For Muslims, Islam has been from the beginning much more than what is usually meant by the Western concept ‘religion’. Islam, meaning in Arabic ‘submission (to God)’, is at the same time a religious tradition, a civilization and, as Muslims are fond of saying, a ‘total way of life’. Islam proclaims a religious faith and sets forth certain rituals, but it also prescribes patterns of order for society in such matters as family life, civil and criminal law, business, etiquette, food, dress and even personal hygiene. Traditional Muslims view virtually all aspects of individual and group life as being regulated or guided by Islam, which is seen as a complete, complex religious and social system in which individuals, societies and governments should all reflect the will of God. The Western distinction between the sacred and the secular is thus foreign to traditional Islam, although some Muslim intellectuals now call for more attention to the sacred as a response to the world-wide spread of secularism.
Since Islam is such a rich religious and cultural tradition that has varied dramatically across time and place, the sources and methods for understanding it vary equally in breadth. Until recent decades the study and portrayal of Islam involved mainly the tasks of editing, translating and interpreting written sources. This emphasis on the analysis of written texts meant that historical and philological methods dominated the field of Islamic studies. During the last quarter of the twentieth century the methods of the social sciences, especially anthropology and sociology, have vastly enriched our understanding of Muslim societies, elevating our awareness of the importance of aspects of the Islamic tradition that previously had been largely neglected [e.g. 5; 7; 12; 19]. The history and functions of rituals in the daily lives of Muslims, the various roles of the mosque (social and political as well as religious), and the relationship of Islam to politics, national and international law, and the modern state are just a few examples. Continued sensitivity to the obvious fact that Islam is both a personal religious faith and a cumulative historical tradition (stressed for decades by Wilfred Cantwell Smith, beginning with his Meaning and End of Religion) has had several positive effects. One is that scholars are devoting more attention to the study of Muslim faith and piety – the essence of Islam, but in some ways the most difficult aspect of its study for outside observers. Another is that the search for knowledge of varieties of Muslim piety has increased our awareness of the importance of a number of fields that in the past had been neglected by Islamicists or treated as independent disciplines. Examples such as Islamic art and architecture [17], the many uses of Qur’an calligraphy, the rich tradition of Qur’an recitation, Islamic poetry, various ritual and literary expressions of devotion to the Prophet [42], and popular sermons – many of which are now widely available in printed and electronic forms – provide windows of insight into Muslim piety for those who know how to look and what questions to ask.
Primary written sources for the study of Islam are also vast in number and scope. In addition to writings on Islamic history, scripture, and theology, where students in religious studies would naturally seek knowledge about this tradition, an immense literature exists on a number of distinctively ‘Islamic sciences’, such as the study of the Sunna of the Prophet contained in hadiths (reports of his sayings and deeds); Islamic law (which governs virtually all aspects of Muslim life); the ‘sciences of the Qur’an’, including ways of reciting (tajwid); Arabic grammar (as it pertains to the sacred texts); biography (especially regarding authorities for hadiths and Islamic law); and the twin sciences of geography and astronomy (important in a practical way for determining the direction of Mecca for prayer and for the orientation of mosques). Until modern times the vast majority of major Islamic works were written in Arabic, regardless of the native tongue or ethnic background of the writer. Only a small percentage of the most important classical sources, although fortunately a growing number in recent years, have been translated into other languages. Thus, those who want to study Islam in depth must learn this so-called ‘language of the angels’. Persian, Turkish and Urdu gradually became important vehicles for conveying Islamic ideas, and their significance continues to grow. In modern times, with the widespread use of printing and the vast increase in literacy throughout the world, works essential to understanding the diversity of Islam came to be written in countless languages of Asia, Africa and Europe, so that knowledge of Arabic, while still necessary, is no longer sufficient, emphasizing the need for collaborative studies among scholars with a variety of language and disciplinary specialties.
Among the many works in classical Arabic the one that all consider to be the ‘first source’ for Islamic belief and practice is the Muslims’ scripture, the Qur’an (Arabic, al-qur’an, ‘the recitation’). It is divided into 114 independent units of widely varying length called suras (from the Arabic sura, ‘unit’). Each sura begins with, or is preceded by, the formula, ‘In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate’, often followed by a longer liturgical or formulaic statement. The suras thus stand as independent units – although varying considerably in form and content – unlike the chapters of the Bible. After the first sura, al-Fatiha (the Opening), a seven-verse prayer that serves as an introduction to the Qur’an (see p. 185 below), the suras are arranged generally in order of descending length, with many exceptions and with other criteria for keeping certain groups of suras together [54: 410]. Islamic orthodoxy and modern critical scholarship agree that the contents but not the final arrangement of the Qur’an go back to Muhammad. It is also virtually certain that Muhammad began but did not complete the task of compiling a written text of the Qur’an [54: 402–4]. About twenty years after his death an official recension of the consonantal text was issued by the third caliph, ‘Uthman, establishing the number, order and contents of the suras. At that time Arabic was mainly an oral language; written Arabic was largely an aid to memory, with no uniform system of vowel signs or diacritical marks (one, two or three dots written above or below consonantal forms) for distinguishing several sets of consonants that share the same form. A system of seven canonical ‘readings’ or vocalizations (that is, systems for adding vowels and diacritical marks) of ‘Uthman’s text was established in the tenth century, and gradually one of these came to be used in nearly all parts of the Islamic world. In 1923 or 1924 (1342 AH – see pp. 182, 232–4), a standard edition of the printed text, complete with signs for recitation (indicating pauses, elision, etc.), was issued in Cairo under the authority of the king of Egypt, Fu’ad I. This edition – variously designated ‘the royal Egyptian edition’, ‘the Egyptian standard edition’, etc. – has gained widespread acceptance by Muslims and Islamicists alike, although other texts and verse numbering systems are still used. No critical edition of the Qur’an exists, nor do standard translations of the Arabic text in the various ‘Islamic’ and European languages. Among the many English translations, those by Yusuf Ali (1934) and M. M. Pickthall (1930, 1976) are preferred by most English-speaking Muslims (neither follows the Egyptian standard verse-numbering precisely, except for the latter’s 1976 Arabic – English edition). The most popular English translation by a non-Muslim is that of the Cambridge Arabist, A. J. Arberry (1955). The two-volume translation by Richard Bell (1937, 1939) is the most useful for purposes of analysis of the history of the Arabic text of the Qur’an, an issue in which very few scholars have shown any interest since the middle of the twentieth century. These latter two translations follow an inferior nineteenth-century European Arabic text and verse-numbering system; because it is so widely used, in this chapter the verse numbers according to that system are given after the Egyptian verse numbers, separated by a virgule (see [53: 410–11] on the confusing issue of Qur’an verse divisions and the various numbering systems).
Next to the Qur’an stand the multi-volume collections of accounts called hadiths (from the Arabic hadith, ‘story, tradition’) that report or allege to report sayings and deeds of the Prophet Muhammad. The hadiths provide an authoritative guide for most aspects of Muslim daily life, for which Muhammad stands as exemplar par excellence. Six canonical collections of hadiths were compiled in the ninth and early tenth centuries (the third century AH), and other early collections such as Ahmad b. Hanbal’s Musnad also gained widespread respect. Among these the most highly regarded are the two called al-Sahih, ‘the sound (hadiths)’, compiled by al-Bukhari (d. 870) and Muslim (d. 875), both available in English translation [8; 37]. At least one of the other six, the Sunan by Abu Dawud (d. 889), as well as a later, popular compendium, the Mishkat al-Masabih, are also available in English [2; 43]. The traditional Muslim view is that at least the ‘sound’ hadiths compiled by al-Bukhari and Muslim are authentic statements going back to Muhammad’s contemporaries, and that genuine Islamic life and thought must be based on the Qur’an and these hadiths. Modern scholarship is divided on the question of the extent of the authenticity of the hadiths. It is clear that many of them, including some in the collections by al-Bukhari and Muslim, grew out of legal and theological debates that occurred long after the time of Muhammad, and that others reflect later stages in the development of Islamic rituals and other practices. Regardless of the question of their authenticity as precedents for Islamic law and as historical sources for the time of Muhammad, these collections are undoubtedly extremely valuable as primary sources for classical Islam. The focus of the debate among historians concerns the extent to which these accounts represent the Islam of the third rather than the first century of the Islamic era. Some Muslim reformers have rejected the hadith reports as representing a stage in the history of Islam generations after the time of Muhammad, while others reject them simply as representing an Islam of long ago that is no longer relevant and should not be normative for Muslims today. Those who hold these modernist views are, however, a small minority of the world population of Muslims.
In addition to the Qur’an, the hadith collections, and the vast literature on both of these (commentaries, dictionaries, etc.), primary written sources for the study of Islam include historical works on the development of Islam and its spread to various parts of the world, legal and theological treatises, biographical and devotional works on Muhammad, Islamic poetry and other religious literature, and a wide variety of devotional and pilgrimage manuals, as well as mystical, philosophical and sectarian works. Fortunately, more and more of these works are being translated into English and other European languages. Examples of classical Arabic sources that are fundamental to the study of Islam and are now available in English (in addition to the Qur’an and the hadith collections mentioned above) include Ibn Ishaq’s Sirat Rasul Allah (Life of the Messenger of God) [20]; al-Tabari’s Ta’rikh al-rusul wa-l-muluk (History of the messengers [of God] and the rulers) [46]; Ibn Sa‘d’s Kitab al-tabaqat al-kabir (Large book of the generations) [25]; and Malik ibn Anas’s Muwatta [32] on Islamic law. Much of al-Ghazali’s magisterial Ihya’ ‘ulum al-din (Revival of the religious sciences) has been translated in individual volumes by various scholars. Several very useful anthologies of English translations of a wide variety of classical and modern Arabic source materials are also available (see [5; 41; 56]; and, for selections from Qur’an commentaries, [4; 18]).
Islam dates from the last ten years of the life of the Prophet Muhammad (d. 632). Born probably around 570, Muhammad was orphaned at an early age and is said to have been reared by his grandfather and then an uncle, Abu Talib. At about the age of twenty-five Muhammad gained financial security when he married Khadija, a well-to-do widow. At about the age of forty he is said to have begun seeing visions, or according to other accounts receiving revelations, which at some point he proclaimed publicly in the streets of Mecca, his native city and also the centre for commerce and religious pilgrimage for western Arabia. Fearing the economic repercussions of Muhammad’s preaching against the deities worshipped by the pilgrims at Mecca’s central shrine, the Ka‘ba, the leading families of the city persecuted Muhammad and his followers, forcing many who did not have tribal or clan protection (usually said to have been a large majority of the Muslims at that time) to migrate to the Christian kingdom of Abyssinia, also called Ethiopia, across the Red Sea. The Meccan plutocrats are said to have imposed a social and economic boycott against Muhammad’s clan of Hashim, causing dissension within the clan. This resulted in the loss of Muhammad’s clan protection when his uncle and guardian Abu Talib died in about 620 and an enemy uncle, nicknamed Abu Lahab (Father of the Blaze) and immortalized in Sura 111 where he is condemned to the hellfire, became the clan chief and then withdrew his nephew’s protection. Muhammad’s life was no longer safe in Mecca, so he was forced to seek refuge elsewhere. After failing to find a new home for himself and his followers in nearby al-Ta’if, he reached an agreement with representatives of Yathrib, an agricultural settlement some 445 km north of Mecca, and in 622 he and his followers made the hijra (migration) to this settlement, which came to be called Medina, from madinat al-nabi, ‘the city of the Prophet’. There within the short period of ten years Muhammad, the religious leader of a small band of emigrants, rose to become the political leader of virtually all of central and western Arabia. A Muslim military defeat of a much larger force of Meccans and their confederates at a caravan watering site called Badr in 624 became a major turning-point in Muhammad’s rise to power. This awe-inspiring victory over the polytheists at Badr, along with several failed attempts by the Meccans and their allies to stop Muhammad by military force, eventually followed by what turned out to be an equally impressive diplomatic feat in the signing of the Treaty of al-Hudaybiya in 628, led to the peaceful surrender of Mecca to Muhammad in 630.
After Muhammad’s death in 632 the political and spiritual leadership of the Muslim community (called the Umma in Arabic) was assumed by a succession of caliphs or ‘deputies’ of the Prophet, who ruled Islam in his place in all aspects except as prophet. By the end of the reign of the second caliph, ‘Umar (d. 644), the Arabs had taken control of Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia and the heart of ancient Iran, capturing Damascus in 635, Jerusalem in 640, what was to become Cairo in 641, Alexandria in 642 and Isfahan in 643. During the reign of the third caliph, ‘Uthman (d. 656), the Arab empire expanded westwards to Tripoli, northwards to the Taurus and Caucasus mountains, and eastwards to what is now Pakistan and Afghanistan. After the death of the fourth caliph, ‘Ali (d. 661), Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law, the Muslim community split, with the majority, who later came to be called Sunnis, following the Umayyad dynasty of caliphs (661–750) and then the ‘Abbasid dynasty (750–1258). In 711, about a century after Muhammad began preaching in Mecca and mid-way through the Umayyad period, the Arabs entered Spain from North Africa and also crossed the Indus river into the subcontinent of India. The Arabs’ furthest point of advance into western Europe is marked by their defeat at the hands of Charles Martel near Tours in 732, exactly a solar century after the Prophet’s death and ten years before the birth of Charlemagne. The Arabs were forced to withdraw from France, but they and their Muslim Berber successors continued to rule in Spain for seven and a half centuries. In the east the Arab-ruled Umayyad empire spread northwards to the Aral Sea and across the Oxus river (now called the Amu-Dar’ya) to Tashkent, and eastwards to include almost the whole of what is now Pakistan and Afghanistan. During the caliphate of the ‘Abbasids with their capital in Baghdad, the extent of the ‘Islamic territories’ in the west remained the same as under the Umayyads, while in the east Muslims gained control of northern India and the area down to the Bay of Bengal. But this vast region, from the Pyrenees to what is now Bangladesh, was soon divided into a number of independent territories, ruled for centuries by successions of Islamic dynasties, and ‘Abbasid rule was eventually reduced to just part of what is now Iraq [6].
While most areas that came under Muslim control remained so, this was not the case in Europe and the subcontinent of India. In Muslim Spain the Spanish Umayyads ruled from 756 to 1031, and then several Islamic dynasties, including the Almoravids and Almohads from North Africa, ruled an ever-shrinking Muslim Spain during the period of the Christian Reconquista that culminated in the fall of Granada in 1492, when most of the remaining Muslims (and also the Jews) were forced to leave Spain. The Ottoman Turks, whose leaders, called sultans, assumed the title of caliph, crossed into eastern Europe from Anatolia in the fourteenth century and rapidly took over most of the Balkan peninsula. During the next two centuries their empire gradually encircled the Black Sea and spread north-west almost to Vienna and north-east almost to Kiev, while to the south the Ottomans gained control of Egypt, North Africa and the Fertile Crescent. During the nineteenth century the Ottomans lost most of their holdings in Europe and across northern Africa, and by the beginning of the First World War Turkey in Europe was reduced to the small area called Eastern Thrace that surrounds Istanbul. When the last Ottoman sultan, Muhammad VI, was deposed by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the title of caliph went briefly to a cousin and then in 1924 the caliphate was abolished altogether. The Muslim Mughals by the end of the seventeenth century controlled virtually all of the subcontinent of India, in addition to what are now Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kashmir and Bangladesh. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, however, they gradually lost control of the outlying areas and eventually also of northern India. The last Mughal emperor was deposed by the British in 1858. So the Arabs and the Berbers were forced out of western Europe and the Turks out of virtually all of eastern Europe, while the Mughals lost control of India; but not before these groups had left a permanent Islamic imprint on these regions.
