Alhassanain(p) Network for Heritage and Islamic Thought

THE CONTENT OF THE SHARI‘AH: ACTS OF WORSHIP AND TRANSACTIONS

Traditionally theShari‘ah has been divided into two parts: the ‘ibadat, or acts of worship, and the mu‘amalat, or transactions. The heart of theShari‘ah may be said to be the part dealing with the ‘ibadat. Even in modern times, when in many lands governments have replaced much of theShari‘ah with European laws, the part dealing with worship continues to be practiced and could not but continue to be the foundation of the religion, or what Muslims themselves call arkan al-din, the “pillars of the religion.”

These “pillars” include (besides bearing witness to the two shahadahs) the daily prayers (s.alah), fasting (s.awm), almsgiving(zakah) , and pilgrimage(hajj) . As for jihad, meaning “exertion in the path of God,” to which we shall turn extensively later in this book, it is a necessity for carrying out any act pleasing to God including all the “pillars.”

Acts of Worship

Daily Prayers: Of all the Islamic rites, the most important and central are the daily prayers (s.alah), whose form was revealed by God to the Prophet and was then taught by him to Muslims. This rite is obligatory upon all men and women (except during their menstrual period) from the age of puberty until death. Five times a day, determined by cosmic events and not any mechanical or electronic means, Muslims must make a ritual ablution, which is a purification like the Catholic confession, and then perform the prayers.

The ordinary ablution involves the ritual washing with clean water of the hands, face, arms, feet, and the top of the head. This is in addition to the washing of the anus and the male or female organ after relieving oneself. A total ablution, which involves the washing of the whole body, must be performed after certain states and actions such as sexual intercourse. That is why every Muslim town and city from the seventh century onward has always had public baths, some of which that have survived being outstanding works of art. Before modern times, for many centuries the only towns in Europe that had bathhouses were those that were or had been ruled by Muslims. The ritual ablution, a very important aspect of the Islamic pattern of life, is also closely associated with the importance of cleanliness. Certain verses of the Quran and sayings of the Prophet constitute the Islamic counterpart of the Western adage that cleanliness is related to godliness.

After making the ablution, wearing ritually clean clothing and standing on clean ground, Muslims turn in the direction of Mecca and perform the prayers. These involve the recitation of verses of the Quran and the making of certain bodily movements that integrate the psycho-physical dimension of the human being into its spiritual archetype.

In the prayers each person acts as his or her own priest standing directly before God. But when two or more people are present, it is recommended that the prayers be said in assembly with one person, called the imam, leading it. On Fridays the major weekly congregational prayers include a sermon, which often contains an important social and political message as well as an ethical and spiritual one.

The heart of s.alah is the first chapter of the Quran, called the Surat al-Fatihah (or Opening Chapter), which is repeated in every unit of the canonical prayer. It is the heart of the Quran and contains the message pertaining to the dimensions of the ultimate relation between human beings and God. The surah is as follows:

Praise be to God, the Lord of the worlds, the Infinitely Good, the All-Merciful, Master of the Day of Judgment.

Thee we worship, and in Thee we seek help.

Guide us upon the straight path, the path of those on whom Thy Grace is, not those on whom Thine Anger is, nor those who are astray. (1:2-7)1

The life of the practicing Muslim is punctuated ever anew by the daily prayers, which break the hold of profane time upon the soul and bring men and women back to a sacred time marked by the meeting with God and to a sacred space pointing to the supreme center of the Islamic universe, Mecca, where the celestial axis penetrates the plane of earthly existence. The prayers are a rejuvenation for the soul, protection against evil acts, and a shelter for believers amid the storm of the life of this world. They have many levels of meaning, from the most outward to the most esoteric known to and experienced only by the sages and saints who are the friends of God. The canonical prayers were constituted in such a way that all kinds of people with various degrees of understanding and perspicacity can participate in them and be nourished by them according to their own capacity. They are a Divine norm transcending the individual order, and yet they act as the gate for the individual’s access to the universal. There are in Islam two other modes of prayer, the prayer of the heart, meant only for those following a spiritual path, or Tariqah, and individual prayers (du‘a) that Muslims, like Christians, Jews, and others, perform from time to time. The s.alah, however, is incumbent upon all Muslims, for it is the guarantee of our living in accordance with our theomorphic nature as beings reflecting God’s Names and Qualities and the means whereby we stand directly before God to address Him as His vicegerents on earth.

Fasting: Like the daily canonical prayers, fasting (s.awm) is an obligatory rite to be performed during the lunar month of Ramad.an by all Muslim men and women from the age of puberty until old age. It is a fast from all food, drink, smoke, and sexual activity (also evil thoughts and deeds) from dawn to sunset (and for Shi‘ites until dusk).

This rite is, however, obligatory only for those who have the physical capability to carry it out. Exceptions are made for the sick and those on a journey (who must make it up later), women in their menstrual period or pregnant or nursing a child, and those who are too weak because of old age. The month of Ramad.an was the month of the descent of the Quran. In this holiest of Islamic months, Muslims combine physical and psychological purification with an intensification of prayer, recitation of the Quran, and acts of charity. During this month, in almost all Islamic cities, vast amounts of food are provided free for the poor, and the cost of the one meal that one and one’s family does not eat each day is given to the needy.

During the fast one puts on, in a sense, the dress of death and distances oneself from the passions that attach one to the world. It is a time for great

self-discipline and the practice of the virtues of patience and persistence in hardship for the sake of God. It is also a time to develop greater compassion toward the needy and to realize what it means to suffer from hunger. The Prophet loved fasting, and in a way fasting from food in Islam corresponds to abstaining from sexuality in Christianity, which exists as a religious ideal although only practiced fully by those who observe celibacy. The Founder of Islam fasted on many other days during the year, and there are many who emulate his model to this day. But the only obligatory fast is that of Ramad.an, which is practiced by the vast majority of Muslims throughout the world to this day.

It is necessary here to say something about the Islamic lunar calendar, which determines the period of fasting as well as other religious rites and ceremonies. In Islam all religious events are based on the lunar calendar, although the solar calendar is used for agricultural and other matters.

In fact, the most accurate solar calendar ever devised, more accurate than the Julian or Gregorian calendars, is the Jalali calendar, devised by the famous mathematician-poet ‘Umar Khayyam and others in the twelfth century and still in use in Iran and Afghanistan. This solar calendar divides the year into twelve months, the first six of which have thirty-one days, the next five, thirty days, and the twelfth month, twenty-nine days, except on leap year when it has thirty days. It therefore makes it easier to keep count of how many days are in each month as compared with the Western calendar and is also astronomically more precise. But Islam explicitly bans intercalation, which means adding a number of days to the lunar year to make it the equivalent of the solar year. Consequently, the Islamic lunar calendar moves through the solar calendar completing one cycle every thirty-three years. As a result, Ramad.an is sometimes in the winter and sometimes in the summer, sometimes during long and hot days and sometimes during short and cool ones. Since Islam is a global community, this injunction banning intercalation, as foreseen in the Quran, guarantees fairness and justice as far as conditions go for fasting, the hajj, and early morning prayers for people living in different geographical latitudes and in the two different hemispheres of the globe.

Almsgiving: The word for almsgiving, zakah, comes from the root zky, meaning “to purify.” It is a tithe or alms whose payment is obligatory according to theShari‘ah and is the means of “purifying” what bounties God has given by sharing some of it with the poor and the needy. In traditional Islamic society, this sum was paid to the public treasury.

Many projects for public use, such as the creation and maintenance of schools, hospitals, orphanages, and the like, were implemented by use of the sums collected through this religious tax.

Those familiar with Jewish and Christian practices can see obvious similarities in the use of tithing in the three Abrahamic traditions. The word “tithe” comes from the Old English word meaning “tenth,” but the practice goes back to Judaism, where Mosaic laws prescribed the paying of tithes for the support of the Levites and temple service.

The book of Numbers (18:21) in the Old Testament states, “I have given the children of Levi all the tithes in Israel for an inheritance in return for the work which they perform.”

The practice was followed later by the Roman Catholic Church and revenues were used for the support of clergy, churches, and the poor. It became enjoined by ecclesiastical law from the sixth century onward and enforced by secular law starting in the eighth century. It provided the main source of funds for the building of the beautiful medieval cathedrals. Martin Luther approved of tithing, while the French Revolution repealed it. In contrast to Catholicism and Protestantism, however, the Orthodox Church did not accept the practice of tithing. As far as the United States is concerned, the practice of tithing was never enforced except by Mormons. Looking at Western Christianity in general, one can therefore see that tithing and zakah are similar, although the amount of the alms or religious tax has not been the same in the three Abrahamic faiths.

In Shi‘ite Islam in addition to zakah, there is also another obligatory religious tax called khums, meaning one fifth. Moreover, there are many other kinds of almsgiving common to all Muslims, such as s.adaqah, a sum given to the poor in gratefulness to God for the warding off of some danger or the receiving of a special blessing, or fit.riyyah, money given to the poor at the end of the month of Ramad.an. These forms of almsgiving must not, however, be confused with the zakah, which is obligatory and one of the “pillars” of Islam.

