AL-KAFI (Arabic & English) [Sarwar's Translation] Volume 1

AL-KAFI (Arabic & English) [Sarwar's Translation]3%

AL-KAFI (Arabic & English) [Sarwar's Translation] Author:
Translator: Muhammad Sarwar
Publisher: Darolhadith Scientific-Cultural Institute
Category: Texts of Hadith

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AL-KAFI (Arabic & English) [Sarwar's Translation]

AL-KAFI (Arabic & English) [Sarwar's Translation] Volume 1

Author:
Publisher: Darolhadith Scientific-Cultural Institute
English

This book is corrected and edited by Al-Hassanain (p) Institue for Islamic Heritage and Thought


Note:

There are some missings in footnote numbers and we tried to correct but regretfully we could not find any corrected version yet anywhere even its pdf, so, if any Mumin has the corrected version even in hard copy, please send us the images of the Introduction Section of Book on alhassanain2014@gmail.com, we will apply them as soon as possible.


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Chapter 8

The obligation to obey the Imams (a.s.)

1ـ عَلِيُّ بْنُ إِبْرَاهِيمَ عَنْ أَبِيهِ عَنْ حَمَّادِ بْنِ عِيسَى عَنْ حَرِيزٍ عَنْ زُرَارَةَ عَنْ ابي جعفر (عَلَيْهِ السَّلام) قَالَ ذِرْوَةُ الامْرِ وَسَنَامُهُ وَمِفْتَاحُهُ وَبَابُ الاشْيَاءِ وَرِضَا الرَّحْمَنِ تَبَارَكَ وَتَعَالَى الطَّاعَةُ لِلامَامِ بَعْدَ مَعْرِفَتِهِ ثُمَّ قَالَ إِنَّ الله تَبَارَكَ وَتَعَالَى يَقُولُ مَنْ يُطِعِ الرَّسُولَ فَقَدْ أَطاعَ الله وَمَنْ تَوَلَّى فَما أَرْسَلْناكَ عَلَيْهِمْ حَفِيظاً.

1. Ali ibn Ibrahim has narrated from his father from Hammad ibn ‘Isa from Hariz from Zurara from abu Ja‘far (a.s.) who has said the following.

“The top most matter (in religion) the most noble, the key issue, the gateway to all affairs and the pleasure of the Most Beneficent , the Most Holy, the Most High, is obedience to the Imam after finding out who the Imam is.” The Imam (a.s.) then said, “Allah, the Most Holy, the Most High, has said, ‘One who obeys the Messenger has certainly obeyed God. You have not been sent to watch over those who turn away from you (4:80)’”

2ـ الْحُسَيْنُ بْنُ مُحَمَّدٍ الاشْعَرِيُّ عَنْ مُعَلَّى بْنِ مُحَمَّدٍ عَنِ الْحَسَنِ بْنِ عَلِيٍّ الْوَشَّاءِ عَنْ أَبَانِ بْنِ عُثْمَانَ عَنْ أَبِي الصَّبَّاحِ قَالَ أَشْهَدُ أَنِّي سَمِعْتُ أَبَا عَبْدِ الله (عَلَيْهِ السَّلام) يَقُولُ أَشْهَدُ أَنَّ عَلِيّاً إِمَامٌ فَرَضَ الله طَاعَتَهُ وَأَنَّ الْحَسَنَ إِمَامٌ فَرَضَ الله طَاعَتَهُ وَأَنَّ الْحُسَيْنَ إِمَامٌ فَرَضَ الله طَاعَتَهُ وَأَنَّ عَلِيَّ بْنَ الْحُسَيْنِ إِمَامٌ فَرَضَ الله طَاعَتَهُ وَأَنَّ مُحَمَّدَ بْنَ عَلِيٍّ إِمَامٌ فَرَضَ الله طَاعَتَهُ.

2. Al-Husayn ibn Muhammad al-Ash‘ari has narrated from Mu‘alla ibn Muhammad from al-Hassan ibn Ali al-Washsha from Aban ibn ‘Uthman from abu al-Sabah who has said that he heard Imam abu ‘Abdallah (a.s.) saying, “I testify that Amir al-Mu’minin (a.s.) is the Imam obedience to whom is obligatory by the command of Allah, that al-Hassan (a.s.) is the Imam obedience to whom is obligatory by the command of Allah, that al-Husayn is the Imam obedience to whom is obligatory by the command of Allah, that Ali ibn al-Husayn is the Imam obedience to whom is obligatory by the command of Allah and that Muhammad ibn Ali is the Imam obedience to whom is obligatory by the command of Allah.”

3ـ وَبِهَذَا الاسْنَادِ عَنْ مُعَلَّى بْنِ مُحَمَّدٍ عَنِ الْحَسَنِ بْنِ عَلِيٍّ قَالَ حَدَّثَنَا حَمَّادُ بْنُ عُثْمَانَ عَنْ بَشِيرٍ الْعَطَّارِ قَالَ سَمِعْتُ أَبَا عَبْدِ الله (عَلَيْهِ السَّلام) يَقُولُ نَحْنُ قَوْمٌ فَرَضَ الله طَاعَتَنَا وَأَنْتُمْ تَأْتَمُّونَ بِمَنْ لا يُعْذَرُ النَّاسُ بِجَهَالَتِهِ.

3. Through the same chain of narrators it is narrated from Mu‘alla ibn Muhammad from al-Hassan ibn Ali who has said that Hammad ibn ‘Uthman narrated to us from Bashir al-‘Attar who has said that he heard Imam abu ‘Abdallah (a.s.) saying, “We are the people obedience to whom is obligatory by the command of Allah and you follow those that people’s responsibility to obey them does not cease because of ignorance and not knowing them.”

4ـ مُحَمَّدُ بْنُ يَحْيَى عَنْ أَحْمَدَ بْنِ مُحَمَّدٍ عَنِ الْحُسَيْنِ بْنِ سَعِيدٍ عَنْ حَمَّادِ بْنِ عِيسَى عَنِ الْحُسَيْنِ بْنِ الْمُخْتَارِ عَنْ بَعْضِ أَصْحَابِنَا عَنْ ابي جعفر (عَلَيْهِ السَّلام) فِي قَوْلِ الله عَزَّ وَجَلَّ وَآتَيْناهُمْ مُلْكاً عَظِيماً قَالَ الطَّاعَةُ الْمَفْرُوضَةُ.

4. Muhammad ibn Yahya has narrated from Ahmad ibn Muhammad from al-Husayn ibn Sa‘id from Hammad ibn ‘Isa from al-Husayn ibn al_Mukhtar from some of our people from Imam abu Ja'far (a.s.) about the words of Allah, the Most Holy, the Most High, “We gave them a great kingdom” 4:58, it means the obedience that is obligatory.”

5ـ عِدَّةٌ مِنْ أَصْحَابِنَا عَنْ أَحْمَدَ بْنِ مُحَمَّدٍ عَنْ مُحَمَّدِ بْنِ سِنَانٍ عَنْ أَبِي خَالِدٍ الْقَمَّاطِ عَنْ أَبِي الْحَسَنِ الْعَطَّارِ قَالَ سَمِعْتُ أَبَا عَبْدِ الله (عَلَيْهِ السَّلام) يَقُولُ أُشْرِكَ بَيْنَ الاوْصِيَاءِ وَالرُّسُلِ فِي الطَّاعَةِ.

5. A number of our people has narrated from Ahmad ibn Muhammad from Muhammad ibn Sinan from abu Khalid al-Qammat from abu al_hassan al-‘Attar who has said that he heard Imam abu ‘Abdallah (a.s.) saying, “Of the matters common among the successors and the messengers themselves one is that to obey them all is obligatory.”

6ـ أَحْمَدُ بْنُ مُحَمَّدٍ عَنْ مُحَمَّدِ بْنِ أَبِي عُمَيْرٍ عَنْ سَيْفِ بْنِ عَمِيرَةَ عَنْ أَبِي الصَّبَّاحِ الْكِنَانِيِّ قَالَ قَالَ أَبُو عَبْدِ الله (عَلَيْهِ السَّلام) نَحْنُ قَوْمٌ فَرَضَ الله عَزَّ وَجَلَّ طَاعَتَنَا لَنَا الانْفَالُ وَلَنَا صَفْوُ الْمَالِ وَنَحْنُ الرَّاسِخُونَ فِي الْعِلْمِ وَنَحْنُ الْمَحْسُودُونَ الَّذِينَ قَالَ الله أَمْ يَحْسُدُونَ النَّاسَ عَلى‏ ما آتاهُمُ الله مِنْ فَضْلِهِ.

6. Ahmad ibn Muhammad has narrated from Muhammad ibn abu ‘Umayr from Sayf ibn ibn ‘Umayr from abu al-Sabah al-Kinani who has said that Imam abu ‘Abdallah (a.s.) who has said the following.

“We are a people obedience to whom is obligatory by the command of Allah, the Most Holy, the Most High. The Anfal (twenty percent in tax) is for us and we have been given the authority to choose the best out of the property seized from the enemy. We are the people very firmly established in knowledge. We are the ones who are considered as subject to the jealousy of people in the following verse of the holy Quran, “Are they jealous of the favors that God has done to some people? . (4:54)

7ـ أَحْمَدُ بْنُ مُحَمَّدٍ عَنْ عَلِيِّ بْنِ الْحَكَمِ عَنِ الْحُسَيْنِ بْنِ أَبِي الْعَلاءِ قَالَ ذَكَرْتُ لابِي عَبْدِ الله (عَلَيْهِ السَّلام) قَوْلَنَا فِي الاوْصِيَاءِ إِنَّ طَاعَتَهُمْ مُفْتَرَضَةٌ قَالَ فَقَالَ نَعَمْ هُمُ الَّذِينَ قَالَ الله تَعَالَى أَطِيعُوا الله وَأَطِيعُوا الرَّسُولَ وَأُولِي الامْرِ مِنْكُمْ وَهُمُ الَّذِينَ قَالَ الله عَزَّ وَجَلَّ إِنَّما وَلِيُّكُمُ الله وَرَسُولُهُ وَالَّذِينَ آمَنُوا.

7. Ahmad ibn Muhammad has narrated from Ali ibn al-Hakam from al-Husayn ibn abu al-‘Ala’ whos has said that I mentioned to Imam abu ‘Abdallah (a.s.) our expression about the successors (of the Prophets (s.a.)) “That obedience to them is obligatory”, the Imam (a.s.) said, ‘It is very true because they are the people about whom Allah, the Most Holy, the Most High, has said, “Believers, obey God, His Messenger, and your (qualified) leaders. . .’ (4:59) It is they about whom Allah, the Most Holy, the Most High, has also said, ‘Only God, His Messenger, and the true believers who are steadfast in prayer and pay alms, while they kneel during prayer, are your guardians (5:55)’”

8ـ وَبِهَذَا الاسْنَادِ عَنْ أَحْمَدَ بْنِ مُحَمَّدٍ عَنْ مُعَمَّرِ بْنِ خَلادٍ قَالَ سَأَلَ رَجُلٌ فَارِسِيٌّ أَبَا الْحَسَنِ (عَلَيْهِ السَّلام) فَقَالَ طَاعَتُكَ مُفْتَرَضَةٌ فَقَالَ نَعَمْ قَالَ مِثْلُ طَاعَةِ عَلِيِّ بْنِ أَبِي طَالِبٍ (عَلَيْهِ السَّلام) فَقَالَ نَعَمْ.

8. Through the same chain of narrators it is narrated from Ahmad ibn Muhammad from Mu‘ammar ibn Khallad who has said that a man from Persia asked Imam abu al-Hassan (a.s.) “Is obedience to you obligatory?” The Imam (a.s.) replied, “Yes, it is obligatory.” The man then asked is in the same way as obedience to Amir al-Mu’minin Ali ibn abu Talib (a.s.)?” The Imam (a.s.) replied “Yes, it is obligatory in the same way,”

9ـ وَبِهَذَا الاسْنَادِ عَنْ أَحْمَدَ بْنِ مُحَمَّدٍ عَنْ عَلِيِّ بْنِ الْحَكَمِ عَنْ عَلِيِّ بْنِ أَبِي حَمْزَةَ عَنْ أَبِي بَصِيرٍ عَنْ أَبِي عَبْدِ الله (عَلَيْهِ السَّلام) قَالَ سَأَلْتُهُ عَنِ الائِمَّةِ هَلْ يَجْرُونَ فِي الامْرِ وَالطَّاعَةِ مَجْرَى وَاحِدٍ قَالَ نَعَمْ.

9. Through the same chain of narrators it is narrated from Ahmad ibn Muhammad from Ali ibn al-Hakam from Ali ibn abu Hamza from abu Basir who has said that I asked Imam abu ‘Abdallah (a.s.) about the Imams whether in the matters of the obligation of obedience to them they are all the same or not. The Imam (a.s.) replied, “Yes, they are all the same.”

10ـ وَبِهَذَا الاسْنَادِ عَنْ مَرْوَكِ بْنِ عُبَيْدٍ عَنْ مُحَمَّدِ بْنِ زَيْدٍ الطَّبَرِيِّ قَالَ كُنْتُ قَائِماً عَلَى رَأْسِ الرِّضَا (عَلَيْهِ السَّلام) بِخُرَاسَانَ وَعِنْدَهُ عِدَّةٌ مِنْ بَنِي هَاشِمٍ وَفِيهِمْ إِسْحَاقُ بْنُ مُوسَى بْنِ عِيسَى الْعَبَّاسِيُّ فَقَالَ يَا إِسْحَاقُ بَلَغَنِي أَنَّ النَّاسَ يَقُولُونَ إِنَّا نَزْعُمُ أَنَّ النَّاسَ عَبِيدٌ لَنَا لا وَقَرَابَتِي مِنْ رَسُولِ الله (صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَآلِه) مَا قُلْتُهُ قَطُّ وَلا سَمِعْتُهُ مِنْ آبَائِي قَالَهُ وَلا بَلَغَنِي عَنْ أَحَدٍ مِنْ آبَائِي قَالَهُ وَلَكِنِّي أَقُولُ النَّاسُ عَبِيدٌ لَنَا فِي الطَّاعَةِ مَوَالٍ لَنَا فِي الدِّينِ فَلْيُبَلِّغِ الشَّاهِدُ الْغَائِبَ.

