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qIBADAT that it is indifferent, and makruh, reprehensible, or that

its omission will be rewarded. Finally, forbidden (haram)
The sacred law of Islam (shariqa) distinguishes two kinds
indicates that both omission will be rewarded and per-
of practices: qibadat (practices concerning the relations
formance will be punished. These qualifications may vary
between God and human beings, or devotional practices)
among the law schools with regard to their precise
and muqamalat (social ethics, i.e., the part of the law that
connotation.
guides the relations between humans). The qibadat
include the salat (prayer), zakat (alms giving), sawm Together with the testimony of faith (shahada), the
Ramadan (fasting during the holy month of Ramadan), qibadat constitute the five pillars of Islam (arkan al-
and the hajj (the pilgrimage to Mecca and the nearby Islam). According to Islam, humans have been created
holy places, namely qArafat, Muzdalifa, and Mina). to serve God. Both the individual and the community are
Some aspects of the qibadat can be qualified as ritual under the obligation to follow the stipulations of the
and other aspects fit less easily in this category. For exam- revealed law. According to scholars, the religious duties
ple, zakat regulations pertain to goods or wealth that are to are clearly set out in the two sources of the revelation: the
be handed over to certain categories of persons who are ayat al-shariqa in the Qurpan and in the sunna, the Pro-
entitled to it (in particular, the needy). This takes place in phetic tradition. There is no difference of opinion among
a non-ritual context on the one hand, and a ritualized scholars with regard to the obligatory and clear (bayan)
context, that of giving zakat (zakat al-fitr) on the Day of nature of these duties. This status explains why someone
the Breaking of the Fast, on the other. who denies them their obligatory character places him- or
herself outside religion. That person expresses kufr, or
According to the shariqa, the qibadat are all the
unbelief.
individual duties that each mentally competent, mature,
and healthy Muslim (male and female) is obligated to
perform. The formulation of the niyya, the intention to STATUS
perform these rituals before performing them, is of cru- According to religious views, the qibadat are constant and
cial importance for their validity, or as the Prophetic do not allow for varying interpretations based on spatial
tradition states it: ‘‘The works are (only) rendered valid and temporal circumstances. In reality, however, some
by their intentions.’’ changes in the way the qibadat have been performed and
In the fiqh (jurisprudence), actions are qualified as interpreted by the believers have taken place. There can
follows. Fard or wajib indicates that an act is obligatory be no doubt that its religious status explains why the
in such a way that omission will be punished and the qibadat changed far less than the muqamalat. They are
performance will be rewarded. The qualification sunna or the ‘‘symbolic capital’’ (the term coined by Pierre Bour-
mustahabb indicates that an act is recommended but that dieu) of the ulema, who have been able to retain their
omission will not be punished. Mubah or japiz means position until the present day. Nowadays that position is
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477
qIbadat Not For Sale
Donation Bin in a Shopping Mall in Dubai, Holding Donations for the Poor, 2007. Zakat, or the giving of alms, is a Pillar of
Islam, one of the devotional practices central to the religious duties known as qibadat. ª KARIM SAHIB/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
being challenged by emerging religious authorities, such Tozy showed that only 10 percent of the men in the
as liberal intellectuals like Mohammed Arkoun, as well as Moroccan city of Casablanca attended the obligatory
by Islamist leaders who enjoined no traditional religious Friday prayer and that only one out of every thousand
education, such as the late Sayyid Qutb. persons performed the daily salats in a mosque.
New media and political situations also allow further Although often discussed as if they are isolated phe-
possibilities to acquire authority. For example, ‘‘Cyber nomena, the qibadat are in practice embedded in and
muftis,’’ who give fatwas via the Internet and often have closely interwoven with a complex system of informal
unclear backgrounds, draw new audiences. In 1960 and formal religious behaviors. These behaviors are not
Tunisian president Habib Bourguiba argued in various only guided by the rules of the fiqh, but also by cultural
addresses to his population that under the circumstances and political traditions, local circumstances, the norms
in which the nation found itself, namely that of the and values of the believer’s own community and other
recently recovered freedom from French colonial rule, it religious communities, politics, and society at large. A
should be permitted not to fast during Ramadan. discussion about whispering or reading aloud particular
According to him, Tunisia could be considered to be in recitations during the salat among the Gayo (Indonesia)
an economic jihad with regard to its struggle for a better had a background in local debate between traditionalists
economic position. Fasting, he stated, would bring about and reformists about conceptions of community and
too considerable a loss of productivity. It soon appeared, faithfulness to the normative example of the prophet
however, that the most important Tunisian ulema did Muhammad. This shows that the opposition between
not endorse the proposal and the population did not give universal versus local meaning, or great and little tradi-
up the fast. tions, does not hold in the case of the salat. Other
The aforesaid high status of ritual obligations does researchers made it clear that connected oppositions,
not always correlate with a high rate of performance. namely between orthodox (male) versus heterodox
Empirical research by Bruno Etienne and Mohamed (female), did not hold in the case of gender roles, either.
478 ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ISLAM AND THE MUSLIM WORLD, 2ND EDITION

qIbadat
RITUAL IN PRE-ISLAMIC ARABIA Thus, prayer, giving zakat (2:215, 9:6), fasting
The rituals that became the qibadat as we know them (2:179), and the hajj (3:91) became individual Islamic
today were not unknown in sixth-century CE Arabia. duties. Friday afternoon became the day of communal
Rituals such as fasting were known (see Q. 19: 26–27). prayer, accompanied by a sermon (khutba). This day and
Certain fasting practices and purity regulations were also time were chosen since a market was held in Medina in
observed by Meccan monotheists. Hence, the religious the morning and many people gathered there. After the
scholars make a distinction between the meaning of a death of the Prophet in 632 CE the rituals further devel-
term such as sawm (fasting) in daily use and its meaning oped both with regard to actual practice and the norms
in the shariqa. In daily use, sawm means abstention, for and values held by the community. In this process the
example, from food or drink. In the terminology of the religious identity of Islam as a separate religion played a
shariqa it has received the (revealed) meaning of refraining great part.
from food and drink from dawn to sunset.
The hajj was also practiced in the pre-Islamic period RELIGIOUS IDENTITY
(‘‘time of ignorance’’), but in a form different from the
Traditions recommended that believers distinguish them-

Islamic hajj. Unlike today, pilgrims performed different selves from the followers of other religions and not
hajj rituals. For example, the tribal alliance called the assimilate with regard to dress and prayer rituals (for
Hums, to which the Prophet belonged, refrained from example, whether or not to pray while wearing shoes).
performing the standing at qArafat and the running These traditions were an expression of the desire to
between the hills al-Safa and al-Marwa for religiopolitical establish an Islamic religious identity; they have contin-
reasons. Instead, the importance of the Kaqba as a central ued to influence Muslim attitudes and behavior until
sanctuary was enhanced. It is also known that tribes had today and are the subject of numerous discussions. For
different talbiyas, and ihram practices. example, the present-day custom among Dutch Muslims
In pre-Islamic times, the rituals were embedded in a of Surinamese origin to make a ball of flour out of the
cycle that was determined both by the solar and lunar child’s hair and throw it in the river should be shunned,
calendars. The qumra was a spring ritual in the month of for it was said to have been taken over from the Hindus.
Rajab (the seventh month) in which animals were sacri- Another example is the question of whether Muslims are
ficed, and the hajj fell in the autumn, celebrating the allowed to attend Christmas celebrations, a matter that is
harvest. The eleven days separating the lunar from the hotly debated in many places.
solar year were compensated for by the so-called inter- Not only did such behavior serve to mark off Islam
calation, the nasip. The nasip was abolished by the from other religions, it also functioned inside the Islamic
Prophet after the conquest of Mecca, as is attested in community. For example, in medieval times there was a
the Qurpan (9:37). From that moment onward calendri- great ritual divide between Sunni and Shiqite Islam about
cal feasts and rituals were no longer tied to the seasons. the acceptability of the purification ritual of passing the
Other ritual changes introduced by the Prophet hand over the boots, which even found its way to medi-
aimed at dissociating rituals from sunset and sundown, eval creeds. The issue here was whether it was permissible
for example, the running of the pilgrims between qArafat to wipe the boots instead of the feet themselves when
and Muzdalifa and prayer during sunrise. Ritual restric- travelling. Shiqites did not allow this, while Sunni Mus-
tions observed by the Hums were also abolished in order lims did.
to symbolize the unity of mankind in Islam. Hence the
Qurpan states that there is no sin (2:158) in performing EMERGING RITUALS
the saqy (pacing back and forth seven times) between Safa New customs were not always looked upon favorably by
and Marwa, something that the Hums had refrained the ulema. In many cases they were qualified as innova-
from doing. Through the example of the Prophet during tions (bidqas). The celebrations of the birthday of the
the farewell-pilgrimage, the qumra was joined to the hajj Prophet (the mawlid al-nabi) and of the middle night
and so both rituals became united. They can still be of Shaqban are two famous cases in point. Complete
performed separately, however. Moreover, the rituals of inventories of such bidqas came into existence in the
running around the Kaqba and running between Safa and Middle Ages. Many ulema applied the same sort of rules
Marwa were united with the rituals in qArafat, particu- to these bidqas as to other actions, hence they might vary
larly one of the hajj’s central rituals of ‘‘standing.’’ This from laudable to forbidden. Rispler Chaim argues that
ritual takes long hours where, ideally, the pilgrims stand the purpose of such inventories was not to prohibit such
in prayer. A preferred place for this ritual is near or on new ritual forms, but rather to bring them under control
the Hill of Mercy. and steer them in such a way that their performance
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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ISLAM AND THE MUSLIM WORLD, 2ND EDITION 479

would not infringe on morality and good manners (for and carnival-like rituals such as masquerades, proces-
example, by mixing men and women). sions, and theater.
Muslim are exhorted not to devote themselves to On 12 Rabiq I, the third month, the birthday of the
rituals to the detriment of the body. Hence, women Prophet is celebrated. This festival grew out of the Fati-
may abstain from fasting, and the ill and sick do not mid Shiqite ritual practice (eleventh century CE), com-
have to perform the salat or fast. Islam advises believers to memorating the birthdays of the members of the
take care of the body and soul in a harmonious way. Prophet’s immediate family, the Prophet, and the reign-
Islam incorporated and transformed existing rules of ing Fatimid imam. It was gradually introduced in Sunni
purity in its religious system. The overall term for these circles in successive parts of the Middle East and the
rules is tahara, which means purity. A well-known tradi- Muslim West. Nowadays celebrated nearly everywhere
tion says ‘‘Purity is half the faith.’’ All qibadat are in one (although exceptions, such as Saudi Arabia, exist), its
way or another related to notions of purity. For example, status as a feast has nevertheless remained controversial.
giving alms is associated with purifying goods as well as It is considered to be a bidqa (see above) and is rejected by
oneself (see 9:103, ‘‘Take alms from their wealth, where- movements that consider it to be veneration of a human
with thou mayst purify them and mayst make them being, something that should be reserved exclusively for
grow, and pray for them’’). The salat should also be God and hence it is counted as shirk (the act of associat-
ing with God).
performed in a ritually clean state (5:6.).
For this reason books on fiqh usually begin with a The first Friday night in Rajab (seventh month),
discussion of purity rules. A key term in this respect is that which is especially celebrated in Turkish Islam, is a holy
night called laylat salat al-raghapib. On 27 Rajab, the
of the fitra, a concept that can be rendered as the natural
laylat al-miqraj, or night of ascension, is celebrated. The
disposition of humankind created by God. The state of
ascension of the Prophet via Jerusalem (al-israp wa al-
fitra includes circumcision (khitan), the clipping of the
miqraj) is one of the great symbols of Islam in which the
nails, trimming the mustache, removing the hair from
believer ascends toward God. It is at this occasion that
armpits and pubis. All these acts refer to bodily practices
the number of daily salats was fixed at five. Elements of
with a connotation of purity. According to many Muslim
the ritual celebration may include recitation of surat al-
scholars, the salat performed by an uncircumcised man is
israp (17), followed by commentaries, singing, and the
void, nor can he serve as an imam during prayer. How- recitation of religious poems of sorts.
ever, it appears that ritual purity is not of a medical-
material nature, but of a religious symbolic quality, from The celebration of the fifteenth middle night of
the possibility of using sand or dust instead of water for Shaqban (the eighth month), also called laylat al-barapa,
the ablution when the latter cannot be found (tayammum, is another bidqa. Its popularity can be explained by its
mentioned in 5:6). The ground on which the salat is age-old associations with the divine decision of who
performed (hence the use of prayer rugs) should also be will die the next year, which is believed to be made
on that night.
pure. Dress should be modest. Private parts should
be covered. In addition to the body, Islamic devotional The month of Ramadan (the ninth month) is
life structures time (rites of passage, feasts, festivals, pil- marked by the fast, and on the 21, 23, 25, 27, and 29
grimages), and place and space (the home, mosque, mas- of that month laylat al-qadr (97) is celebrated. Ramadan
jid ). These aspects will be discussed below. is the holy month par excellence. Even those who other-
wise hardly practice Islam usually participate in the Ram-
adan fasting. According to popular beliefs, the devils
THE RITUAL CALENDAR (shayatin) and jinn are powerless during this time, while
The ritual cycle is connected to the lunar year, which in contrast God is nearer than during other months. This
opens with the feast of Ashura (qAshurap) on 10 Muhar- increased religious awareness culminates in laylat al-qadr,
ram. For Shiqite Muslims this marks the day on which when, as some people believe, the gates of heaven are
the martyrdom of the grandson of the Prophet, Husayn, opened. On 1 Shawwal (the tenth month), the Day of
at Karbala in 60/680, is commemorated by emotional the Breaking of the Fast (qid al-fitr) is celebrated. After the
and at times violent mourning rituals. According to salat al-qid, people pay visits to relatives, which often
Sunni fiqh, Ashura had been a fasting day before the includes visits to the graves (ziyarat al-qubur).
prescription of the Ramadan fast, and it has remained a On 10 Dhu-l-Hijja, the twelfth month of the Islamic
voluntary fasting day until the present. In Morocco it is year, qid al-adha is celebrated. This ritual marks the end
a festival on which the dead are honored and during of the year, but does not actually represent the end of the
which the participants give alms, eat dried fruit, and ritual cycle since there is a clear connection between the
buy toys for their children. It is accompanied by reverie qid and the Ashura rituals.

qIbadat
RITES OF PASSAGE al-subh the phrase ‘‘prayer is better than sleep’’ is inserted.
Other elements of the qibadat fit in the life-cycle rituals Shiqites insert between the fifth and the sixth line the
or rites of passage. This holds true for birth rituals, words: ‘‘Come to the best work.’’
circumcision, and death rituals. Birth rituals include Many believers at times perform voluntary (nafila)
the custom of whispering the adhan and iqama in the salats, for example, during Ramadan when the salat al-
newborn’s ear. This includes the recitation of the sha- tarawih is performed in the mosques. In addition to the
hada or Confession of Faith, as discussed below. This salat, there exist numerous invocations (duqas), to be said
ritual is recommended according to the Shafiqite madh- at different times of the day and for different reasons.
hab. The qaqiqa, the sacrifice of a sheep or goat, takes There are also many motives for why Muslims may fast
place on the seventh day, through which joy and thanks outside Ramadan. The fiqh books detail these different
for the child are expressed. It is usually accompanied by types of fasting.
a naming ceremony (tasmiya) during which the child
receives its name, and shaving the hair of the child as a PLACE AND SPACE
sacrifice. The meat of the sacrifice and the weight of
Prayers and other rituals can and may be performed at

the hair in silver are sometimes given away as alms.
any place, in agreement with the injunction that it is
Circumcision (Ar. khitan, tahara) is a fixed sunna
laudable to pray together with others. The Friday prayers
(strongly recommended) according to most schools.

(salat al-jumqa) are obligatory for men and must be
The Shafiqites are of the opinion that it is obligatory.
performed in the mosque. Moreover, a hierarchy of
In present-day practice, virtually all male Muslims are
sacred places exists. These places may be buildings such
circumcised.
as mosques, graves (the visiting of the graves or ziyarat al-
The deceased is purified by a ritual bath (ghusl ), and qubur), zawiyas—but also geographical areas: mountains,
the corpse is dressed in a kafan, which resembles in many rivers, wells, and cities. Often the relative merits of these
ways the clothing of the pilgrim, the hajji. The salat places, for example, in the works on the fadapil,, express
al-janaza is performed. The deceased is buried with the political notions as well.
face in the direction of the qibla. Marriage, another life The hajj has Mecca (the Kaqba and the Safa and
cycle ritual, is not reckoned among the qibadat, but Marwa, nowadays all part of the complex of the Masjid
among the muqamalat, and will therefore not be consid- al-Haram) and the holy places near to it (Muzdalifa,
ered here. Mina, qArafat) as its direct objects. Mecca, whose haram
was founded, according to Muslim tradition by the
DAILY RITUALS prophet Ibrahim and Medina, the haram of which
The days of the believers are marked by the rhythm of five was founded by the Prophet himself, became the most
obligatory salats: the morning salat (salat al-subh or fajr) holy cities in Islam. On the haram where the Masjid
consisting of two rakqas, to be performed between first al-Aqsa was built in Jerusalem, Caliph qAbd al-Malik
dawn to sunrise; the noon prayer (zuhr) to be performed erected the Dome of the Rock at the end of the seventh
after the sun has reached its highest point until the mid- century CE.
afternoon, consisting of four rakqas; the qasr (from mid- When Mecca was in the hands of an opponent,
afternoon to sunset) consisting of four rakqas; the prayer qAbdallah b. al-Zubayr (3/624–73/692), rituals, includ-
after sunset (maghrib) consisting of three rakqas; and the ing a tawaf performed in the opposite direction as the
qishap (after complete darkness). It is sunna to perform the tawaf in Mecca, were instituted in order to divert the
call to prayer (adhan). In places where Muslims live as pilgrims from the holy city. It was in this period that
minorities (about 30%) the public performance of the call Jerusalem became an established object of pilgrimage,
to prayer has always been a very important symbol for the and many other places throughout the world would
public presence of Islam. In Western Europe especially, follow. Nowadays, ziyaras, visits to the tombs of the male
the adhan is publicly performed before the salat al-jumqa and female saints (Ar. wali, pl. awliyap; 10:63) and to
(see above). The formula of the adhan is the following: sacred places, are quite common in many parts of the
‘‘God is great [4 times, only the Malikites pronounce it world both in Sunni and Shiqite Islam.
twice], I testify that there is no god but God [2 times], I Also very important is the birthday festival (qurs or
testify that Muhammad is the messenger of God [2 times]. mawsim) of the saint, when huge celebrations may take
Come to Prayer, Come to salvation, God is most Great, place. The veneration of saints serves the psychological
there is no God besides God.’’ This formula is the same needs of many believers to be close to their objects of
for all schools of law, although they differ with regard to veneration, from which they hope to receive baraka
repetition of some lines. In the adhan before the salat (blessing), cure from illnesses, help in misfortune,
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Prayer (Salat)
The following passages from the Qur’an form the foundation of the five daily prayer times.
So give glory to God when you reach evening and when you rise in the morning. Yes, to Him is praise in the heavens and on earth and in the afternoon and when the
day begins to decline. (30:17–18) Celebrate the praises of your Lord before the rising sun, and before its setting. Yes, celebrate them for part of the night and at the
sides of the day, so that you may have spiritual joy. (20:130)
The five prayers should take place in the following order:

• Fajr: break of day
• Zuhr: midday
• Asr: during the afternoon
• Maghrib: evening
• ‘Isha: night
These are a few of the words and positions of prayer, which is always said in Arabic. Movements one through five constitute one rak‘ah. Each of the prayer times
consists of two to four rak‘ahs. Movements six and seven complete the prayer.
1 2 3
Through wudu’, the ritual God is most great. O God, glory and praise are God is most great.
washing, Muslims prepare for You, and blessed is Your
for prayer in mind, body name, and exalted is Your
and spirit. majesty; there is no god
but You.
4 5 6 7
Glory to my Lord, the Highest. God is most great. All prayer is for God and worship Peace and mercy of God
and goodness. Peace be on you, O be on you.
Prophet, and the mercy of God
and His blessings.
O Lord, make me and my children
steadfast in prayer. Our Lord,
accept the prayer. Our Lord, forgive
me and my parents and the believers
on the day of judgment.
SOURCE: Breuilly, Elizabeth, Joanne O'Brien, and Martin Palmer. Religions of the World. New York: Facts on File, 1997.
Prayer Positions. ª CENGAGE LEARNING/GALE
intercession with God, and so on. The connection with of large-scale globalization and diasporic processes, the
notions of kinship and descent from the Prophet is creation of many new ‘‘Muslim spaces’’ is common
symbolized in the notion of nobility (sharaf ). Because today.

Ibn al-qArabi (560/1165–638/1240)
SEE ALSO Bidqa; Body, Significance of; Devotional Life; IBN AL-qARABI (560/1165–638/1240)
Law; Pilgrimage: Hajj; Pillars of Islam; Ritual;
Shariqa. Ibn al-qArabi was a prolific, influential, and controversial
scholar whose writings, based on close readings of the
Qurpan, combined the perspectives of jurisprudence, phi-
BIBLIOGRAPHY losophy, kalam, and Sufism. His more complete name is
Abu Zahra, Nadia. The Pure and the Powerful: Studies in Muhammad ibn qAli ibn Muhammad ibn al-qArabi al-
Contemporary Muslim Society. Reading, U.K.: Ithaca Press,
Tapi al-Hatimi.
1997.
Antoun, Richard T. ‘‘The Social Significance of Ramadân in an He was born in the Moorish kingdom of Murcia,
Arab Village.’’ The Muslim World 58 (1968): 36–42, 95–104. where his father was a government official. After his
Bashear, Suleyman. ‘‘On the Origins and Development of the family moved to Seville, a visionary experience shook
Meaning of Zakat in Early Islam.’’ Arabica 40, no. 1 (1993): him out of adolescent concerns. He famously recounts
84–113.
how his father took him, his beard not yet sprouted, to
Buitelaar, Marjo. Fasting and Feasting in Morocco: Women’s
Participation in Ramadan. Oxford, U.K.: Berg, 1993. visit the great philosopher Averroes, who was awed by the
Denny, Frederick M. ‘‘Islamic Ritual: Perspectives and God-given understanding he saw in the boy. He studied
Theories.’’ In Approaches to Islamic Studies, edited by Richard hadith and the other religious sciences with many teach-
C. Martin. Oxford, U.K.: Oneworld, 2001. ers in Andalus. In 596/1200, a vision instructed him to
Elad, Amikam. Medieval Jerusalem and Islamic Worship: Holy go to the East. In 598/1202 he made the pilgrimage to
Places, Ceremonies, Pilgrimage. Leiden: Brill, 1995. Mecca, then traveled widely through the Arab countries
Etienne, Bruno, and Mohamed Tozy. ‘‘Le glissement des and Anatolia, and in 620/1223 settled down in Damas-
obligations islamiques vers le phénomène associatif à
Casablanca.’’ Annuaire de l’Afrique du Nord 18 (1979–1980): cus, where he taught and wrote until his death. He is the
235–259. author of over four hundred highly sophisticated and
Goitein, Shlomo Dov. ‘‘The Origin and Nature of Muslim technical treatises, including the encyclopedic al-Futuhat
Friday Worship.’’ In Studies in Islamic History and Institutions, al-makkiyya (The Meccan openings), the celebrated Fusus
edited by Shlomo Dov Goitein. Leiden: Brill, 1966. al-hikam (The ringstones of wisdom), and a few collec-
Grunebaum, Gustave von. Muhammadan Festivals (1956). tions of poetry. His teachings became controversial with
Reprint. London: Curzon, 1992.
Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1328).
Gulevich, Tanya. Understanding Islam and Muslim Traditions.
Detroit, MI: Omnigraphics, 2004. In the later literature Ibn al-qArabi’s name is closely
Haarmann, Ulrich. ‘‘Islamic Duties in History.’’ The Muslim associated with the notion of wahdat al-wujud (‘‘oneness
World 68 (1978): 1–24. of being’’), though it is difficult to explain why this
Hawting, G. R., ed. The Development of Islamic Ritual. should be so simply on the basis of his writings. Few of
Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2006.
his works have been studied with care by modern schol-
Kassam, Zayn. ‘‘Ritual Life.’’ In The Islamic World, edited by
Andrew Rippin. London: Routledge, 2008. ars, but it is safe to say that they circle around a number
Kister, M. J. ‘‘‘Rajab is the month of God . . . ’ A Study in the of themes. Chief among these is the depiction of the
Persistence of an Early Tradition.’’ Israel Oriental Studies 1 various paths to perfection represented mythically by
(1971): 191–223. the 124,000 prophets sent by God, though he focuses
Peters, Francis E. The Hajj. The Muslim Pilgrimage to Mecca and on Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad. He is com-
the Holy Places. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, monly labeled a ‘‘Sufi,’’ but not by himself; he would have
1994.
much preferred the term muhaqqiq, ‘‘realizer’’ or ‘‘veri-
Rispler-Chaim, Vardit. ‘‘Medical Aspects of Islamic Worship.’’
In Islamic Medical Ethics in the Twentieth Century. Leiden: fier,’’ the active participle of the word tahqiq. Derived
Brill 1993. from the word haqq—truth, reality, worthiness—tahqiq
Senturk, Omer Faruk. Charity in Islam: A Comprehensive Guide means to see all things in relation to the unity (tawhid ) of
to Zakat. Somerset, NJ: Light Inc., 2004. al-haqq, the absolute truth and reality that is God, and
Stillman, Yedida. ‘‘Costume as Cultural Statement: The then to act appropriately. To achieve tahqiq, one must
Esthetics, Economics and Politics of Islamic Dress.’’ In The
open the two eyes of the heart (qalb), which are reason
Jews of Medieval Islam, edited by Daniel Frank. Leiden: Brill,
1995. (qaql ) and imagination (khayal ). With the eye of reason,
Tayob, Abdulkader. Islam: A Short Introduction. Signs, Symbols the heart verifies that the absolute haqq is transcendent
and Values. Oxford, U.K.: Oneworld, 1999. and incomparable with any created thing. With the eye of
imagination, it verifies that this same infinite haqq is
Gerard Wiegers immanent and present in every created thing. The indis-
Professor of Religious Studies pensable guidelines for achieving tahqiq are provided by
University of Amsterdam the Qurpan and the sunna.
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Ibn Battuta (703/1304–c. 769/1368)
The Fusus al-hikam, object of well over one hundred IBN BATTUTA (703/1304–
commentaries before modern times, offers an epitome of C. 769/1368)
Ibn al-qArabi’s methodology and goals. In twenty-seven
Ibn Battuta (sometimes Batuta or Battutah), whose full
chapters it discusses twenty-seven wisdoms, each desig-
name was Abu qAbdallah Muhammad ibn qAbdallah ibn
nated by one of the fundamental attributes of reality,
Muhammad ibn Ibrahim Shams al-Din al-Lawati al-
such as holiness, realness, light, unity, and mercy. Each
Tanji, was a Moorish traveler who was born 25 Febru-
wisdom is embodied in a divine word (kalima) that takes
ary 703/1304. He died in Morocco in 769/1368 or
human form, the first of which is Adam and the last Muham-
770/1369.
mad. Adam incarnates the wisdom of the name Allah, which
comprehends the meaning of all the divine names. It Although some details of Ibn Battuta’s itinerary are
was Allah—not the Creator or the Compassionate—who lost or uncertain, it is known that he left Tangier on 13
created Adam in his own image, and it was Allah who June 725/1325 and traveled across North Africa to
Egypt and Syria, and to Mecca. He toured the Middle
‘‘taught him all the names’’ (Q. 2:30). Human perfection is
East and the Near East, sailed along the East African
then to realize every divine attribute as one’s own, in keeping
coast, returned to Mecca, and then traveled through
with the prophetic saying, ‘‘Assume the character traits of
Asia Minor, stopping in Constantinople, capital of the
God.’’ The children of Adam represent the infinitely diverse
Byzantine Empire. Ibn Battuta journeyed through the
synthetic images of God that arise because of the differing
territories of The Golden Horde (the steppes of Central
proportions in which the divine names become manifest in
Asia) and across the Himalayas to India, where he stayed
each individual. The twenty-six perfect human beings to
for eight years. Afterward he traveled to the Maldives,
whom the remaining chapters are devoted realized the full
Sri Lanka, Bengal, Assam, Sumatra, sailing all the way
divine image while simultaneously displaying the character-
to China. He returned to North Africa through India
istics of one specific divine attribute. Each chapter builds on
and the Middle East during the time of the Black
references in the Qurpan and the hadith to illustrate the
Death. He arrived back in Morocco in November
applicability of the revealed passages to the prophet in ques-
750/1349. After a short stay he visited Moorish Spain
tion and to human beings in general.
and later traveled to Mali. He ended his travels in
The Fusus has attracted much attention partly December 754/1353.
because its often obscure contents allowed scholars to After completing his long journey Ibn Battuta
demonstrate their mastery of the science of tawhid. Its spent two years dictating the story of his travels to his
sometimes provocative interpretations of Qurpanic verses, secretary, Ibn Juzayy, who was appointed to him by the
rare in Ibn qArabi’s other writings, aroused the ire of a sultan of Morocco. The result was a masterly contri-
great number of critics and produced an extensive secon- bution to the genre known as rihla, and Ibn Battuta
dary literature of attack and defense. gave this kind of travel narrative a new dimension. Less
SE E A LS O Kalam; Philosophy; Sufism; Wahdat al-Wujud. than a century earlier Marco Polo had made a journey
to Asia with a resulting narrative of lesser scope and
detail.
BIBLIOGRAPHY Ibn Battuta’s account of his journeys is a narrative of
Addas, Claude. Quest for the Red Sulphur: The Life of travels through three continents, 120,000 kilometers
Ibn qArabı̂. Cambridge, U.K.: The Islamic Texts Society, (80,000 miles) of known and unknown cultures. It
1993. included, among other observations, ceremonies at the
Chittick, William C. The Self-Disclosure of God: Principles of Ibn courts of sultans, the burning of widows in India, and
al-qArabı̂’s Cosmology. Albany: State University of New York African cannibals. Ibn Battuta’s travels represent the lon-
Press, 1998. gest journey overland before the invention of the steam
Chittick, William C. Ibn qArabi: Heir to the Prophets. Oxford: engine.
Oneworld, 2005. SE E A LSO Geography; Maps and Mapmaking; Travel and
Chodkiewicz, Michel. An Ocean Without Shore: Ibn Arabi, the Travelers.
Book, and the Law. Albany: State University of New York
Press, 1993.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Battuta, Ibn. The Travels of Ibn Battuta in the Near East, Asia,
William C. Chittick and Africa 1325–1354. Translated by Samuel Lee. Mineloa,
Professor, Department of Asian and NY: Dover Publications, 2004.
Asian American Studies Dunn, Ross E. The Adventures of Ibn Battuta. Berkeley:
Stony Brook University University of California Press, 1989.

Ibn Hanbal (163/780–241/855)
E U RO P E
ATLANTIC New Saray Aral
OCEAN Venice Astrakhan Sea AS IA
Constantinople Bukhara
Erzerum Beijing
Konya Caspian Samarqand
Granada Mardin Tabriz Sea
Tangier Tunis Aleppo
Damascus Gazna
Fez Isfahan
Jerusalem Baghdad
Marrakesh Shiraz Hangzhou
Cairo Basra Delhi
Hormuz
Quanzhou
Re
Medina Sylhet
Cambay Guangzhou
d
Chittagong
Aydhab Mecca Daulatabad
Arabian
A F R I CA Zafar
Sea
Timbuktu
Sea
Aden
Calicut
Male Samudra
Mogadishu
ATLANTIC OCEAN
INDIAN OCEAN
Travels of Ibn Battuta
1325–1354 Kilwa N
1325–26 1330–32 1345–46 0 1,000 2,000 mi.
1326–27 1332–33 1346–49 0 1,000 2,000 km
1328–30 1333–45 1349–54 AUSTRALIA
Ibn Battuta’s Travels. Ibn Battuta (703/1304–c. 769/1368) traveled an estimated eighty thousand miles across three continents. It
was the longest known overland journey until the steam engine came into existence. ª CENGAGE LEARNING/GALE
Harvey, L. P. Ibn Battuta. London: I.B. Tauris, 2007. on all matters of law and religion. As a scholar, Ibn
Waines, David. The Odyssey of Ibn Battuta: Uncommon Tales of Hanbal was one of the foremost members of a group
a Medieval Adventurer. London: I.B. Tauris, 2010. called the traditionists, or ahl al-hadith. The traditionists
believed that as a source of religious knowledge, the
Thyge C. Bro sunna, or practice of the Prophet and the early commun-
Professor ity of Muslims, was second only to the Qurpan and that
Danish Institute for Study Abroad, the sunna could be ascertained through a study of tradi-
Copenhagen, Denmark tions, or hadith.
After the death of the Prophet, the members of the
early community transmitted knowledge of the sunna
IBN HANBAL (163/780–241/855) orally and in anecdotal form, but as time went on and
the first few generations of Muslims died off, remember-
Ahmad b. Muhammad ibn Hanbal was a renowned
ing and recording the sunna became an important schol-
traditionist, theologian, and jurist who was born in Bagh-
dad where he spent most of his life studying and teach- arly task. Hadith collections provide the documentation
ing. As a young man, he traveled widely in connection of the sunna. Each hadith consists of a text (matn)
with his studies, most especially in the cities of Kufa and preceded by a chain of its oral transmitters (isnad), begin-
Basra in Iraq and Mecca and Medina in Arabia. He made ning with the most recent. The earliest transmitter is
the pilgrimage to Mecca five times. Ibn Hanbal had usually a relative of the Prophet, one of his close asso-
inherited a modest estate and was able to spend most of ciates, his Companions, or someone who knew one or
his time in study. He was not in any formal sense a more of his Companions. Ibn Hanbal’s collection, his
teacher or part of a school, but as his reputation for Musnad, is among the most esteemed of the Sunni hadith
knowledge grew, he was widely consulted as an expert collections.
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Ibn Khaldun (732/1332–808/1406)
By Ibn Hanbal’s day, there were thousands of hadiths were not very different from those of the traditionist
in circulation, some patently false, others less obviously so. jurists, the methodological differences between the two
The traditionists separated the genuine from the false and groups were fiercely debated.
then compiled and presented the genuine traditions in an At his death, Ibn Hanbal was widely mourned. His
orderly fashion. This required knowledge about the reli- erudition, personal piety, and moral fortitude had made
ability of the people included in isnads, as well as about him a revered and famous scholar, and his tomb in
the subject matter of each matn. Ibn Hanbal’s knowledge Baghdad was much visited until it was destroyed by flood
of traditions was prodigious, and traditionists traveled to in the fourteenth century CE. His disciples carried on his
Baghdad from other parts of the Muslim world specifically teaching. A number of them, including his sons Salih
to study with him. His Musnad contains between twenty- (d. 265/879 or 266/880) and qAbdallah (d. 290/903),
seven and twenty-eight thousand traditions, whereas the compiled collections of his masapil, the responses he gave
standard collections of Sunni hadith, the ‘‘Six Books’’ to questions of ritual, law, and dogma put to him by
contain fewer than half that number. Further, unlike these colleagues and students. Ibn Hanbal’s responses are
somewhat later collections, the Musnad is arranged accord- important both for their specific content and for the
ing to the name of the initial transmitter rather than traditionist method they illustrate. The Hanbalite legal
according to subject matter. school (or rite) of Sunni Islam evolved on the basis of the
Ibn Hanbal’s activity was not limited to teaching and interpretation of these responses by successive generations
answering questions about hadith. In theology, the tra- of Hanbalite scholars. His son qAbdallah was also respon-
ditionists were ranged against the ‘‘rationalists,’’ and Ibn sible for collecting, editing, and commenting upon his
Hanbal was preeminent among the traditionists in this father’s Musnad. The Musnad is Ibn Hanbal’s best-
regard as well. They avoided rational speculation and known work. Most of his other works have not survived
held that belief in the divine nature of the text of the intact although they are often quoted by later scholars,
Qurpan and obedience to its tenets as practiced by the and very little if anything by him is available in English.
Prophet were the goals of the true believer. The ration- For a translation of a creedal statement attributed to Ibn
alists speculated about the nature of God, His qualities, Hanbal, see Cragg and Speight; for several versions of his
and His relationship to the created world. The group of responses on topics related to marriage and divorce, see
rationalists who engaged in this kind of speculative the- Spectorsky.
ology during Ibn Hanbal’s lifetime were the Muqtazilites.
SE E ALS O Ahl al-Hadith; Hadith; Kalam; Muqtazilites,
A particular point of disagreement between the tradition-
Muqtazila; Law; Legal Schools; Sunna.
ists and the Muqtazilites was on the nature of the Qurpan.
The Muqtazilites held that God had created it in time; the
traditionists held that it was the uncreated word of God. BIBLIOGRAPHY
In 218/833, shortly before his death, the caliph Mapmun Cragg, Kenneth, and Marston Speight, eds. Islam from Within.
adopted a policy of demanding that prominent religious Anthology of a Religion. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing
figures publicly embrace the doctrine of the created Company, 1980.
Melchert, Christopher. The Formation of the Sunni Schools of
Qurpan. Ibn Hanbal refused to do this, and was subse-
Law, 9th–10th Centuries C. E. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1997.
quently imprisoned and tortured. Although the next two Melchert, Christopher. Ahmad Ibn Hanbal. Oxford: Oneworld,
caliphs continued Mapmun’s policy, Ibn Hanbal was 2012.
released from prison after two years. However, he did Spectorsky, Susan A. Chapters on Marriage and Divorce: Responses
not resume teaching publicly until 232/847 when a new of Ibn Hanbal and Ibn Rahwayh. Austin: University of Texas
caliph finally abandoned the Muqtazilite doctrine and Press, 1993.
reinstated traditionist Sunnism.
In jurisprudence too, the traditionists—again with Susan A. Spectorsky
Ibn Hanbal preeminent among them—were ranged Associate Professor Emerita of Arabic
against the rationalists. The traditionists wished all jurid- and Islamic Studies
ical problems to be solved by reference to the sunna as Queens College
expressed through traditions. The rationalists, on the
other hand, preferred to base their decisions on thinking
through a problem rather than finding a solution in a
tradition. The rationalists quoted the opinions of their IBN KHALDUN (732/1332–808/1406)
teachers and colleagues as authoritative; the traditionists qAbd al-Rahman b. Muhammad b. Muhammad b. Abu
thought they thereby placed human reasoning above the Bakr Muhammad b. al-Hasan, better known as Ibn Khal-
divine guidance found in the Qurpan and the sunna. dun, was born in the North African region of Ifriqiyya
Although the practical results of the rationalist jurists (Tunis) in 732/1332. Well known and controversial in his

Ibn Khaldun (732/1332–808/1406)
time, his Muqaddima (Introduction) has become one of He wrote a number of works during this period and
the best-known and important works on medieval histor- appears to have begun developing many of his ideas on
iography for modern scholars. Ibn Khaldun was also history and sociology. He wrote his Muqaddima to his
actively involved in the politics of the period and traveled world history (Kitab al-qIbar) between 777/1375 and
extensively across Spain, North Africa, and the Middle 781/1379, as well as a number of other important works.
East. He died in Cairo on 16 March 808/1406. By 780/1378, Ibn Khaldun returned to Tunis to work as
a scholar and teacher. His ideas, however, were consid-
Ibn Khaldun came from an influential family that
ered threatening by several of his peers and he was forced
had originally settled in Andalusia at the beginning of the
to flee to Cairo in 784/1382.
Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula. Shortly before
the beginning of the Reconquista his ancestors migrated In Cairo, Ibn Khaldun continued to teach and write
to Tunis, where they became important administrators in and by 801/1399 was appointed judge. In 802/1400 he
local governments. His father, however, worked primar- accompanied the Mamluk sultan al-Nasir to Syria during
ily as a jurist and a scholar. Because of his father’s the invasion of Timur and was involved in negotiations
position as a legal scholar, Ibn Khaldun was able to attain with the Mongol leader for the surrender of Damascus.
an education from some of the most famous North As had previously been the case, Ibn Khaldun frequently
African scholars of the age. In the mid-fourteenth century ran afoul of political powers and was dismissed from his
CE the western Berber Marinid tribe invaded Tunis and judgeship upon his return. Over the remaining six years
established a short-lived dynasty. The Marinids imported of his life he was appointed and dismissed from the
a large number of legal scholars and theologians into judiciary five more times.
Tunis and for a short period Ibn Khaldun, at this time Ibn Khaldun remained a controversial figure even
in his mid-teens, was able to learn from a wide array of after his death. His Muqaddima, and to a lesser extent his
scholars in a variety of fields. However, the Marinid other writings, were both respected and reviled by later
occupation of Tunis was short, and by the time Ibn scholars. In the Muqaddima, Ibn Khaldun sets forth a
Khaldun was seventeen most of the great scholars had clear exposition of his theory of social and historical
already left Tunis for Fez, Morocco. development and decline. He describes the various
The Marinid occupation of Tunis left its mark on Islamic sciences, their development, and the process of
the young scholar. He came to see the period as a model professionalization that scholars had to endure to become
for the historical development and decline of Islamic certified by their contemporaries as qualified academics.
societies. He argued that Islamic societies followed a According to Ibn Khaldun, this process of professional
specific path of development and decline whereby desert certification, which had become so extensive by the
tribes invade a given society and infuse it with a sense of medieval period that it prevented scholars of in-depth
vitality and what he called qasabiyya (group solidarity). knowledge in any one field, was one of the factors that led
qAsabiyya becomes the foundation for all social relations Muslim societies to decline. His theories about the decline
and provides the fundamental motives for cultural, intel- of Muslim society would influence late-nineteenth and
lectual, and economic development. Over time, however, twentieth-century Muslim scholars who embraced Ibn
Khaldun’s theories as evidence of the need for renewal of
the sense of group solidarity breaks down, followed by a
Islamic culture and thought.
slow period of decline until a new group asserts itself into
society and brings with it a new sense of qasabiyya. SEE ALSO qAsabiyya; Historical Writing; Philosophy.
The withdrawal of the Marinids back into Morocco
left an intellectual and political vacuum in Tunis, and by BIBLIOGRAPHY
754/1353 Ibn Khaldun decided to migrate west to Fez. Baali, Fuad. Social Institutions: Ibn Khaldun’s Social Thought.
In Fez, Ibn Khaldun rose quickly into the inner circle of Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1992.
the Marinid sultan Ibn Abi qAmr. By 758/1357 he fell Brett, Michael. Ibn Khaldun and the Medieval Maghrib.
out of favor with the sultan and was thrown in prison Brookfield, VT: Ashgate Variorium, 1999.
until Ibn Abi qAmr’s death in 759/1358. Ibn Khaldun Farid Alatas, Syed. Ibn Khaldun. New Delhi: Oxford University
Press, 2013.
appears to have attempted to remain involved in the
Fromherz, Allen James. Ibn Khaldun: Life and Times. Edinburgh:
changing political situation, but by 760/1359 he decided Edinburgh University Press, 2010.
to retire from politics and accepted a position as a judge. Rosenthal, Franz, trans. The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to
By 763/1362 his position became so untenable that he History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1969.
was forced to flee to Granada.
Over the next twelve years Ibn Khaldun continued R. Kevin Jaques
to involve himself in the politics of Spain and North Associate Professor,
Africa. By his late forties, however, he had tired of Department of Religious Studies
politics and decided to return to scholarship once again. Indiana University, Bloomington
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Ibn Maja (c. 208/824–273/887)Not For Sale

IBN MAJA (C. 208/824–273/887) be pure Aristotelianism and his relative antipathy to
Ibn Maja, Abu qAbdallah Muhammad b. Yazid, was from Neoplatonism. He defended the acceptability of philos-
Qazwin in Persia and lived from circa 208/824 until 273/ ophy in the Islamic world, arguing that it does not
887. He is the compiler of the last of the ‘‘Six Books’’ of contradict religion but complements it. Ibn Rushd held
authoritative (sahih) Sunni hadith collections. Ibn Maja’s that philosophy represents the system of demonstrative or
Kitab al-Sunan contains 4,341 reports that he collected rational argumentation, while religion presents the con-
clusions of philosophy to a wider audience in a form that
during his peregrinations through the Hijaz, Syria, Iraq,
enables the latter to understand how to act.
and Egypt, conducted in search of hadiths. About three
thousand of these hadiths are contained in the other five This thesis came to be characterized as the ‘‘double-
standard collections. Initially Ibn Maja’s collection was truth’’ thesis, which held that philosophy and religion are
criticized for containing a number of weak (sc. defective) both true despite contradicting each other. Nevertheless,
(daqif ) and discredited reports, which prevented it from Ibn Rushd did not hold such a thesis, whatever views
being accepted by the large majority of scholars as a were attributed to him outside of the Islamic world after
reliable compilation. Although Abu Dapud and al- his death. During his lifetime, Ibn Rushd suffered at the
Tirmidhi, editors of two other authoritative hadith com- hands of rulers who were occasionally unsympathetic to
pilations, also recorded weak hadiths, they identified philosophy, and after his death his style of philosophy
them as such, whereas Ibn Maja did not. For these soon fell out of fashion in the Arabic-speaking Islamic
reasons, some of the traditionists preferred the Sunan world. It is the commentaries that led to his continuing
work of al-Darimi (d. 255/869), another well-known influence in Jewish and Christian Europe long after he
hadith scholar, over that of Ibn Maja. However, by about was forgotten in the Islamic world.
the early twelfth century CE, Ibn Maja’s standing as a SE E ALS O Law; Philosophy.
traditionist (muhaddith) had improved considerably and
his Sunan ultimately became recognized as one of the Six
Books, although it is still regarded as the weakest one. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Leaman, Oliver. Averroes and his Philosophy. Richmond, U.K.:
SE E A LS O Hadith. Curzon, 1997.
Leaman, Oliver. Islamic Philosophy: An Introduction. Cambridge,
BIBLIOGRAPHY U.K.: Polity, 2009.
Abdul Rauf, Muhammad Abdul. ‘‘Hadith Literature: The Nasr, Seyyed, and Oliver Leaman, eds. History of Islamic
Development of the Science of Hadith.’’ In The Cambridge Philosophy. London: Routledge, 1996.
History of Arabic Literature. Vol. 1: Arabic Literature to the
End of the Umayyad Period, edited by A. F. L. Beeston, et al.
Oliver Leaman
Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
Department of Philosophy
Robson, James. ‘‘The Transmission of Ibn Majah’s ‘Sunan.’’’ University of Kentucky
Journal of Semitic Studies 3 (1958): 129–141.
Asma Afsaruddin
Professor of Islamic Studies,
Department of Near Eastern
IBN SINA (370/980–428/1037)
Languages and Cultures Known to the medieval Latin scholastics as Avicenna,
Indiana University, Bloomington Abu qAli al-Husayn ibn qAbd Allah ibn Sina was a
prolific and influential Muslim philosopher, physician,
and scientist of the early eleventh century CE whose
works were widely read, debated, and appreciated by
IBN RUSHD (520/1126–594/1198) generations of scholars in both the Islamic and Chris-
Ibn Rushd, whose Latin name was Averroes, was the tian lands from the Middle Ages through the early
most outstanding philosopher in the Islamic world work- modern period. Today, he is widely recognized along-
ing within the Peripatetic (Greek) tradition. He was side such luminaries as al-Kindi (d. c. 256/870), al-
particularly interested in the work of Aristotle and wrote Farabi (d. c. 339/950), and Ibn Rushd (d. 595/1198)
a large number of commentaries of differing length on as one of the major thinkers of the Islamic philosophical
his works. Ibn Rushd was not only a philosopher but also tradition. He is celebrated as an important figure in the
a judge, legal thinker, physician, and politician, like so history of medicine as well, whose writings on the sub-
many of the other philosophers in the Islamic world. His ject were particularly well regarded and influential in
work is marked by its commitment to what he took to the premodern period.

Ibn Sina (370/980–428/1037)
life, often accompanying him on his various campaigns.

