Humaniora Islamica: Volume 1 1973 [Reprint 2021 ed.] 9783112415344, 9783112415337

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HUMANIORA ISLAMICA I

HUMANIORA ISLAMICA An Annual Publication of Islamic Studies and the Humanities

Volume 1/1973

Edited by

HERBERT W. MASON University Professor of Islamic Studies Boston University Boston, Mass., U.S.A.

RONALD L. NETTLER Associate Professor of Religion Carleton University Ottawa, Canada

JACQUES WAARDENBURG Department of Religious Studies University of Utrecht The Netherlands

Coordinating Editor

MERLIN L. SWARTZ Associate Professor of Islamic Studies Boston University Boston, Mass., U.S.A.

MOUTON • THE HAGUE • PARIS

Manuscripts for the next volumes may be submitted, in English, to the Editors of Humaniora Islamica at the following addresses: Within the U.S.A.: Suite 500, Boston University, 270 Bay State Road, Boston, Mass. 02215. Within Canada: P.O. Box 4399, Station 'E', Ottawa, Canada K1S5B4. Outside North America: c/o J. D. J. Waardenburg, University of Utrecht, Heidelberglaan 2, Utrecht, The Netherlands. No specific length is prescribed for contributions, but authors must confine themselves to the minimum required by the subject matter, and the same applies to tables and footnotes. All tables, illustrations, and footnotes should be together at the end, with indications in the text as to where they are to be located. Three copies of the typescript, in double spacing, should be sent to the Editors.

Subscriptions, single or back issues may be ordered through any bookseller or subscription agent, or direct from the publishers: MOUTON, P.O.Box 482, The Hague, Netherlands 7 rue Dupuytren, 75006 Paris, France Cheques, bank drafts, money orders and Unesco coupons will be accepted in payment and should accompany orders. ISBN 2-7193-0607-X Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 73-81811 Cover design by Helmut Salden © 1974 The Editors Printed in the Netherlands

Introduction

The editors of Humaniora Islamica present the first volume of what is intended to become an annual offering of scholarship in the humanities and Islamic studies. The idea was born when the editors expressed among themselves the need for communication between scholars in their proper Islamic fields and with scholars and students in other fields. Humaniora Islamica was thus conceived to open new outlooks in Islamic studies, as an attempt to further the normal growth of this field, not only by an increase of our factual knowledge, but also by some experimentation in the approach and interpretation of the material. It quickly appeared that these matters were not only their own concern, but that they were and are the concern of a much wider circle. In the succession of scholarly generations the editors are part of the first post-colonial generation, and they consequently have a notion of the world that is different in certain ways from previous generations. For example, the independence of a great number of new countries could not fail to influence the consciousness of those whose field of study was and is the cultures, present and past, of the so-called 'third world', and specifically of the Muslim areas in this world. They are thereby vitally concerned both with scholarly research itself and with the creative effort to make its results known to others than the specialists alone. The focus of interest of Humaniora Islamica, its editors and contributors, is first of all on what may be called the human reality of what we study. Precisely when stressing quality and demanding scholarship that discovers what is new, the awareness grows that, certainly in Islamic studies, we work with materials that have a human and, beyond that, often a religiously inspired origin. This scholarship and research as we envisage it should bring out, through careful study of the relevant material, the human dimension of what we are used to calling 'Islam', and to enter thereby into dialogue with other humanistic studies. The specialized studies and disciplines in which we have our place have a tendency to neglect this aspect of research. Starting from our specializations we try to consider our material from somewhat broader and sometimes different perspectives than those of 'classical' orientalism and his-

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tonography. We hope that this will be constructive both to the Western and to the Islamic world, and we hope for collaboration on both sides, in cooperation with Muslim scholars, thinkers and artists. In the second place, the focus of interest of Humaniora Islamica is determined by the fact that an astonishing number of people, even those living in contact with Muslim countries, know almost nothing about Islamic civilization, and many with some knowledge have irrational biases against it. So we see it as a very important part ot out task to communicate the results of Islamic studies to others, to pass on the knowledge of Islamic civilization and its riches to a wider audience. Indeed, Islam is little known in the West, and there are reasons why there has been so little interest in it, except in small circles. Apart Irom pros and cons with regard to Islam as a religion, and political reasons of one kind or another, there are powerful cultural reasons. Islam still has the flavor of exoticism, it evokes romantic images, it suggests either the luxurious or the mysterious as a typical oriental way of life, and orientalists themselves have not been innocent of adding to this flavor. Notwithstanding some awareness here and there, e.g., that there once was a common history between the West and Islam, at some time in history around the Mediterranean, this appears to many to be all past, and what is now Islam seems like a realm where modern life is absent and where life itself seems to have evaporated into pure transcendence. Islam is associated with the desert, and the idea of Islamic civilization seems to be preposterous. The third aspect of our focus of interest is the human dimension of ourselves as Islamicists. There are a great number of very concrete problems with which we have to cope in our field. An immense training is required to achieve knowledge of Easiern languages and history, and there are not many chairs in 'Islamic Studies' and still fewer institutes founded for it. Many of us have heavy teaching loads and time-consuming administrative duties. We have at an early stage to delineate our special fields: the specialization in which we have to carry out our own research, and in which we work as craftsmen. Among potential Islamists there appears already a distinction between what will later become the dominant types ot researchers, of teachers, and of administrators - since no one can achieve excellence in all three of these domains. There are the realities of competition and of publication pressures which make the work technical and functional rather than devoted and inspired. And a common experience in all fields of Oriental studies is that ot a tundamental isolation in our work, if not worse: the doom of an island existence. Last but not least, the place and prestige of the humanities is not high in contemporary society and in the academic setting, which can only add to ever more consuming frustrations. The scholarly world has become more and more institutionalized so that we work nowadays almost completely within institutional settings, both with

Introduction

VII

the dynamics and the static arrangements that are proper to rationalized institutions. The structure of a modern university resembles that of a business enterprise on the one hand, and of a ministerial bureaucracy on the other. The pressure of these institutions can become heavy indeed and in not a few cases results in a radical breakdown of all cultural ideals with which one bad entered the field of Islamic studies; in some cases it indirectly or directly has led to mental exhaustion. It is proper also to draw attention to the economic aspects of the situation. The editors observe two practical facts about Islamic studies that are common at present to many other fields: the highly developed skills of its scholars and the shortage of institutional positions to support these skills. When the present-day budget-cuttings arrived, on both sides of the Atlantic, Islamic Studies found themselves given only marginal financial support by universities that had earlier encouraged their development especially since World War II. One of the reasons why Islamic studies in particular became severely hurt is the apparent failure of scholars and institutions to integrate these studies in the basic curriculum of undergraduate education in particular, so that this field has not become part of the general cultural consciousness. Many scholars assumed a purist stance toward relevance in general and, consequently, failed to see the emulating and fructifying effect of communication both with non-specialists and with people whose backgrounds or specializations are in other fields. Because of this insularity, the scholarly positions in the field became vulnerable in a crisis situation. In various ways some of those who specialize in Islamic studies now risk becoming an intellectual proletariat, if not an intellectual labor force for reasons quite other than those which led them to take up these studies in the first place. In this situation, with the danger of their becoming victims of structural and socio-psychological mechanisms, severe strains are put on the intellectual and moral qualities of scholars in Islamic studies, including their self-respect and respect of each other. Here we touch on the delicate subject of the relationships between scholars in the field and how it is affected by this situation. Within our field we must end the specialists' and generalists' rising mutual alienation, as well as the latent mutual hostility between racial, religious and national groups of scholars who cluster together to defend themselves or to protect their own fields. Over and against the consequences of over-specialization we must check our own tendencies toward esotericism, which isolates us in a cult of the sources in which we and the field are the real losers. We must also prevent external circumstances, varying from world crises to departmental interests, from destroying our professional relationships. Political or economic considerations should not be allowed to sow distrust and dishonesty among scholars, the result of which can only be mutual destruction and individual

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Humaniora Islamica

bitterness if not worse. The situations in Europe and North America may be different - not to speak ol the Islamic world where cultural studies have to cope with other and more traditional problems - but the cause of professional and scholarly loyalty is at stake everywhere. There should be honest talk among all scholars working in the field of Islamic studies, humanists, social scientists, and others. In this respect too, Humaniora Islamica would like to contribute certain constructive alternatives. One particular feature ol Islamic studies should be mentioned here, since it has given rise to some misunderstanding. Islamic studies constitute indeed one field, composed of various disciplines. Unfortunately, in the present university system this unity of the field is rarely realized adequately; one has only to look at the scattering of the various branches of Islamic studies in the curricula. But there is, at least, the possibility of constructive dialogue and interchange between these branches themselves, and also with other fields of cultural studies. We need to relate Islamic realities to other cultural studies. We need to relate Islamic realities to other cultural expressions and to human expressions in general. We need to interrogate Islamic materials with questions which are also put in the study of other civilizations and religions, or with questions of a universal nature. Although stressing the need for a communicative and creative circuit among workers in Islamic studies, the editors of Humaniora Islamica do not want to constitute a club of scholars closed and restricted to themselves. They are firmly dedicated to communicate this field to others through publication of articles, monographs, translations, brief editions, and original works on Islamic themes by scholars and writers whose concern is for a renewal of their field. They are concentrating on culture in the largest sense, on the media the Muslims have chosen to express themselves and to communicate in: the arts, literature, religion, philosophy, popular transmission. Theirs is to be a sense of living experience, in constant touch with the sources, and the constant awareness that scholars are more than card systems or living books. The editors wish to call attention to several recent gains in our field as areas of interest for future concentration in Humaniora Islamica. Progress has been made in the development of Comparative Mediaeval Studies Programs, in which the connections and parallels between Islamic, Byzantine and Latin cultural history are studied. Islam has been studied in relation to other religious communities and traditions in Comparative Religion Programs. Studies in Islamic history have been carried out beyond the classical triad of Arab, Persian, and Ottoman history, for example, in India and Africa. The legacy of Hellenism in Islam, and Islamic civilizations' transmission of this legacy to Europe have been given fresh attention and are last establishing themselves as legitimate subjects in many classics curricula. Progress in the study of Islamic juridical, philosophical, and theological thought, and the new

Introduction

IX

field of Shi'i thought, has been considerable. The opening up of archives, the discovery of new manuscripts, the development of better research tools, indeed the support of foundations, the expansion of teaching and the appearance of new journals, despite the temporary contractions and setbacks each faces, are signs of continued growth and vitality. Above all, in our examination of the recent history of Muslim countries and societies, in themselves and in relation and comparison with our own, we are gaining an appreciation of the fact that they are not necessarily stagnant societies. We are beginning to learn from them the renewing force visible throughout their history: and indeed, it is this theme of renewal which is to be the keynote of Humaniora Islamica. Several future volumes are already in the planning stage. In addition to the first numbers which will adhere to the general format of the present volume, we have projected several volumes designed to underscore the gains mentioned above. They will appear concurrently and will have a special guest editor with autonomy of selection. Suggestions include: 1. Comparative Mediaeval Studies 2. Islam and Other Cultures 3. A textbook: Introduction to the Study of Islam 4. Spanish and North African Islam 5. Comparative Mysticism 6. Selected published essays of high quality (in various languages and periodicals) which have importance to English readers but are at present inaccessible 7. Islam and the History of Religions 8. Iranian Islam 9. Indian and South East Asian Islam 10. Islam and Hellenism 11. Islam and American Cultural Interests 12. Islamic Art and Architecture 13. Ottoman Studies and Islam 14. Judaism and Islam There has been a heartening response to our initial invitation to submit contributions for this first volume. More than thirty manuscripts were received, from which the present selection of sixteen has been made. The format of the present volume was largely dictated by the kind and quantity of material we received, and the book has been organized accordingly. The first section deals specifically with North African and some Egyptian subjects; the concluding section deals with the present state of Islamic studies, in terms of Islam, specifically in North America. In between, the reader will find contributions under the sections of Mediaeval Islam, and Turkish Islam and

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Humaniora Islamica

Other Cultures. In this way the volume has an inherent unity corresponding to the focus of interest of Humaniora Islamica. It goes without saying that the authors themselves are responsible for their contributions. Manuscripts for the next volumes may be submitted, in English, to the Editors of Humaniora Islamica at the following addresses: Within the U.S.A.: Suite 500, Boston University, 270 Bay State Road, Boston, Mass. 02215 Within Canada: P.O. Box 4399, Station 'E', Ottawa, Canada, K 1S5B4 Outside North America: c/o J.D.J. Waardenburg, University of Utrecht, Heidelberglaan 2, Utrecht, The Netherlands Please send with enclosed self-addressed envelope. We also welcome suggestions and constructive criticism. The Editors

Contents

Introduction by the Editors

V

PART 1. NORTH AFRICA

Introduction

3

Islamic education in Tunisia (ca. 800-1574), by M. Plancke

5

Early Moroccan reactions to the French protectorate: The cultural dimension, by John Damis

15

Cultural problems and social structure: The campaign for Arabization in Morocco, by Abdallah Laroui

33

The realm of justice: Apocalyptic revolts in Algeria (1849-1879), by Peter von Sivers

47

The Libyan revolution according to Meredith O. Ansell and Ibrahim Massaud al-Arif, by Elizabeth R. Hayford

61

Arab Algerian literature revisited, by Herbert Mason

77

PART 2 . MEDIAEVAL ISLAM

A seventh-century (A.H.) Sunni creed: The 'Aqida Wasitiya of Ibn Taymiya, by Merlin Swartz

91

A controversy on the problem of perception: Two religious outlooks in Islam, by Ronald L. Nettler

133

Psychosomatic methods of cures in the Islamic Middle Ages, by J. Ch. Burgel

157

Poetic structure in Arabic: Three poems by Al-Mu'tamid Ibn 'Abbad, by Raymond P. Scheindlin

173

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Humaniora

Islamica

PART 3. TURKISH ISLAM AND OTHER CULTURES

A young Croat's encounter with an exotic Muslim culture: A SerboCroatian travel epic of the nineteenth century, by Laura Mavis Gordon

189

Muscovite-Ottoman relations in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, by Alan W. Fisher

207

Orhan Veli Kanik and the beginning of modern Turkish poetry, by Thomas Brosnahan

219

The Alexander roman« in the Diwan Lughat at-Turk, by Robert Dankoff

233

PART 4 . THE STATE OF ISLAMIC STUDIES

Changes of perspective in Islamic studies over the last decades, by Jacques Waardenburg

247

On teaching Islam to undergraduates, by Sheila McDonough

261

List of contributors

278

Index of proper names

280

Introduction

A variety of questions of cultural identity and evolution in the North African countries is raised in the following section. Several themes reappear in studies ranging in time and setting, as Islam is examined in its impact on education and politics, and the development of national consciousness in the face ot a strong European presence is essayed. Even at the height of Islamic self-confidence, different goals for the Islamic educational system were asserted. M. Plancke describes several Tunisian treatises on education ranging from the ninth to the sixteenth centuries, and then points out the implication of these educational methods in terms of the nature of man. In the next article, John Damis illustrates the importance of educational institutions in colonial Morocco with a study of the Moroccan free schools. Damis describes first the establishment of the schools in cities all over Morocco as a reaction to French rule and a variety of social and political forces, then their development of curriculum and teaching techniques distinct from both the traditional khuttab schools and the French-language schools. The tension between the modern techniques of French education and the cultural identity based on the use of Arabic is revealed in an analysis of the uncertain Moroccan educational policy since independence. Abdullah Laroui traces the fluctuations in the use of French and Arabic as a language of instruction and links the educational issue to the much more subtle conflict between cultural autonomy and cultural imperialism. The impact of religious belief on political action is examined by Peter von Sivers in a study of apocalyptic revolts in Algeria in the third quarter of the nineteenth century. Von Sivers concludes that the usual tripartite explanation of political oppression, economic exploitation and social degradation was not sufficient to create the revolutionary movements against both the French and local leaders condemned as collaborators, and that the metastatic anticipations growing out of indigenous Islamic beliefs were a primary causal factor. Contemporary Libya is also struggling to reconcile its cultural and national identity with the problems of political and economic organization, particularly since the revolution of 1969. In a review essay of a collection of Libyan

4

North Africa

documents, Elizabeth R. Hayford shows the interdependence of political and cultural questions and of traditional and modern values as reflected in the decrees and speeches of government leaders and Libyan intellectuals. The importance of listening to the voices of the Arab writers and thinkers themselves is shown in the last item. Herbert Mason has reevaluated the Arab Algerian literature that flourished after World War II, exploring the searchfor Algerian history and myth impelling the young writers to seek their own voice in expressing the universal crisis of identity.

M. PLANCKE

Islamic education in Tunisia (ca. 800-1574)

With a view to investigating how education in Islam reflects a specific Islamic vision of man, one can proceed in several ways. One of these consists in making a detailed study of all educational theories developed by Islam during the historical periods when its influence fully permeated the life of its followers. This method, however, is rather difficult to apply as only a few theoretical treatises on Islamic education during those periods have been edited so far, as a look at the bibliography in 'A. F. Al-'Ahwani's At-Tarbiya fi I-Islam (Cairo, 1968, 5th edition) will make clear. Also, as a consequence, only a very limited number of studies of these treatises have been undertaken. Moreover, what studies have been carried out have not infrequently limited themselves to comparisons between the educational theories of two or three philosophers. Another method, which radically differs from the one described above, consists in studying the educational development in a particular Islamic country and in ascertaining the extent to which a definite Islamic concept of man developed as a result of the programmes of study set forth as ideal by the educational philosophers of that particular country. In this paper we will adopt the latter method as the broad outlines of Tunisia's educational development have by now been sketched and as most of the basic texts have been edited.1

1. For a more detailed picture of the historical development of education in Tunisia from the beginning of the Islamic conquest onwards and for a full description of bibliographical material drawn upon in this paper, the reader is referred to the following publications of the author of the present paper: a. Het onderwijs in Tunesië (647-1964). Bijdrage tot een historisch overzicht, Gent (Belg.), C.S.H.P. (Baertsoenkaai, 3), 1970, 318 pp. (A bibliography is given on pp. 9-20, and an English summary on pp. 302-12). b. 'Le kuttàb en 'Ifriqïya du Vile au Xlle siècle. Contribution à l'histoire de l'enseignement élémentaire en Tunisie', Paedagogica Histórica, 10 (2), 1970, pp. 225-42. c. 'Education in Tunisia during the Ottoman period (1574-1818)', Le Congrès international d'Arabisants et d'Islamisants - Bruxelles 31 août - 6 septembre 1970. Actes, Bruxelles, 1971, pp. 355-66. Humaniora Islamica I (1973),pp.

5-14

6

M.

Plancke

Programmes of study for the kuttab^ The programme of study proposed as ideal during the 'Aglabid period (800909) is well known thanks to Muhammad b. Sahnun's (817-870) (Risalat) 'Adab al-mu'allimin.* According to this programme, in each kuttab elementary Qur'anic science should be taught. This included knowing the Qur'an by heart and also its 'i'rab, spelling or reading according to Nafi"s method, as well as the rules of punctuation, and correctly and slowly readingthe Sacred Book. Other branches of study were good manners, learning to pray, and learning to perform ritual ablutions. The latter two branches were not compulsory for children aged seven; they were, however, obligatory for children who were ten years old. The sunna relative to praying and that relative to the Prophet, as well as learning to pray for the dead and to invoke them, were also a must for children of kuttab-age. Not obligatory, however, were composition, arithmetic, the science of grammatical peculiarities, Arabic, calligraphy, decent poetry, the sayings and chronicles of the Ancient Arabs, and the Qur'an-readings other than thai of Nafi'. The programmes of study of the Fatimid (907-973) and Zirid (973-1148) periods are known through the Risala ol Ibn 'Abi Zayd al-Qayrawani (922996), t h e Risala

1-mufassUa li-ahwal

al-muta'allimin

wa-ahkam

al-mu'allimin

of 'Abu 1-Hasan al-Qabis! (935-1012), and a fragmentary work by 'Abu Bakr Muhammad b. al-'Arabi al-Maliki (d. 1148) cited by Ibn Khaldun. 4 The programme proposed as ideal by al-Qabis! does not seem to differ substantially from that proposed by Muhammad b. Sahnun. There were, however, some small points of difference between the two programmes. Al-Muqaddasi (d. end of the tenth century) mentions that in the Maghrib at the end of the tenth century only the Qur'anic reading method of Nafi' was followed. Ibn 'Abi Zayd al-Qayrawani mentions, in his Risala, which may be regarded not only as a juridical compendium but also as a textbook of Islamic religion destined for the young that, in addition to religious dogma and the precepts of religious law, children from the age of seven years onwards had to learn praying. If they had reached the age of ten and were not willing to do so, they had to be punished so that they should perform these religious duties. Another stipulation said that before the age of their majority children had to know all religious duties - actions as well as words - Allah imposed on believers, so that these duties should become automatic before majority. According to Ibn Khaldun, who mentions the programme of study of 'Abu Bakr b. al-'Arabi al-Maliki, this programme was a very remarkable wa-l-muta'allimin

2. For a discussion of the character of the kuttab, see Plancke, 'Le kuttab en 'Ifriqiya...', pp. 225-26. 3. Cf. Plancke, Het onderwijs..., pp. 65-68. 4. Cf. Plancke, Het onderwijs..., pp. 78-80.

Islamic education in Tunisia (ca. 800-1574)

7

one listing a number of subjects, classified according to their relative importance. Ibn al-'Arabi al-Maliki thought Arabic and poetry had to be learned before other subjects after which came arithmetic. Only after these three subjects had been mastered, should the Qur'an be taught because otherwise - i.e. when the Qur'an was learned before all other subjects - children learned by heart things they could not understand. Afterwards 'usul ad-din, 'usul al-fiqh, discussion techniques, the tradition of the Prophet, and the sciences relative to this latter subject could be taught. For the Almohad period (1160-1229) we have no theoretical treatises on programmes of study. In the Hafsid period (1229-1574), we are fortunate because Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406), in his Muqaddima, gives very detailed information about such programmes. 5 Ibn Khaldun begins his study about education and different programmes of study with an investigation into the principles of all education. Therefore he studies what has a lasting influence on the mind and character of children. In an Islamic country it was obvious that the Qur'an should constitute the basis of life. However, there were different options in the programmes of study of the various Islamic countries because, as Ibn Khaldun points out, there were different opinions about the results education had to achieve. To illustrate his argument, Ibn Khaldun compares education in the Maghrib (Morocco), Spain, and the Eastern Islamic countries with that in 'Ifrlqiya (Tunisia). The programme of study in Morocco was limited to knowledge of the Qur'an and of the different views on the spelling of the words it contained, exclusive of all other subjects. Older people who for the first time received education were also offered this curriculum. One consequence of this programme of study was, according to Ibn Khaldun, that the inhabitants of Morocco were more proficient in the Qur'an and its spelling than any of the other Islamic peoples. In Spain, on the other hand, more attention was devoted to reading and writing. The Qur'an was, of course, taught but only on an equal footing with the other subjects of the curriculum. Children also learned Arabic, poetry, and composition. The greatest emphasis was, however, laid on calligraphy. Ibn Khaldun points out that in his time further education was no longer available in Spain so that elementary education had to be sufficient for the education of youth. In the kuttab of the Eastern Islamic world there was a programme of a mixed type: The Qur'an was taught as well as some other subjects, with the exception of calligraphy. Calligraphy was not in the curriculum of the kuttab, as it was reserved as a technical subject for special vocational schools with specialized teachers. In 'Ifriqiya the programme of study of the kuttab was also of a mixed type. According to Ibn Khaldun, the Qur'an and different readings of itwerecom5. Cf. Plancke, Het onderwijs..., pp. 102-104.

M. Plancke

8

bined with hadit-science, calligraphy and elements of science and of scientific terminology. The Spanish influence on the programme of 'Ifriqiya may be accounted for by the fact that many Spanish Muslims who fled from Spain after the beginning of the Reconquista settled down in 'Ifriqiya, where they enjoyed hospitality and where many of them became schoolteachers. The consequences of the existence of different programmes of study were also examined and discussed by Ibn Khaldun when he pointed out that Moroccans, because they took only the Qur'an as a basis for their curriculum, did not have a sufficient knowledge of Arabic, as any one who knows the Qur'an by heart doesn't at the same time have an extensive theoretical and practical knowledge of the language. Children from 'Ifriqiya were somewhat better off in this respect as they had devoted a little more time to the study of Arabic, thanks to their study of scientific terminology. However, according to Ibn Khaldun, this was not sufficient to acquire a good style. Spaniards, with their intensive study of language, poetry, composition, and Arabic philology, were not so well versed in religious subjects as they received, besides the Qur'an, no instruction in hadit-science. One of the consequences of this was that in the kuttab they received a solid basis for the correct writing of Arabic and the acquisition of a sound literary education, provided they could subsequently have the benefit of a good further education. In connection with opinions about programmes of study Ibn Khaldun cites 'Abu Bakr Muhammad b. al-'Arabi al-Maliki. Ibn Khaldun is very lavish in his praise of the latter's programme, which would have been perfect but for some minor changes: Qur'an-instruction should be given before school age because according to tradition - and tradition in Islamic countries is very strong - the Qur'an has to be learned first. After the Qur'an all subjects in Ibn al-'Arabi al-Malikl's programme of study could be taught in the way he proposed.

Programmes of study for further education6 Generally speaking, no detailed theoretical programmes of study are known before the time of Ibn Khaldun. From the biographies of'ulama, provided by the tabaqat-literature of the Zirid period, for instance, we learn that in 'Ifriqiya the subject most frequently taught in the mosques was law, taught in accordance with the - mutually different - Malik!, Safi'i, and 'Abadi madhabs. Theory of literature as well as lexicography and grammar, hadit-science, kalam, geometry, and arithmetic were also taught up to the Hafsid period. For the Hafsid period, during which madrasa's as well as mosques were founded for teaching purposes, Ibn Khaldun is once more a very valuable 6. By this term we mean all education provided after completing the kuttab.

Islamic education in Tunisia (ca. 800-1574)

9

source as he gives detailed information about the curricula of further education.? With regard to the relation between different subjects he distinguishes between fundamental and ancillary sciences. According to Ibn Khaldün the fundamental sciences are: Some religious sciences such as the interpretation of the Qur'àn, and the tradition of the Prophet; law; speculative theology; and physical and metaphysical philosophy. Ancillary sciences, on the contrary, include Arabic philology, arithmetic, 'usül al-fiqh, and some other sciences - such as logic in its quality as an ancillary science of philosophy and of speculative theology - which in one way or another may be useful to the religious sciences. The chronology of the study of the various subjects was also analyzed by Ibn Khaldün, and he again makes a distinction between them. On the one hand there are philosophical sciences, which are based on the human intellect, and on the other hand there are tradition-sciences, which are derived from religious law. Basic to all tradition-sciences are materials concerning law in the Qur'àn and in the sunna. For Ibn Khaldün this means that the student has to start with the study of Arabic philology; this, because all tradition-sciences have to resort to this science. Arabic philology consists of lexicography, grammar, syntactical style, and literature. Later, students may embark upon the study ot the real tradition-sciences, viz. the sciences of Qur'àn interpretation and commentary, Qur'àn-readings, hadit-science and 'usül al-fiqh. At this stage the student can take up the study of juridical science and then of philosophical theology, which is part of the philosophical sciences. Every science, separately, takes five years of study in Tunis. Further insight as to what Islamic conception of man was developed in Tunisian education may be perceived by surveying the various educational methods intended to give greater efficiency to either the teacher's task or to that of the students.

Educational methods used in the kuttab Ibn Sahnun, in his (Risalat) 'Adab al-mu'allimin, gives a valuable picture of educational methods used during the 'Aglabid period. According to Sahnun, the father of the author, competition among pupils is a good means of educating and perfecting them. Likewise, pupils could offer dictations to each other, although these had to be corrected by the schoolmaster, lest the latter should grow lazy. When a pupil knew the Qur'an by heart thoroughly, he could become a monitor, at least if there was any advantage for him in becoming one. The teacher had the right to punish pupils with the 'dirra', holding them motionless with the 'falaqa'. These two 'instruments' had to be 7. Cf. Plancke, Het onderwijs..., pp. 110-12.

M. Planche

10

bought by the teacher himself. No more than three lashes could be given to a pupil making a mistake in reciting the Qur'an if the pupil's father had not given the teacher permission to give more. If a pupil played during lessons or was lazy, lashes were allowed. It pupils age ten or more were not willing to pray, punishment was also allowed. When administering corporal punishments, the teacher had to avoid the top of the head and the face. It is interesting to note that pupils were allowed to punish each other if they did not give more than three lashes. When a mistake was made by a pupil and another pupil informed the teacher of it, the teacher had no right to punish that pupil if the other pupils or the pupil in question did not confirm that a mistake had been made. The teacher could, however, believe a pupil who was well-know for his sincerity. It was forbidden to accept food or drink from a pupil as a punishment. Finally, the teacher was responsible to parents for any death, sickness, or infirmity due to the pupils' punishment. 8 Ibn 'Abi Zayd al-Qayrawani, who wrote during the Zirid period, clearly states in his Risala that he divided his book into different chapters to facilitate the pupils' consultation of it. The method of dividing textbooks into smaller units is new for that period. Ibn Khaldun subsequently made a more systematic study of this educational technique. Al-Qabisi mentions that pupils were not allowed to start learning a new sura of the Sacred Book if they had not fully mastered the previous one with respect to the 'i'rab and the writing of it. Ibn Sahnun already gave the same advice before al-Qabis! and also informs us that the teacher could proceed more quickly when the pupils' parents gave permission to do so. Ibn al-'Arab! al-Maliki thinks along the same lines when he points out that two different subjects had to be taken separately unless the pupil had a good memory and sufficient energy.9 Educational methods used in Ibn Khaldun's time can be traced by analyzing his criticism of them. Ibn Khaldun warned against punishing small children because this method stimulated bad habits. As a result of being punished, children lose their energy and are encouraged to lie because they fear to be punished when they are telling the truth. Methods for teaching certain subjects that are in the curriculum of the kuttab are also discussed by Ibn Khaldun, and he again makes a comparison between them. Calligraphy, for example, was taught in North Africa and in Spain by learning whole words. The pupil wrote them until he had mastered them completely and the teacher supervised him. In Egypt, on the contrary, where calligraphy was notion the kuttab's curriculum but was taught in a special vocational school by a specialized vocational teacher, each lettertype was learned separately according to a special method used by the teacher. Egyptian pupils also were advised to 8. Cf. Plancke, Het onderwijs..., pp. 66-88. 9. Cf. Plancke, Het onderwijs..., pp. 80-81.

Islamic education in Tunisia (ca. 800-1574)

11

teach other pupils so that they should understand more clearly the rules governing a given subject. Perfection in some subject could be attained by repeating its various movements. To become skilled in some subject, it is better for the pupil to actually see that subject practised than to learn or read a good deal about it. Another remark of Ibn Khaldun's is that once someone has become skilled in a certain subject it is nearly impossible for him to attain the same amount of skill in a second one.10

Educational methods used in further education Ibn Khaldun's remarks about educational methods are in fact a kind of "Adab'-manual on further education which may be compared with that of Ibn Sahnun and of al-Qabisi. Ibn Khaldun, however, gives us a very remarkable survey of precepts and recommendations for the teacher and the student of further education. A first general educational principle which he proposes is that instruction in a scientific subject is only fruitful when that subject is divided into smaller units. The author suggests that each subject should be taught in three consecutive stages. During the first stage only the general principles of the subject should be taught. During the second stage most difficulties in the text and different opinions from various authors could be discussed. The third stage consists in explaining all difficult and obscure passages in the text, so as to secure a thorough mastery of the subject, to the student. Ibn Khaldun advocates this method and as a reason for doing so points out that students embarking upon their studies are able only to understand a few principles and that it is completely erroneous to burden them with all difficulties at the same time or to teach them all problems discussed by scholars. By doing so, teachers might well induce in their students an aversion for a given subject, which they would find too difficult. A second methodological principle Ibn Khaldun propounds is that students should first do all exercises of one textbook before proceeding to another one. The same principle is advocated with reference to the study of new subjects: One has to thoroughly master one subject before taking up a second one. The worst method consists in learning two different subjects at the same time. In this case the student divides his attention between the two subjects and consequently will acquire only a partial knowledge of both subjects. A third principle consists in the teacher's having to avoid lengthening study periods too much by introducing a long holiday-period between the various study periods. As a result of such breaks, students at the end of the study periods don't remember what they have been 10. Cf. Plancke, Het onderwijs..., pp. 104-105.

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taught at the beginning: Breaks are obstacles to a good memorization of subject matter. To the students Ibn Khaldun also gives advise. When they don't find the solution to a problem or do not find the way out of a difficult discussion, it is better tor them to quietly think the problem over thoroughly than to think that only logic can help them. In the Muqaddima methodological advice concerning the study of separate subjects is also given by Ibn Khaldun. His remarks, for example, about the study and teaching of classical Arabic are still very worthwhile examining. The right method consists in taking written texts from the classical period as a basis for studying the language. These texts have to include the Qur'an, texts relating to the traditions of the Prophet, and the ancient Arabs' and muwallads' speeches in rhymed prose. Having learned these texts, one has the sensation of having been born and grown up among the ancient Arabs. Subsequently, exercises can be made by projecting one's thought into the style and the form of the language just learned. The degree of fluency in a language depends on the number of texts known by heart and on the number of exercises made. The wrong method for studying classical Arabic is that method ot Arabic philology which consists in giving grammatical rules and in sometimes illustrating them with examples. Knowledge of language acquired by this method remains purely theoretical and is valuable only for getting an insight into the mechanisms of the language but not for acquiring any fluency in it. 11

What Islamic concept of man emerges from these programmes of study and educational methods? One particular category of programmes of study was set forth by jurists or historians and proposed as ideal to their fellowmen. This means that these programmes did not have in view the actual situation obtaining in schools but were rather intended as a kind of implicit criticism of educational programmes of different periods. Because we here have to investigate not whether different programmes of study were actually applied but rather what views on education prevailed during the Middle Ages, it may be that within the framework of the present paper the 'ideal' character of these programmes of study constitutes an advantage. We are of the opinion that the programmes of study reflect the broadest spectrum of subjects to be learned and the greatest possible number of aptitudes to be acquired. The actual educational level may have lain well below these requirements. 11. Cf. Plancke, Het onderwijs..., pp. 112-14.

