn ʿAqīl, Wād. ih. , 1:7.58. Ibn ʿAqīl, Wād. ih. , 1:8.59. Ibn ʿAqīl, Wād. ih. , 1:21.60. Ibn ʿAqīl, Wād. ih. , 1:45–46.61. Ibn ʿAqīl, Wād. ih. , 1:39.62. Sarakhsī, Mabsūt., 16:62–63.63. Sarakhsī, Us.ūl, 1:162.64. Sarakhsī, Us.ūl, 1:168–69.65. Sarakhsī, Us.ūl, 2:109. For the discussion of metaphorical and literary meanings see also

1:196, 199, and 2:156, 158.66. Sarakhsī, Us.ūl, 2:109.67. Sarakhsī, Us.ūl, 2:156; cf. 2:158.68. Sarakhsī, Us.ūl, 2:124.69. Sarakhsī, Us.ūl, 1:179.70. Sarakhsī, Us.ūl, 1:292–93.71. Sarakhsī, Us.ūl, 1:112.72. The printed text gives khabar, information, transmission. In this context, that does not

seem to make sense. To learn from khabar and to act according to it would still bring rewards and to refuse it would still bring punishment. I therefore read jabr, enforced knowledge, because anything done under the influence of superior force would not bring reward or punishment to the actor.

73. Sarakhsī, Us.ūl, 1:278, cf. 1:291.74. Sarakhsī, Us.ūl, 2:119.75. Sarakhsī, Us.ūl, 2:111.76. Sarakhsī, Us.ūl, 2:92, 95, 96, 106.77. Sarakhsī, Us.ūl, 2:128, 129, 138–39.78. Sarakhsī, Us.ūl, 2:139.79. Sarakhsī, Us.ūl, 2:128–29.80. Sarakhsī, Us.ūl, 2:139.81. Sarakhsī, Us.ūl, 2:139–40.82. Ibn ʿĀbidīn, Radd al-muh. tār aʿlā al-durr al-mukhtār (Cairo, 1307/1890), 1:15–16, 23, 53.

Chapter 8

Islamic Legal Minimalism: Legal Maxims and Lawmaking

When Jurists Disappear Intisar A. Rabb*

1. Introduction

The crisis about which Hossein Modarressi wrote so trenchantly in Crisis and Consolidation never quite disappeared. 1 Major questions plaguing the third/ninth century Shīʿī community were recurring ones for the entire Muslim community. After Prophet Muh.ammad’s death—and in the absence of anyone who could claim his level of divinely sanctioned lawmaking, infallibility, and charismatic religious leadership—who had the authority to lead the community of Muslims, the where-withal to guide on matters of belief and law? Such questions of the imāmate (with a little “i”—because not specific to Imāmī Shīʿī leadership) were central to ideals of Islamic political authority and religious leadership. They also touched closely on questions of law.

An early community answered this question by developing a notion that would become the Shīʿī doctrine of the Imāmate. The mainstream segment of that com-munity looked to ʿAlī and a series of subsequent Imāms for guidance initially as “simply virtuous learned men (ʿ ulamā ʾ abrār )”; the Imāmī Shīʿa later came to posit that these leaders necessarily possessed a measure of divinely designated authority and infallibility to provide sure guidance as to law and life. 2 Another early commu-nity that would develop into mainstream Sunnīs settled on the first four caliphs and then scholar-jurists ( mujtahid s) as the locus for religious authority. 3 The Prophet had said that his “community would never agree upon error” and that “scholars are the heirs of the prophets.” For Sunnīs, these pronouncements meant that the scholarly collective—through consensus—had inherited both the authority and the infal-libility that the Prophet himself possessed. 4

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But what if the Imāms or scholars disappeared? Indeed, it was the death of the eleventh Imām in the third/ninth century and the disappearance of the twelfth and final Imām soon after that threw the Imāmī Shīʿī community into deep crisis. 5 It took the community until the fifth/eleventh century to fully consolidate and resolve it. 6 For legal matters, the community needed an entirely new theory of law and lead-ership to handle the total absence of the Imām and of direct access to his guidance. 7 Likewise, contemplating the disappearance of scholars rankled the Sunnī scholars who knew its significant implications. They too vigorously debated the question in the fifth/eleventh century, as they consolidated matters of belief and jurisprudence in renowned legal circles. They too would need a new theory of law and morality should scholars ever disappear. Without scholars, who would exercise the interpre-tive legal authority and provide the moral-legal guidance on which Muslim com-munities had come to rely after the Prophet?

Imām al-H. aramayn al-Juwaynī (d. 478/1085), the renowned and influential Seljuk jurist writing during this pivotal moment in Islamic legal history, contemplated this very question. 8 He proffered an extremely interesting proposal—for what may be called a type of “Islamic legal minimalism.” 9 In contemporary constitutional legal theory, Cass Sunstein uses “legal minimalism” to refer to a system of interpreting law tightly with respect to fundamental values and principled legal processes in a way that honors a legal polity’s ideals and avoids judicial overreach. 10 In significant measure, minimalism can be called a form of judicial high-mindedness and judicial restraint. 11 It describes judges who interpret the law with respect to a particular issue at hand within the rubric of the legal system’s basic values, and who leave open questions not immediately presented for another day. 12 Sunstein’s minimalism refers to American law and modern ideals of democratic deliberation. But it has surprising resonance with Juwaynī’s proposal and ideals of the medieval Islamic context, as we will see.

Before raising the curtain on Juwaynī’s proposal, it is worth setting the stage for it in order to explore what consequence and meaning minimalism might have in an Islamic legal context. To that end, I first examine the debates among Muslim jurists about whether there is a single right answer for every occasion for which humans would be held liable on questions of law, and if so, how they might arrive at that answer. To preview: The typical answers were “yes” and “through jurists.” This discussion will serve as the backdrop for the next section, examining debates over whether it was possible then for jurists to ever disappear. Finally, bringing these two discussions together, we will contemplate—with Juwaynī—what becomes of Islamic law when jurists disappear and what the accompanying idea of Islamic legal minimalism would require. We will see in the process that these considerations invoked the core questions of law and theology with which we started: questions of leadership and the moral substance of the law in an age where Muslim scholars were moving to consolidate around cogent answers. Those answers manifest here through an intriguingly rich idea of Islamic legal minimalism.

2. One Right Answer

One manifestation of the problem of leadership had to do with the scope of the law and of interpretive authority to “say what the law is.” 13 Did law cover everything,

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in that God—as sole Lawgiver—had a rule in mind for every occasion? If so, were scholars, standing in lieu of the Prophet and/or the Imāms, authorized to determine the legal rules? Indeed, were they required to do so? And what about when—as was the case even in Islam’s first century—these scholars arrived at different conclusions of law? Which answer was correct?

These questions implicated an old and much-debated issue in major legal tra-ditions—civil and common, ancient and modern, East and West: as legal scholars contemplate thorny and novel questions, is there a discoverable, correct conclusion of law? In short, is there a single right answer? 14

Juwaynī frames it this way: “Are mujtahid s, when it comes to matters of Islamic legal interpretation and rulings, always correct [even when arriving at multiple conclusions of law], or is there [only] one right answer?” 15 He carefully notes that his question applied neither to matters of belief nor to clear legal texts. Both were proverbial sacred cows that, once settled, permitted no interpretation. 16 Rather, the central question is one of legal ambiguity and doubt. When the text is not clear, requiring a jurist to undergo some interpretive process to arrive at a conclusion of law, how should one evaluate the soundness of that conclusion?

Predictably, even this question was a matter of debate, yielding a “no right answer” camp, a “one right answer” contingent, and Juwaynī’s compromise between the two. To illustrate the problem, Juwaynī invites us to consider the following sce-nario: Suppose a pair of jurists is a husband and wife team that falls into a marital dispute. The husband informs the wife that she is “irrevocably divorced,” but does not believe that he has thereby cut off his opportunity for revoking the divorce because he made the absolutist statement figuratively. Meanwhile, in her capacity as a jurist, the wife maintains that even figurative statements have legal effect, and that her husband’s declaration thus cut off the possibility of divorce revocation. There is a direct conflict then over whether the couple is divorced, and whether the possibil-ity for revoking the divorce—as the husband tries to assert—is at all available. What is the right answer here? 17

2.1. The Debates: No Right Answer vs. One Right Answer

Juwaynī complains that those who maintained that there was no right answer could not claim a coherent and principled vision of law. 18 This camp latched onto a saying attributed to the early Iraqi figure ʿUbayd Allāh al-ʿAnbarī (d. 168/785) that “every jurist is correct.” 19 For them, any occasion for which a ruling is not clearly stated in the foundational texts or designated by consensus in fact has no particular legal ruling before God. After the jurist undergoes the process of interpretation ( ijtihād ), whatever outcome emerges as the most preponderant con-clusion becomes subject to the general legal ruling in the mind of God, which is an obligation to follow the dictates of that interpretation. 20 It is only an extreme version of the no-right-answer position to suppose that there is no answer at all, allowing a jurist to freely choose between any of a range of options presented in cases of ambiguity or doubt. 21

By contrast, the one-right-answer camp maintained that, in aiming to arrive at the single right answer in the mind of God, a jurist could either hit the mark or

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miss it in the interpretive process. 22 They drew on a famous h. adīth for support in which Muh.ammad reportedly announced that “a judge who issues a decision, hav-ing executed the interpretive process and arrived at the correct answer, will receive a double reward; if he arrived at the wrong answer, [he] will [still] receive a reward.” 23 In other words, rather than be liable for an incorrect conclusion, the mistaken jurist will receive a reward for the exhaustive effort. 24

Juwaynī positions himself midway between the no-right-answer and one-right-answer camps. While stressing that every real world scenario has a legal ruling and that there is indeed one right answer, 25 he also maintains that the saying on which the no-right-answer camp relied was also correct. In fact, the two statements came to be combined into one: “every mujtahid is correct; [the jurist] who executes the interpretive process and arrives at the correct answer will receive a double reward, and [the one] who interprets and arrives at the wrong answer will [still] receive a reward.” Juwaynī’s gloss on the latter saying is to assert that it applies to the inter-pretive process rather than the outcome . The jurist is “right” provided he or she con-ducts a thorough investigation of the sources, uses every interpretive tool at his or her disposal, and operates according to the conclusions reached by that exhaustive interpretive process. 26 That is, the jurist is “right” in being responsive to God’s com-mand to execute the proper process, and “wrong” only if he or she fails to pursue the interpretive process to its end. 27

The point is illustrated with the following vividly clear example: Imagine that two people are traveling and confused about the direction to face for prayer, that is, the Kaʿba in Mecca. This is a clear example because the prayer direction is singular—there is unequivocally one right answer, one known latitude and longitude. If one jurist goes through the interpretive process and generally concludes that a particular direction is correct, then faces that direction to pray (and it indeed aligns accurately along the correct map coordinates), he is “right” in both senses of the term—proce-durally, through following the interpretive process generally and following the dic-tates of his ijtihād specifically, and substantively, in getting it right. If a second jurist undergoes a similar interpretive process and concludes that the direction is elsewhere, he is obligated to face that direction, and also would be correct to do so because he is keeping with the dictates of his interpretation. But the second jurist would only be procedurally correct; substantively, he would be mistaken in that he would not actu-ally be facing the Kaʿba. 28 Somewhat surprisingly, both conclusions, at the end of the day, were equally acceptable. Juwaynī’s solution, then, is a middle ground.

Juwaynī sees the other two positions as either absolutist or deficient. If there is no right answer that a jurist should be seeking, why undergo the interpretive process at all? For God to have no right answer but then require people to seek it would be to impose liability in impossible circumstances, that is, liability without capacity for performance ( taklīf mā lā yut.āq )—which was rationally and universally con-demned. 29 Moreover, Juwaynī intimates that, for no-right-answer proponents, there can be no right answer for the conflicting husband-wife jurists in the above scenario; if both are right, there would be no principled way to resolve the dispute. 30 Yet, it would be absurd to suggest that the inability to reach the right answer means that there is no duty to undergo the interpretive process, instead allowing for personal preference to prevail. 31 This would require jurists to be willing always to equate the


legal with the illegal, even in cases where they clearly are not equal. Such a stance would cut against the whole point of Islamic law and indeed, law generally. 32

As for the one-right-answer camp, Juwaynī contends, serious difficulties arise if their stance requires a jurist to arrive at the right answer with certainty. 33 It begs the questions: What is the object of the interpretive enterprise; how would a jurist know the right answer when she saw it? For Juwaynī, rather than an objectively “correct” answer, the jurist is seeking the answer that best aligns with existing precedents and major legal precepts ( ashbah ). 34 Thus, Juwaynī is explicit in noting that jurists are always seeking the best answer, with the idea that it should align with the right answer. But if it does not, it is by no sin of the jurist who has engaged the interpre-tive process fully. 35 So long as the jurist exhausted the process, she is assured that she can and should follow the rule that occurs to her by a preponderance of the evi-dence considered. 36 That is all one can be fairly held responsible for. 37 Accordingly, for Juwaynī, the proper resolution to the disputing mujtahid couple would happen through some (unnamed) interpretive process ; there was a right answer in principle , but because humans could not determine it with certainty as they could the coor-dinates of the Kaʿba on a map, functionally the correct answer was the product of legal process. 38

In sum, Juwaynī’s claim is not that the jurist’s conclusion has to be absolutely correct substantively ; it is the process rather than the outcome by which Juwaynī and others hold that “every mujtahid is correct.” In this way, importantly, Juwaynī is able to claim both that there is a single right answer and that whatever conclusion the interpretive process yields becomes the right answer from the perspective of human-constructed law.

2.2. Rationalism vs. Traditionalism

To be sure, even when the Imāms and expert mujtahid s were indisputably alive and present, members of the scholarly communities in both the Sunnī and Shīʿī contexts vigorously debated and vehemently disagreed on how best to follow religio-legal directives from the leadership. 39 The debates resulted in splits into rationalist and traditionalist camps, one side appealing to reason to extract legal norms from foun-dational texts, the other aiming to restrict law to the text itself.

In the Shīʿī community, as Modarressi has pointed out, early rationalists insisted that the Imāms encouraged rational deliberation on general precepts of law to lead to its particular details. Early traditionalists, by contrast, were adamant that adher-ence to religious law meant complete subservience to revelatory texts, as contained in the Qurʾān and traditions recording instructions from the Prophet and the Imāms. 40 After the disappearance of the Imām, these tendencies continued. Rationalist jurists sought to resolve ambiguity through the interpretive process. 41 Textualists however cautioned that people should avoid committing prohibited acts by avoiding all acts that the law potentially circumscribes, even though the actual laws may be unknown because of the lack of access to them through the Imām. 42 This was a conservative brand of textualism, where jurists subscribing to that brand of law opted to avoid potential prohibitions, as the “safer path.” 43

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In the Sunnī community, we see stark parallels. The extensive literature about the historical development of Sunnī law reveals that it too contained strands of rationalist jurisprudence and traditionalist textualism. Strongly textualist Sunnī jurists, found in the H. anbalī and Z. āhirī schools, required text-based arguments for authenticity and certain arrival at the right answer. 44 Whereas the other Sunnī schools aimed to resolve doubt through the interpretive process, textualists sought to preempt it by appealing to the authority of text. 45 These rationalist-traditionalist debates were largely disagreements about the scope of interpretive authority. In point of fact, both camps on each battlefield—Shīʿī and Sunnī alike—exercised significant discretion in interpretation. Both rationalists and traditionalists looked to expert mujtahid s to explicate the law.

The fifth/eleventh century saw the systematization of jurisprudence and related theological matters. This was the age of the mujtahid . It was clear-cut and univer-sally agreed upon that expert jurists could best provide guidance about the law. But what if the mujtahid s disappeared? By most accounts, this would be a crisis of epic proportions. Without mujtahid s, who then would guide the community on matters of law—whether acting on behalf of the Imāms in the Shīʿī context or otherwise in the Sunnī context? For that reason, there was intense debate over whether a scenario contemplating the disappearance of all mujtahid s was even possible.

3. Islamic Law without Jurists

3.1. Can Jurists Disappear?

The foregoing discussion illustrates the centrality of jurists historically—at least to the Muslim jurisprudential mind—to providing community guidance. Within that mindset, the legal interpretative process appears of paramount importance within the community of jurists. But then what if both the process and the jurists disappeared? The high stakes involved with this concern should be evident: for most jurists, it could mean the end of law itself. 46

It was against the backdrop of this high-stakes debate that Juwaynī took up this subject of longtime controversy: whether it was possible for God to ever leave the earth without jurists as guides. Ordinarily, the majority of Sunnī jurists would have no objections, based on Ash ʿarī tenets that declared that whatever God did was just and beyond evaluation by human rational criticism. By contrast, Muʿtazilī doc-trine—to which Juwaynī subscribed—maintained that God’s justice was absolute, and could be understood according to rational ideals. 47 Accordingly, his premise when approaching this question stood on a rational basis: to leave people without guidance to know the law but require them to adhere to it would be to impose liabil-ity where there was no legal capacity to perform ( taklīf mā lā yut.āq ). 48 This would be an injustice that many Muslims theologians had come to agree was per se against God’s nature. 49

On that score, textualist jurists—who tended to be atheological if not Ash ʿarī, and for whom the law was embodied in the text but required jurists to navigate its


conflicts and explicate its meaning—rejected the possibility altogether. For them, an absence of jurists would mean the lack of any guide and would surely augur the end of times. H. anbalīs, in particular, vigorously denied the possibility of an age without mujtahid s, 50 backed—they asserted—by textual as well as rational arguments against the notion. 51 One of the main bases they called on for support was the prophetic pronouncement that “scholars are the heirs of the prophets,” meaning that they are to provide sure guidance after Muh.ammad. 52 H. anbalīs read this as proof of the con-stant presence of scholars after the Prophet. Moreover, the “consensus on consensus” in the Sunnī world is that conclusions reached through it give unassailable certainty. After all, the Prophet had assured the community that it “would never agree upon an error.” 53 An absence of scholars to come to consensus on rulings would leave the com-munity without an infallible guide, contrary to the Prophet’s assurances otherwise. The very possibility of the jurists’ disappearance was therefore to be rejected.

Rationally, too, H. anbalīs argued that several factors suggested the constant pres-ence of expert jurists. First, simply put, they held that, if ijtihād is the means of deter-mining the law, the absence of mujtahid s would close off options for determining the appropriate laws for each new case. 54 (It would only be possible to comfortably imag-ine their absence if no new case would arise (an unlikely proposition in the extreme), meaning any case on which jurists had not already come to a consensus, such that Muslims could legitimately rely on the judgment of jurists past.) Second, they held it to be well settled that maintaining the law is a collective duty ( fard. kifāya ); to aban-don that duty would be the end of the community of Muslims. 55 Third, without legal guidance from jurists, people could not know, and thus observe, the most basic and fundamental duties and obligations that the law imposes. In short, the disappearance of mujtahid s or their abandonment of their interpretive duties would leave laypeople to simply guess at the correct rulings, which is no way to determine law. 56 Without defini-tive legal rules, people would be free to do as they pleased; and, so far as H. anbalīs were concerned, this meant that the people would surely compromise sharī ʿ a and the rule of law completely. 57 In some measure, H. anbalīs were concerned with the same issue that faced the Shīʿa and every other Muslim group: the question of leadership and interpre-tive authority. They settled on the notion that God would not leave any age without a guide on the crucial issue of how to conduct one’s daily affairs. 58 That is, God himself would never make jurists disappear.

In spite of all the H. anbalī arguments to the contrary, Juwaynī and his Shāfi ʿī colleagues insisted not only that such a disappearance was possible, but that in some measure, it had already happened and, moreover, the world had not ended. Juwaynī popularized the notion, and he was joined by his student Ghazālī (d. 505/1111) as well as al-Qaffāl al-Shāshī (d. 507/1113). 59 This line contin-ued into the next century with prominent Shāfi ʿī jurists Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 606/1209), Sayf al-Dīn al-Āmidī (d. 631/1233), and Rāfi ʿī (d. 623/1226). All maintained the same point that jurists had already disappeared, 60 with some even claiming consensus on the point. 61 Yet, Juwaynī insisted that jurists could cer-tainly disappear, and arguably already had. Perhaps it was precisely because he and his colleagues could look to the systematization of the law and diffusion of its framework values by his time that Juwaynī could declare his own obsolescence in the larger scheme of things.

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Against H. anbalī objections, Shāfi ʿīs asserted that the possibility and actuality of the disappearance of jurists found support in the texts. Several h. adīths contemplated a time when Islam would become opaque, when people generally would be igno-rant of religious matters, and when matters of religion would be easily forgotten. 62 Moreover, the Prophet had portended that each successive age—the farther it got from him—would become farther from having a grasp of religious knowledge. 63 The argument is not that these texts alone prove the point, but that the textual evidence to the contrary cancels out the H. anbalīs’ attempt to make their argument against the possibility of jurists’ disappearance conclusive. 64 For the other side to “win,” they would have the burden of proof of backing their position with some certain and clear statement. 65 On rational grounds, too, the talk about a collective duty to do lawmaking is merely that: duty, not performance. So long as the collec-tive duty to develop legal knowledge was once performed—as it was—subsequent generations could take advantage of their predecessor mujtahid s. 66 And jurists could otherwise disappear.

3.2. When Jurists Disappear

The two sides then are at an impasse, unable to agree on whether it is possible for mujtahid s to disappear. In some ways, the question would seem to be moot. For Shāfiʿīs, the real debate was about the adept , perhaps all-knowing, ideal jurist—like the Dworkinian Hercules. 67 They presumed this type of expert jurist to have existed in the days of old, when the founders of the surviving schools lived, but maintained that the likes of those jurists existed no more. 68 Zarkashī intimated as much, when he suggested that the problem of disappearance was a nonissue so long as the reasonably competent, if not adept, jurist was available. One scholar made the point thus: even if the number of expert or even mid-level competent jurists had dwindled, the proper thing for the community to do would be to follow those who could at least transmit legal norms from the major schools of law. 69 This made sense to Zarkashī, though he was of the opinion that he did not even need to concede that much. His way of approaching the matter of whether a disappearance was possible or had occurred was to sidestep it. If we grant that the late medieval period (the eighth/fourteenth century in which he wrote) had no more expert jurists, he would insist that there were still jurists who were experts within the four Sunnī schools. 70 And Sunnīs had come to consensus that these schools properly embodied the law and served as universal guides to action, such that any ijtihād must occur within the frameworks of these schools. In other words, as the precepts of the major schools had been laid down, jurists of limited capacity were enough to provide interpretive guidance as to the law. Thus, the absence of a jurist to exercise ijtihād outside the four walls of those four schools really had little functional impact. 71

But to think the question moot, inconsequential, or meaningless would be a mistake. It still begged the question of what would be done if and when jurists—adept or limited— disappeared. In some ways, much of the debate and apology over the question of whether jurists would disappear precluded conversation about what would happen if and when they did. 72


For the important argument that considers matters beyond the threshold debates, we look to Juwaynī, who does not disappoint. He carries the argument forward from the safe area (whether expert jurists would disappear) to one on extremely rocky ground (when expert and other jurists disappeared). In short, Juwaynī main-tained—with an elaborate hypothetical to prove it—that the complete disappear-ance of jurists need not be the lead-in to Armageddon, and that the question was one worth asking to tackle deeper questions of law and interpretation.

How was that possible? In answering this question, Juwaynī forces the reader to contemplate just what, at a minimum, lies at the core of Islamic law and how far one may push its boundaries. Quite innovative then was his hypothetical in Ghiyāthī , asking the tough question: What if all jurists disappeared, expert and nonexpert? What would Islamic law look like then?

4. Legal Minimalism

Recall that Cass Sunstein defined minimalist courts as tribunals that take small rather than large steps in deciding cases, bracketing the hardest questions and most divisive issues. 73 But why should that be useful, and how is it of relevance to Juwaynī’s treatment of the disappearance of mujtahid s?

A theory of minimalism is useful for its explanatory power of how decision making occurs in arenas where the emphasis, as in Islamic legal contexts (alongside modern democratic ones), is on process and the goal is to accommodate a plurality of views within a particular system framed by a known set of fundamental values. Minimalism has both procedural and substantive components. 74 Procedurally, for the American context about which Sunstein wrote, a minimalist court settles the case before it, but it leaves many things undecided, attentive to the “existence of reasonable disagree-ment in a heterogeneous society.” 75 This allows it to promote values of participation, democratic deliberation, and institutional responsiveness, while providing space to accommodate new judgments about facts and values. 76 Substantively, minimalists operate against an agreed-upon framework of fundamental values—accepting a “‘core’ of agreement about constitutional essentials.” 77 For example, all American minimalists accept fundamental values laid out in the constitution, including protec-tion of “broad rights to engage in political dissent; to be free from discrimination or mistreatment because of one’s religious convictions . . . to be ruled by laws that have a degree of clarity”; and the like. 78 For Sunstein, the benefits of minimalism are pri-marily in the promotion of deliberation in a society that holds as its highest ideal a deliberative democracy infused with a certain set of substantive, agreed-upon values. In other words, ruling narrowly is the best way to promote the interests of rights-protection and democratic deliberation, that is, allowing the community facing the laws as wide a latitude as possible to resolve new issues as they arise. 79

Drawing on this general theory of minimalism (but leaving the type of gover-nance open), we can see Juwaynī take up the outlines of a type of minimalism in Islamic law as well as the question of the scope and method of interpretive or law-making authority in considering the disappearance of jurists. While he addressed

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the basic legal question in his jurisprudential works as other jurists did (after him), elsewhere he explored and developed the concept to its logical conclusion as other jurists had not.

Specifically, Juwaynī’s Ghiyāth al-umam fī iltiyāth al-z. ulam —or Ghiyāthī , as the book was popularly known—contains a surprising and deeply probing thought experiment on minimalism. Broadly intended as a work on the imāmate or political theory in the Sunnī tradition, Juwaynī penned the book for his Seljuk vizier and patron, Niz. ām al-Mulk. In the final third of the work, he contemplates the famous question of the disappearance of jurists. 80 This question is an enormously thought-provoking exercise in moral imagination. It is an extremely interesting question precisely because, as we have been discussing, it implicates the themes relevant to core questions in the Islamic legal tradition: namely the scope of human lawmaking authority and whether there is one right answer. It also draws us back full circle to the question of what a Sunstein-type minimalist legal system may look like, which Juwaynī contemplates by supposing that jurists are absent—leaving us to wonder whether and how the remaining system that excludes the jurists normally so central to Islamic legal process can nevertheless be Islamic in character. That is, what does Islamic legal minimalism look like?

4.1 Substantive Minimalism

Juwaynī contemplates not only the loss of mujtahid s, who have the ability to do incre-mental lawmaking—that is, to derive or discover legal rules through interpreta-tion—but also legal scholars of more limited capacity who merely have the ability to access rules enunciated in the main schools of law (i.e., nāqilū al-madhāhib ). 81 In other words, in his hypothetical, Islamic law as we know it is gone, and all that remains are the general principles of law ( qawā ʿ id al-shar ʿ)—reflecting core and fun-damental values. These values, Juwaynī tells us, can surely be known. They are “pre-cise, limited, enumerable, and bounded,” and contained in well-known Qurʾānic and Sunnaic texts. 82

Just what are the fundamental values? One would expect them to include Islamic law’s five “universal” values or legal maxims ( qawā ʿ id kulliyya ), of which Juwaynī is well aware. These had been articulated and employed regularly throughout the earlier legal literature. 83 Four of them—to which the fifth was later added—had also been gathered into a single volume by a contemporary fellow Shāfi ʿī jurist, Qād. ī H. usayn (d. 462/1069): 84

1. Harm is to be removed: al - d. arar yuzāl , 2. Customs determines the legal disposition [of a case]: al- ʿ āda muh. akkima , 3. Hardship brings about facilitation: al-mashaqqa tajlibu al-taysīr , 4. Certainty is not superseded by doubt: al-yaqīn lā yazūlu bi ’ l-shakk , and 5. Acts are to be judged according to their intended purposes: al-umūr bi-maqā-

s. idihā . 85

Indeed, in Ghiyāthī, Juwaynī implicitly or explicitly refers to these and other maxims quite often. 86 But Juwaynī does not believe them to fully cover the set of Islamic


law’s fundamental values, seeing them as more extensive than this short list. He also refers to Islam’s “five pillars” (declaring belief in God and the prophethood of Muh.ammad, praying, paying zakāt , fasting, and performing the h.ajj pilgrimage) as practices that he expects to be retained in the general collective memory of Muslims as fundamental. 87 And yet, he means something more than this short list of maxims combined with the five pillars. This much is clear from the examples Juwaynī cites of instances where Islamic law would operate with the type of minimalism he espouses without jurists. Such cases propose how one might draw on those core principles to produce a legal rule (and the “right answer”), the absence of jurists notwithstanding.

One of the most interesting scenarios he raises concerns the permissibility of eating carrion—normally prohibited—when a Muslim finds him- or herself in dire straits. 88 Not so interesting is that it is permitted out of necessity if the choice is between that and death. 89 For jurists have long maintained and repeated the maxim that carrion is only permitted “out of necessity,” where necessity is clearly defined as the risk of death. 90 The more interesting question becomes, how much may such a person eat in such circumstances? Should that person eat only enough to satiate his most extreme hunger and no more, or have his fill?

Some commentators on the question suppose that a specific Qurʾānic prohibition, such as “don’t eat carrion,” 91 requires narrow construction in every instance, such that a starving person may eat only so much as is necessary to curb the most extreme hunger. 92 But there are other balancing interests here, Juwaynī asserts: food and satiation beyond near-death gives sustenance and ability to uphold other [societal] responsibilities, such as production of goods, agriculture, earning a living, build-ing, protecting against enemy armies, etc. 93 Thus, rather than eating only enough to avoid death, which would apply an expanded notion of the general prohibition on carrion, the law should be more minimalist than that. When taking stock of the substantive fundamental values that the law promotes, a law even without jurists should make clear that a person in dire straits should feel free to eat as much carrion as needed to live the good life in the society in which he finds himself. Necessity in this sense applies to an entire people with societal well-being in mind ( bi-h. aqq al-nās kāffatan ), rather than broadly imposing its more limited meaning supposed in the starving man hypothetical as individual dire need ( fī h. aqq al-wāh. id al-mud. tarr ). 94 If the individual were to fail to address the necessity and eat the carrion, he would die; likewise, if people (in a community) were not to address their needs and reasonably count them as necessities communally, society itself would die. 95

Granted, Juwaynī admits, “necessity” can then seem to become somewhat of an unwieldy and highly ambiguous term. 96 But the fundamentals of it are known and the common sense notion should pass on in the general community even in the absence of a mujtahid . That is, even common sense would reveal that necessity does not mean desire; rather, it refers to whatever it takes for people as a society to avoid communal harm and live the good life with robustness. 97 For a technical definition, Juwaynī offers this: necessity includes the things that if people were to abandon would lead to harm in their personal or material well-being, harm meaning some plain corrupting force ( fasād ) or weakness that impedes basic living. 98

One might object that this sort of thinking, on the one hand, would general-ize the illegal as a way of life—thereby taking a community outside of any Islamic character. 99 On the other hand, one might object that something necessary is not

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illegal inasmuch as necessity offers a dispensation for ordinarily illegal acts. 100 In response, Juwaynī would say that both of these are false problems. His hypothetical contemplates the rare situation where one principle should be sacrificed (prohibition on eating carrion) for more fundamental ones (the sanctity of individual and com-munity life). He does so as a way of making a point about what Islam’s core values are and what they require, not to suggest that all values need be abandoned. 101 In other words, there is no Islamic legal ruling of blanket prohibition that requires limitation on how much carrion a person may eat when forced by circumstance. To the contrary, the permission to eat liberally is validated by Islamic legal principles of necessity governing the community level. Those are the better principles to adopt than restrictive rules on individuals, because the more permissive communal rules better uphold fundamental Islamic values when looking at issues of Islamic law and society in big-picture terms. Such views end up rendering law’s prohibitions more minimalist than expansive.

In short, the fundamental values are the core principles—outside of the belief in the oneness of God and the prophethood of Muh.ammad—that make a community Muslim. These are the substantive values of Islamic legal minimalism.

4.2. Procedural Minimalism

The Islamic legal framework includes procedural minimalism as well. All of Juwaynī’s points about whether there was a single right answer expressed the theo-retical basis underlying Islam’s distinctive system of legal pluralism: the multiple, but equally authoritative opinions that had characterized Islamic law for some time. 102 Early judges in dispersed regions, or those simply applying varied meth-odologies within the same region, frequently arrived at different but equally valid conclusions. 103 Regional and confessional groups came to have distinct interpre-tive traditions. 104 And varied interpretive communities represented by Abū H. anīfa, Shāfi ʿī, and other so-called founders gradually coalesced into four main Sunnī schools and one principal Shīʿī school of law. 105 This heterogeneous society of jurists required its members, as one scholar expressed it, to possess “the ability to countenance the plurality of equally authoritative legal interpretations.” 106

Expanding on this, jurists of the period immediately following Juwaynī explained that Islamic law falls into two categories—clearly established rules and debatable ones. 107 “Clearly established rules” are norms so widespread that they can be pre-sumed to be a matter of common knowledge in a given society or legal regime. 108 In his jurisprudential writings, Juwaynī referred to a small amount of very clear texts that required no interpretation. 109 In the Ghiyāthī , he may also have had a societal clarity requirement (in the collective knowledge of the community) as a criterion for his mention of core values discussed under the rubric of substantive minimalism.

“Debatable rules” refer to the detailed technical rules that have been the subject of juristic debate and which comprise most of Islamic law. “Only astute jurists can discern these rules,” one jurist explains; and even then, they often disagree. 110 As Juwaynī intimates, 111 Sunnī Muslim jurists have always acknowledged the proba-bilistic nature of their interpretive endeavor and tried to account for it in various


ways. 112 Thus, in criminal law, for example, they used the doctrine of legal doubt ( shubha ) to impose a high burden of clarity before attaching criminal liability. 113 When faced with a novel criminal case, where jurists disagreed on the legal rulings, they had to acknowledge that each school’s rules were only probably correct; diver-gent opinions—though not necessarily in correct—should not be used to give rise to harsh criminal liability. After all, Qarāfī asked, should not jurists conclude that a matter is unclear when their own colleagues find difficulty in interpreting (and agreeing on) the law? 114 In other words, if even jurists could reasonably disagree about the substance of the law, then “ignorance is an excuse (for the layperson)” that will remove liability. 115 Even small measures of doubt or ambiguity to jurists, including their valid interpretations, imposed a rule of nonliability for the average person. 116 Thus, when it came to debatable rules, which made up the lion’s share of Islamic law, Juwaynī’s students and most other Sunnī jurists followed what we might call a type of procedural minimalism.

5. Conclusion: On Maximalism

Despite declaring Islamic law’s fundamental values “precise, limited, enumerable, and bounded,” Juwaynī does not actually identify or provide a general theory of them. 117 Instead, he proceeds to explicate them by way of examples like the carrion scenario, mentioning general maxims and principles along the way.

Yet, it is clear that he does not have a maximalist vision of law in mind—one that would presume to do lawmaking only through appeal to some set of substantive values or else without respect to any such values, instead paying attention only to the text. In trying to get at his definition of core substantive values and minimalist procedure that exemplify what his version of minimalism is, it may be well worth it to identify some of the caveats of what minimalism is not .

Minimalism is not mas.lah. a -based reasoning with respect to the five universal maxims or other unwieldy principles, as some modernists have proposed based on Ghazālī’s elaborations of the objectives of Islamic law ( maqās.id al-sharī ʿ a )—which they typically explore in the context of the famous Mālikī jurist Shāt.ibī’s (d. 790/1388) writings. Here, we must recall Juwaynī’s emphasis on interpretive process as a sine qua non for arriving at the right answer. This seems to suggest that, for him, citing broad rules is not to engage in legal interpretation at all, for it leaves little rational or conventional basis on which one outcome can in principle be distinguished from another. That is, anyone can cite the universal maxim “no harm,” assert that “harm” has occurred, then use that as a trump card to do as they please. As such, a veritable lack of procedure would maximize the extent to which one party could claim certain entitlements, leaving no recourse to the other party. It would also preclude any sort of process by which the interpretive community—albeit without jurists—could come to agree on the proper rule in certain instances. 118

Minimalism is also not the type of textualist jurisprudence that says that there is a rule for everything and it is located in the text. Were it so, the absence of mujtahid s and the texts to which they have access would functionally mean the end of Islamic

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law, given the paucity of clear statement rules. Moreover, locating a rule for every occa-sion in the text—as textualist jurists would urge—results in being procedurally maxi-malist. Rather than substantive value-informed default rules like the one constraining jurists from enforcing punishment in cases of doubt, jurists would have to search for and apply a clear textual rule for every occasion. 119 In other words, on a textualist view of the law, jurists would have to still engage in some process of interpretation in full view of the texts. They would advise refraining from action altogether in cases of doubt, or else presume liability and prohibition, rather than the opposite. Making such assumptions global, with the absence of jurists, would result in universal con-straints on a very wide range of action—a maximalist view of law as text.

Finally, despite the absence of jurists, minimalism in Juwaynī’s hypothetical is not completely unhinged from its Islamic roots. On his conception, minimalist values and procedures alike should appeal to at least some echo of the rich Islamic tradition to claim some sort of distinctive Islamic identity. Juwaynī compares this scenario to an island community that has received the basic message of Islam, but none of its details of law; in that case, there would be decreased moral responsibility, commen-surate with the extent to which they understood the law (not necessarily the extent to which they could reason their way through it). 120 Juwaynī deferred liberally to reason, but insisted that not all values or laws could be known through reason alone. 121

In this way, Juwaynī is able still to maintain that there is a single right answer, even when jurists disappear. Consonant with his idea of jurisprudence in their presence, the right answer is the best legal rule with appeal to core values (sub-stantive minimalism), and it is the answer that privileges common-sense and tradition-informed values over excessive or detailed textualism (procedural mini-malism). All that said, the question he leaves open still is what precisely makes the minimalist list. It also raises the question as to the role of culture in the commu-nity’s memory and whether that list thus changes over time and place. In some ways, Juwaynī has proposed that to construct such a scenario might be a crisis for some jurists, but an opportunity for others to explore. 122

Notes

* Sincere and abiding appreciation to Professor Hossein Modarressi for his stellar teaching and mentorship, and for sparking the idea for this project, among many others, during con-versations while I was his graduate student at Princeton, and for generously helping in its development over the years. Kind thanks also to Professor Roy Mottahedeh for the oppor-tunity to present a version of this paper at the 2011 conference on Good Governance at Harvard University, and for his rich commentary and encouragement, which have been of enormous benefit.

1. Hossein Modarressi, Crisis and Consolidation in the Formative Period of Shī iʿte Islām (Princeton, NJ: Darwin Press, 1993).

2 . See Modarressi, Crisis , 29. 3 . For the early development of this doctrine, see Muhammad Qasim Zaman, Religion

and Politics under the Early Aʿbbasids : The Emergence of the Proto-Sunni Elite (Leiden: Brill, 1997).


4 . For an example of the use of these h. adīth s, which Sunnīs regularly cited to bolster the legitimacy and authority of scholarly consensus as a locus of certainty and guidance for the community, see below, notes 52–53.

5 . See Modarressi, Crisis , 92–98, 101–102 (discussing the four agents of the eleventh and twelfth Imām—the last one having died in 329/941 without naming a successor), esp. 97–98 (on the effects of the continuing absence), 101–102. (“It was, possibly, not until after 295/908, when the community started to realize that the situation was more unusual than they had originally thought and that possibly there would not be a mani-fest Imām for the foreseeable future, that the question of the number of Imāms came under serious consideration.”).

6 . As Modarressi notes, Kulaynī and other traditionists initiated the consolidation through locating h. adīth s to support the doctrines related to the twelfth Imām. Modarressi, Crisis , 102 (citing Kulaynī, Kāfī and other monographs on the Imāmate and occulta-tion [ ghayba ]). It was not until al-Shaykh al-Mufīd (d. 413/1022), al-Sharīf al-Murtad. ā (d. 436/1044), and al-Shaykh al-T. ūsī (d. 460/1067), that the Shīʿī community laid the groundwork for the rationalist jurisprudence and theology that would come to provide the firmer jurisprudential and theological moorings for and characterize Shīʿism over the long term. See Hossein Modarressi, Introduction to Shī ʿī Law , 7: A Bibliographical Study (London: Ithaca Press, 1984).

7 . See Wilferd Madelung, Authority in Twelver Shiism in the Absence of the Imām , in La notion d’authorité au Moyen Âge: Islam, Byzance, Occident , ed. G. Makdisi et al., Colloques internationaux de la Napoule, 1978 (Paris, 1982), 163–73, 168; Wilferd Madelung, “A Treatise of the Sharīf al-Murtad. ā on the Legality of Working for the Government ( Masaʾla fī ’ l- aʿmal maaʿ ’ l-sult.ān ),” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 43 (1980), 18–31.

8 . Juwaynī was the leading Shāfi ʿī of his time, and toward the end of his life of teaching and travels in Baghdad and Mecca, he returned to his hometown of Nīshāpūr, where the powerful vizier Niz. ām al-Mulk built the Madrasa Niz. āmiyya and appointed him its head. See Khayr al-Dīn al-Ziriklī, A lʿām (Beirut: Dār al-ʿIlm li ʾ l-Malāyīn, 1986), 4:160.

9 . See Imām al-H. aramayn al-Juwaynī (d. 478/1085), Ghiyāth al-umam fī iltiyāth al-z. ulam , ed. Khalīl al-Mans.ūr (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1997).

10 . Cass Sunstein, One Case at a Time: Judicial Minimalism at the Supreme Court (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999).

11 . Ibid. , ix. 12 . Ibid. (“Anglo-American courts often take small rather than large steps, bracketing the

hardest questions and the most divisive issues.”). 13 . This recalls Supreme Court language familiar in the American context from the

Supreme Court case, Marbury v. Madison , 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137, 177 (1803), describ-ing the Judicial Power of federal courts. For further parallels and discussions of juristic authority, see Chibli Mallat, The Renewal of Islamic Law (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993); and my “We the Jurists: Islamic Constitutionalism in Iraq,” University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law 10 (2008), 527, 542.

14 . For contemporary discussions and opposing points of view in common and civil law systems, compare Ronald Dworkin, Law’s Empire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986) [right answer thesis] with Mirjan Damaška, “A Comparative Lawyer in an American Law School: Trials and Tribulations of Adjustment,” University of Pennsylvania Law Review 116 (1968), 1363 [no right answer]. For insightful reflec-tions on this theme, see James Q. Whitman, “No Right Answer,” in Crime, Procedure and Evidence in a Comparative and International Context: Essays in Honour of Professor

Intisar A. Rabb160

Mirjan Damaška , ed. John Jackson, Maximo Langer, and Peter Tillers (Oxford: Hart, 2008), 371–92.

15 . Juwaynī, al-Burhān fī us.ūl al-fiqh , ed. ʿAbd al-ʿAz. īm Mah.mūd al-Dīb, 4th ed. (Mans.ūra: Dār al-Wafā ,ʾ 1997), 2:859 ([ Hal ] al-mujtahid[ū]n fī ’ l-maz. nūnāt wa-ah. kām al-sharī aʿ mus.īb[ū]n aʿlā ’ l-it. lāq am al-mus.īb minhum wāh. id ?).

16 . Juwaynī distinguishes “matters of interpretation ( maz. nūnāt )” as the proper scope of the question at hand from matters that do not permit interpretation, that is, categorical truths and matters of belief ( ʾaqliyyāt , qawā iʿd al- aʿqā iʾd ), by which he and other schol-ars distinguish Muslims from non-Muslims. Juwaynī, Burhān , 2:860. Specifically, he was contesting the views of ʿUbayd Allāh al-ʿAnbarī (d. 168/785)—and, later, the great litterateur-theologian Jāh. iz. (d. 255/869)—who infamously maintained that there was no right answer (that is, that every mujtahid is correct) even on matters of belief. See Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, al-Mah. s.ūl fī iʿlm us.ūl al-fiqh, ed. T. āhā Jābir Fayyād. al-ʿAlwānī (Riyadh: Jāmi ʿat al-Imām Muh. ammad b. Saʿūs al-Islāmiyya, 1979–1981) , 3:41–42.

17 . Juwaynī, Burhān , 2:870. 18 . Paradoxically, the “no right answer” camp ( alladhīna qālū bi’l-tas.wīb ), were called the

mus.awwiba , from “correct,” to signal that every mujtahid is correct. Their opponents were the mukhat.t.i aʾ , from “mistaken,” to refer to those who admitted the possibility of mistakes (though they, too, believe in a single right answer). See, for example, Abū H. āmid al-Ghazālī (d. 505/111), al-Mustas. fā min iʿlm al-us.ūl , ed. Ibrāhīm Muh.ammad Ramad. ān (Beirut: Dār al-Arqam, n.d.), 2:250.

19 . Juwaynī, Burhān , 2:860 ( kull mujtahid mus.īb ). 20 . Ibid. 21 . See ibid. (calling adherents of this position extremists [ ghulāt ] and close to disbelief

[ zandaqa ]). 22 . Ibid. 23 . For Sunnī h. adīth compilations, see, inter alia, Bukhārī, S.ah. īh. , chapter on i ʿtis.ām : nos.

31, 30; Muslim, S.ah. īh. , chapter on aqd. iya : no. 15. For the discussions in the legal lit-erature, see, for example Juwaynī, Waraqāt , in Ibn H. asan Āl Salmān, al-Tah.qīqāt wa lʾ-tanqīh. āt al-salafiyyāt aʿlā matn al-Waraqāt ma aʿ lʿ-tanbīhāt aʿlā masā iʾl al-muhimmāt (Abu Dhabi: Dār al-Imām Mālik, 2005), 671; Ghazālī, Mustas. fā , 2:250–51; 2:581, 579–85 (quoting, alongside this h. adīth , Qurʾānic verses 21:78, 4:83, and 35:3, and con-sensus, for further support of his position).

24 . Juwaynī, Burhān , 2:860. In this context, the “extremists” are those who maintain that the mistaken jurist has sinned in getting the answer wrong and is therefore morally liable and subject to punishment.

25 . See ibid. , 2:865 (maintaining that every contingency has an Islamic legal ruling: lā takhlū wāqi aʿ aʿn h. ukm Allāh ).

26 . In this context, the proper process means that, where the jurist faces a novel legal ques-tion, he or she is to search the foundational texts (Qurʾān and Sunna first, then matters of consensus), and if unable to find a clear answer there, is to look to the general prin-ciples embodied by the foundational legal texts and norms ( qawā iʿd al-sharī aʿ ) in efforts to find and extract an answer from similar cases and precedents ( yat. lub shibhan ). The jurist is to proceed with the premise that there are in fact similar cases or precedents and engage the interpretive process in search of them. Ibid. , 2:864.

27 . Ibid. 28 . Ibid. 29 . Ibid. , 2:870. This was a matter of intense debate in early Muʿtazilī circles, and taken up

as central in Shīʿī law, though other jurists took it up as well. For a discussion, see Josef van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra: Eine Geschichte des Religiösen Denkens im Frühen Islam (Berlin; New York: de Gruyter, 1991–1997).


30 . Ibid. 31 . Ibid. ( ithbāt al-khīra ). 32 . Ibid. ( yunāqid. wad. ʿ al-sharī aʿ aʿlā ’ l-qat.ʿ ). 33 . This is, incidentally, the Shīʿī position—backed, however, by the promise of infallibil-

ity of the Imāms and/or a more rationalist jurisprudence. See Roy Mottahedeh, trans., Lessons in Islamic Jurisprudence of Durūs fī iʿlm al-us.ūl by Muh.ammad Bāqir al-S.adr (Oxford: Oneworld, 2003), 58–62 (on h. ujjiyyat al-qat. ʿ or ʿilm ).

34 . Hallaq defines this as “a fairly non-technical term indicating something like ‘more or most likely.’” Wael Hallaq, Authority, Continuity, and Change in Islamic Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 155.

35 . Juwaynī, Burhān , 2:870. 36 . Ibid. , 2:864. Cf. Aron Zysow, The Economy of Certainty: An Introduction to the Typology of

Islamic Legal Theory (unpublished PhD dissertation: Harvard, 1984), 90–91, 459–462. 37 . Juwaynī, Burhān , 2:870 (suggesting that if the goal of the interpretive process were an

unknown and unknowable ideal, as the no-right-answer camp maintains, the require-ment to perform it would be meaningless; it would itself amount to liability without the capacity for performance).

38 . In this context, the question about law’s scope and the meaning of minimalism is dif-ferent from the issues Jonathan Brown raises in his article, “Is the Devil in the Details?: Tension between Minimalism and Comprehensiveness in Shariah ,” Journal of Religious Ethics 39, 3 (2011), 458–72, which contrasts minimalism with comprehensiveness in the context of modernist scholars’ challenges to the notion that Islamic law has a rule for every occasion.

39 . That is, prior to the third/ninth century, at which point the Minor and Major Occultations began in the Shīʿī context, and after the fifth/eleventh century, at which time Sunnī jurists like Juwaynī would claim that the expert jurists had all disappeared (i.e., after the founding and consolidation of the major schools of law, also around the third/ninth–fourth/tenth centuries). See below notes 59–61 and accompanying text.

40 . On rationalist, traditionalist, and intermediate tendencies from the second/eighth through early fourth/tenth centuries, see Hossein Modarressi, Introduction to Shī ʿī Law (London: Ithaca Press, 1984), 26–35. See also Modarressi, “Rationalism and Traditionalism in Shî ʿî Jurisprudence: A Preliminary Survey,” Studia Islamica 59 (1984), 141–58.

41 . See, for example, Bihbahānī (d. 1206/1791–2), al-Rasā iʾl al-us.ūliyya (Qum: Muʾassasat al-ʿAllāma al-Mujaddid al-Wah. īd al-Bihbahānī, 1416/[1996]), 349–50, 353–54, and Murtad. ā al-Ans.ārī (d. 1281/1864), al-Rasā iʾl al-jadīda wa’ l-farā iʾd al-h. adītha , ed. ʿAlī al-Mishkīnī al-Ardabīlī (Qum: n.p., 1390/[1971]), 151–69.

42 . See, for example, Muh.ammad Amīn al-Astarābādī (d. 1036/1626–7), al-Fawā iʾd al-Madaniyya (Qum: Muʾassasat al-Nashr al-Islāmī, 1424/[2003]), 326.

43 . James Whitman uses this phrase to refer to conclusions of a community of jurists in Christian Europe, around the same time, who took similar measures of precaution out of fear of getting the “wrong” answer and thereby putting their souls—unsafely—at risk. See James Q. Whitman, The Origins of Reasonable Doubt: Theological Roots of the Criminal Trial (New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2008), 116–17, 180, 189–202.

44 . On H. anbalīs, see generally George Makdisi, “Hanbalite Islam,” in Studies on Islam , ed. M. L. Swarz (New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981), 215–73; Wahba al-Zuh.aylī, al-Fiqh al-H. anbalī al-muyassar (Damascus; Beirut: Dār al-Qalam; al-Dār al-Shāmiyya, 1997). On Z. āhirīs, see Devin Stewart, “Muh.ammad b. Dāwūd al-Z. āhirī’s Manual of Jurisprudence,” in Studies in Islamic Legal Theory, ed. Bernard Weiss (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 99–160; ʿĀrif Khalīl Muh.ammad Abū ʿĪd, Imām Dāwūd

Intisar A. Rabb162

al-Z. āhirī wa-atharuh fī ’ l-fiqh al-Islāmī (Kuwait: Dār al-Arqam, 1984). For an overview of the rationalist schools, see generally S.ubh. ī Mah.mas.ānī, Falsafat al-tashrīʿ fī ’ l-Islām , 5th ed. (Beirut: Dār al-ʿIlm li’l-Malāyīn, 1980) [Orig. ed. 1946].

45 . For an example in the Islamic criminal law context, see my “Legal Maxims as Substantive Canons of Construction,” Islamic Law and Society 17 (2010), 63–125.

46 . Bernard Weiss notes the implications of the debate, which is of “great theoretical importance,” in the context of our question of disappearance of jurists and as it applies to multiple, conflicting opinions at which jurists might arrive. See Weiss, The Search for God’s Law (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1992), 698, 723.

47 . For an outline of the five tenets of the mainstream (Bas.ran) Muʿtazilī tradition, see Mankdīm Shashdīw (d. 425/1034), Ta lʿīq [ ʿalā ] sharh. al-Us.ūl al-khamsa , ed. ʿAbd al-Karīm ʿUthmān (Cairo: Maktabat Wahba, 1965) (published as ʿAbd al-Jabbār b. Ah.mad [d. 415/1025], Sharh. al-Us.ūl al-khamsa , as clarified by D. Gimaret in “ Les us.ūl al-h

˘amsa du Qād. ī ʿAbd al-Gabbār et leurs commentaires,” Annales Islamologiques 15

[1979], 47–96, 49). For standard treatments of Islamic theology, contrasting Muʿtazilī with Ash ʿarī and other views, see generally Tilman Nagel, Geschichte der islamischen Theologie (Eng. trans.: The History of Islamic Theology , trans. Thomas Thornton [Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener Publishers, 2000]); van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft .

48 . See Juwaynī, Burhān , 2:863. 49 . Ibid. 50 . See, e.g., Ibn ʿAqīl (d. 513/1119), al-Wād. ih. fī us.ūl al-fiqh , ed. George Makdisi (Beirut;

Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag Berlin, 1996–2002), 2:453. 51 . Ibid., 2:453–56. 52 . Ibid. , 4:453 (quoting the h. adīth that “ al- ʿulamā ʾ warithat al-anbiyā ʾ ”). For additional

arguments attributed to H. anbalīs to support this position, see Sayf al-Dīn al-Āmidī (d. 631/1233), al-Ih. kām fī us.ūl al-ah. kām, ed. Ibrāhīm al-ʿAjūz (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1985).

53 . Ibn ʿAqīl, Wād. ih. , 4:453 ( ummatī lā tajtami ʿ aʿlā d. alāla ). 54 . Ibid. 55 . Ibid. 56 . Ibid. 57 . See Badr al-Dīn al-Zarkashī (d. 794/1392), al-Bah. r al-muh. īt. fī us.ūl al-fiqh , ed. ʿAbd

al-Qādir ʿAbd Allāh al-ʿĀnī (Kuwait: Wizārat al-Awqāf wa’l-Shuʾūn al-Islāmiyya, 1992), 6:208 (summarizing the H. anbalī argument as follows: if God removed jurists, “that would obliterate legal liability ( law akhlā zamānan min qā iʾm bi-h. ujja zāla ’ l-taklīf ), which can only be established by clear statements of law; [that would amount to] removing legal liability and rendering sharī aʿ a nullity.” ).

58 . Ibid. ( qā iʾm bi’ l h. ujjat amr ʿaz. īm ). One expects that Z. āhirīs would have fully agreed though the issue did not arise for them with as much consequence. Ibn H. azm was, after all, against the entire notion of following a mujtahid ( taqlīd ) in the first place. See ʿAlī b. Ah.mad Ibn H. azm, al-Ih. kām fī us.ūl al-ah. kām (Egypt: Dā r al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1968) , 8:588. Moreover, he held that there was one right answer contained in the texts of revelation and that a legal agent could only act when he or she knew that answer with certainty. Ibid., 8:588, 589–90 (defining certainty as the agent being absolutely convinced of his opinion through appropriate textual indicants).

59 . On Qaffāl, see Zarkashī, al-Bah. r al-muh. īt. , 6:208 (quoting his H. ilyat al- ʿulamā ʾ ). See also the commentary in Fawātih. al-rah. amūt bi-sharh. Musallam al-thubūt , in Ghazālī, Mustas. fā 2:641–43.

60 . See Zarkashī, al-Bah. r al-muh. īt. , 6:207 (noting that Rāfi ʿī had perhaps adopted that position from Rāzī or Ghazālī). Later scholars, such as Zarkashī, Tāj al-Dīn al-Subkī,


and Jalāl al-Dīn al-Mah.allī adopt the basic stance that disappearance is certainly pos-sible, but prefer to maintain that it has not yet occurred. See Zarkashī, al-Bah. r al-muh. īt. , 6:207; see also Jalāl al-Dīn Muh. ammad b. Ah.mad al-Mah. allī (d. 864/1459), al-Badr al-t.āli ʿ fī h. all Jamʿ al-jawāmi ʿ by Tāj al-Dīn al-Subkī (d. 771/1370) (Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Risāla, 2005), 2:403–404.

61 . The H. anbalī position of course contradicts the claim of consensus, as does a Shāfi ʿī position identifying known mujtahid s at the time their absence was claimed. See Zarkashī, al-Bah. r al-muh. īt. , 6:207 (naming, inter alia, Ibn ʿAbd al-Salām and Ibn Daqīq al-ʿĪd).

62 . For a list of five such h. adīth s, see al-Āmidi, Ihkām, 4:456. 63 . Ibid. 64 . Ibid. That is, whenever texts conflict in this way it means that the textual tradition

writ large tolerates the perspectives on both sides, and neither side has a conclusive proof. Cf. Weiss, The Search for God’s Law , 724.

65 . Āmidī, Ih. kām , 4:455. Interestingly, he uses an evidentiary maxim to assert this point—that the claimant asserting anything other than the status quo (assuming his position to be that of the status quo) has the burden of proof and persuasion ( wa- aʿlā muddaʿīh bayānuh ). For a similar position (without the maxim), see commentary in Fawātih. al-rah. amūt , in Ghazālī , Mustas. fā , 2:643.

66 . Āmidī, Ih. kām , 4:455. 67 . See Dworkin, Law’s Empire, 337–50 . 68 . Zarkashī, al-Bah. r al-muh. īt. , 6:207. 69 . Ibid. , 6:208 (quoting Ibn Daqīq al-ʿĪd [the second], ʿAlī b. Wahb b. Mut.īʿ, in Talqīh.

al-afhām ). 70 . Ibid. Jurists generally required the expert jurist ( mujtahid mut.laq ) to embody qualities

of knowing intimate familiarity with the legal verses of the Qurʾān and the legal content of the Sunna , alongside knowledge of h. adīth and h. adīth criticism, mastery of the Arabic language, skill at rule-derivation through interpretive processes (for example, analogi-cal reasoning), theological precepts, and in some cases, personal piety. For Juwaynī’s list of six requirements for expert mujtahid s, contrasted with the definition of a lim-ited mujtahid as a jurist within a particular school ( mujtahid fī ’ l-madhhab or naqalat al- madhhab ) who was merely adept at the rules and interpretive processes of a particular school, see Juwaynī, Ghiyāthī , 177–78. For other lists of mujtahid qualifications, see Ghazālī, Mustas. fā , 2:510; Rāzī, Mah. s.ūl , 3:30–36; Āmidī, Ih. kām , 445; Zarkashī, al-Bah. r al-muh. īt. , 6:199–204; Subkī, Jamʿ al-jawāmi ʿ , in Mah.allī, al-Badr al-t.āli ʿ , 2:384. Cf. Wael Hallaq, A History of Islamic Legal Theories: An Introduction to Sunnī us.ūl-al-fiqh (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 117–18; Hallaq, Authority, 1–23, 82.

71 . Zarkashī, al-Bah. r al-muh. īt. , 6:209. 72 . That is, beyond declaring it the mere end of times, as H. anbalīs did. Some Shāfi ʿīs were

of this opinion as well, such as Ibn Daqīq al-ʿĪd. See ibid., 6:208. 73 . Sunstein, Judicial Minimalism , x; for examples, see 3–23. 74 . Ibid. 75 . Ibid., ix; see also 3–23 (on procedure), 61–72 (on substance). 76 . Ibid., x. He notes that courts of this description admit of characterizations as “judicial

restraint” and non-“activist” in the sense that they do not seek to impose broad rules that would draw much democratically enacted legislation into question; but that they neverthe-less do not shy away from invalidating legislation where clearly against fundamental texts.

77 . Ibid. (i.e., accepting a “‘core’ of agreement about constitutional essentials”). 78 . Ibid. 79 . Ibid., x, xiv, 24–45.

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80 . Juwaynī, Ghiyāthī , 397ff. ( fī khuluww al-zamān aʿn al-mujtahidīn wa-naqalat al-madhāhib ). The book is divided into three parts. In the first part (on the imāmate: fī ’ l-imāma ), he discusses the imāmate and qualities and duties of the imām; in the sec-ond part (on the disappearance of political leaders: fī khuluww al-zamān aʿn al-a iʾmma wa’ l-wulāt ) he contemplates the disappearance of rulers and governors.

81 . Ibid., 429ff. 82 . Ibid. , 240 (calling them maz. būt.a , mah. s.ūra , madʿūda , mah. dūda ). 83 . For the general argument that core legal maxims were articulated early on—as early

as the first/seventh and second/eighth centuries—and thus well settled by the time they were “codified” or named maxims in later legal literature, see my “Islamic Legal Maxims,” 63–125.

84 . See Jalā l al-Dī n al-Suyūt.ī, al-Ashbāh wa’ l-naz. ā iʾr , ed. Muh.ammad al-Muʿtas.im bi’llāh al-Baghdādī (Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb al-‘Arabī, 1998), 7. Qād. ī H. usayn’s compilation sig-nals the diffusion of those four maxims during Juwaynī’s time and before.

85 . These five maxims were well known in both Sunnī and Shīʿī contexts, in all schools. See, for example, Maqqarī (d. 758/1357), al-Qawā iʿd , ed. Ahmad b. ʿAbd Allah b. Hamid (Mecca: Jāmi ʿat Umm al-Qurā, 198-) 212; Miqdād al-Suyūrī (d. 826/1423), Nad. ad-Qawā iʿd al-fiqhiyya , ed. ʿAbd al-Lat.īf al-Kūhkamarī et al. (Qum: Maktabat Āyat Allāh al-ʿUz.mā al-Marʿashī, 1403/1982–3), 90–114; Suyūt.ī (d. 911/1505), Ashbāh, 35, 201, 299, 337; Ibn Nujaym (d. 970/1563), al-Ashbāh wa’ l-naz. ā iʾr , ed. Muh.ammad Mut.īʿ al-H. āfiz. (Damascus: Dār al-Fikr, 1983), 1:17–19.

86 . For instance, see Juwaynī, Ghiyāthī , 438, 439, 442, passim (frequent reference to the “doubt” maxim); 446 (for the “facilitation” maxim); 447, 454 (for the principle that imposing rules of obligation or worship requires explicit texts), 443 (generally: naz. aran ilā ’ l-qawā iʿd al-kulliyya ).

87 . Ibid. , 240 ( us.ūl al-sharī aʿ ). 88 . Ibid., Ghiyāthī , 218. 89 . He discusses this scenario elsewhere in the one-right-answer debates. See Juwaynī,

Burhān , 2:861 (noting the agreed-upon rule that carrion is prohibited but it can be legal when a person in dire straits must eat it to survive; he thus claims the entitlement to do so out of a claim of necessity).

90 . Juwaynī, Ghiyāthī , 218. 91 . See Qurʾān, 5:3 ( h. urrimat aʿlaykum al-mayta . . . ) . 92 . Juwaynī, Burhān , 2:861 ( qadar al-h. āja ). 93 . Juwaynī, Ghiyāthī , 218. 94 . Ibid., 218. 95 . Ibid., 219. 96 . Ibid. ( mubhama lā yaz. but. fīhā qawl ). 97 . Ibid. 98 . Ibid., 219–20. Specific examples include food, medicine (even if technically illegal),

and the like. 99 . Ibid., 220 (noting that this would be the end of the principle to perform obligations,

indeed of upholding Islamic law itself). 100 . Ibid. 101 . Ibid., 219. 102 . See notes 28 and 106 and accompanying text. 103 . For examples, see Wakīʿ (d. 306/917), Akhbār al-qud. āt , ed. Saʿīd Muh.ammad al-Lah.h. ām

(Beirut: ʿĀlam al-Kutub, 2001), 357–415 (interpretive differences between Shurayh. and other judges), 575–82 (Ibn Abī Laylā’s differences with Ibn Shubruma, Abū H. anīfa), 586–601 (Sharīk), 650–57 (Abū Yūsuf).