10. Through the same chain of narrators it is narrated from Marwak ibn ‘Ubayd from Muhammad ibn Zayd al-Tabari who has said the following.

“I was in the presence of Imam al-Rida (a.s.) in Khurasan with a group of Hashimite people among them was Issshaq ibn Musa ibn ‘Isa from Abbasides and the Imam (a.s.) said to Ishaq, “I hear that people say we think they are our slaves. I swear upon my close relation with the holy Prophet (s.a.) that I have never said such a thing nor Have I ever heard any such thing from my father and grandfather nor I have received any such report from my (holy and noble) ancestors who may have said any such thing. But I must say that people are our slaves in the matters of obedience to us. They are our friends in religion. Those present here must tell this to those who are not present here.”

11ـ عَلِيُّ بْنُ إِبْرَاهِيمَ عَنْ صَالِحِ بْنِ السِّنْدِيِّ عَنْ جَعْفَرِ بْنِ بَشِيرٍ عَنْ أَبِي سَلَمَةَ عَنْ أَبِي عَبْدِ الله (عَلَيْهِ السَّلام) قَالَ سَمِعْتُهُ يَقُولُ نَحْنُ الَّذِينَ فَرَضَ الله طَاعَتَنَا لا يَسَعُ النَّاسَ إِلا مَعْرِفَتُنَا وَلا يُعْذَرُ النَّاسُ بِجَهَالَتِنَا مَنْ عَرَفَنَا كَانَ مُؤْمِناً وَمَنْ أَنْكَرَنَا كَانَ كَافِراً وَمَنْ لَمْ يَعْرِفْنَا وَلَمْ يُنْكِرْنَا كَانَ ضَالاً حَتَّى يَرْجِعَ إِلَى الْهُدَى الَّذِي افْتَرَضَ الله عَلَيْهِ مِنْ طَاعَتِنَا الْوَاجِبَةِ فَإِنْ يَمُتْ عَلَى ضَلالَتِهِ يَفْعَلِ الله بِهِ مَا يَشَاءُ.

11. Ali ibn Ibrahim has narrated from Salih ibn al-Sindi from Ja'far ibn Bashir from abu Salma who has said that I heard Imam abu ‘Abdallah say the following.

“We are the ones obedience to whom is obligatory by the commands of Allah. People have no other choice except to know us and they will not be excused for not knowing us. Those who know us are the true believers and those who would refuse to acknowledge our Divine authority are unbelievers. Those who would not know us and would not acknowledge us are straying and lost until they return to guidance and affirm the fact that Allah has made obedience to us obligatory. But if they would die in their straying condition Allah will deal with the way He would will.”

12ـ عَلِيٌّ عَنْ مُحَمَّدِ بْنِ عِيسَى عَنْ يُونُسَ عَنْ مُحَمَّدِ بْنِ الْفُضَيْلِ قَالَ سَأَلْتُهُ عَنْ أَفْضَلِ مَا يَتَقَرَّبُ بِهِ الْعِبَادُ إِلَى الله عَزَّ وَجَلَّ قَالَ أَفْضَلُ مَا يَتَقَرَّبُ بِهِ الْعِبَادُ إِلَى الله عَزَّ وَجَلَّ طَاعَةُ الله وَطَاعَةُ رَسُولِهِ وَطَاعَةُ أُولِي الامْرِ قَالَ أَبُو جَعْفَرٍ (عَلَيْهِ السَّلام) حُبُّنَا إِيمَانٌ وَبُغْضُنَا كُفْرٌ.

12. Ali has narrated from Muhammad ibn ‘Isa from Yunus from Muhammad ibn Fudayl who has said that I asked the Imam (a.s.) about such a matter that would take people closer to Allah. The Imam (a.s.) said, “Of the matters that can take people closer to Allah, the Most Holy, the Most High, the best one is to obey Him, His messenger and those who posses Divine authority.” Imam abu Ja‘far (a.s.) has said, “To love us if faith and to harbor hatred towards us is disbelief.”

13ـ مُحَمَّدُ بْنُ الْحَسَنِ عَنْ سَهْلِ بْنِ زِيَادٍ عَنْ مُحَمَّدِ بْنِ عِيسَى عَنْ فَضَالَةَ بْنِ أَيُّوبَ عَنْ أَبَانٍ عَنْ عَبْدِ الله بْنِ سِنَانٍ عَنْ إِسْمَاعِيلَ بْنِ جَابِرٍ قَالَ قُلْتُ لابي جعفر (عَلَيْهِ السَّلام) أَعْرِضُ عَلَيْكَ دِينِيَ الَّذِي أَدِينُ الله عَزَّ وَجَلَّ بِهِ قَالَ فَقَالَ هَاتِ قَالَ فَقُلْتُ أَشْهَدُ أَنْ لا إِلَهَ إِلا الله وَحْدَهُ لا شَرِيكَ لَهُ وَأَنَّ مُحَمَّداً عَبْدُهُ وَرَسُولُهُ وَالاقْرَارُ بِمَا جَاءَ بِهِ مِنْ عِنْدِ الله وَأَنَّ عَلِيّاً كَانَ إِمَاماً فَرَضَ الله طَاعَتَهُ ثُمَّ كَانَ بَعْدَهُ الْحَسَنُ إِمَاماً فَرَضَ الله طَاعَتَهُ ثُمَّ كَانَ بَعْدَهُ الْحُسَيْنُ إِمَاماً فَرَضَ الله طَاعَتَهُ ثُمَّ كَانَ بَعْدَهُ عَلِيُّ بْنُ الْحُسَيْنِ إِمَاماً فَرَضَ الله طَاعَتَهُ حَتَّى انْتَهَى الامْرُ إِلَيْهِ ثُمَّ قُلْتُ أَنْتَ يَرْحَمُكَ الله قَالَ فَقَالَ هَذَا دِينُ الله وَدِينُ مَلائِكَتِهِ.

13. Muhammad ibn al-Hassan has narrated from Sahl ibn Ziyad from Muhammad ibn ‘Isa from Fadala ibn Ayyub from Aban from ‘Abdallah ibn Sinan from ’isma‘il ibn Jabir who has said the I asked Imam abu Ja‘far (a.s.) if I may state before him my religion and faith in Allah, the Most Holy, the Most High. The Imam (a.s.) said, “Say it and let us hear them.” I said, “I testify that there is no god other than Allah Who is One and has no partner. I testify that Muhammad (s.a.) is the servant and messenger of Allah. I acknowledge the truth of all that he has brought from Allah. I testify that Imam (a.s.) was the Imam obedience was and is obligatory by the command of Allah. After him Imam al-Hassan was the Imam obedience to whom was and is obligatory by the command of Allah. After him Imam al-Husayn was and is the Imam obedience to whom was and is obligatory by the command of Allah. After him Imam Ali ibn al-Husayn was and is the Imam obedience to whom is obligatory by the command of Allah. I continued until it was the turn for him and I said, “Then yourself, may Allah have you in His blessings are such Imam.” The Imam (a.s.) said, “This is the religion that belongs to Allah and it is the religion of His angels.”

14ـ عَلِيُّ بْنُ إِبْرَاهِيمَ عَنْ أَبِيهِ عَنِ ابْنِ مَحْبُوبٍ عَنْ هِشَامِ بْنِ سَالِمٍ عَنْ أَبِي حَمْزَةَ عَنْ أَبِي إِسْحَاقَ عَنْ بَعْضِ أَصْحَابِ أَمِيرِ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ (عَلَيْهِ السَّلام) قَالَ قَالَ أَمِيرُ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ (عَلَيْهِ السَّلام) اعْلَمُوا أَنَّ صُحْبَةَ الْعَالِمِ وَاتِّبَاعَهُ دِينٌ يُدَانُ الله بِهِ وَطَاعَتَهُ مَكْسَبَةٌ لِلْحَسَنَاتِ مَمْحَاةٌ لِلسَّيِّئَاتِ وَذَخِيرَةٌ لِلْمُؤْمِنِينَ وَرِفْعَةٌ فِيهِمْ فِي حَيَاتِهِمْ وَجَمِيلٌ بَعْدَ مَمَاتِهِمْ.

14. Ali ibn Ibrahim has narrated from his father from ibn Mahbub from Hisham ibn Salim from abu Hamza from abu Ishaq from some of the companions of Amir al-Mu’minin (a.s.) who has narrated the following from Amir al-Mu’minin (a.s.).

“Know that to establish companionship with the scholar and to follow him is a religion on account of which Allah will grant rewards. Obedience to the scholar is the means to gain goodness and to delete evil deeds. It is the most valuable treasure for the believers. It is dignifying progress in their life time and after their death because of it people will speak of him with praise and virtue .”

15ـ مُحَمَّدُ بْنُ إِسْمَاعِيلَ عَنِ الْفَضْلِ بْنِ شَاذَانَ عَنْ صَفْوَانَ بْنِ يَحْيَى عَنْ مَنْصُورِ بْنِ حَازِمٍ قَالَ قُلْتُ لابِي عَبْدِ الله (عَلَيْهِ السَّلام) إِنَّ الله أَجَلُّ وَأَكْرَمُ مِنْ أَنْ يُعْرَفَ بِخَلْقِهِ بَلِ الْخَلْقُ يُعْرَفُونَ بِالله قَالَ صَدَقْتَ قُلْتُ إِنَّ مَنْ عَرَفَ أَنَّ لَهُ رَبّاً فَقَدْ يَنْبَغِي لَهُ أَنْ يَعْرِفَ أَنَّ لِذَلِكَ الرَّبِّ رِضًا وَسَخَطاً وَأَنَّهُ لا يُعْرَفُ رِضَاهُ وَسَخَطُهُ إِلا بِوَحْيٍ أَوْ رَسُولٍ فَمَنْ لَمْ يَأْتِهِ الْوَحْيُ فَيَنْبَغِي لَهُ أَنْ يَطْلُبَ الرُّسُلَ فَإِذَا لَقِيَهُمْ عَرَفَ أَنَّهُمُ الْحُجَّةُ وَأَنَّ لَهُمُ الطَّاعَةَ الْمُفْتَرَضَةَ فَقُلْتُ لِلنَّاسِ أَ لَيْسَ تَعْلَمُونَ أَنَّ رَسُولَ الله (صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَآلِه) كَانَ هُوَ الْحُجَّةَ مِنَ الله عَلَى خَلْقِهِ قَالُوا بَلَى قُلْتُ فَحِينَ مَضَى (صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَآلِه) مَنْ كَانَ الْحُجَّةَ قَالُوا الْقُرْآنُ فَنَظَرْتُ فِي الْقُرْآنِ فَإِذَا هُوَ يُخَاصِمُ بِهِ الْمُرْجِئُ وَالْقَدَرِيُّ وَالزِّنْدِيقُ الَّذِي لا يُؤْمِنُ بِهِ حَتَّى يَغْلِبَ الرِّجَالَ بِخُصُومَتِهِ فَعَرَفْتُ أَنَّ الْقُرْآنَ لا يَكُونُ حُجَّةً إِلا بِقَيِّمٍ فَمَا قَالَ فِيهِ مِنْ شَيْ‏ءٍ كَانَ حَقّاً فَقُلْتُ لَهُمْ مَنْ قَيِّمُ الْقُرْآنِ قَالُوا ابْنُ مَسْعُودٍ قَدْ كَانَ يَعْلَمُ وَعُمَرُ يَعْلَمُ وَحُذَيْفَةُ يَعْلَمُ قُلْتُ كُلَّهُ قَالُوا لا فَلَمْ أَجِدْ أَحَداً يُقَالُ إِنَّهُ يَعْلَمُ الْقُرْآنَ كُلَّهُ إِلا عَلِيّاً صَلَوَاتُ الله عَلَيْهِ وَإِذَا كَانَ الشَّيْ‏ءُ بَيْنَ الْقَوْمِ فَقَالَ هَذَا لا أَدْرِي وَقَالَ هَذَا لا أَدْرِي وَقَالَ هَذَا لا أَدْرِي وَقَالَ هَذَا أَنَا أَدْرِي فَأَشْهَدُ أَنَّ عَلِيّاً (عَلَيْهِ السَّلام) كَانَ قَيِّمَ الْقُرْآنِ وَكَانَتْ طَاعَتُهُ مُفْتَرَضَةً وَكَانَ الْحُجَّةَ عَلَى النَّاسِ بَعْدَ رَسُولِ الله (صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَآلِه) وَأَنَّ مَا قَالَ فِي الْقُرْآنِ فَهُوَ حَقٌّ فَقَالَ رَحِمَكَ الله فَقُلْتُ إِنَّ عَلِيّاً (عَلَيْهِ السَّلام) لَمْ يَذْهَبْ حَتَّى تَرَكَ حُجَّةً مِنْ بَعْدِهِ كَمَا تَرَكَ رَسُولُ الله (صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَآلِه) وَأَنَّ الْحُجَّةَ بَعْدَ عَلِيٍّ الْحَسَنُ بْنُ عَلِيٍّ وَأَشْهَدُ عَلَى الْحَسَنِ أَنَّهُ لَمْ يَذْهَبْ حَتَّى تَرَكَ حُجَّةً مِنْ بَعْدِهِ كَمَا تَرَكَ أَبُوهُ وَجَدُّهُ وَأَنَّ الْحُجَّةَ بَعْدَ الْحَسَنِ الْحُسَيْنُ وَكَانَتْ طَاعَتُهُ مُفْتَرَضَةً فَقَالَ رَحِمَكَ الله فَقَبَّلْتُ رَأْسَهُ وَقُلْتُ وَأَشْهَدُ عَلَى الْحُسَيْنِ (عَلَيْهِ السَّلام) أَنَّهُ لَمْ يَذْهَبْ حَتَّى تَرَكَ حُجَّةً مِنْ بَعْدِهِ عَلِيَّ بْنَ الْحُسَيْنِ وَكَانَتْ طَاعَتُهُ مُفْتَرَضَةً فَقَالَ رَحِمَكَ الله فَقَبَّلْتُ رَأْسَهُ وَقُلْتُ وَأَشْهَدُ عَلَى عَلِيِّ بْنِ الْحُسَيْنِ أَنَّهُ لَمْ يَذْهَبْ حَتَّى تَرَكَ حُجَّةً مِنْ بَعْدِهِ مُحَمَّدَ بْنَ عَلِيٍّ أَبَا جَعْفَرٍ وَكَانَتْ طَاعَتُهُ مُفْتَرَضَةً فَقَالَ رَحِمَكَ الله قُلْتُ أَعْطِنِي رَأْسَكَ حَتَّى أُقَبِّلَهُ فَضَحِكَ قُلْتُ أَصْلَحَكَ الله قَدْ عَلِمْتُ أَنَّ أَبَاكَ لَمْ يَذْهَبْ حَتَّى تَرَكَ حُجَّةً مِنْ بَعْدِهِ كَمَا تَرَكَ أَبُوهُ وَأَشْهَدُ بِالله أَنَّكَ أَنْتَ الْحُجَّةُ وَأَنَّ طَاعَتَكَ مُفْتَرَضَةٌ فَقَالَ كُفَّ رَحِمَكَ الله قُلْتُ أَعْطِنِي رَأْسَكَ أُقَبِّلْهُ فَقَبَّلْتُ رَأْسَهُ فَضَحِكَ وَقَالَ سَلْنِي عَمَّا شِئْتَ فَلا أُنْكِرُكَ بَعْدَ الْيَوْمِ أَبَداً.