Ibn Sina died in Hamadan in 428/1037 from complica-
tions of a lingering intestinal illness, his death perhaps
hastened by the willful overapplication of narcotics by
conniving servants.
KEY WORKS
In addition to being a popular teacher, well-regarded
physician, and an apt political administrator, Ibn Sina
was also an exceedingly productive author, leaving
behind a large number of treatises of various length
treating subjects ranging from logic, mathematics (i.e.,
arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy), metaphy-
sics, and ethics, to medicine, phonetics, and psychology,
as well as aesthetics, alchemy, astrology, biology, chem-

istry, mineralogy, meteorology, and physics, among other
subjects. Although most of his treatises were written in

Arabic, two were written in Persian. He also composed
symbolical poetry and allegorical prose narratives, with
his Hayy ibn Yaqzan (Alive, son of awake) being the most
oft-cited of the latter. Within his corpus of writings, a
good portion of which survive, two works in particular
stand out as his most celebrated achievements.
Ibn Sina, also known as Avicenna. Ibn Sina wrote over The first of these works is the voluminous Kitab al-
250 works on philosophy and medicine, including the hugely shifap (The book of healing [of the soul from ignorance]),
influential Canon of Medicine. His philosophical works a work that Ibn Sina composed over a period of some
uniquely combined Greek and Islamic thought. ª LEEMAGE/ seventeen years. A philosophical encyclopedia based on
FINE ART/CORBIS
the Aristotelian tradition treating of logical, natural,
mathematical, and metaphysical subjects, the Shifap
forges a comprehensive philosophical system that was
LIFE deeply influenced by the thought of al-Farabi. Ibn Sina
Born in 370/980 into a well-connected family living in a presents this system within an overarching Neoplatonic
hamlet located near the great Central Asian city of framework that envisions the cosmos proceeding in ema-
Bukhara, Ibn Sina was a precocious youth who by his nations from a singularly unified necessary existent (wajib
late teens had mastered the various branches of learning al-wujud) through a series of incorporeal intelligences
of his day. Although he was tutored by several teachers in arranged hierarchically in the incorruptible celestial
Bukhara, much of his education appears to have been the spheres (angels in scriptural terms). From the last of these
result of a systematic autodidactic endeavor in which he (the active intelligence) emanate the vegetative, animal,
methodically studied a vast number of the texts, com- and rational souls of those living beings who inhabit the
mentaries, and other learned treatises in circulation corruptible terrestrial world (such as humans). According
amongst scholars of the eastern Islamic lands of the time. to Ibn Sina, the human intellect, the highest part of the
Around 387/997 Ibn Sina began serving as a physician at soul, receives philosophical knowledge directly from the
the Samanid court in Bukhara, later being given an active intellect through a syllogistic process of hitting
administrative position within the state apparatus. Owing upon certain truths by way of a type of rational intuition
to the tumultuous political situation in the region at the (hads). The Shifap was widely read in the eastern Islamic
time, however, he would soon move on to the employ of lands, and the bulk of it was translated into Latin by
a number of petty rulers in Transoxiana, Khwarazm, and Christian scholars in Europe in the twelfth and thirteenth
Persia. He became the physician and vizier of the Buyid centuries CE. The work came to exert a marked influence
governor of Hamadan in 405/1015 and then, about a on the thought of influential scholastics such as Thomas
decade later, relocated to Isfahan. There, he found an Aquinas (d. 1274), Roger Bacon (d. after 1292), and
enthusiastic patron in the person of the energetic John Duns Scotus (d. 1308).
Kakuyid ruler qAlap al-Dawla Muhammad (d. 433/ The second of these works is al-Qanun fi-l-tibb (The
1041), whom he would serve for the remainder of his canon of medicine), an ambitious synthesis of Hellenistic
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Ibn Taymiyya (662/1263–729/1328)
and Islamic medical traditions arranged as a textbook and Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (d. 505/1111) as it is, for different
encyclopedia. Drawing on the writings of the second- reasons entirely, in that of the contemporary Moroccan
century CE Roman physician Galen (and through the philosopher Muhammad qAbid al-Jabri (d. 2010).
Galenic tradition, the works of other physicians of SE E ALS O Philosophy; Wajib al-Wujud.
classical and late antiquity, such as Hippocrates and
Dioscorides), as well as contemporary medical literature,
such as the works of the celebrated Muslim physician, BIBLIOGRAPHY
alchemist, and philosopher Muhammad ibn Zakariyyap Adamson, Peter, ed. Interpreting Avicenna: Critical Essays.
al-Razi (d. 313/925 or 323/935), the Canon is divided Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2013.
into five books totaling nearly one million words. Truly Afnan, Soheil M. Avicenna: His Life and Works. London: George
Allen and Unwin, 1958.
encyclopedic in scope, the Canon covers matters of med-
Gohlman, William E., ed. and trans. The Life of Ibn Sina:
ical theory, the bodily humors, anatomy, etiology and
A Critical Edition and Annotated Translation. Albany: State
symptomatology, hygiene, dietetics and general therapeu- University of New York Press, 1974.
tics, simple drugs, the pathology of organ-specific and Goichon, A. M. ‘‘Ibn Sı̄nā.’’ In Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed.,
general diseases, minor surgery, wounds, fractures, care of edited by P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C. E. Bosworth, E. van
the skin, and the treatment of obesity and emaciation. Donzel, and W. P. Heinrichs. Accessed 13 July 2015. http://
The final part of the treatise contains an extensive phar- referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of
macopoeia in which recipes for compound drugs and -islam-2/ibn-sina-COM_0342
directions pertaining to their medical applications are Goodman, Lenn E. Avicenna. Rev. ed. Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University Press, 2006.
given. In addition to the range and depth of its prescrip-
Gutas, Dimitri. Avicenna and the Aristotelian Tradition:
tive content, the Canon is notable for its reliance on Ibn
Introduction to Reading Avicenna’s Philosophical Works.
Sina’s own clinical observations, which he conducted 2nd ed. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2014.
using a rational and scientific method. First translated Iskandar, Albert Z. ‘‘Ibn Sı̄nā.’’ In Complete Dictionary of
into Latin by Gerard of Cremona in the twelfth century Scientific Biography, edited by Charles Coulston Gillispie,
CE, the Canon was regularly used, up through the six- vol. 15, 494–501. Detroit, MI: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2008.
teenth century CE, as both a textbook and standard Langermann, Y. Tzvi, ed. Avicenna and His Legacy: A Golden Age
reference by physicians throughout Europe. of Science and Philosophy. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2009.
Mahdi, M., D. Gutas, Sh. B. Abed, M. E. Marmura, F. Rahman,
Ibn Sina was a child prodigy with truly wide-ranging G. Saliba, O. Wright, et al. ‘‘Avicenna.’’ Encyclopaedia
intellectual interests who was able to parlay his talents Iranica. Last modified 17 August 2011. http://www
effectively in challenging social and political circumstan- .iranicaonline.org/articles/avicenna-index
ces, and his thinking on a diversity of subjects was not McGinnis, Jon. Avicenna. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
only encyclopedic in its scope but often strikingly origi- 2010.
nal in its substance. Like the Greek sages of classical Rahim, Ahmed H. al-. The Creation of Philosophical Tradition:
antiquity, Ibn Sina adhered to a conceptualization of Biography and the Reception of Avicenna’s Philosophy from the
the ideal human life as one in which systematic inquis- Eleventh to the Fourteenth Centuries C.E. Wiesbaden,
Germany: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2015.
itiveness, in both speculative and practical matters, was
Wickens, G. M., ed. Avicenna: Scientist and Philosopher;
seen as an ongoing process in which the discovery of A Millenary Symposium. London: Luzac, 1952.
truths pertaining to metaphysical and natural realities
allows a person to perfect him- or herself, both internally
(in terms of knowledge) and externally (in terms of Erik S. Ohlander
Associate Professor of Religious Studies
action). As has historically been the case with many
Indiana University-Purdue
advocates of peripatetic philosophy working within the University Fort Wayne
context of one of the three Abrahamic religious tradi-
tions, such as that of Maimonides (d. 1204) in Judaism
or that of Thomas Aquinas in Christianity, the reception
of the work and thought of Ibn Sina within the Islamic
tradition has not been without controversy. (He main-
IBN TAYMIYYA
tained, for example, that while revelation discloses the (662/1263–729/1328)
same truths as philosophy, as a benevolent concession to Taqi al-Din Ahmad ibn Taymiyya was born in Harran in
the limited intellectual capacities of the masses, prophets northern Syria in 661/1263 and died at the age of sixty-
did not describe such truths literally but rather in symbols five in Damascus in 728/1328. A prolific writer on all
and images.) His fraught reception is as clearly evinced in subjects related to the Qurpan, hadith, sunna, theology,
the well-known critique of certain of his philosophical law, and mysticism, he was a dynamic and controversial
positions by the celebrated medieval religious scholar figure during his lifetime, and he remains to this day an

Ibn Taymiyya (662/1263–729/1328)
influential figure in Islamic thought and practice. A loyal the Qurpan and the sunna in light of the traditional
associate of the Hanbali theological and legal school of teachings of the earliest generations of Muslims (al-salaf
thought, he put his beliefs into practice as a religious, al-salih).
political, and social reformer. Responding to various Ibn Taymiyya has been described as a ‘‘dogmatic
crises of the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries historian,’’ for he developed a theology based on the
CE in the Middle East, such as the Mongol invasions, the
concept of a necessarily preserved true religion. This
destruction of the Abbasid caliphate, and the eventual religion as embodied in the Qurpan and the sunna of
rise of the Mamluk dynasty of Egypt and Syria, Ibn prophet Muhammad was transmitted intact by the salaf
Taymiyya sought the revival of Islamic society based on al-salih. The canonical collections of authenticated
a model of what he believed was the pristine community hadiths contain this transmitted wisdom, and thus, for
of Muslims at the time of the Prophet and his compan- Ibn Taymiyya, forms the basis for all interpretation and
ions at Medina. But his efforts to revive Islamic society practice in Islam. His methodological approach is prem-
were not only aimed at political and social reform, he
ised on the correct use of five sources for gaining knowl-
sought also to achieve the revival of the inner or spiritual
edge of the beliefs and practices that are pleasing to Allah.
components of Islam. In fact, he believed the inner

These are (1) the Qurpan, (2) the sunna of the Prophet,
reform had to occur first before any outward reform
(3) the statements and actions of the companions of the
would be possible. This perspective on his part brought
Prophet (al-sahaba), (4) the opinions of the followers
him into conflict with many speculative theologians

(al-tabiqun) of the companions, and (5) the Arabic lan-
(mutakallimun), philosophers, and Sufi mystics, whom
guage, which for him is the only divinely ordained religious
Ibn Taymiyya accused of deviating from the pure Islam
language. These sources make up what Ibn Taymiyya
of Muhammad and the Qurpan by adopting non-Islamic
believes is a comprehensive notion of revelation. Any meth-
systems of belief, in particular the logic and philosophy
odology or belief system outside revelation is not deemed to
of the ancient Greeks.
be an acceptable means of attaining truth.
Ibn Taymiyya’s life can be divided into three distinct
periods, each representing a significant phase in his devel- In relation to jurisprudence and the schools of law
opment as a thinker and reformer. The first phase goes (madhahib), Ibn Taymiyya maintains that theoretically
from his birth until 703/1304, during which time he the four imams of the recognized Sunni schools of law
received his training as a scholar and was involved in agreed on the principles (usul ) of Islam, but pragmati-
defending Damascus from incursions by the Mongol cally they differed concerning particular rulings (furuq).
Ilkhans of Persia. The second period lasts from 703/ Thus he upholds the legitimacy of the four schools yet
1304 until 712/1312, during which time he was in argues that scholars must continue exerting independent
Egypt. This period is marked by his growing controversy judgment (ijtihad ) in an effort to come ever closer to the
with Sufi mysticism as well as his involvement with the theoretically pure Islam. He argued that blind following
political turmoil related to Sultan al-Nasir Muhammad (taqlid ) of one scholar or school of thought was tolerated
b. al-Qalawun’s consolidation of power. Ibn Taymiyya for the layperson, but scholars were under an obligation
spent many years on trial and in prison during this time, to seek out and follow the truth even if it is found to lie
stemming from his religious pronouncements and his outside their particular affiliation to a school of thought.
support for al-Nasir Muhammad. The third phase begins This stance brought him into conflicts with other jurists,
with his return to Damascus in 712 and lasts until his even with his fellow Hanbalis.
death in 728. This is the period of the maturing of his But more than his political and legal opinions, Ibn
ideas and the time of his most prolific and significant Taymiyya’s theology remains the most salient feature of
writings. Although these years were relatively free of his religious thought. Devoted to a defense of a mono-
controversy, toward the end of his life he came into theism that does not compromise the nature and attrib-
conflict with religious and state authorities over doctrinal utes of Allah as derived from the Qurpan and the sunna,
and legal issues. Ibn Taymiyya died in prison in Dam- he set himself against the great traditions of speculative
ascus shortly after being denied contact with all but his theology (kalam), philosophy, and mysticism that had
closest family members and being forbidden to write any evolved in Islamic civilization. Following closely the
more letters, essays, or legal rulings. creeds established by Ahmad ibn Hanbal and other
The core of Ibn Taymiyya’s thought revolves around a hadith scholars of the ninth century CE, Ibn Taymiyya
set of principles from which he develops an elaborate developed a very sophisticated and subtle theology that
worldview. These principles can be summarized as follows: he promoted quite vigorously. His theology begins with
an absolute distinction between the creator and the crea- the notion of God as the eternal, omniscient, and omnip-
tion, revelation as a complete and self-sufficient system, otent creator who brought the universe into existence out
and a necessity to constantly return to and understand of nothingness (ex nihilo) as a willful act. He rejects any
Not For Sale

Not For Sale

Ibn Tufayl (c. 499/1105–581/1185)
form of pantheistic thought that compromises this belief. confidante. The historian al-Marrakushi reports his
Thus he devotes much of his writings to refutations of drawing scholars to the court from many lands—among
mystical philosophies, such as that of Ibn al-qArabi them, Ibn Rushd (Averroes; 520/1126–595/1198),
(d. 639/1242). However, he does not want to compro- whom he proposed to write his famed commentaries on
mise the idea of a personal God with whom a believer the Arabic translations of Aristotle, responding to the
can establish an intimate spiritual relation. Therefore, he caliph’s puzzlement at those challenging texts.
also rejects the sterile descriptions of Allah put forth by
philosophers and speculative theologians, who stripped
BACKGROUND
him of many of his essential names and attributes. His
main targets of refutation are the Muqtazilites, the Ash- A violently intolerant dynasty, the Almohads forced con-
qarites, and philosophers such as Ibn Sina (d. 434/1043). version on Christians and Jews despite the Qurpanic
These theological debates often brought the charge of dictum ‘‘No compulsion in religion’’ (2:256). Cham-
anthropomorphism against Ibn Taymiyya because he pions of Zahirite literalism, they persecuted jurists of
insisted on affirming attributes to Allah such as that the Maliki school, who they found too anthropomorphic
theologically and too scholastic in law. Ibn Tumart
he has a hand and a face, that he loves and hates, and
that he ascends and descends while remaining risen above (d. 524/1130), the founder of the movement, whose
the throne over the heavens. Ibn Taymiyya’s defense is name proclaimed them the true monotheists, had been
that these descriptions appear in the Qurpan and authen- profoundly influenced by the radical monotheism of
tic hadiths and have been maintained by the companions al-Ghazali (c. 450/1058–505/1111). The Almoravid
of the Prophet. He also argues that these attributes can- rejection of al-Ghazali was a salient pretext in the extir-
not be comprehended by human intellect but must be pation of that dynasty, which like their own had begun as
accepted as a matter of faith without questioning (bi la a spiritual movement among North African Berbers.
kayf ) the manner in which these attributes exist in Allah. Combating rebellions and battling Christian princi-
SE E A LS OIslamism and Fundamentalism; Law; Reform: palities in Iberia, Abu Yaqqub brought Almohad power to
Arab Middle East and North Africa; Traditionalism. its peak before dying in battle. Ibn Tufayl, gratifying his
patron’s intellectual aspirations, made a life in the eye of
the storm. Lining up for his pay, he joked, ‘‘If they’re in
BIBLIOGRAPHY
the market for musical theory, I can supply it’’ (Marraa-
Hallaq, Wael B. Ibn Taymiyya against the Greek Logicians. kushii 1968 [1881], 172). On first meeting the caliph,
New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.
Ibn Rushd confessed, he was asked his views as a philos-
Rapoport, Yossef, and Shahab Ahmed. Ibn Taymiyya and His
Times. Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2010.
opher about the eternity of the heavens, which Aristotle
Makari, Victor. Ibn Taymiyyah’s Ethics: The Social Factor. Chico, and the Neoplatonists had argued must have always
CA: The Scholar’s Press, 1983. revolved as they do now. Al-Ghazali’s celebrated Incoher-
Memon, Muhammad Umar. Ibn Taymiyya’s Struggle against ence of the Philosophers had rebutted that view and
Popular Religion: With an Annotated Translation of his Kitab branded the eternalism of al-Farabi and Ibn Sina
iqtidap as-sirat al-mustaqim mukhalafat ashab al-jahim. The (Avicenna) tantamount to atheism. Ibn Rushd, under-
Hague and Paris: Mouton, 1976. standably, professed to know little about such questions,
Michel, Thomas. A Muslim Theologian’s Response to Christianity. but the caliph put him at ease, freely and knowledgeably
Delmar, NY: Caravan Books, 1984.
discussing the issue with Ibn Tufayl. Ibn Rushd joined
in, soon showing his mettle, and was rewarded with a
James Pavlin mount and a robe of honor. His spirited response to
Lecturer, Department of Religion al-Ghazali was titled The Incoherence of the Incoherence.
Rutgers University
Ibn Tufayl’s more irenic Hayy Ibn Yaqzan, his only
work to survive in full, seeks to reconcile Ibn Sina with
al-Ghazali on the common ground of emanationism and
philosophical mysticism. Like the eighteenth-century CE
IBN TUFAYL German philosopher Immanuel Kant, Ibn Tufayl finesses
(C. 499/1105–581/1185) the debate over creation, arguing, as the twelfth-century
Abu Bakr ibn Tufayl (c. 499/1105–581/1185), known in CE Jewish philosopher Maimonides would do, that (pace
the Latin West as Abubacer, was born in Wadi Ash al-Ghazali) both Neoplatonic eternalism and scriptural
(modern-day Guadix) and practiced medicine in nearby creationism yield a viable theology. Besides Hayy Ibn
Granada before becoming court physician to the Almo- Yaqzan, Ibn Tufayl wrote two medical works, and al-
had caliph Abu Yaqqub Yusuf (r. 558/1163–580/1184). Bitruji (d. 600/1204), a leader of the so-called Andalu-
Some saw him as that caliph’s vizier; he was clearly his sian ‘‘revolt’’ in astronomy, names him a formative

Ibn Tufayl (c. 499/1105–581/1185)
influence in his critique of Ptolemaic appeals to eccen- grace (seconded by Neoplatonic teaching) saves Hayy
trics or epicycles to explain the seeming retrograde from that error: He sees that sameness and difference
motion of the planets. apply properly only to bodies. The soul that knows
God is neither one with nor different from its object or
HAYY IBN YAQZAN
any of the myriad souls beheld in such ecstasy: Heaven is
communion; hell, separation.
Framed as a risala, an essay in letter form, Hayy Ibn
Yaqzan tells the story of a brilliant and dedicated human Only after reaching fulfillment does Hayy meet
being growing up without benefit—or interference— another human being. Absal is an eremite who has come
from human language or culture. The work is meant as to Hayy’s uninhabited island in search of solitude after
a thought experiment tracing the progress of human years of spiritual questing. He teaches Hayy to speak,
intelligence unguided by tradition. It offers two accounts hoping to bring him to the true faith, but soon realizes
of Hayy’s origins. (His name, drawn from an allegory of that Hayy already knows the truth embedded in scrip-
the soul by Ibn Sina, translates as ‘‘the Living son of the ture. Hayy acknowledges the message brought by scrip-
Aware.’’) In one version he originates by spontaneous ture’s prophet, but Absal hopes this true neophyte can
generation in the optimally balanced earth of an equato- teach his compatriots the deeper message underlying
rial island. In the other he is wafted there by a provi- their traditions. That mission fails because the people of
dential current after being set adrift with prayers by a his island can accommodate only what is already familiar.
mother whose secret marriage was disapproved of by her They bristle on hearing anything new. Hayy, for his part,
royal guardian. In both versions Hayy is nursed by a doe, is troubled by the prophet’s couching truths in symbols
and his original endowment of talents (his fitra) and his too easily mistaken for what they represent (thus at risk
development are divinely overseen. The forked narrative, of becoming barriers rather than avenues to understanding),
contrasting the emotional appeal of scriptural drama with as well as by scripture’s minimal demands, so different from
the reliance of science and philosophy on thoughts about the burdens he has chosen for himself. Recognizing the
matter and its infusion with form from above, is meant futility of Absal’s mission and the wise accommodations
to reveal that reason and tradition differ less in substance of mass religion to humankind’s moral and intellectual
than in idiom. limitations—not least, human complacency—Hayy retires
Before he meets another human being, Hayy advan- to his island with Absal, who is now his disciple, where the
ces through seven seven-year stages (see Aristotle, Rhetoric two end their days.
2.14), meant to recapitulate the progress of humanity Ibn Tufayl’s account echoes al-Farabi’s view that
and personal discovery. Infantile dependency gives way prophecy uses symbols to convey pure ideas to people
to practical and technical capability, to caring for another incapable of philosophy. His gestures to Islamic ritual
(his doe foster mother), scientific understanding, discov- and Sufi practice acknowledge al-Ghazali’s practical spi-
ery of the animal spirit and the soul, and recognition that rituality. His suggestion that plants out of place be trans-
the reality of things lies in their forms, not their matter, planted echoes a thought of his predecessor Ibn Bajja,
and is a gift from on high. Hayy masters dissection and whom he had never met, a philosopher fond of botany
astronomy. He reaches the acme of reason when he who saw thinkers as weeds—rare plants, out of place,
proves that the world is finite in size and the work of a who may need to find a way to live alone.
transcendent cause—whether eternally or in time. Like
Adam, he finds no counterpart among the animals. But Hayy Ibn Yaqzan was translated into Hebrew and
his soulmate is no woman. Instead, his like lives among with commentary by Moses Narboni (d. c. 764/1362);
the souls that guide the stars, which he emulates by from the Hebrew into Latin by Pico della Mirandola,
seeking physical purity, moving in whirling and circling unpublished on his death (900/1494); from the Arabic
motions, limiting the demands of his appetites, and car- into Latin (1082/1671) by Edward Pococke; into Dutch
ing for lesser beings—careful to eat no seed and destroy (from Pococke’s Latin; 1083/1672) by Baruch Spinoza’s
no animal kind, tending sick animals, and even trans- friend Johannes Bouwmeester; into English from the
planting plants that have grown intertangled. Latin (1120/1708) by Simon Ockley. The work appa-
Hayy’s whirling and circling can induce ecstasies that rently influenced the English novelist Daniel Defoe in
put him in touch with the ultimate, the Necessary Being. plotting the progress of the protagonist in Robinson Cru-
But swooning back to the sensory world prompts the soe (1132/1719) from practical to spiritual thinking.
illusion that he himself must be what he knows—thus, Avner Ben-Zaken (2011) chronicles the peregrinations
the great heresy of drunken mystics such as al-Hallaj (d. of the ideal of intellectual independence that Ibn Tufayl’s
309/922), who blurt out claims not just of communion tale fostered in the later Middle Ages, the Renaissance,
but of union—fusion and confusion with God. God’s and the Enlightenment.
Not For Sale

Ibrahim (Abraham) Not For Sale

SE E A LS O Almohads; Ghazali, al- (c. 451/1059–504/ Ibrahim thus serves as a kind of monotheist template for
1111); Ibn Rushd (520/1126–594/1198); Ibn Sina all subsequent prophets, including Muhammad.
(370/980–428/1037); Philosophy.
)
PARALLELS AND DIFFERENCES IN QUR ANIC
BIBLIOGRAPHY AND BIBLICAL DEPICTIONS
Aristotle. ‘‘Rhetoric.’’ In The Complete Works of Aristotle 2: A number of Qurpanic depictions of Ibrahim parallel the
The Revised Oxford Translation. Edited by Jonathan Barnes. Genesis stories of Abraham in the Hebrew Bible,
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985. although they represent a different discourse. Ibrahim
Ben-Zaken, Avner. Reading ‘‘H. ayy Ibn-Yaqz_ ān’’: A Cross-Cultural leaves his father and people and encounters God in a
Reading of Autodidacticism. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins
new land where he will build his family (Qurpan 19:48–
49, 21:71, 29:26, and 37:83–101; Gen. 12:1–5). He
Conrad, Lawrence I., ed. The World of IbnT. ufayl:
Interdisciplinary Perspectives on ‘‘H. ayy ibn Yaqz_ ān’’. Leiden,
establishes a sacred shrine (Qurpan 2:125–127; Gen.
Netherlands: Brill, 1996. 12:6–8 and 13:18), gently challenges God and is then
told to cut open or divide birds (Qurpan 2:260; Gen.
Goodman, Lenn E. ‘‘Ibn T.ufayl.’’ In The Literature of al-Andalus,
edited by Marı́a Rosa Menocal, Raymond P. Scheindlin, and 15:1–10), and is associated with a covenant with God
Michael Sells, 318–330. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge (Qurpan 2:124–125 and 33:7; Gen. 17:1–14). Ibrahim is
University Press, 2000. visited by divine messengers who announce the upcom-
Hayy ben Yaqdhân: Roman philosophique d’Ibn Thofaı̈l. 2nd ed. ing birth of a son to him and his wife, and who then
Translated into French by Léon Gauthier. Frankfurt: Institute continue on to destroy the people of Lot (Qurpan 11:69–
for the History of Arabic-Islamic Science at the Johann 76, 15:51–59, 29:31, and 51:24–30; Gen. 18:1–20). He
Wolfgang Goethe University, 1999. First published 1936 argues with God over the fate of Lot’s people (Qurpan
by Imprimerie catholique.
11:74–76; Gen. 18:20–33) and takes his son to offer as a
Marrākushı̄, Abd al-Wāh.id al- al-Mupjib fi Akhbar al-Maghrib,
sacrifice but is released from the task by God (Qurpan
edited by Reinhardt P. A. Dozy, as The History of the
Almohades, 2nd ed. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 1881; 37:99–111; Gen. 22:1–19).
reprinted, Amsterdam: Oriental Press, 1968. Despite these parallels, the Qurpan depicts a unique
IbnT. ufayl’s ‘‘H. ayy Ibn Yaqz_ ān’’: A Philosophical Tale. Rev. ed. character. Ibrahim, for example, builds the Kaqba in
Translated by Lenn E. Goodman. Chicago: University of Mecca with his son Ismaqil, and he is charged to purify
Chicago Press, 2009. it for proper ritual. He is instructed by God to take
something called the ‘‘place of Ibrahim’’ (maqam Ibra-
Lenn E. Goodman him) as a place of prayer, and he prays to God to make
Professor of Philosophy the site fruitful and safe. He and Ismaqil pray that God
and Andrew W. Mellon Professor show them the ritual of the hajj, meaning the pilgrimage
in the Humanities to Mecca and its environs, and also pray that God send a
Vanderbilt University future prophet. They pray that they and their descend-
ants remain forever a ‘‘nation in submission to You’’
(umma muslima laka) (Qurpan 2:125–129). Ibrahim
prays that the territory around the Kaqba be safe and that
IBRAHIM (ABRAHAM) those descendants of his whom he settled in Mecca
Ibrahim (Abraham) appears in the Qurpan in some 245 engage in regular prayers and remain secure (Qurpan
verses in twenty-five chapters. The only prophet who 14:35–37). God settles Ibrahim at the Kaqba or makes
appears more often is Moses. While Adam must be seen the area habitable (bawwapna lipIbrahim makan al-bayt)
as the original monotheist in Qurpanic discourse, it is and enjoins him (or, perhaps, Muhammad) to officially
Ibrahim who personifies the ideal monotheist according announce the pilgrimage to Mecca (Qurpan 22:26–27).
to the Islamic model of an absolute submitter (muslim) to Ibrahim is the only prophet in the Qurpan whom
God. He is called hanif in eight places (2:135; 3:67, 95; God takes as a friend: ‘‘And God took Ibrahim as a
4:125; 6:79, 161; 16:120, 123), a term that in the friend’’ (khalilan) (Qurpan 4:125), which corresponds to
Qurpan is used to refer to ancient expressions of proper both the New Testament (James 2:23) and the Hebrew
monotheism predating the revelation of the Qurpan; hanif Bible (Isa. 41:8; 2 Chron. 20:7). The Qurpanic Ibrahim
is also associated with the locution millat Ibrahim (‘‘reli- not only parallels previous scriptures but also serves to
gion of Abraham’’ 2:130, 135; 3:95; 4:125; 6:161; 12:38; respond to issues and questions raised by them. The most
16:123; 22:78). The word appears elsewhere only twice in important is the unasked question: Why did God choose
the Qurpan, both times in a command to Muhammad to Abraham to begin an unprecedented divine-human rela-
‘‘turn [his] face to religion as a hanif’’ (10:105; 30:30). tionship that would henceforth epitomize the monotheist

Ibrahim (Abraham)
Ibrahim (Abraham) Preparing to Sacrifice His Son. An eighteenth-century CE Arab manuscript

depicts Ibrahim preparing to sacrifice his son in obedience to God’s command just as an angel
intervenes with a sacrificial lamb. This account is part of Muslim, Jewish, and Christian traditions,
although the Muslim tradition holds that it is Ibrahim’s son Ismaqil who is sacrificed, while Jews and
Christians believe it was Isaac. ª ANN RONAN PICTURES/PRINT COLLECTOR/GETTY IMAGES
Not For Sale

Ibrahim (Abraham) Not For Sale

religious quest? The Hebrew Bible does not try to pro- A second example is the story of the Intended Sac-
vide an answer. The New Testament and Talmud do, rifice (al-dhabih) in 37:99–113, which parallels the story
and they construct their Abrahams in images that exem- of the ‘‘Binding of Isaac’’ as it is known in Jewish
plify the ideal religious model in each of these competing tradition, or the ‘‘Sacrifice,’’ in Christian tradition (Gen-
religious civilizations (Rom. 4, Gal. 3, Yoma 28a, Avo- esis 22:1–19). Unlike the Hebrew Bible, the Qurpan does
dah Zarah 14b). The Qurpan does so as well, and its not provide the name of the son designated for sacrifice,
depiction arrives at a unique portrayal of Ibrahim that is perhaps because it was unconcerned with or opposed to
consistent with its own articulation of monotheism. the ancient notion, often articulated in relation to this
Ibrahim discovers God. While still a youth, he arrives episode, that heirs (physical or spiritual) of exceptionally
at the truth of monotheism through observation and his righteous persons are blessed with special privileges
intellect (6:75–79), and he proves the futility of polythe- because of their association with the saintly forbear.
istic worship to his own family and people (37:83–99). Muslim exegetes, however, soon became concerned with
He is henceforth the resolute and original submitter to determining which son of Ibrahim was the intended
the divine will, the hanif muslim (3:67). sacrifice in the Qurpanic story. The earliest Muslim exe-
getes identified him as Ishaq, but by the ninth century CE
most identified him as Ismaqil except for Shiqi scholars,
POST-SCRIPTURAL PORTRAYALS who often considered the intended victim to be Ishaq.
Each scriptural portrayal of Abraham thus differs from The objective among Sunnis may have been to argue the
what came before, and the post-scriptural interpretive nobility of Arabs out of which the religion of Islam
traditions carry on and expand on the differentiation. emerged, while the Shiqa wished to counter the very
Islamic tradition found in the exegetical genres of hadith, legitimacy of Sunni Arab rule. In any event, the canon-
prophetic biography (sira), Qurpan commentaries (tafsir) ization of the medieval Sunni exegetical viewpoint was
and universal histories (taprikh) add to and extend the realized by linking the aborted sacrifice of Ismaqil with
Qurpanic material on Ibrahim. Linked together, the inter- the ancient ritual of sacrifice called qId al-Adha (or Eid al-
pretive literature forms a full Ibrahim cycle in three parts. Adha, Festival of the Sacrifice) concluding the yearly
The first takes place in Mesopotamia, the land of Ibra- pilgrimage to Mecca.
him’s birth. The second takes place in the vicinity of In conclusion, while each of the three scriptures and
Jerusalem, and the third in Mecca and its environs. These associated faith traditions portray Ibrahim in a manner
three lands represent a hierarchy of sanctity culminating that is easily recognizable to the others, they do not really
in the most sacred place of Mecca and its holy sites. All revere the ‘‘same’’ Ibrahim. It is therefore somewhat
this material represents scriptural exegesis, with some ironic that current trends in interreligious dialogue tend
interpreting and critiquing biblical scripture as well, even to focus on Ibrahim as the common link that brings the
as it shares many aspects of post-scriptural Jewish and monotheistic families together on common ground. Paul
Christian tradition. argues against the Hebrew Bible portrayal, the Talmud
One classic example is the sequence of Ibrahim argues against the New Testament portrayal, and the
personally bringing Hajar and Ismaqil to Mecca, which Qurpan argues that neither Jews nor Christians really
medieval geographical dictionaries sometimes refer to as understand him:
Faran (Hebrew Paran in Gen. 21:21). In one series he
brings them in response to Sarah’s jealous rage against O People of Scripture! Why do you argue about
Hajar. In another he brings them in response to God’s Ibrahim, when the Torah and the Gospel were
command to establish the site of the Kaqba, to which he is not revealed until after him? Have you no sense?
Do you not argue about things of which you have
guided by a magic cloud or a supernatural being called
knowledge? Why, then, argue about things of
the sakina. Later, he visits his son to ensure that he is which you have no knowledge! God knows, but
well, and together they raise up the foundations of the you know not! Ibrahim was not a Jew nor a
sacred Kaqba. In some versions, Ibrahim and Ismaqil Christian, but was an early monotheist muslim
discover the ancient foundations of the Kaqba originally (hanif muslim), not an idolater. (Qurpan 3:65–70;
established for Adam but which God had removed so as cf. Qurpan 2:140)
to prevent desecration by the great Noahide flood. Some
traditions associate Ibrahim with the first paradigmatic SE E ALS O Judaism and Islam; Mecca and Medina;
pilgrimage, in which his ritual activities appear as a Prophets.
monotheistic precedent for the subsequent pilgrimage
ritual of Islam. These exegeses provide details for the BIBLIOGRAPHY
fleeting Qurpanic associations of Ibrahim with Mecca Firestone, Reuven. Journeys in Holy Lands: The Evolution of the
and the Kaqba found in verses 2:125–127, 3:96–97, Abraham-Ishmael Legends in Islamic Exegesis. Albany: State
14:35–37, and 22:26–40. University of New York Press, 1990.

Ihsan
Firestone, Reuven. ‘‘Abraham’s Association with the Meccan creation was to reflect the perfection and beauty of the
Sanctuary and the Pilgrimage in the Pre-Islamic and Early divine creator. To him the perfection of the self—
Islamic Periods.’’ Le muséon 104, nos. 3–4 (1991): 359–387. ihsan—was the first step toward fulfilling human destiny
Lowin, Shari. The Making of a Forefather: Abraham in Islamic and
and becoming a mirror that reflects the beauty of the
Jewish Exegetical Narratives. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2006.
Rippin, Andrew. ‘‘Rahman and the Hanifs.’’ In Islamic Studies
Creator.
Presented to Charles J. Adams, edited by Wael B. Hallaq and Muslims over the centuries have subscribed to a
Donald P. Little, 153–168. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 1991. spectrum of views concerning the meaning of ihsan.
For some it was the highest level of Islam to be manifest
Reuven Firestone in the perfection of manners (akhlaq) and devotion in
Professor, Medieval Judaism and Islam rituals. For the mystics who followed the Sufi path,
Hebrew Union College, Los Angeles ihsan is the perfection of everything. The prophet
Muhammad in another tradition taught that God had
ordained ihsan in everything, and for Sufis it thus
became not just the highest form of Islam but the sole
IHSAN path to unity with the divine.

In a cardinal tradition known as the hadith of Gabriel, While the term itself is derived from the verb ahsana,
the angel Gabriel appeared in the form of a man dressed
which means ‘‘to perfect’’ or ‘‘to improve,’’ Sufis have

in spotless white clothes to join with the prophet understood it to mean ‘‘the carrying out of beautiful
Muhammad to succinctly summarize the essence of the deeds.’’ Thus, to talk about ihsan is to talk about beauty,
Message of God. This hadith is reported in the canonical because God is beautiful and he loves beauty. Among
of collections Sahih Muslim and Sahih Bukhari. Gabriel contemporary scholars, William C. Chittick and
publicly asks Muhammad five questions, two about the Muhammad Hisham Kabbani have explored the concept
end of time and three about the key dimensions of Islam: of ihsan extensively. While the latter has dedicated one
islam (rituals), iman (beliefs), and ihsan. volume of his multivolume Encyclopedia of Islamic Doc-
This hadith is, in the opinion of many scholars of trine to the subject of ihsan, nearly every book that
Islam, the most important hadith that encapsulates the Chittick has written explores some aspect of ihsan.
meaning and purpose, the articles of faith, the beliefs, Indeed, Chittick recognizes the fundamental importance
and the essential obligatory practices of the religion of of the hadith of Gabriel, and the 1994 book he wrote
Islam. It is in this hadith that the prophet Muhammad with Sachiko Murata, The Vision of Islam, which is
explains the meaning of islam, iman, and ihsan. Nearly perhaps one of the best introductory texts on Islam
everyone who seeks to explain or understand ihsan, begins available in the English language, is structured according
with this prophetic tradition. In response to the angel to that hadith.
Gabriel’s query, ‘‘What is ihsan?’’ the prophet Muham- The significance of the hadith of Gabriel is that it
mad defines ihsan as follows: ‘‘To worship God as if you identifies the key aspects of what constitutes Islamic faith
see him; if you cannot see him, surely he sees you.’’ in its definition of iman. Iman is belief—belief in God;
Classical Muslim scholars such as al-Ghazali (c. 450/ all his prophets from Adam to Muhammad including
1058–505/1111) and Ibn Taymiyya (661/1263–728/ Ibrahim (Abraham), Moses, and Jesus, to name a few; his
1328) discussed this hadith while trying to explain the angels; his books (revelations such as the Torah, the
essence of islam. Ibn Taymiyya used it in his Kitab al- Bible, the Qurpan, and the Psalms of David); the Day
Iman (Book of faith), to distinguish between the act of of Judgment; and the idea of qadr, or predestination.
submission that is islam and the state of belief that is The hadith also explains what it means to submit to
iman. His discussion of ihsan, however, was brief and God, the meaning of Islam. It is to testify that there is
served only to imply a hierarchy of the religious states, only one God and that Muhammad is his messenger and
where one starts with submission (islam) and then culti- to perform five prayers, to fast in the month of Ramadan,
vates faith (iman) and then eventually reaches ihsan, the to give zakat (obligatory alms), and to perform hajj
highest level. (pilgrimage to Mecca) if one can afford it. Thus, while
Al-Ghazali’s classic work Ihyap qulum al-din (Revival iman is about beliefs, islam is about action, and they both
of the religious sciences) also refers to the hadith of mutually constitute each other. Without belief actions are
Gabriel and is in many ways a manual that helps the meaningless, and without action the strength of belief is
believer travel the journey from submission to perfection, questionable.
from islam to ihsan. The most profound of the classical Ihsan is neither belief nor action, but in a sense it is a
commentators on ihsan was Ibn al-qArabi (560/1165– measure of the quality of belief and the quality of action.
638/1240), who understood that the purpose of all It is a spiritual state of being, an existential condition in
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Ijma
)
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which the desire to be one with God reigns supreme in prophetic traditions replaced these terms as the primary
the heart of the believer. Sufis believe that tasawwuf, the indicators of the law after the Qurpan. The term qiyas
science of the purification of the heart and of journeying remained operative but was severely curtailed by jurists of
closer and closer to God in spirituality, is just another all schools. Ijtihad, however, was universally embraced by
name for ihsan. all jurists and theologians, including those who, in all
While the definition of ihsan is available only in the other matters, held strongly opposing views. This was
hadith of Gabriel, it occurs in its various derivative forms perhaps due to ijtihad’s authority residing in a prophetic
more than 190 times in the Qurpan. The most important tradition, but more likely it was because the actual defi-
or oft-cited verse is in the second chapter of the Qurpan, nition of the term varied from jurist to jurist. Al-Shafiqi,
Surat al-Baqara, in which God orders the believers to do for instance, when asked, replied that ijtihad and qiyas
beautiful things (ihsan) because he loves those who do are two names for the same process. Ibn Hazm, in con-
beautiful things (muhsinun): ‘‘And perform beautiful trast, denounced qiyas but not ijtihad: The former, he
deeds for indeed God loves those who do beautiful maintained, referred to baseless speculation, and the lat-
deeds’’ (Qurpan 2:195). ter, to the individual’s attempts at unraveling the truth by
Indeed, the understanding of ihsan as both spiritu- textual corroboration. All nonetheless used ijtihad to refer
ality and aesthetics has wedded art and mysticism in to no more than the search for the legal norm (hukm) in
Islam in a way that it underpins much of the pursuit of Islam’s corpus sancta without much regard for context.
beauty in calligraphy, in carpet weaving, in miniature In contrast, postcolonial Islamic thinkers used ijtihad
paintings, in architecture, in poetry, in spiritual music, as shorthand for intellectual and social reform and as a
and in manners and hospitality. Some of the most beau- break from taqlid or blind imitation of past legal rulings.
tiful aspects of Islamic civilization from the Taj Mahal to The Indian poet/philosopher, Muhammad Iqbal, for
the poetry of Jalaluddin Rumi are by-products of the instance, saw ijtihad as the catalyst for Islam’s intellectual
desire to attain the state of ihsan. resurgence, whereas the grand mufti of Egypt, Muham-
SE E A LSO Beauty; Pillars of Islam; Religious Creed; Sufism. mad qAbduh, considered it a break from traditional
scholarship, and Abu al-Aqlap Maududi saw it as the key
BIBLIOGRAPHY to establishing an Islamic political order. The relation-
Ghazali, Abu Hamid al-. Ihyap qulum al-din. Translated by Allama ship between taqlid and ijtihad during this period
Faiz Ahmed Owaisi. New Delhi: Maktabah Radhwiyyah, 1999. became less juridical and more symbolic: The former
Ibn Taymiyyah. Kitab Al Iman: Book of Faith. Translated by now referred to the general deterioration of everything
Salman Hassan Al-Ani and Shadia Ahmad Tel. Bloomington, Islamic and the latter to its reformation. In general,
IN: Iman Publishing House, 2010. ijtihad served to validate the reformist’s efforts to sub-
Kabbani, Muhammad Hisham. Self-Purification and the State of ordinate the sacred texts to the exigencies of a modern
Excellence. Vol. 5 of Encyclopedia of Islamic Doctrine. 2nd ed.
context.
Mountain View, CA: As-Sunna Foundation of America,
1998. While ijtihad was warmly received, no methodology
Murata, Sachiko, and William C. Chittick. The Vision of Islam. for reasoning by ijtihad was established, as was the case
New York: Paragon House, 1994. with qiyas, for instance. Jurists spoke of the four essential
constituents of qiyas, and its various forms, but in the
M. A. Muqtedar Khan case of ijtihad, spoke only of the qualifications of the
Associate Professor, International mujtahids who do ijtihad, and of their rankings within
Relations and Islamic Studies particular schools of law. More importantly, they spoke
University of Delaware
of the closing of the doors of ijtihad. The Crusades, the
rise of regional dynasties subsequent to the collapse of the
Abbasid empire, and the Mongol invasions were seen as
) threats to Islamic intellectualism in general. Coupled
IJMA with this, attacks by rationalists and philosophers on
SE E Consensus. Muslim orthodox thinking convinced jurists that any
further ijtihad posed a great danger to orthodoxy itself.
The doors of ijtihad were thus closed in the fourth
Islamic century, and a long period of taqlid followed.
IJTIHAD Recent scholarship has challenged this view based on
In early Islam ijtihad, along with terms such as al-rapy, evidence that mujtahids existed well into the sixteenth
qiyas, and zann referred to sound and balanced personal century, and that several prominent pre-modern scholars
reasoning. By the third century of Islam, however, denied the closure of the doors of ijtihad.