104 . See, for example, Harald Motzki, Die Anfänge der Islamischen Jurisprudenz (Stuttgart; Leiden: Brill, 1997); trans. (Eng.), Marion Katz, The Origins of Islamic Jurisprudence: Meccan Fiqh Before the Classical Schools (Leiden: Brill, 2001) (on the Meccan School); Yasin Dutton, Original Islam: Malik and the Madhhab of Madina (London; New York: Routledge, 2007); see also generally Hossein Modarressi, Tradition and Survival (Oxford: Oneworld, 2003), 25–32 (on the ʿAlid community in, Qum, and the H. ijāz during the first three centuries of Shīʿī tradition).

105 . I do not aim here to reproduce the history of the formation of the legal schools, which is the subject of considerable well-studied literature; for an excellent introduction, see Roy Mottahedeh’s introduction to his translation of Muh.ammad Bāqir al-S.adr, Lessons in Islamic Jurisprudence (see above, note 33) .

106 . See Sherman Jackson, Islamic Law and the State (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1996), 142 (quot-ing Egyptian Mālikī jurist Shihāb al-Dīn al-Qarāfī, who lived during the Mamlūk sultanate, which gave official state recognition in the judicial-bureaucratic structure to multiple legal schools).

107 . See, for example, Shihāb al-Dīn al-Qarāfī (d. 684/1285), Anwār al-burūq fī anwā ʿ al-furūq (Beirut: Dār al-Maʿrifa, 197–?), 4:1409.

108 . Qarāfī, Furūq , 4:1409. 109 . See, for example, Juwaynī , Waraqāt , in al-Tah. qīqāt wa’ l-tanqīh. āt al-salafiyyāt aʿlā matn

al-Waraqāt maaʿ al-tanbīhāt ʿalā masā iʾl al-muhimmāt (Abu Dhabi: Dār al-Imām Mālik, 2005), 656.

110 . Qarāfī, Furūq , 4:1409. 111 . See above, note 36 and accompanying text. 112 . See above, notes 16, 34–38, and accompanying text. 113 . See my dissertation, Doubt’s Benefit: Legal Maxims in Islamic Law: 7th–16th Centuries

(unpublished PhD dissertation: Princeton, 2009). 114 . Qarāfī, Furūq, 4:1309. 115 . Ibid. , 4:1409 (emphasis mine). 116 . See my Doubt’s Benefit , chapter 4, 263ff (discussing “interpretive doubt”: shubhat

al-khilāf ). For further discussion, see my “The Islamic Rule of Lenity,” Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law 44, 5 (2011), 1299–1351.

117 . See above, note 82. The closest he comes is to enumerate the limited places where those certainties of law may be found, which is really to say the texts that are agreed upon as foundational. See Juwaynī, Ghiyāthī , 46–47, noting that the “legal certainties ( qawāt. i ʿ al-sharʿ )” are: (1) clear scriptural text that needs no interpreta-tion, (2) widespread single-source reports ( khabar mutawātir ) [so widespread] that they preclude questions of authenticity, and (3) well-established consensus ( ijmā ʿ munʿaqad ).

118 . Similarly, Sunstein complained about courts eager to state and apply broad rules; doing so usurps the determination of deliberative democracy, imposing top-down values in ways that may or may not accord with the community’s ideals. See Sunstein, Judicial Minimalism , 28–32.

119 . Cf. ibid., xiii (“[Those who do not believe in minimalism] think that it is important for the Court to lay down clear, bright-line rules, producing stability and clarity in the law.”) (citing Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Rehnquist as examples of such textualist jurists). Compare the arguments of Muslim textualists jurists Ibn H. anbal, Ibn H. azm, Astarābādī, and others. See above, note 42.

120 . Juwaynī, Burhān , 2:883 (imagining a person who finds himself on such an island, hav-ing received the message of Islam without the details, and concluding that there would be no moral legal responsibility to follow the law as it had never been clarified to him).

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This is related to, though distinct from, the famous problem in Islamic philosophy of H. ayy b. Yaqz.ān, the boy who finds himself alone on an island, presenting a puzzle for Muslim philosophers as to the limits of reason and the extent of moral responsibility individuals owe with and without revelation.

121 . Juwaynī, Ghiyāthī , 192 (“For how many matters that reason has determined to be valid has the sharʿ revealed a rule of prohibition?”).

122. In this vein, Jeremy Waldron draws on the insight from Gaius in the second century CE (which seems to forecast Juwaynī’s minimalist idea of law as a combination of com-mon or conventional values together with internally specific and justified norms) to formulate a modern theory of ius gentium. See Jeremy Waldron, “Partly Laws Common to All Mankind” (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2012). In attempt to establish a normative basis for acknowledging at least some of these values as law, the modern theory “represents a sort of overlap between the positive laws of particular states, something they have in common. And the idea is that it has a claim on us by virtue of that commonality.” Id., 28. If we read Waldron’s proposal as taking up the opportunity to reflect on the values underlying legal minimalism with which Juwaynī was so concerned, the reflection makes an important addendum—offering reasons that align with and may help explain Juwaynī’s practice of not detailing the content of his minimalist list. For Waldron, the important point in the reflective enterprise is not in writing “universal” norms down, but in identifying that they exist, are or can be justifi-ably put to good use in local and comparative contexts, and are thus worth continuously reflecting about.

Chapter 9

Cultivating Human Rights: Islamic Law and the Humanist Imperative

Khaled Abou El Fadl

My chapter will focus on the interface, interaction, and tensions between the human rights tradition and the Islamic tradition. Both of these traditions—human rights and Islam—make normative demands upon all rational beings, and these demands are articulations of expectations regarding what counts as appropriate or inappropri-ate conduct in an endless range of contexts and social, economic, and political set-tings. Both traditions attempt to create normative cultures that define standards of ethics, morality, and even legality. In addition, both traditions make their claims in the name of humanity—in other words, both claim that their normative demands ought to be believed and adopted, ought to earn deference and compliance, and ought to be accepted and acted upon for the good of humanity; both claim that, overall, human beings will prosper and be better off if they accept the legitimacy and the binding nature of the respective traditions. The question that interests me here is whether these two systems of belief are mutually exclusive. I do not intend to hold the response to this question in suspense; the answer is that it entirely depends on the substantive natures of the particular systems of religious and human rights beliefs, that is, on how extensive, expansive, or even intrusive each is.

Islamic law stands in the most unique and perhaps even idiosyncratic position vis-à-vis the human rights tradition. A considerable number of Western scholars have argued that the ideological roots of the human rights tradition are to be found in Judeo-Christian natural law and, more specifically, in the natural rights tradi-tion. 1 But to the extent that there has been a religious contribution to contemporary notions of human rights other than post-Enlightenment Christian thought, it is the Islamic legal tradition that has contributed the most. Yet, despite its historical con-tributions, in the contemporary age, Islamic law is often invoked in the context of challenging the universality of human rights standards, and in fact, many Muslims

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and non-Muslims believe that Islamic law is fundamentally and inherently at odds with modern human rights commitments. To claim that Islamic law is fundamen-tally inconsistent with modern human rights commitments is to contend that the two systems of thought, by their very philosophical constitutions, their ideological and epistemological foundations, and even in their various possible permutations, cannot possibly be reconciled without doing such reconstructive violence to one or both of these systems that they will lose their integrity and coherence and no longer be recognized either as Islamic or law, or be about humans or rights. The fact that this point is not and cannot be known by objective means, and that it entirely depends on how one subjectively understands Islamic law or human rights only underscores the critical importance of clarifying the assumptions and concepts being utilized when discussing the possibility of reconciliation between the two.

The challenging issue that we confront when we deal with the possibility of rec-onciliation or the search for the optimum point of reconciliation is whether there is an unspoken assumption that the nature of one of these systems is static, unchang-ing, or even immutable. If we believe that both systems are subjective constructs or subjectively recognized, is it inevitable or imperative that both of these systems must change and evolve in one and only one direction? Is it inevitable that both of these systems become more expansive, more encompassing, and more liberal? We are well aware of the criticism of many commentators about the crisis of legitimacy caused by the proliferation or inflation of human rights claims. 2 If Islamic law is expected to keep up with or even tolerate what might be referred to figuratively as ever-increasing aggressive territorial and jurisdictional claims by human rights regimes, does this mean that Islamic law will inevitably lose more of its integrity? But alternatively, if the jurisdictional claims of Islamic law are sweeping—if the space in human life that Islamic law regulates is vast and all-encompassing, does this necessarily mean that Islamic law crowds out human rights from the realm of significance, and that human rights commitments are rendered marginal and irrelevant? Indeed, all too often discourses on the relationship of Islamic law to the human rights tradition are plagued by superficiality because of the failure to address the nature, scope, and function of each of those traditions. Unfortunately, as I explain later, the failure to do so is not a methodological oversight, but at times is an intended omission driven by political motives. At other times, it is the direct result of woefully ill-informed conceptions of the Islamic legal tradition. Lack of clarity in discourses on human rights is often the result not of an intellectual but an ethical failure. Meanwhile, lack of clarity in discourses on Islamic law is at times a result of obfuscation, but more often the result of self-serving states of ignorance about the Islamic legal tradition.

Human Rights as a Moral Commitment

Human rights, as I use it here, is a rationally based intuitive or intellectual convic-tion, supported by an ethical and moral commitment, that is firmly, consistently, and systematically held to the extent that it leaves a deep emotional and psychological

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orientation that gravitates toward honoring, protecting, and serving the well-being, dignity, and autonomy of human beings simply because they are human beings. In this construct, the origins of human rights could be intuition, reason, nature or a state of nature (i.e., a hypothetical assumption about what people will do or not do in a natural state), or God. Human rights could be based on a firmly held conviction as to the entitlements or immunities owed to the citizens of a national or international polity. I do not believe that any of these convictions as to the origins of human rights, in and of themselves, are sufficient grounds for disqualifying any particular vision of human rights.

Critically, however, there are some important caveats. It is important to distin-guish civil rights from human rights. Human rights visions recognize the rights of human beings as human beings. This means that visions that recognize the rights of people only because they are citizens of a democracy, or because the recognition of such rights is necessary for the proper functioning of one political system or another (most commonly a democracy), could be considered a form of civil rights commitment, but they are not human rights commitments. Similarly, theories that recognize only the rights of particular groups of people, distinguished by race, eth-nicity, religion, civilizational identity, or national affiliation, properly speaking are not theories of human rights. They are theories of rights for some people in some places living under certain conditions, but they are not theories about the rights due to all human beings. Moreover, rights claims that make the existence of particular human rights contingent on the will of a majority are highly suspect as human rights commitments. I think that a rather subtle distinction is needed here. As I already noted, a human rights commitment recognizes that humans have rights simply because they are humans. There are various ways or methodologies that lead to this conclusion, and one of those ways is to speculate as to what people will do in a state of nature or to believe in a hypothetical social contract. These philosophical investigations could lead to the realization that all humans ought not or ought to be treated in particular ways. Once this realization is reached, what must follow is an ethical and moral commitment to the principle of human rights—a firm and unwavering conviction that there is a core set of rights that are fundamental and necessary for the well-being of human beings. In my view, the well-being of human beings includes not only the protection of the life and dignity of people, but also safeguarding the ability of individuals to pursue, develop, and fulfill their potential for ethical and moral growth. 3 But in all cases, if the recognition of rights is made contingent on the will of the majority of a citizenry, then the commitment to human rights is rendered meaningless. Put differently, if the will of the majority, regardless of how large it might be, could void or abrogate these core rights, then it becomes practically meaningless to speak of a serious human rights commitment.

A human rights commitment necessarily means a commitment to respect the rights of human beings wherever and whoever they might be. The commitment ought not be affected one way or another by the desire of a majority of the people to honor these rights. From the perspective of the one making the commitment to human rights, if the majority decides to honor the rights of human beings, then the majority is considered to have acted properly and morally, and if the majority decides to do otherwise, then such a majority is acting improperly and immorally.


For the sake of convenience, I will refer to the position that I defended here as an antimajoritarian thesis.

The antimajoritarian thesis has clear implications upon the issues of the universal-ity, invariability, or relativity of rights. A human rights commitment, if it is to make any sense at all, does necessarily entail a belief in the universality of rights. The criti-cal distinction, however, is that believing in the universality of rights is very different from believing in the universality of values. It warrants emphasis that a human rights commitment is a commitment in favor of the idea that all human beings by the very nature of things enjoy certain basic and fundamental rights. The belief in the exis-tence of these rights is not in any way contingent upon or conditioned by, or affected in one way or another by the system of values that a particular group of people adhere to in any part of the world. Consequently, those who make a human rights com-mitment are duty bound, as per their own belief system, to treat all human beings in a fashion consistent with fundamental rights standards. Moreover, reciprocity of conduct or treatment has no bearing on the binding nature of human rights commit-ments. For instance, a person who has made a human rights commitment will not resort to the use of torture even if he or she is maltreated or tortured.

One further clarification is of critical importance: the very logic of human rights ought to preclude the possibility of attempting to coerce people into either making a commitment in favor of human rights or into adjusting their habits, customs, and social practices to meet the standards set by those who have committed themselves to human rights. For one, social practices cannot be compelled or coerced without resulting in numerous cultural deformities such as traumatic social upheaval, ten-sion-inducing inconsistencies, and embedded hypocrisies. But far more importantly, the use of coercion against the sociocultural convictions of people is inconsistent with the individual and collective right to self-determination and autonomy.

The Culture of Human Rights: The Dialectics of Doctrine and Practice

The effective plane of human rights commitments—the level at which they mani-fest and produce recognizable results—is not law, but culture. There are numerous laws that honor human rights in the grandest of terms, and yet they are nothing but rhetoric on paper. Political systems, particularly constitutional democracies, might be necessary for the effective implementation of human rights commitments, but political institutions give effect to preexisting humanitarian commitments; they may even encourage and augment them, but they do not invent such commitments. It is at the sociocultural level that individual commitments turn into collective wills, which embody normative priorities, aesthetic consciousness, and epistemological justifications—the collective sense of right and wrong and the ought and the ought not. It is also at the sociocultural level that one finds the collective sense of entitle-ment, denial, or outrage. Before becoming effective laws, human rights are embed-ded in individual consciences and collective wills expressed as cultural practices, habits, and attitudes that embody fundamental values such as the following: people


ought to be able to speak their minds; people should not be tortured; there should be gender equality; no person ought to starve or be homeless; or parents ought to be respected and honored. Importantly, it is also at this level that people feel a sense of shock, outrage, or revulsion at the perceived mistreatment or humiliation of human beings. Quite aside from official declarations and state-sanctioned rhetoric, preva-lent sociocultural attitudes are the most truthful and genuine measure of the extent to which human rights exists as a dominant moral paradigm, and also of the extent to which a particular human rights scheme or another dominates. By emphasizing the role of culture as a foundation for human rights practices, I am not deempha-sizing or marginalizing the role of doctrine. Theories of universal human rights are in perpetual dialectic discourse with cultural practices. Although doctrine and practice influence and revise each other, this does not mean that the two should be limitlessly malleable—there are many reasons why neither doctrine nor culture can be sweepingly deconstructed and reconstructed without losing all semblances of coherence and integrity. But for the purposes of this presentation, the most impor-tant reason is that human rights paradigms are not endlessly negotiable.

Having set out what I believe is the necessary foundation for analyzing the dynamic interaction between human rights doctrine and culture, we are in a posi-tion to address the Islamic context.

Islamic Law and Muslim Cultures

It would be erroneous to speak of a single Islamic sociocultural practice. Not only are Muslim cultures very diverse, but even the culturally based attitudes of various Muslim societies toward human rights differ from one country to another. Human rights practices and commitments among the various Muslim populations in coun-tries such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iran, Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Uzbekistan, China, England, Germany, and the United States are extremely diverse and cover a very wide range of convictions, customs, and trends.

Islamic law is not a code of law or a codified system of law. There is no set of specific legal determinations that authoritatively represent the Islamic legal sys-tem. Rather, what is referred to as Islamic law is a cumulative system of juristic explorations by a variety of interpretive communities into both the Divine Will and the public good. Islamic law is represented by a neverending, fallible, and non-immutable search into the right and wrong, and good and bad—in other words, it is an ethical search that seeks to resolve conflicts and establish justice within parameters set by God. Importantly, Islamic law is represented by several extinct and extant, but historically rooted, competing schools of jurisprudential thought. These schools diverge on matters related to legal methodology and hermeneutical approaches as well as to the ultimate jurisprudential determinations but are consid-ered equally legitimate and authoritative. Therefore, when we speak of Islamic law, we are describing a tradition that bears the intellectual and psychological imprint of many different juristic orientations and a broad array of legal arguments—a vast microhistory that presents a rich and complex picture.


I emphasize the organic character of Islamic law, and the fact that with all its dif-ferent and competing schools of jurisprudence, it is a perpetual work in progress—ever striving for a more perfect fulfillment of its moral objectives—to counter the stereotypical portrayals of Islamic law as a rigid, inflexible, immutable, and code-based system of law. Nevertheless, I do not want to overstate my case by giving the impression that Islamic law is an entirely fluid system without any concrete form. There is a specialized linguistic and methodological practice that does give the legal system a uniform structure, and that does unite the various jurisprudential schools of thought even with their often-conflicting determinations, under a single system-atic tradition.

It is somewhat ironic that with all the diversity and disagreement, the fact remains that the most uniform determinations in the Islamic legal tradition are the ones that are the most inconsistent with contemporary doctrines of human rights. These determinations, known as the laws of h. udūd , deal mostly with the punish-ment of criminal offenses, and because they are adopted by the vast majority of the different schools of jurisprudential thought, they pose the most formidable moral and philosophical challenge to Muslims who wish to make a commitment to human rights—at least human rights as conceived and understood within today’s prevailing paradigms. For instance, I suspect that most human rights advocates would con-sider the severing of the left hand of thieves or the stoning of adulterers to death to be serious human rights violations—at a minimum as serious a violation as the use of torture whether for investigatory or punitive purposes.

Paradoxically, these Islamic laws, which are the most inconsistent with human rights schemes and commitments, are also the most difficult to apply in practice. The Islamic legal system itself sets up practically insurmountable obstacles to the enforcement of h. udūd penalties. From the time of the Prophet onwards, h. udūd pen-alties have been seriously obstructed by strict procedural requirements and demand-ing evidentiary standards that are intended to limit the application of these punitive measures to truly exceptional cases where the guilt of a defendant can be proven with absolute certainty, or where the criminal conduct in question is notoriously egregious. But even beyond innocence or guilt, the text of the Qur’ān sets up what could be described as ethical barriers to h. udūd penalties by persistently exhorting Muslims to be merciful and forgiving—mercy and forgiveness, the Qur’ān asserts, is morally superior to vengeance or entrapment. 4

Furthermore, the practice of the Prophet Muhammad and his disciples affirmed the principle, especially in the case of h. udūd , that the existence of any doubt must act to suspend the enforcement of serious penalties with irrevocable consequences. 5 The historical legal practice of Muslims, in numerous contexts and time periods and up to the colonial era, is consistent with the doctrinal limitations placed on the enforcement of h. udūd penalties in that there are very few recorded instances in which h. udūd crimes were successfully prosecuted and the penalties applied. Indeed for most of Islamic history, the h. udūd penalties have had a very limited impact upon the sociocultural practices and commitments of Muslims.

I cited the case of h. udūd penalties only as an illustrative example of the kind of subtleties that guide the dynamic interrelationship of Islamic legal doctrine, Muslim cultures, and the ability or willingness to make a commitment in favor


of human rights. Of course, this example is not exhaustive; there are many legal doctrines—the products and the legacies of medieval jurisprudential dynamics—that are inconsistent with most modern human rights schemes. But the example of h. udūd penalties is illustrative at an entirely different level—it poignantly demon-strates the unfortunate fact that practically all assertions and manifestations, and even most of the discourses about the role of Islamic law in the modern age are highly politicized, and this level of politicization has had a near-devastating effect on the equanimity, integrity, and effectiveness of the various efforts that have sought to discover the proper balance between the two formidable normative systems of Islamic law and human rights.

Establishing, Promoting, and Undermining Cultures of Human Rights

As a religious tradition, Islam does share with the human rights tradition its heavy emphasis on the sanctity of human life. The Qur’ān, as a revealed divine text, and the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad, known as the Sunna , as well as the cumu-lative interpretive theological and juristic communities of Islam have placed a great deal of emphasis on the value of life, especially human life, which is endowed with an irrevocable degree of divinity. Human beings are considered to be viceroys or deputies ( khulafā’ fī’ l-ard. ) who have entered into a symbolic covenant with God ( amāna ) according to which creation, including the heavens and earth, has been entrusted to their care. But under the morally obligatory terms of this covenant, Muslims are entrusted with duties toward both the physical and the metaphysical, the tangible and the intangible, and the material and the abstract. While all human beings, and not just Muslims, are bearers of the Divine trust and therefore viceroys or deputies of God, Muslims, in particular, have the added duty of having to bear witness for God ( shahāda’ li-’ llāh ). This means that Muslims are expected to safe-guard not just the material well-being of God’s creation but, as a critical part of the process of bearing witness on God’s behalf, Muslims must defend the very moral and ethical principles that ought to guide human conduct. This does not mean that only Muslims, and not all human beings, are charged with ethical and moral obligations. It only means that Muslims, in particular, are expected to stand as the vanguards of moral and ethical principles, guarding them against the risk of being compromised by maximal utilitarian considerations, and also against paradigms of dilution and deconstructionism.

The covenantal obligation with God is not discharged through unfettered or undirected moral reflection. Indeed, the law (the set of Divine directives) 6 is treated as a sacred trust that is at the heart and core of the covenantal obligation. As part of this sacred law, human beings, especially Muslims, are charged with the obliga-tion of establishing justice ( ‘adl ), which includes the upholding of particular virtues, such as equity ( ih. sān ), compassion ( rah. ma ), and fairness and equality ( musāwā ), and precepts or principles such as the presumption of innocence ( barā’at al-dhimma ) and the prohibition against the use of coercion or compulsion ( man‘ al-ikrāh ) whether by


private parties or the state. Significantly, as early as the first to second century AH /eighth century CE and onward, diverse but cumulative interpretive communities maintained that the all-encompassing moral obligation of any Muslim state, and indeed the very objective of the Sharī‘a , or the sacred law, is to promote the people’s well-being and welfare.

But by their very natures, concepts such as the people’s well-being or welfare are vague and highly negotiable. The interpretive communities of the Muslim classical age, 7 however, did give these negotiable concepts a degree of determinacy by con-cluding that the well-being or welfare of people must necessarily include divinely ordained or reason-based values. Whether divinely ordained or rationally mandated, these values are not intended to be all-exhaustive and all-encompassing; they provide the minimal and most fundamental basis for a virtuous social existence. During the Islamic classical age, cumulative interpretive communities have emphasized par-ticular fundamental values as constitutive of the basic well-being and welfare of human beings. Notably, other than the protection of life and property, the various juristic interpretive communities agreed on the protection of dignity ( al-karāma ), rationality ( al-‘aql ), personality (reputation) ( qiwāma ), and privacy ( al-satr ) as being among the core values necessary for human welfare and well-being. Basing them-selves on the Qur’ān and Sunna, Muslim jurists argued that values such as life, property, dignity, or reputation enjoyed a level of sanctity (‘ is.ma ) not just accept-able to, but ordained by God. Moreover, through complex sociohistorical processes, classical jurists developed legal doctrines that expressed a strong sense of aversion to particular practices deemed to be offensive, such as mutilation of corpses, tor-ture ( al-ta‘ dhīb , al-mithla , al-mus.ābara ), character assassinations or defamation of a person’s honor ( al-qadhf ), collective punishments, excessive and exceptional taxes ( mukūs ), or killing of noncombatants during rebellions or conventional wars.

Although these legal doctrines had clear humanitarian overtones, they did not constitute material or significant contributions to the formation of a human rights culture. Contextually, within their time and place, and compared to other (non-Muslim) legal cultures, these legal determinations clearly exhibited an advancement in the degree of regard and respect afforded to human beings. But as proclaimed legal conclusions, these determinations lacked a developed system of ethical rea-soning, or a coherently communicable set of ideological convictions. 8 It would be absurdly anachronistic to fault Muslim jurists of the fourth/tenth or sixth/twelfth centuries for failing to articulate coherent and systematic humanitarian ideologies. 9 One can, however, legitimately wonder as to why later generations of Muslims did not coopt, reclaim, and ultimately develop these humane legal orientations into doctrines that could support a cultural commitment to human rights. This question becomes all the more pertinent and even compelling, when one considers the range of promising discourses and doctrines generated by Muslim jurists in the premod-ern, and especially pre-colonial, period.

The Arabic word for a moral or legal right is h.aqq . As early as the second to third/ninth century, Muslim jurists, in principle, recognized the idea or concept of a right. And they divided all rights as (1) belonging to God; (2) belonging to human beings; or (3) shared by God and human beings. Rights were recognized as protected spheres, and most jurists agreed that the pertinent spheres protected by law are life, intellect,


lineage, honor, and property. There is a fairly complex jurisprudential discourse on what rightfully belongs to God as opposed to human beings, and what is shared between them, and what ought to take precedence in case of a conflict of rights. Importantly, classical Muslim jurists recognized that there is a significant bifurca-tion between the moral consequences of actions in the Hereafter and the legal con-sequences of actions on this earth. In most cases, the rights of God are vindicated by God in the Hereafter, while the rights of people are to be vindicated by the legal sys-tem on this earth. 10 Furthermore, according to the classical juristic tradition, rights belonging to human beings cannot be forgiven, waived, or dismissed by the state or even God. Depending on the circumstances and the kind of right involved, human beings must either consent to, or be justly compensated for, having their rights dis-missed or compromised in any fashion whether by the state or God.

The classic juristic discourses on h. uqūq (rights) and Islam’s emphasis on the inherent worth and sanctity of human life are promising orientations that could have contributed to the formation of a cultural commitment to human rights. Indeed, some Muslim commentators citing the classical discourses on h. uqūq have been quick to proclaim that the Islamic civilization had developed a natural rights tradition not different from that developed by the West.

However, whatever the merits of this claim, I believe that contending that the h. uqūq tradition in Islam is equivalent or even similar to the Western natural rights tradition is problematic at many levels. The h. uqūq tradition, unlike that of natural rights, was not focused primarily on investigating or exploring inherent and inalien-able immunities or entitlements owed to every human being or Muslim living within socially organized entities. Nevertheless, the Islamic classical discourses on h. uqūq were indeed very similar to the early European debates on natural law (as opposed to natural rights), where references to rights effectively meant legal jurisdiction and competence to adjudicate. Similarly, h. uqūq primarily, but not exclusively, referred to what properly belongs to God and what God has taken jurisdiction of as opposed to what is left to the competence and jurisdiction of persons. I am not denying the theoretical, and even at times historical, nexus between h. uqūq and rights; I am only pointing out the obvious similarities between jurisprudential classical discourses on h. uqūq and early debates on natural law in the West.

I ought to note another important classical jurisprudential discourse in Islam that bore a close affinity to Greek Stoicism, even before Thomas Aquinas in the West, and in some respects, to the natural rights tradition. As early as the second/eighth to third/ninth century, Muslim theologians and jurists developed a field of ethics that focused on investigating the nature of good and evil ( al-h. usn wa’ l-qubh ), and the source of the obligation to do good and to refrain from committing evil ( al-ilzām ). Although much of this discourse correlates to the natural law tradition, it is in this field that one finds the most promising insights into the natural entitle-ments of human beings. The classical discourses on h. usn and qubh investigated the critical question of the extent to which right and wrong are rationally derived from or defined by revelation or creation as well as the moral imperatives borne out of ethical or aesthetic values such as beauty, justice, mercy, and compassion.

For instance, one illustrative example of this discourse is particularly pertinent to the field of human rights: there is a very well-known tradition in which ‘Umar b.


al-Khattāb, a close companion of the Prophet and the second Caliph of Islam, was reported to have proclaimed, as he protested the inequitable conduct of one of his appointed governors, “By what right do you enslave people (through oppression and injustice), and they were born free!” This remarkable statement remained without any significant moral, ethical, or even legal consequence except in the writings of the rationalist jurists. In the context of investigating the foundations and implica-tions of this statement, Qād. ī ‘Abd al-Jabbār, a fourth/tenth-century Muʿtazilī scholar who has written a remarkable multivolume work titled al-Mughnī , 11 which truly rivals Aquinas’s Summa in size, sophistication, and insight, reached the conclusion that slavery is inherently immoral ( huwa qubh. un li-dhātih wa-laysat min makārim al-akhlāq ) even when it is done as a method of reciprocal retaliation in response to the enslavement of Muslims by non-Muslims during a state of war. But ‘Abd al-Jabbār was not an outlier to the Islamic tradition. Both Islamic jurisprudence and theology place a great deal of emphasis on the desirability of manumitting slaves either as an act of charity, or in repentance and absolution from sin. 12 However, it is the rationalists, such as Ibn Rushd (Averroes) or, much later, Muh.ammad bek Shafīq, who were able to go beyond investigating legalistic rules of manumission, or issuing general exhortations against owning slaves, and in many ways to go beyond the literal words of the religious text in condemning the very institution of slavery as inherently immoral and, therefore, un-Islamic ( tunāfī makārim al-akhlāq wa-hiya ithm wa-fasād fa-laysat min al-Islām ).

The ethical and moral philosophical investigations of the rationalist orientations of Islam, whether Mu‘tazilī or otherwise, made substantial and significant contri-butions to human thought—to the shared ethical legacy of humanity, and not just to Islam or to Muslim culture. Instead of allowing the religious text to become an authoritarian force that constrains, or even suffocates, reason, the rationalist schools of thought transformed the religious text into a stabilizing force, acting to serve as a firm moral foundation that propels ethical investigations into greater levels of philo-sophical insights. In doing so, the rationalist orientations contributed to the idea of a universal truth that is accessible, accountable, and binding upon all human beings. Not only did the rationalist orientations contribute to the idea of universal ethical values, they also made the Islamic civilization serve as part of a natural historical progression from particular orientations within Greek philosophy to the thought that gave birth to the European Renaissance, Reformation, and then the age of Enlightenment. 13 It is not common knowledge that it was Ibn Rushd, not Thomas Aquinas, who was the first to argue systematically that the a priori and primary principle of moral obligation is the duty to enjoin the good and avoid wrong. We know that this was also Aquinas’s famous First Principle, which is often credited for opening the door to the development of a matured natural rights tradition. But it is not a secret that Aquinas was quite familiar not just with Averroes’s thought, but also with the philosophy of other prominent Muslim rationalist thinkers such as Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna), Ibn Bāja (Avempace), and al-Ghazālī. 14 In his Summa , Aquinas often engaged the debates of Muslim thinkers, and he frequently took sides in favor of one Muslim philosopher over the other, which is a rather clear indication of the level of familiarity and engagement that Aquinas enjoyed with even the microdis-courses of the rationalist scholars of Islam.


My point is not to make the typically apologetic, and also historically inaccu-rate, claim: Muslims did it first! Quite the opposite, my point is this: although the Islamic classical tradition was rich with ideas and concepts that appeared well-suited for the development of an intellectual trajectory that would support a cultural com-mitment to human rights, this did not happen. In the West, in part by transplanting and coopting Islamic intellectual achievements, the natural law tradition eventu-ally gave birth to the natural rights tradition, which in turn was instrumental in the development of the revolutionary idea of universal human rights. 15 Moreover, though many Western historians tend to ignore it, the fact is that human rights, as natural rights, emerged from perspectives that were deeply religious, especially Christian. 16 The most prominent jurists of the natural rights tradition from as early as William of Ockham and Jean Gerson to Pufendorf, Vitoria, Suarez, and Grotius to Locke and Rousseau, and then to the contemporary Karl Barth, Germain Grisez, or John Finnis were (or are) all deeply religious people, and whether they sought to liberate natural rights theory from philosophical dependency on an authorita-tive divine being or not, no doubt religious, particularly Christian, ethics colored their worldviews and deeply influenced their own commitments, normative choices, and priorities. 17 Post-thirteenth/nineteenth-century natural rights theorists, most prominently Grisez, Barth, and Finnis, were compelled to justify and defend their theories in the face of powerful onslaughts by a variety of inhospitable movements and orientations including positivism, scientific skepticism, and atheism, and even more importantly, within the context of cultures undergoing a process of rabid secu-larization. For our purposes, however, it is necessary to underscore that up to and through the twelfth/eighteenth and thirteenth/nineteenth centuries, natural rights theorists invoked the Divine as the ultimate the source of obligation, so that even if rights are said to exist in nature, it is the Divine that is the source of obligation, or the duty to do right. In what might be called the classical natural rights thesis, even if nature can be said to be the source of rights (and nature does not necessarily have to be the exclusive source of rights, or even a source of rights at all), it is the divine command that is the ultimate source of obligation to do right by others or, put dif-ferently, to be duty bound to observe the rights of others.

In the Islamic civilization, the classical natural rights thesis was philosophically developed by rationalist jurists such as the Andalusians: Ibn Bāja (d. 533/1139), Ibn ‘Aqīl (d. 581/1185), Ibn Rushd (d. 595/1198), and Ibn T. ufayl (d. 581/1185). 18 The same thesis was debated or philosophically treated by rationalists from diverse geo-graphic locations and theological and philosophical orientations, such as Abū Bakr al-Rāzī (d. 313/925), Ibn al-H. asan al-T. ūsī (d. 459/1067), Ibn ‘Aqīl (d. 513/1119), al-Suhrawardī (d. 587/1191, founder of the School of Illumination), Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 606/1209), Nās.īr al-Dīn al-T. ūsī (d. 672/1274), and S.adr al-Dīn al-Shīrāzī (a.k.a. Mullā S.adrā) (d. 1051/1641). However, the reality is that although the ratio-nalists had a profound impact upon the foundations and methodologies of Islamic jurisprudence, their intellectual influence upon the Islamic civilization as a whole consistently waned and weakened after the seventh/thirteenth century. The sev-enth/thirteenth century was a pivotal point; the Islamic civilization, which had already been under siege by the Christian West, from that time onward defended itself against renewed waves of Crusaders, suffered the loss of Andalusia, 19 and most


importantly, witnessed the fall and sacking of Baghdad, the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate, by the Mongols in 656/1258. Defensive and conservative intellectual orientations, in general, tended to thrive during times of socioeconomic and politi-cal unrest, but from the seventh/thirteenth century onward, a fateful and ironic exchange seems to have taken place—as rationalist forces retreated in the Islamic civilization, these same intellectual orientations started on their laborious, and often tortuous, progress in the West.

Rationalist scholars who made genuinely original contributions to the classical natural rights thesis did exist during both the Ottoman and Safavid periods, in Sunnī and Shī‘ī Islam, respectively. But for the most part, the works of these schol-ars were isolated achievements in an otherwise arid and inhospitable intellectual environment. The growth of conservatism and even antirationalist theological ori-entations eventually culminating in the ultraconservative and uncompromisingly antirationalist Wahhabi movement in contem porary Islam was due to a variety of historical reasons that cannot be adequately summarized in this chapter.

In the contemporary age, the West had gone through its own massive trans-formations and political and social upheavals that renegotiated the place and role of the Church, canon law, and religion in general. But many Muslims contended that while the renegotiated status of religion in the West was the product of genu-ine and natural historical processes, that is, the outcome of voluntary responses to demands that grew out of actual historical needs, conversely, in the Muslim world, the debates as well as their outcomes took place within the coercive contexts of colonialism and a Western-defined modernity. These debates raised numerous questions as to the historical sources, cultural identity, universality, and coercive nature of modernity, 20 and most of all, the possible interdependence between mod-ernization and Westernization. At the heart of all these issues was a basic anxiety as to whether surrender ing to the demands of modernity in effect meant the end of the Muslim tradition and the Islamic civilization, or the destruction of the most sanctified aspects of Muslim culture. What greatly aggravated this concern was the growing, and eventually dominant, role of Western-educated elites in Muslim societies. According to this influential and powerful group, all the changes that took place in Muslim societies, whether related to the status of the Caliphate, the umma , or Sharī‘a , were acts of somber recognition of the twin imperatives of modernity: nationalism and secularism.

Whether nationalism and secularism are inevitable, and whether the Islamic civ-ilization is dead and what, if any, are the chances of a revival are exceedingly com-plex issues, and luckily, we need not resolve them. But these ideas and the anxieties that persistently accompany their existence continue to have serious consequences on human rights discourses. One of the most profound and lasting changes that took place with the rise of Western colonialism and imperialism was the systematic and gradual displacement of Islamic law. This was achieved through a long pro-cess of forced commercial concessions, special status privileges for foreign nationals, right of intervention on behalf of non-Muslim minorities, courts of special subject-matter jurisdiction, mixed courts such as the Anglo-Muhammadan courts in India, scholarship programs for members of the ruling class and intellectual elite to study in European law schools, the construction of secular law schools that increasingly


monopolized the legal market, and the implementation of numerous legal reforms, whether initiated by native powers or decreed by foreign powers. The end result of this process was the replacement of Islamic law, in most cases, with the civil legal system, and in a few syncretistic exceptions, with the common law system. Not only was Islamic law formally abolished in the overwhelming majority of Muslim countries, but the very institutions that once supported the study and scholarly development of Islamic jurisprudence deteriorated to the point of becoming entirely marginal.

Most of the educational institutions of Islamic law were closed down primar-ily due to the shortage of clientele 21 —lawyers trained in the secular legal schools squeezed out the less qualified and also increasingly irrelevant lawyers trained in the Islamic law schools. Perhaps the final act signing the death warrant of Islamic law in the modern age was the cooptation by the state of the private endowments that used to fund the largest and oldest institutions supporting the study of Islamic law. After their cooptation, the same institutions that centuries ago produced the great jurists of Islam had become a mere shell of their past forms.

Consequently, a paradoxical duality developed in Muslim cultures: on the one hand, from the age of colonialism to this day, in practice, Muslims were governed by, in most cases, the French legal system, but at the same time, a custom developed according to which the very practitioners and experts who implemented foreign legal systems would write books exalting the numerous virtues and the basic supe-riority of the Islamic legal system. Essentially, this was an apologetic practice—as if plagued by guilt about applying foreign legal systems and abandoning Islamic law, Muslim legal experts compensated by constantly singing the praises of Islamic law as a system of total justice. In effect, modern Muslims transformed Islamic juris-prudence from a dynamic living system into a mummified piece of antiquity to be valued, admired, and praised, but not engaged, used, or deferred to as an authorita-tive process of problem solving and conflict resolution. But even worse, the idolized and sanctified image of Islamic law was static, unreal, and entirely disconnected from history.

The fact that Muslims have become disconnected from their own legal tradition and have failed to develop the natural rights potentialities existing in the rational-ist orientation does not adequately explain why human rights cultures have not developed at any case. With the waning of colonialism, arguably, the 1368/1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights represented a truly transitional moment in history. For one, the Universal Declaration was a fascinating combination of natural rights ideas as well as the emerging and eventually dominant model of human rights within the international law context of positivist consensual ideas. Purportedly, Muslim states could have developed commitments leading to cultures that respect human rights on the basis of either (1) the natural rights tradition rep-resented by the Universal Declaration or (2) the consensual model that governed all human rights conventions and treaties. By consensual model, I mean the idea that human rights are obligatory because sovereign states consent to them, and agree to be bound thereby.

In the Muslim experience, the truth of human rights has asserted itself or regressed with constantly shifting political interests. More fundamentally, the paradigm of


human rights has been delivered and persistently advocated by first colonial powers, and then superpowers. But while these powers preached human rights, what they in fact practiced were civil rights. In other words, while the dominant world powers might have respected the basic rights of their own citizens, there was an unmistak-able duality in practice. They acted on the assumption that observing civil rights means the upholding of human rights, but then being anchored in this assumption provided the necessary legitimacy to engage in the pretence of teaching or preach-ing human rights to the Muslim world. Of course, at odds with the ideals of human rights were the discriminatory laws and special concessions giving preferential treat-ment to the citizens of colonial powers. This practice has left a memory on the Muslim psychology that demanded a considerable amount of good will to erase, and in fact, the sense of humiliation felt over the practice of colonial concessions was a consistent theme inspiring the rise of self-determination and nationalism move-ments in the 1370s/1950s and 1380s/1960s. But the problem goes much deeper than the issue of concessions or even exploitation.

Conclusion

Human rights as an idea and concept is a truly unique and profoundly remarkable development in human history, as an institution and practice. Too many theorists overlook the fact that by definition, human rights are universal—they describe a truth about human beings; they are not variable—they cannot be observed as to some people but ignored as to others; and they cannot be coercively transplanted—it is not moral to teach people dignity by ignoring their autonomy. The West, through a robust humanism that inspired its civilization, was the first to systemati-cally and coherently express the idea, but since its articulation and to this day, the three categories of human rights, civil rights, and international human rights have been used interchangeably, or the observing of one has been erroneously taken to mean observing the other categories. The West has enjoyed many successes with civil and international treaty-based rights, but it has been far less successful with the category that by definition cannot tolerate the corruptions and ailments of political realism or Realpolitik —double standards, institutionalized hypocrisies, occupation, and domination.

It is very difficult to nurture and develop the moral values that lead to the type of principled commitments necessary for the growth of human rights cultures under intensified political conditions. Nevertheless, there is no alternative to developing human rights cultures through a cumulative process of education and internally generated pressure that brings about an intellectual and moral conviction in human rights as a moral imperative. Every society has its own internally persuasive epis-temological and ontological sources, and in the case of Muslim societies the most socially impactful and persuasive sources are those of the Islamic religion. It is there-fore very reasonable to expect that Muslims would mine, explore, and interrogate their own tradition for the instruments that would enable them to launch their own process of search and discovery into the mandates and imperatives of human rights.


Human rights commitments cannot be commanded into existence and cannot be transplanted or borrowed from alien sources so that the borrowed may play the role of the natural-born child of Muslim societies. Therefore, it is difficult to think of an alternative source to Islam that could have helped human rights commitments take root in Muslim societies, especially because, as explained earlier, Islam has a very rich humanistic and rationalistic tradition that could have been fruitfully developed by modern Muslims. Especially in light of the challenging political conditions con-fronting Muslims, humanistic religious convictions could have proven to be inspi-rational and motivational in empowering Muslims with the resolve to overcome the adversity of their circumstances.

Muslims must track their own way to human rights, but in doing so, they must firmly anchor themselves in the elements in Islamic intellectual history that could have led to and possibly could now lead to the formation of firm commitments in favor of human rights, and to the eventual construction of cultures that respect and give effect to these commitments.

Notes

1 . See, for example, C. Fred Alford, Narrative, Nature, and the Natural Law: From Aquinas to International Human Rights (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), and John Finnis, Human Rights and Common Good: Collected Essays , Volume III (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).

2 . Carl Wellman, The Proliferation of Rights: Moral Progress or Empty Rhetoric? (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1999).

3 . Some have argued that the well-being of human beings means their happiness regardless of the sources of this happiness. It is not that I cherish being unhappy, but in my view, happiness is an inadequate measure of the well-being of human beings. This is not the place to offer a philosophical justification of this view, but in my opinion the well-being of humans is inseparable from virtue.

4 . Khaled Abou El Fadl, “The Death Penalty, Mercy, and Islam: A Call for Retrospection,” in Religion and the Death Penalty: A Call for Reckoning , ed. Erik C. Owens, John D. Carlson, and Eric P. Elshtain (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2004).

5 . See Intisar Rabb, “Islamic Legal Maxims as Substantive Canons of Construction: H. udūd Avoidance in Cases of Doubt,” Islamic Law and Society 17 (2010): 63–125. More gener-ally, see her Doubt’s Benefit: Legal Maxims in Islamic Law , 7 th–16th Centuries (unpub-lished PhD dissertation, Princeton 2009).

6 . The term “law” here does not necessarily mean a detailed set of positive commandments; the law means the fundamental and basic Divine directives to human beings that are not subject to the vagaries of time and place. The Covenantal Law is absolute, immutable, eternal, and inherently good ( Sharī‘a ). What is derived from the Covenantal Law is contingent, contextual, revisable, and experimental ( fiqh ). On the distinction between Sharī‘a and fiqh , see Khaled Abou El Fadl, The Great Theft: Wrestling Islam from the Extremists (San Francisco, CA: Harper San Francisco, 2005), 150–51, 261, 263; Abou El Fadl, “The Islamic Legal Tradition: A Comparative Law Perspective,” in The Cambridge Companion to Comparative Law , ed. Mauro Bussani and Ugo Mattei (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming).


7 . There are various definitions of the Islamic classical age, but in this context, I use the expression to refer to the period from the time of the death of the Prophet to the ninth/fifteenth century—a period lasting around nine hundred years of intellectual activities.

8 . Modern Islamists retort that the Qur’ān provides a coherent ethical framework for a humanitarian ideology. This often-heard argument ignores what might be the objective reality of the Qur’ān, and the subjective understanding or cultural realization of the Qur’ān. The Qur’ān could embody the most perfected ethical and humanitarian mes-sage, but this does not mean that Muslims today, leave alone those of the tenth century AD , have managed to understand or meaningfully commit to this message.

9 . On humanistic orientations in medieval Islam and on their likely impact on the develop-ment of European humanism, see George Makdisi, The Rise of Humanism in Classical Islam and the Christian West (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1990); Mehdi K. Nakosteen, History of Islamic Origins of Western Education (Boulder, CO: University of Colorado Press, 1964); Joel Kraemer, Humanism in the Renaissance of Islam: The Cultural Revival During the Buyid Age (Leiden: Brill, 1986).

10 . The important exception to this rule is known as the h. udūd penalties. As discussed earlier, these are also the penalties that pose the greatest conflict with the human rights tradition. But even in the case of these penalties, any doubt must be interpreted in the light most favorable to human beings.

11 . He also wrote a much shorter set of works known as the five epistles that in many ways are even more significant for the fields of natural law, natural rights, and ethics than al-Mughnī , which is an encyclopaedic opus that documented in great detail the argu-ments of his (‘Abd al-Jabbār’s) own opponents.

12 . The Qur’ān itself repeatedly urges Muslims to manumit slaves. Interestingly, in their writings, classical Muslim jurists would always dedicate a chapter to discussing the legal issues pertinent to the manumission of slaves such as the rules concerning the possible right of a slave to buy back his freedom from his owner and the rights of a slave to own money or property (otherwise, it is not very meaningful to discuss the possible right of a slave to buy back his or her freedom). The classical sources almost never dedicated a chapter to the topic of purchasing or acquiring slaves.

13 . Most Western (and even Muslim) scholars writing on the European heritage of faith and reason will with all due diligence march through the purported Hebrew ori-gins, then to the Greek tradition, the Greco-Roman world, Christian Scholasticism, Humanism, Thomism, Renaissance, the so-called Cartesian revolution, and the Protestant Reformation, including the Lutheran revolt and Calvinism, then, if they are fair-minded, to the Catholic Reformation, then to the birth of the Enlightenment, and then to the reason-based progression to the age of modernity and secularism. Somewhat inconsistently, this is often called the Judeo-Christian heritage. This historical progres-sion would not make sense without the Muslim intervention, and yet what might be described as the Muslim link is most often ignored. The rationalist orientations within Islam did not only influence numerous Christian theologians and philosophers, but they also exercised a considerable impact upon Jewish thinkers such as Maimonides.

14 . Although al-Ghazālī was associated with the Ash‘arī theological school of thought, and he also wrote a very well-known refutation of the philosophical methods of specula-tive theology, substantively, in the later phases of his life his thought was marked by a distinctive blend of aesthetic rationalism or perhaps rational aestheticism. Al-Ghazālī influenced a considerable number of Western thinkers—other than Thomas Aquinas, his thought influenced writers from Raymond Martini, author of Pugio Fidei , all the way to Pascal.

15 . There are a number of scholars who contend that the Western civilization and all its ethical achievements, including human rights, originated from a uniquely Christian or


Judeo-Christian foundation. For instance, see Thomas Woods, How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization (Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 2005), 197–215.

16 . I am aware that this is a controversial claim and that there are scholars (typically of the positivist orientation) who believe that universal human rights developed only when rights theorists freed themselves of the shackles of religion. In fact, some have argued that in an effort to make their theories accessible, accountable, and legitimately univer-sal, natural nights theorists, in effect, got rid of God, and attempted to base their theo-ries on reason alone or rationally justified basic goods. But in doing so, it is argued that natural rights theorists entirely undermined their own coherence or plausibility. This is frequently dismissively referred to as “the crisis of natural rights theory,” but criticisms of modern natural rights theories one way or another invariably seem to go back to the so-called Naturalistic Fallacy. For instance, see Pauline Westerman, The Disintegration of Natural Law Theory: Aquinas to Finnis (Leiden: Brill, 1998), esp. 231–85. This is a controversy that I am not eager to engage, but would note that the argument that rights theory made sense only after it discounted the divine as an authoritative frame of refer-ence obviously is a normative, and not a historical, claim.

17 . See Elizabeth Bucar and Barbra Barnett, eds., Does Human Rights Need God? (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2005); especially the article by Max Stackhouse, “Why Human Rights Needs God: A Christian Perspective,” 25–40.

18 . The author of H. ayy b. Yaqz. ān , a book that became widely influential in both the Islamic and Latin-speaking worlds. Eventually, this tale was plagiarized into the famous Robinson Crusoe story.

19 . The loss of Muslim Spain was incremental and protracted; not until the mid-eighth/mid-fourteenth century was all of Muslim Spain, except for Granada, lost to the Christian Kingdoms from the North. Granada was conquered in 897/1492.

20 . This is why, initially, some Muslim jurists tried to ban the use of printing presses or the taping of Qur’ānic recitations on records.

21 . On the history of the colleges of law in Islamic history and their role, see George Makdisi, The Rise of Colleges: Institutions of Learning in Islam and the West (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1981).

Part IV

Philosophical Traditions

Chapter 10

Yah.ya b. Aʿdı’s Discussion of the Prolegomena to the Study of

a Philosophical Text 1 Robert Wisnovsky

In a recent chapter for another Festschrift, I announced that the codex Madrasa-yi Marwī 19—a philosophical anthology copied in Rabīʿ al-Awwal 1073/October 1662—contains 24 treatises and letters that are attributed to the Jacobite Christian philosopher and theologian Yah.yā b. ʿAdī (d. 363/974) and that were thought to have been lost. 2 The present chapter is a transcription and translation of one of these “lost” treatises, Yah.yā’s Essay on Five Inquiries into the Eight Headings ( Maqāla fī mabāh. ith al-khamsa aʿn al-ru ūʾs al-thamāniya ). 3

Yah.yā’s eight “headings” (the Arabic term ruūʾs corresponds to the Greek kepha-laia and the Latin capita ) collectively constituted one of the basic elements of late-antique introductions to philosophy, and to the study of Aristotle in particular. Building on earlier work by classicists and historians of philosophy—especially Plezia, Westerink, and (Ilsetraut) Hadot—Jaap Mansfeld has provided an extensive and detailed analysis of these basic elements of late-antique prolegomena literature, which in fact crossed between disciplines, such as Bible commentary, grammar, rhetoric, mathematics, and philosophy. Mansfeld describes them in his index as the “general” isagogical (i.e., introductory) questions—usually ten in number—which need to be settled before commencing the study of a particular discipline, such as philosophy or mathematics, or author , such as Aristotle or Euclid. 4

In late-antique philosophy, the general isagogical questions were normally found in the first section of commentaries on Aristotle’s Categories or on Porphyry’s Isagoge , and they usually included:

1. an explanation of the names of the different philosophical schools (e.g., Stoics, Cynics, Peripatetics, etc.);

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2. a division of Aristotle’s works (e.g., into particular, intermediate, and univer-sal works; of universal works, into notebooks and treatises; of treatises, into dialogues and nondialogical works; and of nondialogical works, into theoreti-cal philosophy and practical philosophy);

3. an explanation of how the student should commence the study of philosophy (e.g., with logic);

4. an explanation of the ultimate aim of studying philosophy (e.g., knowledge of God);

5. the means to attain that end (e.g., studying ethics, physics, mathematics, and theology);

6. the qualifications needed to study philosophy (varying opinions on these); 7. the qualifications needed to interpret a philosophical work (e.g., a critical

attitude and familiarity with the whole corpus); 8. Aristotle’s style of composition (e.g., in accordance with the type of work); 9. the reason why Aristotle sometimes wrote obscurely (e.g., to exclude the

unworthy); 10. the “capital” questions (or “headings”) to be settled before one starts studying

each individual work. 5

These introductory discussions were taken up by Yah.yā’s teacher and senior col-league al-Fārābī (d. 339/950), in his Essay on What Should Precede the Study of Philosophy ( Risāla fī mā yanbaghī an yuqaddama qabla taaʿllum al-falsafa ). 6

The final “general” isagogical question thus comprises the set of “particular” isa-gogical questions (usually eight), which need to be settled before commencing the study of a particular text . It is al-Fārābī’s two articulations of this final prolegom-enon—one in the Essay on What Should Precede the Study of Philosophy , the other (in more abbreviated form) in his Utterances Used in Logic ( al-Alfāz. al-mustaʿmala fī al-mant. iq )—that probably provided the immediate Arabic background to the eight “headings” listed in Yah. yā’s Essay . 7 As for Yah. yā’s Greek sources, the Isagoge commentaries of Ammonius, David, and/or Elias are more likely candidates than the Categories commentaries of Philoponus, Olympiodorus, Simplicius, or Elias, since the Isagoge commentaries tended to list eight particular isagogical questions, whereas the Categories commentaries tended to list only six. 8 However, a compari-son of Yah. yā’s sequence with the 36 different sequences supplied by Plezia reveals that not a single Greek author listed a set of eight kephalaia in exactly the same order that Yah. yā listed his eight ru ūʾs . 9

If Yah.yā’s order differs from those of his Greek forebears, how then does it com-pare with a selection of the “headings” lists compiled by other medieval Arabic philosophers? This selection includes the lists contained in al-Fārābī’s two works men-tioned just above (given that al-Fārābī was one of Yah.yā’s two teachers, the other being Abū Bishr Mattā b. Yūnus, d. 328/940); the lists contained in Abū ’l-Faraj b. al-T. ayyib’s (d. 435/1043) commentaries on the Isagoge and the Categories (given that Ibn al-T. ayyib was a student of Yah.yā’s students Abū ʿAlī b. Zurʿa [d. 398/1008], and Ibn Suwār [d. 411?/1020]); 10 and the lists contained in Averroes’s (d. 595/1198) “long” commentary on Aristotle’s Physics— in its surviving medieval-Latin (“ancient”) and

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medieval-Hebrew translations—and his treatise on grammatical principles, al-D. arūrī fī s.inā aʿt al-nah. w (given that Averroes saw himself as following al-Fārābī on some ques-tions of Aristotelian exegesis). 11 Following the order of the list in Yah.yā’s Essay on Five Inquiries into the Eight Headings , we find the following variations:

Key: FR � al-Fārābī, Risāla fī mā yanbaghī, #8, 54,21–55,1; FA � al-Fārābī, al-Alfāz.al-mustaʿmala, #51, 94,15–95,16; IT. Ī � Ibn al-T. ayyib, Tafsīr Kitāb Īsāghūjī , #54, 27,11–13; IT. M � Ibn al-T. ayyib, Tafsīr Kitāb al-Maqūlāt , III–IV, 26,9–32,4; AVP � Averroes, Proemium to Long Commentary on the Physics , 1b,ult.–C,4 (Latin) and 65,7–8 (Hebrew); AVN � Averroes, al-D. arūrī fī s.inā ʿat al-nah. w , 3,3–10,8

1. aim [i.e., the book’s scope, the author’s project in the book] (Gr: skopos or prothesis ): gharad. al-kitāb FR(1): al-gharad. fī kitāb al-mant. iq ; FA(1): gharad. al-kitāb ; IT. Ī(1): al-gharad. ; IT. M(1): al-gharad. ; AVP(1): intentionem/kavanat hasefer; AVN(1): gharad. hādhihi al-s.inā aʿ

2. benefit [i.e., why studying the book is useful] (Gr: khrēsimon ): manfaaʿtuhu FR(2): al-manfaaʿ fī hādhā al- iʿlm ; FA(2): manfaaʿtuhu ; IT. Ī(2): al-manfaaʿ ; IT. M(2) al-manfaaʿ ; AVP(2): utilitatem/to aˁlto ; AVN(2): manfaaʿtuhā

3. reason for the title [i.e., of the particular book] (Gr: aition tēs epigraphēs ): simatuhu FR(3): sabab tasmiyat kutubihi ; FA(6): ʿunwānuhu ; IT. Ī(3): al-sima ; IT. M(3): al-sima ; AVP(7): nomen libri/ma šeyore aˁlav šəmo ; AVN(7): mā yadullu aʿlayhi ismuhā

4. division [i.e., the book’s arrangement into sections] (Gr: diairesis eis merē or eis kephalaia ): aqsāmuhu FR(7): al-ajzā ʾ allatī yanqasimu ilayhā kull wāh. id min kutubihi ; FA(3): qismatuhu ; IT. Ī(5): qismatuhu ; IT. M(7): qismatuhu ; AVP(4): divisionem/h. aluqato ; AVN(3): aqsāmuhā

5. authenticity [i.e., the correctness of the book’s attribution to its author] (Gr: gnēsion ): wād. i ʿuhu FR(4): s.ih. h. atuhā ; FA(7): ism wād. i iʿhi ; IT. Ī(6): wād. i ʿuhu ; IT. M(5): nisbatuhu ; AVP(8): nomen authoris/mi hamaniah. ˀoto ; AVN(8): maʿrifat man wad. aaʿhā

6. to which part of philosophy [i.e., the book belongs] (Gr: hupo poion meros tēs philosophias anagetai ): min ayy al- ʿulūm huwa FR(absent); FA(4): nisbatuhu ; IT. Ī(8): min ayy al- ʿulūm huwa ; IT. M(6): min ayy al- ʿulūm huwa ; AVP(5): proportionem/yah. aso ; AVN(6): nisbatuhā min sā iʾr al- ʿulūm

7. manner of instruction [i.e., used in the book] (Gr: tropos tēs didaskalias ): nah. w al-ta lʿīm FR(6): maʿrifat al-kalām alladhī istaʿmalahu fī kutubihi ; FA(8): nah. w al-ta lʿīm ustuʿmila fīhi ; IT. Ī(7): al-nah. w alladhī yustuʿmalu fīhi min anh. āʾ al-taāʿlīm ;

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IT. M(8): al-nah. w alladhī yuslaku fīhi min anh. āʾ al-taāʿlīm ; AVP(6): viam doc-trinae/ oˀfen halimud hana aˁse bo ; AVN(4): al-nah. w al-mustaʿmal fī ta lʿīmihā , etc.

8. rank or place [i.e., of the book, in the author’s corpus, or in the order of philo-sophical study] (Gr: taxis tēs anagnōseōs ): rutbatuhu FR(5): tartīb marātibihā ; FA(5): martabatuhu ; IT. Ī(4): martabat al-kitāb ; IT. M(4): al-martaba ; AVP(3): ordinem/madregato ; AVN(5): martabatuhā min al-ʿulūm fī al-taaʿllum

In terms of establishing a filiation between these texts, it seems that little impor-tance can be attached to the variations in ordering that occur between the Arabic lists of the eight “headings.” Although all seven lists are united in ranking “aim” and “benefit” first and second, respectively, they diverge radically when it comes to the order of the remaining six headings. Indeed, the two lists of al-Fārābī put the same heading in the same place only three out of eight times. Westerink also showed that the lists of Philoponus, Olympiodorus, Elias, and Simplicius all vary somewhat, and that there is even variation between the first time each of these authors orders the kephalaia and subsequent times within the same text . And although Plezia collated the 36 different sequences that he discovered into a single underlying order, his own survey of those sequences showed little commonality in ordering, apart from the precedence enjoyed by the first two kephalaia . 12 It is unclear, therefore, if the variations in order between the seven Arabic lists given above arose because of multiple sources used, or because each author wished to coin a new order.

Nevertheless, the similarities in wording between the seven Arabic lists cer-tainly show that each of our Arabic authors was using a traditional set of terms. Upon examination of the content of the discussions of individual headings, the link between Yah. yā and Ibn al-T. ayyib seems stronger, since Ibn al-T. ayyib’s dis-cussions show signs of familiarity with Yah. yā’s Five Inquiries . For example, in his Commentary on the Isagoge , Ibn al-T. ayyib, in abbreviated form, cites and resolves an objection also cited and resolved by Yah. yā, namely, to the aim’s ( al-gharad. ) coming first: since the aim or purpose is the final cause, and since final causes follow their effects, the aim should instead go last (IT. Ī #55, 27,15–20; Y fol. 5a16–22). And Ibn al-T. ayyib’s terse discussion of why there are eight of these head-ings, no more and no less ( lā zā iʾda wa-lā nāqis.a � #60, 29,20–30,7), is effectively a synopsis of Yah. yā’s fifth inquiry into why there are eight headings, no more and no less ( lā akthar wa-lā aqall � fol. 5b19–25). 13

As is evident from the title, Yah.yā’s own aim in his little treatise is broader than simply listing and describing the eight headings. In fact, Yah.yā poses and responds to five “inquiries” ( mabāh. ith ; buh. ūth ) into the very practice of posing and then addressing the eight headings. Yah.yā’s five inquiries are as follows:

1. Question : Why are they are called “headings” ( ruūʾs )? Answer : On the basis of an analogy with animals’ heads, which serve as their source of motion and sensation and hence as an expression of their essence qua animals.


2. Question : What is each heading? Answer : The book’s aim, its benefit, its title, its divisions, its author, which science it is part of, the manner of instruction, and its rank.

3. Question : What is the use in investigating them? Answer : There are one or more benefits specific to each heading.

4. Question : Why and in what context was this arrangement prescribed for them? Answer : Because the headings correspond to types of causes, and the causes are arranged in terms of priority and posteriority.

5. Question : Why did their number come to be eight, neither more nor less? Answer : Because a book is an artifact, and like all beings, both natural and artificial, it is subject to standard causal analysis, which in this case is com-pleted by addressing the eight headings.

What is most striking about this little treatise is how Yah.yā identifies the eight head-ings with several then-current metaphysical categories in order to show how one can provide a full causal account of a particular philosophical book or any text for that matter. Examples include Yah.yā’s appeals, in the second, fourth, and fifth inquiries, to Aristotle’s distinctions (at least, as understood by the Neoplatonists) between the way in which a final cause is prior to its effect and the way in which it is posterior; between first and second perfections; between intrinsic and extrinsic causes; and between the final cause understood as to hou (“that in view of which”) and as to hōi (“that for the benefit of which”). 14

Needless to say, this brief introduction is meant to be suggestive rather than exhaustive. On the basis of the information presented here, we can speculate that in composing his little “metaprolegomenon,” which as far as I can tell is unprec-edented in Greek and Arabic philosophical literature, Yah. yā hopes not simply to translate, but to explain and justify, the late-antique Greek isagogical tradition to a new, Arabic-reading audience. Yah. yā’s audience was composed primarily of philosophers, it is true. But the newly established sciences of the third/ninth- and fourth/tenth-century Muslim world—Arabic grammar and philology, Qurʾānic exegesis and h. adīth criticism, and Islamic jurisprudence and theology—increas-ingly sought to set out and justify their own hermeneutical practices. What made falsafa different from the other “new” sciences of classical Islamic civilization is not so much that it came with a long and well-established isagogical tradition, but that it openly embraced this tradition. In the context of the competitions over ways of knowing that were engaging Muslim and non-Muslim intellectuals at this time (third/ninth and fourth/tenth centuries) and in this place (Iraq and Syria), it may have seemed to Yah. yā that falsafa ’s particular isagogical questions required fuller explanation and justification than could be found in al-Fārābī’s two terse discussions. The need for a cogent defense of this Greco-Arabic propae-deutic practice would have been acutely felt by Yah. yā, given the famously ill-fated debate over the merits of logic and grammar in which one of his own teachers, Abū Bishr Mattā b. Yūnus, had been entangled, and given the evident confusion

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exhibited by late-antique Greek and Arabic philosophers concerning the proper ordering of the kephalaia/ruʾūs .