In general, theShari‘ah encourages giving(ithar) in the path of God, and Muslims agree completely with the dictum of the Gospels, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” Much of the social and economic life of Islamic society, in fact, continues to be financed through various forms of religious charity. The institution of waqf, or religious endowment, whose conditions are set forth in Islamic Law, has played the greatest role in Islamic history in the creation of public facilities, especially schools and hospitals.

Today in most Islamic countries the waqf is taken over by governments, but traditionally the waqf was like the endowments created and sustained by the private sector in America today, except that it was always of a religious character.

Pilgrimage: Thanks to radio and television broadcasts available globally, most of the world has now heard of the Muslim pilgrimage, the hajj, and most likely seen images of what is perhaps the largest annual religious gathering in the world. The hajj, which is obligatory at least once in a Muslim’s lifetime if he or she has the financial means and is physically able to perform it, involves pilgrimage to Mecca during a particular period in the lunar month of Dhu’lhijjah. The rite retraces the acts of Abraham after he rebuilt the Ka‘bah (the cubic structure at the center of Mecca considered by Muslims to be the most ancient sanctuary, built originally by Adam) and follows the model established by the Prophet. It is in a sense an Abrahamic rite within the final expression of monotheism, that is, Islam, which revived and reestablished pure Abrahamic monotheism.

The pilgrim, whether male or female, must wear a special white cloth, called ih. ram, before entering the sacred precinct around Mecca, within which only Muslims are allowed, a cloth that is often used later as one’s shroud. In becoming muh. rim, that is, clothed with this special cloth, men and women must leave the world behind. During the hajj they must abstain from sexual activity and devote themselves wholly to God, whose House, the Ka‘bah, they are visiting. Here all external distinctions are erased; king and peasant are dressed in the same manner. The complicated rites involve among other acts circumambulation around the Ka‘bah in a counterclockwise direction with the awareness that one is moving against the march of time and washing away from one’s soul all the dross that has accrued within as the result of the flow of time. Through these rites, which include the sacrifice of an animal symbolizing the sacrifice of one’s passionate soul before God, the pilgrim returns to the state of primordiality, or the Edenic state in which he or she was created, and God forgives that person’s sins if the hajj is performed with full sincerity and devotion. That is why many older people make the pilgrimage with the hope of dying in the process and therefore leaving this world cleansed of their sins. At the corner of the Ka‘bah is to be found the black stone that symbolizes the covenant between human beings and God. All pilgrims seek to kiss and touch it to remind themselves concretely of the primordial covenant they have made with God to accept the state of being human, which means to accept the Lordship of God and surrender to Him.

The hajj is both the means of purification of the individual and the integration of society. Muslims from all parts of the world are to be seen at the hajj. Today the over 2 million people who perform it each year come from all quarters of the world and include Arabs, Persians, and Turks as well as Black Africans and Malays, Chinese and Indo-Pakistanis as well as Germans and Americans, black-skinned as well as fair-skinned people, pilgrims with dark eyes as well as blue ones. Nowhere else in the world is the ethnic and racial diversity of the Islamic community unified in the surrender to the One God more evident than in Mecca during the hajj. Here, exchange of ideas and goods also takes place between Muslims from various parts of the world, and the Divine and Human Laws 137 hajj has been called by some Western scholars the world’s first international scientific congress as well as international economic fair. But more than anything else, through the hajj, pilgrims are purified and in returning home bring something of the grace, or barakah, of the Center to the farthest outreaches of the Islamic world.

With the global population explosion, the problem of accommodating all the pilgrims who wish to make the hajj has become acute. Although the number of pilgrims has now risen to over 2 million, this is still a small percentage of the 1.2 billion Muslims in the world, not all of whom, however, fulfill the conditions necessary to make the hajj.

The number of those who do qualify annually according to the Divine Law to make the hajj, however, is much larger than those given permission to perform it. There is therefore a great deal of pressure on most Muslim governments as well as on Saudi Arabia to permit more pilgrims every year,

while at the same time the very logistics of such a large gathering and the space limitations make it impossible to continue to increase the number of pilgrims. In view of the limitations, some Muslims make the pilgrimage to Mecca outside of the specified season to benefit from the grace of the visit to the House of God even if it is not during the days specified by Islamic Law.

The hajj, however, is not the only form of Islamic pilgrimage, but the only one that is obligatory according to theShari‘ah if certain conditions are fulfilled. Today in America, pilgrimage does not play such a central role in the religious life of Protestants, although there are still those who make pilgrimage to Jerusalem. As for Catholics, both in America and Europe there are still those who make pilgrimage to Jerusalem, Lourdes, or Rome, and in Central and South America to local shrines such as that of the Virgin of Guadalupe in Mexico City. In the Middle Ages, however, pilgrimage was much more common in the West, not only to Jerusalem, which served as the excuse for the Crusades, but also to many local sites such as Canterbury in England and Santiago de Compostela in Spain. The importance of pilgrimage in Islam today must be compared more to practices in the earlier eras of Christian history than those today, especially in America.

In the Islamic world, those who make the hajj also visit the tomb of the Prophet in Medina and before the 1967

Israeli takeover of Jerusalem, they also made pilgrimage in large numbers to this third holy city of Islam. Many local sites of pilgrimage are loci of grace associated with the tombs of descendants of the Prophet and the great saints.

All of these sites are so many extensions of Medina and expand the barakah of the city of the Prophet and his sacred remains to the various areas of the Islamic world.

Some of these sites are the tomb of Ah.mad Bamba in Touba, West Africa; the two Moulay Idrises in the proximity of Maknes and in Fez; the Mosque of the “Head of Husayn” in Cairo; the tomb of Sayyid Ah.mad Badawi, the patron saint of Egypt, in Tanta; and the “sacred stations” of Zaynab in Cairo and Damascus. The many holy sites in Iraq include the tomb of ‘Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani and the mausoleums of the Shi‘ite Imams, especially those of ‘Ali in Najaf and H. usayn in Karbala’. The mausoleum of Jalal al-Din Rumi in Konya, Turkey; the holy cities of Mashhad and Qom in Iran; the mausoleum of Khwajah ‘AbdAllah Ans.ari in Herat and that of Baha’ al-Din Naqshband near Bukhara; and the tombs of many of the great Sufi saints of the subcontinet of India such as that of Dadaji Ganjbakhsh in Lahore, Niz.am al-Din Awliya’ in Delhi, and Mu‘in al-Din Chishti in Ajmer, which are among the greatest sites of religious life in Islam. During annual commemorations of the death of these saints, often hundreds of thousands of people gather at these locations for religious rites and to receive blessings.

It is important to note that these sites of blessing are not limited to the sacred station(maqam) , or mausoleum, of males, but include those of females as well. In Cairo, after the Mosque of the “Head of H. usayn,” the most important sanctuary and center for pilgrims is the maqam of the

granddaughter of the Prophet, Zaynab, whose other maqam in Damascus is in many ways the religious center of the city. Also in Cairo, the mausoleum of Sayyidah Nafisah, a great scholar, saint, and descendant of the Prophet, is a major religious site. In Iran, after Mashhad, the city of Qom, which is the center of Twelve-Imam Shi‘ism, is the most important shrine in Iran because of the tomb of Had.rat-i Ma‘s.umah, the sister of Imam Rid.a, who is buried in Mashhad. And before the Wahhabis destroyed the mausoleums of the wife and daughter of the Prophet, Khadijah and Fat.imah, in the Hijaz, those sites were also major centers for pilgrimage. Naturally, these mausoleums of female saints are visited especially by women, but not exclusively.

Both men and women participate in large numbers in pilgrimage to all of these sites, whether they are associated with a male or female saintly figure.

Visits and pilgrimage to the tombs of saints is strongly opposed by Wahhabis and other puritanical reformers and also discouraged by modernists. The Wahhabi opposition is based on the idea that to visit the tomb of a saint is like idol worship and takes one’s attention away from the transcendence of God; modernists have discouraged such pilgrimages in order to secularize social life, but their opposition has never been as severe as that of the Wahhabis. Still, the practice of pilgrimage to various holy sites remains to this day at the heart of the religious life of the Islamic world.

One cannot understand the religious practice of Islam without paying attention to the significance of pilgrimage, which ranges hierarchically from the hajj and the pilgrimage to Medina to visitation of local sacred sites that exist in most Muslim lands. These “lesser” forms of pilgrimage do not, however, in any way detract from the centrality of the hajj, but are like so many foretastes and reflections of it.

The visit to the “House of God” remains supreme in the mind of Muslims when it comes to pilgrimage, and many visit it even outside the designated season in what is called ‘umrah. That is why today, when populations have increased and travel is easier, every day of the year there are numerous pilgrims in Mecca, and in the middle of any night during any season one finds thousands of pilgrims circumambulating around the Ka‘bah and praying before the house rebuilt by Abraham in celebration of the One God who in the Old Testament uttered, “I am That I am.”