Ikhwan al-Safa
SEE ALSO Law; Reform: Arab Middle East and North INTELLECTUAL APPROACH
Africa; Shariqa; Taqlid. Beyond what initially appears to be an encyclopedic
work, there is a far-ranging and comprehensive program
BIBLIOGRAPHY of intellectual and educational reform. Such an agenda of
reform was founded on three assumptions.
Fareed, Muneer. Legal Reform in the Muslim World. San
Francisco, CA: Austin & Winfield, 1996. First, the Ikhwan acknowledged the existence and
Hallaq, Wael. Law and Legal Theory in Classical and Medieval value of ‘‘sciences and wisdoms,’’ some divinely inspired,
Islam. Brookfield, VT: Variorum, 1995. which had been produced by past faith communities,
Khan, L. Ali, and Hisham M. Ramadan. Contemporary Ijtihad: individuals, and learned societies. This base of knowledge
Limits and Controversies. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh represented a foundation for developing a synthesis
Press, 2011. appropriate to a new time and circumstances. Such a
Vogel, F. ‘‘A Critical Analysis of the Role of Ijtihad in Legal synthesis would harmonize Qurpanic and Muslim values
Reforms in the Muslim World.’’ In Islamic Legal Theory, and ideals with the best that all other religious philosoph-
Vol. 1, edited by Mashood A. Baderin. Burlington, VT: ical systems had to offer.
Ashgate, 2014.
Second, the ultimate goal of such a synthesis, taught
and properly applied to life and society, was a moral one.
Muneer Goolam Fareed It was the advancement of human beings in their material
Director for the Centre for life and conditions and their spiritual lives here and in
Contemporary Islam, and the hereafter. Such an objective was best fulfilled through
Associate Professor of Islamic Law
University of Cape Town, South Africa
personal moral and intellectual growth and spiritual
development through sound teaching and learning. This,
however, assumed a foundation of knowledge, pedagogy,
and the capacity to synthesize and assimilate existing
resources through the application of intellectual and
IKHWAN AL-MUSLIMIN moral discipline. This personal commitment and empha-
SEE Muslim Brotherhood. sis on character development receives a great deal of
emphasis in the Rasapil. Piety, compassion, gentleness,
and humility are prerequisites to wisdom and virtue.
The attainment of such wisdom is the highest quality of
Muslim learning, hikma, a religious and philosophical
IKHWAN AL-SAFA wisdom.
Ikhwan al-Safa, literally ‘‘Brethren of Purity’’ or more
Third, the acquisition of knowledge as a virtue that
broadly the ‘‘Fellowship of the Pure,’’ is a term used to
fosters moral character created in turn a society with a
designate a group of Muslim intellectuals who compiled
common set of civic values and behavior. Thus, the
the well-known encyclopedia of learning called the Rasapil
individual, social, and religious goals intersected in the
ikhwan al-safa. Many of them lived in the tenth century Ikhwan’s vision. The building of this foundation of
CE in Baghdad and Basra in present-day Iraq, constituting
learning drew upon the following major sources:
a collaborative forum for discussion, debate, and writing
that led to the composition of fifty-two epistles of the Mathematical and natural sciences
Rasapil. Scriptures revealed through prophets
The consensus of modern scholarship is that the Nature and the environment
philosophical attitudes and ideas reflected in the Rasapil
are consistent and have much in common with views Inspiration vouchsafed to purified souls
developed by Shiqite Ismaqili thinkers of the same Each source was capable of being converted into a
period. Their writings reflect clearly a vibrant philo- series of disciplines, further formalized into a curriculum,
sophical orientation, strong familiarity with the major directed at students through sessions involving reading,
sciences, religious and intellectual traditions, and a crit- study, and discussion. These were divided into four broad
ical stance toward what they perceived to be the cultural areas:
and political stagnation of the time. The evidence in the
text, as well as references to them in early Ismaqili Mathematics and deductive subjects, including,
writings suggest that the philosophy reflected in the interestingly enough, music
Rasapil was closely affiliated with Ismaqili aspirations of Physical and natural sciences, including the study of
the pre-Fatimid period. biology of living things and culture
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Ilhad Not For Sale

Psychology and intellectual inquiry BIBLIOGRAPHY
El-Bizri, Nader. Epistles of the Brethren of Purity: The Ikhwan
Religious science and knowledge, including ethics al-Safa’ and Their Rasapil: An Introduction. Oxford, U.K.:
and governance Oxford University Press, 2008.
Nanji, Azim. ‘‘On the Acquisition of Knowledge in the Raspil
The hermeneutical and pluralistic approach of the Ikhwan al-Safa.’’ Muslim World 66 (1976): 262–271.
Ikhwan, and their blending of knowledge traditions, Nasr, Sayyed Hossein. Islamic Cosmological Doctrines. London:
reflects the growth and diversity of learning in the Mus- Thames and Hudson, 1978.
lim world of the ninth and tenth centuries CE. In partic- Poonawala, Ismail. K. ‘‘Ikhwan al Safa.’’ In Vol. 7, The
ular, the translation of the ancient heritage of Greece and Encyclopedia of Religion, edited by Mircea Eliade, et al.
New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1987.
the Mediterranean world had made available to Muslims
tools from philosophy and science that could serve to
underpin an interpretation and explanation of Qurpanic Azim Nanji
principles. The Ikhwan like other Muslim philosophers Academic Advisor
Aga Khan University
or rationalist groups, such as the Muqtazila, were com-
mitted to building such an intellectual framework, but in
the process they wished to affirm a commitment to core
notions such as tawhid, the unity of God, the necessity of
religious faith, law, and salvation, which they perceived, ILHAD
quoting the Qurpan (89:26), as the return of the con- SE E Atheism.
tented soul to the God of Unity.
Just as the symbolic significance of numbers and
mathematical values reflected their methodological
approach to science, so with regards to the Qurpan, whose
qILM
verses they considered as having an interior, symbolic The Arabic word qilm is often translated into English as
meaning (batin) that required a rational interpretation ‘‘knowledge’’ or ‘‘science.’’ Understanding the word’s
and a hermeneutical approach. meaning in the context of Muslim history and culture
and its application in different scientific, scholarly, and
The Rasapil also contains many references to Christian mystical disciplines requires taking note of two points.
and Jewish scriptures and traditions, acknowledging First, the word qilm was singular in the original simplicity
respect and recognition of the commonalities the Abraha- of classical Arabic. This suggests that in the pre- and
mic traditions share and the affirmation that an ecumen- early Islamic period knowledge was understood to be
ical spirit is a prelude to knowledge and appreciation of indivisible and whole. Later in the history of the Arabic
the other. In addition, the Ikhwan draw from the literature language—as Islam spread and Muslims began to con-
of ancient Iran, India, and Buddhism. They used well- front, accommodate, and absorb the values of other
known stories and parables, such as the legend of Bilawhar cultures—the meaning of qilm expanded to include dif-
and the Debate of the Animals, which suggest the diverse ferent conceptions of knowledge that may or may not be
milieu of the time, but are also indicative of the Ikhwan’s in harmony. Second, significant Arabic terms such as qilm
efforts to broaden and deepen Muslim discourse by engag- have both sacred and secular implications and must be
ing it with the intellectual strands of the time. Their understood within the context of Islamic religiosity and
approach thus reflects the ethos of the period—a time of the language of the Qurpan as well as the intellectual
debate, intellectual pluralism, and the advancement of traditions of Muslim scholars.
synthesis in many fields of Muslim thought, including
philosophy, theology, law, and politics. THE LITERAL MEANING OF qILM
By and large their work was read by and influenced The literal meaning of qilm conveys the original sense of the
many later Muslim thinkers. The Rasapil were translated word. qIlm is derived from the verb-root q-l-m, meaning:
into many languages and transmitted all over the Muslim ‘‘He knew it; or he was, or became acquainted with it’’
world and beyond. Their writings have also attracted the (Lane 1955–1956, 2138). The verb-root q-l-m and its sub-
attention of Muslim and other scholars in modern times, stantive qilm have a number of synonyms. The most notable
and their approach and commitment to education as the is the verb-root q-r-f, from which one gets the substantive
most constructive vehicle for change appears to have maqrifa, which translates into English as ‘‘knowledge’’ or,
stood the test of time. more literally, ‘‘cognizance.’’ According to the nineteenth-
century British lexicographer Edward William Lane, classi-
SE E A LS O Philosophy; Shiqa: Ismaqili. cal Arab lexicographers are in near-unanimous agreement

qIlm
that the meaning of qilm and maqrifa are interchangeable. therefore, seems to be a more holistic, though less precise,
Lane indicates, however, that some critics insist on a hier- form of knowledge than qilm. But because it is difficult to
archy of meaning. According to these critics, qilm ‘‘denotes understand how one can be cognizant of a thing without
the highest quality [of knowledge] because it is that which reliance on sense or mental perception or how one can
they allow to be an attribute of God’’ (Lane 1955–1956, acquire knowledge of a part without a prior recognition
2138). Emphasizing the centrality of religious interpreta- of the whole, one must conclude that these two forms of
tion, this reading is consistent with the text of the Qurpan knowledge are complementary.
where divine knowledge is perfect and complete and
encompasses both ‘‘the hidden’’ and ‘‘the seen’’ (qilm al-
CATEGORIES OF qILM AS SCIENCE
ghayb wa al-shahada; cf. Qurpan, 6:73; 9:94, 105; 13:9;
23:92; 32:6; 39:46; 59:22; 62:8; and 64:18). Accordingly, In his Muqaddima, Ibn Khaldun (733/1332–808/1406)
one of God’s ninety-nine attributes is al-qalim, ‘‘the distinguishes two kinds of sciences: one natural (tabiqi)
Knower’’ par excellence. In contrast, the Qurpan never refers and the other transmitted (naqli). The first kind of
to God as al-qarif, or as merely cognizant or aware, a state science, according to Ibn Khaldun, comes naturally to
human beings through thought. He calls these sciences
that is reserved for the human experience. In this religious

interpretation of knowledge and its relation to the divine, it the wise or exact philosophical sciences (al-qulum al-
is clear why qilm is of a higher status than maqrifa. hikmiyya al-falsafiyya).These are the ‘‘rational’’ sciences
(al-qulum al-qaqliya). Examples include the science of logic

Nevertheless, religious and pious perspectives still
(al-mantiq), the science of geometry (al-handasa), the
allow for a nuanced take that can exalt maqrifa over qilm
science of arithmetic (al-artimatiqi), the science of music
in the realm of human experience. The text of the Qur-
(al-musiqi), and the science of astronomy (al-haypa). The
pan, for example, allows for humans to partake of knowl-
second kind of science has not human thought but the
edge as qilm and describes the one who possesses such
acts and deeds of the prophet-legislator (al-shariq) as its
knowledge as qalim (learned or knower). But when it
ultimate source. Ibn Khaldun calls these the conventional
comes to the ultimate object of human knowledge, God
transmitted sciences (al-qulum al-wadqiyya al-naqliyya) or
himself, the pious articulation of such knowledge among
simply the transmitted sciences (al-qulum al-naqliya).
human beings is almost always expressed in terms of
Examples include the sciences of Qurpanic interpretation,
maqrifa as opposed to qilm. If maqrifa is the highest form
the sciences of the traditions of the prophet (hadith), the
of knowledge of the divine that a human can aspire to,
science of jurisprudence (fiqh), the science of religious
this gives it a special status as a form of knowledge. As
obligations (farapid), and the science of theology (kalam).
William C. Chittick observes (1989, 148), ‘‘When dis-
cussing knowledge as a human attribute, many Sufis Ibn Khaldun’s approach to the classification of qilm
placed maqrifa at a higher stage than qilm,’’ insisting that is influenced by the fact that he was, among other things,
‘‘maqrifa is equivalent to the direct knowledge called both a historian and a jurist serving as a Maliki supreme
unveiling, witnessing, and tasting.’’ judge in Egypt. The division of the sciences into rational
and transmitted sciences reflects the different functions
The relationship between qilm and maqrifa as forms
he had to assume in his professional life: As a scholar he
of knowledge is thus more complicated than is indicated
wished to turn history into a proper rational science
by simple definitions of the terms or as asserted by and as a Maliki judge he had to follow clear and well-
authorities regarding the apparent hierarchy of the terms. established conventions for rendering legal decisions. By
This is further illustrated by the fact that some classical contrast, Abu Nasr al-Farabi (c. 256/870–c. 339/950;
Arab lexicographers indicate a complementary relation- also known as Alfarabi) was first and foremost a philos-
ship between qilm and maqrifa. According to these lex- opher. And for a philosopher, at least if one follows al-
icographers, qilm is a knowledge gained ‘‘by means of any Farabi’s argument in the Enumeration of the Sciences
of the five senses’’ as well as ‘‘mental perception,’’ (Ihsap al-qulum), a proper science is always rational. In
whereas maqrifa is a knowledge gained through ‘‘perceiv- other words, there are no proper sciences in this account
ing a thing by reflection, and by consideration of the that can be called transmitted. The Enumeration of the
effect thereof [upon the mind or sense]’’ (Lane 1955– Sciences lists six main sciences: the science of language,
1956, 2013; bracketed text in the original). Apparently the science of logic, the science of mathematics, physical
because qilm relies on sense perception, it is seen as a science, divine science, and political science. The closest
more precise and complete form of knowledge than that al-Farabi comes to the mention of transmitted
maqrifa. Yet, because sense perception seems to imply sciences is his account of jurisprudence and theology in
partial knowledge that is limited to one or more senses, the fifth chapter of the Enumeration of the Sciences, which
it concerns ‘‘the states, or conditions, or qualities’’ of a deals with political science. But what is clear from his
thing as opposed to maqrifa, which is the knowledge of treatment of jurisprudence and theology is that he sub-
‘‘the thing itself’’ (Lane 1955–1956, 2013). Maqrifa, ordinates these two subjects to the rational science of
Not For Sale

Imam Not For Sale

politics. Al-Farabi distinguishes only between the theo- SE E ALS O Hadith; Philosophy; Sciences; Sufism.
retical and practical sciences. He defines the former as
‘‘what a human being is not able to do when he knows BIBLIOGRAPHY
it’’ and the latter as ‘‘what a human being is able to do Alfarabi. The Political Writings: ‘‘Selected Aphorisms’’ and Other
when he knows it’’ (Alfarabi 2001, 97). Texts. Translated by Charles E. Butterworth. Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press, 2001.
Like al-Farabi, Ibn Rushd (520/1126–595/1198; Averroës. ‘‘The Book of the Decisive Treatise Determining the
also known as Averroës) was a philosopher, and like Ibn Connection between the Law and Wisdom’’ and ‘‘Epistle
Khaldun, he was also an imam, a jurist, and a judge Dedicatory’’. Translated by Charles E. Butterworth. Provo,
(although not a historian). His philosophic and jurist UT: Brigham Young University Press, 2001.
functions come together in his Decisive Treatise, the Chittick, William C. The Sufi Path of Knowledge: Ibn al-qArabi’s
complete title of which includes Determining the Con- Metaphysics of Imagination. Albany: State University of
nection between the Law (shariqa) and Wisdom (hikma). As New York Press, 1989.
a jurist, Ibn Rushd accepts the distinction between Ibn Khaldūn, qAbd al-Rah.mān. Muqaddimat Ibn Khaldūn,
rational and transmitted sciences, although he does not Prolégomènes d’Ebn-Khaldun, texte arabe publié, d’après les
manuscrits de la Bibliothèque impériale. Edited by Benjamin
make this an explicit issue in his treatise. He alludes to
Duprat. Paris: Benjamin Duprat, 1858. Reprint, Beirut:
the distinction by outlining two qualitatively different Maktaba Lubnan, 1970.
types of scholarly reflection (nazar): law-based reflection Ibn Man_zūr, Muh.ammad ibn Mukarram. Lisān al-qArab. 15 vols.
and philosophic reflection. He reinforces the distinction Beirut: Dār al-Thaqāfa, 1955–1956.
by emphasizing the tools by which these two types of Lane, Edward William. Arabic-English Lexicon. 8 vols. New York:
reflection accomplish their purposes: the tool of law- Frederick Ungar, 1955–1956. First published 1863–1893 by
based reflection (which he later identifies as jurisprudence Williams and Norgate.
[fiqh]) is law-based syllogistic reasoning (al-qiyas al- Zubaydı̄, Muh.ammad Murtad.ā al-H . usaynı̄ al-. Tāj al-qArūs.
sharqi). By contrast, the tool of philosophic reflection is Vol. 33. Edited by Ibrāhı̄m al-Farāzı̄. Kuwait: Mat. baqat al-
intellectual syllogistic reasoning (al-qiyas al-qaqli). But the fays. al, 2000.
most notable and explicit distinction that Ibn Rushd
makes in his Decisive Treatise is the one between divine Waseem El-Rayes
and human knowledge—a distinction that is intended to Associate Professor
absolve the peripatetic philosophers from the accusation Michigan State University
of nonbelief (kufr). Like al-Farabi, Ibn Rushd seems to
give a higher priority to the rational sciences than the
transmitted sciences. The ultimate form of knowledge,
the true science (al-qilm al-haq), according to Ibn Rushd, IMAM
is ‘‘cognizance of God [maqrifat Allah] . . . and of all the The word ‘‘imam’’ is an Arabic term signifying a leader, a
existing things as they are, especially the venerable ones model, an authority, or an exemplar. The term occurs in
among them; and cognizance of happiness in the here- the Qurpan, for example at 2:124, with reference to
after and of misery in the hereafter’’ (Averroës 2001, 23). God’s promise to make Abraham an ‘‘imam for the
Although, as Ibn Rushd insists, true science is the inten-
people,’’ and at 11:17 and 46:12, where the ‘‘Book of
tion of the law (maqsid al-shariqa), he suggests that law-
Moses’’ is characterized as an ‘‘imam.’’ In early theolog-
based syllogistic reasoning is not sufficient to attain such
ical and juristic literature, the Qurpan and the sunna are
cognizance without intellectual syllogistic reasoning. This
sometimes referred to as imam, although the Qurpan does
is not to say that Ibn Rushd claims that law-based rea-
not describe itself as such. The leader of the congrega-
soning is not necessary for cognizance of the ‘‘true sci-
ence,’’ but he does insist that there is a distinction to be tional prayers is typically designated as an imam, and
made between the jurist (al-faqih) and the one who is from the ninth century CE onwards the term was also
cognizant (al-qarif; Averroës 2001). used for leading Sunni religious scholars. Most com-
monly, however, the term refers to the caliph in the
Historically speaking, the division of qilm, or knowl- Sunni juristic literature and, in Shiqism, to the infallible
edge, into rational and transmitted sciences opened the guide of the community.
door for debate about and conflict on which of these two
kinds of sciences should take priority when considering Debates on the question of who was best qualified to
fundamental human questions related to freedom, hap- be the imam and whether a sinful leader might be
piness, and meaning. These questions have great impli- removed from his position as the head of the community
cation not only for how the individual ought to live his played an important role in the development of Sunni
or her life but also regarding the right order of society religious and political thought. Medieval Sunni jurists
and politics. The legacy of these debates and conflicts is held the position of the imam to be deducible from
still felt today. revelation rather than reason and considered this position

Imamzadah
to be essential for the defense of Islam and the imple- Newman, Andrew J. Twelver Shiqism: Unity and Diversity in the
mentation of the sacred law, the shariqa. In general, they Life of Islam, 632 to 1722. Edinburgh: University of
required that the caliph/imam be a member of Muham- Edinburgh Press, 2013.
Sachedina, A. A. Islamic Messianism: The Idea of Mahdi in
mad’s tribe of Quraysh, be duly elected by the people or Twelver Shiqism. Albany: State University of New York Press,
nominated by his predecessor, and possess moral probity, 1981.
religious knowledge, and the physical faculties necessary
for the discharge of his duties. With the decline of the
Muhammad Qasim Zaman
caliphate and the rise to power of the military warlords, Professor of Near Eastern
however, the jurists came to recognize that any ruler— Studies and Religion
and not necessarily the caliph—who wielded effective Princeton University
political power was the legitimate imam, as long as his
actions did not flagrantly contravene the shariqa.
To the Shiqites, the term imam has a different signi-
fication altogether. It refers to a member of the family of IMAMATE
the Prophet (ahl al-bayt), and usually to a member of SEE Caliphate; Shiqa: Early.
‘‘the family’’ as descended from Muhammad’s daughter
Fatima (d. 12/633) and her husband qAli ibn Abi Talib
(d. 41/661). The history of Shiqism is marked by numer-
ous disagreements on the precise identity and number of IMAMZADAH
the imams, as well as on how to define the imam’s Imamzadah, literally ‘‘one borne of an imam,’’ refers to a
authority and functions; many of these disagreements descendant of a Shiqite imam and, by extension, to a
have continued to the present, as have distinct Shiqite shrine where such a descendant is buried. Imamzadahs
communities. The Imamis, who came to be the most exist throughout the Shiqite world; their relative impor-
numerous group among the Shiqites, believe in twelve tance is determined by the perceived legitimacy of their
imams, hence their common designation as ‘‘Ithnap qasha- genealogy. The major tombs of Zaynab, daughter of the
ris’’ or ‘‘Twelvers.’’ first imam, qAli b. Abi Talib, and Ruqayya, daughter of
The Twelver imams are believed to be sinless, the the third imam, Husayn, are located in Damascus, Syria.
repository of authoritative knowledge, and indispensable Prominent imamzadahs in Iran include the tomb in
for the guidance and salvation of the community. The Qum of Fatima, also known as Maqsumah, sister of the
last of these imams is believed to have gone into hiding in ninth imam, Riza, and the tomb of Ahmad b. Musa,
260/874. While leading Twelver Shiqite jurists (mujta- popularly known as Shah Cheragh (King Light) in
hids) have continued the imam’s function of providing Shiraz. Imamzadahs of less-certain provenance are vener-
religious guidance and leadership to the community ated in cities, towns, and the countryside. Although
(even as they have long debated the scope of their own formally educated Shiqites often disdain less well known
authority in his absence), belief in his eventual return is a imamzadahs and view fervent devotion of them as tanta-
cardinal feature of the Twelver religious system. mount to idolatry, those who visit imamzadahs approach
the shrines with sincere faith and affection. Imamzadahs
SEE ALSO Shiqa: Early. are regarded as accessible local representatives of divinity,
and are appealed to as intercessors.
Pilgrimage to an imamzadah is known as ziyarat, a
BIBLIOGRAPHY
formal personal visit. The amount of time spent visiting
Amir-Moezzi, M. A. The Divine Guide in Early Shiqism. an imamzadah is proportional to the saint’s importance.
Translated by David Streight. Albany: State University of For example, three days are considered appropriate for a
New York Press, 1994.
visit to Hazrat-e Maqsumah; one day suffices for ziyarat
Calder, Norman. ‘‘The Significance of the Term Imam in Early to Shah Cheragh. Cursory visits are paid to small neigh-
Islamic Jurisprudence.’’ Zeitschrift fur Geschichte der arabisch- borhood shrines. Pilgrims visit the shrines in much the
islamischen Wissenschaften, edited by F. Sezgin. Frankfurt:
Institut fur Geschichte der arabisch-islamischen same spirit as they would visit senior relatives.
Wissenschaften, 1984. Imamzadahs have distinct characteristics and are
‘‘Imam.’’ In The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World, edited often regarded as having specialties related to the charac-
by John L. Esposito. New York: Oxford University Press, ter and personal history of the individual to whom they
2009. are dedicated. For example, the Seyyed qAla al-din
Madelung, Wilferd. ‘‘Imama.’’ In The Encyclopaedia of Islam, Husayn shrine in Shiraz, burial place of an imamzadah
2d ed. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1960. who died at thirteen years of age, is renowned as a site
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Imamzadah Not For Sale
The Zaynab Mosque in Damascus, Syria. The Zaynab Mosque contains the tomb of Zaynab, daughter of the first imam,
qAli ibn Abi Talib. Known as imamzadahs, the descendants of imams—and, by extension, their tombs—have distinct characteristics
that draw Muslims who come to pray. Female imamzadahs, for instance, are considered more responsive to the concerns of women.
ª FREDERIC SOLTAN/SYGMA/CORBIS
where children may be cured. Other shrines cure partic- Political figures eager to demonstrate their piety may
ular diseases or provide special kinds of assistance. pay well-publicized visits to prominent shrines or assure
Female imamzadahs are particularly responsive to wom- that the shrines are refurbished with government funds.
en’s and girls’ concerns, such as the desire to find a Since the advent of the Islamic Republic in 1979 in Iran,
suitable husband or have an easy childbirth. imamzadahs in that country have received a great deal of
Visits to small local imamzadahs are popular among official attention and investment. Shrines are maintained
by support from donations given to the imamzadahs or,
many women. Men are more numerous at formal reli-
lacking these, from the government endowments (awqaf )
gious sites, which are generally less comfortable places
office. Popular imamzadahs are frequently located near
for women to spend time. Locations of imamzadahs are
bazaars, which benefit from the flow of pilgrims. As sacred
suggested by dreams or the discovery of old tombstones, space, shrines can provide sanctuary and often serve as
and confirmed by the occurrence of miracles. Graves of focal points for Shiqite rituals, such as Ashura (qAshurap)
popular imamzadahs are marked by zarihs, often elabo- observances.
rate barred enclosures that surround the tombs and
protect them from visitors anxious to carry away some SE E ALS ODevotional Life; Dreams; Imam; Pilgrimage:
of the shrine’s blessing, or baraka. Letters of petition Ziyara.
addressed to the saints as well as money and gifts may be
placed inside the zarih to signal vows made or answered. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Shrines that attract many visitors may be divided into Ayoub, Mahmoud. Redemptive Suffering in Islam: A Study of the
separate men’s and women’s sections, each on one side Devotional Aspects of qAshura in Twelver Shiqism. The Hague:
of the zarih. Mouton, 1978.

Immigration
Betteridge, Anne H. ‘‘Muslim Women and Shrines in Shiraz.’’ centrality of mobility for the formation of community
In Everyday Life in the Muslim Middle East, 2d edition, edited in early Islamic history is thus reflected in the central role
by Donna Lee Bowen and Evelyn A. Early. Bloomington: the hijra plays in Muslim historiography, and the central-
Indiana University Press, 2002.
ity of the hijra in Muslim thought and culture is reflected
Chelkowski, Peter. ‘‘Imamzadah.’’ In The Oxford Encyclopedia
of the Modern Islamic World. New York: Oxford University in the fact that most premodern Muslim-majority soci-
Press, 1995. eties sought to accommodate the back-and-forth move-
Friedl, Erika. ‘‘Islam and Tribal Women in a Village in Iran.’’ ment that immigration entails.
In Unspoken Worlds: Women’s Religious Lives. 3d edition,
edited by Nancy Auer Falk and Rita M. Gross. Belmont, CA:
Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2001. ORGANIZATION OF MUSLIM COMMUNITIES IN
‘‘Imamzadah.’’ In The Oxford Dictionary of Islam, edited by John THE PREMODERN ERA
L. Esposito. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Indeed, many of the social, religious, and political insti-
‘‘Imamzadah.’’ In The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World,
tutions of Muslim-majority societies in premodern times
edited by John L. Esposito. New York: Oxford University
Press, 2009. were shaped by the impulse to root individuals in a place
Momen, Moojan. An Introduction to Shiqite Islam. New Haven, while allowing for their physical and social mobility. The
CT: Yale University Press, 1985. incorporation of nisbas in personal names (e.g., Bagh-
dadi, Fasi, Andalusi), for example, socially identifies one
by one’s place of origin (from Baghdad, Fez, or Andalu-

Anne H. Betteridge
Associate Professor,
sia, respectively) even if one has spent most of one’s life
School of Middle Eastern & elsewhere. Muslim cities were also designed to accom-
North African Studies modate travelers. The major mosques, caravansaries/hos-
The University of Arizona tels, and commercial markets were generally adjacent to
one another in order to accommodate not only traveling
merchants but also the numerous students and scholars
who traveled between cities in pursuit of religious knowl-
IMMIGRATION edge (qilm). Before the invention of mass transit, the
Voluntary immigration, with which this entry is con- religious obligation to travel to Mecca for the hajj also
cerned, is a key concept for understanding community tied the notion of a universal Muslim community
formation in Islam. The Islamic calendar begins with the (umma) to movement and migration. Toward the end
year the prophet Muhammad emigrated from Mecca to of the rites of the hajj, pilgrims have to stand collectively
Yathrib (later know as Medina, short for Madinat al-nabi on the plain of qArafat in Mecca in order for their
[city of the Prophet]) in order to escape persecution and religious duty to be considered fulfilled. By standing
to establish the first community of believers (ummat altogether at qArafat, Muslims of varying classes, races,
mupminin) under his leadership. This migration has been and nationalities embody the ideal of the umma, and
crystallized in Islamic thought in the form of the Arabic they do so only after traveling away from their own
word for migration: hijra. Embedded in this Prophetic homes. The fact that they are required to stand at qArafat
hijra is the religious belief that the whole of Earth belongs in Mecca ironically sends the message that Mecca is not
to God, and as such any place could be suitable for the embodiment of Islam; instead, Muslims traveling
Muslims to live and worship. Muhammad’s paradigmatic from all over the world to gather in Mecca embody
migration demonstrates for Muslims that Islam is not Islam.
tied to a place but to a community (umma), which could Similarly, the centrality of Islamic law and Arabic as
be realized wherever Islamic beliefs and laws could be put the language of God’s speech in Islam established con-
into practice. nections between local regions, which helped shape a
For scholars of Islam, there is another important global umma that accommodates travel and migration.
lesson in the hijra. The fact that Muslims use an act of Whatever the reality of everyday Muslim life in diverse
migration as the beginning point of their calendar shows Muslim-majority societies, the belief that a Muslim com-
that mobility has been central to community formation munity ought to be governed by its understanding of
in Islam. In order to form a community of believers, the God’s law was so prominent in premodern Muslim his-
prophet Muhammad and his followers had to leave their tory that in the fourteenth century CE the famed Muslim
homes and the Sacred Mosque (Masjid al-Haram) in traveler Ibn Battuta was able to traverse the regions
Mecca. Once they established their community in between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans and gain access
Yathrib, they returned to Mecca to negotiate access to to local Muslim elites by relying on his knowledge of
the Sacred Mosque in order to fulfill the religious duty Arabic and his reputation as a scholar of Islamic law.
of the hajj and eventually to take over the city. The Conversely, in more recent times, when some Islamist
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India Not For Sale

groups felt that the states where they lived did not adhere hybrid French, German, British, and American Muslim
properly to Islamic law, they renounced their compatriots communities. As they became more settled and as their
as infidels (takfir) and immigrated to places such as numbers grew, their relationship to their host societies
Afghanistan under Taliban rule to establish what they changed. They were no longer just laborers but also
believed to be Muslim communities properly governed became professionals and business owners. They went
by Islamic law. from being foreigners who provided valued services to
becoming second- and third-generation immigrants in
nation-states designed to assimilate immigrants as loyal
IMMIGRATION, COLONIALISM, AND citizens rather than as members of transnational commun-
NATIONALISM IN THE MODERN ERA ities shaped by mobility. Muslim immigration has thus
In the modern era, when European empires colonized become a source of social and political tension in modern
nearly all Muslim-majority societies, Muslim social nation-states. In North America and western Europe, this
organizations and institutions changed to accommodate tension has been further exacerbated by a number of
modern forms of knowledge and modes of national terrorist attacks undertaken by militant Muslims in New
identification. Secular educational systems were estab- York (2001), Washington, D.C. (2001), Madrid (2004),
lished to instruct students in the new sciences. Arabic London (2005), Boston (2013), and Paris (2015), as well
lost its place as the primary language of learning to as by European and North American involvement in U.S.-
French and English, and the religious sciences came to led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
be considered secondary to medicine and engineering. SE E A LSO Hijra; Muslim Minorities in the West; Refugees
Colonial powers saw Muslim internationalism and the
in the Contemporary Middle East and North Africa;
global umma as a threat to their control over local
Travel and Travelers.
populations and sought to administer through customary
law rather than Islamic law. The formation of nation-
states and the rise of nationalism created a rupture in BIBLIOGRAPHY
earlier forms of community formation that depended on Ho, Engseng. The Graves of Tarim: Genealogy and Mobility across
immigration and the circulation of populations. By the the Indian Ocean. Berkeley: University of California Press,
time most Muslim-majority societies gained independ- 2006.
ence during the second half of the twentieth century, Kaya, Ayhan. Islam, Migration, and Integration: The Age of
there was only one mode of political and social belonging Securitization. Basingstoke, U.K.: Palgrave MacMillan, 2009.
tolerated around the globe: as citizen of a nation-state. Ossman, Susan. Moving Matters: Paths of Serial Migration.
Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2013.
This incongruence between immigration and com-
munity formation in the modern era coupled with the Pew Research Center. The Future of World Religions: Population
Growth Projections, 2010–2050. Washington, DC: Author,
concentration of wealth in a small number of countries
2015.
posed a significant challenge to the social, political, and
Silverstein, Paul A. ‘‘Anthropologies of Middle Eastern
economic life of Muslim-majority societies. Following Diasporas.’’ In A Companion to the Anthropology of the Middle
the drawing of national boundaries, states accommodated East, edited by Soraya Altorki, 282–315. Hoboken, NJ:
immigration primarily for economic reasons. Through Wiley-Blackwell, 2015.
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries millions of Mus-
lims immigrated to the Americas and Europe as laborers
and students. Muslim labor helped rebuild the infrastruc- Kambiz GhaneaBassiri
ture of many western European countries after World Professor of Religion and Humanities
Reed College
War II (1939–1945). Today, the population of Muslims
in Europe is estimated at around 22 million. The Euro-
pean countries with the largest populations of Muslims
are France (about 5 million), Germany (about 5 million),
and the United Kingdom (about 3 million). Population INDIA
estimates of Muslims in the United States range from A land of multiple faiths, India is home to one of the
3 million to 8 million, and the number of Muslims in largest concentrations of Muslims in the world, with
Canada are estimated at around 1 million. It should be roughly 180 million followers of Islam. Muslims consti-
noted that about one-fifth of the Muslim population in tute 14.88 percent of the total Indian population (1.21 bil-
the United States is African American and thus indige- lion), according to the census of 2011, and are the largest
nous to the nation. minority in the nation. With Islam arriving on the Mala-
Many of the immigrants who came to western bar Coast in the southwest as early as the seventh century
Europe and North America as laborers and students CE via Arab traders, Muslims have been integral to the
stayed and gradually adapted to local societies, creating nation’s history for more than a millennium.

India
N 0 200 400 mi.

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India
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MALDIVES INDONESIA
Map of India. ª CENGAGE LEARNING/GALE
ADVENT OF ISLAM community of Mappilas (or Moplahs), who assimilated

India’s Muslims constitute about 11 percent of the the culture and traditions of the local people. In 93/
world’s total Muslim population. Alongside Indonesia 711 Muhammad bin Qasim (76/695–96/715), an
and Pakistan, India is among the three nations in the Umayyad general, conquered Sindh and Multan—
world with the largest Muslim populations. Arab mer- now in Pakistan—which aided further expansion of
cantile traders who were particularly active within Islam into India. The Umayyads sought to control
the Indian Ocean trade network since pre-Islamic days Sindh because of their desire to regulate the trade
were instrumental in Islam’s first arrival in the country. route along the Silk Road and safeguard their ships.
Arab traders and merchants settled on the southwestern It was the first time that Muslim political control was
coast and married local women, giving rise to the established in any part of India. This was followed by
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a series of raids by various Muslim armies, beginning first mosques in India—a complex that must have
at the turn of the tenth century CE. attested to the early Muslim presence in a land largely
The Turkic Muslim ruler Mahmud of Ghazni inhabited by non-Muslims. The Delhi sultanate wit-
(r. 388/998–421/1030) launched seventeen raids into nessed the ascension to the throne of Razia Sultan
Sindh and neighboring areas, returning each time with (r. 634/1236–638/1240), the daughter of Aibek’s succes-
treasures and vast amounts of wealth to Ghazni, his sor, Iltutmish (r. 607/1210–633/1236). Tabaqat-i
capital city in Afghanistan. Mahmud, a mighty con- Nasiri, a near contemporary source, describes Razia as
queror and a brilliant general, pursued objectives ranging an able military leader and a wise ruler. Despite the
from plundering wealth, controlling land routes, and enormity of her role as the first woman ruler from Delhi,
exterminating Ismaqili Shiqa—as a staunch Sunni Razia is due to find a place in historiography. At a
ruler—to appropriating greater resources to expand and popular level, most discussions focus on her as a legend
strengthen the empire of the Ghaznavids. The most con- rather than a historical figure.
troversial episode of Mahmud’s raids was his attacks on The sultanate also saw rulers such as qAlap al-Din
the temple of Somnath on the coast in the extreme south Khalji (r. 695/1296–715/1316), whose pioneering eco-
of Kathiawar in Gujarat. For his plundering raids, he nomic and military reforms, such as the branding of
invoked the ghazi (holy warrior) spirit that came in horses, were followed by subsequent rulers; and Muham-
handy to him. He has been referred to as the but shikan mad bin Tughluq (r. 725/1325–752/1351), whose
(idol breaker) in some accounts for destroying the idols administrative measures, such as the introduction of
in the temple. There lacks a firm, authoritative version of token currency and the shifting of the capital from Delhi
the event, but it is a fact that Hindu temples were specific to the more central location of Daulatabad in the Dec-
targets of such raids, even among rival Hindu rulers, as can, have been deemed as ahead of their time but imprac-
temples such as the one in Somnath were repositories of tical. The last great sultan, Firoz Shah Tughluq (r. 752/
immense wealth, gold, and precious gems. Mahmud’s 1351–790/1388), introduced several praiseworthy
incursions paved the way for further incursions by reforms such as the softening of punishments and the
Muhammad Ghuri (r. 569/1173–602/1206; also known establishment of an employment bureau and Diwan-e-
as Shahab al-Din), who wanted to expand the Ghurid Khairat (Charity Bureau). Soon after Firoz’s death, the
dynasty based out of the Ghur region in Afghanistan. Delhi sultanate started to disintegrate. In 800/1398,
The most significant of his raids was the Second Battle of when the Turko-Mongol conqueror Timur (736/1336–
Tarain (588/1192) in which he was able to depose Prith- 807/1405; also known as Tamerlane) invaded India and
viraj Chauhan of Delhi. He thus laid the foundation of sacked Delhi, indulging in an orgy of murder and plun-
Muslim rule in India. Fearing disturbances in the western der in the imperial capital, the sultanate started waning.
parts of his empire, Ghuri put his slave and lieutenant In a formal sense, the Delhi sultanate was Islamic.
Qutb al-din Aibek (r. 602/1206–606/1210) in charge The bulk of the non-Muslim population were treated as
of affairs in Delhi so he could return to Ghazni. On his dhimmis (protected people) following the trend of the
way back, however, Ghuri was assassinated. Arabs of the eighth-century CE. Following payment of the
jizya (a poll tax), they were left to pursue their own
THE DELHI SULTANATE religions and exempted from the compulsory military
service that Muslims were obligated to do. Despite their
Qutb al-din Aibek took control of administration in protected status, there were many instances of temple
Delhi and laid the foundation for the Mamluk dynasty desecration. It is hard to obtain a number of such cases,
(602/1206–689/1290; also called the Slave dynasty). The while it is equally difficult to gauge the reasons behind
300-plus-year period from 602/1206 to 932/1526 is such defilement. According to a conservative estimate,
known in Indian history as the Delhi sultanate, consist- there were no more than eighty confirmed instances
ing of five dynasties and thirty-two rulers. The Mamluk between 588/1192 and 1141/1729, but Hindu national-
dynasty was followed by the Khalji dynasty (689/1290– ists today have claimed this figure to be in the thousands.
720/1320), the Tughluq dynasty (720/1320–817/1414),
the Sayyid dynasty (817/1414–855/1451), and the Lodi
dynasty (855/1451–932/1526)—a mix of Turkic and THE MUGHAL EMPIRE
Afghani rulers. Aibek and his successors constructed the The Delhi sultanate ended in 932/1526 when its last
famous Qutb Minar, named so after the Sufi saint Qutb Afghan ruler, Ibrahim Lodi (r. 923/1517–932/1526),
al-Din Bakhtiar Kaki (569/1173–632/1235). It is a stone was defeated by Zahir al-Din Muhammad Babur
tower, 73 meters (238 feet) in height, located in a sanc- (r. 932/1526–937/1530), who hailed from Samarqand
tuary that includes Quwwat al-Islam/Qubbat al-Islam in Central Asia and was related to the Mongol legend
(Might of Islam/Sanctuary of Islam) mosque, one of the Genghis Khan (r. 602/1206–624/1227) and Timur

India
through his patrilineal and matrilineal lines, respectively. UNDER BRITISH RULE
Babur’s political sagacity and the use of advanced artillery The arrival of the Europeans in India beginning in 903/
unknown to Indian warfare led to his success. His 1498 eventually led to the establishment of British con-
memoirs—titled Baburnama, written in Chaghatay trol in India. While the Mughals initially allowed the
Turkish—and available in English translation (Thack- British East India Company free trade rights, the com-
ston 2002), is the first complete autobiography in the pany’s increasing alliances with local rulers and governors
Islamic world and a delight for readers. Babur’s next five further undercut Mughal authority, particularly with the
successors—Humayun (r. 937/1530–946/1540 and 962/ latter’s symbolic defeat in the Battle of Buxar (1178/
1555–963/1556), Akbar (r. 963/1556–1014/1605), 1764). Although the Mughals remained in power until
Jahangir (r. 1014/1605–1037/1627), Shah Jahan (r. 1857, the empire shrank, and the last few rulers remained
1037/1627–1068/1658), and Aurangzeb (r. 1068/ as mere minions. These years also saw the rise of several
1658–1118/1707)—all contributed significantly to the non-Muslim regional powers, including that of the Mar-
success and consolidation of the empire. Mughal contri- athas in the Deccan and the Sikhs in the northwest. The
butions to art, architecture, religion, language, literature, British replaced Persian with English as the official lan-
and science and technology are writ large and an indelible guage in 1835. When a widespread rebellion occurred in
part of India’s history and culture. The iconic Taj Mahal 1857 opposing the British rule, the last Mughal emperor,
(completed c. 1064/1654) is but one example of the Bahadur Shah II Zafar (1189/1775–1279/1862), was
Indo-Muslim culture that the Mughal Empire embodied. held accountable, along with many local leaders, and
Humayun’s Tomb in Delhi and the impressive capital the British Crown officially took India under its control,
cities of Shahjahanabad in Old Delhi and Fatehpur Sikri, from the hands of the British East India Company.
close to Agra, provide other examples of the Indo- The presence of the British and their success in India
Muslim architecture of this period. Specimens of literary led to serious introspection among Muslim leaders and
development include numerous historical tracts, such as intellectuals, just as it did among Hindus, and resulted in
Ain-i-Akbari, and the Persian rendition of the Hindu several reforms and revivalist movements. Living in the
epic Mahabharata, known as Razmnama. Dara Shikoh years right after the death of Aurangzeb, scholar-reformer
(1024/1615–1069/1659), the eldest son of Shah Jahan Shah Wali Allah (1114/1703–1176/1762) produced
and known for his heterodox views, wrote Majmaq al- almost fifty works marked by a rationalist temper and
bahrayn (The confluence of the two oceans)—an expres- advocated for balancing qaql (reason) and naql (tradition).
sion of the spiritual and pluralist similarities between Sufi He emphasized the idea of a recourse to ijtihad (inter-
and Vedantic thought. Patronage that enabled the crea- pretation) of shariqa in the light of the Qurpan and sunna
tion of such paintings as the Hamzanama and the Pad- to suit the requirements of time and space. Shah Wali
shahnama is no less significant. Allah remains the most influential Muslim reformer in
The Mughal emperor Akbar’s relevance to contem- Indian history. Later, Sayyid Ahmad Khan (1817–1898)
porary India has largely been linked to his unifying founded the Mahomedan Anglo-Oriental College in
ideology, which is seen as a precursor to the virtues of 1877, combining in its curriculum Islamic learning and
secularism that the framers of the Indian constitution Western sciences. This college, which became Aligarh
espoused. Akbar’s House of Worship (built in 982/ Muslim University in 1920, remains an important center
1575) and his religious movement known as din-e ilahi for Muslim education in India.
(divine faith; founded in 989/1582) seemed to move While Aligarh attempted to modernize education,
away from the traditional focus on Islamic symbols to Islamic education too underwent a new movement.
include multifaith dialogue and conversation. He also Within the context of the cultural onslaught of the
abolished the jizya and pilgrimage taxes imposed on British, the most eminent center for Islamic learning,
non-Muslims and promoted several Hindus within his Dar al-qUlum Deoband, was established in 1866. This
inner circle, such as Birbal, his close confidante, and madrasa played a significant role in India’s independence
Todar Mal, his revenue minister. Aurangzeb is seen as movement and opposed the demand for a separate Paki-
an orthodox figure and is blamed for undoing the cul- stan. Two other strands of responses are seen in the
tural pluralism and administrative adeptness that Akbar Islamist theologian Abu al-Aqlap Maududi (1903–1979),
promoted. Yet Aurangzeb did not completely alter the who founded the revivalist party Jamaqat-e Islami in 1941
religious policy of the empire. After his death, a series of and supported the demand for an independent state for
weak successors, fiscal challenges, the rise of regional Muslims; and the famous poet-philosopher Muhammad
powers, and rebellions from various quarters led to the Iqbal (c. 1877–1938), who urged the necessity of reforms
downfall of what had become an extremely large and based on ijtihad to deal with moral decadence within the
unwieldy empire. community.
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Muslims in India Seek Protected Transport to Pakistan Following Partition, September
1947. The partition of India into Muslim-majority Pakistan and Hindu-majority India in 1947
resulted in a mass migration of Muslims from India to either escape religious violence or move to the
promised new homeland. ª POPPERFOTO/GETTY IMAGES
PARTITION AND AFTER Although different riots need to be understood in

Everyday interactions of Muslims with other commun- their own respective contexts, the organized movement
ities in India are stable and cordial but not free from of Hindutva, or Hindu nationalism, and its counterpart
Muslim ideologues have provided fuel to such incidents.
conflicts. It is noteworthy that modern Indian culture is a
Significant riots include those in Gujarat in 2002, dur-
result of the coming together of various cultures, and the
ing which more than 2,000 Muslims lost their lives,
Muslim contribution is significant, whether in food, along with a much lower casualty among Hindus. Ear-
dress, architecture, music, art, or literature. Despite this lier, Hindu-Muslim riots broke out across India in
common ground, communal riots between Hindus and December 1992 following the demolition of the Babri
Muslims have often occurred. While leaders such as Masjid (mosque) in Ayodhya by Hindutva activists who
Muhammad qAli Jinnah (1876–1948) advocated for the claimed the site as the birthplace of Lord Rama. Such
creation of Pakistan, others such as Maulana Abu al- incidents have taken place every few years but, in part,
Kalam Azad (1888–1958) strongly opposed the idea have led to ghettoization in many areas because Mus-
and stood behind Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948) lims feel safer living within their own separate neighbor-
for an inclusive nation that accommodated all faiths. hoods. But the limited nature of such riotous incidents
The partition of India and the creation of Pakistan in owes largely to the secular foundations and credentials
1947 witnessed the largest mass migration in human of the Indian state.
history and saw widespread violence. According to a
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees esti- CONVERSION
mate, 14 million Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs were The relation between the size of Muslim population and
displaced. conversion has been a contentious question. In addition

India
to the Arab traders on the western coast and the rulers of enjoyed considerable power in the Mughal successor
the Delhi sultanate and the Mughal Empire, Muslims states of Awadh in the north and Hyderabad in the
ruled and served in other parts of the country, including Deccan, in particular. The existence of divisions and
southern India, where several independent political and factions within each of the two sects further defy the
social entities emerged, such as the Bahmani dynasty notion of one single and strictly cohesive community.
(which later split into five separate states), the Hyderabad Although, in theory, Islam does not support the caste
state, and Mysore. This is not to say that Muslims system, Muslims in India identify themselves as ashraf, or
remained confined solely to these areas, but this is where those with Arab or foreign ancestry; ajlaf, or middle-caste
they witnessed periods of patronage and prosperity. The Hindu converts; and arzal, or converts from the lowest
present body of Muslims in India is the result of a long castes. Another grouping might be that of the upper-caste
historical process. The question as to how India—and the Hindu converts. This stratification is further reflected in
region of South Asia (including Pakistan, Bangladesh, social categories that the Indian state has created and
and Sri Lanka) in general—came to contain one of the recognized in an attempt to deal with years of discrim-
largest Muslim populations has generated considerable ination; these include the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled
curiosity in both scholarship and popular opinion. While Tribes, and Other Backward Classes. Muslim society in
Muslims from different parts of the Islamic world—such India is thus differentiated by social, sectarian, economic,
as the Arab lands, Persia, and Central Asia—attained and regional categories. According to a report presented
considerable power and enjoyed patronage under Muslim by a committee established by the then prime minister
rulers, which allowed them to flourish, their population Dr. Manmohan Singh to study the socioeconomic
growth was gradual. conditions of Muslims in India, Muslims are virtually
lagging behind all other communities, and a trend of
The number of Muslims in India increased ‘‘natu-
relative deterioration is witnessed in almost all spheres
rally’’ over the course of generations, but even more so
of everyday life (Government of India 2006). In the field
with the conversion of the local populace. The reasons
of education, the situation is much worse. It is an irony
for conversion included political aspirations, social
that since the presentation of the report, nothing concrete
advancement, and an attraction to the egalitarianism
has been done to deal with the red flags it raised.
promised in the tenets of Islam. While people belonging
to the upper castes within Hinduism, such as the Rajputs, With a history of more than a millennium, Muslims
converted to gain benefits from Muslim rulers, the lowest in India have coexisted in one of the most diverse and
castes embraced Islam to escape years of exploitation and pluralistic societies in the world. Jammu and Kashmir
discrimination. It is also a fact that such attempts were (68.3%) and Lakshadweep (96.2%) are the only two
futile in most cases, as have been true with conversions to regions where Muslims are in majority. In addition,
Christianity, where the new converts continued to be Muslims live in large numbers in Uttar Pradesh
seen as lowly and inferior. Sufi figures played an impor- (19.3%), West Bengal (27%), Assam (34.2%), and Ker-
tant role in the spread of Islam because they were accom- ala (26.6%). Despite its long history and contributions to
modative of cultural practices and customs of the India’s national life, this community continues to strug-
indigenous traditions. They spoke of God in abstract gle with poverty, low literacy, unemployment, underem-
terms that appealed to non-Muslims and allowed lower ployment, lack of access to quality education, and
caste people to join their company while they were underrepresentation in government bodies.
abhorred and physically segregated by their coreligionists. SEE A LS O Conquest and Expansion; Delhi; Hinduism and
Using archaeological evidence, monuments, narrative his- Islam; Mughals; Reform: South Asia; Taj Mahal.
tories, poetry, and Mughal administrative documents,
Richard M. Eaton (1993) has ascribed agrarian growth
BIBLIOGRAPHY
to the expansion of Islam in the region of Bengal, an area
highly receptive to the Islamic faith. Ahmad, Imtiaz, ed. Caste and Social Stratification among Muslims
in India. 2nd ed. New Delhi: Manohar, 1978.
Alam, Muzaffar. The Crisis of Empire in Mughal North India:
SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS Awadh and the Punjab, 1707–1748. 2nd ed. New Delhi:
Oxford University Press, 2013.
The Muslims in modern India come from different eth-
Asher, Catherine B., and Cynthia Talbot. India before Europe.
nicities, sects, caste backgrounds, and linguistic groups, as Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
well as interesting mixtures of all such variations. Con- Basant, Rakesh, and Abusaleh Shariff, eds. Handbook of Muslims
trary to popular belief, the Muslim community is not in India: Empirical and Policy Perspectives. New Delhi: Oxford
monolithic. Although Sunnis are the majority of adher- University Press, 2010.
ents (87–90%), Shiqas (10–13%) have been politically Eaton, Richard M. The Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier,
and economically significant. Shiqa Muslims have 1204–1760. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.
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Government of India. Cabinet Secretariat. Prime Minister’s High ROOTS OF RELIGIOUS DIVERSITY
Level Committee. Social, Economic, and Educational Status of The roots of modern Indonesia’s religious diversity lie in
the Muslim Community of India: A Report. New Delhi:
the great network of Indian Ocean trade and cultural
Author, 2006.
exchange that transformed the Indonesian archipelago
Hasan, Mushirul. Legacy of a Divided Nation: India’s Muslims
since Independence. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997. between the twelfth and seventeenth centuries CE. Arab
traders had sailed through the archipelago since the late
Jackson, Peter. The Delhi Sultanate: A Political and Military
History. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1999. seventh century CE, but local rulers (the first of whom
Lelyveld, David. Aligarh’s First Generation: Muslim Solidarity in resided in what is today the special district of Aceh in
British India. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, northwestern Sumatra) first converted to Islam only in
1978. the thirteenth century CE. Over the next four centuries,
Metcalf, Barbara D. Islamic Contestations: Essays on Muslims in conversion to Islam followed the trade route that linked
India and Pakistan. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, small chiefdoms and principalities in eastern Indonesia
2004. with powerful kingdoms in Sumatra and Java. By the end
Minault, Gail. Secluded Scholars: Women’s Education and Muslim of the seventeenth century CE most of the coastal pop-
Social Reform in Colonial India. Delhi: Oxford University ulation of western and central Indonesia was Muslim. As
Press, 1998. in Java around 931/1525 (when Majapahit, the last of
Mujeeb, M. The Indian Muslims. London: Allen and Unwin, the island’s great Hindu-Buddhist courts, collapsed in the
1967. face of an alliance of Muslim princes), there were occa-
Thackston, Wheeler M., trans. and ed. The Baburnama: Memoirs sional wars over religion. The primary impetus for
of Babur, Prince and Emperor. New York: Modern Library, conversion, however, lay in the desire of rulers to partic-
2002. First published 1996 by Smithsonian Institution.
ipate more fully in the cultural cosmos of the Muslim-
dominated Indian Ocean world. In this early period,
M. Raisur Rahman Islamization was not characterized by radical cultural
Associate Professor of South Asian History rupture; there was great continuity in linguistic and
Wake Forest University artistic traditions, as well as in the pomp and ceremony
of royal courts. This changed in the late nineteenth
century, with the rise of new movements of Islamic
reform.
INDONESIA Not all of premodern Indonesia was involved in the
With some 88.1 percent of its 250 million citizens pro- great Indian Ocean ecumene or the Islamization it facili-
fessing Islam according to the 2010 census, the Southeast tated. The island of Bali has to this day retained an
Asian nation of Indonesia is the largest Muslim-majority Indonesian variant of Hinduism once found across cen-
country in the world. Indonesia has some 300 ethnic tral and western Indonesia. In the vast forested interiors
groups spread over 5,000 islands. The country is also of central Sumatra, Kalimantan, and Sulawesi, most
the world’s third-largest democracy, having made a suc- of the premodern population remained aloof from the
cessful transition from thirty-two years of authoritarian spice trade and Islam. Some among these hinterland
rule after May 1998. All but a tiny proportion of the peoples continued to practice indigenous religions into
country’s Muslims are Sunni, most of whom in earlier the twentieth century. In the Molucca Islands in eastern
times identified with the Shafiqi school of Islamic law. Indonesia, Spanish and Portuguese colonists brought
There is also a small population of about 200,000 Shiqa. missionaries and conversion in the sixteenth century CE.
Some are descendants of Arab and Indian immigrants, In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries CE, the
but many converted in the aftermath of the 1979 Iranian Dutch took the Iberians’ place but limited their efforts
revolution. A full 9.9 percent of Indonesians are Chris- at Christianization to a few select regions. It was only in
tian (Catholic or Protestant), according to the 2010 the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries, as
census. Some 1.5 percent are Hindu, and the remainder the Dutch sought to impose their rule over the entire
are Buddhist or Confucian. The Indonesian Ministry of archipelago, that they supported a more assertive mission
Religious Affairs officially recognizes six religions (Islam, program. Nevertheless, they still took care not to prose-
Protestantism, Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and lytize in staunchly Muslim territories. The single greatest
Confucianism) and tolerates but does not provide institu- upsurge in Indonesian conversion to Christianity, how-
tional support for several others. Nonconformist Muslim ever, occurred after Indonesian independence in 1945.
groups such as the Ahmadiyya (who are estimated to have The indigenization of clergy in the 1950s was followed
about 200,000 followers) are officially tolerated but, by the conversion of almost two million nominal Mus-
especially since 2005, have been subject to legal restric- lims between 1965 and 1970, in the aftermath of a failed
tions and violent persecution by nonstate militants. left-wing coup and the mass killings of communists.