TEXT

Madrasa-yi Marwī 19: 4b,ult.—5b31

||fol. 5a1|| 15

| | | | |5a5| | 16 |

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|5a10| | | | 17 |

. |5a15|

| | 18 | | |5a20| | | | 19 | |5a25|

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| |5a30| | | | | |5a35| | | | | | |5a40| fol.|| | | 21 | | | ||5b1 | |5b5|

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22 | | |5b10| | | 23 24 | | |5b15| 25 | | 26 |

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27 |5b20| 28 29 | < > 30 | 31

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| | 32 |5b25| | 33 | | | |5b30| 34 36 35 |

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TRANSLATION

Essay on the five inquiries into the eight headings {fol. 5a1}

It is a custom of those commenting on the philosophers’ books, before investigat-ing the things [contained in] each book of philosophy, to inquire into eight aspects {5a5} that they call “headings”: the book’s aim, its benefit, its title, its divisions, its author, which science it is part of, the manner of instruction, and its rank. We must [therefore] undertake five inquiries into these headings: (1) Why are they called “headings”? (2) What is each of them? (3) What is the benefit in investigating them? (4) Why have we prescribed this sequence for them? (5) Why did their number come to be eight, neither more nor less?

With respect to the first inquiry, we say that they are called “headings” only by {5a10} way of an analogy with, and metaphor for, the heads of animals. This is because, just as an animal’s head contains and includes the source of that by which the rest of the animal is constituted as an animal, since it is the source from which stem the nerves by which sensation and voluntary motion exist—[sensation and vol-untary motion] which are the two differentiae that distinguish animals from what is not an animal yet is subsumed, together with animal, under the same proximate genus, the genus of ensouled [beings], I mean [from] plants—so these eight head-ings contain and comprise all of the book’s constitutive aspects: those in virtue of which it exists, and those in virtue of which it is the way it is. I desist from saying “and by which it is what it is” only on account of the eighth heading, which is the ranking. For though the ranking is not among the things which constitute the book nor is it among the things by which it is what it is, by it [the ranking] the book comes to have the status it has (I mean the fact that [the book] came to be {5a15} first in the [order of] instruction, or last, or in the middle). This is enough discus-sion about the first inquiry.


Now to the second inquiry, namely, what each of them [the eight headings] is. In this regard we say that the aim is what the agent strives for in his action, so that when he reaches it, he cuts off the action. One of the earlier commentators described it as being “an end that comes first in the imagination.” One who was skeptical of this description cast doubt on the one who described it [thus], and said that it contains a contradiction. This is because the meaning of “end” consists in being posterior, so his saying “end” at the start of the description necessarily entails posteriority, whereas by saying after this “that comes first,” priority is necessarily entailed; and it is evident that the prior cannot be identical to the posterior, nor can the posterior be identical to the prior. This objection is resolved by explaining the meaning of “prior” and “pos-terior,” and pointing out that both fall under the category of “the relative,” and that the relative is effectively known only by knowing what it is related to and by knowing the respect and manner in which it is related to it. Thus the meaning of “posterior” is realized, since the end is posterior in the action to those things that preceded it and that were done for the sake of it; at the same time [the end] is prior in the imagina-tion, since it was conceived of before the things that were done on account of it. This resolves the objection, since the respect {5a20} in which it is prior is other than the respect in which it is posterior. It is undeniable that one single thing may be prior to another thing and posterior to it in two different respects. But whereas this descrip-tion [of being prior and posterior at the same time] attaches necessarily to “aim,” it [attaches] to it not insofar as it is an aim nor an end qua aim (even though aim and end are one single thing in substrate). Rather, it [the description of being prior and posterior at the same time] is an accident of the aim only if it is an end and it is prior in the imagination. Now the true nature of the aim, insofar as it is named “aim,” con-sists simply in the fact that it is what is striven for, moved toward, and sought after by whoever does what he does on account of it. For this reason we chose to describe it by the description we mentioned. As for the benefit , it is what is wished for in everything. As for the title , it is an expression in which what the book expounds is summarized. As for the division , it consists in separating the account of each of its contents from the account of what follows it. As for the book’s author , the science that it is part of , and the manner of teaching that its author uses in it, well, since their “titles” are phrases and not single words, they already include enough explanation of the meanings to make description superfluous. As for the book’s rank , it is its place in the order of the parts of the science that it is part of. This is the extent of what {5a25} we have to say concerning the second inquiry into the quiddity of each one of these headings.

Now to the third inquiry, namely, the investigation into the benefit and profit that arises from inquiring into them [the eight headings]. In this regard we now say that one needs to know the aim for several reasons. One of them is in order that the stu-dent’s thinking be guided toward it, so it becomes clear to him how each part of the discussion is useful in leading him toward it. The second is in order to remind him-self [of it] repeatedly and consider whether or not he has reached it and fully grasped its import. The third is in order that he not fall short of it, or bypass it, or turn away from it. He needs to know the benefit so that through this, he may be keen in follow-ing the student’s path toward knowledge, and so that he can assess what magnitude

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should be assigned to the end, in accordance with its gravity. If it [the benefit] is great, he will put up with a great deal of fatigue and exhaustion for its sake. If it is paltry, he will not devote more effort to it than it deserves, and he will proceed in his own way toward what is more worthwhile. He needs to know the title in order to understand from it, in excerpted and abbreviated form, what the aim signifies in elaborated and expanded form. He needs to know the division in order to be safe from confusing the discussion about one of the book’s contents with a discussion about another of its contents, for on account of this a confusion and a conflation will arise, and he will not clearly distinguish the contents nor gain a masterful understanding [of them]. He needs to know the book’s author , because {5a30} a student’s instruction sometimes comes to a halt at difficult things that are far beyond him and hard to understand the proof of, due to the weakness of his capacity to apprehend it. In cases like this it is necessary that the teacher’s statement be accepted on his authority and out of trust for him. There are some people whom it is not right to count as trustworthy and accept on authority, due to their ignorance, or to their wickedness, or to both together. For the fact is, if he is ignorant, he will not be immune from erring; if he is wicked, he will not be immune from deceitfulness; and if both vices are combined, two harms will issue from him. Only he in whom knowledge and goodness come together deserves to be counted as trustworthy and accepted on authority, so that through his knowl-edge he will be secure in getting [it] right, and through his goodness he will be immune from deceitfulness. He seeks evidence for its attribution to its author either from its contents, if they are similar, in their soundness or their unsoundness, to the sound and unsound contents of the books that are known to be genuinely his (just as one seeks evidence, through the similarity between the character-traits of the son’s soul and the character-traits of the father’s soul, of the genuineness of his relation to him); or from the similarity between his manner of expression in it [the book] and the manner of expression in books that are authentically his (just as one seeks evidence, through the similarity between the form of the son’s body and the form of the father’s body, of the genuineness of his relation to him); or from the attestation of reliable commentators; or from his [the author’s] mentioning it in his genuine books {5a35} or [his mentioning] them in it. He needs to know the science that it is part of , so that he may structure his thinking about it in accordance with the rank of the science that it is part of, among all the other sciences. He needs to know the manner of instruc-tion in order to be made certain of whether or not, in his instruction, he is following a method that is sound [and] that fulfills the stipulations by which the method is completed and correctly followed. He needs to know the book’s rank so that he may structure his thinking about it and his studying of it by the priority and posteriority of the parts of the science that it belongs to, in respect of the level of its contents. If he needs to know its contents for the other parts of that science, {5a40} he will put the study of it before all of them. If, to know its contents, he needs to know all the parts of the science other than it, he will postpone the study of it and put it after the rest of them. If {fol. 5b1}, to know its contents, he needs to know some of them (or [if], to know some of the contents, he needs to know [some of] them), he will put the study of some of them before it. {5b5} It has thus become clear what is sought in the third inquiry, namely, the benefit in inquiring into each one of these eight headings, and the profit that accrues in view of it.


Let us now speak about the fourth inquiry. It concerns the causes of our placing them [the headings] in numerical order, and the investigation of this arrangement. We say that the aim is made to come before the rest of them because it is like the form is to the composite, and the form is more appropriate to be the nature of the composite than anything else is. The benefit is given precedence because it is a kind of aim, since the aim is {5b10} what is intended and is the first perfection, whereas the benefit is the second perfection. The benefit, in view of the fact that it is a per-fection and what is intended, is one of the two aims. The difference between it and the aim consists in the fact that the first aim (if you wish, say “first perfection”) is one of the two parts of the composite and is present in it, whereas the benefit fol-lows the first perfection, and is that for the sake of which the first aim exists. The benefit is made to come before the title, even though the title indicates the meaning of the aim, because the benefit deserves to be given precedence from two angles: one is that it is one of the two aims, and the second is that it serves as a guide in the course of learning the book. The title deserves to be given precedence only from one angle, namely, that it also indicates the first aim. The title is made to come before the other remaining [headings] because it indicates the aim, which is what deserves to be given precedence above all of these, since its status is the status of the form in the composite, being its quiddity {5b15} and essence; and it is clear that each thing’s essence is the most specific to it of all things. The division is next after the title because its status is the status of the matter in the composite, being one of its two natures and present in it. Knowledge of the book’s author is next after it because the author is the efficient cause, and it is clear that the causes are “genetically” related to [their] effect. Knowledge of the science that it is part of is next after knowledge of the author, because the book’s ascending to the level of the science that it is part of is either like the species’ ascending to the level of its genus (in which case it [the book, taken as a species] is like the form), or it is like the part’s ascending to the level of its whole (in which case it [the book, taken as a part] is like the matter). The man-ner of teaching is next after this because it has the status of the instrumental cause, being the instrument by which the form of the composite comes to be in its [the composite’s] matter. It is clear that whatever is of assistance in the existence of the composite is more [directly] relevant to it [to the composite] than what is not like this. The rank is last because it is not a constituent of its [the composite’s] essence, but is instead an essential end that follows it and is natural to it, just as fire’s rising upward is natural to fire. This is the placement of these headings in numerical order and the investigation of what their essences entail.

As for the fifth inquiry, namely, why did these headings become eight, neither less nor more, we say in this regard that the reason for it is the fact that every book is something existing and something named. In view of {5b20} the fact that it is something named, it is necessary to seek its title , since it [the title] is its name, as it were. In view of the fact that it is something existing, well, every existent must be either simple or composite, and it is clear that the book is not simple, so it is doubt-less a composite. Every composite must be composed either by nature or by craft. It is no secret that a book is not composed by nature, so it is therefore composed by craft. In everything crafted there is obviously something related to it as matter

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is related to natural things; this is the craft’s substrate. It [the crafted thing] also contains something that has the status of form in natural things; this is the craft’s aim and that whose existence the craft is meant to bring about in its [the craft’s] substrate. It has a craftsman who has the same role that nature has in things that are composed by nature, whereas this is craft. (It does not matter whether you say craft or you say craftsman qua craftsman.) It has an instrument by means of which the craftsman makes the aim of his craft come to be in its substrate. In his mind, the craftsman has an aim in realizing the aim of his craft in its substrate, for the sake of which he occupies himself with this, namely, the benefit that accrues to him through this. It must follow therefore that the book exist, since it is one of the things that exist {5b25} by craft. These five things which we have enumerated are a remaining portion [of the eight headings]: a substrate, which is the divisions of its contents; an artificial aim , which consists in articulating them [the contents], exposing them, arranging them, and authoring them. It has a craftsman, who is its author (and its craftsman has an aim in his authoring it, which is its benefit ); and [it has] an instrument by which its author effects his authoring it in its divisions, namely, the manner or manners of instruction which its author uses in authoring it. These are the headings that must follow for the book, insofar as it is something crafted for teaching and learning. Because teaching and learning necessarily entail the existence of some things that are at the beginning and other things that are at the end, and yet others that lie between the beginning and the end (namely, the things by which one proceeds from the start to the finish), this ranking is entailed. And since the ranking is entailed for the book in view of the rank of the science that it is part of among the other sciences that differ from it in species, just as theoretical science is ranked before practical science, the sixth inquiry—namely, in which of the sciences [it is]—is entailed. [Also] entailed is that which, in itself, guarantees its rank alongside the other parts of the science that it is part of, just as the introduction to geometrical principles is ranked before the rest of the books of geometry. There the eighth inquiry is entailed, namely, seeking {5b30} its specific rank . The reasons that make the existence of these headings necessary, in this number and no other, have now been made clear. Since we have clarified this we have fulfilled our aim in this discussion, namely, clarifying the five inquiries that we enumerated with respect to the eight headings, we have reached our destination with the help of God, possessor of generosity and wisdom and might, guardian of justice and bestower of intellect; to Him goes praise with perpetual thanks, to which He is entitled.

Notes

1 . Many thanks are due to Ahmedreza Rahimiriseh and Reza Pourjavady for bringing this codex to my attention; to Stephen Menn, Sascha Treiger, Naser Dumairieh, and the editors of this volume for their detailed criticisms and suggestions; to Taro Mimura for his assistance with the initial transcription; to Adam Gacek for his advice on some paleographical issues; to Gerhard Endress for some references; and to Keren Abbou Hershkovits for her help with Hebrew transcriptions and translations. This chapter is dedicated to my doctoral supervisor Hossein Modarressi, an example of how—as Yah.yā


puts it here—a teacher “in whom knowledge and goodness come together deserves to be counted as trustworthy and accepted on authority.”

2 . R. Wisnovsky, “New Philosophical Texts of Yah.yā ibn ʿAdī: A Supplement to Endress’ Analytical Inventory, ” in Islamic Philosophy, Science, Culture and Religion: Studies in Honor of Dimitri Gutas , ed. D. Reisman and F. Opwis (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 307–326. A facsimile edition of the Marwī codex, including a comprehensive introduction to the anthology as well as an index of names of individuals and groups, and titles of books, is being prepared by the author for inclusion in the series co-published by the Institute of Islamic Studies of the Free University of Berlin. Inventories of Yah.yā’s works can be found in G. Endress, The Works of Yah. yā ibn Aʿdī: An Analytical Inventory (Wiesbaden: Ludwig Reichert, 1977), and S. Khalīfāt, Maqālāt Yah. yā ibn Aʿdī al-falsafiyya (Amman: al-Jāmi ʿa al-Urdunniyya, 1988).

3 . This treatise is listed as 3.11 by Endress ( Works , 42), and as 44 (but as Maqāla fī ’ l-buh. ūth al-khamsa ʿan al-ru ūʾs al-thamāniya ) by Khalīfāt ( Maqālāt , 29).

4 . J. Mansfeld, Prolegomena: Questions to Be Settled before the Study of an Author, or Text (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1994), supplemented by his Prolegomena Mathematica: From Apollonius of Perga to Late Neoplatonism (Leiden: Brill, 1998). M. Plezia, De commentariis isagogicis (Krakow: Archiwum Filologiczne, 1949); L. Westerink, ed., Anonymous Prolegomena to Platonic Philosophy (Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Company, 1962), xxv–xxxii; updated in Prolégomènes à la philosophie de Platon (Paris: Budé, 1990); I. Hadot, “Les introductions aux commentaires exégétiques chez les auteurs néoplatoniciens et les auteurs chrétiens,” in Les Règles de l’ interprétation , ed. M. Tardieu (Paris: Cerf, 1987), 99–122; Simplicius, Commentaire sur les Catégories, fasc. 1, Introduction, Première partie, comm. I. Hadot, trans. P. Hoffman (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1990); and Hadot, “The Role of the Commentaries on Aristotle in the Teaching of Philosophy according to the Prefaces of the Neoplatonic Commentaries on the Categories ,” in Aristotle and the Later Tradition , ed. H. Blumenthal and H. Robinson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 175–89. The appropriation of two of these late-antique introductory topoi by medieval Arabic scholars is treated in detail by C. Hein, Definition und Einteilung der Philosophie: Von der spätantiken Einleitungsliteratur zur arabischen Enzyklopädie (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1985); for the full list see 254–256. Discussions of the Arabic reception of the eight kephalaia are con-tained in G. Schoeler, “Der Verfasser der Augenheilkunde K. Nūr al- ʿuyūn und das Schema der 8 Praeliminarien im 1. Kapitel des Werkes,” Der Islam 64 (1987): 89–97, at 93–96, and C. Ferrari, ed. and comm. , Der Kategorienkommentar von Abū l-Farağ Aʿbdallāh ibn at. -T. ayyib: Text und Untersuchungen (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 90–109. See also D. Gutas, “Paul the Persian and the Classification of the Parts of Aristotle’s Philosophy: A Milestone between Alexandria and Baghdad,” Der Islam 60 (1983): 231-67; and D. Gutas, “The Starting Point of Philosophical Studies in Alexandrian and Arabic Aristotelianism,” in Theophrastus of Eresus: On His Life and Work, ed. W. Fortenbaugh, P. Huby and A. Long (New Brunswick, N.J. and Oxford: Transaction Books, 1985), 115–23. The appearance of the kephalaia in an Arabic translation of a Syriac introduction to an ancient medi-cal text is discussed by G. Bos and Y. T. Langermann, “The Introduction of Sergius of Rēsh ʿainā to Galen’s Commentary on Hippocrates’ On Nutriment ,” Journal of Semitic Studies 54, no. 1 (2009): 179–204. On the Latin reception of this tradition, see E. Quain, “The Medieval Accessus ad auctores ,” Traditio 3 (1945): 215–64.

5 . This list largely reproduces Westerink’s useful synopsis, which collates the lists con-tained in the Categories commentaries of Ammonius (d. 517/526; see Commentaria in Aristotelem graeca [CAG] , vol. IV, section 4), Philoponus (d. 570s; CAG XIII.1), Olympiodorus (d. after 565; CAG XII.1), Elias (fl. mid/late sixth century; CAG XVIII.1) and Simplicius (fl. mid-sixth century; CAG VIII); see L. Westerink, “The Alexandrian

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Commentators and the Introductions to their Commentaries,” in Aristotle Transformed , ed. R. Sorabji (London: Duckworth, 1990), 325–48 (at 342–43).

6 . Ed. F. Dieterici, Alfārābī’s philosophische Abhandlungen aus Londoner, Leidener und Berliner Handschriften (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1890), 49–55; translated by Dieterici into German in his Alfārābī’s philosophische Abhandlungen aus dem Arabischen übersetzt (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1892), 82–91. Al-Fārābī may have been loosely following and revis-ing al-Kindī’s Essay on the Quantity of Aristotle’s Books and on What Is Needed in the Realization of Philosophy ( Risāla fī kammiyyat kutub Arist. ūt. ālīs wa-mā yuh. tāju ilayhi fī tah. s.īl al-falsafa ), ed. M. Abū Rīda in his Rasā iʾl al-Kindī al-falsafiyya (Cairo: Dār al-Fikr al-ʿArabī, 1950), 363–73; and also ed. R. Walzer and M. Guidi in their “Studi su al-Kindi I: Uno scritto introduttivo allo studio di Aristotele,” Memorie della Reale Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei (Classe di Scienze Morali, Storiche e Filologiche) 6, no. 6 (1937–1940): 375–403. Al-Fārābī’s essay is placed in the context of his other isagogical treatises by A. Jaffray, “At the Threshold of Philosophy: A Study of al-Fārābī’s Introductory Works on Logic” (Unpublished PhD dissertation, Harvard University, 2000), esp. 31–81. In the 1980 “Postscript” to his Al-Farabi’s Commentary and Short Treatise on Aristotle’s De Interpretatione (London: Oxford University Press, 1981), F. Zimmermann asserts that the Risāla fī mā yanbaghī (which he translates as Prolegomena to Aristotle’s Philosophy ) is “almost certainly not by Farabi. This is shown by parallels, e.g. to the section on the canonical preliminaries, in authentic works such as Alfāz. and the Commentary ” (258–59). But see note 12 below, for Westerink’s and Plezia’s citations of internal variations in wording and order within an individual author’s text , let alone within an individual author’s corpus .

7 . Ed. M. Mahdi (Beirut: Dār al-Mashriq, 1968). See also Hein, Definition und Einteilung der Philosophie, 385–87.

8 . Westerink, Anonymous Prolegomena , xxxi. 9 . Plezia, De commentariis isagogicis , 11–16.

10 . K. Gyekye, ed., Ibn al-T. ayyib’s Commentary on Porphyry’s Isagoge (Beirut: Dār al-Mashriq, 1975) (cf. S. Stern, “Ibn al-T. ayyib’s Commentary on the Isagoge,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 19, no. 3 [1957]: 419–25; Ferrari, Der Kategorienkommentar von Abū l-Farağ Aʿbdallāh ibn at. -T. ayyib) .

11 . Aristotelis opera cum Averrois commentariis (Frankfurt am Main: Minerva, 1962), vol. IV; S. Harvey, “The Hebrew Translation of Averroes’ Proemium to his Long Commentary on the Physics ,” Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 52 (1985): 55–84; M. ʿA. ʿAbd al-Samīʿ, ed., al-D. arūrī fī s.inā aʿt al-nah. w (Cairo: Dār al-Fikr al-ʿArabī, 2002). On Averroes’s openly admitted debt to al-Fārābī in resolving problems of ontol-ogy, see S. Menn, “Farabi in the Reception of Avicenna’s Metaphysics: Averroes against Avicenna on Being and Unity,” in The Arabic, Hebrew and Latin Reception of Avicenna’s Metaphysics , ed. A. Bertolacci and D. Hasse (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2011), 51–96.

12 . Westerink, “Alexandrian commentators,” 343; Plezia, De commentariis isagogicis , 17. 13 . Ibn al-T. ayyib, Tafsīr Kitāb Īsāghūjī li-Furfūriyūs , al-ghāya � #55–#56, 27,14–28,6;

al-manfaaʿ � #56, 28,6–13; al-sima � #57, 28,14–21; al-martaba � #57, 28,21–23; qis-mat al-kitāb � #58, 29,1–10; wād. i ʿ al-kitāb � #58, 29,5–13; al-nah. w alladhī yustuʿmalu fīhi min anh. ā ʾ al-taāʿlīm � #59, 29,14–16; fī ayy al- ʿulūm huwa dhālika al-kitāb � #59, 29,16–19. In his Commentary on the Categories , following an extensive introductory dis-cussion of the ten “general” isagogical questions, Ibn al-T. ayyib directs the reader to his Commentary on the Isagoge for a full account of the tenth general question, namely, the question that comprises the eight kephalaia ( al-abwāb al-thamāniya ): Tafsīr Kitāb al-Maqūlāt , 14,14–16. In the Categories commentary, the list appears as follows: al-gharad. � III, 15,13–25,8; al-manfaaʿ � IV, 26,11–30; al-sima � IV, 26,31–28,4;


al-martaba � IV, 28,4–7; nisbatuhu � IV, 28,8–29,13; min ayy al- ʿulūm huwa � IV, 29,14–15; qismatuhu � IV, 29,16–30,20; al-nah. w alladhī yuslaku fīhi min anh. ā ʾ al-taāʿlīm � IV, 30,21–32,4.

14. For detailed discussions of the history of these distinctions, see S. Stern, “The First in Thought is the Last in Action,” Journal of Semitic Studies 7, no. 2 (1962): 234–52, as well as my “Notes on Avicenna’s Concept of Thingness (Shay iʾyya),” Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 10, no. 2 (2000): 181–221; “Towards a History of Avicenna’s Distinction between Immanent and Transcendent Causes,” in Before and After Avicenna, ed. D. Reisman (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 49–68; and “Final and Efficient Causality in Avicenna’s Cosmology and Theology,” Quaestio 2 (2002): 97–123.

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Chapter 11

Two Commentaries on Najm al-Dın al-Katibı’s al-Shamsiyya, Copied in the Hand of David b. Joshua Maimonides

(fl. ca. 1335–1410 CE)1

Sabine Schmidtke

In the medieval, late medieval, and premodern world of Islam, Muslims and Jews (as well as Christians, for that matter) constituted a unique cultural and intellectual commonality. They shared Arabic (at times also Persian) as their common language and often read the same books, so that a continuous, multidimensional exchange of ideas, texts, and forms of discourse, particularly in the rational sciences, was the norm rather than the exception. This has been amply demonstrated for the ninth through twelfth centuries CE.2 By contrast, Jewish-Muslim intellectual common-alities of later periods have so far barely been explored in either Judaic or Islamic Studies. In both fields and for a variety of reasons, the scholarly investigation of philosophy and related disciplines during the post-Avicennan period is still in the beginning phase. For Jewish intellectual history in Arabic, the rich, though only partly explored, holdings of the various Geniza collections around the world still hold many surprises. This chapter focuses on such a case.

The Abraham Firkovitch Collection (Russian National Library [RNL], St. Petersburg)3 holds five items that were written by the same hand in Hebrew char-acters and that show the same codicological features. The original paper size was 13–14 � 17.5–18.5 cm, with 19, 20, or 21 lines to a page:4

• RNL Firk. YA II 1214 (� Institute of Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts at the Israel National Library, Jerusalem [� IMHM], microfilm no. 60787), 168 ff, ca. 17.5 � 13 cm. The manuscript has undergone restoration and has been rebound, on one occasion not in accordance with the order of folios prior to

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their restoration: ff. 157-158-165-166-159-160, and therefore these leaves are now bound out of order. The restoration proves detrimental to research on the text as it is no longer possible to determine the physical units of the manu-script, such as quires, bifolios, isolated leaves, etc., and some of the text has become blurred as a result of the restoration. Fortunately, the remaining four fragments did not undergo the same process of restoration.

• RNL Firk. YA II 812, f. 3 (� IMHM, microfilm no. 59860).5 The leaf is heavily damaged and the first four lines are only partly preserved. There are also considerable damages in the margins and the lower part of the folio. F. 3b precedes f. 3a.

• RNL Firk. YA II 835, ff. 72–73 (� IMHM, microfilm nos. 59232 and 44947), ca. 14 � 18.5 cm. Bifolio; the text is interrupted following f. 72.

• RNL Firk. YA II 846, f. 46 (� IMHM, microfilm no. 59235). The leaf is damaged on the lower margin and the last four lines of each page are mostly destroyed.

• RNL Firk. YA II 2396, 2 ff (� IMHM, microfilm no. 60625). Bifolio, heavily damaged on the upper margin (1–2 lines not preserved). F. 2 precedes f. 1, and the text is interrupted between f. 2 and f. 1.

Although the manuscripts include neither title page nor colophon, and have no other indication as to the identity of the work(s) they contain, they evidently constitute portions of two commentaries on Najm al-Dīn al-Dabīrān al-Kātibī al-Qazwīnī’s (d. 675/1277) widely studied handbook of logic, al-Shamsiyya fī l-qawā iʿd al-mant.iqiyya. Along with Athīr al-Dīn al-Abharī’s (d. 663/1264) Īsāghūjī6 and particularly Sirāj al-Dīn al-Urmawī’s (d. 682/1283) Mat.āli ʿ al-anwār,7 the Shamsiyya was the most popular handbook on logic from the early fourteenth century onward, and it formed the point of departure for a rich literary tradition of commentaries, supercommen-taries, and glosses.8 Most of these works are preserved in manuscript only, while few have been published (none in critical edition), and the study of this literary tradition as well as the later development of logic in the Islamic world in general is still a major desideratum.9

Comparison with the numerous extant autographs of the outstanding Jewish scholar David ben Joshua Maimonides (b. ca. 1335, d. 1415), the last Maimonidean nagīd (“head”) of the Jewish Egyptian community, shows that the five items are written in his hand.10 Born in Egypt, David succeeded his father Joshua Maimonides as nagīd following the latter’s death in 1355. For reasons that remain unclear, he left his homeland to take up residence in Syria (Aleppo and Damascus) from ca. 1375 to 1386. He resumed his office as nagīd after his return to Egypt and retained it until his death.11

Before and during the lifetime of David ben Joshua, the following commentaries are known to have been written on al-Kātibī’s Shamsiyya. The earliest commentary was composed by the ʿAllāma al-H. illī (d. 726/1325), al-Qawā iʿd al-jaliyya fī sharh. al-risāla al-shamsiyya. Al-H. illī had been a student of al-Kātibī, and he reports to have studied with his teacher the latter’s commentary on Afd. al al-Dīn al-Khūnajī’s (d. 646/1249) Kashf al-asrār aʿn ghawāmid. al-afkār fī l-mant.iq, a highly inno-vative comprehensive summa of formal logic that set the agenda for most other

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thirteenth- and fourteenth-century works in logic.12 The earliest extant copy of the Qawā iʿd was completed in Rabīʿ II 679/August 1280, the terminus ante quem for al-H. illī’s commentary.13 Al-H. illī’s student, Qut.b al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 766/1364), composed another commentary on al-Kātibī’s Shamsiyya, entitled Tah. rīr al-qawā iʿd al-mant.iqiyya fī sharh. al-risāla al-shamsiyya.14 This commentary, completed in Jumādā II 729/April 1329,15 very soon outstripped al-H. illī’s Qawā iʿd in popular-ity and served most later commentators as a point of departure. ʿAlī b. Muh.ammad al-Jurjānī’s (“Mīr Sayyid Sharīf,” d. 816/1414) superglosses on it further popular-ized Qut.b al-Dīn’s commentary.16 Some few years after Qut.b al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s Tah. rīr al-qawā iʿd, another commentary was written by Mah.mūd b. ʿAlī b. Mah.mūd al-H. ims.ī al-Rāzī (“al-Tāj al-Rāzī,” fl. 749–50/1348–49), entitled al-Mat.ālib al- qudsiyya fī sharh. al-risāla al-shamsiyya (completed in 733/1333). An apparently unique manuscript is preserved in the Majlis Library (Tehran).17 Al-Tāj al-Rāzī’s contempo-rary Shams al-Dīn Muh.ammad b. Mubārakshāh al-Bukhārī (d. after 760/1359) had likewise commented upon the Shamsiyya. The few extant manuscripts of the text suggest that it did not circulate widely.18 Qut.b al-Dīn’s commentary was heavily used by Saʿd al-Dīn Masʿūd b. ʿUmar al-Taftāzānī (d. 793/1390) in his commentary on the Shamsiyya, completed in Jumādā II 752/July–August 1351, despite the latter’s critical attitude toward Qut.b al-Dīn. Al-Taftāzānī’s commentary soon became the second most popular sharh. on the Shamsiyya.19

As is characteristic of most Geniza material, the leaves of the five Firkovitch manuscripts are in complete disorder, and the original order of the text(s) can only be restored tentatively (see later, Appendix I). RNL Firk. YA II 1214, ff. 1b-2-140-151-152-141-3-4-167-168 (� fragment i) is a copy of the beginning of the ʿAllāma al-H. illī’s commentary on the Shamsiyya (� Qawā iʿd 179–196:14), containing the preface (khut.ba), the introduction (muqaddima), and the beginning of chapter 1 (al-maqāla al-ūlā). The text is interrupted at the end of fragment i (i.e., following f. 168, the second leaf of a new quire of either eight or ten leaves) and it is unclear how much more of al-H. illī’s text David ben Joshua had transcribed. The occasional marginal corrections and additions in the same hand suggest that David had col-lated his copy of the text with his Vorlage.20 David was evidently a critical reader of al-H. illī’s Qawā iʿd, as is suggested by at least two critical comments added in the margin.21 Apart from being a prolific author himself, David is well known as a book collector and an accomplished scribe, and some of his copies of works by earlier Jewish and Muslim authors in a variety of disciplines have survived.22 It was particularly during his time in Aleppo that David assembled an impressive library containing numerous copies of works that he had either commissioned or copied himself. Considerable parts of the library remained in Aleppo even after he had returned to Egypt.23 It is therefore perfectly plausible that he embarked on tran-scribing al-H. illī’s Qawā iʿd, or at least parts of it.

The following fragments ii–xxxiv constitute a commentary on the Shamsiyya in its own right. Al-Kātibī’s text is regularly introduced as qāla [rah. imahu llāh] followed only by a few words that are concluded with the formula ilā ākhirihi.24 The commentary sections are introduced by aqūlu [mutawakkilan aʿlā rabbī [al-karīm] / mutawakkilan aʿlā llāh [al-karīm] / mutawakkilan aʿlā l-karīm / mutawakkilan aʿlā mufattih. al-abwāb / muʿtas.iman bi-h. abl al-tawfīq / mustaʿīnan bi-wāhib al- aʿql] and

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are often concluded with the formula wa-llāh a lʿam [bi-l-s.awāb]. The copy of this commentary was evidently never completed. This is indicated by several blank spaces throughout YA II 1214, where the author intended to add charts.25 Codicological differences suggest that David’s copies of the two commentaries originally formed separate codices. All recto pages belonging to the copy of al-H. illī’s Qawā iʿd are marked in the upper outer corner,26 while this is not the case for any of the leaves belonging to the second commentary.

Comparison with other commentaries written before or during the lifetime of David ben Joshua on the Shamsiyya shows that the second commentary is an independent original work. The major source for the anonymous commentator is Qut.b al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s Tah. rīr al-qawā iʿd al-mant.iqiyya fī sharh. al-risāla al-shamsiyya, whose author is usually referred to as “one of the commentators” (badʿ. al-shārih. īn) and at times as “the noble commentator” (al-shārih. al-fād. il).27 The Tah. rīr’s date of completion (729/1329) is thus the terminus post quem for the present commentary. Apart from the verbatim quotations, there are many other portions of the text that are clearly based on Qut.b al-Dīn’s commentary although no indication of this is given.28 The anonymous author had additional sources at his disposal. This is sug-gested by his frequent critical comments following quotations from Qut.b al-Dīn al-Rāzī,29 as well as by the many lengthy elaborations that are independent of Qut.b al-Dīn’s commentary. Throughout the text, references are given to al-Fārābī (d. 339/950)30 and to Ibn Sīnā (d. 428/1037), particularly his K. al-Shifā ʾ and his al-Ishārāt wa-l-tanbīhāt.31 Among the later scholars, our author refers regularly to Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 606/1209),32 particularly to his K. al-Mulakhkhas.,33 and on one occasion to his commentary on Ibn Sīnā’s ʿUyūn al-h. ikma.34 Once, he adduces a definition by “al-Imām Zayn al-Dīn” (YA II 1214, f. 85b:16), clearly referring to Zayn al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Rah.mān b. Muh.ammad al-Kashshī, Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s most important student in logic. From al-Kashshī’s pen, we have H. adā iʾq al-h. aqā iʾq, a tripartite summa of logic, physics, and metaphysics, and al-Muqaddima on logic, a work often used in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, before al-Kātibī’s Shamsiyya became firmly established as the most popular textbook on logic, together with the commentary of Ibn al-Badīʿ al-Bandahī (d. 655/1258).35 Our author refers twice to Athīr al-Dīn al-Abharī.36 On various occasions, he refers to al-Kātibī’s commentary on Afd. al al-Dīn al-Khūnajī’s Kashf al-asrār (“Sharh. al-Kashf ”),37 and to his Jāmi ʿ al-daqā iʾq fī kashf al-h. aqā iʾq.38 One of the latest authors explicitly mentioned is Shams al-Dīn al-Is.fahānī (d. 749/1348) and his commentary on Sirāj al-Dīn al-Urmawī’s Mat.āli ʿ al-anwār.39 In addition, there are many general references to various unspecified groups.40

The works and authors referred to throughout the commentary, often followed by critical discussions, constituted the established canon of literature in Arabic on logic during the second half of the eighth/fourteenth century.41 It is plausible to assume that our author had consulted them directly. Yet it would be equally possible to assume that he had gleaned most of his material from a later intermediary source. The critical assessment of our author of many of the views and quotations adduced from the sources that are clearly identified and the numerous lengthy elaborations that are independent of any of the explicitly identified sources and of Qut.b al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s Tah. rīr strongly suggest that he had additional sources at his disposal. This


is also indicated by a number of references that do not refer to any of the estab-lished sources of the text and that still need to be identified.42 Moreover, some of the sections of the work are strikingly similar to those one finds in Jamāl al-Dīn Muh.ammad b. Sālim b. Wās.il al-H. amawī’s (d. 697/1298) Nukhbat al-fikar. Our author may have had this work at his disposal or possibly the work of a later author who had used Ibn Wās.il’s Nukhba.43 Assuming that the commentary was com-posed shortly before or during David ben Joshua’s lifetime would leave a conspicu-ous gap of two to three generations between Qut.b al-Dīn al-Rāzī and Shams al-Dīn al-Is.fahānī—the latest scholars our author refers to—and the anonymous author.

From David b. Joshua’s pen, a number of works have been preserved (some partly, some completely) among the various Geniza collections that testify to his scholarly abilities and his learning in both the Jewish and Muslim literary traditions.44 Apart from his commentary on Maimonides’s Mishneh Torah,45 mention should be made of his Tajrīd al-h. aqā iʾq al-naz. ariyya wa-talkhīs. al-maqās.id al-nafsāniyya, an ethical-philosophical work in which the author displays his intimate familiarity with the relevant Jewish and Muslim traditions up to his time,46 and of al-Murshid ilā l-tafarrud, a comprehensive handbook of Sufism.47 In addition to his proficiency in the Jewish literary traditions, these works testify to David’s deep immersion into a variety of Muslim rational sciences. In philosophy, he is not only familiar with the peripa-tetic thought of Ibn Sīnā (he included in his Tajrīd al-h. aqā iʾq quotations from the latter’s al-Ishārāt wa-l-tanbīhāt48), but also acquainted with numerous writings of the shaykh al-ishrāq, Shihāb al-Dīn al-Suhrawardī (executed 587/1191). Quotations from the latter’s Kalimāt al-tas.awwuf and his H. ikmat al-ishrāq are adduced in David’s K. al-Murshid,49 and he may have possessed a copy of ʿIzz al-Dawla Ibn Kammūna’s (d. 684/1283) commentary on Suhrawardī’s K. al-Talwīh. āt.50 On the basis of lengthy quotations in his commentary on Maimonides’s Mishneh Torah, it is further known that David had a copy of Ibn Kammūna’s al-Jadīd fī l-h. ikma at his disposal.51 David was likewise familiar with Abū H. āmid al-Ghazzālī’s (d. 555/1111) Ih. yā ʾ ʿulūm al-dīn52 and with Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s K. al-Muh. as.s.al.53 In addition to these, he quotes extensively from the earlier Muslim literature on mysticism,54 and he was evidently well versed in the Muslim astronomical tradition.55 Given the outstanding scholarly profile of David ben Joshua, it is possible that he is the actual author of the second commentary on al-Kātibī’s Shamsiyya that is preserved in the Geniza fragments described here. One indication supporting this possibility may be the fact that the commentary is conspicuously free from marginal comments or crit-ical remarks56 whereas in other cases, such as David’s copy of al-H. illī’s Qawā iʿd,57 he was in the habit of adding glosses (h. awāshī) and some criticism in the margins. The absence of these is a kind of “silent” proof that David may indeed be the author who, quite naturally, would not be adding critical glosses to his own work.

Whether or not David ben Joshua was the author of this commentary, which has so far largely escaped the attention of those (few) scholars who have studied David,58 cannot be decided on the basis of the material described in this contribu-tion. However, this commentary, which clearly goes beyond the other fourteenth-century commentaries on the Shamsiyya in many respects, is without a doubt a noteworthy document for a future study of the commentary tradition on al-Kātibī’s popular handbook.59

Sabine Schmidtke208

Notes

1. This publication was finalized within the framework of the European Research Council’s FP 7 project “Rediscovering Theological Rationalism in the Medieval World of Islam.” Thanks are due to Camilla Adang, Khaled El-Rouayheb, Reza Pourjavady, and Gregor Schwarb for their help during the research on this chapter. I also wish to express my gratitude to the Gerda Henkel Foundation for financial support of an extended visit to the Russian National Library in St. Petersburg in June 2008, which allowed me to consult the original manuscripts described in this paper. Otherwise, I have consulted the microfilm copies held at the Institute for Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts at the Israel National Library in Jerusalem.

2. See Sarah Stroumsa, “The Muslim Context in Medieval Jewish Philosophy,” in The Cambridge History of Jewish Philosophy: From Antiquity through the Seventeenth Century, ed. S. Nadler and T. Rudavsky (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 39–59; Sidney H. Griffith, The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque: Christians and Muslims in the World of Islam (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003).

3. On the Firkovitch Collection, see my “Muʿtazilī Manuscripts in the Abraham Firkovitch Collection, St. Petersburg: A Descriptive Catalogue,” in A Common Rationality: Muʿtazilism in Islam and Judaism, ed. Camilla Adang, Sabine Schmidtke, and David Sklare (Würzburg: Ergon, 2007), 377–462, esp. 378, note 6, with further references.

4. The following leaves have 20 lines to a page: RNL Firk. YA II 1214, ff. 21, 27, 76 (?), 90, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103a, 105, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 119, 120, 121, 122b, 125b, 126, 127a, 128, 161b, 162a. The following leaves have 21 lines to a page: 117, 118. All other leaves have 19 lines to a page (except those with blank space reserved for charts; see below).

5. See Plates i and ii below for reproductions of this fragment. I wish to thank the Russian National Library for permission to include images of the fragment in this publication.

6. See Carl Brockelmann, Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur, Zweite den Supplementbänden angepasste Auflage, 2 vols. (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1943–49) [� GAL], 1:464–65; Brockelmann, Geschichte der Arabischen Litteratur: Supplementbände, 3 vols. (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1937–42) [� GALS], 1:841.

7. See GAL 1:467; GALS 1:848. The Mat.āli ʿ al-anwār consists of two parts—logic and phi-losophy. While the first part on logic was very popular and is extant in many manuscripts, only few copies survive that comprise both parts. On the work and its transmission, see Heidrun Eichner, “The Post-Avicennan Philosophical Tradition and Islamic Orthodoxy: Philosophical and Theological summae in Context” (Habilitationsschrift eingereicht an der Philosophischen Fakultät I der Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, 2009), 102–14.

8. See GAL 1:466; GALS 1:845–47; Muh. sin Kadīvar and Muh. ammad Nūrī, Ma kʾhiz-shināsī-yi ʿulūm-i aʿqlī: Manābiʿ-yi chāpī-i ʿulūm-i aʿqlī az ibtidāʾ tā 1375, 3 vols. (Tehran, 1378–79/[1999–2000]), 2:1833–34; Nicholas Rescher, The Development of Arabic Logic ([Pittsburgh]: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1964), 203–204.—Some of the most popular works within this tradition are included in Shurūh. al-Shamsiyya: Majmū aʿ h. awāshin wa-ta lʿīqāt, 2 vols. [written by Qut.b al-Dīn Mah.mūd b. Muh.ammad al-Rāzī, al-Sayyid al-Sharīf ʿAlī b. Muh.ammad al-Jurjānī, al-ʿAllāma ʿAbd al-H. akīm al-Siyālkūtī (d. 1067/1657), Jalāl al-Dīn al-Dawānī (d. 907/1501), al-ʿAllāma al-Dasūqī, and al-Shaykh al-Shirbīnī] ([Cairo], 1905; repr. Üsküdar, n.d.).

9. For an outline of the major developments, see Khaled El-Rouayheb, “Logic in the Arabic and Islamic World,” in Encyclopedia of Medieval Philosophy, ed. H. Lagerlund (New York, forthcoming).


10. For a description of David’s handwriting and a preliminary list of autographs, see the intro-duction to Maimonidis Commentarius in Mischnam e codicibus Hunt. 117 et Pococke 295 in Bibliotheca Bodleiana Oxoniensi servatis et 72–73 Bibliothecae Sassooniensis Letchworth, introductionem Hebraice et Brittanice scripsit Solomon D. Sassoon, 3 vols. (Copenhagen: E. Munksgaard, 1956), 1:36-37 and plates xi–xvi.—Paul Fenton has included numerous autographs of David ben Joshua in his “The Literary Legacy of David ben Joshua, Last of the Maimonidean Nĕgīdim,” The Jewish Quarterly Review 75 (1984): 1–56, and he gives a comprehensive list of the manuscripts in question in his “A Mystical Commentary on the Song of Songs in the Hand of David Maimonides the Second” [Hebrew], Tarbiz. , A Quarterly for Jewish Studies 69 (2000): 585–88 (Appendix dalet); see now also his “An Epistle on Esoteric Matters by David II Maimonides from the Geniza,” in Pesher Nahum: Texts and Studies in Jewish History and Literature from Antiquity through the Middle Ages Presented to Norman (Nahum) Golb, ed. Joel L. Kraemer and Michael G. Wechsler, Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilizations 66 (Chicago: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 2012), 57–81.

11. On David ben Joshua, see Moritz Steinschneider, “Zur Litteratur der Maimoniden,” Monatsschrift zur Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judenthums 45 [NF 9] (1901): 129–37, esp. 135–36; Eliyahu [Strauss-]Ashtor, History of the Jews in Egypt and Syria under the rule of the Mamluks [Hebrew], 3 vols. (Jerusalem: Mosad ha-Rav K. uk., 1944–70), 1:300–302, 354–56; 2:26–30; Ashtor, “David ben Joshua Maimuni,” in Encyclopaedia Judaica (Jerusalem, 1971), 5:1351; S. D. Goitein, “A Jewish Addict to Sufism: In the Time of the Nagid II Maimonides,” The Jewish Quarterly Review 44 (1953): 37–49; Jacob Mann, Texts and Studies in Jewish History and Literature, 2 vols. (New York: Ktav Publishing House, 1972), 1:427–28; Baruch H. S. Mazor, “Saʿīd Ibn Daūd al-ʿAdanī: His Role in Fifteenth Century Judeo-Arabic Literature” (PhD dissertation, Harvard University, 1975), 72ff.; Arnold E. Franklin, “David ben Joshua Maimuni’s Commentary on the Liturgy (Sharh nusah al-tefila)” (AB thesis, Harvard College, 1993); see http://74.125.45.132/search?q�cache:sIEPizv0qL4J:www.hunter.cuny.edu/classics/hebrew/FranklinCV.html+%22David+ben+Joshua%22&cd�5&hl�de&ct�clnk&gl�us [accessed May 20, 2009]; Franklin is currently revising the thesis for publication.—Bernhard R. Goldstein, in “The Survival of Arabic Astronomy in Hebrew,” Journal of the History of Arabic Science (Aleppo) 3 (1979): 31, note 2 (b), has identified the pro-lific scholar David ben Joshua as Davīd ha-nagīd. This identification was substantiated by Fenton in his “Literary Legacy,” 38–56.—For his father, Joshua Maimonides, cf. also S. D. Goitein, “The Twilight of the House of Maimonides” [Hebrew], Tarbiz. , A Quarterly for Jewish Studies 54 (1985): 67–104; Mark R. Cohen, “Correspondence and Social Control in the Jewish Communities of the Islamic World: A Letter of the Nagid Joshua Maimonides,” Jewish History 1, no. 2 (1986): 39–48.

12. See al-H. illī’s ijāza issued for the Banī Zahra, published in Muh.ammad Bāqir al-Majlisī, Bih. ār al-anwār, vols. 10–28, 35–110, ed. Jawād al-ʿAlawī [et al.] (Tehran: Dār al-Kutub al-Islāmiyya, 1376–1405/1957–85), 107:60–137, esp. 66.—On Afd. al al-Dīn al-Khūnajī’s Kashf al-asrār and al-Kātibī’s commentary on the work, see Khaled El-Rouayheb’s edition of the Kashf (Tehran: Iranian Institute of Philosophy and Institute of Islamic Studies, Free University of Berlin, 2011).

13. MS Āstān-i quds 1114. For a description of this manuscript, see the editor’s introduc-tion to al-H. illī’s al-Qawā iʿd al-jaliyya fī sharh. al-risāla al-shamsiyya, ed. Fāris H. assūn Tabrīziyān (Qum: Muʾassasat al-Nashr al-Islāmī al-tābi ʿa bi-Jamāʿat al-Mudarrisīn, 1412/[1992]), 169. In addition, the editor collated the text with MS Malik 766, copied by Shams al-Dīn Muh.ammad b. Shāh H. usayn al-Yazdī and completed in Jumādā I 718/July 1318. For additional manuscripts, see my The Theology of al-Aʿllāma al-H. illī (d. 726/1325) (Berlin: Klaus Schwarz, 1991), 89, no. 78, and ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Jawād T. abāt.

Sabine Schmidtke210

abāʾī, Maktabat al-Aʿllāma al-H. illī (Qum: Muʾassasat Āl al-Bayt li-Ih. yāʾ al-Turāth, 1416/[1996]), 160–1, no. 69.

14. I have used the following print of the text: Tah. rīr al-qawā iʿd al-mant.iqiyya [with H. āshiya aʿlā Tah. rīr al-qawā iʿd al-mant.iqiyya li-l-Sayyid al-Sharīf Aʿlī b. Muh. ammad al-Jurjānī in the margin] ([Cairo]: Mat.baʿat Mus.t.afā al-Bābī al-H. alabī wa-Awlādihi bi-Mis.r, 1367/1948).

15. See Āghā Buzurg al-T. ihrānī, al-Dharī aʿ ilā tas.ānīf al-shī aʿ, 25 vols. (Beirut, 1403–6/1983–86), 3:388, no. 1395.

16. For the various lithograph editions of the text, see Hans Daiber, Bibliography of Islamic Philosophy, 2 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 1:266, nos. 519–20.

17. MS Majlis 1408. For a description of the manuscript, see ʿAbd al-H. usayn al-H. āʾirī [et al.], Fihrist-i Kitābkhāna-yi Majlis-i Shūrā-yi Millī, 22 vols. (Tehran: Mat.baʿa-yi Majlis, 1305–57/1926–78), 2:247. See also http://www.aghabozorg.ir/showbookdetail.aspx?bookid�116141 [accessed April 24, 2009]. For al-Tāj al-Rāzī, see Mah.mūd b. ʿAlī b. Mah.mūd al-H. immas.ī al-Rāzī, Kashf al-maāʿqid fī sharh. Qawā iʿd al- aʿqā iʾd, facsimile edition of MS Berlin, Wetzstein [II] 1527, introduction and indices by S. Schmidtke (Tehran: Iranian Institute of Philosophy and Institute of Islamic Studies, Free University of Berlin, 1386/2007), and my “MS Berlin, Wetzstein II 1527: A Unique Manuscript of Mah.mūd b. ʿAlī b. Mah.mūd al-H. immas.ī al-Rāzī’s Kashf al-maāʿqid fī sharh. Qawā iʿd al- aʿqā iʾd,” in Tribute to Michael: Studies in Jewish and Muslim Thought Presented to Professor Michael Schwartz, ed. Sara Klein-Braslavy, Binyamin Abrahamov, and Josef Sadan (Tel Aviv: Lester and Sally Entin Faculty of Humanities, Chaim Rosenberg School of Jewish Studies, 2009).

18. The commentary is preserved in MSS Şehid Ali Paşa 1790; British Library OR 6318; Ahmad III 3433. For a description of the latter manuscript, see Fehmi Edhem Karatay, Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi Kütüphanesi: Arapça yazmalar kataloğu, 4 vols. (Istanbul: Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi, 1962–66), 3:679, no. 6833. I thank Khaled El-Rouayheb for having provided me with a copy of the British Library manuscript.—On Ibn Mubārakshāh, see H. asan T. ārimī, “Bukhārī, Muh.ammad b. Mubārakshāh,” in Dānishnāma-yi jahān-i Islam (Tehran: Bunyād-i Dāʾirat al-Maʿārif-i Islāmī, 1996–), 2:384–85.

19. This commentary is available in the following prints: Saʿ diyya sharh. al-Shamsiyya li-Saʿ d al-Dīn al-Taftāzānī (Rampur, n.d. [18--?]); al-Saʿ diyya li-Saʿ d al-Dīn al-Taftāzānī (Lucknow, 1317/[1899]); Hādhā sharh. al-Shamsiyya li-Saʿ d al-Dīn al-Taftāzānī (Istanbul [?], 1312/[1894–95]). On al-Taftāzānī’s contributions in logic, see Wilferd Madelung, “At-Taftāzānī und die Philosophie,” in Logik und Theologie: Das Organon im arabischen und lateinischen Mittelalter, ed. Dominik Perler and Ulrich Rudolph (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 227–35.—Both Qut.b al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s and al-Taftāzānī’s commentaries soon became part of the madrasa cur-ricula in the Ottoman lands and in Safavid Iran; see Francis Robinson, “Ottomans-Safavids-Mughals: Shared Knowledge and Connective Systems,” Journal of Islamic Studies 8 (1997): 176–77, 180, 183; see also Maria Eva Subtelny and Anas B. Khalidov, “The Curriculum of Islamic Higher Learning in Timurid Iran in the Light of the Sunni Revival under Shāh-Rukh,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 115 (1995): 226.

20. RNL Firk. YA 1214, ff. 2a, 3a, 151b.21. RNL YA II 1214, f. 151a: h. āsh [evidently being an abbreviation for h. āshiya] hādhā

l-jawāb lā yakfī fī radd hādhā l-su āʾl, referring to Qawā iʿd, 184:1–4; YA II 1214, f. 167b: fīhi naz. ar . . . , directed against Qawā iʿd, 195:1 where al-H. illī provides a definition of dalāla; on YA II 1214, f. 3a, David adds two brief explanations to al-Kātibī’s text, relat-ing to the beginning of al-bah. th al-thānī fī mawd. ūʿ al-mant.iq of the muqaddima, one of them again introduced as h. āsh; on YA II 1214, f. 4b, there is another brief elaboration on al-Kātibī’s text, again introduced with h. āsh.


22. So, for example, his copy of al-Kharaqī’s (d. 533/1138–39) K. al-Tabs.ira fī iʿlm al-hay aʾ, Jewish Theological Seminary of America MS Hirsch 3a [� MS no. 2621], completed in Aleppo in 1382 CE; see the introduction to Maimonidis Commentarius in Mischnam, 1:36 and plate xiii (a), containing a facsimile of David’s colophon. Cf. also Goldstein, “The Survival of Arabic Astronomy in Hebrew,” 31, note 2 (b); Fenton, “Mystical Commentary,” 586, no. 12; A Guide to the Hebrew Manuscript Collection of the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, vol. 2, Mss numbers 2588–6126 (New York: Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1991), 81. Fenton has identified an additional copy of al-Kharaqī’s Tabs.ira in the hand of David ben Joshua (RNL Firk. YA I 3144); see his “Mystical Commentary,” 586, no. 9.—For Abū Muh. ammad ʿAbd al-Jabbār al-Kharaqī, see GAL 1:473, no. 4; GALS 1:863, no. 4; Boris A. Rosenfeld and Ekmeleddin Ihsanoğlu, Mathematicians, Astronomers and Other Scholars of Islamic Civilization and Their Works (7th–19th c.) (Istanbul: Research Center for Islamic History, Art and Culture [IRCICA], 2003), 180, no. 469.

23. Numerous important Judeo-Arabic manuscripts that were purchased in the seven-teenth century by Edward Pococke (d. 1691), English chaplain in Aleppo during the years 1630–36, and Robert Huntington (d. 1701), who held the same position from 1671 to 1680, and that were in 1693 acquired by the Bodleian Library were originally part of David’s library. For the purchase, see William Dunn Macray, Annals of the Bodleian Library, Oxford, A.D. 1598–A.D. 1867 (London: Rivingtons, 1868), 113–15, 225ff. For examples of works that originated from David’s library, see Fenton, “Literary Legacy,” 1, 40–43; Fenton, “Mystical Commentary,” 585–88.

24. The single exception is RNL Firk. YA II 2396, f. 2b: qāla rah. imahu llāh al-bah. th al-rābi ʿ fī l-qad. āyā al-mūjiba ilā qawlihi wa-l-qad. āyā allatī jarat al- āʿda bi-l-bah. th aʿnhā.

25. RNL Firk. YA II 1214, f. 100a has a heading in the upper margin, “wa-hādhā l-jadwal,” while the rest of the page is left blank. F. 104a ends with an announcement of a chart to be presented on the next page (� f. 104b) (wa-la-nufas.s.ila hādhā al-‡ . . . ‡ fī hādhā l-jadwal ‡ . . . ‡ laka l-ih. āt.a al-tāmma in shā ʾ Allāh taāʿlā l-jadwal fī l-s.afh. a al-ātiya), which is left blank. Similar announcements of charts to be presented on the next page that are then left blank are found on ff. 106a (f. 106b left blank) and 123a (f. 123b left blank). The manuscript has one entirely blank leaf (leaf following f. 164 that is not foliated) the correct placement of which in the original codex cannot be established. A chart is also announced on f. 124a to be added on the second half of the page that is left blank and on f. 124b to be added in the middle third of the page which is also left blank. On the top of f. 125a a chart is announced (wa-hādhā l-jadwal ‡ . . . ‡) with some space below being left free. The missing charts may have been similar to or even identical with the charts that are included in Qut.b al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s Tah. rīr (154, 155, 157, 158, 159). On the dependence of the anonymous commentary on Qut.b al-Dīn’ Tah. rīr, see below.

26. RNL Firk. YA II 1214, ff. 2, 3, 4, 140, 141, 151, 152, [the upper margin of f. 167 is dam-aged], 168.

27. RNL Firk. YA II 1214, f. 6a:17: ajāba aʿnhu ba dʿ. al-shārih. īn, paraphrasing Qut.b al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Tah. rīr, 67:16ff.; YA II 1214, f. 6b:4ff. wa-huwa yukhālifu mā ajāba ba dʿ. al-shārih. īn . . . referring to the aforementioned passage of Qut.b al-Dīn al-Rāzī; YA II 1214, ff. 13a:16–14a:6: qāla badʿ. al-shārih. īn . . . quoting Tah. rīr 125:7–19, followed by criticism introduced by wa-fīhi naz. ar . . . (f. 14a:6ff.); YA II 1214, f. 14b:9–10: bal al-jawāb al-ah. aqq aʿn al-suāʾl alladhī awrada l-shārih. al-fād. il sallamahu llāh an yuqāla . . . referring back to the quotation from the Tah. rīr on ff. 13a:16–14a:6; YA II 1214, ff. 27a:18–27b:2: qāla badʿ. al-shārih. īn . . . quoting Tah. rīr 146:20–22, followed by criticism (?); YA II 1214, ff. 28a:9–28b:1: qāla badʿ. al-shārih. īn . . . quoting Tah. rīr 147:33–148:6, followed by criti-cism (?); YA II 1214, f. 28b:2: aʿlā mā dhakarahu l-shārih. sallamahu llāh, referring back

Sabine Schmidtke212

to the quotation from the Tah. rīr on ff. 28a:9–28b:1; YA II 1214, f. 42a:3–14: qāla l-shārih. al-fād. il, quoting Tah. rīr 103:1–5, followed by criticism introduced by wa-fīhi naz. ar (f. 42a:15); YA II 1214, f. 47b:8–13: qāla badʿ. al-shārih. īn . . . quoting Tah. rīr 78:6–8, followed by criticism introduced by wa-fīhi naz. ar (f. 47b:13ff.); YA II 1214, f. 52a:7: qawl al-shārih. al-mushār ilayhi . . . quoting Tah. rīr 95:14–15, followed by criticism; YA II 1214, f. 53b:5–9: wa-ammā qawl badʿ. al-shārih. īn, paraphrasing Tah. rīr 97:7–9, fol-lowed by criticism; YA II 1214, ff. 58b:11–59a:1: qāla badʿ. al-shārih. īn . . . quoting Tah. rīr 83:17–84:1, 84:3–5, followed by criticism introduced by wa-fīhi naz. ar (f. 59a:2); YA II 1214, f. 61b:6–11: qāla badʿ. al-shārih. īn . . . quoting Tah. rīr 90:1–3, followed by criticism introduced by wa-fīhi naz. ar (f. 61b:11); YA II 1214, f. 84a:10–11: wa-badʿ. al-shārih. īn h. akama bi- aʿdam iniʿkāsihā . . . referring to Tah. rīr 132:22–133:3; YA II 1214, f. 90a:19ff, wa-badʿ. al-shārih. īn awrada l-mithāl, referring to Tah. rīr 136:17–32; YA II 1214, f. 91a:20: qāla badʿ. al-afād. il fī sharh. ihi, paraphrasing Tah. rīr 136:30–32, followed by criticism introduced by wa-fīhi naz. ar (f. 91b:4); YA II 1214, f. 114a:12–15: qāla badʿ. al-shārih. īn . . . quoting Tah. rīr 167:27–28; YA II 1214, f. 130a:1–5: badʿ. al-shārih. īn, refer-ring to Tah. rīr 59:10–60:13; YA II 1214, f. 132a:15–132b:5: qāla badʿ. al-shārih. īn . . . quot-ing Tah. rīr 19:1–5, followed by criticism; YA II 1214, f. 133a:12ff.: . . . [badʿ. ] al-shārih. īn, quoting Tah. rīr 22:9–23:1, followed by criticism introduced by wa-fīhi naz. ar (f. 132a:12); YA II 1214, f. 135a:9–10: wa-min hādhā l-jawāb indafaaʿ ʿtirād. badʿ. al-shārih. īn, quoting Tah. rīr 70:1–3; YA II 1214, ff. 135b:15–136a:6: qāla badʿ. al-shārih. īn . . . quoting Tah. rīr 71:2–6; YA II 1214, f. 136a:13ff.: kāna l-murād min qawl al-shārih. , referring back to the above quote (ff. 135b:15–136a:6); YA II 1214, f. 153a:6–17: qāla badʿ. al-shārih. īn, para-phrasing Tah. rīr 4:4–8, followed by criticism introduced by wa-fīhi naz. ar (f. 153a:17); YA II 1214, f. 154a:5–13: qāla badʿ. al-shārih. īn . . . quoting Tah. rīr 5:1–4, followed by cricitism; YA II 1214, f. 155a:1: kamā tawahhamahu badʿ. al-shārih. īn, and f. 155a:4: aʿlā mā dhakara badʿ. al-shārih. īn, presumably referring to Tah. rīr 7–8 (the leaf before f. 155 is lost, so that the context of these references is unclear); YA II 1214, ff. 155b:13–156b:11: wa-afāda badʿ. al-shārih. īn . . . quoting Tah. rīr 9:7–12:2; YA II 1214, ff. 156b, margin wa-l-shārih. īn fī shurūh. ihim and 156b:19–157a: wa-badʿ. al-shārih. īn dhakarahu, referring to Tah. rīr 7ff.; YA II 1214, ff. 157b:13–158a:5: hākadhā dhakarahu badʿ. al-shārih. īn, quot-ing Tah. rīr 13:2–8, followed by criticism introduced by wa-fīhi naz. ar (f. 158a:5) that is based on Shams al-Dīn al-Is.fahānī’s Sharh. al-Mat.āli ʿ (f. 158a:9); YA II 1214, f. 163b:16–164b:9: qāla badʿ. al-shārih. īn . . . hākadhā dhakarahu al-shārih. al-fādil, quoting Tah. rīr 111:29–112:10, followed by criticism introduced by wa-fī qawlihi naz. ar (f. 164b:10).

28. RNL Firk. YA II 1214, f. 153b:14–154a:5 ≈ Qut.b al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Tah. rīr, 5:7–6:5; YA II 1214, f. 157a:4–11 � Tah. rīr 9:4–7; YA II 1214, f. 158a:12–14 � Tah. rīr 13:9–14:1; YA II 812, f. 3b:12–15 � Tah. rīr 16:15–16; YA II 1214, f. 159b:1–7 � Tah. rīr 49:11–50:3; YA II 1214, f. 130a:8–130b:5 � Tah. rīr 61:11–17; YA II 1214, f. 134a:13–134b:11 � Tah. rīr 65:11–66:1; YA II 1214, f. 25b:16ff. � Tah. rīr 77:10ff.; YA II 1214, f. 47a:8–12 � Tah. rīr 78:6–8; YA II 1214, f. 58a:1–10 � Tah. rīr 83:1–5; YA II 1214, f. 60a:8–60b:19 � Tah. rīr 84:10–85:6; YA II 1214, f. 62a:1–5 � Tah. rīr 90:9–11; YA II 1214, f. 48a:5–12 � Tah. rīr 90:16–18; YA II 1214, f. 24b:4–9 � Tah. rīr 93:2–4; YA II 1214, f. 22b:3–19 ≈ Tah. rīr 99:1–9; YA II 1214, f. 36a:3–9 � Tah. rīr 105:16–19; YA II 1214, f. 32b:1–8 � Tah. rīr 107:17–20; YA II 1214, f. 41a:1–10 � Tah. rīr 103:8–10; YA II 1214, f. 41b:4–12 � Tah. rīr 103:10–13; YA II 1214, f. 86a:1–6 � Tah. rīr 133:6–7; YA 1214 II, ff. 86a:13–86b:1 � Tah. rīr 133:22–134:3; see also Appendix II.