A distinction must be made between the rapid political and military expansion of empires ruled by Arabs and other Muslims and the spread of Islam or religious conversion, which proceeded at a much slower pace. Those areas where the rulers and the majority of the people became Muslims came to be called Dar al-Islam, the House of Islam (sometimes translated as ‘the House of Peace’, partly because of the root meaning of the term islam, which yields also the word salam, ‘peace’). Gradually, over a period of centuries, the overwhelming majority of the people living under Muslim rule in northern Africa, the Fertile Crescent and Anatolia, who had previously espoused various forms of Christianity, converted to Islam. In contrast, all but a small percentage of the people of Iran, who had previously followed the state-sponsored Zoroastrian faith, adopted Islam, the religion of their new rulers, within just a few generations. At the opposite extreme, the Jewish people, many of whom lived under Muslim rule for many centuries, with very few exceptions remained faithful to their tradition. Since the time of the ‘Abbasids, Islam has continued to spread, mostly by peaceful, missionary means, eastwards through Asia to parts of China and South-East Asia – notably Malaysia and Indonesia, where a large majority are now Muslim – and also across a wide area of Saharan Africa and sub-Saharan East and West Africa. Only on rare occasions in some parts of Africa and Asia, far fewer than in the case of Christianity, has Islam spread in accordance with the popular misconception ‘by the sword’, going against the clear teaching of the Qur’an that ‘There shall be no compulsion in religion.’
Perhaps the most persuasive evidence of the vitality of Islam today is that it continues to be a missionary force in various parts of Asia, Africa, Europe and North America. Remarkable successes can be seen, especially in sub-Saharan West and East Africa, where Islam has the advantage of not being identified with white, European colonialists. Even more perplexing to Christians is the fact that Islam is the fastest-growing religious community in Europe and North America, with many Caucasian converts. Today, Muslims are represented in all the major races and cultures; but the vast majority live in a nearly contiguous band around the globe from the Atlantic shores of North and West Africa eastward to Indonesia in the Pacific. The largest broad ethnic community of Muslims is that of South Asia (the Indian subcontinent, where the vast majority live in Pakistan, India and Bangladesh), numbering in 1990 over 300 million or almost 30 per cent of the Muslim world population. In 1990 almost 200 million Muslims lived in South-West Asia (the Middle East, not including Egypt), 250 million in the rest of Asia (with about 175 million of these in South-East Asia and Indonesia), 145 million in northern and Saharan Africa (most of whom are native Arabic-speakers), over 100 million in the rest of Africa, and nearly 20 million in Europe (excluding Istanbul and the rest of Turkey that lies in the Balkan peninsula) and North America. The United States of America now has the largest number of Muslims of any country in the West (that is, Europe and the Western Hemisphere). Altogether the world Muslim population in 1990 was over 1 billion, with the population centre being somewhere in northern India – possibly near the famous Taj Mahal in Agra or the grand Jami‘ Masjid (congregational mosque) in Delhi, both built in the time of the Mughal ruler Shah Jahan (see figure 3.3 below). Shi‘i Muslims (see pp. 208–9) make up about one-tenth of the world Muslim community, with their largest populations in Iran and Iraq, but with significant and long-established minorities in other countries, such as Lebanon, Kuwait and parts of India. For approximate 1990 Muslim population statistics and percentages and very general estimates for the year 2000, listed by country and arranged by geographical region, see appendix B (p. 229).
The expressions ‘the Middle East’, ‘the Arab world’ and ‘the Muslim world’ are often not precisely defined and, in any case, are frequently confused. The Middle East is usually taken to include the area from Egypt and Turkey to the western border of Pakistan (usually considered part of South Asia). Using this definition, about 240 million Muslims or less than 25 per cent of the world Muslim population lived in the Middle East in 1990. Of these, about 130 million lived in non-Arabic-speaking countries (Iran, Turkey and Afghanistan). The Arabic-speaking countries of South-West Asia and northern and Saharan Africa had about 190 million Muslims, or less than 20 per cent of the Muslim world population. These figures show that the popular identification of ‘the Middle East’ with ‘the Muslim world’, and of Arabs with Muslims, is far from correct. The country with the largest Muslim population is Indonesia, in East Asia. The country with the largest Arabic-speaking population is Egypt, in north-eastern Africa. (Egypt happens also to be the geographic and demographic centre of the Arab world, with about 35 per cent of all native Arabic-speakers living east of Egypt in South-West Asia, and 40 per cent living west and south of Egypt in Africa – indicating that about 65 per cent of native Arabic-speakers live on the continent of Africa.) It is also important to remember that millions of Arabs, that is, native Arabic-speakers, are Christians and some are Jews. Most of these live in the Middle East, thus disproving both of the false equations mentioned above.
Figure 3.1 The peoples of Islam
Source: J. L. Esposito, Islam: The Straight Path, New York/Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1995.
The primary Islamic beliefs and world-view are presented in the Qur’an. Numerous passages, dating from the years in Medina when Muhammad was forming a monotheistic community that was to be separate from the Christians and the Jews, require certain beliefs and practices. Several of what appear to be the earliest of these Qur’anic creedal and prescriptive passages require both some beliefs and some practices, the most common being belief in (One) God and the Last Day and the duties of worship and almsgiving. One of the most succinct statements of essential Islamic beliefs occurs in Sura 4. 136/135:
O believers, believe in God and His Messenger and the Book He has sent down on His Messenger and the Book He sent down before. Whoever disbelieves in God, His angels, His Books, His Messengers, and the Last Day has surely gone astray, far into error.
The Qur’an has much to say about each of these fundamental beliefs, but presents no systematic or extended explanations of any one doctrine. Also, apparent contradictions occur within the whole of what the Qur’an has to say on any one basic belief. Since it is customary for Muslims to deny the presence of the development of ideas in the sacred text, any apparent inconsistency must be resolved in some other way. Over the centuries Qur’an commentators, jurists and other interpreters have found a variety of ways of accomplishing this, mainly by interpreting the Qur’an synchronically and arguing that certain verses abrogated earlier ones that appear to be inconsistent with the later ones. The description of the major teachings of the Qur’an and thus the basic Islamic beliefs given below follows a different approach, interpreting the Qur’an diachronically, that is, attempting to trace the development of these teachings over the course of Muhammad’s prophetic career.
Early parts of the Qur’an are striking for their lack of statements about God, other deities and the various members of the world of spirits. The earliest passages – several short, rhythmic suras that are in the style of the pre-Islamic Arabian soothsayers – contain no references to God, nor any indication that they are messages from a deity. The earliest revelations that mention Muhammad’s God refer to him only as ‘Lord’ (rabb), as in the expressions ‘your Lord’, ‘his Lord’, etc. (see the beginning of Suras 74, 87 and 96). Some time later, Muhammad’s Lord began to be called ‘the Merciful’ (al-rahman). This name seems to have been preferred for a while (see, for instance, Suras 19 and 43, and the important statements in 13. 30/29, 25. 60/61 and 55. 1ff). At about the same time, the name ‘Allah’, known to the Meccan polytheists before Muhammad’s time, was introduced into the revelation. The well-known verse, Sura 17. 110, which begins, ‘Say: Call upon Allah or call upon the Merciful; whichever you call upon, to Him belong the most beautiful names’, had the effect of replacing the dominant usage of ‘the Merciful’ with that of ‘Allah’. Later parts of the Qur’an provide the ingredients of a rich theology in their frequent use of a wide variety of divine epithets, as for instance in the following liturgical passage at the end of Sura 59:
He is God – there is no god but He.
He is the Knower of the unseen and the visible.
He is the Merciful, the Compassionate.
He is God – there is no God but He.
He is the King, the Holy, the Peaceable, the Faithful, the Preserver, the Mighty, the Compeller, the Sublime.
Glory be to God, above what they associate [with Him].
He is God – the Creator, the Maker, the Shaper.
To Him belong the most beautiful names.
All that is in the heavens and the earth magnifies Him.
He is the Mighty, the Wise.
By collecting these divine epithets in the Qur’an and forming others from verbs and other terms that refer to God, later Muslims compiled slightly varying lists of the Ninety-Nine Names of God. These appear in calligraphy, sometimes on the inside covers of copies of the Qur’an, and most strikingly in devotional use, where some Muslims memorize them and recite them using strings of thirty-three or occasionally ninety-nine prayer beads.
Theologians were often concerned to express Islamic beliefs about God in more formal, even philosophical, language, and thus developed other themes, as seen in Article 2 of the document that came to be called Fiqh Akbar II:
God the exalted is one, not in the sense of number, but in the sense that He has no partner; He begetteth not and He is not begotten and there is none like unto Him. He resembles none of the created things, nor do any created things resemble Him. He has been from eternity and will be to eternity with His names and qualities, those which belong to His essence as well as those which belong to His action. Those which belong to His essence are: life, power, knowledge, speech, hearing, sight and will. Those which belong to His action are: creating, sustaining, producing, renewing, making, and so on. [55: 188]
The doctrine that ‘God is One’ is so prominent in later parts of the Qur’an that it is easy to overlook the fact that earlier parts of the Islamic scripture do not explicitly reject the existence of other deities. The three goddesses whose worship flourished in and around Mecca in Muhammad’s time, al-Lat, al-‘Uzza and Manat, are mentioned by name in Sura 53. 19–20. In a number of passages in the Qur’an, including what appear to be a series of revisions of Sura 53, these goddesses may at first have been accepted as intercessors with God, then are designated as angels, and finally are said to be merely names invented by the Meccans’ ancestors. In other Meccan parts of the Qur’an, that is, passages dating from before the Hijra in 622, deities other than Allah are demoted to the level of jinn before they are said not to exist at all (see Suras 6.100, 34. 40–2/39–41, 37. 158–66).
The existence of the jinn, those shadowy, invisible spirits of pre-Islamic Arabia that, like man, can be either good or evil, is also assumed in Meccan parts of the Qur’an, especially in the frequently occurring expression ‘jinn and men’, which seems to present jinn as the invisible counterpart of man. The jinn also appear in the Qur’an in mythic and legendary accounts, for instance as listeners at the gate of heaven seeking knowledge of the future (Sura 72. 8–9, one of the Qur’anic versions of an ancient Near Eastern myth explaining shooting stars), as slaves of Solomon working on the Temple (27. 39, 34. 1–14/1–13) and as the army of Iblis, the fallen angel (18. 50/48). Iblis is the Qur’anic and Islamic equivalent of the Christian archangel Lucifer, who was cast from heaven for revolting against God and became Satan, the Tempter. In some contexts, such as Sura 72, jinn become believers, while in others they are presented as evil or mischievous and are sometimes equated with ‘satans’, shayatin, the plural form of Shaytan, the Arabic equivalent of the Hebrew and English word Satan. It is significant that the jinn, demons and Iblis are not mentioned in parts of the Qur’an that date from after the establishment of distinctively Islamic beliefs and practices in Medina after the Hijra. In place of these ‘lower’ spirits, later parts of the Qur’an present a more exalted view of angels as invisible, abstract symbols of God’s power, and a more abstract view of Satan as a symbol for evil and disbelief. This process of polarization of spiritual powers for good and evil in the world is similar to the manner in which the Qur’an treats deities other than God. The theologians in their treatises and creeds expand very little on what the Qur’an says about these spirits, but popular Islam elaborated a vast, complex spirit world that touches virtually all aspects of life in this world and in the hereafter.
A second complex of ideas central to Islamic faith as it arose in the Qur’an and developed in later creeds and theological treatises involves the origin, nature and destiny of man. In the Qur’an the creation and judgement of man are frequently mentioned together, often with references to the resurrection. In some contexts the idea of creation is closely related to the conception and birth of each individual, as in Sura 80. 17–22/16–22:
Woe to man! How ungrateful they are.
From what did He create them?
From a sperm-drop has He formed them.
Then He makes his path easy for them.
Then He causes them to die and buries them.
Then, when He will, He raises them.
In other passages of the Qur’an the biblical idea of the creation of the First Man from dust or clay occurs a number of times, as in the following version of the Iblis story in 15. 28ff, which begins: ‘And when your Lord said to the angels: “See, I am about to create a human being from clay, formed from moulded mud. When I have shaped him [Adam] and breathed My spirit into him, fall down all of you and bow before him.” ’ This idea of creation occurs frequently in the context of concise statements on the human life-cycle, as in 71. 17–18/16–17: ‘God caused you to grow out of the earth, then He will return you into it, and bring you forth [from it again at the Resurrection].’ Then in a number of passages these two teachings regarding God’s creation of man are combined into more elaborate accounts, such as in 23. 12–16:
We created man [Adam] from an extract of clay;
Then [later] We placed [you] as a sperm-drop into a safe receptacle;
Then We fashioned the clot into a lump; then We fashioned the lump into bones; then We clothed the bones with flesh; then We made [you] into a new creation. So blessed be God the fairest of creators!
After this you will surely die,
And on the Day of Resurrection you will surely be raised up.
As for our basic nature, whether we are ‘born in sin’ as a result of the Original Sin of Adam and Eve (essentially a Christian belief) or are intrinsically good, the glory and crown of God’s creation (a theme that occurs in the Jewish scriptures), Islam adopts what appears to be a middle view, seen in Sura 91. 7–10:
By the soul and [Him who] formed it,
And implanted into it its wickedness and its piety!
Blessed is he who purifies it.
Ruined is he who corrupts it.
Thus the potential for both good and evil is breathed into each person by God at birth. Then throughout life people are tested by their Maker, as the Qur’an says in 21. 35/36: ‘And We try you with evil and good as a test; then unto Us you will be returned.’ The Qur’an says that some people will choose good and will be rewarded, while others will choose evil and will be punished. Eternal reward and punishment are to be meted out by God at the Last Judgement, around which a central doctrine of the Qur’an and later Islamic theology developed. In the early stages of the development of Qur’anic creedal statements, the most frequently occurring requirement was that one ‘believe in God and the Last Day’. This great eschatological event, also called the Day of Judgement, the Day of Resurrection, and sometimes simply ‘the Day’, is vividly described in the Qur’an, as are the pleasures of the Garden of Paradise and the torments of the hellfire, called Jahannam (cf. the Hebrew Gehenna), the Fire, etc. (22. 19–22/20–2, 56. 11–56, 69. 13–37, 76. 11–22, etc.).
The Islamic doctrine of the hereafter, with its stress on reward and punishment, seems to require the corollary belief in individual responsibility for one’s faith and actions. But the ancient Arabian belief in Fate also appears in the Qur’an, along with a number of statements that clearly support the later Islamic doctrine of predestination. According to the ancient view, four things are decided for each individual before birth: the sex of the child; whether it will have a happy or miserable life; what food it will have; and its ‘term of life’. This idea of a predetermined life-span occurs in the Qur’an, as in 6. 2: ‘It is He who created you from clay, then determined a term, and a term is stated with Him’ (cf. 3. 145/139). Man’s predestination is said to involve everything in life, as in 9. 51: ‘Nothing will befall us but what God has written down for us …’ It was left for later theologians to correlate this teaching with other Qur’anic statements saying that each person is responsible for his or her own actions.
The earliest parts of the Qur’an do not mention revelation or God’s prophets and their scriptures. When those who later came to be called prophets are mentioned in Meccan passages they are referred to simply as ‘messengers’ (rusul; sing. rasul), ‘ambassadors’ (mursalun), etc. The context in which these messengers appear most frequently are series of so-called ‘punishment-stories’, where Noah, Lot and several others bring God’s message to their people or tribes, are ridiculed and rejected by most of their people and then rescued by God along with their families and followers, while those who rejected them perish in a flood, fire or some other natural calamity (see Suras 7. 59ff/57ff, 11. 25ff/27ff, 26. 105–91, etc.). Details of Muhammad’s experience in Mecca, such as accusations made against him by his opponents, appear frequently in stories of earlier prophets, but it is only implied that Muhammad is also such a ‘messenger’ and that his city, Mecca, is being threatened with the same type of terrestrial destruction. The Qur’an does not, during this period, explicitly describe Muhammad as a ‘messenger of God’ (rasul Allah) to be classed with the great messengers or prophets of the past.
