The Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought

dissimulation

Literally “caution” or “wariness,” taqiyya, the technical term for dissimulation, is an Islamic legal dispensation that allows the believer to commit an act that would ordinarily be forbidden or to omit an act that would ordinarily be required in cases of danger from a hostile or potentially hostile audience. The term is related to but distinguished from other legal dispensations such as ḍarūra (dire need), which derives from a general, impersonal situation, and ikrāh (coercion), which, like taqiyya, is caused by a hostile party but is not necessarily related to questions of religious identity. Throughout Islamic history taqiyya has been most strongly associated with the Twelver Shi‘i tradition, which has the most developed literature on the topic, but has been adopted in various historical contexts by members of other Shi‘i sects as well as Kharijis, Sunnis, and various Islamic movements. The social use of taqiyya by persecuted groups such as the Moriscos of 16th-century Spain or Shi‘is under the rule of the Ghaznavids, Seljuqs, Mamluks, Ottomans, and other oppressive Sunni regimes may be likened to a dramaturgical discipline that guided members of a minority group to manage their identities and adjust their behavior not only in cases of severe duress, such as at heresy trials, but also in their everyday encounters with the majority.

Jurists found the justification for taqiyya in the Qur’an and hadith. Verse 16:108 of the Qur’an reads, “Whoever expresses disbelief in God after having accepted belief [will suffer greatly]—except him who is forced while his heart is still at peace in belief.” This verse is said to refer to the case of the Companion of the Prophet ‘Ammar b. Yasir, who was compelled to worship pagan idols and deny the Prophet Muhammad by polytheists in Mecca. He witnessed his parents, Yasir b. ‘Amir and Sumayya bt. Khabbat, being brutally killed for refusing to worship the gods of the polytheists, but ‘Ammar said what was demanded of him and thus survived. Afterward, when ‘Ammar reported to the Prophet what had happened, the Prophet asked him how he felt in his heart, and ‘Ammar responded that his heart “was at ease in belief.” The Prophet informed him that this was all that was necessary, and if the polytheists were to attack him in a similar fashion in the future, he should do the same thing. The term taqiyya likely derives from Qur’an 3:28, which reads, “Let not the believers take unbelievers for their allies in preference to believers. Whoever does this has no connection with God, unless it be that you but guard yourselves against them out of fear” (illā ‘an tattaqū minhum tuqātan). Muhammad b. Jarir al-Tabari and other commentators report the recognized variant reading taqiyyatan, a verbal noun construed as a cognate accusative (fear), rather than tuqātan, a plural adjective construed as an accusative of condition (fearful, fearing). If the variant is accepted, one may say that the term taqiyya occurs in the Qur’an with its technical meaning; in either case, there is little doubt that the cognate verb tattaqū in this passage refers to dissimulation.

In one sense, taqiyya served as the regime of secrecy adopted by underground, revolutionary movements, the premodern term for which was da‘wa (call). This form of taqiyya was used in the movement leading up to the Abbasid revolution, which involved the extensive participation of Shi‘is, and in the various Isma‘ili da‘was, which led to the establishment of the Fatimid state, the Qarmati state in eastern Arabia, and the territories of the Nizari “Assassins” in Iran and Syria. Legacies of this revolutionary usage are seen in Twelver hadith reports that stress the centrality of taqiyya to one’s religious obligations and impress on the believer the need above all else to keep the name and location of the imam—the leader of the movement—secret. The Abbasid revolution was conducted in the name of al-riḍā min ahl al-bayt, “the agreed-upon one from among the descendants of the Prophet,” in part to avoid conflicts within the movement but also for the sake of secrecy. It is also in this sense that taqiyya has figured in the description of modern political movements, including various Islamist political parties whom detractors accuse of pretending to accept democratic principles while they actually intend to ignore them in the event that they attain political power.

In the most common sense, taqiyya is used by the Twelver Shi‘is and other sectarian groups who live as stigmatized minorities and potential targets of discrimination or persecution. Whereas the legal literature refers to a limited number of behaviors, such as denying adherence to the sectarian group in question or refraining from highly visible obligations such as prayers, taqiyya, in order to be performed successfully, may extend to nonlegal matters and involve hiding, for example, one’s town or region of origin. It is generally recognized that the person who is able to assess the need for taqiyya—the threat of danger in the case at hand—is the performer himself (al-muttaqī). It necessarily involves an audience before whom one performs it (al-muttaqā minhu), which may include government officials, judicial officials, or lay members of the majority group. It allows one to commit acts that are legally forbidden or omit acts that are legally obligatory without changing the underlying legal status of those acts; these matters are collectively the substance of taqiyya (al-muttaqā fīhi).