Indonesia
THAILAND
VIETNAM PHILIPPINES Indonesia
South China Sea
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AU ST RA L I A
Map of Indonesia. ª CENGAGE LEARNING/GALE
AN EVOLVING COMMUNITY IN THE people died in the course of a campaign coordinated by

NINETEENTH AND TWENTIETH CENTURIES the conservative leadership of the armed forces.
For Muslim Indonesians, the late nineteenth and early The growth of a more normative-minded Muslim
twentieth centuries ushered in new developments in reli- community in the late nineteenth century was also facili-
gious pilgrimage and learning that brought Indonesian tated by the rapid spread of the Indonesian equivalent of
Islam into greater dialogue with movements of piety and the Middle Eastern madrasa, an educational institution
reform in the Middle East. Pilgrimage to Muslim holy known locally as the pesantren (Indonesian for ‘‘place of
lands had increased steadily from the 1830s onward, Islamic students’’). Although an Islamic literary tradition
largely as a result of the growth of towns and a Muslim had developed early on in the archipelago, advanced
middle class benefiting from the East Indies economy. study in the Islamic sciences and jurisprudence (fiqh)
The introduction of steamship travel and the opening of was rare. The first pesantren was established in Java only
the Suez Canal in 1869 increased the pilgrim flow fur- in the eighteenth century CE, and the institution became
ther. In 1885 Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje, a Dutch widespread in Java, Sumatra, and coastal Kalimantan
orientalist, reported that Jawi Muslims (the term for only in the late nineteenth century. The social ascendance
Malayo-Indonesians living in the Middle East) were the of pesantren ensured that, for the first time in Indonesian
single largest pilgrim community in Mecca. In the late history, a well-organized wing of the Muslim community
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Indonesians acquired a lettered familiarity with Islamic jurisprudence.
also traveled in great numbers to Cairo, where they were In the first decades of the twentieth century, the spread of
introduced to new ideas of Islamic reform and, no less pesantren converged with social change and anticolonial
significant, anti-imperial nationalism. The anticolonial ferment to lead to movements calling for the implemen-
movement that arose in the Dutch East Indies in the tation of Islamic law (shariqa).
1910s and 1920s was divided between Muslim nation- In the first decades of the twentieth century, Indo-
alists hoping to establish an Islamic state and secular nesian Muslims also took advantage of new technologies
nationalists committed to a multiconfessional national- of print and social organization to develop what were
ism. In the 1950s Indonesia developed the largest com- eventually to become the largest social welfare organiza-
munist party in the noncommunist world. The tions in the Muslim world. The largest of these is the
subsequent rivalry between communist and Muslim par- association of Muslim ‘‘traditionalists’’ known as the
ties, compounded by military meddling, contributed to Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), which was founded in 1926.
the mass violence of 1965–1966, in which half a million Although grounding its social teachings in classical
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NAHDLATUL ULAMA (NU)
The organization of the Nahdlatul Ulama (Revival of the economic development. Through its new role, NU
Religious Scholars), or NU, was founded on 31 January became active in guiding large numbers of Indonesian
1926 as a countermovement to the increasingly successful Muslims in adapting to social change and modernity.
reformist Muhammadiyah organization. NU is a mass-based Various institutions related to NU started multilevel
socioreligious Islamic organization under the leadership of dialogue about issues of social justice, human rights,
ulema, and it is the largest in Indonesia with around thirty- democracy, and the rights of women and children. This
five million members. NU activities include the religious, made NU an active co-developer of a model for civil
social, educational, economic, and political. Its founders society suitable for the Indonesian context.
were ulema (called kiyai in Indonesia) who led rural Islamic Over the years, several divisions were founded within
boarding schools, pesantren. They represented traditionalist the NU structure. Among others, there are divisions for
Muslims, those who practice Islamic mysticism (tasawuf; Ar. youth (Ansor), women (Muslimat NU), young women
tasawwuf ), and are not against indigenous rituals and beliefs (Fatayat NU), and male and female students (IPNU and
as long as they do not contradict the normative teachings of IPPNU). Apart from these divisions, NU comprises insti-
Islam. The two most prominent founding ulema were tutions for education, family affairs, agriculture, economic
Hasyim Asyqari, and Abdul Wahab Chasbullah. development, and Islamic banking. The membership of
NU members refer to themselves as Aswaja: ‘‘ahlus ulema and lay people is reflected in a two-tiered structure of
sunnah wal jamaqa,’’ (Ar., ahl al-sunna wa al-jamaqa) people of councils that reach from the national to the local level: the
sunna and community, who base their religious reference on syuriah (Ar. shura), the religious council, which has only
the hadith, the sunna, and the adat (local practices, Ar., qada). ulema as members who develop and monitor the NU
They follow the Shafiqi school of jurisprudence and in their activities; and the Tanfidziah, which is the executive council
interpretation of religious texts include the opinions of the where ulema and lay members supervise the daily affairs. It
great ulema in unbroken chains that reach back to the is characteristic for NU that decisions taken at the highest
prophet Muhammad. Pesantren are considered the heart of level are not binding for the lower levels. This is based on a
NU tradition. Here students learn the essentials of tradition- tradition of the Prophet’s saying that ‘‘disagreement among
alist Islam in order to maintain and spread this interpretation. the ulema is a blessing from God for humanity.’’
NU’s history can be divided into four phases:
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. In the initial years NU served as a socioreligious Barton, Greg, and Greg Fealy, eds. Nahdlatul Ulama,
organization. Traditional Islam and Modernity in Indonesia. Clayton,
Australia: Monash Asia Institute, 1996.
2. From the late 1930s until 1984 it became involved in
Bush, Robin. Nahdlatul Ulama and the Struggle for Power
political activities. From 1952–1971 it had its own
within Islam and Politics in Indonesia. Singapore: Institute
political party and participated in the national cabinet. of Southeast Asian Studies, 2009.
3. When the Suharto government rendered all political Dhofier, Zamakhashari. The Pesantren Tradition. The Role of the
parties ineffective with its suppressive regulations NU Kiyai in the Maintenance of Traditional Islam in Java. Tempe,
decided to leave politics. This was expressed in the AZ: Program for Southeast Asian Studies, ASU, 1999.
1984 watershed event called kembali ke khittah, a Hefner, Robert. Civil Islam: Muslims and Democratization in
Indonesia. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000.
return to the original charter of 1926.
Oepen, Manfred, and Wolfgang Karcher, eds. The Impact of
4. In 1998, after the fall of Suharto, NU again became Pesantren in Education and Community Development in
involved in national politics. It initiated the National Indonesia. Jakarta: P3M, 1988.
Awakening Party (PKB) while its national chair, Sciortino, Rosalia, Lies Marcoes Natsir, and Masdar Masqudi.
Abdurrahman Wahid, was elected Indonesia’s fourth ‘‘Learning from Islam: Advocacy of Reproductive Rights
in Indonesian Pesantren.’’ Reproductive Health Matters no.
president for a brief period (1999–2001).
8 (November 1996): 86–93.
The return to its socioreligious activities in 1984 not
Nelly van Doorn-Harder
only meant withdrawal from politics, but a total refocus on Professor of Islamic Studies
education, community welfare, mission, social, and Wake Forest University

Indonesia
jurisprudence, NU has long been a movement of mod- of terrorist and ethnoreligious violence. The worst
ernizing reform in its own right. Beginning in the 1930s, occurred in the period between 1999 and 2003, with
NU schools accommodated in their programs general the greatest loss of life (some 10,000 people) occurring
education and the instruction of girls. By the early in five of the country’s thirty-two provinces, where
twenty-first century, the NU federation was managing Christians and Muslims coexisted in near-equal num-
some 10,000 Islamic boarding schools, hundreds of bers. The violence was compounded by the ravages of
Islamic schools (combining religious and general studies), the 1997–2002 Asian economic recession, as well as by
and several universities. In the 1980s NU’s civil and a bold program of political decentralization that had the
political wings played a central role in the promotion of unintended consequence of stimulating bitter rivalries
ideas of democratic reform. A decade later, NU leaders for control of state resources at the local level. By 2003
and youth groupings played a leading role in the pro- most of the communal violence had ended, although
democracy movement that succeeded in ousting the tensions remained high in territories such as the Moluc-
authoritarian ruler Suharto in May 1998. cas into the middle of the following decade.
The reformist Muhammadiyya (Ind., Muhamma- Between 2000 and 2005, terrorist attacks carried out
diyah) founded in 1912, is the second largest of Indone- by small bands of militants—some of whom had
sia’s social welfare organizations, but the better endowed acquired military skills in Afghanistan—took the lives
organizationally. More centralized and better financed of dozens of civilians, including many Muslims. The
than its NU counterpart, the Muhammadiyya today has attacks led some international observers to conclude that
some 25 million members. The organization manages Indonesia might become a ‘‘second front’’ in al-Qaqida’s
12,000 schools, 167 institutions of higher learning, 421 confrontation with the West and with moderate Mus-
orphanages, 345 polyclinics and hospitals, and a nation- lims. Between 2005 and 2012, however, Indonesia
wide bank (Bank Pengkreditan Rakyat). Although for mounted one of the most effective antiterror campaigns
most of its history the Muhammadiyya has advocated a in the world, and incidents of terrorist violence declined
strict reformism on matters of worship and local culture, sharply.
the organization has been unrelenting in its promotion of
During this same period, national elections demon-
girls’ education and women’s involvement in public life.
strated that Indonesia was well on its way to consolidat-
In the 1990s Muhammadiyya intellectuals played a key
ing its new system of parliamentary democracy. Although
role in convincing the Muslim public that constitutional
in the mid-1950s Muslim parties advocating the estab-
democracy is compatible with Islam.
lishment of an Islamic state had won more than 40 per-
One beneficiary today of Muslim Indonesia’s legacy cent of the vote, the share of the vote going to Muslim
of educational and organizational dynamism is the parties in the post-Suharto era dwindled from around
impressive network of state-supported Islamic univer- 40 percent in 1999 and 2004 to about 25 percent in
sities. First established in 1960, the network, known 2009 and 2014. Of no less significance, the majority of
under the acronyms UIN (state Islamic universities) and parties that continue to ground their support in Islamic
IAIN (state Islamic institutes), has undergone several constituencies do so while subscribing to the Indonesian
phases of expansion, most notably starting in 1975, when national philosophy known as the Panca Sila (five prin-
the system came under the guidance of a series of reform- ciples). While allowing for religion in public life, this
minded ministers of religion. Under these ministers’ doctrine affirms that the bases of the state must be multi-
direction, the system expanded its curriculum to include confessional. Islamist parties committed to the transfor-
professional vocations, even while continuing to empha- mation of the Indonesian polity into an Islamic state have
size religious and jurisprudential instruction. In the late seen their share of the vote decline even further, to about
1990s the state Islamic universities began to offer degrees 15 percent of the electorate in 2009.
in psychology, business, medicine, and the social scien-
ces. Since the first years of the twenty-first century, the Even as Islamist varieties of Muslim politics have
state Islamic universities have also led the way in devel- seen their support wane, the Islamic resurgence that
oping programs of civic education that have been viewed began in Indonesia during the 1990s has intensified.
by many analysts as among the most impressive in the Whether in women’s head scarves, the popularity of tele-
entire Muslim world. vision preachers and neo-Sufi devotion, the proliferation
of Islamic banks, or the passage (in about 20 percent of
the country) of regional bylaws designed to promote
DEVELOPMENTS IN THE POST-SUHARTO ERA Islamic morality, there is increasing evidence of a height-
Notwithstanding the Muslim majority’s commitment to ened observance of Islamic norms. Although the resur-
democratic politics, in the early years of the post- gence has not boosted support for Islamist parties, it has
Suharto transition Indonesia was buffeted by outbreaks created a climate in which small groups of Islamic
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Inheritance Not For Sale

militants have felt emboldened to harass religious minor- Laffan, Michael Francis. Islamic Nationhood and Colonial
ities and to engage in ‘‘anti-vice’’ campaigns that often Indonesia: The Umma below the Winds. London:
degenerate into reckless violence. In some regions, long- RoutledgeCurzon, 2003.
established Christian congregations have found their Mietzner, Marcus. ‘‘Comparing Indonesia’s Party Systems of the
1950s and the Post-Suharto Era: From Centrifugal to
right to worship circumscribed as well. Centripetal Inter-party Competition.’’ Journal of Southeast
Modern Indonesia’s claim to distinction was never Asian Studies 39, no. 3 (2008): 431–453.
that it was the most peaceable or tolerant country in the Reid, Anthony. Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce, 1450–
Muslim world. The nation’s achievement is no less 1680. Vol. 2, Expansion and Crisis. New Haven, CT: Yale
remarkable. A political entity that some observers University Press, 1993.
regarded as so ethnically and religiously diverse as to be Ricklefs, M. C. Polarizing Javanese Society: Islamic and Other
Visions, c. 1830–1930. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press,
unfeasible has succeeded in creating a strong national 2007.
identity and a framework for democratic politics. The Salim, Arskal. Challenging the Secular State: The Islamization of
Muslim legacy in education and civic association has Law in Modern Indonesia. Honolulu: University of Hawaii
played a central role in these developments. Although Press, 2008.
challenges remain, Indonesia may yet make good on its
promise of creating a Muslim democracy that is an
Robert W. Hefner
example to the world.
Professor of Anthropology and
SE E A LS O Conversion; Democracy and Democratization; Director of the Institute on Culture,
Reform: Southeast Asia; Southeast Asia. Religion, and World Affairs
Boston University
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Abdillah, Masykuri. Responses of Indonesian Muslim Intellectuals to
the Concept of Democracy (1966–1993). Hamburg, Germany: INHERITANCE
Abera Verlag, 1997. Traditional Islamic law (the shariqa) has a complex and
Azra, Azyumardi, Dina Afrianty, and Robert W. Hefner. rigid system of legal rules that provide for a deceased
‘‘Pesantren and Madrasa: Muslim Schools and National Ideals person’s estate to be apportioned among certain close
in Indonesia.’’ In Schooling Islam: The Culture and Politics of
Modern Muslim Education, edited by Robert W. Hefner and
relatives in definite fixed shares. This system of forced
Muhammad Qasim Zaman, 172–198. Princeton, NJ: heirship applies generally to at least two-thirds of a
Princeton University Press, 2007. deceased’s person’s estate.
Bruinessen, Martin van. ‘‘Pesantren and Kitab Kuning: The shariqa is not a monolithic, uniform legal system
Maintenance and Continuation of a Tradition of Religious but comprises a multiplicity of schools of law, and, as a
Learning.’’ In Texts from the Islands: Oral and Written result, a variety of different legal principles may exist on
Traditions of Indonesia and the Malay World, edited by
any legal topic. There are five main Islamic schools of
Wolfgang Marschall, 121–145. Bern, Switzerland: University
of Bern, Institute of Ethnology, 1994. law: four are Sunni (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafiqi, and Han-
Bubalo, Anthony, Greg Fealy, and Whit Mason. Zealous
bali) and one Shiqi (Ithnap qAshari); but this is to simplify
Democrats: Islamism and Democracy in Egypt, Indonesia, and at best. There are some other minor but important Sunni
Turkey. Double Bay, Australia: Longueville Books, 2008. schools and a number of other Shiqi schools, perhaps
Dhofier, Zamakhsari. The Pesantren Tradition: The Role of the most importantly the Nizari Ismaqilis who are the fol-
Kyai in the Maintenance of Traditional Islam in Java. Tempe: lowers of the Aga Khan. Despite the existence of all these
Program for Southeast Asian Studies, Arizona State schools, there are some unifying elements. All the Islamic
University, 1999. Translation of Tradisi Pesantren, first schools of law give precedence to the Qurpan and the
published 1982. sunna (the practices of the prophet Muhammad) as the
Feillard, Andrée. Islam et armée dans l’Indonésie contemporaine main sources of the shariqa, even though they may differ
[Islam and the army in contemporary Indonesia]. Paris: as to how their provisions are to be interpreted. This is
L’Harmattan, 1995. important in the area of inheritance as the largest number
Hefner, Robert W. Civil Islam: Muslims and Democratization in of legal provisions in the Qurpan relate to this topic.
Indonesia. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000.
Hefner, Robert W., ed. Making Modern Muslims: The Politics of
Each Islamic country generally follows a specific
Islamic Education in Southeast Asia. Honolulu: University of Islamic school of law. The main Sunni school of law is
Hawaii Press, 2009. the Hanafi school. Most of Southeast Asia, however,
Jabali, Fuad, and Jamhari, eds. IAIN dan Modernisasi Islam di follows the Shafiqi school, which is applicable in Singa-
Indonesia [The state Islamic institutes and the modernization pore, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Most of North Africa and
of Islam in Indonesia]. Jakarta: UIN Jakarta Press, 2002. many of the southern Arabian Gulf states follow the

Inheritance
Maliki school, while the Hanbali school applies in Saudi standards of the seventh century CE, her position in
Arabia and Qatar. modern times is poor, particularly when it is noted that
Each Islamic country, however, applies the shariqa in the widowed husband receives exactly twice as much in
its own unique manner. In some countries, shariqa courts the same circumstances.
are retained; in others they are not, and even countries No close male relatives, apart from the father, appear
that have retained shariqa courts vary as to their exact as Qurpanic heirs. Sunni jurists decided that the qasaba,
jurisdiction. No Islamic country applies only the unco- the heirs who would have been entitled to inherit under
dified and unreformed legal principles of the shariqa. In the pre-Islamic tribal law, were not completely excluded
the majority of Islamic countries, shariqa legal principles by the provisions in the Qupran and so were entitled to
have been codified, and each code is different, based as it any residue left over after applying the new Qurpanic
is on that specific country’s history, culture, and degree rules. The main consequence of relegating the male
of observance of Islamic practices. Where shariqa legal agnates to residuary heirs is that the son’s position is
principles have not been codified they have often been considerably weakened. From often being the sole heir
added to or reformed by piecemeal legislation. under the pre-Islamic system, he is in danger of being
Thus, it is impossible to say easily what the Islamic completely excluded by the Qurpanic heirs.
legal principles on a particular topic, such as inheritance, This problem was tackled by Sunni Muslim jurists
are without ascertaining which Islamic country is saying that the Qurpanic rule providing for fixed shares to
involved. Only then can an accurate response be given, daughters applied only in the case where there were no
which, of course, will be true only for that country surviving sons. In the presence of a son or sons, any
specifically and not necessarily anywhere else. daughter is converted from being a Qurpanic heir into a
residuary heir. They are ‘‘agnatised’’ (tapsib; literally mean-
BASIC ISLAMIC INHERITANCE RULES ing ‘‘being made into the qasaba’’) and as a result share only
in the residue with the sons. Furthermore, an important
Pre-Islamic tribal law provided that the group of paternal
rule—the rule of double share—then comes into play to
male relatives closest to the deceased (the qasaba, or
reduce their share compared with the sons. Where a male
agnates) shared his estate equally. Rules of exclusion
and female are of the same blood tie and connection to the
applied whereby heirs with a closer link to the deceased
deceased, and hence inherit together, the male takes twice
excluded heirs with a more distant link to the deceased.
the share of the female. Thus, in the most common estate
Tribal law does not operate on the basis of a rule of
where a person dies leaving behind one or both parents, a
primogeniture, and neither does the shariqa. Women
spouse and children, after fixed Qurpanic shares have been
were excluded from inheritance in the pre-Islamic period,
given to the parents and the spouse, any residue is divided
although the financial situation of Khadija bint Khu-
between the children of the deceased with any son taking
waylid, the prophet Muhammad’s first wife, shows that
twice the share of any daughter.
women could engage in trade and hold property and
possibly be the beneficiaries of gifts and bequests. Two general rules apply if the Qurpanic fixed shares
do not add up to unity. First, if the fixed shares add up to
The Qurpan provides that certain close relatives of a
more than unity, then there is no residue for the agnates
deceased are entitled to fixed shares in their estate. The
and the shares of all the Qurpanic heirs are reduced
main Qurpanic heirs are the spouse relict, the parents, the
proportionately so as to equal unity. This is known as
daughter, the germane (i.e., full) sister, the consanguine
qawl (reduction). Second, as noted previously, if the fixed
sister (i.e., sister sharing the same father as the deceased),
shares add up to less than unity, then if there are agnates
and the uterine brothers and sisters (i.e., siblings having
they take the residue. If, however, there are no agnates,
the same mother as the deceased).
then the shares of the Qurpanic heirs will increase pro-
The giving of fixed shares in an estate to these heirs portionately so as to equal unity. This is known as radd
(mainly women who were excluded from inheritance (or increase). There are limitations, however, the main
under pre-Islamic law) was revolutionary for its time. one being that the spouse relict does not participate in
The main female beneficiary was the daughter. The any such increase. Furthermore, the Maliki school does
Qupran provides that, if there is only one daughter, she not accept radd at all, stipulating instead that any residue,
will take one-half of the estate of her deceased parent; if in the absence of agnates, belongs to the state treasury,
there is more than one daughter, they will share two- which is, in effect, treated as an heir.
thirds of the estate. Contrast this with the position of a
wife who receives one-eighth if there are children and a
maximum of one-quarter if there are no children (and WILLS (WASIYYA)
which she must share with any other wives). Although A Muslim does not have complete testamentary freedom
the wife’s position was considerably improved by the because this would upset the elaborate inheritance rules
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Inheritance Not For Sale

laid down by the shariqa. Yet a Muslim does have a MODERN REFORMS
limited right of bequest by will. In Sunni law this is Many Islamic countries have codified their Islamic
subject to two very important conditions. personal status law and in doing so have often added to
First, a testator cannot make bequests totaling more or amended the traditional shariqa rules on inheritance.
than one-third of his estate. A single bequest or multiple Some of the more common reforms are summarized
bequests that add up to a total of more than one-third of below.
the estate is or are invalid with regard to the amount in
excess of one-third. In such a case all the bequests are Orphaned Grandchildren. Most Islamic countries have
reduced proportionately so as to equal one-third. Invalid attempted to alleviate the position of the orphaned
bequests may be permitted, however, if all the heirs grandchild, who is normally excluded from inheriting
consent after the death of the deceased. If only some of by the presence of a close agnate such as an uncle. In
the heirs consent, complicated rules apply to reduce their Pakistan this has been done by giving an orphaned
shares only. grandchild the right to represent its deceased parent and
Second, in Sunni law a testator cannot upset the to step into his or her shoes. This, however, distorts the
fixed Qurpanic shares scheme by making a bequest to normal inheritance rules, and so most Middle Eastern
an existing heir. Such a bequest is invalid. It may be states have generally not gone this far. Instead, they favor
validated, however, by the consent of the other heirs in the idea of an ‘‘obligatory bequest,’’ first developed by
the same way as indicated above. Egypt. The deceased is deemed by statute to have made a
Hence, the traditional Islamic law principles of inher- bequest to the orphaned grandchild of the amount the
itance, which continue to apply in most Islamic countries, deceased would have inherited if alive but only up to the
will apply to at least two-thirds of a Muslim’s estate. maximum of one-third of the estate that may have been
the subject of an actual bequest. Special rules apply for
cases in which other bequests have been made. In this
SHIqA INHERITANCE RULES way the normal rules of Islamic inheritance are more
The Sunni schools of law adopted the conservative view closely adhered to.
that the new Qurpanic rules merely amended the pre-
Islamic tribal rules, which continued to apply in a sub- Bequest to an Heir. A number of Islamic countries now
sidiary role in areas in which the new Qurpanic rules were permit bequests to be made to an heir, reversing tradi-
silent. Thus, the pre-Islamic tribal rules applied to any tional Sunni law. All Islamic countries, however, adhere
residue of the estate after the Qurpanic portions had been rigorously to the one-third rule.
provided for.
The Shiqi schools of law adopted the more radical Increase (Radd). India, Pakistan, Egypt, and Syria accept
view that the new Qurpanic rules completely abolished that the spouse relict’s share can be increased by radd in
the old pre-Islamic rules. The Qurpanic rules therefore those cases in which the spouse is the only legal heir.
constituted a completely new and self-contained system Tunisia has gone further in both accepting the general
of inheritance that was developed according to different rule of radd in a Maliki country and making no distinc-
classes of heirs with decreasing closeness of connection to tion between the spouse relict and other legal heirs.
the deceased. In Sunni law a paternal male relative,
however distantly related to the deceased, will inherit Gender Discrimination. Although many Islamic coun-
any residue; in Shiqi law they will generally be excluded tries have signed the United Nations Convention to
by closer relatives even if female. The most famous Eliminate all Forms of Discrimination against Women
example of this is when a person dies leaving only (CEDAW), many have made reservations to the effect
daughters but no sons. In Sunni law the daughters will that the convention does not affect the continued appli-
inherit two-thirds of the estate, and any paternal male cation of certain shariqa principles, such as those of inher-
relative of the deceased, however distant (even, say, a itance. The shariqa rule of double share, whereby males
father’s cousin), will take the residue of one-third. In and females of the same relation to the deceased inherit
Shiqi law the daughters will inherit the whole estate of in the ratio two to one, is a fundamental core principle of
their parents (getting their Qurpanic two-thirds share the Islamic law of inheritance but conflicts directly with
increased by radd) to the total exclusion of any male the mandatory obligation of equality in CEDAW. Con-
agnate—even a close one such as a brother or an uncle temporary Muslim jurists nevertheless support the con-
of the deceased. Thus, although the Sunni and Shiqi rules tinued application of the shariqa rule on the basis that it is
of inheritance start from very different viewpoints, in balanced out by the more onerous duties of support and
most cases this does not matter, but in some cases they maintenance that men are under compared to women.
can cause material differences. The application of the shariq a rules can be blunted or in

Iqbal, Muhammad (c. 1877–1938)
some cases avoided altogether by gifts or trusts made self-sufficiency and his occasionally more specific politi-
during a person’s lifetime or by making a will in coun- cal statements were later construed in Pakistan as the
tries where a bequest to an heir is permissible, but none- guiding principles for the country’s separation from
theless the basic rule of gender discrimination remains. India.
SEE ALSO Law; Shariqa. Born in Sialkot, Punjab, of Kashmiri background
and modest economic circumstances—his father had a
BIBLIOGRAPHY
small tailoring and embroidery shop—Iqbal received an
early education in Arabic and Persian and a British
Coulson, N. J. Succession in the Muslim Family. Cambridge,
U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1971.
colonial education that earned him a master’s degree in
Edge, Ian. ‘‘Methods of Avoidance of the Fixed Heirship Rules in philosophy at Government College, Lahore, where he
Islamic Law: The Islamic Trust.’’ Trusts and Trustees 14, no. 7 also established his reputation as a poet. His academic
(2008): 457–465. brilliance won him a scholarship to continue his studies
Edge, Ian. ‘‘Sunni and Shia Law Compared to the Laws of Egypt at Cambridge University in 1905, while also qualifying
and Iran.’’ Trusts and Trustees 15, no. 10 (2009): 821–826. him as a barrister. He then earned a Ph.D. in philosophy
Edge, Ian. ‘‘Middle East Overview.’’ In International Succession, from Munich in 1908 with a dissertation, The Develop-
Chap. 32, 3rd ed., edited by Louis Garb and John Wood. ment of Metaphysics in Persia, which was published that
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.
year. His three years in Europe, during which he was
Khan, Hamid. Islamic Law of Inheritance: A Comparative Study

immersed in philosophical idealism, also inspired a
with Focus on Recent Reforms in the Muslim Countries. 3rd ed.
Karachi, Pakistan: Oxford University Press, 2007. powerful concern with the historical circumstances of
Mahmud, I. Muslim Law of Succession and Administration. Muslims throughout the world in the face of the techno-
Karachi: Pakistan Law House, 1958. logical and political domination of the West. His Urdu
Powers, David S. Studies in Qurpan and H. adı̄th: The Formation of poem Shikwa (Complaint) in 1911 asked why God had
the Islamic Law of Inheritance. Berkeley: University of allowed Muslims to fall from their position as leaders of
California Press, 1986. humanity.
To reach a wider Muslim audience and establish a
Ian Edge deeper historical connection with the cosmopolitan civi-
Founding Director, Centre of lization of Islam, Iqbal chose to write most of his later
Islamic and Middle East Law
and more philosophically ambitious poetry in Persian.
School of Oriental and African Studies,
University of London
Asrar-e khudi (Secrets of the self, 1915), his first major
poem in Persian, was a sharp rejection of the mystical
goal of absorption into undifferentiated being, which
Iqbal associated with passivity on the part of individuals
and communities. For Iqbal, the assertion of khudi,
INTERNET individuality, allows for the possibility of love and crea-
SEE Social Media and the Internet. tivity in the unfinished creation of the world.
Although his poetry called for practical action in the
world, Iqbal’s work was also steeped in erudite, abstract,
and metaphorical language and in the metrical conven-
IQBAL, MUHAMMAD tions of the Persian tradition. At the same time he mixed
(C. 1877–1938) in allusions to European literature and contemporary
Muhammad Iqbal, South Asian poet and ideological events. His most ambitious work, the Javid Nama
innovator, wrote poetry in Urdu and Persian and dis- (1932), a kind of Divina Commedia, recounts the poet’s
cursive prose, primarily in English, of particular signifi- journey through the solar system, guided by the great
cance in the formulation of a national ethos for Pakistan. Sufi poet Jalaluddin Rumi (1207–1273 CE), encounter-
He was a popular lyric and patriotic poet in his youth but ing a wide range of mythic and historical figures. The
later shifted to more philosophical themes that sought to Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam (1930) sets
discover in the heritage of Islam a spirit of individual and forth his social and religious philosophy, which seeks to
social activism that would inspire an alternative path to construct a concept of a dynamic, democratic society
modernity and demonstrate the universal relevance of inspired by the Qurpan and the life of the prophet
Islam for the modern world. As an opponent of nation- Muhammad. Rejecting the goals of secular nationalism
alism, particularly the Indian nationalist movement, associated with Europe as a false division of matter and
he promoted a renewed aspiration for a worldwide Mus- spirit, Iqbal’s ventures into politics as president of the
lim umma. Nevertheless, his advocacy of Muslim social Muslim League in 1930, participation in the London
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Iran Not For Sale

Round Table Conferences in 1931 and 1932, and occa- 240 kilometers (150 miles) across for more than 1,450
sional commentary, set forth a positive vision of a mod- kilometers (900 miles) from the far northwest of the
ern Muslim social and political order. country to the southeast, with many peaks of more than
SE E A LS O Liberalism; Pakistan; Persian Language; Persian 3,600 meters (12,000 feet) and one reaching more than
Literature; Urdu Language and Literature. 4,500 meters (14,750 feet). The much narrower but even
more rugged and elevated Alborz range, at one point over
5,600 meters (18,400 feet) in elevation, runs in an arc
BIBLIOGRAPHY across the north of the country and separates the plateau
Iqbal, Muhammad. The Secrets of the Self (Asrar-i-Khudi): from the Caspian lowlands. The third side of the triangle,
A Philosophical Poem. Translated by Reynold A. Nicholson. from the northeast to the southeast, is less well defined
Lahore, Pakistan: Sh. Muhammad Ashraf, 1940. but also marked by a series of mountain peaks of con-
Iqbal, Muhammad. Javid-Nama. Translated by A. J. Arberry.
siderable height.
London: George Allen and Unwin, 1966.
Iqbal, Muhammad. The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in The precise borders of the modern nation-state were
Islam. 1951. Reprint, Lahore, Pakistan: Sh. Muhammad determined by various events, such as the wars with the
Ashraf, 1971. Ottoman Empire, the Russian expansion into the Cau-
Iqbal, Muhammad. Iqbal: a Selection of the Urdu Verse. casus and Central Asia, the emergence of Afghanistan,
Translated by D. J. Matthews. London: School of Oriental and British policies in India. They were formalized
and African Studies, University of London, 1993.
through the work of several boundary commissions and
Iqbal, Muhammad. Tulip in the Desert: A Selection of the Poetry
of Muhammad Iqbal. Translated by Mustansir Mir. London:
treaty conventions in the late nineteenth and early twen-
Hurst and Co., 2000. tieth centuries and have since remained basically stable,
Schimmel, Annemarie. Gabriel’s Wing: A Study of the Religious apart from such disputes as those over the Shatt al-Arab
Ideas of Sir Muhammad Iqbal. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1963. waterway and the Tunb islands. Today, Iran borders on
Majeed, Javed.Muhammad Iqbal: Islam, Aesthetics, and the countries of Iraq, Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan,
Postcolonialism. New Delhi: Routledge, 2009. Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, and it is the
Mir, Mustansir. Iqbal. London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2006. eighteenth-largest nation in the world in terms of phys-
Sevea, Iqbal Singh. The Political Philosophy of Muhammad Iqbal: ical size, with an area of around 1,648,000 square kilo-
Islam and Nationalism in Late Colonial India. New York: meters (636,300 square miles).
Cambridge University Press, 2012.
Because of its complex geography and arid climate,
the habitable area of Iran has always been much, much
David Lelyveld smaller than the physical size of the country would
Professor of History
suggest. In the earliest times, the habitable area was
William Paterson University
mostly limited to the humid lowlands of the Caspian
littoral, the extension of the Mesopotamian plain along
the Karun River and its tributaries, and some rain-
watered parts of the western Zagros. Marginal areas were,
IRAN and continued to be, suitable for nomadic pastoral
Iran refers in a narrow geopolitical sense to the modern economies. Unique circumstances, such as being located
nation-state of Iran, or Persia as it was formerly called, near a desirable natural resource and an avenue of trade,
and in a broader ethnocultural sense to lands inhabited or might allow a community to be supported by commerce.
ruled over by peoples speaking Iranian languages (origi- It was only with the development, probably at the end of
nally called Aryans). The two are by no means synon- the second millennium BCE, of an ingenious system of
ymous, as the dimensions of the latter have varied greatly underground irrigation channels (called qanat or karez)
over the millennia, but they do overlap and have some- that more of the interior—a band of territory between
thing of a common core. For most of history, the heart- the mountains and the central deserts—became fit for
land of Iran has been the high plateau occupying a agriculture and more diffuse human settlement. Even
significant part of southwestern Asia between the Caspian today, however, barely a third of the country’s terrain is
Basin in the north and the Persian Gulf in the south, really productive, and it is of course in these areas that
with the lowlands of Mesopotamia to the west and the the population is concentrated.
highlands of Central Asia to the east. This forms a
roughly triangular area, at the core of which are two vast,
extremely barren, and virtually impassable deserts (the POPULATION
Dasht-e Kavir and Dasht-e Lut), and along the sides of The demanding geography of Iran has placed consider-
which are formidable mountain ranges. The Zagros range able restraints on the population it could support. Esti-
runs in a broad band of parallel ridges and valleys over mates of Iran’s population in the nineteenth century

Iran
ARM. AZERBAIJAN
TURKEY
T U R K M E N ISTA N
Caspian
Tabriz Sea
Bandar-e A tr
Lake Urmia Anzali ek R
Bandar-e iv e
r
Rasht Torkeman
Lagoon
fid
E lb
Sa urz
M o u n ta i n s Behshahr
Mashhad
Mt. Damavand
18,606 ft. (5,671 m)
Tehran
I RAQ
Z
Qom
a
Namak Lake Dasht-e Kavir

A F G H A N ISTA N
g
R.
z
De
o
Isfahan
s
Kar
khe
M
n R i v er
h
R.
Da
o
ru
sht
Ka
n
Lake Helmand
-e
He
ndi
t
j a n River
Lut
a
i
Tasht Lake
Shiraz
n
Khark Island Bakhtegan Lake

PAKI STAN
s
KUWAIT
Ma
nd R.
Pe
rs
Khuran Bandar Ja
ia
Straits Abbas zM
SAU D I u ri a n
n
G Hormoz D e s ert
ARA B I A ul Lavan Qeshm
f Kish Lesser Strait of
N BAHRAIN Farur Tunb Hormuz
Sirri Greater
Tunb
QATAR Abu Musa
Gavater
Gu Bay
lf o
0 100 200 mi. f Om
Iran 0 100 200 km U.A.E OMAN
an
Map of Iran. ª CENGAGE LEARNING/GALE
varied from 4 million to 9 million, and the first reliable historical factors, such as invasions and migrations, but
census, in 1956, put the population at just under 19 also from Iran’s rugged geography and the difficulty of
million. That range can probably be taken as a good transportation over long distances, which is conducive to
indication of the historical norm for the maximum pop- the formation of distinct regions with their particular
ulation. In contrast, the 2011 census put the population cultural variations. The official and most commonly
at 75,149,669, and the Statistical Center of Iran’s esti- spoken language is Persian (Farsi), but this is the mother
mate for January 2015 was just over 78,000,000. This tongue of just over half the population and even then is
astonishing change can be attributed to many factors, spoken in the form of numerous dialects and local
ranging from the advantages of a modern economy to accents. There are other more or less distantly related
Iranian languages, the most common being Kurdish,
government policy, but there are also serious questions
along with some Caspian languages (Gilaki and Mazan-
about its sustainability, especially once the prop of rev-
darani), Lori in the southwestern Zagros, and Baluchi in
enues from petroleum to support the import of essential
the far southeast. The most widely spoken non-Iranian
goods is no longer a factor. languages include several Turkish dialects (about 25% of
In terms of ethnicity, this population is and has long the population) and Arabic (mostly in the southwest and
been quite diverse. This diversity stems not only from along the southern coast).
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Iran Not For Sale

The religious composition of the population is much of Azerbaijan, was virtually a second capital and is still
more homogeneous, as it is 99 percent Muslim. Of those, the third-largest city in Iran with a population of about
about 90 percent are at least nominally Shiqite (mostly of 2.5 million. The successor to Nishapur as the metropolis
the ‘‘Twelver’’ or Imami sect, following the Jaqfari school of Khurasan was Mashhad, which originally derived its
of religious law). The rest are either Sunni or identify importance from a religious shrine marking the grave of
themselves primarily as Sufis. The remaining 1 percent the eighth Shiqite imam, Reza, and it is now the second-
includes practitioners of one of the oldest Iranian reli- largest city in Iran. Another city that has grown spectac-
gions, Zoroastrianism; Jews, an enduring community ularly because of its religious significance is Qom, home
whose origins go back to ancient Iran; and a sprinkling to the most important center of Shiqite education in Iran.
of Christians, mostly Armenians or Assyrians. The Bahapi
religion is not officially recognized by the current govern-
HISTORY
ment, as the Shiqite establishment sees it as an offshoot of
a heretical branch of Shiqism that originated in the nine- There are many landmark events in the history of a land
teenth century, but it is in effect the largest non-Muslim as ancient as Iran, but broadly speaking four great periods
can be distinguished in its history: the settlement of the
religion in the country, with over 300,000 followers. In
contrast to the tolerance accorded to the Jewish and Iranian people and rise of the first Iranian empires; the
Christian communities, Bahapis have frequently been Arab invasion and spread of Islam; the arrival of the
subjected to discrimination, intimidation, imprisonment Turks and Mongols and the consequent transformation
and even execution. of the country; and the formation and consolidation of
the modern nation-state.
Administratively, contemporary Iran has thirty-one
provinces (although these tend to change in number and
borders frequently), but in terms of geographical and Pre-Islamic Period. There were advanced cultures and
historical importance the configuration is simpler, with civilizations in the land of Iran, notably that of the
the central heartland surrounded by several distinct Elamites in the third millennium BCE, long before the
regions. Fars, the birthplace of Persian culture, and Azer- arrival of the first ethnically Iranian people, but the latter
baijan, a heavily Turkish and Kurdish area, are the dom- are of much greater historical significance. There are
inant provinces of western Iran. Khurasan has been the many controversies, based mostly on philological theories
great bastion of Iranian culture in the east, both shielding supplemented by some archaeological evidence, over
the plateau and often projecting Iranian influence into when and where the first Iranians originated and exactly
Central Asia. The Caspian region, with the provinces of how they came to settle on the Iranian plateau. The
Gilan and Mazandaran isolated from the plateau by the Indo-Iranians were a major branch of the Indo-European
Alborz range, is markedly different from the rest of peoples, one group of whom, the Aryans, appear to have
Iran—semitropical, humid, heavily forested, and with migrated into the area of Afghanistan and eastern Iran
many unique cultural features. Khuzistan, in the south- toward the end of the second millennium BCE. They are
west, is more akin geographically to Mesopotamia and sometimes referred to as the Avestan people, because
has a substantial Arab population; Sistan and Baluchi- what little that is known of them is based on the scrip-
stan, southeast of the great central desert, has tended to tures of what became their religion, Zoroastrianism.
have a strongly regional culture of its own. Some of them may have moved west to the Zagros, or
Because of the importance of agriculture and pastor- a closely related group may have moved southward from
alism in Iran, the population has historically been mostly the Caucasus and eventually merged with them.
rural (although today it is over 70% urban), with most In any case, the first clearly historical Iranian people,
people living in villages or tribal grazing areas. Nonethe- the Medes, formed a kingdom in the northwestern
less, there have always been quite a few cities, developing Zagros after having been attacked by the Assyrians in
either as district marketplaces or commercial centers on a the ninth century BCE. In the southwestern Zagros,
few key trade routes or as political capitals. Some of another Iranian tribe, the Persians, created a kingdom
these, once famous and thriving, such as medieval Rayy that eventually absorbed the Medes and under Cyrus the
or Tus, are now ruined and abandoned. Others, notably Great (r. c. 550–c. 530 BCE) established the Persian, or
Shiraz and Isfahan, have been major economic and cul- Achaemenid, Empire. Its history looms large not only
tural centers for many centuries. The largest of cities because of the charisma and renown of Cyrus but also
today is by far Tehran, with over 8 million inhabitants. because of the famous wars with Greece and its eventual
It owes its importance to having become the capital of conquest at the hands of Alexander the Great in 330 BCE.
the country in the late eighteenth century; before then it The brief period of Greek domination was succeeded by
was a mere village (although it was in a sense preceded by the establishment of the Parthian, or Arsacid, Empire,
Rayy). In the nineteenth century Tabriz, the urban center whose history is relatively obscure, and then the second

Iran
great Persian empire, that of the Sassanians, founded by imprint of Iranian culture on ‘‘Islamic’’ ideas. Despite
Ardashir I c. 224 CE. The Sassanians remained a powerful this participation in the broader cultural trends of the
force in southwestern Asia down to the reign of Khusraw time, Arabic never managed to replace Persian as a
II (r. 590–628 CE), who was briefly able to force the vernacular language (although it greatly enriched its
Byzantines out of Syria and Egypt and threaten Constan- vocabulary), and it was not long before Iranians asserted
tinople itself. their autonomy politically under various regional dynas-
ties as well as in literary culture, especially poetry. What
The Arab Invasion and the Spread of Islam. The Sassa- has often been thought of as a neo-Persian renaissance
nian Empire began to disintegrate rapidly in the seventh under Iranian dynasties, such as the Samanids (204/
century CE, exhausted by the costs of its imperial wars, 819–389/999), Saffarids (c. 247/861–393/1003), and
internal socioreligious conflicts, and dynastic struggles. It Buyids (334/945–447/1055), came to an end, at least
was at that moment that some of the Arab tribes ruled politically, with the advent of the Turks.
over by the Sassanians in Mesopotamia launched a revolt
and were soon joined by other forces from the Arabian Transformation following Arrival of the Turks and
Peninsula, unified by their new religion of Islam. The Mongols. Turks first appeared in significant numbers in
Muslim armies soundly defeated the Sassanians at the Iran and the Middle East as military slaves, but they soon
Battle of al-Qadisiyya (c. 16/637) and, after a brief became a real power themselves, and one group formerly
respite to consolidate their conquests, successfully in the service of the Samanids formed a dynasty known as
invaded the Iranian plateau and inflicted another major the Ghaznavids (366/977–582/1186). The Turks ruled,
defeat on the Sassanians at the Battle of Nihavand but they relied heavily on an administration run by
(21/642). The fleeing Sassanian king was murdered in Iranian bureaucrats and deferred to Perso-Islamic culture
eastern Iran, and by 32/653 the Muslims ruled almost all in other areas. Later, Turkish tribes simply migrated into
of the plateau and beyond as far as the Oxus River.
the region, and a coalition of them under the Seljuqs
For the next century, Iran, now divided into prov- (429/1038–590/1194) established an empire that unified
inces, was ruled as part of the Islamic caliphate. The the Iranian world to a greater degree than at any time
Umayyads (41/661–132/750) treated the Iranian prov- since the Sassanians. That process, however, was dramat-
inces mostly as a source of revenue and a base from which ically disrupted by the Mongol invasions, first under
to further expand their empire, relying on the old admin- Genghis Khan between 616/1219 and 620/1223 and
istrative elites to collect taxes and making little, if any, later under Hülegü Khan (r. 654/1256–663/1265), and
effort to spread their religion or otherwise change the the immense human, cultural, and physical destruction
local cultures. Their frequent campaigns to expand in the
they caused, especially in the case of the once great cities
east and to defend against the rising power of the Turks
of eastern Iran. For the next two centuries, Iran was
in Central Asia, however, inevitably led to the permanent
mostly an arena for the competing ambitions and con-
garrisoning of Arab troops in Khurasan, more collabora-
tion and fraternization between the Arab and non-Arab flicts of a host of Turko-Mongol warlords. Despite this
populations, and conversion to Islam. The consequent generally negative legacy, the era is an essential compo-
pressures came to a head in 129/747, when there was a nent of Iranian history both because of the considerable
massive uprising in Khurasan led by a Muslim general demographic change it brought about—establishing a
almost certainly of Iranian origin, Abu Muslim. By 132/ substantial Turkish minority in Iran—and because it set
750, the revolutionary army from Khurasan had defeated the stage for the rise of another Iranian empire: the
the Umayyads and established a new dynasty of caliphs, Safavids.
the Abbasids. By the fifteenth century CE, with the rise of the
In the wake of this revolution, during the first Ottoman Empire to the west, the Uzbek Turks to the
century of Abbasid rule, two profound trends were east, and at least three competing Turkmen dynasties on
apparent: the rapidly increasing rate of conversion by the plateau, it might have seemed that the Iranian world
Iranians to Islam and the growing influence of Iranians was about to be absorbed into a vastly larger Turkish one.
on Islamic civilization. It is likely that by the tenth It was against this background that a dissident coalition
century CE the great majority of the Iranian population of mostly Turkmen tribes known as the Qizilbash (mean-
had converted to Islam, and it is certain that Muslims of ing ‘‘redheads,’’ in reference to the red hats they wore),
Iranian origin, though writing in Arabic, had contrib- held together by an extremist religious ideology and a
uted greatly to the development of Islamic civilization fanatical loyalty to the Safavid family (the hereditary
in fields ranging from the sciences to literature, as well heads of a mystical order based at a shrine in a remote
as in religious subjects, such as hadith collection, law, corner of Azerbaijan), rallied in 904/1499 to the support
and theology. In some areas—notably concepts of of the thirteen-year-old leader of the order, Ismaqil Safavi.
government and administration—they left the clear By 906/1501 they had defeated their enemies in
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Iran Not For Sale