It is only after the Hijra in 622 and after the Muslims’ victory at the battle of Badr in 624 that the role of ‘prophet’ (nabi) became prominent in the Qur’an and Muhammad came to be included explicitly among the prophets. Prophets are said to descend from Abraham, the first monotheist and thus the first ‘Muslim’ (one fully surrendered to God alone), and each is said to have been given a Book or scripture (kitab). The Torah of Moses and the Gospel of Jesus receive special attention in the Qur’an and in later Islamic belief, but the Psalms of David and the ‘scrolls of Abraham’ are mentioned briefly. The teaching of the Qur’an appears to be that every prophet brought a copy of the heavenly Book, presumably in the language of his people. In Medinan parts of the Qur’an, that is, passages that date from after the Hijra in 622, Muhammad is frequently called ‘the Prophet’ or ‘the Messenger of God’, two expressions that came to be used synonymously in later revelations (see for instance their usage in Sura 33). Just what the expression ‘Seal of the Prophets’ (khatam al-nabiyyin), applied to Muhammad in 33. 40, meant to him and his followers is difficult to say. Most likely it meant that the revelations recited by Muhammad confirmed or put a seal of divine approval on certain teachings that were attributed to earlier prophets, such as Moses and Jesus, while declaring that other Jewish and Christian teachings did not come from these prophets but were invented later and surreptitiously inserted into the Torah and the Gospel. The Qur’an mentions certain later Jewish food laws and the Christian belief that Jesus is the Son of God as examples of teachings that do not derive from Moses and Jesus. Later Muslims came to interpret the expression ‘Seal of the Prophets’ in 33. 40 to mean that Muhammad was the ‘last of the prophets’, and some, against the teachings of orthodox theology, interpret it to mean ‘the last and greatest of the prophets’. According to the teachings of the Qur’an and later Islamic theology, all prophets are equal. Many passages throughout the Qur’an stress Muhammad’s complete humanity, his lack of supernatural knowledge or powers such as the ability to see the Unseen (al-ghayb), to foretell future events or the end of time, or to perform miracles. After his death Muhammad rapidly came to be elevated in popular belief. Many miracles are attributed to him and he is widely venerated and called upon for intercession with God. (On these later developments, see [43; 26: 309–36, 530–6].)
Five fundamental rituals, called the Pillars of Islam, are regarded as essential public signs of a Muslim’s submission to God (islam) and identity with the Muslim community (umma): (1) public profession of faith by recitation of the doctrinal formula called the shahada; (2) daily performance of a prayer ritual called the salat; (3) annual giving of obligatory alms called zakat; (4) fasting (sawm) during the month of Ramadan; and (5) performance of the rituals of the Great Pilgrimage, called the Hajj, in and near Mecca once in one’s lifetime if health and wealth are sufficient. The last four of these are specifically prescribed in the Qur’an, but none is described there fully. The Pillars of Islam and other rituals eventually came to be regulated in detail by Islamic law (fiqh). Thus a brief introduction to fiqh is necessary for understanding the basic religious practices of Muslims.
The person most responsible for establishing the theory and structure of classical Islamic law for the majority of Muslims (the Sunnis) was Muhammad ibn-Idris al-Shafi‘i (d. 819). His main contribution was in developing a system of four Sources of Islamic law (usul fiqh) that eventually came to be accepted by most Sunnis: (1) the Qur’an; (2) the Sunna (custom) of the Prophet as reported in the hadiths; (3) consensus (ijma’) of the classical jurists; and (4) ‘systematic original thinking’ (ijtihad) of the founders of the legal schools or rites (madhahib) described briefly below. Both the third and fourth Sources must involve ‘reasoning by analogy’ (qiyas) based on statements in the Qur’an and the hadiths. By the time of al-Shafi‘i the prominent jurists had already reached ‘consensus’ on many issues on which the Qur’an and the hadiths do not provide definitive answers to legal questions. Thus ijma‘ was well along in the process of being established as the third Source, independent of the need for emphasis on analogical reasoning (qiyas). For this reason some classical and modern writings list qiyas as the fourth Source or even equate it with ijtihad. (For an excellent summary of the early history of these technical terms see [39: 68–79].) The basic theory behind Islamic law and correct performance of the required rituals is that Muslims should first ask: What does God prescribe in the Qur’an? On practices about which the Qur’an is silent or ambiguous, they then ask: What did the Prophet Muhammad do or say? In most cases where the hadiths report conflicting views, the prominent jurists of the third century AH (ninth century CE), motivated by a strong desire for uniformity of Islamic practice, reached consensus (ijma‘). Where they could not, mainly regarding details of law and the precise way rituals were to be performed, they agreed to disagree, thus establishing a system of multi-orthopraxis. The Pillars of Islam, for instance, must be performed precisely according to Islamic law, but Muslims have a choice as to which legal rite (madh-hab) they follow. Once orthopraxis was established, the classical jurists declared that the ‘gate of independent reasoning’ (bab al-ijtihad), which allowed for differences among the schools and for new regulations, was closed. Thereafter, any new practice or any variation in an established one was termed an ‘innovation’ (bid‘a), which came to mean heresy. (See pp. 211 ff for the significance of these terms in modern debates within the Muslim community.)
Al-Shafi’i did not succeed in establishing a universal Sunni legal school or rite, partly because of the prestige of Abu Hanifa (d. 769), the champion of logical thought in Islamic law, and Malik ibn Anas (d. 795), author of the first major compendium of Islamic law, the Muwatta. Eventually, four Sunni legal schools or rites (madhahib; sing. madhhab) became firmly established: the Shafi‘is (dominant today in lower Egypt, Syria, southern India, Indonesia and Malaysia); the Hanafis (who flourished within the Ottoman empire and are dominant today in Turkey, northern India, Pakistan, Central Asia and China; the Malikis (dominant in Saharan Africa, upper Egypt and the countries of North Africa, i.e. Morocco to Libya); and the Hanbalis, named after Ahmad ibn Hanbal (d. 855), the smallest school today (dominant mainly in Saudi Arabia). The Malikis rely more on the Sunna of the Prophet, especially ‘the living tradition’ in Medina at the time of the founder of this school. The Hanafis place more emphasis on creating precedents by analogy (qiyas), often resulting in more lenient regulations and penalties. The Hanbalis are the most strict, tending towards puritanical characteristics. The major Shi‘i legal school is sometimes called Imami, sometimes Ja‘fari, after the Sixth Imam, Ja‘far al-Sadiq (p. 208 below). (See [39: 81–4] on the origins of the Sunni schools and p. 211 below on the influence of the Hanbalis today.)
The dates for observance of the annual practices, notably the fast during the month of Ramadan and the pilgrimage during the month of Dhu-1-Hijja, are determined by a purely lunar Islamic calendar, which was established by Muhammad during the last year of his life. Some knowledge of the Islamic calendar is thus necessary for understanding the annual rituals in particular. A lunar year of twelve revolutions of the moon around the earth lasts about 354 days, or eleven days less than a solar year. Thus the beginning of the Islamic year, and each of the annual festivals, moves back through the solar calendar one season approximately every eight years or through the entire solar year (and the four seasons) once in about thirty-two and a half years. Probably within a decade of Muhammad’s death – the decision is usually said to have been made during the caliphate of ‘Umar (634–44) – the year of the Hijra, 622 (see p. 169 above), was chosen as the year 1 of the Islamic era, often designated AH from the Latin anno Hegirae. Contrary to popular belief, and to statements in many writings on Islam, the first day of the first month of the Islamic calendar does not correspond with the date of Muhammad’s emigration from Mecca to Medina, nor with the fictional concept of a mass emigration of all the Meccan Muslims. After Muhammad’s final agreement with representatives from Yathrib (later called Medina), his followers began a gradual, intermittent move from Mecca and from Abyssinia throughout the spring and summer of 622, while he is said to have remained in his native city until late summer and did not arrive in Medina until September. The Islamic calendar was set to begin on the day when Muharram (the first Islamic month) was calculated to have begun during the year of the Hijra, usually believed to coincide with 16 July 622. (On the Islamic calendar, and its relation to the Christian calendars, see appendices C and D below, pp. 231–4.)
The beginning and essence of being a devout Muslim is to recite with sincere ‘intention’ (niyya) the simple Islamic creed called the Shahada (confession), consisting of two statements: ‘There is no god but God’ and ‘Muhammad is the Messenger of God’. Both occur in the Qur’an, but not together. This formula is pronounced by new converts as part of the ceremony of becoming a Muslim, and it is recited in each performance of the Salat (see below). The term in the Shahada translated above as ‘God’ is Allah, the Arabic proper name for God used by Christians as well as Muslims. This name probably comes from al-ilah, ‘the god’, the common Arabic noun for a deity, with the definite article. Since Christians, Jews and others agree with Muslims on the first statement of the Shahada, it is the second that distinguishes Muslims. Implying much more than casual assent that Muhammad is ‘a prophet’, it carries with it the conviction that Muhammad is at least the last, if not the greatest, of the prophets. His role in Islamic practice is pivotal since in theory he was the ideal Muslim and the exemplar of all proper religious life and ritual. As mentioned above (pp. 178–9), the expressions ‘the Messenger of God’ and ‘the Prophet’ occur in later parts of the Qur’an as synonymous titles for Muhammad. In later Islamic thought a distinction was made between the expressions ‘messengers’ (rusul) and ‘prophets’ (nabiyyun), which came to designate two categories of men, one being a smaller, elite group within the other. The theologians disagreed, however, as to which title designated which group.
The earliest Islamic practice to arise was the daily prayer ritual called the Salat. Passages of the Qur’an that appear to date from before Hijra in 622 explicitly require only Muhammad to perform this ritual, and God commands him to perform it twice each day, ‘in the morning and the evening’, or, according to Sura 11: 114/116, ‘at the two ends of the day’. This command, always addressed to Muhammad in the second person singular, is worded a variety of ways in Suras 17. 78/80, 20. 130, 40. 55/57, 50. 39/38, 52. 48–9, and in several other suras. Then in Medinan portions of the Qur’an, as rituals for the new religious community were being established, all Muslims are commanded to perform the Salat, and a third daily ritual, called simply ‘the middle Salat’ is mentioned in Sura 2. 238–9/239–10. Most modern historians are convinced that this third ritual was performed at midday and thus is equivalent to the present so-called noon Salat. Within a century of the Prophet’s death the number of required daily Salats was increased to five. They are usually called ‘morning’ (fajr), ‘noon’ (zuhr), ‘afternoon’ (‘asr), ‘sunset’ (maghrib), and ‘evening’ (‘isha’), names that are somewhat misleading since they sometimes indicate the beginning of the prayer time or a specific time of the day after which the prayer ritual can be performed. That is, the morning Salat is performed from the time it is light until the sun begins to appear on the horizon; the noon Salat, from after the sun has reached its zenith until it is half-way down; the afternoon Salat, from that point until the sun starts to set; the sunset Salat, after the sun has fully set until it is dark; and the evening Salat, after it is dark. Eventually a number of hadiths arose claiming that Muhammad’s followers performed the Salat five times daily during his lifetime [see 8: VIII; 37: IV], but these are contradicted by others that appear to reflect the historical development more accurately. The three daily Salats that are clearly mentioned in the Qur’an are not easily identified with the later five, partly because they did not yet have established or formal names. The expressions salat al-fajr and salat al-‘isha’ occur in Sura 24. 58, a fairly late Medinan verse. The context suggests that these are the Salats ‘at the two ends of the day’ mentioned frequently in the Qur’an, making the latter coincide with what later came to be called the maghrib, the fourth rather than the fifth daily Salat. The interpretation is further complicated by hadiths that say Muhammad sometimes led the congregational evening Salat while it was still light, keeping the men in the mosque until the women had time to return to their homes before dark, but that at other times he waited until after dark ‘after the women and children had gone to bed’ to call the men to the mosque for this Salat. These observations on the origins of the Salat are relevant to various arguments by modern Muslims calling for reforms or a return to the way rituals were performed during Muhammad’s lifetime (see pp. 211–12, 213–14 below).
To what extent the present complex ritual described below had developed during Muhammad’s lifetime is difficult to determine. Some essential parts of the present Salat are mentioned in the Qur’an, for instance, the bowing (ruku‘) in 2. 125/119, 22. 26/27, 48. 29, etc., and the prostration (sujud) in 2. 125/119, 4. 102/103, 25. 64/65, etc. Also, specific instructions for performing ablutions before prayer are given in 5. 6/8–9. For the first year or so after the Hijra the Muslims in Medina faced north towards Jerusalem while performing their daily prayer ritual, as was the Jewish practice. Then, at the time of the so-called ‘break with the Jews’ [52: 93–9], the qibla or ‘direction worshippers face during the prayer ritual’ was changed from Jerusalem to Mecca (see Sura 2. 142–50/136–45), as part of a larger process of developing Islam into an independent religious tradition, with indigenous Arabian features in some of its fundamental rituals [52: 98–9, 112–14]. The Meccan qibla has been an obligatory feature of the Salat ever since, whether performed in mosques, in homes or other buildings, or out in the open. This requirement in the performance of the Salat led to a unique feature of mosque architecture, a niche in the wall that indicates the direction of Mecca (see p. 189 and the mosque drawings in figure 3.3).
The beginning of the period for performing each of the five prescribed daily Salats and the time to go to the mosque on Fridays are announced by a public ‘call to prayer’ (adhan), given by the muezzin (mu’adhdhin). The call to prayer consists of seven short statements:
God is most great.
I testify that there is no god but God.
I testify that Muhammad is the Messenger of God.
Come to prayer.
Come to salvation.
God is most great.
There is no god but God.
The first statement is chanted four times, the last only once, and all the others twice. In the call to the morning prayer the statement ‘Prayer is better than sleep’ is inserted after the fifth statement, or, in one of the legal rites, at the end. The Shi‘is (see pp. 208–10) insert ‘Come to the best work’ after the fifth statement, and they recite the final statement twice. The worshipper must be in a state of ritual purity, accomplished by performing either the minor ablution called wudu’, for minor impurities, or the major one called ghusl, for major impurities. Some of the legal schools have ruled that one ablution ceremony in the morning serves for all five prayers of that day unless it has been invalidated by some impurity.
Proper observance of the Salat is a required duty of all Muslims, and its essential elements are prescribed by Islamic law and customary practice. The exact performance of the Salat varies among the various legal rites described briefly above, but a general uniformity of practice exists regarding thirteen essentials (arkan) – six utterances or recitations, six actions or positions, and the requirement that these twelve must proceed in the prescribed order. The description given below is based largely on the practice of the Shafi‘is, the classic definition of which is given in the Ihya’ of the great theologian al-Ghazali (see pp. 168, 207). The system used below for numbering the utterances and giving letters for the positions (see figure 3.2) makes the description of the essentials valid, however, for all the major legal rites. In addition to the thirteen essentials, there are also a large number of customary (sunna) elements that are recommended but not required. Considerable variation exists among the major rites on the sunna elements.
The Salat begins with the worshipper in (a) the ‘standing position’ (qiyam), facing the Ka‘ba in Mecca. In a congregational Salat, whether performed in a mosque or elsewhere, a second call to prayer, called the iqama, is recited, followed by the statement, ‘Worship has begun.’ Then comes (1) the statement of ‘intention’ (niyya), indicating which prayer is about to be performed, followed by (2) a takbira, the statement, ‘God is most great (Allahu Akbar).’ Remaining standing, the worshippers then begin the first rak‘a or liturgical cycle with (3) recitation of al-Fatiha (‘The Opener’), the first sura of the Qur’an:
In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.