Besides all these rites promulgated by theShari‘ah , there are also many other religious practices in Islam based on theSunnah of the Prophet and later traditional elaborations thereof. They include ritualized ways of feeding the poor, sessions of special prayers, ritualized sermons, sacrifice of animals whose meat is then distributed among the needy, and many other activities. In the traditional Islamic world, in fact, nearly every necessity of life is sanctified, and theShari‘ah considers even the earning of one’s daily bread a religious act. It is the totality of the obligatory rites as well as the recommended ones together with the sacralized forms of many different actions that constitute the Islamic way of life, in which, in principle, there is no distinction between the sacred and the profane and what we now call ordinary or everyday life is integrated into the matrix of the sacred.

Transactions It is precisely the all-embracing nature of theShari‘ah that has necessitated its dealing with what are called transactions (mu‘amalat)-social, environmental, economic, and political matters such as personal laws, the family, the neighbor, and so forth. Social teachings are dealt with in the next chapter, but here it is necessary to say a few words about the environmental, economic, and political teachings of theShari‘ah , some of which are parts of jurisprudence, or fiqh, and others principles to be applied by various generations of Muslims to specific situations in the absence of explicit legal rulings.

Environmental Teachings: The environmental crisis is primarily the consequence of an inner malaise and a whole worldview that gives human beings unlimited power over nature seen as a desacralized reality. This manner of looking at things has resulted in the reduction of nature to only a resource for economic production. As far as dealing with it on the social and legal planes is concerned, however, for Islam environmental matters may be said to be a legal issue already treated in principle in the sources and applications of Islamic Law, whereas in the West law seems to be trying to “catch up” with the problems caused by this crisis. The traditional Islamic worldview is totally opposed to the prevalent modern paradigm of the relation between human beings and nature, which has caused unprecedented harm to the natural environment, has led to the loss of many species, and now threatens the very future of human life on earth. Islam sees men and women as God’s vicegerents on earth. Therefore, in the same way that God has power over His creation but is also its sustainer and protector, human beings must also combine power over nature with responsibility for its protection and sustenance. The Quran is replete with references to nature, and the phenomena of nature are referred to as God’s signs and are therefore sacred. In traditional Islamic society human beings lived in remarkable harmony with their natural environment, as can be seen in the urban design of traditional Islamic cities and also in the life in the villages, which, as in other premodern parts of the world, is still based on remarkable harmony with the rhythms of nature and makes full use of what is now called recycling.

On the basis of the Quran andHadith , theShari‘ah has extensive teachings, both legal and moral, concerning the natural environment: the way that animals should be treated kindly, trees preserved and not cut unless absolutely necessary, vegetation guarded even in war, running water protected, and many other relevant issues. The Prophet himself was always very kind to animals. As for trees, he emphasized the significance of creating what is today called green space; He said, “It is a blessed act to plant a tree even if it be a day before the end of the world.” TheShari‘ah promulgates certain general principles concerning the environment, such as that of balance(mizan) between all parts of God’s creation, the prohibition of waste, and respect for all life forms, and specific injunctions, such as the creation of protected areas for wildlife.

But in many areas where crises have been created during the past century as a result of the advent of modern technology, overpopulation, economic plunder, and so on, specific Shari‘ite laws are missing. For some time the

Islamic world, like the rest of the non-Western world, neglected the environmental crisis and thought that it was a problem only for highly industrialized countries. As the dimensions of the crisis grew, however, the situation changed during the last two decades of the twentieth century. A whole new branch of theShari‘ah is now being developed on the basis of the traditional sources of the Divine Law to address the crucial problems posed by the environmental crisis in the Islamic world as elsewhere. From Nigeria to Malaysia, legal scholars are applying themselves to these issues, and this branch of theShari‘ah is one of the most challenging and dynamic aspects of it in the present day.

Economic Teachings: Before modern times there was no such thing as economics among the Islamic sciences, just as it was not part of European divisions of learning before the Renaissance. Both civilizations knew the Latin word oeconomicus (itself of Greek origin), from which the modern word is derived, but understood it in its original sense of managing the affairs of one’s household. The modern Arabic word for economics, al-iqtis.ad, in fact, had the completely different meaning of “moderation” or the “just mean” in classical Arabic and is part of the title of one of the most famous works of Islamic theology by al-Ghazzali.

One could not say, of course, that there was no economics in Islam, but the area or activity known as economics as we understand it today was never isolated by itself in Islamic society. It was always combined with ethics and was seen as an organic part of the life of human beings, all of which should be dominated by ethical principles. That is why the very acceptance of economics as an independent domain, not to speak of as the dominating factor in life according to the prevailing paradigms in the modern world, is devastating to the Islamic view of human life.

If we were to accept the modern definition of economics, then we could say that the Quran has many verses that refer to economic life, including questions of inheritance, religious tax, opposition to excessive amassing of wealth, and so forth. It also contains, as does theHadith , numerous ethical teachings that bear directly upon economic life and are incorporated into theShari‘ah . These include opposition to greed, the importance of honesty in all economic transactions, the inviolability of private property, and so on. As far as property is concerned, in principle “all property belongs to God,” but God has given human beings the right to possess their own property, although a limit is set on the right to private property when it comes to what is meant for everyone and should remain public such as mountains, forests, and rivers.

TheShari‘ah promulgates a work ethic of central importance to economic life. The Quran states, “O ye who have faith! Be faithful to your covenants (‘uqud)” (5:1). This verse connects work ethics explicitly to human religious life. Covenants can be between human beings and God, between the human being and his or her own soul, or between an individual or group and another person or group. The third covenantal relationship is at the foundation of Islamic work ethics, but at the same time is inseparable from the other two. On the basis of this and other verses, theShari‘ah teaches that in all economic transactions the two sides must strictly observe

the conditions on the basis of which a transaction is to take place. Both the employer and employee or the buyer and seller have a responsibility to keep their covenant, and the manner in which they carry out a transaction affects their soul as well as their relation to God.

As far as the relation between employer and employee is concerned, theShari‘ah emphasizes the significance of personal relationship and recommends fairness and kindness on the part of the employer, who is in a position of power over the employee. According to ahadith , a worker should be paid wages due before the sweat on his or her brow has dried. This personal relationship in economic transactions is so emphasized in Islamic civilization that to this day, even amid modern impersonal economic practices, most Muslims still rely on and trust personal contact above all else.

This personal relationship was of course also very much emphasized in the production of goods, as we see in the guilds, to which we turn in the next chapter.

TheShari‘ah , moreover, opposes certain economic practices, some of which are forbidden and others discouraged.

The practice of usury (riba’) is forbidden in the Quran and according to Islamic Law, as it was forbidden in the Roman Empire, in Europe in the Middle Ages, and even in England before Henry VIII. The excessive amassing of wealth, to which the Quran refers in terms of gold and silver is also forbidden, as is dealing with substances that are themselves haram, such as making or selling alcoholic beverages. Such acts are considered both illegal and sinful. Altogether theShari‘ah envisages a society in which economic life is organic, based on the flow of goods and capital through various parts of society like the blood circulating through the human body.

In contrast to the Christian West, where mercantile activity was looked down upon up until the Renaissance, in the Islamic world from the beginning trade and economic transactions were seen in a positive light from the religious point of view. The Prophet himself had originally been a merchant, as had his wife Khadijah, and throughout Islamic history the merchant class associated with the bazaar has been among the most pious in Islamic urban areas, as have been farmers living in the countryside and villages. Traditional Islamic society succeeded in creating a notable integration of economic life and religion. It is also important to remember that in the economic domain, participation was not limited to men and integration concerned the whole of society. Women were active in the production of many goods from agricultural products to carpets and also as merchants and property owners. TheShari‘ah has given economic rights to women that did not exist in any large society, including the West, until very recently.

There has been a great deal of effort during the past few decades to study the economic principles and injunctions (in the Western sense) contained in theShari‘ah , which many now call Islamic economics, and to put them into practice. Interest-free banks, called Islamic banks, have been created in several Islamic countries and in the West and interest-free loans made available. But the deeper issues have rarely been tackled in the face of

problems created by the fact that the Islamic world is forced to be involved in a global economic system based on very different tenets and presumptions. But the field remains, nevertheless, among the most lively on the contemporary Islamic intellectual and religious scene.

Political Teachings: The Quran does not outline a particular political structure, but presents certain basic principles for rule, the most important of which is consultation, or shawra, as stated in the verse, “and consult with them concerning conduct in affairs” (3:159). The rule of the Prophet in Medina and the document called the Constitution of Medina are also central to all later Islamic political thought and action, but, again, this constitution does not outline a particular form of government in the absence of the Prophet, who was both prophet and ruler of the community. What the Quran andHadith emphasize, however, is that the domain of politics cannot be separated from that of religion, which, however, must not be interpreted as “church” in the Western sense of the term. In America one always speaks of the separation of church and state, although religion itself has never been totally separated from political life from the time of the writing of the American Constitution onward. In Europe, during the premodern period there were always two powers, the papacy and the empire or monarchy, and the latter received its religious legitimacy and investiture from the former. Later, states became secularized, especially after the French Revolution, but in many countries state religions have been maintained to this day, and in Great Britain the monarch is still the head of the Church of England.