Islamic education in Tunisia (ca. 800-1574)

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The programmes of study set forth by Muhammad b. Sahnun, Ibn 'Abi Zayd al-Qayrawani and 'Abu 1-Hasan al-Qabisi can, broadly speaking and for the present purposes, be taken together. All three represent a 'legalistic', systematic, but also narrow, point of view, whereas 'Abu Bakr Muhammed b. al-'Arabi al-Maliki and Ibn Khaldun broke away from traditional schemes and exemplify a 'philosophical' approach. 'Legalistic' theories are characterized not only by their being written by legalists but also by the way in which their texts are arranged, viz. according to a 'question-and-answer' method very much lesembling that of fatwa compendia. The legalistic approach made itself felt by the fact that authors tried to answer the question: 'What has to be known by everyone who is to be a Muslim?' Answers to this question were thus viewed in this perspective and there is no reason to search in these works for principles other than religiouslegalistic ones. This approach is found not only in programmes of study but also in the paragraphs about educational methods occuring in these same works. Great attention is paid to the problem of what methods and punishments are legally valid and may, consequently, be authorized. All principles are derived from the principles of law, education being only one of several domains in which these principles can be applied. The 'philosophical' approach, on the contrary, is wholly different from the 'legalistic' one: Educational curriculum and methods are evaluated according to some philosophical principle. For 'Abu Bakr al-'Arabi al-Maliki this principle was the relative importance of the various subjects of the curriculum and for Ibn Khaldun it was the principle of all education that had a lasting influence on the mind and character of children. In order to define this principle Ibn Khaldun made a comparative study of programmes of study obtaining in some Islamic countries. He came to the conclusion that only the Qur'an could constitute the starting point for an Islamic education, this being in accordance with the traditions prevalent in those countries. This 'philosophical' approach is also the approach which Ibn Khaldun uses when speaking of programmes of study and methods for further education. For this type of education he establishes as principles underlying all education the distinction between fundamental and ancillary sciences and the distinction between philosophical and tradition-sciences. Students taking further education courses have to start with the study of Arabic philology as this discipline is basic to all other sciences. Educational methods also offer an illustration of this philosophical approach. Ibn Khaldun does not analyze what methods are authorized by law nor does he go into the question of what methods are harmful according to the legalistic principle. Instead, he examines the problem of what methods are good or bad for the child's development as a child. Ibn Khaldun analyzes educational methods and the curriculum according to educational and

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psychological standards: He devotes his attention to the problem of what programmes of study and methods are the best with a view to the optimal development of a given child who, of course, will later be a Muslin. His approach may be illustrated by repeating what we already have said about his views on punishments: Ibn Khaldun warned against (severe) punishment of children, not in terms of the legal responsibility of the teacher towards the child's parents, etc., but in terms of the child's own moral development (punishment stimulated bad habits). From a psychological point of view, we may point to some leitmotifs running through Ibn Khaldun's remarks about educational methods: Practice is better than theory; learning two different things at the same time is generaly impossible; it is wise for the teacher to divide the materials to be learned into smaller units, starting from the more general to the more specialized ones; and, finally, it is not expedient to separate different study units by a long break. We could summarize the two different approaches to methods and programmes of study by saying that the'legalistic' approach extends the domain of religious law to the educational domain, whereas the MlosophicaV approach considers education from within, i.e. according to principles that are valid only for this particular domain. Both approaches start from the concept of'man in an Islamic environment', but the legalistic approach regards the child as already subject to Islamic law, whereas the philosophical approach holds that once the child has grown up according to specific educational and philosophical values, he can be subjected to Islamic values, of which Islamic law is an emanation.

JOHN DAMIS

Early Moroccan reactions to the French protectorate: The cultural dimension

The reactions of indigenous populations to colonial rule have taken many forms. Among the more visible forms are armed resistance and political struggle; the former often occurs as a sort of immediate gut reaction while the latter may require a period of gestation lasting a generation or more. In the case of Morocco, the beginning of French colonial rule in 1912 was the occasion for a tribal revolt in the Fez region, and the country was not fully 'pacified' until 1934. The political struggle, on the other hand, did not begin in earnest until the 1930s. In the meantime, with less visibility but no less penetration, another reaction had begun - an opposition to the inroads being made by French culture and especially French education. A major thrust of this cultural reaction was the endeavor by Moroccans to create private or 'free' schools as a semi-modern alternative to the new French public schools. This article will examine the origins and development of these free schools from their first appearance shortly after the end of World War I until the end of the 1920s.1 What precisely is a 'free school?' The term 'free' is a translation of the Arabic word burr, which in this sense means 'private' or 'free from government control' rather than 'free of tuition.' But the term 'free school' does not apply to all private schools; it includes only those which are indigenously sponsored. In Morocco the term does not include either the schools established by the Alliance Israélite Universelle, various missionary organizations, or other private foreign groups. The instruction in the free schools was usually confined to the elementary level, though some of the schools did include classes at the secondary level. 1. The research for this article was carried out in Morocco during 1968-1969, financed principally by an NDEA-related Fulbright-Hays Fellowship. Much of the information is from interviews, too numerous to list, with former free-school founders, teachers, and students. Among my informants, the following deserve special mention: Mehdi Bennouna, Mohammed Daoud, Abdesselam al-Fassi, Ahmad Ma'ninu, Ahmed Mekwar, and Mekki Naciri. I am also indebted to several persons who kindly read and commented on earlier drafts of this article: Kenneth Brown, John Spencer, Robert Meagher, John Demos, and especially Mohammed Geussous.

Humaniora Islamica I (1973), pp. 15-31

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Before World War I, some modernization of traditional elementary education in Morocco did occur, but it was limited to isolated instances. In general, attempts at reform were not very successful in Morocco during the century which preceded the establishment of the French protectorate (1912-1956). Moroccan society was essentially conservative in nature and thus not very receptive to reformist efforts. Morocco never experienced the modernizing influence of a nineteenth-century reformer like Mohammed Ali in Egypt or Ahmad Bey and Khair ad-Din Pasha in Tunisia. Ultimate authority resided with the sultan-iman, defender of religious orthodoxy and symbol of political legitimacy. In many ways, the country closed itself off from the rest of the world. While Moroccans did occasionally travel to the Eastern Arab World, including pilgrimages to Mecca and Medina, those few who traveled or studied in infidel Europe were treated with suspicion and even hostility when they returned. There was somewhat less resistance to currents of Islamic reform emanating from the Eastern Arab World. By the 1920s these currents had already made some headway at the higher level of traditional Moroccan education. At the elementary level, however, Koranic studies had changed very little from their traditional form, due, probably, to the force of inertia: A conservative, inward-oriented society which resisted change in general would hardly be interested in modernizing its Koranic schools. At any rate, it was not until the first decade of the protectorate that free schools appeared in more than isolated instances. The first Moroccan free schools opened in 1919 in Rabat, Fez, and Tetuan. During the next few years, additional schools opened in these cities and in Salé, Casablanca, Marrakech, El-Jadida, Safi and Essaouira. By 1930 more than 30 free schools had been created in Morocco; only four of these were founded after 1925 and only one was not located in a major city. The total number of students enrolled in the schools reached about 1,500-2,000 in the mid-1920s before declining toward the end of the decade. This figure was not insignificant since the number of Muslim children in the protectorate schools totaled only about 6,000 at this time.2

The meaning of a 'free school' In Morocco during the 1920s, what distinguished a free school from a tradi2. The total number of early free schools is compiled from a wide variety of interviews. Free-school enrollment is compiled from figures given for Salé, Rabat, Fez, Marrakech and Tetuan in Lucien Paye, 'Enseignement et société musulmane', Unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Paris, 1957, p. 226, plus my own estimates for other cities. The enrollment figure for protectorate schools is from Direction de l'Instruction Publique, Historique (1912-1930). Rabat, 1930, p. 55.

Early Moroccan reactions to the French protectorate

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tional Koranic school (msid) was first the curriculum and secondly the teaching methods. The curriculum of Moroccan free schools derived partially from a modernization of the curriculum used in the msids. To the memorization of the Koran were added elementary explanations to aid in the understanding of the Holy Book, basic tenets of Isalm, rudiments of Arabic grammar, and sometimes a little arithmetic. These subjects were already being taught in a small minority of msids - about five percent, according to one estimate. In addition, however, a few free schools in the 1920s included history, geography, logic and basic French in their curricula, and one went so far as to include elementary notions of science. These latter subjects had never been taught in msids and so clearly distinguished the early free schools from traditional Koranic schools. The curriculum which was used in the 1920s varied considerably from one free school to another. Some schools, with a single Koranic teacher (fqih) were barely distinguishable from msids; in addition to the Koran, their curriculum might be limited to elements of Arabic grammar and basic tenets of Islam. At the other end of the spectrum, a few schools with distinguished teachers offered a fairly complete modern elementary curriculum. An example of the latter type was the Naciriyya school in Fez, which employed the following curriculum: I.

Koran recitation memorization writing pronunciation (tajwid)

III. Arabic Grammar and conjugation vocabulary rhetoric composition

II.

Religion profession of the unity of God (tawhid) Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) Prophetic tradition (hadith) and life of the Prophet

IV. Complementary ethics arithmetic history geography

What distinguished the early free schools from the msids even more clearly were their teaching methods. In place of the undifferentiated single class of the msid, students in free schools were divided into classes of divisions according to their progress. In addition, the various subjects were assigned regular hours as far as possible. Instead of having each student work separately to learn a different passage of the Koran, students of the same ability and level were put together to learn the same passage. In place of dictating passages of the Koran which the students memorized and then repeated by rote, an effort was made to explain the meaning of a small number

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ot passages. This method, while certainly useful in teaching Arabic grammar and basic tenets of Islam, was absolutely essential for more modern subjects like arithmetic and history. 3

The 'founding fathers' The early free schools in Morocco were founded by a variety of men from different walks of life acting, in many instances, independently of one another. But despite their diverse backgrounds, the 'founding fathers' shared the same experience of colonization by an alien power, and their actions in creating free schools are best understood as a reaction to the newlyimposed colonial presence. Morocco, prior ta the twentieth century, had been independent for more than a millennium. Unlike the rest of the Arab world, it had never been subjected to Ottoman rule. After living under a long succession of indigenous dynasties, the country was forced rather suddenly to submit to French control in 1912; the Alawite dynasty, which had been ruling since 1666, was left only nominally in power. There can be little question that Moroccans, especially in urban centers, suffered from, and reacted to, the shock of colonization and that this was a major factor in causing some of them to open free schools. As one informant explained, the origins of the early free schools must be sought in the context of the encroachment of a foreign ruler and 'the spoliation of our independence'. This factor, at any rate, provides the only satisfactory explanation for the timing of the creation of the first free schools, which were founded in 1919, within seven years of the establishment of the French protectorate. And in two of the first three schools, the founders had intended to act even sooner - perhaps as early as 1915 in one case - but could not do so because of the tense atmosphere prevailing during World War I. The colonial presence was perhaps most acutely felt by Moroccans in the changes which it brought to familiar patterns of everyday life. One man, Ibn al-Muwaqqit, returning to his home town of Marrakech after a long absence, complained bitterly of the 'vicious practices' (manakir) which had become commonplace since the establishment of the protectorate. These included indiscriminate legal corruption, changes in dress, the exploitation of popular confidence by religious brotherhoods, and the disturbing influence on young men who had become culturally oriented toward Europe. Ibn al-Muwaqqit indicted almost the whole of the contemporary life which he found: The 3. A final distinguishing feature of the free schools in the 1920s was their organization. Whereas msids were individual enterprises operated by fqihs, free schools usually had small patronage committees composed of local notables and ulama.

Early Moroccan reactions to the French protectorate

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record player, the unveiling of brides and recordings of women's voices, the habit of associating with 'Franks' and the wearing 01 European trousers, and the reading of newspapers and magazines.4 Resentment against the colonial presence, perhaps more than any other factor, accounts for the great emotions which Abd al-Krim aroused among Moroccans during the Rifian rebellion from 1921 to 1926. Charles-André Julien argues in this regard that for Moroccans 'Abd al-Krim was the symbol of Muslim protestation against the triumph of Western materialism'.5 In addition to the general societal shock resulting from the imposition of alien political and military rule, the French protectorate posed a specific cultural threat. This threat came from the progressive establishment of a French-oriented public-school system. The threat posed by the protectorate schools will be discussed more fully below in the sections on teachers, and parents and students, but a few words at this point are perhaps useful. For more than a millennium prior to 1912, Morocco had belonged culturally to a larger Islamic society whose chief characteristic was a religious attitude to life. A Moroccan's sense of identity in the early decades of this century came first of all from his being a Muslim and a member of a local Islamic community. For the vast majority of those living in urban centers, the Arabic language was inextricably linked to their identity as both Muslims and members of their community. Arabic, in its literary and colloquial forms, was the language of Islam, of traditional education, and of written and verbal communication at all levels. The protectorate schools represented an implicit challenge to Islam as a belief-system and an explicit challenge to Islamic culture and to the Arabic language as the vehicle of that culture. In relation to the early free schools, at least two informants were very specific on this point and related that the schools were created 'to save the Arabic language'. In actual practice and as a matter of policy, French authorities neither closed down msids nor forced Moroccan parents to send their children to protectorate schools. Thus, the fear that the Arabic language would be eclipsed by French may seem to the reader to have been exaggerated. One can imagine, though, that Moroccans in the 1920s viewed the small number of protectorate schools as only the beginning of a massive campaign by the French to propagate their language and culture. A few thousand Muslim children, mainly in urban centers, did attend protectorate schools where they received an essentially French education of a high quality which contrasted 4. Ar-Rihla al-Marrakushiyya (Marrakech Journey) (1351/1932-33), 1, pp. 45, 52, 140; 2, p. 96; 3, p. 27, cited in Jacques Berque, French North Africa, Jean Stewart, trans., New York, 1967, p. 74. 5. L'Afrique du Nord en marche, Paris, 1952 p., 145. It is well worth noting that some notables in Fez, though they had already accepted the French regime, still withdrew their children from the école des fils de notables during Abd al-Krim's siege in 1925 (Berque, pp. 169-70).

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sharply with the spotty quality of Koranic instruction given in msids. In addition, most msids did not provide what one could properly call instruction in the Arabic language. In this situation Moroccans could feel that their language was threatened, and while this fear may well have been exaggerated and irrational, it was nevertheless quite real. The response of at least some Moroccans was to improve the nature and quality of traditional learning by creating a new form of educational institution - the free school. 6 Before 1912 there had only been msids at the elementary level. When the French came, they provided for the first time an alternative to the msids in the form of modern public schools. Then, after World War I, the creation of free schools added a third option. It is not hard to find a causal connection between the establishment of the protectorate schools following 1912 and the reform and modernization of msids - i.e., the creation of free schools - following World War I. The protectorate schools, among their many functions, competed, at least indirectly, with the msids. In other words, had France not established a modern public-school system in Morocco, there would have been much less pressure to change traditional forms of education. The founding fathers were dissatisfied with both the msids and the public schools. They criticized the msids for being ill-kept and materially deficient, for confining their instruction too strictly to the Koran. While msids had probably been criticized on these counts before the protectorate, Moroccans had evidently not considered it important enough to merit taking effective measures to improve large numbers of msids. But one can easily imagine that the short-comings of the msids became much more apparent when the French established modern, progressive and clean schools in the midst of Morocco's major cities. The protectorate schools, with their wide-ranging and modern curricula, pointed up the restricted nature of the instruction given in msids. But in other respects as well, the public schools must have had a 'demonstration effect' which spurred Moroccans to improve their traditional educational institutions: They provided a standard against which the free schools were forced, at least in part, to compete for students. The actions of the founding fathers in creating the early free schools should be seen as a reflection of patriotism. But because, in the years immediately following World War I, a Moroccan's sense of identity derived primarily from his religion and his local community, his 'patriotism' took quite a different 6. An alternative response by a traditional society to cultural contact with a more advanced civilization is to cling defensively to its own institutions. In Morocco at least some men honestly admitted the inadequacies of traditional Koranic schools and opted for a more modern form of education by opening free schools, and in a few cases, including French or Spanish in the curriculum. The progressive and, in a very real sense, courageous nature of this response should not be underestimated.

Early Moroccan reactions to the French protectorate

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form than it would in later decades. Because loyalty to a Moroccan 'nation' was, at that time, vague and undeveloped, patriotism had relatively little political content; it involved, instead, a defence of Islam and the Arabic language. The arguments made here and in the preceding paragraphs - that the early free-school founders were motivated primarily by the shock of colonization and a sense of religious and cultural patriotism - are nicely illustrated in the case of the Darb La'lu school, created in Salé in 1921. At that time one of the founders described the institution as a 'patriotic Islamic school founded... for the teaching of the glorious Koran and the other religious sciences which every man is commanded to teach in order to emerge from the darkness of ignorance'. 7 Keepingin mind the common motivations shared by the founding fathers, let us now turn to the various sorts of individuals who created the early free schools. These individuals fall into four main groups: Salafis, merchants, members of religious brotherhoods, and ulama and fqihs. Before examining each category, however, the shortcomings of these groupings must be frankly admitted. It should be clearly understood that the analysis involves theoretical categories of founders, not actual persons. These categories are not defined by consistent criteria since they sometimes stress occupation and other times level of education or ideological outlook. Second, the several groups often overlap and are thus somewhat misleading: Ulama were often, in fact, very involved in commerce; Salafis, merchants, ulama and fqihs might all belong to a brotherhood; members of brotherhoods were also merchants, and so on. Finally, as was seen above, the founding fathers acted primarily as Arabic-speaking Muslims with a tradition of independence and only secondarily as Salafis, merchants, members of religious brotherhoods, or ulama and fqihs. Taking into account these limitations of the groupings, let us now consider each of the four categories. The Salafis who founded free schools were, certainly, the most articulate of the four groups. By the 1920s Salafi reformers were trying to instill a new critical and questioning spirit in the largely passive learning experience which characterized traditional Moroccan education. This was part of a more general effort to liberate the Moroccan mentality from its state of lethargy by propagating, through their writings and discussions, a spirit of examination and verification. In the free schools which they created, the reformers introduced a more modern, stimulating range of subjects and discussed the ideas of Salafiyya with the older students. Shaikh Mohammed al-Arabi al-Khatib of Tetuan provides a brief example of the Salafi category. Al-Khatib received his higher education in Cairo. 7. Record book of the Darb La'lu school, Salé, from the private papers of M'Hammed Bel Qadi, one of the school's founders and itsfirsttreasurer.

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where he studied with Rachid Rida at Dar al-Hikma. Rida was the principal disciple of Mohammed Abdu and the leading Middle Eastern proponent of Salafiyya after Abdu's death in 1905. Al-Khatib seems to have emerged from his years at Dar al-Hikma with a sense of mission, which might explain some of his eccentricities, like speaking classical Arabic on the street and in his home. As soon as World War I ended, he left Egypt to return to Tetuan where he immediately set up a private class early in 1919 in a small rented apartment. Al-Khatib's lessons centered on Arabic grammar and Koranic commentary, but they also included Spanish, which was most unusual and progressive at that time. The style of his lessons was different from other teachers in Tetuan, a result no doubt of his studies at Dar al-Hikma. In short, al-Khatib was bent on giving his studens the same kind of educational experience that they had had with Rashid Rida. His commitment to the school was limited, however, and within two or three years it closed - reportedly because of his own difficulties rather than Spanish interference. Merchants formed by far the largest ofthe four categories offounding fathers. In general, merchants who founded and supported free schools placed themselves in a potentially awkward situation. On the one hand, they gained recognition and prestige within the local Muslim community by their philanthropic action but on the other, they ran the risk of strained relations with local French authorities. Unlike Salafis, ulama and fqihs, or brotherhood militants, the prosperity of a merchant's business required in some measure that he remain in the good graces of the French administration. Merchants profited directly from the order and stability that French civil and military authorities established following 1912. One would therefore not normally expect the beneficiaries of French rule to jeopardize their position by actively backing private schools which soon fell from official favor. An example of the merchant type can be found in the case of Ahmad Mekwar of Fez. Mekwar's own formal education did not go beyond the Koranic school, but he is described by his peers as a man of keen practical intelligence. He does not seem to have been influenced, at least in the beginning, by Salafiyya or by the ideas of the Arab Renaissance which filtered into Morocco from the Middle East. He was very much struck, however, by the French takeover of Fez and the foreign military and civil presence in that city. Early in 1919, motivated by a desire to prepare the younger generation for participation in political life, Mekwar founded the Sidi Bennani school in the zawiya of the same name in the Diwan quarter of the Fez medina. Because of his own educational background and commercial interests, he served the school as an entrepreneur and financial manager rather than teacher, leaving the classes to a hired fqih. In 1921 Mekwar took over the management of the an-Najah (Success) school, which had been founded the year before by a group of four merchants.

Early Moroccan reactions to the French protectorate

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He remained responsible for the two schools until 1934 when he turned them over to full-time directors. By this time Mekwar had become a leading member of the nationalist movement. He demonstrated his commitment to the free schools in the years that followed by participating in the financing and creation of several other schools in Fez. The weakest of the four categories, at least in functional terms, is the group of free-school founders who were members of religious brotherhoods. Membership in a religious brotherhood seems to have had more a social than an ideological function. The zawiya (religious sanctuary) of a brotherhood was a place where members went in the evenings to fraternize or to listen to lectures or where they assembled after going to mosque on Friday noon. Membership in one brotherhood rather than another meant that a man performed certain rituals, like counting beads, in a distinct manner prescribed by his particular order. While there were considerable differences in the degree of religious heterodoxy among brotherhoods, it was common for a man to belong to more than one order at the same time. In the free schools, membership in a particular brotherhood did not affect the way in which a man taught his students. Nor did parents attach any importance to whether or not a man who operated a school belonged to one brotherhood or another or was a Salafi. Fqih Mohammed ben Ahsain (Hsa'in) an-Najjar of Salé illustrates the category of founding fathers who were members of religious brotherhoods. Ben Ahsain was an alim and had attended courses given by local ulama in Rabat and Salé. He was also a member of the Kattaniyya brotherhood in Salé and had studied with Shaikh Mohammed Abdelkabir al-Kattani, who had founded the brotherhood in the nineteenth century. In 1922 Ben Ahsain founded a free school in the ash-Shallalin quarter of the Salé medina. He was motivated by a desire to keep the children of Salé out of the protectorate schools so that they would remain true Arabs and Muslims. The final category of founding fathers comprises ulama and fqihs who were neither Salafis nor members of religious brotherhoods. Some of these men had already taught modern subjects in msids before 1919, and in these cases the free schools represented less of a curriculum reform than an improvement of teaching techniques and administrative organization. For most of the men in this group, creating and operating free schools meant applying, at the elementary level, their teaching skills to more modern subjects and pedagogic techniques, often inspired by the example and competition ot the protectorate schools. Usually, they had already taught the more modern subjects at the secondary and/or higher level (with the exception of French or Spanish and perhaps geography). Mohammed al-Mehdi ben Abdesselam Matjinush (or Manjinush) of Rabat provides a brief example of an alim orfqih who was neither a Salafi nor

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a member of a religious brotherhood. Mehdi Matjinush was a distinguished alim, renowned for his knowledge of sciences and astronomy. For many years he had operated a msid in Rabat which had a high quality of instruction and a curriculum which included more modern subjects. In 1920 Matjinush, a very poor man, sought and obtained private financial support for a free school, and with this backing he founded the Ambarkiyya (Mubarakiyya) school in the zawiya of the same name in the Rabat medina. The school represented a continuation, on a larger and better organized scale, of his life-long devotion to knowledge and commitment to a high quality of teaching. It is clear from the material presented in the preceding pages that the four groups of founding fathers shared much in common regarding their general outlook and motivations in creating free schools. The founders, moreover, were all members of an intertwining society and were often allied within each city by family ties and mutual interests. In addition to ulama who engaged in commerce, many merchants were in constant contact with scholars whose courses they attended in the evenings in mosques and zawiyas. In other words, these men acted primarily as Arabic-speaking Muslims within the context of an indigenous reaction to a colonial presence, and only secondarily as Salafis, merchants, members of brotherhoods, or ulama and fqihs. Finally, it is clear that the schools were founded by several categories of men. Therefore to see the origins of the early free schools as the product of a single element like Salafiyya8 is not only too simple but quite misleading. While Salafiyya influenced some of the founders, it had little or no effect on many others. And even where Salafiyya did come into play, its role was only secondary. The influence of externalfactors To what extent were the founding fathers influenced by external factors, coming either from other cities within the country or from outside of Morocco ? The men involved generally insisted that such influences had played a negligible role. This argument, however, may well stem from a desire, conscious or otherwise, to emphasize their personal contribution or that of their city. The ideas of the Arab Renaissance were in the air in Morocco during the 1920's and were certainly known among literary and intellectual circles through journals and books imported or smuggled in from Algeria, Tunisia and the Middle East. Some of the founding fathers are known to have read foreign Arabic journals beginning about 1900, but it is difficult to assess how much influence these journals had. A few informants did recall having read the Algerian reformist journal, ash-Shihab, and having sympathized 8. This, for example, is the argument made in John P. Halstead, Rebirth of a Nation: The Origins and Rise of Moroccan Nationalism, 1912-1944, Cambridge, Mass., 1967, pp. 161-65.

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with its Salafi viewpoints, but they denied categorically that it had influenced the free schools. In point of fact, the first issue of ash-Shihab did not appear until 1925, whereas almost all the early Moroccan schools were founded between 1919 and 1924. Lucien Paye states that the early Moroccan free schools were largely inspired by the modern Koranic schools in Tunisia, but he offers very little evidence to support this argument.» A stronger case can be made for the influence of contacts between men living in different cities within Morocco. In the 1920s Moroccans communicated in several ways - travel, mail, newspapers, periodic reunions, special itinerant messengers - and these contacts provide the only satisfactory explanation for the fact that diverse elements in several different cities hit upon one and the same pattern of reaction to Western cultural inroads and carried it out within the same time-period. Most probably the founding fathers in a few cities, especially Rabat and Fez, acted spontaneously in creating the first free schools, which were then imitated in other cities like Salé, Casablanca, El-Jadida, Safi and Essaouira. To cite two examples, the founders of the Darb La'lu school in Salé (1912) got their idea from a free school founded a year or two earlier in Rabat, and Mekki Naciri, then teaching with his brother at the alHayat (Life) school in Rabat, wrote in 1926 to Mohammed Ghazi in Fez urging him to improve the Naciriyya school and to instil a 'spirit of renovation'.io Strategies and tactics What strategies and tactics did the founding fathers employ? One of the most common tactics was the formation of patronage committees. Sometimes these committees were composed of the founders themselves, whereas in other cases a founder would approach two or three friends and enlist their participation. The members, who usually numbered from three to five, might be of any of the four types discussed above or, often, a mixture of two or more. The functions of the patronage committees were to provide the finances necessary to open a school, to be responsible for the school's mains'. Paye, pp. 234, 357. Another Frenchman, writing in the late 1920s, stressed the influence on the Moroccan free schools of tendentious articles which appeared in Arabic in Tunisian journals attacking the protectorate schools in Tunisia, and also the encouragement given by attempts at modern education in Arabic which had been undertaken in Egypt. (Roger Gaudefroy-Demombynes, V Oeuvre française en matière d'enseignement au Maroc, Paris, 1928, pp. 22-23.) 10. Notes from the private papers of Mekki Naciri. Both Naciri and Ghazi subsequently became leading members of the Moroccan nationalist movement. Naciri was writing in 1926 as the secretary of the Rabat secret society, and Ghazi was replying as the president of the Fez secret society. A series of six letters from Ghazi to Naciri written between October 1926 and January 1927 establishes that there was contact between the early secret societies (cf. Halstead, p. 167) and that one of their concerns was the free schools.

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tenance, and sometimes to recruit students. The committees were formed to share the responsibility for creating and maintaining a school among three or four like-minded people. Since the patronage committees usually included respected members oí the community - namely ulama and notables - they served to lend prestige to the schools which helped to attract students. They also provided a buffer of protection against closure by the French or Spanish authorities. This can be seen in the case of the Ahliyya school, founded in Tetuan in 1924. The school was founded and operated essentially by three men, Mohammed Daoud, Abdesselam Bennouna, and the latter's brother, M'Hammed Bennouna. But in order to make it difficult for the Spanish to close the school, these three chose five notables from the leading families of Tetuan to serve as 'honorary' members of the committee.11 The founding fathers also used certain tactics to attract students. By enrolling their own children as students, they demonstrated their confidence in a given free school while at the same time encouraging other parents in the city to follow suit. In cases where a founder had previously operated a msid, like Mehdi Matjinush of Rabat (described above), his former students followed him to the newly opened free school. In other cases founders arranged with a fqih to incorporate the latter's students into their new free school. This occurred, for example, at the ash-Shadda school (later known as al-Qalqaliyyin), founded in Fez in 1922. In order to get students, the founding committee persuaded a distinguished fqih, Ahmad al-Wazzani, to come and teach at the school and to bring his students with him. The founding fathers, as one might well expect, exerted a considerable influence on the structure and evolution of each school. If the founders were well-educated men, this fact was usually reflected in a higher quality of instruction in the school. Some men were especially concerned with one particular subject, like Koranic commentary, so that certain schools became known for their instruction in one subject or another. In short, the founding fathers gave their school its essential character.

The teachers The early free-school teachers came principally from three sources: fqihs, 11. Fernando Valderrama Martinex, Historia de la Acción Cultural de España en Marruecos (1912-1956), Tetuan, 1956, p. 542; interviews with Mohammed Daoud and Mehdi Bennouna. Sometimes, however, the presence of a prominent individual worked against a school. Thus, for example, when the French exiled Mohammed Ghazi from Fez in 1927 on account of his political activities, the Naciriyya school, where Ghazi had been serving as director and senior teacher, lost its momentum and soon closed down.

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ulama, and older students. Since every free school included some Koranic instruction in its curriculum, it was only natural that fqihs made up a significant portion of the teaching corps - perhaps one-third. Ulama taught in the free schools on a part-time basis, dividing their time between the schools and other lessons which they gave in mosques or at the Qarawiyin, the grand mosque-university of Fez. The older students who taught worked at the schools during the frequent hours which they had off from their own higher studies. In all three cases, teachers sometimes gave lessons at two or more free schools during the same year. In the fluid and makeshift context of the early schools, teachers simply went wherever they were needed. What were the motivations which led these various men to teach in free schools? The fqihs sought better-paying positions plus an association with the more prestigious scholars (i.e., the ulama) who taught in the schools. The situation of the ulama was more complicated. These men found in the 1920s that the bases of their authority and prestige were being progressively undermined by the regime established by the French protectorate. Their educational function, like their legal functions, was being usurped by the institutions of the protectorate - in this case a French-oriented public-school system which had little need of their expertise and knowledge of Islam. In an effort to retain that function and the prestige that went with it, many ulama taught in free schools. (For this same reason, ulama founded, directed and supported free schools.) As for the older students, most simply followed the lead of their teachers, the ulama. These younger men were, however, dedicated to their task and convinced of its worthiness. For all three groups, salaries were low and most of the older students taught on a voluntary basis. The performances of the teachers varied tremendously according to the individual involved. At one end of the spectrum were uninspiring fqihs, scarcely removed from their msids, while at the other end were some of the country's most distinguished and imaginative ulama. In the middle the older students made up in enthusiasm and dedication what they lacked in knowledge and experience. Among the most dedicated were several young men who subsequently became leading members of the Moroccan nationalist movement after 1930. Some of them had already completed their own education by the 1920s, others were still pursuing courses at the secondary or higher levels, and a few had already attended free schools as students. Specifically, Mohammed Ghazi, Allal al-Fassi, Ibrahim al-Kattani, Mohammed al-Qurri and Mukhtar Susi taught at the Naciriyya school in Fez from about 1925 to 1927. Of this group, all but Ghazi were attending courses at the Qarawiyin at the same time. Ahmed Balafrej, Abdesselam and M'Hammed Bennouna, Hassan Bu'ayyad, Ahmad Sharqawi, Mohammed Daoud, Bushta Jami, and Mekki and Mohammed bel-Yamani Naciri taught at other free schools for varying lengths of time during the 1920s.

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Parents and students The vast majority of students at the early free schools came from upper-class or bourgeois families. The schools thus had little of the 'popular' character which they later assumed when many children from poor families attended, often tuition-free. The schools in the 1920s involved relatively small numbers and were limited to the major cities. In addition, a wide-spread interest in a more modern education simply did not exist at that time: Many Moroccans living in cities in the 1920s did not send their children to school at all. In the 1920s, for the first time, parents in urban centers had three principal options for educating their children. The largest percentage continued, in the traditional manner, to send their sons and occasionally their daughters to msids. A small number chose the écoles des fils de notables or écoles urbaines created by the French. Finally, an even smaller number enrolled their children in free schools. Since the écoles des fils de notables were reserved for sons of upper-class and Makhzen families (plus rural caids), they drew their students from the same source as did the free schools. And since both types of schools charged a modest tuition, financial demands on parents were similar. In any event, the cost of education was only a minor consideration for relatively well-to-do families. In certain instances, parents probably selected one school or another because it happened to be located conveniently near their home. But in most cases, there were compelling reasons for preferring a free school to either a msid or a protectorate school. Like the founding fathers, the parents who sent their children to free schools were not satisfied with either the msids or the protectorate schools. They found fault with the dreary physical setting and the limited Koranic curriculum of the msids, especially as contrasted with the public schools. At the same time, parents criticized the protectorate schools for leaving their children idle during the long periods of vacation, for having too many teachers ignorant of Muslim culture, and for not giving enough importance to Koranic and Arabic instruction. Along this same line, they accused the French of sacrificing 'education', in the broader sense of imparting moral and ethical values, to 'instruction', in the narrower sense of transmitting a given body of information. 12 More importantly, Moroccan parents feared the effects of the public schools. There was a feeling that a French education, just like an Arabic one, transmitted a whole life style. They were thus convinced that the experience would lead their children to abandon Muslim habits and mores. It was less a 12. The distinction between 'education' and 'instruction' is much sharper in both Arabic and French than in English. The concern for imparting moral and ethical values suggests again that traditional Moroccan education, regardless of how thoroughly it was denigrated by French observers, did in fact still have positive functions.

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question of their being converted to Christianity than of becoming less fervent in their belief in Islam. On the more tangible level, parents felt that their children would lose respect for social traditions. By 1920, Moroccan boys who had studied in protectorate schools were already manifesting 'dangerous' tendencies - including the rejection of the authority and validity of accepted customs and ideas. A crucial part of the traditional upbringing of a Moroccan boy was the instilling of absolute respect for, and fear of, certain elders, particularly the father. This respect and fear were considered a religious duty and a moral imperative. A French education, with its stress on alien philosophical concepts like 'liberty', worked to undermine the prestige and therefore the unquestioned authority of the father within the family. The free schools, by offering the advantages without the liabilities of the public schools, were more acceptable, and this largely explains why they were supported to the extent that they were. The ages of the students in the early free schools ranged from about five to twenty. Some were starting school for the first time, whereas others had already spent several years in a msid. Most schools had elementary students only, though a few, particularly in Rabat, had many students who had already spent several years in a msid. At the Naciriyya school in Fez, some of the older students, after finishing an elementary program of about five years duration, either stayed at the school for more advanced studies or went directly on to the Qarawiyin. There was, though, no set pattern followed by students after they left or finished the early free schools. Some went immediately to work, which usually meant becoming apprentices for their fathers or uncles; others went on to the Qarawiyin or to courses given in mosques by local ulama in other cities, while a smaller number entered public schools. Because of the conservative social mores prevailing in the 1920s, girls did not attend the early free schools. Most students attended the schools on a full-time basis. In the flexible context of the early free schools, students sometimes attended more than one at the same time, taking whatever courses they needed at each institution. Some, however, were enrolled at the same time in public schools or, occasionally, attended the Qarawiyin or local mosque courses. The students included some boys who subsequently became leading members of the Moroccan nationalist movement after 1930. Specifically, Abdelaziz Bendriss, Hassan Bu'ayyad, Hashimi al-Filali, Bubker Qadiri, Mekki Naciri, Abdelkhalek Torres, and Abdesselam al-Wazzani all attended free schools during the 1920s as full-time students, while Allal al-Fassi, Ahmad Balafrej and Mohammed Daoud attended on a part-time basis. It is tempting to exaggerate the significance of the fact that some of the most important nationalist leaders - al-Fassi, Balafrej, Torres and Naciri -

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studied in free schools. But since other leading nationalists were products of a wholly French or traditional education, it is doubtful that a free-school education was a decisive factor in the career of any nationalist leader. It is more likely that the effect was to give a broader and more modern outlook to men whose education would have otherwise been limited to traditional institutions. And, on a more concrete level, it produced students who later became committed to the spread of free schools. In the mid-1930s, for example, al-Fassi played the leading role in the spread of free schools to the countryside, Balafrej created and directed a very important bilingual free school in Rabat, and Naciri launched a series of free-school enterprises in Tetuan. By contrast, nationalist leaders who received a wholly French education, like Mohammed bel-Hassan al-Wazzani or Mohammed Lyazidi, did not subsequently become committed to the free-school movement.