Praise belongs to God, the Lord of the worlds,
The Merciful, the Compassionate,
The Master of the Day of Judgement.
Thee only do we serve, and to Thee only do we pray for succour.
Guide us on the straight path,
The path of those whom Thou hast blessed, not of those against whom Thou art wrathful, nor of those who go astray.
This is followed by a second recitation from the Qur’an, spoken quietly or silently if in a congregation behind an imam, or recited aloud if the worshipper is alone or at home. Next comes (b) the ‘bowing’ (ruku‘), with the worshippers bending the upper part of the body to a horizontal position with their hands on their knees. In this position they say ‘Glory be to God’ or a longer statement of praise, varying in different rites. The worshippers then straighten up to the standing position (i‘tidal) and, with the hands raised to the sides of the face, say ‘May God hear those who praise Him’, or a longer formula. Then follows (d) the (first) ‘prostration’ (sujud), with the toes, knees, palms and forehead – seven points of the body, or some say ‘seven bones’ – all touching the floor or ground simultaneously. In this position the worshippers say, ‘Praise be to Thee, my Lord, the Most High.’ This is followed by (e) the sitting position called the julus–a half-sitting, half-kneeling position – sitting on the inside of the left foot but with the right foot in a vertical position, with the toes pressed against the floor or carpet (see figure 3.2). In this position another takbira is recited. Then follows a second ‘prostration’, which is required but not counted separately in the lists of essentials. During this prostration the worshippers say, ‘My Lord, forgive me, have mercy on me, grant my portion to me, and guide me.’ This completes the first rak‘a or cycle of the Salat. The second follows immediately as the worshippers stand and recite al-Fatiha again and then proceed through the same sequence of ritual actions and sayings. The morning Salat has two rak‘as, the sunset one has three, and the noon, afternoon and evening ones each have four. After the second prostration of the last rak‘a, the worshipper concludes the Salat by raising the upper part of the body, rolling back until the weight is balanced on the knees and feet (now ‘four points’ instead of seven) in (f) the ‘sitting position’, called qu‘ud. In this final position, worshippers recite the three remaining essential or required elements (arkan): (4) the Shahada (see p. 182 above); (5) a blessing on the Prophet and his family; and (6) the ‘salutation of peace’, called the salam or taslim, simply ‘Peace be upon you (salam ‘alay-kum)’, pronounced twice, once with the head turned to the right and then again with the head turned to the left. Originally this greeting seems to have been intended for one’s guardian or recording angels, but al-Ghazali said it should also be for one’s fellow worshippers, and this later interpretation has become widely accepted. The period of sacred time into which the worshippers enters is said to begin with the first takbira, the statement ‘Allahu Akbar’, and end with the greeting of peace, ‘Salam ‘alay-kum.’ In the Salat, which culminates in the prostration before God, faithful Muslims perform a daily ritual that symbolizes the essence of Islam, submission (islam) before God, the Almighty, and public participation in the rituals instituted by Muhammad. (See [8: VIII – XII; 37: IV] for al-Bukhari’s and Muslim’s hadiths on the Salat; [9: 63–84] for al-Ghazali’s description; and [25: 463–80] for the Shafi’i regulations.)
In the early afternoon on Fridays Muslims throughout the world gather in the central or ‘congregational mosque’ (masjid jami‘ or jami‘ masjid, as in Delhi, India, shown in figure 3.3) in each town, or in any of several in the larger cities, for a special worship service called ‘the assembly’ (al-jum‘a), which takes the place of the regular noon Salat for that day. The mosque (masjid in Arabic) is a unique, Islamic institution that is essentially different from the Jewish and Christian counterparts, the synagogue and the church, and most Muslims do not regard Friday as a holy day or sabbath. S. D. Goitein [20] presented compelling evidence to show that the Muslim practice of observing their weekly worship service at midday on Fridays arose not so much as an alternative to the Jewish and Christian Saturday and Sunday sabbaths as for the practical reason that Friday was the weekly market day in Medina in the time of Muhammad when people from the surrounding area came into the city and thus were available for congregational services and announcements in the mosque.
The most characteristic architectural features of the mosque are (a) one or more towers or minarets (Arabic sing., manar) from which the call to prayer is given five times daily, (b) a niche (mihrab) that indicates the direction of Mecca, towards which the worshippers face during the Friday service and for daily prayers performed in a mosque, (c) a pulpit (minbar), often an ornate enclosure with a staircase leading to a platform at the top, from which the Friday sermon is delivered, and (d) some type of fountain, pool or other source of water for ablutions. Some mosques, such as the elegant Eski Cami (Turkish for the Arabic, jami’, ‘congregational’, but sometimes meaning simply mosque) in Edirne, Turkey (shown in figure 3.3) and the historic, superb al-Hasan mosque–school–mausoleum complex in Cairo have (e) a raised, often ornate platform called a dakka or dikka located usually in front of the minbar against a wall or row of columns, but occasionally free-standing in the centre of the worship area in front of the mihrab (for photographs showing the relationships among the mihrab, the minbar and the dikka in Turkish mosques, see [21: 118, 153, 179, 186, 234, 260, and 263–5]). The primary purpose of the dikka is for expert, often professional, reciters (called qurra’) to sit on, with open copies of the Qur’an on stands in front of them, while they chant portions of the Qur’an on special occasions such as the evenings of Ramadan, the month of fasting. The dikka is also often used by the muezzin when chanting the second call to prayer (called the iqama) for the Friday service, indicating to the worshippers that the service is about to begin [21: 264].
Figure 3.3 (1) Jami ‘ Masjid, Delhi, the largest mosque in India, built between 1644 and 1658 by the Great Mughal Shah Jahan; (2) Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem, begun 691; (3) Mosque of al-Hakim, Cairo, built 990–1013; (4) Eski Cami in Edirne, Turkey, built 1403–14
Sources: (1) H. Stierlin (ed.), Islamic India, Architecture of the World no. 8, Lausanne, Compagnie du Livre d’Art, n.d.; (2) A. Choisy, Histoire de l’architecture (Paris, 1899); (3) K. A. C. Creswell and J. W. Allan, A Short Account of Early Muslim Architecture, 2nd edn, Aldershot, Scolar, 1989 (prev. publ. London, Penguin 1958); (4) A. Kuran, The Mosque in Early Ottoman Architecture, Chicago/London, University of Chicago Press, 1968
The mosque drawings in figure 3.3 illustrate only three of the many styles of mosque architecture (the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem is not a mosque). (For drawings of seven basic types of mosque designs ranging from sub-Saharan West Africa to China see [17: 13].) The drawings of the Jami‘ Masjid in Delhi and the Eski Cami in Edirne illustrate respectively the distinctive styles of Mughal and Ottoman minarets (marked ‘a’ in the drawings). Probably the best-known examples of the tall, slender Ottoman minarets are those on the massive Muhammad Ali Mosque on the Citadel in Cairo, built in the nineteenth century during the period of Turkish rule of Egypt. The mihrab or niche indicating the direction of Mecca is usually located in the centre of the qibla wall. In figure 3.3 the mihrab (marked ‘b’) can be seen only in the two drawings of the Eski Cami. The reason it cannot be seen in the drawings of the Jami‘ Masjid in Delhi and the al-Hakim Mosque in Cairo is because the qibla wall is not visible (in the back of these two drawings). The high archway leading from the open courtyard to the enclosed area under the large, central dome of the Jami‘ Masjid in Delhi shows the direction towards Mecca and the location of the mihrab in the centre of the back wall. The minbar (marked ‘c’), usually located to the right of the mihrab (when facing towards Mecca), is also shown in figure 3.3 only in the two drawings of the mosque in Edirne. The upper illustration shows a side view of the minbar, while the lower one shows only the steps leading up to the platform from which the Friday sermon is delivered. Some larger mosques, such as the famous Muhammad Ali Mosque and the Ibn Tulun Mosque in Cairo, have an ornate, domed fountain for ablutions in the centre of the courtyard. The only source of water for ablutions shown in figure 3.3, however, is the large, square pool (marked ‘d’) in the courtyard of the Jami‘ Masjid in Delhi, again typical of the Mughal style of Indo-Pakistani mosques. Men and women enter some mosques through separate doorways that lead to washrooms provided for ablutions; families do not worship together since the men and women line up in separate rows. (See [17: I] and [21: V – VII] for descriptions and photographs of many styles of these five architectural features of mosques; [17: IV – XIII] for discussions of the history and features of mosques in each major geographical area; and [17: XIV – XVI] on the roles of the mosque in contemporary Islamic society.)
The most important mosque officials are the leader (imam) of the Salat; the preacher (khatib), who delivers the Friday sermon (khutba); and the ‘caller (to prayer)’ or muezzin (mu’adhdhin). In smaller mosques these offices are often combined in one or two persons, while in the larger ones several imams, muezzins and sometimes professional Qur’an reciters (qurra’) serve. The ‘essentials’ (arkan) of the Friday worship service are (1) a sermon, usually presented in two parts, followed by (2) a special Salat of two rak‘as called in Arabic the salat al-jum’a, led by the imam. It is recommended that a sunna or ‘customary’ Salat of two rak‘as be performed by the worshippers individually before the service begins. Performing ablutions before the service, wearing perfume, arriving early, and reciting suras from the Qur’an and blessings on the Prophet are also considered sunna and meritorious. (See [8: XI, 34: VII and 25: 537–49] for canonical hadiths on the Friday worship service; [9: 144–72] for al-Ghazali’s description; and [25: 480–1] for the regulations according to the Shafi‘i rite.)
The broad lines of the origin and early development of the Islamic institution of alms-giving during Muhammad’s lifetime are fairly clear. Before the Hijra the sharing of wealth with the poor was stressed in the Qur’an as a pious act, but neither the borrowed technical term zakat nor even the common Arabic noun sadaqa was used. After the Hijra, when the small Muslim community of Emigrants (muhajirun, those who made the Hijra from Mecca to Medina) found themselves in need of support from the new converts in Medina (called the Helpers), alms-giving acquired new significance as an Islamic welfare system in which those who had more income shared with those who did not have enough. But no set amount was stipulated. In response to the question posed by a group of believers, ‘How much do we pay?’ the Qur’an says simply (in 2. 219/217), ‘The surplus! (al-‘afw)’, meaning ‘whatever you do not need’. In the course of time this ‘surplus’ came to be interpreted differently, and a minimum assessable amount called the nisab was set for each type of property. The Zakat then became a tax of a certain percentage of one’s wealth or produce, or a specified ration of livestock. The Zakat was to be paid on food crops and fruit at the time of harvest, on livestock after a full year of grazing, and on precious metals and merchandise on hand at the end of the year. The Zakat system, which varied across different geographical areas and among different legal rites, came to be carefully regulated by the Muslim religious and political leaders. With the establishment of modern secular states throughout the Islamic world, the traditional Zakat was in most cases replaced by national taxation and welfare systems. Only a few countries, such as Saudi Arabia and Libya, have maintained official Zakat systems along traditional lines. In most parts of the Islamic world today alms-giving has become a voluntary practice carried out at the local level. Egypt and a few other countries have large national agencies that collect and distribute Zakat, but still on a completely voluntary basis [8: XXIV; 26: 486–91; 37: V].
During the first year after the Hijra Muhammad instituted a one-day, twenty-four-hour fast called the ‘ashura’ (‘tenth’). This was apparently the name used by the Jews of the Hijaz for the fast on the Day of Atonement, which falls on the tenth day of Tishri. The Qur’an does not mention the Ashura fast, but hadith accounts have much to say about it, acknowledging that it was borrowed from the Jews and that it was kept for a while as an Islamic fast before the Ramadan fast was instituted. The establishment of the thirty-day daytime-only fast of Ramadan seems to have been related to the Muslim victory at the battle of Badr in Ramadan, 624. From the beginning, recitation of the Qur’an had a special place in the Ramadan activities. Later, it became customary for Muslims to recite or read one-thirtieth of the Qur’an each night of the month. For this reason the text has been divided into thirty equal parts, marked with medallions in the margins of most oriental editions of the Qur’an.
The very basic requirements of the Ramadan fast are given in the Qur’an in a passage that appears to have been revised (that is, Muhammad recited it differently on earlier and later occasions); or, as the jurists say, later verses abrogated or cancelled the rulings of earlier ones. Sura 2. 185/181, which seems to have instituted this fast, states that it is to be kept throughout the month of Ramadan, and that anyone who is sick or on a journey may break the fast for those days but must make them up later. Sura 2. 187/183, which appears to have replaced and relaxed some earlier regulations – possibly involving verses that are no longer in the Qur’an – states in part: ‘You are permitted during the night of the fast to go in to your wives … and eat and drink until so much of the dawn appears that a white thread can be distinguished from a black one [at arm’s length away]. Then keep the fast completely until night and do not lie with them when you should remain in the mosques.’ According to later Islamic law the essentials of the fast are that it is to be kept from just before sunrise until just after sunset during the thirty days of Ramadan by all adult Muslims who are in the full possession of their senses; for women, it is to be kept only on those days when they are free from menstruation and the bleeding of childbirth. The fast is regarded as having been broken on any day on which certain violations occur, the exact lists of which vary among the different legal rites. Violations are usually listed in four categories: (1) allowing food, beverages, or anything else, to be swallowed intentionally (in modern times, inhaling tobacco smoke has also been prohibited); (2) intentional vomiting, even when this is done under a doctor’s orders; (3) sexual intercourse; and (4) the emission of semen when caused by any type of sexual activity or thoughts. Muslims are encouraged to break their fast as soon as possible after the sun has set and to eat in the morning as late as possible before sunrise. Indecent talk, gossip, slander and anything else that would cause anger or grief to anyone should also be avoided, along with any actions that might arouse passion in oneself or someone else. Any days during Ramadan on which the fast is broken should be made up as soon as possible during the following month, Shawwal, after the completion of the ‘Id al-Fitr, ‘the Feast of the Breaking [of the Fast]’, which usually lasts for the first three days of the month. Although carefully regulated by Islamic law and custom, fasting by its very nature becomes a voluntary act of piety on the part of the observant Muslim. (See [8: XXXI; 26: 88–123; 37: VI] for canonical hadiths on fasting; [25: 491–6] for regulations according to the Shafi‘i rite.)
The fifth pillar of Islam is the Great Pilgrimage or Hajj, which consists of a number of rituals performed at sacred monuments in and near Mecca. The Hajj is required of all Muslims at least once in a lifetime if they are physically able to make the trip and can afford it (see figure 3.4). From before the time of Muhammad these rituals have been divided into two groups, originally performed at different times of the year (during the great market days in the spring and in the fall), the ‘umra (visitation [to Mecca]) and the hajj (pilgrimage). The ‘umra rituals take place in and near the Sacred Mosque in Mecca and now can be performed at any time of the year as an independent ritual called the ‘Lesser Pilgrimage’ or simply the ‘Umra. The hajj rituals take place outside of Mecca, beginning in the nearby town of Mina and proceeding out to ‘Arafat and back. The Islamic Great Pilgrimage, also called the Hajj, combines the ancient ‘umra and hajj rituals. It can be performed only on certain days of Dhu-l-Hijja, the twelfth month of the Islamic calendar (see figure 3.5). Islamic law and custom stipulate three methods of performing these two groups of ceremonies: (1) ‘one by one’ (ifrad), the preferred method, completing the hajj ceremonies (that is, those that occur outside of Mecca) first, and then the ‘umra ones; (2) ‘enjoyment’ (tamattu‘), performing the ‘umra rituals first and then breaking the state of ritual purity or sanctification (ihram) to enjoy the pleasures of Mecca for a few days before resuming the ihram for the hajj rituals; and (3) ‘conjunction’ (qiran), beginning the ‘umra rituals and then the hajj ones, and then completing both at the same time.