15. Muhammad ibn ’Isma‘il has narrated from al-Fadl ibn Shadhan from Safwan ibn Yahya from Mansur ibn Hazim who has the following.

“I asked Imam abu ‘Abdallah (a.s.), ‘Allah is the Most Holy, the Most High to be recognized through His creatures. In fact, it is the creature who are recognized through Allah.’” The Imam (a.s.) said you have is very true.” I then said, “One who knows that he has a creator he must also know that his creator becomes with certain things and displeased with certain other things. That the only way to know what is pleases the creator and what displeases Him is through divine revelation or a messengers. One who does not receive Divine revelation must find the messenger and when one would find the messengers and upon finding the messenger one would learn that they are the Divine authorities and obedience to them is obligatory. I say it to people, “Do you not acknowledge that obedience to the holy Prophet possessed Divine authority from Allah over His creatures?” They say, “Yes, it is true.” I then say to them, “When the holy Prophet left this world who possessed Divine authority over the people?” The say, “The holy Quran.” I then looked in the holy Quran and I found out that all kinds of people consider this holy as the basis for their beliefs. The group called al-Murji’a consider it as the basis for whatever it believes. Those who believe in predestination also consider this holy Book as the basis for whatever they believe in. Even the atheists who do not even believe in it at all refer to this holy book to defeat the others. This proves that the holy Quran can not be considered a Divine authority without a guardian whose words about the Quran would be the true ones. I then ask them, “Who is the guardian of the Quran?” They reply, “Ibn Mas‘ud knew the Quran. ‘Umar knew the Quran. Hudhayfa knew the Quran.” I then ask them, “Did these people know all of the Quran?” They say, “No, they did not know all of the Quran.” I do not find anyone who would say that he knows all of the Quran. The only one who says that he knows all of the Quran is Ali, may Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him. If any question would arise in these people, that one would say that he did not know. The other one would say that he did not know and so on except Ali that would say that he did know. That gives enough proof to say that Ali was the guardian of the Quran. Obedience to Ali was obligatory by the command of

Allah and he possessed Divine authority over the people after the holy Prophet (s.a.). Whatever Ali (a.s.) said about the holy Quran is true.” The Imam said, “May Allah’s blessings be with you.” I then said, “Imam Ali (a.s.) did not leave this world without introducing the person who possessed Divine authority over the people after him just as the holy Prophet (s.a.) had done. The person who possessed Divvine authority over the people after Imam Ali (a.s.)_ was Imam al-Hassan (a.s.). I testify that Imam al-Hassan (a.s.) also did not leave this world without introducing the person who would possess Divine authority over the people after him just as his father and grandfather had done. The person who after Imam al-Hassan possessed Divine authority over the people was Imam al-Husayn (a.s.). Obedience to him was obligatory by the command of Allah.” The Imam said, “May Allah’s blessings be with you.” I then kissed his head and said, “I testify that Imam al-Husayn did not leave this world without introducing the person who would possess Divine authority over the people after him. That person was Imam ali ibn al-Husayn (a.s.) obedience to whom was obligatory by the command of Allah. The Imam said, “May Allah’s blessings be with you.” I then kissed his head and said, “I testify that Imam Ali ibn al-Husayn did not leave this world without introducing the person who would possess divine authority over the people after him. That person was Imam abu Ja‘far, Muhammad ibn Ali (a.s.) , obedience to whom was obligatory by the commad of Allah. The Imam said, “May Allah’s blessings be with you.” I then said, “Please let me kiss your head again.” The Imam (a.s.) smiled. I then said, may Allah grand you success. I know that your holy father did not leave this world without introducing the person who would possess Divine authrity over the people after him just his father had done. I testify that yourself are the person who possess Divine authrity over the people after your holy father and that obedience to you is obligatory by the command of Allah.” The Imam (a.s.) said, “It is true enough, The Imam said, “May Allah’s blessings be with you.” I then asked for his permission to kiss hiis head and the Imam (a.s.) smiled. I kissed his head. The Imam (a.s.) then said, “Ask whatever you want. I, from this day on, will never deny you anything.”

16ـ مُحَمَّدُ بْنُ يَحْيَى عَنْ أَحْمَدَ بْنِ مُحَمَّدِ بْنِ عِيسَى عَنْ مُحَمَّدِ بْنِ خَالِدٍ الْبَرْقِيِّ عَنِ الْقَاسِمِ بْنِ مُحَمَّدٍ الْجَوْهَرِيِّ عَنِ الْحُسَيْنِ بْنِ أَبِي الْعَلاءِ قَالَ قُلْتُ لابِي عَبْدِ الله (عَلَيْهِ السَّلام) الاوْصِيَاءُ طَاعَتُهُمْ مُفْتَرَضَةٌ قَالَ نَعَمْ هُمُ الَّذِينَ قَالَ الله عَزَّ وَجَلَّ أَطِيعُوا الله وَأَطِيعُوا الرَّسُولَ وَأُولِي الامْرِ مِنْكُمْ وَهُمُ الَّذِينَ قَالَ الله عَزَّ وَجَلَّ إِنَّما وَلِيُّكُمُ الله وَرَسُولُهُ وَالَّذِينَ آمَنُوا الَّذِينَ يُقِيمُونَ الصَّلاةَ وَيُؤْتُونَ الزَّكاةَ وَهُمْ راكِعُونَ.

16. Muhammad ibn Yahya has narrated from Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn ‘Isa from Muhammad ibn Khalid al-Barqi from al-Qasim ibn Muhammad al-Jawhari from al-Husayn ibn abu al-‘Ala’ who has said the following.

“I asked Imam abu ‘Abdallah (a.s.), ‘Is obedience to the successor (of the holy Prophet) obligatory?” The Imam (a.s.) said, “Yes, it is they about whom Allah, the Most Holy, the Most High, has said, “Believers, obey God, His Messenger, and your (qualified) leaders. . (4:59) It is they about whom Allah, the Most Holy, the Most High, has said, “Only God, His Messenger, and the true believers who are steadfast in prayer and pay alms, while they kneel during prayer, are your guardians (5:55).”

17ـ عَلِيُّ بْنُ إِبْرَاهِيمَ عَنْ مُحَمَّدِ بْنِ عِيسَى عَنْ يُونُسَ بْنِ عَبْدِ الرَّحْمَنِ عَنْ حَمَّادٍ عَنْ عَبْدِ الاعْلَى قَالَ سَمِعْتُ أَبَا عَبْدِ الله (عَلَيْهِ السَّلام) يَقُولُ السَّمْعُ وَالطَّاعَةُ أَبْوَابُ الْخَيْرِ السَّامِعُ الْمُطِيعُ لا حُجَّةَ عَلَيْهِ وَالسَّامِعُ الْعَاصِي لا حُجَّةَ لَهُ وَإِمَامُ الْمُسْلِمِينَ تَمَّتْ حُجَّتُهُ وَاحْتِجَاجُهُ يَوْمَ يَلْقَى الله عَزَّ وَجَلَّ ثُمَّ قَالَ يَقُولُ الله تَبَارَكَ وَتَعَالَى يَوْمَ نَدْعُوا كُلَّ أُناسٍ بِإِمامِهِمْ.

17. Ali ibn Ibrahim has narrated fromMuhammad ibn ‘Isa from Yunus ibn ‘Abd al-Rahamn from Hammad from ‘Abd al-A‘la’ who has said that he hear Imam abu ‘Abdalla (a.s.) saying. “Listening and obeying are the gates to goodness. One who listens and is obedient has all the authority in his favor. One who listens but disobeys will have no authority in his favor. The leader, the Imam of the Muslims, on the Day of Judgment, in the presence of Allah, the Most Holy, the Most High, will have complete authoritative support and rightful arguments in his favor.” The Imam (a.s.) then said, “ Allah, the Most Holy, the Most High, says, ‘On the day when We call every nation with their leaders, . (17:71).”

Chapter 9

The Imams (a.s.) are witness for Allah, the Most Holy, the Most High, over His creature

1ـ عَلِيُّ بْنُ مُحَمَّدٍ عَنْ سَهْلِ بْنِ زِيَادٍ عَنْ يَعْقُوبَ بْنِ يَزِيدَ عَنْ زِيَادٍ الْقَنْدِيِّ عَنْ سَمَاعَةَ قَالَ قَالَ أَبُو عَبْدِ الله (عَلَيْهِ السَّلام) فِي قَوْلِ الله عَزَّ وَجَلَّ فَكَيْفَ إِذا جِئْنا مِنْ كُلِّ أُمَّةٍ بِشَهِيدٍ وَجِئْنا بِكَ عَلى‏ هؤُلاءِ شَهِيداً قَالَ نَزَلَتْ فِي أُمَّةِ مُحَمَّدٍ (صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَآلِه) خَاصَّةً فِي كُلِّ قَرْنٍ مِنْهُمْ إِمَامٌ مِنَّا شَاهِدٌ عَلَيْهِمْ وَمُحَمَّدٌ (صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَآلِه) شَاهِدٌ عَلَيْنَا.

1. Ali ibn Muhammad has narrated from Sahl ibn Ziyad from ya‘qub ibn Yazid from Ziyad al-Qandi from Suma‘a who has said that Imam abu ‘Abdallah has said the following about the words of Allah in the Holu Quran.

“How will it be when We call for a witness from every nation and have you, (Muhammad), testify against them all?” (4:41) The Imam (a.s.) said that this verse is was revealed about the followers of Prophet Muhammad (s.a.) in particular. In every generation of these people there will an Imam from our family who would bear witness over their activities and Prophet Muahammad himself will bear witness over us.”

2ـ الْحُسَيْنُ بْنُ مُحَمَّدٍ عَنْ مُعَلَّى بْنِ مُحَمَّدٍ عَنِ الْحَسَنِ بْنِ عَلِيٍّ الْوَشَّاءِ عَنْ أَحْمَدَ بْنِ عَائِذٍ عَنْ عُمَرَ بْنِ أُذَيْنَةَ عَنْ بُرَيْدٍ الْعِجْلِيِّ قَالَ سَأَلْتُ أَبَا عَبْدِ الله (عَلَيْهِ السَّلام) عَنْ قَوْلِ الله عَزَّ وَجَلَّ وَكَذلِكَ جَعَلْناكُمْ أُمَّةً وَسَطاً لِتَكُونُوا شُهَداءَ عَلَى النَّاسِ قَالَ نَحْنُ الامَّةُ الْوُسْطَى وَنَحْنُ شُهَدَاءُ الله عَلَى خَلْقِهِ وَحُجَجُهُ فِي أَرْضِهِ قُلْتُ قَوْلَ الله عَزَّ وَجَلَّ مِلَّةَ أَبِيكُمْ إِبْراهِيمَ قَالَ إِيَّانَا عَنَى خَاصَّةً هُوَ سَمَّاكُمُ الْمُسْلِمِينَ مِنْ قَبْلُ فِي الْكُتُبِ الَّتِي مَضَتْ وَفِي هَذَا الْقُرْآنِ لِيَكُونَ الرَّسُولُ شَهِيداً عَلَيْكُمْ فَرَسُولُ الله (صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَآلِه) الشَّهِيدُ عَلَيْنَا بِمَا بَلَّغَنَا عَنِ الله عَزَّ وَجَلَّ وَنَحْنُ الشُّهَدَاءُ عَلَى النَّاسِ فَمَنْ صَدَّقَ صَدَّقْنَاهُ يَوْمَ الْقِيَامَةِ وَمَنْ كَذَّبَ كَذَّبْنَاهُ يَوْمَ الْقِيَامَةِ.