Overall significance of the early free schools What, finally, was the overall significance of the free schools in the Moroccan context of the late 1920s? On a general level, the early schools formed part of a broader cultural reaction to colonization and especially to the establishment of a French-oriented public-school system. For most of the people involved, including the fqihs who taught and the parents who enrolled their children, participation came out of a vague and spontaneous feeling that traditional msids were somehow no longer adequate while protectorate schools were still suspect on several counts. For the minority of men who belonged to the secret societies of the late 1920s, the free schools formed part of a more clearly defined series of activities aptly described by Halstead as 'proto-nationalist'. 13 These activities aimed at cultural, rather than political, reform. The reformers were not yet in a position, in terms of strength of numbers or support, to attack the protectorate directly. Instead, they began their activities by challenging the more reactionary, objectionable (i.e., heterodox) religious brotherhoods, whose members had collaborated with the French. At the same time, they promoted the free schools in order to counter what they perceived as a French effort at cultural assimilation. In Fez, for example, several men who later became leading nationalists formed a circle around the influential Salafi teacher Mohammed bel-Arabi al-Alawi and began to put his reformist lessons into practice. Some of the members of this circle wrote articles on the brotherhood issue which appeared 13. For the best treatment of the secret societies, see Halstead, pp. 165-72. The societies, located in Rabat, Fez and Tetuan, focused their attention on the topics of religious reform, the protectorate administration, and Arabic history and literature.

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in ash-Shihab, the journal of the reformist Algerian ulama. In the sphere of education, a few of the men, including Aliai al-Fassi and Ahmad Mekwar, responded to a lack of confidence in protectorate schools and organized in August, 1929 a group called the 'Association indigène de propagande pour VEnseignement'.14 In Rabat, Mekki and Mohammed bel-Yamani Naciri were active in the secret society in their city while teaching at the al-Hayat school from 1924 to 1926. It was during these years that Mekki Naciri wrote The Revelation of Truth and his older brother wrote The Encirclement of the Authors of the Book.15 Mekki Naciri's tract is a good example of the literature of the Salafi reformers. It was written to protest against the disfigurement of Islam by the more heterodox primitive and religious brotherhoods, like the Hamadsha and Darqawa orders; at the same time, it appealed to Moroccans to purify Islam of all its imperfections and debasements. Naciri and his brother, along with the others in the Rabat group, wanted to liberate the Moroccan mentality from its shackles. Too many Moroccans had ceased to question conditions around them, and the reformers tried to instill a spirit of inquiry, examination, and verification. This was the same spirit that Naciri had absorbed as a student at the first Rabat free schools from their 'intellectual patrons' like Shaikh Abu Shu'aib ad-Dukkali and Mohammed al-Madani Bel Husni. And this was the spirit of Salafiyya which, as teachers, he and his brother instilled in the older students at the al-Hayat school. For the most part, however, the free schools of the 1920s had very little political content. Nor did they have any centralized organization. One cannot properly speak, then, of a Moroccan free-school 'movement' during the 1920s. The gradual emergence of such a movement which was to embrace many, though never all, of the free schools, did not come until after 1930 and especially after 1944 as an integral part of the development of the Moroccan nationalist movement.

14. Letter from General Petin, Commandant of the region of Fez, to Mohammed Benjelloun, head of the 'Association', dated October 31, 1929, from the private papers of Ahmad Mekwar, who was the group's treasurer. Despite its purely educational intent, the local French authorities in Fez would not permit the Association to meet. Actions like this convinced the young Moroccan reformers of the late 1920s of the lack of good will on the part of the French. The reformers soon felt that their clandestine activities were no longer adequate and waited for the moment when they could bring their struggle into the open - which they did in 1930 following the Berber dahir. 15. Izhar al-haqiqa, Tunis, 1925, and Darbu nitaq al-hissar ala ashab nihayat al-inkisar, Rabat, 1926.

ABDALLAH LAROUI

Cultural problems and social structure: The Campaign for Arabization in Morocco

There is one point upon which all observers, whether native-born or foreign, agree when they deal with independent Morocco: Morocco has failed in her attempts to solve her educational problems. This failure is the more pronounced since it was precisely in thisfieldthat Moroccan nationalism had most distinctly succeeded before independence. The failure is quantitative: Each year only 50% of school-age children enter school; given the demographic rate, this fact means illiteracy is increasing, after being reduced between 1955 and 1965. Failure is also qualitative: Arabic, the national and official language of the country, has not succeeded in dislodging French from the classrooms, and the value of diplomas issued by the Moroccan government has gone down both within and outside of Morocco. This failure also has economic and political consequences. The government and international institutions, especially Unesco and the World Bank, notice the meagre return on the money sunk into education and have come to wonder if they would not have better contributed to the economic development of the country if funds had been applied to expansion of the road system or purchase of irrigation equipment. The political impact of these conditions is best borne out by the fact that those who are in charge of education, overwhelmed for two years by continual strikes in high schools and colleges, are calling increasingly upon the armed forces to maintain some discipline in the schools. Other factors are no less significant, including the expansion of administrative or consultative bodies, with jurisdiction limited to education; the turn-over in administrative staff; and the number of meetings and conferences called by the government, political parties or trade unions, organized in an attempt to set up a hypothetical national charter of education. Nevertheless, it can be stated that all of the politicians concerned - government, opposition, technocrats - recognize the fact that education is Morocco's primary problem. All agree on the principles of a national policy of education, epitomized for a long time by four words: Arabization, Morocconization, Universalization and Unification. Actually, for ten years succeeding governments, regardless of their political leanings, have worked at the beginning of each year to undo what was initiated during the previous year. Humaniora Islamica I (1973), pp. 33-46

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Laroui

It is not possible to blame this state of affairs solely on an economic cause (teaching expenses constituting too heavy a burden for a poor country, as the government often claims) or on a cultural cause (the backwardness and rigidity of the Arabic language, which makes the preparation of qualified teachers in a short time very difficult, a fact complacently emphasized by foreign professors). Nor can conditions be attributed to the frivolity of the rulers, as contended by the Moroccan opposition. There must therefore exist a contradiction which implicates the structure of the whole Moroccan society and which, determining the general policy of the state, seriously restricts the freedom of action of those responsible for educational matters. It is this socio-economic contradiction, expressed by ambiguities in individual and group behavior, which this article would like to examine briefly. The weak legacy which the administration of the French protectorate left independent Morocco is frequently discussed.1 Looking at the socio-political aspect only, most important was the policy of opposition to the use of the Arabic language. The only way it considered integrating it into the existing system was in the form of classical orientalism, that is to say, to have it studied as a 'dead language' by specialists devoted to a study of the exotic. In the modern fields (economics, administration, law) it ignored Arabic completely. A language thus exiled from the mainstream of life loses its flexibility. In fact, Arabic did remain the official language of the country; there was an Arabic edition of the Bulletin Officiel; there were broadcasts in Arabic, classical and colloquial, over the Moroccan radio; the proceedings in the courts of the Share were held in Arabic. Socially, however, it was the French tongue which each day grew in influence and importance. The modern sector was like a wedge which separated the illiterate peasantry from the old political and religious elites (makhzen, 'ulama\ heads of brotherhoods) which had become parasitic and continued to use a refined, and unrelentingly esoteric, language. In order to penetrate the modern (expanding) sector of society, it was necessary to start by learning French, the new medium of communication which every day became more important. This was especially true for two new classes: The new business bourgeoisie and the modern proletariat. The new bourgeoisie, influential since 1930, was the essential support of the nationalist movement; opposed to the Protectorate, it was emotionally tied to Arabic culture and language. But how could it compete with the new European immigrants, more and more numerous after the Great Crisis, if it did not adopt the dominant language in economic circles as did other non-French groups at that time? The leaders and the followers of the nationalist movement themselves began to send their children to French schools where Arabic 1. Cf. Ayache, Le Maroc... (Paris: Ed. Soc.), 1956, pp. 312-324.

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was taught only peripherally. This subsequently led to a generation gap. This statement is as valid for the Fassi middle class and the little trades people from the Sous as for the sons of landlords, coming primarily from Berberspeaking areas of the Middle Atlas, who entered the military school of Dar al-Bayda, near Meknes. The urban proletariat, often illiterate and of peasant origin, was in constant contact with the Europeans who virtually monopolized modern industry, and it quickly familiarized itself with French. When European tradeunionism developed during 1934-1936, the Moroccan workers were obliged to learn this language, both to be accepted in the new unions and to voice their complaints there. During the period of the Protectorate the cultural problem of language and teaching was already a social problem. As long as the modern sector was controlled by the French, Morocconization even then meant 'Frenchification'. On that level, it can be said that the legacy of the Protectorate was completely negative. This situation had a bitter impact in 1956. If we consider the nationalist movement with its four political components (moderates, radicals, unionists, résistants)2 we notice that the difference in basic education was a powerful dividing element. The political moderates, whether from the Istiqlal party, the PDI, or independent, had often been exposed to an Arab culture, but their sympathizers, members of the well-to-do bourgeoisie, had received French teaching and used that language every day in their professional life and even tended to integrate it into their family life, especially if their wives were French or had been educated in French. The political radicals of petty bourgeois origin, who would later form the UNFP, were familiar with French culture, but a good many of its leaders had studied in Arabic Free schools because they alone were then easily accessible. This is also true of the active militants of the UMT. As for the Army of Liberation, the troops were illiterate and the officers were of Arabic culture, since this sector of Moroccan society had never had an appropriate place within the French Protectorate. Thus the situation was certainly not simple, although we can summarize it as follows. The King was acting in a clearly-defined and bound semantic field, the field of ancient classical Arabic, nearly mumified, paradoxically affecting both the illiterate masses and the old politico-religious elite. Political moderate ideology, with its technocratic tendency, was linked to the use of French, while socializing revolutionism grew out of the use of modernized Arabic. In all this, individual psychology mattered little; what counted was the social structure which expressed itself through the linguistic tool. 2. I prefer this sociological 'interpartisan' formulation to the classical distinction between the parties. On these parties cf. Ashford, Political Change (1961).

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One can easily understand how this cultural differentiation, in a highly mobile emerging social stratification, rendered communication and subsequent politicizing hazardous. This may be one of the principle reasons for the recurrent difficulties of Moroccan nationalism. Immediately after obtaining independence, the confused but obstinate masses demanded that the state grant them a more generous and uniform education which would culminate in the acquisition of jobs. The problem of language was actually secondary; it was more important to ensure a close tie between education and the productive sector of society. The situation was clear: If the modern sector continued to be maintained as it had been set up by the Protectorate, the Moroccans were going to prefer an education in French; but if the state assumed responsibility for the modern sector and imposed an Arab identity on it, then the replacement of a foreign tongue by the national language would be welcomed. At that stage nobody doubted that, with renationalization of the Moroccan society and state in the making, Morocconization and Arabization would be the result of a single process. Thus it can be understood why, confronted by these enormous social and political repercussions, the different Moroccan governments would be reluctant to make irrevocable decisions. We now turn to the policies of the successive governments, examining first the results obtained. In 1970 the number of pupils in primary schools was 1,120,0003. If the increase from 1954 to 1964 was 900%, it must be noted that since that date the figure has remained constant. As a result, less than 50% of children who could attend school are actually accepted in schools and these only at the age of seven.4 The number of pupils in secondary schools was 300,000 and those in higher education number 10,000. The total figure amounts to 1,450,000, which can be favorably compared with the figure of 220,000 in 1954. Likewise one should call attention to the increase in the proportion of the budget devoted to education, from 5% on the eve of independence to its present amount which fluctuates around 25%.5 These are the facts and results which the government presents to international organizations. But within the country the opposition emphasizes other figures: Only 212,000 new pupils in 1970 while the population increases each year by 450,000; 49,000 admissions to secondary school while the number of applicants is 213,000; 17,500 pupils passing from first to second cycle in secondary schools out of a total of 3. Cf. Le Petit Marocain, October 22,1970. 4. Hence the attempt to renovate the old Koranic schools (msids) in October 1968. This also enabled those who received the original (Islamic traditional) education to find a job. Cf. Maghreb, 36, Nov.-Dec., 1969 pp. 34-36. 5. The official percentages - 26.7% in 1967 and 27.3% in 1959 - include the expenses of the Ministry of Youth and Sports. The 1971 allocation to the Education Ministries alone constitutes 24.8% ot the total.

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45,000 candidates; and of those graduates, only 3,175 pupils admitted to the Baccalauréat. As a result fifteen years after independence 75% of the adolescents between fifteen and nineteen are illiterate, as are 90% of the individuals between the ages of twenty and twenty-nine. The Moroccan cultural landscape has not changed and at this rate it cannot change. The question is, can the entire blame be placed on those who succeeded one another in the Ministry of National Education? Their responsility is clear but it is also limited6. During the two first years of independence, the then Minister, Muhammad al-Fasi, himself a typical product of the Moroccan bourgeoisie with all its inconsistencies, implemented a policy of rapid Arabization, in order to satisfy the demands of public opinion.? The number of classes was increased and the first two years of primary education were Arabized. To accomplish this, the Ministry recruited all the graduates from traditional and private schools who had for long been refused all types of employment by the administration of the Protectorate. It was probably an unavoidable gesture at the time. Because these improvised teachers had no pedagogical training, the educational level dropped immediately. Then the well-to-do bourgeoisie removed its children from public schools and sent them to the institutions of the French cultural mission, soon to have an extraterritorial statute.8 The results were so disappointing and so violently criticized that in December 1958 the leftist cabinet of Abdallah Ibrahim placed education in the hands of Abdelkrim Benjelloun, a moderate and consciencious man, but one without experience in the educational field. He relied on the technicians, mostly French, who did not favor the program of Arabization. Under the pressure of the activists of the Istiqlal, a Higher Council of Education was established,9 and it is amidst this Council that the clash of socio-political forces turned education matters into a burning contemporary issue. The immediate consequence in this change of orientation was a halt in the process of Arabization without, however, its abandonment. In the third year of primary schools, Calculus was still taught in French: the pupils who began to learn French and Calculus at the same time could not keep up with the pace and suffered a delay which they could never make up. Those responsible explained that everything would be all right when the newly opened teacher-training schools began to supply qualified teachers. In the meantime, the Moroccan educational system would have to rely on French cultural help; a convention was signed to this effect on October 5,1958, which put 10,000 teachers at the disposal of 6. Cf. Lahbadi (1970). 7. A detailed study of this first sentence is found in Zartmann (1964). 8. The schools of the French Universary and Cultural Mission admit in their two cycles about 10,000 Moroccan pupils. 9. Under reduced activity since 1962, it has been reactivated after the strikes of 1970 by thedahir of 2/16/1970.

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the Moroccan government in exchange for total independence forthe French cultural mission.10 Morocco was returned socially to the situation which existed prior to 1956: The middle classes, wealthy or not, were driven to adopt French since the modern sector was still closed to those speaking only Arabic. Without entering into the details of the political struggles of the years 1959— 1960, it must be acknowledged that pressure from the leftist segment of the populus had caused both this interruption of Arabization and the hasty Arabization of the first years. The masses consistently wanted the kind of education and language which would guarantee them employment. Seeing the sons of the well-to-do bourgeoisie filling the schools of the French mission and realizing that everything in the state and the economy was still being done in French, they lost their enthusiasm for Arabization. A need for democratization can be found in both contradictory demands. The problem was discussed sporadically during the preparation of the fiveyear plan 1960-1965, but without practical results. Upon the death of King Muhammed V, his successor had to study the language question, especially since he himself chose to restore a certain Moroccan traditionalism. After an interregnum of a few months, in October 1962, he nominated a new minister, Youssef Bel Abbes. This Minister first sought to apply a law promulgated the same year establishing compulsory education, despite the objections of the Minister of Finance. He then had to win over those who demanded the resumption of the program of Arabization, loudly supported by the new Parliament. Finally he had to take into account the will of Hasan II to establish and maintain cordial relations with the France of General de Gaulle, which meant, among other things, to maintain the status quo in the economic structure of the country. The King decided that under existing circumstances Arabization was not foremost in the demands of the leftist forces influential in university circles, and in 1962, he tried to have the Higher Council decide to keep French as the means of communication for an undetermined period. However, moderates, radicals and traditionalists joined forces to reject the suggestion. In April 1964, during a national colloqium on Education, the Minister repeated the attempt but fared no better than he had the previous time. Instead of accepting the status quo, a detailed program of quick Arabization and Morocconization was devised and presented to the King who probably considered it unworkable and did not take it into account. During this period the King relied politically on traditionalist elements for whom Arabization took precedence over all other demands, while his personal position on this seemed to have been closer to the stand of his adversaries on the left who tended to regard linguistic reform as a tactical diversion. 10. About the price paid by Morocco for this assistance, see the very critical book of Oualalou, L'assistance étrangère (Casablanca), 1969, pp. 258-261.

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Delaying a decision did not defuse the increasingly volatile situation. As the difference between primary education, partly Arabized, and secondary education, still 'Frenchified', was growing, the Arabization movement revived. Pupils from primary schools with only two years of French could not keep up with the work. Many of them repeated grades once or even twice and thus overcrowded the classrooms. A great many pupils were discharged before obtaining diplomas and therefore with little chance of finding jobs. In March 1965, when the Minister went further and decided to no longer allow candidates not regularly registered to take examinations, violent riots broke out. They were considered so serious that the Constitution was suspended and a state of emergency proclaimed.

The emergency government included a new Minister of Education, Muhammed Benhima, from the beginning regarded as an opponent of Arabization. On April 6, 1966, after a year of consideration, he made public a charter to prove that Morocco could not afford the cost of generalized education since its cost would reach 40% of the state budget by 1976. He also claimed that Arabization could not be seriously considered for another ten years, after which time, thanks to methodic planning, the Ministry would have trained 20,000 primary school teachers, 24,000 secondary school teachers and 1,500 professors for Higher Education. The generalization of education was thus officially abandoned and Arabization postponed. However, this plan did not win wide support, and letters of protest poured into the Royal Cabinet. Public opinion feared that its acceptance of French methods would actually mean giving up Arabization forever. The Minister, trying to explain his plan to the parents of school children in the provinces, was badly received everywhere. The campaign which led to the failure of the Benhima program was principally led by the Istiqlal with the tacit approval of other groups. The King, who had not disclosed his preference, seemed to bow under public pressure when, in mid-1967, he nominated as head of National Education a man of Arab culture Abdelhadi Boutaleb, who had Arabized the Justice Department at the request of Parliament. But it was soon realized that this nomination implied no promise of a new policy. In his speech made on the occasion of the reopening of schools in 1967, the new Minister cited only one statistic worth mentioning: Out of a total of 10,000,7,000 French teachers were still employed. This was an indirect but clear way of rejecting all ideas of prompt Arabization. Under such conditons, the situation could only worsen. The increase of absolute figures - expenses, number of pupils and teachers - was in fact meaningless since the structure remained unchanged. In Spring of 1968 the Ministry of Education was divided between three officials with the rank of

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minister; 11 one year later secondary and higher education were reunited unter the jurisdiction of a former collaborator of the King, Ahmad Reda Guedira. The personality of the latter gave the impression that educational problems were at last going to be seriously considered. But the new Minister, whether skeptical about chances of success in this field or simply obeying precise orders, considered his nomination only temporary and did not make any decisive move. A lengthy crisis erupted in February 1970; for weeks strikes crippled secondary and higher education while the opposition press launched a vigorous campaign for the Arabization of secondary schools. A colloquium of professors, students, parents and educators, was convened at Ifrane (March 1970) to reaffirm principles of Arabization. From the start the government intended to exploit the opposition between the demands of Morocconization and those of Arabization. To Morocconize first and intensely meant in practical terms to 'Frenchify' while Arabization was a long and uncertain process requiring collaboration and assistance. The meeting ended over a misunderstanding which was bound to occur as soon as technical commissions met to set up lines of action. The students withdrew. As was the case every year, summer provided a break for all, but when classes resumed and the first measure decided upon by the government, a return to teaching calculus in French in primary schools, became known, there was a general outcry, even though some subjects in secondary schools had been Arabized. A second measure, compulsory repetition of the last year in vocational schools necessary according to the Ministry because the diploma was devaluated, caused a strike in secondary schools which spread quickly to universities. To all intents and purposes the present academic year (1970-71) is lost, as have been the preceding ones, and for the same reasons. The Moroccan government, especially since 1965, is apparently determined to maintain the status quo which grows more serious every day as the population expands, in spite of increased public opposition. Thus the situation continues to deteriorate while the resources of the state and the energy of the administrators and educators is expended for nought. What now exists is a very costly teaching program which increases Morocco's dependence and produces 'cheap' graduates whom the state will be obliged to employ. Such a policy has no logic or merit of its own; it is determined by choices made at a higher level and it tends to perpetuate a particular socio-economic structure. Like his successor Hasan II, King Muhammad V was eager to mollify the feelings of the French and to protect their interests. Up until 1962, it was 11. Actually, the following departments have always been distinct, whatever the ranks of the supervisors, heads of section, undersecretaries or ministers: Primary education, secondary and vocational education, superior education, original education and staff training.

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necessary to avoid providing the French military forces, fighting in Algeria and still occupying Moroccan bases, with the pretext of creating circumstances prejudicial to the security of the state. Thereafter the regime chose a policy of interdependence with France, which proved useful during the Ben Barka affair. In fact, the French government declined to take retaliatory measures against Morocco lest French economic and cultural interests be hurt, and it is Morocco which came out ahead, at least formally. It could thus be claimed that the decision to maintain French as a professional and cultural language was essentially a political measure, in a sense artificial, and not dictated by the serious requirements of Moroccan society. This represents only part of the picture, however. The essential point is that by deciding to maintain the modern sector - industry, trade, agricultural export - as well as by refusing the principle of nationalization, the responsible officials are obliged to maintain French as a professional language since the administration has always favored this sector. Any Arabization program is thus doomed to failure because pupils who begin their studies in Arabic either change orientation in the course of their studies or stay out of the circuit and discourage the other pupils who, of course, keep away from a language which hinders them instead of favoring them as they might have first imagined in an independent Morocco. On the other hand, the monarchy, a national institution founded on Islamic principles, is nevertheless bound to defend the preeminence of Arabic, the national and religious language. This contradiction is obvious in the case of King Hasan II. He encourages the use of French among his advisors and aides in his work, his intellectual habits, and, as a result, in the entire state apparatus. Nonetheless, as soon as he deals with matters of political significance in his official addresses, speeches to the people, and televised chats, he uses a classical, even consciously archaic Arabic. During the first parliamentary experience he was obliged to use those who mastered Arabic and could efficiently defend his policies, at the expense of the others, mostly Berbers educated in French, despite their unimpeachable loyalty or their technical qualifications. The wealthy bourgeoisie, who in the past sheltered the Arab cultural heritage and formed the cradle of the nationalist movement, began to adopt French as soon as they could eifectively participate in modern economic activity. It was nonetheless impossible for this group to totally change its ideology. Hence, a more and more pronounced gap developed between their nationalist ideology and the practical experiences. Politicians close to this group have always demanded a quick Arabization. They arranged to have the Benhima plan fail, and they are now leading a campaign against the resumption of the teaching of calculus in French in primary schools. Nevertheless, they often use French themselves and send their children to the schools of the

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French cultural mission. This seeming contradiction can be explained by the competition between social groups. The petty bourgeoisie and the urban intelligentsia are usually subject to foreign influence. Such was the case with the first leaders originating from this group, advocates of political radicalism whose prototype was Mehdi Ben Barka. Nevertheless the activity of the free nationalist schools resulted in the leaders of the second generation being mostly Arabic-speaking. But since the modern sector remains predominantly French, the most numerous members of this class - little shopkeepers, clerks, workers - are obliged to use French every day and lose their familiarity with Arabic. The same contradiction exists here as in the wealthy bourgeoisie, but the situation is reversed at the level of the direction of the parties bound to these groups, if only for a transitory period. As a rule young leaders are of French culture in the Istiqlal and of Arabic formation in the UNFP. As regards the Arabic or Berber speaking inhabitants of the countryside, the great majority of whom are illiterate, their leanings can be inferred only through the ideology of the social or political groups which, at one time or another, have pretended to speak on their behalf. The Army of Liberation, which was formed in 1954-1955 and was later incorporated into the regular army, had an Arabic-speaking leadership. Would it have remained so if war had lasted longer, as it had in Algeria? No one can answer this question with certainty. The Royal Armed Forces (FAR) are mostly of peasant origin, coming mainly from Berber-speaking regions and therefore only slightly familiar with written Arabic. 12 So are the leaders of the political party, Le Mouvement Populaire, which ran during the first parliamentary experiment as mouthpiece for the rural masses. The sector of opinion that these two groups can easily influence would have liked rather to consolidate the linguistic status quo - indeed a quick Arabization would hamper it - and define Morocco as an Islamic nation without making reference to her Arab nature. In that context the Arabic language would have an official character similar to French but without the privilege of being a national language. Although such an ideology had effectively begun to be expressed during the discussions held prior to the preparation of the first constitution of 1962, it was promptly abandoned. Doubtless its promoters feared being accused of Berber separatism. For this reason the Mouvement Populaire had to take precautions and gave to its paper, edited in Arabic, the significant title 'AlMaghrib al-Arabi\ Probably they did not enjoy royal support either. Thus, the countryside also exhibits an ambiguous attitude toward the language problem, particularly the Berber-speaking areas. However, even where there is no Arabized primary school, radio and in some places televi12. Cf. Ashford, Perspectives...

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sion make possible the advancement of Arabization in the rural sector, albeit at a mediocre level. What can we conclude in the light of all this? The French language is maintained in Morocco by the determination of the leaders to protect the modern sector as bequeathed by the Protectorate. As long as the policy of the state toward this sector is one of respectful moderation, all social groups will be inexorably pushed towards the use of French. The desire to Arabicize is characteristic of dissatisfied groups. Because of her social and political structure Morocco is logically bound to a radical democratic policy (nationalization and land reform). The current regime, aware of these implications, prefers to maintain a status quo which in fact insures the French residents economic preeminence. The tension within the cultural field expresses the contradictions of Moroccan society in general and indicates also the weakness of the policy of the regime. To illustrate, we shall mention a few facts which have occurred since the summer of 1970. During the month of September (see al-alam, 10/6/70) a long manifesto, denouncing French linguistic imperialism and the educational policy of the state, signed by five hundred ulama, professors and writers, was circulated and a hand-written copy was solemnly deposited in the National Archives. From January 22 to 24, 1971, a colloquium met under the aegis of the Union of Higher Education and the Union of Moroccan Writers, whose main theme was an attack against the use of French. The chronicler of al-alam rightly pointed out that the most elaborate and detailed criticism came from those who had been educated in French. In February 1971 (see V Opinion, 3/11/1971) motions were published denouncing 'the policy of liquidating the original education' 13 and asking for permission to have graduates of the Qarawiyine practice law. During the student strikes of 1970 and 1971, one of the most frequent demands was to have Moroccan professors and programs of study. Even more significant is the fact that the review Souffles, edited in French, deemed it necessary to publish an entire report against the use of French (March-April, 1971). By analyzing these demands one can easily see that their implicit aim is to force the administration to open its doors to a social group, growing every year, which will be satisfied only if the administration is Arabized first in order to be able to Arabicize the modern sector. That is how the problem 13. A distinction must be made between this teaching, which presently depends on the Ministry of Original Culture and Education and the private Arab teaching, inherited from the nationalist schools under the Protectorate and which the government now wants to integrate into public education. Original and private teachings include now about 65,000 pupils in the two cycles.

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of the tertiary sector (trade, banks, insurance, utility services, etc.) was raised. The King, under pressure from a growing number of jobless graduates, had to pledge, on March 3, 1970, the Morocconization of the tertiary sector. Despite precautions taken in the formulation of this promise and even before it was implemented, it was badly received by the French colony. Since that time observers have called attention to the existence of an uneasiness among the French in Morocco, by which they explain the standstill of economic activity. One can imagine what their reaction would have been if the state had seriously begun to Arabicize itself while promising a complete Arabization of public life. Thus, the quarrel over Arabization and the problem of education, in reality questions the general orientation of Morocco. The status quo had been preserved up to now because of the ambiguity noted in each of the social groups. Nonetheless, it can be consolidated only by a single decision, the adoption of French as the official language, an unlikely development. On the political level Hasan II cannot turn Morocco into a Frenchspeaking country while the country's heritage is Islamic and he is himself inextricably tied to the Arabic language. The modern sector will inevitably Morocconize itself given the economic circumstances. Will it then be useful to maintain French there and is it not an error to believe that France will go on clinging to a cultural domination even though she may have lost her economic preeminence?14 The working programs of successive Moroccan governments have thus far been conceived in the hypothesis of the maintenance of French, but Moroccan society leans more and more toward Arabization. It is very likely that politics, and perhaps the very nature of the current regime, will sooner or later feel a reaction. I cannot conclude without mentioning questions often discussed in my opinion in a confused and imprecise way: Double culture, bilinguism, depersonalization, search for identity, etc. In Morocco, as in the other countries of the Maghreb, the question is not to compare the respective qualities of two languages, but to explain (and for the citizens) to judge a policy determined by preoccupations which in fact have little relation to the positive or negative aspects of a language and a culture. If the Arabic language is not used in the modern sector of the economy, it will inevitably weaken as happened in Canada with French. The unflattering observations about Arabic that foreigners hear from the Moroccans themselves must be interpreted as the justification of a policy and not necessarily 14. Under the leadership of de Gaulle critics rose up in France to protest against the excessive number of French teachers in Morocco (50% of the figure of teachers abroad), a fact which, it was held, limited the dissemination of French culture in other parts of the world.

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taken for fact, since men often express different opinions under different circumstances. The Arabization toward which Moroccan society undoubtably leans cannot be explained, as foreigners believe, by nostalgia alone. It is a socioeconomic exigency. In this regard French is bound to a conservative, malthusian policy which demographic pressure and democratic demands render increasingly impractical. The cultural sterility felt in Morocco which can be easily taken as a sign of superficial Arabization, stems from the economic and political situation of the country. Intellectual life in a society economically under-developed, must be constantly sustained, if not given its impetus, by the state and this can be done in Morocco only if the state apparatus is Arabized. The present development of a literature in the French language is artificial as attested to by the bad conscience of the very people who devote themselves to it. 15 Supposing the existence of an Arabized Moroccan society, one might ask what role French could still play in it. This would depend on the capacity for renewal of the French language itself. Indeed, the success with which the Maghrebines have been able to express themselves in this language can be explained by a certain affinity between the French and Arabic cultures. Both of classical traditions, these cultures have always underscored the formal aspect of education, and encouraged above all the study of logic, law and literature; both distinguish themselves as much from Germanic romanticism and mysticism as from Anglo-Saxon empiricism and pragmatism. However, this type of education is questioned everywhere. The events of May, 1968 in France showed the inadequacy of such a system of education in a world shaped above all by Anglo-Saxon positivism. If the French University succeeds in updating itself, then French will retain an important place in Moroccan society, less than an official language, but more than a foreign one. Otherwise, its situation will be comparable to the situation of Spanish in the Northern zone of Morocco where, because it is not a technological language, it never constituted a danger for Arabic, and where it has not ceased to step backward since independence. Thus we have here the proof a contrario that the Arabization problem in the former zone of the French Protectorate is not linguistic but rather sociological. It is the economic weight of the French interests which, by its repercussion on the different social groups, gives to independent Morocco very real linguistic and cultural problems.

15. Cf. Souffles, 18, p. 22: 'The threat of the use of French has never appeared so obvious and its meaning as political than since the new orientation of the imperialistic strategy against the Arab nation.'

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References Ammar, Larbi, La politique morocaine en matière d'enseignement de 1956 à 1964, Rabat, 1961. Ashford, Douglas E., Perspectives of a Moroccan Nationalist. Totowa, New Jersey, Bedminster Press, 1964. —, Political Change in Morocco. Princeton University Press, 1961. Ayache, Albert, Le Maroc, bilan d'une colonization. Paris, Editions sociales, 1965. Bayän muthaqqafial-maghrib. Rabat, September, 1970. Bilan et perspectives. Rabat, Ministère de l'Education Nationale, April, 1966. Gordon, David C., North Africa's French Legacy (1954-1962). Cambridge Mass., Center for Middle Eastern Studies, 1964. Lahbabi, Mohammed, Les années 80 de notre jeunesse'. Casablanca, Editions maghrebines, 1970. Na'rakat al-masîr fi sabil islah at-ta'llm wa ta'riblh. Rabat, Editions al-' Alam, 1967. Oualalou, Fathallah, L'assistance étrangère face au développement économique du Maroc. Casablanca, Editions maghrébines, 1969. Zartmann, William I., Morocco: Problems of of a new Power. New York, Atherton Press, 1964. Reviews and Newspapers: Al-'Alam, 10(10), 1970; 1 (29), 1971. Maghreb, (See the issues): 1, (Jan,-Feb.), 1964; 12, (Nov.-Dec.,) 1965; 37, Jan.-Feb. 1970. L'Opinion, 9,1970. Le Petit Marocain, 10 (15), 1969; 3 (4), 1970; 3 (17), 1970; 10 (22), 1970). Souffles, 18, March-Apr., 1970

PETER VON SIVERS

The realm of justice: Apocalyptic revolts in Algeria (1849-1879)

In the history of French colonialism in Algeria the surrender of Emir Abd el-Kader in 1847 marked the end of an embarrassingly hesitant and inconsistent period. This period began with French establishment of a colony restricted to Algiers and a small coastal strip in July 1830. The French government, dominated at that time by anti-colonialists, refused to extend its conquests beyond this narrow area and left it to the military administrators in Algeria to come to terms with the three provinces (beyliks) of Oran, Titteri, Constantine and their attendant auxiliary military leaders (makhzen), tribal notables (cheikhs), saintly personages (marabouts), and nomadic nobles (djouad). For this host of indigenous Algerian leaders, many of whom traditionally contested the authority of Algiers, the administrative vacuum created by this peculiar behavior on the part of the French colonizers was an open invitation to establish for themselves a new central authority to replace that of the Dey who had abdicated in 1830. The French military found itself, therefore, in an awkward position. It had to draw a line between implicitly sanctioned attempts by the Algerians to create a new, centralized state on the one hand, and illegitimate encroachments against the French presence in Algiers on the other. How perplexing this distinction proved to be when put into practice is best illustrated by the two treaties concluded with Abd el-Kader, the most formidable claimant to authority in the nascent Algerian state. In these agreements Abd el-Kader was given French weapons in exchange for vague territorial concessions, an arrangement which ensured a protracted struggle between Abd el-Kader and the French for the allegiance of the local leaders, who were needed by the French for a cordon sanitaire and by Abd el-Kader for the unification of Algeria, and positioned the two parties for an inevitable collison with each other, French weapons came to be used against French administrators, and it was this unpleasant situation which forced the French to alter their previously irresolute ideas of territorial integrity and to assert their claim to supreme authority over all of Algeria. But even if the legal situation had finally been clarified (with no room left for an Algerian state), the Humaniora Islamica I (1973), pp. 47-60

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French were still in no position to repudiate the cooperation of the indigenous leaders, and the contest between two widely different forms of authority, French and Algerian, was continued. But the tone of the contest had been changed. The Algerians were now unmistakably on the defensive and a second, desperate period of Algerian relations with the French began. The usual aggregate of causes serving to explain the period of Algerian history after Abd el-Kader's surrender in 1847 has been too narrowly defined. The ubiquitous triad assumed to be sufficient explanation for the inculcation of a revolutionary mentality - political oppression, economic exploitation and social degradation - has to be expanded in order to achieve a degree of refinement adequate to the task of historical explanation. A number of resistance movements directed against the French during their advance from Algiers to the Saharan interior were prompted by metastatic anticipations, that is, by visions of an abrupt, miraculous establishment of social perfection. This additional 'cause' can be described as metastatic or apocalyptic fervor. It often became active when suffered deprivations were collectively experienced as approximations to the self-inflected privations of the apocalyptic who organized the movement. The enactment of such a collective experience was contingent upon a communal tradition of ecstatic practice. Apocalyptic inspiration must be regarded as a cause distinct from political, economic and social causes. Even though these causes were often simultaneously operative, it is imperative that they not be reduced to each other. Four revolts which occurred in southeastern Algeria during a span of thirty years between 1849 and 1879 illustrate the role played by apocalyptic expectations particularly well. Each of these revolts, of course, originated in highly individual, and often apparently trivial, circumstances. In one case there was a rich notable, Bou Zian of Zaatcha, who seized upon apocalyptic imagery in 1849 when local resentment against the French had been aroused by tax increases. In another case, which occurred in 1858 in the Aures mountains, a disgruntled son pushed his father, Si Sadok, the leader (moqaddem) of a religious brotherhood, into insurrection. In a third case, the descendant of a saintly (marabout) family, Bou Khentach, also from the Aures mountains, fulfilled an old family prophecy by rising against the French in 1860. And finally there was an ambitious brother (khouan), Mohammed Amzian, from a religious brotherhood near Batna in the Aures, whose thwartedhopes for securing an office in the brotherhood provoked him into revolt in 1879. But in spite of the differences in biographical details the social dialectics in each case were interestingly similar to each other. On the one hand there existed persistent political, economic and social grievances borne by the population, and on the other hand there existed powerful apocalyptic visions which made these grievances appear no longer tolerable to a significant number of the community.