29. See note 27.30. RNL Firk. YA II 1214, f. 24a:9–10: inna l-Shaykh al-fād. il al-Fārābī dhahaba fī kutubihi

ilā . . . YA II 1214, f. 24a:16: qāla l-Fārābī.31. RNL Firk. YA II 1214, ff. 62a:1, 67a:1, 166a:17–18: qāla al-Shaykh fī l-Shifā ;ʾ YA II

1214, f. 85b:1: al-Shaykh fī l-Shifā ;ʾ YA II 1214, ff. 24a:13, 59b:8, 14, 90a:9, 114a:2:


al-Shaykh; YA II 1214, f. 69a:16–17: wa-qad naqala al-Shaykh aʿn jamā aʿt al-h. ukamā ;ʾ YA II 1214, f. 82b:3–4: aʿlā mā huwa madhhab al-Shaykh; YA II 1214, f. 51b:12–13: zaaʿma al-Shaykh wa-l-Imām [� Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī] wa-man tābaaʿhumā; YA II 1214, f. 132a:8: aʿmmā aʿrrafahu l-Shaykh rah. imahu llāh fī l-Shifā ;ʾ YA II 1214, f. 61b:6: ashāra l-Shaykh fī l-Shifā ;ʾ YA II 1214, ff. 85b:1–2: al-Shaykh fī l-Shifā ;ʾ YA II 1214, f. 139b:8: mā qālahu l-Shaykh fī l-Shifā ;ʾ YA II 1214, f. 40b:16–17: wa-l-Shaykh ankara dhālika fī l-Shifā ʾ wa-qāla; YA II 1214, f. 160b:10: al-taʿrīf al-madhkūr fī l-Shifā ;ʾ YA II 1214, f. 15b:10: aʿrrafahu al-Shaykh fī l-Ishārāt bi-an qāla; YA II 1214, f. 160a:15: wa-qāla al-Shaykh rah. imahu llāh fī l-Ishārāt.

32. RNL Firk. YA II 1214, f. 157a:1: al-Imām Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī; YA II 1214, ff. 20a:5, 13, 21b:12, 67a:16, 67b:2, 10, followed by criticism introduced by wa-fīhi naz. ar, 157a:5, 7, 9, 165b:19: al-Imām; YA II 1214, f. 67a:6: qāla l-Imām fī kutubihi, followed by criticism introduced by wa-fī qawl al-Imām naz. ar (f. 67a:16); YA II 1214, ff. 21a:19; 41a:11: qāla l-Imām; YA II 1214, f. 85b:9: qawl al-Imām; YA II 1214, f. 140b:8–9: al-Imām Fakhr al-Dīn wa-atbā ʿuhu; YA II 1214, f. 51b:12–13: zaaʿma al-Shaykh [� Ibn Sīnā] wa-l-Imām wa-man tābaaʿhumā.

33. RNL Firk. YA II 1214, ff. 9b:1–2: wa-qāla al-Imām fī l-Mulakhkhas., paraphrasing [Man-t.iq] al-Mulakhkhas., ed. Ah.ad Farāmarz Qarāmalikī and Ādīna As.gharīnizhād (Tehran: Dānishgāh-i Imām S.ādiq, 1381/[2002 or 2003]), 182:12–16; YA II 1214, f. 15b:13–16a:1: wa- ʿtarad. a l-Imām aʿlā l-Shaykh fī l-Mulakhkhas. wa-qāla, paraphrasing al-Mulakhkhas. 184:12–185:4; YA II 1214, f. 16a:1–2: wa- ʿtarad. a aʿlayhi bi-anna mā dhakarahu l-Imām fī l-Mulakhkhas. ghayr mutanāwal; YA II 1214, f. 19b:5–6: wa-huwa ikhtiyār al-Imām fī l-Mulakhkhas.; YA II 1214, f. 19b:11–12: qāla l-Imām fī l-Mulakhkhas., paraphrasing al-Mulakhkhas. 189:1–8, 198:10–199:1; YA II 1214, f. 45b:18ff.: wa-dhakara al-Imām rah. imahu llāh fī l-Mulakhkhas., paraphrasing al-Mulakhkhas. 66:6ff.; YA II 1214, f. 61b:15–16: wa-l-Imām lam yataaʿrrad. li-l-qad. iyya al-t.abī iʿyya fī l-Mulakhkhas. wa-dhakara; YA II 1214, f. 85b:1–8: qāla l-Imām fī l-Mulakhkhas., quoting al-Mulakhkhas. 200:3–6; YA II 1214, f. 144b:18ff.: wa-lākinna l-Imām dhakara fī l-Mulakhkhas., paraphrasing al-Mulakhkhas. 222:8–223:5; YA II 1214, f. 150b:6: wa-l-Imām dhakara fi l-Mulakhkhas..

34. RNL Firk. YA II 1214, f. 59b:12: wa- ʿtarad. a l-Imām fī sharh. ihi li- ʿUyūn al-h. ikma.35. See GALS 2:1013–14.36. RNL Firk. YA II 1214, f. 52b:9–10: wa-dhakara Athīr al-Dīn al-Abharī fi kutubihi; YA

II 1214, f. 66a:12-13: al-Ustādh al-Aʿllāma Athīr al-Dīn al-Abharī.37. RNL Firk. YA II 1214, f. 61b:12–14: al-mus.annif . . . ʿalā mā s.arrah. a bihi fī Sharh. al-Kashf;

YA II 1214, f. 99b:19–20: qawl al-mus.annif fī Sharh. al-Kashf wa-fī Jāmi ʿ al-daqā iʾq.38. RNL Firk. YA II 1214, f. 58a:17ff.: wa-l-mus.annif rah. imahu llāh . . . qāla fī Jāmi ʿ al-daqā iʾq;

YA II 1214, f. 78a:16–17: hākadhā dhakarahu l-mus.annif li-l-kitāb fī Jāmi ʿ al-daqā iʾq, fol-lowed by criticism introduced by wa-fīhi naz. ar (f. 78a:17); YA II 1214, f. 99b:19: qawl al-mus.annif fī Sharh. al-Kashf wa-fī Jāmi ʿ al-daqā iʾq.—See also the numerous general references to al-Kātibī: RNL Firk. YA II 1214, f. 21b:11: al-Imām mus.annif al-kitāb; YA II 1214, ff. 6a:10, 6b:1, 10a:8, 17, 16b:6, 13, 17a:4, 11, 20a:18, 21b:18, 23b:12, 26b:12; 29a:11, 35b:13, 38a:7, 42b:10, 56a:15, 57a:19, 64a:12, 70a:4, 79a:7, 83a:11, 85a:12, 86a:19, 90a:10, 93a:15, 94a:8, 95b:16, 19, 97b:13, 98a:14, 107a:2, 114a:16, 130b:10, 131a:8, 133b:3, 135a:15, 17, 140a:13, 144a:8, 144b:5, 144b:18, 149b:13, 155b:5, 15, 156a:8, 156b:19, 160a:19, 161b:5; YA II 812, f. 3a:8; YA II 2396, f. 2a:10: al-mus.annif; YA II 1214, ff. 23b:4, 43b:9, 47a:5, 58a:17, 60a:7–8, 71a:15–16, 91b:15, 95a:17, 108a:14, 128b:10, 135b:17, 136a:8, 136b:13, 138b:18, 158a:11–12, 165a:3, YA II 812, f. 3a:19, YA II 812, f. 3b:8: al-mus.annif rah. imahu llāh; YA II 1214, ff. 13a:13, 52b:13: qāla al-mus.annif fī badʿ. tas.ānīfihi; YA II 1214, f. 93a:17: min kutub al-mus.annif; YA II 1214, ff. 153a:7, 153b:11, 156b:16: al-Shaykh rah. imahu llāh.

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39. RNL Firk. YA II 1214, f. 156b, margin: s.āh. ib al-Mat.āli ʿ rah. imahu llāh; YA II 1214, f. 158a:9: kamā fassarahu Shams al-Dīn al-Is.fahānī fī Sharh. al-Mat.āli .ʿ

40. RNL Firk. YA II 1214, ff. 7a:4, 17a:16, 21b:18, 27b:10, 44a:7, 11, 55a:4, 66a:12, 67b:5, 81a:14, 82a:4, 88a:12, 95b:4, 98a:13, 109a:2, 165a:13: al-mant.iqiyyūn; YA II 1214, f. 11b:8: jumhūr al-mant.iqiyyīn; YA II 1214, f. 42b:7: jamā ʿa min al-mant.iqiyyīn; YA II 1214, f. 36a:9–10, f. 91b:15–16: badʿ. min al-mant.iqiyyīn; YA II 1214, f.37a:10-11: ʿulamā ʾ hādhā l-fann; YA II 1214, f. 152b:9, f. 158a:19: al- ʿuqalā ;ʾ YA II 1214, f. 95b:16: al-fuqahā ;ʾ YA II 1214, f. 156b:12: al-a iʾmma; YA II 1214, ff. 19b:6, 20a:5, 35a:18, 62a:5, 85b:8, 86a:14, 18, 86b:19: al-muta aʾkhkhirūn; YA II 1214, f. 11b:13: al-muh. aqqiqūn min al-muta aʾkhkhirīn; YA II 1214, f. 140b:19: jamā ʿa min al-muta aʾkhkhirīn; YA II 1214, ff. 19b:8, 138b:4: al-mutaqaddimūn; YA II 1214, ff. 19a:16, 140b:10, 154b:3: al-qudamā ;ʾ YA II 1214, f. 23b:9: jamā ʿa min al-qudamā ;ʾ YA II 1214, ff. 29a:16, 140b:14, 151a:1, 157a:5, 6, 8: al-h. ukamā ;ʾ YA II 1214, f. 156b:16: al-h. ukamā ʾ min al-mutaqaddimīn; YA II 1214, ff. 46b:9, 669a:17: jumhūr al-h. ukamā ;ʾ YA II 1214, f. 130b:5: ʿalā madhhab badʿ. al-h. ukamā ;ʾ YA II 1214, f. 46b:11: āʿmmat al-mutakallimīn; YA II 1214, f. 35a:3: jamā ʿa min al-nās; YA II 1214, f. 115b:17-18: wa-l-h. ukamā ʾ wa-l- ʿulamā ʾ wa-l- iʿbād.

41. This certainly applies to early fourteenth-century Cairo. Most of them are included by Ibn al-Akfānī in his Irshād al-qās.id ilā asnā al-maqās.id; see Jan Just Witkam, De egyp-tische arts Ibn al-Akfānī (gest. 749/1348) en zijn indeling van de wetenschappen (Leiden: Ter Lugt Pers, 1989), 27–29 (Arabic text). Interestingly enough, al-Qalqashandī (d. 821/1418), who offers a comparable vademecum of canonical works in a variety of disci-plines in his S.ubh. al-aʿshā about two generations later, does not include a section on logic. See Gaston Wiet, “Les classiques du scribe egyptien au XVe siècle,” Studia Islamica 18 (1963): 41–80.

42. RNL Firk. YA II 1214, f. 84a:8: qāla badʿ. al-afād. il; YA II 1214, f. 129b:12: hākadhā dhakara badʿ. al-fud. alā’.

43. I am grateful to Khaled El-Rouayheb for having drawn my attention to this text. An apparently unique copy of this text is preserved in MS Yale (Beinecke) Landberg 103. Ibn Wās.il’s Nukhbat al-fikar is included by Ibn al-Akfānī among the medium-sized works (al-mutawassit.a) in logic, see Witkam, De egyptische arts, 29 (Arabic text).

44. Fenton (“Literary Legacy,” 2–17) has tentatively identified remnants of 17 dif-ferent works of David ben Joshua. Additions to this list are given in his “Mystical Commentary,” 588–89 (Appendix he).

45. See Fenton, “Literary Legacy,” 8–9, no. 2. See also Fenton, “A Judaeo-Arabic Commentary on Maimonides’ Mišnē Tōrā by Rabbi David Ben Joshua Maimonides (ca. 1335–1414)” [Hebrew], in Heritage and Innovation in Medieval Judaeo-Arabic Culture: Proceedings of the Sixth Conference of the Society for Judaeo-Arabic Studies, ed. Joshua Blau and David Doron (Ramat Gan: Universit.at Bar-Ilan, 2000), 145–60.—See also Gregor Schwarb, “ʿAlī ibn T. aybughā’s (d. 793/1391) Commentary on Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah, Sefer ha-Madda ,ʿ Hilkhot Yesodei ha-Torah I–IV: A Philosophical ‘Encyclopaedia’ of the 14th Century,” in Proceedings of the International Conference “Bridging the Worlds of Islam and Judaism,” Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, January 2–4, 2006 (Los Angeles, [in press]), passim.

46. See Fenton, “Literary Legacy,” 2ff., no 1.47. This work was first analyzed in detail (on the basis of the Bodleian MS Or. Hunt.

382) by Franz Rosenthal, “A Judaeo-Arabic Work under S.ûfic Influence,” Hebrew Union College Annual 15 (1940): 433–84. Fenton has published an edition of the text and established David’s authorship, see David b. Joshua L. Abraham Maimonides, al-Murshid ilā l-tafarrud wa-l-murfid ilā al-tajarrud . . . [yotse le-or ’al yede], Yosef Yinon (Jerusalem: Mek. itse nirdamim, 747/[1986 or 1987]), and a translation into French, Deux traités de mystique juive: ʿObadyah b. Abraham b. Moïse Maïmonide (Le traité du puits �


al-Maqâla al-H. awd. iyya), David b. Josué, dernier des Maïmonide (Le guide du détachement � al-Murs id ilä t-Tafarrud), traduit du judéo-arabe, introduit et annoté ([Lagrasse]: Verdier, 1987). See also Fenton, “Literary Legacy,” 16, no. 10.

48. Cf. Fenton, “Literary Legacy,” 34, no. 39.49. Cf. Rosenthal, “A Judaeo-Arabic Work,” 441; Fenton, “Literary Legacy,” 36–37,

no. 45.50. See Reza Pourjavady and Sabine Schmidtke, A Jewish Philosopher of Baghdad: Iʿzz al-

Dawla Ibn Kammūna (d. 683/1284) and His Writings (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 56.51. See Pourjavady and Schmidtke, A Jewish Philosopher, 56.—That both Ibn Kammūna’s

al-Jadīd fī l-h. ikma and his Sharh. al-Talwīh. āt were well known in fourteenth-century Egypt is also attested by Ibn al-Akfānī in his Irshād al-qās.id; see Witkam, De egyptische arts, 29 (Arabic text).

52. Rosenthal, “A Judaeo-Arabic Work,” 441; Fenton, “Literary Legacy,” 32, no. 34.53. See Fenton, “Literary Legacy,” 35, no. 43.54. See Rosenthal, “A Judaeo-Arabic Work”; Fenton, “Literary Legacy,” 30–38.55. See above, note 22. See also Fenton, “Literary Legacy,” 33, no. 38, 37, no. 46.56. Virtually all marginal notes are corrections, or rather additions, to the text itself, the

majority of which is confirmed at the end as s.ah. [īh. ] ( ). The following pages have marginal additions that are concluded with : RNL Firk. YA II 1214, ff. 21a, 28a, 30b, 40a, 46a, 65a, 73a, 85b, 93b, 103b (?), 131b (?), 139a, 144a, 156a, 156b, 157b. The following pages have marginal additions without being concluded by : YA II 1214, ff. 5b, 6b, 13a, 23a, 27a, 49a, 91a, 134b, 153b, 162b.—Cf. for comparison Maimonidis Commentarius in Mischnam, vol. 1, plate xv.

57. See also the editor’s introduction to Maimonidis Commentarius in Mischnam, 1:36–37, plates xv, xvi, and Fenton, “Mystical Commentary,” 587, for examples of other texts.

58. In his “Literary Legacy,” 19, Fenton lists two fragments of the commentary, viz. RNL Firk. YA II 812 and YA II 835, describing them as part of “a commentary on an as yet unidentified philosophical work on definitions.” His inclusion of the fragment as no. 16 in his list of works by David ben Joshua suggests that he assumes David to have been its author. In his “Mystical Commentary,” 586, no. 10, Fenton lists all five manuscripts as fragments of “Najm al-Dīn al-Qazwīnī, al-Qawāʿid al-jāliyya [sic] fī sharh. al-risāla al-shamsiyya.”—In the online catalog of the Israel National Library, YA II 1214 is likewise misidentified as “al-Qawāʿid al-jaliyya fī sharh. al-risāla: anonymous commentary on al-Risāla al-shamsiyya fī l-qawāʿid al-mant.iqiyya of Najm al-Dīn al-Qazwīnī al-Kātibī (student of Nas.īr al-Dīn al-T. ūsī).” See http://aleph518.huji.ac.il/F/TIEHN4QUU1M9DME3REC8NP28JYJQUD4PQ1QYUHNKAM6X29GFKR-11008?func�find-acc&acc_sequence�002678378 [accessed May 12, 2009].

59. The present writer is currently preparing a critical edition of the extant parts of the commentary.

60. * . . . ** The entire passage is taken from Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Mulakhhas., 200:3–6: : : : .

. 61. . : . . . 62. * . . . ** The wording of this passage is mostly identical with Qut.b al-Dīn al-Rāzī,

Tah. rīr, 133:6–11: :

: « » :

« » « » « » « » : « » . « » « » « » « » :

Sabine Schmidtke216

63. * . . . ** This passage is mostly identical with Qut.b al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Tah. rīr, 133:22–134:3: « » « » : « » « » « » « » : .

64. * . . . ** This passage is mostly identical with Qut.b al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Tah. rīr, 134:3–8: . : .

65. * . . . ** This passage is similar to Qut.b al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Tah. rīr, 134:22–135:3: : .

66. * . . . ** This passage is mostly identical with Qut.b al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Tah. rīr, 135:8–12: « » « » : « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » : . « » « » « » « »

67. * . . . ** This passage is mostly identical with Qut.b al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Tah. rīr, 135:12–20: . « » « » « » « » « » « » . « » « » « » : « » : « » « » « » « » « » : « » « » « » : « » « » « » . « » « »

68. * . . . ** This passage is mostly identical with Qut.b al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Tah. rīr, 135:29–136:3: « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » . « » . « » « » « » . « » « »

69. * . . . ** This passage is identical with Qut.b al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Tah. rīr, 136:3–4: .

70. * . . . ** This passage is identical with Qut.b al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Tah. rīr, 136:6–7: .

71. * . . . ** This passage is closely related to Qut.b al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Tah. rīr, 136:19–28: « » « » « » « » « » « » « »


« » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » . « » « » « » « » « » « » . » « » . « » « » « » « » . « »

72. * . . . ** This passage is closely related to Qut.b al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Tah. rīr, 136:28–29: « » « » « » . . . « » « »

73. The quotation is taken from Qut.b al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Tah. rīr, 136:31–33: « » « » « » : « ».

74. * . . . ** This passage is clearly related to Qut.b al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Tah. rīr, 137:4–5: « » « » « » « » « « » « » « » « » « » « » « » .

75. * . . . ** This passage is closely related to Qut.b al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Tah. rīr, 137:5–7: « » » » « » » » : » » « » « » . « » » » . « »

76. * . . . ** This passage is closely related to Qut.b al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Tah. rīr, 137:7–13: « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » : « » « » « » « » : . « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » . « » « » « » « » « » « » .

Appendix I

The tentative order of the texts is given in the following table. The following abbre-viations have been used: “||” signifies interruptions of text; “-” signifies that the text continues from one leaf to the next; and references in square brackets introduced by “K” identify quotations from al-Kātibī’s al-Shamsiyya in the commentary according to the edition by Mahdī Fad. l Allāh (Beirut: al-Markaz al-Thaqāfī al-ʿArabī, 1998). The respective units of the original text are indicated using the following abbrevia-tions: “M1” � al-maqāla al-ūlā, “M2” � al-maqāla al-thāniya, “M3” � al-maqāla al-thālitha; “F” � fas.l; and “B” � bah. th. If no specific manuscript is mentioned, the folio number refers to YA II 1214. For the remaining four manuscripts, the respective shelfmark is given. As far as preserved and legible, the first word of each fragment will be indicated, as well as the custodian indicated on the lower margin of the last verso page of a fragment.

Sabine Schmidtke218

Fragment i (khut.ba, muqaddima, M1) (� al-H. illī, Qawā iʿd, 179–196:14):1b (1a is blank) [� K 203:1–12]-2 [� K 203:12–204:3]-140 [→ K 204:4–7]-151 [→ K 204:8–9]-152 [→ K 204:10, K 204:10–13, K 204:14]-141 [→ K 204:14, K 204:14–16]-3 [→ K 204:17–24]-4 [→ K 204:25–205:3]-167 [� K 205:4–11 (� M1)]-168 ( )||

*****

Fragment ii (muqaddima):( ) 153-154 [→ K 204:6] ( )||Fragment iii (muqaddima):( ) 155-156 [→ K 204:7]-157 [→ K 204:8]-158-YA II 812:3b/a [→ K 204:9; K 204:10] ( )||Fragment iv (muqaddima):( ) 132 ( )||Fragment v (muqaddima):( / ) 133 [→ K 204:17 (� muqaddima, B2)]||Fragment vi (M1, F2):159 [→ K 207:5]||Fragment vii (M1, F2):160 [→ K 207:21] ( )||Fragment viii (M1, F2):( ) 129 [→ K 207:26] ( )||Fragment ix (M1, F2/F3):( ) 130 [→ K 208:12 (� M1, F3)]-131 [→ K 208:18; K 208:21]-46 ( )||Fragment x (M1, F3):( ) 134 [→ K 209:4] ( )||Fragment xi (M1, F3):( ) 5 [→ K 209:11-12]-6 [→ K 209:15] ( )||Fragment xii (M1, F3):( / ) 135 [→ K 209:20–21]-136 [→ K 209:24]-45 ( )||Fragment xiii (M1, F3/F4):( ) YA II 835:72 [→ K 210:4]-139 [→ K 210:8; K 210:11]-11 [→ K 210:16]-25 [→ K 210:19–20]-26 [→ K 210:22 (� M1, F4)]-47-142 [→ K 210:24]-YA II 835:73 ( )||Fragment xiv (M1, F4 / M2):( ) 55 [→ K 211:4]-56-57 [→ K 211:12 (� M2)] ( )||Fragment xv (M2):( ) 58-59 [→ K 211:17–19]-60 ( )||Fragment xvi (M2 / M2, F1 / M2, F1, B1):( ) 43 [→ K 211:22 (� M2, F1)]-49-67-68 [→ K 212:4–5; K 212:9] (?)||


Fragment xvii (M2, F1, B1/B2):( ) 61 [→ K 212:18]-62-48 [→ K 212:21]-44 [→ K 212:23 (M2, F1, B2)] ( )||Fragment xviii (M2, F1, B2):( ) 24 ( )||Fragment xix (M2, F1, B2):( ) 52-53 [→ K 213:1] ( )||Fragment xx (M2, F1, B2):( ) 23 [→ K 213:10]-22 [→ K 213:13] ( )||Fragment xxi (M2, F1, B4):( ) YA II 2396:2 [→ K 213:21 (� M2, F1, B4)]-97-[one folio missing]-42 [→ K 214:2]-41-30 [→ K 214:6–8]-98 [→ K 214:9]-YA II 2396:1 [→ K 214:13] ( )||Fragment xxii (M2, F1, B4):( ) 35 [→ K 214:18]-36 [→ K 214:21]-165 [→ K 215:1]-31-32 [→ K 215:5]-33 [→ K 215:10]-34 [→ K 215:13] ( )||Fragment xxiii (M2, F1, B4 / M2, F2):( ) 37 [→ K 215:20]-38 [→ K 215:26]-39 [→ K 216:3-ilā ākhir al-fas.l (� M2, end of F1)] ( )||Fragment xxiv (M2, F2):( ) 143 ( )||Fragment xxv (M2, F2):( ) 161 [→ K 216:12]-162-163-164 ( )||Fragment xxvi (M2, F2):( ) 40 [→ K 216:26]-149 ( )||Fragment xxvii (M2, F2):( ) 144-147 [→ K 217:10]-148-145 [→ K 217:12]-146 [→ K 217:19] ( / )||Fragment xxviii (M2, F3, B1):( ) 150-29 [→ K 218:5] ( )||Fragment xxix (M2, F3, B1):( [ ]) 7 [→ K 218:10]-8 [→ K 218:12]-9-10-YA II 846:46 ( )||Fragment xxx (M2, F3, B1/B2):( ) 12-13-14 [→ K 219:3]-15 [→ K 219:5 (� M2, F3, B2)]-16-17 [→ K 219:7]-18-19 [→ K 219:14]-20-21 [→ K 219:19] ( )||Fragment xxxi (M2, F3, B2/B3/B4/M3, F1):( ) 77 [→ K 220:2]-78 [→ K 220:9]-79 [→ K 220:14; K 220:20]-80 [→ K 221:2]-81 [→ K 221:5–6]-82 [→ K 221:7]-83 [→ K 221:11]-84-85 [→ K 221:16 (� M2, F3, B3)]-86 [→ K 221:19]-87 [→ K 221:21; K 221:26]-88 [→ K 222:4; K 222:10]-89 [→ K 222:21]-90 [→ K 222:22]-91 [→ K 222:27; K 223:4]-92-93 [→ K 223:6 (� M2, F3, B4)]-94-95 [→ K 223:13 (� M3)]-96 ( )||

Sabine Schmidtke220

Fragment xxxii (M3, F1):( ) 69 [→ K 223:17; K 223:22]-70-71 [→ K 224:6]-72-73 [→ K 224:16]-74 [→ K 224:18]-75-76 ( )||Fragment xxxiii (M3, F1/F2):( ) 50-137-27 [→ K 225:22]-63-64 [→ K 225:24]-65-66-28 [→ K 226:13]-138 [→ K 226:17]-51 [→ K 226:21 (� M3, F2)]-(?)99-100 [→ K 226:26]-101-102 [→ K 227:2]-103-104-(?)105 [→ K 227:4–5]-106||Fragment xxxiv (M3, F2/F3):( ) 119 [→ K 227:10; K 227:10]-120 [→ K 227:11]-121 [→ K 227:13]-122 [→ 277:15]-123-124 [→ K 227:16 (?); K 227:18; K 227:19]-125 [→ K 227:19; K 227:21 (� M3, F3)]-126-127-128 [→ K 228:11] ( )||Fragment xxxv (M3, F3/F4/F5/Khātima, B1/B2):( ) 107-108 [→ K 229:11 (� M3, F4)]-109 [→ K 229:16]-110 [→ K 229:23 (� M3 F5)]-111 [→ K230:10; K 230:14]-112 [→ K 230:14 (� Khātima)]-113-114 [→ K 231:13]-115-116-117-118 [→ K 233:2 (� Khātima, B2)] ( )||Fragment xxxvii (M3):( ) 54 ( )||

Fragment i suggests that the regular size of a quire of David ben Joshua’s copy of al-H. illī’s Qawā iʿd was eight leaves (⊗ signifying the middle of a quire):

1-2-140-151 ⊗ 152-141-3-4

This suggests that the following two leaves constituted the first two folios of a second quire of (at least) eight leaves:

167-168 . . .

*****

The following fragments (abbreviated as F in the following) suggest that quires of ten leaves were a regular physical unit of the copy of the second anonymous commentary on the Shamsiyya:

46-[one leaf missing]-134-[one leaf missing]-5 ⊗ 6-[one leaf missing]-135-136-45 (� last leaf of Fix-xi)43-49-67-68 [one leaf missing] ⊗ [one leaf missing] 61-62-48-44 (� Fxvi-xvii)50-137-27-63-64 ⊗ 65-66-28-138-51 (Fxxxiii)

This is also suggested by Fxxx:12-13-14-15-16 [⊗] 17-18-19-20-21

And likewise by Fxxxiv:119-120-121-122-123 [⊗] 124-125-126-127-128

Moreover, Fxxxi consists of 19 consecutive leaves. These possibly constitute two quires of ten leaves, each with one leaf missing, either at the beginning of the first quire or at the end of the second quire:

77-78-79-80-81-82-83-84-85-86-87-88-89-90-91-92-93-94-95


A number of fragments suggest that some quires consisted perhaps of only eight leaves:

YA II 835:72-139-11-25 ⊗ 26-47-142-YA II 835:73 (Fxiii)YA II 2396:2-97-[one leaf missing]-41 ⊗ 42-30-98-YA II 2398:1 (Fxxi)

The physical characteristics of an original quire of at least six leaves that are partly preserved in Fxxvii are as follows:

[one folio missing]-144-147 ⊗ 148-145-146

*****

Appendix II

By way of example, the text of Maqāla 2, Fas.l 3, Bah. th 3 (ff. 85a:19–93a:19) is given here in Arabic characters so as to make it more accessible to students of the Muslim tradition of logic, although David ben Joshua invariably wrote Arabic in Hebrew characters.

* : [ 85] : : : : . 60.** : . 61 ‡..‡. . [ 86] [ ] [ *] . [ ] : [ : ] : . [ ] « » « » : « » « » : « » « » « » « » : « » « » : * . .62** « » « » « » . ‡ . . . ‡ 63** [ 86] * : .64**

.

Sabine Schmidtke222

* : : [ 87] . :

.65**

« » « » * : : [ 87] « » « » « » ‡ . . . ‡ ‡ . . . ‡ . . . « » ‡ . . . ‡ ‡ . . . ‡ [ ] ‡ . . . ‡ ‡ . . . ‡

.

* : : « » « » « » « » « » « » [ 88] « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » : 66.** « » « » « » [« »] « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » : « » . .

. :

* : : ‡ . . . ‡ [ ] [ 88] ‡ . . . ‡ « » « » ‡ . . . ‡ « » « » ‡ . . . ‡ « » « » : ‡ . . . ‡ « » « » : « » « » [ ] 67.** « » « »

.

: : [ 89] * « » « » [ ] « » [« » « » ] « » « » : « » [ ] « » « » « » « » « » « » « » . « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » . « » « »


« » « » « » * 68.** * 69** [ 89] 70 **‡ . . . ‡ ‡ . . . ‡ ‡ . . . ‡ ‡ . . . ‡

.

: : . ‡..‡. [ 90] : . [ ] . ‡ . . . ‡ : . ‡ . . . ‡ [ 90] . ‡ . . . ‡ ‡ . . . ‡ ‡ . . . ‡ .

* : : : « » « » « » : « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » .« » « » « » ‡ . . . ‡ « » « » [ 91] . ‡ . . . ‡ .71** ‡ . . . ‡ « » « »

. ‡ . . . ‡

[ ] * : : : 72** « » « » : : « » « » « » « » . « » « » « » : « » « » : « » « » « » « » « » « » « » < > [ 91] : * . « » « » : : 73.**

.

Sabine Schmidtke224

: : * . : ‡ . . . ‡ « » « » : ‡ . . . ‡ [ 92] ‡ . . . ‡ « » « » [ ] : [ ] « » « » « » « » « » ‡ . . . ‡ « » « » « » : .74** « » « » « » : « » « » : « » « » « » « » « » : « » « » « » « » : * « » « » ‡ . . . ‡ « » « » [ 92] ‡ . . . ‡ ‡ . . . ‡ 75** ‡ . . . ‡ ‡ . . . ‡ : : : : : : * . « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » : « » « » ‡ . . . ‡ ‡ . . . ‡ ‡ . . . ‡ [ 93] « » « » ‡ . . . ‡ : « » « » ‡ . . . ‡ : . « » « » : « » : . « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » « » . « » « » « » « » « » « » 76**

.

Figure 11.1 Plate I: MS Firkovitch Yevr.-Arab. II 812, f. 7b.

Figure 11.2 Plate II: MS Firkovitch Yevr.-Arab. II 812, f. 7a.

Chapter 12

Logic in the Khayrabadı School of India: A Preliminary Exploration

Asad Q. Ahmed

taqdım be ostad-e ‘azız

—Hossein Modarressi

This chapter presents, in an exploratory fashion, the history of Arabo-Islamic logic in India 1 between the tenth/sixteenth and fourteenth/twentieth centuries, with spe-cial focus on the formation of the Khayrābādī School in this discipline. Given its exploratory nature, the chapter does not promote any thesis that elaborates on the causes behind historical developments; however, it does point out that the study of logic passed through India in four distinct stages via Multān, Delhi, Lahore, the Awadh (generally), and Tonk. The aim of the chapter is simply to chart the trajec-tory of the scholars and works associated with logical studies in the specified period and region, so as to lay the groundwork for further technical research in Arabo-Islamic logical texts of the subcontinent.

From Ghiyath al-Dīn Mans.ur (d. 949/1542) to Muh. ammad A‘lam Sandīlawī (d. 1197/1783):

Writing and Teaching Logic in India

Our sources are generally silent about the place of logic in any formal or semiformal curriculum of India before the end of the ninth/fifteenth century. It appears that, until that period, the elementary stage of studies included the Qur’ān, and gener-ally some short works on grammar and Islamic law ( fiqh ). This was followed in the second stage with reinforcements in fiqh and training in principles of jurisprudence

Asad Q. Ahmed228

( us.ūl al - fiqh ) and Qur’ānic exegesis ( tafsīr ). There was some exposure to rhetoric and literary works as well. At the end of these studies, the scholar was granted the title fād. il. 2

Stage One

It was very likely with the educational reforms introduced in the reign of the Lōdhīs (r. 855/1451–932/1526), in particular during the period of Sikandar Lōdhī (r. 894/1489–923/1517), that logic came to assume an increasingly important place in scholarly training. 3 We are told by Badāyūnī that just before this period the Sharh. al-shamsiyya of Tah. tānī was the only logic work read in the region. But these reports pertain to a semiformal or formal curriculum and are certainly not meant to imply that additional logical works were not studied in informal settings. In fact Badāyūnī and other sources inform us that leading logicians had come to settle in different parts of India, often under elite patron-age, and were known to teach logic there; it is, however, unclear what exactly they taught. 4

Within the formal curriculum, it appears that the study of logic spread at the hands of two scholars from Multān, 5 one of the leading cultural centers of the Indian subcontinent in the tenth/sixteenth century. These two, ‘Abdallāh al-Tulanbī 6 (d. 922/1516–17) and ‘Azīzallāh al-Tulanbī (d. 976/1568), 7 had fled Multān to escape political unrest; the former settled in Delhi under the patronage of Sikandar Lōdhī and the latter in Sanbhal. 8 And it is in these two regions and under the aegis of these two scholars that logical works found a new position in the curriculum. ‘Abdallāh al-Tulanbī is reported as a student of ‘Abdallāh al-Yazdī (d. 982/1574 or 1015/1606), a scholar in the line of Dawānī and best known in India as a com-mentator on Taftāzānī’s (d. 791/1389) Tahdhīb al-mant.iq. 9 It is also claimed that the intellectual lineage of these scholars can be traced to al-Sayyid Sharīf al-Jurjānī (d. 816/1413), a rival of Taftāzānī in Tīmūr’s court. 10 The lineage to Jurjānī is traced via a certain Samā’ al-Dīn (d. 901/1496), another rationalist scholar of Multān, who had left the region at around the same time and who also spent the last years of his life in Delhi. 11 In view of these details, it can be speculated that at least the Mat.āli‘ of Urmawī 12 (d. 682 or 691/1283 or 1293) and perhaps also Tah. tānī’s Sharh. Mat.āli‘ and Taftāzānī’s Tahdhīb were introduced in the curricu-lum at this time. In addition, during this same period, students of the logician Dawānī, such as ‘Imād al-Dīn al-Tārimī (d. 941/1534), Abū al-Fad. l Gādhrawnī, and Abū al-Fad. l al-Astarābādī, were also spreading the rationalist sciences in India; it is fair to assume that they brought some of their master’s works to the notice of Indian scholars. 13

Thus, already at the beginning of the tenth/sixteenth century, three logical traditions, incorporated increasingly in the emerging formal curriculum, were very likely accessible to scholars in India, especially in Multān and then in Delhi: that of Kātibī’s Shamsiyya, Urmawī’s Mat.āli‘, and Taftāzānī’s Tahdhīb. It is worth stressing that the first two were delivered through the commentatorial line of

Logic in the Khayrabad I School of India 229

Tah. tānī, Jurjānī, and the latter’s intellectual grandchild Dawānī, and that the tradition of Taftāzānī was represented by the commentary of Yazdī. Later, both the Kātibī and Taftāzānī traditions were also perpetuated in India via the mas-sive commentatorial weight of Mīr Zāhid al-Harawī 14 (d. 1100/1689), a student of Mīrzā Jān al-Shīrāzī (d. 993/1585); 15 but within the curricula, Harawī’s influ-ence seems to have remained rather limited. As I will note here, much of the history of logical training and output in India—both in terms of commentar-ies and otherwise original works—falls in line with these two main divisions of Tah. tānī/Jurjānī/Dawānī and Yazdī/Harawī. In the eleventh/seventeenth cen-tury, a major scholar associated with Farangī Mah. all (to be discussed later), Muh. ibballāh al-Bihārī (d. 1119/1707), who also traced his lineage to the Shīrāzī tradition, wrote a logical work called Sullam al-‘ulūm. This heavily commented-upon work was incorporated into some Indian curricula as well.

Stage Two

The foundation for the study and development of logic was firmly in place by the time Lōdhī rule came to an end, and it is on this base that the scholars of the Mughal period built with accelerated speed. Though the scholars of this first f lowering in the Lōdhī era had certainly created a rationalist scholarly milieu, they had failed to leave behind either a viable legacy of scholarly networks or a standard curriculum in India. Thus, the long history of logic in India that culminates with the Khayrābādīs actually traces its origins not to the Multānī scholars mentioned earlier, but to the direct influence of Shīrāz and, more specifically, to the Shīrāzī scholar Ghiyāth al-Dīn Mans.ūr (d. 949/1542). 16 It is through his disciples that the work of the earlier period was carried further. 17

Ghiyāth al-Dīn 18 was the son of S. adr al-Dīn Shīrāzī (d. 903/1498), 19 who was a known opponent of Dawānī in logical and philosophical matters. As a represen-tative of his father’s tradition, Ghiyāth al-Dīn had posthumously acquired great scholarly renown during the reign of the emperor Akbar (r. 963/1556–1014/1605). It is reported that when the latter heard that Ghiyāth al-Dīn’s celebrated student Fath. allāh Shīrāzī (d. 997/1589) was in Bījāpūr, he dispatched requests for the lat-ter’s arrival at his court; and thus began the first phase of formal incorporation of the rationalist scholarly tradition in India. 20 From this point on and until the end of the thirteenth/nineteenth century, most of the leading rationalist scholars in the line of Ghiyāth al-Dīn received substantial institutional backing, often in the form of political appointments, private grants, and charitable endowments. And this allowed them to carry on their scholarly work and to subsidize large numbers of students. 21

We are told that Fath. allāh Shīrāzī taught the works of later scholars of Iran and Khurāsān (e.g., Dawānī) to his students and that the rationalist tradition came to dominate at his time. 22 It was perhaps through his efforts also that the gloss of the aforementioned Mīrzā Jān Shīrāzī on the Kitāb al-muh. ākama bayna ’ l-Imām wa-’ l-Nas.īr of Tah. tānī, a commentary on the celebrated dispute tradition

Asad Q. Ahmed230

of Ishārāt of Avicenna, 23 and Dawānī’s Mullā Jalāl, a commentary on Taftāzānī’s Tahdhīb, also began to be studied. 24 In the field of logic, Fath. allāh Shīrāzī had authored the Takmila-yi h. āshiya-yi Dawānī bar Tahdhīb al-Mant. iq and a super-gloss on this gloss of Dawānī on Taftāzānī. 25 Perhaps this work was also included informally in his teaching circle, though we have no report to this effect; since the work does not survive, it is also impossible to say whether it promoted the position of Dawānī or of his Shīrāzī rivals. It appears that within the next hun-dred years, the logic sections of the Shifā’ and Ishārāt of Avicenna were also being studied in some circles. 26 But this is no guarantee that these were included in any emerging formal curricula. In fact the evidence suggests that, despite these transformations and the enviable institutional backing these scholars received, logic had not yet become part of a pedagogical canon.

Stage Three

The impetus to canonize seems to have come from the emergence of a center of rationalism in Lahore. Our sources inform us that a number of logicians who traced their intellectual lineage to Shīrāz had begun to spread the study of rationalist sci-ences in the former city even before this period. 27 Indeed, some of these scholars had studied in the tradition associated with Fath. allāh Shīrāzī. Direct descendants of the latter and of Dawānī and students of Mīrzā Jān Shīrāzī, such as Mīr Zāhid Harawī, also began to migrate in large numbers to this region during Akbar’s reign (r. 963/1556–1014/1605); by the time of Jahāngīr (r. 1014–36/1605–27), a firm cultural and political contiguity of Lahore and Kabul resulted in an even greater influx of such scholars into Lahore. 28 One of the leading students of Fath.allāh, who had already promoted logical learning among the elite and whose legacy was then officially sustained by the later Shī‘ite establishment of Awadh, was ‘Abd al-Salām Lāhūrī (d. 1037/1628). And one of his students, ‘Abd al-Salām Dēwī of Awadh (d. 1040/1630), 29 should rightly be considered the fountainhead of the heavy institu-tionalized learning of logic in India that began in earnest in this period. The rational-ist line proceeded to his students ‘Abd al-Qādir Fārūqī Lakhnawī (d. 1077/1666), 30 Shaykh Dāniyāl of Chawrasa, 31 and Mullā ‘Abd al-H. alīm, 32 all of whom taught Mullā Qut.b al-Dīn Sihālawī (d. 1102/1691). This latter was the figurehead of the famous rationalist Farangī Mah. allī family and the father and teacher of Mullā Niz. ām al-Dīn Sihālawī (d. 1153/1740), the founder of the longstanding South Asian curriculum, the Dars-i Niz. āmī. Mullā Niz. ām al-Dīn also studied with the ma‘qūlī students of his father, H. āfiz. Amānallāh Banārasī (d. 1132/1720) and Mullā Qut.b al-Dīn Shams Ābādī (d. 1121/1709) 33 ; the latter and Qut.b al-Dīn Sihālawī were both also the teachers of the famous Muh. ibballāh Bihārī (mentioned above), whose heavily commented-upon logic work Sullam al-‘ulūm was considered the most advanced logical text in the Dars-i Niz. āmī curriculum.

At the climax of a longstanding rationalist trend in India, Mullā Niz. ām al-Dīn Sihālawī canonized a curriculum that had a relatively high dose of logic. And given that the cultivation of this curriculum remained in many ways a family affair for


almost two hundred years, a rather large number of scholars within his genealogy produced commentaries and glosses on curricular logical works in their teaching circles. In addition, after the setting down and propagation of a standardized sys-tem, even those scholars who did not belong to the family line produced their own commentaries on the same logical works along the way. Often, in the course of their own teaching, they glossed the commentaries of their direct teachers on these logical works. It is in this fashion that, beginning in the first half of the twelfth/ eighteenth century, one notices two rather interesting phenomena: an explosion of logical works in the form of commentaries and glosses in Awadh and Bihār and the emergence of logical schools shaped by the curricular commentary lines. In the eleventh/seventeenth century, the study of logic had firmly moved from Delhi and Lahore to Awadh and Bihār. It was now also standardized. 34

Summary Observations I

At this stage of the presentation, the first stemma of logicians and works that is found below should be helpful as a summary and the reader should consult it (Figure 12.1, Tree I). It shows that it was the Ghiyāth al-Dīn branch of the philos-ophers and logicians of Shīrāz that ultimately propagated logic in an institutional setting starting in the early twelfth/eighteenth century. It also demonstrates that, though they produced the later interpreters of the tradition—and this we will see more clearly in what is to follow of the case of Khayrābādī scholars—their few works on logic were not being studied from the tenth/sixteenth to the twelfth/eighteenth centuries. Finally, the stemma shows that the works of the two branches of Taftāzānī and Dawānī (together with those of their line) were in vogue, even among the members of the Ghiyāth al-Dīn line. Whether or not the Ghiyāth al-Dīn line taught the works of rival branches between the tenth/sixteenth and twelfth/eighteenth centuries is moot; but it is certainly the case that, starting in the twelfth/eighteenth century, the works of the disciples of both Dawānī and Taftāzānī were primarily canonized by the efforts of the rival Ghiyāth al-Dīn disciples. These works were made part of the pedagogical canon, studied, and commented through the efforts of this rival branch, whose major representative in India was the Farangī Mah. allī family. These developments are displayed in sum-mary form in the second stemma, which should now be consulted. 35

Summary Observations II

This second stemma (Figure 12.2, Tree II ) gives a sample of scholars of Farangī Mah.all and their logical works. It is not an exhaustive presentation of all the members of this family writing in the field of logic; for this one would have to mine through the massive bio-bibliographical source material (which certainly is a desideratum at this stage). Rather it lists the logical works that were commented and glossed most

Asad Q. Ahmed232

regularly and are most often cross-referenced in various logical texts in the Indian context. Despite the limitations of the sample size, the stemma does suggest some patterns:

1. Though the curriculum of Mullā Niz. ām al-Dīn Sihālawī had included 11 36 logic books, the Farangī Mah.allī scholars with very rare exceptions com-mented on only the Qut.biyya , Mullā Jalāl , and the Sullam al-‘ulūm .

1200s Tūsī (Tajrīd, Hall mushkilāt al-Ishārāt)

1300s Tahtānī (Sh. Shams, Risāla Qutbiyya, Lawāmi‘, Muhākama)

1Taftāzānī

1400s Jurjānī (gl./Kātī/Abharī, Sharh Qutbī, (Sh. Isāgh., Sh. Shams,gl./Lawāmi‘, Sughrā, Kubrā Tahdhīb al-mantiq,

? 1 Dābit intāj al-ashkāl)1

Sadr al-Dīn Shīrāzī Dawānī (gl./Jur/Tah/Shams, gl./Jur/Lawāmi‘,(gl./Jur/Tah/Shams) Sh. Tahd., Sh. Muhākamat Tah.)gl./Lawāmi‘)

Abū ‘l-Fadl ‘Imād al-Dīn Samā’ al-Dīn Jamāl al-Dīn Mahmūd1

Ghādrawnī Tārimī

1500s ?

Ghiyāth al-Dīn Shīrāzī Mīrzā Jān Shīrāzī ‘Abdallāh(gl./Jur/Tah/Shams, gl./Lawāmi‘, (Sh. Shams,

Fathallāh Shīrāzī(gl./Dawānī/Tahd.)

Tulanbīgl./Dawānī/Tahdh., ? gl./Jur/Lawāmi‘,

gl./Tahd.)Ta‘dīl al-mīzān)

1600s‘Abd al-SalāmLāhūrī(Sh. Tahd.)

‘Abdallāh Yazdī(gl./Jur/Tah/Shams, Sh. Tahd.)

‘Abd al-Salām Dēwī Mīr Zāhid Harawī(gl/Dawānī/Tahd., gl./Tah/Shams

Mullā Muhammad Yūsuf

‘AzīzallāhTulanbī2

Sh. Qutbiyya)

‘Abd al-Qādir Fārūqī Shaykh Dāniyāl Chawrasa ‘Abd al-Hakīm Siyālkōtī3

Lakhnawī (gl./Jur/Tah/Shams, gl./Jur/Lawāmi‘, gl./Tah/Shams.)

Qutb al-Dīn Sihālawī

Muhibballāh BihārīSullam al-‘ulūm

* In the following stemmata, dotted lines indicate indirect master-disciple links, dashed lines indicate father-son kinship links and solid linesindicate direct master-disciple links. The Arabic numerals next to the lines represent degree distance between two nodes. The thick horizontallines indicate scholarly rivalry. Shams is short for Kātibī’s Shamsiyya, Qutbiyya for Tahtānī’s original work on Tasawwur wa-tasdīq (i.e., it is not his commentary on the Shamsiyya). Lawāmi‘ is Tahtānī’s commentary on Urmawī’s Matāli‘. Sh. is short for Sharh, Tahd. for Taftāzānī’sTahdhīb, “gl./x/y” means gloss on x on y”, Jur is for Jurjānī, and Tah is for Tahtānī.1A gloss on Dawānī’s Hāshiya qadīma was written by him; but this is on Qūshjīי on Tūsī’s Tajrīd al-‘aqā’id. See Nuzha, 4:70.2Nuzha, 4:182.3Nuzha, 5:229–30. Robinson, ‘Ulama, 43, Malik, Gelehrtenkultur, 98.

(gl./Badī‘/Mīzān on Shams)

Figure 12.1 Tree I: Sample of Relevant Logicians and Logical Works from al-T. ūsī to the Farangī Mah.allīs.*


2. In the case of the first two, one mostly sees first-order glosses on Harawī’s commentaries on these works, but in the case of the third, most glosses fol-lowed either the supergloss of H. amdallāh or Mullā H. asan. Whether these two works had come to represent distinct interpretive schools of the Sullam can only be determined by means of concentrated studies of their contents

Qutb al-Dīn Sihālawī (d. 1691)4

1700sMullā Nizām al-Dīn (d. 1740) Mullā Sa‘īd Mullā As‘ad

Kamāl al-Dīn Fatehpūrī Sihālawī (d. 1761)5

Hamdallāh (d. 1747)6

Sh. Sullam (Hamdallāh) Mullā Hasan (d. 1794)7

Sh. Sullam (Mullā Hasan) 1

1 1

Ghulām Yahyā al-Bihārī (d. 1766)8 M. Asghar M. AkbarLiwā’ al-hudā fī l-layl wa-l-dujā9

Sharh Sullam bi-(sic) Hamdillāh Ahmad ‘Abd al-Haqq (d. 1773)10

Sharh Sullam, gl. Qutbiyyat Harawi, gl./Jalāl Har.M. Walī (d. 1784)11

1800s ‘Abd al-‘Alī Bahr al-‘Ulūm (d. 1810)12 Mullā Mubīn (d. 1810)13 Sharh Sullam, Sharh Sullam Bahr al-‘Ulūm ma‘a Munh. Sharh tasawwurāt al-Sullam gl./Qutbiyyat Harawī Sharh tasawwurāt Sullam, gl./on (Mullā Mubīn), Ma‘ārij al-‘ulūm gl./Mullā Jalāl Har. Sharh Qutbiyyat Harawī,14 gl./on Harawī/Dawānī/Taftāzānī, gl./Dābit al-Tahdhīb,Sharh Dābit

Mullā Haydar ‘Alī Sandīlawī (d. 1840)15 Zuhūrallāh (d.1840)16

Hāshiyat Hamdallāh, Risāla fī ‘l-mantiq gl./Qutbiyyat Harawī, gl./Mullā Jalāl Harawī

Walīallāh (d. 1853)17

Takmilat Mullā Hasan, Muhammad Yūsuf (d. 1870)18 ‘Abd al-Halīm (d. 1868)19

Takmilat Sharh Sullam Hāshiyat Sharh Sullam Qādī, gl./Mullā Hasan, Ta‘liqāt ‘Abd al-Haqq, 3 gl./on Hāshiyat Mullā Hasan kashf al-maktūm, gl. Mullā Qutbiyyat Harawī, gl./Mullā Jalāl Harawī 20

Jalāl HarawīAbd al-Hakīm (d. 1871)21

Sharh Sullam Hamdallāh, ‘Abd al-Hayy Lakhnawī (d. 1886)22

gl./Mullā Jalāl Harawī Hidāyat al-hudā, Misbāh al-dujā fi liwā’ al-hudā, ‘Ilm al-hudā,23

al-Ta‘līq al-‘ajīb bi-hall Hāshiyat Jalāl, Hāshiyat Badī‘ al-Zamān24

4 It is reported that most of his works were consumed in the fire following his murder. 5 Son of Muhammad Dawlat Sihālawī and not in the Farangī Mahall family, but the brother of Nizām al-Dīn Sihālawī’s nephew’s (Qādī Ghulām

Mustafā’s) wife. 6 Established a madrasa in Sandīla, for which he received a madad-i ma‘āsh from the emperor. 7 Son of Qādī Ghulām Mustafā b. Mullā As‘ad b. Qutb al-Dīn Sihālawī. 8 Hamdallāh had started a madrasa in Sandīla, very likely called the Mansūriyya. It is here that Ghulām Mustafā studied. Nuzha, 6:223.9 Gloss on Mīr Zāhid Risāla (i.e., on Zāhid on Tahtānī on Shamsiyya). 10 Nuzha, 6:32. Ahmad ‘Abd al-Haqq b. Muhammad Sa‘īd b. Qutb al-Dīn Sihālawī. 11 Nuzha, 6:372. He may in fact be the grandfather of Zuhūrallāh, whose own father may be Nūrallāh, mentioned in Nuzha as his father.12 Son of Mullā Nizām al-Dīn. Nuzha, 7:312ff. 13 Son of Muhibballāh b. Ahmad ‘Abd al-Haqq b. Mullā Sa‘īd b. Qutb al-Dīn Sihālawī. 14 Called Kashf al-maktūm. See Catalogue of Arabic Books in the British Museum, 307. 15 Son of Mullā Mubīn. He established the Dars-i Nizāmī in Hyderabad. See Nuzha, 7: 169–70. 16 Nuzha, 7:253: Zuhūrallāh b. Muhammad Walī b. Ghulām Mustafā b. Mullā As‘ad b. Qutb al-Dīn Sihālawī. Zuhūrallāh’s brother Nūrallāh is

said to have studied with ‘Abd al-Wājid Khayrābādī, on whom see below. It is also reported that he wrote glosses on the books of the curricula, but these are not listed. Nuzha, 7:567.

17Nuzha, 7:578–9. Walīallāh b. Habīballāh b. Muhibballāh b. Ahmad ‘Abd al-Haqq b. Mullā Sa‘īd b. Qutb al-Dīn Sihālawī. Walīallāh’s father, Habīballāh, had studied with his brother Mullā Mubīn and with the latter’s teacher Mullā Hasan. See Nuzha, 7:144-5.

18Nuzha, 7:586–7. Muhammad Yūsuf b. al-Muftī Asghar b. Abī al-Rahīm b. al-Muftī Ya‘qūb b. ‘Abd al-‘Azīz b. Mullā Sa‘īd b. Qutb al-Dīn Sihālawī. Muhammad Yūsuf also studied with his father.

19‘Abd al-Halīm b. Amīnallāh b. Muhammad Akbar b. ‘Abd al-Rahīm b. Muhammad Ya‘qūb b. ‘Abd al-‘Azīz b. Mullā Sa‘īd b. Qutb al-Dīn Sihālawī.

20 See Wisnovsky, “Scope,” 166.21 Nuzha, 7:562 (on his teacher), 5:273. 22 Son of ‘Abd al-Halīm b. Amīnallāh above. Nuzha, 7:250ff. 23 All these three are glosses on the gloss of Ghulām Yahyā on Harawī on Tahtānī on Shamsiyya. 24 This work was mentioned above as a commentary on a compendium on the Shamsiyya.

Figure 12.2 Tree II: Sample of Relevant Farangī Mah.allī Logicians and Logical Works.

Asad Q. Ahmed234

and of their related commentaries and glosses. Certainly, for the Khayrābādī tradition that I shall mention below, the Sullam was subjected to major com-mentatorial disputes. It is also unclear in which cases, when writing glosses on the works of another line, scholars tended to challenge interpretations to advance those of their own line. 37

3. This suggests that the other books were very likely either considered too intro-ductory to comment upon or not read at all. This latter possibility is further supported by popular reports that Niz. ām al-Dīn Sihālawī had not intended his curriculum to be so rigid as to require students to read every single text. In fact, he is said to have preferred teaching only the most difficult text or two, so that the students could then master the others by themselves.

4. And this means that the two commentaries of Harawī and, more so, the Sullam were part of a living logical tradition.

5 It is worth noting that pre-seventh/thirteenth century logicians were neither part of the curriculum nor commented upon. It is unclear whether they were being read as extracurricular works. 38

6. In addition, we notice that very few Farangī Mah.allīs seem to have produced noncommentatorial texts.

7. And finally, though this is not displayed in the stemma, it becomes increas-ingly difficult after the thirteenth/nineteenth century to find Farangī Mah.allīs commenting on logic works at all.

Stage Four: From A‘lam Sandīlawī (d. 1197/1783) to Mu‘īn al-Dīn Ajmīrī (d. 1359/1940)

So what happened to the teaching and writing of logic in India in the thirteenth/nineteenth century and onward? It appears that the legacy was taken up by another rationalist school—the Khayrābādiyya—which had begun to emerge as a distinct system in the mid-twelfth/eighteenth century. Its founder, Muh.ammad A‘lam b. Muh.ammad Shākir Sandīlawī, had studied with both Mullā Niz. ām al-Dīn Sihālawī and Mullā Kamāl al-Dīn Sihālawī (d. 1175/1761). He in turn taught his maternal nephew ‘Abd al-Wājid Khayrābādī (d. 1218/1803), who seems to have established a circle of study in Khayrābād that began to flourish as an independent regional system. 39 After the revolution of 1857, many of the leading scholars associated with it emigrated to Tonk in Rājasthān, where they benefited from royal patronage and continued to propagate the rationalist tradition. Below, I supply a stemma of some of the leading scholars of this tradition, along with a listing of some of their logical writings (Figure 12.3, Tree III ). This stemma should be consulted at this stage.

From the stemma it seems that the study of logic had been transformed for the Khayrābādīs in many ways:

1. In contrast to the scholars of Farangī Mah.all, for example, the first known author of the Khayrābādī tradition, Fad. l-i Imām Khayrābādī, not only epito-mized the Shifā’ of Avicenna, but also wrote an original work on logic, the


Mirqāt , which was incorporated into the Khayrābādī curriculum. His son, Fad. l-i H. aqq Khayrābādī, wrote a gloss on the epitome, while his grandson, ‘Abd al-H. aqq Khayrābādī, wrote a commentary on the Mirqāt . This was an exciting moment in the history of logical studies in India, as it appears to suggest that, after a rather long hiatus, the works of ancients were being read directly. 40 Moreover, a survey of the Mirqāt indicates that the discursive

Qutb al-Dīn Sihālawī

1700s Shihāb al-Dīn Gōpāmawī (d. ca. 1713) Qutb al-Dīn Shamsābādī (d. 1709)

Sifatallāh Khayrābādī (d. 1744)

Qādī Mubārak Gōpāmawī (d. 1749) Muhibballāh Bihārī (d. 1707)Sharh Sullam, Sullam al-‘ulūmgl./on Hāshiyat Mīr Zāhid

Nizām al-Dīn Sihālawī (d. 1740)

Muhammad A‘lam Sandīlawī (d. 1783)

‘Abd al-Wājid Khayrābādī (d. 1803)

1800s Fadl-i Imām Khayrābādī (d. 1828)25

al-Mirqāt, Talkhīs al-Shifā’, gl./Qutbiyyat Harawī, gl. Mullā Jalāl Harawī

Fadl-i Haqq Khayrābādī (d. 1861)26

gl./Talkhīs Shifā’ Fadl-i Imām, gl./Sullam Qādī Mubārak, Risāla fī tahqīq al-‘ilm wa-l-ma‘lūm, Kāfī li-hall Īsāghūjī27

‘Abd al-Haqq Khayrābādī (d. 1898)28 Muhammad Ahsan Gīlānī (d. 1884)Tashīl al-kāfiyya mu‘arrab min sharh al-kāfiyya jurjānī,29 Risāla-yi wujūd-i rābitī,gl./on Ghulām Yahyā on Qutbiyyat Harawī, gl. on Hamdallāh,gl./Sullam Qādī Mubārak, Sharh Mirqāt, gl. Mullā Jalāl Harawī,Zubdat al-hikma

Hāshiya bar hāshiya-yi Bahr al-‘Ulūm30

Abū ‘l-Barakāt Mīr Dā’im ‘Alī (d. 1908)31

Asad al-Haqq (d. 1900)Hadīya-yi hamīdiyya32

1900s

Fadl-i Haqq Rāmpūrī (d. 1939) Sayyid Barakāt Ahmad (d. 1928)33 ‘Abdallāh Tōnkī (d. 1920)34

gl. on Gloss of Jurjānī on Īsāghūjī al-Qawl al-dābit fī tahqīq wujūd/ma‘nā al-rābit, gl. Sullam Hamdallāhgl. Sullam Hamdallāh Risāla-yi wujūd-i rābitī, Takmila miftāh al-hujja

Mu‘īn al-Dīn Ajmīrī (d. 1940)35 Haqīqat-i munāzara-yi Rāmpūr, Khulī chiththī kā khulā jawāb, Mu‘īn al-mantiq, Risāla-yi‘ilm o ma‘lūm, Risāla-yi wujūd-i rābitī, Risāla-yi bahth-i muta‘alliq-i tasdīq, Tasawwur-o tasdīq, Muta‘alliq-i-tasdīq, gl./Qutbī wa-Mīr, Risāla-yi kullī-yi tabi‘īMīr, Risāla-yi kullī-yi tabi‘ī25 Nuzha, 7:412. It is also reported that Fadl-i Imām was a disciple of Muhammad Walī Farangī Mahallī, who was mentioned above. 26 Nuzha, 7:412ff., where his disputes with the Salafiyya are also mentioned. 27 Gloss on Jurjānī on Abharī, i.e. Mīr Īsāghūjī? Or this may well be a work by Fadl-i Haqq Rāmpūrī, mentioned below.28 Nuzha, 8:238. His Zubdat al-hikma was one of the first philosophical writings in Urdu. It contains logic, physics, and metaphysics

29 This may be on Ibn Hājib’s Kāfī on grammar.30 Bahr al-‘Ulūm (mentioned above) wrote two glosses: Qutbiyyat Harawī and Taftāzānī Harawī. Though it is unclear which one this is, it is

more likely that the Qutbiyyat Harawī is in question.

(Barakātī Ahmad, 81).

31 Reported to be a student of Fadl-i Haqq by Barakātī, though I have not been able to verify this in other sources.32 Barakātī, 81, Nuzha, 8: 61. This is a work on logic, presumably in Urdu.33 Nuzha, 8:100f. Barakātī, passim. 34 Nuzha, 8:304–305, where the death date corresponds to 1920, though it is given as 1928 in Barakātī, 30n. 35 Nuzha, 8:507–508, where it is mentioned that he did not write much. But compare Barakātī, 98–99, and Mahmūd A. Barakāt Ahmad,

Mawlānā Mu‘īn al-Dīn Ajmīrī: kirdār o afkār, Barakāt Academy: Karachi, 1993, passim and especially page 82, where it is mentioned that, unlike the works of earlier scholars, his works were not meant for teaching. Instead, they were for scholars who had already finished their studies and were presumably concentrating on specific technical issues.

Figure 12.3 Tree III: Sample of Relevant Khayrābādī Logicians and Logical Works.

Asad Q. Ahmed236

tradition of commentaries and glosses was being supplemented by indepen-dent works.

2. Then, in addition to the Mirqāt , logical training came to focus on the inter-pretive tradition of the Sullam al-‘ulūm as represented by Qād. ī Mubārak Gōpāmawī (d. 1162/1749) to the extent that the two most celebrated logicians of the thirteenth/nineteenth century, Fad. l-i H. aqq and his son ‘Abd al-H. aqq, both produced glosses on it. 41

3. I do not mean to suggest that the production of traditional glosses on the Qut.biyyat Harawī and Mullā Jalāl Harawī was wholly lacking until the late thirteenth/nineteenth century. This much is obvious from the stemma.

4. Next, in sharp contrast to the Farangī Mah.allīs, the Khayrābādīs came to be known for their short treatises on selected topics in the history of logic. It is likely that two forces drove their production: first, certain subject mat-ters had remained diachroni cally central to the dialogic commentaries; these were now treated in short independent works. And second, a certain scholarly factionalism in the field of logic tended to bring the Khayrābādīs to heavily publicized and well-attended debates against their rivals. In some cases, the shorter works treated the subject matter of such debates and, at times and in the interest of claiming victory for themselves, the Khayrābādīs presented simplified versions of their arguments in accessible journals. 42

5. And this brings us to my final observation: by the late nineteenth century, heightened scholarly factionalism, a decline in the knowledge of Arabic and Persian (linked with the failing systems of patronage), 43 and the consequent benefits of having the upper hand over one’s rivals in the public eye led to the production of logic in the vernacular Urdu. The switch to Urdu may already have begun in the first half of the thirteenth/nineteenth century. For we are told by our sources that Fad. l-i Imām Khayrābādī and ‘Abd al-‘Alī Bah. r al-‘Ulūm used to give their lessons in Urdu, and their students, who would settle in Urdu-speaking areas, would do the same. By the late thirteenth/nineteenth century, Urdu works like ‘Abd al-H. aqq Khayrābādī’s Zubdat al-h. ikma were in fact used in certain curricula. 44

Logic in the Khayrabadī Curriculum

It is rather difficult to speak about the intellectual formation of the Khayrābādīs in the absence of targeted studies of the technical discussions found in their logical works. It is useful, however, to make a few observations regarding the study of logic in the course of the training of the student. And here we fortunately possess the biography of Barakāt Ah.mad, rich in the sort of details that could only have been accessible to the author, the scholar’s grandson Mah.mūd Ah.mad Barakātī.