None of these models apply, however, to the Islamic world, where there is no church or pope and where the classical caliphate was neither like the papacy nor like the emperorship of the Holy Roman Empire. Some have said that the Islamic model is a theocracy, but this is not exactly true as this term has been understood in the context of Western history or even that of ancient Egypt or classical Japan. A theocracy means the rule of the priesthood or the priestly class, of whom the ruler is the head or leader. In Islam, however, there is no priesthood comparable to that found in Christianity, Hinduism, or Buddhism; the closest class in Islamic society to priests is the ‘ulama’, or religious scholars, who are knowledgeable in the Divine Law and serve as its guardians and interpreters. Moreover, except for Iran since the Revolution of 1979, the ‘ulama’ have never ruled directly over Islamic society, and even in Iran, the rule of the jurisprudent (wilayat-i faqih) is modified by the presence of an elected parliament. In any case, facile comparisons between the views of Christian fundamentalists concerning “theocracy” and Islamic views of government are simply false. Technically speaking, the Islamic ideal is that of a nomocracy, that is, the rule of Divine Law. It is true that all power, including political power, belongs ultimately to God, as the Quran states, “The command rests with none but God” (6:57; 12:40). But in the case of Islam, the rule of God was never associated with the rule of the priestly class; rather, it was associated with that of theShari‘ah . The Islamic Republic of Iran is the first case in Islamic history in which the religious ‘ulama’, the closest one can come in Islam to a priestly class, has ruled directly over a major Islamic country.

During Islamic history, first the institution of the caliphate and then that of the sultanate were developed in Sunni Islam. Shi‘ism rejected the caliphate as a political institution, but accepted the sultanate, or monarchy, as the least imperfect form of government in the absence of the Mahdi. This was even the view of Ayatollah Khomeini in his earlier writings, before he turned against the institution of the monarchy in favor of the new concept of the “rule of the jurisprudent” (wilayat-i faqih). In any case, in all the different forms of government, the ruler sought legitimacy by protecting theShari‘ah , or at least claiming to do so, and seeking the backing of those who were the custodians of theShari‘ah , namely, the ‘ulama’. Even the legitimacy of the monarchy relied not so much on blood, as in Europe, but on the ability to preserve order and to protect theShari‘ah . Of course, many rulers did not follow the teachings of theShari‘ah , which in principle applied to them as to everyone else. But the ideal of protecting and preserving theShari‘ah was always there, and, in fact, in practice theShari‘ah often served as a shield for the protection of the people against the whims of powerful authoritarian rulers, although there were, again, exceptions.

In Islamic political theory, the role of the government is always limited, and in practice such major areas as justice, health, and education were left to the private sector before the rise of modern states in the Islamic world. Rule was also usually personal, and before modern times caliphs and kings would hold regular sessions with their ordinary subjects during which the petitions of the latter were received and answered. Today there is much talk of Islam and democracy. If democracy is understood as the rule of the will of the people, then there were mechanisms in traditional Islamic society where the will of the people was reflected to the ruling class, including the caliph or sultan, and it definitely played a role in those governments that were successful and that endured. If it means the particular institutions developed during the past few centuries in the West, then there is no parallel for them in premodern Islamic history, no more than there is for them in premodern Japan, China, or India. Although many Islamic countries have tried to introduce Western models of democracy during the past century, usually with little success, and although there is much turmoil in this domain today, the one principle that remains clear to all Muslims is that sovereignty belongs ultimately to God as expressed in the Divine Law and an Islamic society is one in which this sovereignty is accepted; but that still leaves a vast domain in which the people can exercise their views and act freely as long as they do not oppose the Divine Law.

With the fall of the Ottoman caliphate and the many twentieth-century revolutions based on the European model that followed, the whole question of political rule in its relation to Islamic teachings, the wishes of the people, and the form that an Islamic government should take has become central. There is today great confusion and turmoil in the Islamic world on this matter. Some have adopted Western republican models, others have continued the older form of sultanate or monarchy, and yet others want to revive the caliphate. It will take some time before Islamic civilization can again develop its own authentic political forms, a task that is being made

much more difficult today by the fact that it is under constant external pressure and is not able to create institutions based on the inner dynamic of Islamic society. Paradoxically, many Western-oriented Islamic countries that are praised in the West for having “secularist” governments do not allow Western-style democratic practices; if they did in the sense of allowing people to really express their preferences, the result would be a much more Islamic government as far as the rule of theShari‘ah is concerned. This is because the vast majority of all Muslims, even in the most Westernized and modernized countries, would like to live according to theShari‘ah and to have their own freedom and democracy on the basis of their own understanding of these concepts and ideals rather than on how they are understood in the modern and postmodern West.

PUNISHMENTS AND RESTRICTIVE ORDINANCES

To speak of law is also to speak of restrictive ordinances and statutes (h. udud), or punishment, under that law. Of course, to disobey the Divine Law is a sin, but it also has its legal consequences in this world, as we also see in Jewish law. In the modern world, religious statutes of this kind are often called “medieval” and “barbaric” on the basis of the idea that through progress people have now become much more “civilized” and “humane”-as if waiting on death row for a dozen years and then being executed is a lesser torture than being hanged shortly after being found guilty. And usually this criticism is immediately leveled at the Islamic restrictive ordinances. To make the situation clear it is necessary to point out, however, that these statutes and ordinances, called hudud in Islamic Law, are fewer than in Jewish Law, where thirty-six crimes such as adultery, sodomy, idolatry, sorcery, and murder are punishable by death by hanging, beheading, burning, or strangling. I mention especially Jewish Law, because according to Islam, the Jewish laws brought by the Hebrew prophets remained valid as long as they were not abrogated by Islamic laws. A case in point is the stoning of an adulterer or adulteress, which is not mentioned in the Quran, but which was a Jewish practice that was continued in Islam with the addition of restrictions to the conditions needed to prove guilt in a Shari‘ite court.

The Quran says, “He [God] is the most swift of reckoners” (6:62), and many verses of the Quran, such as 2:187, 229, 230 and 4:13-14, are concerned with ordinances, or hudud, which literally means “limits” set by God. For example, “Those who disobey God and His Messenger and transgress His limits (h. udud) will be admitted to a fire, to abide therein: and they shall have a humiliating punishment” (4:14). Quranic punishment, based on the concept that God is just and the reckoner of our deeds, involves acts forbidden in the Sacred Text; such acts are both illegal and a sin against God. These acts include illicit sexual intercourse and false accusation of it, drinking wine, theft, robbery, and murder. According to theShari‘ah , the punishment for adultery is stoning, but there has to be either a confession by the party or parties involved or four just witnesses.

That is why such a punishment has been extremely rare in traditional Islamic society. Punishment for theft and highway robbery, if it involves homicide, is death by sword or hanging, and if it does not, the amputation of a finger or in extreme cases a hand or foot. But many other conditions, according to some jurists twelve in number, have to be met before the punishment of amputation can be carried out. That is why this punishment has also been very rare.

For lesser cases there is flogging. The punishment for murder is death unless the family of the victim accepts blood money. Although these are transgressions against God, repentance is accepted and theHadith strongly limits the application of hudud, as we also see in the case of Jewish Law. In a Shari‘ite court, proof of offense is made very difficult, and the judge or qad.i, is even permitted to accept the withdrawal of confessions. Many religious scholars, over the ages, have given the edict that the punishment for theft should only be carried out in a society that is Islamically just from

the economic point of view and that it should not be applied to a petty thief who has stolen because of poverty and dire need.

Although a great deal is made today in the West of the extreme nature of such punishments in certain so-called fundamentalist countries, little is said about how rare, in fact, such punishments are in the Islamic world as a whole.

More important, few want to face the fact that the number of people who die or are seriously injured in crimes involving theft and rape in America is far greater than the number of people punished for theft or adultery in a land such as Saudi Arabia, where they deal severely with these matters.

In trying to understand the Shari‘ite restrictive ordinances, one must do so in the context of the historical reality of Islam and in light of all the mitigating circumstances that limit them in practice. Furthermore, it is important to see such matters not in the matrix of what is popular in the West today, but also in relation to the whole history of the West and the punishments meted out until only recently in both Europe and America for various crimes. The Islamic world is in the process of observing and studying the recent changes in the West in these matters and will not follow the same course as has the West, if the results of current social and legal experiments in Europe and America do not succeed in noticeably diminishing the crimes for which various societies, including the Islamic, had set punishments over the ages.

CHAPTER TWO: THE SPECTRUM OF ISLAM

Sunnism, Shi‘ism, and Sufism and Traditional, Modernist, and “Fundamentalist” Interpretations of Islam Today

O, mankind! Verily We have created you maleand female, and have made you nations and tribes that ye may know each other.

(Quran, XLIX:13)

Differences between the scholars of my community are a mercy from God.

