Le califat de yazid ier. 1909-21

Amongst books which are revealed and presented as such, only the Pentateuch (Taurat), the Psalter and the Gospels are mentioned by name in the Qoran. Allah has predestined the eternal fate of men, but on the other hand he is shown as prone to be moved by compassion, by repentance and good works, ‘which blot out evil ones’. The Qoran contains texts both for and against determinism, according as the author's aim is to show the full responsibility of man or to stress the omnipotence of the Creator. The texts unfavour­able to freewill are, if not the more numerous, at least the more striking and seem best to render Muhammad's inmost thought. Muslim tradition has seen this un­erringly, and Sunni orthodoxy has therefore quite formally pronounced itself in favour of fatalism. It considers the absolute predestination of all human actions as an article of belief, and sees therein merely a simple corollary of the infinite power of Allah. Only the Qadarites and Mu'tazilites refuse to concur in this deduction. The former, considered by the orthodox community as heretics, have taken their name from the controversy, for they proclaim that man is left free to determine his ‘qadar’, fatum, that is, his eternal destiny.

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PROPHETS. God has not ceased to call men back to the profession of monotheism by the ministry of prophets. The Qoran gives no indication of their number, but tradition counts them by thousands. Their legends, indefatigably re-told and re-edited, fill the Suras, and the chain, unbroken since Adam, passes through Noah, Abraham, Lot, Ishmael, Moses—and Christ—to end in Muhammad, ‘the seal of the pro­phets’ (Qoran 33, 40). This Qoranic apax legomenon is generally translated as ‘the last of the prophets’ in the sense—the only one admitted by Islam—that after him no other will appear. But nothing precludes a different interpretation of the mysterious phrase—that Muhammad was the last of the prophets because he stamped, as with a seal, the preaching of his prede­cessors. It is indeed a conception familiar to Muham­mad that his doctrine was not an innovation but the ‘confirmation’ of the Scripturary monotheisms, that is to say, of Judaism and Christianity (cf. 2, 38, 71, 85; 3, 2, 34; 4, 50; 5, 50, 52 passim).
‘To Thee, O son of Mary, wherefore low

In attitude adoring should I bow?

Have I not wrought and builded to the sky?

Jesus of Nazareth a prophet was, as I

Whom after Him and Moses Heaven did send

The work begun to finish and extend.'¹
THE CHRISTOLOGY of the Qoran is extremely char­acteristic and has been strongly influenced by the literature of the apocryphal gospels. The Christ, ‘Isa, is called ‘Son of Mary’, and the latter is confused

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The sense which it attached to ‘Kalima’—Word—remains enigmatic. No doubt he wished simply to convey that the Messiah had acted as an organ and intermediary to divine revelation: this realistic inter­pretation is in harmony with his conception of pro­phecy, for he alleges that the preaching of Christ dealt only with monotheism (3, 44; 5, 117; 43, 63), another favourite theme of Muhammad. Jesus is only the ‘servant of Allah’, a mere mortal like the other prophets. He is said to have foretold the coming of Ahmad; that is, of Muhammad (61, 6). The latter was never able to admit the mystery of the crucifixion:

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ESCHATOLOGY. The eschatological concepts were chiefly expounded in the Mekkan Suras. They affirm the reality of a future life, of paradise and hell, of the resurrection and the Judgment of all men. After death each will receive the reward of his works, the just in heaven, the wicked in hell, which place of torment is, together with heaven, to be everlasting. The Qoran enumerates certain deadly sins, ‘Kaba’ir’, such as polytheism, the murder of an innocent person, etc., which are deserving of hell. Certain texts declare, nevertheless, that Allah can ‘in His omnipotence’ grant deliverance to the damned (2, 108–110); others insinuate that for Muslims hell will be temporary (4, 51, 116; 11, 109, etc.; 92, 15-16). This last conclusion, adopted by tradition against the Khari­jites, has to all appearances been borrowed from the Talmudist Jews, whose right to claim a similar privilege the Qoran (2, 74) nevertheless disputes (3, 23).

The ‘true believers will do no more than pass through the fire’ (19, 71-72). It must therefore be equivalent to a purgatory.