H. akīm Sayyid Barakāt Ah.mad b. Dā’im ‘Alī, who is mentioned in the last stemma above, was born in Tonk, Rājasthān, in 1281/1864. After reading the Qur’ān and learn-ing Persian, he studied elementary books in Arabic, fiqh, logic, and philosophy with his father. By age 12, he had studied the Hidāya, a H. anafī fiqh text by Marghīnānī (d.


593/1197), along with an unidentified gloss on its commentary, the Wiqāyat al-riwāya by Mah.mūd b. S.adr al-Sharī‘a al-Mah.būbī (d. ca. 680/1281). This was followed by Sharh. Bah. r al-‘Ulūm ‘alā musallam al-thubūt, a Farangī Mah.allī commentary on the us.ūl al-fiqh work of Muh. ibballāh Bihārī. At around age 14, he left his hometown and began his studies with ‘Abd al-H. aqq Khayrābādī in Rāmpūr and Khayrābād. It is during this time that he read Sharh. Qād. ī Mubārak ‘alā Sullam al-‘ulūm and very likely finished Sharh. sullam H. amdallāh , a text he had already started reading at home. In the 15 years that he spent under the mentorship of ‘Abd al-H. aqq, Barakāt Ah.mad read the entire Dars-i Niz. āmī and various additional philosophical and logi-cal works, including the following books on logic: Sharh. Mirqāt ‘Abd al-H. aqq, 45 Sharh. Ishārāt al-T. ūsī, al-Shifā’, H. āshiya bar muh. ākamāt-i Tah. tānī az Qūshjī, and H. āshiya bar Muh. ākamāt-i Tah. tānī az Mīrzā Jān Shīrāzī. Barakāt Ah.mad also gives one a sense of the sequence of logical works in his training, stating that, in the middle period of his studies, when he was reading Mīr Zāhid (perhaps the Qut.biyyat Mīr Zāhid ), he had already been assigned the task of teaching the Sharh. Tahdhīb (presumably Mullā Jalāl or Mullā Jalāl Harawī ) by ‘Abd al-H. aqq. Having finished his training in the rational sciences at age 28, Barakāt Ah.mad went on to study the six canonical h. adīth works, which he finished in two years. The reports conflict, but it seems Barakāt Ah.mad also studied medicine either much earlier with his father or during a scholarly hiatus with ‘Abd al-H. aqq from 1293/1876 to 1295/1878 or after the completion of all his studies, focusing on the Qānūn of Avicenna, Sharh. -i Nafīsī , al-Mughnī of Sadīdī, and others. 46 He finished his studies by age 30 and returned to Tonk the following year. 47

The Khayrābādī curriculum incorporated the Dars-i Niz. āmī into a larger set of books in the rationalist tradition. Those studying in this system would proceed through the disciplines in the following stages: Qur’ān, Persian, Arabic, fiqh, logic, and philosophy. And in the field of logic, they would study works in the following order: elementary works ( S.ughrā, Kubrā, Īsāghūjī ), Tahdhīb and its Dars-i Niz. āmī commentaries, Shamsiyya and its Dars-i Niz. āmī commentaries, Qut.biyya and its Dars-i Niz. āmī commentaries, and Sullam al-‘ulūm . One lasting and novel contribu-tion of the Khayrābādiyya in the study of logic seems to be its inclusion of the works of Avicenna and the commentaries and dispute-commentaries surrounding them. These were read toward the end of a scholar’s training in the other logical works. 48 It is also clear that Farangī Mah.allī commentaries on the Sullam were part of the Khayrābādiyya teaching circuit.

When Barakāt Ah.mad finally established his own madrasa and started to attract students, he added the following logic works to the Dars-i Niz. āmī as part of the cur-ricular offerings of the establishment: Sullam H. amdallāh, Sullam Qād. ī Mubārak, Sharh. Sullam Bah. r al-‘Ulum, H. āshiyat Sharh. Tahdhīb Bah. r al-‘Ulūm, Sharh. Sullam Ghulām Yah. yā, Mirqāt, and Sharh. Mirqāt . It is worth noting that all these works were produced in India by scholars directly or indirectly associated with the Farangī Mah.all. That the Sullam had now become a living tradition for the Khayrābādiyya is also quite obvious. Barakāt Ah.mad may well have read all these works with ‘Abd al-H. aqq Khayrābādī, though it is not clear whether they were part of standard Khayrābādī training before the former set down his system. And as I mentioned above, the works of Avicenna and their commentaries were already part of the Khayrābādiyya standard training. They were now added as the final stage of the

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training in the rationalist sciences: Barakāt Ah.mad would only authorize a sanad-i ma‘qūlāt to students who read these works as well.

Conclusions

The study of logic in India seems to have gained steady ground in the tenth/six-teenth century during the reign of the Lōdhīs. During this period, a stream of scholars connected with the logical tradition in Shīrāz came to India and prop-agated a loose curriculum that had a moderate dose of the commentary tradi-tion of Tah. tānī. At least until the late tenth/sixteenth century, this commentary tradition was cultivated in Multān, Lahore, and Delhi by the direct heirs of the writers of the famous commentaries. Thereafter, in the late tenth/sixteenth cen-tury, a rival branch of Shīrāzī scholars came to sustain a scholarly network that ultimately dominated the landscape. Indian heirs to this tradition in and around Awadh absorbed and canonized the heavy study of logic in the Dars-i Niz. āmī by the mid-twelfth/eighteenth century. Throughout this period, the study of logic con-centrated on the postclassical commentaries; practically no direct attention seems to have gone to classical authors, such as Avicenna. It was with the Khayrābādīs, who emerged in the late twelfth/eighteenth century, that the study of Avicenna was once again slowly and briefly revived. This system also incorporated addi-tional logical commentaries from India, raised the status of the Indian logical work Sullam al-‘ulūm and its commentaries to incomparable repute, fostered the study of logical works that had survived only in the Safavid curriculum, produced short, independent works on logic, contributed to major national debates in journals, and encouraged the use of Urdu in logical discourse. 49 The last leading proponent of the tradition died in 1988.

Notes

1 . I would like to acknowledge my debt to Robert Wisnovsky’s article, “The Nature and Scope of Arabic Philosophical Commentary in Post-Classical (1100–1900 A.D. ) Islamic Intellectual History: Some Preliminary Observations,” in Philosophy, Science, and Exegesis in Greek, Arabic, and Latin Commentaries, ed. Peter Adamson, H. Baltussen, and M. W. F. Stone (London: Institute of Classical Studies, 2004). For the purposes of this article, I delimit India as that geographical space that fell under the direct control of the Mughals (r. 932/1526–1275/1858) at some time. Otherwise, given the complexity of linguistic and cultural continuity across political borders, the denotation is hardly useful.

2 . For details, see Sayyid Manāz. ir Ah. san Gīlānī, Pāk o hind mein musalmānōn kā niz.ām-i ta‘ līm o tarbiyat (Lahore: Maktaba-yi Rah.māniyya, n.d.), 141–50 and the sources cited there. In its basic form, this curriculum is very similar to the elementary- intermediate levels until the fifth/eleventh century, as described by George Makdisi, Ibn ‘Aqīl: Religion and Culture in Classical Islam (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1997),


20–21. H. adīth is conspicuously missing from the details of the Indian curriculum at this stage.

3 . Malik attributes this and other reforms ultimately to administrative exigencies. Jamal Malik, Islamische Gelehrtenkultur in Nordindien (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 78ff.

4 . Gīlānī, Niz. ām, 151ff. gives several examples of the cultivation of the rationalist dis-ciplines even before the coming of the Lōdhīs, including references to Muh. ammad b. Tughluq’s training in relevant fields, the arrival of Jalāl al-Dīn al-Dawānī (d. 906/1501) in India, and his reception by Fīrūz b. Tughluq. The latter claim is very problematic because the famous commentator Dawānī, also mentioned here as a beloved student of Tah. tānī, died in 906/1501; Tah. tānī died around 766/1365 and Fīrūz in 790/1388. In these same pages, Gīlānī also asserts that a number of direct students of Tah. tānī, the author of the famed logic work Sharh. al-shamsiyya; at least one student of Sa‘d al-Dīn al-Taftāzānī (d. 791/1389), the author of Tahdhīb al-mant. iq; and the grandson of the commentator Sayyid Sharīf Jurjānī (d. 816/1413) had come to settle in India. Both of the aforementioned works came to assume pride of place among logic works in various madrasa curricula. See Francis Robinson, The ‘Ulama of Farangi Mahall and Islamic Culture in South Asia (London: C. Hurst, 2001), 240–51, for a tabulation of works read in various madrasa curricula.

5 . A city in the Punjab province in present-day Pakistan, some 600 miles northeast of Karachi.

6 . ‘Abdallāh al-Tulanbī is known as the author of al-H. āshiya ‘alā badī‘ al-mīzān, reported in the manuscript collection of Punjab University and the catalog of the British Museum. The Badī‘ is itself a commentary on a compendium called Mīzān al-mant. iq , an anon-ymous abridgment from the Shamsiyya . See also EI 3 , s.v. “‘Abdallāh Tulanbī” (Renate Würsch).

7 . These two scholars are reported by Gīlānī as brothers and he also mentions their nisba as Tulabnī, referring to a qasba— a collection of villages, usually containing more than five thousand residents—by the name of Tulabn in the region of Multān. Würsch states that the nisba refers to Tulanba or Talamba, a town in the northeast of Multān. See Malik, Islamische Gelehrtenkultur , 78–79; Gīlānī, Niz.ām , 192; EI 3 , s.v. “‘Abdallāh Tulanbī” (Renate Würsch). On qasba, see Malik, Islamische Gelehrtenkultur, 23ff.

8 . Gīlānī, Niz.ām , 192, implies that ‘Azīzallāh was dispatched to Sanbhal, an administra-tive center at this time (now in Uttar Pradesh, India), by Sikandar (“ Shaykh ‘Abdallāh kō tō Sikandar nē Dillī hī mein rakh liyā aur Mawlānā ‘Azīzallāh Sanbhal [Murādābād] rawāna kar diyē ga’ē ”).

9 . Malik, Islamische Gelehrtenkultur, 78–79. This may be a problematic claim, as Yazdī died more than half a century after ‘Abdallāh al-Tulanbī. Perhaps he taught ‘Azīzallāh Tulanbī. Yazdī’s death date is also reported as 1050/1640 (See Akhtar Rāhī, Tadhkira-yi mus.annifīn-i dars-i niz.āmī [Lahore: Maktaba-yi Rah.māniyya, 1978], 160). Yazdī is also the author of a supergloss on Jurjānī’s gloss on Tah. tānī’s commentary on the Shamsiyya . See also EI 3 , s.v. “‘Abdallāh Tulanbī” (Renate Würsch).

10 . Tīmūr or Tamerlane was the founder of the Timurid empire. He was an ancestor of Babur, the founder of the Mughal dynasty of India, and reigned from 1370/771 to 1405/807.

11 . ‘Abd al-H. aqq b. Sayf al-Dīn al-Dihlavī, Akhbār al-akhyār (Khayrpūr: n.p., n.d.), 211. 12 . Mah.mūd b. Abī Bakr Sirāj al-Dīn al-Urmawī was a Shāfi‘ī and a scholar of jurispru-

dence, philosophy, and logic. He studied in Mosul and lived in Damascus and his Mat.āli‘ al-anwār is widely studied and much commented upon. According to Rescher, he was either a pupil or an associate of the logician Khūnajī. He died in 682/1283 or 692/1293. See Khayr al-Dīn Ziriklī, al-A‘ lām (Beirut: Dār al-‘Ilm li-‘l-Malayīn, 1980),

Asad Q. Ahmed240

7:166. Nicholas Rescher, The Development of Arabic Logic (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh, 1964), 195.

13 . Malik, Islamische Gelehrtenkultur, 79. Reza Pourjavady, “A Shī‘ī Theologian and Philosopher of Early Safavid Iran: Najm al-Dīn H. ājjī Mah. mūd al-Nayrīzī and His Writings ” (PhD thesis, Free University of Berlin, 2008), 13, does not mention these scholars as Dawānī’s students.

14 . Mīr Muh.ammad Zāhid Harawī’s father and he both had longstanding connections in Lahore. He is the author of a gloss on Dawānī on the Tahdhīb of Taftāzānī, a gloss on the Qut.biyya of Tah. tānī, and a gloss on Tah. tānī on the Shamsiyya.

15 . See Rāhī, Tadhkira, 234–35, where this source also seems to suggest that Harawī was mainly taught by Mīrzā Jān Shīrāzī’s student Mullā Yūsuf. Mīrzā Jān Shīrāzī was in the line of Dawānī and a colleague of ‘Abdallāh Yazdī. In addition to the works noted in Figure 12.1, he also wrote a gloss on the Muh. ākama of Tah. tānī on the dispute between Nas.īr al-Dīn al-T. ūsī and Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī on the Ishārāt of Avicenna. It is unclear whether this work survives.

16 . On Ghiyāth al-Dīn, see Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Islamic Philosophy from Its Origin to the Present (New York: State University of New York Press, 2006), 199ff.; and Pourjavady, “ Shī‘ī Theologian,” 19ff.

17 . On Ghiyāth al-Dīn’s legacy of disciples in India, see Figure 12.1. 18 . Among other things, he wrote a supergloss on Jurjānī’s gloss on Tah. tānī’s commen-

tary on the Shamsiyya, a gloss on Tah. tānī’s commentary on Urmawī’s Mat.āli‘, and a refutation of Dawānī on Taftāzānī’s Tahdhīb. He also wrote a short work on logic, called Ta‘dīl al-mīzān . See Ghiyāth al-Dīn al-Dashtakī, Mus.annafāt-i Ghiyāth al-Dīn Mans.ūr-i H. usaynī-yi Dashtakhī-yi Shīrāzī, ed. ‘Abdallāh Nūrārī (Tehran: n.p., 2007), vol. 1. See now Pourjavady, “Shī‘ī Theologian, ” 25ff.

19 . Among other things, he wrote a supergloss on Jurjānī’s gloss on Tah. tānī’s commentary on the Shamsiyya and two glosses on Tah. tānī’s commentary on the Mat.āli‘ of Urmawī. The latter gloss is very likely a response to the critique of Dawānī, who was a known rival of S.adr al-Din. See Dashtakī, Mus.annafāt, 2:984. And now see a comprehensive list of his works in Pourjavady, “Shī‘ī Theologian,” 18.

20 . For details and circumstances of his appointments in Bījāpūr and then at Akbar’s court and of his social and intellectual links, see Gīlānī, Niz.ām, 197ff., and Saiyid Athar Abbas Rizvi, A Socio-Intellectual History of the Isnā ‘Asharī Shī’īs [sic] in India (Canberra: Ma’rifat [sic] Publishing House, 1986), 1:222ff. Fath. allāh is said to have included the works of Dawānī, Ghiyāth al-Dīn Mans.ūr, and Mīrzā Jān into his teaching circle. See ‘Abd al-H. ayy b. Fakhr al-Dīn al-H. asanī al-Lakhnawī, Nuzhat al-khawāt.ir (Multān: Idārat-i Ta’līfāt-i Ashrafiyya, 1991), 4:226. Malik, Islamische Gelehrtenkultur, 86–95. Pourjavady, “Shī‘ī Theologian,” 19 note 144, mentions him as a member of Ghiyāth al-Dīn’s family. Here he also mentions that a manuscript of the Shifā’ of Avicenna, once possessed by S.adr al-Dīn, was eventually inherited by Fath.allāh, who brought it to India. It is now found in the Reza library of Rampur.

21 . See Malik, Islamische Gelehrtenkultur, 86ff., where he mentions one of Fath. allāh’s mas-ters as an intellectual heir of Dawānī. Malik also reports that Fath. allāh is said to have completed Dawānī’s commentary on Taftāzānī’s Tahdhīb. To the best of my knowledge, this work has not survived.

22 . Gīlānī, Niz.ām, 199, 202. That Fath.allāh promoted the study of Dawānī is generally accepted, but the claim that he also introduced the works of Mullā S.adrā is problematic. The latter was a philosopher of the next generation. Likewise, at least as far as the study of logic is concerned, Robinson’s idea that the study of Dawānī led to an interest in Mīr Bāqir Dāmād and Mullā S.adrā also needs reconsideration. The Khayrābādīs, who owe quite a


bit to the Fath.allāh lineage, are extremely critical of both Mīr Bāqir and Mullā S.adrā on matters logical and are often in line with Dawānī’s thinking, as represented by commenta-tors. In fact the only work of Mullā S.adrā that came to be included in the curricula and was heavily commented upon in India was his commentary on Abharī’s philosophical work Hidāyat al-h. ikma . Here Rahman’s observation that Dawānī is often the target of Mullā S.adrā in his Asfār may be worthy of attention. The question of the influence of Mullā S.adrā on the rationalist tradition of South Asia requires serious study. See Robinson, ‘Ulama, 13–14, 42–43; Fazlur Rahman, The Philosophy of Mulla Sadra (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1975), 8.

23 . Mīrzā Jān Shīrāzī also wrote a first-order commentary on the Shamsiyya , a supergloss on Jurjānī’s gloss on Tah. tānī’s commentary on the Mat.āli‘ of Urmawī, and a gloss on an anonymous commentary on Taftāzānī’s Tahdhīb al-mant. iq .

24 . The Muh. ākama, which was not included in the later Dars-i Niz. āmī (to be discussed later), continued to be studied among the Khayrābādīs. Dawānī had also written a com-mentary on this work. See Wisnovsky, “Scope,” 173; Gīlānī, Niz.ām, 203.

25 . His teacher, Ghiyāth al-Dīn, was the author of a supergloss on Tah. tānī’s commen-tary on Kātibī’s Shamsiyya, of a commentary on Ījī’s Risāla fī adab al-bah. th, and on various philosophical and theological works. To the best of my knowledge, none of his works were glossed by the tradition that followed him. See Gīlānī, Niz. ām, 201; Wisnovsky, “Scope,” 164, 170, 177. For more on Fath. allāh’s career and his other works in other rationalist fields, see Malik, Islamische Gelehrtenkultur, 86–95, Rizvi, Socio-Intellectual History, 222ff. It is also possible that the Takmila is a work by another Fath. allāh.

26 . Gīlānī, Niz.ām, 205, 206 note 2. A number of disciples and descendants of leading logi-cians, such as Fath.allāh Shīrāzī and Dawānī, are also said to have settled in India during the tenth/sixteenth and eleventh/seventeenth centuries. Some of these had spent some time studying with Mīr Bāqir Dāmād and also the scholarly circles of Shīrāz. I do not mention them here because they are generally connected with a robust tradition of metaphysics and little about their logical studies is known. However, it is worth noting that quite a few of these scholars settled in Lahore, and it is from there that the next phase of logical teaching and writing explodes as I will explain later. See Gīlānī, Niz.ām, 207ff.

27 . Two examples are (a) a scholar named as Dustūr (which is very likely an indication that he was a Zoroastrian priest) and (b) a Lahori scholar from Shīrāz identified as Hir Bad. The former was born in Balkh and had studied with a student of Mīrzā Jān Shīrāzī (himself an influence on Fath. allāh Shīrāzī). He was also known to have been in the company of Mīr Bāqir Dāmād and Bahā’ al-Dīn ‘Āmilī. However, these reports seem to be legendary. See Gīlānī, Niz.ām, 207.

28 . See examples in Gīlānī, Niz.ām, 207–208. 29 . Like many other ma‘qūlī scholars of this period, ‘Abd al-Salām Dēwī had the patronage

of Shāh Jahān. He is also said to have written a commentary on Taftāzānī’s Tahdhīb. Gīlānī, Niz.ām, 235; Nuzha, 5:243.

30 . He had studied in Lahore as well. See Nuzha, 5:254–55. 31 . Shaykh Dāniyāl of Chawrasa was also the teacher of the celebrated ‘Abd al-H. akīm

Siyālkōtī (d. 1066/1656), the author of well-known commentaries on logical works, such as a supergloss on Jurjānī’s gloss on Tah. tānī’s commentary on the Shamsiyya and a supergloss on Jurjānī’s gloss on Tah. tānī’s commentary on the Mat.āli‘ of Urmawī. Nuzha (5:230) also seems to suggest that he had a gloss on Tah. tānī on the Shamsiyya. None of these, however, were absorbed into the Indian curricula; Siyālkōtī deserves a detailed study, especially in light of the curious fact that he appears to be more popular in the Ottoman world than in the Indian.

Asad Q. Ahmed242

32 . It is not clear to me who this scholar is, but perhaps he is the same ‘Abd al-H. alīm who is reported by Wisnovsky as the author of some commentaries and glosses on logical works: a commentary on Shamsiyya, a supergloss on Harawī’s gloss on Dawānī’s commentary on Taftāzānī’s Tahdhīb , and a gloss on Muh.ammad H. asan Lakhnawī’s commentary on Bihārī’s Sullam . But this is unlikely, seeing how Bihārī seems to be a scholar of the next generation. ‘Abd al-H. alīm may simply be the father of Qut.b al-Dīn Sihālawī or perhaps there are two ‘Abd al-H. alīms.

33 . Gīlānī, Niz.ām, 236–37. 34 . I use the word “standardized” to mean that there had developed a clear sense of the logi-

cal texts to be included in the curriculum. This is not to say that all these works were in fact read in all scholarly settings or that they were always read in a certain order. The curriculum should be understood to refer to a loose reading list, not a rigid program of study.

35 . In the second stemma, I only list those representative scholars of the line who are known to have written on logic. The list is by no means exhaustive.

36 . Depending on whether one counts the commentaries separately, the actual number can be 14: Shamsiyya (actually, Shamsiyyat Tah. tānī and Mīr Qut.bī, i.e., Jurjānī on Tah. tānī on Shamsiyya ) , Shamsiyyat Taftāzānī, Sullam al-‘ulūm, Qut.biyya (actually, Qut.biyyat Harawī ) , Mullā Jalāl Harawī, S.ughrā Jurjānī, Kubrā Jurjānī, Īsāghūjī Abharī, Taftāzānī ( actually Yazdī’s commentary on Taftāzānī’s Tahdhīb ). See Robinson, ‘Ulama, 250–51.

37 . In the case of the Khayrābādīs, for example, short glosses on sections on H. amdallāh appear to be challenges to the interpretations of particular Farangī Mah.allī lines. See for example, the short treatise by Mu‘īn al-Dīn Ajmīrī entitled Wujūd-i rābit. ī on ‘Abdallāh Tonkī’s gloss on H. amdallāh. The treatise pertains to the issue of the nature of the depen-dent existence of secondary intelligibles ( ma‘qūlāt thāniya ) as the subject matter of logic. A unique exemplar of this work is in the Barakāt Ah.mad collection in Karachi, Pakistan. I am currently preparing a study, edition, and translation of this work for publication.

38 . To determine this, one needs to consult the provenance and ownership of the massive bulk of manuscripts in the private and public libraries of India and Pakistan. This should be considered a necessary first step toward the reconstruction of the history of logic in the subcontinent.

39 . Nuzha, 6:284, 7:345. 40 . Malik, Islamische Gelehrtenkultur, 93, reports that after Fath. allāh Shīrāzī the Sharh.

al-Ishārāt (of T. ūsī?) and the Ilāhiyyāt al-Shifā’ were both being read in India. Given that one hears so little about these works in the commentaries that were part of the cur-riculum, it is likely that their influence was limited. In contrast, one finds in the works of the Khayrābādīs extended engagement and criticism of Avicenna. See, for example, Fad. l-i H. aqq Khayrābādī’s H. āshiyat sharh. Sullam Qād. ī Mubārak (Lahore: Evergreen Press, n.d.), 107. For preliminary comments on the career of the Shifā’ in India see my forthcoming “The Shifā’ in India I: Reflections on the Evidence of the Manuscripts,” Oriens, vol. 40.2/3, 2012. Manuscript evidence suggests that, in the context of India and before the Khayrābādīs, this work was of concentrated interest mainly in the late eleventh/seventeenth century; this observation needs explanation in view of the limited references to the work in ma‘qūlī literature from this period .

41 . It is worth noting that the private library of Muntakhab al-H. aqq, the last major repre-sentative of the Khayrābādī tradition, has three copies of the Sullam Mubārak and not a single other first-order commentary on this text of Muh. ibballāh al-Bihārī.

42 . As attested by the stemma, the major topics included discussions of the nature of knowl-edge, the tas.awwur–tas.dīq division (both part of the long commentary tradition of Tah. tānī ’s Qut.biyya ), the natural universal (man as a rational animal, as opposed to


that which may be said of many), and the nature of the copula—whether it exists or is a conceptual construct.

43 . On patronage and language, see Malik and Robinson. 44 . Similarly, Muh.ammad Sharīf A‘z. am Garhī’s Rumūz al-h. ikma, an Urdu pedagogical

work on philosophy, was included in the Allāhābād Board Exams. A report also mentions that Barakāt Ah.mad (to be mentioned later) developed a technical Urdu philosophical terminology in his teaching circles. This claim is dismissed by Mah.mūd Barakātī, who says that the effort should be attributed instead to ‘Abd al-H. aqq and that, after him, the Khayrābādī scholars did not make advances in this direction. See Mah.mūd A. Barakātī, Mawlānā Sayyid Barakāt Ah. mad: Sīrat aur ‘ulūm (Karachi: Barakāt Academy, 1993), 80–83. Barakāt Ah.mad also established an institution called the Anjuman-i ‘Ulūm, whose function was to encourage students and scholars to write in Urdu. Here one would read one’s articles in a conference setting and give younger scholars the chance to publish for the first time. Thus, a collection of articles was published in 1321/1903 bear-ing the title Natā’ ij al-majālis, all written by Sayyid ‘Alī As.ghar, one of Barakāt’s leading students. Of the seven pieces, four are on logic and three on metaphysics.

45 . There is also a gloss on this work, called al-Mir’āt , by Muh.ammad ‘Imād al-Dīn Shērkūtī. The Mirqāt was also translated into Urdu by Sayyid H. aydar H. usaynī Qādirī Awrangābādī.

46 . The Sharh. -i Nafīsī and the Mughnī were both commentaries on the Mūjaz of ‘Alā’ al-Dīn ‘Alī b. Abī al-H. azm (seventh/thirteenth century), itself a summary on the Qānūn fī al-t. ibb of Avicenna.

47 . Barakātī, Barakāt Ah.mad, 49ff. 48 . Barakātī, Barakāt Ah.mad, 118, for example, reports that a student from the frontier

regions had come to Barakāt Ah.mad to study the Shifā’ and Ishārāt with him after completing his studies. At 145, he reports in another context that Barakāt Ah.mad had finished the Dars-i Niz. āmī and was reading the books of the ancients when such and such a thing happened. With reference to the procedure adopted by Barakāt in granting his sanad to his students, Barakātī, at 171, states that he would first teach the noncur-ricular books of the ancients.

49 . On the basis of manuscript analysis, it appears that interest in the Shifā’ of Avicenna, especially the Physics and Logic, had also briefly emerged in late seventeenth century India. But indications are that the work was studied not for its own synthesis, but as a supplement to advance arguments in other texts. See my “Shifā’ in India I,” Oriens 40.2/3 (2012) (forthcoming).

Part V

Historical Traditions

Chapter 13

The Eastern Travels of Solomon: Reimagining Persepolis and

the Iranian Past Roy P. Mottahedeh *

In the Muslim tradition few prophets traveled with the speed—and none in the grand style with his entire court—of King Solomon, who was not only a revered prophet but also a universal ruler. The very sober and conservative scholar Baghawī (d. 510/1117 or 516/1122) quotes one of the earliest Qurʾān commentators, Muqātil b. Sulaymān (d. 153/770), who describes Solomon’s mode of transportation as follows:

The satans wove a carpet one parasang square for Solomon out of gold and silk, and they placed for him there in the middle of the carpet a pulpit of gold. Around it were three thousand seats of gold and silver, the prophets sitting on the seats of gold and the men of religious learning on the seats of silver, and around them were the jinn and satans. The birds with their wings gave Solomon shade so no sun fell upon him. The morning wind that blows from the East would raise the carpet so that it would travel a month’s journey from the morning to the afternoon, and [an equal trip] from the afternoon to the morning. 1

Other commentators insist that the flying carpet is actually a wooden platform and add details about Solomon’s elaborate kitchens and stables. Such descriptions are to be found from the earliest to the early modern commentaries and are not the prod-uct of late traditions among Muslims.

In analyzing Solomonic stories in the Qurʾān it is important to remember what a remarkable figure Solomon cuts in that holy book. Verse twelve of Sūrat Sabaʾ (Q34:12) is most significant for Solomon the great traveler:

Roy P. Mottahedeh248

And we made the wind [subservient] to Solomon, its morning stride was [the journey of] a month, and its afternoon stride was [the journey of] a month.

Solomon’s varied entourage as he traveled is determined in part by his command over creatures of all sorts. Verses 16 and 17 of Sūrat al-Naml read:

Solomon was the heir of David. He said: “O mankind we have been taught the lan-guage of birds, and we have been given all things. This most surely is a manifest grace.” His host of the jinn , humankind, and the birds were all drawn up in order. (Q27:16–17)

The jinn are valuable skilled laborers whose capacity seems at times to exceed that of humans:

They made for him what he pleased in the way of fortresses and images ( tamāthīl) and basins as large as reservoirs and immoveable cauldrons. (Q34:13)

These qualities are manifested in Solomon’s staunch support of Islamic monothe-ism. His letter to the Queen of Sheba, as quoted in the Qurʾān, begins:

In the name of God, the Merciful, the Benevolent: Do not exalt yourself against me, but come to me as Muslims [or, “as ones submittting”]. (Q19:30–31)

In light of Solomon’s ability to command great building works, to make images, and to travel in half a day the distance of a month’s journey by ordinary means, it is no surprise that many impressive pre-Islamic sites are ascribed to him by Muslims in premodern times.

Equally early and persistent in Qurʾān commentaries are the descriptions of the universality of Solomon’s rule. Būshanjī, an important fourth/tenth-century author of biographies of prophets mentioned in the Qurʾān, writes:

Some transmitters tell us that the whole earth was [Solomon’s] kingdom, a thing true for only one other believer, Alexander the Great, and for two unbelievers, Nimrod and Nebuchadnezzar. 2

In this and many similar quotations, universal rule is limited to four persons, two of whom are arch-villains mentioned in the Bible. The inclusion of Alexander alongside Solomon as a pious universal ruler in the Muslim tradition will be discussed later.

Some commentaries describe Solomon’s unconquerable army of jinn , men, and birds. A comparatively early historian of the prophets, Tha ʿ labī (d. 427/1035), trans-mits stories supposedly attested by Muh.ammad b. Ka ʿ b al-Quraz.ī, a Companion of the Prophet and early Jewish convert to Islam, that Solomon had an army of a hundred parasang s in extent: “one quarter men, one quarter jinn , one quarter beasts, and one quarter birds.” 3

Solomonic flights on the winds led to the identification of the palaces, quasi “airports,” from which he took off and where he landed on his extensive travels. All of these are—not surprisingly—in Greater Syria. When the geographer Ibn al-Faqīh

Eastern Travels of Solomon 249

al-Hamadhānī (fl. 290/903) visited the Palestinian town of Ludd (Lydda) and asked if its ruins had been built by Solomon, an inhabitant shrewdly responded:

All you city people attribute impressive old buildings to jinn and demons but Ludd is far older than Solomon. 4

An even more impressive ancient site in Greater Syria was Ba ʿ labakk (Baalbek). The traveler Harawī of the sixth/twelfth century writes in his guide to places of pilgrimage:

The citadel of Ba ʿ labakk is one of the wonders of the world. There is nothing like it in Syria or the Islamic lands, save the ruins of Istakhr in Fars. These ruins were built by the jinn or by D. ah.h. āk, which is to say Solomon, son of David. 5

The great encyclopedist Yāqūt (d. 626/1229), who is a near contemporary of Harawī, explains that Ba ʿ labakk is supposed to have been the dowry of the Queen of Sheba and contains a castle that belonged to Solomon. 6

Palmyra (or, in Arabic, Tadmur) figures in these lists of Syrian Solomonic sites. The literary critic Tha ʿ ālibī (d. 429/1038) even quotes from the work of Jāh. iz., the celebrated third/ninth-century essayist from Basra, who ascribes to a pre-Islamic poet a verse that reports that the jinn built Palmyra for Solomon. Tha ʿ ālibī is so scrupulous with his sources that this verse, whether genuinely pre-Islamic or not, seems to go back at least to 255/868, the date of Jāh. iz.’s death. 7

There is one other place in Palestine mentioned as a point of departure for Solomon’s travel, a large stone platform in the middle of Lake Tiberias. Yāqūt rather mysteriously reports that this rock may have been built by the ancient Iranian king T. ahmūrath. 8 This king was the third ruler of the world and appropriate as a precur-sor of Solomon in that he subdued the demons ( dīv in Persian) and was active in Fars province, an area important to Solomonic legend. The town of Tiberias already had Solomonic associations, as the prophet-king was said to have built the famous baths next to Lake Tiberias. 9

Historians and geographers were in no doubt that Solomon was the ruler of Greater Syria, namely, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Jordan, present-day Syria, and small parts of Turkey. Therefore, any of these “Syrian” points of departure seemed plausible to premodern interpreters of the Qurʾān. Jerusalem is mentioned as a place from which Solomon departed and may predominate over these other sites by a slim margin. Yet, famous as Jerusalem was as the site of the Temple of Solomon, there was no enormous palatial architecture in that city that could be associated with him.

Once Solomon took off, he traveled almost exclusively to destinations farther east. (The one exception is the fabulous city of brass, supposedly built by the jinn at Solomon’s command somewhere in the Sahara.) One of the most dramatic of Solomon’s eastern destinations is Takht-i Sulaymān in the northwestern Iranian province of Azerbayjan. At this site a collection of impressive ruins surrounds a crater lake that is of a vivid blue color. One of the buildings has been identified as a Zoroastrian fire temple, one of the three “Great Fires” that were associated with kingship in the Sasanid period before the advent of Islam. Calling these ruins the


“Throne of Solomon” suggests that the buildings were thought to be a royal palace built and used by the great traveling prophet.

Another eastern site quite grandiosely assumed to be associated with Solomon is the group of mountains in Baluchistan now called the Solomon Mountains. This is a fairly ancient association as the great eighth/fourteenth-century traveler, Ibn Bat.t.ūt.a, mentions them in an important passage:

We traveled on to Kabul, formerly a vast town, the site of which is now occupied by a village inhabited by a tribe of Persians called Afghans. They hold mountains and defiles and possess considerable strength, and are mostly highwaymen. It is told that the Prophet Solomon ascended this mountain and, having looked over India, which was covered with darkness, returned without entering it. 10

And indeed to this day the high peak in these mountains is called Takht-i Sulaymān, the Throne of Solomon.

A mountain with prominent rock outcroppings next to the city of Osh in Kyrgyzstan is also called the “Throne of Solomon.” The mountain, which has been held sacred by Muslims and non-Muslims, contains a shrine that claims to hold Solomon’s grave. At the peak is a mosque built by the emperor Babur, the founder of the Mughal dynasty of India, in 1510.

The most dense and elaborately wrought associations of places with Solomon are, however, sites in the provinces of Fars and Khuzistan in southwestern Iran. Overlooking the present-day town of Masjid-i Sulaymān (or “Mosque of Solomon”) in Khuzistan stands a hill with ruins called Sar Masjid, perhaps to be translated as “The Front of the Mosque.” This is a vast platform made of large stones with the remains of columns, which is understood to have been constructed by the dīv s, or Persian creatures similar to the Arabic jinn , who worked for Solomon. This town is recognized as yet another destination built by Solomon with a mosque to pray in. 11

In the heart of Fars, the association with Solomon became even more frequent. The monument at Pasargadae that is now considered the tomb of Cyrus the Great was until recently called the “Tomb of the mother of Solomon” by the people of Fars. Ibn al-Balkhī, the great historian and geographer of Fars, who wrote in the sixth/twelfth century, says:

Anybody who looks into the interior of the tomb of the mother of Solomon becomes blind, but I have never met a victim. 12

Also in Pasargadae is a very tall fragment of a wall, called the “Prison of Solomon,” most probably because Solomon was assumed to have imprisoned there some of the strange creatures who worked for him.

Pride of place among Solomonic destinations goes to Istakhr, not very far from Pasargadae. The Qurʾān commentators and relators of stories of the Prophets ( Qis.as. al-anbiyā ʾ) are almost united in their opinion that Istakhr was the preferred destination for Solomon’s month-in-a-day trips. The great historian and commenta-tor T. abarī (d. 310/923) relates on two different chains of authority that Solomon “used to go out in the morning and nap at Istakhr, then leave there in the evening


for Kabul.” 13 An inscription is cited as proof of these trips by Qurʾān commentaries from that of T. abarī right up to that of Abū Su ʿ ūd, who was made Grand Mufti or Shaykh al-Islam of the Ottoman Empire by Sulayman the Magnificent in 939/1537. The inscription, which was supposedly found near the Tigris, reads:

We have alighted at it [to be understood, “this ruin”] and did not build it but found it built already. We came in the morning from Istakhr and napped here. We will now depart in the evening, spend[ing] the night in Syria. 14

Why was Istakhr chosen out of the many possible sites where Solomon might have landed? Surely much of the answer lies in sacred geography. According to the nor-mative legend established by the Sasanids, who ruled for four centuries before the Islamic conquest, Istakhr was the site of the temple to Anahita at which Pāpak, father of the founder of the Sasanid dynasty, Ardashir I, was supposed to have been a priest. It may have been a place for rallying local Iranian champions of a warrior cult dedicated to Anahita. Part of the official story about Pāpak includes the intrigu-ing geneaological assertion that he was a descendant of Darius III, the last ruling Achaemenid, who was defeated by Alexander the Great. Therefore, Pāpak unites the lineage of the Sasanids with their glorious predecessors. Istakhr remained the cultic center of the Sasanid dynasty from the third century BC right down to the last Sasanid, Yazdagird III, who was crowned there in 632. The site was also the reposi-tory of the Sasanid treasury and the sacred books of the Zoroastrians. 15

Sacred geography alone cannot, however, account for the continuing importance of Istakhr in Muslim sources from the second/eighth to the thirteenth/nineteenth centuries. Only the persistent conflation of the city of Istakhr, continuously inhab-ited since ancient times, with the impressive Achaemenid ruins of Persepolis, located outside the city, can account for Istakhr’s long association with Solomon. Persepolis was a mere one parasang from the city of Istakhr. According to the important testi-mony of the polymath Mas ʿ ūdī, writing in the fourth/tenth century:

The Persians have a fire temple in Istakhr which the Zoroastrians venerate. . . . The people in our times, which is the year 336 [/947–8] relate that it [the site of Persepolis] is the mosque of Solomon and that is the way it is known. I have entered it, being about one parasang from the city of Istakhr. I saw an amazing building and an enor-mous temple as well as amazing stone columns on the top of which were depictions in stone of a cavalcade of horses and other animals, all amazingly large in bulk and shape. All this is surrounded by a great wall and a formidable barrier of stone in which images of people have been shaped. These images have been skillfully executed. Those who live adjacent to this place claim that they are images of the prophets. It is at the foot of the mountain. A wind, which comes out of that temple and blows at night—but never in the daytime—is both strong and booming. The Muslims from there say that Solomon imprisoned the wind in that place. They say he used to have lunch in Ba ʿ labakk in the land of Syria and take dinner in this mosque [in Istakhr] and alight between the two at Palmyra. This location was the place where he took recreation. 16

To this remarkable testimony, Mas ʿ ūdī adds in another book a description of the kind of illustrated books of history that are assumed to have survived from


the Sasanid period among the noble families still living in the actual city of Istakhr:

In the year 303/[915–16], at the house of a very noble Persian family in Istakhr in the province of Fars, I saw a large book which contained, along with a discussion of several scenes, the history of the kings of Persia, their reigns and the monuments they built . . . The book I saw was edited according to the documents found in the treasure of the kings of Persia. 17

In these two passages we have many hints as to the importance of the ruins of Persepolis near Istakhr. The vastness of the site suggested that only humans of very superior power or jinn s and satans could have constructed it. The amazing capitals on the columns with sculpture of animals clearly point to some significant pre-Islamic building. The city of Istakhr was known in the Sasanid period to have had a great repository of royal books. Perhaps some of these books were rescued or survived the Muslim conquest. Hence Mas ʿ ūdī could find such a book there in the fourth/tenth century, about four centuries after the fall of the Sasanids.

The great wall surrounding the ruins of Persepolis outside Istakhr suggested to the Muslims of the area the presence of another Solomonic destination. A dramatic remnant of Solomon’s attested command of the winds is the booming wind that blows inside the enclosure at night. Although Mas ʿ ūdī thinks that he is looking at an ancient Persian site, he acknowledges its reinterpretation as a proto-Islamic site by noting that the inhabitants who live nearby identify the depictions on its walls as “prophets,” and that Muslims regard Istakhr (here meaning the ruins of Persepolis) as the place where Solomon took his dinner.

The presence of a famous library at Istakhr is a subject for comment by many early Muslim authors. Istakhr and Persepolis were held to be one city and the story of Alexander’s burning of Persepolis may also be part of a narrative of an earlier destruction or dispersal of the library at Istakhr that took place during the repeated attempts at Muslim conquest. Ibn al-Nadīm, a bibliophile who died in the late fourth/tenth century, gives us one version of the story:

He [Alexander] destroyed the cities and the castles that satans and proud men had built. His destruction [ruined] whatever there was in the different buildings in the way of scientific material, whether inscribed on stone or wood. Along with this demo-lition there were conflagrations, with the scattering of the books. Such of these things, however, as were gathered in collections and libraries in the city of Istakhr, he had transcribed and translated into the Greek and Coptic tongues. Then, after he had finished copying what he had need of, he burned the material written in Persian. 18

An even more unfavorable report of Alexander is to be found in later books, where Zoroastrians recounted the supposedly brutal oppression of their culture and their aris-tocrats by Alexander and his successors. In the Arda Wiraf Namag , perhaps a Sasanid book that was redacted as late as the third/ninth or fourth/tenth century, we read:

[Alexander] killed the ruler ( dahibad ) of Iran. He destroyed and ruined the court and the nobility. This religion, the entire Avesta and Zand, was written with gold ink on


prepared cowhides and deposited at Istakhr of the dynasty of Papag in the fortress of the Scriptures. This miserable ( bad-bakht ) enemy, heretical and evil and maleficent, brought [the Scriptures] out and burned them. He killed many priests and judges and herbeds and Magi, the faithful, the specialists, the wise men of Iran. He cast mutual hatred and discord among the great and the masters of households. He himself, how-ever, was broken and thrown into hell. 19

The dramatic qualities of this account do not match its historical accuracy. It repre-sents one version of history current among the Sasanids, who claimed, from the time of Ardashir in the third century until the Muslim conquest in the seventh, that they were the upholders of the Zoroastrian faith. The point of great interest here for us is that Alexander is represented as burning Istakhr of the dynasty of Pāpak, ances-tor to the Sasanid dynasty, which must mean the city itself rather than Persepolis. All historians nearer to the time of Alexander agree that he burned Persepolis as opposed to Istakhr.

The reason for the exchange of city names is partly found in the Arabic geog-raphers of the tenth and eleventh centuries. As the very observant tenth-century geographer Muqaddasī tells us, Istakhr was the largest subdistrict of the province of Fars in southwestern Iran. Istakhr remained the capital of the province for about a century after Shiraz, the later capital, became more populous:

A parasang from Istakhr is Solomon’s pleasure palace ( mal ʿ ab ), to which one ascends by handsome stairs cut in the rock. Here are black pillars, and statues in niches and remarkable constructions like the theatres of Syria. Between the pillars are the baths and the Mosque of Solomon. 20

In this passage we can see that Persepolis, which is indeed about a parasang from Istakhr, is regarded as a “pleasure palace” associated with it much as Versailles is associated with Paris.

This description of Persepolis is confirmed by the great Bīrūnī, who died about 442/1050. First, Bīrūnī explains the widespread but mistaken chronology that abbreviates the period of Alexander’s successors in the East, the Parthians, to two hundred-odd years when they actually ruled parts of Iran for over five hundred years only to be replaced by the Sasanids:

Such were the calamities which Alexander and his Greek lieutenants brought upon them—and yet further conflagration of all the literature in which the people delighted, the ruin of all fine arts which were the recreation and desire of the people. And more than that, Alexander burned the greatest part of their religious code, he destroyed the wonderful architectural monuments, e.g., those in the mountains of Istakhr, nowa-days [in the time of Bīrūnī] known as the Mosque of Solomon, son of David, and delivered them up to the flames. 21

Although Bīrūnī was a Muslim, this passage reflects the Zoroastrian view of Alexander as the “Destroyer of ancient Iran,” which survived among some Persianate Muslims well into the twentieth century. There can be no question that the refer-ence in Bīrūnī to the Mosque of Solomon is to Persepolis, along with some aspects of its very near neighbor Istakhr, where the royal books of the Sasanids were kept.


At this point some of the features of Persepolis should be mentioned. Unlike Istakhr, which had its own river and lake, Persepolis is built in an area that required great feats of irrigation to make it habitable, not all of which are as yet fully under-stood by archaeologists. 22 The destruction and neglect of the water supply may well explain why the site remained largely uninhabited after Alexander.

The enormous hypostyle columned hall on the great platform of Persepolis so impressed the ancient East that apadana , the word for such a hall in Old Persian, trav-eled directly—or through other languages—into Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac, Palmyrene, and eventually into Arabic, where the word is already in use among the pre-Islamic poets. The classical dictionaries of Arabic say that this loan word, fadan , signifies a pavilion or building of the kind called castle ( qas.r ), raised high or made lofty. 23

The great audience hall of Darius and Xerxes with its 72 columns, each 20 meters or 66 feet high, was one of the awe-inspiring spaces of the ancient world. It is no wonder that its architectural reputation continued to ring in later languages as a word for lofty palaces. And it is no wonder that Solomon, conceived to be a universal and universally traveled ruler in Islamic lore, was understood to be the builder of Persepolis. Had not Solomon erected two famous pillars in front of his temple in Jerusalem, which he had personally named (1 Kings 7:21 and 2 Chronicles 3:17)? And was not Solomon the only builder to command the satans and the jinn —and therefore the only one able to create such colossal architecture?

The modern name for Persepolis has become fixed as Takht-i Jamshīd or the “Throne of Jamshīd,” Jamshīd being an ancient king and great culture hero of the Persian tradition. The widespread identification of Jamshīd with Solomon will be discussed below. But earlier sources as frequently—or perhaps more frequently—de-scribed the site only with references to Solomon or to the many columns, without ref-erence to Jamshīd. The first modern European known to have correctly identified the ruins of Persepolis, García de Silva y Figueroa, the Spanish diplomat who visited Persia from 1617 to 1619, said the site was called “Chil ʿ minara.” This word is unmistakably chihil minār or chihil mināra , the “Forty Columns” or “Forty Minarets,” 24 a local name that has long coexisted with other names. The tradition of architecture inspired by these 40 columns is attested not only by the palace of Shah Abbas at Isfahan but by other palaces as far-flung as Akbar’s palace in Allahabad. In fact, the Pahlavi inscrip-tion left by the Sasanid king Shapur II in 311 AD calls the site of Persepolis Sad Stūn , “One Hundred Columns,” and some later sources call it Hazār Sutūn , “One Thousand Columns.” 25 In the Shāhnāma , the Persian epic composed by Firdawsī and traditionally dated to 401/1010, the site is sometimes called “Takht-i Jamshīd,” but also Sad Sutūn , “One Hundred Columns.” 26 In all likelihood, the sources just mean “a great many columns,” the number perhaps diminishing to 40 from 100 due to attrition over time. Nonetheless, the site has indeed been associated with the largely mythic Jamshīd from a comparatively early period. The reason is not far to seek.

Ibn al-Muqaffa ʿ , a Persian who in the early second/eighth century was regarded as one of the masters of Arabic prose, is quoted in a third/ninth-century work as saying:

Ignorant Persians and such as have no systematic learning suppose that King Jam was Solomon, the son of David, but this is an error, for between Solomon and Jam was an interval of more than three thousand years. 27


The comparative chronology mentioned in this quote will be discussed herein. In spite of Ibn al-Muqaffa ʿ ’s negative assessment, the persistent identification of these two figures, Jam and Solomon, remains a frequent theme in later works. Two Persian histories written in the early sixth/twelfth century accept the identification without question. Ibn al-Balkhī says that Kayūmarth, who came after Noah, was the first person to be king. One of his successors was Jamshīd, who made Istakhr his capital and turned it into a great city by laying out the palatial complex of Persepolis outside the ancient city:

He laid out an immense platform of black solid stone. There are two staircases so broad that knights can drink on horseback. . . . There is a portrait of Burāq with the face of a human with a beard, curls, and a crown, and he has wings and a body and legs and a tail like a cow. Everywhere one sees the image of Jamshīd, which has been incised [into the stone]: a powerful man with a full beard and a handsome face and curly hair. In one place he has a case in one hand and a censor in the other. Elsewhere there is a lion on the left hand or the head of an onager, and a dagger in his right hand which he is plunging into the belly of the lion or unicorn. 28

This last scene is unquestionably a reference to the bas-relief in the palace of Darius at Persepolis, which shows the king killing a winged lion. The description of the king with a cane and “censor” is unquestionably a reference to an audience scene, also in the palace of Darius at Persepolis. The many portraits of “handsome” Jamshīd are actually those of Iranian soldiers and nobles represented in the many bas-reliefs found throughout Persepolis (with the characteristic curve of the nostrils frequently seen in Iranians up to the present). As a native of Fars, Ibn al-Balkhī understands the distinction between the palace at Persepolis and the Sasanid city of Istakhr, but apparently believes them to be contemporary with each other.

The nearly contemporary source , Mujmal al-tavārīkh , correlates the ancient Persian kings with the prophets:

Abraham is Siyāvash, because both went into the fire. Solomon was Jamshīd, Noah was Narīman, and Luhrasp was Nebuchadnezzar. 29

These sorts of identifications and sometimes elaborate attempts to wed Biblical and ancient Iranian history were foreshadowed in several Arabic works. Perhaps the most striking of these accounts is contained in the work of the early historian Abū H. anīfa al-Dīnawarī, an erudite scholar from western Iran who died in the late third/ninth century.

Dīnawarī’s work is one of the earliest surviving histories describing both the pre-Islamic and the Islamic past. He tells us that Shem was the heir of Noah and settled in Iraq, which he called Īrānshahr . 30 His son, Shalih, succeeded him, and Shalih in turn was succeeded by his nephew Jam or Jamshīd, who

laid the foundation of royal sovereignty, solidly planted its pillars, erected its charac-teristics, and adopted Naw Ruz as a festival. 31

This amazing feathering together of the Persian and Biblical traditions is followed by an even more amazing statement: From Arfadhshadh, the grandfather of Jamshīd, who is called “Iran” by the Persians, “are descended all Arabs and all rulers and


nobility among the Persians.” We know that Dīnawarī was a keen student of Arabic philology, studying with, among others, Ibn al-Sikkīt. He found a way to make Jamshīd the ancestor of both the Abbasids, the rulers of his day, whom he respected as legitimate, and of himself and other well-born Persians. Dīnawarī even adds that the Pharaoh of the time of Abraham is a descendant of Jamshīd. 32 Dīnawarī’s great contemporary, T. abarī, has a generally similar account.

There are many similarities between the narratives of Jamshīd and Solomon. Both sit on greatly admired thrones. Both command the obedience of nonhuman helpers: for Solomon the jinn and for Jamshīd the dīv s. Both travel rapidly through the air. The Qurʾānic story of Solomon’s conversation with an ant seems to have created a parallel story about Jamshīd, as has the story of Solomon’s signet ring that symbolized his power. In turn, the story of Jamshīd’s famous cup, in which he could see events unfolding in any place within the seven climes, influenced the stories of Solomon. 33

The identification of southwestern Iran as the realm of Solomon, already attested in the work of Ibn al-Balkhī, reached its apotheosis in the seventh/thir-teenth and following centuries. The great Iranian scholar Muh. ammad Qazvīnī wrote in 1317/1938 a classic essay on the recipients of the panegyrics composed by the preeminent Persian poet of the seventh/thirteenth century, Sa ʿ dī of Shiraz. In praise of his patron, the Atabeg Abū Bakr Muh. ammad b. Sa ʿ d Zangī, who ruled Fars from 628/1231 to 658/1260, Sa ʿ dī calls this ruler “Lord Commander of the Kingdom of Solomon, the just Shāhinshāh .” Already in the reign of his father, Sa ʿ d Zangī, the dynasty had adopted the officially elaborated royal signature “Heir to the Kingdom of Solomon” ( vāris-i mulk-i Sulaymān ). Sa ʿ dī thoroughly mixes Qurʾānic and Iranian history in an ode in which he praises this ruler as “Heir to the throne of Solomon, with the kingly glory of Khusraw [Chosroes] and Jamshīd.” Many verses of Sa ʿ dī and passages quoted by Qazvīnī show that this local dynasty of Fars province gloried in associations so richly attested by the identification of its ruins with Solomon. 34

Another of Sa ʿ dī’s works, the dedication of his Gulistān , testifies to the Solomonic heritage of the kings of Shiraz. Almost certainly the most copied and memorized Persian book in the Persianate Muslim world that stretched from Sarajevo in Eastern Europe to Urumchi in Western China, Sa ʿ dī’s Gulistān was written in 656/1258 and dedicated to the son of the Salghurid king of Shiraz. In the florid style of the period, the author says that his book is not complete until it is found pleasing in the court of

the beauty of humankind, the pride of Islam, Sa ʿ d son of the greatest Atabeg, the glori-ous king of kings, master of the kings of the Arabs and Persians, Sultan of the land and the ocean, heir to the kingdom of Solomon, Muz.affar al-Dīn Abū Bakr b. Sa ʿ d b. Zangī, may God perpetuate their good fortune and redouble their glory. 35

One might not guess from this description that the Salghurids, also called the Zengids and Muzaffarids, were local rulers who recognized the Mongols as overlords.

There is ample testimony to the continuation of this tradition of Solomonically styled kingship in the poetry of Sa ʿ dī’s successor as the leading poet of Shiraz, H. āfiz., usually considered the greatest lyric poet of the Persian tradition. H. āfiz. also mixes


references to Jamshīd and Solomon, who lost his signet ring and hence his kingship for a moment. 36 He writes:

A heart which has the ability to see the unseen and has the cup of Jamshīd,

Why should it feel sad for the signet ring that it has lost for a moment? ( ghazal 119)

In like manner H. āfiz. defies conventional religion by mixing Zoroastrian and Islamic terminology when he writes:

When, like Solomon, I boast of seizing her ruby red signet ring [the lips of the beloved?]

What fear should I have of Ahriman [the Zoroastrian embodiment of evil who defiles the ring]

Since it [the boast] will be like the greatest name [that name to which God responds]. ( ghazal 327)

In effect, in the works of H. āfiz., the imagery used passes into a totally metaphoric understanding of the Islamic and Iranian past in which names are virtually inter-changeable. In these ghazal s H. āfiz. refers to the “Throne of Solomon” and the “Throne of Jamshīd” along similar lines:

May your efforts be in vain if you set your heart on nothing

In a setting where the Throne of Solomon has vanished with the wind . . . ( ghazal 100)

Do not be amazed at the changes wrought by time, for the wheel of heaven

Remembers thousands upon thousands of such stories . . . Who understands how the Throne of Jamshīd

( takht-i Jam ) disappeared on the wind? ( ghazal 101)

The reference to the Throne of Solomon may be the only one to the great ruins of H. āfiz.’s homeland in his work, if indeed the reference is more than symbolic. A survey of all of the imagery in Persian poetry with associations to Solomon would fill a work of many volumes.

Interestingly, there exists one reference to the Solomonic past of Fars in a work of art preserved from the time of H. āfiz.. It is a brass bucket inlaid with gold and silver made in Shiraz in 733/1332–33 by an artisan who identifies himself as the servant of the sultan who is called “the Heir to the kingdom of Solomon” ( vāris-i mulk-i Sulaymān ) but also “the Alexander (Iskandar) of his time.” 37

The record of inscriptions and graffiti, royal and otherwise, left at Persepolis tells a similar story of strong associations giving way to diffuse ones. There are a series of inscriptions and graffiti at Persepolis attesting to the homage paid to the site by the local kings of Fars in the period after Alexander. One of these inscriptions is ascribed to Pāpak, the priestly father or ancestor of the first Sasanid king, who was the guardian of the nearby shrine of Anahita at Istakhr. 38 Another inscription


written in the name of Shapur II (309–373) at Persepolis shows that, however much the Sasanids built in neighboring Istakhr, they nonetheless greatly revered the site. Part of this inscription reads:

The Mazda-worshipping Lord, Shapur, the king of kings of Iran and An-Iran [non-Iran] . . . traveled on this road from Istakhr to Sakistan and graciously came here to Sad Sutūn [Pahlavi: Sad Stūn ] (One Hundred Columns); he ate bread in this building [the Palace of Darius] . . . And he organized a great feast, and he had the rituals per-formed and he prayed for his father and his ancestors, and he prayed for his own soul, and he also prayed for the one who had this building constructed. 39

Scholars have noticed that Shapur refers to Persepolis not by its old name, Parsa, but as the “Hall of Many Columns,” the name by which it will often be called through-out the premodern period.

The three Buyid inscriptions at Persepolis are well known and respectful if less well informed about the site. The first, by the ruler Abū Shujā ʿ Fannā Khusraw, the future ʿ Ad. ud al-Dawla, simply says: “He was present at it ( h. ad. arahu ) [i.e., at this site] . . . in the year 344 [/955–6].” In fact, the inscription is placed next to the inscription of Shapur II, which, according to the plausible explanation in ʿ Ad. ud al-Dawla’s inscription, was read to him by “one who read the inscription in these remains ( āthār ).” Henceforth it became a royal custom to leave an inscription at Persepolis. ʿ Ad. ud al-Dawla’s son, Bahāʾ al-Dawla, a wily though far less enlightened ruler, left an inscription nearby in 392/1001–2, saying that “he came to this place with a mighty army.” 40

Of the many later Arabic and Persian inscriptions at Persepolis, this chapter will only discuss two Persian examples, one from the time of the Īnjūʾids and the other from the later period of the Āq-Quyūnlū, who ruled Shiraz in the ninth/fifteenth century. The Īnjūʾid patron of H. āfiz., Abū Ish. āq Jamāl al-Dīn Shāh, ruled Shiraz until his death in 758/1357. H. āfiz. laments his absence in the last lines of one of his beautiful lyric poems:

The turquoise signet ring of Abū Ish. āq shone beautifully indeed;

But it was a good turn of fortune— that leaves in haste.

O H. āfiz., do you hear that cry like laughter f rom the strutting partridge

Which had forgotten the claws of the falcon of destiny? 41 ( ghazal 207)

The first of the two Persian inscriptions, in spite of several lacunae, reflects both the “ubi sunt” and “eheu fugaces” atmosphere of the preceding poem and also the understanding by rulers of the significance of Persepolis itself:

Where are the mighty rulers of early times? They put away treasures which have not

remained just as they did not remain.


Did not the Throne of Solomon, on him be peace, use to go on the wind in the morning and

in the evening? Did you not see that in the end he

disappeared with the wind? Fortunate is the learned and just person who has

so departed.

In the first days of Rabi ʿ I, seven hundred and forty-eight (lacuna) the ruler ( Pādishāh ) of Islam, the King of Kings of the seven climes, the Alexander of his time, and the heir to the kingdom [of Solomon] (lacuna) Jamāl al-Dunyā wa-’l-Dīn, the Ruler ( farmān-farmā ) of the world (lacuna) Shaykh Abū Ish. āq, may God make his reign eternal (lacuna) And at an auspicious time he ordered that this exalted place and wondrous construction ( bunyān-i badī ʿ ) [be used for] the pitching of his Majesty’s tent and the encampment [of the army]. 42

This inscription is important in many ways. Its Solomonic language tells us how the site is perceived historically. Its description of the structure as “wondrous” ( badī ʿ ) tells something about aesthetic appreciation of the site.

The second Persian inscription is, to our great good fortune, discussed in a small treatise that admirably explains its context. This treatise describes how Sultan Khalīl, a son of the great Uzun H. asan, came with a great procession of his subjects to Persepolis and Istakhr in 881/1477. It was written by the polymath (and, accord-ing to some scholars, all-around second-rater) Jalāl al-Dīn Davānī, in the most bom-bastic style of post-Mongol Persian.

This inscription at Persepolis is mostly in Persian verse (with some words and phrases in Arabic). Here only the third and fourth lines as well as the last three lines are quoted:

Do not seek the kingdom of Solomon, for that is [now] dust;

Of these jewels and treasures which were beyond counting, what has [the hero] Jam carried away,

What has Solomon borne off? ʿ Alī son of Sultan Khalīl son of Sultan

[Uzun] H. asan—May God favor their rule— in the year eight hundred and eighty-one.

One of God’s graces is that I am nine years old and wrote in this manner. 43

Indeed, the treatise by Davānī talks about the precocity of Sultan Khalīl’s son, whom he calls “the pearl of the shell of world rulership, young in years but old in knowledge.” 44

The account by Davānī deserves a full analysis for its Solomonic and non-Solo-monic imagery, which I will only briefly describe here. Whereas Uzun H. asan is the “caliph of God” and his genealogy is a continuous chain of great sultans stretching back to Jamshīd, his son Sultan Khalīl is the “one occupying the place (and dignity) of Solomon” ( Sulaymān-makāni or Sulaymān-makān ). 45 Sultan Khalīl is specifically


said to have moved the site of his parade “from his summer quarters of Tang-i Bulāq to his winter quarters . . . in the direction of the kingdom of Solomon.” 46 The actual review took place at Band-i Amīr, the famous dam built by ʿ Ad. ud al-Dawla near Persepolis on the Pulvar River.

When the banners that are the signs of victory arrived at Istakhr in Fars . . . he stopped for one day in that place of amazing remains and contemplated the wondrous images ( tamāthīl-i badī ʿ ). 47

Davānī then proceeds to a digression to explain the site:

In some histories . . . it is written that they called this place the “Thousand Columns” in the time of the kings of Persians. In the time of Jamshīd who, according to the assertion of some historians, is Solomon, that [place] was founded. 48

There is mention of Sultan Khalīl’s son, ʿ Alī, and his presentation of the verses that are to be found in his inscription. Then follows the detailed description of the parade of the army, bureaucracy, turbanned men, descendants of the Prophet, dervishes, and many others who passed in review in front of the Sultan as he sat in the Castle of Sar-band at the Lake of Istakhr. One of the first officials mentioned is “the supreme commander ( amīr-i a ʿ z.am ), the Lord Keeper of the Seal, who has the seal-ring of eternal felicity at the disposal of his palm and the bezel of Solomon in the hand of authority.” 49

As would be expected in such verbose and overwrought Persian prose there are ample references to other kings of the Persian and Islamic traditions. Moreover, the “kingdom of Solomon” ( mulk-i Sulaymān ) can sometimes be translated as “the kingship of Solomon,” a metaphoric use to which many Islamic rulers might lay claim. Yet some of the references in this and other documents and inscriptions show that the kingdom of Solomon located in southwestern Iran is the intended mean-ing, as when we are told that Sultan Khalīl, in moving from his winter quarters to Istakhr and Persepolis, went “in the direction of the kingdom of Solomon.”

Following the Solomonic (and, secondarily, Jamshīdic) identification of Persepolis and Istakhr, the creation of a royal palace of 40 (or one hundred or one thousand) columns became an important symbol of sovereignty. In Iran itself two of the most famous examples were built by Shāh ʿ Abbās in eleventh/seventeenth-century Isfahan. Ebba Koch has written extensively with great learning on the numerous palaces called “Forty Pillars” in South Asia. 50 This connection has been doubted but the weight of the written evidence, including the inscriptions at Persepolis, seems to make it overwhelmingly likely that the Solomonic model of Persepolis was being invoked in these palaces.