Azerbaijan and the Caucasus, and Ismaqil took the title of break of the Napoleonic Wars in Europe and the diplo-
shah at his new capital, Tabriz. Over the course of the matic maneuverings of that era provided an opportunity
next decade, the army led by Ismaqil conquered virtually for the Qajars to begin modernizing their army, but this
the whole of Iran plus adjacent territories in Mesopota- effort was soon frustrated too by Russian and British
mia and Central Asia before being decisively defeated by imperialism. The Qajars made some progress in creating
the Ottomans at the Battle of Chaldiran (920/1514). the bureaucratic apparatus and institutions of a modern
Although Ismaqil was at least partly of Turkish ances- state, but the economic development needed to sustain
try and certainly Turkish-speaking, with a mostly Turk- them was again adversely affected by Russian and British
ish army, and surrounded by many Turkish advisers and interference.
mentors, the empire he created became, whether by The country was mired in poverty and dependency,
design or not, a distinctly Iranian one. The Turkish and this, coupled with the perception of the rulers as
military was only one prop of the dynasty, and after the corrupt and ineffective, provided the impetus for two
defeat at Chaldiran a somewhat unreliable one. Like so great expressions of popular resistance to imperialism
many of their predecessors, the Safavids also had to rely and autocracy: the Tobacco Protest of the early 1890s,
on a Persian-speaking bureaucracy, whose resilience and aimed at blocking the concession of a monopoly over the
influence again assured a dominant place for Persian tobacco industry to a British entrepreneur, and the Con-
culture. Finally, Ismaqil proclaimed Shiqism the official stitutional Revolution of 1905–1907, which united many
state religion and replaced, largely by force of arms, the segments of the population behind an elected parliament
existing Sunni religious leadership with a Shiqite one. (Majles) and a legal system that would limit the shah’s
This was not the extremist Shiqism of the Qizilbash but arbitrary powers. The effort to establish popular sover-
a more moderate Twelver Shiqism, coupled with vener- eignty and representative government in Iran ultimately
ation of the Safavid family as descendants of the imams failed, undone by the opposition of the autocratic mon-
and religious guides of their Sufi order. It was above all arch, a 1907 Anglo-Russian agreement that divided Iran
this Shiqite orientation that distinguished the Safavids into spheres of Russian and British influence, Russian
from the neighboring Sunni empires (and created conflict intervention in 1911, and the effects of World War I
with them). (1914–1918).
Although the Safavid rulers may have thought that The chaos in Iran after the war led to the overthrow
the Twelver Shiqite clerical establishment they had cre- of the Qajars and the establishment of the Pahlavi mon-
ated would be subservient to them, in the long run it was archy under Reza Shah (r. 1925–1941). Reza Shah was
the Shiqite scholars (mujtahids) who dominated the shahs not as constrained by foreign influence as his predecessors
and outlasted them. After reaching its zenith under Shah had been, and he had the advantage of a new source of
qAbbas I (r. 996/1588–1038/1629) with his capital at wealth—royalties from oil production—to finance his
Isfahan, the Safavid Empire began a precipitous decline plans for rebuilding Iran. These included not just a
and was overwhelmed in 1134/1722 by an invasion of stronger military and institutions of administration but
Sunni Afghan tribes. The fall of the Safavids was fol- also improvements in transportation, education, and the
lowed by the meteoric career of Nader Shah Afshar economy, as well as social reforms. His pro-German
(r. 1148/1736–1160/1747), the last of the great conquer- activities, however, led to a Soviet-British invasion in
ors in the Turko-Mongol tradition; the ephemeral but 1941 and his forced abdication, although the dynasty
impressive interlude of the Zand regency (1163/1750– was left in place under his young son, Mohammad Reza
1208/1794); and the rise of a new dynasty of Qizilbash Shah (r. 1941–1979).
origin, the Qajars (1193/1779–1924). During the early years of the Cold War, the Majles
was again able to assert itself, with a strong prime min-
Creation and Development of the Modern Nation- ister, Mohammad Mosaddeq, who led the effort to
State. Although some of the elements of a nation-state nationalize the oil industry. Mosaddeq also attempted
were coming into focus during the Safavid era, the per- to curtail the powers of the shah, creating a constitutional
spective of the Safavids and the Afsharids remained impe- crisis during which the shah fled the country in 1953.
rial rather than national. It was under the Qajars and Mosaddeq was then overthrown in a royalist coup backed
their successors, the Pahlavis (1925–1979), that the proc- by Britain and the United States. In 1963 Mohammad
ess of state building and modernization began and Reza Shah initiated the so-called White Revolution
reached fruition. The territorial dimensions of the nation through which he pledged land reform, a campaign
were the first to be defined, mostly of necessity because against illiteracy, the franchise for women, and many
the irredentist ambitions of the early Qajars in the other social and economic improvements, but many of
Caucasus, Central Asia, and Afghanistan were blocked these promises went unfulfilled. After the formation of
by the Russians and British, and the border with the OPEC (the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting
Ottoman Empire remained mostly unchanged. The out- Countries) and the tremendous increase in oil prices,

Iran
MOHAMMAD KHATAMI (1943–)
Born into a clerical family in the Iranian province of Yazd in By the time of his reelection in 2001, however, it was
1943, Mohammad Khatami acquired a religious education becoming increasingly evident that Khatami was unable to
at the Qom seminary. He subsequently studied philosophy push through the major reforms for which he had received
at Isfahan University, where he participated in student anti- a popular mandate. With the aim of undermining the
government activities. He began a master’s degree in educa- reform movement, his conservative opponents manufac-
tion at Tehran University but before completing it returned tured a variety of crises, blocked his political moves,
to Qom to resume his religious education. In 1978 Khatami arrested a number of his prominent supporters, cracked
was appointed to head the Islamic Center in Hamburg, down on student activists, and closed down reformist
Germany, a Shiqa religious establishment. newspapers. Although it provoked widespread disillusion-
Returning to Iran following the revolution of 1979, ment and highlighted the structural impediments to
Khatami was elected to the first parliament of the Islamic political reform in Iran, Khatami’s presidency did
Republic, representing his home district in the province of contribute to the growth of civil society institutions,
Yazd from 1980 to 1982, during which time he was also student groups, and women’s organizations.
briefly appointed to head the Kayhan newspaper. He served Following two terms in office, Khatami became an
as the minister of culture and Islamic guidance from 1982 to opposition figure during the presidency of Mahmoud
1992, in the cabinets of the prime minister Mir-Hossein Ahmadinejad. In 2009 Khatami once again stood briefly as
Mousavi and the president qAli-Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani. a presidential candidate but opted to step aside in favor of
Pressure from conservatives in the parliament, who accused Mousavi. The politically repressive atmosphere of Ahma-
him of laxity in his cultural policies, forced Khatami to step dinejad’s second term resulted in the greater marginaliza-
down in 1992, when he was politically sidelined by being tion of both Khatami and other reformists. After the
appointed the director of Iran’s National Library. election of Hassan Rouhani in 2013, however, Khatami
Emerging from relative political isolation, Khatami was reemerged in public life, restating his commitment to the
swept to victory in 1997 as Iran’s fifth president, defeating reformist agenda of promoting liberal Islam, political
the conservative speaker of Parliament and establishment liberalization, and improved relations with the West.
favorite Ali-Akbar Nateq-Nuri in an election characterized BIBLIOGRAPHY
by an unprecedented level of voter participation. Represent- Amuzegar, Jahangir. ‘‘Khatami’s Legacy: Dashed Hopes.’’
ing the newly emergent reformist bloc in Iranian politics, Middle East Journal 60, no. 1 (2006): 57–74.
Khatami ran on a platform of political openness and support Arjomand, Saı̈d Amir. ‘‘Civil Society and the Rule of Law in
for the rule of law and for civil society, capitalizing on his the Constitutional Politics of Iran under Khatami.’’ Social
personal appeal and eloquence. His landslide electoral vic- Research 67, no. 2 (2000): 283–301.
tory in 1997 signaled the emergence of a popular movement Arjomand, Saı̈d Amir. After Khomeini: Iran under His
Successors. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
and heralded a wave of optimism among most Iranians
Ehteshami, Anoushiravan, and Mahjoob Zweiri, eds. Iran’s
regarding democracy and greater social and political Foreign Policy: From Khatami to Ahmadinejad. Reading,
freedoms. U.K.: Ithaca Press, 2008.
During his presidency, Khatami sought to reconcile Khatami, Mohammad. Hope and Challenge: The Iranian
Islam with a qualified political liberalism, end Iran’s inter- President Speaks. Edited by Parviz Morewedge and Kent
national isolation, and improve its image. He advocated the P. Jackson. Translated by Alidad Mafinezam. Binghamton,
NY: Institute of Global Cultural Studies, Binghamton
nurturing of civility and civil society, the rule of law, eco-
University, 1997.
nomic development, and better relations with the West. He
Khatami, Mohammad. Islam, Liberty, and Development.
eased restrictions on freedom of expression, resulting in a Binghamton, NY: Institute of Global Cultural Studies,
flourishing press, the emergence of a student movement, and Binghamton University, 1998.
an increasingly prominent role for women in public life. Tazmini, Ghoncheh. Khatami’s Iran: The Islamic Republic and
Khatami’s call for a ‘‘dialogue among civilizations,’’ delivered the Turbulent Path to Reform. London: Tauris Academic
Studies, 2009.
at the United Nations in September 1998, generated opti-
Arman Azimi
mism for an improvement in Iran-U.S. relations, which had Doctoral Student, Department of History
been strained since the revolution. City University of New York
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Mohammad Reza Shah was able to pour money into the Arjomand, Saı̈d Amir. After Khomeini: Iran under His Successors.
military on an even vaster scale than Reza Shah and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
undertook any number of development and moderniza- Cronin, Stephanie. The Army and the Creation of the Pahlavi State
tion projects, although these were often misguided or in Iran, 1910–1926. London: Tauris Academic Studies, 2006.
Dandamaev, Muhammad A., and Vladimir G. Lukonin. The
poorly implemented. He had grandiose visions of Iran’s
Culture and Social Institutions of Ancient Iran. Cambridge,
place on the world stage and ruled in an increasingly U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
autocratic and arbitrary manner. Daniel, Elton L. The History of Iran. 2nd ed. Santa Barbara, CA:
The Pahlavis certainly gave Iran many of the out- Greenwood, 2012.
ward characteristics of a modern state, but in the end Frye, Richard N. The Golden Age of Persia. London: Weidenfeld
their model of development proved flawed in several key and Nicolson, 1975.
respects. The Pahlavis could never quite dispel the Katouzian, Homa. Musaddiq and the Struggle for Power in Iran.
perception, right or wrong, that they remained overly London: I.B. Tauris, 1990.
subservient to outside powers (especially, after 1953, the Keddie, Nikki R. Qajar Iran and the Rise of Reza Khan,
1796–1925. Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Publishers, 1999.
United States). They emphasized an ethnic Iranian
Matthee, Rudi. Persia in Crisis: Safavid Decline and the Fall of
nationalism that seemed to marginalize the many non- Isfahan. London: I.B. Tauris, 2012.
Persian minorities and, by celebrating Iranian antiquity Morgan, David. Medieval Persia, 1040–1797. London:
at the expense of its Islamic heritage, alienated many of Longman, 1988.
the religious leaders and their followers. The material Newman, Andrew J. Safavid Iran: Rebirth of a Persian Empire.
benefits of modernization went disproportionately to a London: I.B. Tauris, 2006.
small, rather Westernized, elite without seriously improv- Pourshariati, Parvaneh. Decline and Fall of the Sasanian Empire:
ing conditions for the rural population and urban poor. The Sasanian-Parthian Confederacy and the Arab Conquest of
Iran. London: I.B. Tauris, 2008.
Finally, the arbitrary and autocratic aspects of the mon-
Wiesehöfer, Josef. Ancient Persia: From 550 BC to 650 AD.
archy were not reformed, and no viable means was ever Translated by Azizeh Azodi. London: I.B. Tauris, 1996.
found for creating an avenue of acceptable political
expression and participation by the nation’s new elites.
All these trends led inexorably to the Islamic Revolution Elton L. Daniel
Professor of History (retired)
of 1979, the establishment of the Islamic Republic of
University of Hawaii at Manoa
Iran, and the consequent cementing of Shiqite Islam and
clerical rule as the fundamental aspects of the nation’s
national identity. Yet, secular, liberal, and Westernizing
tendencies remain at work and have created some unrest
in the country, especially among the youth and urban
IRAQ
elites, as seen in the 2009 election protests. The modern state of Iraq was officially established in
1920, but the land and its peoples are heir to a rich and
SE E A LSO Bahapi Faith; Constitutional Revolution in Iran; ancient heritage going back to the very dawn of human
Isfahan; Islamic Revolution in Iran; Islamic civilization. Occupying the land of ancient Mesopotamia,
Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC); Khamenei, qAli the country has always been defined by the two great
(1939–); Khomeini, Ruhollah (1902–1989); rivers: the Tigris and the Euphrates. Modern Iraq is bor-
Nationalism: Iranian; Pahlavis, The (1925–1979); dered by Iran to the east, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia to the
Persian Language; Persian Literature; Qom; Reform: south, Jordan and Syria to the west, and Turkey to the
Iran; Safavids. north. With only a short, 58-kilometer (36-mile) coastline
along the Persian Gulf in the south, the country is practi-
cally landlocked. With an average birthrate of around four
BIBLIOGRAPHY
children per mother, the country has seen a rapid popula-
Abisaab, Rula Jurdi. Converting Persia: Religion and Power in the tion increase from just over 27 million in 2005 to just
Safavid Empire. London: I.B. Tauris, 2004. under 37 million in 2015. In terms of age distribution,
Abrahamian, Ervand. Iran between Two Revolutions. Princeton, Iraq has a very young population, with a median age of
NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982. just 21.5 years. Like many other Middle Eastern countries,
Afary, Janet. The Iranian Constitutional Revolution, 1906–1911: Iraq witnessed a massive rural-to-urban migration in the
Grassroots Democracy, Social Democracy, and the Origins of post–World War II decades so that currently nearly 70 per-
Feminism. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996.
cent of the population reside in cities.
Algar, Hamid. Religion and State in Iran, 1785–1906: The Role
of the Ulama in the Qajar Period. Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1969. ECONOMY
Ansari, Ali M. Modern Iran: The Pahlavis and After. 2nd ed. Iraq’s economy, ranked thirty-eighth in the world by the
Harlow, U.K.: Longman, 2007. World Bank, is heavily dependent on the oil sector.

Iraq
TURKEY
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at Z
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.
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SAU D I A RA B I A
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0 50 100 mi. K U WA I T Gulf
Iraq 0 50 100 km
Map of Iraq. ª CENGAGE LEARNING/GALE
Estimates from the second decade of the twenty-first Nevertheless, the country still produces a variety of
century point to oil exports accounting for 90 percent of products, such as wheat, barley, rice, vegetables, dates,
state revenues and 80 percent of foreign exchange. Iraq’s cotton, cattle, sheep, and poultry. Most of the labor
oil exports are expected to eventually reach a record force (60%) is employed in the service sector, which is
high of 3.75 million barrels/day despite ongoing inter- mainly owned or controlled by the state.
nal conflicts. Thanks to this, the country’s estimated Notwithstanding the country’s oil wealth and agri-
GDP (purchasing power parity) in 2014 was a healthy cultural potential, ongoing instability (particularly after
$505.4 billion with a budget surplus of 3 percent, which 2003), high corruption rates, outdated infrastructure, the
ranked eleventh in the world. In terms of overall sector lack of skilled labor, and ill-suited commercial laws have
contribution to the GDP, agriculture accounts for all contributed to a chronically high unemployment rate
3.3 percent, industry 64.5 percent, and service 32.2 (estimated at 16 percent in 2012) and nearly one-quarter
percent. Despite its high potential, agriculture has of the population living below the poverty line. Another
declined steadily since the post–World War II period. threat to the economy has emerged in the form of the
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Iraq Not For Sale

reduction in the waters of the Tigris and Euphrates. As grandson of the Prophet, in Karbala. Together, they
both rivers originate in the mountains of Turkey, the attract millions of Shiqa pilgrims every year. The Adha-
construction of dams in Turkey and Syria (especially in miyya district of Baghdad contains the tomb, school, and
the 1990s) has led to heightened tensions. mosque of the eighth-century CE jurist Abu Hanifa, while
the Bab al-Shaykh district contains a similar complex
dedicated to the twelfth-century CE mystic qAbd al-Qadir
KEY CITIES, GEOGRAPHIC AREAS, AND
al-Jilani. Both continue to be important centers of Sunni
HISTORIC SITES
scholarship and visitation.
Baghdad, the capital, is by far the most important city.
With an estimated population of over seven million
people, it is the economic, social, and cultural center of ETHNICITY AND RELIGION
the country. Established in 145/762 as the capital of the The people of Iraq are among the region’s most ethnically
new Abbasid Empire, it was originally named Madinat and religiously diverse. A majority of the population—
al-Salam, or City of Peace. Other important cities 75 percent to 80 percent—are Arabs, while 15 percent to
include Mosul in the north, with 1.6 million inhabitants,
20 percent are Kurdish. The Arabs predominate in the
although by mid-2015 many of the inhabitants of Mosul south and middle of the country and as far north as
had fled the city because of ongoing violent conflicts. Mosul. The Kurds are concentrated in the north and
Mosul represents the northernmost extent of the Arab northeastern part of the country bordering Turkey and
presence in Iraq. Farther north, the city of Irbil (also Iran. Other ethnic groups include Turkmen, Assyrians,
known as Arbil and, in Kurdish, Hawler) with 1.2 mil- Persians, and Armenians, who together account for about
lion inhabitants, is the capital of the Kurdistan Regional 5 percent of the population. The Arab Islamic conquest of
Government. Three out of Iraq’s eighteen provinces form the mid-seventh century CE set into motion the gradual
the Kurdistan autonomous region, which has its own Arabization of the indigenous, mostly Aramaic-speaking
parliament and defense force. Iraq’s southernmost city peoples. Today, the dwindling number of Assyrians,
and main port is the city of Basra. Prior to the Iran-Iraq Syriacs, and Mandaeans represent the country’s last link
War (1980–1988), Basra was the second-most-populous with the pre-Islamic Aramaic peoples of Mesopotamia.
city after Baghdad. Today, its population is estimated at The Kurds of Iraq comprise a section of the broader
around one million, making it the fourth-largest city in Kurdish people, who inhabit a large territory that also
the country. includes southern Turkey, northwestern Iran, and north-
With its borders encompassing the area of ancient eastern Syria. They are an ancient people whose language
Mesopotamia and the lands of medieval Islamic Iraq, the is part of the Iranian family of languages. Turkmen are
country is a virtual treasure trove of ruins and artifacts located primarily in the Kirkuk area and believe that they
covering several millennia of human history. Perhaps the are the descendants of the medieval Aq Qoyunlu and Qara
three most impressive monuments from early antiquity Qoyunlu tribal confederations. The Armenian presence in
are the Ziggurat of Ur near Nasiriyya, the ruins of the country goes back to the sixteenth and seventeenth
Babylon near Hilla, and the Assyrian palaces at Nineveh centuries CE when they formed a number of merchant
near Mosul. During the second decade of the twenty-first diasporas. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth
century, Nineveh suffered extensive destruction at the centuries, many more Armenians arrived as refugees from
hands of the fanatical self-proclaimed Islamic State the massacres that afflicted their homeland in eastern
group. Likewise, the Islamic State bulldozed much of Anatolia.
the magnificent ruins of Hatra, which date back to the Today, the vast majority of the population—around
second century BCE. Just to the south of Baghdad are the 99 percent—is Muslim, up from the 95 percent figure
ruins of the great Sassanian palace known as Taq Kisra, for the 1990s This change is indicative of the atmosphere
constructed in the mid-sixth century CE. of religious extremism that has engulfed the country after
Several important medieval Islamic sites continue to 2003, as Iraq’s religious minorities have been leaving in
attract visitors. The ruins of Samarra, located about 125 large numbers. Muslims are divided between Twelver
kilometers (78 miles) north of Baghdad, represent the Shiqas (60–65%) and Sunnis (35–40%). Shiqas predom-
best-preserved example of Abbasid-era architecture. inate in the southern part of the country. Sunnis are
Samarra’s spiral minaret, known as the Malwiya, was at divided almost equally between Kurds and Arabs. The
the time of its completion in 236/851 one of the tallest latter form a majority in the so-called Sunni Triangle,
buildings in the world, standing 52 meters (171 feet) located roughly from Baghdad north to Mosul and
high. Perhaps the two most important religious sites are southwest to the Syrian border. The presence of the
the shrines dedicated to qAli, the cousin and son-in-law of two main Islamic sects in Iraq dates back to the very
the prophet Muhammad, in Najaf, and Husayn, the beginning of the schism itself in the mid-seventh century

Iraq
CE, when a disagreement on the question of leadership kilometers (3.5 square miles) and including nearly a
after the death of the prophet Muhammad led, several quarter of a million inhabitants. This was also the period
decades later, to theological differences. Neither sect, in which Judaism was introduced to the country through
however, forms a homogeneous group. Other than the the so-called Babylonian captivity, as large numbers of
Kurdish-Arab divide, Sunnis are further divided into Jews were forced to migrate from Palestine to Iraq.
tribes, schools of jurisprudence, and mystical orders (Sufi This period of indigenous Mesopotamian rule came
turuq), of which the most important are the Qadiris, to an end when the Persians, under the command of
Naqshbandis, and some Rifaqis. Shiqas also divide their Cyrus the Great (r. 559–530 BCE), conquered Babylon
allegiances to a number of prominent religious leaders in 539 BCE. The Persian Achaemenid Empire was the first
known as the sources of emulation (marjaq al-taqlid), as truly universal empire in that its rulers claimed authority
well as the numerous tribal confederations. The vast over the entire known world. In 331 BCE, Alexander the
majority of the non-Muslims consist of a number of Great of Macedonia defeated the last of the Achaemenid
Christian sects spread throughout the country but rulers at the Battle of Gaugamela and sought to reestab-
focused mainly around Mosul and towns near Irbil. lish Babylon as the eastern capital of his far-flung empire.
The main sects include the Assyrians (Eastern Orthodox), Yet his death in 323 BCE led to the empire’s division and
Chaldeans (Catholics), Syriacs (Orthodox and Catho- the establishment of the Seleucid Empire in Iraq and
lics), and Armenians. Another minority, the Yazidis, are Iran. The Seleucids, who helped spread Hellenism in
a Kurdish-speaking community that adheres to a syn- the Middle East, were followed by two Iranian empires:
cretic religion with elements of Zoroastrianism and the Parthians (247 BCE–224 CE) and the Sassanians (224–
Islam. Another group that has all but disappeared from
651). The Sassanians, in particular, left a significant
Iraq (perhaps only a few hundred families remain) are the
imprint on Iraq with their complex irrigation works
Gnostic Mandaeans. The Mandaeans are an ancient
around the Diyala area and the magnificent Taq Kisra
community with elements of Babylonian religious beliefs.
remains at Salman Pak. It was during this period of
Iranian rule that Iraq witnessed two important develop-
PRE-ISLAMIC HISTORY ments: the spread of Christianity and the gradual pene-
Ancient Iraq, or Mesopotamia, is often referred to as the tration of the Arab tribes. By the third century CE,
‘‘cradle of civilization’’ because the earliest forms of Christianity had spread throughout the country, with
urban life developed around 4000 BCE in what is today important centers of worship in the Sassanian capital of
southern Iraq. Prior to that, northern Iraq had witnessed Ctesiphon just to the south of modern Baghdad. Arabs
Neanderthal and early human habitation between 80,000 began entering the region perhaps as early as Assyrian
and 35,000 BCE. True civilization in the form of cities times, but it was not until the second century BCE that
(such as Eridu, Uruk, and Ur), governing structures, a they began to establish cities, such as Hatra and Hira.
system of writing, legal codes, and organized religions,
however, emerged only around 4000 BCE in southern
THE ISLAMIC CALIPHATE
Iraq. The Sumerian period, named after the people who
created this early culture, is further defined by extensive The Islamic period of Iraqi history began when, under
irrigation works, the division of society into complex the second caliph, qUmar (r. 13/634–23/644), the Arab
social classes, long-distance trade, and territorial conflicts Muslims defeated the main Sassanian army at the Battle
among the city-states. Around 3000 BCE, another people, of Qadisiyya in 15/636 or 16/637. Subsequently, Jews,
the Semites, began to gradually enter Mesopotamia from Christians, and Zoroastrians were tolerated as protected
northern Arabia and Syria. Around 2334 BCE, a Semitic communities, and the administration and taxation sys-
leader named Sargon of Akkad was able to unite the city- tems remained relatively unchanged. Under the fourth
states of Mesopotamia under a single state known as the caliph, qAli (r. 35/656–41/661), the cousin and son-in-
Akkadian Empire. While this empire effectively lasted law of the prophet Muhammad, tensions between rival
only until 2193 BCEit was followed by a series of empires Muslim factions over political and economic questions
that ruled large parts of Iraq. Perhaps the most important came to a head, with Iraq as an important center of
of these are the Old Babylonian Empire (c. 1950–c. 1600 conflict. The struggle ended with the establishment of
BCE), the Kassite Babylonian Empire (1531–1155 BCE), the Umayyad Empire, based in Damascus, Syria. During
the Assyrian Empire (c. 750–612 BCE), and the Neo- the Umayyad period (41/661–132/750) Iraq was the
Babylonian Empire (612–539 BCE). Each of these states wealthiest and most populous province of the caliphate,
had its historic contributions that continue to resonate which, by the early eighth century CE, spanned a huge
with Iraqis and beyond. Under Nebuchadnezzar II (r. c. territory from northern Spain to Central Asia. Perhaps
605–562 BCE), for example, Babylon rose to become connected to this prominence was the fact that the coun-
the largest city in the world, covering over 9 square try (especially the city of Kufa) was also a center of the
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anti-Umayyad opposition parties. Various grievances END OF THE CALIPHATE
came to be the focal point of two primary opposition Economic and social fragmentation notwithstanding,
groups: the puritanical Kharijites and the Shiqas, the latter most of the territory of Iraq (with the exception of the
of which believed that only a leader from the family of mountainous north) remained administratively linked to
the Prophet could offer true justice. In 60/680, a revolt Baghdad. During the early thirteenth century CE, the
led by a grandson of the Prophet, Husayn ibn qAli, was Abbasid caliphs made some gains in retrieving their lost
crushed at Karbala. A new movement led by the Abbasid political power, but by the middle of the century a much
family eventually, in 132/750, succeeded in overthrowing more formidable foe would appear in the form of the
the Umayyads and transferring the center of caliphal Mongols. Under the command of Hülegü Khan (d. 663/
power to Iraq. 1265), the Mongols stormed into Baghdad in February
The Abbasid Empire (132/750–656/1258), espe- 1258 CE. The slaughter, looting, and general destruction
cially during the reign of the caliph Harun al-Rashid (r. that followed still resonate with modern Iraqis as one of
170/786–193/809), can be considered a medieval golden the greatest disasters to befall the country. The Mongols
age for Iraq. Under the second Abbasid caliph, Abu Jaqfar adhered to a form of shamanism, and their conquest of
al-Mansur (r. 136/754–158/775), the new capital of Baghdad and the execution of the caliph dealt a major
Baghdad was constructed. At its height in 287/900, it blow to the sanctity and legitimacy of mainstream Sunni
Islam. This spurred the proliferation of unconventional
had around 1.5 million inhabitants, making it the largest
city in the world outside China. Iraq’s cities became mystical orders and popular Shiqa movements.
magnets for merchants, scholars, and theologians. It was Mongol rule in Iraq began with Hülegü’s Il-Khanid
during this period that much of what is recognized today state (654/1256–736/1335) and was followed by the
as Islamic theology (kalam), jurisprudence (fiqh), and Jalayirid state (736/1335–835/1432). Neither of these
mysticism (Sufism) were developed. This was also a time states was capable of firm central control, and the country
of great scientific, literary, and cultural production. fell victim to marauding warlords, repeated Turkic inva-
By the tenth century CE, a series of internal and sions, and small, short-lived principalities. The continu-
external crises shook the empire, as distant provinces ous instability of the period, punctuated with tribal
seceded and a number of subaltern classes (slaves, peas- depredations, led to a rapid depopulation, especially in
ants, and the urban poor) revolted. The caliphs’ growing the main cities of Baghdad, Mosul, and Basra. The urban
cosmopolitanism of the Abbasid era gave way to new
dependency on foreign mercenaries and slave soldiers
social relations based on widespread pastoralism and a
eventually backfired, when military commanders began
tribal ethos.
to act as kingmakers, eventually seizing control outright
in 334/945. That year, Daylamite mercenaries led by the
Buyid (Buwayhid) family assumed political control of OTTOMAN RULE
Baghdad while retaining the caliph as a figurehead. What The post-Mongol period in the Middle East did not
made the matter more problematic was that the Abbasids come to an end until the rise of the so-called Gunpowder
espoused Sunni Islam whereas the Buyids were Shiqas. Empires of the Shiqa Safavids in Iran (906/1501–1134/
During this period of Buyid dominance (334/945–447/ 1722) and the Sunni Ottomans of Anatolia (c. 699/
1055), the Sunni-Shiqa rivalry intensified, as did social 1300–1922). Iraq remained troubled as a frontier area
and political fragmentation through the rise of local between the two rival empires. In 940/1534 Sultan
principalities and the spread of semifeudal landholdings Süleyman the Magnificent (r. 926/1520–974/1566)
(iqtaq). The Buyids were constantly challenged by the brought Iraq under Ottoman control. It would remain
growing number of Turkish tribes that had migrated into as part of the empire, with a brief fifteen-year interrup-
the region from Central Asia. In 447/1055, one such tion, until the end of World War I (1914–1918). During
tribal confederation led by Tughril Beg (r. 429/1037– the first three centuries of Ottoman rule, order and
455/1063) seized Baghdad and restored Sunni rule. The commerce gradually improved. There were, however,
Seljuqs, as they were known, were unable to stem the several important setbacks in the form of tribal revolts
centrifugal forces that were pulling apart the Islamic and recurring Ottoman-Safavid wars. These wars often
world, but they nevertheless introduced or popularized fanned Sunni-Shiqa animosity within Iraq. Another fea-
several institutions that would become synonymous with ture was the rise of autonomous dynastic governments in
the Islamic states of this period. Among these were the Basra, Baghdad, Mosul, and Shahrizur. The most impor-
madrasas, or colleges, designed to produce a class of well- tant of these was the period of Georgian Mamluk rule of
trained Sunni ulema to challenge the spread of Shiqism. Baghdad (1116/1704–1831). Under a succession of gov-
Perhaps the most famous of these madrasas was the ernors (walis), Baghdad’s control expanded to include
Nizamiyya in Baghdad. practically the entire territory of modern Iraq, and under

Iraq
the wali Dawud Pasha (r. 1816–1831) the country monarchy’s many achievements in establishing institu-
appeared on the verge of outright secession, before the tions (including the army) and fostering social and eco-
Ottomans reasserted central control in 1831. nomic development, it continued to suffer from a lack of
Much of the nineteenth century involved Ottoman legitimacy because of its ties with Britain. Other prob-
attempts at consolidating control over fiercely independ- lems included the alarming rise of landlessness among the
ent tribes and keeping a close eye on the Iranian border. peasantry and the consequent increase in rural-to-urban
Tensions with Iran (now under Qajar rule) were reduced migration. Opposition groups, such as the Iraqi Com-
with the signing of the Treaty of Erzurum in 1847. The munist Party and the numerous Arab nationalist groups
most notable changes, however, came in the second half (including the Baqth Party) agitated for the overthrow of
of the century with greater integration into the world the monarchy. In 1958 a coup led by junior army officers
economy and more effective government centralization. and supported by mass demonstrations inaugurated a
Commercial ties with European countries—especially republican form of government.
Britain—rose rapidly, and by 1862 regular steamship The first decade of the republican period witnessed a
service had been established between Basra and Bombay struggle between competing visions for the future of the
(Mumbai). The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 country. qAbd al-Karim Qasim, the army brigadier who
furthered this trend. In terms of centralization, it was led the coup and served as prime minister from 1958 to
the wali Midhat Pasha who was chiefly responsible for 1963, championed an Iraqi-centered policy and identity,
bringing the Ottoman Tanzimat reforms to Iraq. During while Arab nationalists, such as the Baqth Party, empha-
his term from 1869 to 1872, he introduced several sized Iraq’s broader Arab identity and demanded unity
changes, including modern administrative and taxation with other Arab countries, particularly with Gamal Abdel
practices, the encouragement of private land ownership, Nasser’s Egypt. Underlying this political conflict was the
the settlement of tribes, and an increase in secular edu- country’s sectarian mixture with Arab Sunnis seeking
cation. In reaction to the rise of Turkish nationalism after more power in a broader Arab Sunni world while Arab
the Young Turks revolution of 1908, Iraq witnessed early Shiqas favored an Iraqi patriotism. The Kurds tended to
forms of Arab nationalistic activities. throw their weight behind any group promising them
more autonomy. This rivalry led to a series of coups and
countercoups ending in 1968 with the Baqthists’ seizing
WORLD WAR I, MONARCHY, AND REVOLUTION
power. During the first Baqthist period (1968–1979), the
Britain wasted little time in sending an expeditionary country moved toward repressive totalitarian rule, but
force to take Iraq shortly after the Ottoman Empire important gains were made in the form of the national-
joined the war on the side of Germany in November ization of petroleum resources, the spread of education,
1914. After suffering some painful setbacks, British forces and a general rise in standards of living.
succeeded in reaching the outskirts of Mosul just prior to
the armistice agreement of 1918 that ended the war. The
city was later added to British-ruled Iraq. Despite earlier DICTATORSHIP AND WAR
promises of independence for the Arabs, Britain had Iran’s Islamic Revolution of February 1979 shook the
secretly signed the so-called Sykes-Picot Agreement of entire region, but no country more so than Iraq. The
1916, in which it outlined plans to divide up the region increasingly repressive Baqthist regime felt particularly
with France and its other allies. In accordance with this threatened by Iranian calls for ‘‘exporting the revolution’’
agreement, the newly established League of Nations to Iraq’s Shiqa population, which reawakened old fears of
granted Britain a ‘‘mandate’’ over Iraq in preparation Iranian hegemony. This threat played a role in the
for the country’s eventual independence. After a tribal ascendancy of Saddam Hussein to the presidency in July
rebellion supported by nationalist parties was quelled in 1979. Under his dictatorial rule, Hussein plunged the
1920, the British agreed to nominal Iraqi independence. country into an eight-year war with Iran, followed by two
In 1921 Faysal, son of Sharif Husayn of Mecca, was wars with U.S.-led coalitions. The Iran-Iraq War (1980–
enthroned as the first Hashimite king of Iraq, and in 1988) was one of the longest and most destructive wars
1932 Iraq was admitted to the League of Nations as an in the region’s history. Iraq suffered around 400,000
independent country. During the drawing of the coun- casualties and sank deeper into debt. After a seesaw
try’s new borders, Iraq laid claim to the territory of campaign, punctuated with Iraq’s repeated use of poison
Kuwait, which had been part of the governorate of Basra, gas and Iranian use of child soldiers, a United Nations–
but the British, who had promised to protect the interests sponsored ceasefire was declared that essentially recog-
of the al-Sabah shaykhs, rejected this claim. The question nized the prewar borders. Kurdish nationalists had taken
of Kuwait remained contentious for many decades and advantage of the war to secure control over parts of Iraqi
continues to affect bilateral relations today. Despite the Kurdistan. Just prior to the end of the war, the regime
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Iraq Not For Sale

weapons on towns. This prompted Human Rights
Watch to label it a genocidal act.
MUHAMMAD BAQIR AL-SADR During the brief postwar period (1988–1990), the
(1930–1980) regime faced major challenges in demobilizing a one
million-man army and managing more than $100 billion
Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr was a scholar and revered debt, much of it to Kuwait. Tensions over the debt and
figure of Shiqa in Iraq. He wrote widely on matters of disputes over international oil prices led the regime to
Islamic economics and modern logic and philosophy. gamble by invading and then annexing neighboring
His books were bibles of Islamic modernists, Sunni and Kuwait. After a flurry of diplomatic activities reached a
Shiqite alike, throughout the Muslim world. Some of dead end, a large international coalition led by the
his works, including Falsafatuna (Our philosophy) and United States launched an attack against Iraq to liberate
Iqtisaduna (Our economics), are used as textbooks in Kuwait. The intense air bombardment caused large-scale
Shiqite seminaries. Most of his writings and teaching
infrastructural damage, and the ground offensive drove
the Iraqi army out of Kuwait. In March 1991 sections of
concentrated on renewal of principles of jurisprudence
the army rebelled and a large uprising ensued centered in
in Islamic tradition. He attempted to reconcile the
the Shiqa south and Kurdish north. The regime was
traditions and strictures of Islam with the ideas and
eventually able to reestablish its control over the south
practices of the West. He was one of the most
by fanning sectarian fears as a means of consolidating its
enlightened Shiqite legists and inspired much devotion
Sunni base. Perhaps the most damaging part of the
among the people of Iraq. Kuwait debacle, however, was the international sanctions.
Al-Sadr’s orientation was not excessively political. The United Nations sanctions were the most severe ever
Nevertheless, there were many people in Iraq who were placed on any country in modern history and led to
receptive to Iran’s Islamic Revolution. Therefore, when scarcity, the destruction of the middle classes, and wide-
Iraq’s Shiqite community began to look to al-Sadr for spread criminal activities.
political leadership, and when Iran’s Arabic radio
The upsurge in U.S. anxiety over the Middle East
broadcasts repeatedly referred to him as the ‘‘Khomeini
following the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks,
of Iraq,’’ he became a threat to the Iraqi regime of
coupled with claims that Iraq was not cooperating with
Saddam Hussein, whose base of support consisted of the United Nations in eliminating its weapons of mass
Sunni military officers and functionaries. As a conse- destruction, led to another campaign against Iraq in
quence, both al-Sadr and his sister were executed on the 2003. The stated purpose this time was the removal
orders of Iraq’s president Saddam Hussein. of the regime and the establishment of a democratic
BIBLIOGRAPHY Iraq allied with the United States. Operation Iraqi
Batatu, Hanna. ‘‘Iraq’s Underground Shia Movements: Freedom as it was called inaugurated perhaps the most
Characters, Causes, and Prospects.’’ MERIP Reports: destructive period in the country’s modern history.
Islam and Politics no. 102 (January 1982): 3–9. After another wave of aerial bombardment that
Holden, Stacy E. ‘‘Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr and the destroyed most of the major infrastructure and caused
Principle of Social Justice.’’ In A Documentary History many deaths, the United States and Britain rapidly
of Modern Iraq. Gainesville, FL: University Press of
Florida, 2012.
established full control of the country. Hussein’s
repressive regime notwithstanding, for most Iraqis the
Mallat, Chibli. The Renewal of Islamic Law: Muhammad
Baqer as-Sadr, Najaf and the Shiqi International. U.S.-created Coalition Provisional Authority was
New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993. viewed as a neocolonial entity. Among its first decrees
Sadr, Muhammad Baqir, al-. The Principles of were the establishment of an advisory council based on
Jurisprudence: An Introduction. London: Saqi, 2003. sectarian quotas, the dissolution of the Iraqi army, and
the de-Baqthification of the administration. These
Majid Mohammadi
Visiting Scholar, Sociology Department moves deepened sectarianism and heightened the anxi-
Stony Brook University ety of the Arab Sunni community, planting the seeds of
armed resistance. After decades of brutal dictatorship,
several destructive wars, thirteen years of severe sanc-
tions, and the decapitation of the state following
launched a brutal crackdown against the Kurds known as the U.S.-led invasion of 2003, Iraqi society had frag-
the al-Anfal campaign, which included mass deporta- mented into subnational communities defined by sect,
tions, the destruction of villages, and the use of chemical tribe, or region.

Iraq
SADDAM HUSSEIN (1937–2006)
Saddam Hussein, Iraq’s president from 1979 to 2003, was Assyrians, Yazidis, Shabaks, and Mandaeans were also
born on 28 April 1937 in Tikrit, Iraq—a Sunni Arab severely targeted by the regime for their opposition to
stronghold. Hussein’s father died months prior to his Hussein’s rule and his Arabization policies. Hussein’s
birth, and his mother, Sabha, entrusted her brother reorientation of society toward Baqthist socialist ideology
Khairallah Talfah with his care. Talfah was instrumental in dictated his socioeconomic policies. This was manifested
Hussein’s political development, particularly his early in the nationalization of Iraq’s major industries, such as oil
exposure to Pan-Arabist ideology. After joining the revo- and gas, and through the regime’s social policies, which
lutionary Baqth Party at age twenty, Hussein was sent into centered on the role of women, children, and the family as
exile in Egypt for four years following his participation in a the primary nuclei for sustaining the Baqth Party’s vision of
failed attempt to assassinate Iraq’s first president, qAbd a Pan-Arabist and socialist society.
al-Karim Qasim, in 1959. Hussein rose to prominence Following the 2003 U.S.-led occupation, Hussein was
following the Baqthist takeover of 1968 and succeeded in captured and put on trial for crimes against humanity by
becoming the chairman of the Revolutionary Command the interim Iraqi government and was found guilty and
Council (Iraq’s highest governing body) and the uncon- sentenced to death. He was executed on 30 December
tested president of the Republic of Iraq in 1979. 2006.
Hussein’s personalistic and autocratic rule was one of
BIBLIOGRAPHY
many factors that dictated his foreign and domestic policy.
The former was characterized by the Iran-Iraq War of Dawisha, Adeed. Iraq: A Political History from Independence to
Occupation. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
1980–1988 (glorified by Hussein as Qadisiyya Saddam) 2009.
followed by Hussein’s occupation of Kuwait in 1990 and Farouk-Sluglett, Marion, and Peter Sluglett. Iraq since 1958:
the subsequent civil war in 1991 resulting from the From Revolution to Dictatorship. Rev. ed. London: I.B.
Kurdish and Shiqi uprisings, all of which took a cata- Tauris, 2001.
strophic toll on Iraq’s socioeconomic and political devel- Sassoon, Joseph. Saddam Hussein’s Baqth Party: Inside an
opment. Shiqi dissident groups, namely the Islamic Daqwa Authoritarian Regime. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge
Party and religious institutions such as the Hawza, were
heavily monitored and suppressed by the regime. Likewise, Shamiran Mako
the regime’s treatment of the Kurds culminated in the use Associate, Weatherhead Center
for International Affairs, Harvard University
of chemical weapons on the town of Halabja in 1988. Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Politics and
Smaller ethnoreligious minorities such as the Turkmen, International Relations, University of Edinburgh
ELECTIONS AND CIVIL WARS although unemployment and corruption remain endemic.
In the midst of general lawlessness and rising sectarian It is in the Arab Sunni region, where much of the Baqthist
violence between 2005 and 2010, three elections were base of support existed, that resistance to the new order
held for a national parliament. Predictably, the results remains high. In the new sectarian milieu, Sunni Arabs
fear marginalization, and Iran’s growing influence among
reflected growing sectarianism, with the emergence of
Iraq’s Shiqa parties is seen as national betrayal. A series of
three main blocs of Kurdish, Sunni Arab, and Shiqa Arab
armed resistance groups emerged, initially targeting the
political parties. Secular groups that had once dominated occupation forces but growing increasingly more radical.
the political life of the country were still present but in a By 2015 the Islamic State group, an al-Qaqida offshoot,
much more diminished role. Still, there was room for had gained control of vast sections of the Sunni Triangle,
optimism as the currency stabilized, the press came to including Mosul and Ramadi, plus an equal amount
enjoy great freedom, oil exports expanded, and the U.S. of territory in Syria. Among Sunni Arabs, the Islamic
forces departed the country in June 2009. A new con- State’s harsh brand of puritanical Islam and uncomprom-
stitution established a parliamentary system, and a new, ising position toward Shiqism is not popular, but it is
albeit much weaker, army was formed. In the Kurdish providing order and a sense of empowerment to those
north and Shiqa south, conditions have improved, who had been marginalized after 2003.
Not For Sale

Isfahan Not For Sale

SE E A LS O Baghdad; Baghdad in the Republican Era; Baqth of its population massacred by the Ghaznavids, again
Party; Karbala; Kufa; Sunni-Shiqa Relations. flourished under the Seljuqs, who in the eleventh century
CE chose it as their capital. Under the Seljuqs the city’s
BIBLIOGRAPHY famous Friday Mosque, a masterpiece of brick architec-

Abdullah, Thabit A. J. A Short History of Iraq. 2nd ed. Abingdon, ture surrounded by four iwans, acquired its definitive
U.K.: Longman, 2011. shape. Having lost its central position with the fall of
qAzzāwı̄, qAbbās al-. Tāprı̄h al-qIrāq bayn ih.tilālayn. 8 vols. the Seljuqs, Isfahan suffered terribly under the thirteenth-
¯
Baghdad: Mat. baqaẗ Ba_gdād, 1935–1956. century CE Mongol invasion. The city enjoyed a revival
Batatu, Hanna. The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary under the later Il-Khanids, yet bore the full brunt of the
Movements of Iraq: A Study of Iraq’s Old Landed and brutal rule of Timur (Tamerlane) in the late fifteenth
Commercial Classes and of Its Communists, Baqthists, and Free
century CE.
Officers. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979.
Central Intelligence Agency. ‘‘Iraq.’’ The World Factbook. Isfahan only returned to prominence and had its
Accessed 8 July 2015. https://www.cia.gov/library/ heyday under the Safavids, especially under their greatest
publications/the-world-factbook/geos/iz.html. ruler, Shah qAbbas I (r. 995/1587–1038/1629), who in
Chandrasekaran, Rajiv. Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside the 1590s CE turned the city into his capital—mostly, it
Iraq’s Green Zone. New York: Knopf, 2006.
seems because of its location in the interior of the coun-
Cockburn, Patrick. The Rise of Islamic State: ISIS and the
try, sheltered from Ottoman attack. Shah qAbbas gave
New Sunni Revolution. London: Verso, 2015.
Donovan, Jerome. The Iran-Iraq War: Antecedents and Conflict Isfahan a new governmental, commercial, and religious
Escalation. Abingdon, U.K.: Routledge, 2011. center radically different from the traditional pattern of
Gal, Luft. ‘‘How Much Oil Does Iraq Have?’’ Brookings winding streets. At the center of this development was a
Institution, 12 May 2003. http://www.brookings.edu/ newly designed ceremonial Royal Square, known in Per-
research/papers/2003/05/12globalenvironment-luft
sian as the Meydan-e Naqsh-e Jahan. Measuring 524 by
Marr, Phebe. The Modern History of Iraq. 3rd ed. Boulder, CO:
Westview Press, 2012. 158 meters (1,719 by 518 feet), the square was sur-
Roux, Georges. Ancient Iraq. 3rd ed. London: Penguin, 1992. rounded by rows of shops, coffeehouses, two major mos-
World Bank. ‘‘Iraq.’’ Accessed 20 July 2015. http:// ques (the Shaykh Lotf Allah Mosque and the Royal
data.worldbank.org/country/iraq Mosque [Masjid-e Shah]), and a royal audience hall,
the Ali Qapu. An axial road, the Chehar Bagh, was laid
Thabit A. J. Abdullah out between the new center and the Zayandeh Rud, and
Associate Professor of History a bridge of thirty-three arches, the Si-o-Seh Pol, was built
York University, Canada to connect Isfahan with New Julfa, a newly built suburb
across the river.
New Julfa played an important role in the enhance-
ment of Isfahan’s commercial stature under Shah qAb-
ISFAHAN bas’s auspices. In 1013/1604 and 1014/1605 the shah
Located in west-central Iran, at the heart of a fertile oasis resettled a large number of Armenians from the town of
watered by the Zayandeh Rud (river), Isfahan is the Julfa in northwestern Iran to New Julfa, where they were
capital of the eponymous province and one of Iran’s given commercial privileges and control over the export
largest urban centers. Above all, it is a city with a vener- of Iran’s silk trade. From Isfahan, the New Julfans
able history. Its origins are unclear but likely go back to branched out to establish a commercial network span-
Achaemenid times (mid-first millennium BCE), with a ning Eurasia.
possible yet unproven origin as a gathering place for Jews
driven into Babylonian exile—hence one of its original Isfahan reached its greatest size and urban splendor
names, Yahudiyya. The site is also called Jay in early under Shah qAbbas’s mostly sedentary successors, who kept
sources. The city’s Middle Persian name, Aspadana, building palaces, mosques, religious seminaries, and pleas-
meaning ‘‘place of gathering for the army,’’ alludes to a ure gardens. With some 500,000 inhabitants—most of
military role. them Muslim, but also including Armenians, Georgians,
Hindu Indians, and small numbers of Europeans—the
Only after the seventh-century CE Arab-Muslim con-
city and its surroundings in the mid-seventeenth century
quest of Iran did the name Isfahan replace earlier names
CE counted as one of the largest urban centers in the world,
such as Jay and Yahudiyya. Relatively autonomous in the
first centuries of Muslim rule, the city went through with reportedly 162 mosques, 48 theological colleges,
many ups and downs between the tenth and the sixteenth 1,802 caravansaries, and 273 bathhouses.
centuries CE. It enjoyed a long period of peace under the In 1135/1722 a relatively small cohort of Afghan
tenth-century CE Buyid dynasty, and, after seeing much tribesmen, taking advantage of growing Safavid weakness,

Isfahan
View of the Royal Square from the Minaret of the Royal Mosque of Isfahan, Iran. The Royal Square developed during the reign
of Safavid ruler Shah qAbbas I (r. 995/1587–1038/1629), who made the city his capital in the 1590s CE. The square would later be
named as a UNESCO World Heritage site. ª OLIVIER GOUJON/ROBERT HARDING WORLD IMAGERY/ALAMY
penetrated Iran, laid siege to Isfahan, and brought it down United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
through starvation. Isfahan, its population reduced to Organization (UNESCO). From some 200,000 at the
perhaps 30,000, remained Iran’s capital until the reign of time of World War II, the number of inhabitants
Nader Shah (1149/1736–1160/1747), whose extortionate increased to some two million by the middle of the
rule sapped what was left of the region’s economic vitality, second decade of the twenty-first century, with the prov-
causing the Armenian colony to wither and driving large ince reaching almost four million.
numbers of people to leave for India and the Shiqi shrine
SEE ALSO Iran; Safavids.
cities of Iraq.
In the course of the nineteenth century, Isfahan, now
a provincial city, reasserted itself as a theological center, BIBLIOGRAPHY
and under the thirty-three-year governorship of Zell al- Babaie, Sussan. Isfahan and Its Palaces: Statecraft, Shiqism, and the
Soltan, a half-brother of Naser al-Din Shah and a pre- Architecture of Conviviality in Early Modern Iran. Edinburgh:
tender to the Qajar throne, it experienced a revival of Edinburgh University Press, 2008.
sorts—even though most of the buildings left from the Blake, Stephen P. Half the World: The Social Architecture of
Safavid period were demolished at the time. The true Safavid Isfahan, 1590–1722. Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda
revival came in the twentieth century, beginning with the Publishers, 1999.
reign of the modernizing Reza Shah (1925–1941). Isfa- Durand-Guédy, David. Iranian Elites and Turkish Rulers:
han turned into an industrial city, specializing in textiles, A History of Is. fahān in the Saljūq Period. London: Routledge,
cement, sugar, steel, petrochemicals, and food processing. 2010.
It also became the country’s foremost tourist center, with ‘‘Isfahan.’’ Encyclopaedia Iranica. Last modified 10 May 2012.
its royal square listed as a World Heritage site by the http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/isfahan
Not For Sale

Ishraqi School Not For Sale

Walcher, Heidi A. In the Shadow of the King: Zill al-Sultān and the Nizami curriculum. The ishraqi school also attracted
Isfahān under the Qājārs. London: I.B. Tauris, 2008. the attention of Hindus and the Parsis of India.
Published in association with the Iran Heritage Foundation.
Likewise, the teachings of the ishraqi school spread
widely in the Ottoman Empire, especially in Anatolia,
Rudi Matthee and produced some notable figures such as Ismaqil
Professor of History Anqarawi, who lived in the seventeenth century CE. The
University of Delaware
complete history of this school in the Islamic world,
especially in India and the Ottoman Empire, has not
been fully studied. As for the West, Suhrawardi was not
translated into Latin but there are indications that some
ISHRAQI SCHOOL of his ideas were known in the Latin West perhaps
The term ishraq, from the Arabic root sh-r-q, meaning through Hebrew sources and a number of Jewish philos-
both illumination and orient, has been used in a general ophers who were ishraqi in their perspective.
sense in several contexts in Islam, including in reference The ishraqi school holds that the origin of philoso-
to certain currents of Sufism. More specifically, however, phy is divine revelation and that this wisdom was handed
the term ishraqi refers to the school of philosophy/theo- down in ancient times to the Persians and the Greeks,
sophy founded by Shaykh Shihab al-Din Suhrawardi in creating two traditions that met again in Suhrawardi,
the twelfth century CE. The most important source of this who spoke explicitly of eternal wisdom or the perennial
school of thought is the major opus of Suhrawardi, philosophy. This school believes that authentic philoso-
Hikmat al-ishraq (‘‘Theosophy of the Orient of Light’’ phy must combine the training of the mind with the
also known as The Philosophy of Illumination), which is purification of the heart and that all authentic knowledge
also the name of this school in traditional Islamic lan- is ultimately an illumination. The ishraqis always empha-
guages. Certain other works of Suhrawardi, especially his sized the unbreakable link between philosophy and spi-
Hayakil al-nur (Temples of light), are also of much rituality and the salvific power of illuminative knowledge.
importance for the later ishraqi tradition. They considered God to be the ‘‘Light of lights’’ and all
After Suhrawardi was killed by the political author- degree of cosmic reality to be levels and grades of light.
ities in Aleppo in 587/1191, followers of his teachings They rejected the sensualist epistemology of Aristotle and
went underground for a generation. However, in the were critical of not only Aristotelian cosmology but also
middle thirteenth century CE two major commentaries of his logic and epistemology.
on Hikmat al-ishraq appeared, the first by Shams al-Din During the twentieth century the teachings of Suh-
Shahrazuri and the second by Qutb al-Din Shirazi, the rawardi were introduced to the West by Henry Corbin
next two major figures of the ishraqi school. From that and have attracted many European philosophers. In Per-
time on, the teachings of this school became widespread, sia and certain other Islamic countries there is also a
especially in Persia, where Suhrawardi was from. Such major revival of interest in Suhrawardi and the ishraqi
figures as qAllama al-Hilli and Jalal al-Din Dawani wrote school.
commentaries on Suhrawardi in the thirteenth and four- SE E ALS O Ibn al-qArabi (560/1165–638/1240); Mulla
teenth centuries CE. The founder of the School of Isfa- Sadra (c. 980/1572–1050/1640); Philosophy; Sufism;
han, Mir Damad, who lived in the Safavid period that Wahdat al-Wujud.
began in Persia in 904/1499 and lasted until the eight-
eenth century, was influenced by Suhrawardi and used
the name Ishraq for his pen name. Mulla Sadra, his BIBLIOGRAPHY
student, wrote one of the major works of the ishraqi Aminrazavi, M. Suhrawardi and the School of Illumination.
school, his annotations on the Hikmat al-ishraq. Later London: Curzon, 1997.
Persian philosophers such as Sabziwari were also deeply Corbin, Henry. History of Islamic Philosophy. Translated by
interested in ishraqi teachings, and some philosophers L. Sherrard. London: Kegan Paul International, 1993.
such as the nineteenth-century philosopher Shihab al- Khan, Masood Ali, and S. Ram. Sufism and Suhrawardi Order.
Din Kumijani were purely ishraqi figures. New Delhi: Anmol Publications, 2003.
Nasr, Seyyed Hossein. The Islamic Intellectual Tradition in Persia.
The school of ishraq also spread into India and had London: Curzon, 1996.
many followers there, including Fathallah Shirazi and
Walbridge, John. ‘‘Suhrawardi and Illuminationism.’’ In The
Muhammad Sharif Hirawi. Suhrawardi’s teachings Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philosophy, edited by Peter
became in fact a part of the program of traditional Adamson and Richard C. Taylor. New York: Cambridge
Islamic madrasas—a program that came to be known as University Press, 2005.