The most frequent practices subject to taqiyya are those that are most visible. For Shi‘is living in Sunni societies, many of these have to do with prayer. Shi‘is in many societies have often suppressed their distinctive form of the call to prayer—for example, the use of the phrase “come to the best of works” in the dawn prayer instead of al-ṣalātu khayrun min al-nawm (“Prayer is better than sleep”), as well as the addition of the creedal statement ashhadu anna ‘Aliyyan waliyyu llāh (“I witness that ‘Ali is the ward of God”). Shi‘is have also suppressed their doctrinal position that praying behind a Sunni prayer leader or praying Friday prayer with the Sunnis is actually invalid, as refusal to do so would place them in danger as heretics. They often avoided the common Shi‘i practice of combining the noon and afternoon prayers, or the sunset and evening prayers, even when not traveling. Likewise, touching the forehead to a muhr, or pellet of clay from Karbala, in prostration and holding the hands at the sides of the body rather than folded on one’s chest or belly when in standing position would also reveal adherence to Shi‘ism and so were avoided.

A curious consequence of the regular use of dissimulation to conceal Shi‘i views on details of religious practice was the establishment of taqiyya as a principle of Shi‘i hadith criticism. If several hadiths report that the imams voiced contradictory opinions on a legal issue, and if one of those opinions agreed with one upheld in Sunni law, Shi‘is assumed it to be false, for it must have been uttered by the imam for the benefit of a Sunni audience. The correct opinion in such cases must be that which opposed the Sunni view.

Other matters subject to taqiyya have been Shi‘i doctrines concerning the status of the imams and Companions of the Prophet, for a number of the latter, those who openly opposed ‘Ali or usurped the position of leader of the community that rightly belonged to him, especially Abu Bakr, ‘Umar b. al-Khattab, ‘Uthman b. ‘Affan, and ‘A’isha, are technically unbelievers and should be cursed. Because of the tensions with Sunnis that curses and insults of such figures bring out, many Shi‘i authorities, including Ayatollah Khomeini and Ayatollah Khamene’i, have ruled that Shi‘is should avoid cursing them for the sake of creating unity in the Muslim community.

Other matters involve any distinctive Shi‘i practice, such as the tradition for men to wear a signet ring on the right hand rather than the left hand or the celebration of the Prophet’s birthday on a slightly different date. In addition, the modification of identity in an Islamic context led Shi‘is to certain practices, including modifying one’s name, particularly the nisba (filiation), in order to conceal one’s exact place of origin, which might reveal one’s sectarian identity. The most famous case of this is that of Afghani, who was not actually Afghani but an Iranian whose nisba was Asadabadi; he changed his name to hide the fact that he was a Shi‘i. In a number of cases, Shi‘is are known to have adopted a forged genealogy (nasab), as when Afghani claimed descent from the renowned hadith scholar Tirmidhi or Baha’ al-Din al-‘Amili claimed descent from the famous Sunni theologian Ghazali. Other practices connected with the performance of taqiyya are changing one’s distinctive clothing in order to hide one’s affiliation or to adopt an assumed identity, such as that of a merchant or dervish. Documents were also important props for the performance of taqiyya; these included ijāzahs, which are diplomas or certificates of study, as well as works dedicated to rulers or other potential patrons. In addition to establishing the scholarly credentials and accomplishments of the holder, they also suggested his doctrinal acceptability.

Taqiyya has also served as the broad rubric under which Shi‘is have discussed all types of relation with the majority community, including ones that are framed in positive rather than negative terms. A hadith report attributed to the sixth imam, Ja‘far al-Sadiq, urges Shi‘is not only to tolerate the Sunni majority and patiently endure living among them but actually to show themselves exemplary members in the majority society, praying in the first row along with the Sunnis, visiting their sick, attending their funerals, and so on.

Although dissimulation is an accepted principle in Sunni Islamic law, some Sunni commoners and scholars alike have often denounced Shi‘is for their constant resort to taqiyya, accusing them of making taqiyya the basis of their religion and comparing them to the hypocrites (munāfiqūn) of the Qur’an, contemporaries of the Prophet Muhammad who had outwardly adopted Islam but secretly worked to undermine his prophetic mission. Such critiques are often exaggerated by the fact that the Sunnis have been in most instances the majority and have felt little sympathy with members of minorities who suffer regular discrimination and persecution. Nonetheless, in historical contexts where Sunni Muslims were persecuted, most often by Christians, they regularly resorted to taqiyya. Muslims captured by the Byzantines, Muslim communities in Sicily and the Balkans, and, most famously, the Moriscos of Spain all resorted to dissimulation in order to maintain adherence to Islam while outwardly adopting Christianity. It is known that in Spain the Moriscos performed ablutions and prayed in secret and used various ruses to hide the fact that they fasted during Ramadan, abstained from eating pork and drinking wine, slaughtered animals according to Islamic law, and so on. They also performed double marriage ceremonies, once in church and once afterward with an Islamic marriage contract.