One of the first lessons to be drawn from this example of place and memory is the importance of correlative chronology. The Muslim Middle East before 1500 was heir to a little bit of Roman history transmitted through Syriac, a little bit of ancient history of the Yemen, and a great deal of Biblical history and post-Biblical embroidery upon that history. It was also heir to a great deal of Iranian history, some


as reconceived by the Sasanids or by the Zoroastrian priests under Muslim rule in the third/ninth and fourth/tenth centuries or by many generations of interested Muslims.

The preeminent specialist on Alexander’s eastern conquests, Pierre Briant, says that “Alexander’s decision to burn Persepolis in May 330 BC was practically imposed on him by his own strategy and war propaganda: he arrived as avenger of the Greeks.” 51 Others have construed Alexander’s motives differently. Whatever his motives, the burning of Persepolis, which was, among its other functions, a ritual center for Achaemenid Iranians, must have been a shock to the Iranian aristocracy and religious functionaries. During the third century BC this royal and ritual cen-ter, in ruins and perhaps having lost its water supply, had moved to the nearby city of Istakhr, which then became the seat of the local rulers of Fars, the Fratarakas. The city reached its zenith under the Sasanids, the first of whom was Ardashir, the son or grandson of Pāpak, a local ruler who is also identified as a keeper of one of the most venerated Zoroastrian fires. 52

The Sasanid dynasty, which Ardashir founded, posed as the restorers of Zoroastrianism or, as it is more properly called, Mazdayasna. By this period there was a fairly well- established Zoroastrian priesthood. In his inscription at the monument locally called the Ka ʿ ba of Zoroaster, the herbed or “high priest” Kartir proudly announces his close relationship with the son and successor of Ardashir, Shapur I (r. 241–272) and Shapur’s son Hormizd, as well as Hormizd’s successor and brother, Bahram I, and Bahram’s son, Bahram II. Of Bahram II, Kartir says:

He is devout, sincere, faithful [to promises], well-behaved and beneficent . . . He made me master of ceremonies and powerful overlord at the fire of Anahid-Ardashir and of Anahid, the Lady of Istakhr.

Istakhr is the only place name in this long trilingual inscription. Kartir makes clear the fire temple’s intimate connection with homage to the Sasanid dynasty. 53

The pre-Islamic Arabs knew about Istakhr and its importance to the Sasanids. In the reign of Khusraw Anushiravan (r. 531–579 AD) at the “Battle Day ( Yawm ) of Mushaqqar” in Arabia a Sasanid official massacred members of the tribe Banu Tamīm. It was a severe defeat and some of the captured Arabs were sent to Istakhr. T. abarī notes that years later, during the Muslim conquest of the Sasanid home-land in Fars, some of the Arab deportees from this earlier battle were still living in Istakhr, where they had been sent as prisoners of war. 54

With the advent of Islam and the Muslim conquests, the fortunes of Istakhr might seem to have been sealed. And indeed T. abarī tells us that at the birth of the Prophet Muh.ammad “the [sacred] fire of Fars, which had not previously been extin-guished for a thousand years, was extinguished.” As the translator of this passage says in his notes, this was “presumably the great fire temple at Istakhr.” 55 The people of Istakhr do not seem to have gotten the message. T. abarī reports that in 23/643 the Muslims and “the army of Istakhr . . . fought a long battle.” After the Muslims won a victory, they conquered Istakhr. Then Fars threw off allegiance to the Muslims in 28/649–650 and had to be reconquered the following year (29/649–650). 56


For Iranians attracted to Islam, the career of the famous Companion of Mu-h. ammad, named Salmān al-Fārisi or “Salmān the man from Fars,” was an impor-tant precursor. It should be noted in passing that Sulaymān (i.e., Solomon) is understood in Arabic to be a correct diminutive of Salmān. 57 Balādhurī, an histo-rian of the second half of the third/ninth century, tells us that Salmān was born at Istakhr into a Zoroastrian family. He converted to Christianity and went to Syria to understand his new religion and was told there, by a monk, to seek someone with “the marks of a prophet.” Sold into slavery by a Bedouin, Salmān arrived in Medina shortly after Muh. ammad. He recognized in Muh. ammad the marks he had been told to find in a prophet, and in Muh. ammad’s message the pure monotheism he had been seeking. 58

Salmān’s Zoroastrian origin made him an accessible and appealing example to Iranians of one of their community who became a prominent Muslim. In Persian he became known as Salmān Pāk, Salmān the Pure, the man who was born into a good family. According to Balādhurī, he was born at the seat of Iranian royalty, Istakhr, although some say he was born at Isfahan, but that is “wrong.” He found his way to Islam at the end of a personal quest for a prophet of the purest monothe-ism. Thus, Salmān became a bridge to Islam for his countrymen. Admiration for his story made Salmān the inspiration for asceticism, mystical traditions, and guild traditions throughout the Islamic world but, in particular, in the Persianate world.

Several accounts of the Prophet’s sayings are told on the authority of Salmān, two of which are especially significant for Iranians. In one of the accounts the Prophet has just recited the verse:

And He has sent him [Muh.ammad] to others among them [Muslims] who have not yet joined them. And He is the Mighty and the Wise (Q62:3). Abū Hurayra, a Companion of Muh.ammad, said, “Who are they, O Apostle of God?” The Apostle of God put his hand on Salmān saying, “If Faith ( īmān/dīn ) were [as far away as] in the Pleiades, one from among them [the Persians] would surely attain it.”

According to the second account, the Prophet said: “Salmān is one of us, a member of our lineage ( ahl al-bayt ).” The somewhat unlikely claim is made that Salmān translated part of the Qurʾān. 59

With the spread of Islam in Iranian lands, opinion regarding Alexander, the conqueror of the Persians, split. A part of the tradition, as represented by the previously cited quotations, regarded Alexander as deeply wicked. But the majority of Muslims, including Iranian Muslims, regarded Alexander as the prophet referred to in the Qurʾān (18:83) as the “The Possessor of Two Horns” (apparently from his widely circulated coin and sculptural images in which he sports rams’ horns). The legendary Alexander also built the barrier of metal that kept Gog and Magog walled up. He, along with Solomon, is usually consid-ered “Muslim” by Muslim historians, as are all monotheists before Muh. ammad. Tha ʿ ālibī, the prominent fourth/tenth-century Arabic writer mentioned above, explains:

Some of the specialists in historical accounts ( akhbār ) have said that the prophet-kings were Adam, Joseph, David, Solomon, Alexander, and Muh.ammad. They added the


support of kingship to prophecy and thus became the most glorious of prophets. They could manifest their call to God and exalt His [God’s] authority ( kalima ) and give power to his Divine Law and prepare through His kingship for Him to enact what He legislates. 60

The alternate tradition of Alexander the destroyer did survive, though it was only espoused by a minority of learned Muslims. A strong trend in Zoroastrian learning arranged history in thousand-year cycles. Alexander the destroyer is placed at the end of one of the these cycles, and at the end of the next millennial cycle came the onslaught of the Islamic conquests, with the attendant end of Sasanid Zoroastrian kingship. Some Zoroastrians believed that after another thousand years a cycle would begin in which Zoroastrian belief would be victorious.

From the first/seventh century on, Zoroastrianism was confronted with the Muslim doctrine that a revealed religion should have a central revealed scripture. The Zoroastrians may well have started the canonization of their scripture long before Islam and may have had other motives for doing so after the advent of Islam. Nevertheless, the context of Islamic scripturalism hastened that canoniza-tion and an important part of the codifying and recreating of Zoroastrian scripture was justified by the explanation that it once existed in Istakhr written in gold ink on oxhides, all of which had been burned by Alexander. The account that Alexander had ancient Persian books translated into Greek may be the reason that so much Greek learning was later translated into Pahlavi, a movement that has only been appreciated recently. 61 The memory of the treasury of “scripture” that the Sasanids kept at Istakhr, whatever this treasury may have been, was projected back to the time of Alexander’s conquest of the Achaemenids. It is not surprising that in the time of Ibn al-Balkhī, one of the hills next to Istakhr was still called Kūh-i Nafasht, “Mountain of Writing/Scripture,” which is presumably the same as the dizī nibisht (i.e., “fortress of the Scriptures”) mentioned in the Arda Wiraf Namag quoted above. 62

With the passage of time, and the conversion of the Zoroastrians of Fars to Islam, a more relaxed view of the past became possible. Again, Ibn al-Balkhī represents this trend. He reports history as recounted by the “Pārsīyān,” without any concern as to whether he is talking of Zoroastrians or Muslims. Not only the inscriptions at Persepolis but also many important literary sources written by Muslim Persians amply testify to the complete acceptance of the remains of the pre-Islamic past. They have been successfully rebaptized as both Solomonic and Jamshīdic remains. The Solomonic heritage of Fars, evident from the earliest Qurʾān commentaries, had now become widely accepted and the rulers of Shiraz began to add to their titles, both in inscriptions and in the poems by their accepted panegyrists, “Heir of the Kingdom of Solomon.”

There are many aspects of the stories of Solomon’s earlier journeys that illustrate the larger contexts in which these stories existed. One context is provided by what I have called earlier in this essay “correlative chronology,” although the phrase “com-parative chronology” bears a similar meaning. Interest in correlating chronolo-gies is no stranger to the Western tradition. The “father of history,” Herodotus, is troubled that the Egyptians reckon Hercules to be seventeen thousand years


before the Pharaoh Ahmose II (r. 570–526 BC) whereas the Greeks know him to have lived less than a thousand years earlier (Bk. II). Similarly, one of the greatest minds of the Enlightenment, Sir Isaac Newton, in his last work, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended , dates Hercules to 956 BC, and in “correlating” him with Biblical history, Sir Isaac states that Hercules lived in the time of “Asa King of Judah.” 63

Correlating Biblical history with ancient Iranian history was a major concern for many premodern Muslim historians. The anonymous fifth/eleventh-century Persian work Mujmal al-tavārīkh says that King Khusraw, a great ruler in Iranian history, asked Solomon, who was king of Syria, “to send him some dīv s so that they could erect buildings for him. These [the author says] are the gigantic structures one finds in Pars and other places that are called the Throne of Solomon.” 64 Other authors suggest further correlations. In the Sufi or Sufi-esque poetic sensibility of the time of Sa ʿ dī and H. āfiz., which favored easy interchange of heroes and symbols, the equation of Solomon and Jamshīd was made so frequently that poets even called Asaf, the Biblical adviser to Solomon, the minister of Jamshīd. A fourth/tenth-cen-tury eastern Iranian author, Ibn Mut.ahhar al-Maqdisī, confesses his total confusion as to the identity of Jamshīd:

The Persians describe the king Jamshadh as having the qualities of Solomon. I do not know if they are the same man, or he is the Persian Solomon, or neither. If their accounts are true, the man must be one of the prophets, for no one else could do the miracles [ascribed to him]. 65

The mutual accommodation of the Persian and Muslim traditions is a vast topic that can be only very briefly treated in this chapter. Such accommodation used to be called “syncretism,” a term which the veteran scholar of religions (and accomplished Iranist) Carsten Colpe still thought useful in his article on the subject published in 1987. 66 Colpe did complain of the looseness of the term and its negative overtones, as well as its implicit reference to supposedly “pure” and “uncontaminated” traditions. Nevertheless, he felt that it applied to situations in which “a unity of type is preserved.” This approach seems to create a new barrier for students of religion, insofar as it demands that such a unity be demonstrated, an easier task for Colpe’s work on Manichaeism than in the many diffuse systems of belief actually found in most societies in most periods.

Colpe carefully distinguishes between syncretism and various parallel phenom-ena, such as symbiosis and acculturation, and these classifications may be useful to some religionists. But an application of Occam’s Razor might be appropriate, especially as categories, like essences, draw attention away from the phenomena themselves, in particular, from their context and fluidity. 67

Sometimes identities from one tradition to another are sincerely adopted. Herodotus believed in the identity of the Egyptian and the Greek Hercules. In other cases they are hopefully adopted. In an anecdote about the Mughal emperor Akbar (still current in India) it is said that when he was buying relics for his new religion, his vizier remarked, “Your majesty, you have just bought a fifth hoof of the donkey that bore Jesus into Jerusalem.” Akbar replied: “Who knows: one of them may be genuine.”


Belief that the great pre-Islamic ruins in Fars were built by King Solomon was held in part devoutly, as is seen from the insistence of the entire tradition of Qurʾānic commentary that Istakhr was a palatial construction and remote destination of Solomon. It was also held with various levels of hopefulness, as is seen from the vari-ety of commitments to the identification of Jamshīd with Solomon. This identifica-tion is part of the cultural language of premodern Muslims of the Persianate world. As in language itself, the etymology of the words (or symbolic images and heroes) used means little to speakers of the language. Premodern Persianate Muslims did not “paste” their own traditions onto Muslim traditions just as they did not “paste” their own tradition onto Islam. Rather, the elements of what they considered to be history were integrated by them into plausible historical accounts.

The resonances of these accounts in the minds of premodern Persianate Muslims and, in particular, the inhabitants of Fars in southwestern Iran were sufficient to keep ancient sacred places still revered in Islamic times. These resonances came to permeate Persian literature. Historical accounts created a tradition and a site, Persepolis-Istakhr, to pay homage in the Islamic period to an ongoing narrative of Persian kingship. What may have seemed to Zoroastrians a poignant past emerged among premodern Persianate Muslims as an affirming past lending glory to both Persepolis and Jerusalem.

Notes

* I am sincerely grateful for bibliographic help from Professor Hossein Kamaly, for some wise emails from Professor David Stronach, for thoughtful advice from Professor Abbas Amanat on an early version, for advice on Middle Persian languages from Daniel Sheffield, for invaluable advice in the archaeological literature from Professor Donald Whitcomb, and for deeply informed advice from Dr. Sarah Savant, who is writing a book on a similar theme.

1. Baghawī, Ma ʿ ālim al-tanzīl (Riyadh: Dār al-T. iba, 1993), 21:81. A parasang is about three miles. Satans are a subcategory of jinn , the alternate creation to mankind and, like humans, subject to judgment of heaven or hell.

2 . Al-Hay.sam b. Muh.ammad Būshanjī, Qis.as. al-Qur āʾn al-Karīm (Amman: n.p., 2006), 470. Some scholars date Būshanjī to the early fifth/eleventh century.

3 . Tha ʿ labī, Arā iʾs al-majālis , trans. William M. Brinner (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2002), 492. 4 . Antoine Borrut, “La Syrie de Salomon,” Pallas 43 (2003), 112. 5 . Borrut, “La Syrie,” 112. According to the Iranian tradition, D. ah.h. āk was a universal

ruler, but as he was generally considered a “wicked” king, he is seldom equated with Solomon.

6 . Yāqūt, Mu ʿ jam al-buldān , ed. F. Wuestenfeld (Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1886), 1:684. 7 . Tha ʿ ālibī, Thimār al-qulūb (Cairo: Dār Nahd. at Mis.r, 1965), 17. 8 . Yāqūt, Mu ʿ jam , 1:515. 9 . See the excellent article by Priscilla Souchek, “Solomon’s Throne/Solomon’s Bath,” Ars

orientalis 23 (1993), 109–36. 10 . Ibn Bat.t.ūt.a, Travels in Asia and Africa , trans. H. A. R. Gibb (London: G. Routledge,

1939), 180.


11 . Ah.mad Iqtidārī, Khūzistān (Tehran: Anjuman-i Asār-i Millī, 1359/1980), 7. 12 . Assadullah Souren Melikian-Chirvani, “Le royaume de Salomon,” Le Monde Iranien et

l’Islam 1 (1971), 18. 13 . T. abarī , Jāmi ʿ al-bayān (Cairo: Mus.t.afā al-Bābī al-H. alabī, 1954), 17:55. 14 . T. abarī, Jāmi ʿ , 17:55. 15 . A. D. H. Bivar and Mary Boyce, “Estakr,” Encyclopaedia Iranica , viewed online May

30, 2011. 16 . Mas ʿ ūdī, Murūj al-dhahab (Beirut: al-Jāmi ʿ a al-Lubnāniyya, 1966), 2:399–400. 17 . Mas ʿ ūdī, Livre de l’avertissement et de la revision (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1896),

150–51. 18 . Ibn al-Nadīm, The Fihrist , ed. and trans. Bayard Dodge (New York: Columbia

University Press, 1970), 574. 19 . Philippe Gignoux, Le livre d’Ardā Vīrāz (Paris: Editions recherche sur les civilisations,

1984), 145–46. Middle Persianists now would transliterate the name Papag as Pābag. The customary form of this name in the Shāhnāma is Pāpak. Middle Persianists would also render bad-bakht as wad-baxt .

20 . Muqaddasī, Best Divisions for Knowledge of the Regions , trans. Basil Collins (Reading: Garnet, 2001), 36.

21 . Bīrūnī, Chronology of the Ancient Nations , trans. C. E. Sachau (London: Oriental Translation Fund, 1879), 127, with some modifications by this author; Kitāb al-āthār al-baqiya [Chronologie orientalischer Völker] (Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1878), 129.

22 . Mahdi Moradi-Jalal, Siamak Arianfar, Bryan Karney, and Andrew Colombo, “Water Resource Management for Iran’s Persepolis Complex,” in Ancient Water Technologies , ed. Larry W. Mays (Dordrecht: Springer, 2010), 87–102.

23 . E. W. Lane, An Arabic-English Lexicon (London: Williams and Norgate, 1877), 6:2353, with references to the classical lexicons.

24 . Michele Bernardini, “Figueroa,” Encyclopaedia Iranica online, s.v. 25 . For Shapur’s inscription, see note 39. 26 . Josef Wiesehoefer, Ancient Persia (London: I. B. Tauris, 1996), 226. 27 . Dīnawarī, al-Akhbār al-t. iwāl , ed. Vladimir Guirgass (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1888), 9. Jam

is a common alternate for Jamshīd because the latter means “Jam-the Shining.” 28 . Ibn al-Balkhī, The Fārsnāma (London: Luzac, 1921), 26. 29 . Anon., Mujmal al-tavārīkh, ed. M. Bahār (Tehran: Muʾassasa-yi Khāvar, 1318), 38. 30 . On the term Īrānshahr , see my article, “The Idea of Iran in the Buyid Dominions,” in

the forthcoming volume on this subject, edited by Dr. Sarah Stewart. 31 . Dīnawarī, a l-Akhbār al-t. iwāl (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al- ʿ Ilmiyya, 2001), 32. 32 . Ibid., 32 (on Jamshīd), 40 (on Pharaoh). 33 . Manūchihr Murtaz.avī , Maktab-i H. āfiz. (Tabriz: Sitūda, 1370), 225. In the Shāhnāma ,

it is the legendary king Kaykhusraw (and not Jamshīd) who possesses the world- viewing cup. In later Persian poetry the cup is almost universally attributed to Jamshīd.

34 . Muh.ammad Qazvīnī, Mamdūh. in-i Shaykh Sa ʿ dī (Tehran: Vizārat-i Ma ʿ ārif, 1317). 35 . Sa ʿ dī, Kulliyāt , ed. Bahāʾ al-Dīn Khurramshāhī (Tehran: Intishārāt-i Nāhīd, 1379), 28. 36 . H. āfiz., Dīvān , ed. M. Qazvīnī and Q. Ghanī (Tehran: Sīnā, n.d.), 69–70, ghazal s 100–

101; 89, ghazal 119; 223, ghazal 327. 37 . Adel T. Adamova, “The St. Petersburg Illustrated Shahnama of 733 Hijra (1333 AD )

and the Injuid School of Painting,” in The Visual Language of the Persian Book of Kings , ed. Robert Hillenbrand (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), 58.

38 . See Pierofranceso Callieri, “At the Roots of the Sasanian Royal Imagery: The Persepolis Graffiti,” in Eran ud Aneran: Studies Presented to Boris Ilic Marshak (Venezia: Cafoscarina, 2006), 129–48, especially p. 138.


39 . Vesta Sarkhosh Curtis, “The Legacy of Ancient Persia,” in The Forgotten Empire , ed. John E. Curtis and Nigel Tallis (London: British Museum Press, 2005), 252.

40 . John J. Donahue, “Three Buwayhid Inscriptions ,” Arabica 20, no. 1 (1973), 74–80 on the inscription and the Zoroastrian priest named in ʿ Ad. ud al-Dawla’s second inscription.

41 . H. āfiz., Dīvān , 141, ghazal 207. 42 . Muh.ammad Taqī Mus.t.afavī, Iqlīm-i Fārs (Tehran: Anjuman-i Āsār-i Millī, 1343),

346–47. 43 . Ibid. , 339. 44 . For Davānī, see Vladimir Minorsky, “A Civil and Military Review in Fars in 881/1476,”

Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 10, no. 1 (1939), corrected here on the basis of Iraj Afshar’s excellent edition of Davānī, “ ʿ Arz.-i Sipāh-i Uzun H. asan,” Majalla-yi dānishkada-yi adabiyyāt 3, no. 3 (Tehran: Farvardīn, 1325), 26–55.

45 . Davānī, “ ʿ Arz.,” 36ff. See Minorsky, “Civil,” 149. 46 . Davānī, “ ʿ Arz.,” 40. 47 . Ibid., 41. 48 . Ibid., 41. 49 . Ibid., 47. 50 . Ebba Koch, Mughal Art and Imperial Ideology (New Delhi: Oxford University Press,

2001). 51 . Pierre Briant, Alexandre le Grand (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1977), 96. 52 . Richard Frye, “Papak,” Encyclopaedia Iranica , viewed online May 3, 2011. 53 . Marie-Louise Chaumont, “L’inscription de Kartir à la Ka ʿ bah de Zoroastre,” Journal

Asiatique (1960), 339–80. See also the more recent synoptic edition of this inscription by D. N. MacKenzie, “Kerdir’s Inscription,” in Georgina Herrmann, The Sasanian Rock Reliefs at Naqsh-i Rustam (Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Verlag, 1989), 35–72.

54 . T. abarī, Taʾrīkh (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1965), 1:986. 55 . T. abarī, The Conquest of Iran , trans. G. Rex Smith (Albany: SUNY Press, 1994), 285 and

note 667. 56 . Ibid., 66–68. 57 . Mu ʿ jam asmāʾ al- ʿ Arab , ed. Muh.ammad b. al-Zubayr (Beirut: Maktab Lubnān, 1991),

1:827. 58 . Balādhurī, Ansāb al-ashrāf (Damascus: Dār al-Yaqz.a al- ʿ Arabiyya, 1997), 213. 59 . Sulayman Bashir, Arabs and Others in Early Islam (Princeton: Darwin Press, 1997), 76. 60 . Tha ʿ ālibī, Ghurar al-siyar (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1900), 4. 61 . Dimitri Gutas, Greek Thought, Arabic Culture (New York: Routledge, 1998). 62 . Ibn al-Balkhī, Fārsnāmah , trans. Guy Le Strange, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society

(1912), 137. 63 . Isaac Newton, Chronology (London: J. Tonson, 1728). 64 . Anon., Mujmal , 47. 65 . Maqdisī, Kitāb al-Badʾ wa-’ l-taʾrīkh (Paris: Leroux, 1918), 3:106. 66 . Carsten Colpe, “Syncretism,” in The Encyclopedia of Religion , ed. Mircea Eliade (New

York: Macmillan, 1987), 14:218–27. 67 . For a different but important critique of Colpe, see Fritz Graf, “Syncretism (Further

Considerations),” in Encyclopedia of Religion , 2nd ed., ed. Lindsay Jones (New York: Macmillan, 2004), 13:8934–38, viewed online May 28, 2011.

Chapter 14

Al-H. asan b. Musa al-Nawbakhtī on the Views of Astronomers

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Abū Muh.ammad al-H. asan b. Mūsā al-Nawbakhtī (d. between 300/912 and 310/922) has in modern Islamic studies been primarily known as the author of a Kitāb Firaq al-shī‘a, in which he enumerated the early sects of the Shī‘a and traced the rightful imamate, from an Imāmī perspective, down to the eleventh Imam and the ghayba. Closer to his own lifetime, Ibn al-Nadīm described him as a Shī‘ī kalām theologian and philosopher and associated him with a group of translators of Greek philosophical works, Abū ‘Uthmān al-Dimashqī, Ish. āq b. H. unayn (d. 298/910), Thābit b. Qurra (288/901), and others. He noted that al-Nawbakhtī was claimed by both the Mu‘tazila and the Shī‘a as one of theirs, but suggested that the claim of the Shī‘a was better founded. From among the books by al-Nawbakhtī, Ibn al-Nadīm named his Kitāb al-Ārā’ wa l-diyānāt in first place, adding that it was left incom-plete. 1 He and other bibliographical sources mention more than 40 titles of books by al-Nawbakhtī. 2 From the titles of his books and information provided by the Imāmī Shaykh al-Mufīd, it is evident that he upheld basic Mu‘tazilī theology on the attributes and justice of God, but in line with the general position of the Shī‘a, rejected the Mu‘tazilī doctrines of the divine Threat (wa‘īd) of eternal punishment for the unrepentant Muslim offender and his Intermediate Position (manzila bayn al-manzilatayn) between the believer and unbeliever. 3

Al-Nawbakhtī’s work most widely known in the three centuries after his death evidently was his K. al-Ārā’ wa l-diyānāt on religious and philosophical doctrines, which was quoted by Sunnī and Mu‘tazilī authors such as al-Mas‘ūdī, Qād. ī ‘Abd al-Jabbār, Ibn al-Jawzī, Ibn Abi l-H. adīd, and Ibn Taymiyya. Substantial quotations from this book are now becoming available in the K. al-Mu‘tamad fī us.ūl al-dīn of

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the Mu‘tazilī Rukn al-Dīn Ibn al-Malāh. imī (d. 536/1141), who relied on it as his main source, besides Abū ‘Īsā al-Warrāq’s K. al-Maqālāt, for the beliefs of religions other than Islam. 4 Ibn al-Malāh. imī, however, also quoted al-Nawbakhtī’s book 5 extensively in a special chapter on the opinions of the astronomers (munajjimūn) and astrologers (as.h. āb al-ah.kām), which he inserted in his discussion of other religions after a short section on the H. arrānian S.ābians (al-H. arnāniyya) who worshipped the seven planets. He referred in this chapter to al-Nawbakhtī’s work evidently for his expert knowledge of the views of the astronomers and astrologers. The Nawbakhtī family had long been associated with astronomy and astrology. Their ancestor Abū Sahl Nawbakht had been the astrological counsellor of the ‘Abbāsid caliph al-Mans.ūr, and several members of the family became noted astronomers and astrol-ogers. Al-H. asan b. Mūsā is known to have written critical comments on the refuta-tion of the astronomers by the prominent Mu‘tazilī theologian Abū ‘Alī al-Jubbā’ī (d. 303/915–6). 6 Ibn al-Malāh. imī presumably accepted the position of al-Nawbakhtī in this controversy, for he does not refer to Abū ‘Alī’s book at all. He does, however, quote an argument of Abū Hāshim al-Jubbā’ī (d. 321/933), Abū ‘Alī’s son, against Aristotle’s theory of a fifth nature prevailing in the heavenly spheres. Ibn al-Jawzī in his K. Talbīs Iblīs also quotes from al-Nawbakhtī’s book in describing the wiles of Satan on the astronomers, evidently recognizing his authority on the subject. 7

At the beginning of his chapter on the astronomers Ibn al-Malāh. imī notes that their various views were numerous and that on most matters there was dis-agreement among them. For the purpose of his book, only what was relevant to the theological sciences (‘ulūm al-tawh. īd) was suitable to be discussed. He would thus relate those of their opinions that agreed with the position of the Muslims on tawh. īd in order to let the reader of his book know that not all of them disagreed with Muslim theology. On the other hand, he would narrate those opinions that were in conflict with the views of the Muslims in order to uncover their falsehood. Muslim kalām theologians were obviously concerned about the astronomical theories that envisaged the heavens as a divine and eternal superior world governing the sublunar temporal world of generation and corruption. These were mostly theories of Greek philosophical origins that could serve as a basis for justifying the star worship by the H. arrānian S.ābians. Al-Nawbakhtī’s book certainly also dealt with many other questions discussed by the astronomers, as is evident from the summary quotations of Ibn al-Jawzī in his Talbīs Iblīs.

Ibn al-Malāh. imī then quotes al-Nawbakhtī’s account of the major points of dif-ference among the astronomers. Some asserted that the celestial sphere was eternal without a creator, others that it was originated by a creator. The latter view was that of the Muslims, many S.ābians and adherents of other religions. Galen related that Plato had mentioned about the Stoics (as.h. āb al-riwāq) that they claimed the sphere was originated except for Saturn, which was solely eternal among the planets. Some people said its matter ( t.īna ) was eternal, but it was temporal in creation, others that it was eternal and had an eternal creator. These were the philosophers.

The astronomers were divided on the nature of the heavenly sphere. Some phi-losophers said it consisted of the four natures, warmth, cold, humidity, and dryness. Others agreed but added that fiery nature (nāriyya) predominated. Its fire, how-ever, was not burning, but rather like innate warmth. Aristotle and the philosophers

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following him said the sphere consisted of a fifth nature and that there was nothing of the four natures in it. It was neither light nor heavy and could not increase or decrease. Some people held that it was all dry, even though it had a fifth nature, oth-ers that it was fiery and its stars were of fire, still others claimed that it was earthen but able to light up (mustanīra). Al-Nawbakhtī (or perhaps Ibn al-Malāh. imī) remarked that he related these positions here as he would afterward mention the disagreement of the philosophers on whether the sphere was alive or not. Whoever asserted that it was fiery could not argue that it was alive, since it was necessarily known that fire is not alive, nor is anything that is of its kind.

People disagreed on whether the celestial sphere is perishable or corruptible. Some held that it is subject to corruption, though only over a prolonged time. Others held that its Creator had perfected it and made it so that it was not subject to corruption by itself, but it would be corrupted if He corrupted it. Aristotle maintained it was impossible that it could be corrupted in any way. Some people held that the sphere was not alive. Plato, however, said that it is alive and that the Creator had distributed souls and had put a soul in every planet. Some said that the sphere was alive and discerning, hearing, and seeing, but had no sense of smell or taste. This opinion was reported of Aristotle and of Ya‘qūb b. Ish. āq al-Kindī. Some held that it was alive and that its motion was by itself, while others said that it moves by a power coming to it from the Creator and still others said its motion was by its nature. The latter view was reported of Aristotle, but it is also reported from him that it moves by its free choice. Some ancient philosophers claimed that the motion of the sphere is subject to slackening at times and to strength at others, but Aristotle declared that to be impossible.

Another point of dispute was that the astronomer Muh.ammad b. Mūsā al-Khuwārazmī asserted that the celestial sphere was of extreme hardness and dry-ness, while most philosophers denied that there was any hardness or dryness in it. There was disagreement concerning the movement or rest of the earth. Most philosophers held that the earth is at rest in the middle of the universe, but Ptolemy reported that some people claimed it had been forever falling and continued to be falling. He also reported the view of some philosophers that the earth moves in cir-cular motion on an inclining sphere like the motion of the sun and the moon, and the view of others that its motion is not a motion of dislocation, but like the motion of wheels, rotating from west to east and on its center.

Still quoting al-Nawbakhtī, Ibn al-Malāh. imī next describes in detail the dis-agreement concerning the cause of the earth’s resting or movement. Here he also mentions the different opinions of the Muslims. Al-Naz. z. ām stated that the earth rests because it finds nowhere to go (lā tajid madhhaban). Some held that it only rests because God produces rest in it, while others asserted that God placed a body inclined to rise under it, and its upper part inclined to descend. Its inclination to rise and to descend thus was equal and this held it in place. Some traditionists (ahl al-h.adīth) affirmed that it rests on the back of a fish, the fish on the horn of a steer, and the steer on the ground (tharā). What is beyond that only God knows.

Finally the various views concerning astrology are mentioned. Some ancient phi-losophers and the H. arnāniyya claimed that the stars do what is good and evil in the world. Some said that they did this in accordance with their lucky or unlucky

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natures and in accordance with their being in the signs of the zodiac that agreed or disagreed with them. Others claimed that they acted out of their free choice and that they produced the events in this world by their choice. Those of good fortune, however, would choose only what is good, and those of ill fortune would choose only evil. Others said that the events were not of the stars’ doing, these merely indicated them.

There was difference of opinion in another respect. Some held that lucky stars (su‘ūd) are lucky in themselves and cause good fortune in others, and unlucky stars (nuh.ūs) likewise are unlucky in themselves and cause misfortune. Others held that the stars do not differ in themselves, but only in their indicating good or ill fortune. The dualists, however, claimed that the stars are composed of light and darkness. Neither the lucky nor the unlucky ones among them are pure light or pure darkness except for the sun and the moon, which are all light and wholly lucky. Ibn al-Malāh. imī concludes his account by quoting Abū Muh.ammad b. Mūsā (al-Nawbakhtī): Many philosophers, mathematicians, and geometricians (as.h.āb al-h. isāb wa l-handasa) consider horoscopes (dalālāt al-nujūm) legitimate, but will not definitely assert their soundness.

Ibn al-Malāh. imī then begins with his critical discussion of these views. He sum-marily dismisses the assertions of the eternity of the celestial spheres or any part of them as he had already proved the temporal origination of all bodies, and next turns to the question of the natures composing the heavens. When he comes to Aristotle’s theory of a fifth nature, the ether, he again quotes al-Nawbakhtī extensively. The latter evidently was much concerned with this theory and examined Aristotle’s argu-ments for it one by one in order to refute them. He obviously had a first-hand knowledge of Aristotle’s works that had been translated into Arabic. An abridged version of Aristotle’s On Generation and Corruption is listed among the books attrib-uted to him. 8 In Ibn al-Malāh. imī’s quotations, al-Nawbakhtī expressly refers to Aristotle’s On the Heavens, Metaphysics, Categories, and Physics (K. al-Kiyān). He thus first adduces and refutes Aristotle’s arguments for the fifth nature in book I of On the Heavens, chapters 2–4. He was furthermore familiar with commentaries on this book. In regard to one of Aristotle’s arguments in On the Heavens, I 4, he remarks that it was unexplained (ghayr mubayyan) and then presents two different interpretations of it by Themistios and Alexander (of Aphrodisias). He also men-tions Aristotle’s assertion in his Metaphysics that the celestial sphere is moved by the passionate longing (‘ ishq) for the Creator and that the Creator was its Mover. Ibn al-Malāh. imī adds that al-Nawbakhtī refuted this view at great length and finally apologized for his prolixity stating that the followers of Aristotle considered this their strongest proof that the sphere had a fifth nature. Ibn al-Malāh. imī comments that all this discussion was not suitable for his book.

Aristotle’s theory of a fifth nature entailed a specific denial that the celestial sphere consisted of fire as many ancient philosophers had maintained. He argued that by its immense size in comparison with the lower world, the sphere, if it were of fire, would necessarily burn and assimilate everything to itself. Countering this argument, al-Nawbakhtī noted that John Philoponos reported that according to Plato the fire of the heavens was subtle, not of the coarse kind, and that he also lik-ened it to the innate animal fire that does not burn. Al-Nawbakhtī went on to reject the argument of the philosophers who considered the sphere as wholly fiery on the


basis of the heat and brightness of the sun. He pointed out that this heat does not indicate that the whole of the sphere is fiery, but rather that its heat and luminos-ity vary widely and are subject to change. These philosophers, however, would not admit any change in the celestial sphere.

Al-Nawbakhtī described at length and refuted Aristotle’s arguments for the celestial world not being subject to generation and corruption, arguments based on Aristotle’s assertion that the beings of that world and their motions had no contraries into which they could change and on the claim that no one had ever witnessed any change in them. Briefly al-Nawbakhtī also dealt with the view of Plato and others that the stars were subject to corruption by their nature, but that God had specially undertaken to create them and would keep them from corruption. Plato had stated in his letter to Timaeus that God had assured the stars that He had brought them into existence and that they were therefore immortal. Al-Nawbakhtī commented that Plato merely related a fable, and fables could not prove anything.

Of primary interest to al-Nawbakhtī, however, was the teaching of some philoso-phers that the celestial spheres or the stars were alive. With regard to Aristotle, he evidently did not find any explicit affirmation of this view in his On the Heavens and the other books available to him. Such explicit affirmation that the stars were living, sentient, and intelligent beings acting by their own will and choice was expressed in Aristotle’s early lost work On Philosophy, as is known from Cicero’s On the Nature of the Gods. Al-Nawbakhtī thus usually stated that this doctrine was reported of Aristotle. Such reports may have come to him in particular from his S.ābian infor-mants, who must have sought to claim the authority of the famous philosopher in order to bolster their religious beliefs. Al-Nawbakhtī evidently had no doubts about the reliability of these reports, but he considered them inconsistent with Aristotle’s view expressed in On the Heavens that the circular motion of the celestial bodies must be by nature. He composed a treatise on arguments from nature extracted from the books of Aristotle that contradicted those who held the heavens to be alive and rational. 9 The treatise no doubt was not meant to support Aristotle’s views, but rather to expose their contradictions. Ibn al-Malāh. imī quotes him addressing Aristotle: “You have mentioned in one of your books that the celestial sphere is alive and rational, how can you then deny that its motion is by itself, rather than by its nature?” The case of Plato was less problematic for him. It was well known that Plato had attributed souls as the seat of life to the planets and that he considered them immortal. From Plato’s teaching, Aristotle had adopted his own early view that the stars were alive and intelligent beings.

The proofs for the celestial sphere being alive, which al-Nawbakhtī quoted and refuted, were, however, not from the books of Plato and Aristotle, but were evidently espoused in his own age. The first one argued on the basis that bodies most efficient in action like the human body also possess the most perfect rational soul. Since the celestial sphere performs most of the acts that sustain the essential order of the world, such as generation and corruption, agriculture, procreation, and succession of times, it must also possess the most perfect of souls. This argument, according to al-Nawbakhtī, was employed by the S.ābian Thābit b. Qurra. Al-Nawbakhtī coun-tered by questioning the premise that these were acts of the sphere; let them first prove that before adducing it as evidence for their claim.

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The second argument was based on the observation that some of the movements of the sphere were from east to west and some from west to east. This indicated that they were not natural, but by the sphere’s choice, and a choosing agent must be alive. This view, its supporters contended, did not contradict Aristotle’s doctrine that the motion of the celestial sphere was by its nature, for its total circular motion was natural and not subject to change. It was thus like a human who was invol-untarily falling by nature, but might still move his hand by his own free choice. Al-Nawbakhtī replied that the philosophers, on whose judgment the opponents relied, rather deduced the presence of two natures in the celestial sphere from its two movements from east to west and from west to its night station (mabīt).

The third was a complex argument on the basis of the four kinds of causes rec-ognized by the philosophers. The celestial sphere was a body and the efficient cause of everything subject to generation and corruption. It was impossible that it should act with any animal instrument (āla h.ayawāniyya). Rather it must be acting by its nature, like fire in heating. This required, if it affected life, that life must be in the sphere’s nature, just as heat must be in the nature of fire for it to effect heat. After refuting this proof, al-Nawbakhtī commented that it had captured the admiration of the (philosopher) Ya‘qūb b. Ish. āq al-Kindī to such an extent that he opened a treatise on the celestial sphere being alive with it. 10 Yet it was in reality a weak argu-ment put forward already by the ancient S.ābians (qudamā’ al-S.ābi’īn). According to Ibn al-Malāh. imī, al-Nawbakhtī then related an argument of the S.ābians, which was in substance the same as this one and differed merely in expression. He addressed al-Kindī ridiculing his assertion that the sphere possessed the senses of hearing and seeing since through them the philosophical sciences could be acquired, but it did not possess the senses of smelling and tasting. Did al-Kindī really mean that the sphere acquired the sciences of the philosophers? If he affirmed that, let him also allow the sphere to become a physician and a poet. Whoever arrived at such conclusions surely had reached the ultimate degree of stupidity. According to Ibn al-Malāh. imī, al-Nawbakhtī further expatiated on this, forcing absurd conclusions on al-Kindī from his proof.

The further arguments of the advocates of the view that the celestial sphere was alive were equally late. Only the final one referred to an opinion reported of Aristotle that the sphere was alive and freely choosing since it transferred (muntaqil) from place to place, and anything that transfers in location must be living. The proof for its being a freely choosing agent was that its motion was characterized by order and proper succession. Al-Nawbakhtī suggested that this argument could also be used to prove that fire and water were alive.

On the question whether the earth was permanently resting, al-Nawbakhtī affirmed that this was necessarily known by the evidence that a feather or a clod of mud thrown from a height would drop to the ground. If the earth were falling it would by its heavy weight move away and leave the feather behind. Here his view obviously agreed with that of most philosophers. He criticized, however, their view that the earth was in the middle of the universe and questioned the very concept of a center (markaz) of the world, toward which the two elements of earth and water could move and from which the other two, air and fire, could rise. He also argued against the theories that the surrounding celestial sphere either pulled or gently


pushed the earth from all sides with equal force so that it remained at rest in the middle. Against those who claimed that the celestial sphere was at rest and that it was the earth which was moving, he argued that the different movements to be observed in the sphere of the fixed stars, the planets, and, in particular, the moon ruled that out. It was also reported of Ptolemy that he countered this view by noting that birds left their nests in the morning and returned to them in the evening. If the earth were revolving from east to west or from west to east, they would not be able to find their nests because their direction had changed.

Al-Nawbakhtī then explained the theory of the early Mu‘tazilī kalām theologian al-Naz. z. ām, who argued that all things in the world were finite, and that the earth also must have an end (ākhir). Having an end, it had nowhere to go and no place on which or toward which it could move. Al-Nawbakhtī commented that this was in his opinion a good and valid argument. Here Ibn al-Malāh. imī disagrees, pointing out that the argument was evidently based on the presumption that there was no empty space. Without that presumption, there was no reason why the earth should not move in place or toward a place or move from one vacant space to another. Ibn al-Malāh. imī then speculates about the theory of the Bas.ran Mu‘tazilī Abū Hāshim al-Jubbā’ī that God created the lower parts of the earth inclining to rise and the upper parts inclining to descend so that the earth would permanently remain at rest.

The last section of the chapter deals with the views and arguments of the astrolo-gers in support of their practice. There were those who claimed that everything on earth, plants, fruits, sustenance, foods, and the age of people, was determined by the stars, their closeness or remoteness and their conjunctions. They argued in particular that the impact of the sun on the natures and movements of people, on their temperament and desires, was obvious. Al-Nawbakhtī countered that people sometimes moved at night and sometimes during daytime. If their movements were produced by the rise of the sun, no one would travel at night. There were even some animals that moved exclusively at night.

Among the strongest arguments of the astrologers for the stars’ acting in the world and their indicating what would occur or change in it was that they had found the verdicts of their horoscopes and sun measurements to be reliable and true. The principles on which they based their judgments therefore must be sound. Al-Nawbakhtī categorically rejected this argument. What about those others who had equally produced proper horoscopes and sun measurements and had found their predictions entirely untrue? The astrologers could not claim that their errors were like the errors of physicians and did not prove that the basis of their craft was corrupt, just as the errors of physicians did not prove the basis of medicine to be corrupt. For the physicians had certain agreed principles like their knowledge that myrobalan relieves constipation and that poison kills, so that an error could be attributed to the mistake of the physician rather than the corruption of the art of medicine. The astrologers in contrast could rely only on their experience in predict-ing events on the basis of the ascendants of stars. If many of these predictions turned out to be false, their craft itself must be considered corrupt. The predictions of the astrologers hit the truth only accidentally, like someone guessing or drawing lots.

On this point Ibn al-Malāh. imī disagrees, although he, too, had rejected the astrol-ogers’ assertions that the stars determine events and changes on earth. He suggests

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that al-Nawbakhtī was backing the opinion of those philosophers who denied the soundness of the verdicts of the stars. In fairness it should be conceded that skilled astrologers hit the truth more often than not. There was thus no reason to deny that the movements of stars were an indication of events in the world. Astrologers properly endeavored to predict from the indications of lucky and unlucky stars, just as physicians endeavored to cure their patients on the basis of the symptoms of their disease. Occasional errors could not discredit the soundness of their craft.

Al-Nawbakhtī further mentioned that some astrologers argued in favor of their craft on the basis of Qur’ān 37:88–89: “(Abraham) looked up at the stars and said: I am ill” and 41:16: “in days of ill fortune” and of a report about ‘Alī that he was loath to travel when the moon was in Scorpio. Al-Nawbakhtī commented that people did not need to look at the stars to know that they were ill. It was said that when Abraham looked at the the stars, it was not like the astrologers did, but rather in the knowledge that some recurrent disease like tertian or quartan fever would befall him at a certain time. The expression “days of ill fortune” could not refer to any unlucky stars, as that meaning would rather have required the passive participle manh.ūsāt. The report about ‘Alī was unsound and, moreover, the moon might at times be in Scorpio while the ascendant of departure and of the Lord of travel was indicating good fortune. The evidence offered by these astrologers was baseless. 11

After completion of his chapter on the views of the astronomers and astrologers, Ibn al-Malāh. imī turned to the teaching of the philosophers on the origin of the world and the existence of the Creator. The focus of his attention in this chapter was on the modern Muslim philosophers, especially Avicenna and his school. For their views he generally relied on their own works and on recent accounts of their doctrine. Only when discussing the philosophers’ opinions about the heavenly bod-ies and the disagreement between Plato and Aristotle on whether the celestial sphere moves eternally by its soul and own will or rather by its nature did he have occasion to refer again to al-H. asan b. Mūsā al-Nawbakhtī.

Aristotle had argued that the eternal motion of the sphere must occur by its nature, since if it were moved by its soul, it would tire and become subject to change and corruption. The followers of Plato had argued against this that if the soul moved the sphere in accordance with its nature, like the constant beating of the arteries, it would not tire. Al-Nawbakhtī commented, addressing Aristotle: “We say to him, even though we do not hold that the sphere moves because of a soul in it: Why do you assert that the soul of the sphere would tire?” If Aristotle were to reply: “Because we have witnessed that souls become tired by moving their bodies,” he should be told: “These souls move heavy bodies, therefore they get tired. The celestial sphere, however, in your view is not heavy. Why then should the soul get tired?” Aristotle had further argued that if the motion of the sphere occurred by its soul, it could not last forever. Al-Nawbakhtī countered by questioning why it could not last because of another being causing it to last, namely, God the Omnipotent. Aristotle himself had asserted in his Physics, book VII, that the motion of everything was brought about by something else. If the motion of the sphere occurred by some other cause, the sphere did not move by its nature.

Most of the champions of philosophical thought whom al-Nawbakhtī would meet in Baghdad evidently were H. arrānian Sābians. When discussing the philosophical


views concerning the existence of a multiplicity of intellectual substances ( jawāhir ‘aqliyya), Ibn al-Malāh. imī quotes his report about a theory of “the S.ābian phi-losophers.” Al-Nawbakhtī explained that many of the S.ābians he had met, who knew the doctrines of the philosophers and had read the books of Plato and others, claimed there existed an intellectual world besides the sensual world we see of the celestial sphere and whatever is contained in it. In that world of the intellect there were substances endowed with life that were simple, not compound. Plato, Aristotle, and their followers asserted that these were alive by themselves and governed (mud-abbira) all events in this world. They were the ten souls besides the rational soul. Al-Nawbakhtī then mentioned their names among the S.ābians. He explained that according to them only the rational soul was present in the world of sense perception and governed some matters in it. The other substances governed the sensual world without being in it. It was further reported as Plato’s view that the rational soul was originally in heaven, but then it was placed in the human brain because of its round-ness and similarity to the celestial globe in shape. These philosophers argued that they had found the world of sense perception to consist of two kinds: One kind, the (human) rational souls (anfus mant.iqiyya), participated in the world of the intellect, while the other kind, the bodies, could not join them since they were dead matter. Likewise the intellectual substances were of two kinds: one that participated in the bodies, namely, the rational soul, and the other that could not participate in them, namely, those other substances.

This theory of a parallel spiritual world of intellects and souls, which the S.ābians ascribed to Plato and Aristotle, presumably reflected a recent development in their defense of their star worship, as the physical nature of the semidivine higher world envisaged by the Greek philosophers came more and more under attack by Muslim monotheist criticism. Al-Nawbakhtī objected, arguing that, if the advocates of this theory wished to establish an analogy between their intellectual world and the world of sense perception, they must also affirm the existence of dead matter in it. They also claimed that the intellectual substances must be many because the things gov-erned by them were many. Al-Nawbakhtī countered that in that case they would have to be as many as the things they governed. If that was not necessary, then why should there be any multiplicity at all among them? Why should not all of the intel-lectual substances be present in the world of sense perception and the rational soul? The advocates of the theory should moreover be asked how the rational soul could be attracted to the human head because its roundness was like the roundness of the celestial sphere. Would it not rather be repelled because of its contrast to the sphere in its nature and composition? What could make these intellectual substances more simple than the sphere? Al-Nawbakhtī added that there was no point in further argument in this regard since their theory was essentially fabulous.

Al-Nawbakhtī, it is evident, was in outlook a Muslim kalām theologian, not a philosopher, despite his intense interest in and first-hand knowledge of the views and theories of the ancient and contemporary philosophers. He shared the basic rationalist principles of the Mu‘tazila and relied on the kind of common-sense argu-ments employed by them against the elitist wisdom of the philosophers, which the latter were inclined to dismiss as mere mashhūrāt and musallamāt, illusory half-truths widely accepted by the common people that could not measure up to their

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own apodictic demonstration (burhān) based on Aristotelian logic. To the mod-ern reader these common-sense argument must seem refreshing and mostly, if not always, convincing in the light of the progress of modern science which has turned so decisively against the fantastic superior world with its semidivine living intellects and souls construed by the philosophers above our sublunar world of generation and corruption. Ibn al-Malāh. imī discovered in al-Nawbakhtī a kindred spirit, although a Shī‘ite, and quoted his arguments extensively with the formula of a blessing he usually reserved for members of his own school of thought.

Notes

1 . Ibn al-Nadīm, al-Fihrist , ed. Gustav Flügel (Leipzig: F. C. W. Vogel, 1871–72), 177. 2 . See ‘Abbās Iqbāl, Khāndān-i Nawbakhtī, 2nd ed. (Tehran: Kitābkhānah-i T. āhūrī,

1966), 128–140. 3 . See W. Madelung, “Imamism and Mu‘tazilite Theology,” in Le Shī‘ isme Imāmite, ed.

T. Fahd (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1979), 17–20 [repr. in W. Madelung, Religious Schools and Sects in Medieval Islam (London: Variorum, 1985), no. VII, 16]. In notes 1 and 3, Abū Mūsā should be corrected to Ibn Mūsā.

4 . Ibn al-Malāh. imī’s K. al-Mu‘tamad is only partly extant. An edition of two parts of it was published in 1991 (Ibn al-Malāh. imī, al-Mu‘tamad fī us.ūl al-dīn, ed. Martin McDermott and Wilferd Madelung [London: Al-Hoda, 1991]). Manuscripts of some further parts of the book have since been discovered, and a revised and enlarged edition has been published (ed. Wilferd Madelung, Tehran, 2012).

5 . Ibn al-Malāh. imī here refers to al-Nawbakhtī’s tas.nīf fi l-maqālāt, by which no doubt the K. al-Ārā’ wa l-diyānāt is meant. Al-Najāshī lists a separate K. al-Radd ‘ala l-munajjimīn among the book titles of al-Nawbakhtī. Most likely it covered the same material as the relevant section in the K. al-Ārā’ wa l-diyānāt.

6 . K. al-Radd ‘alā Abī ‘Alī al-Jubbā’ī fī raddihi ‘ala l-munajjimīn. Iqbāl, Khāndān-i Nawbakhtī, 133; E. Kohlberg, A Medieval Scholar at Work: Ibn T. āwūs and his Library (Leiden; New York: E. J. Brill, 1992), 311.

7 . Ibn al-Jawzī, Naqd al-‘ ilm wa l-‘ulamā’ aw Talbīs Iblīs (Cairo: Mat.ba‘at al-Sa‘āda, 1340/1921), 82–83.

8 . Ikhtis.ār Kitāb al-Kawn wa l-fasād li-Arist.ū. Iqbāl, Khāndān-i Nawbakhtī, 129. 9 . Iqbāl, Khāndān-i Nawbakhtī, 129. 10 . The treatise of al-Kindī described here by al-Nawbakhtī does not seem to be extant.

In his extant Risāla fī anna t.abī‘ata l-falak mukhālifa li-t.abā’ i‘ al-‘anās.ir al-arba‘a wa-annahu t.abī‘a khāmisa ( Rasā’ il al-Kindī al-falsafiyya , ed. Muh.ammad ‘Abd al-Hādī Abū Rīda [Cairo, 1953], 36–46, see Sezgin, Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums [Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1967–], 6:155), al-Kindī affirms the Aristotelian doctrine of a fifth essence or nature prevailing in the celestial sphere, but does not assert that it is alive, hearing, and seeing.

11 . Al-Nawbakhtī, it is evident, was entirely opposed to the practice of astrology in spite of his kinship with famous astrologers. F. Sezgin erroneously lists him among the Muslim astrologers (Sezgin, Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums, 7:154–55), presumably on the basis of his treatise criticizing Abū ‘Alī al-Jubbā’ī’s refutation of the views of the astronomers (see note 6). Sezgin thus suggests that al-Nawbakhtī’s lost K. al-Radd ‘ala l-munajjimīn was a refutation of the astrologers, apparently not in general, but only in some points.

Chapter 15

Conversion and Law: A Muslim-Christian Comparison

Richard W. Bulliet

What follows is an exercise in theory, nothing more. The theory in question is one I proposed 30 years ago in a book entitled Conversion to Islam in the Medieval Period . 1 There, I maintained that quantitative measures of diffusion developed to describe the spread of (primarily material) innovations in the twentieth century could be used to model the pace and intensity of the religious conversion that led to a major-ity Muslim society in the lands conquered by the Arabs in the seventh century CE . In subsequent publications, I added to or elaborated on the theory in minor ways, but I did not try to apply it outside of Islamic history. 2 The object of this chapter is to advance a hypothetical application to the early spread of Christianity. My inter-est here, as in my book, is not in demonstrating the unchallengeable correctness or precision of the quantitative method. That will always remain a matter of debate. Rather, I am interested in using the method tentatively and heuristically to pose and possibly answer questions that could not easily be formulated without the hypoth-esis. In honor of Professor Modarressi’s contributions to the field of Islamic law, the particular question I will address is whether the elaboration of law occurs at a particular stage in the quantitative growth of a faith community.

On rare occasion, a body of teachings, revelations, or charismatic deeds sparks a movement that ultimately evolves into a new religious community. Some of these remain local, while others expand to global proportions. When such movements first appear, however, no one is certain that a distinctive new religion will be the out-come. Most movements either fail to inspire a popular following, evolve into sects within already recognized faith communities, or provoke such virulent opposition that they end up as mere historical footnotes. Those few that have gained the great-est success, for example, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam, are increasingly seen by scholars as going through initial periods of uncertainty as to whether their devotees (not to mention their adversaries) clearly saw them as constituting new religions. 3

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The spread of a new movement must be distinguished from the spread into a new territory of a fully self-aware and institutionalized religion. That is, the spread of Islam into India, the Balkans, or West Africa differs significantly from the spread of the Arab tribal followers of Muhammad outside the Arabian peninsula. In the same way, the spread of Latin Christianity into Germany, Scandinavia, and Poland differs from the original spread beyond Palestine of the “Jesus movement,” as the earli-est community devoted to the teachings and example of Jesus Christ is sometimes called. And the development of the earliest Buddhist communities in India differs from the later spread of the faith to China, Japan, and Korea.

Focused as they generally are on a single geographical region, studies of conversion as a broad social phenomenon seldom address these differences. But studies of insti-tutions and intellectual currents pay them close attention. Histories of Islamic law, for example, concentrate on the origins of legal thought within the earliest Muslim communities in the Middle East and recognize a clear distinction between those roots and what transpired later in more distant lands. How an established institution adapts to the conditions in one land brought late into the faith community may differ a good deal from how it adapts to conditions in some other arena of late conversion. But seldom are such later and geographically peripheral developments accorded as much importance as the original expression of the institutional form.

In the case of Islamic law, it is apparent from the “Constitution of Medina” that the Prophet Muhammad personally settled disputes. His caliphal successors continued this practice, and as the territory subject to caliphal rule expanded, dis-pute settling devolved upon provincial governors, and eventually upon the judges ( qād. ī s) whom they or the caliphs appointed. Under the Abbasids, this judicial func-tion became routinized and centralized in a ministry of justice ( dīwān al-h. ukm ). Yet the question of what precisely constituted Islamic law remained unresolved for many decades. The final resolution is conventionally associated with the eponyms of the four Sunni law schools, Abū H. anīfa (d. 150/767), Mālik b. Anas (d. 179/795), Muh.ammad b. Idrīs al-Shāfi‘ī (d. 204/820), and Ah.mad b. H. anbal (d. 241/855). Imāmī Shī‘ite law followed a parallel path and eventually came to be named for the sixth Imam, Ja‘far al-S.ādiq (d. 148/765).

Today it is well understood that the substance and organization of the legal sys-tems associated with those founding figures was more the work of their disciples, and their disciples’ disciples, than of the Imams themselves. In the realm of social history, the growing use of the epithet “jurist” ( faqīh ) is a good indicator of the rate at which law became a primary concern for urbanized Muslims, who were the per-sons most often involved in legal proceedings. 4 The biographical dictionary of the Iranian city of Isfahan records only two usages of the term for men who died before the year 236/850. Between 236/850 and 339/950, the number rises to 29, or 2.5 per-cent of the total number of entries. After 339/950 the percentage more than doubles to 5.8. The biographical collections devoted to the city of Nishapur tell a similar story. Before 236/850 “jurist” occurs in only 1.6 percent of biographies. Between 236/850 and 339/950 the percentage rises to 3.7. And after 339/950 it more than doubles to 8.9. The similar trajectory in the two cities effectively rules out the notion that one or another compiler exercised a particular chronological bias in attributing epithets to his subjects. This burgeoning use of the epithet faqīh after 339/950, that

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is, between a century and almost two centuries after the deaths of the founding Imams, thus confirms (though it hardly needed confirming) the hypothesis that the development of Islamic law as a pervasive concern in urbanized Muslim communi-ties occurred well after the lifetimes of the eponyms of the schools of interpretation.

Another way of looking at this chronology is through the lens of the quantita-tive growth of the Muslim community. When the Muslim umma consisted of a few hundreds or even a few thousands of individuals living in proximity to the Prophet in Mecca and Medina, a special provision for the settlement of disputes would have been otiose. Under the first seven caliphs, that is to say, the ones who ruled before the year 65/685, the Muslim community expanded greatly and became spread over an immense territory. Yet it remained predominantly Arab, and the Arabs of the peninsula retained many of the customs they had followed before accepting Islam. Important disputes came to the caliph or one of his governors for adjudication, but for the most part, tribal tradition or local custom served for the resolution of problems. It is generally accepted that when non-Arabs converted to Islam in that same time period, they adopted the social practices of one of the tribes. One clear indicator of this is the converts’ practice of giving their children Arabic names of tribal but not explicitly Muslim origin, such as Sahl and al-Fad. l. This practice died away very quickly after 65/685. 5

At the same time, new converts, both Arab and non-Arab, brought into the Muslim universe of discourse many sorts of lore and social expectation garnered from their preconversion upbringing in other religious communities. This new matter for thought, sometimes transposed in the form of h. adīth into the words or exemplary behavior of the Prophet, contributed to a growing sense that actions and ideas stemming from different religious and social traditions might have broad legal

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Figure 15.1 Conversion to Islam in Iran. Reprinted by permission of the publisher from Conversion to Islam in the Medieval Period: An Essay in Quantitative History by Richard W. Bulliet (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979), 23.


consequences, particularly when they departed from Arab tribal customs or gave specification to general statements contained in the Qur’an. Such consequences needed to be pondered. Yet the resultant pondering, the beginnings of which in the early Abbasid period are associated with the Imams of the law schools, did not cause an immediate flourishing of legal study.

The quantitative model of conversion to Islam referred to earlier affords a pos-sible explanation for the lapse of time between the onset of legal conceptualization and the widespread study of the law. According to the proposed chronology of con-version, the Muslim portion of the indigenous populations brought under caliphal rule by the Arab conquests was still below 20 percent at the start of the Abbasid period. Consequently, most disputes in the population at large were still being regu-lated through whatever non-Muslim institutions, religious or civil, existed for this purpose. Though archives detailing the deliberations and judgments of non-Muslim courts and legists in the first century or so of Arab rule have not survived, there is textual evidence that such activities took place. 6 To be sure, the broad imperial insti-tutions of the pre-Islamic empires largely disappeared after the conquests, but local custom remained as did the hierarchies of the non-Muslim religious communities. Both types of survival implied a continuing capacity to resolve disputes within the non-Muslim communities. Islamic law, therefore, was still primarily the concern of a small ruling minority, albeit a minority in which Arab tribal traditions were gradually fading away.

What is striking about the curve of conversion is that by 950 CE , when the occurrence of the epithet “jurist” was clearly accelerating, the process of conversion was essentially complete, at least in Iran. A common sense calculus might thus see the number of jurists growing in rough proportion to the size of the population subject to the law they specialized in. This way of looking at things complements, but certainly does not supplant, the traditional focus of Islamic legal history on the origins and elaboration of doctrine. However, it raises the question of whether the correlation of law with conversion is unique to Islam or whether other faith com-munities experienced a movement toward law at parallel stages in their conversion histories. In other words, in the initial developmental phase of a new religion, does an abundance of worshippers in and of itself make law a central concern of (reli-gious) specialists?

To answer this question in the case of the early development of Christianity, a curve of conversion is needed comparable to the one given for conversion to Islam in Iran. Unfortunately, studies of conversion in the original area of expansion fol-lowing the crucifixion of Jesus, that is, the Roman Empire, do not readily offer a way of producing one. Nor is it apparent that the quantifiable sources needed to construct one from primary data are extant. Yet all may not be lost. If the theory underlying my analysis of the Iranian conversion curve is reasonably sound, then it stands to reason that any curve modeling early Christian expansion would roughly resemble the S-shaped curve revealed by the Iranian data. In other words, since the pattern of growth of Iran’s Muslim community—slow at first, then accelerating in a middle bandwagon period, and finally tapering off as fewer and fewer unconverted individuals remained—corresponds both conceptually and mathematically to the S-shaped innovation adoption curves, called logistic curves, that have been verified


in thousands of instances in modern times, it is not unreasonable to hypothesize a similar pattern of growth for Christianity. 7

The underlying principle of a logistic curve is that the first individuals associated with an innovation, whether a device, such as the iPod, an institutional form, such as labor unions, or an idea, such as the tenets of a new faith, convey their knowl-edge or experience of that innovation to a limited number of individuals. Some of those individuals are impressed by what they hear and go on to adopt the innova-tion. Each of these new adopters, in turn, proceeds to spread the news among their own limited number of contacts. As the number of adopters grows, the number of people who learn about the innovation grows exponentially in a kind of infor-mational chain reaction. Eventually, however, most potential adopters have heard about the innovation, whether they adopted it or not, and the number of potential adopters who are hearing about it for the first time quickly tapers off. What this amounts to in practice is very slow growth at the beginning of the curve when the number of adopters is still very small—think, for example, of a few thousand Arab Muslim soldiers invading a populous country like Egypt, where virtually no one knows how to communicate in Arabic, and the Qur’an has not been translated into Egyptian—followed by an acceleration into a bandwagon stage during which some two-thirds of the potential adopter population learns about the innovation over quite a short period of time, followed by a rapid tapering off of the curve when the number of uninformed potential adopters drops to near zero. Though the available examples of the curve’s explanatory power refer mostly to innovations adopted in the twentieth century, adoption situations that antedate printing, broadcasting, and general literacy can show the workings of the curve in an even purer form since most communication is personal and by word of mouth. 8

Given two data points, a logistic curve can be plotted by mathematical equation. This means that one does not need a large and reliable set of quantifiable data in order to gain an impression of how the adoption of an innovation has proceeded. However, one would need precisely that sort of data set to substantiate any curve projected from two data points. To produce a conversion curve modeling the growth of Christianity in the Roman Empire that will be conceptually comparable to the one already shown for the spread of Islam in Iran, we will use just two data points, but with full awareness that the curve is entirely conjectural and may never be sub-stantiated by quantifiable data.