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The model of a dialectical process based on the distinction between two types of historical causation makes the aforementioned triad of causes appear as a sub-model. As such it is of limited range and applicability, valid only for the description of a general situation out of which social disruption emerges. It cannot explain why, as retaliation against the source of grievances, revolutionary action is preferred over resignation, opportunism, emigration, vagrancy, brigandage or any of a number of other responses. In the case of the apocalyptic revolts, as asserted in the above thesis, one encounters what seem to be instances of another sub-model according to which, through collective ecstasies, the vision of an imminent realm of justice is created. In this vision, with its emphasis on revolutionary action, all other options are discarded as inferior and despicable. Taken by itself as an absolute each sub-model leads to a distorted understanding of the social dialectic, and it is precisely the heuristic value of this insight which has allowed for the historical differentiation attempted in this article.1 Most of the epiphenomena of the Muslim apocalypse are well known and need not be elaborated at great length here.2 According to strict tradition, at the end of time (akhir az-zaman) the apocalyptic beasts would descend, the sun would rise in the West and the Anti-Christ (dadjdjal) would spread chaos on earth. But after a prolonged struggle the Anti-Christ would be defeated by the Mahdi, or Messiah, a descendant of the prophet Mohammed and bearer of his name, i.e., Mohammed Ben Abdallah. The Mahdi would establish the realm of justice (adl) and reign until the angel Israfil would blow his trumpet and announce the last judgment of God and the separation, of mankind into the citizens of Paradise and the inmates of Hell. As elsewhere in the Islamic world two richer variants of this apocalypse were current in Algeria. First, instead of the Mahdi appearing once and forever at the end of time history would produce at various critical epochs 'Lords of the Hour' (moul es-saa) who would save the country from some temporary peril. And second, these Lords of the Hour would have deputies (khalifas) who would prepare the ground for their message.3 1. The hypothesis of a dialectical social process used in this article coincides roughly with that of Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction ofReality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge, Garden City, N.Y., 1966, who in turn have to be seen in the context of the writings of Alfred Schutz, especially his Collected Papers. However, I cannot agree with their anti-metaphysical bias. The very notion of dialectics is an assumption arrived at not by means of induction but of speculation. A clear recognition of the irreducible role of metaphysical concepts, even in historical analysis, would remove many of the misunderstandings between empiricists and analysts. 2. For details about the Algerian apocalyptic traditions see Charles Richard, Etude sur /'insurrection du Dhara, Alger, 1846. For the Muslim apocalypse in general: Max Horten, Die religioese Gedankenwelt des Volkes im heutigen Islam, Halle, 1918, pp. 273-362. 3. A thorough investigation of the Islamic apocalyptic movements is still a desideratum, as the short note by Marshall Hodgson in Sylvia L. Thrupp, Ed., Millennial Dreams in

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The enriched versions, as one can see, transformed the difficult task of computing the remaining days of history into the easier problem of identifying the moul or his precursor. Strict Muslim tradition allowed only a mystical elucidation of the apocalypse through the study of numbers, letters and other hermetic lore. The enriched traditions could accommodate anyone capable of acquiring the physical qualifications, supernatural powers (baraka) and suitable companions expected of the Lord of the Hour. The traditional mystical interpretation tended to be restricted to members of the spiritually select brotherhoods who congregated for regular prayers and exercises in their local zaouia. The enriched version of apocalyptic tradition, on the other hand, was available to the uninitiated and provided a persuasive symbolism for creating revolutionary fervour in the population at large. The two versions of apocalyptic thought and their corresponding institutionalizations, that is, the quietist brotherhoods and the revolutionary movements, reflect a basic tensio n within the apocalypse as so conceived. On the one side it is experienced as the paramount reality. On the other side there still exist the stubborn requirements of everyday life. Muslim philosophers, theologians and jurists, who experienced the same tension, as did the apocalyptic, drew the orthodox conclusion that the apocalypse, along with other forms of reality transcending everyday experience, viz., dreams, prophecy, miracles and healing of the sick, had to be integrated as boundaries into ordinary existence. But for the apocalyptic the center had to be absorbed by the boundary; a task infinitely more problematic since it required the constant eclipsing of ordinary existence. In the brotherhoods the problem of eclipsing was sublimated into the organization of a communal life more or less separate from orthodox integration. The margins of reality as conceived of by a mystical brotherhood, however, could always be further contracted until the ideal of the uprooted, perilous, hectic life of revolutionary fervor, a life of utter suspense, was attained. This ideal clearly expressed the purest embodiment of life on the boundary of ordinary reality, but as such it was also highly vulnerable to physical destruction. One finds, therefore, a violent oscillation between revolutionary activity and mystical separation on the part of the apocalyptic. This oscillation is one of the pronounced characteristics of the 19th century Algerian apocalyptics. One of the earliest revolutionary uprisings in eastern Algeria was the insurrection in the oasis of Zaatcha (southwest of Biskra) in 1849. It was led by Bou Zian, an individual who had risen from humble origins to the position of Action: Studies in Revolutionary Religious Movements, New York, 1970, proves. The recent article by Leon Carl Brown, 'The Sudanese Mahdiya', in Robert I. Rotberg and Ali A. Mazrui, Eds., Protest and Power in Black Africa, Oxford, 1970, is a first attempt at analysis, but it unfortunately does not distinguish between the various forms of religious experience and organization which are conceivable.

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a local leader (cheikh) before he was removed by the French in 1844 for his support of Abd el-Kader. A relative was installed in his place as the leader of Zaatcha, but the former cheikh managed to retain the wealth he had accumulated, together with the semi-official position of tax perceptor. His relationship with the French cooled further following in minor episode in 1849 in which the French refused to return a runaway slave to him. In March 1849 the general situation in Zaatcha deteriorated drastically when the tax on palm trees was increased and extended to all of the oasis. Discontent gave way to turmoil when Bou Zian, after dreaming strange dreams, became a preacher of the apocalypse. In his dreams the prophet Mohammed had appeared with great clarity, enveloped in a radiant light. As proof for the authenticity of this vision Bou Zian displayed his palms and legs which had acquired a tinge of green, the heraldic color of Mohammed. Bou Zian interpreted his vision as a command to assume the role of the Mahdi's deputy and to usher in the last days. He announced his new status to the people of the oasis by slaughtering four sheep and giving a gala feast at which he preached a sermon promising the imminent destruction of the French infidels. His guests reponded enthusiastically and presents and volunteers began to accumulate. In spite of the wide-spread rumours of Bou Zian's vision the Algerian representative (caid) of the region of Biskra, Mohammed Es-Seghir Ben Gana, displayed complete indifference towards the impending rebellion. He assumed that any revolt which might occur in his region would be directed against the French and therefore could be considered of minimal concern for his own interests. Moreover, a French column had been in Zaatcha briefly in the early part of 1849 for the purpose of reassessing taxes, but had left all other administrative details of the area to the discretion of the caid. Such a perfunctory form of indirect rule could easily be interpreted as what it actually was, an admission of French weakness, and neither the caid nor Bou Zian were inclined to interpret it in a more positive light. The indolence of their caid cost the French valuable time. A small dispatch of troops sent out in May 1894 failed to arrest Bou Zian and the rebellion grew and spread into the Hodna and the Aurès. A first attempt by the French to occupy Zaatcha, in July 1849 failed and the uprising remained unquelled until November 26 1849 when Bou Zian was killed and major portions of the oasis were levelled to the ground. 4 The revolt led by Bou Zian illustrates the interesting case of an individual 4. Ministère de la Guerre, Archives Historiques, Paris, 'Histoire de la campagne du Ziban, siège et prise de Zaatcha', in H 211; Archives Nationales, Dépôt des Archives d'Outre Mer, Aix-en-Provence, 'Historique de 1849, Cercle de Biskra', m 10 H17 and 10 H 43, 'Histoire de Biskra'. See also Ch. Bocher, Le Siège de Zaatcha, souvenirs de l'expédition dans le Sud de la Province de Constantine en 1849, relation du siège de Zaatcha, Paris, 1863; Général de Poittevin de la Croix, Comte de Vaubois, Prise de Zaatcha, Paris, 1903; Louis de Baudicour, La Guerre et le gouvernement de /'Algérie, Paris, 1853, p. 504.

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marginal to the religious brotherhood establishment whose authority was based primarily on quite ordinary sources of power - namely, wealth and former official status - before he was inspired to activate the ancient tradition. It is clear that economic and political considerations played a prominent part in the revolt and it is therefore tempting to dismiss Bou Zian's use of metastatic anticipations as merely a cover for 'real' economic and social grievances. But this is an impermissable conclusion to draw from the historical evidence. The most distinctive mark of Bou Zian's campaign, as it was of the other apocalyptic revolts we shall consider, was the absolute conviction that the revolt would eliminate the French not only in their rôle as bearers of economic and social troubles, but also in their rôle as the infidel whose removal would bring about a new era: the realm of justice. Had Bou Zian been primarily concerned with the redress of grievances an entirely different pattern of preparation and implementation would have been followed in the rebellion, as we shall see later. As it was, Bou Zian made the best use possible of the apocalyptic weapon he had at hand and the French felt the force of this weapon more than they had anticipated. It is important to distinguish Bou Zian's apocalyptic uprising in defense of a Muslim patrimony, however meagre that may have been, from genuine 'patriotic' revolts against foreign interference. A number of movements in Algeria which took place during this period were patriotic struggles. The anti-French movements of Abd el-Kader (1831-47), Ahmed Bey of Constantine (1830-48), and el-Mokrani (1871) can all be included under this rubric. But whereas for these figures the enemy was compact and easily identifiable, Bou Zian conceived of a composite and far more anonymous antagonist. Neither the French military, as for Abd el-Kader and Bey Ahmed, nor the French colons, as for el-Mokrani, but a poisonous collusion between the French and the indigenous authorities was regarded by Bou Zian as the real threat. This suspicion, or assumption, that conspiracy was afoot is one element which distinguishes the apocalyptic from the patriotic revolts, and was an idea shared by all apocalyptic leaders. One sees it re-surface in the revolt led by Si Sadok Ben El-Hadj, a moqaddem of the Rahmaniya zaouia at Sidi Masmoudi in the cercle of Biskra, and an ally of Bou Zian during the revolt of 1849. The failure of Bou Zian's revolt weakened Si Sadok's revolutionary ardour and he contented himself after the débâcle with visits to his khouan for prayers and political discussions and appeared to have entirely abandoned his former zeal for a holy war against the French. One of his sons, Si Brahim, watched his father's passivity with concern, however, and finally convinced him in November 1858 to write letters to the neighboring tribes calling for a djihad to eliminate oppressive practices of the French and their caids. Some fifty people left their tribes to follow Si Sadok. There were a number of preliminary skirmishes with the

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local caid, Ahmed Ben Chenouf, but torrential rains which flooded the area during the winter were primarily responsible for containing the revolt which was finally extinguished by Ben Chenouf with the arrest of Si Sadok and 88 followers on January 19, 1859.5 In spite of its brevity the uprising led by Si Sadok is significant because it yields excellent insights into the causal structure of apocalyptic revolts. The flow of metastatic reality from Bou Zian and Si Sadok to Si Brahim was sustained by the zaouia of Sidi Masmoudi. The zaouia provided an highly institutionalized core in which a constant state of apocalyptic tension, dischargeable at any moment, was maintained. At the same time the zaouia radiated its tension to the population at large where it provided marginal figures with an imagery and with metastatic reassurance for their revolts. These figures, in turn, often triggered revolts among the khouan, as was the case in 1849 at Zaatcha. The constant supply of apocalyptic awareness through zaouias and marginal figures produced a substratum which can be regarded as the independent cause for the revolts mentioned in the introduction to this article. The substratum of a general apocalyptic awareness, intense in foci and circumferences (zaouias and solitary figures), and diffuse in society at large, should not be understood as a widespread, co-ordinated resistance to the French and their caids. In eastern Algeria during the thirty year period of our discussion there existed numerous nuclei and fringes. Adifferent picture would have been surprising given the segmented tribal society common to the area. Furthermore, the enormous efforts of propaganda and indoctrination necessary for sustaining an apocalyptic, or even a simple mystical tension were often barely sufficient to sustain the spirit of the zaouia, much less that of the population in general. And little energy remained for inciting solitary figures at the periphery of society, let alone for producing and maintaining a surplus of intriguing mediators.6 Outside the Rahmaniya, the dominant brotherhood of eastern Algeria, there were only a few marabout families which could produce the nucleus and periphery necessary for a revolt. One of these families was the fraction 5. Arch. Nat., Aix, 'Cercle de Biskra, renseignements, Rahmaniya', in 16 H 2; 2 H15, 'Procès et mort de Si Sadok Ben El-Hadj'; 10 H 43, 'Histoire de Biskra'. See also Comte d'Hérisson, La Chasse à l'homme, guerres d'Algérie Paris, 1891, p. 348; Charles Féraud, 'Les Ben Djellab, Sultans de Tougourt, notes historiques sur la Province de Constantine', Revue africaine, 26,1883, pp. 267-337. 6. An example should illustrate some of the difficulties faced by apocalyptic figures. In September of 1849 the Rahmaniya moqaddem Sidi Abd El-Hafid of Khanga, was stimulated by the events of Zaatcha into some sort of revolutionary activity of his own. After an alleged attack on Biskra he was forced to flee to Tunisia and his son, together with the rest of a quite considerable following, decided to renounce all revolutionary activities in order to be allowed to stay in the country. The movement was a total disaster. See Arch. Nat. Aix, 'Historique de 1849', in 10 H18; also 16 H43, 'Histoire de Biskra'.

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of the Ouled Sidi R a h a b which erupted into violent revolt in 1860. This family was famed among neighboring tribes for being as bellicose as it was pious. According to family history, some time before the French arrived a senior member of the family assembled the Ouled Sidi R a h a b together and prophesied the imminent arrival of the infidel. It was the will of God, he said, that the French should invade the country. Therefore, the Muslims should submit to them without resistance. Many impostors would arrive from various corners of the Muslim world claiming to be Chorfa, descendants of Mohammed, sent by God to announce the hour of delivery from the infidel. But their predictions would all be false since only one Chérif, coming from the Sous El-Aksa (Morocco) knew the true Hour. The Chérif was already preparing himself for his future role as the Mahdi in a mosque formerly hidden in sands. The tips of its walls were just now becoming visible, and its imperceptible emergence into future splendour was a certainty. The Mahdi would arrive shoulder to shoulder with the old Sidi R a h a b himself, preceded by the army of a khalifa who would be a saint from the Ouled Sidi Rahab. Before he died the old man revealed the secret signs by which the future events could be recognized. 7 In 1844 a descendant of the Ouled Sidi R a h a b put forward a claim to the holy signs for the first time. Unfortunately, he was unable to produce the signs to the satisfaction of the people and was rejected out of hand. After this false start no family member raised the issue again until Si Mohammed Ben Bou Khentach presented his credentials in 1860. After undergoing a thorough examination by forty members of the Ouled Sidi R a h a b in the beginning of March 1860, Bou Khentach announced the long-anticipated Day of Judgment and, as the acclaimed Khalifa of the Mahdi, began preparations for war against the French. Within two weeks several thousand people answered the call to battle, s The emmissaries of Bou Khentach, armed with the prophetic promises which seemed to be coming to fulfillment, easily persuaded the tribes that their grossly insufficient arms would be supplemented by miracles which would assure victory over the French. The tribes were told that Bou Khentach would blow the infidels away with his breath, the powder of their guns would change into water, the earth would split open and devour them, the maquis would hurl their bullets back at them, and, finally, an army with invincible artillery would 7. Féraud, 'Les Ben Djellab', Revue africaine, 30,1886, p. 107 s. Similar predictions were made by a marabout of Laghouat, Si Moussa Bou Ahmar. This apocalyptic 'homme à l'âne', a moqaddem of the Darqawiya brotherhood, campaigned against Abd El-Kader and was killed at Zaatcha in 1849 after joining, along with his followers, the revolutionary Bou Zian. See General Morey, Expédition de Laghouat, dirigée au mois du mai et juin 1844, Alger, 1846, pp. 67-70, and E. Mangin, 'Notes sur l'histoire de Laghouat', Revue africaine 38,1894, pp. 97-99. 8. Féraud, 'Les Ben Djellab', Revue africaine, 30,1886, pp. 109-12.

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arrive and complete the Muslim victory. The French administration barely had time to organize a campaign and initiate an attack before the revolt spread into neighboring districts. In a fierce battle on March 25 the forces of Bou Kentach were routed, unaided by the promised miracles. Bou Khentach himself was captured and executed. 9 The peculiar dynamics of apocalyptic thought emerge with great clarity in the insurrection led by Bou Khentach. First, what was for Bou Zian a suspicion that a conspiracy existed between the French and the indigenous caids has become for Bou Khentach an article of faith sanctified by ancestral prophecy. Second, the crude dreams used by Bou Zian as apocalyptic authorization for his actions have been replaced by an elaborate system of apocalyptic signs. And third, the gulf between the self-inflicted nihilism of the apocalyptic, and the exigencies suifered by the tribesmen under the French, is bridged by Bou Khentach through intense propaganda. In Bou Khentach's insurrection the conviction of a French-caidal conspiracy found its form in the prophecy of an ancestor wherein it was transformed into the climax of a dialectical process. Initially there existed the wickedness of the Mulims which caused God to permit an invasion by the infidel. Against the infidel patriotic resistance was useless and collaboration seemed unavoidable. Into this situation came false prophets who led the Muslims into the new calamity of alienation after patriotic resignation and cunning collaboration had both been proven ineffective. Ultimately, however, a great 'synthesizer' was announced who exposed both the compromised collaborators and the mauvaise foi of the false revolutionaries. The true believers were expected to abandon their caids, reject the premature prophets, and turn to a life of prayerful retirement. They were to create in themselves, over a long period of time, a new consciousness beyond either compromise or alienation. Only after this new consciousness was fully achieved would the true believers reemerge armed with the invincible weapons of the apocalypse. It is important to recognize, however, a peculiar quality in this final, creative period: It was not viewed as a period of pragmatic preparation for battle, but as a time of anxious anticipation during which the spirit was readied to receive the eschatological signs. We have seen how pragmatic concerns were neglected in the revolts of Bou Zian and Si Sadok, but it is in the revolt led by Bou Khentach that the omission of practical precautions becomes most striking. Bou Khentach was a man of frail physique and nervous temperament. 10 These facts were presumably taken into account by the forty elders who passed judgment on the authenticity of his apocalyptic calling. One of the 9. Arch. Nat., Aix, 10 H 43, 'Histoire de Biskra'; 11 H 22, 'Situation politique, Constantine'. See also Firaud, 'Les Ben Djellab', Revue africaine, 30,1886, p. 112 s. 10. F6raud, op. cit., p. 110.

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requirements for the possession of the apocalyptic signs was the apocalyptic's degree of removal from ordinary life. The signs themselves had to be dreams, visions, a nervous, incurable disease, ecstatic fits, the power to perform miracles or heal the sick, Cherifian descent and the like. However, these extraordinary qualities should not be confounded with merely exceptional powers such as genius, heroism or the blessings of fortune: All those singular personal qualities referred to by Max Weber as 'charismatic'. The former qualities are devoid of any sense of existential integration, whereas the latter contain a heightened insight into the compact structures of existence. An apocalyptic leader is purposefully negligent of practical demands, but an ordinary leader prides himself on his highly developed acumen for organization, planning, and the implementation of strategems. Moreover, the ultimate source of authority for the apocalyptic leader is beyond both inherent and acquirable 'charismatic' qualities found in other leaders. The authority of an apocalyptic is transcendent, inscrutable, uncontrollable, in short, a concession of Divine Grace. It might be added at this point that 'charisma' in its original, patristic usage denoted only those marginal powers bestowed as gifts (charismata) on the believer which were suitable for establishing a mystical authority. Any worldly authority, be it even the extraordinary one of heroism, was excluded from this category. Unfortunately the problem of authority has been obscured by the confusion introduced by Weber into the notion of 'charisma'. The adoption of the term apocalyptic in this article is an attempt to reconstruct, beyond Weber, the true dimensions of a peculiar form of authority which was a charisma, rather than charismatic. In order to transform pure mystical charisma into revolutionary authority capable of producing a movement Bou Khentach had to have recourse to miracles. The self-imposed life of undisturbed contemplation, especially if it were to be eventually relinquished in favor of a life of feverish activity, had to be based on metastatic expectations if a compromise with other levels of reality was to be avoided. Such a compromise was by no means impossible, and in this respect Weber's analysis of 'charismatic' movements as being composite 'supernatural' and heroic movements, is empirically accurate. But the significant point to note is that such a compromise was also not inevitable. The apocalyptic could interpret concern for practical organizational considerations as a sign of doubt about the ultimate arrival of divine assistance. Stategic planning, military training and the building up of supplies appeared as distractions from the true task of the apocalyptic, namely, the preaching of hope, deliverance and the realm of justice. The propaganda designed by Bou Khentach and his immediate subordinates cannot, therefore, be regarded as a ruse to deceive the faltering faithful about a desperate military situation but rather an effort to establish the superiority of faith over common sense.

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The need for propaganda became obvious once the revolutionary movement stepped out into the broad apocalyptic substratum. As we saw above, such a substratum was assumed by Bou Khentach to exist in the population at large, especially after social and economic problems were conceptualized as stimuli leading to sufferings identical to those self-inflicted by the apocalyptic. However, there was no necessity for deprivations endured by individuals in society to be identified with the self-imposed deprivations experienced by the apocalyptic. A tribesman or a peasant always had the other options of remaining passive, of participating in patriotic or 'charismatic' uprisings, or of resorting to individual sets of retribution or brigandry. Bou Khentach and Bou Zian were both aware of the need to introduce their own confidence in miracles into the consciousness of their followers. Their assurance of miraculous intervention was so absolute that intensive efforts to convince others appears as a natural element in the movement. Propaganda, or if you will, cajolery was more overt during battle, of course, but it never in any circumstances degenerated into conscious deception, as the example of Bou Khentach clearly shows. So it is possible to view apocalyptic propaganda not only as an expression of the primacy of faith over pragmatism in these movements, but also as a device used to eclipse any other option of passivity or resistance which might prove attractive to its followers. The absence of support from any established institution whose cause would be served by the material success of a revolution made it highly vulnerable to exterior destruction. Another danger lay in the possibility that internal deterioration of morale might lead the members of a movement into brigandry. A striking example of degeneracy can be seen in the movement led by Bou Choucha, a leader who was captured in 1874 but whose followers continued for more than a decade after his arrest with their acts of brigandry in the Sahara. 11 The threat of deterioration haunted those zaouias engaged in sustaining a high degree of metastatic anticipation particularly. Degeneracy disrupted the flow of apocalyptic reality from the brotherhood (and those solitary, marginal figures mentioned above) to the society, and from society back to brotherhood. If figures at the social fringes obscured the distinction between apocalyptic activity and criminal conduct, and the Saharan institution of the razzia lent itself to just such a confusion of reality levels, then the substratum was sabotaged as well. The intimate relation between the various partners of the substratum and the beginnings of a disruption in the flow of apocalyptic reality are visible in the revolt of 1879 which brought the apocalyptic movements in eastern Algeria to an end. This particular insurrection again involved the zaouia of Si Sadok and was led by one of its moqaddemun, Mohammed Amzian. The zaouia, after 11. Arch. Nat., Aix, 2 H84, 'Dossier Bou Choucha'. See also Le Chatelier, 'Les Medeganat', Revue africaine, 30,1886 and 31,1887.

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its destruction in 1859 and the return of Si Sadok's sons from internment in 1865, had been re-rounded at Timmermacine in the Aurès mountains. Mohammed Amzian was engaged in a bitter campaign against the sons of Si Sadok who refused to grant him the rights of leadership which he felt he deserved in recognition of his advanced spirituality. The commotion created by Mohammed Amzian caught the attention of the local caid, Bachtarzi, who made an unsuccessful attempt to arrest him. Now the frustrated moqaddem had his casus belli. He declared himself to be the Mahdi and as a first expression of his calling assassinated Bachtarzi. His next victims were the caid Bou Dhiaf (June 1) and El-Hacen, son of the caid Mohammed Bel Abbas (June 5). Their houses were pillaged and burned by the several hundred followers who had been collected by Bou Amzian. But by June 8-9 the revolt was brought to an abrupt end when the insurgents attacked a French post and were thoroughly routed. Three hundred rebels fled into the desert, but were soon captured and returned to the French by the Bey of Tunis. According to a French commission which investigated the causes of the revolt the primary reason was the 'rapacity' of the caids, that is, the exploitation of privileges such as tax commissions and corvées. Battle cries such as 'death to the caids, death to the oppressors' were allegedly heard. 12 Both Bachtarzi and Bou Dhiaf were regarded by their tribes as strangers, and both caids had come to office only in 1875. Bachtarzi, as the name implies, was the grandson of a tailor of Turkish descent. He possessed no authority other than that visited upon him by the French who had installed him in his office. Bou Dhiaf, as a descendant of the makhzen family of the Ben Sedira, possessed a more independent authority than Bachtarzi, but was probably not the just functionary depicted by Charles-Robert Ageron who alludes to the family's three generations of faithful service under both Turks and French. 13 Aside from neglecting the fact that witnesses during the questioning of the surviving insurgents in Constantine (June 1880) cited acts of oppression and perfidy committed by Bou Dhiaf, Ageron does not take into consideration that the family members had always kept their residence in Batna, outside the tribal area, because of tribal unwillingness to accept their direct rule. As for El-Hacen, he was the victim of the hatred of insurgents from a neighboring tribe hostile to the Bel Abbas. 14 12. Arch. Nat., Aix, 2 H 32, 'Opérations militaires. Aurès, 1879'; 2 H 33, 'Opérations militaires, Aurès, 1879, Commission d'enquête'; 6 H 32, 'Si Mohammed Ben Bou Dhiaf, famille Bachtarzi'; 10 H43, 'Histoire de Biskra'. See also de Lartigue, VAurès, pp. 243-67 and 371-8; F. Gastu, Le Peuple algérien, Paris, 1884, p. 26 s.; Emile Masqueray, Note concernant les Oulad-Daouddu Mont Aurès (Aourâs), Alger, 1879, pp. 29-32. 13. Charles-Robert Ageron, Les Algériens musulmans et la France ( 1871-1919), Paris 1968, vol. 1, p. 61. 14. For the bickering among the 'nobles' (djouad), especially the Ben Gana and the Bou Okkaz (Ben Chenouf), which contributed much to the rapid turnover of administrative personnel in the Constantinois, see Arch. Nat., Aix., 8 H 6, 'Organisation, délimitation

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If one takes the unsettled political situation of the Aures area since 1875 into account it is possible to say, with the French commission, that the popular revolt under Mohammed Amzian was caused by the lack of authority ofat least two caids whose administrations appeared too alien, unacceptable and dispensable to be regarded by the population as either just or legitimate. But this explains only the mood of the population in general and not necessarily that of the followers of Mohammed Amzian. Actually, one of the burdens under which Mohammed Amzian labored was that his movement was composed of only a handful of the three local tribes. Apocalyptic fervor was slow to rise in precisely those whose grievances were regarded by both revolutionaries and the French commission as inchoately revolutionary. The tribes chose resignation over action and refused to be lured into revolt. Here one can see again the shortcomings of a one-sided socio-economic historical explanation which assumes any oppressed population to be potentially revolutionary and neglects to take into account other options available to the population. Furthermore, the long decline into dissolution which had befallen Si Sadok's zaouia, together with the quarrels which divided its members, contributed to the dwindling of the apocalyptic substratum so necessary for assuring successful conversion of the tribes to the movement. On the basis of our original hypothesis it should be clear why the apocalyptic option of resistance to French rule had run its course. The French had managed to destroy the complex substratum, albeit more or less unwittingly since their crude equation of retaliatory physical destruction with depriving the population of a defensible patrimony never directly affected the ascetic revolutionaries. But even without the zaouias ever being directly affected, in a society reduced to the subsistence level the efforts necessary to guarantee proper transmission of apocalyptic thought could not be sustained for long periods of time. Actual physical conditions are never experienced so acutely as self-inflicted privation. Education was crucially necessary if the population at large was to be convinced that its sufferings were identical to those of the apocalyptic leader. Commitment to the cause came only after an identification of sufferings had been established. In summary we can say that the heuristic assumption of a dialectical social process with which we started this investigation led us to the recognition of an d'Ouargla, 1856 à 74'; 6 H 36, 'Les Ben Gana'; 6 H 38, 'Ali Bey et sa famille'; 10 H 73, 'Carnet de notes (de Trumelet?), 1884'. See also H. Jus, Les oasis de l'Oued Rir' en 1856 et 83, 4me éd., Paris, Constantine, 1884; V. Largeau, Le pays de Rirha, Ouargla, voyage à Ghadamès, Paris, 1879; V. Largeau, Le Sahara algérien, les déserts de l'Erg, Paris, 1881, p. 65 s.; Fernand Philippe, Etapes sahariennes, Alger, 1880; Georges Rolland, La Conquête du désert, Biskra, Tougourt, l'Oued Rir, Paris, 1889; G. Mandeville, L'Algérie méridionale et le Touat, Paris, 1898; Th. Pein, Lettres familières sur l'Algérie, un petit royaume arabe, 2 ed., Alger, 1893. The Ben Gana published a pamphlet in their defense: Algérie, Province de Constantine, les Ben Gana depuis la conquête française, Paris, 1863.

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additional historical cause, that of apocalyptic fervor, which has usually been buried in the triad of political, economic and social causes. The Algerian apocalyptic movements had unique characteristics which distinguished them from other forms of social upheaval. One distinguishing characteristic was, as we have seen, that apocalyptic movements were grounded in the conscious efforts of their leaders to renounce all pragmatic concerns normally taken into consideration by secular or charismatic leaders. To talk, therefore, of a political, economic and social substratum which allegedly 'caused' an apocalyptic revolt means to accept the same error an apocalyptic accepted during the expansive phase of his movement, namely, that oppression, exploitation and degradation inflicted on the population by the French produced more or less directly and automatically an apocalyptic awareness similar to, or identical with the self-induced sufferings of a mystic or apocalyptic. But the structures of revolutionary movements aimed at establishing the realm of justice have a slightly different character. Firstly, a distinction has to be made between the more comfortable existence of a mystic and the rigorously austere life of an apocalyptic. The apocalyptic subjectively existed in the suspense of pure and intensely frenetic action unconditioned by the demands of ordinary reality. Since this existence was too exacting and exhausting to be practiced continuously, the apocalyptic oscillated constantly between mystical retreat and violent metastatic activity. Furthermore, outwardly imposed deprivation, because it lacked the element of voluntary abstraction from the political, economic and social strata of reality, never became congruent with self-imposed privation. The apocalyptic who accomplished this abstraction not only subjectively, but to a high degree objectively as well, was forced to recognize the existence of options other than revolution for the oppressed population when he tried to build up a revolutionary following. Among these alternatives to revolution, resignation or even open defiance of the revolutionary were not the most uncommon forms. In order to force the population out of its resignation or defiance reality-eclipsing techniques, such as the prediction of miracles or the production of visions, were necessary. Finally, the apocalypse as a cause which produced insurrections was highly dependent on the substratum of a personnel widely dispersed over the population. In Algeria, for example, it required the stable functioning of zaouias plus the activities of solitary figures at the margins of society such as travelling preachers, pilgrims, foreign agents and others. Once this network was disrupted apocalyptic action disintegrated into banditry, civil disorder, passive resistance or resignation. The utter absence for seventy-five years of any vision of a body politic into which the population of Algeria could be integrated has its roots in the disappearance of the revolutionary substratum at the end of the nineteenth century.

ELIZABETH R. HAYFORD

The Libyan revolution according to Meredith O. Ansell and Ibrahim Massaud al-Arif

A consistent element in the whole range of Middle Eastern studies, contemporary as well as medieval, is a lack of information available to scholars, especially those outside of the Middle East. Archives are still waiting to be organized and made available in published form; government documents and personal memoirs are not widely distributed. Primary materials and monographs in Western languages are not accessible for scholars wanting to keep abreast of developments in fields not directly related to their research inter est. For teachers and students the problem of convenient and useful materials is the initial problem to be faced and a recurrent difficulty as study continues; the situation has improved in the last ten years, but it still impedes the effort to focus on the Middle East in the classroom, particularly as courses on the Middle East increasingly appear outside the major university centers in the smaller private and state colleges. Libya, for both historical and geographical reasons, suffers from this paucity of information more severely than other areas. Egypt is usually studied with the rest of the Ottoman Empire and then with the Arab areas of the east; the rest of North Africa is linked together by its common French colonial experience. Surveys of the whole modern Middle East generally have little to say about Libya beyond its small population and vast desert, its bountiful oil reserves, and a mention of the recent revolution that overthrew the traditional monarchy in 1969. Recently, an extremely useful volume has appeared to initiate more thorough study of current Libyan affairs, The Libyan Revolutions A Sourcebook of Legal and Historical Documents, by Meredith O. Ansell and Ibrahim Massaud al-Arif.1 This volume represents an excellent example of the type of survey that is widely needed to provide information and make possible intelligent efforts to understand the changes going on in the Middle East today. The Libyan Revolution, as its subtitle indicates, is a compilation of data from 1. The Oleander Press, Wisconsin and Harrow, England, 1972. It may be ordered from The Oleander Press, Rte 4, Box 463, Stoughton, Wisconsin 53589, or in Europe from 28 Parkfield Crescent, Harrow HA2 6JZ, England.