For several days and even weeks before the Hajj begins, a steady stream of pilgrims, numbering nearly 2 million in recent years, flows into Mecca. Before crossing into the haram, the sacred territory that surrounds Mecca, the pilgrims enter a state of ritual purity (ihram) by performing a major ablution (ghusl) and a special Salat of two rak‘as, expressing their ‘intention’ (niyya) to perform one of the three types of pilgrimage mentioned above, and then donning a white, seamless garment, called also an ihram. On entering Mecca all pilgrims visit the Sacred Mosque as soon as possible and perform a sevenfold circumambulation (tawaf) of the Ka‘ba. Then they perform a Salat of two rak‘as and drink from the nearby sacred well called Zamzam. Those who intend to fulfil an ‘Umra, either as a ceremony separate from the Hajj proper – essentially a mark of respect paid to the city, especially for those entering it for the first time – or as the ‘umra portion of a tamattu‘ performance of the Hajj, then leave the courtyard of the Sacred Mosque and climb the stairs to the hill called al-Safa, the site of an ancient sanctuary. Here begins the second major ceremony of the ‘Umra, the ‘running’ (sa‘y) between al-Safa and al-Marwa, another hill about 385 metres away. First, the ‘intention’ to perform the ‘running’ ceremony is expressed and verses from the Qur’an and other pious sayings are recited. Then the pilgrims traverse ‘the running course’ (al-mas‘a), walking part of the way and running part of the way. On al-Marwa they face the Ka‘ba and recite more pious sayings, and then retrace their steps back to al-Safa. They go back and forth until they have traversed ‘the running course’ seven times, thus ending up at al-Marwa, where a ritual desacralization is performed by having their hair shaved off or simply trimmed or, for women, having a single lock of hair cut off. Those pilgrims who follow the other two methods (ifrad and qiran) are not required to perform the ‘running’ ceremony before the hajj rituals that take place outside of Mecca.
Figure 3.5 The Hajj: the route followed by the Hajji in and near Mecca (the distance from Mecca to ‘Arafat is about 24 km)
On the 7th of Dhu-1-Hijja the pilgrimage ceremonies are officially opened with a service at the Sacred Mosque in Mecca, which includes a ritual purification of the inside of the Ka‘ba and a sermon or khutba delivered from the ornate stone pulpit (minbar) that stands nearby. According to the pilgrimage manuals the hajj portion of the rituals then begins on the 8th of Dhu-1-Hijja in Mina (a small uninhabited village about 8 km east of Mecca), where the pilgrims are supposed to assemble and spend the night. After the morning prayer on the 9th they are supposed to depart together for the great plain of ‘Arafat, about 15 km further east. In fact, in recent years the crowd has been so large that many leave Mina for ‘Arafat on the 8th, and others, especially the Shi‘is travelling in from Iran and Iraq, simply assemble at ‘Arafat on the evening of the 8th or the morning of the 9th. Just after noon on the 9th the pilgrims gather on or near the small knoll called the Mount of Mercy (Jabal al-Rahma), located at the eastern edge of the plain. Here they recite the noon and afternoon Salats together and then perform what has been called the central ritual of the entire pilgrimage, the ‘standing’ (wuquf) ceremony, which lasts until sunset. A sermon is delivered by one of the leading imams, commemorating Muhammad’s Farewell Sermon, given on this hill during the pilgrimage he led in the last year of his life. As soon as the sun has set, cannon-fire marks the end of the wuquf, and the throng of pilgrims leave ‘Arafat immediately and begin the ‘flight’ (ifada) back towards Mecca. They stop in the valley of Muzdalifa, about half-way back to Mina. Here they perform the sunset and evening Salats together, have a light meal and then gather a number of stones, usually in multiples of seven, for use later back in Mina. According to tradition and the Hajj manuals, the men are to spend the night in Muzdalifa, while it is customary for the women, children and elderly men to proceed on to Mina for the night.
Before dawn on the 10th the pilgrims who remained in Muzdalifa are awakened for a meal and the morning Salat. Then they depart on another ‘flight’ back to Mina. They proceed directly to the western end of the main street of Mina and throw seven pebbles at a stone pillar called Jamrat al-‘Aqaba that represents Satan. This ancient ritual curse is intended to drive away temptation, believed in this case to commemorate Abraham’s victory in overcoming the temptation of Satan. Then follows a vast ritual slaughtering of sheep, goats and camels, and the meal called the Feast of the Sacrifice (‘id al-adha), celebrated at Mina and simultaneously by Muslims throughout the world. This meal commemorates Abraham’s sacrifice of a ram after demonstrating his faith by his willingness to sacrifice his son to God. After this meal, the pilgrims have their heads shaved, or, in the case of women, have a lock of hair cut off. They are then free to bathe and put on clean, often new, clothes. But they must still perform another circumambulation of the Ka‘ba back in Mecca before they are completely free of the ihram restrictions. Pilgrims who did not perform the ‘running’ (sa‘y) ceremony between al-Safa and al-Marwa earlier must fulfil this pilgrimage obligation on the night of the 10th. These rituals back in Mecca complete the requirements (arkan) of the Hajj, but it is ‘customary’ (sunna) for the pilgrims to return to Mina for three days of celebration on the 11th–13th of Dhu-l-Hijja. On each of these days it is customary for pilgrims to throw seven stones at each of three pillars representing Satan. Before leaving the area of Mecca the pilgrims are encouraged to perform a final circumambulation of the Ka‘ba, called ‘the farewell tawaf’. A large number of Sunni Muslims visit Islam’s second holy city, Medina, after completing the Hajj rituals in and near Mecca, while it is customary for many Shi‘is, the majority of whom live in Iraq and Iran, east of the holy cities, to visit Medina first before proceeding to the plain of ‘Arafat to join the Sunni Muslims at the Mount of Mercy on the 9th of Dhu-l-Hijja. (See [8: XXVI and 37: VII] for hadiths on the Hajj; [26: 496–509] for specific Shafi‘i regulations.)
In addition to the major rituals, the last four of the so-called Five Pillars of Islam, other practices are regarded as obligatory and are regulated by Islamic law – sometimes as a group or community obligation rather than one for each individual, such as the presence of a sufficient number of mourners at funerals – while many other customs are commonly observed throughout the Islamic world as sunna: recommended and meritorious, but not obligatory. Eventually, religious or ethical acts came to be divided into five categories, those that are: (1) obligatory; (2) recommended and customary, but not obligatory; (3) neutral, neither good nor bad, Islamic or non-Islamic; (4) disapproved and discouraged, but not prohibited; and (5) prohibited. The legal rites and theological schools vary in their opinions on how certain practices should be classified. For instance, a more lenient legal rite such as the Hanafis places in the second and fourth categories some practices that a stricter rite such as the Hanbalis regards as belonging to the first and fifth. Complicating the matter further is the fact the Qur’an mentions many practices and customs which were debated by the later jurists and theologians, partly because statements in the Qur’an are sometimes ambiguous or are not sufficiently explicit for the purposes of later Islamic law. The Qur’an is very specific on some regulations, for instance dealing with marriage, divorce, inheritance and food laws (2: 228–32, 4. 3, 11–14/12–18, 22/26, 5. 1, 96/97, etc.). It also makes clear that certain practices, such as usury, eating pork, drinking wine and gambling are bad (2. 173/168, 3. 130/125, 5. 3, 90/92, etc.). But the Qur’an discourages or prohibits these practices in language that allows for differences in later interpretation. For instance, the strongest statement the Qur’an makes about wine and gambling (khamr and maysir: actually only one type of each that was popular in Arabia in Muhammad’s time) is that they are ‘the works of Satan’ (5. 90/92). Distinctively Islamic regulations and customs involving marriage, divorce, circumcision, funerals and special prayers also vary in different Islamic cultures and countries. Finally, it should be mentioned that Muslims worldwide celebrate two major annual festivals, the ‘Id al-Fitr (the feast of the breaking of the fast) on the first three days of the month of Shawwal, which follows Ramadan, and the ‘Id al-Adha (the Feast of the Sacrifice) on the 10th of Dhu-l-Hijja, which commemorates Abraham’s faith by his willingness to sacrifice his son, seen by some as the high point of the annual Great Pilgrimage to Mecca and its environs (see [8: XV] for al-Bukhari’s hadiths on these two ‘Ids).
In addition to the numerous references to women in the preceding sections regarding special circumstances in their performance of the major Islamic rituals, some general comments are needed to help clarify one of the most misunderstood aspects of Islam. The Qur’an in many places prescribes equality between men and women in terms of the basic religious duties and rituals. For instance, Sura 33. 35 states: ‘Surrendering men and surrendering women, believing men and believing women, obedient men and obedient women … who give alms (zakat) and who fast (during Ramadan) … will receive a mighty wage (in the afterlife).’ The three pairs of Arabic terms at the beginning of this fairly late Medinan verse, when seen in light of their usage within the entire Qur’an, offer considerable insight into the growing importance of the role of women in the Muslim community during Muhammad’s lifetime. In earlier passages and in most contexts throughout the Qur’an, Muhammad’s followers are called ‘believers’ (mu’minun), and only the masculine plural form occurs (which in Arabic usage can include women along with men, but not women only). In some Medinan contexts, when the people are called on to ‘surrender to God and His Messenger (Muhammad)’, the Qur’an refers to his followers as ‘those who surrender’ (muslimun), the term that eventually came to designate those who accepted this call. The verse quoted above is one of several in later parts of the Qur’an that include also the feminine plurals, muslimuna, mu’minuna, etc., making it explicit that women as well as men are expected to perform the basic rituals.
That women worshipped in the mosque during Muhammad’s lifetime and went about in public unveiled seems indisputable, as evidence from the Qur’an and the hadith collections makes clear. One fairly late passage in the Qur’an does instruct Muhammad’s wives (who it says ‘are not like other women’) to remain in their apartments (33. 32–3), but this is a general statement on their privacy that need not be interpreted as prohibiting their participation in public worship. The Qur’an enjoins modesty in dress and behaviour for both women and men (e.g. 24. 30–1), but it does not require either to wear veils. Sura 24. 31 does instruct believing women to ‘reveal of their beauty only what (normally) shows and draw their veils (khumur) over their bosoms’, but the concern here is with modest dress and specifically with covering the chest. The reference to the khimar or head covering – commonly worn in Arabia by both men and women in the time of Muhammad because of the hot climate – may be incidental. The preceding verse tells men to ‘lower their gaze’ or look down when encountering women in public, which would hardly be necessary if women were fully veiled. Another verse, Sura 33. 59, instructs believing women ‘to draw their cloaks (jalabib; sing. jilbab) around them’ when they are out in public, and 33. 53 says that whenever Muslim men speak to Muhammad’s wives (presumably when in his residential quarters) they should do so from ‘behind a curtain (hijab)’ – a practice that was later adopted by some of the caliphs. Nowhere in the Qur’an is veiling or the seclusion (purdah) of women clearly prescribed, although a number of verses such as these lend themselves to such interpretations for those who seek Qur’anic sanction for these practices. Most historians believe that it was not until after Muhammad’s death and the conquest of the Fertile Crescent that the Muslim community gradually adopted these and other cultural practices of the ancient civilizations of the conquered peoples, restricting urban middle- and upper-class women to the home at most times and requiring that they be veiled in public. These practices were well established in ancient Mesopotamia and Persia, and also in some pre-Christian societies of the eastern Mediterranean area, as well as within some Byzantine and Syriac Christian communities long before the time of Muhammad. When they were adopted by Muslims, this led to changes in Islamic practice, later enforced in some instances by Islamic law, for instance encouraging women to perform the Salat in their homes, while proclaiming that prayers in the mosque were more efficacious for men [49: 4–6, 47–54].
In some aspects of Muslim family life the Qur’an and later Islamic law assign men certain responsibilities and allow them certain privileges that give the appearance of placing women in an inferior position. One example of a legal responsibility of Muslim men that seems paternalistic to many people today is that they are required to provide living expenses (nafaqat) for their wives, unmarried grown daughters and, in some cases, other female relatives. Al-Bukhari devotes a separate section of his Sahih to this male responsibility [8: LXIV; see also 15: 26–8]. Probably the most striking example of a Muslim male privilege is polygyny, allowing a man to have up to four wives (Sura 4.3), whereas polyandry, a woman’s right to have more than one husband at the same time – which seems to have existed in Arabia before Islamic law was established – is strictly prohibited by Islamic law. Other examples of Muslim male privileges involve divorce: a man can divorce a wife much more easily than a woman can divorce a husband, and a man may remarry immediately after divorce, whereas a divorced Muslim woman must wait three or four months before remarrying, because of the importance of knowing the paternity of a child. (See [8: LXII; 36: VIII] for al-Bukhari’s and Muslim’s hadiths on marriage; [8: LXIII; 37: IX] on divorce; and [44: VI, XVI] for a modern defence of traditional practices.)
These and other issues related to Muslim family life are, however, complex and need to be understood in historical perspective. For instance, the statement in Sura 4. 11/12 saying sons are to inherit an amount twice that of daughters seems to be blatantly discriminatory. It takes on a different significance, however, when seen in light of Muhammad’s historical situation, when daughters had previously inherited nothing and men were not legally responsible for the living expenses of their wives, unmarried daughters and other relatives [44: X]. The dowry (mahr) previously went to the bride’s guardian (usually her father or a brother) rather as a purchase price, but in Islam goes to the bride and becomes her permanent property, which she can keep or spend as she likes, while, as mentioned above, her husband is completely responsible for her living expenses [44: VII]. Most historians agree that in general the Qur’an improved the rights and living conditions of Muslim women over those of the women of pre-Islamic Arabia and other geographical areas. Some of the gains were later codified into Islamic law, but this did not guarantee their implementation for all women. For instance, although it has been customary through the centuries for urban Muslim women to inherit, those living in rural and nomadic settings often have not had this right, since it would have resulted in the break-up of family agricultural lands and herds. (See pp. 222–4 on some current customs and trends regarding Muslim women.)
Since the time of Muhammad the Muslim community has tended to split up into various groups. Often political and cultural factors were as significant as theological and philosophical ones in this process. The formative period in the development of Islamic thought, culminating in the work of al-Ash‘ari (d. 935), was an exciting battleground of ideas that in retrospect can be seen as a complex dialectical process that culminated in what became Sunni orthodoxy, the established doctrines of the vast majority of Muslims. The main issues involved faith and works, predestination and free will, revelation and reason, the implications of the unity of God, the eternity of the Qur’an, and whether or not the Qur’an must be taken literally.
This dialectical process can be seen as beginning with the group that came to be called the Kharijis, the ‘seceders’, since they withdrew from the ‘party of ‘Ali’ (see p. 208 below) and later from the Umayyads, claiming that the Muslim leaders at that time did not follow the Qur’an strictly and leave major decisions to God. The Kharijis, who have continued as a small sect in North Africa, also conclude that Islam should be a community of saints and that those who commit grave sins forfeit their identity as Muslims. Those who differed on this point, emphasizing the importance of proper faith over works and arguing that the decision on grave sinners should be deferred to God at the Judgement Day, came to be called Murji’is, ‘postponers’ or ‘those who hope’ [50: V]. Those who emphasized human responsibility over predestination or predeterminism came to be called Qadaris, ‘determiners’, meaning in their case that people determine their own fate [50: IV].