These places of bliss or torment are depicted as material. The wine of Paradise, served by dazzlingly beautiful youths, ‘shall not cause their brows to ache’ (56, II, etc.). The Medinese Suras avoid reference to the paradisal ‘houris’ mentioned in the pre-Hijra verses (55, 72; 56, 22). Women of the faithful, and ‘the spouses’ of believers, are admitted to heaven and take their place there, but these wives

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will then be freed from the infirmities belonging to their sex (2, 23; 3, 13; 4, 60). Nowhere is the beatific vision clearly mentioned; Allah remains ‘inaccessible to human eyes’ (6, 102). If on the day of resurrection ‘their looks are turned towards the Lord’ (75, 22-23), the orthodox commentators interpret this passage as referring to fleshly vision; while the Mu'tazilites only see it as a figurative and symbolic phrase. Otherwise, these latter argue, God would be in one place and would be limited.

Catastrophes and strange phenomena will precede and announce the end of the world: the invasion of Gog and Magog, the appearance of a mysterious beast, the splitting in twain of the moon, etc. Then will begin the Judgment of all men, called in the Qoran by very diverse names; ‘the hour’, ‘the day of judgment’, ‘of the resurrection’, etc. All the dead will arise; this point is the subject of some of the longest dissertations in the Mekkan texts, and on this subject the Prophet heaps up analogies and comparisons. All men will appear at the last Judgment, where their eternal fate will be finally settled.

But how are we to imagine the fate of souls during the period intervening between death and the Judg­ment? This problem has caused acute embarrass­ment to the Muslim schoolmen, no doubt because the Suras furnish no clear solution. Certain verses, in conformity with ancient Arab beliefs, suppose the dead to be either sleeping or insensible in the tomb (Qoran 22, 7; 50, 18). The tradition of the Sunni and Imamites has seized upon this suggestion and deduced therefrom its theory of the ‘Torment of the Tomb’. This theory does not succeed in making clear the nature of the sufferings which torment simultane­ously body and soul, in spite of their separation and of the bodily insensibility which follows it. The same

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As for the martyrs, Qoranic texts proclaim them ‘living in the presence of Allah and receiving from Him their subsistence’ (2, 143 ; 3, 152, 163; 4, 76; 22, 57; 47, 5–7); an assertion which must by some means be reconciled with the fact of the resurrection which will come shortly before the last Judgment. A few privileged souls receive in the same manner and without waiting their eternal reward in heaven (Qoran 36, 25, etc.). The wicked go straight to hell. There will be brought forth at the last Judgment ‘the Book’ containing an exact account of the smallest actions, together with ‘the Balance designed to weigh them’. To this apparatus Muslim tradition adds the ‘bridge as sharp as a razor-edge across which the souls must pass’. The Mu’tazilites, and in our day the progres­sives and modernists, see in ‘the bridge’ and in ‘the torment of the tomb’ which the ‘ ‘aqidas’, professions of faith, have adopted, symbolic representation which it is better not to scrutinize too closely.

Such are the principal themes touched on by the theology of the Qoran. The author confines himself to asseverating them vigorously and to enumerating them time after time in the Mekkan Suras. The Medinese pronouncements are overwhelmed by details and provisions of a practical nature which do not add to this exposition any new doctrinal element. In his character of prophet and voice of warning, ‘nadhir’, Muhammad did not feel called upon to furnish demonstration. He was a messenger of Allah, whose mission was confined to ‘balagh’, or transmis­sion of divine messages. The task of harmonizing and systematizing them was left to the theorists of

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INFLUENCE OF THE QORAN. It is difficult to over-estimate the influence of the Qoran on the formation of Muslim mentality. All Muslims admit without question the miracle of the ‘i‘jaz’, that is, the insuper­ability of the Qoran. Not even the united efforts of men and jinns could succeed in composing a fragment comparable with it (Qoran 2, 21; 17, 90). It is in the mould of this divine book, existing in heaven from all eternity under the guardianship of the angels (30, 13-15), that the Islamic conception of the world has been fashioned. That conception explains to us the general likeness existing amongst all Muslim communities, notwithstanding their ethnical differences.