Humaniora Islamica I (1973), pp. 61-75

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the first year of the revolution overthrowing King Idris al-Sanusi and the constitutional monarchy. Divided into three parts, the material goes beyond the occasional headlines making up the normal fleeting contact with Libyan affairs and provides substantive details and ideas from both official and informal perspectives on the meaning of the revolutions. Part I is a skeleton table of actions, major and minor, carried out by the republican government in the first year of its existence. The authors have translated the complete contents-lists of the Official Gazette of the Libyan Arab Republic from September 1, 1969, to August 30,1970, giving the reader a rapid view of the process of setting up a new government, dismissing old officials and replacing them with individuals acceptable to the revolution, economic reorganization, changing foreign relations, and the ordinary mix of administrative detail. Part II consists of selected translations from official and semiofficial documents and speeches issued by the Revolutionary Command Council during the same year. These provide the content of some of the important measures listed in Part I and show the reader a fuller range of the revolutionary aims of the new government leaders. Part III, a translation of the proceedings of the Libyan Intellectual Seminar in May 1970 gets away from the concrete decrees of the revolutionary process and provides a fascinating insight into the thinking on the impact of the radical changes. At the Seminar, RCC officers, intellectuals, and various 'average Libyans' gathered toghether to explore and define the basic questions of political reorganization that the revolution had raised but not yet answered. Background The success of the Unionist Free officers in overthrowing the Libyan monarchy on September 1, 1969, surprised most observers who were characterizing the Libyan scene as stable for the immediate future. In retrospect, the revolution seems a logical outgrowth of growing disparity of income in a newly rich state, popular pan-Arab impatience with a foreign policy still willing to cooperate with the West and allow foreign military bases on Libyan soil, and a growing distaste of educated students and professionals for the traditional and religiously inclined King and his conservative advisors. Yet, before the coup, most people believed that the monarchy had regained its balance after serious challenges to its authority during the 1960s and had convinced a majority of its people that it was undertaking the process of development sought by all. Libya had been poor and undeveloped in 1951 when the United Nations supervised the transition from thirty-five years as an Italian colony and five years of British and French military administration to independence. The population was untrained in the modern skills necessary for economic growth

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and the land seemed to hold few resources capable of supporting such growth. The discovery and exploitation of oil at the end of the first decade of independence changed the dim prospects into a more complex, but more fruitful, challenge. Now the government headed by the austere tribal leader, King Idris, had vast financial resources to put to work, and as prosperity began to make its impression on the society, Libyans turned from their previous absorption in supporting themselves to consider more volatile political questions of Libya's role in the Arab world and the responsiveness of their government to their growing political awareness. The coup against the monarchy was the work of a small group of young army officers. Although there was no wave of popular demand for their action, there was widespread acceptance of their success. The absence of resistance to the destruction of the monarchy supported the officers' claim to be acting in the interests of the Libyan people, and the population waited to give their new leaders a chance to deal with their pervasive political and economic frustrations. The Libyan Revolution offers many indications of what the officers were setting out to do and how they began to do it. Much of the content of the book, and much of the content of the revolution in its first year, was rhetorical. The officers did not immediately propose and enact new programs; rather they created new political attitudes and a new political context in which actions were to be taken at a later time. Several themes are reiterated in the early speeches and interviews of the military leaders. The military officers had to grapple with the fact of the revolution, their justification for moving against the existing government, and the links between the small group of officers making up the Free Unionists and the Libyan people they claimed to represent. The slogan of the revolution was 'Freedom, Socialism, Unity' and in speeches and the Intellectual Seminar, the officers and other Libyans analyzed what this meant and how it could be a basis for policy. The elements of the slogan became more precise in discussions of the link between Libyan nationality and Arab identity, the need for Libya to free itself from foreign control, and the interpretation of socialism and its relation to economic development. The character of the revolution was also reflected in frequent allusions to Islamic values. This essay will examine some of these themes of the Libyan Revolution shown to us in the book under review, to indicate their meaning within the context of Libyan society, and some of the issues that need further study.

Revolutionary aims The first emphasis of the Free Officer announcements was on the revolution

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itself and the establishment of the republic. The Libyan Revolution unfortunately omits the initial proclamation of the republic that 'your armed forces have destroyed the reactionary, backward, and decadent regime whose putrid odor assailed one's nose and the vision of whose attributes made one's eyes tremble... From now on, Libya is deemed a free, sovereign republic under the name of the Libyan Arab Republic - proceeding in the path of freedom, unity and social justice, guaranteeing the right of equality to its citizens, and opening before them the doors of honorable work - with none terrorized, none cheated, none oppressed'. 2 Ansell and Arif did select the early statements of the revolution made to the diplomatic envoys on September 7 and the statement of abdication by the Crown Prince and included the list of membership in the first republican cabinet issued on September 8. More useful in illuminating the tone of the revolutionary spirit was the selection of addresses delivered by Colonel Mu'ammar al-Qaddafi, head of the Revolutionary Command Council and major spokesman for the officers. Qaddafi was an unknown figure before the military coup, and his rapid emergence as effective head of the republican government heightened the tendency of the American press to romanticize their ignorance of Libyan affairs. Described in headlines as the 'enfant terrible of the Arab world', 'the charismatic chief', or the 'mystical revolutionary,' Qaddafi was lifted from the obscurity of any twenty-seven-year-old recently promoted captain. After the coup he was promoted to colonel and appointed commander-in-chief of the armed forces and acknowledged as head of the RCC; several months later he became Prime Minister and Minister of Defense. The first cabinet appointed on Septermber 7 included seven civilians, many of whom had studied abroad and been active in the opposition to the monarchy, as well as two officers; but, increasingly, both cabinet posts and effective control was centered in Qaddafi, his deputy premier Major Abdul Salam Jallud, a year younger, and other young military men.3 Qaddafi's speeches make very clear his revolutionary fervor, his devotion to the idea of Arab unity, and his proclivity for abstract discussion rather than concrete programs. Colonel Qaddafi on several occasions elaborated on the army's role as giving 'true expression to the aspirations that filled the heart of this people' (p. 63).4 In condemning the previous regime as being controlled by 'favoritism 2. Middle East Journal, Spring 1970, p. 203; in that issue, the Middle East Journal published a number of proclamations, statements and interviews with the Libyan leaders from the first three months of the revolution. Although brief, it was the most informative source of revolutionary material available before the publication of The Libyan Revolution. 3. For the first cabinet, see Ansell and Arif, p. 62, and for the change of January 16, 1970, p. 118. 4. See the address in Benghazi of September 16, the address in Sebha on September 22, the address in Tripoli on October 16, and the interview on UAR television on October 14, 1969.

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and corruption and foreign elements' (p. 83) and being 'the peoples' enemies' guilty of 'crimes against the people' (p. 92), he had to show that the small group of army officers now ruling Libya was not equally unrepresentative. He acknowledged that the military group that seized power was small, but he explained that it was acting in 'the role of a vanguard, or a commando...' with the 'duty to bear arms to break the fetters and to conquer the people's enemy for the people to upsurge' (p. 63). The revolution of September 1 brought the people and the army together; 'the armed forces' march on the 1 September was in compliance with the people's orders, and a sign of obedience to its will.' The armed forces will 'always be a spearhead' but 'from now on the people's orders will be unflinchingly complied with; the people's word will have the upper hand in Libya. The ruler henceforth will be the people and those in the government will stand in reverence of the people and not the contrary' (p. 67). The practical consequences of such an analysis were not readily apparent. The Intellectual Seminar held in May included among the five topics under discussion two that related to the participation of the Libyan people in the new government: A definition of the working forces of the people who have an interest in the Revolution, and the popular organization and its basis. The attempt to define the working forces of the people discussed in the first two sessions reflected neither unanimity nor precision on the part of both RCC members and Libyan intellectuals. Only two of the thirty-two participants limited the working forces of the people to workers and farmers; others included students, teachers, intellectuals and military (both soldiers and officers), while still others added revolutionary middle class people, small landowners, merchants, government employees, and 'non-exploiting capitalists'. Eight expressed the view, in various forms, that 'the whole Libyan people have an interest in the Revolution because they are all human beings', while nine others included all except 'the hated class of people' generally defined as 'corrupted persons', 'idle rich' and 'exploiters', (pp. 254-271). After failing to agree on any specific characterization of the supporters of the revolution, the Seminar spent the next two sessions trying to formulate ideas on ways to mobilize those supporting forces into an organization that could participate in the governing process (pp. 270-282). The summary revealed that the majority of the participants believed that the projected popular organization should be established from the bottom to the top and should be established by election. The goals of the planned organization were lofty, and it was hoped it would 'lead the people to realize socialism, freedom and unity ... be responsible for enlightening the people and gathering the working forces of the people for the achievement of political and social freedom. .. protect the Revolution... and strengthen the ties which link the base to the summit' (p. 281).

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But the general commitment to active and responsible participation was not matched with concrete organizational proposals, and opinion varied whether grassroot committees should be organized on a striclty local basis in villages and districts, or on a functional basis linking workers, farmers, students, laborers, women and other interest groups. Some had confidence that the people at the village level had sufficient consciousness to choose wise leadership, while others asserted that only the revolutionary leaders had shown themselves to be politically aware, and they should appoint all local officials. The Arab Socialist Union inaugurated March 1972 was the first step in forming such a body, but its effect so far seems more symbolic than pragmatic. 5 On this issue, as in others, it appeared that Qaddafi and other RCC members recognized the contradition between democratic ideals and practical needs, and were genuinely seeking assistance in deciding how to proceed. A contrast repeatedly appeared between the military rulers seeking solutions to difficult problems and the intellectuals emphasizing the need for theoretical analysis and taking surveys among the people. At one point this led an officer to complain: 'This is imaginary talk and not based on action' (p. 272). Freedom After the most basic questions of revolutionary organization, the revolutionary slogan of 'Freedom, Socialism, Unity' required examination and explanation. Freedom, as defined by Qaddafi in his early speeches, was 'freedom of both the country and the citizen; the freedom of the individual and of the Arab man in Libya, from the political as well as the social and economic standpoints ... it is also the liberation of the individual in Libya from the domination of poverty and backwardness and from the nightmare of injustice, oppression, and backwardness which had forcibly been imposed on him' (p. 64). But more directly, freedom is 'the liberation of our dear land from all evil and intruder, from every imperialist and reactionary element' (p. 88). Qaddafi rarely concerned himself with individual political freedom as embodied in the Western concept of liberal democracy; he saw the idea in social and economic terms only slightly distinct from the complementary goal of 'socialism' and, more importantly, in international terms involving freedom from foreign domination. This theme is evoked in an early speech on the anniversary of the martyrdom of Umar al-Mukhtar who had been executed in 1931 trying to drive the Italians out of Libya, and more extensively in a speech of October 16 dealing with the question of foreign military bases in Libya. The military bases were the most overt and offensive manifestation of the 5. Middle East Monitor, April 15, 1972.

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foreign presence in Libya. Qaddafi clearly stated the new government's commitment to expelling these bases: 'The freedom of Libya will be deficient so long as foreigners occupy part of its territory... foreign bases cannot exist for we will never tolerate them' (p. 90). He gently reminded the British and the Americans that they too had fought wars and rose against kings to maintain their own freedom, and therefore to deny the same right to Libyans would deny their own heritage. At the same time he warned of violent consequences if withdrawal did not take place. Opposition to foreign military bases had smoldered in Libya since independence and had errupted into anti-government demonstrations several times during the 1960s. The monarchy had tried to balance its awareness of anti-foreign feeling with its belief that the advantage in military arms and training arrangements was adequate compensation. But the younger and more ideological RCC demanded evacuation, and in 1970 the Americans withdrew from their large air base at Wheelus and the British closed their smaller bases. Freedom from foreign domination demanded Libyan control over the Libyan economy, and the republican government undertook several measures to restrict and regulate foreign economic activity. In this area they were not departing from previous government policy, since ministers under the monarchy had been moving in the same direction. In the 1950s, Libya had been dependent on foreign economic aid and technical assistance for development. After the tremendous surge in oil revenue in the early and mid-1960s, Libya no longer needed foreign funds but continued to rely on imports of consumer and productive goods and foreign technical expertise, particularly in the complex oil industry. But, increasingly after 1965, the government had imposed greater controls on the oil industry, required hiring and training of Libyan nationals and imposed broader controls on foreign commerce. The American press found it easy to characterize the actions of the Qaddafi government as radical, socialist, and inimical to American interests, yet they were not so different in kind from those of the previous government which had preserved close ties with the United States. The first target in the drive against economic imperialism was the oil industry, developer of the only significant Libyan natural resource. In October, the new Minister of Petroleum voiced a cautious warning to oil companies that while Libya would observe the existing contrast it would also seek increased income and industrialization from its oil (pp. 94-95). The first direct action was the Amendment of the Petroleum Law of 1955 which tightened control by the Council of Ministers over granting concession areas (Law No. 17 issued February 12, 1970, p. 130). In this, the officers were continuing the policy begun under the monarchy of assigning concession in Libya's profitable fields only to companies that contributed to Libyan economic develop-

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ment, such as previous commitments to build petrochemical plants or train Libyans in needed skills. With this law, too, the officers were warning the companies that they, like their predecessors, wanted to train Libyans to extract and process their petroleum products. This law, and the various statements by Qaddafi and Dr. Mahmud Sulaiman al-Maghrabi, civilian Prime Minister until January 1970, reflected their determination to gain all possible revenue from this resource. They foreshadowed the negotiations during the summer of 1971 which raised the posted price, and hence the return to Libya, on every barrel of oil. Oil companies were justified in fearing the volatile political pressure on Libyan operations, as shown by two actions at the end of 1971. In November, Libya unilaterally seized Esso funds in Libyan banks, claiming legitimate compensation for the devaluation of the American dollar, and three weeks later, nationalized British Petroleum holdings in avowed political retaliation for British policy in the Persian Gulf. 6 Foreign banks were another early focus of the Free Officers economic nationalism. On November 13, the RCC issued the Regulation in Connection with Banks to force all banks to become Libyan joint stock companies with at least fifty-one percent of the shares held by Libyans, and Libyans forming the majority of boards of directors (pp. 102-104). Al-Maghrabi called this a natural extension of the Banking Law of 1963 which had prescribed that all Libyan banks should have at least fifty-one percent of their capitol owned by Libyans; since the 1963 law had not involved foreign-owned banks, making up more than half of total deposits and loans, the new measure was needed to complete Libyan control over its financial activity (pp. 105-107). Similar restrictions were put on business organization by Law No. 65 of 1970 on Commercial Companies (pp. 209-217). It limited participation in trade to Libyan citizens and barred non-Libyans from partnership in companies. Non-Libyan participation in joint stock companies was restricted, and foreign companies were barred from any activities except those specified by the Council of Ministers. The number of Libyan employees and their salary as a percentage of the total salaries was set at seventy-five and sixty-five percent of the totals. Foreign business operations were also subject to harassment and inconvenience during the first year of the revolution. Three weeks after seizing power, the RCC ordered that all public notices must be printed in Arabic only, where English and Italian had been widely used before (p. 71). Foreign residents complained after the change that even elevator buttons and rest room designations were not intelligible to them. Resolution No. 42 of July 15, 6. See Middle East Monitor, December 15, 1971 and Wall Street Journal, February 3, 1972.

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1970, restricted the ability of foreign residents to export goods from Libya (p. 249). This not only involved personal inconvenience but inhibited the commercial and development operations of foreign firms.7 Greatest pressure was put on the 20,000 to 25,000 Italians, including many long-term residents, forced to leave the country and most of their property and businesses; to satisfy the restentment against Italian colonial rule, the cathedral inthecenter of Tripoli was transformed into a mosque. Moving against feared foreign economic domination confronted the Qaddafi government with a dilemma as it tried to balance its economic nationalism against its continued need for outside goods and skills. Its initial response was to break many of the contracts already arranged with foreign firms. The contents lists of the Official Gazette translated by Ansell and Arif show frequent cancellation of contracts for public works and development projects managed by foreign firms. For a year or more, the new leaders examined existing contracts for evidence of mismanagement and corruption, delayed the implementation of the second five-year development plan, and then faced increased unemployment and a decline in the standard of living.8 Such temporary economic setbacks were deemed necessary to assure the national economic aims of the revoultion. Socialism The second aspect of the revolutionary slogan was socialism, but Qaddafi's early pronouncements made it clear that this did not grow out of a consistent ideological and political framework but involved striving towards vague social goals such as 'collective participation in production and work, and in the distribution of production with justice and equality' (p. 65). Al-Maghrabi defined socialism 'as social justice' in his interview of September 18 (p. 70). During the Intellectual Seminar, several participants tried to define the Libyan revolution in conventional Marxist terms, or cited the experiments in Russia, China or Cuba as possible models, but the Free Officers generally rejected these analyses in favor of more general discussion of serving 'the interests of the Libyan people as well as that of the Arabs and humanity' (p. 253, Qaddafi). Initially the new government rejected a policy of nationalization, 'since Libya has no industries' but took several steps towards improved conditions for the workers beginning with doubling the daily minimum wage and imposing rent control (pp. 70,96-102). A resolution of February 5 regulated the conditions under which companies had to provide housing for employees in 7. Wall Street Journal, February 3,1972. 8. See New York Times, January 30,1972.

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areas remote from urban centers, e.g. the oil industry (pp. 126-129). The Labor Law of 1962 was extensively revised in Law No. 58 of May 1,1971 (pp. 157-208). This specified many workingconditions to protect employees and also imposed sharper controls on the organization and activities of labor unions, establishing them on a purely vocational basis and thereby dissolving most of the already existing unions. The labor unions during the 1960s had been a consistent source of anti-government activity, and apparently the new government wanted to assure its authority over labor activities and maintain its leadership in economic and social policy without challenge from labor groups. Qaddafi's view of socialism linked social and economic justice with a need for more productive effort by all Libyans. In this September 22 speech in Sebha, capital of the poorest region in Libya, the Fezzan, he called on the Fezzanis to 'turn the barren desert into green land', but warned 'it can be done only by your own hands' and urged that the enthusiasm unleashed by the revolution 'should head towards production, construction and industrialisation' (p. 76). In April 1970 the Minister of Labor and Social Affairs issued a resolution establishing vocational training centers and courses to train workers in new skills (p. 132-143), but RCC leaders also called for a change in attitude from the workers. In the Intellectual Seminar, Major Jallud blamed some Libyans for preferring to stay home rather than work and pointed out that even after the minimum wage was doubled too many 'lazy people' refused to accept available jobs. He urged the workers to interpret the revolutionary commitment to the people in a way that emphasized their own requirement to support production and perform their duties (pp. 295,298). Unity Unity, the third aspect of the revolutionary slogan, was at the same time of most consuming interest and of greatest ambivalence. The goal of unity was the unity of all Arabs; Qaddafi in his speeches more frequently referred to his listeners as Arabs than as Libyans and condemned regionalism in the Arab world as the cause of weakness. Arab unity was necessary for economic and political growth, resistance to imperialism, and the recovery of Palestine by the Arab people. Yet, at the same time, Qaddafi called for national unity in Libya to build the new society (see especially his interview on UAR television on October 14, pp. 79-86). During the Intellectual Seminar, the topics of defining the working forces of the people, discussing the popular organization and the problems of democracy, all elicited attempts to clarify the connection between Libyan interests and Arab interests, and two sessions were spent directly on the question of Arab Unity. Meeting after the official commitment to federation between Libya, Sudan and Egypt, all participants supported unity, but opinion varied on whether instantaneous or gradual unity, federa-

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tive or integral unity, or what methods of achieving unity were desirable (pp. 282-291). The RCC dedication of Arab nationalism demonstrated most strongly the youthfulness of the Free Officers and their absorption in the pan-Arab vision of Gamal Abdel Nasser. Qaddafi, especially, is devoted to the pursuit of Arab unity, but he and his associates can not avoid the same ambivalence towards the quest as faced their predecessors; they too have difficulty in reconciling the conflict between the ideological satisfaction of obtaining the dream of unity and the pragmatic appeal of building up the emerging Libyan nationality, more attractive and more viable since the amassing of great oil wealth. The revolutionary government, like the monarchy before it, recognized the fact that Libyan nationality was weak because of the recent creation of the Libyan state by outside assistance, yet it was not immune from the still powerful appeal of local nationalism. Other themes In an attempt to institutionalize their revolutionary zeal and slogans, the Free Officers issued a provisional constitution on December 11, 1969 (pp. 108-113). Much shorter than the 1951 consitution, (revised in 1963), the provisional document contained only thifty-seven articles in contrast to the more than two hundred articles of the original. The new constitution, introduced by a preamble of revolutionary rhetoric, replaced the previous characterization of Libya as a 'free independent sovereign State', a hereditary monarchy with a representative system of government, with its view that 'Libya is a free Arab democratic republic in which sovereignty rests with the people'. It extolled 'solidarity' as 'the basis of national unity' and proclaimed work to be 'a right, a duty and an honour for every able-bodied citizen'. The new constitution placed strong emphasis on the realization of socialism, the liberation of the national economy from dependence upon and influence by the outside world, and public ownership as the basis for the development and progress of society; it adopted as a constitutional provision the legislative commitment for comprehensive national planning begun by the monarchy in 1963. The earlier constitution named more features in the liberal tradition of individual rights, but the new one also guaranteed that 'all citizens are equal before the law', private houses were inviolable, and freedom of opinion was guaranteed 'within the limits of the people's interest and the principles of the Revolution'. However, it omitted specific mention of freedom of the press, right of peaceful association, or a broad assertion of personal liberty. Part Two of the new constitution described a much simplified system of government, as most powers rested in the Revolutionary Command Council and the few bodies it established for certain functions.

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Numerous items in The Libyan Revolution demonstrate the Free Officers' intent to deal severely with the enemies of the people. Although 'the revolution will be a human revolution, free from vindictiveness ... [it] will punish the criminals for their evil deeds', (p. 92, Qaddafi). One aspect of this was Law No. 3 of January 19,1970, on illicit profits (pp. 119-123). It required officials of the previous government to submit a list of all their assets and defined as illegal any additions in the individual's financial situation not commensurate with his financial sources statement. In the event of such a finding, the individual was liable for dismissal from office, fines, and imprisonment, as well as the obligation to refund illegitimate gains. The contents list of the Official Gazette also shows frequent dismissal from office of those appointed by the monarchy. More severe punishments, reflected in the Decree of November 2, 1969, 'putting on trial those responsible for corrupting administration and political life' led to the reorganization of tribunals and establishment of the People's Court (pp. 8,20, 55). The Decision on the Protection of the Revolution of December 11, 1969, established the death penalty for anyone taking up arms against the republican regime and imprisonment for any act of agression against it, including making propaganda, arousing class hatred, spreading rumors and taking part in demonstrations (pp. 113-114). The severity of the issue was indicated by Article 3, determining that 'the Prosecutor General in investigating these crimes and referring them to the court shall not be bound by the restrictions and procedures prescribed in the Penal Procedure Code'. The emphasis of the Free Officers on controlling opinion was revealed in the Intellectual Seminar after an editor asserted that the duty of the Revolution was to assist the press and give journalists a free hand. Qaddafi, Jallud and Captain Umar Muhaishi replied that journalists would be treated like other people: 'Some will be punished, some will be imprisoned and others will be ignored'. They admitted that they had considered the immediate closure of the press, which would be carried out if the newspapers did not abandon their role as enemies of the Revolution and democracy, and become of the people (p. 292). In spite of its revolutionary aims, the Free Officer government, in both general tone and specific actions, did not diverge from the strong Islamic character of the Libyan monarchy. Both constitutions proclaimed Islam as the state religion. The speech of the officers was sprinkled with Islamic references: Constant mentions of God, God who has pulled down the idols that held the people in bondage, in reference to Muhammad's attack on the idols in Mecca, and allusions to the fire in the Aqsa Mosque as a sign of the weakness of the Libyan and Arab people. In rejecting the idea of socialism as a foreign ideology, several officers stressed that Islamic social justice was their goal, since 'the Islamic Religion... is a socialist creed' (pp. 74,266).

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More concretely, the RCC established a Jihad Fund; supported by taxes, zakat, and government contributions, it was to build armed forces to be used against Zionist forces and imperialist periods, 'owing to the serious armed challenge confronting the Arab nation and threatening its holy places' (pp. 115-117, 111). Stemming from the same religious outlook, on May 23, the RCC issued Law No. 56 on the Protection of Morality in Public Places, requiring licensing for entertainment and prohibiting 'provocation to immorality', 'facilitating immoral deeds', and any deeds 'contrary to public morality' (p. 217). The Western press was quick to stress this puritanical aspect of the Free Officer regime, particularly when they banned the consumption of alcoholic beverages in accordance with Quranic law. Qaddafi's later announcement that the legal code would be revised to conform to the sharia confirmed the view of him as a religious fanatic. 9 The RCC commitment to development prompted some interest in the social role of women in Libya, but this was countered by their Islamic traditionalism. Qaddafi asserted that 'there is no distinction between man and woman in rights and obligations. Women in the age of the revolution must make a positive contribution to the society of freedom, socialism and unity' (p. 91). The Labor Law assumed women would be in the working force, since it specified working conditions for women, including maternity leave and child care (Chapter 1, 3, 4). But, in the Resolution establishing vocational training centers there was no provision for particular training or planning for women workers. Several women participated in the Intellectual Seminar, including some editors, yet one speaker lumped all women together as a 'functionless force' (p. 261). One man pointed out that the illiteracy rate was ninety-two percent among women and Captain Muhaishi asserted that 'if a crushed class of people does exist in Libya, it would be Libyan women' (p. 278). But neither he nor any other officer proposed ways to alleviate this major social problem. One endearing tone in the Intellectual Seminar that softened the sometimes rigid vocabulary and threatening response in the official documents and speeches was the informality and openness between the RCC officers and the other participants. On several occasions during the Seminar, individual farmers or workers came to the podium to express their own point of view challenging the leaders and intellectuals before them. When the Moderator tried to cut off a speaker wandering from the point he was often criticized by others for his preemptory attitude. A message of support from the Boy Scouts Head Office congratulated some of the participants but demanded that they avoid 'Byzantine debates'. In spite of the prison sentence mandated for spreading rumors, one speaker, while denouncing the circulation of rumors, proceeded 9. Middle East Monitor, December 1,1971.

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to repeat one making fun of the RCC. 10 This frank atmosphere was a carryover from political life before the revolution; the small size of the Libyan population and its tribal and village ties created the possibility of open personal relations even though income and power were unevenly distributed.

Conclusion The richness of detail on this important year in Libyan political life in this one volume is evident and essential for gaining better understanding of Libyan conditions. Without minimizing the complexity of a comparative approach to history, it may be stated that a better grasp of Libyan development will have relevance for other countries as well. Libya, although small in population with little direct impact on other countries, exemplifies certain factors that appear, often in lesser degree, in other states. The poverty in Libya in the 1950s was an extreme case of the poverty burdening many new nations, and the riches resulting from the discovery of oil created an economic imbalance and an ironic underscoring of the continued need for economic change that characterizes other still-poor countries. The monarchy in Libya before 1969 headed a society as traditional as many other African and Asian societies, and the present revolutionary aims of the Free Unionist officers are similar to other revolutionary governments facing the challenge of rapidly transforming their societies to achieve the wealth and independence they desire. A collection of documents like The Libyan Revolution provides the Western scholar with access to the complex attitudes and programs that grow out of the tension between poverty and development and between tradition and revolution, tension widespread in the world today. The Libyan Revolution is only the beginning of the process of making more information available on Libyan affairs, and in its format has certain inherent weaknesses. Selected translations always raise questions about what has been left out, and the summaries interspersed with direct quotations from the Intellectual Seminar are often frustrating in their reference to unrecorded remarks by other participants. The documentary approach omits most explanatory and supplementary information; many individuals are mentioned and yet the reader, because of the lack of adequate reporting on Libya, has no knowledge of the individuals or their backgrounds. Even more tantalizing is 10. The story tells of an Army driver who had parked his car. One of the car's wheels rested on the foot of a man standing at the parking spot. The man asked the driver: Are you a member of the RCC? Driver: No... I am not. Man: Are you one of the Free Unionist Officers? Driver: No... I am not. Man: Why then are you resting your car's wheel on my foot? (p. 299)

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the inability of the reader to obtain more information about the impact of the official decrees translated for him in this work. The new Labor Law, the revised Petroleum Law, and major reorganizations of the political structure were proclaimed by the RCC, but their effect and implementation are unknown. Yet, the authors and the publisher df this volume are to be praised, rather than blamed, for spurring us to demand more than what they set out to give us. Much more needs to be done, but The Libyan Revolution will make the work of others easier. Oleander Press has produced a valuable sourcebook that is part of a series of works that a small publisher has issued on a variety of facets of Libyan life. Ansell and Arif, both lawyers, have also produced The Libyan Civil Code, an English translation of the Civil Code of Libya and a comparison with the Egyptian Code from which it was derived. Oleander has also published Libyan Mammals, by Ernst Hufnagl, Colours of Libya, by Angelo Pesce, portraying Libyan geology and prehistoric art in color photographs, and several travel books by Philip Ward combining practical information for getting around Libya with a great deal of insight and sympathy for Libyan life and history. These, and other books, have been published by Oleander in recent years, largely through the interest and dedication of Mr. Ward who lived and travelled in Libya for close to a decade. The Libyan Revolution is certainly a worthwhile result of this interest, and it can be hoped that the authors will be able to complete Volume II, covering the second year after the revolution, to provide some answers to the questions they have elicited.

HERBERT MASON

Arab Algerian literature revisited

In his 'Paris Letter' 1 of 1959, Jean Bloch-Michel quoted Albert Camus as saying, 'We have created a community of French and Arab Algerian writers', adding that 'the community Camus refers to exists essentially on the cultural level'.2 The correspondent asserted that the literature was not 'a native literature', yet found it something more than literature of protest. He observed that this writing dated almost entirely from 'the years immediately preceding or following World War II' 3 and based his 'Letter' on certain sociological coincidences: That French and Arab Algerians were coming gradually to resemble each other in several respects, one of which was manifested in the simultaneous literary outburst among both colons and indigènes. Camus, Jules Roy, Mohammed Dib, Kateb Yacine, to cite a few, were all beginning to speak at once in common tones and common themes. This steady literary flow continued beyond 1962, though when the Algerian War ended the particular urgency of the 'Algiers Group's to be heard was past. The purpose of this essay is to examine the condition that gave rise to this literature and to attempt to place it now in a more critical perspective. The 'Arab Algerian writers' whom Camus referred to fit, for the most part, into a certain sociological pattern as the sons of peasants or non-privileged workers who managed to improve their status and horizons by acquiring education at nearby Écoles normales or urban lycées, or in a few cases such as that of Mouloud Feraoun, by the uprooting process by which their families moved to France to find work as laborers, enabling them to go to Metropolitan schools. They were thus usually first-generation, French-educated and were separated from their parents by language, in most cases literacy, status, and ideas. While moving out of their former circumstances (and often, as Feraoun showed in La Terre et le Sang, out of their former religious belief), they nevertheless found it impossible to be assimilated into a French national identity though they possessed and were possessed by a French culture. Sev1. Jean Bloch-Michel, 'Paris Letter', Partisan Review, Winter, 1959, pp. 95-99. 2. Bloch-Michel, p. 95. 3. Bloch-Michel, p. 96. Humaniora Islamica I (1973), pp. 77-87

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eral of the writers (including Feraoun and Jean Amrouche, both born in the Kabylie district) began their careers as teachers in primary schools and became 'assimilated' (as was the French expression for them) by rising to administrative or higher professional positions in the system. Those who were recognized in the immediate post-war period as the 'Algiers Group' had formed around Camus and consisted of French pied-noir intellectuals sensitive to the human condition of the Algerian évolué and managed a further assimilation and, to a small extent, a recognition of those évolués among intellectuals in France, As might be expected, this assimilation process of the few coincided with the Algerian political disillusionment with France vis-àvis her sincerity and her authority to change the colonial patterns and attitudes of the minority ruling population in Algeria. The latter, instead of liberalizing its relationships with the Arab majority, was tightening its own image and its power as a bastion of the reactionary and the self-interested. As these few intellectuals drew closer in spirit to the corresponding disillusionment of the Camus French group, they became more recognized themselves as 'French' with French stances and attitudes but less involved in their own origins, and in the case of Feraoun and Amrouche this latter fact proved the more critical as their major energies (as seen within their work with the poor and in their polemics, respectively, and in their translations of Kabylie poems Les Poèmes de Si Mohand and Chants berbères de Kabylie) came to be spent in refinding lost origins and searching for more native literary accents. To most of the French Algerian literary élite, including Camus, however, these two writers remained 'special'. The main interest in the Arab writers, as can be seen in Aragon's preface of praise to a collection of rather derivative and minor poems by Muhammed Dib, was directed to those who sought to take a typically Sartrian 'rebel' or Camusian 'resistance' stance and who served almost conveniently as compatriots in a particularly French struggle. This focused attention on a correspondence in circumstance and showed the Arab for the first time a French sincerity in recognizing a common identity. Though this illustrates ironically the degree to which the Arab Algerian was actually induced to lose his own identity on a high level, it also intimates the extent to which he was essentially still unknown in and for himself. This is not to say that the concept of a 'humanisme fraternel' 4 which the Algiers group was trying to articulate and to infuse into the population was false or shallow, though it was indeed the delayed creative offspring of one hundred years of French ambivalence, romanticism, and hypocrisy. This humanism was directed forcefully against the problem of isolation in both camps and tried to close the separation that existed on all social levels; but it can be seen only in 4. Jean Dejeux, 'Mouloud Feraoun, romancier de la terre kabyle,' Confluent, 20, April, 1962, p. 319.

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a particular 'social context and in function of a double exigency...' 5 : That of rationalizing the feeling of identity with one side and that of stimulating the other to try to integrate itself into an unattainable and a philosophical wider world. This 'third identity' - the somewhat artificial one between intellectuals - was serving as a seedbed of what later tried to become in the actual conflict a 'littérature de combat'. 6 And as such the Arabs found themselves in 'a universal mentality' without any real contact with their people and without the seemingly endless tether of French rationalism as a natural gift which would enable them to be a vital part of either civilization. The number of expatriots among writers today attests to this merely higher dislocation. To understand the phenomenon of what Jean Amrouche called a 'hybrid' literature requires recognition of the completeness and manner of the French penetration in Algeria. This can be summarized in our two general background points: The fact that assimilation was never really implemented by the government and the French populace, and the fact that the native musulman never passed into the consciousness of the French as a real being with a tradition and an identity and a will of his own. These form the broadest frame for attitudes which gave impetus and urgency to the serious writing that emerged in quantity from novelists and essayists especially in the 1950s. The war represented, in a sense, the final failure in communication (and, to be sure, for the musulman the desperate awareness of an absence of voice); it also represented the summation of the violence which had characterized the French penetration in Algeria since its beginnings in 1830. What was the human condition in Algeria in 1952 when first books by Dib and Feraoun appeared (as opposed to the immediate post-World War II period when Camus saw the native as still unknown in L'Étranger), and what did these native writers reflect of this condition? The sociologist Jacques Berque, himself a pied-noir, son of a high colon administrator, characterizes this condition as embodied in the primary question in the Muslims mind 'how to communicate?', citing as operative against communication his conscious and subconscious attitude of 'evasion'7 of all things new, particularly during the 30s and after. This coupled with the isolation enforced by the colons, meant there had emerged a wall paralleled by an internal wall, or a cave within a cave as in Jean Amrouche's novel Le Reveil de Jugurtha. 'L'isolement de l'habitat, la spécificité des moeurs, le maintien du 'différent', comme symbole 5. Mohamed Talbi, 'Quelques aspects de la littérature arabe moderne,' Confluent, 18, Feb., 1962, p. 88. 6. Marie Susini, 'Naissance d'une Littérature de combat,' Études Mediterraneannes, Printemps, 1960, p. 70. 7. Jacques Berque, Le Maghreb entre Deux Guerres, Paris, 1962, p. 383.

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de la liberté perdue, le recours à l'excès sexuel, parfois même aux stupéfiants, ou encore à la violence sont des formes variées de refus d'un monde qui vous assaille.'8 Berque cites further a character in Yacine, Nedjma, a heroine sought yet unattainable, as a conscious and sociologically valid symbol of Algeria herself, to illustrate the underlying desire or even myth of this unnatural separation and infused isolation. 'Une âme, une race s'embusquent ainsi dans la caverne où Kateb Yacine abrite un personnage singulier de Nedjma, personnage imbu d'ancestralités bédouines. De là, nous pourrons résurgir.' 9 Nedjma was the heroine paradoxically created outof sensual images of exposed yet unattainable French women; she could inhabit only one's inmost isolation and make possible a transformation of seeds of new vitality. She represented, in a sense, a sensual but fruitless myth almost like that of an anonymous and unindividualized Hollywood public 'star'. Such images as the cavern, the veil, the refuge, the lost sea, the dawn that is found only in the darkness and that only a few can remember were symbols and images of the isolated man seeking himself in deeper isolation amidst bewilderment, human displacement and quasi-mystical hope for a life he was increasingly losing contact with - at least until the war. The war then pulled men out of caves into which they had gladly withdrawn. (A favorite work of French fiction for the Arab writers using corresponding symbols was Le Silence de la Mer of Vercors depicting the spirit of the French internal withdrawal and resistence under the German occupation.) Berque discusses this refuge mentality as implying a gradual return to the consciousness of the Muslim family, which was the only sector of native Algerian life not disrupted by colonization, and which he saw consequently as the seedbed of Arab Algerian nationalism: The instinct of withdrawal to one's only preserved and traditional identity. The problem even within this identity, however, became how to communicate yourself to yourself: The problem of a specific native language, compounded, as he points out, by the problem of an argot filtering down to the Arab from his ouvrier experience or the military service and so on and further homogenized by the bureaucratic French which was not a tool for communicating anything beyond formalities and which displaced them as persons even further. Also, there was in the French Algerian writing of the post-war period a frustration with 'official' French and a reversion (evident especially in Camus, Roy, Roblès and Pelegri) to certain traditional mystical phrases and concepts, often repeated - martyr, nuit obscure, ascèse, épreuves, dépouillements, and so on - even when they had no basis in religious belief. There was then a correspondence in a secular mysticism that set the tone for the Algerian Group's fraternal 8. Berque, p. 384.