Hadith

ISLAMIC PATTERNS

Often in the West Islam is depicted as a monolith, and little attention is paid to the rich diversity within both the religion and civilization of Islam. Recent events, however, have made the Islamic world the focus of much attention. Although the attempt by the media to deal more with Islam is laudable, what is presented is usually highly selective and politically charged, dominated by the Arab-Israeli conflict and extremism manifesting itself in threats or acts of terror.

Therefore, despite greater interest in covering matters pertaining to Islam, the reductionist message associated with extremism continues to dominate the scene, hiding from the Western public the great diversity of the Islamic world and the multiple interpretations of the Islamic religion.

The vast world of Islam is actually like a Persian medallion carpet; it has incredible diversity and complexity, yet it is dominated by a unity into which all the complex geometric and arabesque patterns are integrated. This complexity can be better understood if one views it as the superimposition of a number of patterns upon the plane of the carpet.

In the vast world of Islam also, one can gain a better grasp of the whole by separating the patterns and seeing how each is related to vertical and horizontal dimensions of the religion of Islam itself as well as to cultural, ethnic, and linguistic factors. Then reuniting the patterns and seeing how they all fit together yields a vision of the total spectrum of Islam, in which unity leads to diversity and diversity is integrated into unity.

FACTORS THAT CREATE UNITY

Before turning to the components of the Islamic spectrum and the question of diversity, let us first ask which factors have created and sustain unity in the Islamic world. Despite political fragmentation, theological differences, and ethnic distinctions, there is a strong sense of the unity of the Islamic community(ummah) and a constant desire for greater political unity within the “Abode of Islam” (dar al-islam ) in the hearts of all Muslims, and there is, of course, a visible unity in Islamic civilization.

The central factor in the creation of unity among Muslims is the Quran. For all Muslims, it is the very Word of God, with the same text, which is chanted as well as read and written, and the same message for all Muslims, although interpretations of that message differ among various Muslim groups and there are levels of meaning to the text.

Then there are theSunnah and Hadith of the Prophet, which are very powerful unifying factors, although again there are local variations of interpretation of certain facts and features of the Prophet’s life, actions, and words.

Despite these variations in the understanding of the twin sources of the Islamic religion, that is, the Quran and theSunnah (along with the H.adith), there are three central doctrines upon which all schools of Islam agree, namely tawhid, or Divine Oneness, nubuwwah, or prophecy, and ma‘ad, or eschatology, to which we shall turn in Chapter 6.

Only very small groups here and there have deviated from these basic principles, which are the source of Islam’s sapiential and practical teachings

and whose unifying power can hardly be overestimated. Those who have deviated from these basic doctrines have sometimes brought about civil and religious crises within the community and sometimes even violence.

Another unifying factor is Islamic Law, or theShari‘ah , which is interpreted according to different schools but the basic elements of which are the same throughout the Islamic world, especially as they concern the rites of the religion.

These rites, which consist of the five daily prayers performed in Arabic whether one is in Malaysia or Bosnia, the annual pilgrimage (h. ajj) made from all parts of the Islamic world, the fast of the month of Ramad.an carried out by all healthy adult Muslims throughout the seven climes, the tithe paid to the poor, and other religious acts, bind Muslims together wherever they might be. Over the ages the ethical norms related to theShari‘ah , the injunctions of the Quran and Sunnah, and the spiritual etiquette, or adab, associated with ethics and based on the Prophetic model have also acted as powerful integrating forces. To these must be added the presence of Sufi orders, which cut across confessional and ethnic boundaries and which, basing themselves by definition on the Unity that transcends all multiplicity, have been a major factor in the integration of Islamic society. Finally, on the plane of forms, one must mention Islamic art, from the chanting of the Quran to geometric patterns found on articles and structures, an art that, despite local differences, has its own unique genius and has played a very important role in bringing about unity on the physical plane while permitting local variations and cultural diversity.

SOURCES OF DIVERSITY: THE HIERARCHICAL LEVELS OF MEANING AND INTERPRETATION OF THE TRADITION

To understand the sources of diversity in the Islamic world, one must first of all turn to the hierarchy within the religion of Islam itself. The total religion called Islam may be said to consist of the levels of islam, iman, and ihsan, or surrender, faith, and spiritual beauty. The Quran refers often to the muslim, the possessor of surrender, the mu’min, the possessor of faith, and the muh. sin, the possessor of virtue.

Although the Quran emphasizes that all Muslims stand equally before God, it also insists that human beings are distinguished in rank according to their knowledge of the truth and virtue, as in the verses, “Are those who know equal with those who know not?” (39:9), to which the Quran gives the resounding answer of no, and, “Verily, those of you most close to God are those who are the best in conduct” (59:13). These verses refer to degrees of perfection of believers, as one sees also in Christianity, and do not imply in any way exclusion, ostracism, or support for violence against certain groups.

Later Islamic sages, especially the Sufis, have also spoken of the hierarchy of theShari‘ah , or the Divine Law, the Tariqah, or the spiritual path, the Haqiqah, or the Divine Truth, which is the origin of both. Islam is then envisaged as a circle whose center is the Haqiqah. The radii of the circle are the turuq (plural of Tariqah), later identified with the Sufi orders, and the circumference is theShari‘ah . Each Muslim is like a point on the

circumference, whose totality composes the Islamic community, or ummah. To reach the Haqiqah, one must first stand on the circumference, that is, practice theShari‘ah , and then follow the Tariqah, or Path to God, whose end is the Center, God Himself, or the Haqiqah.

In a famous tradition of the Prophet known as the hadith of Gabriel, this primary vertical structure and hierarchy, which does not in any way obviate the reality that each Muslim stands as his or her own priest before God, is made evident:

‘Umar said, “One day when we were sitting with the Messenger of God there came unto us a man whose clothes were of exceeding whiteness and whose hair was of exceeding blackness, nor were there any signs of travel upon him, although none of us knew him.

He sat down knee unto knee opposite the Prophet, upon whose thighs he placed the palms of his hands, saying: ‘O Muhammad, tell me what is the surrender(islam) .’ The Messenger of God answered him saying:

‘The surrender is to testify that there is no god but God and that Muhammad is God’s Messenger, to perform the prayer, bestow alms, fast Ramad.an and make, if thou canst, the pilgrimage to the Holy House.’ He said: ‘Thou hast spoken truly,’ and we were amazed that having questioned him he should corroborate him. Then he said: ‘Tell me what is faith(iman) .’ He answered: ‘To believe in God and His Angels and His Books and His Messengers and the Last Day, and to believe that no good or evil cometh but by His Providence.’

‘Thou hast spoken truly,’ he said, and then:

‘Tell me what is excellence(ihsan) .’ He answered: ‘To worship God as if thou sawest Him, for if thou seest Him not, yet seeth He thee.’ ‘Thou hast spoken truly,’ he said. . Then the stranger went away, and I stayed a while after he had gone; and the Prophet said to me: ‘O, ‘Umar, knowest thou the questioner, who he was?’ I said: ‘God and His Messenger know best.’

He said: ‘It was Gabriel. He came unto you to teach you your religion.’”1

It is clear from this hadith clarifying din, or religion, for Muslims that islam encompasses what is expected of all Muslims in the acceptance and performance of the “pillars”(arkan) of Islam, with which we shall deal later. Iman, or faith, involves not only belief in the ordinary sense in God, His angels, messengers, His revealed books, and the eschatological (end-time) realities, but also knowledge of these matters, and it was into this dimension of the Islamic tradition that intellectual disciplines such as theology and traditional philosophy were integrated. As for ihsan, it is obvious that not everyone can worship God as if they saw Him. This is the station of the saintly, and ihsan, which means both “virtue” and “beauty,” is associated with the spiritual path that leads to sanctity and is considered practically a definition of Sufism.

Not everyone who is a muslim is amu’min and not everyone who is amu’min is a muh. sin, but a muh. sin must also be amu’min and amu’min a muslim. Reference to this hierarchical distinction is also made in some sources as the exoteric, or outward (z.ahir), and esoteric, or inward (bat.in), dimensions of the tradition. In any case, throughout Islamic history there have been the ordinary believers, or muslims, those of intense piety, or

mu’mins , and those who have sought God here and now, or muh. sins, about whom the Quran says, “God loves the muh. sinin” (3:133, and many other verses). Ihsan later became crystallized almost completely but not exclusively in Sufism, which can still be found throughout the Islamic world. Serious attachment to Sufism also requires attachment to theShari‘ah , and therefore a person who is a Sufi must also be the follower of this or that school of Law. Some Shari‘ite Muslims may reject Sufism, especially today among both modernized and so-called fundamentalist or reformist circles, but the Sufis show the greatest attachment to theShari‘ah , whose inner significance they seek to reach. And they must of necessity follow one of its schools.