Islam
Ziai, H. Knowledge and Illumination. A Study of Suhrawardi’s In contemporary discourse, popular and academic,
Hikmat al-ishraq. Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1990. in print or in electronic media, the term Islam is often
Ziai, H. ‘‘Suhrawardi on Knowledge and the Experience of used to denote the whole of the Muslim world insofar as
Light.’’ In The Presence of Light: Divine Radiance and Religious this extended global community seems to constitute a
Experience, edited by Matthew Kapstein. Chicago: University
unifiable whole when thought of as primarily a religious
of Chicago Press, 2004.
community. This usage by non-Muslim commentators
suggests that Islam represents a sociocultural framework
S. H. Nasr that is distinguishable from the one in which they
University Professor of Islamic Studies are writing, usually, but not solely, a Western (Euro-
The George Washington University American) one. Muslims also use it self-referentially to
denote a religious and historical continuum stretching all
the way back to the foundation of the community by the
prophet Muhammad in the early seventh century CE; but,
ISLAM as with all continua, the two extremities will obviously be
Technically in Arabic, the term islam is the fourth infin- quite distinct. Despite the demographic spread over vast
itive form of the verbal root s-l-m, meaning ‘‘submis- geographies and historical evolution, it is at least of
sion,’’ producing aslama, ‘‘s/he has submitted,’’ and anthropological interest that both non-Muslims and
muslim, ‘‘one who has submitted.’’ In the definite form, Muslims continue to find it meaningful to articulate,
al-islam denotes the religion founded by the prophet whether deliberately or unconsciously, this perceived
Muhammad in early seventh-century CE Mecca and its continuity by employing the term Islam to refer to a
principal tenets and rituals as these subsequently evolved; pivotal cultural driver of Muslim societies, communities,
in addition, and at a stroke, al-islam is the koine (com- countries, and states across the globe. In other words, it is
mon language) of the social imaginary of more than a perceived by all those who use the term Islam that the
billion adherents around the globe. The numerous pos- Muslim world is that world in which Islam the religion—
sible configurations of the relationship between the as a set of historically transmitted teachings, ritual obli-
received historical tradition (mediated by its scholastic gations, praxis, and authoritative texts—still informs,
guardians but increasingly appropriated by new actors) with a perceptible primacy, sociopolitical as well as
and varied cultural contexts constitute locally and sub- cultural and behavioral attitudes: It is the canvas that
jectively for its adherents this world of Islam. From the sustains the tapestry of their modern imaginary.
inception of this community to the present, the psycho-
spiritual and existential act of ‘‘submission’’ is what for A METHODOLOGICAL POINT
all Muslim practitioners quintessentially characterizes the The epistemic validity of the term, however, does not
message of the Prophet and the teachings of the scripture imply an analytical usefulness. By way of contrast, one
revealed to him as the Qurpan. More mundanely, for might consider how useful a term such as Christianity
others born within the cultural perimeters of the world would be for analyzing contemporary Western societies
of Islam, and given modern dislocations, increasingly whose historico-cultural backdrop it informs. It may well
without such traditional geographical boundaries, Islam be admitted that Muslim societies are more Muslim than
is inextricably tied to notions of cultural and political Christian ones are Christian (a point discussed further
identity. below), but even such an heuristic infelicity serves only to
Within a decade of Muhammad’s death (in 11/632) underline the importance of context and place for under-
this incipient community had been transformed from an standing how meaning is generated by individual actors
Arabian polity centered in Medina to a bureaucratic state to whose collective actions one applies a unitary concept.
that had appropriated the heartlands of the Near East The familiarity and resonance of the term Islam belies its
from its former Byzantine and Persian overlords. Within conceptual complexity when measured against human
less than a century thereafter, by the year 92/711, the time and within those specific cultural productions in
Islamic state had become an empire stretching from which it can acquire any real signification. A simple
Spain to India, heralding the advent of a major world definition of Islam would be the set of religious pillars
civilization. Islam, over the last 1,300 years of its subse- (arkan) consisting of the testimony (shahada) of the
quent political and social development, has come to unicity of God and the apostleship of Muhammad, the
infuse, nourish, and culturally command societies from ritual prayers (salat), the Ramadan fast (sawm), the alms
the Atlas Mountains to the Indonesian archipelago and, tax (zakat), and the major pilgrimage (hajj). Yet, quite
as a result of twentieth-century migration patterns, also apart from the dubious benefit of such technical item-
major communities in Western and other non-Muslim izations, Islam is also in the here and now the living
countries. tradition of 1.6 billion individuals, and in its localized
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Islam Not For Sale

realities are refracted sundry elements of those other ISLAM: THE PERIOD OF THE PROPHET
specific cultural contexts that enflesh and animate it. (610–11/632)
And then there is the historical flux somewhere in Two of the earliest sources for the history of the Muslim
between. So how best to approach the term given its community are the Qurpan (revealed between 610 and
history and its contemporaneity? Neither a purely dia- 11/632) and the Constitution of Medina, a treaty con-
chronic nor a synchronic approach can satisfy, for two cluded by Muhammad with the townsfolk of the town of
reasons. Yathrib (Medina) shortly after his arrival in the oasis in
The first reason is that the Muslim medieval textual 1/622. What is interesting about this second source is its
tradition—a very rich one at that—still plays a vital role minimal reference to the term islam or its participial form
in the dialectics of religious authority and identity. muslim(-un). Twice only does the term muslimun feature,
Islamic ritual observance in the eyes of its practitioners and it does so only to distinguish the believers who
continues to be defined by orthopraxy based on ortho- follow Muhammad and the Qurpan from the Jewish
doxy, and for that, religious authority is unequivocally believers who have their own law and then the first two
important. Religious authority in turn can be measured from all unbelievers (kuffar; singular kafir), principally
only against the textual tradition and its institutionalized the Arab polytheists (mushrikun) of the peninsula. In
disciplines (fiqh, shariqa). But those very disciplines cover other words, Islam here is used to denote a new kind of
many different aspects of life (from dietary considerations monotheist community, kindred to Judaism (and by
to morality), and so religious authority tends to extend its extension to Christianity), but which was centered on
sway into practically all corners of social interaction. Muhammad as prophet and the Qurpan as (his) scripture.
Indeed, this ongoing relationship with that tradition is Otherwise, what is more remarkable about the document
precisely the reason why anthropological researchers of is its constant reference to Muhammad’s followers as
the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries have ‘‘believers’’ (mupminun), and as them constituting a single
preferred to study Islam as a discursive tradition (Asad community (umma) alongside the Jewish believers of
1986), as opposed to a classical reification or an essenti- Medina.
alizing relativization.
In his 2010 book Muhammad and the Believers, Fred
Second, even momentarily leaving aside the contri-
M. Donner built on this and other data, including Qur-
butions of twentieth-century social theory to the aca-
panic verses, to demonstrate the extent to which the early
demic discourse that continues to aim for an objective
Muslim community—at least at the time of the Prophet
assessment of how and by whom meaning is socially
and arguably beyond—was ecumenical in nature, con-
generated, and hence how one can have anything sensible
ceiving of itself primarily as a community of believers
to say about terms such as Islam, one would still lack a
(mupminun) that expected to and could include other
consensus on the nature of what one is studying, how to
monotheists regardless of the latter’s historical confession.
study it, and how to account for constant change (cf.
The criteria for inclusion would have been the acceptance
Kreinath 2012). In modern society, principal discourse
of the Qurpan’s principal teachings on God’s unicity and
markers such as ‘‘identity’’ and ‘‘subjectivity’’ are often
the afterlife, as well as the observance of its laws. Histor-
applied analytically in academic contexts as justifiable
ically, however, it is known that with the evolution of
forms of definition and self-definition. But the protean
Muhammad’s followers from a community of believers
nature of these markers is further compounded by the
to a formal polity those confessional lines did ultimately
unrelenting use of mass media and new media in a social-
harden. But to understand the meaning of Islam for
networking age. Here, reflections on the definitions of
Muslims in this early period (and indeed for all later
modernity, as these relate to religion (Asad 2003), its
periods), the relationship between the two key terms
cultural performances and productions, its condition of
iman and islam deserves closer inspection. In fact, the
(disjunctive) globality (Appadurai 1996), its modes of
more that the lines hardened around those who came to
discourse and communication, and above all its episte-
be members of the Muslim community, the more that
mologies, should make clear what is at stake when one
the precise relationship between the two terms became
wants to aim at an analysis of the term Islam.
fundamental to the divisive theological debates of the
Be that as it may, any useful account of what Islam ensuing centuries.
might represent must begin with those historical water-
sheds that in retrospect have served to chart the path to )
the various referents of the term today and have been ISLAM: IN THE QUR AN
instrumental in the historical evolution of the societies The Qurpanic usage of the verbal noun islam and its
with which this term is necessarily associated and which related participial forms (muslim/muslimun; feminine
would consider themselves at the heart of any discourse muslimat) can be grouped into three major categories
relating to it. reflecting not so much a semantic shift as the emphasis

Islam
of the various degrees of the consummation of that act of ‘‘Ibrahim was neither a Jew nor a Christian, rather he was
‘‘submission,’’ each of which is temporally and spiritually a hanif, a Muslim’’ (3:67). The term hanif is of obscure
qualified. origin, but its occurrence (cf. Izutsu 2002) in other
(1) As an act of psychospiritual and existential sub- Qurpanic passages suggests a certain synonymy with islam
mission, islam qualifies iman (belief) and becomes its as categorized above in (1), including verse 16:120:
consummation, as stated in the Qurpan: ‘‘O you who ‘‘Indeed, Ibrahim was an example to be followed
believe, be wary of God with the wariness due to Him [umma], devoutly obedient to God, a hanif and not
and do not die except as Muslims’’ (3:102). Here, true one of the idolaters.’’
submission emerges from an augmented faith. To this (3) In the final category, verse 3:20 in particular
may be added 33:22: ‘‘But when the believers saw the stands out, where those who have given the scripture
[enemy] confederates, they said, ‘This is what God and (namely, Jews and Christians) as well as ‘‘those who have
His messenger had promised us, and God and His mes- not been recipients of scripture’’ namely, the Arabs) are
senger were truthful,’ and it only increased them in faith addressed: ‘‘So if they argue with you, say, ‘I have sub-
[iman] and submission [taslim]’’ (cf. also 3:102 and mitted my countenance to God and [so has] he who
16:102). This category of usage suggests very clearly that follows me.’ And say to those who were given the Scrip-
islam is the desirable psychospiritual disposition and the ture [ahl al-kitab] and those [scripturally] uninstructed
correct ontological relationship to the Creator and, [ummiyyun], ‘Do you submit?’ If they submit, they will
hence, the quintessence of the praxis known as religion certainly be guided; but if they turn away, then your duty
(din), as can be seen in Qurpanic verse 3:83: ‘‘Do they, is only to communicate [this message].’’ The fact that
then, seek a religion [din] other than God’s, while to believing communities (the people of the scripture) are
Him submits [aslama] whoever there is in the heavens being addressed suggests that the expectation was not so
and the earth, willingly or unwillingly?’’ This relationship much that they should abandon their scripture and laws
is confirmed by an earlier verse, 3:19, which states, as much as it was that they might recognize the divine
‘‘Indeed, for God religion [din] is submission [islam],’’ authority behind the Qurpan. Nevertheless, it may also be
and 3:85: ‘‘Should anyone seek a religion other than conceded that verses such as this last represent a possible
islam, it shall never be accepted from him, and he will semantic cusp in terms of the Qurpanic usage of the term
be among the losers in the Hereafter.’’ It could arguably islam. In these instances islam is clearly being used to
be possible to render these occurrences of islam as denote submission to the authority of the Prophet as
‘‘Islam,’’ namely, the formal religiopolitical community, arbiter and as lawgiver over an emerging religiopolitical
particularly if one considers that in the chronological community. The best-known instance of this comes in
order of revelations, these verses are Medinan and reflect verse 49:14: ‘‘The Arabs of the desert [aqrab] say, ‘We
the Prophetic mission toward its end. (It is also possible [now] have faith.’ Say [to them], ‘You do not have faith
to see how such verses might be easily taken in interreli- yet,’ rather say, ‘We have submitted,’ for faith has not yet
gious polemical contexts as denoting the abrogation of all entered into your hearts.’’ A few lines later, verse 49:17
other forms of religion by Islam.) Yet, in light of research reads, ‘‘They count it as a favor to you that they have
on the nature of the early Muslim community and its submitted. Say, ‘Do not count it as a favor to me that
self-perception in relation to the other monotheistic tra- you have submitted. Rather it is God who has done you a
ditions of seventh-century CE Arabia (Donner 2010) and, favor in that He has guided you to faith, should you be
more obviously, in light of other Qurpanic verses (both truthful.’’’ Verses 4:65, 9:74, 15:2, and 48:16 also sug-
Meccan and Medinan), such a reading seems arbitrary gest this ‘‘political’’ context.
and unnecessary. That Islam became formalized in ritual The Qurpanic usage may be summarized as follows:
and practice, politically self-conscious, and distinct from Islam is a psychospiritual disposition that defines an
Judaism and Christianity—let alone other monotheistic essential and required ontological relationship with God
currents—cannot be doubted; but this was a historically characterized by complete submission to the reality of the
subsequent development. One God, his power over death and destiny, and his
(2) The other major context of the usage may practi- ordinances. In this sense, islam is understood to be pri-
cally be considered a subset of (1), but because in this mordial and eternal and will be the defining character of
case islam is attributed to mostly biblical, historical fig- those who enter into Paradise in the hereafter; and finally
ures (as the Qurpan understands it), the category deserves it is the referent of a nascent religiopolitical community
an independent mention. Here, the focus of this pre- that is the recipient of Qurpanic laws and regulations and
ferred psychospiritual and devotional submission become that increasingly seems to be emphasizing the religious
the biblical patriarchs, primarily Ibrahim (Abraham) who and moral authority of the prophet Muhammad. In this
in more than one verse is said to have epitomized islam, last stage the historical trajectory of the Qurpan’s narrative
as ‘‘true and complete submission.’’ Another verse states, provides a glimpse of an expanding political entity that
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Islam Not For Sale

would require a formalization of the membership of society (Jews excepted) that despite the formalization of
this political community (as seen in Qurpanic verses the Muslim community as a distinct religiopolitical
49:14–17) and hence result in a politicization of the term community, the emphasis on iman would remain. In
itself. The speed with which Arabia came under the sway fact, the title of choice adopted by the Prophet’s succes-
of the political dominance of Medina and with which sors, the caliphs, was amir al-mupminin (commander of
conquests of the entire Near East and beyond would the faithful).
follow soon after the Prophet’s death meant that the Because the only sources that one can use to appre-
community could no longer depend on defining itself ciate the significance of the term islam in the premodern
simply as ‘‘a community of believers.’’ However much period are the texts that are extant, one might also con-
these first Muslims conceived of themselves as the per- sider the definitions given in two famous medieval Arabic
sonification and the historification of a primordial islam, lexicons. In his lexicon of Qurpanic terms, Mufradat alfaz
the sheer fact that the community would come to control al-Qurpan, al-Raghib al-Isfahani (d. c. 1108) gives the
vast expanses of land meant that all those populations following explanation of the term:
would have to be governed legally and militarily. Mere
belief (iman) could not be used to qualify membership, Islam, in legal terms is of two kinds: a lesser
quite apart from the fact that it was an inward reality that station than faith, which is the affirmation of
could not be objectively ascertained. It was the formal the tongue with which a person’s blood becomes
inviolate, regardless of whether it comes together
elements of this new believing community that had to be
with inner conviction or not; the second is that
used, and these, as the Constitution of Medina and there is a conviction in the heart and sincerity of
Qurpanic verses 49:14–17 demonstrate, were legal in action and submission to all that God has deter-
nature—that is, they had to do with the social and the mined and decreed as in the case of Abraham [cf.
observable and they could be referred to as Islam. Qurpan 2:131] and ‘‘Verily [true] religion in
Having surveyed the principal Qurpanic verses that God’s eyes is islam’’ [Qurpan 3:19]. (al-Isfahani
2002, 423, translated by Feras Hamza)
use the term islam and its related grammatical forms, it
should be cautioned that to isolate merely these Qurpanic A later, much larger lexicon of the Arabic language,
verses is far from the ideal way of forming a picture of the Lisan al-qArab, by Ibn Manzur (d. c. 711/1311) offers
how the identity of the Prophet’s community developed. the following elaboration:
Muslims—let alone exegetes, hadith specialists, or
jurists—would certainly not have read verses in isolation. Islam, submission is by the tongue and faith in
Their picture of the Qurpanic worldview came to be the heart; islam is to manifest compliance/sub-
formed by a holistic approach to the text: The Qurpan’s mission (khuduq) and the acceptance of what the
peculiar internal organization—nonchronological and Prophet has brought: that renders his person
inviolate so that his blood cannot be shed. If with
allusive—permits no other way. Indeed, if one were to
this outward affirmation there is in the heart
read chapter 9 of the Qurpan, one would have a sense of a belief and conviction then that is the faith that
clearly delineated religiopolitical, confessional commun- characterizes true Islam. However, as long as a
ity under the authority of the Prophet, even as the main person manifests affirmation of Islam, even if it is
term of reference remains the word believers (mupminun). in self-interest or to dissimulate, then he is to be
The only occurrence of the root islam is in reference to considered a Muslim under the Law (Ibn Manzur
certain members of this community who had formally 1999, 345, translated by Feras Hamza).
entered the community but disguised unbelief:
They swear by God that they did not say any- ISLAM: A QUESTION OF SCHISM (35/656–132/750)
thing [against the Prophet] when they had The two civil wars—the first from approximately 35/656
uttered the word of disbelief and disbelieved after
to 40/661, the second 60/680 to approximately 71/691,
their submission [islam] and planned what they
were unable to attain. . . . So if they repent it is which were fought over the question of the rightful
better for them; but if they turn away God will leadership to succeed the Prophet—split the Muslim
punish them in the life of this world and in the community definitively, so that the very community,
Hereafter (9:74). the label islam, became contested. The Kharijite rejection
of, initially, qAli’s, but then retrospectively also qUth-
Such ‘‘hypocrites’’ (munafiqun) were known to be man’s, caliphate, or imamate as most of these early
within the formal political community even as their dis- protagonists referred to the office, necessarily meant the
belief made them morally distinct from the rest of the election of another imam, because this religiopolitical
believers. Nevertheless, it is testament to the novelty of role could not be dispensed with. The result was a break-
the idea of a ‘‘community of believers’’ in Arabian tribal ing away, for these early schismatics meant to re-create

Islam
Illustration Showing the Battle of the Camel, the Prelude to the First Muslim Civil War (Fitna). This illustration from a
nineteenth-century Indian manuscript shows the armies of qApisha, widow of the prophet Muhammad, engaged in battle with the forces
of the fourth caliph qAli in 36/656 over the killing of the third caliph, qUthman. The conflict over succession of Muhammad’s position as
leader of the Muslim community led to the schism that continues between Sunnis and Shiqis today. THE ARMY OF AICHA AT THE BATTLE
)
OF DJAMAL IN 656, ILLUSTRATION FROM HAMLA-I-HAYDARI, BY MIRZA MUHAMMAD RAFI BAZIL, 1808 (VELLUM), INDIAN SCHOOL
(19TH CENTURY)/BIBLIOTHEQUE NATIONALE, PARIS, FRANCE/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES
the Muslim community anew and claimed this identity male bloodline through qAli’s marriage to the Prophet’s
to the exclusion of all other non-Kharijite Muslims. As a daughter Fatima. Again, after the second civil war, Shiq-
reconstituted community of believers, they could dis- ism can be seen as representing an ever more demarcated
pense with non-Kharijites, deeming all such nonaffiliates alternative ‘‘righteous community of believers’’ but one
as unbelievers whose blood and property were licit. Such that would itself struggle with the question of the rightful
initial extremism, however, served only to alienate them leader from among the many candidates within the
from the majority and in fact to engender further sub- Prophet’s male descendants.
division among these schismatics. In response to this highly fissiparous environment,
The Kharijite rejection of qAli in turn spurred the an antisectarian movement emerged, known as Murjip-
next major schism, that of Shiqism. This proto-Shiqism ism, that sought to put an end to the source of all these
was a general defense of qAli’s rightful imamate. But after splits by ‘‘deferring’’ (irjap) judgment on the very source
qAli’s assassination in 41/661, it became a reiteration of of all schisms, the merits and demerits of the early
the inherent right to the imamate of the Prophet’s only caliphs. By doing so, they were also, in effect, in the eyes
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of their opponents, deferring judgment on political person and that was needed to sustain the community for
offenders, who, given the inseparable religiopolitical its practical and devotional needs. The earliest, and thus
nature of the community, were by definition sinners. most important, sources (the biographies of the Prophet,
Again, the question was being raised, as it had during hadith collections, religious epistles, theological treatises,
the time of the Prophet, of what to do about internal compendia of legal dicta, Qurpanic commentaries, and
political conflict. Political offenses (against the commun- various individual creeds) all date to the above period. All
ity or its guiding leader, the imam) were religious are potentially rich sources for understanding the Muslim
offenses, and they would continue to be unless religious community’s reflections on its self-identity and the inter-
authority could be separated from political authority (but nal debates that raged over the question of islam.
not religion from politics), either by diluting the office of
)
the imam such that almost anyone could rule the com- Earliest Non-Qur anic Sources. The Muslim religious
munity or by accepting individuals’ commitment to the epistles are particularly interesting in this respect because
faith at face value. The latter solution came easily and they demonstrate that even as late as 100 years or more
fairly rapidly. The former took another 200 years to after the second civil war, the divisive issues created by
suggest itself and another 200 years to win the reluctant sectarian schism were still very much alive. Not many of
acknowledgement of all. these epistles can be firmly dated to before 132/750
The precedent for the ‘‘face value’’ approach to the (Cook 1981), and yet they clearly continued to find a
community of Islam had existed and was known from the receptive audience beyond the eighth century CE. Most of
Prophet’s own mission. As the Qurpan had indicated these early tracts dealt with the theological categories
(especially in chapters 8 and 9), there were individuals necessary to define the members of one’s own party and
whose true commitment to the faith was suspect (that is, the others from among the people of the qibla with
hypocrites) but whom God would expose in due course whom one had to coexist: Should one associate with or
or would deal with in his own way. This ‘‘face value’’ dissociate from (walap/walaya wa barapa) nonaffiliates?
was, in effect, the fact that outwardly all seemed to They thus frequently took up the theme of defining
observe the law, or, at least, its communal public rituals. ‘‘faith’’ (iman), ‘‘unbelief’’ (kufr), ‘‘hypocrisy’’ (nifaq),
And hence, the most common term of reference for Islam ‘‘sinfulness’’ (fisq), and ‘‘misguidance’’ (dalal ) within
as the community of Muslims in these sectarian debates the overall communal reference point of islam and
was ahl al-qibla (see Cook 1981): the people of the worked out the afterlife theology to support it. In fact,
direction of prayer (that is, the Kaqba). For the only thing an entire theological school (the Muqtazila) was born out
that overtly made all these rival claimants one community of the theological dilemma on the correct afterlife status
was that when they prayed, they would do so in the of the Muslim sinner.
direction of Mecca, and if they ever wanted to, they would Although the religious epistles are difficult to date
have to perform the pilgrimage at Mecca. None of the and cover a fairly extended time span, a firmer date can
other pillars of the faith—neither the testimony nor the be assigned to the earliest-known authentic Qurpanic
zakat payment (which in any case was to be collected by commentary—namely, that of Muqatil b. Sulayman al-
one’s choice of a rightful caliph/imam) or the fast—could Balkhi (d. c. 150/767). For Muqatil, islam principally
be as openly ascertained. Henceforth, the community’s means sincere devotion (ikhlas), a purity of faith, which is
religiopolitical divisions could be reconciled only theolog- why regarding 3:83, where it refers to all in the heavens
ically, and it was left to the literary tradition of each of the and the earth submitting (aslamu) to God, willingly or
major Muslim religiopolitical divisions to work out the unwillingly, the commentator glosses it as the Muslim
theological consequences of these fault lines. believers who do it willingly and the people of other
religions who do it unwillingly, because they recognize
that God is their Lord and is the one who created them,
ISLAM: A QUESTION OF THEOLOGY but in this submission (islam) of theirs they are in fact
(132/750–334/945) polytheists (mushrikun). In other words, for Muqatil it is
The period from the middle of the eighth century CE to only the followers of the Muhammadan message who are
the end of the tenth century CEsaw the rise of the Muslim the true and sincere affirmers of God’s oneness and thus
literary tradition. In large part this was made possible by of pure monotheism. This is further confirmed by his
the resources and urban literary environment that came commentary on 3:20. Here, religion (din) is affirmation
together under the Abbasid dynasty in Baghdad (132/ of his oneness (tawhid), and this affirmation of oneness is
750–656/1258). But as Islamic society became settled, itself islam (Sulayman 1989).
the rapid blossoming of this literary tradition was also a
natural step in the gathering of all (religious) knowledge Hadith. The other reasonably early source material is
that had hitherto mainly been transmitted orally and in hadith, a vast corpus of reports and statements attributed

Islam
that there is no god but God and that Muhammad is His

messenger, to establish ritual prayers, to give the required
charity, to perform the pilgrimage and to fast Ramadan’’
(bab no. 1, hadith no. 1).
Hadith collections are a particularly good example of
‘‘the world of Islam’’ as it appeared to each compiler.
These collections encompassed everything from the cor-
rect performance of ablutions to dietary guidance, and
from sacrificial slaughter to financial transactions and
apocalyptic reports about the end of days. In such col-
lections, the Prophet’s words and actions—in short, the
‘‘traditions’’ of the Prophet—were always recorded with a
paradigmatic concern. One famous tradition, known as
the hadith of Gabriel, records the archangel’s interroga-
tion of the Prophet regarding the definitions of islam and

iman. The report is narrated by qUmar ibn al-Khattab,
who describes how a man dressed in immaculate white
and with jet-black hair approached them in the company

of the Prophet and proceeded to ask the latter:
‘‘O Muhammad, tell me what is submission
[islam].’’ The Messenger of God answered him
saying: ‘‘Submission is to testify that there is no
God but God and that Muhammad is God’s
Messenger, to perform the prayer, bestow the
alms, fast Ramadan and make if you can, the
pilgrimage to the Holy House.’’ He said: ‘‘You
have spoken truly,’’ and we were amazed that
having questioned him he should corroborate
him. Then he said: ‘‘Tell me what is faith
[iman].’’ He answered: ‘‘To believe in God and
His Angels and His Books and His Messengers
) and the Last Day [the Day of Judgment], and to
Illustration of the Archangel Jibra il (Gabriel) Inspiring believe that no good or evil comes but by His
the Prophet Muhammad. This page from an eighteenth- Providence.’’ (see Wensinck 1932, for this and
century CE Ottoman manuscript is possibly a copy of a much older other variants)
hadith collection. Muslim scholars trace the origins of later
hadith collections to the teachings of the prophet Muhammad
that were originally transmitted orally. THE ARCHANGEL Heresiography. By the ninth to tenth centuries CE, as the
GABRIEL INSPIRING MOHAMMED IN THE MOSQUE OF MEDINA various religiopolitical groups and schools of theology
(GOUACHE ON PAPER), OTTOMAN SCHOOL (18TH CENTURY)/ began to coalesce around their individual bodies of writ-
MUSEUM OF TURKISH AND ISLAMIC ART, ISTANBUL, TURKEY/ ings and distinctive identities, questions regarding the
PHOTO ª AISA/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES
relationship between all these coreligionists (because all
claimed to be the proper community of islam) instigated
an entire genre of writing that was concerned with iden-
to the Prophet and leading figures of the early Muslim tifying which among those sundry Muslim sects was in
community, such as the generation of Companions and fact the rightly guided one, practiced the ‘‘correct’’ ver-
their successors. Navigating this dense material requires sion of Islam, and would thus attain salvation in the
knowledge of the various ways in which and the various hereafter. A major heresiographical (firaq) work was
purposes for which compilations, compendiums, and composed by Abu al-Hasan al-Ashqari (260/874–324/
collections of hadith were put together (J. Brown 935 or 936), who was initially a Muqtazili theologian
2009). Al-Bukhari’s (d. 256/870) Sahih is a well-known but then abandoned this intellectual camp and used its
and recognized collection of ‘‘sound traditions.’’ In one dialectical methods to champion the cause of the tradi-
of the Sahih books, Kitab al-iman (Book of faith), he tionalists (ahl al-hadith). In this work, titled Maqalat al-
records the following definition of islam: The Prophet Islamiyyin, Ashqari identifies the ahl al-sunna wa al-jamaqa
said, ‘‘Faith is founded upon five (pillars), to bear witness (the people of the sunna and the consensus) as those who
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Islam Not For Sale

follow the hadiths of the Prophet. The title of the work meaning to their Islamic identity and this faith can be
itself is interesting because it is not Muslimin but Islam- realized only by reflection.
iyyin that is used (something akin to one of the modern
usages of the term Islamist, wherein it is used to refer to Know, brother, that faith is said to be of two
kinds: outward (zahir) and inward (batin). Out-
individuals making claims on behalf of Islam but not
ward faith [i.e., islam?] is to affirm by the tongue
being representative of it in the eyes of the majority). five things: One is that the world has a single
Not only Sunnis, but so too the Twelver Imamis, as Living Maker, All-powerful and Wise, the Crea-
well as the Ismaqilis and the Muqtazilis, all composed tor of all creatures and the One who manages
heresiographical works in which they sought to demar- their affairs, in which [capacity] none shares. The
cate the righteous community—theirs—from all second [thing] is that He has angels, the select
others. In time, this genre lost steam and became at from among His creation, and whom He has set
best a literary curiosity, more for entertainment than up to worship and serve Him, and whom He has
for religious edification. made guardians of His world. . . . The third
[thing] is to affirm that He has chosen a group
from among the Children of Adam . . . to receive
Islam: A Question of Law. A major stage in the evolu- revelation and news from the angels. And the
tion of the term islam, in its sociolegal and political fourth is to affirm that these things which the
prophets bring, peace be upon them, in the way
parameters, was the development of the schools (madha-
hib; singular madhhab) of Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh). of revelations and news via different languages,
Despite the fissiparous picture painted by the contents of their signification are given to them by the angels
the heresiographical literature, Islam as a social and legal as inspiration and revelation. And the fifth is to
affirm that the resurrection shall come to pass
community remained tightly bound by its resilient and
inevitably. . . . As for inward faith, that is the
jurisprudential tradition. In the words of one scholar, certainty (yaqin) hidden in the hearts of the [nec-
‘‘Islam is, first and foremost, a nomocracy. The highest essary] realization (tahqiq) of these [five] things
expression of its genius is to be found in its law; and its affirmed by the tongue. That is the reality of
law is the source of legitimacy for other expressions of its faith. As for the believer, according to the out-
genius’’ (Makdisi 1979, 6). For the Sunni schools of law, ward aspect of this matter, he is the one who
no formalities were required for the transfer from one affirms these [five things] by his tongue, and who
school to another. The fact that for all Muslims their is thus distinguished from Jews and Christians,
school of law represented their interface with the institu- Sabians and Zoroastrians (magus) and polytheists;
tions of public life and the social sphere and that ulti- and it is with this affirmation that he becomes
liable to Muslim ordinances such as prayer, alms-
mately four of them coalesced under the same tax, pilgrimage and fasting and the like from
religiopolitical heading of Sunnism suggests a fairly cohe- among the obligations of the shariqa of Islam
sive socioreligious community that understood itself to be and the customary practice (sunna) of believers.
representative of Islam. These legal schools shaped Muslim As for those whom He has praised in His books
society in several important ways as the interface between and whom He has promised the Garden, they are
the rulers and the scholars, and again between the scholars the ones who have certain knowledge hidden in
and the larger strata of society (Hurvitz 2003). their hearts of the realities of these things [out-
wardly] affirmed. (Ikhwan al-Safa n.d., IV,
67–68, translated by Feras Hamza)
Islam: A Question of Philosophy (Tenth Century CE).
The philosophers for their part were interested in Islam
as a Muslim community primarily in terms of the extent ISLAM: A QUESTION OF POLITICAL THEORY
to which the latter could be aligned philosophically and (334/945–728/1328)
theologically with the Neoplatonic tradition and the The real development of political theory in Islam took
insights it offered. Thus, Abu Nasr al-Farabi (d. c. 339/ place at the hands of prominent theologians, underscor-
950) identified his ‘‘virtuous city’’ with the Muslim ing the essentially religious nature of society from top to
umma, and this latter was for Ibn Sina (d. 428/1037) bottom. Political changes were dramatic enough
the locus of the ‘‘ideal city’’ and where the virtuous life throughout the tenth century CE. In 334/945 the Abbasid
could exclusively be cultivated (Crone 2004). In a section caliphate in Baghdad was taken over by Persian (Zaydi
on ‘‘the essence of faith’’ (mahiyat al-iman), the tenth- Shiqa) soldiers, the Buyids. Elsewhere in Iraq, Shiqa doc-
century CE Ismaqili philosophers known as the Brethren trine was maturing and becoming recognizably distinct:
of Purity imply that islam is the outward aspect of faith; By 941 the twelfth of qAli’s descendants through his son
they do not mention the term islam itself, but the passage Husayn was declared to be in major occultation (ghayba).
below clearly implies it. It is ‘‘faith’’ that gives ultimate A major schism had taken place in 286/899 within

Islam
the broader Shiqa movement, known as the Ismaqilis. 447/1055—further proof, for al-Ghazali, of the
This schism then produced a dynasty, the Fatimids, that endemic political instability of the caliphate and the
would begin to establish itself in North Africa in the ever-present political and theological threat of the Fati-
year 296/909, seizing Egypt and founding Cairo around mids in the western Islamic lands as well as the Nizari
358/969. By the end of the tenth century CE, the Abba- Ismaqilis in the Syrian and Persian east—endangered the
sid lands were really no more than a series of successor conditions of socioreligious and political stability
states run by various military dynasts. All these chal- required for the fulfillment of an Islamic way of life.
lenges were monumental—militarily, politically, and This concern meant that even tyrannical rulers should
hence ideologically—for the Abbasid caliph, now con- be obeyed if such obedience averted the worst of all
sidered the bastion of emerging Sunni Islam. Not surpris- possible scenarios: civil strife and discord (fitna).
ingly then, the major theologians of this period shifted In fact, moving forward in time into periods of
their attention to theories of the caliphate, its relationship greater social and political upheaval, as with the Mongol
to other elements in Muslim society, and its necessity for invasions of the thirteenth century CE, the writings of the
the preservation of the Muslim community. period reflect a general concern with excising theological
Implicit in the works of all the major political the- heterodoxy and imposing strict obedience to the rule of
orists of this period is that the preservation of the social the authorities, even as that rule was increasingly seen to
order by means of the enforcement of the law demanded be temporal and coercive, as opposed to permanent and
the recognition of and obedience to the ruler. One of the spiritual. The figure that most epitomizes this tendency
best known of these is al-Ahkam al-sultaniyya (The ordi- was Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1328). For him the health of
nances of government) by al-Mawardi (d. 450/1058), in the community was ensured by a dual process of power,
which the author reiterates the following central points coercive if necessary, to maintain discipline and order,
about the necessity of government, already to some and of religious guidance that could be provided only by
extent expressed by his predecessors Abu Mansur ibn the true heirs of the Prophet: the ulema (Lambton 1981).
Tahir al-Baghdadi (d. 429/1037) and al-Baqillani (d. This necessary cooperation and division of labor between
403/1013): that the imam (or caliph) is necessary for the ruler and the ulema anticipates the general pattern of
the existence and well-being of the community, which Muslim societies from the time of Ibn Taymiyya argu-
is consummated through the imam’s execution of legal ably to the present day (which is also the reason why Ibn
judgments, the protection of Muslim territory, and his Taymiyya’s writings became popular with major reform
collection and administering of revenues, among other figures and movements in later periods down to the
things. In return for his safeguarding the social, eco- modern day).
nomic, and territorial conditions for the well-being of
the community, the community owed him obedience
(Lambton 1981). ISLAM: A QUESTION OF EMPIRE
(857/1453–1213/1798)
A major figure of the ensuing period was Abu
Hamid al-Ghazali (d. 505/1111), a theologian, jurist, In the wake of the Mongol conquests, the Muslim lands
and philosopher who wrote on many subjects and whose were up for grabs among all those who could muster
sundry writings suggest a holistic view of the imamate enough military power and organization as well as legiti-
and the Muslim community. The imamate for him was macy (frequently a consequence of the former). All of the
not simply about the practical functions of the caliph’s contenders were Turks, whether the Mamluks of Egypt,
office. Indeed, it was important that the caliph had power the Ottomans of Anatolia, the Safavids, or the very
because not only did he protect the lands and ensure the descendants of the Mongols, the Mughals of India. The
implementation of shariqa law by the appointment of Mamluks’ defeat of the Mongols in 658/1260 gave them
qadis (judges) who were essential for jurisprudence an opportunity at empire until they, in turn, were
(fiqh), but he also allowed for an entire way of life. By defeated in 923/1517 by the rapidly expanding empire of
guaranteeing the social institutions and social order, the the Ottomans. The Turkic Seljuqs and Mamluks had both
imam facilitated the observance of all those religious established a pattern in which a non-Arab Muslim state
rituals that were essential for the spiritual path on which could be established as an autonomous, self-legitimating,
all Muslims were enjoined to proceed in anticipation of and militarily independent entity even as it shared borders
the hereafter. Al-Ghazali was a pragmatist and recog- with other Muslim powers.
nized that true Islam could be achieved only through a For the next three centuries after the emergence of
combination of adherence to shariqa, the performance of the Ottomans in the central lands and to the west, the
rituals, and a sound theology on which a transformative Islamic world was divided into Ottomans, Safavids, and
psychology of the soul could be based. The arrival of Mughals. All three are considered empires in the full
new Turkic powers in Baghdad under the Seljuqs in sense; all three were Muslim, but Islam in each of these
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polities was defined by a complex combination of state- al-Afghani (1838–1897), and their al-qUrwa al-wuthqa;
sponsored religion, state-subsidized architectural projects, qAbduh’s disciple Rashid Rida (1865–1935) and the al-
and the state support of the ulema. In the Ottoman Manar journal; the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood,
world, Islam was driven by the ghazi (holy warrior) spirit Hasan al-Banna (1906–1949); Abu al-Aqlap Maududi
of military conquest and expansion mainly into non- (1903–1979); or even Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini
Muslim realms (crucially, Europe, with the capture of (1902–1989), with the latter-day equivalent of mass
Constantinople in 1453), and ultimately adopted the communication, the audiocassette. All these individuals
Hanafi Sunni school of law for its administrative and were in one way or another reformers. And although the
religious functions. The Safavid sultans embraced Shiqa tradition of reformist thinking was not unknown before
Islam, sponsored its ritual and public devotions, and the twentieth century (the diametrically opposed Sufis
sought legitimacy in the leading scholars of the Shiqa and the Wahhabis being a case in point; cf. D. Brown
community, whereas the Mughals negotiated an ethni- 2009), it was with the military presence mostly of the
cally and religiously diverse territory, brokering alliances British, but also of the French, that Muslim reformism
with native Hindu elites as much as they did with Mus- took off. So much so, in fact, that to this day, Islam is as
lim ones (Lapidus 2014). Any assessment of what Islam much about ‘‘reform’’ as it is about anything else.
meant across the three Asian imperial domains during
this period would require a study not just of the relation-
ISLAM: A QUESTION OF REFORM
ship between state and society but also of the material
culture of these empires, because all three generated con- In the eyes of Muslim intellectuals who pondered the
siderable outputs in terms of art, architecture, and liter- atrophy of Islamic societies, the phenomenal debut of
ature that captured the aesthetic and devotional Islam as a political and cultural force in world history was
sensibilities of each of these Muslim communities and matched only by the phenomenal demise of much of its
reflected the sociocultural contexts in which they were political and intellectual traditions. As they watched from
found. the sidelines the inexorable march of European modern-
ity through Islamic lands from North Africa to South
Asia, reform-minded Muslims pondered the causes of
ISLAM: A QUESTION OF EUROPE this predicament. The common explanation was worded
(1213/1798–1950) in terms of a moral departure from authentic Islamic
The arrival of Napoléon Bonaparte’s French army in practice. With the demise of the three major sultanate
Egypt in 1213/1798 is usually taken as a watershed in remnants of the original Islamic political state—the post-
the history of Muslim lands. Although short lived and Mongol Ottomans, the Safavids, and the Mughals—
almost immediately replaced by a British imperial pres- these successor Muslim lands came under the sway of
ence in 1801, the invasion was the shape of things to Western colonial powers: principally the British and the
come. The economy of the Muslim Mediterranean was French but to some extent (in the case of the Iranian
already in a European orbit: Economic hegemony was lands) the Russians as well.
simply the prelude to political, technological, scientific, From about the middle of the eighteenth century CE
and ultimately cultural hegemony. By the end of the in Iran (with the advent of the Qajars), the middle of the
nineteenth century no Muslim lands were outside the nineteenth century in India (the British), and by the end
purview of European imperialism. of World War I (1914–1918), Islamic societies entered a
But just as the arrival of European modernity pro- new form of political organization, adopted and adapted
voked responses by Muslims concerned with the preser- from the colonial powers that militarily or culturally had
vation of their religiocultural heritage, so also the arrival established their hegemony in their lands. Sociolegal
of European technology allowed for the expression of relationships were reorganized with reference to a central
these responses by various voices across the central Mus- national government, some form of constitution, and a
lim lands. In particular, the arrival of the printing press new national identity (thus was the case from Bangladesh
(in 1821 in Egypt) ushered in a new period in which the to Mauritania in the West). This vastly changed political
representatives of Muslim society were no longer exclu- reality had consequences for the management of religious
sively the literate ulema or state officials but a whole affairs in what was still a largely religious society. Govern-
strata of society educated in new institutions imported ments of these various new nation-states began to play a
from Europe (Bulliet 2004). Seminal moments in the major, if not principal, role in the definition of the
history of modern Islamic reform all drew on the power political, legal, and even social parameters of Islam. The
of the press, whether it was the father of Islamic modern- traditional guardians of the institutions of Islam, such as
ism, the Egyptian Muhammad qAbduh (1849–1905), the madrasas, were subsumed into governmental struc-
the anti-imperialist pan-Islamic rouser, Jamal al-Din tures, as governments in various ways expropriated the