9. Berque, ibid.

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humanism and the resurgence. Mysticism was an alternative to a 'malthusianisme culturel' 10 for both. For Camus the oncoming war then represented a common struggle and was viewed as an épreuve perhaps without an end. He saw the struggle for language, for communication, as a struggle for life itself, and in his books - invariably Ancient Mariner-tyçe compulsions to speak and share one's story - there was a sense of silence and indifference being widespread and potentially fatal to the human and moral consciousness. Berque's diagnosis of the human condition trying to communicate itself in a derived and foreign tongue to others (but more deeply to itself) was that of 'une rupture' 11 - a social and technocratic collusion which left nothing but uncertain choices, urgent needs, psychological unrest and the emergence for anyone involved of a foreign personality within oneself and a pessimism and discouragement unsensed before. History was playing a crushing game with the introverted Arab Algerian ('l'histoire rompt l'homme avant de le restaurer' 12 ), making him force his frustrated message out of passivity into action and the spirit of combat. Berque quotes Yacine in an interview as speaking broadly of the passive interior condition dying as a campfire dies: 'Toutes les formes sont abolies.'13 Germaine Tillion's fascinating insights into the various - even physical similarities between colons and indigènes (both pejorative terms by 1952) and their unwanted but inescapable intermeshing heightens the tragic lack of communication and gives pathetic background to the inevitable iconoclasm expressed by Yacine. What most intensified the problem of communication in the late stages was the fact that the indigène had actually become deeply emotionally involved, as was the colon, with the image of France and had become caught by the seductiveness of French life - with which he could not communicate. Yacine's Nedjma represented a substitute for quest of real identity through a quest for beauty, which was half prostitute, half muse, by whose inspiration one might hope to find status and 'make history;' she was a kind of aesthetic goddess for whom one made statues, and she was needed even if France was not: She was 'half-French'. Tillion and Berque assure us that this was a common social, not just a literary, myth. The writers of what we could now call 'melancholy literature' (the spiritual force behind 'combat literature') were vulnerable to certain other romantic myths: The myth of 'losing oneself' and one's backward past in a foreign country, of being 'free' as a deracinated wanderer, of finding 'brief encounters'; the stranger and the 'exile' myth was substantiated bitterly right at home wherever there was political deprivation or physical hunger. There was, in brief, a desire for disio. Berque, p. 385. 11. Berque, p. 394. 12. Berque, p. 395. 13. Berque, p. 407.

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identity with one's own country (which one couldn't truly realize existed) in order to make a universal 'cry'. Jean Pelegri, a pied-noir member of Camus' group, is judged by Marie Susini as making the best art out of this cry. On the French side his Les Oliviers de la Justice characterizes this metaphysical melancholy literature. On the occasion of his father's death the narrator (and central character) reaches out to the land that had become, as he now sees, personal and imbued with the Muslims' diction and spiritual cadence and an inarticulateness that is his own. It is a reverie of loss, whose spirit of fraternity is seen in the poignancy and gentleness of the elegy itself and is a muted complement (perhaps the most telling of all the products of the Algiers group) to the 'drame de l'émigration' 14 depicted by the Arab Algerian writers. This melancholy - and the attachment to France - could be echoed in a revolutionary Arab poet after the war recalling not native Algeria but romantic meetings abroad, in Paris streets, along the Seine, with beautiful faces with blue sea-like eyelids... Le beau visage de Paris Un soir de quatorze juillet 'Dans un regard bleu de mer'...15 Another earlier work, essentially melancholy in spirit, was Mouloud Feraoun's novel of 1952 La Terre et le Sang. This novel, by strictly reflecting in conventional form and theme the social problem has since become, along with Albert Memmeri's Le Sommeil du Juste, the portrait most cited by sociologists to illustrate the mood of Algeria prior to hostilities. Himself a native of the Grand Kabylie district whose family had emigrated to France out of economic need, Feraoun embodied the two dislocation centers of the Arab: Isolation at home, uprootedness and anonymity in ghetto life abroad. 16 His book presents the fictional situation of a kabyle worker marrying a French woman while he is a laborer in France; it follows their difficult relationship in Paris, the laborer's own unhappiness among Muslim workers and his alienation from French society; it shows his attempt to return with his wife to the Kabylie and to seek a normal village life. It was the novel bound to be written, showing the Christian woman's conflicts with Muslim ways and showing her victory only in her successfully presenting her husband with a child (in contrast with the rather aggressive, jealous and ominously infertile Muslim woman who withdraws in the background). It is a 'a sociological description' 17 as are 14. Susini, p. 69. 15. Noureddine Aba, La Toussaint des Énigmes, Paris, 1963, p. 45. 16. Feraoun's later career was as a teacher and social worker in Germaine Tillion's 'Social Centers' and was ended by his assassination in 1962 with five colleagues from the Center. 17. Dejeux, p. 306.

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too many of the novels and a cliché product of an uprooted culture. Beneath the story, however, are the themes common to all the Arab writers simultaneously in the early 50s and after: The mystique of the land, the fear of anonymous death in a foreign country or life in no country at all, the Algerian Arab male's desire for the unveiled yet elusive French female, the exile's call home by 'a cold in the heart', or from the sense of deadness enveloping one who knew no identity of his own. This latter theme is used effectively in Yacine's rather Brechtian play Le Cadavre Encerclé whose hero exists symbolically in a cemetery dragging his own hemorrhaging body around while a chorus outlines the natives' grievances and chants 'a century ago they disarmed us.. ,' 18 wondering now (1954-55) if it is war or a dream. Feraoun felt this spiritual deadness first among Algerian mine workers in France and in the mines themselves, which most Frenchmen were not willing to enter. The Algerian Muslims to this writer had become the Frenchmen's substitutes, enforced landless vagabonds, lost immigrants to nowhere. The symbol of the French wife is a sensual fertile image but one that chooses to come back with her Algerian husband to a violated past in order to renew that past, and save that substitute, not like the Nedjma of Yacine's Le Cadavre Encerclé who delays forever 'in joining the victim's compound.' 19 Less a rebel than Yacine, Feraoun sees her not as a desired anathema but as a companion in his search for the forces that will revitalize the heart and clarify what experience and emotion had only muddled and deceived. He saw the Kabylie as a cadavre,20 as Yacine saw Muslim Algeria as a whole, but he saw solidarity and dedication to renewal, rather than outrage, as the way to 'life'. In posing the sociological question Why are we backward? Feraoun implied, not without some bitterness, that this was the question which the patronizing and indifferent colonial tourist demanded; and his early book, in a way, is the obvious response. In him there was also a paradox, however, one that Berque felt was typical of the age: The notion that the key to solidarity was in the family and the ancestral blood (symbol to both him and Yacine of life), while his heroes were of mixed marriages. A similar figure to Feraoun was Jean Amrouche. Born in 1906 of Catholic parents living in the Petite Kabylie, he had a similar educational itinerary through the regional École Normale to an eventual career as a teacher and, later, to exile in Tunisia from which he recalled his home and origins in a melancholy vein. In his Le Réveil de Jugurtha he sought also interior roots and a lost country, saying, like Feraoun and the Yacine of Nedjma, 'the field of battle is in me'. 21 In addition, he was seeking a religious synthesis between 18. 19. 20. 21.

Kateb Yacine, Le Cercle des représailles, Theatre, Paris, 1959, p. 51, (my tr.). Yacine, p. 54 (my tr.). Dejeux,p. 316. Dejeux, 'Jean Amrouche...', p. 449

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Christianity and the Muslim Kabylie, and Jurgurtha was, though critics tend to see him as a figure representing passion for justice and for national independence, essentially, I think, a figure of Judgment trying to draw its parts 'religiously' together. Amrouche saw his role as a political protagonist on behalf of 'les muets' 22 and felt his emotional connection with the Algerians at large was the same 'pain of heart' and his responsibility was to oppose for the Algerian the notion of France as the only maker of 'history'. Both he and Feraoun are perhaps most clearly understood and most touching for their translations of Kabylie poetry, though Feraoun strikes the more authentic chord when he speaks in his preface to Les poèmes de Si Mohand for 'une génération en plein désarroi, brutalement arrachée aux traditions.. ,' 23 Mohammed Dib, one of the younger members of the Algiers Group, and in a sense the most 'Frenchified' of the Arab writers, is the one who is furthest from being 'local', melancholy or merely sociological and polemical and who has the most diverse audience and also touches most deeply the patterns by which Arab Algerians have come to think. Born in Tlemcen, Algeria, in 1920, and having been discovered by the Camus circle, he has since 1959 lived in France and Switzerland in relative seclusion dedicated entirely to writing. His early work, first appearing in 1952, depicts a sociological horizon similar to that of Feraoun's La Terre et le Sang, and Memmeri's Le Sommeil du Juste though his hero in Le Grand Maison, like himself then a teacher, is less concerned with relations between populations than with an intellectual dilemma within himself. The teacher is asked in several instances to identify 'Algeria' or 'Algerians', and he finds he is unable to (or has nothing to) explain. Unlike Camus' Jean-Baptiste Clemence in La Chute, his hero has no experiences of even hollow honor to confess, yet he is sensitive to every minor meeting that challenges his integrity in the same way. The novel, essentially imitative of French post-war essai-roman literature, suggests that Dib's influences are solely European, yet looking at a more recent and more important work Qui se souvient de la Mer, it can be seen that his major efforts are to rid himself of what was derivative and to create 'une œuvre valable' reconstituted on a different base, the formulation of which is the Arab power of the word which the French, he argues, have lost to commerce and technocracy and which has become 'desincarné'. 24 His move is away from static realism to allegory and fantasy, away from fiction placed in over-real details to placing, to use Marianne Moore's phrase, 'real toads in imaginary gardens'. Of all Algerian works Qui se souvient de la Mer is both the most specialized (and 'arty') and the most widely panoramic of Algeria's sociological condi22. Dejeux,'Jean Amrouche...', p. 455. 23. Mouloud Feraoun, Les Poèmes de Si Mohand, Paris, 1960, p. 44-45. 24. 'Mohammed Dib', Afrique, 30, Jan., 1964, p. 35.

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tion. It is an attempt to give a symbolic picture - an order - to what had humanly and inwardly become 'over real'. It depicts in a fantasy world an apocalyptic nightmare. It has been called a science fiction or a dream literature in which all order is distorted (he himself has likened it to Picasso's Guernica)-, essentially, however, its order is founded on three distinct allegorical cities, one below the surface, one at the surface, and one above the surface. The one below is cracking in its structures with its people struggling hysterically for the surface world. It is a struggle against chaos and is represented by the image of perpetual insomnia. Below the surface human relations are ambiguous or fictional and eventually lost altogether with only absurdly illusory recollections. A b o v e the surface are strange creatures resembling Greek minotaurs and ugly harpies and offering only greater death and oppression. All levels, including the meaningless surface level, stem from the same foundations of injustice, inequality, arbitrary rule and gratuitous invasion and represent both Algeria and dying orders everywhere. They reflect the thwarted way one has to live, the artifices one accepts in order to live, and the hallucinated images of what one fears life really is, a life crowded with illusions and monstrous infidelity to others and betrayal of oneself. Against this condition humaine, however, there is a real consciousness of a deeper spiritual need and a search for the sources of life symbolized by a half-remembered sea. The mysticism of the earlier writing has in Dib a nearly clarified horizon. The allegory is written as a communication between people everywhere in a common plight whose situation, he seems to be asserting, is metaphysical and implies thus that the problem for men before they build their new order is to search for their spiritual roots deeply so as to rid themselves of the artifices and illusions that will otherwise only pervade the orders they long to create. His portrait is the climax to the fall of forms and the beginning perhaps of a more truly native perspective in literature. He has said that Arab Algerian readers understand this book more than books of pure realism because they are not estranged from symbols and fantasy. In retrospect, his notion of the Arab's verbal force, which seems unfamiliar to Europeans but to Arabs is natural as a concept rooted in grammar, can be seen as further reflection of a condition inevitably dividing the two peoples and their languages. It is another separating symbol in a relationship which Tillion and Berque believed then would not however terminate in the post-hostilities period but which inevitably did. In sum, we can conclude that it was a literature of witness - of the disorientation caused by the breakdown of an old order and of the quest for a new. It was important as a clarification of the kind of crisis Algeria represented. It is still important as a reflection of a universal crisis that has not been ended in the world.

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An afterword Most of the writers we have been discussing have died or are living in exile. Of the generation before 1962 only Mohammed Dib continues to publish regularly. Among his titles, in addition to the already mentioned Qui se souvient de la Mer (Paris, 1962), are the following: Cours sur la Ride Sauvage (1964; like Qui se souvient..., a 'livre de recherches de formes nouvelles'); Le Talisman (1968; a novella); La Danse du Roi (1968; a novella); Formulaires (1970; a poem); Dieu en Barbarie (1970; the first volume of a projected multi-volume work on Algeria after the war). Dib himself visits Algeria only occasionally. Kateb Yacine, who has remained more involved in Algerian politics, lives sometimes there, sometimes in France and other European countries. He has been to Vietnam and has written a play on that war entitled 'L'Homme aux Sandales de Caoutchouc'. Apart from the latter he has written very little and has left his earlier characteristic lyrical style for one in which his close friends feel his own voice has become almost guttural and unrecognizable. Two interesting recent novelists, Mourad Bourboune (Le Mout des Genêts and Le Muezzin) and Rachid Boudjedra (La Répudiation), both live in France. A few lesser-known writers of the earlier generation live in Algeria but have stopped writing and hold positions in the government, finding themselves in an atmosphere in which, at the moment, creative life is rather difficult. Jean Pelegri has moved permanently to Paris where he continues to write and indeed grow as a novelist and more recently as a playwright of major standing. His most recent novel, Le Cheval dans la Ville (Paris, 1972), deals lyrically with the loneliness and pain an uprooted man can experience in a modern impersonal city (Paris), the uprooted man being any man missing and seeking gestures in an anonymous world. One of the things finally to remember about the 'Arab Algerian literature' in question was that it attempted to find and express a rival sense of history and myth. Jean Amrouche particularly criticized France for thinking of herself as the only center of thought, patriotism and so forth, recognizing that the tendency of'cette France mythique' was to confuse her own interest with that of humanity as a whole. The Algerian war was therefore 'une guerre sacrale, qui met en cause tout son être'. Kateb Yacine, who was particularly attracted to American black writers, notably, in the early days, to Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison, was absorbed

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with the stranger myth, the myth of losing oneself and of being lost and unnoticed. The fact that Camus related to this myth as a deracinated person - a point not always recognized as central in Camus criticism - was why he spoke to so many of these writers at a crucial time in their development, and why he moved on from them when he became increasingly skeptical of both history and myth. Both Amrouche and Yacine in their finest work, involving respectively Jurgurtha and the 'grotte obscure' and Nedjma, the 'mère Algérie', revealed in the depth of their mythical caverns, however, the Algerian identity ready to awake, torch in hand, to cry in the face of the world their survival after a heavy sleep. This cry itself was what Jean Pelegri felt had the true 'force et valeur de littérature...'.

MERLIN SWARTZ

A seventh-century (A.H.) Sunnî creed: The 'Aqïda Wâsitïya of Ibn Taymïya

INTRODUCTION Preliminary considerations1 As several orientalists have already observed, the creed in Islam differs fundamentally in nature and function from the creed in Christendom. 2 The Islamic creed or 'aqlda, in contrast to the Christian creed, is an individual composition and, in the first instance at least, has no force beyond the personal authority of its author. Islam (in its majority, Sunni form) never developed an ecclesiastical, hierarchical structure and, consequently, never gave rise to official institutions or bodies capable of authoritatively defining the content of faith. 3 The 'aqlda must be seen, therefore, as a personal witness or 1. The following abbreviations are used in this study; 'Aqlda I to "Aqida VI: AJimad b. Hanbal, 'Aqlda I (to VI) in Ibn Abï Ya'lâ, Tabaqat alHanùbila, 1, Cairo, 1371/1952. Bidùya: Ibn Kathlr, al-Bidaya wa'l-Nihàyafi't-Tarikh, Cairo, 1358/1939. Dhail: Ibn Rajab, Dhail 'ala JabaqHt al-Hanabila, Cairo, 1372/1952-3. EI2: Encylopaedia of Islam, 2 ed., Leiden, Brill. Essai: H. Laoust, Essai sur les doctrines sociales et politiques de Takl-D-Din Ahamd b. Taimiya, Cairo, 1939. Furqan: Ibn Taymïya, al-Furqan bain al-Haqq wa'I-Batil, MRK, 1.5-172. GAL: C. Brockelmann, Geschichte der arabischen Littérature, 2 vols, 3 supplement vols., 1898ff. Hamawiya: Ibn Taymïya, al-Aqidat al-Hamawiya al-Kubrù, MRK, 1,423-478. Kitab al-Imûn: Ibn Taymïya, Kitab al-Imàn, Damascus, 1381/1961. La profession de foi: H. Laoust, La profession de foi d'Ibn Batta, Damascus, 1958. Maqalat: al-Ash'arï, Maqalat al-lslùmlyln. H. Ritter, Ed., Wiesbaden, 1963. MRK: Ibn Taymïya, Majma'at ar-Rasa'ilal-Kubra, 2 vols,. Cairo, 1385/1966. 'Quelques opinions': H. Laoust, 'Quelques opinions sur la théodicée d'Ibn Taimïya, Mélange Maspéro, III, 1935-1940,431^138. SEI: Shorter Encyclopedia of Islam, Leiden, Brill, 1953. Tadmuriya: Ibn Taymïya, ar-Risùlat at-Tadmuriya, Cairo, 1368/1949. Wasitiya: Ibn Taymïya, al-Aqidat al-WOsitiya, Cairo, The Salafiya Press, 1346/1927. 2. See especially Jeffery, A Reader on Islam, The Hague, Mouton, 1962, p. 339; and Watt, Islamic Philosophy and Theology, Edinburgh, 1962, p. xii. 3. Cf. Gardet, La cité musulmane, Paris. 1961, pp. 31-68. Humaniora Islamica I (1973),pp. 91-131

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statement of faith presented by its author to the community for whatever value it might have for the latter. 4 This does not mean, of course, that the authority of the 'aqlda necessarily remains an exclusively personal one throughout the entire course of its 'career'. Indeed, acreed might in time acquire an added, extra-personal authority through its acceptance by the community or by a significant segment of the community. But this acceptance and the endorsement implied in it does not, in the Islamic case, bestow upon the creed any kind of official or binding authority. Such an endorsement may enhance the influence of a creed, but it does not become, as a result, anything like an official document. While underscoring the importance of the 'aqlda's relationship to the person of its author, it would be wrong, however, to ignore the 'aqlda!s relationship with the community or to minimize the significance of that relationship. A creedal document does not, under normal circumstances, exist in a social vacuum. Once it has been presented by its author to the community of which he is a part, a relationship is established with the community. Moreover, this relationship is one in which community and creed act and interact in a dynamic fashion. Indeed, it can be said that the history of a creed from the moment of its presentation to the community is essentially a history of this two-way relationship. It follows, then, that if the larger historical meaning of a creed is to be properly understood, the dynamic and bilateral nature of this relationship must be taken seriously. The above observations, if valid, carry with them two important methodological implications. In the first place, the study of a particular creed must always begin with an attempt to relate it to the person of its author, his life and thought, and the existential situation that prompted the composition of the creed. Secondly, in order to clarify the larger historical significance of a creed, an attempt must be made to relate it to the community and to trace the history of the interaction of creed and community. 4. The tendency toward external uniformity in the Islamic creed has tended to foster the impression among some western students that the 'aqlda is essentially impersonal and formalistic in nature. This impression is reinforced by three features that tend to be characteristic of the Sunni creed: 1) Its appeal to the consensus (ijma') of the community; 2) its harking back, for support, to a number of early authorities universally acceepted by the community; and 3) its sharing with other Sunni creeds a significant body of common material. Without wishing to underestimate the significance of these features of the 'aqida, it must be emphasized, on the other hand, that they do not rule out or negate the personal nature of the creed. What has to be emphasized is that the personal character of the 'aqlda tends to manifest itself in ways that are, more often than not, highly nuanced and subtle and can, therefore, easily escape the reader. The personal quality of the 'aqida manifests itself in such things as the order or arrangement of materials, the relative amount of space devoted to the individual articles of faith, stylistic features, vocabulary, veiled references and allusions, nuances, and finally, the mood or spirit that pervades the work as a whole. This means, therefore, that the individual, particular character of the creed is to a significant degree bound up with the original language of the text and, thus, tends to be lost in translation.

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With these general observations before us, we shall now turn to a consideration of Ibn Taymiya's 'Aqida Wasitlya. Following the approach sketched above, I shall begin with a brief account of the life and thought of the author of the Wasitlya.

Ibn Taymiya: His life and thought His early life and education Ibn Taymiya lived during what must be described as one of the most turbulent periods of Islamic history. The seventh/thirteenth century not only witnessed the devastation of large areas of the Muslim world by the Mongols, it also saw the collapse of the 'Abbasid caliphate and the destruction of Baghdad, a city which for centuries had been the intellectual and cultural center of the Muslim world. Though Ibn Taymiya was not born until 611/1236, five years after the destruction of Baghdad, the suffering and humiliation inflicted on the Muslim world by these pagan tribesmen made a profound impression on him. The force of this impression was undoubtedly intensified by several episodes that occurred during his lifetime, in which the Mongol invasion impinged upon him in a direct and personal way. In 667/1269, when Ibn Taymiya was only six years of age, his father was forced to flee with the family from their native town of Harran in order to escape the Mongol army which was then pushing northward into Upper Mesopotamia. 5 But even in Damascus, where the Taymiya family took up residence, the Mongol threat continued to be felt for many years, and, indeed, on four separate occasions they launched direct attacks against the city.6 On at least three of these occasions, Ibn Taymiya played a direct personal role in helping to rally the local population to defend the city against the invaders. Though profoundly aroused by the material destruction and political chaos that resulted from the Mongol occupation of large areas of the Muslim world, Ibn Taymiya was particularly appalled by its impact on the spiritual condition of the masses in those areas directly overrun by the Mongols. The Wasitlya was written, in part at least, in order to provide local Muslim leadership in those areas with a document that could be used as a basis for the religious education of the masses. We shall return to this point later when we take up a discussion of the purpose of the Wasitlya. Ibn Taymiya's life and writings demonstrate beyond question that the Mongols represented for him 5. Laoust, 'Ibn Taymiyya', £ / 2 , III, p. 951. 6. The attacks occurred on the following dates: 699/1299, 700/1300, 702/1303, and 712/ 1313.

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an unparalleled threat to the integrity and even survival of the Muslim community. The grave danger presented by the Mongols weighed upon his mind from an early age and, in fact, never ceased to burden him as long as he lived. Born into a distinguished Hanbalite family that had produced a number of accomplished scholars, 7 Ibn Taymiya grew up in a milieu permeated by religious and intellectual interests. He began his formal education at an early age and, in the initial stages of his formation, vigourosly pursued the traditional religious disciplines of law, tradition, and Quranic exegesis.8 Though educated primarily in Hanbalite law, he also studied comparative jurisprudence (khilaf) and mastered the legal thought of the other major schools of law. Even the Zahirite system of law, which by his time had very few adherents, he knew well. Ibn Taymiya was not satisfied, however, to limit his training to the traditional disciplines and went on to study sciences frequently looked upon with disdain by many of his fellow traditionalists. Though Ibn Taymiya himself categorically rejected the methodological presuppositions of scholastic theology (kalam), he devoted himself to a serious study of it and acquired an expert knowledge of its history and major representatives. He was also an avid student of philosophy and possessed an extensive knowledge of the major medieval philosophers such as al-Farabi (d. 339/950), Ibn Sina (428/1037), Ibn Tufail (d. 581/1185), Ibn Rushd (d. 595/1195), and others. In addition, he was widely read in Sufism and knew not only the works of the leading Hanbalite Sufis such as Abu Isma'Il al-Ansari (d. 481/1089) and 'Abdal-Qadir al-Jilani (d. 561/1166) but those of the more radical Sufi intellectuals such as Suhrawardi (d. 632/1235), Ibn 'Arabi (d. 635/1240), Ibn Sab'in (d. 665/1269), and others.» Ibn Taymiya was also deeply interested in the history and thought of nonSunni, 'heterodox' forms of Islam. 10 He studied in some depth the doctrinal systems of the major Shi'ite movements such as the Imamis, Zaidls, and Isma'ilis. He also had a very detailed knowledge of Kharijite thought and obviously felt a real sense of spiritual kinship with them even though he differed with them profoundly on a number of important questions. In contrast to the majority of his fellow Sunni intellectuals whose knowledge of the 7. The two most celebrated members of the family were Fakhr ad-Din (d. 622/1225) and Majd ad-Din (d. 652/1254). For biographical details on the former, see Ibn Rajab, Dhail, II, pp. 151-162; Ibn Kathir, Bidaya, XIII, p. 109: and H. Laoust, Essai, pp. 7-8. On Majd ad-Din, see Dhail, II, pp, 249-254; GAL, 1. p. 399; and Essai, p. 8ff. 8. For a full account of Ibn Taymiya's early studies and the influences that shaped his outlook, see Laoust's important study, Essai, pp. 71-109. A shorter account is given by him in En, III, p. 951. See also Dhail, II, pp. 387-388; GAL, II, pp. 101-105. and Suppl., II, pp. 119-126. 9. Cf. Essai, pp. 89-93; and En, III, p. 953. 10. For an account of this interest and an assessment of non-Sunni influences on Ibn Taymiya, see Essai, pp. 93-100

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'sectarian' movements was limited essentially to the heresiographical works written by Sunn! authors, Ibn Taymiya went directly to the primary sources themselves which he read and studied carefully. We know, for example, that he was intimately acquainted with the Rasa'il of the Ikhwan a§-Safa' and, indeed, was deeply influenced by it. 11 It is not going too far to say that Ibn Taymiya was one of the best informed men of his time. Though he was a staunch defender of Sunni traditionalism, this firm attachment did not prevent his thought from being influenced in important ways by the rationalist theologians, philosophers, and sectarian thinkers. His thought Ibn Taymiya's thought in its mature form is thoroughly traditionalist in character. It is at the same time, however, highly complex, multifaceted, and subtly nuanced. Though this is not the proper place to set forth the thought of Ibn Taymiya even in outline form, it will be necessary to make several general observations regarding the nature, direction, and significance of his thought. 12 As a Sunni traditionalist, Ibn Taymiya affirmed the absolute primacy of the Quran and the Sunna of the Prophet as sources (usul) of religious knowledge. Though he did, in theory, allow the consensus (ijma') of the Companions as a source, his definition of consensus effectively reduced it to a function of the Sunna. He also theoretically admitted qiyas (analogical reason) as a source. An examination of qiyas in Ibn Taymiya's thought makes it clear, however, that it did not function as an independent source but rather as an instrument by means of which the intention of the Quran and the Sunna could be rendered fully explicit. As the Wasitiya makes abundantly clear, the Quran and the Sunna are the only effective sources of religious knowledge for Ibn Taymiya. 13 Though the content of his doctrinal system was derived essentially from the Quran and the Sunna, the spirit and direction of his thought were to a large degree shaped by the concept of wasa{, the happy or golden mean. 14 11. Essai, pp. 97-100,109. 12. For an excellent account of the thought of Ibn Taymiya, see Essai, 153-250. A brief account is given in EI2, III, pp. 951-954. 13. See pars. 32,59,60, and 65. 14. Laoust has called attention to the importance of the notion of wasat in the thought of Ibn Taymiya. See especially Essai, pp. 221-225 where he refers to it as the 'juste milieu'. For additional references see the index. In his 'Quelques opinions', pp. 433-344. Laoust points up the importance of wasat for Ibn Taymiya's doctrine of God. Cf. EI2, III, p. 953. See Ibn Taymiya's description of the notion in Wasitiya, par 32; and also in Ifamawiya, pp.439-440.

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Contrary to what has sometimes been asserted, wasat, as conceived by Ibn Taymiya, does not mean simply or even primarily that truth (or the truth) somehow lies in the middle ground between two opposing extremes. It means rather that truth has a bi-polar character so that the two opposing extremes, instead of being excluded, are actually included within the truth in something of a dialectical fashion. The concept of wasat carries with it the conviction that truth is a whole or a totality. Defined in these terms, then, wasat means that doctrinal error or heresy results when one element of the truth is elevated to the level of the whole, so that the integrity and dialectical tension that ought to exist between the parts of the whole are destroyed. Heresy, then, is not so much outright falsehood or error as it is a partial and fragmented truth. The significance of wasat as a formative theological principle can be seen in the way it influenced the formulation of specific doctrines. Applied to the doctrine of the divine attributes (sifat), for example, wasat necessitates the inclusion of two contrary principles, ithbât (affirmation) and nafy (denial or negation). 15 Ithbât means that the attributes ascribed to God in the Quran are affirmed as real (tiaqq), whereas nafy involves the denial that these attributes are like corresponding human attributes. Ithbât without nafy leads to anthropomorphism (tashbïh or tajslm), whereas nafy without ithbât leads to ta'til or the negation of the divine attributes - and this is tantamount to depriving God of effective existence. The end result then is atheism. Such a conclusion can be avoided only when the proper tension is maintained between the two poles of the doctrine. Examples of how wasat was applied to the formulation of other doctrines can be found in the Wâsitiya.16 Ibn Taymiya's use of wasat in elucidating the nature and history of heterodoxy in Islam is particularly instructive. As we have already seen, heresy is a distortion which occurs when the dialectical unity of truth is destroyed through the emphasis of one facet of the truth to the detriment of the other facets. Understood in these terms, wasat provided Ibn Taymiya with the basis for a thoroughgoing critique of the sectarian movements. Much of his writing was, in fact, devoted to this critical task. But what is, in some ways, even more important is the fact that wasat provided the basis for the formulation of a positive attitude vis-à-vis these movements. Even though their systems of thought contained error, they also contained elements of truth. And insofar as this was the case they were to be taken seriously. The principle of wasat, therefore, justified at least a limited openness vis-à-vis the heterodox ideologies and, in turn, made possible the incorporation of elements of their thought into that of Ibn Taymiya. It will be evident by now that wasat clearly 15. Wasitiya, par. 3. Cf. Ibn Taymiya's Tadmurlya, pp. 4-5,19. 16. See especially par. 32.

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gave to the thought of Ibn Taymiya a certain dynamic quality, a flexibility, and a capacity for development that it would not otherwise have had. Though Ibn Taymiya was interested in wasat as a theological principle useful for the formulation of doctrine and the criticism of heresy, he was also interested in wasat because he saw in it the only genuine basis for the unification of the Muslim community. As a principle concerned with totality and wholeness, wasat stood in opposition to anything and everything that represented a threat to the unity and integrity of the whole. In opposition to the one-sidedness and partisan spirit of the schools and sects, wasat stood for and fostered the values of conciliation, mediation, moderation, openness and synthesis. Thus far we have limited our remarks to the more formal and theoretical aspects of Ibn Taymiya's thought. Something must now be said regarding his understanding of religious experience and the relation of this latter to doctrine. Though doctrine in the formal sense was obviously very important to Ibn Taymiya, he regarded it as of little value ultimately if it was not matched by a corresponding inward religious experience. Contrary to the image of him projected by some of the earlier western orientalists, Ibn Taymiya repeatedly emphasized the importance of cultivating the inward life of meditation and devotion. For him nothing could take the place of these. We know from his biographers that much of his energy was devoted to a quest for what he regarded as the truly spiritual life.17 He saw the vocation of the believer as one of total submission to the will of God - a submission that was both inward as well as outward. It is perhaps not out of place here to observe that Ibn Taymiya's attitude toward Sufism was much more complex than orientalists of an earlier generation had been led to believe. Already as far back as 1939, this older view was called into serious question when H. Laoust, in his masterful study of Ibn Taymiya, demonstrated that both his life and thought had been profoundly influenced by Sufism.18 Now, however, it is possible to go even further. Thanks to the recent discovery of new evidence we now know that Ibn Taymiya was, in fact, himself a Sufi. In a hitherto unknown document containing Sufi isnads or silsilas, Ibn Taymiya is directly linked to a line of wellknown Sufis. 19 Ibn Taymiya's burial in a Sufi cemetery of Damascus, a fact 17. Dhail, II, p. 402.

18. Essai, pp. 89-93. In his article on Ibn Taymiya in El2, III, p. 953, Laoust asserts: 'He never condemned §0fism itself, but only that which he considered to be... inadmissible deviations in doctrine, ritual or morals, such as monism (wahdat al-wujnd), antinomianism

(ibaha), and esotericism (ghuluwwJ

19. I would like to acknowledge here my indebtedness to G. Makdisi for this information. Several years ago Professor Makdisi uncovered a document in the Zahiriya Library (Damascus) containing a number of $0fi isnads. In one of these Ibn Taymiya is connected to a line of §Qfis going back to 'Abd al-Qadir al-Jilanl. It is in fact stated that Ibn Taymiya

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that appeared strange to many, now makes perfect sense.20 Ibn Taymlya's attacks on certain Süfi ideas and practices, therefore, were not motivated by a hostility to Süfism per se, but by a concern to expose what he believed to be heretical tendencies that had found their way into certain Süfi circles. His commitment

to reform

Activism and concern for the reform of Islam were consistent features of Ibn Taymiya's life and thought. 21 He was deeply convinced that the Muslim community of his day had deviated from the true Islam represented by the community of the first century. His life and writings were to a significant degree an attempt to set forth this ideal Islam as he understood it and to thereby lay the basis for a thoroughgoing reform. No segment of the community and no sphere of life or thought were spared his relentless and penetrating criticism. He reserved his bitterest attacks, however, for three groups: (1) The established religious leadership which he regarded as lacking in moral commitment, vacillating, self-serving, and arrogant; (2) the scholastic theologians (mutakallimün) whose use of reason he believed to be a denial of the presuppositions of revelation; and (3) certain tendencies among Süfi intellectuals on the one hand, and popular Süfism on the other, which he saw as aberrant. He was particularly disturbed by the philosophical mysticism of such men as Ibn 'Arabi, Ibn Sab'in, and Suhrawardi, whose views, in his judgment, came close to pantheism. He was also critical of a number of popular Süfí practices such as widespread recourse to magic and pilgrimages to the tombs of saints. Such Süfi orders as the Ittihadiya and the Rifá'iya 22 came in for especially severe censure in these connections. Ibn Taymiya's wide-ranging and persistent attacks naturally aroused a bitter opposition to him. He became the object of frequent public denunciation and eventually of an outright persecution.23 Indeed, much of the last twenty years of his life was spent in prison where he eventually died. His influence

Ibn Taymiya was without question the most celebrated Hanbalite of his day. It must be emphasized, however, that his influence was not limited to the Hanbalite school. Though he was the object of a determined opposition, he was himself a member of the Qádiriya order. A similar isnod of Hanbalite §Ofis has recently been published by Professor Makdisi in the Cahiers de VHerne, Paris, 1971, along with a commentary. 20. Dhail, II, 407. 21. Cf. Laoust 'Le réformisme d'Ibn Taymiya,' Islamic Studies, III, 1962,27-47. 22. Sometimes known as the Haririya or the Atimadiya. 23. For a full account of these see Essai, pp. 110-150.