Plausible estimates of the overall size of the Christian faith community over its first three centuries are available in the existing literature. Keith Hopkins writes:

Early Christianity was tiny and scattered. No precise figures survive, but best esti-mates suggest that there were considerably fewer than ten thousand Christians in 200 CE , dispersed among several hundred towns. The late-second-century figure equals only 0.3 percent of the total population of the Roman empire (which was about 60 million). I should emphasize that these figures are guesses, only rough orders of magnitude. 9

Referencing Baylor sociologist Rodney Stark, the noted historian of the Christian church Adolf von Harnack, and an article of his own devoted to the question of numbers, Hopkins goes on to propose a second population level for the year 300:


“By the end of the third century, perhaps 10 percent of the empire’s population—6 million out of 60 million people—were Christian.” 10 The logistic curve of conver-sion generated from these two data points is shown in figure 15.2. 11

Given the roughness of the estimates made by Hopkins and his sources, the actual curve of conversion, assuming it had a logistic shape, may be somewhat dif-ferent from what is presented here. But it is not likely to be spectacularly different. It must be stressed that this curve is designed to show a developmental dynamic, not specific numbers. And the theory behind the curve relates that dynamic to the dif-fusion of information by word of mouth irrespective of dramatic historical events. Obviously, the population of the Roman Empire was not constant, particularly after the Germanic migrations reduced its area. But the area of concern here is the east-ern provinces where such disruptions of Roman/Byzantine rule were fewer and the continuity over the time period involved was substantially greater.

The indicated dates accord with some of the historical givens of Byzantine his-tory. At the time of Emperor Julian “the Apostate,” who ruled from 360 to 363, it is accepted that sympathy for Greco-Roman paganism was still a significant factor in the east just as it was in the west during the lifetime of St. Augustine, who was born in Tunisia in 354. 12 In 393, Emperor Theodosius I ended the paganism-tinged Olympic games. According to the conversion curve, the expansion of Christianity should have reached something like 45–50 percent of the population by that time. For comparison, it may be observed that the last avowedly anti-Islamic revolt against the Abbasid caliphate, that of Bābak Khurramdīn, who was executed in 223/838 after 25 years of rebellion, occurred at approximately the 45 percent point on the conversion curve of Iran.

It may also be noted that by 600 CE , the hypothetical curve of Christian con-version approaches 100 percent, a degree of proselytizing success that would help explain the near absence of reports or descriptions of paganism in Arabic accounts

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of the conquests of the Byzantine provinces of Syria, Egypt, and Tunisia that took place over the following century.

Turning to the area of law, the greatest accomplishment of the Byzantine period was the issuance of the Corpus Juris Civilis or Justinian Code at the behest of Emperor Justinian, who ruled from 527 to 565. This massive work, compiled in several parts, brought together all of the edicts promulgated by the Roman emperors over the centuries. Thenceforward it formed the basis of Byzantine law, and its translation into Latin several centuries later made it similarly influential in Roman Catholic society. In terms of the degree of Christianization indicated on the conversion curve, the Justinian Code comes into being at a point when virtually all of the emperor’s subjects had become Christians. It must be noted, however, that the impetus to collect the laws of the specifically Christian empire, that is, the imperial decrees issued from the time of Constantine onward, dates back to the reign of Emperor Theodosius II, who ruled from 408 to 450. The Theodosian Code was compiled by his legal specialists between 429 and 438.

The timing of the Justinian Code parallels the proliferation of Islamic law as a common subject of study and practice after the year 338/950 on the Muslim conver-sion curve. To be sure, the count of specialists on law comes from just two Iranian cities, not from a cross-section of Muslim communities. At that point in time, how-ever, Iran was home to about one-third of all known Muslim religious scholars, and in tandem with the socially and religiously very similar province of Iraq accounted for around three-quarters of them. 13

The conversion curve postulated for Roman Christianity suggests that the Theodosian Code was put together at a time when around 65 percent of the emperor’s subjects had adopted the new faith. In terms of Islamic law and the curve of Muslim conversion, this would be equivalent to roughly 214/830. This date more or less coin-cides with the Caliph al-Ma’mūn’s inauguration of his famous mih. na or “inquisition” in 217/833. Though the mih. na took the form of a caliphal command that all holders of state offices or officiators in mosques subscribe to al-Ma’mūn’s particular theologi-cal view, scholarly resistance to the inquisition centered on the person of Ah.mad b. H. anbal, the last of the eponymous Imams of a Sunni school of law. The comparison this suggests with the Theodosian Code is that both the caliph and the emperor were taking concrete steps toward systematizing and centralizing societal norms.

It may well be asked at this point why either the Theodosian or the Justinian Codes should be compared, even notionally, to developments in Islamic law. The former fall into the category of imperial fiat or civil law and the latter into that of religious law, though that term should not be overstressed for the period in ques-tion since the mih. na played out in practice as a contest over where Muslim religious authority, both theological and legal, should lie: with the caliph or with the collec-tivity of independent religious scholars. That the religious scholars would eventually emerge as the victors in this struggle was far from certain. Indeed, if matters has gone as al-Ma’mūn presumably hoped they would, the caliphate could have taken on a character not dissimilar to that of the Byzantine emperor.

That being said, it is well known that civil law, meaning laws gaining their valid-ity from the personal status of the emperor, never gained prominence in the lands of the caliphate, and that canon law, the elaborated religious law of the Roman


Catholic church as decreed by episcopal synods and popes, never developed a full-fledged counterpart in the eastern church. This does not mean that there were never any flashes of concern for religious law in the Byzantine east, or that the caliphs never issued civil decrees ( mukūs ) or sanctioned judicial proceedings ( maz. ālim ) that were beyond the orbit of the sharī ‘a . Still, in the broadest societal sense, the nor-mative concept of law in Muslim lands presumed an ultimately divine source of legitimacy, while Byzantine law took its legitimacy from the imperial aegis. These presumptions aside, however, the sharī ‘a and the imperial law of Byzantium came to play strongly analogous roles in their respective societies.

With respect to explicitly Christian law within the Byzantine Empire, the time frame that saw the compilation of the Theodosian Code also witnessed the collection of the Apostolic Canons by an unknown Syrian cleric. The Apostolic Canons consist of 85 church rules, each rule being known as a canon. Though originally considered a work of the late second or early third century, modern scholarship dates the com-pilation to sometime between 341, the date of the Council of Antioch, which pro-duced 20 of the canons, and the early- to mid-fifth century. The work presents itself as a set of rules dating back to the 12 apostles and transmitted through St. Peter’s semilegendary companion Clement of Rome, but it obviously contains material of later provenance, as well as an important list in Canon 85 of the books contained in the Old and New Testaments. This list differs from what eventually became the canonical books of the Bible and testifies to the age of the collection.

As a compilation of laws, the Apostolic Canons applies primarily to clergy, with the laity being only occasionally mentioned. Procedures for dispute settlement appear only with respect to disputes among the clergy. In some canons it is evident that the Christians are living in a complex social situation containing pagans (“heathens” in the English translation), heretics, and Jews. 14 Here are some examples:

Canon 3 If any bishop or presbyter offer any other things at the altar, besides that which the Lord ordained for the sacrifice, as honey, or milk, or strong-made drink instead of wine, [ the text here varies ] or birds, or any living things, or vegetables, besides that which is ordained, let him be deposed. Excepting only new ears of corn, and grapes at the suitable season. Neither is it allowed to bring anything else to the altar at the time of the holy oblation, excepting oil for the lamps, and incense. Canon 40

Let the private goods of the bishop, if he have any such, and those of the Lord, be clearly distinguished, that the bishop may have the power of leaving his own goods, when he dies, to whom he will, and how he will, and that the bishop’s own property may not be lost under pretence of its being the property of the Church: for it may be that he has a wife, or children, or relations, or servants; and it is just before God and man, that neither should the Church suffer any loss through ignorance of the bishop’s own property, nor the bishop or his relations be injured under pretext of the Church: nor that those who belong to him should be involved in contests, and cast reproaches upon his death. Canon 51

If any bishop, presbyter, or deacon, or any one of the sacerdotal list, abstains from marriage, or flesh, or wine, not by way of religious restraint, but as abhorring them, forgetting that God made all things very good, and that he made man male


and female, and blaspheming the work of creation, let him be corrected, or else be deposed, and cast out of the Church. In like manner a layman. Canon 62

If any of the clergy, through fear of men, whether Jew, heathen, or heretic, shall deny the name of Christ, let him be cast out. If he deny the name of a clergyman, let him be deposed. If he repent, let him be received as a layman. Canon 63

If any bishop, presbyter, or deacon, or any one of the sacerdotal order, shall eat flesh, with the blood of the life thereof, or anything killed by beasts, or that dies of itself, let him be deposed. For the law has forbidden this. If he be a layman, let him be excommunicated. Canon 71

If any Christian brings oil into a temple of the heathen or into a synagogue of the Jews at their feast, or lights lamps, let him be excommunicated. Canon 80

It is not allowed that a man who has come over from an heathen life, and been bap-tized or who has been converted from an evil course of living, should be immediately made a bishop, for it is not right that he who has not been tried himself should be a teacher of others. Unless indeed this be done upon a special manifestation of Divine grace in his favour. Canon 83

If a bishop, presbyter, or deacon, shall serve in the army, and wish to retain both the Roman magistracy and the priestly office, let him be deposed; for the things of Caesar belong to Caesar, and those of God to God.

Laws like these, compiled when conversion to Christianity had hit somewhere around 65 percent, indicate a concern for legal systematization but generally reflect an earlier era when issues deriving from the religious heterogeneity and currents of Christian proselytization in the Byzantine Empire were still vital. Among these issues are pagan and Jewish temple sacrifice (Canons 3 and 71), observation of Jewish dietary law (Canon 63), celibacy (Canon 51), apostasy under pressure of persecution (Canon 62), and immediate elevation of converted pagans to high posi-tions in the church (Canon 80). Notably they do not at all reflect the concern for judicial process, for resolving contradictions in legal sources, or for fleshing out the details of practical law adumbrated in scripture, or in the canons themselves, that are characteristic of Islamic law at a similar point in the emergence of a mass Muslim society. Canon 40, in particular, in its reference to “contests” among heirs about inheritance, indicates that the adjudication of such practical disputes was not of primary concern in the deliberations of bishops assembled, or in the daily activities of individual bishops. Canon 83 makes it clear that the church yielded to the state in matters of practical law.

It could well be argued that the reason the canons were so sparse and institu-tionally naïve is that the Roman imperial structures established in pre-Christian times continued to function effectively and thus obviated the need for an elabo-rated Christian law. Yet there was also a substantial carry-over of imperial admin-istrative institutions and procedures in the aftermath of the Arab conquests of the seventh century. The imperial administrative languages, Greek in the Byzantine provinces and Pahlavi in the Sasanid, continued in use, and many administrative


personnel kept their places. The persistence and circumstances of such carry-overs were determined solely by the caliph and his appointees. It was not a matter of Muslim religious concern if a highly placed administrator was a Christian or Jew. The assumption that seems to have underlain the turn toward Muslim religious law was that Muslims should have their own law qua Muslims. By contrast, there seems to have been no parallel assumption in the Byzantine Empire that imperial edicts initially decreed for a pagan society might be inappropriate or invalid for a Christian one. What is being argued here is that the emergence, through conversion, of a majority Muslim society generated pressure for the adumbration of the sharī ‘a while the parallel emergence of a majority Christian Byzantine society generated pressure for the compilation and re-emission of Roman imperial decrees, but not for the promulgation of religious law per se.

It is a commonplace understanding that religiously concerned members of the early Muslim community turned away from the fiat law of the caliphs and generated instead a legal system so comprehensive and intricately detailed as to become, at least in the thinking of some, a law of everything. And it is no great discovery that civil law promulgated by emperors played a similarly comprehensive role among the orthodox Christians who constituted an ever-growing majority of the population of the Byzantine Empire. These are not the conclusions this chapter has been working toward.

The chronology of conversion has been the more central concern. In both the Christian faith community in the portions of the eastern Roman empire that survived the Arab invasions and in the Muslim faith community that grew up within the caliphate, legal matters did not become general societal concerns while the new faith was in a minority position. Though we have suggestive evidence that some Muslim thinkers were ruminating on legal issues already in the first century of Islam, “the law,” as a profession, an educational cursus, a technique of thought, and an elaborated set of offices and institutions achieves its prominence and acquires its normative role only after Islam has become the majority faith. For Byzantine Christianity, these aspects of “the law” became manifest at a parallel stage of conversion in the form of the systematic promulgation of the imperial law codes.

Can one conclude from this that issues relating to resistance to, assimilation into, or internal fragmentation within the new faith took priority over matters of practical law in the early stages of community growth? Legal systems, after all, are predi-cated on clear conceptions as to who is within and who is outside a community’s jurisdiction. These conceptions are in flux in the early stages of a new movement’s transformation into an institutionalized religion. A state that bases its legitimacy wholly or partly on the emerging religion and seeks to assert judicial authority over all state subjects is stymied in this endeavor when the population is severely seg-mented into different faith communities (including internal sectarian divisions). Yet as a bare majority ripens into a robust majority, it may not be unreasonable to hypothesize a growing hunger for a legal structure and expression of authority that can be accepted and applied to almost everyone. The great imperial law codes of Byzantium provided a legal cement for a society that had undergone much turmoil in the transition from paganism to Christianity. The role of the sharī ‘a in third/tenth-century Islam bespeaks the same process even though the ultimate source of


authority, the faqīh elaborating upon the Qur’an and other divine sources rather than the emperor, was different.

The absolute chronologies differ because, according to the conversion curves presented here, it took 450 years for Christianity to reach its “laggard” stage while Islam, in Iran at least, got to this point in about 275 years. But in a comparison of stages rather than elapsed years, it seems clear that somewhere around the 65 per-cent point on their respective conversion curves both communities found meaning and normative solidarity through the building of comprehensive understandings of their laws: civil in the Byzantine case, religious in the Muslim case. And at around the 80–90 percent stage, law became a primary cultural concern.

A tentative conclusion that might be drawn from this observation is that however much the roots of a legal system may go back to primordial sources, the system-atization and elaboration of law as a practical force in daily life becomes a general concern when a community defined by a shared religious faith becomes an irre-versible majority after a more or less lengthy period of growth through conversion. The Byzantine emperors codified the civil law only after the empire had become overwhelmingly Christian and survived the divisions and uncertainties of the earlier stages of conversion. The Muslim jurists who, as the disciples of the disciples of the Imams, became the core element within the Muslim religious elite similarly took center stage when the conversion curve in Iran reached the 80–90 percent stage. In sum, therefore, a legal system does not have to be religious to be seen as the mani-festation of a stage in social development determined by the accomplishment of a conversion process.

Notes

1 . Richard Bulliet, Conversion to Islam in the Medieval Period: An Essay in Quantitative History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979), 16–32.

2 . Richard Bulliet, “Conversion-Based Patronage and Onomastic Evidence,” in Patronate and Patronage in Early and Classical Islam , ed. Monique Bernards and John Nawas (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 246–62; and Richard Bulliet, Cotton, Climate, and Camels in Early Islamic Iran (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009), 31–32.

3 . For a recent elaboration of this point in the case of Islam, see Fred Donner, Muhammad and the Believers (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010).

4 . The figures cited may be found in Richard Bulliet, Islam: The View from the Edge (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 93–94.

5 . Bulliet, Conversion , 67–68. 6 . For legal issues relating to Zoroastrians in Iran, see Jean De Menasce, “Problèmes

des Mazdéens dans l’Iran musulman,” in Festschrift für Wilhelm Eilers , ed. Gernot Wiessner (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1967), and B. T. Anklesaria, The Pahlavi Rivayat of Aturfarnbag and Farnbag-srosh (Bombay: Industrial Press, 1969).

7 . For an extensive discussion of the logistic curve, the logic behind it, and its mathematical expression, see Bulliet, Conversion , 16–32.

8 . For examples of how logistic curves have been used in modern times, see Everett M. Rogers, Diffusion of Innovations (New York: Free Press of Glencoe, 1962). Robert L.


Hamblin, R. Brooke Jacobsen, and Jerry L. L. Miller discuss the general validity of analysis by means of logistic curves and the history of their use in A Mathematical Theory of Social Change (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1973).

9 . Keith Hopkins, A World Full of Gods: The Strange Triumph of Christianity (New York: Free Press, 2000), 82.

10 . Hopkins, Triumph of Christianity , 84. The publications he cites in support of this and the previous estimate are Adolf von Harnack, The Expansion of Christianity (London, 1904); Rodney Stark, The Rise of Early Christianity (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996); and his own article “Christian Number and Its Implications,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 6 (1998): 185ff. Stark deploys a theory of exponential growth similar to the one being used here.

11 . My thanks to Dr. Hossein Kamaly for guiding me mathematically in the construction of this curve. The data points directly above the numerals represent the hypothetical stage of conversion in 100 CE , 200 CE , 300 CE , etc.

12 . Glen W. Bowersock, Julian the Apostate (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978), 79–93.

13 . Bulliet, Conversion, 7–15; Bulliet, Cotton, Climate, and Camels, 139. 14 . The Apostolic Canons , trans. Henry R. Percival, available online at www.voskrese.info/

spl/aposcanon.html, accessed July 1, 2009. For a published version in hard copy, see Les 127 Canons des Apôtres [Apostolic Canons], ed. and trans. (French) Jean Périer and Augustin Périer (Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1912), or Die Kanones der wichtigsten altkirchli-chen Concilien, nebst den Apostolischen Kanones, ed. Friedrich Lauchert (Freiburg and Leipzig: Mohr, 1896).

Part VI

The Scholarly Output of Professor Hossein Modarressi

Bibliography of Works by Professor Hossein Modarressi

Compiled by Intisar A. Rabb and Hassan F. Ansari

Books

Modarressi, Hossein. Qum dar qarn-i nuhum-i hijrī, 801-900: Fas.lī az Kitāb-i Qum dar chahārdah qarn. [Qum]: H. ikmat, 1350/[1972].

———. Farmānhā-yi Turkmānān-i Qarāqūyūnlū va Āqqūyūnlū. Qum: H. ikmat, 1352/[1973].

———. Rāhnamā-yi jughrāfiyā-yi tārīkhī: Majmū aʿ-yi mutūn va asnād. Qum: H. ikmat, 1353/[1974].

———. Mithālhā-yi s.udūr-i S.afavī: Barrasī-yi kūtāhī dar bārah-yi yik nawʿ az asnād-i dīvānī-yi dawra-yi S.afavī. Qum: H. ikmat, 1353/1974.

———. Kitābshināsī-yi āthār-i marbūt. bih Qum. Qum: H. ikmat, 1353/1974.———. Khāndān-i Fath. ān: Ah. wāl va āthār-i dānishmandān-i yikī az khāndānhā-yi

iʿlmī-yi Qum dar qarnhā-yi haftum tā dahum. Qum: H. ikmat, 1353/1974.———. Turbat-i pākān: Āthār va bināhā-yi qadīmī-yi mah. dūda-yi kunūnī-yi dār

al-muʾminīn-i Qum. 2 vols. Qum: Anjuman-i Āthār-i Millī; Chāpkhāna-yi Mihr, 1355/1976.

———.Bargī az tārīkh-i Qazvīn: Tārīkhchih īʾ az āstāna-yi Shāhzāda-yi H. usayn va dūdmān-i Sādāt-i Mar aʿshī-yi Qazvīn. [Qum]: Kitābkhāna-yi ʿUmūmī-yi H. ad. rat-i Āyat Allāh al-ʿUz. mā Najafī Marʿashī, 1361/1982.

———. Kharāj in Islamic Law. [Tiptree, Essex]: [Anchor Press], 1983.

Persian Translation:Zamīn dar fiqh-i Islāmī. 2 vols. Tehran: Daftar-i Nashr-i Farhang-i Islāmī, 1362/

1983.

———. An Introduction to Shī īʿ Law: A Bibliographical Study. London: Ithaca Press, 1984.

Persian Translation:Muqaddama īʾ bar fiqh-i Shī aʿ: Kulliyyāt va kitābshināsī. Translated by Mu-

h.ammad Ās.if Fikrat. Mashhad: Bunyād-i Pazhūhishhā-yi Islāmī, 1368/[1989].

Compiled by Intisar Rabb and Hassan Ansari294

Modarressi, Hossein. Crisis and Consolidation in the Formative Period of Shī iʿte Islam: Abū Ja fʿar ibn Qiba al-Rāzī and His Contribution to Imāmite Shī iʿte Thought. Princeton, NJ: Darwin Press, 1993.

Persian Translation:Maktab dar farāyand-i takāmul: Naz. arī bar tat.awwur-i mabānī-yi fikrī-yi tashayyuʿ

dar sih qarn-i nukhustīn. Translated by Hāshim Īzadpanāh. Princeton, NJ: Darwin Press, 1374/[1995].

Revised Edition:Maktab dar farāyand-i takāmul: Naz. arī bar tat.awwur-i mabānī-yi fikrī-yi

tashayyu ʿ dar sih qarn-i nukhustīn. Translated by Hāshim Īzadpanāh. New edition with new introduction. Tehran: Intishārāt-i Kavīr, 1386/[2007].

Supplement:Khāndānhā-yi h. ukūmatgar-i Shī īʿ dar Baghdād dār awākhir-i ghaybat-i s.ughrā

(supplement to Maktab dar farāyand-i takāmul: Naz. arī bar tat.awwur-i mabānī-yi fikrī-yi tashayyu ʿdar sih qarn-i nukhustīn). Translated by Hāshim Īzadpanāh. New ed. Tehran: Intishārāt-i Kavīr, 1386/[2007].

Arabic Translation:Tat.awwur al-mabānī al-fikriyya lil-tashayyu ʿ fī ’ l-qurūn al-thalātha al-ūlā.

Translated by Fakhrī Mashkū r. Edited by Muh.ammad Sulaymā n. [Iran]: n.p., 1996.

Reprints:1. [Qum]: Nū r Wah.y, 1423/[2002–3].2. Beirut: Dār al-Hādī lil-T. ibāʿa wa’l-Nashr wa’l-Tawzīʿ, 2008.

———. Tradition and Survival: A Bibliographical Survey of Early Shī iʿte Literature. London: Oneworld, 2003.

Persian Translation:Mīrāth-i maktūb-i Shī aʿ az sih qarn-i nukhustīn-i hijrī. Translated by Rasūl

Jaʿfariyān and ʿAlī Qirāʾī. Qum: Kitābkhāna-yi Takhas.s.us.ī-yi Tārīkh-i Islām va Īrān, 1383/[2004].

Revised Edition:Mīrāth-i maktūb-i Shī aʿ az sih qarn-i nukhustīn-i hijrī. Translated by Rasul

Jaʿfariyān and ʿAlī Qirāʾī. Rev. ed. Qum: Nashr-i Muʾarrikh, 1386/[2007].

Collected Articles [Persian & Arabic]

Modarressi, Hossein. Qum-Nāma: Majmū aʿ-yi maqālāt va mutūn dar bārah-yi Qum. Qum: Kitābkhāna-yi ʿUmūmī-yi H. ad. rat-i Āyat Allāh al-ʿUz. mā Najafī Marʿashī, 1364/[1985–6].

Works by Hossein Modarressi 295

———. Qummiyyāt: Majmū aʿ-yi maqālāt dar bārah-yi Qum. Majmūʿa-yi Āthār-i Qadīm, no. 2. [NJ]: Zagross, 2007.

———. Sanadiyyāt: Majmū aʿ-yi maqālāt dar bārah-yi asnād-i tārīkhī. Majmūʿa-yi Āthār-i Qadīm, no. 3. [NJ]: Zagross, 2008.

———. Kitābiyyāt: Majmū aʿ-yi maqālāt dar zamīna-yi kitābshināsī. Majmūʿa-yi Āthār-i Qadīm, no. 4. [NJ]: Zagross, 2009.

———. Tārīkhiyyāt: Majmū aʿ-yi maqālāt va tah. qīqāt-i tārīkhī. Majmūʿa-yi Āthār-i Qadīm, no. 5. [NJ]: Zagross, 2009.

———. Ijtimā iʿyyāt: Guzīda īʾ az maqālāt dar masā iʾl-i madhhabī va ijtimā īʿ. Majmūʿa-yi Āthār-i Qadīm, no. 1. [NJ]: Zagross, 2010.

Articles and Chapters [Arabic, English, Persian]

Modarressi, Hossein. “Katībahā-yi dawra-yi S.afavī dar Qum.” Wah. īd 47(1346/[1967]): 1017–23.

———. “Dhayl bar Katībahā-yi dawra-yi S.afavī dar Qum.” Wah. īd 48 (1346/[1967]): 1107.

———. “al-Ash ʿariyyūn.” In Dā iʾrat al-ma āʿrif al-islāmiyya al-Shī iʿyya, vol. 2, 3–8.Beirut: Dār al-Taʿāruf, 1968.

———. “H. āfiz. Rajab Bursī va Kitāb mashāriq anwār al-yaqīn-i ū.” Haftigī-yi Wah. īd 39 (1347/[1968]): 6ff.

———. “Waqfnāma-yi dū qanāt dar Qum (Farmānī az Nās.ir al-Dīn Shāh va sang nabishtaʾī-yi manz. ūm).” Wah. īd 54 (1347/[1968]): 575–77.

———. “Gach burīhā-yi bāzamānda az qarn-i haftum tā nuhum dar Qum [1].” Wah. īd 55 (1347/[1968]): 683–84.



———. “Sang nabishtahā-yi tārīkhī dar Qum az dawra-yi Afshāriyya va Qājariyya.” Wah. īd 58 (1347//[1968]): 931–36.

———. “Dhayl-i chand athar va katība-yi tārīkhī dīgar.” Wah. īd (1348/[1969]): 389–92.

———. “Namūnahā-yi nathr va naz. m-i Fārsī dar dū qarn-i nukhustīn-i hijrī [1].” Wah. īd 77 (1349/[1970]): 578–84.

———. “Namūnahā-yi nathr va naz. m-i Fārsī dar dū qarn-i nakhustīn-i hijrī [2].” Wah. īd 78 (1349/[1970]): 733–37.

———. “Namūnahā-yi nathr va naz. m-i Fārsī dar dū qarn-i nakhustīn-i hijrī [3].” Wah. īd 80 (1349/[1970]): 921–24.

———. “Madāris-i qadīm-i Qum [1].” Wah. īd 86 (1349/[1970]): 201–6.———. “Madāris-i dīgar-i Qum [2] (dar qarnhā-yi shishum tā nuhum).” Wah. īd 87

(1349/[1970]): 409–11.———. “Madrasa-yi āstāna-yi muqaddasa (Fayd. iyya) [3].” Wah. īd 88 (1350/[1971]):

126–29.———. “Madrasa-yi Ghiyāthiyya-yi Qum [4].” Wah. īd 90 (1350/[1971]): 383–87.


Modarressi, Hossein. “Madāris-i [qadīm-i] Qum (dar dawra-yi S.afaviyya) [5].” Wah. īd 94 (1350/[1971]): 1015–20.

———. “Madāris-i qadīm-i Qum (dar dawra-yi S.afaviyya) [6].” Wah. īd 95 (1350/[1971]): 1247–52.

———. “Madāris-i qadīm-i Qum (dar dawra-yi Qājariyya) [7].” Wah. īd 99 (1350/[1971]): 1767–72.

———. “Madāris-i qadīm-i Qum (dar dawra-yi Qājariyya) [8].” Wah. īd 100 (1351/[1972]): 34–39.

———. “Madāris-i qadīm-i Qum (mustadrakāt) [9].” Wah. īd 101 (1351/[1972]): 199–206.

———. “Iʿjāz-i Qurʾān [1] (Pāsukh-i shubahāt-i pādirī-yi ‘Henry Martin’ dar mawd. ūʿ-i iʿjāz-i Qurʾān az muh.aqqiq Mīrzā Abū al-Qasim Gīlānī Qummī (d. 1231).” Wah. īd 109 (1351/[1972]): 1115–18.

———. “Iʿjāz-i Qurʾān [2].” Wah. īd 110 (1351/[1972]): 1225–37.———. “Asnād va ah.kāmī az khāndān-i Afshār Urūmī.” Barrasīhā-yi tārīkhī 40

(1351/[1972]): 145–202.———. “Fulūshā-yi d. arb-i Qum.” Hunar va mardum 117 (1351/[1972]): 46–48.———. “Az daftar-i khāt.irāt-i buzurgān.” Khāt.irāt-i Wah. īd 13 (1351/[1972]): 19–23.———. “Az Furāt tā Nīl (Guzarī bar ʿahd-i adyān-i buzurg va tamaddunhā-yi kuhan

[1]).” Khāt.irāt-i Wah. īd 14 (1351/[1972]): 81–88.———. “Az Furāt tā Nīl (Guzarī bar ʿahd-i adyān-i buzurg va tamaddunhā-yi kuhan

[2]).” Khāt.irāt-i Wah. īd 16 (1351/[1972]): 107–14.———. “Az Furāt tā Nīl (Guzarī bar ʿahd-i adyān-i buzurg va tamaddunhā-yi kuhan

[3]).” Khāt.irāt-i Wah. īd 18 (1352/[1973]): 67–78.———. “Nāmaʾī az Mīrzā-yi Qummī bih Āghā Muh.ammad Khān Qājār.” Wah. īd

122 (1352/[1973]): 1150–51.———. “Āshināʾī bā Ustādī-yi Buzurg dar hunar-i gach burī-yi Īrān ʿAlī b. Mu-

h. ammad b. Abū Shujāʿ Bannā.” Hunar va mardum 132 (1352/[1973]): 36–47.———. “Yik sanad az qarn-i dahum.”Wah. īd 121 (1352/[1973]): 991–96.———. “Khāndān-i ʿAlī S.afī: Shahriyārānī gumnām [1].” Barrasīhā-yi tārīkhī

44–45 (1352/[1973]): 13–40.———. “Khāndān-i ʿAlī S.afī: Shahriyārānī gumnām (Qismat-i duvvum) [2].”

Barrasīhā-yi tārīkhī 47 (1352/[1973]): 25–68.———. “Dū risāla az Āghā Muh.ammad Bīdābādī dar sayr va sulūk.” Wah. īd 115

(1352/[1973]): 384–97.———. “Mukātibāt-i Fayd. va Qād. ī Saʿīd-i Qummī.” Wah. īd 117 (1352/[1973]):

667–78.———. “H. ājj Mullā Muh.ammad S.ādiq Qummī, Faqīh-i ʿĀlī-qadr-i dawra-yi Qājār

va nāma-yi-ū bih Nās.ir al-Dīn Shāh dar shakwa az maz. ālim-i ʿummāl-i dawlat.” Wah. īd 126 (1353/[1974]): 211–19.

———. “Maʾākhidhī tāza barāh-yi tah.qīqāt-i marbūt. bih Is.fahān.” Wah. īd 128 (1353/[1974]): 372–75.

———. “Chand athar-i nū yāfta dar munāz. arāt-i kalāmī-yi Shīʿī.” Wah. īd 134 (1353/[1974]): 874–86.

———. “Waqfnāmaʾī az Turkumānān Qarāqūyūnlū.” Farhang-i Īrān zamīn 20 (1353/[1974]): 245–65.


———. “Kitābcha-yi thabt-i mawqūfāt va khulās.a-yi jāt-kishvar dar dawra-yi Nāz. irī.” Rāhnamā-yi kitāb 18 (1354/[1975]):435–42.

———. “Qād. ī Ah.mad Qummī: Nigāranda-yi Khulās.at al-tawārīkh va Gulistān-i hunar.” Barrasīhā-yi tārīkhī 57 (1354/[1975]): 61–100.

———. “Panj nāma az Fath. -ʿAlī-Shāh Qājār bih Mīrzā-yi Qummī.” Barrasīhā-yi tārīkhī 59 (1354/[1975]): 245–76.

———. “Āshināʾī bā atharī az Khāja Afd. al al-Dīn Muh.ammad Turka-yi Is.fahānī.” Wah. īd 182 (1354/[1975]): 524–30.

———. “Haft farmān dīgar az pādishāhān-i Turkamān.” Barrasīhā-yi tārīkhī 63 (1355/[1976]): 85–126.

———. “Mazārāt-i Is.fahān dar tārīkh-i Sult.ānī.” Wah. īd 197 (1355/[1976]): 479–84.———. “Chand athar dīgar az Mullā Shamsā Gīlānī.” Wah. īd 202 (1355/[1976]):

848–49.———. “Mīrzā-yi Qummī va tas.awwuf.” Nashriyya-yi Anjuman-iāthār-i millī 2

(1355/[1976]): 73–80.———. “Sharh. -i h. adīth-i man aʿrafa nafsah fa-qad aʿrafa rabbahaz Mīrzā-yi

Qummī.” Wah. īd 219–20 (1356/[1977]): 11–16, 103.———. “Farmānī az Shāhrukh.” Rāhnamā-yi kitāb 20 (1356/[1977]): 700–704.———. “Panj farmān-i S.afavī dar bārah-yi Āstān-i Quds va Mashhad-i Muqaddas-i

Rad. awī.” Nama-yi Āstān-i Quds (1356/[1977]): 143–58.———. “Dah farmān marbūt. bih Mashhad va Āstān-i Quds-i Rad. awī.” Nama-yi

Āstān-i Quds (1357/[1978]):69–74.———. “Āstāna-yi Shāhzāda-yi H. usayn dar Qazvīn (Tārīkh, majmūʿa-yi binā va

asnād) [1].” Barrasīhā-yi tārīkhī 78 (1357/[1978]): 141–74.———. “Āstāna-yi Shāhzāda-yi H. usayn dar Qazvīn (Tārīkh, majmūʿa-yi binā va

asnād) [2].” Barrasīhā-yi tārīkhī 79 (1357/[1978]): 167–88.———. “Sih maktūb az Āghā Muh.ammad Bīdābādī.” Wah. īd 246–47 (1357/

[1978]): 35–42.———. “Chand sanad-i tārīkhī marbūt. bih Is.fahān.” Wah. īd 228–29 (1356–57/

[1978]): 83–93.———. “Falsafa va ʿirfān dar naz. ar Mīrzā-yi Qummī.” Wah. īd 248–49 (1357/

[1978]): 57–63.———. “Ravābit.-i Īrān bā h.ukūmat-i mustaqill-i Najd.” Barrasīhā-yi tārīkhī 81

(1357/[1978]): 69–126.———. “Guzārish dar bāb-i shūrish-i Shaykh ʿUbayd Allāh kurd dar awākhir-i

qarn-i guzashta.” Wah. īd 254–55 (1358/[1979]): 20–27, 55.———. “Abū ʿAlī al-H. addād al-Is.fahānī.” Dirāsat turāthiyya (Beirut), 1980, 127–43.———. “Risāla-yi al-Mukhtas.ar al-kāfī fī ’ l-kalām.” In Muh. īt.-i adab, 164–69.

Tehran, 1358/[1979].———. “Sukhanī chand dar bārah-yi niqābat-i sādāt va barnāma-yi kār-i naqīb.”

Āyanda 10–12 (1358/[1979]): 754–65.———. “Fath. -nāmahā-yi Ūzūn H. asan.” Īrān-zamīn 1 (1359/[1980]): 13–68.———. “Sayyid Jamāl al-Dīn dar Najaf-i Ashraf bar asās-i asnād-i Amīn

al-D. arb.” Majmū īʿ-yi Khāt.irāt (Khāt.irāt-i Wah. īd)3 (1359/[1980]): 102–10.———. “Chand farmān va sanad dīvānī dīgar az Turkmānān.” Asnād va madārik-i

tārīkhī (1360/[1981]): 29–56.


Modarressi, Hossein. “Dukhāniyyāt-i fiqh: Namūdārī az mushtarakāt-i farhangī miyān-i dū sunnat-i fiqhī, Sunnī va Shīʿī.” Īrān-zamīn 2 (1360/[1981]): 123–42.

———. “Chand sanad dīgar az Āstān-i Quds-i Rad. awī.” Asnād va madārik-i tārīkhī(1360/[1981]): 83–122.

———. “Munāz. araʾī-yi manz. ūm miyān-i Qum va Kāshān az dawra-yi Siljūqī.” Īrān-zamīn 2 (1360/[1981]): 17–25.

———. “Rationalism and Traditionalism in Shî ʿî Jurisprudence: A Preliminary Survey.” Studia Islamica 59 (1984): 141–58.

———. “Some Recent Analyses of the Concept of Majāz in Islamic Jurisprudence.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 106, no. 4 (1986): 787–91.

Persian Translation:“Tah. līlāt-i naw dar bārah-yi majāz. ” Nūr-i iʿlm 5 (1363/[1984]): 121–23.

———. “Dīvān-i maz. ālim.” Farhang-i Īrān-zamīn 27(1366/[1987]): 98–118.———. “The Shīʿī Principles of Jurisprudence.” In Expectation of the Millennium:

Shī iʿsm in History, edited by Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Hamid Dabashi, and Seyyed Vali Nasr, chapter 5. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989.

———. “The Just Ruler or the Guardian Jurist: An Attempt to Link Two Different Shiite Concepts” [A review essay on The Just Ruler (al-sult.ān al- āʿdil) in Shiite Islam: The Comprehensive Authority of the Jurist in Imamite Jurisprudence by Abdulaziz Abdulhussein Sachedina (Oxford, 1988)], Journal of the American Oriental Society 111, no. 3 (1991): 549–62.

Persian Translation:“H. ākim-i ʿādil yā valī-yi faqīh: Talāsh barā-yi rabt.-i dū mafhūm mutafāvat-i

Shīʿī.” Translated by Muh.ammad Kāz. im Rah.matī. Kitāb māh-i dīn 62 (1381/[2002]): 88–99.

———. “Early Debates on the Integrity of the Qurʾān: A Brief Survey.” Studia Islamica 77 (1993): 5–39.

Persian Translation:“Rīsha-yi bah. th-i tah. rīf-i Qurʾān: Barrasī satīzahā-yi dīrīn dar bārah-yi tah. rīf-i

Qurʾān.” Translated by Muh.ammad Kāz. im Rah.matī. Haft Āsimān 11 (1380/[2001]): 41–78.

———. “The Legal Basis for the Validity of the Majority Opinion in Islamic Legislation.” In Under Siege: Islam and Democracy, edited by Richard Bulliet, 81–92. New York: Middle East Institute, Columbia University, 1993.

———. “Mufāwad. aʾī dar masʾala-yi shayʾiyyat-i madʾūm.” Jashnnāma-yi Ustād Javād Mus.lih. , edited by Burhān b. Yūsuf, 131–46. Los Angeles: n.p., 1372/1992–93.

Reprints:In Mishkāt 35 (1371/[1992]): 186–97.In Tārīkh va farhang-i mu āʿs.ir 8 (1372/[1993]): 82–91.


———. “Yād-dāshtī bar yik naqd.” Naqd va naz. ar 10–11 (1376/[1997]): 460–62.———. “Yād-dāshtī dar bārah-yi badfahmī-hā.” Kitāb-i māh-i dīn 142 (1388/

[2009]): 38–39.———. “Jawābiyya-yi H. us.ayn Mudarrisī bih naqd-i H. asan Tārumī.” Kitāb-i māh-i

dīn 142 (1388/[2009]): 20–29.

Manuscript Indices

Modarressi, Hossein. “Nuskhahā-yi khat.t.ī-yi Kitābkhāna-yi Madrasa-yi Rad. awiyya-yi Qum [1].” Wah. īd 52 (1347/[1968]): 378–81.

———. “Nuskhahā-yi khat.t.ī-yi Kitābkhāna-yi Madrasa-yi Rad. awiyya-yi Qum [2].” Wah. īd 53 (1347/[1968]): 463–70.

———. Fihrist-i nuskhahā-yi khat.t.ī-yi Kitābkhāna-yi Madrasa-yi Rad. awiyya-yi Qum. [Qum: Mihr], 1355/1976.

———. Āshinā īʾ bā chand nuskha-yi khat.t.ī (with R. Ustādī). Qum: Mihr, 1355/[1976].

———. “Fihrist-i nuskhahā-yi khat.t.ī-yi ʿarabī va fārsī-yi Kitābkhāna-yi Wadham College dar Oxford.” Nuskhahā-yi khat.t.ī 11–12 (1362/1983): 773–86.

Edited Works

Modarressi, Hossein, ed. Tadhkira-yi mashāyikh-i Qum by Nūr al-Dīn ʿAlī b. H. aydar ʿAlī Munaʿʿil Qummī. Qum: H. ikmat, [1353]/1974.

———, ed. Tārīkh-i Dār al-īmān-i Qum, by Muh.ammad Taqī Bayk Arbāb Qummī.Qum, H. ikmat, 1974.

———, ed. Tārīkh va jughrāfiyā-yi Qum az safarnāma-yi Fārs by Mīrzā Ghulāmh. usayn Khān Afd. al al-Mulk. Tehran: Intishārāt-i Wah. īd, 1396 AH/1976.

———, ed. Khulās.at al-buldān by S.afī al-Dīn Muh.ammad b. Muh.ammad Hāshim H. usaynī Qummī. Qum: H. ikmat, 1355/1976.

———, ed. Risālat Iblīs ilā ikhwānih al-manāh. is by Abū Saʿd al-Muh.assan b. Mu-h. ammad b. Kirāma al-Jishumī al-Bayhaqī. [Iran]: n.p., 1986.

Reprint and New Edition:Beirut: Dār al-Muntakhab al-ʿArabī, 1995.

Persian Translation of the Introduction:“H. ākim Jishumī va kitāb-i Risālat Iblīs.” Translated by Muh.ammad Kāz. im

Rah.matī. Kitāb-i māh-i dīn 72 (1382/[2003]): 4–7.

——— and Īrāj Afshār, eds. Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh-i H. asanī: Baksh-i Taymūriyān pas az Taymūr by Tāj al-Dīn H. asan b. Shihāb Yazdī (fl. 855–57/1451–53). Karachi:


Muʾassasa-yi Tah.qīqāt-i ʿUlūm-i Āsiyā-yi Miyāna va Gharbī; Dānishgāh-i Karāchī, 1987 (with a further introduction in Āyanda 9, no. 7 [1993]: 655–71).

Modarressi, Hossein, ed. Dhayl Nafthat al-mas.dūr by Najm al-Dīn Abū al-Rajāʾ al-Qummī (d. 12th c.). [NJ]: Zagross, 2007.

Reprint:Tehran: Kitabkhāna, Mūzih va Markaz-i Asānīd-i Majlis-i Shūrā-yi Islāmī,

2010.

A Bibliographical Note on the Persian Works

Hossein Kamaly

An important portion of Hossein Modarressi’s scholarship has appeared in Persian, and remains accessible only to those familiar with this language. This bibliographi-cal note outlines these Persian writings (mentioned in the accompanying list of his works) and contextualizes their scholarly impact and importance.

Three cities built around institutions of learning—namely, Princeton in the United States, Oxford in the United Kingdom, and Qum in Iran—triangulate the author’s itinerary in the pursuit and dissemination of knowledge. Chronologically, all of Modarressi’s writings published before 1980 were written in Persian, with several works dating to the early 1970s. Products of the keenly inquisitive mind of a young researcher, such early writings already bear the insignia of maturity and pol-ished erudition that are familiar hallmarks of Modarressi’s later scholarship. More recently, a number of additional works have also appeared in Persian.

A subject of central significance in Modarressi’s Persian publications is the city of Qum, one of the historical bastions of Imāmī Shīʿī Islam. Modarressi’s contributions to the field of Qum Studies—a fruitful branch of both Shīʿa studies and urban his-toriography—has taken many forms, including bibliographies, 1 biographical notices, family histories, 2 critical editions of literary texts, 3 textual extracts, travel accounts, geographic descriptions, epistolography, and diplomatics. Two major contributions in particular, Qum dar qarn-i nuhum-i hijrī, 801–900: Fas.lī az kitāb-i Qum dar chahārdah qarn ( Qum in the 9th/15th Century: A Chapter in the Fourteen-Century-Long History of Qum ), 4 and the two-volume set, Turbat-i pākān: Āthār va bināhā-yi qadīm-i mah.dūda-yi kunūnī-yi dār al-muʾminīn-i Qum ( Blessed Grounds: Edifices Lying within the Limits of the City of Qum, Abode of the Faithful ), 5 stand as indispens-able works of reference. In addition, several of Modarressi’s shorter earlier publica-tions on Qum are now available in two collections, published in 1985 6 and 2007. 7

Since 2007, four additional collections of Modarressi’s Persian writings have been reprinted; these include volumes entitled Sanadiyyāt: Majmūaʿ-yi maqālāt dar bārah-yi asnād-i tārīkhī ( Diplomatics: Collected Articles on Historical Documents ), 8 Kitābiyyāt: Majmūaʿ-yi maqālāt dar zamīna-yi kitābshināsī ( Of Books and Bibliographies) , 9 Tārīkhiyyāt: Majmūaʿ-yi maqālāt va tah. qīqāt-i tārīkhī ( Collection of Historical Writings and Research ), 10 and Ijtimā iʿyyāt: Guzīdaʾī az maqālāt dar

Hossein Kamaly302

masā iʾl-i madhhabī va ijtimā ʿī ( Selected Articles on Religious and Social Matters ). 11 Having access to these reprints is most welcome, especially given the fact that most of the author’s early writings were either privately distributed or printed in now hard-to-find journals such as Vah. īd and Barrasīhā-yi Tārīkhī . The scope and span of these volumes reflect Modarressi’s wide-ranging intellectual interests. The art of diplomatics (i.e., deciphering, dating, and authenticating letters, decrees, charters, etc.) has been a longtime preoccupation of the author as illustrated by the studies compiled in the Sanadiyyāt . The essays in this volume discuss, for example, decrees and deeds of endowment by Qaraquyūnlū Turkomen rulers, including a rare vic-tory announcement by Uzün Hasan and several other documents from the Safavid period about the Rad. awī Shrine complex in Mashhad. The collection entitled Kitābiyyāt offers much more than a catalogue of manuscripts with details on date of composition, penmanship style, and folio size. In particular, it introduces a number of treatises on Shīʿī theology ( kalām ), philosophy, and mysticism ( ʿirfān ) from the eighth/fourteenth to thirteenth/nineteenth centuries. These include, most notably, tracts by H. āfiz. Rajab Bursī (fl. eighth/thirteenth to ninth/fourteenth centuries), Muh.ammad Bīdābādī (d. 1198/1784), and Shams al-Dīn Muh.ammad Gīlānī (fl. twelfth/eighteenth century), which combine Nas.īr al-Dīn al-T. ūsī’s (d. 672/1274) strictly peripatetic approach with Illuminationist philosophy and Ibn al-ʿArabī’s (d. 637/1240) mystical vision. The volume on Tārīkhiyyāt is highlighted by an arti-cle, first published in August 1970, in which Modarressi traces Persian words and phrases that appear in specimens of Shīʿa and Sunnī h. adīth .

Two other book-length contributions to historical writing by Modarressi also merit mention for their exacting detail and erudition. The first is a study of a local shrine ( imāmzāda ) in the city of Qazvin in north-central Iran, where the author focuses on the family tree of a branch of Sayyeds (notables tracing their lineage back to the Prophet) in the region. The second is an annotated edition, prepared together with the late Iranian scholar Iraj Afshar (d. 1432/2011), of the section on Timurids and post-Timurids in Jāmiʿ al-tavārikh by Tāj al-Dīn H. asan b. Shihāb Yazdī (fl. ninth/fifteenth century).

Another valuable contribution is Modarressi’s critical edition of the late sixth/early thirteenth-century text by Abū al-Rajāʾ Qummī, 12 which sheds light on the his-torical development of epistolary writing and ornate Persian prose during the Saljuk period. The unique manuscript of this work, entitled Dhayl Nafthat al-mas.dūr , 13 is significant because it helps clarify the means of transferring Persian as an admin-istrative language from Khurāsān to the western parts of the Iranian plateau. Modarressi had already started editing this manuscript in the late 1970s but the undertaking was put on hold for three decades. When he finally returned to the proj-ect, the resulting edition was a major improvement over previous efforts.

Translations of Modarressi’s works from English into Persian, along with the generous guidance he has directly afforded to researchers in Iran over the past three decades, have made a tremendous impact on advancing the level of serious scholar-ship in that country. Demanding higher standards in research methodology and modeling academic excellence in his own work, Hossein Modarressi has influenced the education of a new and emerging generation of scholars in Iran.

A Bibliographical Note on the Persian Works 303

Notes

1 . Hossein Modarressi, Kitābshināsi-yi āthār-i marbūt. bi Qum (Qum: H. ikmat, 1974); Annotated Catalogue of Manuscripts in the Rad. aviya Madrasa in Qum (Qum: n.p., 1976).

2 . Khāndān-i Fath. ān: Ah.vāl va āthār-i dānishmandān-i yakī az khāndānhā-yi ʿilmī-yi qarnhā-yi haftum tā dahum (Qum: n.p., 1352/1973).

3 . Hossein Modarressi, ed., Tadhkira-yi mashāyikh-i Qum , originally by Nūr al-Dīn ʿAlī Munaʿal-i Qummī (Qum: H. ikmat, 1974); Khulās.at al-buldān, by S.afī al-Dīn Muh.ammad b. Muh.ammad Hāshim H. usaynī Qummī (Qum: H. ikmat, 1976).

4 . Hossein Modarressi T. abāt.abāʾī, Qum dar qarn-i nuhum-i hijrī, 801–900: Fas.lī az kitāb-i Qum dar chahārdah qarn (Qum: H. ikmat, 1971).

5 . Hossein Modarressi T. abāt.abāʾī, Turbat-i pākān: Āthār va bināhā-yi qadīm-i mah. dūda-yi kunūnī-yi dār al-muʾminīn-i Qum (Tehran: Anjoman-i Athar-i Millī, 1976).

6 . Hossein Modarressi, Qum-nāmah: Majmū aʿ-yi maqālāt va mutūn dar bārah-yi Qum (Qum: Marʿashī Library, 1985).

7 . Hossein Modarressi, Qummiyyāt: Majmū aʿ-yi maqālāt dar bārah-yi Qum (NJ: Zagross, 2007).

8 . Hossein Modarressi, Sanadiyyāt: Majmū aʿ-yi maqālāt dar bārah-yi asnād-i tārīkhī (NJ: Zagross, 2008).

9 . Hossein Modarressi, Kitābiyyāt: Majmū aʿ-yi maqālāt dar zamīna-yi kitābshināsī (NJ: Zagross, 2009).

10 . Hossein Modarressi, Tārīkhiyyāt: Majmū aʿ-yi maqālāt va tah. qīqāt-i tārīkhī (NJ: Zagross, 2009).

11 . Hossein Modarressi, Ijtimā iʿyyāt: Guzīda īʾ az maqālāt dar masā iʾl-i madhhabī va ijtimā ʿī (NJ: Zagross, 2010).

12 . Hossein Modarressi T. abāt.abāʾī, ed., Dhayl Nafthat al-mas.dūr by Abū al-Rajāʾ Qummī (Tehran: Museum and Center for Diplomatics, Islamic Consultative Assembly, 2010).

13 . This work was originally introduced to the scholarly community by the late K. Allin Luther of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor in 1969 as Kitāb Tārīkh al-vuzarā ʾ (see K. Allin Luther, “A New Source for the History of the Iraq Seljuqs: The Tārīkh al-Vuzarā’,” Der Islam 45 (1969): 117–28. It was further explored in the hitherto unpub-lished dissertation by Stephen Charles Fairbanks, The Tārīkh Al-Vuzarā :ʾ A History of the Saljuq Bureaucracy , unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Michigan, 1977. The work finally appeared in print in 1984, edited by the late Iranian scholar Moh.ammad-Taqī Dāneshpazhūh (d. 1998).

Contributors

Khaled Abou El Fadl is the Omar and Azmeralda Alfi Distinguished Professor in Islamic Law at the UCLA School of Law, where he teaches courses on Islamic law, human rights, and national security law. He is also the chair of the Islamic Studies Interdepartmental Program at UCLA. He was awarded the University of Oslo Human Rights Award, the Leo and Lisl Eitinger Prize, in 2007, and he was named a Carnegie Scholar in Islamic Law in 2005. He has also served as a member of the Board of Directors of Human Rights Watch and was previously appointed by President George W. Bush to serve on the US Commission for International Religious Freedom. His works include Speaking in God’s Name (Oneworld, 2001), Rebellion and Violence in Islamic Law (Cambridge, 2006), and The Great Theft: Wrestling Islam from the Extremists (Harper, 2007). He received a BA from Yale University, a JD from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and a PhD from Princeton University.

Asad Q. Ahmed is assistant professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. His main areas of interest within the social and intellectual history of the Muslim world include the provincial history of the first two centuries of Islamic Hijaz; classi-cal Arabic poetry and poetics; and postclassical rationalist ( ma qʿūlī ) trends in Islamic intellectual history. He was previously a Fulbright scholar and a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton. He has published on early Islamic social history and Islamic intellectual history, including the The Religious Elite of the Early Islamic Hijaz (Prosopographica et Genealogica, Oxford, 2011) and Avicenna’s Deliverance: Logic (Oxford, 2011). He received a BA from Yale University and a PhD from Princeton University.

Hassan F. Ansari is senior research associate at the Freie Universität Berlin in the Research Unit for Intellectual History of the Islamicate World. His publications include Khulās.at al-naz. ar: An Anonymous Imāmī-Muʿtazilī Treatise (Late Sixth/Twelfth or Early Seventh/Thirteenth Century) (with Sabine Schmidtke, Tehran 2006) and a critical edition of Ibn al-Malāh. imī’s Tuh. fat al-mutakallimīn fī ’ l-radd ʿalā ’ l-falāsifa (with Wilferd Madelung, Tehran 2008). He has studied at the h. awza (seminary) in Tehran and Qum, where his work focused on the study of philosophy, theology, Islamic law, and principles of jurisprudence; and he earned his PhD at the EPHE of the Sorbonne, Paris.

Contributors306

Richard W. Bulliet has taught in the History Department of Columbia University since 1976, and previously served as director of Columbia’s Middle East Institute for 12 years. His interests include all periods of Middle Eastern history, as well as the history of technology, the history of domestic animals, and world history. His works include four publications on Islamic social history with an emphasis on Iran— The Patricians of Nishapur (Harvard, 1972), Conversion to Islam in the Medieval Period (Harvard, 1979), Islam: The View from the Edge (Columbia, 1993), and Cotton, Climate, and Camels in Early Islamic Iran (Columbia, 2009), in addition to The Case for Islamo-Christian Civilization (Columbia, 2004) and Hunters, Herders, and Hamburgers: The Past and Future of Human-Animal Relationships (Columbia, 2005). His book on the history of technology, The Camel and the Wheel (Harvard, 1975), won the Dexter Prize of the Society for the History of Technology. He received a BA, MA, and PhD from Harvard University.

Michael Cook is Class of 1943 University Professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University. In 2002, Professor Cook was awarded a Distinguished Achievement Award by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. His publications include Early Muslim Dogma (Cambridge, 1981), The Koran: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2000), and Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islam (Cambridge, 2001), which won the Albert Hourani Book Award as the year’s most notable book in Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies. He was educated at Cambridge University in England.

Najam Haider is assistant professor in the Department of Religion at Barnard College/Columbia University. His first book, The Origins of the Shī aʿ: Identity, Ritual, and Sacred Space in 8th century Kūfa, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2011. He is currently at work on a second book, a historiographical survey of early Shīʿism, and he has published articles focusing on Islamic historiography and the emergence of sectarian identity. He completed a BA at Dartmouth College, an MPhil at Oxford University, and a PhD at Princeton University.

Baber Johansen has been professor of Islamic Religious Studies at Harvard Divinity School since 2005, and is the current Director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, where his research and teaching focus on the relationship between reli-gion and law in the classical and modern Muslim world. He previously served as Directeur d’études at the EHESS (CENJ), Paris; professor of Islamic Studies at the Freie Universität Berlin; and an affiliated professor at Harvard Law School and act-ing director of its Islamic Legal Studies Program. He was also a visiting professor at the Watson Institute in Providence, at Harvard, and at Ca’ Foscari (Venice), and was twice a member at the Institute for Advanced Studies (Princeton). His works include Muhammad Husain Haikal: Europa und der Orient im Weltbild eines ägyptischen Liberalen (Steiner, 1967; Arabic translation in 2010), Islam und Staat (Argument, 1982), Islamic Law on Land Tax and Rent (Croom Helm, 1988), and Contingency in a Sacred Law: Legal and Ethical Norms in the Muslim Fiqh (Brill, 1999). He served as one of the three executive editors of Islamic Law and Society , and as area editor for Islamic Law in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Legal History . He received a PhD in Islamic Studies from the Freie Universität Berlin.

Contributors 307

Hossein Kamaly is assistant professor in the Asian and Middle Eastern Cultures Department at Columbia University, where he specializes in Middle Eastern History and Islamic Studies. His research interests focus on intellectual history and the broad field of Perso-Islamic studies. He is committed to close reading of classical texts, and teaches courses in which important themes are traced across texts and societies. After years of working as an electrical engineer, computer programmer, mathematical analyst, and simultaneous interpreter, he obtained a PhD in history from Columbia University.

Etan Kohlberg is Max Schloessinger Professor of Arabic Emeritus at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. His scholarly activity focuses on medieval Islamic religious thought, with particular emphasis on Shīʿī Islam. In numerous articles he has described and analyzed aspects of Shīʿī faith and law, and has also dealt extensively with classical Shīʿī literature. Additionally, he has contributed to the study of martyrdom ( shahāda ) in Islam. He is the author of several books, including A Medieval Muslim Scholar at Work: Ibn T. āwūs and His Library (Brill, 1992) and Revelation and Falsification: The Kitāb al-qirā āʾt of Ah. mad b. Muh. ammad al-Sayyārī (with M. A. Amir-Moezzi, Brill, 2009). Some of his articles have been reprinted in Belief and Law in Imāmī Shī iʿsm (Variorum, 1991). He received a PhD from the University of Oxford.

Wilferd Madelung is currently senior research fellow at the Institute of Ismaili Studies, and previously served as Laudian Professor of Arabic at the University of Oxford since 1978, after serving as professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Chicago beginning in 1969. He has made significant contributions to modern scholarship on medieval Muslim communities and movements, including Twelver Shīʿism, Zaydism, and Ismāʿīlism. His works include Religious Schools and Sects in Medieval Islam (Variorum, 1985), Religious Trends in Early Islamic Iran (Bibliotheca Persica, 1988), Religious and Ethnic Movements in Medieval Islam (Variorum, 1992), The Succession to Muhammad: A Study of the Early Caliphate (Cambridge, 1997), and An Ismaili Heresiography (with Paul E. Walker, Brill, 1998). He was educated at the Universities of Hamburg and Cairo.

Roy P. Mottahedeh is the Gurney Professor of History at Harvard University, where he has taught since 1986. He has served as the director of the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Islamic Studies Program at Harvard University and was previously assis-tant professor at Princeton University. He is also the recipient of MacArthur and Guggenheim Fellowships. He is the author of Loyalty and Leadership in an Early Islamic Society (Princeton, 1980) and The Mantle of the Prophet: Religion and Politics in Iran (Simon and Schuster, 1985), translator of Lessons in Islamic Jurisprudence (Oneworld, 2003), and co-editor of The Crusades from the Perspective of Byzantium and the Muslim World (co-edited with Angeliki Laiou, Dumbarton Oaks, 2001); he has also authored numerous articles on topics ranging from the Abbasids to the Shīʿa of contemporary Iraq. He received an AB and a PhD from Harvard University.

Intisar A. Rabb is associate professor at New York University in the Department of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies and at the School of Law. She also holds

Contributors308

positions as a research affiliate at the Harvard Law School Islamic Legal Studies Program, and as a Carnegie Scholar for research on Islamic law and legal change in the contemporary Muslim world. Previously, she served as the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques Visiting Associate Professor of Islamic Legal Studies at Harvard Law School, as Assistant Professor of Law at Boston College Law School and as a law clerk to the Honorable Thomas L. Ambro of the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Her publications include articles on legal maxims, the history of the early Qurʾānic text, and Islamic constitutionalism; and she is completing a book manu-script, The Burden and Benefit of Doubt: Legal Maxims in Islamic Law (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming). She received a BA from Georgetown University, a JD from Yale Law School, and a PhD from Princeton University.

Behnam Sadeghi is assistant professor of Religious Studies at Stanford University, where his teaching and research focus on premodern Islamic thought and early Islam. He has also been a member at the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton. He has published on the h. adīth literature, the Qurʾān, and Islamic law, including “The Chronology of the Qurʾān: A Stylometric Research Program,” Arabica 58 (2011); and “The Traveling Tradition Test: A Method for Dating Muslim Traditions,” Der Islam 85 (2008). He obtained a PhD in Near Eastern Studies from Princeton University.

Asma Sayeed is assistant professor in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at the University of California at Los Angeles. Her research inter-ests are in early and classical Islamic history, Muslim women’s studies, classical Islamic education, and Islamic law. Previously, she served as assistant professor in the Religious Studies Department at Lafayette College, where she taught courses in Islamic studies and world religions. She has published articles on women and religious learning in classical Islam and is now preparing a book manuscript entitled Women and the Transmission of Knowledge in Islam (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming). She received BA from Princeton University, an MA from SUNY Binghamton, and a PhD from Princeton.

Sabine Schmidtke is professor of Islamic Studies at the Freie Universität Berlin where she directs the Research Unit Intellectual History of the Islamicate World. She is co-founder and co-coordinator of the Muʿtazilite Manuscripts Group, estab-lished in 2003. She has published extensively on Islamic and Jewish intellectual history, including Theologie, Philosophie und Mystik im zwölferschiitischen Islam des 9./15. Jahrhunderts: Die Gedankenwelt des Ibn Abī Ğumhūr al-Ah. sāʾī (um 838/1434–35—nach 906/1501) (Brill, 2000), A Jewish Philosopher of Baghdad: Iʿzz al-Dawla Ibn Kammūna and His Writings (with Reza Pourjavady, Brill, 2006), and A Common Rationality: Mu tʿazilism in Islam and Judaism (co-edited with Camilla Adang and David Sklare, Ergon, 2007). Schmidtke has won several international prizes and fellowships and currently holds a European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Research Grant. She received a PhD from Oxford University.

Robert Wisnovsky is associate professor in the Institute of Islamic Studies at McGill. He specializes in Islamic intellectual history, with a focus on the origins and

Contributors 309

evolution of the philosophy of Avicenna, as well as on the appropriation and trans-formation of Avicenna’s ideas by subsequent Muslim thinkers. He previously held a postdoctoral research assistantship in the “Ancient Commentators on Aristotle” project in the Philosophy Department of King’s College London, and was an assis-tant and then associate professor in the Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations Department at Harvard University. He received a BA from Yale University and a PhD from Princeton University.