The Qoran, learnt by heart from infancy, used as a textbook for the elementary school manuals, offers to the believer the easily assimilable elements of a philosophy at once positive and revealed. He finds therein the doctrine of the rule of providence, and the just estimation of all events, none of which can

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I. THE ‘SHAHADA’or profession of faith is contained in the phrase: ‘There is no God but Allah and Muham­mad is his Prophet’. In its brief compass this formula attaches Islam to the group of monotheistic religions by proclaiming the unity of God, and distinguishes it from them by affirming the prophetic mission of Muhammad. Its recital admits the infidel to the Muslim community. Every Muslim must pronounce it at least once after he is considered as mukallaf, i.e. subject to religious obligations. In practice the customary offering of prayer, of which the shahada forms an integral part, takes the place of this obliga­tion.

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THEODICY OF ISLAM. We have already spoken (p. 24) of Muhammad's prophetic mission and of how it is regarded by Islam. The first part of the formula, that which proclaims the unity of God, implies the existence of a Muslim theodicy. Its principal role consists in harmonizing the transcendence of the essence or ‘Zat’ of Allah, His ineffable divine unity, first with the multiplicity of His attributes, ‘sifat’ as mentioned in the Qoran—will, power, knowledge, etc.; secondly, with the innumerable qualificatives—seeing, hearing, sitting, speaking, and so on—associated by that collection with the name of Allah. It was essen­tial to avoid the dissociation of essence and attributes; furthermore, a too laboured insistence on the Qoranic qualificatives produced a risk of falling into anthropo­morphism. This problem exercised Islamic theologians at an early date, and they sought for a solution.

We have already mentioned the Mu'tazilites. Their doctrinal activity and influence were specially marked during the caliphate of Mamun (813–833) and of his two successors. They are known to us as the defenders of free will (v. p. 49). Anti-determinists and later opposed to any distinction between the essence and attributes of God, the Mu'tazilites called themselves ‘the defenders of justice and unity’—‘al-'adl wa’ttauhid’—as though their system alone safeguarded the concept of equity—by asserting the freedom of the will—and of unity as these attributes should be recog­nized in God. But how was it possible, while main­taining the reality of the attributes, to avoid the necessity of giving them co-eternal existence with God?

The school founded by Al-Ash'ari (965) believed it had found the solution, thanks to this formula of recon­ciliation and compromise: ‘Allah knows through his knowledge; he can through his power, etc., which attri-

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2. PRAYER. Private and individual prayer, ‘do‘a’, is subject to no sort of regulation, as opposed to the ‘salat’, which is ritual prayer and must be in Arabic. Tradition has fixed the number, left indeterminate in the Qoran, of the five daily ‘salat’ of dawn, noon, ‘asr (midway between noon and sunset), sunset and of nightfall, about an hour after sunset.

These prayers must be performed by the faithful, facing in the direction of the qibla, that is to say, of Mekka, and in a state of legal purity, ‘tahara’. Alternatively, they must be preceded by ablution, ‘wadu’, of the face and hands, of the arms up to the elbow, and of the feet including the ankles. In case of neces­sity the ‘tayammum’, or rubbing with sand, may be substituted for water. The procedure is similar in all other cases where legal purity is required; for example, in reciting or merely touching the Qoran. Before the public noonday prayer on Friday complete ablution—‘ghusl’—is obligatory. The ‘tahara’ is destroyed by sleep, contact with things regarded as impure, e.g. corpses, wine, pork, dogs, etc., the needs of nature, conjugal relations, etc.

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Each prayer opens with the takbir, or repetition of the formula, ‘Allah Akbar’; next comes the recitation of the first sura, or Fatiha, followed by the shahada; the whole being punctuated by qiyam, or the standing posture, inclinations of the trunk and complete pros­trations. It finishes with ‘the prayer for the Prophet’ (salat ‘alan-nabi), followed by the salutation (salam) to the congregation, which is recited turning to the right and to the left. This series of postures and formulæ may be prolonged, and an effort made to break the monotony by the interpolation after the Fatiha of further invocations, suras or groups of Qoranic verses. Their number is determined by the devotion of the worshipper and regulated by the rite to which he belongs. The use of Arabic is strictly enforced. Abu Hanifa admits an exception in favour of the foreigner, whose tongue cannot master the pronuncia­tion of Arabic.

The Friday Prayer is obligatory upon all adult males. Women take no part in it. It is held at the mosque at noon with a congregation of at least forty of the Faithful and under the direction of a president, or imam. Before the prayer the president delivers from the pulpit two addresses (khutba) in

60 ISLAM BELIEFS AND INSTITUTIONS

A special ‘salat’ with khutba solemnizes the two great canonical festivals of the year: that which ends the fast of Ramadan and that of the tenth day of the month of Dhu'l-hijja, which coincides with the sacrifices of the pilgrims at Mekka. The festivals instituted to commemorate the birth (maulid) of Muhammad, his ascension (mi'raj) to heaven, etc., are of more recent date.