It is meaningless to ask, as many Western scholars and especially anthropologists have done, whether a particular Muslim is a Sunni or a Sufi, or for that matter a Shi‘ite or a Sufi. A Sunni or a Shi‘ite can be a Sufi or not a Sufi, but the situation is not one of alternatives, because these dimensions of the religion are not situated on the same level of reality. That is why the presence of Sufism has never been a cause for division in traditional Islamic society. In contrast, it has been a cause of integration and the return to that inner unity whose attainment is the goal of Islam. The first division in the structure of the religion must, in fact, be sought not in the difference between Shari‘ite Islam and Sufism, but in the separation of Sunnism and Shi‘ism from each other in the first century of Islamic history. The Sunni-Shi‘ite division is the most important in the formal structure of Islam, although even this division does not destroy the unity of Islam and both share the unifying elements already mentioned. Moreover, Sufism, representing the inner dimension of the religion, transcends this dichotomy. Not only are there Sunnis as well as Shi‘ites who are Sufis, but Shi‘ism and Sufism also share together the original inner message of the Prophet and the power of spiritual and initiatic guidance (walayah/wilayah), so that the situation is somewhat more complex than stated. But for the present discussion it suffices to say that Sufism, or the Tariqah, belongs to the inner dimension of Islam and transcends Shari‘ite differences, and Sunnism and Shi‘ism mark a division within Islam on the formal and legal level.

While on the subject of Sufism, it must be recalled here that Sufism has had the greatest role in the spread of Islam itself, in addition to its vital function in the preservation and purification of ethical life, the creation of the arts, and the exposition of unitive knowledge (ma‘rifah) and metaphysics within Islamic society. From the eleventh and twelfth centuries onward, Sufism became organized in orders usually named after their founders; older ones, such as the Rifa‘iyyah and Qadiriyyah, which still survive, were followed by many later ones, such as the Shadhiliyyah, the Khalwatiyyah, the Mawlawiyyah, the Chishtiyyah, the Naqshbandiyyah, and the Ni‘matullahiyyah. Some of the orders have died out over time and occasionally new ones are created, but they all rely on the continuity of the “initiatic” chain, or silsilah, which goes back to the Prophet.

There is hardly an Islamic country in which Sufi orders are not to be found, and since the beginning of the twentieth century some orders, beginning with the Shadhiliyyah, have spread into Europe and America. In

some countries, such as Senegal and the Sudan, the Sufi orders are so popular that people’s identification on the Shari‘ite level is often combined with their Tariqah affiliation. Such a situation is found, however, only in Sunnism and not in Shi‘ism, unless one identifies the Isma‘ili branch of Shi‘ism as a Tariqah in itself, as many Isma‘ilis themselves tend to do.

It is important to recall here the fact that, in contrast to the claim of those who only look at the quantitative aspects of things and consider the esoteric element of religion to be marginal and peripheral, the esoteric dimension actually lies at the heart of religion and is the source of both its endurance and renewal. We observe this truth not only in Islam, but also in the Kabbalistic and Hasidic traditions in Judaism and various mystical currents in Christianity. In Islam itself, Sufism has been over the centuries the hidden heart that has renewed the religion intellectually, spiritually, and ethically and has played the greatest role in its spread and in its relation with other religions.

SUNNISM AND SHI ‘ISM AND THEIR BRANCHES

Today about 87 percent of all Muslims are Sunnis and about 13 percent are Shi‘ite. The Sunni majority within Islam is the largest in comparison with any denomination in other religions, such as Catholicism within Christianity and Mahayana within Buddhism. But the Shi‘ite population is located almost completely in the heartland of Islam, that is, in the area between Egypt and India. Such countries as Iran, Iraq, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, and Islamic Lebanon have majority Shi‘ite populations, and India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, the Persian Gulf states, and East Africa have notable Shi‘ite minorities. Both intellectually and historically, Shi‘ism has played a much greater role in the Islamic world than its number might warrant, and the accord or discord between Sunnism and Shi‘ism today is one of the most important factors in contemporary Islamic society.

The word sunni in Arabic comes from the term ahl alsunnah wa’l-jama‘ah, that is, people who followed theSunnah of the Prophet and the majority, while Shi‘ism comes from the Arabic term shi‘at ‘Ali, meaning partisans of ‘Ali ibn AbiTalib. After the death of the Prophet, while ‘Ali, his son-in-law and first cousin, and the rest of the family were burying him, the rest of the community gathered in Medina and chose Abu Bakr as the Prophet’s successor, not in his prophetic function but as ruler of the newly established Islamic community. He was thereby given the title of khalifah rasulAllah , or the vicegerent of the Messenger of God, from which comes the title caliph, taken not only by the first four caliphs, who are called the “rightly guided”(rashidun) , but also by later Muslim rulers of the Umayyad, ‘Abbasid, and Fat.imid dynasties and even by the Ottomans. A number of people thought that ‘Ali should have become the Prophet’s successor and rallied around him, forming the first nucleus of Shi‘ism. ‘Ali himself refused to oppose Abu Bakr and in fact worked closely with him and his two successors, ‘Umar and ‘Uthman, until he himself became the fourth of the “rightly guided” caliphs of Sunni Islam. It was only after his death at the hands of a member of the Khawarij, an extremist group that rejected the claims of both Mu‘awiyyah, who had contested the caliphate of ‘Ali, and ‘Ali himself, that Shi‘ism became an organized religio-political movement in Iraq.

The major point of contention between Sunnism and Shi‘ism was not only the question of who should succeed the Prophet, but the question of what the qualifications of such a person had to be. For Sunnism, the function of the caliph was to protect the borders of Islam, keep security and peace, appoint judges, and so forth. For the Shi‘ites, such a person also had to have the deepest knowledge of Islamic Law as well as esoteric knowledge of the Quran and Prophetic teachings. He could therefore not be elected, but had to be chosen by the Prophet through Divine command.

The Shi‘ites believe that this investiture did in fact occur at the pool of water called Ghadir Khumm when the Prophet was returning to Medina from pilgrimage to Mecca. According to Shi‘ites, the person chosen by him was ‘Ali, whom they consider their first Imam, using this term in the special sense of someone who bears the Muh.ammadan Light (al-nur al-muh. ammadi) and the power of initiation within himself and who is master of

both the exoteric and the esoteric sciences. Otherwise the term imam, coming from the root meaning “standing before or in front,” is used in general for the person who leads the daily prayers, and in Sunni Islam also as an honorific title given to great religious scholars such as, for example, Imam al-Ghazzali, one of the foremost theologians and Sufis in Islamic history. Sunni authors have also occasionally referred to the caliph as imam, but all of these meanings must be distinguished from the specific Shi‘ite usage of the term.

The understanding of the term imam therefore differs greatly in Sunnism and Shi‘ism. In Sunni Islam the term has many uses, but it is never used in the mystical and esoteric sense given to it in Shi‘ism. In Shi‘ism, the Imam, like the prophets, is inerrant (ma‘s.um) and protected from sin by God. He possesses perfect knowledge of both the Law and the Way, both the outer and inner meaning of the Quran. He also possesses the power of initiation (walayah/wilayah ) and is the spiritual guide par excellence, like the Sufi masters within their orders. In fact, the first eight Shi‘ite Imams are also central spiritual authorities or poles of Sufism and appear in the initiatic chain of nearly every Sufi order. ‘Ali, who is the representative par excellence of Islamic esoteric teachings, is not only the first Imam of Shi‘ism, but also at the origin of the initiatic chain of nearly all Sufi orders. There are in fact many Sunnis, such as the majority of Egyptians, almost all of whom are Sunnis, who have the same love and respect for the Shi‘ite Imams and the Ahl al-bayt, that is, members of the family of the Prophet with whom the Imams and Shi‘ism itself are associated, as do Persian or Iraqi Shi‘ites.

As far as Sunnism is concerned, its followers are divided according to the schools of Law(madhhab) they follow. In the eighth and ninth centuries the schools of fiqh, or jurisprudence, were codified by the doctors of the Law.

Some of these codifications or schools died out, but four have survived during the past millennium and constitute the main body of traditional Sunnism. They are the Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi‘i, and Hanbali. Hanafism was founded by a Persian, Imam Abu Hanifah (d. 768), who was a student of Imam Ja‘far al-Sadiq (d.757), the sixth Imam of Shi‘ism and founder of Twelve-Imam Shi‘ite Law, which is called Ja‘fari Law. Imam Abu Hanifah sought to create possibilities for the integration of local practices into the Law as much as possible. His school held great attraction from the beginning for Turks as well as Muslims of the Indian subcontinent. Today the Hanafi School has the largest number of followers in the Sunni world, including most Sunni Turks, the Turkic people of Caucasia and Central Asia, European Muslims, and the Muslims of the Indian subcontinent. As for the Sunni part of Afghanistan, its people are, like the Sunnis of Pakistan, mostly Hanafi, and this is one of the elements that especially links the eastern part of Afghanistan to Pakistan.

Malikism, founded by Imam Malik ibn Anas (d. 795), is based mostly on the practice of Medina and is very conservative in its approach to the Law. There have been some Malikis in the Arab East and especially in Egypt, but the heart of Malikism is North Africa. In fact, the whole of Islamic North and West Africa outside of Egypt is solidly Maliki, and this legal

homogeneity has made an important contribution to the cultural unity of the area, which in traditional Islamic geography is called al-Maghrib, or the West, the name that is now used for the “Far West” of the Islamic world, that is, Morocco.