Abbād b. Sulaymān, 6ʿAbbās, Shāh, 254, 260Abbasids, 256, 280ʿAbd al-Barr, Yūsuf b. ʿAbd Allāh b., 49,

50, 60n66ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Qād. ī, 176, 269ʿAbd al-Jabbār b. Ah.mad, 162n47al-Abharī, Athīr al-Dīn, 206; Īsāghūjī, 204,

237, 242n36Abī Bakr, ʿĀʾisha bint, 83, 84, 87al-ʿĀbidīn, ʿAlī b. al-H. usayn Zayn, 7,

17n52, 91, 93n18Abū al-Rajāʾ al-Qummī, 302Abū Bas.īr (Abū Muh.ammad Yah.yā b. (Abī)

l-Qāsim al-Asadī), 3–19, 7t, 13n4, 13n8, 15nn29–30

Abū H. amza al-Thumālī, 14n19Abū H. anīfa, 280Abū Jaʿfar [Yazīd], 37n19Abū Mūsā al-D. arīr al-Bajalī, 71Abū Sahl Nawbakht, 270Abū Suʿūd, 251Abū ʿAlī b. Zurʿa, 188Abyssinia, 41n48ahl al-bayt (family of the Prophet), 3Ah.mad b. Dāʾim ʿAlī, H. akīm Sayyid

Barakāt, 236–238, 243n44, 243n48Ahmose II, 263–264ʿĀʾisha bint Abī Bakr, 83, 84, 87, 97n59Akbar, 229, 230, 254, 264Akhbārī revival, 90, 94n21, 109al-ʿAnzī, ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿĀmir b. Rabīʿa, 46,

57n30Alexander, 248, 252–253, 261; as deeply

wicked, 262; as destroyer, 253, 263; as

“Muslim,” 262; as “The Possessor of Two Horns,”262

ʿAlī b. Abī T. ālib, 9, 32, 37nn18–19, 43, 53, 82, 106; as Caliph, 121n83; as heir, 67; legacy of, 67, 68; in Paradise, 11; tomb in Najaf, 106–107; and women, 83, 86, 93n18

ʿAlī b. ʿUqba b. Khālid, 9āʿlimas (female scholars), 87, 95n43aʿmal, 49; al-Shāfi ʿī’s critique of, 53,

62n105; categories of, 60n75; normative authority of, 52, 54; reliability of, 52; ijtihādī, 60n75; naqlī, 60n75

al-Aʿmash, Sulaymān b. Mihrān, 13n8, 37n15

al-Āmidī, Sayf al-Dīn, 151al-ʿĀmilī, al-H. urr, 94n30al-ʿĀmilī, Bahāʾ al-Dīn, 241n27al-ʿĀmilī, Muh.ammad b. ʿAlī, 100al-ʿĀmilī, Muh. sin Amīn, 90–91Āmina bint Shurayd, 91Āmina Khātūn, 85, 87–88analogical reasoning, 139al-ʿAnbarī, ʿUbaydallāh b. al-H. asan,

130–131, 147, 160n16Anjuman-i ʿUlūm, 243n44Ans.ār (Helpers), 47, 53, 56n21, 57n43al-Ans.ārī, Murtad. ā, 111n18al-Ans.ārī, Yazīd b. Sharāh. īl, 9, 17n50, 44antimajoritarianism, 169–170antinomianism (ibāh. a), 69antiquarianism, 109, 124n109Apollonius, 171Apostolic Canons, 286–287Aquinas, Thomas, 176

Index

Page references followed by n indicate endnotes. References followed by t or f indicate tables or figures.

Index312

al-ʿArabī, Abū Bakr b. (Ibn al-ʿArabī), 50Arabic, 172, 179, 204; Qurʾānic, 23Arabic names, 281al-Aʿraj, 37n19archaeology, S.afawid, 108–109Arda Wiraf Namag, 252–253al-Ardabīlī, Muh.ammad b. ʿAlī, 84;

Jāmiʿ al-ruwāt, 84, 89, 94nn22–23Ardashir, 261Arfadhshadh (Iran), 255–256Aristotle, 270–273, 276, 277; Categories,

187–188, 272; On Generation and Corruption, 272; On the Heavens, 272, 273; Metaphysics, 272; On Philosophy, 273; Physics, 272, 276

al-Asadī, Abū Muh.ammad Yah.yā b. (Abī) l-Qāsim. See Abū Bas.īr

Asaf, 264As.ghar, Sayyid ʿAlī, 243n44Ash ʿarī school, 150ʿĀs.im, 37nn18–19al-ʿAskarī, H. asan b. ʿAlī, 93n18as.l (early written records), 93n15Asmāʾ bint Abī Bakr, 83Asmāʾ bint ʿAqīl, 91assimilation: of nearby terms, 21, 31, 34,

40n37; of parallels, 22, 30–31, 34al-Astarābādī, Abū al-Fad. l, 228al-Astarābādī, Muh.ammad Amīn,

124n106, 161n42, 165n119al-Astarābādī, Muh.ammad Mirzā,

96n52astrologers, 269–278, 278n11astronomers, 269–278astronomy, 104–105; points of difference,

270–271; rules for finding qibla, 104Avempace (Ibn Bāja), 176, 177Averroes (Ibn Rushd), 176, 177, 188–189Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā), 176, 206; Ishārāt,

229–230; in Khayrābādī curriculum, 237; Qānūn, 237; Shifā ,ʾ 230, 234, 243n49

al-Aws.iyā ,ʾ 76n17Aʿyān al-Shī aʿ (al-ʿĀmilī), 90–91ʿAyyāsh al-Sulamī al-Samarqandī,

Abūʾl-Nas.r Muh.ammad b. Masʿūd b. Muh.ammad b. (al-ʿAyyāshī), 69

Ayyūbid era, 88, 90, 96n47

Babur, 250al-Badāyūnī, 228al-Baghawī, 247Bah. r al-ʿUlūm, ʿAbd al-ʿAlī, 236Bahram I, 261Bahram II, 261al-Bah. rānī, Yūsuf, 110n8al-Balādhurī, 262bananas: heavenly, 32–34, 40n43;

premodern, 41n48Band-i Amīr, 260Banu Tamīm, 261al-Bāqir, Muh.ammad b. ʿAlī, 4, 10–11,

76n4, 93n18Barakātī, Mah.mūd Ah.mad, 236, 243n44al-Barqī, Ah.mad b. Muh.ammad b.

Khālid, 72barzakh, 11basmala: audible, 47, 48, 50–54, 61n78,

63n115; debates over, 48; in Fātih. a, 48–49, 51–53, 63n115; introductory, 51–52, 59n55; Mālikī position on, 48–50; omission of, 60n75, 61n90; recitation of, 44, 47–53, 59n55, 61n77, 62n93, 63n115; Shāfi ʿī position on, 51–52; silent or omitted, 51–54

Battle Day (Yawm) of Mushaqqar, 261al-Bayād. ī, 73Baʿlabakk (Baalbek), 231, 233Bible, 34n5, 286Biblical history, correlative, 263, 264al-Bihārī, Muh. ibballāh, 229, 230; Sullam

al-ʿulūm, 229, 230, 232, 233–234, 236; us.ūl al-fiqh work, 237

al-Bihbahānī, al-Wah. īd, 114n30, 116n37, 161n41

Bint al-Shaykh ʿAlī al-Minshār, 90biographical collections, Imāmī, 81–97al-Bīrūnī, 253Bishārāt al-shī aʿ (Ibn Bābawayh), 15n33Buddhism, 280al-Bukhārī, Shams al-Dīn Muh.ammad b.

Mubārakshāh, 205al-Būshanjī, Al-Hays.am b. Muh.ammad,

248, 265n2Buyids, 258Byzantine Empire, 285–286

Index 313

carpets, flying, 247carrion, 139–141, 149n89Categories (Aristotle), 187–188, 272Çelebi, Evliyā, 108censorship, 183n20Christian law, 286–287Christianity, 182n13; conversion to, 284f,

282–288; growth of, 280, 282–288civil rights, 169classical age, 82–85, 182n7“with clear proof” ( aʿlā bayyinatin), 28Clement of Rome, 286Companions: and Muʿāwiya, 43; as people

of Iraq, 111n20; of the Right, 11–12; women as, 84, 87, 89–90

comparative chronology, 263–264Constitution of Medina, 280contemplation (ta aʾmmul), 131–133,

141–142; definition of, 132–133; as emancipation from rigid text fetters, 137–141; al-Ghazālī on, 133–137, 141; al-Sarakhsī on, 137–142

conversion to Christianity, 284f, 282–288conversion to Islam: history of, 281–288; in

Iran, 280–281, 281f; and law, 279–290correlative chronology, 260–261, 263–264Council of Antioch, 286Covenantal Law, 181n6Creed (Ibn Bābawayh), 11Crisis and Consolation (Modarressi),

xvi, 145culture(s): of human rights, 170–171,

173–180; Muslim cultures, 171–173, 179; social, 88

Cyrus the Great, 250

Da āʿ iʾm al-islām (al-Nuʿmān), 6, 15n29D. ah.h. āk, 265n5daily prayer: frequency and basic structure,

48; leadership tradition, 44–48; secondary issues, 48

Dāmād, Mīr Bāqir, 241nn26–27Dāniyāl, Shaykh, 230, 241n31al-D. arīr, ʿĪsā b. al-Mustafād Abū Mūsā

al-Bajalī, 70–71; Kitāb al-was.iyya, 67–75

Dars-i Niz. āmī curriculum, 230, 237dates (t.alʿ), 32–34, 41n47

al-Dawānī, Jalāl al-Dīn, 208n8, 228–232, 239n4, 240n19, 240n21, 241n24, 241n26, 259–260

al-Dawla, ʿAd. ud, 258al-Dawla, Bahā ,ʾ 258Day of Judgment (yawma l-qiyāmati),

29–30, 40nn33–34Day of Resurrection, 17n53al-Daylamī (Muh.ammad b. Sulaymān), 4,

6–7, 13n12“days of ill fortune,” 276death orders, 53debatable rules, 156–157debates: over basmala, 48; legal, 128–129,

147–149denial: of punishment, 24–32, 39n32;

punishment of, 24–32Dēwī, ʿAbd al-Salām, 230, 241n29al-Dhahabī, Muh.ammad b. Ah.mad,

89–90al-Dharī aʿ ilā tas.ānīf al-shī aʿ (al-T. ihrānī),

16n40dialectic, 99–124al-Dihqān, ʿUbaydallāh b. ʿAbdallāh, 72, 73al-Dimashqī, Ish. āq b. H. unayn Abū

ʿUthmān, 269al-Dīn, H. asan b. Zayn (Ibn al-Shahīd

al-Thānī), 85, 94n25al-Dīnawarī, Abū H. anīfa, 255, 256disputable proofs, 133–137divine norms, 127–128divinity: pretending to (iddi āʿ ʾ

al-ulūhiyya), 69doctrine of investiture (nas.s.), 67Dustūr, 241n27

early sources: overview of, 82–85; written records (kitāb or as.l), 93n15

Eight Headings (al-ru ūʾs al-thamāniya): Essay on Five Inquiries into the Eight Headings (Maqāla fī mabāh. ith al-khamsa aʿn al-ru ūʾs al-thamāniya) (Yah. yā), 187–201; variations, 189–190; Yah. yā’s inquiries, 190–191

Elias, 190emendation (term), 38n23Emigrants, 53

Index314

errors: assimilation of nearby terms, 22, 31, 34, 40n37; assimilation of parallels, 22, 30–31, 34; definition of, 34n3; failures of memory, 30, 31, 34; of the hand, 21, 31, 34; scribal mistakes, 21, 30, 31, 34, 40n37; types of, 30–34

Essay on Five Inquiries into the Eight Headings (Maqāla fī mabāh. ith al-khamsa aʿn al-ru ūʾs al-thamāniya) (Yah.yā), 187–201; inquiries, 190–191; text, 192–194; translation, 194–198

extremism (ghuluww), 15n36, 70

fables of the ancients, 39n32Fad. ā iʾl al-shī aʿ (Ibn Bābawayh), 6, 7t,

15nn33–34fād. ilas, 95n43faqīh(s) (male jurists), 280–281, 288–289faqīhas (female jurists), 87, 91, 95n43al-Fārābī, 188, 206Faraj al-karb (Anonymous), 7t, 7–8Faraj al-karb wa-farah. al-qalb (al-Kaf ʿamī),

16n40Faraj al-mahmūm (Ibn T. āwūs), 69Farangī Mah.allīs, 229–234, 233f, 236, 237,

239n4, 242n37al-Fārisi, Salmān, 262Fārs, 101, 261, 265al-Farsī, Abū ʿAlī, 29Fātih. a, 48, 49–50, 58n50, 61n90; recitation

of the basmala in, 48–49, 51–53, 62n93, 63n115; as “seven oft-repeated,” 59n61; verse stops, 49

Fāt.ima, 85, 87, 89Fāt.ima, daughter of H. amīda, 94n27Fāt.ima bint Hārūn, 93n18Fāt.ima bint al-Shahīd al-Awwal, 94n30Fāt.ima Umm al-H. asan, 91Fāt.ima Umm Muh.ammad, 91fatwās, 131figurative statements (kināyāt), 147Fihrist (al-T. ūsī), 72, 83fiqh, 130, 134, 227–228Fīrūz b. Tughluq, 239n4flying carpets, 247food: heavenly comestibles, 32–34,

40n43Forty Pillars, 260

Gādhrawnī, Abū al-Fad. l, 228Galen, 270García de Silva y Figueroa, 254Garhī, Muh.ammad Sharīf Aʿz. am, 243n44“general” isagogical (introductory)

questions, 187–188Geniza material, 205Ghanīma bint al-Azdī, 94n24ghayba (Occultation), 72, 86, 161n39al-Ghazālī, Abū H. āmid Muh.ammad,

51, 132, 133, 151, 176, 182n14; Ih. yā ʿulūm al-dīn, 207; on ijtihād, disputable proofs, and contemplation, 133–137, 141

Ghiyāth al-Dīn Mans.ūr, 227–229, 231Ghiyāth al-umam fī iltiyāth al-z. ulam

(Juwaynī), 153–156, 159n9, 163n70, 164nn80, 164nn86, 164n90, 164n93, 165n117, 166n121

ghuluww (extremism), 68, 70, 84al-Gīlānī, 239n4God-fearing (muttaqūn), 8–9God’s mercy, 10–11Gōpāmawī, Qād. ī Mubārak, 236Gulistān (Saʿdī of Shiraz), 256

H. adā iʾq al-h. aqā iʾq (al-Kashshī), 206al-Hādī, ʿAlī b. Muh.ammad, 93n18h. adīth literature, 23, 55n5, 67; criticism,

191–192; al-Sarakhsī on, 141; study of, 96n47

H. āfiz. of Shiraz, 256–258hair extensions (qus.s.a), 45–47, 57n26,

57n29H. ajj, 44h. ājja, 39n32al-H. akam, Abū Muh.ammad Hishām b., 68H. all al-ishkhāl (al-T. āwūs), 94n25al-H. amawī, Jamāl al-Dīn Muh.ammad b.

Sālim b. Wās.il, 207H. amdallāh, 233–234, 242n37H. amīda, 87–88, 90, 94n27H. amza, 32, 37n18H. anafīs, 128, 130, 131H. anbalī school, 150, 151, 163n61hapax legomena, 22, 23, 27h. aqq (moral or legal right), 174–175al-h. aqq (“the truth”), 27–30

Index 315

al-Harawī, Mīr Muh.ammad Zāhid, 229, 230, 234, 240nn14–15, 249

al-H. arnāniyya (H. arrānian S.ābians), 270–274, 276–277

Hārūn, Fāt.ima bint, 93n18H. asan, Mullā, 233–234H. asan, Uzun, 259al-H. asan al-ʿAskarī, 9al-H. asan b. ʿAlī, 44, 91, 93n18al-H. asan b. Mūsā, 270al-H. asan b. Mutayyil al-Qummī, 7, 15n36Hāshim b. Muh.ammad, 73–74, 79n58H. āshiya aʿlā badīʿ al-mīzān (al-Tulanbī),

239n6H. āshiya bar muh. ākamāt-i Tah. tānī az Mīrzā

Jān Shīrāzī, 237H. āshiya bar muh. ākamāt-i Tah. tānī az

Qūshjī, 237H. āshiyat Sharh. Tahdhīb Bah. r al-ʿUlum, 237al-H. āwī al-kabīr (al-Māwardī), 51, 62n94H. ayy b. Yaqz. ān, 166n120al-H. azm, ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn ʿAlī b. Abī, 243n46headings (ruūʾs): Essay on Five Inquiries into

the Eight Headings (Maqāla fī mabāh. ith al-khamsa aʿn al-ruūʾs al-thamāniya) (Yah.yā), 187–201

heavenly comestibles, 32–34, 40n43Hell, 3Helpers (Ans.ār), 47, 53, 56n21, 57n43Hercules, 263–264Herodotus, 263–264Hidāya (Marghīnānī), 236Hidāyat al-h. ikma, 241n22Hidden Imām, 69H. ijāz, 37n19, 128–129; Muʿāwiya in,

43–64H. ijāzīs, 44–45al-Hilāliyya, Bakkāra, 91al-H. illī, al-ʿAllāma, 85, 204–205al-H. illī, al-Muh.aqqiq, 104–105al-Hindī, al-Fād. il, 105H. irz al-Dīn, ʿAbd al-Razzāq Muh.ammad

H. usayn, 14n19history: Biblical, 263, 264; of Islamic law,

127–128; second/eighth century legal debates, 128–129

Hormizid, 261the Hour, 29–30

H. ubbā, 83h. udūd laws, 171–173, 182n10h. ulūl (reincarnation), 69human rights, 167–183; as concept,

180; culture of, 170–171, 173–180; as idea, 180; as moral commitment, 168–170

humanist imperative, 167–183H. umayd b. Qays, 37n19h. uqūq (rights), 175H. usayn, Qād. ī, 154al-H. usayn, Fāt.ima bint, 85al-H. usayn, Sukayna bint, 85, 86, 94n26al-H. usayn b. ʿAlī, 44, 55n11, 82, 83, 91,

93n18h. usn (good), 175

ibāh. a (antinomianism), 69Ibn ʿAbbās, ʿAbd Allāh, 37n15, 37n19,

46–47, 57n42Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, 49, 50, 60n66Ibn Abī al-ʿAzāqir, 69Ibn Abī Bakr, ʿAbd al-Rah.mān, 44Ibn Abi l-H. adīd, 269Ibn Abī Zayd (al-Qayrawānī), 50Ibn al-Akfānī, 214n43Ibn al-ʿArabī, Abū Bakr, 50Ibn al-Badīʿ al-Bandahī, 206Ibn al-Balkhī, 250, 255, 263Ibn al-Faqīh al-Hamadhānī, 248–249Ibn al-Ghad. āʾirī, 70, 72–74Ibn al-Jawzī, 269, 270Ibn al-Juh. ām, 16n41Ibn al-Malāh. imī, 269–271, 273–278;

K. al-Muʿtamad fī us.ūl al-dīn, 269–270, 278n4

Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ, 254–255Ibn al-Nadīm, 69, 70, 252, 269Ibn al-Shahīd al-Thānī (H. asan b. Zayn

al-Dīn), 85, 94n25Ibn al-Sikkīt, 256Ibn al-T. ayyib, Abū ’l-Faraj, 188, 190,

200n13Ibn al-Zubayr, 44, 46, 55n12Ibn ʿĀmir, 37n18, 46Ibn ʿAqīl, 132, 133, 136, 137,

162n50, 177Ibn ʿAyyāsh al-Jawharī, 73

Index316

Ibn Bābawayh, Muh.ammad b. ʿAlī, 6, 70; Bishārāt al-Shī aʿ, 15n33; Creed, 11; Fad. ā iʾl al-Shī aʿ, 6, 7t, 15nn33–34

Ibn Bāja (Avempace), 176, 177Ibn Bat.t.ūt.a, 250Ibn H. anbal, Ah.mad, 280Ibn Hurmuz, ʿAbd al-Rah.mān, 37n19Ibn Kammūna, ʿIzz al-Dawla, 207Ibn Kathīr, 37n19Ibn Khallikān, 86–87Ibn Masʿūd, 23, 24, 36n15Ibn Masʿūd tradition (IM), 23–24, 36n15,

37n18, 40n39; assimilation of nearby terms in, 31; assimilation of parallels in, 30–31; readings of Q6.57, 24–26, 25f, 28, 32

Ibn Muh.ays.in, 37n19Ibn Mut.ahhar al-Maqdisī, 264Ibn Nujaym, 164n85Ibn Qūlawayh al-Qummī, 73Ibn Rushd (Averroes), 176, 177, 188–189Ibn Saʿd, 86Ibn Shahrāshūb, 68–69Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna), 176, 206; Ishārāt,

229–230; in Khayrābādī curriculum, 237; Qānūn, 237; Shifā ,ʾ 230, 234

Ibn Suwār, 188Ibn T. āwūs (Kitāb al-T. uraf), 68, 69, 73–74,

79n63Ibn Taymiyya, 269Ibn Tufayl, 177Ibn ʿUmar, ʿAbd Allāh, 44Ibn Wās.il, 214n43Ibn Waththāb, 37n15Ibn Ziyād, 91iddi āʿʾ al-ulūhiyya (pretending to divinity), 69Ih. yā ʿulūm al-dīn (al-Ghazālī), 207ijtihād, 131–132; al-Ghazālī on, 133–137al-Ikhtis.ās. (al-Mufīd), 7, 7t, 15n35, 15n37Ikhtiyār maʿrifat al-rijāl (al-T. ūsī), 82, 93n7,

95n33Ilāhiyyāt al-Shifā ,ʾ 242n40Imāmī Shīʿism, 88–89, 99–124ʿImāms: biographical collections, 81–97;

Hidden Imām, 69; imāmate, 145; pact of the Imāmate ( aʿhd al-imāma), 67; secret books of, 70; Shīʿa as showing love and loyalty to, 9–10; status of, 3. See also Jurists

India: Khayrābādī School, 227–243; logic in, 227–228, 238; logicians, 231–234, 232f, 233f

indisputable proofs (qat. iʿyyāt), 136Introduction to Shī īʿ Law (Modarressi), xviinvestiture: doctrine of (nas.s.), 67Iran, 91; ancient, 253–256; Arfadhshadh,

255–256; conversion to Islam in, 280–281, 281f; Muslims from, 262; royal palaces in, 260

Īrānshahr, 255Iraq, 101; ancient, 255; law schools in,

128–129ʿĪsā al-D. arīr, 71Īsāghūjī Abharī, 204, 237, 242n36Isagoge (Porphyry), 187–188Isfahan, 280al-Is.fahānī, Mīrzā ʿAbd Allāh, 82; Riyād

al-ʿulamā ʾ wa-h. iyād. al-fud. alā ,ʾ 84–85, 87–90, 95n43

al-Is.fahānī, Rah. īm, 85al-Is.fahānī, Shams al-Dīn, 206Ishārāt (Avicenna), 229–230al-Ishārāt wa-l-tanbīhāt (Ibn Sīnā), 206Islam: conversion to, 279–290, 281f; five

pillars of, 155; spread of, 280Islamic law: history of, 127–128, 280;

and humanist imperative, 167–183; minimalism, 153–157; and Muslim cultures, 171–173; Shīʿī law, 280; Sunnī law, 127–144; traditions, 125–183; universal values, 154; without experts, 150–153

Ismāʿīlīs, 15n31Istakhr, 250–253, 255, 257–258, 261, 265al-Istighātha (al-Kūfī), 70Ithbāt al-was.iyya (al-Masʿūdī), 68–70

Jābir b. ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAmr, 9, 45, 56n21jabr (enforced knowledge), 144n72jādala, 39n32al-Jadīd fī l-h. ikma (Ibn Kammūna), 207al-Jafr, 70Jahāngīr (Shāh Jahān), 230, 241n29al-Jāh. iz. , 160n16, 249Jah. sh, Zaynab bint, 93n17Jāmiʿ al-ruwāt (al-Ardabīlī), 84, 89,

94nn22–23

Index 317

Jāmi ʿ al-daqā iʾq fī kashf al-h. aqā iʾq (al-Khūnajī), 206

al-Jāmi aʿ, 70Jamshīd, 254–257, 264, 266n27, 266n33al-Jawād, Muh.ammad b. ʿAlī, 68, 71,

72, 93n18Jazīra, 101Jesus movement, 280Jews, 34n5, 110n9, 179, 182n13Jibāl, 101jinn, 248, 249al-Jubbāʾī, Abū ʿAlī, 270, 278n11al-Jubbāʾī, Abū Hāshim, 270, 275Judeo-Christian heritage, 182n13judicial restraint, 163n76al-Juʿfī, Jābir b. Yazīd, 76n4jurists: as disappeared, 150–152; dissent

among, 129–131; establishing, promoting, and undermining culture of human rights, 174–175; expert (mujtahid mut.laq), 151, 152–153, 163n70; faqīh (term), 280–281; al-Ghazālī on, 133–134; interpretation of divine norms, 127–128; on leftward inclination in prayer, 101; as right, 146–150; textualist, 150–151; women ( faqīhas), 87. See also Imāms; individual jurists, Imāms, qā iʾm

al-Jurjānī, al-Sayyid Sharīf, 228–229, 239n4al-Jurjānī, ʿAlī b. Muh.ammad, 205Justinian Code, 285al-Juwaynī, Imām al-H. aramayn, 146–151,

157–158, 159n8, 160n16; Ghiyāth al-umam fī iltiyāth al-z. ulam, 153–156

Kaʿb al-H. abr (Kaʿb al-Ah.bār), 12Kaʿba: boundaries of, 100; distances

to, 101–104, 102f, 103f; as six-sided, 110n10; of Zoroaster, 261

Kaʿbatist view, 100al-Kaf ʿamī, 16n40al-Kāfī (al-Kulīnī), 3, 4–6, 11–12, 73, 74;

Qurʾānic verses in, 7t, 13nKarbala, Battle of, 91Kartir, 261Kāsānī, 131, 135al-Kāshānī, Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn b. Nūr al-Dīn,

123n104

Kashf al-asrār aʿn ghawāmid. al-afkār fī l-mant.iq (“Sharh. al-Kashf ”) (al-Khūnajī), 204–206

al-Kashshī, Zayn al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Rah.mān b. Muh.ammad, 82, 206

al-Kātibī al-Qazwīnī, Najm al-Dīn al-Dabīrān, 204, 206; al-Shamsiyya, 203–226, 228–229

al-Katkānī, 15n33, 16n49Kaykhusraw, 266n33Kayūmarth, 255al-Kāz. im, Mūsā b. Jaʿfar, 10, 11–12, 68,

70–75, 93n18kephalaia, 187, 190khabar literature, 55n5, 144n72khād. a, 39n32Khadīja, 89Khalīl, Sultan, 259–260Kharāj in Islamic Law (Modarressi), xv–xvial-Kharaqī, 211n22Khas.ā iʾs. al-a iʾmma (al-Sharīf al-Rad. ī), 71, 73al-Khattāb, ʿUmar b., 175–176al-Khayrābādī, ʿAbd al-H. aqq, 235–237al-Khayrābādī, Fad. l-i H. aqq, 235, 236al-Khayrābādī, Fad. l-i Imām, 234–236Khayrābādī School: curriculum, 237–238,

240n22, 241n24; logic in, 236–238; logicians and logical works, 234, 235f

Khaythama al-Juʿfī, 10al-Khudarī, Abū Saʿīd Saʿd b. Mālik, 45al-Khudarī, Saʿd b. Mālik b. Sinān, 56n22al-Khūʿī, Abū ’l-Qāsīm b. ʿAlī, 90,

91–92, 15n35ʾal-Khūnajī, Afd. al al-Dīn: Jāmi ʿ al-daqā iʾq

fī kashf al-h. aqā iʾq, 206; Kashf al-asrār (“Sharh. al-Kashf ”), 206; Kashf al-asrār aʿn ghawāmid. al-afkār fī l-mant.iq, 204–206

Khurāsān, 101Khurramdīn, Bābak, 284Khusraw Anushiravan, 261, 264al-Khuwārazmī, Muh.ammad b. Mūsā, 271kināyāt (figurative statements), 147al-Kindī, Yaʿqūb b. Ish. āq, 271, 274, 278n10al-Kisāʾī, 32, 37n n18–19kitāb (early written records), 93n15;

(notebook of traditions) (Sulaymān), 4

Index318

Kitāb al-anbiyā ʾ (al-Kūfī), 70Kitāb al-anbiyāʾ wa-l-a iʾmma (al-ʿAyyāshī), 69Kitāb al-anbiyā ʾ waʾ-l-aws.iyā ʾ min Ādam ilā

Mahdī, 69Kitāb al-Ārā ʾ wa l-diyānāt (al-Nawbakhtī),

269, 278n5Kitāb al-aws.iyā ʾ (“Book of the heirs,”

i.e., the Imāms), 67; (al-Kūfī), 70; (al-Shalmaghānī), 69; (al-ʿAyyāshī), 69

Kitāb al-aws.iyā ʾ wa-dhikr al-was.āyā, 68Kitāb al-ghārāt, 68Kitāb al-ghayba (al-Shalmaghānī), 69Kitāb al-imāma, 67Kitāb al-maqālāt (al-Warrāq), 270Kitāb al-mis.bāh. , 79n58Kitāb al-muh. ākama bayna ’ l-Imām

wa-’ l-Nas.īr (Tah. tānī), 229–230Kitāb al-Muh. as.s.al (al-Rāzī), 207Kitāb al-Mulakhkhas (al-Rāzī), 206Kitāb al-Muʿtamad fī us.ūl al-dīn (Ibn

al-Malāh. imī), 269–270, 278n4Kitāb al-Radd aʿla l-munajjimīn

(al-Nawbakhtī), 278n5, 278n11Kitāb al-rijāl (al-D. uaʿfā ʾ) (al-Barqī), 72;

(al-T. ūsī), 72; (Ibn al-Ghad. āʾirī), 72Kitāb al-Shifā (Ibn Sīnā), 206Kitāb al-Talwīh. āt (al-Suhrawardī), 207Kitāb al-was.āyā (Abu Jaʿfar Muhammad

b. ʿIsa b. ʿUbayd b. Yaqtin), 68; (Anonymous), 69; (al-Kūfī), 76n17

Kitāb al-was.iyya (al-Thaqafī), 68–69; (Ibn al-Mustafād), 73; (ʿĪsā b. al-Mustafād), 67–75

Kitāb al-was.iyya fī l-imāma kabīr, 68–69Kitāb al-was.iyya fī l-imāma s.aghīr, 68–69Kitāb al-was.iyya wa -ʾl-imāma (al-Kūfī), 68Kitāb al-was.iyya wa lʾ-radd aʿlā

munkirīhā (alā man ankarahā) (Hishām b. al-H. akam), 68

Kitāb Aʿlī, 9, 70Kitāb firaq al-Shī aʿ (al-Nawbakhtī), 269Kitāb ithbāt al-was.iyya li-Aʿlī (Ibn

Bābawayh), 70Kitāb mah. āsin (al-Barqī), 72Kitāb makhabbat al-aws.iyā ʾ (al-ʿAyyāshī), 69Kubrā, 237Kubrā Jurjānī, 242n36

Kūfa, 23–24, 32, 37n15, 37n18, 105–106; numbering system, 59n60; reciters, 37n18

Kūfan mosque, 105–108; orientation, 105–108, 120n69; qibla, 105–106, 108

al-Kūfī, Abū l-H. asan ʿAlī b. Ri ʾāb, 68al-Kūfī, Abū l-Qāsim ʿAlī b. Ah.mad, 70al-Kūfī, Alī b. al-H. asan b. ʿAlī b. Fad. d. āl,

76n17Kūh-i Nafasht, 263al-Kulīnī (al-Kulaynī), 4, 13nn7–8, 70–74,

99–100; al-Kāfī, 3, 4–6, 7t, 11–12; al-Rawd. a, 3–4

Kulthūm bint Sulaym, 83

al-Lāhūrī, ʿAbd al-Salām, 230Lakhnawī, Abd al-Qādir Fārūqī, 230Latin Christianity, 280law(s): Byzantine, 285–286; Christian,

286–287; conversion and, 279–290; of h. udūd, 171–173; Imāmī Shīʿī law, 280; Islamic, 171–173, 280; making, 145–166; Sunnī law, 127–144

“law” (term), 181n6law schools: Sunni, 280; in Syria, 128–129.

See also specific schoolsal-Layth b. Saʿd, 62n106leftward inclination in prayer, 99–124;

astronomy and, 104–105; geography and, 101–104; jurists on, 101; tayāsur, 101; traditions of, 99–100

legal maximalism, 157–158legal minimalism, 153–158; definition of,

153; procedural, 156–157; substantive, 154–156

legal opinions, 128legal process, 157–158, 160n26legal rights (h. aqq), 174–175legal traditions, 125–183; construction

of norms, 127–144; contemplation (ta aʾmmul), 131–142; debates, 128–129, 147–149; dissent, uncertainty, and contemplation (ta aʾmmul) of the law, 131–133; divine norms, 127–128; individual reasoning (ijtihād), 131–137; leftward inclination in prayer, 101; no

Index 319

right answer, 160n18; one right answer, 149–150; Prophet’s norms, 129–131; sharī aʿ norms, 137; sources of norms, 112, 128–129

Lōdhī, Sikandar, 228Lōdhīs, 228logic: Dars-i Niz. āmī curriculum, 230;

in India, 227–228, 231–234, 232f, 233f, 238; Khayrābādī School, 234, 235f, 236–238; medium-sized works (al-mutawassit.a), 214n43; scholarship and textbooks, 204–207; al-Shamsiyya fī l-qawā iʿd al-mant.iqiyya (al-Kātibī), 203–226; South Asian curriculum, 230; stage one study, 228–229; stage two study, 229–230; stage three study, 230–231; stage four study, 234–236

logicians and works, 231–234, 232f, 233f, 235f; medium-sized works (al-mutawassit.a), 214n43

lucky stars, 272, 276Ludd, 248–249al-Lum aʿ al-Dimashqiyya, 85

al-Mabsūt. (al-Sarakhsī), 132Madrasa Niz. āmiyya, 159n8Mah.all, Farangī, 229al-Mah.allī, Jalāl al-Dīn, 163n60al-Mah.būbī, Mah.mūd b. S.adr

al-Sharīʿa, 237Maimonides, David b. Joshua, 203, 207;

commentaries on al-Kātibī’s al-Shamsiyya copied by, 203–226; al-Murshid ilā l-tafarrud, 207; Tajrīd al-h. aqā iʾq al-naz. ariyya wa-talkhīs. al-maqās.id al-nafsāniyya, 207

Maimonides, Joshua, 204Maimonides, Moses, 182n13, 207al-Majlisī, Muh.ammad Bāqir (Taqī),

16n49, 85, 88, 92n3, 105, 108Majmaʿ al-rijāl (al-Quhpāʾī), 84Major Occultation, 161n39Mālik b. Anas, 49, 280Mālikī discourse, 48–51, 54, 128, 130, 131Mamlūk era, 88, 90, 96n47al-Ma’mūn, 285al-Mans.ūr, 270

al-Mans.ūr, Ghiyāth al-Dīn, 227–229, 231Maqāla fī mabāh. ith al-khamsa aʿn al-ru ūʾs

al-thamāniya (Essay on Five Inquiries into the Eight Headings) (Yah.yā), 187–201; inquiries, 190–191; text, 192–194; translation, 194–198

al-Maqqarī, 164n85al-Marghīnānī, 236–237mashhūr reports, 139Masjid, Sar, 250al-Masʿūdī al-Hudhalī, Abū al-H. asan ʿAlī b.

al-H. usayn b. ʿAlī, 69–70, 251–252, 269; Ithbāt al-was.iyya, 68–70; Risālat ithbāt al-was.iyya li-Aʿlī b. Abī T. ālib, 69–70

al-Mat.ālib al-qudsiyya fī sharh. al-risāla al-shamsiyya (al-Tāj al-Rāzī), 205

Mat.āli ʿ al-anwār (al-Urmawī), 204, 206, 208n7, 228, 239n12

al-Māwardī, ʿAlī b. Muh.ammad, 51, 62n94, 62n98

maximalism, legal, 157–158maxims, legal, 145–166Maytham, 9Mazdayasna, 258, 261Mecca: distances to, 101t, 101–104,

102f, 103fMedina: Constitution of Medina, 280;

inhabitants of, 44–45; living traditions of, 50, 52, 53–54, 61nn77–78; numbering convention, 49, 59n60

medium-sized works (al-mutawassit.a): in logic, 214n43

memory failures, 30, 31, 34mercy, God’s, 10–11Metaphysics (Aristotle), 272metaprolegomena, 191–192mih. na (inquisition), 77n26, 285minimalism, legal, 153–158; definition of,

153; procedural, 156–157; substantive, 154–156

Minor Occultation, 161n39al-Minshār, Bint al-Shaykh ʿAlī, 90Mīr Qut.bī, 242n36Mīr Zāhid, 237Mirqāt (Khayrābādī), 234–237, 243n45Mis.bāh. al-anwār fī fad. ā iʾl imām al-abrār

(Hāshim b. Muh.ammad), 73–74, 79n58

Index320

miscellaneous traditions (nawādir), 99–100Mishneh Torah (Maimonides), 207mixing (takhlīt.), 70Mīzān al-mant.iq, 239n6al-Mizzī, Yūsuf b. ʿAbd al-Rah.mān, 89–90Modarressi, Hossein, xiii–xvii, 15n35;

articles and chapters, 295–299; bibliography of works, 293–300; books and book-length works, 293–294, 302; collected articles, 294–295; contributions to Qum Studies, xv, 301–302; Crisis and Consolation, xvi, 145; edited works, 299–300; Introduction to Shī īʿ Law, xvi; Kharāj in Islamic Law, xv–xvi; manuscript indices, 299; Persian translations, 293–300; Persian works, xv, 301–303; reprints, 298–302; scholarly output, 291–303; “Some Recent Analyses of the Concept of Majāz in Islamic Jurisprudence,” xvi; Tradition and Survival, xvi; translations, 302

moral commitments, 168–170moral or legal rights (h. aqq), 174–175Mosque of Solomon, 250mosques: first, 119n68; Kūfan, 105–108;

oldest, 119n68; orientation of, 105–106, 119nn68–69, 122n100

Muʿallā b. Khunays, 9Muʿāwiya b. Abī Sufyān, 43, 52–54; as

assertive, 45–46, 58n52; death order, 53; as deferential, 46–47, 58n52; in the H. ijāz, 43–64, 55n9, 58n52; policy of appeasement, 58n52; as protector of Prophet’s legacy, 44–45

al-Mudawwana al-kubrā (Sah.nūn), 49Mufad. d. al b. ʿUmar al-Juʿfī, 111n16, 111n20Mufawwid. a, 111n16al-Mufīd: al-Ikhtis.ās., 7, 7t, 15n35, 15n37al-Mughnī (al-Jabbār), 176; (Sadīdī), 237,

243n46muh. additha (honorific), 90Muh. ākama, 241n24Muh.ammad: birth of, 261; Prophet’s

norms (sunna), 128–131, 173; Salmān al-Fārisi and, 262; as settler of disputes, 280; wives of, 84, 86–87; women who narrated from, 83

Muh.ammad b. al-ʿAbbās, 16n41

Muh.ammad b. al-H. anafiyya, 17n50Muh.ammad b. al-H. asan al-S.affār, 6Muh.ammad b. al-H. asan b. Ah.mad b.

al-Walīd, 6, 7Muh.ammad b. ʿIsā b. ʿUbayd, 72Muh.ammad b. Muh.ammad b. al-Nuʿmān

(al-Shaykh al-Mufīd), 7Muh.ammad b. Sulaymān (al-Daylamī), 4,

6, 7, 13n12Muh.ammad bek Shafīq, 176Muh.aysin, Muh.ammad, 38n21Mujāhid, 37n15, 37n19Mu jʿam rijāl al-h. adīth (al-Khūʿī), 90–92Mūjaz (Ibn Abī al-H. azm), 243n46Mujmal al-tavārīkh, 255mujtahid(s), 130–131, 135, 145, 146–150;

mut.laq (expert jurists), 151, 152–153, 163n70

mujtahidas, 91, 147Mukhammisa, 70al-Mulk, Niz. ām, 154, 159n8Mullā Jalāl (al-Dawānī), 229–230, 232Mullā Jalāl (Khayrābādī), 237Mullā Jalāl Harawī (Khayrābādī), 236, 237,

242n36Muntakhab al-h. aqq, 242n41al-Muqaddasī, 253al-Muqaddima (al-Kashshī), 206muqallids, 136Muqātil b. Sulaymān, 247al-Murādī, Abū Muh.ammad Layth b.

al-Bakhtarī, 13n4al-Murshid ilā l-tafarrud (David b. Joshua

Maimonides), 207Murūj al-dhahab, 69mus.awwiba, 160n18al-Musayyab, Saʿīd b., 37n18Muslim cultures, 179; Iranian, 262; Islamic

law and, 171–173; Persian, 263, 265; Spain, 183n19

al-Mustafād, ʿĪsā b., 72, 73al-mutawassit.a (medium-sized works): in

logic, 214n43mutawātir reports, 138–139Muʿtazilī doctrine, 150, 176muttaqūn (God-fearing), 8–9Muwat.t.aʾ (Mālik), 49Muyassar, 83

Index 321

Muzaffarids, 256al-Muzanī, Ismāʿīl b. Yah.yā, 62n94

Nāfi ʿ, 37n19Nafīsa bint al-H. asan, 86–87al-Najafī, 105al-Najāshī, 69–74, 83, 278n5al-Nakhaʿī, 37n15Naqd al-rijāl (al-Tafrīshī), 84nas.s. (doctrine of investiture), 67Natāʾ ij al-majālis (As.ghar), 243n44nationalism, 178–179natural rights, 176, 177–178, 183n16Naturalistic Fallacy, 183n16nawādir (miscellaneous traditions), 99–100al-Nawawī, Yah.yā b. Sharīf, 51, 53, 54,

62n102al-Nawbakhtī, Abū l-Qāsim al-H. usayn b.

Rūh. , 69al-Nawbakhtī, Abū Muh.ammad al-H. asan

b. Mūsā, 269; K. al-Ārāʾ wa l-diyānāt, 269, 278n5; K. al-Radd aʿlā l-munajjimīn, 278n5, 278n11; Kitāb firaq al-Shī aʿ, 269; as Muslim kalām theologian, 277–278; on views of astronomers and astrologers, 269–278, 278n11

al-Nawwā ,ʾ Kuthayr, 82, 93n10al-Naz. z. ām, 271, 275nesting doctrine, 100Newton, Isaac, 264al-Nihāwandī, Ibrāhīm b. Ish. āq, 7, 15n36Nishapur, 280Niz. ām al-Dīn Sihālawī, 230–232, 234normative pluralism, 130–131Nukhbat al-fikar (al-H. amawī), 207Nukhbat al-fikar (Ibn Wās.il), 214n43al-Nuʿmān, al-Qād. ī, 6; Da āʿ iʾm al-Islām, 6;

Sharh. al-akhbār, 6, 7t

Occultation (ghayba), 72, 86, 161n39Olympiodorus, 190Oman, 41n48On Generation and Corruption (Aristotle), 272On Philosophy (Aristotle), 273On the Heavens (Aristotle), 272, 273

Pābag, 266n19pact of the Imāmate ( aʿhd al-imāma), 67

paganism, 284Pahlavi, 263Pāk, Salmān, 262Palestine, 249Palmyra, 249Pāpak, 251, 253, 257, 261, 266n19Paradise, 33; heavenly comestibles of, 32–34,

40n43; inhabitants of, 3; Shīʿa in, 11–12parasang, 265n1Pārsīyāns, 263Pasargadae, 250Persepolis, 251–253, 257–258, 261, 265;

burning of, 261; features of, 254; as pleasure palace, 253; as Sad Stūn (“One Hundred Columns”), 254, 258; significance of, 258–259; as “Throne of Jamshīd,” 254

Persian, 302Persians, 255–256, 263, 265philology, 191–192Philoponos, John, 272Philoponus, 190philosophical traditions, 185–243Physics (Aristotle), 272, 276plantains (t.alh. ), 32–34, 40n43, 41n48Plato, 270, 272, 273, 276, 277Plezia, 190pluralism, normative, 130–131, 136poetry, Persian, 256–257Porphyry, 187–188prayer: inclination to left in, 99–124. See

also Recitationsprayer leadership tradition, 44, 52, 53;

locating, 47–48; origins and historical context for, 44–48

pre-Occultation period, 86pre-S.afawid era, 101pretending to divinity (iddi āʿʾ al-ulūhiyya), 69Prison of Solomon, 250procedural minimalism, 156–157proofs: disputable, 133–137; indisputable

(qat. iʿyyāt), 136Prophet’s norms (sunna), 128–131, 173punishment: of denial, 24–32; denial of,

24–32, 39n32

qāʾim. See Juristsal-Qalqashandī, 214n41

Index322

Qāmūs al-rijāl (al-Tustarī), 97n59Qānūn (Avicenna), 237Qanwā bint Rashīd, 94n24al-Qarāfī, Shihāb al-Dīn, 131, 132,

135, 157qas.s.a, 26–29, 31, 37n19qat. iʿyyāt (indisputable proofs), 136Qawā iʿd al-ah. kām (al-H. illī), 85al-Qawā iʿd al-jaliyya fī sharh. al-risāla

al-shamsiyya (al-H. illī), 204–205Qazvīnī, Muh.ammad, 256qibla, 100; astronomical rules for finding,

104; of Kūfan mosque, 105–106, 108; nested, 100

qirā aʾ (Qurʾānic recitation), 7, 48, 58n50; recording of, 183n20

qubh. (evil), 175al-Quhpāʾī, ʿĪnāyat Allāh, 84Qum, 95n42, 301; studies of, 301–302Qurʾān: case studies, 24–32; deletions,

37n20, 38n21; emendations, 21–41, 38n23; hapax legomena in, 22; and human rights, 173, 182n8, 182n12; Kūfan numbering system, 59n60; Medinan numbering system, 49, 59n60; recitation from (qirā aʾ), 7, 48, 58n50, 183n20; roots occurring in, 22, 24f; seven oft-repeated chapters of, 59n61; skeletal morphemic differences, 23–24; on Solomon as the great traveler, 247–248; as source of legal norms, 128; Sūra 2, 50; Sūra 6, 24–32, 25f, 39n32; Sūra 9, 59n55; Sūra 54.5, 37n20; Sūra 56.29, 32–33; Sūra 96.18, 37n20; textual errors in, 21, 22; ʿUthmānic, 21, 23–26, 25f, 26–27; verses on the merits of Shīʿa, 3–19

Qurʾānic Arabic, 23Qurʾānic exegesis, 191–192; in India,

227–228Qurʾānic recitation (qirā aʾ), 7, 48, 58n50;

recording of, 183n20al-Qurashī, Muh.ammad b. Yūsuf, 57n36al-Quraz. ī, Muh.ammad b. Kaʿb, 248al-Qurt.ubī, Muh.ammad b. Ah.mad, 49–50,

59n61al-Qushayrī, Abū Nas.r ʿAbd al-Rah. īm b.

ʿAbd al-Karīm, 16n44

qus.s.a (hair extensions), 45–47, 57n26, 57n29

Qut.b al-Dīn al-Rāzī, 205–207Qut.b al-Dīn Shams Ābādī, 230Qut.b al-Dīn Sihālawī, 230Qut.biyya, 232, 237, 242n36Qut.biyyat Harawī, 236, 242n36Qut.biyyat Mīr Zāhid, 237

Rāfid. a, 3, 110n9al-Rāfi ʿī, 151al-Rah.mān, Yūnus b. ʿAbd, 13n8rationalism, 149–150, 176, 178, 182n13,

230–231; in India, 228, 239n4al-Rawd. a (al-Kulīnī), 3–4, 13n3al-Rāzī, Abū Bakr, 177al-Rāzī, Fakhr al-Dīn, 151, 177, 206, 207al-Rāzī, Mah.mūd b. ʿAlī b. Mah.mūd

al-H. ims.ī (al-Tāj al-Rāzī), 205al-Rāzī, Qut.b al-Dīn, 205–207reasoning: analogical, 139; legal, 131–142recitations: audible vs. silent, 47, 48, 50–54,

61n78, 63n115; of basmala, 44, 47–53, 59n55, 61n77, 62n93, 63n115; Kūfan reciters, 37n18; Qurʾānic (qirā aʾ), 7, 48, 58n50, 183n20; recording of, 183n20; of takbīr, 47, 48

reincarnation (h. ulūl), 69rejection: of retribution, 24–32, 39n32;

verbs used in sūra in reference to, 39n32resurrection, 39n32retribution: rejection of, 24–32, 39n32al-Rid. ā, ʿAlī b. Mūsā, 11, 82, 83, 93n18righteous (s.ālih. ūn), 9rights: civil, 169; human, 167–183; h. uqūq,

175; moral or legal (h. aqq), 174–175; natural, 176, 177–178, 183n16

Rijāl (al-Najāshī), 83Rijāl H. amīda, 90Rijāl al-T. ūsī, 83, 87, 93nn16–18Risālat ithbāt al-was.iyya li-Aʿlī b. Abī T. ālib

(al-Masʿūdī), 69–70Rivayat, Pahlavi, 249Riyād al-ʿulamāʾ wa-h. iyād. al-fud. alāʾ

(al-Is.fahānī), 84–85, 87–90rizq (knowledge, sustenance for the soul),

16n44

Index 323

Roman Empire, 283royal palaces, 260rules, debatable, 156–157Rumūz al-h. ikma, 243n44al-Rūydashtī, H. amīda bint Muh.ammad,

95n43al-Rūydashtī, Muh.ammad, 87–88, 90al-ruūʾs al-thamāniya (eight headings): Essay

on Five Inquiries into the Eight Headings (Maqāla fī mabāh. ith al-khamsa aʿn al-ruūʾs al-thamāniya) (Yah.yā), 187–201; variations, 189–190; Yah.yā’s inquiries, 190–191

S.ābians, H. arrānian, 270–274, 276–277Sadīdī, 237al-S.ādiq, Jaʿfar (Abū ʿAbdallāh), 3–4, 9,

13n8, 15n29, 68, 70–71, 73–75; on inclination to the left in prayer, 99–100; narrators, 95n41; and women, 81–83, 93n18, 94n24

S.adrā, Mullā, 240–241n22Safavid (S.afawid) period, 86–88, 90, 101,

108–109S.afī I, 121n87Sahl b. Ziyād, 4Sah.nūn, 49, 60n62Saʿīd b. Jubayr, 37n15Saʿīda, 81, 82Salghurids, 256s.ālih. ūn (righteous), 9Salmān al-Fārisi (the Pure), 262Sandīlawī, Muh.ammad Aʿlam b. Muh.ammad

Shākir, 227–228, 234al-Sarakhsī, Abū Bakr b. Muh.ammad

b. Abī Sahl al-Sarakhsī, 131, 132; al-Mabsūt., 132; on contemplation (ta aʾmmul), 137–142

Sassanids, 253, 257–258, 261Satan, 10Satans, 265n1Sawda bint Zamʿa, 93n17al-S.aymarī, ʿAlī b. Muh.ammad b. Ziyād, 68Saʿdī of Shiraz, 256scholar-jurists (mujtahids), 145scholars ( āʿlimas): as heirs of prophets, 145;

terms for, 95n43; women as, 87

Scorpio, 276scribal mistakes, 21, 30, 31, 34, 40n37secret books, 70sectarianism, 99–124secularism, 178–179Seljūk era, 88, 90, 96n47Seven Readers, 37n15, 37n18al-Shāfi ʿī, Muh.ammad b. Idrīs, 51, 52–53,

61n80, 61n90, 62n93, 62n105, 86–87, 280; al-Umm, 51; on legal norms, 129, 130

al-Shah.h. ām, Zayd, 14n16al-Shahīd al-Awwal Shams al-Dīn

Muh.ammad b. Makkī al-ʿĀmilī, 85al-Shahīd al-Thānī Zayn al-Dīn al-ʿĀmilī,

85, 94n25Shalih, 255al-Shalmaghānī, Abū Jaʿfar Muh.ammad b.

ʿAlī (Ibn Abī al-ʿAzāqir), 69Shams Ābādī, Qut.b al-Dīn, 230Shams al-Dīn al-Is.fahānī, 207al-Shamsiyya fī l-qawā iʿd al-mant.iqiyya

(al-Kātibī), 242n36; commentaries, 203–226, 228–229; fragments, 218–221, 225f, 226f; text, 221–224

Shamsiyyat Taftāzānī, 242n36Shamsiyyat Tah. tānī, 242n36Shapur I, 261Shapur II, 254, 257–258al-Sharafī, ʿAbd Allāh b. Ah.mad b.

Ibrāhīm, 53–54Sharh. al-akhbār (al-Nuʿmān), 6, 7, 7t, 15n29Sharh. al-Ishārāt, 242n40Sharh. al-Lum aʿ (al-Shahīd al-Thānī Zayn

al-Dīn al-ʿĀmilī), 85Sharh. al-shamsiyya (Tah. tānī), 228–229Sharh. Bah. r al-ʿUlūm aʿlā musallam

al-thubūt, 237Sharh. -i Nafīsī, 237, 243n46Sharh. Ishārāt al-T. ūsī, 237Sharh. Mat.āli ʿ (Tah. tānī), 228Sharh. Mirqāt, 237Sharh. Qād. ī Mubārak aʿlā sullam

al-ʿulūm, 228Sharh. Sullam Bah. r al-ʿUlūm, 237Sharh. Sullam Ghulām Yah. yā, 237Sharh. Sullam H. amdallāh, 237

Index324

Sharh. Tahdhīb (Khayrābādī), 237sharī aʿ, 130, 137, 173–174, 288–289al-Sharīf al-Murtad. ā, 159n6al-Sharīf al-Rad. ī, 71–73Shashdīw, Mankdīm, 162n47al-Shāshī, Qaffāl, 151al-Shāt.ibī, 157al-Shaybānī, Muh.ammad, 61n80al-Shaykh al-Mufīd (Muh.ammad b.

Muh.ammad b. al-Nuʿmān), 7, 159n6Sheba, Queen of, 248Shem, 255Shērkūtī, Muh.ammad ʿImād al-Dīn,

243n45Shīʿa: as Companions of the Right, 11–12;

as God-fearing (muttaqūn), 8–9; in Paradise, 11–12; Qurʾānic verses on the merits of, 3–19; as righteous (s.ālih. ūn), 9; Satan as having no authority over, 10; as showing love and loyalty to their Imams, 9–10; sinners among, 10–11; as those possessed of understanding (ulū l-albāb), 9

al-Shifāʾ (Avicenna), 230, 234, 237, 243n49Shīʿī tradition, 65–125, 161n33; Abū

Bas.īr tradition and, 8–12; early Shīʿism, 81; Imāmī Shīʿism, 88–89, 99–124; writings of, 68–70

Shiraz, H. āfiz. of, 256–257Shīrāzī, Fath. allāh, 229, 230, 240nn20–22,

241nn26–27al-Shīrāzī, Abū Ish. āq, 61n92al-Shīrāzī, Mīrzā Jān, 229–230, 240n15,

241n23, 241n27al-Shirāzī, S.adr al-Dīn (Mullā S.adrā),

177, 229al-Shūlistānī, Amīr Sharaf al-Dīn ʿAlī,

106–108, 121n81, 122n98al-Shūlistānī, Mah.mūd al-H. usaynī, 121n81Sihālawī, Kamāl al-Dīn, 234Sihālawī, Qut.b al-Dīn, 230Simplicius, 190Siyālkōtī, ʿAbd al-H. akīm, 241n31slavery, 176, 182n12Solomon: Eastern travels of, 247–267;

entourage of, 248; as the great traveler, 247–250; kingdom of, 260; Mosque of Solomon, 250; Prison of Solomon, 250;

as ruler, 249, 256; Throne of Solomon, 249–250, 257, 264; Tomb of the mother of Solomon, 250

Solomon Mountains, 250sources: classical, 82–85; early, 82–85,

93n15; of legal norms, 128–129South Asian curriculum, 230Spain, Muslim, 183n19St. Augustine, 284star worship, 270, 272, 276–277stars: lucky, 272; unlucky, 272, 276stellar guidance, 104–105Stoics, 270al-Subkī, Tāj al-Dīn, 51, 162–163n60Successors, 89–90S.ughrā, 237S.ughrā Jurjānī, 242n36al-Suhrawardī, Shihāb al-Dīn, 177, 207Sukayna bint al-H. usayn, 85, 86, 94n26al-Sulamī, 37n18Sulaym, Kulthūm bint, 83Sulaymān, 4, 7; kitāb (notebook of

traditions), 4. See also SolomonSulaymān b. Khālid, 11Sullam al-ʿulūm (al-Bihārī), 229, 230, 232,

233–234, 236, 237, 242n36Sullam H. amdallāh, 237Sullam Mubārak, 242n41Sullam Qād. ī Mubārak, 237sunna (Prophet’s norms), 128–131, 173Sunnīsm, 127–145, 280sūras (chapters), 58n49. See also Qurʾānal-Suyūrī, Miqdād, 164n85symbiosis, 264syncretism, 264Syria: law schools in, 128–129

al-T. abarī, Muh.ammad b. Abī l-Qāsim Muh.ammad, 11–12

al-T. abarī, Muh.ammad b. Jarīr, 250–251, 256, 261

Tadmur, 249al-Tafrīshī, 84Tafsīr (Abū H. amza), 8–9, 14n19al-Taftāzānī, Saʿd al-Dīn Masʿūd b. ʿUmar,

205, 228–231, 237, 239n4, 242n36Tahdhīb al-mant.iq (al-Taftāzānī), 228, 230,

237, 239n4

Index 325

T. ahmūrath, 249Tah. rīr al-qawā iʿd al-mant.iqiyya fī sharh.

al-risāla al-shamsiyya (Qut.b al-Dīn al-Rāzī), 205, 206

Tah. tānī: Kitāb al-muh. ākama bayna ’ l-Imām wa-’ l-Nas.īr, 229–230, 239n4; Sharh. al-shamsiyya, 228–229; Sharh. Mat.āli ʿ, 228

al-Tāj al-Rāzī (Mah.mūd b. ʿAlī b. Mah.mūd al-H. ims.ī al-Rāzī), 205

Tajrīd al-h. aqā iʾq al-naz. ariyya wa-talkhīs. al-maqās.id al-nafsāniyya (David b. Joshua Maimonides), 207

takbīr recitation, 47, 48takhlīt. (mixing), 70Takht-i Sulaymān, 249–250Takmila-yi h. āshiya-yi Dawānī bar Tahdhīb

al-Mant.iq (Shīrāzī), 230t.alʿ (dates), 32–34, 41n47Talamba, 239n7t.alh. (plantains), 32–34, 40n43T. alh. a, 37n15al-Tallaʿukbarī, Hārūn b. Mūsā, 71, 73Tamerlane, 239n10al-Tammār, Yaʿqūb b. Maytham, 9, 17n52al-Tanbīh waʾ-l-ishrāf, 69al-T. āq, Muʾmin / S.āh. ib (Shaytān) (Abū

Jaʿfar Muh.ammad b. ʿAlī b. al-Nuʿmān al-Bajalī al-Ah.wal al-Kūfī al-S.ayrafī), 68

Taqī al-Dīn Muh.ammad, Mīrzā (S.ārū Taqī), 107–108

al-Tārimī, ʿImād al-Dīn, 228taslīm, 46–47Taʾwil mā nazala fī shī aʿtihim (Ibn al-Juh.ām),

16n41Taʾwil mā nazala min al-Qur āʾn al-karīm fī

l-nabī wa-ālihi (Ibn al-Juh. ām), 16n41al-T. āwūs, Ah.mad b. Mūsā, 94n25tayāmun (inclining to the right), 115n33tayāsur (inclining to the left), 101, 115n33al-T. ayyib, Abū ’l-Faraj b. (Ibn al-T. ayyib),

188, 190, 200n13ta aʾmmul (contemplation), 131–133;

definition of, 132–133; as emancipation from rigid text fetters, 137–142; al-Ghazālī on, 133–137; al-Sarakhsī on, 137–142

textual errors, 21, 22

Thābit b. Qurra, 269, 273al-Thānī, Ibn al-Shahīd (H. asan b. Zayn

al-Dīn), 85, 94n25al-Thaqafī, Ibrāhīm b. Muh.ammad b. Saʿīd,

68–69al-Thaqafī, Muh.ammad b. Muslim, 10–11,

18n69Thaʿālibī, 248, 249, 262–263Theodosian Code, 285Theodosius I, 284Theodosius II, 285Throne of Solomon, 249–250, 257, 264al-Thumālī, Abū H. amza, 14n19Tiberias, 249al-T. ihrānī, 16n40Timaeus, 273Tīmūr, 239n10Tomb of the mother of Solomon, 250Tradition and Survival (Modarressi), xvitraditionalism, 88, 149–150traditionism, 88, 271traditions: historical, 245–290; leftward

inclination in prayer, 99–100; legal, 125–183; miscellaneous (nawādir), 99–100; philosophical, 185–243

“the truth” (al-h. aqq), 27–30Tulabn, 239n7al-Tulanbī, ʿAbdallāh, 228, 239n6al-Tulanbī, ʿAzīzallāh, 228, 239n8al-T. uraf, Abū Jaʿfar, 100, 101al-T. uraf, Kitāb (Ibn T. āwūs), 68, 69, 73–74,

79n63al-T. ūsī, Muh.ammad b. al-H. asan (Ibn

al-H. asan), 68–70, 72, 74, 82, 92n2, 159n6, 177; Fihrist, 72, 83; Ikhtiyār maʿrifat al-rijāl, 82, 93n7, 95n33; Rijāl al-T. ūsī, 83, 87, 93nn16–18

al-T. ūsī, Nās.īr al-Dīn, 104–105, 177al-Tustarī, 97n59typos (errors of the hand), 21, 31, 34

Ubayy b. Kaʿb, 37n15ʿUlayya bint ʿAlī, 83ulū l-albāb (those possessed of

understanding), 9ʿUmar, 106, 137Umayyads, 53–54, 57n38, 91al-Umm (al-Shāfi ʿī), 51

Index326

Umm ʿAlī, 85, 91, 94n30Umm Farwa, 82Umm Khālid, 82, 97n59Umm Kulthūm, 86Umm Salama, 9, 86–87, 89understanding: those possessed of

(ulū l-albāb), 9Urdu, 236, 238, 243n45al-Urmawī, Mah.mūd b. Abī Bakr Sirāj

al-Dīn, 239n12; Mat.āli ʿ al-anwār, 204, 206, 208n7, 228, 239n12

ʿUthmān, 44–45ʿUthmānic Qurʾān (U), 21, 23–24;

deletions, 38n21; Ibn Masʿūd influence on, 23, 37n18, 40n39; readings of Q6.57, 24–26, 25f, 26–30, 32, 37n18; regional patterns, 37n18; Shāfi ʿī discourse on, 51–52

ʿUthmānic Qurʾān (U1): as anomalous, 38n21; deletions, 38n21; Ibn Masʿūd influence on, 40n39; readings of Q6.57, 24–26, 25f, 32, 37n18; regional patterns, 37n18

ʿUthmānic Qurʾān (U2): assimilation of nearby terms in, 31; assimilation of parallels in, 30–31; contextual suitability of, 27–29; lexical correctness of, 26–27; parallels, 29–30; readings of Q6.57, 24–26, 25f, 26–30, 32, 37nn18–19; regional patterns, 37n18

ʿUyūn al-h. ikma (Ibn Sīnā), 206

values, universal, 154verse stops, 49

Wakīʿ, 164n103al-Wālibiyya, H. abāba, 82al-Warrāq, Abū ʿĪsā, 270was.iyya, 67waw: deletions of, 37n20, 38n21Wiqāyat al-riwāya (al-Mah.būbī), 237women, 81–97; authorities from ʿAlī b.

Abī T. ālib, 83, 86; authorities from Muh. ammad, 83; as Companions, 84,

87, 89–90; as faqīhas (jurists), 91; honorifics for, 90; as jurists ( faqīhas), 87; as jurists (mujtahidas), 91; as scholars ( āʿlimas), 87; as Successors, 89–90; terms for scholars, 95n43; Tomb of the mother of Solomon, 250; wives of Muh. ammad, 84, 86–87

yā :ʾ deletions of, 37n20, 38n21Yah.yā b. (Abī) I-Qāsim, 13n4Yah.yā b. ʿAdī, 190; Essay on Five Inquiries

into the Eight Headings (Maqāla fī mabāh. ith al-khamsa aʿn al-ru ūʾs al-thamāniya), 187–201

yaqd. i l-h. aqqa, 24–25, 36n15, 37n18Yaqt.īn, Abū Jaʿfar Muh.ammad b. ʿĪsā b.

ʿUbayd b., 68yaqus.s.u, 38n21, 39n28Yāqūt, 249yawma l-qiyāmati (Day of Judgment), 29Yazdagird III, 251al-Yazdī, ʿAbdallāh, 228, 229, 239n9,

240n15, 242n36Yemen, 41n48Yūnus, Abū Bishr Mattā b., 188, 191–192Yūsuf, Mullā, 240n15

Z. āhirī school, 150, 162n58Zamʿa, Sawda bint, 93n17Zangī, Abū Bakr Muh.ammad b. Saʿd, 256Zaqqūm, 33, 41n53al-Zarkashī, Badr al-Dīn, 152, 162n57Zayd b. ʿAlī, 82Zaydī position, 53, 63n115Zaynab bint ʿAlī, 86, 91–92Zaynab bint Jah. sh, 93n17Zengids, 256Ziyād b. Abīh, 105–106, 108, 122n100Zoroastrianism, 252–253, 261, 263al-Zubayr, ʿAbd Allāh b., 44, 46, 55n12Zubdat al-h. ikma (ʿAbd al-H. aqq

Khayrābādī), 236Zurʿa, Abū ʿAlī b., 188

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