The Traditionists, that is, those who based their faith and practice strictly on the ‘traditions’ (ahadith, singular hadith) of the Prophet and were suspicious of the use of reason in ascertaining religious truth, rallied round Ahmad b. Hanbal (d. 855), who defended the concept of the eternity of the Qur’an as the Speech of God (kalam Allah), and argued for a literal interpretation of the Qur’an, including its vivid descriptions of creation and the afterlife and its anthropomorphic statements about God. This latter point involved the doctrine of God’s attributes, that is, the belief that God literally sees, hears, speaks, etc., because these human attributes are ascribed to him in the Qur’an. His followers, the Hanbalis, came to reject the use of critical reason in determining doctrinal issues. Their opponents, known as Mu‘tazilis, ‘separatists’, attempted to give equal weight to revelation and reason as sources of religious knowledge and truth, but their methods and conclusions tended to come down on the side of reason. The system of the Mu‘tazilis was built around the twin emphases, ‘the unity and justice of God’. The first point led them to deny the doctrines of the attributes of God, the eternity of the Qur’an and literal interpretation of the Qur’an; the second led to a denial of the doctrine of predestination. The views of the Mu‘tazilis were adopted as official doctrine by the caliph al-Ma‘mun (d. 833) and were imposed on the leading judges and religious teachers through an Inquisition (mihna) that lasted from 833 to about 849. Most of those questioned yielded to the pressure of the government and publicly affirmed the doctrine of the createdness of the Qur’an. Among the few who firmly refused was Ahmad b. Hanbal, who was imprisoned for two years for his insistence on the doctrine of the uncreatedness, and hence eternity, of the Qur’an [50: VIII; and on the Inquisition, ibid: 178–9].
A synthesis between the Traditionist – literalist position of the Hanbali theologians and the rationalist approach of the Mu‘tazilis was achieved by al-Ash‘ari (d. 935), who studied under the leading Mu‘tazilis of his day and accepted their methods and their conclusions until he was about forty. He then ‘converted’ to Hanbali views and spent the remainder of his career defending them, but using the rational methods of the Mu‘tazilis. Al-Ash‘ari’s thought can be summarized in four main points: (1) The Qur’an is uncreated and is the very speech of God, and, like his other attributes, it is eternal and is in some sense distinct from his essence. (2) The anthropomorphic statements about God in the Qur’an must be accepted, but ‘without asking how’, that is, without asking how God sees, hears, speaks, etc. (3) Eschatological descriptions in the Qur’an must also be accepted as they stand, but ‘without asking how’. One of the key issues here involved the Qur’anic phrase ‘looking to their Lord’ and whether in the afterlife people will be able to ‘see’ God in the normal sense. (4) The Qur’anic teaching on predestination must be accepted on the basis of the formula, ‘God creates the acts of a person, and the person acquires the acts,’ that is, the omnipotence of God is to be taken seriously, while people ‘acquire’ responsibility for their deeds by willing at the moment of acting to do them [51: IX]. The Hanbali theologians continued to distrust the Ash‘aris’ use of reason, but the latter group’s system of theology came to be accepted by the vast majority as Sunni orthodoxy.
The extreme representatives of the Greek, rationalist outlook were the group that came to be called the ‘philosophers’ (falasifa). They differed from the ‘theologians’ (mutakallimun) not only in their view that observation and reason are the primary sources of knowledge and truth, but also in their preference for discussing traditional philosophical questions rather than theological ones. Al-Kindi (d. c.870) is usually regarded as the first major philosopher to write in Arabic, and the only great one of Arab lineage. His main accomplishment was that he adapted Greek thought and science to fit the Arab and Islamic world. His theological views were close to those of the Mu‘tazilis, and, in contrast to later Islamic philosophers, he accepted the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo. The Turkish-born al-Farabi (d. 950) is regarded as the founder of Arabic Neo-Platonism. Especially favoured by the Shi‘is (see below) because of his political philosophy, which is consistent with their religious beliefs, al-Farabi has received much attention and acclaim in recent times in the West, where he is sometimes hailed as the most original thinker among the Islamic philosophers. The Andalusian philosopher – physician – scientist, Ibn-Rushd (d. 1198), better known in the West as Averroës, seems to have had the greatest impact on European thought, especially among the Scholastics, such as Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274) and Albertus Magnus (d. 1280). Ibn-Rushd’s main contribution lay in his meticulous commentaries on the writings of Aristotle and his conscientious grappling with the perennial question of the relation of revelation to reason [16: 66–94, 107–28, 270–92]. But the person most often deemed the greatest philosopher to write in Arabic is the Persian-born Ibn-Sina (d. 1037), known in the West by his Latin name, Avicenna. His major philosophical work, the Kitab al-Shifa’ (Book of Healing), is an encyclopaedia of eleventh-century Greek and Islamic learning, ranging from logic and metaphysics to mathematics and science. The philosophical parts he later abridged into a more popular work, the Kitab al-Najat (Book of Salvation). Ibn-Sina, also a Neo-Platonist, made a major contribution to Oriental and Western philosophy, not so much for his original ideas as for his synthesis and systematic elaboration of the ideas of his predecessors, including especially al-Farabi [16: 128–62].
Mystical ideas began to flow into the stream of Islamic thought as early as the first century AH, when an ascetic pietism arose in the Muslim community. The growing emphasis on the need for obedience to divine law within official Islam was another factor leading Muslim mystics and ascetics, who came to be called Sufis, to turn inward. Calling for a life of love and pure devotion to God, the Sufis developed a spiritual path to God, consisting of a series of ‘stages’ of piety (maqamat) and gnostic – psychological ‘states’ (awal), through which each Sufi was to pass. The ‘stages’ are similar to the scala perfections of the medieval Christian monks, while the ‘states’ resemble Hindu and Buddhist concepts, as may be partly seen in the simplified version shown in table 3.1. The Sufi emphasis on this twofold spiritual path led to a doctrine of ‘annihilation’ (fana‘) of the individual in God, exemplified in the famous statement by al-Hallaj (d. 922), ‘I am the Truth’, Truth being one of the names or attributes of God and a cognate of the term translated in table 3.1 as ‘the Reality’. The idea that there are various levels of Islamic piety, and that only a few of the elite can reach the highest goal, led to a concept of sainthood in Islam, along with the related belief that saints could perform miracles.
| Table 3.1 The Sufi mystical path and the Christian scala perfectionis | |||
| The Sufi mystical path according to al-Sarraj’s Book of the Radiances of Sufism | The scala perfectionis according to the fourteenth-century Theologia Germanica | ||
| I The Law | I Purification | ||
| 1 Repentance | 1 Remorse for sin | ||
| 2 Abstinence | 2 Confession of sin | ||
| II The Way | 3 Reconciliation of life | ||
| 3 Renunciation | II Enlightenment | ||
| 4 Poverty | 4 Avoidance of sin | ||
| III The Gnosis | 5 Living life of virute and good works | ||
| 5 Patience | |||
| 6 Trust in God | 6 Bearing trial and temptation | ||
| IV The Reality | III Union | ||
| 7 Satisfaction | 7 Pureness and integrity of heart | ||
| 8 Love | |||
| 9 Meditation on God | |||
The Sufi tradition within Islam also stands out for its distinctive practices. While traditional Sunni and Shi‘i Muslims frown upon any use of music in religious rituals, Sufi orders throughout the Islamic world, particularly in Turkey, Iran and the Indo-Pakistani region, have developed a wide variety of ritual observances involving singing, drums and other musical instruments, and dance. Music is used in ritual processions, often commemorating the birthday (mawlid) of the founder of the order. Each order also developed its own distinctive ritual observance called a dhikr, a Qur’anic term meaning ‘remembrance (of God)’. These rituals often include some form of dance, the best known in the West being that of the Turkish Mevlevi order, often called the Whirling Dervishes, whose cosmic dance around their master (shaykh) simulates the rotation of the planets around the sun. Sufi belief and practice sometimes degenerated into saint cults and superstition that were clearly outside the realm of traditional Islam. During the two centuries from the time of the famous al-Junayd of Baghdad (d. 910), said to be the greatest Sunni exponent of the ‘sober’ type of Sufism, to the even more celebrated al-Ghazali (d. 1111), said to be the most original thinker Islam produced, the Sufi movement proliferated into diverse schools, from moderate to radical in relation to Islamic orthodoxy and orthopraxis. Al-Ghazali, influenced by the moderate Sufi thought and practices of renowned masters such as al-Junayd and the Sunni, Shafi‘i school of Islamic law, achieved significant reforms and made major contributions in the development of both the Sufi and the Sunni traditions. Al-Ghazali rejected any literal interpretation of the Sufi concept of ‘annihilation of the self (fana’) and its corollary, the goal of becoming one with divine being, which would of course be inconsistent with traditional Islamic theism, and he repudiated such popular practices as the veneration of saints, while at the same time bringing about a major revival and reorientation of traditional Islamic thought and practice. Al-Ghazali’s impressive synthesis in his famous Ihya’ ‘ulum al-din (The revival of the religious sciences) helped to provide a permanent bond between Sunni and Sufi Islam. W. Montgomery Watt writes: ‘The main aim of al-Ghazali in his greatest work, the Ihya’ …, was to show how a punctilious observance of the duties imposed by [Islamic law] could be the basis of a genuine Sufi life’ [51: 92].
Al-Ghazali also brought about a synthesis between Islamic theology and philosophy, deeply affecting the course of subsequent Islamic religious thought. In his work, The Inconsistency of the Philosophers, he attacked certain conclusions of the essentially Neo-Platonist thought of earlier Islamic philosophers such as al-Farabi and Ibn-Sina (see above), while accepting some aspects of their thought and the philosophers’ rationalist methods, especially Aristotelian logic. Just as al-Ash‘ari overcame the first wave of Greek influence on Islam by combining Mu‘tazili rational methods with Hanbali traditional beliefs, so al-Ghazali overcame the second wave, that is, the Islamic philosophical movement that culminated in the writings of Ibn-Sina, by mastering their thought and methods and then using these to defend and refine orthodox, Sunni beliefs. Al-Ghazali’s accomplishment in bringing together Sunni theology, especially that of al-Ash‘ari’s school, and elements of Neo-Platonist philosophy and Sufi mysticism brought about the second great synthesis in the dialectical process that established the Sunni thought of the great majority of Muslims today [16: 217–33, 246–51].
Some Muslims, however, chose to remain outside the fold of Sunni Islam. The largest minority group, the Shi‘is, take their name from their identification as the ‘party of ‘Ali’ (shi‘at ‘Ali), the cousin and son-in-law of Muhammad. The Shi‘is began as a political movement among those who supported ‘Ali and his descendants through Muhammad’s daughter, Fatima, as the only legitimate successors of Muhammad as heads of the Muslim community. With the success of the Umayyads and the ‘Abbasids and the rise of Sunni Islam, the Shi‘is gradually formed a separate religious community, eventually centring their activities in Iran. They rejected the Sunni view that proper beliefs and practices should be determined by a ‘consensus’ (ijma‘) of the ulema, the religious authorities, and developed in its place the doctrine that there was an infallible Imam (‘leader’ or ‘guide’) for each generation. These Imams, ‘Ali and a direct line of his descendants, were the only source of religious instruction and guidance. According to the majority of Shi‘is, called Imamis or Twelvers, the line of succession of Imams proceeded as shown in figure 3.6 to the Twelfth Imam, Muhammad al-Muntazar. When he mysteriously disappeared around 879 the Twelver Imamate came to an end, and a collective body of Shi‘i religious scholars or ulema assumed his office awaiting his return as the ‘Rightly Guided one’ (al-Mahdi). The present ayatollahs (meaning ‘signs of God’) see themselves as joint caretakers of the office of the Imam, who is to return at the end of time. The Shi‘is also developed their own theology, Qur’an commentaries, legal system and distinctive manner of performing the various Islamic rituals. They are thus by intention clearly set apart from the majority Sunnis [46; 51: 122–40].
The second largest group of Shi‘is, considerably fewer in number than the Imamis or Twelvers, are called Ismailis or Seveners, because of their contention that the rightful Seventh Imam was not Musa al-Kazim, but his elder brother Isma‘il (Ishmael), who died a few years before his father. The Ismailis developed their own distinctive beliefs, influenced by Neo-Platonism and the concept of gnosis or hidden knowledge that was passed down from God or Divine Being through a series of emanations to Prophets and Imams. The Ismailis flourished from the early tenth century, when they established the Fatimid dynasty in Egypt, to the late eleventh century, when, as a result of internal strife, they split into their two main branches, the Musta‘lis (named after al-Musta‘li, who became the Fatimid caliph and Ismaili Imam in 1094) and the Nizaris (who claim that his elder brother, Nizar, was the rightful caliph and Imam). The Fatimid dynasty (909–1171) ruled an area from Tunisia through Egypt and Palestine to Syria, and it was from them that the Crusaders captured Jerusalem in 1099. The Crusaders, apparently adopting local usage, called the Nizari Ismailis ‘Assassins’ (from the Arabic, hashshashin, ‘users of hashish’, allegedly because they used this drug in initiation ceremonies or in preparation for ‘assassin’, suicide missions). The Nizaris, a small sect, continued to use militant tactics against their enemies until this phase of their history came to an abrupt end in 1256 with the Mongol capture of their mountain fortress headquarters in Alamut, near the Caspian Sea. Victims of Nizari assassins include two ‘Abbasid caliphs, a Seljuk sultan, the famous Persian vizier Nizam al-Mulk and a Crusader king of Jerusalem named Conrad. Through the centuries the Ismailis have been active missionaries, spreading Shi‘i Islam especially to southern Arabia, East Africa and parts of India. The headquarters of the Musta‘lis are now in Bombay. Since the early nineteenth century the leader of the Nizaris has had the title Agha Khan. Other offshoots of the Ismailis include the Druzes and the ‘Alawis, also known as Nusayris. The Druzes broke away from the Ismailis in the eleventh century and came to believe in the deification of the Fatimid caliph and Imam, al-Hakim (d. 1020), whose return they seek in the same way as the Twelver Shi‘is await the Mahdi. The Druzes are an esoteric sect, meeting on Thursdays (instead of observing the customary Muslim Friday congregational worship), holding firmly to monogamous marriage, and having their own strict ethical code and distinctive beliefs such as that ‘Ali was an incarnation of God [46: 78–83].
In addition to the sects that broke away from Ismaili, Shi‘i Islam, a wide variety of other groups either arose from Sunni Islam or combined Islamic and non-Islamic beliefs and practices to form syncretistic groups that came to be regarded as independent religions. Two quite different examples of such syncretistic communities are the Sikhs of India and Pakistan, who combine Islamic and Hindu beliefs and practices, and the Babis and Baha’is, whose roots go back to nineteenth-century Persia. Other groups began as Islamic reform movements, but then developed so far from traditional beliefs and rituals that many Muslims no longer accept them within the fold of Islam. Examples include the Ahmadiyyans, especially the branch often called Qadians, founded in the 1880s in India.
In modern times traditional Islam has been challenged by a bewildering array of forces from both outside and inside the Muslim community. The strongest outside forces have been political, economic and social, and have come from the West. A large part of the Islamic world, from North Africa to Indonesia, came under European colonial rule. With the rise of nationalism among Islamic peoples and the establishment of independent states, there has been a continuing struggle for control among the various factions, some wanting secular states with Western-style law, education, etc., while others demand some form of Islamic state where traditional Muslim life can continue unhampered. The most vigorous outside forces challenging traditional Islam in the twentieth century have been secularism and various forms of socialist ideology, some Marxist and others non-Marxist. Muslim responses to these external forces have taken a wide variety of forms, and the struggle within the Muslim community has given rise to a number of competing movements and trends.