Islam
Young Muslim Women at a Salafist Rally in Offenbach/Main, Germany, 2014. Contemporary definitions of Muslim identity
are often framed with reference to tradition. The tension associated with just how to accomplish that balance has resulted in competing
views, notably between liberal secularists and conservative Islamists. Salafist-based teachings offer a simplified program for piety and
emphasize outward conformity, thus providing relatively easy access to religious ‘‘authenticity,’’ especially for Muslims in non-Muslim
majority societies. ª BORIS ROESSLER/CORBIS WIRE/DPA/CORBIS
traditional means of independence of these individuals basis of society is concerned, in terms of both its political
and their institutions (namely, the vast awqaf [singular and social institutions, which has had to be reconfigured
waqf ], or religious endowments). Religious courts based within the modern and only form of sociopolitical organ-
on the traditional Islamic schools of law gave way to a ization: the (in principle, secular) nation-state.
central government-appointed judiciary that retained All the reactions to this single changed reality can be
overarching jurisdiction and whose decisions carried ulti- placed along a spectrum: At one end sit Muslim secula-
mate legal force. National programs aimed at moderniza- rists, some liberals, intellectuals, and modernists who seek
tion via mass literacy installed the familiar institutions to assimilate and adapt this Euro-American construct to
of primary, secondary, and tertiary education. Even in their cultural contexts; and at the other extreme are
the traditional religious centers of education (such as al- Islamists of various stripes who reject the moral legiti-
Azhar), curricula were modified, expanded, or restricted macy of this sociopolitical order and seek to replace the
as governments saw fit. modern nation-state with an Islamic one. Along the long
This dislocation of the authority of the traditional middle of the spectrum can be found ulema with varying
guardians of religious thought and practice, the ulema, degrees of inclination toward either end. Some ulema are
already meant the entry of new actors into the field. The indeed in favor of retaining the framework of the existing
various governments of these nation-states have been the sociopolitical order but with the medieval division of
dominant ones, but they have not been the only ones or labor whereby they retain guardianship of shariqa law
the loudest. To understand Islam in the twentieth and and statecraft is left to secular rulers (the ulema of Egypt
twenty-first centuries is to understand the displacement and Saudi Arabia are differing examples of this same
undergone by the Islamic world as far as the religious tendency). Some ulema have been more Islamist in their
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spectral inclination, with Khomeini being a good exam- (including those at Cambridge University and George-
ple. Others, such as Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah town University), and led to the creation of various Inter-
(1935–2010) and Yusuf al-Qaradawi (1926–), have been net publications calling for religious tolerance (such as the
more open to notions of assimilating elements of modern Amman Message and the ‘‘Common Word’’ letter).
democracy, albeit by defining it according to shariqa law.
Moving away from the middle where most of the ulema
ISLAM: WHAT’S IN A BOOK TITLE?
tend to be positioned with regard to the position they
adopt with regard to modernity and the nation-state, one The fact that Islam has to undergo ‘‘rethinking’’ or be
begins to encounter degrees of Islamism. Broadly, yet ‘‘unthought,’’ so to speak, (because much of it is based
essentially, what distinguishes Islamists from non-Islam- not on reason but on what is dogmatic) or that it is ‘‘in
ists is the insistence on a political commitment to shariqa transition,’’ or that there are ‘‘new voices’’ in it—all of
law and that this last should be implemented publicly (on which are words or phrases found in the titles of books
all of these somewhat porous categories, see Euben and published since the late twentieth century (see Arkoun
Zaman 2009). 1994, 2002; Donohue and Esposito 2006; Kamrava
2006, respectively)—speaks volumes about the current
The struggles between Islamists and the ulema and
predicament of Islam in modern society, be it in the
both of these and Muslim intellectuals and all of these
Muslim world or in the non-Muslim world. Indeed, the
and the modern state necessarily entail debates about the
extent of the permeation of the sensibilities associated
nature of religious authority in contemporary Islam
with Euro-American modernity into Muslim debates
(cf. Krämer and Schmidtke 2006). With the opening
can be gauged by the increasing salience of discussion
up of new spaces, mainly thanks to new media, all sorts
in books dealing with contemporary Islam of concepts
of new social actors have appeared to contest the place of
and values such as the public space and individualism
Islam in both Muslim and non-Muslim societies. The
(see Sajoo 2008), as well as, of course, of the very modern
increasing receptivity of Muslims to media and access to
questions of identity and subjectivity (see Jung, Petersen,
key Islamic texts alongside the marginalization of the
and Sparre 2014). So much is novel and so sweeping are
ulema as guarantors of orthodoxy and orthopraxy via their
the changes that some propose a ‘‘new anthropology’’ in
knowledge of the tradition have allowed for a seeming
order to more objectively locate ‘‘Islam’’ (see Bowen
commodification of religious authority and a notable
2012). The thus-far hegemonic character of Euro-
homogeneity in terms of observable religiosity—that is,
American secular humanism as a determinant of modern-
in the details of ritual, piety, demeanor, dress, and body
ity (cf. Asad 2003) and the not unconnected, concomitant
language. The phenomenon of Salafism—the focus of a
atrophy of Islamic institutions in terms of their intellectual
number of studies (see Meijer 2009)—is a classic case in
vigor and as traditional dilutants of extremism have
point. The increasing phenomenon of globality in the
saddled modern states—Euro-American and Islamicate
twentieth and twenty-first centuries, which has seen the
alike—with a growing rise in militant movements that
uninterrupted diffusion of Euro-American modern values
proclaim themselves as the only proponents of ‘‘true
across the globe, particularly of a secularizing liberalism,
Islam’’—a phenomenon that continues to defy even
has called into question the place of religion in modern
anthropological analysis.
society. So much so that Muslims of all persuasions,
whether Sunni or Shiqa, have made common cause in SE E ALS O Abbasids; Ahl al-Hadith; Constitution of
order to close ranks in their defense of a shared religious Medina; Fitna; Hadith; Heresiography; Ibn Taymiyya
heritage. (662/1263–729/1328); Ijtihad; Imam; Jihad;
For a while the rapprochement approach of taqrib Kharijites; Khilafat Movement; Modernism and
(bringing closer together) seemed like a rational antidote Modernity; Mughals; Muhammad, the Prophet
to lingering sectarianism in regions such as the Middle (c. 570–11/632); Ottomans; Pan-Islam; Pillars of
East. But the U.S.-led dismantling of Iraq after the 2003 Islam; Political Islam; Postmodernism; Qurpan;
invasion, the geopolitical realities of oil in the Persian Safavids; Salafiyya; Secularism; Secularization; Sunna;
Gulf region, the rising tide of militant and intolerant Tafsir; Traditionalism; Ulema; Umma.
Islam (both Sunni and Shiqa), and the practical failure
of many of the region’s Muslim states to extend the basics BIBLIOGRAPHY
of social justice to their citizenry have meant all but the
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Bulliet, Richard W. Islam: The View from the Edge. New York: Ormsby, Eric. Ghazali: The Revival of Islam. Oxford: Oneworld,
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Bulliet, Richard W. The Case for Islamo-Christian Civilization. Rahman, Fazlur. Islam. 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago
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Crone, Patricia. Medieval Islamic Political Thought. Edinburgh: Oneworld, 2000.
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Princeton Readings in Islamist Thought: Texts and Contexts Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1973.
from al-Banna to Bin Laden. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Wensinck, A. J. The Muslim Creed: Its Genesis and Historical
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Hurvitz, Nimrod. ‘‘From Scholarly Circles to Mass Movements: 1932.
The Formation of Legal Communities in Islamic Societies.’’ Zaman, Muhammad Qasim. The Ulama in Contemporary Islam:
American Historical Review 108, no. 4 (2003): 985–1008. Custodians of Change. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Ibn Manzur. Lisan al-Arab. Edited by Amin qAbd al-Wahhab and Press, 2002.
Muhammad al-Sadiq al-qUbaydi, 18 vols. Beirut: Dar Ihya Zaman, Muhammad Qasim. Modern Islamic Thought in a
al-Turath al-Arabi, 1999. Radical Age: Religious Authority and Internal Criticism.
Ikhwan al-Safa. Rasapil Ikhwan al-Safa. 4 vols. Edited by Butrus Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
al-Bustani. Beirut: Dar Sadir, n.d.
Isfahani, al-Raghib al-. Mufradat Alfaz al-Qurpan. Edited by
Safwan Adnan Dawudi. Damascus: Dar al-Qalam, 2002. Feras Hamza
Izutsu, Toshihiko. Ethico-religious Concepts in the Qurpān. Rev. Associate Professor in the
ed. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2002. First Master of International Studies Program
published 1966. University of Wollongong, Dubai
Jung, Dietrich, Marie Juul Petersen, and Sara Lei Sparre. Politics
of Modern Muslim Subjectivities: Islam, Youth, and Social
Activism in the Middle East. New York: Palgrave Macmillan,
2014. ISLAMIC JIHAD
Kamrava, Mehran, ed. The New Voices of Islam: Reforming Politics
and Modernity; A Reader. London: I.B. Tauris, 2006.
Islamic Jihad is the name given to two jihadi groups
Krämer, Gudrun. Hasan al-Banna. Oxford: Oneworld, 2010. emerging from the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood dur-
Krämer, Gudrun, and Sabine Schmidtke, eds. Speaking for Islam: ing the late 1970s: Tanzim al-Jihad and Harakat al-Jihad
Religious Authorities in Muslim Societies. Leiden, Netherlands: al-Islami fi Filastin. Tanzim al-Jihad, also called Islamic
Brill, 2006. Jihad, the Jihad Organization, and the Egyptian Islamic
Not For Sale

Islamic Revolution in Iran Not For Sale

Jihad (EIJ), was founded by Muhammad qAbd al-Salam Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories. With
Faraj in Cairo in 1979. Using Faraj’s booklet al-Farida the murder of al-Shaqaqi by the Mossad (the Israeli
al-ghapiba (The neglected duty) as an ideological basis intelligence service) in 1995, Ramadan qAbdullah Shalah
and advocating a greater use of violence than that used by was appointed general secretary of the group. Shalah has
the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, the EIJ aimed to supported the idea of creating one state in Israel in which
replace the Egyptian government with a caliphate based all citizens—Muslims, Christians, and Jews—have equal
on shariqa. In furtherance of this aim the EIJ has under- rights. The PIJ, believed to be funded by Iran, is cur-
taken assassination attempts on prominent political fig- rently based in Damascus, Syria. With branches in Soma-
ures, such as the unsuccessful attacks on the Egyptian lia, Iran, and Lebanon, the PIJ has an estimated
prime minister Atef Sidqi in 1993 and president Hosni membership of about 300. The group presents its ideol-
Mubarak in 1995, and attacks on government buildings, ogy in two official periodicals: al-Mujahid and al-Islam
such as the bombing of the Egyptian embassy in Islam- wa al-Filistin. In 1997 the United States officially des-
abad, Pakistan, in 1995. In 1981 Khalid al-Islambouli ignated the PIJ as a terrorist organization.
and other EIJ operatives assassinated Egyptian president SE E ALS O Egypt; Jihad; Muslim Brotherhood; Palestine;
Anwar al-Sadat because of Sadat’s failure to implement Political Islam; Qaqida, al-; Terrorism.
shariqa, his granting of greater civil rights to women,
and his signing of the Camp David agreement with
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Israel in 1978. Following Sadat’s assassination Ayman
al-Zawahiri and other EIJ members were imprisoned, Alexander, Yonah. Palestinian Religious Terrorism: Hamas and
while al-Islambouli and Faraj were executed. Islamic Jihad. Ardsley, NY: Transnational Publishers, 2002.
al-Ghoul, Asmaa. ‘‘Palestinian Islamic Jihad: Iran Supplies All
On his release from prison, al-Zawahiri, with Sayyid Weapons in Gaza.’’ In Al-Monitor, trans. Joelle El-Khoury, 14
Imam al-Sharif, reestablished the EIJ in Peshawar, Paki- May 2013. http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/
stan, with al-Zawahiri assuming leadership in 1991. The 05/gaza-islamic-jihad-and-iranian-arms.html
EIJ, the first Sunni group to use suicide bombers, Barsky, Yehudit. Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine. New York:
attacked U.S. and Israeli interests in Egypt and elsewhere. American Jewish Committee, 2002.
Many EIJ members were arrested in 1993 when their Fletcher, Holly. ‘‘Palestinian Islamic Jihad,’’ 10 April 2008.
Council on Foreign Relations. http://www.cfr.org/israel
personal details were disclosed on a computer seized by /palestinian-islamic-jihad/p15984
the authorities. The EIJ lost much popular support with Guenena, Nemat. The Jihad: An Islamic Alternative in Egypt.
the unintended killing of a schoolgirl, Shayma Abdel- Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 1986.
Halim, during the assassination attempt on Sidqi. In Mannes, Aaron. Profiles in Terror: The Guide to Middle East
2001 the EIJ joined with al-Qaqida, forming Qaqida al- Terrorist Organizations. Lanham, MD: Rowman and
Jihad. Listed as a terrorist group by the United Nations, Littlefield. 2004.
the EIJ has bases in several countries, including Sudan, Van Engeland, Anisseh, and Rachael M. Rudolph. ‘‘The Islamic
Yemen, and Albania. Jihad Movement in Palestine: A Wild Card in Palestinian
Politics?’’ Chap. 5 in From Terrorism to Politics, 97–117.
Harakat al-Jihad al-Islami fi Filastin (Islamic Jihad Aldershot, England, and Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing,
Movement in Palestine), also known as the Palestinian 2008. Reprint, Farnham, England: Ashgate, 2011.
Islamic Jihad (PIJ), was formed by Fathi al-Shaqaqi and Wright, Lawrence. The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to
qAbd al-qAziz qAuda in 1979. Its founders having left the 9/11. New York: Knopf, 2006.
Muslim Brotherhood, mainly because of the Brother-
hood’s willingness to participate in the political system, Simon Ross Valentine
and inspired by the 1979 Iranian revolution, the PIJ aims Independent Scholar, Islamic and Religious Studies
to create an Islamic state in Palestine and destroy Israel.
Following the assassination of Sadat, al-Shaqaqi and
qAuda were exiled, first to Syria then Lebanon. The
Saraya al-Quds, or al-Quds Brigades—the PIJ’s military ISLAMIC REVOLUTION IN IRAN
wing, which was formed in 1981—has regularly carried No other event in Iran’s modern history has had a more
out large-scale suicide bombings and rocket attacks profound and transformative impact on the country’s
against Israeli civilian and military targets. political institutions, cultural life, economy, and foreign
In 1994 the PIJ was one of eight jihadi groups that relations than the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The revolu-
formed a coalition called the National Alliance. The PIJ tion represented, furthermore, the first major victory of
has refused to recognize Israel as a state, has rejected the political Islam to oust a powerful secular regime and
idea of a two-state solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, establish an ‘‘Islamic government’’ in its place. As in
and rejected the 1993 Oslo Accord, demanding full the case of other ‘‘great revolutions’’ in modern history,

Islamic Revolution in Iran
echoes of the Iranian revolution were felt well beyond the to serious shortages, higher unemployment rates, and,
country’s own geographic boundaries—in this case, above all, frustrated expectations on the part of those
reverberating throughout the Muslim world. And yet it who had experienced a significant rise in their income
was, by all accounts, an unexpected, anachronistic, and, and standards of living in the previous several years.
to many, an ‘‘unthinkable’’ revolution.
The political upheavals that ultimately led to the THE SHAH’S FAILED LIBERALIZATION AND AN
collapse of the Pahlavi monarchy (1925–1979) took EMBOLDENED OPPOSITION
place over a period of less than two years, beginning in
As is often the case with authoritarian regimes, the new
1977 and ending with the revolution’s triumph on 11
wave of open antigovernment protests and confrontations
February 1979. This rapidly escalating course of events—
did not begin as a result of any new repressive measures
from the circulation of open letters of protests by a few
by the state but as unintended consequences of a loosen-
moderate members of the opposition to an all-embracing
ing by the regime of its tight control over the civil
revolution that pitted nearly the entire society against the
society. In February 1977 the shah ordered the release
state—had its deeper roots in the decades-long tensions,
of a number of political prisoners along with changes in
conflicts, and occasional confrontations between the

court rules that would allow those charged with political
regime of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi (r. 1941–
offenses to be tried in civilian rather than military courts.
1979) and several key segments of the Iranian society.
He also permitted visits by representatives from interna-

Chief among these longer-term sources of discontent and
tional human rights organizations and groups, including
political conflict were the authoritarian and arbitrary
Amnesty International and the International Red Cross,
nature of the shah’s rule, which effectively denied all
to probe and discuss the treatment of political prisoners.
opportunities for meaningful political participation to
A new human rights organization, the Iranian Society for
ordinary citizens; press censorship and other constraints
the Defense of Human Rights, was formed in Iran itself
on freedom of expression; the absence of free elections
with the reluctant approval of the authorities. Beyond
and legislative authority as promised by the 1906 Iranian
these measures, on several occasions the shah made
constitution; and harsh treatment (including imprison-
promises to the effect that human rights, political liber-
ment, torture, and executions) by the country’s ubiqui-
alization, and economic justice would henceforth receive
tous secret police (the SAVAK) and other state security
greater attention by the government.
agencies of those accused of antiregime activities. Other
political tensions arose from the persistent and increasing To a large extent, the above changes in attitude and
inequalities in income and life chances between the rich policy on the part of the monarch were driven by his
and the poor in major cities, between the emerging urban uncertainty about continued U.S. support for his regime
modern middle classes and those in the more traditional under the newly elected president, Jimmy Carter. In the
sectors of the economy, and between city dwellers and course of his presidential campaign, Carter had made
rural residents. Finally, there was a growing cultural numerous statements—some with direct reference to
dualism between the Westernized, educated, and more Iran—about the need to place limits on U.S. support
privileged elite and modern middle classes, on the one and sales of arms to countries with a poor human rights
side, and the more religious and tradition-bound major- record and lack of commitment to democratic reforms.
ity of the population, on the other. The quest for mod- The shah was concerned that under the new Democratic
ernity, secularism, greater gender equality, and Western administration in Washington, U.S. support and arm
lifestyles and cultural values by the shah and the political sales to Iran would be made contingent on democratic
and cultural elites was viewed by a large segment of the reforms and advances in human rights. Not surprisingly,
population, if not the majority, as contrary to their this very same prospect was viewed with gleeful satisfac-
religious sensibilities and corrosive of traditional institution by many within the Iranian opposition, who
tions and values. believed that without U.S. support the shah would be
The 1977–1979 period was also marked by a sudden unable to survive for long. They also interpreted Carter’s
reversal in the country’s economic fortunes. A prolonged emphasis on human rights and the need for democratic
slump in oil revenues, starting in early 1977, made it reforms as a ‘‘green light’’ for them to push for such
difficult for the government to continue with the extrav- changes in Iran.
agant development projects and social welfare initiatives, The first groups to take advantage of the more
to pay for huge arms purchases, and to meet various tolerant political atmosphere were university students,
other commitments that it had made during the oil intellectuals, and a small number of liberal politicians
boom years of 1973–1974. These financial constraints who had been part of Iranian prime minister Moham-
forced the government to significantly cut its develop- mad Mosaddeq’s National Front coalition in the early
ment outlays and current domestic expenditures, leading 1950s. Students in several universities across the country
Not For Sale


began to stage peaceful demonstrations, which occasion- number of liberal politicians, intellectuals, and university
ally spilled over into the surrounding streets in defiance students to include the militant members of the clergy, as
of government bans against such gatherings. Three prom- well as the clergy’s traditional allies—the tightly knit
inent National Front leaders (Karim Sanjabi, Shapour community of bazaar merchants (bazaaris), shopkeepers,
Bakhtiar, and Darioush Forouhar) circulated an open and artisans and their apprentices. The bazaaris had long
letter criticizing the shah’s authoritarian rule and complained about government policies that had favored
demanding the restoration of the constitutional mon- the modern industrial and commercial sectors over the
archy. Mehdi Bazargan, a liberal Islamic politician and traditional bazaar merchants and traders. They were also
the founder, together with Ayatollah Mahmud Taleqani, outraged because the government had unfairly blamed
of the Liberation Movement of Iran (Nehzat-e azadi-ye them for the recent steep rise in commodity prices and
Iran), organized a series of politically inspired lectures had targeted the producers and traders in its so-called
during the holy month of Ramadan at the Qoba Mosque antiprofiteering campaign. Hundreds of merchants were
in Tehran. In October 1977 the Iranian Writers Associ- arrested, had their properties expropriated and their
ation (Kanun-e Nevisandegan-e Iran), which had been shops closed, or were fined in the course of that
dissolved by the government in the 1964, resumed its campaign.
activities and pressed, once again, for freedom of expres-
A particularly tragic event that became a major rally-
sion and the removal of censorship. The association also
ing point for the opposition occurred on 20 August
organized ten nights of poetry reading at the Goethe
1978, when a crowded movie house, the Rex Theater,
German-Iranian Cultural Institute in Tehran, at which
in the southern city of Abadan was set on fire by arson-
thousands of students, intellectuals, and ordinary citizens
ists. Over 400 people, mostly women and children, were
applauded the thinly veiled criticisms of the regime by
burned to death. The opposition wasted no time in
some of the country’s leading writers and poets.
placing the blame for the fire squarely on the SAVAK
and accusing the regime of being willing to commit such
A SPARK AND THE GATHERING STORM OF THE a callous crime in order to discredit its opponents as
REVOLUTION ‘‘barbarous fanatics’’ and to direct the public’s wrath
The publication of a letter attacking Ayatollah Ruhollah against them. (Subsequent inquiries and testimonies by
Khomeini on 7 January 1978 is generally regarded as the the accused at their trials after the revolution made it
‘‘spark’’ that lit the fires of the Iranian revolution. It clear the fire had in fact been set by extreme elements
occurred in the immediate aftermath of a short visit by within the religious opposition.) Once again, funeral
President Carter to the shah on New Year’s Eve of 1978. ceremonies and memorial services for the victims of this
In a toast at the state dinner in his honor, Carter praised tragedy served as occasions for large and intensely emo-
the shah’s leadership of Iran. Reassured by the U.S. tional demonstrations against the regime in many cities
president’s words, the shah decided to strike a blow around the country.
against his obdurate enemy, Khomeini. He asked his
In the aftermath of the Rex Theater tragedy, the
court minister to have the capital’s semiofficial daily
shah decided to impose martial law in Tehran and a
newspaper, Ettelaqat, publish a letter that, among a host
dozen other cities, banning all public gatherings and
of slanderous charges, accused Khomeini of not being an
demonstrations. Hours after the declaration of martial
Iranian, but Indian; being ‘‘an agent of colonialism’’ who
law, thousands of demonstrators—apparently unaware of
was in collusion with communists in an attempt to
the just-imposed ban on public demonstrations—were
spread reactionary ideas against his White Revolution;
confronted by the security forces at Tehran’s Jaleh
and writing ‘‘erotic poetry.’’ Two days later, on 9 January
Square. In what turned out to be the bloodiest battle of
1978, several thousand pro-Khomeini theology students
and other sympathizers in the city of Qom staged a the revolution, at least eighty-eight people were killed at
demonstration to condemn the publication of the letter Jaleh Square and elsewhere in the city, and hundreds
and pressed the leading clerics in the holy city to publicly more were wounded. The opposition claimed the figure
condemn the government for planting it. In the ensuing for the dead to be over 4,000. After this incident, which
clashes between the police and demonstrators, nine peo- became known as Black Friday, the opposition move-
ple were killed and many more were injured. The memo- ment was further radicalized, leaving little room for any
rial observances for the dead victims, which, following compromise.
Shiqite tradition, were held on the fortieth day of their With the start of the academic year in late September
passing, attracted thousands of mourners in each of the 1978, tens of thousands of university students and hun-
several cities in which they were held. The Qom protests dreds of thousands of secondary-school students and
and the subsequent public reactions to them helped teachers staged new demonstrations and strikes. Soon
broaden the social base of the opposition from a small the strikes spread to many public institutions and private

Islamic Revolution in Iran
businesses, including, at one time or another during this the nature of a successor regime would be reached
period, the Central Bank of Iran (equivalent to the U.S. between the religious leadership and the new,
Federal Reserve System), the National Bank, the postal younger military leadership. . . . My assumption
service, public utilities, hospitals, government ministries was that the religious leadership, including Kho-
(including judges in the Ministry of Justice), and numer- meini, might accept such an arrangement because
it would give them their essential objective, the
ous private concerns. The spread of the strikes in mid-
elimination of the shah, avoid a bloodbath, and
October to the oil industry was especially worrisome to endow them with armed forces willing to main-
the regime because, if they continued for an extended tain law and order on behalf of the new regime.
period, they had the potential to threaten the country’s (Sullivan 1981, 202)
economic survival.
As the largely ineffective implementation of martial On the other side of the policy debate were those
law failed to quell the angry protests, attacks on public who favored a military option that could ‘‘save Iran even
property, and other acts of violence by the opposition, without the shah.’’ The principal advocate of this idea
the shah decided to take a tougher position toward the was President Carter’s national security adviser, Zbigniew
uprisings by appointing a top military general, Gholam- Brzezinski, who later summarized his advice this way: ‘‘In
reza Azhari, as the new prime minister on 6 November. the earlier phase, I favored pressing the Shah hard to
The new military government reimposed martial law and impose a firm military regime as a point of departure
press censorship and threatened the striking oil workers for later reforms; during the ensuing phase, I moved
with dismissal if they did not return to work immedi- gradually and reluctantly to the view that a military
ately. Most of the workers did return, and oil output government without the Shah was our only viable
soon rose to prestrike levels. At the same time, in a option’’ (Brzezinski 1983, 371). Carter himself seemed
surprising television address to the nation, the shah told unwilling or unable to make a decisive choice between
the nation with unusual humility that ‘‘I heard the cry of these widely different policy options, even though on
your revolution,’’ admitted past mistakes, and promised several occasions, both publicly and privately, he
to carry out free elections and to continue his campaign expressed support for the shah’s continued rule.
against corruption and injustice more vigorously than
before. Few put much faith in these promises. THE COLLAPSE OF THE ANCIENT RÉGIME AND
As the crisis continued to escalate, the shah looked THE REVOLUTION’S FINAL TRIUMPH
toward the White House for clearer expressions of sup- Pressures pushing the regime to the verge of collapse
port, if not direction. As he related later in his memoirs, continued to mount during December 1978, coinciding
with the holy month of Muharram. The military govern-
For the balance of the year [i.e., from September ment, anticipating further confrontations with the revolu-
on] I received numerous messages from various tionaries, had imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew and a ban
people in and out of the Carter Administration
on demonstrations and unauthorized religious processions.
pledging U.S. support. Whenever I met Sullivan
[the U.S. ambassador to Iran] and asked him to Khomeini, who had earlier vowed to make the month of
confirm these official statements, he promised he Muharram ‘‘the month of victory of blood over sword,’’
would. . . . But his answer was always the same: urged the nation to ignore the bans and continue its
I have no instructions. Is it any wonder that I felt protest marches and mourning rituals. On 10 and 11
increasingly isolated and cut off from my West- December, the two-day observance of the martyrdom of
ern friends? (Pahlavi 1980, 161) Husayn (the grandson of the prophet Muhammad and the
third leader of Shiqite Muslims who was martyred in 61/
The Carter administration seemed hopelessly div- 680), millions of protesters took part in vast, but generally
ided on its Iran policy during the entire course of the peaceful, marches, demonstrations, and mourning proces-
revolution. On the one side there were those, including sions in Tehran and other major cities. When unable to
the U.S. ambassador in Tehran, William H. Sullivan, venture out into the streets after dark because of martial
who came to view Khomeini as a viable alternative to law, many in Tehran and other cities would go to the
the shah. On 9 November, three days after the appoint- rooftops of their houses and shout out, over and over
ment of Azhari as the head of the new military govern- again, the common Islamic phrase for declaring one’s faith
ment, Sullivan sent a cable to the White House (titled in God, ‘‘Allahu akbar’’ (God is great). Many observers
‘‘Thinking the Unthinkable’’) in which he set forth the considered these massive protests and work stoppages to be
following policy recommendation: tantamount to a popular referendum against the regime.
I posited a situation in which not only the shah Eventually, the shah concluded that his only remain-
but most of the senior Iranian military officers ing option for saving the monarchy as an institution was
would leave the country. Understandings about to form a regency council and appoint a new civilian
Not For Sale


government that would be more acceptable to the nation. public pressures, however, Bakhtiar was forced to accept
He asked a prominent member of the secular opposition the inevitable and stood aside as the grand ayatollah’s
and deputy leader of the National Front, Shapour Bakh- jumbo jet, with hundreds of journalists and his close
tiar, to serve as the new prime minster and form a cabinet associates, touched the ground at Tehran’s airport. Kho-
of his choice. Bakhtiar accepted the shah’s offer with the meini was greeted on his arrival by well over two million
condition that the shah would leave the country promptly frenzied supporters—perhaps the largest crowd ever
after the ceremonial meeting with the new cabinet minis- assembled in the country’s history.
ters. Three days later, on 16 January 1979, the shah left Khomeini wasted no time in denouncing Bakhtiar’s
Iran for what was officially described as an ‘‘extended government as illegitimate and promptly, on 4 February,
vacation.’’ A jubilant nation seemed to recognize that he appointed Mehdi Bazargan as the prime minister and
was in fact setting off for a life in permanent exile. Shortly head of a provisional government. Hundreds of thou-
thereafter, Khomeini, still in exile in a suburb of Paris, sands of demonstrators, including many government
announced his plan to form a provisional government and employees, took to the streets to express their allegiance
called for the resignations of all government officials, the to the Bazargan government. Bakhtiar went into hiding
regency council, and members of the parliament (the and later fled the country to seek refuge in France.
Majles). He also declared his intention to return to Iran The final coup de grâce to the Pahlavi regime was
after some fourteen years in exile in Turkey, Iraq, and
delivered on 11 February 1979. The news of a fracas
France (the latter for just the final few months). between the Imperial Guard and a group of air force
Bakhtiar’s initial reaction to Khomeini’s declared cadets that was watching the taped broadcast of Khomei-
intention to return to the country was to warn that he ni’s return to Iran brought out members of the two major
would prevent that from happening. Under enormous urban guerrilla organizations, Mojahedin-e Khalq and
A Crowd Welcomes Back Khomeini from Exile. Khomeini returned to Iran from exile after the shah was forced from power.
The widespread support for Khomeini—as demonstrated by the throngs of Iranians who welcomed his return—allowed him to act
swiftly to establish a new government. ª MICHEL SETBOUN/HISTORICAL PREMIUM/CORBIS

Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)
state agencies welcomed the hastily appointed officials

of the Bazargan government as if this had been a normal
MEHDI BAZARGAN cabinet change rather than a revolutionary takeover.
(1907–1995)
SEE ALSO Iran; Khomeini, Ruhollah (1902–1989);
Majlis; Pahlavis, The (1925–1979); Velayat-e Faqih.
The son of a merchant from Tabriz, Mehdi Bazargan
was born in Tehran, Iran. Educated both in traditional
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Islamic madrasa and modern schools, he completed his
Arjomand, Said Amir. The Turban for the Crown: The Islamic
studies at École Polytéchnique and École Normale in Revolution in Iran. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988.
France. Mohammad Mosaddeq (1882–1967) admired Ashraf, Ahmad, and Ali Banuazizi. ‘‘The State, Classes, and
Bazargan’s engineering approach to social organization, Modes of Mobilization in the Iranian Revolution.’’ State,
such as Tehran’s fresh water project (c. 1952), and Culture, and Society 1, no. 3 (1985): 3–40.
Axworthy, Michael. Revolutionary Iran: A History of the Islamic
commissioned him to fill the gap resulting from the
Republic. London: Allen Lane, 2013.
departure of British experts after the nationalization Baqi, Emaddedin. Barresi-e Enqelab-e Iran [A survey of the
of Iran’s oil industry. He became a founder of the Iranian Revolution]. 2nd ed. Tehran: Nashr-e Sarapi, 1382
Engineering Association of Iran in 1945 and of the AP [c. 2003 CE].
National Liberation Movement in 1961. Bazragan, Mehdi. Enqelab-e Iran dar do harekat [Iran’s revolution
in two moves]. Tehran: Nehzat-e Azadi, 1363 AP [c. 1984 CE].
Bazargan was one of a group of Islamic thinkers
Brzezinski, Zbigniew. Power and Principle. New York: Farrar,
who convened to discuss current issues in the early Straus, Giroux, 1983.
1960s, and was especially interested in adapting Shiqite Chehabi, H. E. Iranian Politics and Religious Modernism: The
Islam to the technological world without importing its Liberation Movement of Iran under the Shah and Khomeini.
ideology. Most people in this group became prominent Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990.
leaders of the Iranian Revolution. Bazargan was Dabashi, Hamid. Theology of Discontent: The Ideological
Foundations of the Islamic Revolution in Iran. New York:
imprisoned along with other nationalist leaders in New York University Press, 1993.
1963. After the revolution of 1979, he became Keddie, Nikki R. ‘‘Iranian Revolutions in Comparative Perspective.’’
the prime minister of the provisional government. American Historical Review 88, no. 3 (1983): 579–598.
Bazargan was later ousted due to the occupation of the Kurzman, Charles. The Unthinkable Revolution in Iran.
American embassy and hostage taking by students and Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004.
Milani, Mohsen M. The Making of Iran’s Islamic Revolution:
his meeting with Brzezinski in Algiers.
From Monarch to Islamic Republic. 2nd ed. Boulder, CO:
BIBLIOGRAPHY Westview Press, 1994.
Bazargan, Mehdi. ‘‘Religion and Liberty.’’ In Liberal Moaddel, Mansoor. Class, Politics, and Ideology in the Iranian
Islam: A Source Book, edited by Charles Kurzman. Revolution. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Pahlavi, Mohammad Reza. Answer to History. New York: Stein
Chehabi, H. E. Iranian Politics and Religious Modernism: and Day, 1980.
The Liberation Movement of Iran Under the Shah and Parsa, Misagh. Social Origins of the Iranian Revolution. New
Khomeini. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990. Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1989.
Sick, Gary. All Fall Down: America’s Tragic Encounter with Iran.
Dabashi, Hamid. ‘‘Medhi Bazargan: The Devout
New York: Random House, 1985.
Engineer.’’ In Theology of Discontent: The Ideological
Foundation of the Islamic Revolution in Iran. New Sullivan, William H. Mission to Iran. New York: Norton, 1981.
Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2006.
Mazyar Lotfalian Ali Banuazizi

Assistant Director, Samuel Jordan Center Professor of Political Science and Director
for Persian Studies and Culture of the Program in Islamic Civilization & Societies
University of California, Irvine Boston College
Fadaiyan-e Khalq, as well as other armed radical groups,

in support of the cadets. A potentially bloody military-
ISLAMIC REVOLUTIONARY
civilian confrontation was averted when the army’s GUARD CORPS (IRGC)
supreme council ordered all troops to pull back into their The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC; or
barracks and recognized the Bazargan government. Sepah-e Pasdaran-e Enghelab-e Eslami) is one of the
Government employees in the various ministries and two main branches of Iran’s armed forces alongside the
Not For Sale

Not For Sale

Members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The IRGC was formed in 1979 to protect the newly established
Islamic regime in Iran. ª AP IMAGES/AY-COLLECTION/SIPA
conventional military force (known as the Artesh). With the start of the Iran-Iraq War in September
Whereas the latter is mainly responsible for guarding 1980, the IRGC played a key role in fighting the Iraqi
the independence and territorial integrity of the country, army alongside Iran’s conventional army and deploying
the primary mission of the IRGC is defending and volunteer militias called the Basij to the war front. The
protecting the Islamic regime. IRGC was expanded to three main branches (air force,
land force, and navy), parallel to the three branches of the
regular armed forces, on 17 September 1985. Lack of
ESTABLISHMENT
military knowledge and experience on the part of IRGC
The IRGC was established on 5 May 1979, shortly after commanders in the early stages of the war led to massive
the Iranian Revolution succeeded in overthrowing the casualties among the Iranians, especially Basij members.
regime of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi. Several preex- Young IRGC commanders used Basij members to attack
isting revolutionary groups, which had been formed a few the enemy’s defense posts in mass waves or to clear out
months before the 1979 revolution to fight against the minefields so that the armed forces could pass by safely.
Pahlavi regime, were combined to create the IRGC.
Many youths from conservative and religious families
joined the IRGC to defend the newly established Islamic EXPANSION AND RESTRUCTURING
regime, especially against any coups from the conven- By the end of Iran-Iraq War in 1988, the IRGC had been
tional military force, which was not trusted by the expanded into five branches: the land force, navy, air force,
revolutionaries. Since 1980 the IRGC has discovered Quds (Jerusalem) Force, and Basij Resistance Force, or
and neutralized several coup attempts by former mem- Nirou-ye Moqavemat-e Basij. In this new structure, the
bers of the shah’s forces, eliminated leftist guerrillas and Basij was asked to recruit and organize Iranian people and
old-regime loyalists, and suppressed political dissidents. use them in conducting moral policing as well as internal

security missions. The IRGC’s Quds Force (IRGCQF) 22 million Iranians were members of the Basij in 2014,
was originally established in the early 1980s to export the the true number was about 5 million, although an
Islamic Revolution by helping liberation movements absolute majority of these members were regular and
around the world. Since 1990, however, it has evolved active. It has also been claimed that the IRGC has
into a tool of the Islamic regime’s regional policy by between 150,000 and 200,000 personnel forces that
training proxy forces such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iraq, are less professional and more ideological than the con-
and, more recently, Syria. ventional military personnel. About 20,000 of the guard
The IRGC and its branches were restructured after personnel are members of the IRGCN, according to
the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq in 2001 and Western think tanks.
2003, respectively. To support a shift in security and The IRGC branches (navy, land, aerospace, Quds,
military strategy to asymmetric warfare, the guard was provincial brigades, and the Basij) are subordinate to the
decentralized and divided into thirty-two provincial bri- IRGC Joint Staff, which is responsible for coordinating
gades (sepah-e ostani) across Iran, according to the the activities of these separate branches of the guard.
nation’s so-called Mosaic Doctrine. Based on this doc- IRGC Joint Staff is under the control of the Armed
trine, all of the IRGC and Basij members in each prov- Forces General Command Headquarters (Setad-e Kol-e
ince are under the control of one of the IRGC provincial Nirouha-ye Mosallah), which is the highest body of
brigades. Each IRGC brigade, which controls the IRGC, Iran’s military and paramilitary forces. The Armed Forces
land, and Basij forces in each respective province, is General Command Headquarters was established to pro-
responsible for territory, security, and military defense. mote collaboration between the IRGC and Iran’s regular
Moreover, the IRGC Air Force was transformed to armed forces. This organization has been staffed by both
the IRGC Aerospace Force (IRGCAF) to become more IRGC and regular armed forces personnel, and headed
involved in Iran’s strategic missile and aerospace pro- by a civilian, Seyyed Hassan Firouzabadi, as a way of
gram. The IRGCAF is believed to operate several short- balancing the power between the two branches. This
and medium-range missile systems as part of Iran’s headquarters is under the total control of the supreme
doctrine of deterrence. The IRGCAF is also responsible leader Ayatollah qAli Khamenei as the commander in
for the country’s unmanned aerial vehicles development chief of the armed forces.
program, as a component of the nation’s asymmetric The Ministry of Defense and Armed Force Logistics,
warfare strategy. another branch of the Iranian military apparatus, is
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy responsible for the logistics of Iran’s armed forces and
(IRGCN) controls Iran’s costal borders on the Persian for coordination between the president and his cabinet
Gulf, while Iran’s conventional navy controls the Gulf of and the military. While this ministry’s staff comes from
Oman and the Arabian Sea. The main strategy of the both the regular Iranian army and the IRGC, IRGC
IRGCN is asymmetric warfare using speedboats, small personnel are at a political advantage for getting into
arms, and kamikaze attacks, especially in the Persian Gulf the higher management levels. According to the consti-
and the Strait of Hormuz. To achieve this goal, the tution of the Islamic Republic, the head of the Ministry
IRGCN has trained and organized some Basij members of Defense should be appointed by the president follow-
in the coastal provinces to prepare them for naval battle ing approval by the parliament (the Majles-e Shura-ye
in the Persian Gulf. Melli); in reality, however, the minister of defense is
chosen with the consultation of Ayatollah Khamenei.
In addition to these changes, the Basij was expanded
to twenty different branches in order to recruit people
from different social strata and organize them into a MULTIPLE MISSIONS
cluster network. There are four different types of Basij The IRGC is more than a military force; it is a multi-
membership, arranged hierarchically. From bottom to faceted organization with different missions. According
top, they are regular, active, cadre, and special Basij to the IRGC charter, the guard’s main responsibility is
members. While the regular members have the least defending the Islamic Revolution and clerical establish-
military education and a weak loyalty to the Islamic ment. That is why the guard’s most important duty is its
Republic, the special Basij members consist of more security mission, which includes the suppression of mass
professional and loyal members. The latter members are uprisings in Iran. In fact, the IRGC has suppressed
distributed in a Basij pyramid network, distributed across several social protests, including the 1993–1994 protests
40,000 offices throughout the society and in every neigh- over postwar economic austerity measures and the stu-
borhood, school, university, and bureau. dent protests in 1999 and 2003. By far the most signifi-
The number of IRGC and Basij members is also an cant, however, was the suppression of the 2009 mass
open question. While the Islamic Republic claimed that uprising, which was labeled the green movement, when
Not For Sale

Islamic Salvation Front Not For Sale

the IRGC alongside the Basij and the police suppressed Sazandegi-ye Khatam al-Anbia, which is a leading con-
the people who perceived the reelection of Mahmoud tracting organization. The Khatam al-Anbia has won
Ahmadinejad to be a fraud. Since 2010 the IRGC has several contracts with domestic and international private-
established one special security brigade in each province sector companies using coercive military and political
under the IRGC provincial brigades. The guard has also power during the bidding process. For example, the IRGC
created an IRGC intelligence organization parallel with used military power to close a contract on the Imam
Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security, which offi- Khomeini International Airport in Tehran shortly after it
cially is under the control of the president. opened in 2004, replacing the Turkish firm that had
The IRGC has also been involved in politics since its originally won the bid for administering the airport.
inception. Its opposition to Abu al-Hasan Bani-Sadr, IRGC involvement in business and the economy not
Iran’s first elected president after the 1979 revolution, is only gave the guard more financial independence from
one example of this. Since 1990 the IRGC has supported the government but also led to more IRGC involvement
conservatives and hardliners. With the emergence of in Iran’s politics as a way to promote the guard’s socio-
reformists in Iran following the victory of Mohammad political interests.
Khatami in 1997, the IRGC was transformed into the In short, the IRGC, which was initially established as
supreme leader’s tool for confrontation with a reformist a revolutionary force to defend the Islamic Republic, has
administration. In fact, the IRGC directly warned Kha- been transformed into a huge and complex organization
tami about the possible need for the guard to directly that has become deeply involved in Iran’s politics, soci-
intervene to save the Islamic regime after the expansion ety, and economy. This expansion of the IRGC has led
of the student uprising in the summer of 1999. After some scholars to believe the guard is a state inside a state,
2000 the IRGC became more involved in politics by or a so-called deep state.
actively mobilizing its members and having them run
SE E ALS O Iran; Islamic Revolution in Iran.
for city councils and parliament. As a result, there has
been a massive increase in the number of IRGC
commanders in these political bodies. In the 2004 parlia- BIBLIOGRAPHY
mentary elections, 90 of the 152 new members of parlia- Alfoneh, Ali. Iran Unveiled: How the Revolutionary Guards Is
ment had an IRGC or Basij background. Many of the Turning Theocracy into Military Dictatorship. Washington,
IRGC members also joined the government during the DC: AEI Press, 2013.
Ahmadinejad presidency (2005–2013). In addition to Cordesman, Anthony H. Iran’s Military Forces in Transition:
domestic politics, the IRGC, and especially the IRGCQF Conventional Threats and Weapons of Mass Destruction.
Westport, CT: Praeger, 1999.
under the direction of Major General Qassem Suleimani,
Golkar, Saeid. Captive Society: The Basij Militia and Social
has gotten more involved in Iran’s foreign policy, espe-
Control in Iran. Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center
cially in the Middle East. It is generally believed that Press; New York: Columbia University Press, 2015.
some high-ranking Iranian diplomats are members of the Katzman, Kenneth. The Warriors of Islam: Iran’s Revolutionary
IRGCQF, including Hassan Kazemi-Qomi, and the for- Guard. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993.
mer and current Iranian ambassador to Iraq, respectively. Sinkaya, Bayram. The Revolutionary Guards in Iranian Politics:
The IRGC is also known to operate one of Iran’s Elites and Shifting Relations. London: Routledge, 2015.
biggest economic cartels. The IRGC’s role in the econ-
omy began following the end of Iran-Iraq War and then Saeid Golkar
accelerated after the hardliners took power in 2005. As a Lecturer, Middle East
way to demobilize the IRGC and the Basij, the govern- and North Africa Studies,
ment in the 1990s asked the guard to become more Northwestern University
involved in economic activities to support its members. Senior Fellow of Iran Policy,
The Chicago Council on Global Affairs
The IRGC is involved in a broad range of economic
activities, including banking, construction, auto making,
mining, import-export, telecommunications, real estate,
and the stock market. For example, the IRGC owns 51
percent of the Telecommunication Company of Iran and ISLAMIC SALVATION FRONT
has control over two main banks, Ansar and Mehr-e Even for Algerians, the founding of the Islamist party, the
Eghtesad, which together have more than 1,000 branches Islamic Salvation Front (FIS, Front Islamique du Salut,
throughout Iran. The IRGC controls airports throughout or al-Jabhat al-Islamiyya li al-inqadh), in February 1989,
the country and several illegal jetties in the southern and its sweeping electoral victories in the 1990 municipal
and northern coastal borders of Iran. The main elections, and then in the first round of legislative elec-
body of IRGC’s economic activity is the Gharargah-e tions in December 1991, were events as unforeseeable as

Islamic State (ISIS, ISIL, Daesh)
they were phenomenal. Islamic symbols and discourse The army in the 2000s retained its strong grip on
had been used repeatedly to oppose the alliance between power, and President Bouteflika courted the United
the army and the sole legal political party, the National States as a valued ally in the war against terror. In 2003
Liberation Front (FLN, or Front de Libération Natio- and 2005, he initiated two waves of amnesty for all who
nale), since Algeria’s birth as a nation in 1962. Nonethe- had participated in the civil war. Though both Madani
less, the meteoric rise of the FIS can mostly be attributed and Belhadj were released in 2003, the FIS and any other
to the growing economic gap between the elites and the party based on religion remained banned under the
masses, which worsened in the 1980s and pushed people regime.
over the edge of frustration and despair.
SEE ALSO Algeria; Islamism and Fundamentalism;
In October 1988 young people took to the streets to Political Islam.
protest the state’s inability to satisfy their basic needs, and
in five days the army had killed over five hundred pro-
testers. President Chadli Benjedid, sensing the gravity of BIBLIOGRAPHY
the situation, boldly proposed a constitution to pave the Evans, Martin, and John Phillips. Algeria: Anger of the
way for multiparty elections. Yet it was not the handful Dispossessed. New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University
of secular-leaning parties that gained from the riots, but Press, 2007.
rather those who saw in Islam the salvation for the Le Sueur, James L. Algeria since 1989: Between Terror and
nation’s woes—Algeria’s homegrown Islamism. Democracy. London and New York: Zed, 2010.
Shahin, Emad Eldin. Political Ascent: Contemporary Islamic
Islam had already played a key role in Algeria’s Movements in North Africa. Boulder, CO: Westview Press,
struggle against French colonialism. The reformist Sala- 1997.
fiyya movement was launched by Shaykh qAbd al-Hamid Shah-Kazemi, Reza, ed. Algeria: Revolution Revisited. London:
ibn Badis when, in 1931, he founded the Association of Islamic World Report, 1997.
Algerian Muslim Ulema. The FIS’s two founding leaders
claimed to wear Ibn Badis’s mantle, yet only qAbbasi
Madani (b. 1931) could realistically do so. Indeed, he David L. Johnston
Visiting Scholar,
grew up in ulema circles, joined the FLN, and spent
University of Pennsylvania
several years in French prisons. He later obtained a Adjunct Lecturer, Department
doctorate in philosophy in England. As a professor he of Theology and Religious Studies,
and other Islamic leaders cultivated the growing Islamist St. Joseph’s University
student movement of the 1980s. By contrast, the second
leader, qAli Belhadj, born in 1956, was a school teacher,
and knew no French. His rise began as a young, fiery,
eloquent imam who successfully organized a massive
peaceful rally at the end of the bloody 1988 riots. From
ISLAMIC STATE (ISIS,
the start, Madani led the more moderate, reformist wing ISIL, DAESH)
of the FIS, and Belhadj its more radical wing. The Islamic State (IS)—also known as ISIS (Islamic State
The army arrested Madani and Belhadj in June of Iraq and al-Sham), ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the
1991 and, after the December first-round elections, Levant), and Daesh (al-Dawla al-Islamiyya fi al-qIraq wa
which portended an Islamist majority in parliament, al-Sham)—became the most influential jihadist organiza-
deposed Benjedid and banned the FIS. With all of its tion after its emergence in 2011. Originally part of al-
leaders either imprisoned or exiled, the uneasy populist Qaqida in Iraq, then associated with Jabhat al-Nusra (a
coalition fell apart. A more moderate leadership took militant group formed to oppose the Syrian president
over the party under qAbdelkader Hachani, and the Bashar al-Asad), IS emerged as a separate movement led
radicals broke off to found the GIA (Groupe Islamique by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (real name: qAwwad Ibrahim
Armée). In the bloody civil war that ensued (over qAli al-Baghdadi). He claimed ancestry to the Quraysh
120,000 killed, mostly civilians, in ten years), two rays tribe of the prophet Muhammad, and his followers
of hope appeared in the 1990s. First, eight opposition believe that he is the promised Mahdi. On 29 June
parties, including the FIS, signed the Rome Platform in 2014 al-Baghdadi, aided by former Baqth Party members
1995, condemning violence and calling for the reestab- who served under Saddam Hussein, formally declared an
lishment of democracy. Second, single presidential can- international caliphate with him as ‘‘commander of the
didates were successively elected by majority vote, faithful.’’ By March 2015 IS controlled large areas of Iraq
Liamine Zeroual (1995) and qAbd al-qAziz Bouteflika and Syria and had loyalist groups in various countries,
(1998, 2002, 2006, 2010, 2014). including Lebanon, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen.
Not For Sale

Not For Sale

TURKEY
Kobani
Dabiq
Aleppo Mosul Arbil
Raqqa Nimrud
Hatra Khubbaz Oil Field
Tig
Kirkuk
IRAN
ris
S Y R IA
Tikrit
LEBANON Euphr
ate
s
Damascus
Baghdad
IR A Q
ISRAEL
JORDAN
KUWAIT
ISIS-Controlled Areas, 0 50 100 mi. SA U D I A R AB IA

January 2015 0 50 100 km
ISIS-Controlled Areas, January 2015. ª CENGAGE LEARNING/GALE
IDEOLOGY AND BELIEFS inappropriate clothing. IS regards hijra (emigration)