2. Al-Husayn ibn Muhammad has narrated from Mu‘alla ibn Muhammad from al-Hassan ibn al-Washsha’ from Ahmad ibn ‘A’idh from ‘Umar ibn ’Udhayna from Buarayd al-‘Ili who has said that I asked Imam abu ‘Abdallah (a.s.) about the meaning of the words of Allah: “We have made you (true Muslims) a moderate nation so that you could be (witness) an example for all people and the Prophet (a witness) an example for you. . .” (2:143) The Imam (a.s.) said, “We are the moderate nation and we bear witness to the activities of the people for Allah and we possess Divine authority on earth.” I then asked about the meaning following verse of the holy Quran: “. . the noble religion of your father, Abraham. God named you Muslims before and in this Book, so that the Messenger will witness (your actions). .” (22:78) The word ‘your father’ refers to us particularly we were called Muslims in the heavenly books that were sent before as well as this book. The messenger of Allah bears witness over us by means of teaching us the guidance of Allah and bear witness over the people. Those who would acknowledge our authority, on the Day of Judgment, we will acknowledge their faith and those who would reject our Divine authority, one the Day of Judgment, we will refuse to acknowledge their faith.”

3ـ وَبِهَذَا الاسْنَادِ عَنْ مُعَلَّى بْنِ مُحَمَّدٍ عَنِ الْحَسَنِ بْنِ عَلِيٍّ عَنْ أَحْمَدَ بْنِ عُمَرَ الْحَلالِ قَالَ سَأَلْتُ أَبَا الْحَسَنِ (عَلَيْهِ السَّلام) عَنْ قَوْلِ الله عَزَّ وَجَلَّ أَ فَمَنْ كانَ عَلى‏ بَيِّنَةٍ مِنْ رَبِّهِ وَيَتْلُوهُ شاهِدٌ مِنْهُ فَقَالَ أَمِيرُ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ صَلَوَاتُ الله عَلَيْهِ الشَّاهِدُ عَلَى رَسُولِ الله (صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَآلِه) وَرَسُولُ الله (صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَآلِه) عَلَى بَيِّنَةٍ مِنْ رَبِّهِ.

3. Through the same chain of narrators it is narrated from Mu‘allah ibn Muhammad from al-Hassan ibn Ali from Ahmad ibn ‘Umar al-Hallal who has said that he asked Imam abu al-Hassan (a.s.) about the meaning of the following verse of the holy Quran: “Should they be compared with those whose Lord has given them a guidance which is testified by a witness from among their own people . .” (11:17) The Imam (a.s.) said, “Amir al-Mu’minin Ali (a.s.) testified to support the holy Prophet (s.a.) and the holy Prophet received supporting evidence from his Lord.”

4ـ عَلِيُّ بْنُ إِبْرَاهِيمَ عَنْ أَبِيهِ عَنْ مُحَمَّدِ بْنِ أَبِي عُمَيْرٍ عَنِ ابْنِ أُذَيْنَةَ عَنْ بُرَيْدٍ الْعِجْلِيِّ قَالَ قُلْتُ لابي جعفر (عَلَيْهِ السَّلام) قَوْلَ الله تَبَارَكَ وَتَعَالَى وَكَذلِكَ جَعَلْناكُمْ أُمَّةً وَسَطاً لِتَكُونُوا شُهَداءَ عَلَى النَّاسِ وَيَكُونَ الرَّسُولُ عَلَيْكُمْ شَهِيداً قَالَ نَحْنُ الامَّةُ الْوَسَطُ وَنَحْنُ شُهَدَاءُ الله تَبَارَكَ وَتَعَالَى عَلَى خَلْقِهِ وَحُجَجُهُ فِي أَرْضِهِ قُلْتُ قَوْلَهُ تَعَالَى يا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا ارْكَعُوا وَاسْجُدُوا وَاعْبُدُوا رَبَّكُمْ وَافْعَلُوا الْخَيْرَ لَعَلَّكُمْ تُفْلِحُونَ وَجاهِدُوا فِي الله حَقَّ جِهادِهِ هُوَ اجْتَباكُمْ قَالَ إِيَّانَا عَنَى وَنَحْنُ الْمُجْتَبَوْنَ وَلَمْ يَجْعَلِ الله تَبَارَكَ وَتَعَالَى فِي الدِّينِ مِنْ حَرَجٍ فَالْحَرَجُ أَشَدُّ مِنَ الضِّيقِ مِلَّةَ أَبِيكُمْ إِبْراهِيمَ إِيَّانَا عَنَى خَاصَّةً وَسَمَّاكُمُ الْمُسْلِمِينَ الله سَمَّانَا الْمُسْلِمِينَ مِنْ قَبْلُ فِي الْكُتُبِ الَّتِي مَضَتْ وَفِي هَذَا الْقُرْآنِ لِيَكُونَ الرَّسُولُ شَهِيداً عَلَيْكُمْ وَتَكُونُوا شُهَداءَ عَلَى النَّاسِ فَرَسُولُ الله (صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَآلِه) الشَّهِيدُ عَلَيْنَا بِمَا بَلَّغَنَا عَنِ الله تَبَارَكَ وَتَعَالَى وَنَحْنُ الشُّهَدَاءُ عَلَى النَّاسِ فَمَنْ صَدَّقَ يَوْمَ الْقِيَامَةِ صَدَّقْنَاهُ وَمَنْ كَذَّبَ كَذَّبْنَاهُ.

4. Ali ibn Ibrahim has narrated from his father from Muhammad ibn abu ‘Umayr from ibn ’dhayna from Yazid al-‘Ijli who has said that he asked Imam abu Ja'far (a.s.) about the meaning of the following verse of the Holy Quran.

“We have made you (true Muslims) a moderate nation so that you could be (witness) an example for all people and the Prophet (a witness) an example for you. . .” (2:143) The Imam (a.s.) said, “We are the moderate nation and we are the witness for Allah, the Most Holy, the Most High, over the activities of His creatures and possess His authority on earth.” I then asked about the meaning of the following verse of the Holy Quran that says, “Believers, worship your Lord, bow down and prostrate yourselves before Him and do virtuous deeds so that perhaps you will have everlasting happiness. (22:77)

Strive steadfastly for the Cause of God. He has chosen you . Believers, worship your Lord, bow down and prostrate yourselves before Him and do virtuous deeds so that perhaps you will have everlasting happiness. (22:77)

Strive steadfastly for the Cause of God. He has chosen you but has not imposed on you hardship in your religion, the noble religion of your father, Abraham. God named you Muslims before and in this Book, so that the Messenger will witness (your actions) and you will be the witness over mankind. The noble religion also is a reference to us. Allah has called us as Muslims in the heaven books that were revealed before and in this holy book (the Holy Quran) The Holy Prophet (s.a.) has testified in our favor by conveying the message of Allah, the Most Holy, the Most High. We bear witness to the activities and on the Day of Judgment certify the faith of those who have acknowledged our Divine authority and reject those who have rejected our Divine authority.”

5ـ عَلِيُّ بْنُ إِبْرَاهِيمَ عَنْ أَبِيهِ عَنْ حَمَّادِ بْنِ عِيسَى عَنْ إِبْرَاهِيمَ بْنِ عُمَرَ الْيَمَانِيِّ عَنْ سُلَيْمِ بْنِ قَيْسٍ الْهِلالِيِّ عَنْ أَمِيرِ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ (صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَآلِه) قَالَ إِنَّ الله تَبَارَكَ وَتَعَالَى طَهَّرَنَا وَعَصَمَنَا وَجَعَلَنَا شُهَدَاءَ عَلَى خَلْقِهِ وَحُجَّتَهُ فِي أَرْضِهِ وَجَعَلَنَا مَعَ الْقُرْآنِ وَجَعَلَ الْقُرْآنَ مَعَنَا لا نُفَارِقُهُ وَلا يُفَارِقُنَا.

5. Ali ibn Ibrahim has narrated from his father from Hammad ibn ‘Isa from Ibrahim ibn ‘Umar al-Yamani from Sulaym ibn Qays al-Hilali from Amir al-Mu’minin (a.s.) who has said the following.

“Allah, the Most Holy, the Most High, cleansed us, granted us protection against sins, made us to bear witness to the activities of His creatures and granted us Divine authority on earth. He made us to be with the holy Quran and the Holy Quran to be with us. We do not depart the Holy Quran and the Holy Quran does not depart us.”

Notes

*) Arezou Azad (arezou.azad@orinst.ox.ac.uk) is a Leverhulme Research Officer of the Oriental Studies Faculty, University of Oxford. The author thanks the Leverhulme Trust for its generous support of the Balkh Art and Cultural Heritage Project from which this article emerges, as well as Luke Treadwell and Edmund Herzig, for reviewing drafts of this article. The author also thanks John Gurney and Christopher Melchert for sharing their expertise, which improved my translation of the Persian and Arabic texts respectively.

1) Shaykh al-Islām al-Wāʿiẓ and ʿAbdallāh b. Muḥammad b. al-Qāsim al-Ḥusaynī, Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, ed. ʿAbd al-Ḥayy Ḥabībī (Tehran: Intishārāt-i Bunyād-i Farhang-i Īrān, 1350/1971):227.

2) Annemarie Schimmel, “Women in Mystical Islam,” Women’s Studies International Forum, 5/2 (1982): 147, and Schimmel, My Soul is a Woman: The Feminine in Islam, trans. S.H. Ray (New York: Continuum, 1997).

3) Margaret Meriwether and Judith Tucker, A Social History of Women and Gender in the Modern Middle East (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1999).

4) This plurality stems from the non-existence of formal schools (madrasas), the regional differences in the evolution of madhāhib, and the non-alignment of individual scholars with a particular legal school or its master. Stephen Humphreys, Islamic History: A Framework for Inquiry (London: I.B. Tauris, 1991): 199; Eyyup Kaya, “Continuity and Change in Islamic Law: The Concept of Madhhab and the Dimensions of Legal Disagreement in Ḥanafī Scholarship of the Tenth Century,” in The Islamic School of Law, ed. Peri Bearman et al. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005): 26-40; Arezou Azad, Sacred Landscape in Medieval Afghanistan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming): 173-7.

5) Other hagiographical sources that date from around the time when the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh was written use the term “Sufi,” usually with a reference to the Sufi mystical path, the tạ rīqa.

6) These include Ibrāhīm b. Adham (d. 161/777-8), Shaqīq al-Balkhī (d. 194/809-10) and Ḥ ātim al-Asạ mm (d. 237/857-8). See Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, ed. Ḥ abībī, 93-118, 129-42, 165-77; Richard Gramlich, Alte Vorbilder des Sufitums (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1996), 2:13-62.

7) Meriwether and Tucker, A Social History: 1-2.

8) Mohammad Akram Nadwi, Al-Muhaddithat: The Women Scholars in Islam, 40 vols. (forthcoming); summarized in Nadwi, Al-Muḥaddithāt: The Women Scholars in Islam (Oxford: Interface Publications, 2007).

9) Ruth Roded, Women in Islamic Biographical Collections: From Ibn Saʿd to Who’s Who (Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner, 1994), and Roded, “Islamic Biographical Dictionaries: 9th to 10th Century,” in Encyclopedia of Women & Islamic Cultures, ed. Suad Joseph (Leiden: Brill, 2003-7).

10) Nadwi, Al-Muḥaddithāt: xv.

11) Irene Schneider, “Gelehrte Frauen des 5./11. bis 7./13.Jh.s nach dem biographischen Werk des Dahabi (st. 748/1347),” in Philosophy and Arts in the Islamic World, ed. Urbain Vermeulen and D. de Smet (Leuven: Peeters, 1998): 116-8, 121.

12) Roded, Women in Islamic Biographical Collections: 19-20. For a recent example, see Mervat Hatem, “Aʾisha Abdel Rahman: An Unlikely Heroine: A Post-Colonial Reading of her Life and Some of her Biographies of Women in the Prophetic Household,” Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies 7/2 (2011): 1-26.

13) The numbers increase somewhat again in the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries CE but decline gradually and consistently after the sixteenth century CE (for both female and male scholars). Nadwi, Al-Muḥaddithāt: 245-6, 271-2.

14) Ruth Roded, Women in Islam and the Middle East: A Reader (London: I.B. Tauris, 1999): 77-8; Ibn ʿAsākīr, Taʾrīkh madīnat Dimashq, ed. Muḥibb al-Dīn Abī Saʿīd ʿUmar b. Gharāma al-ʿAmrawī, 5 vols. (Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, 1995-2000).

15) Richard 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 Neshat and Lois Beck (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2003): 68.

16) This categorization of female subjects of biographical compilations is taken from Malīḥa Raḥmat Allāh Rahmatallah, The Women of Baghdad in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries as Revealed in the History of Baghdad of al-Hatib (Baghdad: Times Press, 1963), cited in Bulliet, “Women and the Urban”: 70-1.

17) Al-Nasafi, al-Qand fī dhikr ʿulamāʾ Samarqand, ed. Naẓar Muḥammad al-Fāryābī (Jidda: Maktabat al-Kawthar, 1991): 147.

18) Maya Shatzmiller, “Aspects of Women’s Participation in the Economic Life of Later Medieval Islam: Occupations and Mentalities,” Arabica 35 (1988): 58.