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succeeded in winning a broadly based following among the masses, who seem to have found in his traditionalist ideology a particular appeal. 24 If his popularity was, in part, related to his traditionalist stance, it was also due in large measure to his forthrightness, courage, and fearless devotion to the cause in which he believed. On more than one occasion he was the center of large public demonstrations staged on his behalf. The last of these public expressions, and perhaps the most moving, came in the year 728 on the occasion of his death. We are told by the sources that during the interim between his death and burial the normal life of Damascus came to a virtual standstill.25 Ibn Taymlya's influence, however, was not limited to his own lifetime. During the generations that followed, his influence continued to be felt in a remarkable way as has been shown by H. Laoust. 26 Even today his influence continues to be felt. Indeed, probably no other medieval thinker has had a greater impact on modern reform movements in the Muslim world then Ibn Taymiya. It is safe to say that we have not yet seen the end of that influence. We now turn to a consideration of Ibn Taymlya's Wasijiya.

The Wasitiya Purpose and date of composition Since the Wasitiya itself contains no formal statement of purpose, we shall have to draw upon evidence of the following types in clarifying the reason or reasons for the composition of the creed: (1) evidence of an indirect sort inferred from the text of the creed, and (2) evidence derived from other (that is, external) sources. I shall begin by considering evidence of the latter type before turning to an examination of internal evidence. In his Manazara, a short treatise written in defense of the Wasitiya, apparently in the year 705/1305, Ibn Taymiya states that he had composed the creed in 598 A.H. (1298) in response to a request from one of the qadis of Wasit 2 7 The request of the qadi, as reported by Ibn Taymiya, had been prompted by a growing concern over the slow but steady decline in the religious life of the masses - a state which the qadi apparently attributed to the paganizing influence of the Mongols. 24. It is extremely interesting that one of the things for which Ibn Taymiya was most severely criticized by the rationalist theologians was his eagerness to discuss doctrinal and juridical questions with the rank and file. See his Majmtt'at FatHwa, V, p. 6.

25. Dhail, II, pp. 405-407.

26. 27.

Essai, p. 477ff. Ai-Man&zaratfVl-Aqldat al-Wositlya, (cairo, The Salafiya Press. 1346/1927). 40.

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Though there seems to be no valid reason for doubting that the composition of the Wasitiya was occasioned by a request from Wasit, that fact did not have any apparent influence on either the form or content of the creed and, therefore, is of little value in clarifying the real reason for its composition. The Wasitiya contains no references, either explicit or veiled, to conditions at Wasit; and it makes no allusions to issues or problems that were endemic to that region. Indeed, there appears to be nothing in the creed designed to give it special appeal to the people of Wasit or render it specially revelant to their needs. It must be concluded, then, that while the evidence provided by the Manazara is certainly interesting, it does not throw much light on the underlying reason for the compositon of the Wasitiya. Fortunately internal evidence is more decisive in elucidating the purpose of the creed. As even a cursory reading of the Wasitiya will make clear, it was designed to be a systematic presentation of those articles of faith regarded by the Ahl as-Sunna as essential to Islam. 28 Internal evidence, however, enables us to go still further in defining the purpose of the Wasifiya. The form, con-, tent, and spirit of the creed, as I shall attempt to show in greater detail below make it quite clear that the Wasitiya was designed to serve as a kind of catechetical text suited for the task of educating the masses. The systematic arrangement of the material and the clarity and simplicity of the content were all designed it would seem to enhance its value as an educational tool. It is worth noting, moreover, that the pedagogical nature of the Wasitiya is certainly implied by the Manazara.29 We must go beyond the Manazara, however, and insist that, while its composition may well have been initially inspired by a request from Wasit, it was certainly intended to serve a much larger public. We know, in fact, that already during Ibn Taymiya's lifetime the Wasitiya was being used in many areas of the Muslim world and primarily, it would seem, as an instrument in the education of the masses.30 We may conclude, then, that the Wasitiya was shaped by two major objectives. It was designed to be 1) a document setting forth in an orderly fashion the articles of faith of Sunni traditionalism, and 2) a text suited to the needs of educating the masses. The Nature and Content of the Creed The popular and pedagogical needs which the Wasitiya was designed to serve are reflected throughout the work, not only in its content but also in its formal features and in the spirit that pervades the work as a whole. The language and style of the creed are characterized throughout by their 28. See, e.g., the first line of par. 2. 29. Manazara, p. 40. 30. Cf. the introduction to the Salafiya edition of the Wasitiya, p. 4.

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simplicity, clarity and directness. The systematic character of the Wasiflya distinguishes it from the other 'aqldas composed by Ibn Taymiya and reflects a concern to present the elements of a traditionalist confession of faith in an orderly fashion capable of being easily understood and fixed in the mind. Apart from one or two brief references, the tone of the Wâsiflya is consistently non-polemical in character. Indeed, the tone of the creed as a whole reflects an irenic concern. This irenicism, moreover, is not an incidental feature of the Wàsitlya but is rooted in the very theological substance of the creed and is related in particular to the concept of wasaf. As we have already seen, the idea of wasaf is employed by Ibn Taymiya not only as a formal theological principle, but as the basis for both the doctrinal and practical unity of the Muslim community. The articles of faith set forth in the Wàsitlya are formulated and presented in such a way as to appeal to the sentiments of conciliation and mediation. It is for this reason that Ibn Taymiya consistently avoids statements that might reflect a partisan spirit. Though Ibn Taymiya was a convinced member of the Hanbalite school, the Wàsitlya does not contain a single reference to Ahmad b. Hanbal or any other authority of that school. Indeed, there is not a single reference in the creed to doctrines or emphases that were characteristically Hanbalite. Ibn Taymiya's concern was to formulate a creedal statement that would appeal to all Sunni traditionalists precisely because it stressed those things that all Sunnis shared irrespective of their legal affiliation. The references to wasat and the repeated appeal to the Ahl as-Sunna were meant to underscore the 'ecumenical', nonpartisan character of the Wâsiflya. The fate of the Wàsifîya Before concluding this introduction, some attempt must be made to determine the impact of the Wâsiflya on Ibn Taymiya's contemporaries as well as its influence on subsequent generations. Long before the Wâsiflya made its appearance, Ibn Taymiya had already acquired the reputation of a highly controversial figure. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that the public responses to the 'aqlda were sharply conflicting ones. While it was enthusiastically received in certain quarters, particularly among the traditionalist masses, in others it called forth bitter attacks and, indeed, became the center of a controversy that did not subside until very near the end of Ibn Taymiya's life. The first public attacks on the Wâsiflya reported in the sources were made in the year 705/1305, seven years after its publication.31 The charges leveled 31. For a detailed account of these attacks and their repercussions, see Ibn Kathir, Bidùya, XIV, pp. 36-39; also Dhail, II, pp. 396-398. Cf. H. Laoust, 'La biographie d'Ibn Taymiya, 'Bulletin D'Études Orientales (BEO), 9, pp. 136-144.

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against the creed were apparently considered sufficiently serious by the officials to merit special attention. Later that same year a council was convened by the governor of Damascus to hear the case. In the course of the first hearing, Ibn Taymiya's detractors declared the Wasitlya to be heretical on the following points. First of all, it did not contain any explicit condemnation of ta'wil (metaphorical interpretation). Secondly, the absence of a refutation of tashbih and tajslm (forms of anthropomorphism) implied an acceptance of an anthropomorphist position. Thirdly, the statement that the Quran came from God and would return to him left the door open to the doctrine of the created Quran. And finally, since the creed was based (as they alleged) on the teaching of only one of the salaf, namely, Ahmad b. Hanbal, it had to be regarded as a partisan tract and, therefore, dangerous to the unity of the community. 32 A number of additional criticisms were directed against the Wasiflya, though these were of a lesser nature. 33 Following the presentation of the charges, Ibn Taymiya was given the opportunity to reply, and he appears to have done so effectively, for after a detailed examination of the creed involving three separate meetings, the Wasitlya was finally declared to be doctrinally sound. This, however, was not the end of the matter. His enemies, determined to destroy him, succeeded in having a second council convened - this time in Cairo where the atmosphere was somewhat less favorable to a traditionalist viewpoint - to re-examine the Wasitlya. This time his critics succeeded in convincing the council that the creed was unacceptable and in having Ibn Taymiya convicted of heresy and, more specifically, anthropomorphism. The sentence handed down was equally severe - imprisonment in Cairo for an indefinite period. 34 As it turned out, the length of this period of confinment was a year and a half or perhaps just slightly less. Though the Wasitlya was never again made the object of an official investigation, it was repeatedly attacked for its allegedly anthropomorphist tendencies. The various attempts that were made to discredit the Wasitlya seem to have had little adverse influence upon public opinion. Ibn Kathir reports that during the first investigation of the Wasitlya in Damascus, there were large public demonstrations in support of Ibn Taymiya. 35 Indeed, it is quite possible that the official examination of the Wasiflya actually enhanced its popularity by bringing it to the attention of the public in a way that would not otherwise have been possible. In any case, it is certain that within a relatively short time the Wasiflya achieved a remarkably widespread circulation. Muhibb ad-Dxn al-Khatib, in his introduction to the Salafiya edition of 32. For more on each of these charges, see ManHzara, pp. 41-45.

33. Manazara, pp. 41-45.

34. Laoust, 'La biographie,' BEO, IX, p ,138ff.

35. Bidaya, XIV, p. 37.

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1346/1927, points out that the reputation of the Wasitiya had, in fact, grown with such force that by Ibn Taymiya's death in 728/1327 it was being studied throughout the Muslim world. 36 In the centuries that followed, the Wasitiya seems to have lost none of its original popular appeal. It continued to be studied widely by scholar and non-scholar alike. Even in the modern period its impact continued to be significant. As H. Laoust has shown, it exerted a strong influence in WahhabI circles and even served as a model for the major creed of the movement.37 It is also known to have been regarded highly within the Salaflya movement as well as in certain circles of the Ikhwan al-Muslimin (Muslim Brotherhood). And finally, the large number of printings (one can scarcely call them editions) of the Wasifiya which have appeared in the last century affords strong evidence of the continuing appeal and influence of the creed. The English translation The translation of the Wasifiya which follows is based primarily on the Salafiya edition of the creed published in 1346/1927. However, the following editions were also consulted on a more or less regular basis: 1) The al-Azhar edition of 1385/1966 and 2) the Sharafiya edition of 1323/1905. Variant readings considered to be significant are given in the notes to the translation. In the rendering of Quranic passages, I have relied heavily upon Pickthall, though I have at times departed from his rendering in order to bring out more clearly the author's special interpretation of certain passages. The English translation is not intended to be a literal or word-for-word translation I have endeavored to capture the meaning of the Arabic along with the spirit of the author and render these in correct and intelligible English. I have consistently followed the system of transliteration used in the new edition of the Encyclopaedia of Islam with the exception ofjim and qaf which I have transliterated by j and q respectively.

THE TRANSLATION p. 7 1 /Praise be unto God 'who has sent his Messenger with guidance and true religion that he might exalt it over all other religion; and of this God is our witness' (48:28). I confess that there is no deity apart from God, that he has no companions and is absolutely one. I also confess that Muhammad is his servant and messenger. May divine blessing and peace in the superlative rest upon him. 36. See p. 4. 37. Essai, pp. 514-524; cf. also Laoust, 'Quelques opinions,' p. 433.

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The creed (i'tiqad) of those destined to be saved (firqa najiya),1 that is,

the Ahl as-Sunna wa'l-Jama'a,2

is based upon faith (iman)3

in God, his an

1. The expression firqa najiya occurs three times in the Wasitiya (pars. 2, 32, and 45) and always in juxtaposition to the expression ahl as-sunna wa'l-jama'a (people of the sunna and the community). The immediate background of firqa najiya is a tradition (cited in par. 65) in which the Prophet is reported to have foretold that following his death the Mulim Community would break up into 73 factions all of which would be consigned to hell on the day of judgment except one. It is this faithful remnant that Ibn Taymiya means to designate by term firqa najiya (cf. Hamawiya, 435). Ibn Taymiya was not the first to identify the firqa najiya with the Ahl as-Sunna. The identification is frequently to be found in traditionalist creeds {La profession de foi, p. 16 n. 2 and index). 2. Literally 'the people of the sunna and the community,' i.e., those who adhere to the Sunna of the Prophet and the Early Community. The Ahl as-Sunna are not (in the first instance) equated by Ibn Taymiya with any particular school of thought in Islam or with any historical grouping or movement. The expression was meant primarily as a designation for an ideal body that included all those who took the Qur'an and the Sunna of the Prophet seriously as the basis for doctrine and faith (see espec. par. 65). As Ibn Taymiya points out frequently in the Wasitiya (and elsewhere), the doctrine of the Ahl as-Sunna is one of mediation (wasat) between extremes (par. 32; cf. Hamawiya, pp. 439-440). The Ahl as-Sunna are characterized by their abhorrence of partisan fanaticism and extremism. For them the unity of the community of believers is, therefore, a matter of paramount concern. Having pointed to the ideal character of the Ahl as-Sunna, it is necessary to point out that, on the secondary level, the expression did have something of an historical reference. In sofar as this is the case, it must be seen as referring in a general way to the Sunnx traditionalist, i.e., to the traditionalist (non-rationalist) elements in the four Sunni schools of law. In addition to excluding the rationalist theologians (such as the Ash'arites and the Mu'tazilites), it also excluded Kharijism and Shi'ism in their various forms. For more on Ibn Taymiya's notion of the Ahl as-Sunna, see Essai, pp. 220-225; cf. Madelung, 'Die Ahl as-sunna wa'l-gamma'a und die Nabita' in his Der Iman al-Qasim b. Ibrahim und die Glaubenslehre der Zaiditen (Berlin, 1965) pp .223-228. 3. Iman (which may provisionally be rendered 'faith') in the thought of Ibn Taymiya is a highly complex, multi-faceted concept that cannot be adequately treated here. In contrast to the Kharijites, the Murji'a, and the Jahmiya, Ibn Taymiya (following a long line of traditionalist thinkers) held iman to be a composite entity consisting of a number of elements. For Ibn Taymiya, the basic components of iman were four: a) tasdiq (literally: holding or regarding as true), b) the ahwal (the states of the heart, also sometimes referred to as the a'mal qalbiya, i.e., the actions of the heart), c) iqrar (public confession), and d) a'mal zahira (external acts of the body). The term iman, according to Ibn Taymiya, had historically been used in one of two different ways, viz., in either a conditioned (muqyyad) or an absolute (mutlaq) sense. When used in the latter sense, it included all of the four elements; when used in the conditioned sense it referred to only one of the four (see Kitab al-lman, pp. 71ff., 149, 222). Thus following a widespread practice in medieval Islam, Ibn Taymiya frequently uses iman as an equivalent of tafdiq. It is in this sense that the term iman is used here (par. 2) in the Wasitiya. According to Ibn Taymiya, iman begins with tafdiq in God, his angels, books, messengers, etc., that is, imSn begins by believing these or regarding them to be true. Though tafdiq does include intellectual belief or mental assent, authentic tafdiq involves much more. It entails an inward act of commitment, the making of an inner intention or decision. Only authentic tafdiq is capable of giving rise to the ahwal or states of the heart (such as love of God, trust and confidence in him, fear of his displeasure, etc.). Tafdiq and the afiwal constitute the interior (batin) aspects of faith. However, authentic iman cannot remain an interior phenomenon. It must necessarily express itself outwardly (zahir). Thus public confession and obedience to the will of God as embodied in the Law are necessary consequences of real tafdiq. Ibn Taymiya insists repeatedly that unless faith expresses itself outwardly it is not genuine faith (Kitab al-lman, 170-171; cf. also Wasitiya, par. 51).

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gels, his books, his messengers, the resurrection of the dead, and his sovereign power (qadar) over both good and evil. 4 Faith (iman) by its very nature entails acceptance (iman) of what God has ascribed to himself in the Scripture as well as what his Messenger ascribed to him.5 [This creed] precludes any attempt at altering the original meaning of the sacred texts (tatirif),

and rules out stripping G o d of his attributes (ta'til),6

questions concerning their modality (takyif),1 them analogically (tamthil).*

or asking

or attempting to understand

Indeed, [the Ahl as-Sunna]

hold that 'there is

In order to properly understand the thought of Ibn Taymiya it is necessary to emphasize that in par. 2 of the Wasitiya, iman is used in a conditioned sense as an equivalent for tafdiq. and that as such it constitutes only one of the elements of iman taken in its absolute or inclusive sense. 4. The first article of faith in the creed of the Ahl as-Sunna, as set forth by Ibn Taymiya, is belief (iman-ta$diq) in God as the One who reveals himself to man (angels, books, messengers), who is the judge and lord of history (resurrection, and the divine decrees.) 5. Cf. the fifth-century creed of al-Qadir (Ibn al-Jawzi, Kitab al-Muntazam, 8, p. 110; also Hamawiya, p. 438). 6. Ibn Taymiya's doctrine of God represents a serious attempt to steer a middle coarse between ta'til, on the one hand, and tashbih, (anthropomorphism), on the other. Ta'til (denial of the attributes) had been incorporated into the theological method of the rationalist theologians as a way of protecting God's incomparability and his absolute unity. While Ibn Taymiya shared this concern, he found the results that flowed from the use of ta'til to be disastrous. His critique of ta'til was as follows: a) He argued in the first place that ta'til was nothing more than a subtle form of anthropomorphism. The rationalist theologians would not have felt compelled to strip God of his attributes (in order to protect his incomparability) if they had not conceived of those attributes by analogy to the attributes of finite creatures (cf. Laoust, 'Quelques opinions,' p. 437). Thus ta'til and tashbih go hand-in-hand in the sense that the use of the former always implies the presence of the latter. The only solution to the problem of ta'til-tashbih is to affirm the divine attributes as they are given in the Qur'an and Hadith without attempting to explain how or in what manner they apply to God (i.e., without takyif), and without seeking to understand them through analogies with the attributes of finite creatures (i.e., without tamthil). b) On the second point, Ibn Taymiya argued that because the rationalist theologians tended to conceive of God's unity in static and mathematical terms, the notion of a multiplicity of divine attributes appeared to them as a contradiction of God's unity (Essai, p. 160; and Laoust, 'Quelques opinions,'p. 435-436). Thus to preserve God's unity they were compelled to deny the existence of multiple attributes in God. However, the problem which the rationalist theologians had attempted to solve by denying a plurality of divine attributes was, in fact, an artificial problem that would not have arisen if God's unity had been conceived as an organic and dynamic one (cf. Furqan, MRK, 1, p. 41; also Essai, p. 160). Ibn Taymiya's most serious objection to ta'til was that it inevitably led to a denial of God's existence. He tried to show this by arguing that the notions of attribute (sifa) and essence (dhat) are inseparable, so that it is impossible to conceive of an essence stripped of attributes in the same way that it is impossible to conceive of attributes apart from essence (Hamawiya, pp. 450, 475; Essai, p. 160; Laoust, 'Quelques opinions,' pp. 435-436). Thus a negation of the attributes implied a negation of the divine essence. In the end God is dissolved into nothingness. What began, then, as an attempt to safeguard God's unity eventually ended up in atheism. 7. Takyif (viz., the attempt to explain how or in what sense a given attribute applies to God) necessarily led, in Ibn Taymiya's view, to anthropomorphism of one sort or another. For more on takyif, see Tadmuriya, pp. 27-28. 8. Tamthil is the attempt to understand the divine attributes by comparing them to those of finite creatures. Tamthil is thus a form of anthropomorphism. It is usually distinguished

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nothing like unto him; [that] he is the all-hearing and all-seeing one' (42:11). They do not negate what God has attributed to himself, nor do they alter the meaning of his words on these matters, nor subscribe to heretical notions regarding the divine names (asma') and manifestations (ayat). They do not p. 8 seek to explain his attributes (sifat) or compare them with those of/his creatures, for he has no namesake (samiy), no equal (kujtf), no peer (nidd) and, therefore, does not admit of being compared to his creatures. He is selfknowing and at the same time the knower of all that is other than himself. Compared with those of his creatures, his words are infinitely more trustworthy and sound. Moreover, those whom he sent to proclaim his message were men of the highest moral character, men deserving of confidence. As such, they stand in sharp contrast to those persons who have spoken of God out of ignorance, for God's Word says: 'May your Lord, the Lord of might, be exalted beyond what they attribute to him, and peace be unto his messengers. Praise be unto the Lord of the worlds' (37:180-182). Indeed, God exalted himself above what those who opposed the prophets attributed to him, and he has elevated his messengers above the criticism and slander directed toward them by their enemies.9 3 In the description that he gave of himself, the Most High employed statements of negation (nafy) as well as statements of affirmation (ithbat)10. For the Ahl as-Sunna there can be no turning aside from what God's messengers have made known. Indeed, 'the straight path' (sirat mustaqim) is the path of those prophets, saints, and martyrs upon whom God has bestowed his blessing.

I 4 The essence of what God has revealed concerning himself is set forth in the two following Quranic passages. In Surat al-Ikhlas - a surah whose value is equal to a third of the entire Quran - it reads: 'Say: God is one, God the eternal. He does not beget nor was he begotten, and there is nothing like unto him' (112:1-4). In a verse in [Surat al-Baqara] - the single most important verse in the Quran - we read: 'God, there is no god but he, the living and the p. 9 everlasting. Neither slumber/nor sleep overtake him. Unto him belongs all from tajsim which is a more specialized term and involves the attribution of corporeality to God. 9. An allusion to 23:91. 10. Statements of the former type are those that safeguard God's incomparability by denying him any anthropomorphic quality, such as Surah 42:11 ('There is nothing like unto him'). Statements of the second type are those that ascribe a positive attribute to God, such as the verses that describe him as seeing, hearing, sitting on his throne, etc. (c/. Tadmuriya, pp. 4-5,19).

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that is in the heavens and the earth. Who is there that shall intercede with him except by his permission? He knows what is in front of them and what is behind them and they comprehend nothing of his knowledge save what he wills. His throne encompasses the heavens and the earth; and the preserving of them does not burden him.' - that is, these do not distress or weigh him down - 'He is the sublime, the almighty' (2:255). 5 Those who recite these verses in the night will be under the continuous protection of God, and satan will not [be able to] touch them until the morning breaks forth.

[God's infinite knowledge]11 6 God has further described himself as follows: 'He is the first and the last, the outward (zahir) and the inward (ba\in), and he knows all things' (57:3). He said: 'Put your confidence in the living one who dieth not' (25:58). Or again: 'He is the all-wise, the all-knowing. He knows what enters the earth what leaves it, what descends from the heavens and what ascends to it' (34:27). 'With him are the keys of the invisible which none but he knows. He knows what is on the dry land and in the sea. A leaf does not fall but he knows it, nor a grain amid the darkness of earth, nothing of wet or dry except it is recorded in a clear record' (6:59). 'No female beareth or brings forth except by his knowledge' (35:11)' ... that you may know that God is sovereign Lord over all things and that God's knowledge encompases all things' (65:12). 'God is indeed the giver of sustenance, the Lord of great might, (51:58). 'There is absolutely nothing like unto him, the all-hearing and allp. 10 seeing' (42:11). 'How wonderful is that which God admonishes you:/Lo, he is the all-hearing, the all-seeing' (4:58)

[God's infinite power] 7 'If only when you entered your garden you had said: Let what God wills come to pass: There is no power save in him' (18:39). 'If God had so willed they would not have fought one another. But God does what he intends' (2:253). 'Beasts of cattle are made lawful to you [for food] with the exception of what is announced to you, game being unlawful while you are on pil11. What follows are a number of Qur'anic verses that have to do, in one way or another, with God's attributes. It seems evident that the verses have been arranged in groups, each having to do with a single attribute or several related attributes. The bracketed headings are my own and have been added to assist the reader in identifying the various groupings of verses.

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grimage, for God ordains what he intends' (5:1). 'And he whom God intends to guide aright, he expands his bosom toward Islam, and he whom he intends to lead astray, he constricts his bosom as if he were engaged in ascent toward heaven' (6:126).

[God's love] 8 'Do good for God loves those who do good' (5:93). 'Conduct yourself justly for God loves those who do equitably' (49:9). 'As long as they are true to you, be true to them, for God loves the righteous' (9 :7). 'God loves those who repent and he loves those who are concerned with cleanness' (2:222). 'If you love God, follow me, for God loves you' (3:31). 'God will bring a people whom he loves and who love him' (5:54). 'Verily God loves those who fight in his way in ranks as though they were solid structures' (61:4). 'He is the forgiving, the loving' (85:4). In addition to the foregoing verses treating of God's love there is the oft-repeated refrain: 'In the name of God, the merciful and compassionate one.' 'Our Lord, you comprehend everything in love and knowledge' (40:7). 'He is merciful to believers' (33:43). 'My compassion encompasses all things' (7:156). 'Your Lord prescribed for himself compassion' (6:54). 'He is the forgiving and compassionate one' (10:108). 'God indeed is a better protector and the most compassionate of the compassionate ones' (12:63). 'God takes pleasure in them and they take pleasure in him' (5:119).

[The wrath of God] p. 11 9 /'Whoever kills a believer intentionally, his reward will be hell forever, for God is angry [with such people] and prepares for them an awful doom' (4:93). 'And that is because they followed what angered God and despised what pleased him' (47:28). 'When they angered us we punished them' (43:55). 'God was adverse to their being sent forth and held them back' (9:46). 'It is despicable in God's sight that you say what you do not do' (61:3). 'Do they not see that God will bring them on clouds with the angels and the affair judged?' (2:210). 'Do they expect anything but that the angels will come to them or that your Lord will come to them, or that one of the signs of your Lord will come?' (6:159). 'Nay but when the earth is ground to bits, your Lord and the angels will come rank on rank' (89:21). 'On the day when the heavens with the clouds will be rent asunder and the angels will be sent down' (25:25).

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[The face and hands of God] 10 'The face of the Lord of might and glory will remain' (155:27). 'Everything will perish except his face' (28:88). 'What prevents you from prostrating yourself before what I have created with my own hands?' (38:75). 'The Jews say: God's hand is fettered, but they are accursed for speaking thus. On the contrary, God's hands are spread open wide in bounty. He bestows as he wills' (5:64).

[God's presence and His knowledge] 11 'Patiently wait on your Lord's decree for you indeed are in our sight' (52:48). 'We carried him upon a thing of planks and nails which ran [upon waters] in our sight as a recompense for him who was rejected' (54:13). 'And I endured you with love from me that you might be trained according to my eye' (20:39). 'God has heard the saying of her who disputes with you conp. 12 cerning her husband and complains/to God. Indeed, God hears the discussion between you' (58:1). 'God indeed has heard the speech of those who say: Verily God is poor and we are rich' (3:181). 'Or do they suppose that we do not hear their secret thoughts or private confidences? Nay, our messengers present among them keep a record' (43:80). 'Lo, I am with you; I hear and I see' (20:46). 'Does he not know that God sees' (96:4). 'Who sees you when you rise up and abase yourself in prostration' (26:219). 'He is the hearing and the knowing one' (26:220). 'Say [unto them]: Act! For God will observe what you do as well as his messenger and the believers' (9:105). 'He is mighty in wrath' (13:13). 'They scheme and God schemes, but God is the best of schemers' (3:54). 'They schemed and we schemed, but they did not understand. (27:50). 'Lo, they plot and I plot' (86:15). 'If you do good openly or conceal it or forgive evil, indeed God is forgiving and powerful' (4:149). 'Let them forgive and show mercy. Do you not yearn that God might forgive you, for God is forgiving and merciful?' (24:22). 'Honor belongs to God and his messenger'. (63:8). [As it is recorded in the Quran] Iblis once said: 'By your might I will beguile everyone of them' (38:83).

[God's unity and sovereignty] 12 'Blessed be the name of thy Lord, mighty and glorious' (55:78). 'Worship him and be steadfast in his service. Do you know anyone that can compete with him?' (19:65). 'There is no one comparable to him' (112:4). 'Do not set up rivals to God when you know [the truth]' (2:22). 'Among men there

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are those who take for themselves rivals unto God loving them like the love of p. 13 God' (2:165).'Say: praise be unto God who/has nottaken unto himself ason, and who has no equal in sovereignty, nor has he any protectingfriend. Magnify him in the superlative' (17:111). 'What is in the heaven and earth magnify God. Unto him belongs sovereignty and praise; he gives life and he brings death; he has power over all things' (64:1). 'Praise be unto him who sent down the Furqan to his servant in order that he might be a warning to mankind. He is the one unto whom belongs the sovereignty of the heavens and the earth. He did not take for himself a son. He created everything and determined for it a measure' (25:1-2). 'God did not take for himself a son nor is there a god besides him. Otherwise each god would have championed what he created, and some of them would certainly have overcome others. Praise be unto God who is above all that they ascribe to him. He knows the invisible and the visible. May he be exalted above all that they allege' (23:91). Do not speak of God in parables, for God knows but you do not' (16:74). 'Say: My Lord forbids indecencies only, those that are apparent, those that are within, and sin and injustice and the association with God of that for which no warrant has been revealed and your speaking about God what you do not know' (7:33).

[God's throne: His transcendence and immanence] 13 'The Compassionate one has ascended the throne' (20:5) - these words occur seven times in the Quran. 'Verily your Lord is the God who created the heavens and the earth in six days and then mounted the throne' (7:54). 'Your Lord is God who created the heavens and earth in six days and then p. 14 mounted the throne' (10:3). 'God is the one/who raised the heavens without visible supports and then mounted the throne' (13:2). 'The Compassionate one mounted the throne' (20:5). 'God is the one who created the heavens and the earth in six days and then mounted the throne' (32:4). 'He is the one who created the heavens and the earth in six days and then mounted the throne' (57:4). 'O Jesus, I am gathering you and causing you to ascend to me' (3:55). 'But God tookhim unto himself'4:158). 'Good deeds ascend to him, our pious deeds rise up to him' (35:10). [Pharoah said:] 'O Haman, build a tower for me that I may reach the roads - the roads of heaven and may look to the God of Moses even though I think him a liar' (40:36). 'Are you safe from him who is in the heaven that he will not cause the earth to swallow you when lo it is convulsed? Are you safe from him who is in the heaven that he will not let loose a hurricane. You will know the manner of my warning' (67:16). 'He is the one who created the heavens and the earth in six days and thenmounted the throne. He knows what enters the earth and what leaves it, what descends from heaven and what ascends up to it. Indeed, he is with you wherever you are and God

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sees what you do' (57:4). 'There is no secret conference of three but he is the p. 15 fourth, nor offivebut he is the sixth nor of less than that or/more but that he is with them wherever they may be. And afterward, on the day of resurrection, he will inform them of what they did. Verily, God knows all things' (58:7). Do not grieve for God is with us' (9:40). 'Verily, God is with those who fear him and those who do good' (16:128). 'Be steadfast for God is with those who hold fast' (8:46). 'How many a little company has overcome a mighty host by God's permission; God is with those who are steadfast' (2:249).

[The speech of God] 14 'Who is more true than God in discourse' (4:87). 'And who is more sound in speech than God' (4:122). 'And God said: O Jesus son of Mary' (5:110). 'The word of God is perfect in truth and justice' (6:115). 'And God spoke unto Moses directly' (4:164). 'Among them are some unto whom God spoke' (2:253). 'And when Moses arrived at the time appointed by us, his Lord spoke unto him' (7:143). 'We called him from the right side of the mountain and brought him near in fellowship' (19:52). 'And... your Lord called Moses saying: Go unto people who do wrong' (26:10). 'Their Lord called unto them saying: Did I not forbid you...?' (7 : 22). 'He will call saying: What did you reply to the messengers' (28:68). 'If one of the idolaters asks for protection from you, give it so that he may hear the word of God' (9:6). 'A group of them used to listen to the word of God but then subsequently changed it after having understood it, and they knew better' (2:75). 'They would exchange the word of God, but say: You will not follow us, as God has previously said' (48:15). 'Recite what was revealed to you of the Book of your Lord, no one p. 16 can change his word' (18:27). 'The Quran narrates to the Banu /Isra'il most of that on which they are in disagreement' (27:76) 'We have sent this Book down as a blessing' (16:93, 156). 'If we had sent this Quran down upon a mountain, you would have seen it humbled, rent assunder by the fear of God' (59:21). 'When we put a verse in place of another - and God knows best what he has revealed - they say: You are only an inventor. But in truth most of them do not know. Say: The spirit of holiness has revealed it from your Lord with truth in order to confirm those who believe, and as guidance and good tidings to those who submit. We know well what they say: Only a man teaches him; the speech of him at whom they hint is foreign, while this is clear Arabic'(16:101-103). 14a 'On that day faces will be resplendent, looking to their Lord' (75:22) - 'On couches gazing' (83:23). 'For those who do good is the best and more' (10:27). 'There they have all they desire, and there is more with us' (50:35). 15 Many more verses of the sort cited above are to be found in the Book of

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God. Those w h o reflect on the Quran seeking guidance from it will find the path of truth illuminated.