3. THE ZAKAT, or ‘sadaqa’, is a kind of alms-tithe, or tax on capital. Its proportion, a tenth, twentieth, etc., is regulated in the books of fiqh, according to the nature of the goods taxed. Every year it is levied in kind on the Muslim's possessions. According to the Qoran (9, 60), it may only be spent for humani­tarian purposes—redemption of slaves, aid to members of the community, travellers, debtors, volunteers of the Holy War, and also those whom, in conformity with the wish of the Qoran, it is important to win over to the cause of Islam. The distinction between the ‘zakat’ and other taxes, its exclusive use for the ends above-mentioned, has virtually fallen into desuetude. Everything is paid into the treasury. The ‘shari'a’ seems to recognize for Muslims no more than the strict legality of the ‘zakat’.

4. THE FAST OF THE MONTH OF RAMADAN. This daily fast begins with the break of dawn and lasts until sunset. It comprises total abstinence from food, drink, perfumes, tobacco, and conjugal relations. During the night all these interdictions are raised. Dispensations in the case of illness, travel, the Holy War, etc., are temporary; the obligation is renewed when the reason for exemption has disappeared. The

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deficiency must be made up by an equivalent number of fast days, and in cases of intentional omission, charitable deeds must be added by way of expiation.

5. PILGRIMAGE TO MEKKA. Minors, slaves, and poor persons are exempted from this obligation. Other causes of exemption are unsafe roads or times, and a state of war or public disturbances. But with the disappearance of obstacles the obligation is renewed. ‘The pilgrimage is the sole centre of effective co-ordi­nation, capable of giving a liturgical structure to Sun­nism’ (L. Massignon). It has adopted most of the ceremonies of the old Arabian pilgrimage (v. p. 19).

Essential features are the wearing of the ihram, a seamless garment, the tawaf, circumambulation of the Ka'ba, the course, sa'y, from Safa to Marwa, the halts (wuquf) at the outlying sanctuaries of ‘Arafa, Muzdalifa and Mina, with a sacrifice at Mina. This is the ‘ ‘id al-adha’, or feast of sacrifice, cele­brated on the same day, likewise by sacrifices, through-out the whole of Islam. For as long as he wears the ihram, the pilgrim must submit to the abstinences imposed during the fast of Ramadan. In addition, he must abstain from hunting and from cutting his nails and hair. Certain schools authorize the vicarious performance of the pilgrimage. Others regard such vicarious performance as a strict obligation, if the pilgrimage has not been accomplished by the Muslim in his lifetime.

The ‘omra is a lesser pilgrimage, an optional but highly meritorious observance, not restricted to any particular time of the year. It comprises the same ceremonies and the same obligations—apart from the sacrifice—as the great pilgrimage, but is confined to the visit to the Ka'ba and the urban sanctuaries of Mekka. Held in no less honour, except among the

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Wahhabis, is the visit to Medina, to the tomb of Muhammad.

THE JEHAD. The war against the non-Muslims, so frequently recommended in the Medinese suras, almost became, as with the Kharijites, a ‘sixth pillar of Islam’. Islam owes to it her expansion, in which ‘the mission’, properly speaking, has played an insignificant role. The ‘shari'a’ has always looked upon the Holy War as one of the principal duties of the Caliph. It continues to be regarded as a ‘required duty’ (fard al-kifaya), not an individual obligation, but binding on the community as a whole. Thus if a Muslim sovereign or state consecrate themselves to it, it is considered as accomplished; but in theory the Jehad should know neither intermission nor end until the whole world has been conquered for Islam. This is one of the most incontestably popular concepts of the Islamic ideal.

It is to this theory that we owe the geographical distinction between ‘dar al-harb’, or ‘war territory’, and ‘dar al-islam’, or ‘the land of Islam’, governed by the laws of the Qoran. In the case of countries inhabited by pagan or Scripturary populations but independent of Islamic rule, truces may not in prin­ciple be concluded for periods longer than ten years, but such truces may be renewed indefinitely. The Qoran (