19) Leslie Peirce, The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993); Ruby Lal, Domesticity and Power in the Early Mughal World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).

20) Julia Bray, “Men, Women and Slaves in Abbasid Society,” in Gender in the Early Medieval World: East and West, 300-900, ed. Leslie Brubaker and Julia M.H. Smith (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004): 130.

21) Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, ed. Ḥabībī: 66, 93, 119, 129ff.

22) ʿAtṭ ạ̄ r, Tadhkirat al-Awliyāʾ, 1: 59-73; Margaret Smith, Muslim Women Mystics: The Life and Work of Rabia and Other Women Mystics in Islam (Oxford: Oneworld, 2001): 29; Margaret Smith, “Rābiʿa al-ʿAdawiyya al-Ḳaysiyya”, EI2 (1995) 8: 355.

23) Jonathan Berkey, “Women and Islamic Education in the Mamluk Period,” in Women in Middle Eastern History: Shifting Boundaries in Sex and Gender, ed. Nikki Keddie and Beth Baron (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991): 149.

24) Huda Lutfi, “Manners and Customs of Fourteenth-Century Cairene Women: Female Anarchy versus Male Sharʿi Order in Muslim Prescriptive Treatises,” in Women in Middle Eastern History: Shifting Boundaries in Sex and Gender, ed. Nikki Keddie and Beth Baron (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991): 115.

25) Christopher Melchert, “Whether to Keep Women out of the Mosque: A Survey of Medieval Islamic Law,” in Authority, Privacy and Public Order in Islam, ed. Barbara Michalak-Pikulska and Andrzej Pikulski (Leuven: Peeters, 2006): 59.

26) Mathieu Tillier, “Women before the Qadi under the Abbasids,” Islamic Law and Society 16/3-4 (2009): 301. Tillier caveated his finding with the social distinction between those who could leave their houses and came before the judge (unveiled), and those who could not. He found that high-ranking women avoided such public exposure. Other studies on women’s visibility and the law include: Judith Tucker, “Muftīs and Matrimony: Islamic Law and Gender in Ottoman Syria and Palestine,” Islamic Law and Society 1/3 (1994): 265-300, and Nicholas Awde, Women in Islam: An Anthology from the Qurʾān and Ḥadīths (Richmond, Surrey: Curzon, 2000). Another set of studies does not deal with women scholars per se, but provides evidence for the visibility and public political role of high-society mediaeval women in the Islamic world. Nabia Abbott, Two Queens of Baghdad: Mother and Wife of Hārūn al-Rashīd (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1946); Maaike van Berkel focussed on women at the Abbasid court of the initially under-aged caliph al-Muqtadir (r. 295-320/908-32), in “The Young Caliph and His Wicked Advisors: Women and Power Politics under Caliph al-Muqtadir (r. 295-320/908-932),” Al-Masāq: Islam and the Medieval Mediterranean 19/1 (2007), 3-15. Eric Hanne found similar trends amongst women in the Abbasid courts of the early eleventh to twelfth centuries CE, in “Women, Power, and the Eleventh and Twelfth Century Abbasid Court,” Hawwa: Journal of Women of the Middle East and Islamic World 3/1 (2005), 80-110.

27) Roded, Women in Islamic Biographical Collections: 45, 58-9.

28) Bulliet, “Women and the Urban Religious Elite”: 75.

29) Julie Scott Meisami, “Writing Medieval Women: Representations and Misrepresentations,” in Writing and Representation in Medieval Islam: Muslim Horizons, ed. Julia Bray (London: Routledge, 2006): 66.

30) Fedwa Malti-Douglas, Woman’s Body, Woman’s Word: Gender and Discourse in Arabo-Islamic Writing (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991); Leila Ahmed, Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992); Denise Spellberg, Politics, Gender, and the Islamic Past: The Legacy of ʿAʾisha bint Abi Bakri (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994).

31) Scott Meisami, “Writing Medieval Women”: 59-60.

32) Joan Connelly, Portrait of a Priestess: Women and Ritual in Ancient Greece (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007): 2-3.

33) The earliest copy - deposited at the Bibliothèque nationale française as MS Persan 115—can be placed roughly in the late fourteenth or early fifteenth centuries CE, based on its epigraphic style and paper quality. Edgar Blochet, Catalogue des Manuscrits Persans (Paris: Imprimérie Nationale, 1905), 1: 316-7; Francis Richard, Catalogue des manuscrits persans. 1. Anciens fonds (Paris: Bibliothèque nationale, 1989): 134. The text may well have undergone recension since the original was copied, but the biographies do not go beyond the late twelfth century CE, and there has been no attempt by later copyists to add more scholars to the group of seventy. The second-oldest manuscript came to light a decade ago and has been dated to the seventeenth century. ʿĀrif Nawshāhī, “Nuskha-yi naw-yāfta-yi Faḍāʾil-i Balkh,” Maʿārif 19/2 (1381/2002): 61. In addition, two nineteenth-century manuscripts are deposited in St Petersburg, at the Department of Oriental Manuscripts, with the catalogue numbers C453-1 and C453-3. N.D. Miklukho-Maklai, Opisanie tadzhikskikh i persidskikh rukopiseı ̆ Instituta (Moscow: Izd-vo Akademii nauk SSSR: 1961), 2: 86-93. These St Petersburg manuscripts, together with the Paris manuscript, formed the basis for the 1350/1971 Tehran edition of the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh by the Afghan scholar ʿAbd al-Ḥayy Ḥabībī, cited extensively in this article.

34) Jürgen Paul, “The Histories of Isfahan: Mafarrukhi’s Kitāb Maḥāsin Isfahan,” Iranian Studies 33/1-2 (2000): 119, 126; and Jürgen Paul, “Hagiographische Texte als historische Quelle,” Saeculum 41 (1990): 17-45; also Stefan Leder (ed.), Story-telling in the Framework of Non-fictional Arabic Literature (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1998).

35) The biographical entries in ṭabaqāt works tend to be brief and usually involve a perfunctory listing of who transmitted from whom. The aim was to establish a proper chain of transmission (isnād) on a ḥadīth text which authenticated any given statement. Ibrahim Hafsi, “Recherches sur le genre ‘ṭabaqāt’ dans la littérature arabe,” Arabica 23 (1976-7):228ff.

36) John Renard, Historical Dictionary of Sufism (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2005): 62.

37) Shaykh al-Islām al-Wāʿiz ̣ used it as a source also for the biography of Ḥ ātim al-Asạ mm (d. 237/857-8). Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, ed. Ḥabībī: 169.

38) Abū l-Qāsim al-Qushayrī, al-Risāla al-Qushayrīya fī ʿilm al-taṣawwuf, ed. Maʿrūf Zurayq and ʿAlī ʿAbd al-Ḥ amīd Baltạ jī (Beirut: Dār al-Jīl, 1990): 228; Al-Qushayrī’s Epistle on Sufism: al-Risala al-Qushayriyya fī ʿilm al-taṣawwuf, trans. Alexander Knysh (Reading, UK: Garnet, 2007): 238-9; see also Jawid Mojaddedi on Qushayrī’s Risāla, in The Biographical Tradition in Sufism: The Ṭabaqāt Genre from al-Sulamī to Jāmī (Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, 2001): 99-124. It should be noted that Qushayrī refers to these chivalrous men as ‘ʿayyār’ who were members of local urban militias in Muslim cities and towns. On the connection between the ʿayyārān, medieval Sufism and chivalry, see Deborah Tor, Violent Order, Religious Warfare, Chivalry, and the ʿAyyār Phenomenon in the Medieval Islamic World (Würzburg: Ergon in Komission, 2007): 229 ff.

39) Roded, Women in Islamic Biographical Collections: 92.

40) Abū Nuʿaym al-Isf̣ ahānī, Ḥ ilyat al-awliyāʾ wa-tạ baqāt al-asfị yaʿ (Cairo: Maktabat al-Khānjī, 1932); ʿAlī b. ʿUthmān al-Hujwīrī, Kashf al-maḥjūb, ed. Maḥmūd Duʿābidī (Tehran: Surūsh, 1383/2004-5); Farīd al-Dīn ʿAtṭ ạ̄ r, The Tadhkiratu ’l-Awliya (Memoirs of the Saints), ed. Reynold A. Nicholson (London: Luzac, 1905); ʿAbd al-Raḥman b. Aḥmad Jāmī, Nafaḥāt al-uns min ḥaḍarāt al-quds, ed. Maḥmūd ʿĀbidī (Tehran: Intishārāt-i Itṭ ị lāʿāt, 1370/1991). Abū Nuʿaym and ʿAtṭ ạ̄ r are, in fact, cited in other biographical entries of the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh. See Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, ed. Ḥabībī: xxiii-xxiv, 120, 167, 220.

41) Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, ed. Ḥabībī: 10. ʿAlī b. al-Faḍl’s ṭabaqāt is no longer extant, but we know that it was used widely, at least until the fifteenth century. It is referred to by al-Khatị̄ b al-Baghdādī (d. 463/1071) in the Taʾrīkh Baghdād, and by al-Sakhāwī four centuries later, in the al-Iʿlān bi-l-tawbīkh li-man damma ahl al-tawrīkh. Al-Khatị̄ b al-Baghdādī, Taʾrīkh Baghdād, ed. Aḥmad b. al-Ṣiddīq (Cairo: Maktabat al-Khānjī, 1349/1931), 12: 47-8; al-Sakhāwī, al-Iʿlān bi-l-tawbīkh li-man dhamma ahl al-tawārīkh, in Franz Rosenthal, A History of Muslim Historiography (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1968): 464 and n. 1.

42) Roded, Women in Islamic Biographical Collections: 3. Ibn Saʿd’s selection of Khorasani scholars is slim, however, and lists only men. See Ibn Saʿd, al-Ṭabaqāt al-kubrā (Beirut: Dār Ṣādir, 1957-68), 7: 365-79.

43) Al-Sulamī, al-Ṭabaqāṭ al-ṣūfiyya, ed. Johannes Pedersen (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1960): 93-7. This is an abbreviated version of al-Sulamī’s non-extant Taʾrīkh al-ṣūfīyya, and it is very likely that she was mentioned in the longer work.

44) Al-Sulamī, Early Sufi Women: Dhikr al-niswa al-mutaʿabbidāt al-Ṣūfiyyāt, ed. and trans. Rkia Elaroui Cornell (Louisville, KY: Fons Vitae, 1999): 168-9.

45) The Shaykh al-Islām perhaps refers here to the chronicles on Balkh that existed in his time but are lost to us. There was, for example, the Manāqib Balkh written by the geographer Abū Zayd Aḥmad b. Sahl al-Balkhī (d. 322/934), which the Shaykh al-Islām cites elsewhere in his work. See Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, ed. Ḥabībī: 54, 226.

46) The Shaykh al-Islām does not cite a single general history anywhere in the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, not even al-Tạ barī’s (d. 310/923) Taʾrīkh or its Persian adaptation by Balʿamī (d. 363/974). Muḥammad b. Jarīr al-Tạ barī, Taʾrīkh al-rusul wa-l-mulūk, ed. M.J. de Goeje, in 15 vols and 3 series (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1879-1901); Abū ʿAlī Balʿamī, Taʾrīkh-nāma-yi Ṭabarī gardānīda-yi mansūb bi Bal ʿamī, ed. Muḥammad Rawshan (Tehran: Bunyād-i Farhang-i Īrān, 1378/1999); Chronique du Abou-Djafar-Mohamed-ben Djarir-ben-Yezid Tabari, trans. Hermann Zotenberg (Paris: Oriental Translation Fund, 1867-74).

47) Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, ed. Ḥabībī: 226-7. See excerpt in appendix.

48) Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, ed. Ḥabībī: 226, 219 and n. 12; Gramlich, Alte Vorbilder, 2: 96 and n. 7. Sāliḥ b. ʿAbdallāh would also have been the name of her great-uncle (see below).

49) Ignaz Goldziher, Muhammedanische Studien (Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1889-90): 175-88.

50) Berkey, “Women and Islamic Education”: 145-6; also Goldziher, Muhammedanische Studien: 192.

51) We can assume - from the statement that, when she returned, he was already buried in Balkh - that she travelled without her husband for at least part of her time in Mecca. Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, ed. Ḥabībī: 226. We do not know whether Umm ʿAlī travelled with anyone else.

52) Al-Hujwīrī, Kashf al-maḥjūb: 183.

53) Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, ed. Ḥabībī: 219-30.

54) Gramlich, Alte Vorbilder, 2: 95-112; Mina Hafizi, trans. Farzin Negahban, “Aḥmad b. Khiḍrawayh (Khiḍrūya) al-Balkhī,” in Encyclopaedia Islamica, 3: 261-4.

55) Gramlich, Alte Vorbilder, 2: 95; Hamid Algar, “Malāmatiyya. 2. In Iran and the Eastern Lands,” EI2, 6: 224-5.

56) Gramlich, Alte Vorbilder, 2: 102-5. Here, Gramlich also cites the verses by the poet Rūmī on Aḥmad b. Khiḍrawayh’s constant debt on account of his generosity (p. 104), verses 373-444, entitled “How by divine inspiration Shaykh Aḥmad, son of Khiḍrawayh, bought ḥalwā (sweetmeats) for his creditors.” See Jalāl al-Dīn al-Rūmī, Mathnawī wa-maʿnawī, ed. Reynold Nicholson (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1925-40), 4/1: 268; 4/2: 241-5, repr. (Tehran: Nashr-i Būta, 2002), 1: 350-5.