After several centuries of relative stagnation within the previously flourishing Islamic civilization, indigenous revivalist reform movements arose within the Muslim community during the late eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries, especially in Arabia and parts of Africa. These indigenous movements are sometimes called ‘pre-modernist’ with the connotation that they did not arise as reactions to European or Western modernist influence, as was the case with the movements discussed in the next section. One of the first and most influential of the pre-modernist revivalist movements, sometimes called Wahhabism, was established in north central Arabia through the tireless efforts of Muhammad b. ‘Abd-al-Wahhab (d. 1792), who set out to purify Islam from what he regarded as various forms of heresy or ‘innovation’ (bid‘a). He argued that Muslims should cease such practices as venerating saints and making pilgrimages to their tombs, and instead should return to the original beliefs and practices that prevailed during Muhammad’s lifetime. Modern historians counter such claims by Wahhabis and other revivalists by pointing out that much that is perceived as Islamic orthodoxy and orthopraxis developed gradually over a period of several centuries after the time of Muhammad. In their fervent puritanism the Wahhabis are not unlike the early Kharijis in their impassioned call for a pure Islam based on a literal interpretation of the Qur’an. The Wahhabis breathed new life into the conservative legal school of Ahmad b. Hanbal and elevated it to a position of influence it had never previously enjoyed. They joined forces with the family of Su‘ud, adding a religious fanaticism to the militancy of the Su‘udis who sought to conquer large portions of the Arabian peninsula. From their capital, Riyadh, in central Arabia, the Su‘udis, with the sanction and support of the Wahhabis, captured and ‘purified’ Mecca in 1806, but lost control of the holy city in 1818 when their power was broken by the famous Turkish governor of Egypt, Muhammad ‘Ali. At the beginning of the twentieth century Su‘udi power was restored in central Arabia, and in 1932 ‘Abd-al-‘Aziz Ibn-Su‘ud established the present Kingdom of Su‘udi (or Saudi) Arabia. Since then Wahhabis have dominated religious life, and to a large degree education, in Arabia. This control has been especially important in the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, which have provided invaluable settings for global Wahhabi influence. Thousands of young Muslims from all over the world spend years pursuing Islamic education in Mecca and Medina and then return to their home countries to become religious leaders and teachers. In addition to their teaching that it is polytheism to visit the graves of saints or to seek intercession through a prophet or saint, the Wahhabis are staunch opponents of the annual celebration of the Birthday of the Prophet (mawlid al-nabi), which they regard as bid‘a although it is popular and widely accepted throughout most of the Islamic world. They also hold that it is unbelief to employ allegorical or non-literal interpretations of statements in the Qur’an, especially in order to avoid religious obligations or legal penalties simply because they are regarded as outdated or harsh by many modern Muslims. In more recent times the Wahhabis have also denounced such ‘Western’ innovations as tobacco, cinemas, American (and many Egyptian) television programmes and videos, Western dancing, nightclubs, and similar non-Islamic forms of entertainment, thus justifying the label that is often applied to them – the Puritans of Islam.
Indigenous Islamic reform or revivalist movements in India began as early as the seventeenth century. After a period during which Sufis enjoyed widespread popularity and significant influence in the Indian subcontinent, where they were responsible for large-scale conversions of Hindus to Islam, traditional Muslims found a champion in Ahmad Sirhindi (d. 1625) who attacked the philosophical monism of Sufis such as Ibn-al-‘Arabi, but retained certain Sufi views and techniques in a system that stressed traditional Islamic law and values. Sirhindi’s reforms were later espoused and enforced by the Mughal ruler and strong defender of Sunni Islam in India, Aurangzeb (d. 1707). A half-century later Indian Islam found a new intellectual leader in Shah Wali-Allah of Delhi (d. 1762), who, like Ibn-‘Abd-al-Wahhab in Arabia, was concerned with ‘purifying’ Islam from non-Islamic beliefs and practices and returning to the original teachings of early Islam. His system stressed social and economic justice with a broad humanistic base, but, partly because of the cultural setting of Indian Islam, he also retained a Sufi interpretation of the universe. A later disciple, Sayyid Ahmad of Bareli, transformed this intellectual reform school into an active holy war crusade, which has sometimes been called the Wahhabi-Su‘udi movement of India. After returning from a pilgrimage to Mecca, Sayyid Ahmad recruited an army and captured a large part of north-west India from the Sikhs, but his efforts had no lasting success. Muslim rule in India continued until 1858 when the great Mughal empire was brought to an end by the British.
The nineteenth century witnessed the birth of several indigenous reform movements in Africa. As in India, these movements combined the call to return to the simple teachings of early Islam with the use of Sufi methods of organization and propagation of ideas. The Idrisi order, founded by Ahmad b. Idris (d. 1837), rejected the Sufi idea of union with God, and instead proposed a union with the spirit of Muhammad as the only legitimate goal of Islamic mysticism. Ibn-Idris was not only a practising Sufi but also a specialist in Islamic law. Like Ibn-‘Abd-al-Wahhab, he rejected the classical Islamic concept of ‘consensus’ (ijma‘) and insisted on the right of ‘individual opinion’ (ijtihad) for himself. From the Idrisi order sprang other independent orders, the most important being the Sanusiyya, founded in 1837 by the Algerian disciple of Ibn-Idris, Muhammad b. ‘Ali al-Sanusi (d. 1859), who established his own Sufi-type ritual and organized over twenty centres or cells (Arabic sing. zawiya), mainly in North Africa. Like Ibn-Idris, al-Sanusi claimed the right to ijtihad and thus made legal rulings on economic and social matters for his followers. His teaching emphasized the goal of living the good life in this world, as contrasted with the otherworldly stress that often characterized traditional Islam. The Sanusi order provided an activist social reform programme that included political opposition to European colonial rule in Africa, including a campaign for the liberation of Libya from Italian rule. When Libya gained independence in 1951, the current leader of the Sanusi order became Idris I, the first king of the new nation.
In the mid-nineteenth century, reform of a definitely modernist mode began to make significant inroads into Muslim life and thought, especially in India and Egypt and admittedly under the influence of Western thought and culture. In India Muslims were boycotting the government schools and consequently shutting themselves out of government service and other employment, mainly because they considered British-ruled India to be a non-Muslim society, literally an ‘abode of war’ (dar al-harb). Sayyid Ahmad Khan (d. 1898) saw that by taking this approach Muslims were only hurting themselves, so he encouraged loyalty to the British, arguing that Muslims in India lived in a society in which they were free to practise their religion as they pleased. He urged Muslims to pursue modern education as a means of bringing themselves into the modern world, and in 1875 he founded a college, now the Islamic University of Aligarh, where all that was best in Western thought could be taught, to women as well as to men, in an Islamic atmosphere. He insisted that modern Muslims should be free to interpret and adapt traditional Islamic beliefs and practices in the light of reason and modern science, and he further argued that Islam and science could not be contradictory. For instance, he encouraged Muslims to rethink traditional Islamic practices regarding polygamy and slavery, which he saw as social evils. The influence of his thought and ideas continues to be strong among many Indian and Pakistani Muslims.
Another prominent Indian reformer was the Shi‘i jurist, Amir ‘Ali (d. 1928), who was also British-trained and educated. His book, The Spirit of Islam, still widely read by Muslims and non-Muslims alike, has had widespread influence on contemporary Muslim life and thought. Many of his views are now generally accepted, at least by modernist or Western-orientated Muslims, even though he, like Sayyid Ahmad Khan, was severely criticized by the ulema of his day. Amir ‘Ali remained traditional in most aspects, but he devised modern, rational explanations for the meaning of the Salat, fasting and other religious duties, and he called for sweeping changes in certain social institutions that had long characterized traditional Muslim life, for instance, the abolition of slavery and polygyny. His justification for these changes lay in his central thesis – later adopted and expanded by the Pakistani-born philospher, Fazlur Rahman – that Islam, properly understood, embodies certain moral and social values that tend towards modernization. He argued that, while the spiritual teachings of the Qur’an are eternal and changeless, the specific Qur’anic regulations of Muslim life were not intended to be permanent. They represented great steps forward in Muhammad’s time, establishing a pattern of progress that God intended to continue through the centuries. Thus, when society as a whole had made sufficient progress, it was God’s intention that such institutions as slavery and polygyny should be abolished. He also went further than any of his followers were prepared to go in regarding Muhammad as the author of the Qur’an, arguing that this was the view of the early generations of Muslims. And he urged Muslims to read the Qur’an on its own and interpret it for themselves, without the unnecessary burden of official interpretations that were placed upon it in medieval times [10: IV].
Meanwhile, in the Middle East similar concerns were being expressed by the leading Egyptian modernist thinker of the period, Muhammad ‘Abduh (d. 1905), who argued that Islam and modern science were completely compatible. Influenced on this point by Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (d. 1897), ‘Abduh urged Muslims to cultivate modern philosophical and scientific academic disciplines and expand the curricula of Islamic educational institutions. He was especially well situated to effect such reforms after being appointed head or Shaykh of the thousand-year-old mosque school, and now university, al-Azhar in Cairo. Trained as a theologian along traditional lines, ‘Abduh became convinced not only that faith and reason were compatible, but that both must be utilized in order to understand the world and humankind. He sought to reform Islamic thought and modernize Islamic practice so that Islam could survive in the modern world and meet the needs of the younger generations of Muslims who were being introduced to Western ideas. ‘Abduh set for himself the mission of restating the basic tenets of Islam in terms that were acceptable to the modern mind. One of the best-known examples of his social concerns and his rationalist or casuistic method involves the question of the Qur’an’s teaching on polygyny, where he gave a new interpretation to two well-known verses on the subject. He argued that Sura 4. 3, which says that a Muslim man may have up to four wives, ‘but if you fear you cannot act justly (‘adala) [with two or more], then only one’, must be interpreted in light of 4. 129/128, which urges a Muslim man to be fair with his wives while acknowledging that he cannot treat them all equally. Since the same verb (‘adala) appears in both verses, ‘Abduh argued that the first means that a Muslim could have up to four wives if he could treat them equally, but that the second says this is impossible, so that the true teaching of the Qur’an is that a man should have (or is allowed) only one wife ([18: 248–61] provides a translation of his fatwa or legal ruling on polygyny).
These are only a few examples of prominent Muslim thinkers and writers who adopted modern, Western thought and culture during the period before these labels acquired the negative connotations they have for so many Muslims today. They would have seen as ludicrous the late twentieth-century enterprise commonly called the Islamization of Knowledge whereby some scholars have attempted to construct a distinctly Islamic body of scientific knowledge or a distinctly Islamic understanding and interpretation of science.
It could be argued that virtually all of the major political and other world events of the twentieth century – the two World Wars, the collapse of the European colonial empires, the rise and fall of Communist world influence, the vast increase in the number of independent nation-states, the impact of technology and modern communications, feminist movements, etc. – have had significant repercussions on the Islamic world. One of the first was the disintegration of the Ottoman empire after the First World War and the abolition of the caliphate at the instigation of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the modern, secular state of Turkey. As countries across Asia and Africa with majority Muslim populations gained their independence, the struggle began between those who favoured European-type secular constitutions, with religious and personal status freedoms for peoples of all creeds and ethnic backgrounds, and those who insisted on establishing Islamic states, governed by traditional Islamic law. This Muslim search for identity in a modern world where peoples could choose their own forms of government spread from North Africa to Indonesia during the first two-thirds of the twentieth century as the European colonial powers gradually lost control of their former territories.
In this search for identity Muslims have organized into a wide variety of movements and parties that have continued, modified or reacted against the concerns of the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century revivalists and modernists discussed above. Several of these movements were, and some have continued to be, extremely active in political affairs and vocal in expressing their views through journals, pamphlets and a wide variety of other modern media. In Egypt the legacy of Muhammad ‘Abduh continued for a while in a movement called the Salafiyya (the way of the ancestors), led by Muhammad Rashid Rida (d. 1935), who completed ‘Abduh’s Qur’an commentary and published it in an influential journal he founded, called al-Manar (The Lighthouse). The Salafiyya, a group of conservative reform leaders who saw themselves as Neo-Hanbalis, called for some social and legal reforms, while distrusting the freedom for radical change espoused by the modernists. After the death of its founder this movement drifted towards an anti-intellectual and fundamentalist position and gradually died out as an organized group, although some of its ideas and ideals have remained central to a wide variety of later movements. The direct heir of the Salafiyya was the Muslim Brotherhood (al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun), founded in 1928 in Ismailia, Egypt, by Hasan al-Banna’ (d. 1949), who in his student days in Cairo was a follower of Muhammad Rashid Rida. Al-Banna’ continued Rashid Rida’s journal al-Manar for a while after the death of its founder, but he came to sense that the task of revitalizing Muslim society demanded a politically active campaign among the masses, rather than simply literary, intellectual endeavours. He organized some fifty centres throughout Egypt for classes and discussion groups, and eventually the movement spread to Syria, Palestine, the Sudan and other parts of the Arab world. In Egypt it became more and more political in its activities until 1954, when it was banned temporarily along with other political parties after the revolution led by Gamal Abdel Nasser. During the last quarter of the twentieth century, sentiment in Egypt and other countries for the aims and largely peaceful methods of the Muslim Brotherhood has ebbed and flowed. In some countries where the Brotherhood had been strong, it has been eclipsed by a variety of more radical Islamic groups, some of which are discussed briefly below [36; 10: 31–47, 110–20].
The most prominent equivalent of the Muslim Brotherhood outside the Arabic-speaking world has been Pakistan’s Jama‘at-i-Islami (Islamic Party), founded in British India in 1941 by the energetic Muslim leader and prolific writer Abu al-A‘la al-Mawdudi (d. 1979). Pakistan, meaning the ‘nation of the pure (pak)’, was established in 1947 at the time of the partition of British India as a new experiment in modern Muslim statehood. The idea of establishing an Islamic state in the Indian subcontinent had been proposed over a decade earlier by the famous philosopher – poet Muhammad Iqbal (d. 1938). The person most responsible for attempting to implement this goal was Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Pakistan’s first President. Jinnah, who was not a particularly religious man and did not have in mind a theocratic state ruled by mullahs, died in 1948 before a constitution could be adopted. The absence of strong, positive leadership since then and the lack of a consensus among the politicians have prevented the realization of any of the various dreams of Pakistan as an ideal Islamic state. Al-Mawdudi’s conservative Islamic Party at first opposed the idea of establishing an independent Pakistan, arguing that Islam was a universal force that should maintain its presence and strength in India. After the partition of British India in 1947, however, al-Mawdudi led the effort to enact a constitution that would make Pakistan a truly Islamic state, ruled by the principles of traditional Islamic law. With the repeated failure of efforts to establish such a constitution, al-Mawdudi and his followers began to devote a major part of their efforts to a vigorous educational campaign that rapidly gained widespread influence outside Pakistan. Al-Mawdudi developed a comprehensive theoretical basis for his party’s social and political programmes, while providing a rationale for and defence of the maintenance of traditional Islam in the modern world. A number of his publications [e.g. 33] have been translated into many languages, including those of Europe and other areas where Muslim missionaries are active, making him one of the most popular proponents of traditional Islam [10: 120–4; 40: XIV]. As mentioned above, similar debates among Muslims regarding the type of government they prefer have characterized those states that have democratic or parliamentary systems. Those who favoured the establishment of European-type states won out virtually everywhere over conservative Muslims – like al-Mawdudi in Pakistani – who sought Islamic states governed in accordance with traditional Islamic law. However, the struggle is far from finished, as comments below will make clear.