The Shafi‘i School was founded by a student of Imam Abu H. anifah, Imam Muh.ammad al-Shafi‘i (d. 820). It is he who completed and perfected the methods of jurisprudence in Islamic Law. In many ways, of the different Sunni schools of Law, his school is the closest to the Ja‘fari School. Buried in Cairo, he is greatly loved and admired by Egyptians, nearly all of whom are Shafi‘is, as are many others south of Egypt as well as most of the Malays in Southeast Asia, whether they are in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, or Thailand.

The Hanbali School, founded by Imam Ah.mad ibn Hanbal (d. 855) from Baghdad, based itself solely on the Quran and Hadith and gave a very strict interpretation of theShari‘ah . Although in days of old it had many followers in Iraq, Persia, and other lands, in recent times its adherents have been confined mostly to Syria. Wahhabism, which is dominant in Saudi Arabia, is an offshoot of H. anbalism, but must not be simply identified with it. Wahhabism, which arose as a reformist movement in the eighteenth century in Najd in southern Arabia, opposed the later refinements of Islamic culture in the form of philosophy and theology as well as the arts; in the domain of religion itself it strongly opposed both Sufism and Shi‘ism, the visit to the tombs of saints, and intercession by saints before God for an individual believer. It was opposed not only by Shi‘ites, but also by orthodox Sunnis, and in the nineteenth century the Ottoman caliph even sent an army to defeat the movement. But through an alliance made between the Wahhabi scholars and the House of Sa‘ud, the movement was kept alive in Najd until the beginning of the twentieth century, when it began to consolidate political power. After World War I it captured Hijaz, where Mecca and Medina are located, and created the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. As a result of this historical process, Wahhabism became accepted throughout Saudi Arabia as the official interpretation of Islam. Despite its opposition to mainstream Sunni Islam, Shi‘ite, and Sufism, however, Wahhabism was not in itself always violent, although it was quite exoteric and exclusivist in its interpretation of Islam. Its influence remained, however, confined to Saudi Arabia until the increased wealth in the kingdom due to income from oil made it possible for Wahhabi schools and mosques to be established in many other areas of the world. But even then its influence remained limited, and today the vast majority of Sunnis cannot in any way be described as Wahhabi, not to speak of Shi‘ites, who have always opposed Wahhabism. Within Arabia itself during the past two decades there has been a notable opening in certain religious circles toward other schools of Islam, both Sunni and Shi‘ite, although the influence of Wahhabism is still dominant.

The four founders of the traditional schools of Sunni Law mentioned above are highly respected and revered by all Sunnis. Converting from one school to another takes place occasionally, and in modern times some governments have drawn from various schools, including the Shi‘ism, to create civil laws in their countries. The difference between the Sunni

schools of Law and the Ja‘fari or other Shi‘ite schools of Law is minor, especially when it comes to the practice of rites. In certain fields, such as laws of inheritance or the legality of temporary marriage, there are, however, notable differences.

As for Shi‘ism, although one could distinguish the various schools from each other on the basis of their legal orientation, a more telling criterion for distinction, used by Muslims themselves as well as by Western scholars, is the position each branch of Shi‘ism takes on the Imams. After ‘Ali, his son H. asan became Imam. He lived a quiet, politically inactive life in Medina disseminating knowledge of the Quran, but his brother H. usayn, who became the third Imam, arose against Yazid, the son of Mu‘awiyyah, who had opposed ‘Ali and who had founded the Umayyad caliphate with its capital in Damascus. H. usayn was invited to go to Iraq by the people of the Iraqi city of Kufa, who promised to support him. And so in the year 680 he set out with his family and many followers from Medina for Iraq. Before reaching Kufa, however, he was met by the army of Yazid in Karbala’, where he and all the male members of the family of the Prophet, save Zayn al-‘Abidin, who was ill, were killed. H. usayn’s body was interred in Karbala’ and his head brought to Damascus, but Yazid, afraid of the reactions that might follow, tried to distance himself from the incident and exiled Zaynab, the sister of H. usayn, to Egypt with the head of her brother. According to Sunni tradition, she buried the head at a site that became the heart of what was later to become the city known as al-Qahirah, or Cairo.

This tragic event crystallized the Shi‘ite movement in Iraq and later elsewhere, especially in Persia, and finally led to the downfall of the Umayyads. To this day the tragedy of Karbala’ is commemorated on the tenth of Muh. arram in many countries, especially Iran, Iraq, the Indo-Pakistani subcontinent, and Lebanon, and these events are the most notable popular religious ceremonies in Islam after the annual pilgrimage, or hajj. Recollection of vast religious processions, sermons, and passion plays of Muh. arram, which dominated the life of Tehran during my childhood spent in that city, are still indelibly etched in my memory.

All other Imams of Shi‘ism were descendants of H. usayn through his one son who survived, Zayn al-‘A bidin al-Sajjad, who became the fourth Imam. The main branch of Shi‘ism, which includes the vast majority of Shi‘ites, is called Ithna ‘ashariyyah, or Twelve-Imam Shi‘ism, which is dominant in Iran and is a majority in Iraq, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, and among the Muslims of Lebanon. The Twelvers accept a chain of Imams descending from the fourth, including his son, Muh.ammad al-Baqir, the fifth Imam, and his son, Ja‘far al-Sadiq, the sixth Imam, down to the Twelfth, Muh.ammad al-Mahdi, whom they believe to have been given a mysteriously long life by God, but who is in occultation(ghaybah) . He is alive like Elijah, who was taken to Heaven alive according to Jewish belief. But the Twelfth Imam is also the secret master of this world and can appear to those who are in the appropriate spiritual state to see him. He will appear publicly before the end of time, when inequity and oppression have become dominant, to reestablish justice and peace on earth, and he will prepare for the second coming of Christ, an event in which Muslims have as firm a

belief as Christians. This eschatological expectation is therefore called Mahdiism and is by no means confined to Shi‘ism. Sunnism also contains such teachings, the difference being that Shi‘ites claim to know here and now who the Mahdi is, whereas Sunnis expect a figure with such a name to appear in the future.

Apocalyptic thought, although present in Islam, does not, however, play the same role there as it does in contemporary Christianity, especially among certain televangelists in America who have commercialized their contentious interpretations of the Book of Revelation and other Christian sources on the basis of an exclusivism that is utterly astounding. In the Islamic world, although the idea of the coming of the Mahdi exists, there is much less public talk about it, especially on television, and there is little emphasis on creating an exclusive club of those who will be saved while the rest will be damned. Although in Black Africa there have been a few Mahdiist leaders with followers willing to die for them, in the heartland of Islam phenomena such as Waco and Jonestown have not existed, except for the one episode in Mecca in 1980 when a person claiming to be the Mahdi entered the Holy Mosque with his followers and was finally killed when government forces attacked the group inside the mosque.

The second most important branch of Shi‘ism is Isma‘ilism, which separated from the main body of Shi‘ism over the question of the identity of the seventh Imam. The sixth Imam, Ja‘far al-Sadiq, had chosen, by Divine command according to Shi‘ite belief, his son Isma‘il as the seventh Imam, but Isma‘il died while his father was still alive.

Subsequently, Imam Musa al-Kaz.im was chosen as the seventh Imam, but a number within the Shi‘ite community refused to accept this investiture and continued to consider Isma‘il their imam, hence the name Isma‘ilism. For some time their imams were not present in public, until suddenly in the tenth century the Isma‘ilis arose in Tunisia to declare themselves rulers and were able to extend their domination to Egypt, much of the rest of North Africa, and even as far as Syria. They established the Fat.imid caliphate, which vied with and opposed the Sunni ‘Abbasid caliphate, which had its capital in Baghdad. They made Cairo their capital and built it into a great center of the sciences and the arts. Al-Azhar University, over a thousand years old and the most important seat of Sunni learning in the Islamic world today, was built by the Fat.imids, whose rulers were also Isma‘ili imams.

Fat.imid Isma‘ilism was its most moderate form, but other more radical movements followed from it. The Fat.imid caliph Mustans.ir bi’Llah had transferred the investiture of the imamate from his older son, Nizar, to his younger son, Musta‘li. Upon his death in 1094, some Isma‘ilis followed Nizar and others Musta‘li. The Musta‘lis, or followers of Musta‘li, continued the moderate teachings of the earlier Fat.imids, but those who followed Nizar became more radical. In Iran the Nizaris created fort cities on top of mountains, of which the most famous was Alamut. The Persian Isma‘ili Hasan S. abbah. had a major role to play in the creation of these forts and the propagation of the Nizari cause. In 1164 the Isma‘ili imam of the time, H. asan, declared the “Great Resurrection” and proclaimed that henceforth only the spiritual and esoteric aspect of Islam mattered and the

legal and formal aspect was to be put aside. Nizari Isma‘ilism became a radical and revolutionary force until finally defeated by the Mongols. It is said that Isma‘ili devotees, who would sacrifice their lives as martyrs and were called fada’iyan, assassinated their Sunni opponents who were oppressing them. The English word “assassin,” in fact, comes most likely from the name H. asan, although some Western scholars have claimed that it derives from hashish, which the assassins are said by their enemies to have taken before committing acts of assassination.