57) Gramlich, Alte Vorbilder, 2: 95-8; Hafizi, “Aḥmad b. Khiḍrawayh”: 262. Both cite, in particular, the account by al-Sahlagī. See al-Sahlagī, “al-Nūr min kalimāt Abī (Yazīd) Tạ yfūr,” in ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Badawī, Shatạ ḥāt al-sụ̄ fiyya (Kuwait: Wakālat al-Matḅūʿāt, 1976). See also Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, ed. Habībī: 169, 219.

58) For details, see Gramlich, Alte Vorbilder, 2: 98-9.

59) Hafizi, “Aḥmad b. Khiḍrawayh”: 262; ʿAbdallāh al-Ansạ̄ rī al-Harawī, Tạ baqāt al-sụ̄ fiyya, ed. Muḥammad Sarwar Mawlāʾī (Tehran: Intishārāt-i Tūs, 1362/1983): 98.

60) ʿAlī b. ʿUthmān al-Hujwīrī, Kashf al-maḥjūb, ed. Maḥmūd Duʿābidī (Tehran: 1383/ 2004-5), 183.

61) ʿAtṭ ạ̄ r, Tadhkirat al-awliyāʾ: 288.

62) al-Hujwīrī, Kashf al-maḥjūb: 183.

63) Ibid.

64) The Faḍāʾil-i Balkh does not make specific mention of Umm ʿAlī as being “manly.” As an aside, we do find this metaphor in its account of another ninth-century woman, the wife (khātūn) of the Banījūrid ruler of Balkh, Dāwūd b. ʿAbbās b. Hāshim (r. 233-56/848-70). He is said to have been preoccupied for twenty years with building his palace Nawshād, during which time the khātūn performed the ruler’s gubernatorial functions. The Faḍāʾil-i Balkh gives a rare example of just, generous, and dignified rule by the khātūn. She embarrassed the (unnamed) caliph in Baghdad, who was exacting exorbitant amounts of land tax (kharāj) from the people of Balkh. The reference seems to be to the caliphal policy of farming out state revenues, with local governors as tax-collectors to make up for the loss of provincial revenues and pay for their inflated bureaucracy - an exploitative practice the khātūn was clearly not willing to support. We are told that, through the caliphal tax collector ( ʿāmil-i dār al-khilāfa), the khātūn at Balkh sent a personal garment that was studded with jewels and gold wefts as a gift. The caliph rejected it, feeling ashamed, and returned the gift to the khātūn, saying, “This lady has taught us gentlemanliness ( jawān-mardī).” Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, ed. Ḥabībī: 21. The anecdote is repeated, with minor variations, in Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, ed. Ḥabībī: 40.

65) Florian Schwarz, Balḫ und die Landschaften am oberen Oxus XIVc Ḫurāsān III (Tübingen: Ernst Wasmuth, 2002): 68-9 (plates). These are nos. 475-6, dated 142/759-60.

66) Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, ed. Ḥabībī: 226-7.

67) Ibid.: 85-9.

68) Ibid.: 82-6. The politico-religious movement of the Murjiʾa in eastern Khorasan and Transoxania had as its most essential element the exclusion of works from faith, that is, the actual performance of the ritual and legal obligations of Islam. Its proponents struggled for the equality of new local converts and their exemption from the payment of the jizya (poll tax) which the Umayyad administration continued to impose on them. See Wilferd Madelung, “The early Murjiʾa in Khorasan and Transoxania and the spread of Ḥanafism,” Der Islam 59 (1982): 33.

69) Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, ed. Ḥabībī, 28; Berndt Radtke, “Theologen und Mystiker in Ḫurāsān und Transoxanien,” ZDMG 136 (1986): 539.

70) Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, ed. Ḥabībī: 124-5, 177, 225-6, 240.

71) Azad, Sacred Landscape.

72) Bulliet, “Women and the Urban Religious Elite”: 74.

73) Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, ed. Ḥabībī: 226-7.

74) Marina Tolmacheva, “Female Piety and Patronage in the Medieval ‘Ḥajj’,” in Women in the Medieval Islamic World, ed. Gavin R.G. Hambly (London: Macmillan, 1998): 161-6.

75) Jāmī, Nafaḥāt al-uns: 620-1.

76) Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, ed. Ḥabībī: 20-1, 42.

77) Folio numbers relate to the folios of the Persan 115 manuscript of the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, deposited in Paris.

78) Incidentally, this mystic appears in the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh too, but as the author of a poem on Balkh (Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, ed. Ḥabībī: 55 and n. 3). An interpretation is provided in my article, “The Faḍāʾil-i Balkh and its place in Islamic historiography,” IRAN 50 (forthcoming). For a biography of al-Rāzī, see Atṭ ạ̄ r, Tadhkirat al-awliyāʾ: 298-312.

79) al-Hujwīrī, Kashf al-maḥjūb: 184.

80) Al-Qushayrī’s Epistle on Sufism: 75-8; Renard, Historical Dictionary: 159, 228.

81) al-Hujwīrī, Kashf al-maḥjūb: 183.

82) Hellmut Ritter, “Abū Yazīd (Bāyazīd) Tạ yfūr b. ʿ Īsā b. Surūs̱ẖān al-Bisṭ ạ̄ mī,” EI2, 1:162-3.

83) al-Hujwīrī, Kashf al-maḥjūb: 183-4.

84) ʿAtṭ ạ̄ r, Tadhkirat al-awliyāʾ: 288-9.

85) Berkey, “Women and Islamic Education”: 149. From the biographies of Balkh’s scholars in the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh we know that teachings tended to be held in groups (majālis) in scholars’ homes or in the mosque, even after the establishment of the first madrasas, in the eleventh century. Shaykh al-Islām al-Wāʿiẓ even omits to mention that one of the Saljūq Niẓāmiyyas, the madrasas founded by the great Salj̱ūq vizier Niẓām al-Mulk (d. 485/1092), was established in Balkh (in 471/1078-9). Perhaps he did not approve of this kind of centralization of education, or maybe the informal setting continued to dominate in Balkh. See Azad, Sacred Landscape.

86) Al-Hujwīrī, Kashf al-maḥjūb: 184; The Kashf al-Maḥjúb: The Oldest Persian Treatise on Ṣúfiism, trans. Reynold A. Nicholson (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1911): 120.

87) Alyssa Gabbay, “In Reality a Man: Sultan Iltutmish, His Daughter, Raziya, and Gender,” Journal of Persianate Studies 4 (2011): 46, 51-8.

88) Yossef Rapoport, Marriage, Money and Divorce in Medieval Islamic Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005): 53ff.

89) Al-Isf̣ ahānī, Ḥ ilyat al-awliyāʾ, 10: 42.

90) Al-Masʿūdī, Murūj al-dhahab wa-maʿādin al-jawhar, ed. and trans. Barbier de Meynard and Pavet de Courteille, rev. and corr. Charles Pellat (Beirut: Publications de l’Université Libanaise, 1971-9): 1053-8 (§§ 2588-2601); Julie Scott Meisami, “Masʿūdī on Love and the Fall of the Barmakids,” The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland 2 (1989): 258-9.

91) Jane Khatib-Chahidi explains that the validity of marriage (which is a civil contract under Islamic law) does not depend upon consummation of the marriage. She adds that devout Muslims make good use of temporary marriages (Ar. mutʿa, Pers. sīgha) “in its strictly nominal form” to facilitate the sharing of space with a man inside and outside the home in a legal manner. Jane Khatib-Chahidi, “Sexual Prohibitions, Shared Space and ‘Fictive’ Marriages in Shiʾite Iran,” Women and Space, in Shirley Ardener, ed. (Oxford: Berg, 1993): 125-6.

92) I thank Christopher Melchert, Harry Munt, and Adam Talib for helping me to parse and translate Abū Nuʿaym’s account.

93) Schimmel, “Mystical Women”: 151.

94) Jāmī, Nafaḥāt al-uns: 613-34.

95) Ibidem: 613-34.

96) Jāmī, Nafaḥāt al-uns: 620-1.

97) The Nishapur mystic and blacksmith’s son Abū Ḥ afs ̣ al-Ḥ addād (d. 265/879).

98) Smith, Muslim Women Mystics: 29.

99) Smith, “Rābiʿa al-ʿAdawiyya”: 354; Smith, Muslim Women Mystics: 99-100.

100) Smith, Muslim Women Mystics: 71.

101) Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, ed. Ḥabībī: 227.

102) This reading is based on the two oldest manuscripts of Faḍāʾil-i Balkh: the Paris (“Persan 115”) and Pakistan manuscripts (“PK”). It stems from an ongoing revision of Ḥabībī’s edition carried out by Ali Mir Ansari, Arezou Azad, and Edmund Herzig, as part of the “Balkh Art and Cultural Heritage” project funded by the Leverhulme Trust. ʿAbd al-Ḥayy Ḥabībī’s edition of the excerpt (which does not include the Pakistan manuscript but does include the two late St Petersburg manuscripts) can be found in Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, ed. Ḥabībī: 226-7. For further details on the manuscripts and the text, please refer above.

103) Folio numbers relate to the folios of MS Persan 115 of the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh kept in Paris.

104) Mahd, as in “level,” “position,” and “cradle,” and ʿaliyya as in “high.” Steingass, Comprehensive Persian-English Dictionary: 1353, 865. Mahdī (“future prophet”) is given incorrectly (instead of mahd ) by Gramlich, in Alte Vorbilder, 2: 99.

105) The copyist’s rendering here of the name as “Ḥasan ʿImrān” is erroneous. “Ḥasan b.Ḥumrān” is rendered correctly elsewhere in the manuscript. See Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, ed. Ḥabībī: 124-5.

106) Given the ambiguity that comes with the phrase, “the lady muʾmina,” in which muʾmina (“pious”) could be used in a simple adjectival phrase denoting “the pious lady,” there is a slight possibility that the author is referring here to Umm ʿAlī, but it seems more likely that he means her mother, called Muʾmina.

107) The Faḍāʾil-i Balkh’s editor Ḥabībī read “Banj” here, not “Bakh,” and suggested that it was a place near Samarqand that is mentioned by Yāqūt in the Kitab buldān (Beirut: 1955), 1:498. A ṭāq-i Muʾmina is not mentioned in the Qandiyya. See Qandiyya dar bayān-i mazārāt-i Samarqand (Qandiyya on the Tombs of Samarqand), ed. Īraj Afshār (Tehran: Kitābkhāna-yi Ṭāhūrī, 1955).

108) The term “ribāṭ” here may be the term used to denote Sufi refuges and/or military outposts. The author of the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh uses the term in these senses in other parts of the book. See, for example, Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, ed. Ḥabībī: 215; also Jacqueline Chabbi, “Remarques sur le développement historique des mouvements ascétiques au Khurāsān,” Studia Islamica 46 (1977): 35, and Chabbi, “Ribāt ̣(A.), a Military-religious Institution of Mediaeval Islam. 1. History and Development of the Institution”, EI2, 8: 493-506. “Ribāt”̣ appears also as a well-known toponym of a place between Bukhara and Samarqand, which could change the reading here somewhat, but seems less likely. One of the manuscripts of the Taʾrīkh-i Bukhāra refers to the Ribāt-i Malik that stands in a desert. Narshakhī, Taʾrīkh-i Bukhāra, trans. Richard Frye (Cambridge, MA: The Mediaeval Academy of America, 1954): 13.

www.alhassanain.org/english

Notes

*) Arezou Azad (arezou.azad@orinst.ox.ac.uk) is a Leverhulme Research Officer of the Oriental Studies Faculty, University of Oxford. The author thanks the Leverhulme Trust for its generous support of the Balkh Art and Cultural Heritage Project from which this article emerges, as well as Luke Treadwell and Edmund Herzig, for reviewing drafts of this article. The author also thanks John Gurney and Christopher Melchert for sharing their expertise, which improved my translation of the Persian and Arabic texts respectively.

1) Shaykh al-Islām al-Wāʿiẓ and ʿAbdallāh b. Muḥammad b. al-Qāsim al-Ḥusaynī, Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, ed. ʿAbd al-Ḥayy Ḥabībī (Tehran: Intishārāt-i Bunyād-i Farhang-i Īrān, 1350/1971):227.

2) Annemarie Schimmel, “Women in Mystical Islam,” Women’s Studies International Forum, 5/2 (1982): 147, and Schimmel, My Soul is a Woman: The Feminine in Islam, trans. S.H. Ray (New York: Continuum, 1997).

3) Margaret Meriwether and Judith Tucker, A Social History of Women and Gender in the Modern Middle East (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1999).

4) This plurality stems from the non-existence of formal schools (madrasas), the regional differences in the evolution of madhāhib, and the non-alignment of individual scholars with a particular legal school or its master. Stephen Humphreys, Islamic History: A Framework for Inquiry (London: I.B. Tauris, 1991): 199; Eyyup Kaya, “Continuity and Change in Islamic Law: The Concept of Madhhab and the Dimensions of Legal Disagreement in Ḥanafī Scholarship of the Tenth Century,” in The Islamic School of Law, ed. Peri Bearman et al. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005): 26-40; Arezou Azad, Sacred Landscape in Medieval Afghanistan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming): 173-7.

5) Other hagiographical sources that date from around the time when the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh was written use the term “Sufi,” usually with a reference to the Sufi mystical path, the tạ rīqa.

6) These include Ibrāhīm b. Adham (d. 161/777-8), Shaqīq al-Balkhī (d. 194/809-10) and Ḥ ātim al-Asạ mm (d. 237/857-8). See Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, ed. Ḥ abībī, 93-118, 129-42, 165-77; Richard Gramlich, Alte Vorbilder des Sufitums (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1996), 2:13-62.

7) Meriwether and Tucker, A Social History: 1-2.