Meanwhile, back in Egypt, the spiritual and intellectual centre of the Arab Islamic world at the time, the sparks of reform kindled by Muhammad ‘Abduh continued to burn, although slowly, through the tireless and often fruitless efforts of some of his successors as Shaykh al-Azhar, head of the most prestigious Sunni institution of higher learning in the world. By the 1920s the Azharis, both faculty and graduates, had lost much of their former influence, partly because of an antiquated curriculum and partly because of their failure to communicate with the masses of often ill-educated Muslims. A consensus developed within al-Azhar, the venerable thousand-year-old institution, that changes were needed, but the faculty could not agree on the extent of the desired reforms. Mustafa al-Maraghi (d. 1945), who was appointed as head of al-Azhar in 1928, was the first Shaykh al-Azhar to prepare and promote a detailed proposal for a series of substantive reforms. His ideas, presented in the form of a memorandum to King Fu’ad, received broad support from progressive ulema and raised their hopes that al-Azhar would regain its former prestige as the leading educational institution in Egypt and the Middle East. However, a combination of political forces (involving dissatisfaction with the British, the king, the political influence of the clerics, etc.) and a lack of support from the majority of the ulema, along with what some perceived as a loss of perseverance and fortitude on the part of al-Maraghi, resulted in his failure to implement his far-reaching reform proposals. The person who appears to have had the greatest impact on the present status and role of al-Azhar as a pivotal institution in the complex religious and political environment of Egypt and the Middle East today is Mahmud Shaltut (d. 1963). In some ways he was a product of his traditional education, never studying a foreign language or culture, never travelling abroad or taking any interest in philosophy, mysticism or religious traditions other than Islam. In other ways he was an heir of the modernist tradition initiated by Muhammad ‘Abduh, strongly supporting the reforms proposed by al-Maraghi and some say the leading architect behind the 1961 Reform Law that clarified the status of al-Azhar and formalized its relationship with the government and its role within Egyptian education and religious life. In addition to his scholarly and administrative activities – serving as Shaykh al-Azhar for the last five years of his life was the culmination of a long, productive and prolific career – Shaltut was heavily involved in reform issues that affected Muslims throughout the world. After becoming disaffected with the leadership of al-Maraghi, Shaltut initiated his own reform agenda in two well-publicized proposals in 1941 and 1943. As an active member of al-Azhar’s prestigious Fatwa Commission, inaugurated in 1935, he helped maintain the tradition of studying and answering legal queries from Muslims all over the world. Finally, Shaltut was one of the pioneers of a movement that worked to reconcile differences among the four Sunni madhahib (see p. 181 above) and to improve relations between Sunnis and Shi‘is. He and like-minded Muslim reformers in countries across the Muslim world continued to be criticized from both the right and the left, some decrying their concerns as caving in to modernism while others viewed their efforts as insignificant variations of traditionalism [57].
Muhammad ‘Abduh’s extensive influence took an interesting form in the activities of several Muslim women in the early part of the twentieth century, especially in Egypt and other Arab countries of the Middle East. For example, when the upper-class Egyptian, Huda Sha‘rawi (d. 1947) became aware that veiling the face and female seclusion in the home are not required by the Qur’an, the canonical hadiths or Islamic law – as women had been and still are led to believe – she became active in the international women’s movement, acknowledging on a number of occasions the influence and inspiration she received from the ideas of Muhammad ‘Abduh. After helping to form a women’s union and also a society to improve female literacy in 1914, Sha‘rawi led the first organized feminist movement in the Arab world through her work with the Egyptian Feminist Union, created in 1923. In the same year, as an act of protest against male dominance in Islamic political and religious affairs in her country and others, she removed her face veil in public while returning home from a conference on women’s suffrage rights in Rome. Primarily an activist rather than a writer, she was denied certain opportunities of Muslim women scholars today. For instance, although she was taught French, the social language of the upper classes in Egypt in her day, her male guardians used every means to keep her from learning classical Arabic, so that the written sources of Islam were closed books for her. Huda Sha‘rawi recognized from an early stage in her activist career that Christian women in her country and others suffered similar discrimination and deprivation of basic human rights, so she worked tirelessly to improve the legal status and living conditions of all women, but this does not diminish her place in history as a pioneer in the quest for total equality for women in Muslim societies.
During the last quarter of the twentieth century increasing dissatisfaction among traditional Muslims with their secular governments has brought about a resurgence of Islam that has taken a variety of forms ranging from terrorist activities to a revival of the veil even among school-age girls. It was in the context of this resurgence that the originally Christian term ‘fundamentalist’ began to be applied to Muslims. Since this occurred at about the same time that conservative discontent began to express itself in the form of violence, including terrorist activities and even suicide missions, many in the West came to equate Islamic fundamentalism with terrorism. This is a grievous misconception, since the vast majority of Muslims who hold what could very well be called fundamentalist beliefs are not proponents of violence. Although the concept of ‘fundamentalism’ has been adopted by its Arabic-speaking proponents in the term usuliyya, it is disliked by English-speaking Muslims because of its Protestant Christian origins and perceived pejorative connotations. A new term, ‘Islamism’ (islamiyya in Arabic), arose in the early 1990s as a synonym for ‘fundamentalism’ and is generally preferred by English-speaking Muslims. ‘Islamists’ and ‘Islamism’ are becoming widely accepted terms intended to convey positive connotations and the aspirations of the groups they designate, including the ideas of revival (tajdid), reform (islah), struggle (jihad) and a return to the beliefs and practices of the first generations of Muslims, the so-called ‘forefathers’ or ancestors (salaf) [13].
The Islamic revolution best known in the West was the Shi‘i clerical takeover of the government of Iran in 1979, led by the Ayatollah (a title of a higher-level Shi‘i religious scholar meaning ‘sign of God’) Ruhollah Khomeini (d. 1989). To the surprise of many, both inside and outside Iran, the clerics who have controlled the government since the time of the revolution in 1979 did not abolish all modern Iranian laws and return the country to a medieval form of government. Instead, they left intact a number of the key social and economic reform laws enacted under the government of the former shah and attempted to maintain a balance between fundamental Islamic principles and the needs of a modern government. Thus, the widespread perception of Iran as an oppressive society dominated by antiquarian religious laws – symbolized by the black robes of the clerics and veils of the women, which the media are so fond of capturing for Western audiences – is to a large degree a matter more of appearance than of substance.
Developments in the Sudan, on the other hand, especially for a short period during the 1980s, were not as favourable for the people as in Iran. Ja‘far al-Numayri established an Islamic revolutionary regime in the Sudan in 1969. After years of failed attempts to enact conservative Islamic laws and thus establish a model Islamic state through constitutional means, al-Numayri decreed harsh Islamic laws in 1983 that were so unpopular that they brought about his overthrow two years later. A second military coup in 1989, led by Omar Hassan al-Bashir with the support of the National Islamic Front, promised ‘Islamic participatory democracy’, which, however, has been slow to take effect. Although most observers believe the new regime has failed both in its own goals and in its attempts to preserve popular support, traditional Islamic laws continue to be maintained there, and supporters of the regime argue that the Sudan is one of only two or three countries in the world today that can rightfully claim to be truly Islamic states. In Libya a different type of revolutionary regime was established in 1969 by Colonel Mu‘ammar al-Qadhdhafi, who was widely assumed in the beginning to have aspirations for an international leadership role among conservative Muslims. Over the years, however, it became clear that his vision and ambition extended far beyond the Muslim community, as he hoped to inspire people throughout the so-called Third World to unite in resisting the last vestiges of European and American colonialism. After failing in his efforts to establish formal political ties between Libya and certain of its African Muslim neighbours – notably Egypt and the Sudan – al-Qadhdhafi gradually found him self ostracized or simply ignored by other Muslim leaders, even though he has continued to present himself as a champion of Islamic causes. His position within the Muslim community is now complicated by the fact that he has opposed fundamentalists or Islamists except in some of their anti-Western activities and rhetoric.
The varieties of religious, social and political struggles that persist today throughout the Islamic world are so complex that any generalization would be misleading at best. The following are just a few examples of the types of issues that characterize Islamic jihad in the late twentieth century.
In Egypt the Muslim Brotherhood, the oldest of the contemporary Islamist movements, continues to be a strong rival of the largely secularist government. It does not advocate violence to establish an Islamic state, and some Brotherhood members have served in key ministerial positions in the government. It is the more extreme Islamists in Egypt such as the Organization for Holy War (Jama‘at al-Jihad) who oppose the government and engage in terrorist activities against senior government officials – for instance, claiming responsibility for the assassination of President Anwar Sadat in 1981 – as well as against moderate Muslim leaders, Coptic Christians and Israelis [13: 93–100].
In Tunisia the Islamic Tendency Movement (MTI, from its French name), which had been Tunisia’s major Islamist organization, was gradually transformed into the Islamic Renaissance Party (Hizb al-Nahda) between 1979 and 1989 under the leadership of Rashid al-Ghannushi. Political activity by members of al-Nahda was banned in 1990 in response to anti-regime activities, and some members were tried as revolutionaries. Al-Ghannushi, one of the leading theorists and proponents of the establishment of modern Islamic states, remained al-Nahda’s leader and continued to direct opposition to the government from exile.
In Algeria the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS, from its French name) became the dominant Islamist movement from the time it was legalized in 1989. In the first round of the elections for the National Assembly in 1991, the FIS gained more votes than all other political parties combined. After this stunning success by the Islamists, the government cancelled the second round of elections, scheduled for early 1992. The military intervened and installed a ruling council that declared a state of emergency, banned the Islamic Salvation Front, and then tried and convicted some of its leaders for revolutionary activity. This only increased anti-regime violence, notably by a militant movement called the Armed Islamic Group, which began anti-foreign terrorist activities in 1993.
In Lebanon the most active group seeking to establish an Islamic republic is Hizbullah (the Party of God), a Shi‘i organization supported by Iran. Hizbullah has waged a vigorous military campaign against Israel and Israeli-backed groups in southern Lebanon, but also cooperated in the 1992 elections with the more moderate Shi‘i party called AMAL (an acronym for Afwaj al-Muqawimat al-Lubnaniyya, ‘Lebanese Resistance Battalions’). AMAL, also a word meaning ‘hope’ in Arabic, was founded just before the 1975–6 Lebanese civil war by Musa Sadr, a Shi‘i religious leader who disappeared mysteriously in 1978 while on a trip to Libya to meet with Mu‘ammar Qadhdhafi. Unlike Hizbullah, AMAL has continued to support the Lebanese government and the idea of a multi-confessional state, although with a more equitable sharing of power [13: 140–51].
In the West Bank and Gaza, where the political situation has been changing rapidly from year to year, the major Islamist group among Palestinians since 1987 has been Hamas (the Islamic Resistance Movement), founded mainly by Shaykh Ahmad Yasin, who was then also the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza. Hamas has continued to reject Israel’s right to exist and to seek an Islamic state in Palestine, thus setting a separate course from the largely secular Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which, under the leadership of Yassir Arafat, reached a peace agreement with Israel in 1994. The second most influential Islamist group in the West Bank and Gaza is the Islamic Jihad Movement, established in the early 1980s under the leadership of Fathi al-Shaqaqi and ‘Abd-al-‘Aziz ‘Awda, like Hamas as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. These two groups have eclipsed the older Islamic Liberation Party, which was established in Jerusalem in 1953 by Taqi al-Din al-Nabhani and had a large following until the 1967 Arab – Israeli war. It re-emerged in the late 1980s and has been a vocal opponent of all Arab peace negotiations with Israel and a continuing voice for an Islamic state in Palestine.
A different type of continuing Islamic ‘struggle’ that is just as fiercely fought and widely disputed today as the activities people usually associate with jihad involves the changing roles of women in Muslim societies throughout the world. A growing number of Muslim women scholars have expressed their impatience with the slow pace of improvement in women’s rights and living conditions in Islamic countries. Some writers, such as the Moroccan sociologist Fatima Mernissi, have demonstrated that a number of regulations of Islamic family law regarding the rights of women are much more restrictive than the teachings of the Qur’an, the hadiths and, in some cases, privileges women already had in Arabia in Muhammad’s time [34; 35]. Scholars in women’s studies – especially historians, sociologists and anthropologists – are gathering evidence that reveals a wide disparity between the ideals and the realities of women’s lives in Islamic cultures [5; 29; 49]. Differences of opinion among Muslims vary widely on issues involving the roles of women in modern societies. The following illustrations are just a few examples.
The extent to which the daily lives of Muslim men and women remain separate, and women are kept in seclusion (purdah), varies from country to country and according to class and living conditions. Confinement to the home has always been unrealistic for women who are agricultural workers, domestic servants and urban poor, while employment opportunities for modern Muslim women make seclusion equally impractical for many middle-class workers. The custom of keeping women in partial seclusion in some countries seems just as oppressive to many modern Muslims, both men and women, as it does to most Westerners [34; 35], but is seen by others as a way of being respectful towards and protective of women [44: XII]. Customs also vary today regarding the seemingly innocuous issue of women worshipping in the mosques. In some countries women are still prohibited from full participation in regular mosque services, whereas in others, especially in times of war (for instance, in Iran during the period of its war with Iraq in the 1980s), more women might be found in some mosques than men. Customs of dress among Muslim women vary in different parts of the Islamic world, often influenced by local culture. In the Arabian peninsula and especially in the villages and smaller towns of some other countries women cover themselves completely from head to toe. In many countries throughout the world, especially in the larger cities, Muslim women often dress in the usual Western manner. In the Balkans, parts of Turkey and some other countries they simply cover their heads discreetly with scarves. The most common type of veiling, however, existing in a wide variety of styles, includes a head covering (often white, black, or blue) and either a gown or long dress with long sleeves for adult women, or some type of uniform for students. The gown or uniform is often of a different colour and in some cases is not unlike some styles of habit worn by Christian nuns. An interesting twentieth-century phenomenon is that veiling by Muslim women declined rapidly during the middle decades of the century, but then, during the so-called resurgence of Islam since the time of the Iranian revolution, was just as rapidly revived, so that many younger women are now emulating a practice their grandmothers’ generation eschewed.
Many Muslims today, both men and women, continue to defend the traditional practices regarding polygyny, partly because it is sanctioned by the Qur’an and the hadiths and partly on the basis of reason. One argument that is often presented is that polygyny provides the comforts and security of married life and having children of their own for many women who want them but otherwise could not have them, especially in times when eligible men are not available, for instance when large numbers are killed in battle [44: XIV]. Some modernists such as the Egyptian Sunni theologian Muhammad ‘Abduh and the Indian Shi‘i jurist Sayyid Amir Ali have used rationalist arguments in attempts to demonstrate that polygyny has no place in modern Muslim life or was never part of true Islam (see pp. 214–15 above). Although these arguments have been accepted by many Muslims, both men and women, a growing number are no longer satisfied with continuing to debate with the traditionalists or attempting to come up with additional modernist arguments. Writers such as Fatima Mernissi are going back to the classical Arabic sources and are employing arguments from modern sociology and anthropology in efforts to demonstrate that Muslim women should be able to participate fully in modern life, including government and business as well as the professions, in which women have been more widely accepted. So the struggle continues. Muslim feminists and other modernists continue to work for reforms in Islamic family and public life, while traditionalists argue just as fervently in favour of what they regard as the permanent divine law or Shari‘a [38; 44].
Each country and geographical region has its own unique problems and opportunities for Islam, which is continuing to spread as witnessed by conversions, increasing populations and, more significantly, increasing percentages of the total populations in areas such as Africa, Europe and North America. The rapid rise of the world Muslim population is caused primarily, however, by the high birth rates in countries with the largest numbers of Muslims (see appendix B). It is clear that Islam is today a vibrant, living force that will continue to hold its own against the socialist and secularist pressures of modern society. At the present time we are witnessing dramatic changes in the religious, social and political structures of Islamic countries from Morocco and Senegal to Indonesia and the Philippines, so that the Islamic world of future decades will appear just as different from that of today as today’s Islamic world appears from that of past centuries.