The revolutionary character of Isma‘ilism died down after the Mongol invasion in the thirteenth century, and in Persia itself most Isma‘ilis went underground. Meanwhile, the Musta‘lis were flourishing in the Yemen. There was also a third group of Isma‘ilis, who had settled in Sindh and Gujrat in India in early Islamic history and also converted some Hindus to Isma‘ilism. This community was split later and the major group came to be known as the Sat Panth (True Path). This branch of Isma‘ilism was very eclectic in its practices, incorporating many Hindu themes. Its religious poetry, called the Ginan, has verses in which the major figures of Islamic sacred history such as ‘Ali are compared to and even identified with various Hindu avatars. By the nineteenth century the Persian and Yemeni branches of Isma‘ilism, known as the T. ayyibiyyah, were also centered in India, especially with the migration of the Aga Khan from Persia to India. One now has primarily two branches of Isma‘ilism, the Aga Khanid and the Bohras, both having their concentration of followers in India and to some extent Pakistan. But there are also notable Isma‘ili communities in Central Asia, Persia, Syria, East Africa, and Canada, to which many Isma‘ilis from East Africa migrated after the political tragedies of the 1960s and 1970s.

No one outside of the Isma‘ili community knows the exact number of Isma‘ilis, although, since their imam is alive and functioning as the head of the community, they are well organized and have a strong global network that embraces the whole community. Although their number is relatively small in comparison to the Ithna ‘ashariyyah, Isma‘ilis have played an important role in Islamic history, intellectually, artistically, and politically, and constitute, despite their relatively small number, a notable part of the Islamic spectrum.

Finally, the third branch of Shi‘ism, the Zaydi, chose Zayd, the son of the fourth Imam, as its leader. The Zaydis represent a moderate form of Shi‘ism and, in contrast to the Isma‘ilis, do not emphasize the esoteric over the exoteric dimension of the religion. They had many followers in Persia and the Arab East in the tenth century, but gradually they receded to the Yemen, where they constitute almost half the population today and where they ruled for a thousand years until 1962, following the Egyptian invasion of the Yemen. Zaydiism has its own school of law and theology as well as a political philosophy according to which any Muslim who is pious and learned and can defend the country and preserve peace and security can be accepted as imam and ruler.

Although the Zaydis and Isma‘ilis number in the few millions, Twelve-Imam Shi‘ism has some 150 million followers.

The history of its early expansion was less connected to political institutions than to the spread of its teachings by individual adherents. In fact, its political expression came later than both Zaydiism and Isma‘ilism. It was not until 1499 that the Safavids established themselves as rulers of Persia, which included not only present-day Iran, but also Afghanistan as well as parts of Pakistan, Caucasia, and Central Asia. They established Twelve-Imam Shi‘ism as the state religion and gave support to Shi‘ism elsewhere, especially in Iraq, over which they ruled for some time before losing it to the Ottomans. There were also local dynasties in India that were Twelve-Imam Shi‘ite. Consequently, the number of Twelve-Imam Shi‘ites rose considerably during the past few centuries and today it constitutes the vast majority of Shi‘ites throughout the world.

RELIGIOUS SECTS WITHIN THE ISLAMIC WORLD

There is a hadith of the Prophet according to which his community would become divided into seventy-two groups, of which only one would possess the Truth, but this saying pertains more to theological(kalam) differences rather than to Shari‘ite ones. In practice there are far fewer sects in Islam than there are in Christianity, which has experienced continuous fragmentation and division within Protestantism since the Reformation. First of all, Sunnism and majority Shi‘ism must be understood as the orthodox mainstream and not as sects as this term is used in English.

In the context of Islam, the term “sect”(firqah) can be used in its classic sense to refer to small groups entertaining particular theological views that deviate from the general norm, or one can use this term in its current English usage to mean “a dissenting denomination” or “a schismatic group holding to a distinctive doctrine,” but apply it to the case of Islam. The classic meaning has to be put aside in a work such as this because the discussion of firaq (plural of firqah) in classical Islamic thought would require delving into minutiae of Islamic theology and sacred history with which we cannot be concerned here. It is, however, important, in order to understand all the details of the tapestry of the present-day Islamic world, to mention some of the more important small religious groups that qualify as sects as this term is currently understood in English.

There are, first of all, the remnants of the early Khawarij, who existed in the seventh century and opposed both Sunnism and Shi‘ism. At that time they were a revolutionary and violent movement with some following among the nomads. Later they settled down into established communities.

Today they are to be found mostly in southern Algeria and Oman and are known as ‘Ibadis. They have their own school of law and although they began as a sect, today they are closer to the mainstream than other sects.

Before modern times, most of the sects in Islam issued from extreme forms of Shi‘ism deviating in the direction of the divinization of ‘Ali or some other personage or in emphasizing some esoteric teachings without the appropriate exoteric ones. To this day there is a sect known as the ‘Aliallahi in Iraq and Iran that divinizes ‘Ali. The Druze, who live in southern Lebanon and Syria as well as northern Israel, broke away from Fat.imid Isma‘ilism and consider the seventh Fat.imid caliph, al-H. akim bi’Llah, to be a divine incarnation. In Turkey there are the ‘Alawis (not to be confused with the ‘Alawis of Syria or with the ‘Alawi Sufi orders). The Turkish ‘Alawis, who live mostly in central Anatolia, are remnants of Shi‘ites who, after the rise of the Safavids and the Ottoman opposition to them, became isolated and oppressed, forgetting many of the tenets of traditional Shi‘ism. The ‘Alawis of Syria, also known as Nus.ayris, who now hold political power in the country, were originally a pre-Islamic religious sect with roots in Gnosticism and Babylonian religions. They have survived by describing themselves as a school of Shi‘ism and have, in the past few decades, been trying to gain more Shi‘ite legitimacy.

There are other small communities of this kind in the Islamic world, such as the Yazidis of Iraq, the inhabitants of Kafirestan in northern Afghanistan, and the Sabaeans of Iraq and Iran. Like the Nus.ayris, they are remnants of

pre-Islamic religions and cannot properly be called Islamic sects. There are also groups of this kind among Muslims of Black Africa. It must be emphasized, however, that the number of all these and similar sects is quite small. They came to play a more prominent role only when they became a factor in the balance of power in local situations, as one sees in the case of the Druze in Lebanon as well as in Israel, or in the exceptional case of the ‘Alawis of Syria, a small sect that has been able to take hold of the reins of power. The case of the Taliban in Afghanistan presents another example of an extremist minority group that was able to dominate the country for several years.

In the early nineteenth century, one of the responses to the domination of the Islamic world by colonial powers was a wave of Mahdiism that swept over many Muslim lands. In certain areas it produced local Mahdis with considerable religious and political influence, as one sees in the case of ‘Uthman Dan Fadio, who changed the religious landscape of West Africa, or the Mahdi of the Sudan, whose followers play an important role in that country to this day. But such movements did not give rise to new sects. Movements that did, however, create sects include Babism in Persia and the Ah. madiyyah movement in the Punjab, the former issuing from a Shi‘ite and the latter from a Sunni background. In Persia there had developed already in the eighteenth century the Shaykhi movement, which was a very pious form of Shi‘ism with extreme emphasis on reverence for the Imams and an “anti-intellectual” attitude in theology and law. The movement remained, however, still within the fold of Twelve-Imam Shi‘ism. From its background there arose in the early decades of the nineteenth century the Babi movement, whose founder, Sayyid Muh.ammad Bab, claimed to be the bab, or “gate,” to the Mahdi. One of the Bab’s students, Baha’Allah , went further and declared himself not only the Mahdi, but a new prophet and founder of Baha’ism, which also exists in the West today, but which, although based on a Shi‘ite background, cannot be called Islamic. Rather, it is a modernist religious movement seeking to attach iself to certain of the prophetic and universalist principles of Islam, but not in the way that Muslims understand those principles.

The Ah.madiyyah movement, founded by Ghulam Ah.mad in what is now Pakistan, was in many ways a reaction to English missionary activity in India. Its founder claimed for himself a new Divine dispensation, if not an out-and-out prophetic mission. He established for the first time in Islam missionary activity along the lines of the Christian version.

Supported to a large extent for political reasons by the British, the Ah. madiyyah established the first major mosque in Britain, which still stands, and sent many missionaries to Africa as well as Europe. In practice the Ah. madiyyah, in contrast to Baha’is, follow Islamic practices, but their theological views are rejected by the mainstream Islamic community, especially their view that Christ migrated to and died in India and Ghulam Ah. mad’s subtle challenge to the finality of the prophethood of the Prophet of Islam. Since its inception, the status of the Ah. madiyyah has been somewhat ambiguous. Some Muslims have accepted them as an Islamic sect, although deviant in some ways, while others have declared that they

are not Muslims. In any case their status vis-à-vis Islam is different from that of Baha’ism, which separated itself clearly from Islam and cannot be considered in any way as a sect or branch of Islam.