8) Mohammad Akram Nadwi, Al-Muhaddithat: The Women Scholars in Islam, 40 vols. (forthcoming); summarized in Nadwi, Al-Muḥaddithāt: The Women Scholars in Islam (Oxford: Interface Publications, 2007).

9) Ruth Roded, Women in Islamic Biographical Collections: From Ibn Saʿd to Who’s Who (Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner, 1994), and Roded, “Islamic Biographical Dictionaries: 9th to 10th Century,” in Encyclopedia of Women & Islamic Cultures, ed. Suad Joseph (Leiden: Brill, 2003-7).

10) Nadwi, Al-Muḥaddithāt: xv.

11) Irene Schneider, “Gelehrte Frauen des 5./11. bis 7./13.Jh.s nach dem biographischen Werk des Dahabi (st. 748/1347),” in Philosophy and Arts in the Islamic World, ed. Urbain Vermeulen and D. de Smet (Leuven: Peeters, 1998): 116-8, 121.

12) Roded, Women in Islamic Biographical Collections: 19-20. For a recent example, see Mervat Hatem, “Aʾisha Abdel Rahman: An Unlikely Heroine: A Post-Colonial Reading of her Life and Some of her Biographies of Women in the Prophetic Household,” Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies 7/2 (2011): 1-26.

13) The numbers increase somewhat again in the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries CE but decline gradually and consistently after the sixteenth century CE (for both female and male scholars). Nadwi, Al-Muḥaddithāt: 245-6, 271-2.

14) Ruth Roded, Women in Islam and the Middle East: A Reader (London: I.B. Tauris, 1999): 77-8; Ibn ʿAsākīr, Taʾrīkh madīnat Dimashq, ed. Muḥibb al-Dīn Abī Saʿīd ʿUmar b. Gharāma al-ʿAmrawī, 5 vols. (Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, 1995-2000).

15) Richard 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 Neshat and Lois Beck (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2003): 68.

16) This categorization of female subjects of biographical compilations is taken from Malīḥa Raḥmat Allāh Rahmatallah, The Women of Baghdad in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries as Revealed in the History of Baghdad of al-Hatib (Baghdad: Times Press, 1963), cited in Bulliet, “Women and the Urban”: 70-1.

17) Al-Nasafi, al-Qand fī dhikr ʿulamāʾ Samarqand, ed. Naẓar Muḥammad al-Fāryābī (Jidda: Maktabat al-Kawthar, 1991): 147.

18) Maya Shatzmiller, “Aspects of Women’s Participation in the Economic Life of Later Medieval Islam: Occupations and Mentalities,” Arabica 35 (1988): 58.

19) Leslie Peirce, The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993); Ruby Lal, Domesticity and Power in the Early Mughal World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).

20) Julia Bray, “Men, Women and Slaves in Abbasid Society,” in Gender in the Early Medieval World: East and West, 300-900, ed. Leslie Brubaker and Julia M.H. Smith (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004): 130.

21) Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, ed. Ḥabībī: 66, 93, 119, 129ff.

22) ʿAtṭ ạ̄ r, Tadhkirat al-Awliyāʾ, 1: 59-73; Margaret Smith, Muslim Women Mystics: The Life and Work of Rabia and Other Women Mystics in Islam (Oxford: Oneworld, 2001): 29; Margaret Smith, “Rābiʿa al-ʿAdawiyya al-Ḳaysiyya”, EI2 (1995) 8: 355.

23) Jonathan Berkey, “Women and Islamic Education in the Mamluk Period,” in Women in Middle Eastern History: Shifting Boundaries in Sex and Gender, ed. Nikki Keddie and Beth Baron (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991): 149.

24) Huda Lutfi, “Manners and Customs of Fourteenth-Century Cairene Women: Female Anarchy versus Male Sharʿi Order in Muslim Prescriptive Treatises,” in Women in Middle Eastern History: Shifting Boundaries in Sex and Gender, ed. Nikki Keddie and Beth Baron (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991): 115.

25) Christopher Melchert, “Whether to Keep Women out of the Mosque: A Survey of Medieval Islamic Law,” in Authority, Privacy and Public Order in Islam, ed. Barbara Michalak-Pikulska and Andrzej Pikulski (Leuven: Peeters, 2006): 59.

26) Mathieu Tillier, “Women before the Qadi under the Abbasids,” Islamic Law and Society 16/3-4 (2009): 301. Tillier caveated his finding with the social distinction between those who could leave their houses and came before the judge (unveiled), and those who could not. He found that high-ranking women avoided such public exposure. Other studies on women’s visibility and the law include: Judith Tucker, “Muftīs and Matrimony: Islamic Law and Gender in Ottoman Syria and Palestine,” Islamic Law and Society 1/3 (1994): 265-300, and Nicholas Awde, Women in Islam: An Anthology from the Qurʾān and Ḥadīths (Richmond, Surrey: Curzon, 2000). Another set of studies does not deal with women scholars per se, but provides evidence for the visibility and public political role of high-society mediaeval women in the Islamic world. Nabia Abbott, Two Queens of Baghdad: Mother and Wife of Hārūn al-Rashīd (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1946); Maaike van Berkel focussed on women at the Abbasid court of the initially under-aged caliph al-Muqtadir (r. 295-320/908-32), in “The Young Caliph and His Wicked Advisors: Women and Power Politics under Caliph al-Muqtadir (r. 295-320/908-932),” Al-Masāq: Islam and the Medieval Mediterranean 19/1 (2007), 3-15. Eric Hanne found similar trends amongst women in the Abbasid courts of the early eleventh to twelfth centuries CE, in “Women, Power, and the Eleventh and Twelfth Century Abbasid Court,” Hawwa: Journal of Women of the Middle East and Islamic World 3/1 (2005), 80-110.

27) Roded, Women in Islamic Biographical Collections: 45, 58-9.

28) Bulliet, “Women and the Urban Religious Elite”: 75.

29) Julie Scott Meisami, “Writing Medieval Women: Representations and Misrepresentations,” in Writing and Representation in Medieval Islam: Muslim Horizons, ed. Julia Bray (London: Routledge, 2006): 66.

30) Fedwa Malti-Douglas, Woman’s Body, Woman’s Word: Gender and Discourse in Arabo-Islamic Writing (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991); Leila Ahmed, Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992); Denise Spellberg, Politics, Gender, and the Islamic Past: The Legacy of ʿAʾisha bint Abi Bakri (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994).

31) Scott Meisami, “Writing Medieval Women”: 59-60.

32) Joan Connelly, Portrait of a Priestess: Women and Ritual in Ancient Greece (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007): 2-3.

33) The earliest copy - deposited at the Bibliothèque nationale française as MS Persan 115—can be placed roughly in the late fourteenth or early fifteenth centuries CE, based on its epigraphic style and paper quality. Edgar Blochet, Catalogue des Manuscrits Persans (Paris: Imprimérie Nationale, 1905), 1: 316-7; Francis Richard, Catalogue des manuscrits persans. 1. Anciens fonds (Paris: Bibliothèque nationale, 1989): 134. The text may well have undergone recension since the original was copied, but the biographies do not go beyond the late twelfth century CE, and there has been no attempt by later copyists to add more scholars to the group of seventy. The second-oldest manuscript came to light a decade ago and has been dated to the seventeenth century. ʿĀrif Nawshāhī, “Nuskha-yi naw-yāfta-yi Faḍāʾil-i Balkh,” Maʿārif 19/2 (1381/2002): 61. In addition, two nineteenth-century manuscripts are deposited in St Petersburg, at the Department of Oriental Manuscripts, with the catalogue numbers C453-1 and C453-3. N.D. Miklukho-Maklai, Opisanie tadzhikskikh i persidskikh rukopiseı ̆ Instituta (Moscow: Izd-vo Akademii nauk SSSR: 1961), 2: 86-93. These St Petersburg manuscripts, together with the Paris manuscript, formed the basis for the 1350/1971 Tehran edition of the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh by the Afghan scholar ʿAbd al-Ḥayy Ḥabībī, cited extensively in this article.

34) Jürgen Paul, “The Histories of Isfahan: Mafarrukhi’s Kitāb Maḥāsin Isfahan,” Iranian Studies 33/1-2 (2000): 119, 126; and Jürgen Paul, “Hagiographische Texte als historische Quelle,” Saeculum 41 (1990): 17-45; also Stefan Leder (ed.), Story-telling in the Framework of Non-fictional Arabic Literature (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1998).

35) The biographical entries in ṭabaqāt works tend to be brief and usually involve a perfunctory listing of who transmitted from whom. The aim was to establish a proper chain of transmission (isnād) on a ḥadīth text which authenticated any given statement. Ibrahim Hafsi, “Recherches sur le genre ‘ṭabaqāt’ dans la littérature arabe,” Arabica 23 (1976-7):228ff.

36) John Renard, Historical Dictionary of Sufism (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2005): 62.

37) Shaykh al-Islām al-Wāʿiz ̣ used it as a source also for the biography of Ḥ ātim al-Asạ mm (d. 237/857-8). Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, ed. Ḥabībī: 169.

38) Abū l-Qāsim al-Qushayrī, al-Risāla al-Qushayrīya fī ʿilm al-taṣawwuf, ed. Maʿrūf Zurayq and ʿAlī ʿAbd al-Ḥ amīd Baltạ jī (Beirut: Dār al-Jīl, 1990): 228; Al-Qushayrī’s Epistle on Sufism: al-Risala al-Qushayriyya fī ʿilm al-taṣawwuf, trans. Alexander Knysh (Reading, UK: Garnet, 2007): 238-9; see also Jawid Mojaddedi on Qushayrī’s Risāla, in The Biographical Tradition in Sufism: The Ṭabaqāt Genre from al-Sulamī to Jāmī (Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, 2001): 99-124. It should be noted that Qushayrī refers to these chivalrous men as ‘ʿayyār’ who were members of local urban militias in Muslim cities and towns. On the connection between the ʿayyārān, medieval Sufism and chivalry, see Deborah Tor, Violent Order, Religious Warfare, Chivalry, and the ʿAyyār Phenomenon in the Medieval Islamic World (Würzburg: Ergon in Komission, 2007): 229 ff.

39) Roded, Women in Islamic Biographical Collections: 92.

40) Abū Nuʿaym al-Isf̣ ahānī, Ḥ ilyat al-awliyāʾ wa-tạ baqāt al-asfị yaʿ (Cairo: Maktabat al-Khānjī, 1932); ʿAlī b. ʿUthmān al-Hujwīrī, Kashf al-maḥjūb, ed. Maḥmūd Duʿābidī (Tehran: Surūsh, 1383/2004-5); Farīd al-Dīn ʿAtṭ ạ̄ r, The Tadhkiratu ’l-Awliya (Memoirs of the Saints), ed. Reynold A. Nicholson (London: Luzac, 1905); ʿAbd al-Raḥman b. Aḥmad Jāmī, Nafaḥāt al-uns min ḥaḍarāt al-quds, ed. Maḥmūd ʿĀbidī (Tehran: Intishārāt-i Itṭ ị lāʿāt, 1370/1991). Abū Nuʿaym and ʿAtṭ ạ̄ r are, in fact, cited in other biographical entries of the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh. See Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, ed. Ḥabībī: xxiii-xxiv, 120, 167, 220.

41) Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, ed. Ḥabībī: 10. ʿAlī b. al-Faḍl’s ṭabaqāt is no longer extant, but we know that it was used widely, at least until the fifteenth century. It is referred to by al-Khatị̄ b al-Baghdādī (d. 463/1071) in the Taʾrīkh Baghdād, and by al-Sakhāwī four centuries later, in the al-Iʿlān bi-l-tawbīkh li-man damma ahl al-tawrīkh. Al-Khatị̄ b al-Baghdādī, Taʾrīkh Baghdād, ed. Aḥmad b. al-Ṣiddīq (Cairo: Maktabat al-Khānjī, 1349/1931), 12: 47-8; al-Sakhāwī, al-Iʿlān bi-l-tawbīkh li-man dhamma ahl al-tawārīkh, in Franz Rosenthal, A History of Muslim Historiography (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1968): 464 and n. 1.

42) Roded, Women in Islamic Biographical Collections: 3. Ibn Saʿd’s selection of Khorasani scholars is slim, however, and lists only men. See Ibn Saʿd, al-Ṭabaqāt al-kubrā (Beirut: Dār Ṣādir, 1957-68), 7: 365-79.

43) Al-Sulamī, al-Ṭabaqāṭ al-ṣūfiyya, ed. Johannes Pedersen (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1960): 93-7. This is an abbreviated version of al-Sulamī’s non-extant Taʾrīkh al-ṣūfīyya, and it is very likely that she was mentioned in the longer work.

44) Al-Sulamī, Early Sufi Women: Dhikr al-niswa al-mutaʿabbidāt al-Ṣūfiyyāt, ed. and trans. Rkia Elaroui Cornell (Louisville, KY: Fons Vitae, 1999): 168-9.

45) The Shaykh al-Islām perhaps refers here to the chronicles on Balkh that existed in his time but are lost to us. There was, for example, the Manāqib Balkh written by the geographer Abū Zayd Aḥmad b. Sahl al-Balkhī (d. 322/934), which the Shaykh al-Islām cites elsewhere in his work. See Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, ed. Ḥabībī: 54, 226.

46) The Shaykh al-Islām does not cite a single general history anywhere in the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, not even al-Tạ barī’s (d. 310/923) Taʾrīkh or its Persian adaptation by Balʿamī (d. 363/974). Muḥammad b. Jarīr al-Tạ barī, Taʾrīkh al-rusul wa-l-mulūk, ed. M.J. de Goeje, in 15 vols and 3 series (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1879-1901); Abū ʿAlī Balʿamī, Taʾrīkh-nāma-yi Ṭabarī gardānīda-yi mansūb bi Bal ʿamī, ed. Muḥammad Rawshan (Tehran: Bunyād-i Farhang-i Īrān, 1378/1999); Chronique du Abou-Djafar-Mohamed-ben Djarir-ben-Yezid Tabari, trans. Hermann Zotenberg (Paris: Oriental Translation Fund, 1867-74).

47) Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, ed. Ḥabībī: 226-7. See excerpt in appendix.

48) Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, ed. Ḥabībī: 226, 219 and n. 12; Gramlich, Alte Vorbilder, 2: 96 and n. 7. Sāliḥ b. ʿAbdallāh would also have been the name of her great-uncle (see below).

49) Ignaz Goldziher, Muhammedanische Studien (Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1889-90): 175-88.

50) Berkey, “Women and Islamic Education”: 145-6; also Goldziher, Muhammedanische Studien: 192.

51) We can assume - from the statement that, when she returned, he was already buried in Balkh - that she travelled without her husband for at least part of her time in Mecca. Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, ed. Ḥabībī: 226. We do not know whether Umm ʿAlī travelled with anyone else.

52) Al-Hujwīrī, Kashf al-maḥjūb: 183.

53) Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, ed. Ḥabībī: 219-30.

54) Gramlich, Alte Vorbilder, 2: 95-112; Mina Hafizi, trans. Farzin Negahban, “Aḥmad b. Khiḍrawayh (Khiḍrūya) al-Balkhī,” in Encyclopaedia Islamica, 3: 261-4.

55) Gramlich, Alte Vorbilder, 2: 95; Hamid Algar, “Malāmatiyya. 2. In Iran and the Eastern Lands,” EI2, 6: 224-5.

56) Gramlich, Alte Vorbilder, 2: 102-5. Here, Gramlich also cites the verses by the poet Rūmī on Aḥmad b. Khiḍrawayh’s constant debt on account of his generosity (p. 104), verses 373-444, entitled “How by divine inspiration Shaykh Aḥmad, son of Khiḍrawayh, bought ḥalwā (sweetmeats) for his creditors.” See Jalāl al-Dīn al-Rūmī, Mathnawī wa-maʿnawī, ed. Reynold Nicholson (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1925-40), 4/1: 268; 4/2: 241-5, repr. (Tehran: Nashr-i Būta, 2002), 1: 350-5.

57) Gramlich, Alte Vorbilder, 2: 95-8; Hafizi, “Aḥmad b. Khiḍrawayh”: 262. Both cite, in particular, the account by al-Sahlagī. See al-Sahlagī, “al-Nūr min kalimāt Abī (Yazīd) Tạ yfūr,” in ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Badawī, Shatạ ḥāt al-sụ̄ fiyya (Kuwait: Wakālat al-Matḅūʿāt, 1976). See also Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, ed. Habībī: 169, 219.

58) For details, see Gramlich, Alte Vorbilder, 2: 98-9.

59) Hafizi, “Aḥmad b. Khiḍrawayh”: 262; ʿAbdallāh al-Ansạ̄ rī al-Harawī, Tạ baqāt al-sụ̄ fiyya, ed. Muḥammad Sarwar Mawlāʾī (Tehran: Intishārāt-i Tūs, 1362/1983): 98.

60) ʿAlī b. ʿUthmān al-Hujwīrī, Kashf al-maḥjūb, ed. Maḥmūd Duʿābidī (Tehran: 1383/ 2004-5), 183.

61) ʿAtṭ ạ̄ r, Tadhkirat al-awliyāʾ: 288.

62) al-Hujwīrī, Kashf al-maḥjūb: 183.

63) Ibid.

64) The Faḍāʾil-i Balkh does not make specific mention of Umm ʿAlī as being “manly.” As an aside, we do find this metaphor in its account of another ninth-century woman, the wife (khātūn) of the Banījūrid ruler of Balkh, Dāwūd b. ʿAbbās b. Hāshim (r. 233-56/848-70). He is said to have been preoccupied for twenty years with building his palace Nawshād, during which time the khātūn performed the ruler’s gubernatorial functions. The Faḍāʾil-i Balkh gives a rare example of just, generous, and dignified rule by the khātūn. She embarrassed the (unnamed) caliph in Baghdad, who was exacting exorbitant amounts of land tax (kharāj) from the people of Balkh. The reference seems to be to the caliphal policy of farming out state revenues, with local governors as tax-collectors to make up for the loss of provincial revenues and pay for their inflated bureaucracy - an exploitative practice the khātūn was clearly not willing to support. We are told that, through the caliphal tax collector ( ʿāmil-i dār al-khilāfa), the khātūn at Balkh sent a personal garment that was studded with jewels and gold wefts as a gift. The caliph rejected it, feeling ashamed, and returned the gift to the khātūn, saying, “This lady has taught us gentlemanliness ( jawān-mardī).” Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, ed. Ḥabībī: 21. The anecdote is repeated, with minor variations, in Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, ed. Ḥabībī: 40.

65) Florian Schwarz, Balḫ und die Landschaften am oberen Oxus XIVc Ḫurāsān III (Tübingen: Ernst Wasmuth, 2002): 68-9 (plates). These are nos. 475-6, dated 142/759-60.

66) Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, ed. Ḥabībī: 226-7.

67) Ibid.: 85-9.

68) Ibid.: 82-6. The politico-religious movement of the Murjiʾa in eastern Khorasan and Transoxania had as its most essential element the exclusion of works from faith, that is, the actual performance of the ritual and legal obligations of Islam. Its proponents struggled for the equality of new local converts and their exemption from the payment of the jizya (poll tax) which the Umayyad administration continued to impose on them. See Wilferd Madelung, “The early Murjiʾa in Khorasan and Transoxania and the spread of Ḥanafism,” Der Islam 59 (1982): 33.

69) Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, ed. Ḥabībī, 28; Berndt Radtke, “Theologen und Mystiker in Ḫurāsān und Transoxanien,” ZDMG 136 (1986): 539.

70) Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, ed. Ḥabībī: 124-5, 177, 225-6, 240.

71) Azad, Sacred Landscape.

72) Bulliet, “Women and the Urban Religious Elite”: 74.

73) Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, ed. Ḥabībī: 226-7.

74) Marina Tolmacheva, “Female Piety and Patronage in the Medieval ‘Ḥajj’,” in Women in the Medieval Islamic World, ed. Gavin R.G. Hambly (London: Macmillan, 1998): 161-6.

75) Jāmī, Nafaḥāt al-uns: 620-1.

76) Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, ed. Ḥabībī: 20-1, 42.

77) Folio numbers relate to the folios of the Persan 115 manuscript of the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, deposited in Paris.

78) Incidentally, this mystic appears in the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh too, but as the author of a poem on Balkh (Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, ed. Ḥabībī: 55 and n. 3). An interpretation is provided in my article, “The Faḍāʾil-i Balkh and its place in Islamic historiography,” IRAN 50 (forthcoming). For a biography of al-Rāzī, see Atṭ ạ̄ r, Tadhkirat al-awliyāʾ: 298-312.

79) al-Hujwīrī, Kashf al-maḥjūb: 184.

80) Al-Qushayrī’s Epistle on Sufism: 75-8; Renard, Historical Dictionary: 159, 228.

81) al-Hujwīrī, Kashf al-maḥjūb: 183.

82) Hellmut Ritter, “Abū Yazīd (Bāyazīd) Tạ yfūr b. ʿ Īsā b. Surūs̱ẖān al-Bisṭ ạ̄ mī,” EI2, 1:162-3.

83) al-Hujwīrī, Kashf al-maḥjūb: 183-4.

84) ʿAtṭ ạ̄ r, Tadhkirat al-awliyāʾ: 288-9.

85) Berkey, “Women and Islamic Education”: 149. From the biographies of Balkh’s scholars in the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh we know that teachings tended to be held in groups (majālis) in scholars’ homes or in the mosque, even after the establishment of the first madrasas, in the eleventh century. Shaykh al-Islām al-Wāʿiẓ even omits to mention that one of the Saljūq Niẓāmiyyas, the madrasas founded by the great Salj̱ūq vizier Niẓām al-Mulk (d. 485/1092), was established in Balkh (in 471/1078-9). Perhaps he did not approve of this kind of centralization of education, or maybe the informal setting continued to dominate in Balkh. See Azad, Sacred Landscape.

86) Al-Hujwīrī, Kashf al-maḥjūb: 184; The Kashf al-Maḥjúb: The Oldest Persian Treatise on Ṣúfiism, trans. Reynold A. Nicholson (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1911): 120.

87) Alyssa Gabbay, “In Reality a Man: Sultan Iltutmish, His Daughter, Raziya, and Gender,” Journal of Persianate Studies 4 (2011): 46, 51-8.

88) Yossef Rapoport, Marriage, Money and Divorce in Medieval Islamic Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005): 53ff.

89) Al-Isf̣ ahānī, Ḥ ilyat al-awliyāʾ, 10: 42.

90) Al-Masʿūdī, Murūj al-dhahab wa-maʿādin al-jawhar, ed. and trans. Barbier de Meynard and Pavet de Courteille, rev. and corr. Charles Pellat (Beirut: Publications de l’Université Libanaise, 1971-9): 1053-8 (§§ 2588-2601); Julie Scott Meisami, “Masʿūdī on Love and the Fall of the Barmakids,” The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland 2 (1989): 258-9.

91) Jane Khatib-Chahidi explains that the validity of marriage (which is a civil contract under Islamic law) does not depend upon consummation of the marriage. She adds that devout Muslims make good use of temporary marriages (Ar. mutʿa, Pers. sīgha) “in its strictly nominal form” to facilitate the sharing of space with a man inside and outside the home in a legal manner. Jane Khatib-Chahidi, “Sexual Prohibitions, Shared Space and ‘Fictive’ Marriages in Shiʾite Iran,” Women and Space, in Shirley Ardener, ed. (Oxford: Berg, 1993): 125-6.

92) I thank Christopher Melchert, Harry Munt, and Adam Talib for helping me to parse and translate Abū Nuʿaym’s account.

93) Schimmel, “Mystical Women”: 151.

94) Jāmī, Nafaḥāt al-uns: 613-34.

95) Ibidem: 613-34.

96) Jāmī, Nafaḥāt al-uns: 620-1.

97) The Nishapur mystic and blacksmith’s son Abū Ḥ afs ̣ al-Ḥ addād (d. 265/879).

98) Smith, Muslim Women Mystics: 29.

99) Smith, “Rābiʿa al-ʿAdawiyya”: 354; Smith, Muslim Women Mystics: 99-100.

100) Smith, Muslim Women Mystics: 71.

101) Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, ed. Ḥabībī: 227.

102) This reading is based on the two oldest manuscripts of Faḍāʾil-i Balkh: the Paris (“Persan 115”) and Pakistan manuscripts (“PK”). It stems from an ongoing revision of Ḥabībī’s edition carried out by Ali Mir Ansari, Arezou Azad, and Edmund Herzig, as part of the “Balkh Art and Cultural Heritage” project funded by the Leverhulme Trust. ʿAbd al-Ḥayy Ḥabībī’s edition of the excerpt (which does not include the Pakistan manuscript but does include the two late St Petersburg manuscripts) can be found in Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, ed. Ḥabībī: 226-7. For further details on the manuscripts and the text, please refer above.

103) Folio numbers relate to the folios of MS Persan 115 of the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh kept in Paris.

104) Mahd, as in “level,” “position,” and “cradle,” and ʿaliyya as in “high.” Steingass, Comprehensive Persian-English Dictionary: 1353, 865. Mahdī (“future prophet”) is given incorrectly (instead of mahd ) by Gramlich, in Alte Vorbilder, 2: 99.

105) The copyist’s rendering here of the name as “Ḥasan ʿImrān” is erroneous. “Ḥasan b.Ḥumrān” is rendered correctly elsewhere in the manuscript. See Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, ed. Ḥabībī: 124-5.

106) Given the ambiguity that comes with the phrase, “the lady muʾmina,” in which muʾmina (“pious”) could be used in a simple adjectival phrase denoting “the pious lady,” there is a slight possibility that the author is referring here to Umm ʿAlī, but it seems more likely that he means her mother, called Muʾmina.

107) The Faḍāʾil-i Balkh’s editor Ḥabībī read “Banj” here, not “Bakh,” and suggested that it was a place near Samarqand that is mentioned by Yāqūt in the Kitab buldān (Beirut: 1955), 1:498. A ṭāq-i Muʾmina is not mentioned in the Qandiyya. See Qandiyya dar bayān-i mazārāt-i Samarqand (Qandiyya on the Tombs of Samarqand), ed. Īraj Afshār (Tehran: Kitābkhāna-yi Ṭāhūrī, 1955).

108) The term “ribāṭ” here may be the term used to denote Sufi refuges and/or military outposts. The author of the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh uses the term in these senses in other parts of the book. See, for example, Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, ed. Ḥabībī: 215; also Jacqueline Chabbi, “Remarques sur le développement historique des mouvements ascétiques au Khurāsān,” Studia Islamica 46 (1977): 35, and Chabbi, “Ribāt ̣(A.), a Military-religious Institution of Mediaeval Islam. 1. History and Development of the Institution”, EI2, 8: 493-506. “Ribāt”̣ appears also as a well-known toponym of a place between Bukhara and Samarqand, which could change the reading here somewhat, but seems less likely. One of the manuscripts of the Taʾrīkh-i Bukhāra refers to the Ribāt-i Malik that stands in a desert. Narshakhī, Taʾrīkh-i Bukhāra, trans. Richard Frye (Cambridge, MA: The Mediaeval Academy of America, 1954): 13.

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