IS aims at establishing a caliphate, based on shariqa, as wajib qayn (an individual obligation), where all
tawhid (unity, monotheism), and jamaqa (community), Muslims are called to declare bayqa (pledge of allegiance)
and eradicating jahili (ignorant, immoral) Western civi- to al-Baghdadi and, following the example of Ibrahim
lization. Characterized by a bipolar worldview, IS has and Muhammad, leave their homes and travel to the
declared that ‘‘there are only two camps: the camp of caliphate.
truth and its followers, and the camp of falsehood and its Eschatological in emphasis, IS declares itself to be al-
factions’’ (Dabiq, issue 3, 12). It refuses to recognize Tapifat al-Mansura (the victorious group), which will
international borders—especially those created in the participate in al-Malahim, the final apocalyptic battle,
Middle East by the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916. which it believes will occur at Dabiq (or al-Apmaq) near
Adopting a Wahhabi-Salafi literal interpretation of the Aleppo. It calls for ‘‘offensive jihad,’’ and for Muslims
Qurpan, IS practices ‘‘the Prophetic methodology,’’ (the ‘‘knights of tawhid’’), to fight the ‘‘Zionist Cru-
claiming to rigidly follow the example of Muhammad saders’’ (Jews and Westerners). Supporters overseas are
and his Companions, and attempts to reinstitute the so- encouraged to carry out nikaya (injury to unbelievers);
called golden age of Islam—that of seventh-century CE tawahhush (mayhem) in their country of residence, or
Arabia. As such, in territory controlled by IS, execution is tamkin (consolidation), operations aimed at destabilizing
practiced for apostasy and blasphemy; amputation for taghut (atheistic tyrannical rulers). IS teaches that jihad is
theft; and lashings for various offenses, such as wearing fard qayn (an individual obligation) and that ququd

ACTIVITIES AND INFLUENCE

ABU BAKR AL-BAGHDADI Thousands of foreign fighters from South Asia, Aus-
(1971–) tralia, Canada, the United States, and various European
countries have joined IS. Possessing an army numbering
at least 30,000 volunteers, including women and chil-
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (real name: qAwwad Ibrahim dren, and adopting the black battle flag used by
qAli al-Baghdadi), also known under various other Muhammad, IS has been fighting various groups, such
names, including Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi al-Qurashi as the Kurdistan Worker’s Party, Ahrar al-Sham, the
al-Husseini, Abu Dupa, and Caliph Ibrahim, is amir, Alawites, the Kurdish Peshmerga, and the coalition
or leader, of the jihadist organization calling itself the force led by the United States. Although IS has experi-
Islamic State. Born in 1971 in the northern Iraqi city enced heavy casualties and significant losses (such as the
of Samarra, al-Baghdadi claims to be descended from town of Kobani, in the Iraqi province of Diyala, and the
the Quraysh tribe of the prophet Muhammad, thus Khubbaz oil field in Iraq, in January and February
supporting the belief of some of his followers that he 2015), its strategic gains have been notable, including
is the new Mahdi. He is highly educated, possessing a the capture of cities such as Raqqa and Mosul. Although
master’s degree and doctorate in Islamic studies from Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of al-Qaqida, has refused
the Islamic University of Baghdad (since renamed the to recognize Baghdadi, other jihadi groups have sworn
Iraqi University). During the regime of Saddam bayqa to IS; these groups include Jund al-Khilafa in
Hussein he gained respect as a preacher and qalim Algeria, Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, and Boko Haram
(scholar) in the Diyala region of Iraq. in West Africa.
It has been commonly reported that, following the IS has carried out numerous acts of barbarity,
U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, he was a prisoner at including mass executions of captured Syrian soldiers
the U.S.-run Camp Bucca detention center from 2005 and similar atrocities on others, mainly Shiqa Muslims—
to 2009. On his release, al-Baghdadi was linked with whom it regards as non-Muslim—but also Iraqi Chris-
al-Qaqida in Iraq (AQI) and other militant groups, tians and Yazidis. Several hostages of other nationalities
becoming the leader of AQI in April 2010. Al-Bagh- have been executed by IS, usually by decapitation; these
dadi’s influence as a leading jihadist was indicated by victims include the American journalist James Foley,
the fact that on 4 October 2011 the United States put a two Japanese citizens, and a Jordanian pilot who was
$10 million bounty on his head. On 29 June 2014 burned to death. Their deaths were videotaped, with the
al-Baghdadi formally declared an international caliph- resulting videos posted on the Internet. In February
ate, and then, a week later, he declared himself the 2015 IS affiliates in Libya beheaded twenty-one Egyp-
caliph. Secretive and keeping himself out of the public tian Coptic Christians. IS also claimed responsibility for
eye, al-Baghdadi allegedly wears a mask when address- the Bardo National Museum attack in Tunis, Tunisia,
ing his followers in public, hence leading to his mon- in March 2015.
iker ‘‘the invisible shaykh.’’ According to Iraqi officials, IS has a highly effective propaganda and recruitment
on 8 November 2014 al-Baghdadi was wounded, system, as seen in the publication of Dabiq, a glossy
possibly killed, in a U.S. airstrike. A similar uncorro- informative magazine, regularly issued online. IS recruits
borated claim was made in March 2015, with reports have included ‘‘Jihadi John’’ (real name: Mohammad
stating that al-Baghdadi had suffered a spinal injury Emwazi), a Kuwaiti-born British man who was featured
leaving him paralyzed and incapacitated. regularly on IS execution and promotional videos. IS is
believed to be the world’s richest terrorist organization,
Simon Ross Valentine
with a budget, in 2014, of $2 billion (Moore 2014) based
Independent Scholar, Islamic and
Religious Studies on money gained from looting, donations, oil smuggling,
antiquities trafficking, ransom payments, and tax collec-
tion. IS has carried out extensive cultural iconoclasm,
destroying holy sites, including mosques and Islamic
(abandonment of jihad) is a great sin. Influenced by shrines regarded as idolatrous, and archaeological sites,
Ibn Taymiyya (661/1263–728/1328) and Abu Bakr especially relics in the ancient Assyrian cities of Nimrud
Haji’s The Management of Savagery (published online and Hatra.
in Arabic in 2004), IS adopts the takfiri doctrine,
which rejects Muslims who do not adhere strictly to SEE ALSO Boko Haram; Caliphate; Jihad; Shariqa;
shariqa as non-Muslim. Tawhid; Terrorism.
Not For Sale

Islamicate Society Not For Sale

BIBLIOGRAPHY culture (for instance, mosque architecture). Due to the
Atwan, Abdel Bari. Islamic State: The Digital Caliphate. London: overriding influence of Islam on non-Muslims living
Saqi Books, 2015. within Muslim realms, however, Hodgson used the term
Barrett, Richard. ‘‘Foreign Fighters in Syria.’’ Soufan Group, to demonstrate the importance of Islam as a cultural
June 2014. http://soufangroup.com/wp-content/uploads
force that influenced non-Muslim forms of art, literature,
/2014/06/TSG-Foreign-Fighters-in-Syria.pdf
Clarion Project. ‘‘The Islamic State’s (ISIS, ISIL) Magazine.’’
and custom.
Accessed 29 April 2015. http://www.clarionproject.org/news SE E ALS O Architecture; Calligraphy.
/islamic-state-isis-isil-propaganda-magazine-dabiq Includes
issues of Dabiq.
Cockburn, Patrick. The Rise of Islamic State: ISIS and the New BIBLIOGRAPHY
Sunni Revolution. London: Verso, 2015.
Haji, Abu Bakr. The Management of Savagery: The Most Critical Hodgson, Marshall G. S. The Venture of Islam: Conscience and
Stage through Which the Umma Will Pass. Translated by History in a World Civilization. Chicago: University of
William McCants. Published online 23 May 2006. https:// Chicago Press, 1974.
azelin.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/abu-bakr-naji-the Kassam, Husain. Islamicate Societies: A Case Study of Egypt and
-management-of-savagery-the-most-critical-stage-through Muslim India: Modernization, Colonial Rule, and the
-which-the-umma-will-pass.pdf. Aftermath. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2012.
Moore, Jack. ‘‘Mosul Seized: Jihadis Loot $429m from City’s Martin, Richard C. Islamic Studies: A History of Religions
Central Bank to Make Isis World’s Richest Terror Force.’’ Approach. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1996.
International Business Times (U.K. edition), 11 June 2014.
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/mosul-seized-jihadis-loot-429m
-citys-central-bank-make-isis-worlds-richest-terror-force R. Kevin Jaques
-1452190 Associate Professor,
Stern, Jessica, and J. M. Berger. ISIS: The State of Terror. Department of Religious Studies
New York: Ecco Press, 2015. Indiana University, Bloomington
Simon Ross Valentine

Independent Scholar,
Islamic and Religious Studies ISLAMISM AND
FUNDAMENTALISM
Arguably, the terms fundamentalism and Islamism have in
ISLAMICATE SOCIETY and of themselves generated as much debate and schol-
arly discussion as have the phenomena they attempt to
The term Islamicate culture was coined by Marshall
delineate. The term fundamentalism is derived from the
Hodgson (d. 1968) in the first volume of his The Venture
widely distributed multivolume publication The Funda-
of Islam (1974). Hodgson invented the term in response
mentals: A Testimony to the Truth (Dixon and Torrey
to the confusion surrounding such terms as ‘‘Islamic,’’
1910–1915), which was a conservative Protestant counter
‘‘Islam,’’ and ‘‘Muslim’’ when they are used to describe to what was seen as a rise in liberal theology in the
aspects of society and culture that are found throughout United States and England. The term has generally been
the Muslim world. Hodgson used the term to describe used to refer to conservative or strident religious move-
cultural manifestations arising out of an Arabic and Per- ments that purport to display a high level of textual and
sian literate tradition, which does not refer directly to the doctrinal authority. However, scholars of religion have
Islamic religion but to the ‘‘social and cultural complex recently been largely reticent to use fundamentalism as a
historically associated with Islam and the Muslims, both comparative category of religious practice, arguing that
among Muslims themselves and even when found among the contours of Christian revivalism in the United States
non-Muslims’’ (p. 59). For example, Hodgson argued have little bearing, for example, on pan-Islamic activism,
that there are a variety of artistic, architectural, and or, for that matter, on Hindu religious nationalism.
literary styles indicative of Islamicate culture. No matter Instead, the trend among scholars has been a tendency
where these aesthetic styles are found, they are identifi- to focus on the vernacular dynamics of politicized reli-
able as deriving from Islamicate cultural complexes. gion in a given social and historical context. The Funda-
Thus, if one finds the use of arabesques, calligraphy, or mentalism Project (1991–1993), a multivolume,
arched doorways anywhere in the world, these forms are multiauthored collaboration on the comparative study
identifiable as Islamicate in origin. In contrast, Hodgson of conservative religion edited by Martin E. Marty and
argued that those elements of Islamic society that are not R. Scott Appleby, remains at the center of the scholarly
shared by non-Muslims are not indicative of Islamicate conversation on the subject.

Islamism and Fundamentalism

Egyptian Islamists Gather in Support of the Inclusion of Shariqa in the Egyptian Constitution, 2012. An Egyptian Islamist
waves a Saudi flag at a demonstration of those demanding that shariqa be the basis for the new constitution being drafted in Egypt. Islamists
in the twenty-first century are increasingly agitating for a return to the Qurpan and the sunna as the authentic basis for Muslim life.
ª MAHMUD KHALED/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Islamism, often used as a stand-in for political Islam, COLONIAL PERIOD

has a more complex and charged intellectual genealogy. Given the centrality of Islamic tradition to premodern
Seen by most scholars of the Muslim world as a banal Muslim systems of governance, it is unsurprising that
attempt to discriminate Islam and Muslims from larger Islamic discourse would become highly politicized in
patterns of politicized religion in the modern world, the context of colonial modernity. As European systems
Islamism as a coherent and self-evident category has of education and trade influenced Muslim societies, intel-
largely been sidelined in academic circles, which have lectual reformers and activists sought to counter colonial
opted instead to use more opaque terms such as political domination with resources from indigenous Islamic intel-
Islam, Islamic political activism, and Islamic revival. The lectual traditions. In doing so, they both appropriated
edited volume Islamism: Contested Perspectives on Political European systems of political thought and transformed
Islam (Martin and Barzegar 2010) entertains various Islamic discourses of piety and practice.
academic, policy, and activist perspectives on the debate The enigmatic and prodigious Iranian activist Jamal
over appropriate nomenclature. Despite this and other al-Din al-Afghani (1838–1897) is considered among
efforts, there does not yet exist a shared framework for the most influential early pioneers of the modern Islamic
the study of what seems to be a relatively discrete and revival. By combining political activism with intellectual
observable phenomenon: politicized Islamic discourse reform, al-Afghani sought to curb British control of
and practice in the modern period. Understanding the Muslim goods and natural resources as well as restructure
inherent limitations of such an effort, the following sur- traditional Islamic pedagogy. By encouraging Shiqite reli-
vey nevertheless highlights a number of prominent fig- gious leaders to oppose the Qajar monarchy’s pro-British
ures and trends that have been central to the multifaceted policies, al-Afghani played a key role in the successful
phenomenon in question over the last two centuries. Iranian tobacco protests of 1891 and 1892, which
Not For Sale

Islamism and Fundamentalism Not For Sale

resulted in the rescinding of a British trade concession performed by qawwali singers, exemplify his blend of
that would have surrendered control over Iran’s lucrative pan-Islamist, Salafi, and Nietzschean ideas.
tobacco industry. Al-Afghani’s machinations stretched The largely intellectual projects of early revivalists
from India to Istanbul and often earned him the ire of were carried forth in the political efforts of post–World
political elites who were threatened by his stridency. War I activists. Hasan al-Banna (1906–1949), the fiery
Along with his Egyptian protégé, Muhammad qAb- self-made preacher who founded the Muslim Brother-
duh (1849–1905), al-Afghani is also credited with inspir- hood in Egypt in 1928, Abu al-Aqlap Maududi (1903–
ing the modern Salafi movement, which encouraged a 1979) in the Indian subcontinent, Muhammad Baqir al-
return to the spirit of Islam’s founding generation, Sadr (1935–1980) in Iraq, and qAli Shariqati (1933–
known as al-salaf al-salih, or the pious predecessors. They 1977) in Iran represent the ideological turn of political
believed that the meteoric rise of Muslim power in the Islam that marks the middle twentieth century. Develop-
seventh and eighth centuries CE was a direct result of the ing in a rapidly changing political landscape in Europe
intellectual and social revolution that took place at the and the slow but steady decolonization across the globe,
hands of Muhammad’s divine inspiration. As such, al- Muslim activists of this period promoted Islam as an
Afghani and qAbduh lamented European advances in alternative ideological platform to the then dominant
science and technology, which they regarded as a natural models of capitalism, national socialism, and commu-
part of the civilizational legacy of the Islamic world. nism. Yet in the dialectical act of distinguishing Islam
Traditional religious scholars (ulema), whom qAbduh as a unique system of governance vis-à-vis Western mod-
and al-Afghani generally regarded as reactionary, super- els, the aforementioned leading figures contributed to the
stitious, and antirational, bore the brunt of the blame for politicization of Islam in modes that operated within the
Muslim regress. In their quest for Muslim empowerment framework of the modern nation-state.
and social transformation, the pair were willing to chal-
lenge long-standing Islamic doctrines and practices in POST–WORLD WAR II PERIOD
order to bring them in line with the standards of ‘‘civi- Paradoxically, political Islam’s relationship to the mod-
lization.’’ Interest-based banking, polygamy, and inde- ern nation-state has thus been the source of both its
pendent legal reasoning (ijtihad ) were among the more greatest successes and limitations. For example, the rhet-
controversial subjects they tackled. qAbduh’s famous oric of the nation-state allows for rapid mobilization that
quote, ‘‘I went to the West and saw Islam but no Mus- can challenge structures of power, but it simultaneously
lims, I returned to the East and saw Muslims but not restricts pan-Islamic projects that seek to dismantle the
Islam,’’ exemplifies his reformist philosophy. qAbduh and legacy of colonialism. Iran’s Islamic revolution in 1979,
al-Afghani’s ideas were spread through their short-lived, led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (1902–1989), best
but influential publication, al-qUrwa al-wuthqa (The demonstrates this phenomenon. Populist and anticolo-
firmest bond). Their footprint is firmly embedded in the nial in nature, Iran’s project in Islamic republicanism has
Islamic heartlands of Egypt, Syria, Turkey, and Iran. relied on the inherited structures of the nation-state and
the vernacular rhetoric of nationalism for geopolitical
EARLY TO MID-TWENTIETH CENTURY survival and domestic legitimacy.
The two-pronged strategy of simultaneously challenging Engulfed in European rivalries that led to World
colonialism and reforming Islamic pedagogy is in fact War II and the Cold War, fledging Muslim nation-
emblematic of most Islamic revivalist movements in the states invariably aligned themselves with either commu-
contemporary period. In the Indian subcontinent, the nist or capitalist European powers, a context that left no
German-educated Muhammad Iqbal (c. 1877–1938), room for internal dissent or viable opposition. With
who is regarded as the Father of Pakistan, also pursued their organizations banned, Muslim activists were often
a relentless campaign against Western hegemony and jailed, killed, and even tortured, leading to the violent
Islamic orthodoxy. To do so, he used ideas from Western radicalization of political Islam in the second half of
and Islamic traditions to develop a distinct philosophical the twentieth century. This next generation of Islamic
system of Muslim independence and revival. The very activists sought to capture the levers of state control and
decision to convey his ideas through Urdu and Persian implement top-down structural changes that would in
poetry, the primary vernacular aesthetic of South Asian turn transform Muslim societies around the world and
Islam, is emblematic of his eclectic and insightful wrest power from the West.
approach. The collections Bang-e dara (Call of the March- Sayyid Qutb (1906–1966), the famous Egyptian
ing Bell) and Asrar-i khudi (The Secrets of the Self ), samples intellectual, whose works In the Shade of the Qurpan and
of which are memorized by Pakistani schoolchildren and Milestones remain among the most widely translated and

Islamophobia/Islamophilia
circulated modern Muslim texts, is often regarded as the Islam; Qutb, Sayyid (1906–1966); Rida, Rashid
progenitor of this turn in political Islam. It is more (1865–1935); Salafiyya; Tablighi Jamaqat; Velayat-e
appropriate, however, to credit his admirers and inter- Faqih; Wahhabiyya.
locutors such as Muhammad qAbd al-Salam Faraj (1954–
1982) and Ayman al-Zawahiri (1951–) of the Egyptian BIBLIOGRAPHY
Islamic Jihad. Suspicious of their predecessor’s reform Almond, Gabriel A., R. Scott Appleby, and Emmanuel Sivan,
projects stained by modern logic and equally impatient eds. Strong Religion: The Rise of Fundamentalisms around the
with the complicit ulema, revolutionary Islamic activists World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003.
turned to the rhetoric of medieval Islamic law and textual Devji, Faisal. The Terrorist in Search of Humanity: Militant Islam
literalism, which were seen as uncorrupted, divinely sanc- and Global Politics. New York: Columbia University Press,
tioned sources of guidance. Around the world, by author- 2008.
izing assassination and political violence through Islamic Dixon, A. C., and R. A. Torrey, eds. The Fundamentals:
A Testimony to the Truth. 12 vols. Chicago: Testimony
law and emboldened by events such as the Iranian revo-
Publishing, 1910–1915.
lution, Palestinian Islamic resistance, and the Afghan-
Donohue, John J., and John L. Esposito, eds. Islam in Transition:

Soviet jihad, militant Muslim activists, since the late Muslim Perspectives. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University
1960s, have created a discursive-network of pan-Islamic Press, 2006.
extra-state radicalism. Thriving in fractured and failed Lawrence, Bruce B. Defenders of God: The Fundamentalist Revolt
states such as Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, and against the Modern Age. Columbia: University of South
Libya, groups such al-Qaqida, al-Shabab, and the Islamic Carolina Press, 1995. First published 1989 by Harper
and Row.
State of Iraq and Syria have demonstrated a remarkable
Mahmood, Saba. Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the
resilience and adaptive capability. Feminist Subject. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
In the twenty-first century, global political Islam is a 2005.
bricolage of the aforementioned trends. For example, on Martin, Richard C., and Abbas Barzegar, eds. Islamism: Contested
the one hand, Islamic sensibilities of governance have Perspectives on Political Islam. Stanford, CA: Stanford
been thoroughly normalized, even constitutionally, in
Marty, Martin E., and R. Scott Appleby, eds. The
countries such as Iran, Egypt, Iraq, and Turkey. On the Fundamentalism Project. 3 vols. Chicago: University of
other hand, radical and violent groups continue to draw Chicago Press, 1991–1993.
widespread support in conflict zones and demand the Pape, Robert A. Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide
attention of the highest levels of geopolitical actors. Terrorism. New York: Random House, 2005.
Commensurately, the study of political Islam itself has Rahnema, Ali, ed. Pioneers of Islamic Revival. Rev. ed. New York:
continued in a political and intellectually fragmented Zed Books, 2005.
context in which security concerns top the agenda in Sageman, Marc. Understanding Terror Networks. Philadelphia:
policy-oriented research circles and critical anthropolog- University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004.
ical approaches dominate the research concerns of the Wright, Lawrence. The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to
9/11. New York: Knopf, 2006.
classic liberal university. Representative of the former,
Robert A. Pape’s Dying to Win (2005) and Marc Sage-
man’s Understanding Terror Networks (2004) are read Abbas Barzegar
widely in government circles, whereas, representing the Assistant Professor
Georgia State University
former, Saba Mahmood’s Politics of Piety (2005) and
Faisal Devji’s The Terrorist in Search of Humanity
(2008) continue to influence the next generation of
students in the social sciences and humanities. Nomen-
clature aside, it is likely that the unfolding and complex
ISLAMOPHOBIA/ISLAMOPHILIA
dynamics of political Islam will continue to outpace the Islamophobia is a term that describes a range of indis-
capacity of scholars to predict and understand them. criminately negative views of Muslims on the basis
of their Islamic faith. Although it entered the popular
SEE ALSO qAbduh, Muhammad (1849–1905); Afghani, lexicon in the 1980s, its pedigree dates back to the early
Jamal al-Din (1839–1897); Banna, Hasan al- twentieth century, when it first appeared in writings on
(1906–1949); Ghazali, Muhammad al- (1917– the experiences of West Africans under French colonial-
2001); Ghazali, Zaynab al- (1917–2005); Ibn ism. It is thought to be a derivative of the words Judeo-
Taymiyya (662/1263–729/1328); Jamaqat-e Islami; phobia, coined in 1882, and xenophobia, which emerged
Khomeini, Ruhollah (1902–1989); Maududi, Abu al- around 1900, both of which employ the suffix ‘‘phobia’’
Aqlap (1903–1979); Muslim Brotherhood; Political to suggest a nexus between fear and feelings of antipathy.
Not For Sale

Islamophobia/Islamophilia Not For Sale

In a 1997 report, the Runnymede Trust’s Commis- Islam to neutralize what they perceive as spurious accu-
sion on British Muslims and Islamophobia formally rec- sations of Islamophobia.
ognized the phenomenon’s presence in political and Early uses of the term Islamophilia appeared in the
social spaces, defining it as ‘‘the shorthand way of refer- late 1970s in French and German works, and the term
ring to dread or hatred of Islam—and therefore, to fear resurfaced in the late 1990s in sporadic online and print
or dislike of all or most Muslims’’ (1). The term’s sub- publications in English. In 2001 the British journalist
sequent use prompted debates over its adequacy and Julie Burchill described what she viewed as the ‘‘mindless
application that persist today. Some charge that it is Islamophilia’’ of her colleagues who, in the wake of the
deployed to obstruct criticism of Islam (Caroline Fourest, terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, countered
Fiammetta Venner, and Pascal Bruckner), while others expressly negative images of Muslims in the press with
prefer alternative expressions that emphasize prejudice expressly positive ones (Burchill, 2001). The British
against the Muslim individual rather than animus toward writer Douglas Murray identifies charitable statements
their religion (Tariq Modood, Fred Halliday, and Martin
about Islam by Tony Blair and George W. Bush, as well
Barker). Its limitations notwithstanding, the term’s
as a museum exhibit spotlighting Muslim contributions
operational currency is an acknowledgment of a contem-
to history, as Islamophilic (Murray, 2013). The Ameri-
porary reality that stigmatizes Muslim communities,
can author Bruce Bawer suggests that the tendency
especially in the West.
among journalists, politicians, and judges to self-censor
Islamophobia may inspire hostility toward or dis- critical comments about Muslims or Islam is a central
crimination against Muslims, including physical and ver- feature of the concept (Bawer, 2010)
bal assaults, workplace bias, mosque vandalism,
legislative profiling, media stereotyping, harassment or Academics have also deployed critiques of Islamo-
bullying, and fixations on or undifferentiated assessments philia. According to Mohammad H. Tamdgidi, Islamo-
of perceived negative religious interpretations. Among philia can be a political project that amplifies and
the examples are the Danish cartoons controversy; bans legitimizes a certain set of ideal Islamic characteristics that
on minaret construction in Switzerland and full veils in align with Western economic and political interests
France; conspiracy theories about the influence of Islam- (Tamdgidi, 2012, 56). Others caution that the essentialist
ist groups, shariqa, and halal meat in the United States and generalizing impulses on which Islamophilia operates
and Europe; and public Qurpan burnings. reinforce a binary narrative of ‘‘friend’’ and ‘‘enemy,’’
Muslim responses to Islamophobia vary, some zeal- collapse significant differences that exist among and
ous and some more measured. Caricatured depictions between Muslim and non-Muslim communities, and fail
of the prophet Muhammad have provoked demonstra- to address adequately questions of national identity and
tions and violence among some extremists in the Mid- belonging on which prejudice often thrives (Shryock
dle East. Muslim comedians such as Dean Obeidallah, 2010). The result is a distorted positive view of Islam—
Preacher Moss, and Maysoon Zayid dispel stereotypes just as Islamophobia is a distorted negative view—that
with humor. Muslim interfaith leaders such as Eboo complicates the real challenges (whether prejudice or oth-
Patel, Khalid Latif, and Yahya Hendi have pioneered erwise) facing Muslims communities around the world.
strategies of meaningful engagement within youth SE E ALS O Europe; Muslim Minorities in the West; North
groups, while social activists and entrepreneurs such as America: United States.
Linda Sarsour, Dalia Mogahed, and Haris Tarin lead
public awareness campaigns and educate governments
BIBLIOGRAPHY
on issues related to Western engagement with Muslim
Allen, Chris. Islamophobia. Farnham, U.K.: Ashgate, 2010.
communities. A variety of Muslim civil rights and
Bawer, Bruce. Surrender: Appeasing Islam, Sacrificing Freedom.
advocacy organizations call attention to expressions New York: First Anchor Books, 2010.
and consequences of Islamophobia. Burchhill, Julie. ‘‘Some People Will Believe Anything.’’ August 18,
The neologism Islamophilia is a term used to 2001, Guardian.
describe indiscriminately favorable views of Islam, which Ernst, Carl W., ed. Islamophobia in America: The Anatomy of
may result in the unwillingness or inability to recognize Intolerance. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.
bad acts committed by or the negative traits of some Esposito, John L., and Ibrahim Kalin, eds. Islamophobia: The
Challenge of Pluralism in the 21st Century. Oxford: Oxford
Muslims. Less is known about its etymological origins, University Press, 2011.
as the word is new and its use is much less common. It Lean, Nathan C. The Islamophobia Industry: How the Right
has been referred to as the ‘‘multicultural opposite of Manufactures Fear of Muslims. London: Pluto Press, 2012.
Islamophobia’’ (Ernst 2013, 14), although there is little Martin, Richard C., and Abbas Barzegar, eds. Islamism: Contested
consensus that it constitutes an identifiable public phe- Perspectives on Political Islam. Stanford, CA: Stanford
nomenon and it is most often deployed by critics of University Press, 2010.

Israel
Murray, Douglas. Islamophilia: A Very Metropolitan Malady. BIBLIOGRAPHY

emBooks, 2013. Abisaab, Rula Jurdi. Converting Persia: Religion and Power in the
Runnymede Trust. Commission on British Muslims and Safavid Empire. London: I.B. Tauris, 2004.
Islamophobia. Islamophobia: A Challenge for Us All. London: Newman, Andrew J. Safavid Iran: Rebirth of a Persian Empire.
Runnymede Trust, 1997. London: I.B. Tauris, 2009.
Savory, Roger. Iran under the Safavids. Cambridge, U.K.:
Shryock, Andrew, ed. Islamophobia/Islamophilia: Beyond the Cambridge University Press, 1980.
Politics of Enemy and Friend. Bloomington: Indiana
Tamdgidi, Mohammad H. ‘‘Beyond Islamophobia and Sholeh A. Quinn
Islamophilia as Western Epistemic Racisms: Revisiting Associate Professor of History
Runnymede Trust’s Definition in a World-History University of California, Merced
Context,’’ Islamophobia Studies Journal 1, No. 1 (2012):
54–81.
ISMAqILI
Nathan C. Lean SEE Shiqa: Early.

Research Director, Center for
Muslim-Christian Understanding
Georgetown University
ISRAEL
Except for the interlude of the Crusades, the area within
current Israeli borders was ruled by various Muslim
ISMAqIL I, SHAH caliphates or kingdoms between the seventh century CE
(892/1487–930/1524) and its occupation by the British in 1917. Muslim rulers,
Shah Ismaqil (r. 906/1501–930/1524) was founder and including the Umayyads and Fatimids, lavished attention
first king of the Safavid dynasty, which ruled Iran until on Jerusalem’s Muslim shrines because they are the third
1134/1722. Ismaqil lived during a turbulent time in holiest space for adherents of the faith. Muslims believe
Iran’s history, in a period of political fragmentation and that the prophet Muhammad ascended to the heavens on
the back of the flying steed Buraq in a nighttime journey
decentralization. When Ismaqil’s brother Sultan qAli was
that included a stop at al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.
killed in battle by the ruling house of Aq Qoyunlu in
Muslims also originally prayed toward Jerusalem before
899/1494, Ismaqil went into hiding in northern Iran. In
switching to Mecca. Today, al-Haram al-Sharif (meaning
904/1499, he and his Qizilbash followers, Turkoman
‘‘The Noble Sanctuary’’) is built on the Temple Mount
tribesmen, attempted to seize power and defeated the last and includes two domes, one of which is built around the
Aq Qoyunlu ruler. He was crowned king in the northern rock that Muslims believe was the stepping stone for the
Iranian city of Tabriz in 906/1501. ascension. By the time the British occupied Palestine in
Before becoming king, Ismaqil’s religiosity reflected 1917, more than 90 percent of its population was Arab,
Shiqite ‘‘exaggerated’’ beliefs such as anthropomorphism and 90 percent of the Arabs were Sunni Muslims. The
with respect to God, transmigration of souls, and occul- balance consisted of Christian and Druze Arabs, non-
tation and return. In his poetry, he claims divinity for Arab Christians, small Shiqi Arab and Circassian Muslim
himself and claims to be the Hidden Imam. His followers communities, several thousand Palestinian Jews, and a
were said to have followed him into battle without wear- few thousand early Zionist immigrants from Eastern
ing armor, believing him to be invincible. Europe.
In 906/1501, however, Ismaqil established not ghu- The state of Israel was established in May 1948,
luww Shiqism, but orthodox Twelver Shiqism as the offi- after the end of the British mandate in Palestine, by
cial state religion, imposing this sect upon a Zionist organizations formed by Eastern European Jews.
predominantly Sunni Iran. He spent the next ten years The process of establishing a Jewish state produced
of his career consolidating and expanding his rule inside consistent conflict with the indigenous Muslim and
Iran and beyond. He was defeated in Azerbaijan by the Christian populations it was displacing. The Jewish
Ottomans at the battle of Chaldiran in 920/1514. This Yishuv (pre-state Jewish community) had distinct mili-
led to a ceasing of military campaigns. Ismaqil died ten tary and administrative advantages over the native Pal-
years later in 930/1524. estinian Arabs and benefited from considerable, albeit
intermittent, British support during the mandate period
SEE ALSO Safavids; Shiqa: Imami (Twelver). and from broad post–World War II Western backing.
Not For Sale

Israel Not For Sale

The Palestinians who remained became citizens of
LEBANON Israel but were put under restrictive military rule until
Israel SY R I A 1966. Today, some 21 percent of Israelis are Arabs, and
Golan 82 percent of these are Muslims. They have a higher rate
Mt. Meron
3,963 ft. (1,208 m) Heights of natural increase than Israeli Jews (2.2% versus 1.7%),
Sea of
Haifa Capernaum Galilee which allows them to maintain their share of the pop-
Ki
sh
o n R. ulation in spite of ongoing Jewish immigration. In addi-
Mt. Carmel Pla
1,780 ft. (543 m) E sdrain of tion, some 200,000 Arabs, mostly Muslim inhabitants of
elon
Mt. Gilboa
1,631 ft. (497 m) East Jerusalem, have permanent residency, but not cit-
Me d i t e r ra n e a n
Nabulus izenship. Israeli Arabs are mostly concentrated in the
ver
Sea
Tel Aviv- ko River
Yar n
Jordan Ri
Jaffa Galilee and, in the case of Bedouins, the Negev Desert.

West
Bank
Many Israeli Muslims feel that they are treated as second-
Ashdod Jerusalem class citizens and subjected to active discrimination, and
N
Ashqelon that their towns and villages continue to be underserved
Gaza Hebron Dead
Sea
compared to Jewish ones. No Israeli Muslim has been
Strip Judean
Hills
allowed to serve in an Israeli cabinet, but a few get elected
Beersheba Masada to the Knesset, the Israeli parliament. Except for males
from the tiny Circassian minority, they generally do not
serve in the Israeli military. Israeli Arabs in general, just
Negev like their Palestinian kin beyond Israel’s 1948 borders,
River
Desert have been regularly addressed in derogatory and dehu-

va
Ara
manizing terms by Israeli Jewish leaders, even though

EGYPT
they have very rarely resisted the Israeli state.
JORDAN
The expansion of Israel’s boundaries in the aftermath
of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War brought hundreds of thou-
sands more Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, many
of whom were refugees from the events of 1948 and 1949,
under its control. As of 2014, these Palestinians, perhaps
0 20 40 mi. Elat 95 percent of whom are Muslims, number around 2.7
0 20 40 km million in the West Bank and 1.7 million in Gaza. In the
a
qab
West Bank, Israelis (some 350,000 settlers as of 2014)

of A
Gulf
have been aggressively appropriating and settling the land

and pushing Palestinians into increasingly small and iso-
Map of Israel. ª CENGAGE LEARNING/GALE
lated enclaves under a de facto occupation military regime,
except where the Palestinian Authority is in charge of
civilian affairs. The Israeli military and armed Jewish
settlers continue to subject Palestinians to daily abuse,
The boundaries of the Israeli state were defined by the deprivation, repression, and violence. Israel’s settlement
armistice lines between its army and those of neighbor- of the West Bank is considered illegal under international
ing Arab countries that invaded with the intention of law and by almost all countries, including Israel’s strongest
helping the Palestinians. In the process, some Palesti- backer, the United States. Israeli settlements in Gaza were
nians left their homes in the hope of averting casualties dismantled in 2005 when Israel withdrew from the terri-
during hostilities, and many others were encouraged to tory, but Gaza remains under a harsh embargo and subject
leave their homes or forcefully pushed out of their to cyclical military operations that inhibit the develop-
homes by the Israeli military under a plan (known as ment, health, education, and economic welfare of its
Plan Dalet) developed by the Yishuv leader, and later population.
Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben Gurion. By The role that Islam plays in Palestinians’ resistance
1949 more than 700,000 of the 860,000 or so Pales- to Israeli control and appropriation of their lands has
tinian Arabs who lived within Israeli borders at the time evolved over time. Pre-Nakba, Palestinian resistance was
had become refugees. Palestinians refer to these events led by big families, including that of the grand mufti
as the Nakba—the catastrophe. The refugees and their (senior cleric) of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husayni
progeny, some six million people, still cannot access (c. 1895–1974). Secular organizations led the resistance
their lands and homes, almost all of which have been from the 1960s until the mid-1980s when Palestinian
confiscated or destroyed by Israel. politics took a turn to the religious. Islamist organizations

Istanbul
such as Hamas and, to a lesser extent, Islamic Jihad have seismically active fault lines in the world, the city has
gained support at the expense of secular ones by combin- witnessed many major earthquakes throughout its long
ing Islamic identity with the Palestinian struggle for history—including a disastrous one in 1999.
rights, dignity, and nationhood.
SEE ALSO Arab-Israeli Conflict; Jerusalem; Palestine. BYZANTINE AND OTTOMAN PERIODS
There are significant differences in urban morphology
BIBLIOGRAPHY between the Byzantine and Ottoman periods. The
Cleveland, William L., and Martin Bunton. A History of the Byzantine walled city featured a triangular layout defined
Modern Middle East. 5th ed. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, by forums connected by porticoed avenues (mese). Under
2013. Ottoman rule, the city walls lost their importance for
Morris, Benny. The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem security purposes; the city expanded beyond the walls,
Revisited. 2nd ed. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University attaining an outward-looking character. Key public
Press, 2004.
Smith, Charles D. Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict:
buildings were built on prominent hilltop locations along
the Golden Horn side—Topkapı Palace (completed in
A History with Documents. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St.

Martin’s, 2013. 882/1478) and Sultan Ahmed Mosque (1025/1616) on
the first hill, the Grand Bazaar (865/1461) and Nuruos-
maniye Mosque (1169/1755) on the second, Süleyma-

Abdulkader Sinno
niye Mosque (965/1558) on the third, Fatih Mosque
Associate Professor of Political Science
and Middle Eastern Studies (875/1470) on the fourth, and Yavuz Sultan Selim Mos-
Indiana University que (934/1528) on the fifth. The eighteenth century CE
witnessed a new building boom. Summer palaces and
mansions, picnic grounds, public gardens, and fountains
were commissioned along both the Bosphorus strait and
ISTANBUL smaller water channels leading to the ‘‘suburban’’ expan-
Istanbul is the cultural and economic capital of modern- sion of the city. During the nineteenth century Istanbul
day Turkey. As Turkey’s largest city, its 14 million underwent a series of modernization projects paralleling
inhabitants comprise 18 percent of the country’s popu- those in other world cities. Most of the services, however,
lation. However, it has not been the administrative cap- benefited the Galata (Pera) area, north of the Golden
ital since the founding of the Republic of Turkey (1923). Horn, across from the historic peninsula, and mainly
Before that and for over 1,500 years of its history, it was populated by affluent non-Muslims of Ottoman or Euro-
an imperial capital of the Eastern Roman, Byzantine, and pean citizenship—so much so that the contrast of the
Ottoman Empires. The city was established by Emperor historic peninsula and its old historic wooden homes and
Constantine on the site of an older Greek colony (330) centuries-old mosques with the affluent, newer northern
CE, at which time it became known as both New Rome
area might have given the impression of a ‘‘divided city.’’
and Constantinople, the city of Constantine. Its conquest
in 857/1453 by the Ottomans became a catalyst in the REPUBLICAN ERA
growth of what used to be a frontier principality into a Istanbul remained the capital of the Ottoman Empire
world empire. Today, the city’s exact beginnings are until the Allied occupation from 1918 to 1923. After
uncertain as construction work on a new suburban train Ankara was designated the capital of the newly founded
line in Yenikapı led in 2005 to the discovery of an Republic of Turkey, Istanbul was cast in official publica-
ancient port, taking the city’s timeline back to 8,500 tions as the opposite of Ankara. The city was portrayed as
years ago. old and dusty, cosmopolitan and decadent, whereas
Istanbul is located in northwestern Turkey, strad- Ankara was touted as new and clean—a model for the
dling the Bosphorus strait (Bo!gaziçi) between the Sea of new Turkey. The state promoted civic nationalism, man-
Marmara and the Black Sea. The vast city sits on the ufacturing a homogeneous national identity out of a very
border between Europe and Asia and is served by its diverse population, and ended up imposing the language
natural harbor, the Golden Horn. Today, the city has (Turkish) and the religion (Sunni Islam) of the majority.
almost merged with Izmit to the east and Tekirda!g to the This resulted in the exodus of Istanbul’s non-Muslim
west through continuous development along the Sea of populations, mainly Greeks, Armenians, Jews, and
Marmara, creating what resembles a city-region. The Levantines. At the beginning of the twentieth century,
forests, wildlife, freshwater streams, and agricultural areas the city’s population was about one million, half of
to the north of the city are threatened by redevelopment which consisted of non-Muslims, but by 1960 they con-
projects and proposals. Adjacent to one of the most stituted only 10 percent, and their numbers continued to
Not For Sale

Istanbul Not For Sale

dwindle while the city witnessed rapid population growth but also the wooden houses and the neighborhoods they
owing in part to the national increase in life expectancy constituted. Four areas in the historic peninsula were
and in part to rural-to-urban migration. eventually designated, in 1985, as World Heritage sites
The republican-era city was shaped according to the by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cul-
designs of the French planner Henri Prost, who worked tural Organization (UNESCO): the Archaeology Park
for Istanbul from 1936 to 1950. Prost’s work aimed to (encompassing the Sultan Ahmed–Hagia Sophia area),
improve the street network, open new boulevards, pre- the Süleymaniye and Zeyrek quarters, and the Theodo-
serve monumental buildings and the city’s distinct sil- sian land walls. Some of the older areas were discovered
houette, and reorganize the city into an automobile- anew as desirable inner-city neighborhoods, at the same
friendly space with zones. time as the city rapidly suburbanized with gated com-
munities and malls.
POSTWAR DECADES Under the rule of the AKP (Justice and Development
In the 1950s Turkey’s new role in the postwar interna- Party) since 2002, Istanbul has experienced staggering
tional order turned the government’s attention back to growth. Mega-developments—including a third Bospho-
Istanbul, with several high-profile investments, such as rus bridge, a third airport, and Kanal Istanbul (literally
the Hilton Hotel (1955) in Maçka Park. Postwar govern- an artificial canal to the west of the Bosphorus)—are
ments continued piecemeal urban-form interventions environmentally disconcerting and contested. Slum clear-
and civic improvements, while closing their eyes to ance and earthquake-related disaster prevention are the
increasingly visible squatter settlements that formed into official slogans and excuses for forceful evictions of the
whole neighborhoods. The city was rebuilt and expanded urban poor and the redevelopment of the city’s natural
with speculative housing developments on all sides. preserves. In parallel, Istanbul has witnessed an art boom,
Concrete-frame walk-ups rapidly replaced the existing with new corporate-sponsored museums, such as the Istan-
residential framework in the formal housing sector. One bul Modern, Pera Museum, and Santral Istanbul; new
of the most important developments was the opening of contemporary art spaces, such as the Akbank Kültür Sanat
the first Bosphorus Bridge in 1973; together with its Merkezi, Arter, Garaj, and SALT Beyo!glu; and a new
connecting highways, this bridge opened new areas for generation of artists—and all have contributed to the rise
development and facilitated the west–east expansion of of the city to the rank of one of the world’s most-visited
the city along the Sea of Marmara. Now served by high- destinations.
ways, industry gradually moved out of the Golden Horn
area and spread to the Anatolian side. The opening up of the economy in the post-1980
period has also been paralleled with the rise of an invigo-
rated civil society that questions state-sanctioned narra-
POST-1980 ERA
tives of secular modernity and top-down modernization.
In the post-1980 era, which was marked by economic A notable point of cohesion for grassroots mobilization
liberalization, a new phase of urban restructuring cen- has been resisting imposed projects that harm local com-
tered on deindustrializing the city center, legalizing for- munities. Neighborhood associations, such as those in
mer squatter areas and incorporating them into the Kuzguncuk, Arnavutköy, and Cihangir, have been
formal property market, and introducing a focus on informing fellow residents about their rights to the city
international tourism. A second bridge spanning the and on how to preserve and protect the city’s cultural and
Bosphorus was built in 1988 to the north of the first environmental assets. The 2013 protests, which initially
_
one. Istiklal Avenue (Rue de Pera), leading to Taksim began in Istanbul’s Gezi Park to protect trees from being
Square, was pedestrianized (closed to traffic); Tarlabaşı destroyed to make way for a shopping mall, but spread to
Boulevard was carved out to speed up vehicular access the rest of the country, translating into a call for demo-
from the historic peninsula; the banks of the Golden cratic rights, transparency of government, and freedom of
Horn were turned into public parks via demolition and expression, were an important reminder of the key role of
infill; and former industrial buildings were repurposed Istanbul in the Turkish public sphere.
into museums, galleries, and universities. The new Cen-
tral Business District between Levent and Maslak was SE E ALS O Architecture; Ottomans; Turkey.
lined with glass-clad corporate high-rises. This is the
skyline contemporary Istanbul projects as a counterpart BIBLIOGRAPHY
to that of the historical peninsula with its domes and
Boyar, Ebru, and Kate Fleet. A Social History of Ottoman Istanbul.
minarets. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
All this rapid transformation meant that the tradi- Bozdo!gan, Sibel. Modernism and Nation Building: Turkish
tional fabric of Istanbul almost disappeared. Only in the Architectural Culture in the Early Republic. Seattle: University
1970s did calls emerge to preserve not only monuments of Washington Press, 2001.

Istanbul
Çelik, Zeynep. The Remaking of Istanbul: Portrait of an Ottoman Keyder, Ça!glar. Istanbul: Between the Global and the Local.
City in the Nineteenth Century. Seattle: University of Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1999.
Washington Press, 1986. Kuban, Do!gan. Istanbul, an Urban History: Byzantion,
Cerasi, Maurice, Emiliano Bugatti, and Sabrina D’Agostiono. Constantinopolis, Istanbul. Istanbul: Economic and Social
The Istanbul Divanyolu: A Case Study in Ottoman Urbanity History Foundation of Turkey, 1996.
and Architecture. Würzburg, Germany: Ergon Verlag, 2004. Müller-Wiener, Wolfgang, Renate Schiele, and Wolf Schiele.
Göktürk, Deniz, Levent Soysal, and Ipek Türeli, eds. Orienting Bildlexikon zur Topographie Istanbuls: Byzantion,
Istanbul: Cultural Capital of Europe? London: Routledge, Konstantinupolis, Istanbul bis zum Beginn d. 17. Jh [Historical
2010. topography of Istanbul: Byzantium, Constantinople, Istanbul
until the beginning of the seventeenth century]. Tübingen,
Gül, Murat. The Emergence of Modern Istanbul: Transformation
West Germany: Wasmuth, 1977.
and Modernisation of a City. London: Tauris Academic
Studies, 2009. Necipo!glu, Nevra, ed. Byzantine Constantinople: Monuments,
Topography, and Everyday Life. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill,
Hamadeh, Shirine. The City’s Pleasures: Istanbul in the Eighteenth
2001.
Century. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2008.
Kafescio!glu, Çi!gdem. Constantinopolis/Istanbul: Cultural
Encounter, Imperial Vision, and the Construction of the Ipek Türeli

Ottoman Capital. University Park: Pennsylvania State School of Architecture
University Press, 2009. McGill University, Canada
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Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World, 2nd edition – 1st/ 8/17/2015 16:00 Page 477

qIBADAT that it is indifferent, and makruh, reprehensible, or that

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qIbadat Not For Sale

478 ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ISLAM AND THE MUSLIM WORLD, 2ND EDITION

Traditions recommended that believers distinguish them-

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qIbadat Not For Sale

480 ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ISLAM AND THE MUSLIM WORLD, 2ND EDITION

Prayers and other rituals can and may be performed at

(strongly recommended) according to most schools.

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qIbadat Not For Sale

The five prayers should take place in the following order:

Prayer Positions. ª CENGAGE LEARNING/GALE

482 ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ISLAM AND THE MUSLIM WORLD, 2ND EDITION

Ibn al-qArabi (560/1165–638/1240)

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484 ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ISLAM AND THE MUSLIM WORLD, 2ND EDITION

Ibn Hanbal (163/780–241/855)

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486 ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ISLAM AND THE MUSLIM WORLD, 2ND EDITION

Ibn Khaldun (732/1332–808/1406)

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Ibn Maja (c. 208/824–273/887)Not For Sale

488 ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ISLAM AND THE MUSLIM WORLD, 2ND EDITION

Ibn Sina (370/980–428/1037)

life, often accompanying him on his various campaigns.

as well as aesthetics, alchemy, astrology, biology, chem-

subjects. Although most of his treatises were written in

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490 ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ISLAM AND THE MUSLIM WORLD, 2ND EDITION

Ibn Taymiyya (662/1263–729/1328)

components of Islam. In fact, he believed the inner

him into conflict with many speculative theologians

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492 ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ISLAM AND THE MUSLIM WORLD, 2ND EDITION

Ibn Tufayl (c. 499/1105–581/1185)

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Ibrahim (Abraham) Not For Sale

494 ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ISLAM AND THE MUSLIM WORLD, 2ND EDITION

Ibrahim (Abraham) Preparing to Sacrifice His Son. An eighteenth-century CE Arab manuscript

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Ibrahim (Abraham) Not For Sale

496 ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ISLAM AND THE MUSLIM WORLD, 2ND EDITION

IHSAN path to unity with the divine.

which means ‘‘to perfect’’ or ‘‘to improve,’’ Sufis have

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498 ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ISLAM AND THE MUSLIM WORLD, 2ND EDITION

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Ilhad Not For Sale

500 ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ISLAM AND THE MUSLIM WORLD, 2ND EDITION

that is reserved for the human experience. In this religious

(al-qulum al-qaqliya). Examples include the science of logic

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Imam Not For Sale

502 ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ISLAM AND THE MUSLIM WORLD, 2ND EDITION

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Imamzadah Not For Sale