II 16 The Sunna of the Prophet interprets, 1 2 explains, substantiates and articulates the Quran. 1 3 Therefore, the description of G o d given by the Prophet p. 17 in well attested traditions demands the assent of faith./Among such traditions one may mention the following. 17 The Prophet once said: 'Our Lord descends every night to the lowest heaven and remains there during the last third of the night, saying: 'Whoever calls o n me, him will I answer; and whoever asks of me, to him will I give: and whoever seeks forgiveness of me, him will I forgive.' 1 4 - A tradition received o n the authority of Bukhari and Muslim. 18 H e (the Prophet) said: ' G o d takes greater pleasure in the repentence of a man than you would take in the miraculous return of your riding camel [while you were lost in a vast waterless desert and facing inevitable death without your camel]. 1 5 - Received on the authority of Bukhari and Muslim. 12. Cf. Ibn Hanbal, 'Aqida, 1, p. 241. 13. There had been a long debate within traditionalist circles as to the relative value of the Qur'an and the Sunna as sources of doctrine and conduct. It was not uncommon for traditionalists to give preference to the Sunna over the Qur'an. Ibn Batta in his Ibana quotes Yafrya b. Abi Kathir (a Medinan traditionist of the first century) as follows: 'The Sunna takes precedence over the Qur'an; the Qur'an does not take precedence over the Sunna' (La profession de foi [Arabic text], p. 19). It seems evident that Ibn Batta himself was in substantial agreement with this position. Barbahari (d. 329/941), another influential traditionist wrote: 'Some people attack the Prophet and his Companions; however, it is through the Sunna that we know God, the Prophet, the Qur'an, good and evil, this life and the next. The Qur'an is in greater need of the Sunna than the Sunna of the Qur'an' (TabaqHt al-HanObila, 2, p. 25). This however was not the position of Ibn Hanbal. In his'/i^idb, VI, he writes: 'I command that you prefer nothing over the Qur'an, for the Qur'an is the word of God; what God spoke is uncreated' (p. 342). This was also the view shared by Ibn Taymiya {Essai, p. 230 ff.). 14. The nightly descent of God (nuzal) to the lowest heaven was an important element in the traditionalist doctrine of God. In order to avoid the obvious anthropomorphic implications of this doctrine, the nuzal was affirmed bila kaifa. Thus Ibn Hanbal says in 'Aqida, 1 (p. 29): 'God descends every night to the lowest heaven in a manner appropriate to his will.' In a similar fashion, Ibn Taymiya insisted that the modality of God's descent should be left to God himself. In his Hamamya (p. 451) he says: 'He descends every night to the lowest heaven in a manner of his own choosing... This descent is to be affirmed without asking how or in what manner it occurs (bila kaifa), without comparing it to the phenomenon of human descent (tashbih), or interpreting it metaphorically (ta'wil). Those who deny the descent or interpret it metaphorically are innovators who have apostatized.' 15. As longer versions of this tradition make clear, the physical setting assumed in this tradition is that of a vast waterless desert (faint) in which a lone traveler stops to rest in the course of his journey, but while he is asleep his camel strays. Upon waking he searches in vain for his beast, and at last gives up and prepares to face an inevitable death. He wraps

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19 He said: 'God laughed at two men [one a believer, the other an infidel], who were doing combat against each other in battle. Indeed, both of them will enter Paradise. 16 - Received on the authority of Bukhari and Muslim. 20 'Your Lord is pleased at the despairing of his servants, [knowing that] good is about to befall them. Indeed, he sees you in the depths of your despair, but continues to laugh knowing that the time of rejoicing is near at hand for you.' 17 - A good (frasan) tradition. 21 '[On the day of judgment people] will be cast into hell all the while the latter cries out, 18 "Are there more?" This will continue until the Almighty places his leg (rijl) into it. - Another version reads: [until he places] his foot (qadam) into it. - And part of it will draw back to another part and cry out: "It is sufficient: It is sufficient:'" 19 - Received on the authority of Bukhari and Muslim. 22 'God will say [on the day of judgment]: "O Adam:" And he will respond: "Here am I at your service, O Lord:" A voice will then call forth saying: "Verily, God commands you to send a group of your descendents (dhurrtya) to hell." ' 2 0 - Received on the authority of Bukhari and Muslim. 23 '[On the day of judgment] each of you will be addressed directly by God himself, and he will not speak to you through an intermediary (tarjuman) ,'21 24 The Prophet gave the following as a formula of healing to be said on behalf of the sick: 'Our Lord God who is in heaven, blessed be your name: Your command is operative in heaven and earth just as your mercy is in p. 18 heaven./Forgive us our sins and shortcomings, for you are Lord of the upright. Send down a mercy from your mercy, and a healing from your healing himself in his garment as a shroud. But then suddenly his camel appears out of the blue as it were and the traveler is miraculously spared. - God's pleasure at the return of an erring person is greater than that of the man whose camel returns and saves him from death (Ibn Maja, zuhd, p. 20). - This tradition and the two that follow are taken by Ibn Taymiya as affirmations of those Qur'anic verses that ascribe attributes of emotion to God (Hamawiya, p. 451). 16. The point seems to be that God through his foreknowledge knows that the unbeliever will eventually convert to Islam {cf. Muslim, imSra, p. 129). 17. Cf. Ibn Maja, muqaddama, p. 13. 18. Hell is frequently represented in the /wt/iiA-literature as a monstrous beast. See Gardet, 'Djahannam', EI2, II, p. 382. 19. Cf. Bukhari, tafsir sura 50 (§ahih); and Ibn Hanbal, Musnad, II, 276. 20. Bukhari gives a somewhat longer version of this tradition in his ?ahih (riqab, 45): The Prophet said: 'On the day of resurrection Adam will be the first to be called while his descendants gather in front of him. It will be said to them: "This is your father Adam." Whereupon the latter will say: "Here am I at your service O Lord." And [God] will say to him: "Send a group of your descendents to hell." Adam will reply: "How many shall I send?" [God] will say: "Out of every one-hundred send ninty-nine."' [Those present with the Prophet] said: 'O Messenger of God, if out of every one-hundred, ninty-nine are taken from us, what will remain of us?" He replied: "My Community among the nations is like a single white hair in a black bull. 'Cf. Ibn Hanbal, Musnad, 1,388: and II, p. 378. 21. See Bukhari, tawhid, p. 36 ($ahih); and Ibn Maja, muqddama, p. 13.

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upon this stricken soul.' 22 - A good (fiasan) tradition transmitted on the authority of Abu Dawud and others. 25 The Prophet once said [to one of his companions who had registered a complaint]: 'Do you not have confidence in me seeing that I am the trusted servant (amln) of the One who is in heaven T2i - A sound (sahib) tradition. 26 The Prophet said: 'The throne ('arsh) is above that, and God is above the throne. He knows your every condition.' 24 - A good (hasan) tradition transmitted on the authority of Abu Dawud and others. 27 The Prophet once said to a female slave: 'Where is God?' To which she replied: 'In heaven.' He continued: 'And who am I?' She answered: 'You are God's Messenger.' He then said [to her master]: 'Grant her freedom for she is a believer.' - Transmitted on the authority of Muslim. 28 'The most essential element of faith is that you know that God is with you wherever you are.' 25 - A good (tiasan) tradition. 29 'When you perform one of the five daily prayers do not spit in front of you for God is in front of you, nor to your right, but rather to your left or under your foot.' 26 - Received on the authority of Bukhari and Muslim. 30 [The Prophet used to say when he retired for the night]: 'O God, Lord of the seven heavens and of the Great Throne: Our Lord, Lord of all things, splitter asunder of kernals of grain and seeds of fruit, revealer of the Torah, the Gospel, and the Quran. In you I take refuge from the evil of every creeping thing, for you are the one who will seize them by the forelocks. You are the first; before you there is nothing. You are the knower of every hidden secret; beyond the reach of your knowledge there is nothing. Fulfill the commitment p. 19 of faith in me and enrich me with/poverty'. 27 - Received on the authority of Muslim. 31 '[On the day of judgment] you will see your Lord as clearly as you see the moon when it is full, and you will not need to crowd together in order to see him. 28 If you are capable of outstripping others in the performance of the salat before the rising of the sun and the salat before its setting, then do so.' 29 - Received on the authority of Bukhari and Muslim. 32 There are other traditions of this sort in which the Messenger of God 22. Cf. Ibn Hanbal, Musnad, VI, p. 21. 23. See Muslim, zakot, p. 47. and Bukhari, maghazi, p. 21. 24. Cf. Hamawiya, p. 430. For a more detailed account of the geography of heaven from a traditionalist perspective, see 'Aqida, I, p. 28. 25. Muslim, iman, p. 78; AbO Dawnd, §alat (Sunan), p. 242. 26. Cf. Hamawiya, p. 468; and Bukhari, salat, pp. 33,38. 27. Ibn Maja, du'a', pp. 6,15; Musnad, II, pp. 381,404. 28. The meaning is thus if the root of the verb used here is taken to be damma. However, if the root is taken to be damci (from dayama), as some authorities do, the sentence should be rendered: 'You will not be harmed in your seeing of him' (Lane, 1801 and 1818). 29. Ibn Maja, muqaddama, p. 13; Muslim, masajid, p. 211; and Bukhari, tafslr sura, 65(6).

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reported what God had revealed concerning himself. Indeed, those destined to be saved (firqa najiya), that is, the A hi as-Sunna, believe in those things reported by the Prophet just as they believe in what G o d revealed concerning himself in the Quran, without altering the original sense (tahrif), or stripping G o d of his qualities (td\il), or explaining the modality of his attributes (takylf), or seeking to understand them by means of analogical reason (tamthil).i0 Indeed, among Muslims they (the Ahl as-Sunna) hold to a mediating position (wasatJil, in the same way that the Muslim Community holds a mediating position among the other religious communities. On the question of the divine attributes, [the Ahl as-Sunna] stand mid-way between the ta'til of the Jahmiya 3 2 and the tamthil of the anthropomorphists (mushabbihaJ.33 On the question of the acts (af'al) of men, they occupy a position mid-way between [the predestination] of the Jabariya 34 and [the free-will] of the Qadariya. 3 5 On the issue of divine judgment (wa'ld), they occupy a 30. On these technical theological terms, see notes to the translation, par. 2. 31. It must be emphasized, as I tried to do in the introduction, that wasat mediates precisely because it participates in both extremes. There can be no doubt that wasat, understood in this way, was for Ibn Taymiya one of the most important features of the doctrine of the A hi as-Sunna. This interest in mediation and conciliation is rooted to a large degree in Ibn Taymiya's concern for the unity of the Muslim Community. Partisan fanaticism and extremism are a violation of the bond that unites the Community. It must be noted, however, that Ibn Taymiya's concept of wasat is also rooted in the notion that divine truth is an organic whole. Distortion and falsification result when one aspect of the whole is emphasized to the exclusion of others. In par. 32 of the Wasitiya Ibn Taymiya cites specific examples of how certain schools of theology and sectarian movements had emphasized a fragment of the truth, and in doing so had distorted the truth and sundered the bond of unity among the faithful. Ibn Taymiya's interest in the idea of wasat can be seen from the fact that he deals with it repeatedly in his writings. See, e.g., Hamawiya, pp. 439-440; cf., Essai, pp. 222-223; Laoust, 'Quelques opinions,' pp. 433-434; and El2, III, 953. 32. A school of theology whose origins and early history are obscure. According to Ibn Taymiya, Jahm b. §afwan, the founder of the school, drew his ideas from three sources: a) Jewish teaching, b) the Sabaeans of Harran (a noted center of pre-Islamic, pagan philosophy), and c) Indian philosophy (Hamawiya, pp. 435-437). Bishr al-MarisI (d. 218/833) is credited by Ibn Taymiya with the responsibility for the school's spread in the Muslim world. The Jahmiya denied the distinct existence of the divine attributes, emphasized the absolute unity and incomparability of God, and held the Qur'an to be the created word of God. According to al-Ash'ari (Maqalat, p. 132) the Jahmiya held iman to be a matter of knowledge (ma'rifa), and kufr a matter of ignorance. They held public confession (iqrHr) and outward obedience to be essentially irrelevant to faith. They also held iman to be indivisible and incapable of decrease or increase. Ibn Taymiya found Jahmi doctrines to be thoroughly reprehensible and he attacked them with all of the powers at his command. In the Wasitiya he censures them mainly for their practice of ta'ftl. 33. The mushabbiha (antrhopomorphists) did not constitute a school of thought in Islam. The term was a derogatory one applied to one's opponents in order to discredit them. Thus it was used by the rationalist theologians against the traditionalists, and by the latter against the former. 34. Those who held that the actions of men were totally determined by God. For more on this school, see Watt, 'Djabriya', EI1, II, p. 365; and Watt, Free Will and Predestination in Early Islam. 35. Those who held that God's power did not exclude human freedom. The term

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mediating position between [the ethical laxity] of the Murji'a 3 6 and [the rigorism] of the Wa'idiya 3 7 among the Qadarlya and others. On the question of the application of the terms faith (iman) and religion (din), they take a position between that of theJHaruriya and the Mu'tazila, 3 8 o n the one hand, and the Murji'a and Jahmiya, 3 9 on the other. A n d finally, regarding the Companions of the Prophet, they stand between the Rafidites 4 0 and the Khawarij. 4 1

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33 A n essential element of a faith (iman) in G o d that includes acceptance (iman) of what he has revealed/concerning himself in the Quran, as well as traditions handed down in uninterrupted succession from the Prophet and agreed to by the Fathers (salaf) of the Community, is the conviction that while G o d is above the heavens o n his throne and exalted above his creation, 4 2 he is also, at the same time, with them wherever they may be and knows what they do. This is summarized by the Quran in the following verse: 'He is the

Qadarlya is very frequently applied to the Mu'tazilites by medieval writers since free will was one of their central doctrines. See Macdonald, 'Kadariya,' SEI, p. 200. 36. A school of thought in early Islam which held that the believer does not lose his status as a believer through the committing of sins - even serious sins. Al-Ash'arl in his Maqalat (p. 132ff.) gives a lengthy account of the Murji'a and the shades of opinion that existed within the school. For further details and bibliography on the Murji'a, see Wensinck, 'Murdji'a', SEI, p. 412. Ibn Taymiya discusses the Murji'a in a number of his works, but especially in his Kitab al-ImSn, passim and Furqan, 28-29,36,38,42, etc. 37. A radical sub-sect within the Mu'tazilite school which emphasized with special vigor the importance of works to faith. They insisted that those guilty of sin would be sentenced to eternal punishment in hell. Hence the name wa'idiya. 38. The HarQriya (another name for the Kharijites) and the Mu'tazilites shared the view that works were essential to faith, and that sin did affect the status of the believer. 39. Because they held to a view of faith that was in substantial agreement with the Murji'a, they were commonly regarded as a sub-sect of the latter. See e.g., Maqalat. p. 132f.; also Izutsu, The Concept of Belief in Islamic Theology, p. 84. 40. On the Rafidite or Shi'ite attitude toward the Companions, see pars. 56 and 57 of the Wasitiya. Ibn Hanbal defined the Rafidites as those who held 'that 'Ali b. Abi Talib was superior to Abo Bakr and that 'All converted to Islam before Abu Bakr' ('Aqida, 6, p. 343). 41. The mediating position of the Ahl as-Sunna regarding the Companions is most obvious on the question of the status of 'Ali. Shi'ites regarded him as the best of the first four caliphs and as infallible. The Kharijites, on the other hand, categorically denied the validity of his caliphate and even went so far as to excommunicate him from the Community. The Ahl as-Sunna regarded him as a legitimate caliph but as inferior to the first three. For a fuller statement of the position of the Ahl as-Sunna, see pars. 53-55 of the Wasitiya. Cf. Essai, pp. 204-206; and Massignon, La passion, pp. 728-730. 42. As Ibn Taymiya repeatedly asserts in his Hamawiya (p. 440), God's transcendence is not to be understood in spatial terms. 'God is seated on his throne in a manner appropriate to his glory and unique to him' Hamawiya, p. 440). Cf. par 34 of the Wasitiya. For a fuller discussion of the istiwa', see Ibn Taymiya's Risalat al-'Arshiya.

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one who created the heaven and the earth in six days whereupon he mounted the throne. He knows what enters the earth and what leaves it, what descends from the heaven and what ascends to it. He is with you wherever you are, for God sees what you do' (57:4). The phrase 'and he is with you' does not mean, however, that he is diffused throughout (mukhtalit) his creation. Indeed, such an interpretation is an evident contradiction of what the Fathers (salaf) have affirmed, as well as a contradiction of the character of God as manifest in creation. Thus the moon, one of the signs of God in nature, is among the smallest parts of his creation, and yet, having been placed in the sky, is present with both the traveler and the non-traveler wherever they may be. God is on the throne as a guardian of his creatures; he is their protector and is cognizant of them - these among others being functions of his sovereignty (rububiya). Every facet of what God has said regarding himself - such as, for example, that he is both on the throne and at the same time present with us - corresponds to his reality and has no need of being altered. He is to be preserved from such distorting conjectures as the view that the phrase 'in heaven' implies that the heaven literally stands under him as a support or above him as a protection. This is untenable in the light of the consensus of those who p. 21 possess both knowledge and faith,/for God's throne embraces the heavens and the earth. 43 He keeps the heavens and the earth in their appointed places lest they both perish; and he upholds the heavens lest they collapse upon the earth without his permission. Among the signs of God is the fact that the heaven and the earth endure by his command.

IV 34 It is essential to believe that God is near and responds in the affirmative to those who call upon him as the Quran indicates: 'When my servants inquire concerning me - I am near to answer the call of the caller, when he calls to me' (2:186). In this connection also the Prophet once said: 'The One to whom you pray is nearer to you than the neck of your riding camel.' It is necessary to add, however, that what the Quran and the Sunna affirm regarding God's proximity to (qurb), and presence with (maliya), mankind in no way contradicts their emphasis on his transcendence ( l uluw) and otherness (fawqlya), for his qualities can be compared to nothing that exists. He is transcendent ('ally) in his nearness (dunuw) and near (qarib) in his transcendence Culuw). 44

43. Cf. 2:255 (see par. 4).

44. Cf. Hamawiyci, pp. 440,465.

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V 35 Faith (iman) in God and his revelations (kutub) entails the firm conviction (iman) that the Quran is the word of God, revealed but uncreated, having its origin in him and that this Quran is the very same one which he revealed to Muhammad. It is in reality the word of God and not the word of another. It is not permissible to characterize this word as a translation (tiikaya)45 of the original word of God, or an explanation ('ibaraJ46 of it. Indeed, when people recite it or transcribe it onto other pages, it does not in p. 22 reality cease to be the word of God,/for a statement can be attributed only to the one who originally uttered it, not to the one who transmitted or conveyed it. [The Quran] is the word of God in respect both of its letters (fiurufj and of its meaning (ma'ani). The word of God does not consist of letters without meaning, or meaning without letters.

VI 26 An essential element of faith (iman) in God, his revelations, his angels and his prophets, is the unwavering conviction (Iman) that the faithful will see God with their very eyes on the day of resurrection just as they see the sun when the sky is clear, or the moon when it is full. They will not need to crowd together in order to see him; 47 they will behold him as they stand in the court of judgment. Later they will see him again when they enter paradise in accordance with God's will.

VII 37 An inseparable part of faith (Iman) in the last day is an acceptance (iman) of all that the Prophet taught as to what will occur after death. [The Ahl as-Sunna] believe in the trial (fitna) of the dead in their graves and in their 45. A Mu'tazilite doctrine according to which the Arabic Qur'an is a translation of the celestial word of God in a human language. Cf. La profession de foi, p. 83 n. 4. 46. An Ash'arite doctrine which holds the Qur'an to be the expression of a heavenly archetype (Massignon, La passion, pp. 657,715). Laoust points out that this idea was taken over by certain Hanbalites and led to a lively debate within the School (La profession de foi. p. 83 n. 4). §adaqa b. al-Husain (d. 573 A. H.) is known to have championed this doctrine (Ibn Rajab, Dhail 'ain TabaqHt al-HanHbila, I, p. 342). 47. If the root is taken to be damma, the meaning is as rendered in the translation. However, some authorities take the root to be $lama (from dayama), in which case the sentence should be rendered: 'You will not be harmed in your seeing of him.' Cf. Lane, 1801 and 1817.

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punishment or bliss. 48 As for the trial, verily people will be subjected to scrutiny in the graves and each will be asked: Who is your master? What is your religion (din) ? And who is your prophet? [The Quran says]: 'God will confirm those who believe with a firm response in the life of this world and the world to come' (14:27). The believer will answer: God is my master, Islam is p. 23 my religion, and Muhammad/is my prophet. The sceptic (murtab), on the other hand, will say: Ah! Ah! I do not understand. I have heard the people saying such and such, and I have repeated it in my turn. 4 ^ He will be struck with a rod of iron and will cry out with a loud voice which the whole universe, apart from mankind, will hear. If the latter were to hear it they would lose consciousness. After this ordeal of testing there will be either bliss or punishment and this will continue until the day of the great resurrection. 38 On that day the spirits of men will be restored to their bodies and they will rise from the graves as God has affirmed in the Scripture and by the mouth of his Messenger, concerning which Muslims are in agreement. Men will come out of their tombs and stand before their Lord shoeless, and in a naked and dishevelled state. The sun will draw near and they will perspire. Balances will be set up and the deeds of men will be weighed thereon. [As God's Word says]: 'Those whose scales are heavy will be the fortunate ones; those whose scales are light will lose their souls in an unending fire' (23:102). The records (dawanln) will be opened - that is, the sheets on which the deeds of men are recorded - and some of them will carry their records by their right hand; others will carry them in their left hand or behind their backs, as is stated in the Quran: 'Every man's augury we have fastened to his neck and on the day of resurrection we shall bring forth a record which he will open. [And it will be said to him]: Read your record: You will be the best reckoner against yourself this day' (17:13). God will call upon men to give account of themselves. He will be alone with each of his servants who believe, and he will prevail upon them to confess their sins to him as the Scripture and the Sunna of p. 24 the Prophet indicate./Unbelievers (kuffar), on the other hand, will not be called to give account in the manner of those whose good and evil deeds are weighed, for [unbelievers] will have no good deeds to present. 50 Rather their 48. This doctrine is usually referred to by traditionalist authors as the doctrine of 'adhab al-qabr (the punishment of the tomb). This doctrine presupposes belief in the continued conscious existence of the dead in the grave. In the interim between death and the resurrection, the dead will be examined concerning their religion. If their faith is found to be authentic, their existence in the grave will be a blissful one. If not, they will be subjected to punishment. In contrast to the Kharijites and the Mu'tazilites who categorically rejected this doctrine, the traditionalists vigorously defended it. See e.g., 'Aqlda, I, p. 24. For further details on this doctrine, see El2,1, pp. 186-187. 49. An implied censure of a degenerate kind of taqlid that involves a blind following of the crowd instead of the Qur'an and Sunna. 50. The Arabic text reads: fa'innahu la hisQb lahum. In my translation I have chosen to folt

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actions will be recounted and enumerated; they will be made to take stock of their deeds, confess them and receive recompense. 39 In the hall of judgment there will be a pool (hawd)51 belonging to the Prophet, whose water will be whiter than milk and sweeter than honey; the vessels [used in serving it] will be like the stars of the sky in number; both its length and its breadth will be a months journey in distance. And whoever drinks from it will never thirst again. 40 The sirat, that is, the bridge connecting paradise and hell (nar), will be erected over the main part of hell (main jahannam).52 People will pass over it in accordance with their deeds. Some of them will pass over it in the flash of an instant, like lightening, others like the wind, some like a swift steed, some like the camel, some will run, some will walk and others will crawl. Some of them will be seized and thrown into the pit. Above the bridge there will be hooks which will catch the people because of their deeds. Those who successfully pass over the sira( will enter paradise. When they have crossed over they will stop at an arcade between paradise and the fire. Some of them will be punished, others will not. And when they have been refined and purified permission will be granted them to enter paradise. The first one to request the p. 25 opening of the gates of paradise will be Muhammad, and the first/among nations to enter will be [the Prophet's] community. 41 He will have authority to engage in three forms of intercession (shafa'a J. 53 As for the the first form, he will intercede on behalf of those in the process of being judged so that the issue is decided. However, he will do so only after the other prophets - Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and Jesus - have excused themselves in turn from this intercession so that it ultimately devolves upon him. 42 In the second type of intercession, he will intercede on behalf of those who deserve paradise that they in fact enter paradise. These two forms of intercession will be reserved exclusively for [the Prophet]. 43 Finally, in the third place, he will intercede on behalf of those who deserve to be sent to hell. This form of intercession will be open not only to [Muhammad] but also to the other prophets, to men of virtue as well as oth51. The hawd (a pool or reservoir at which Muframmad will meet his followers on the day of resurrection) is an important element of traditionalist eschatology and is found in virtually every traditionalist creed. Though it is not mentioned in the Qur'an, the Hadith contain many (and often detailed) references to it. It is frequently associated with Kawthar, the river of Paradise. Massignon refers to the hawd as 'un bassin du purification' in which the elect will be washed (Lapassion, p. 682). Cf. 'Aqida, I, p. 34. For additional details, see Wensinck, Muslim Creed, p. 231f., and the article by him in EI2. Ill, p. 286. The hawd was rejected by Kharijites and Mu'tazilites. 52. For additional details, see Swartz, Ibn al-Jawzi's Kitab al-QuffHf, p. 106 and n. 2. The first was another doctrine important to traditionalist eschatology. 53. On this doctrine, see Wensinck, 'Shafa'a': SEI, pp. 511-512. Ibn Taymiya gives a much fuller account of intercession in his Wasita Bain al-Khalq wa'l-Haqq.

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ers. He will intercede on behalf of those who deserve to go to hell that they be spared. He will also intercede on behalf of those who enter hell that they be released from it. God will permit certain people to leave hell without intercession by reason of his kindness and mercy; and the rest of those who enter paradise from among the people of this world (ahl ad-dunya) will remain there, for God will raise up people for paradise and cause them to enter. 44 The various elements included in the doctrine of the hereafter - namely, the judgment, the meting out of rewards and punishment, paradise and hell, and the details regarding these - are mentioned in the books revealed from heaven and in the traditions handed down from the prophets. In the traditions bequeathed by Muhammad on these matters there is sufficient to quench all thirst and bring satisfaction. And those who seek after it will certainly find it.

VIII 45 Those destined to be saved (firqa nájiya), that is, the Ahl as-Sunna, p. 26 believe that God's sovereign power (qadar)jincludes the power over both good and evil.54 Faith in divine omnipotence has two aspects each of which in turn contains two elements. The first has to do with the conviction (imán) that God the Most High knows in advance what his creatures will do through his eternal knowledge which he himself described as being without beginning. He knows in advance all of their conditions, whether they will be obedient or disobedient, whether they will be blessed with good fortune or suffer illfortune. Moreover, God has recorded on the Guarded Tablet (lawh mahfuz) what he foreordained 55 regarding his creatures. The first thing God created 54. Ibn Taymiya was aware of the fact that the Qur'án affirmed both the absolute and arbitrary character of God's power, on the one hand, and human freedom on the other. Muslim theologians, however, had tended to emphasize one or the other. Thus the QadariyaMujabbira, found mainly among the Jahmlya and the Ash'arites, insisted that God's power is arbitrary, and argued that if God were to be accessible to pity or even the claims of justice, his omnipotence would be compromised. The Qadarlya-'Adllya, found mainly among the Mu'tazilites, held to human freedom and moral responsibility. To them it was inconceivable that God should punish men for deeds that were willed by him. Ibn Taymiya, as will be seen from the Wasitiya, rejected both as inadequate since the one sacrificed God's justice and the other his omnipotence. Ibn Taymiya developed the notion that God imposes upon his power certain limitations (Essai, p. 167). To be sure, God's power is without limits; indeed, it is precisely such a power that carries within itself the ability to conduct itself in accordance with the demands of mercy, reason and justice. Human freedom, from this point of view, is perfectly consistent with divine omnipotence. It is worth noting that Ibn Taymiya stood in opposition to a long-standing tradition in the Hanbalite school, going back to Ibn Hanbal himself, which defended the strict predestinarían viewpoint. On Ibn Hanbal's position, see 'Agida, I, pp. 25-26. 55. I.e., foreordination based upon foreknowledge.

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was the pen (qalam). He said to it; 'Write:' And it replied: 'What shall I write?' He answered: 'Write what will occur from now on until the day of resurrection.' However, what afflicted man was not [decreed] for the purpose of causing him to err, and what caused him to err was not [decreed] in order to cause him affliction. Pen after pen dried up [in the course of recording God's decrees], and page after page [was filled and] folded for safe-keeping. As the Quran says: 'Do you not realize that God knows what is in the heaven and earth? Indeed, it is in a record, and that is easy for God' (22:70). It also says: 'No disaster occurs on the earth or with respect to yourselves except that it was a book before we brought it into being. Indeed, that is easy for God' (57:22). 46 The foreordination (taqdir) that flows from God's foreknowledge has to do with both the universal (jumla) and the particular (tafsil), for God has recorded in the Guarded Tablet what he willed. When he created an embryo, before having imparted breath to it, he sent an angel and gave him instructions having to do with four matters: 'Record his material condition, the term of his life and his conduct, and whether he will be blessed with adversity or good fortune.' 47 /In former times the extremists among the Qadariya (ghulatal-Qadarlya)5^ used to reject this understanding of divine predestination (qadar). Today, however, those who reject it are few in number. 48 The second aspect of [faith in the divine decree] has to do with the creative will (mashi'a nafidha) of God and his all-embracing power (qudra), and entails the conviction (Iman) that what God wills (shfia) is and what he does not will is not, that both movement and non-movement in heaven and earth derive only from his will (mashi'a) - there is nothing in the natural order that does not also conform to his normative will (irada) - and that he is sovereign Lord over everything, whether it be in the realm of being or nonbeing.57 Nothing exists either in heaven or on earth that he did not create. There is no creator or lord other than he. Despite this fact, 58 however, he has called upon mankind to render voluntary obedience to him and his messengers, and discouraged disobedience. He loves the God-fearing, and he is pleased with those who believe and live righteously. He does not, however, love unbelievers (kafirun) nor is he pleased with those who are corrupt (fuhasha'). He takes no pleasure in unbelief (kufr) among men, nor does he desire corruption (fusad). 56. See Wosittya, par 50. 57. The argument of this paragraph is based upon a distinction between God's creative will (mashi'a), on the one hand, and his normative will (irllda), on the other. From the point of view of God's creative will, everything that occurs is willed by him. Thus the evil deeds of men are willed by God in the sense that he is the source of the power by which they perform the evil deed. Such deeds do not, however, conform to God's normative will. For a fuller explanation of this distinction and its significance, see Essai, pp. 164-165. 58. I.e., despite the fact that God does possess the power to coerce obedience.

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49 Men are actors in the genuine sense of that term; however, G o d is the creator of their actions. Men are the ones who believe or disbelieve, who live piously or impiously, who pray and fast. Men have power (qudra) over their deeds and will them (irada), while God, on the other hand, is the creator of p. 28 their power and/their will. 50 This aspect of divine power (qadar) is denied by the majority of the Qadariya 5 9 w h o m the Prophet called the Zoroastrians (majiis) of the Community. Some of the Ahl al-Ithbat ('affirmationists') 60 are extreme on this matter to the point of robbing man of his power of action (qudraJ and choice (ikhtiyar). In doing so they deprive the acts and decisions of God of their wisdom and goodness.

IX 51 One of the fundamental principles (usül) of the Ahl as-Sunna is that religion (din) and faith (Iman) are matters of both verbal affirmation (qawl) and action ('amal), that is, matters of the heart and the tongue as well as other bodily members. 6 1 They further hold that faith (Imán) increases through obedience and diminishes through disobedience. 6 2 However, they do not go 59. Frequently known in the sources as the Qadariya-Mujabbira or simply the Jabariya» in contrast to the Qadariya-'Adliya or Mu'tazilites. 60. Another name for the Jabariya. See Watt, Free Will and Predestination (index), and Maqalat (index). 61. The 'heart' and 'bodily members' here correspond to the interior (batin) and the exterior (zahir) aspects of Iman. Ibn Taymlya never ceased to emphasize that faith has to do with both, and that unless it does it is not faith. Faith begins in the heart as an affirmation of belief in, and commitment to, God (tafdiq). Authentic tafdiq, in turn, gives rise to the 'states (atiwál) of the heart which include love of God, trust and confidence in him, fear of his displeasure, and soforth. These interior aspects of faith must manifest themselves outwardly, first in public confession (iqrár) and then in outward acts of obedience (a'mal ?ahira). Because faith is a totality it cannot truely exist unless both its inward and outward aspects are present. The batin must, therefore, necessarily express itself in the zahir (Kitab al-Iman, pp. 156,259). For an excellent summary of Ibn Taymlya's understanding of iman, see Essai, pp. 470-472. Cf. Gardet, 'Imán', EP-, III, p. 1171. 62. While the Jahmiya, the Murji'a and the Kharijites each adhered to their own particular conception of Iman, they all agreed on the point that iman is indivisible and that it does not, therefore, admit of decrease or increase. Faith is given as a whole and is lost in its entirety. Ibn Taymiya accuses the Jahmiya and Murji'a in particular of conceiving of faith as a universal, so that the faith of each individual is no more than an instance of this universal Iman. In his Kitab al-Iman he writes: 'The ¡man of each individual is peculiar to him... for faith is something that is particular and individual. Faith is not a universal; on the contrary, it is a particular. Faith understood in these terms admits of increase. Those who deny the existence of degrees of faith imagine within themselves an absolute iman... abstracted of all particular qualities. They go on to suppose that this [abstract] iman exists in people. Iman [conceived of in this abstract fashion] does not admit of degrees or of plurality since it is a representation existing in the mind... some of the learned men have come to conceive of existence in the same way. They imagine that things which exist have

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to the point of attributing unbelief (kufr)6i in the absolute sense of the word (mutlaq) to professing Muslims (ahl al-gibla) w h o are guilty of grave sins (ma'asi) or serious violations (kabffir), as d o the Kharijites. Indeed, the brotherhood of faith (ukhuwa Imaniya) is capable of enduring despite sin as G o d has said in connection with the issue of retribution (qisas): 'And for him w h o is forgiven by his injured brother, let the prosecution be honorable' (2:178). In another passage we read: 'And if two parties of believers fall to fighting, make peace between them; and if one party is insolent against the other, fight the one that does the wrong until it returns to the commandment of God. If it returns, make peace between them on the basis of justice and equality, for G o d loves those w h o do justice. Indeed, believers are brothers; therefore, make peace between your brothers' (49:9). p. 29 52 /[The Ahl as-Sunna] d o not deny the attribute of faith (iman) in a restricted sense to the Muslim w h o is guilty of grave sin (fasiq milll), nor do they consign him to hell forever as do the Mu'tazilites. On the contrary, such a person participates in faith as is shown by the following Quranic expression: 'A believing slave must be set free [as an expiation for sin]' (4:92). It is true, of course, that such a person does not participate in faith taken in its absolute sense (mutlaq), such as it is used in the following verse: 'The only believers are those whose hearts experience fear when G o d is mentioned; and when his revelations are recited to them it increases their faith' (8:2). The Prophet is reported to have once said: 'The adulterer does not commit adultery when he commits adultery, for he is a believer; 6 4 the thief does not in common what is called 'existence'. Then they go on to suppose that [this idea of existence] is to be found in the external world in the same way it is present in their minds... In this fashion many of the philosophers form in their minds the idea of pure numbers and abstract realities, and they term these Platonic Ideas (muthul aflatuniya). They also form an idea of time abstracted from movement or a mover, or an idea of dimension abstracted from bodies and their qualities. They then go on to suppose that these exist in the external world. All such people confuse what exists in the mind with what exists concretely in the external world.... This applies to those who say that iman is a single thing and that it is identical in all men' (Kitab al-Iman, 347-348). It is important to underscore the point that Ibn Taymiya's rejection of the JahmiyaMurji'a position was motivated by a concern to safeguard the strictly personal and individual character of Iman. Faith has no existence apart from the faith of particular individuals. Because of the particular, concrete character of faith, it follows that it is capable of decrease and increase. This understanding of Iman is a consistent feature of traditionalist creeds. Cf. 'Aqida, I, p. 25; 'Aqida, II, p. 130; 'Aqida, VI, p. 295; 'Aqida, VI, p. 343; and the creed of al-Qadir {Kitab al-Muntazam, VIII, p. 110). 63. Kufr for Ibn Taymiya is the antithesis of iman. It is thus much more than unbelief understood in intellectual terms. Kufr is a total opposition to God. This does not, however, rule out the possibilty of kufr and iman existing side by side in the same individual. Kufr is capable of increase and decrease like iman. On the question of the co-existence of kufr and iman, or nifaq and iman, see Kitab al-Iman, pp. 257,263-264. 64. As Ibn Taymiya explains in Kitab al-Iman (p. 259), he is a believer whose iman is incomplete. Specifically, he is one in whose heart the states of faith are absent. 'It is clear,' he says, 'that when an adulterer commits adultery, he does so because there is within him a

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steal when he steals for he is a believer; [the drinker of wine] does not drink wine when he drinks wine, for he is a believer; and the plunderer does not plunder when he plunders, for he is a believer.' Our view is that such a person is a believer, but one whose faith is not complete; or, stated differently, he is a believer by virtue of his faith and a sinner (fasiq) by virtue of his sin (kabira). One cannot apply the term [faith] in its absolute sense to him but, at the same time, one cannot totally deny it to him just because of his grave sin.

X 53 Another of the principles championed by the Ahl as-Sunna is that of showing respect and affection to the Companions of the Prophet, and that both in the springs of one's inward conviction as well as in public, 65 for God himself has said that 'Those who came after them should say: Our Lord; Forgive us and our brother who preceded us in faith, and do not place rancor in our hearts toward those who believe. O Lord; You are full of pity p. 30 and compassion' (59:10)./Moreover, obedience to the Prophet requires [the bestowal of respect upon the Companions], for he said: 'If you were to make a contribution in gold it would not equal in value the dry measure, or even a half of one, of what [the Companions] gave at the battle of Uhud. [The Ahl as-Sunna] affirm all that is in the Quran, the Sunna of the Prophet, and the consensus of the community (ijmaregarding the merits of the Companions and their ranks. They regard the Companions who sacrificed their means and fought on behalf of Islam before the conquest [of Mecca] at Hudaibiya as superior to those who subsequently gave of their means and fought. Moreover, they regard the Muhajirun (Emigrants) as superior to the Ansar (Helpers), and they believe that God said to those who participated in the battle of Badr, 66 their number being approximately three hundred and ten: 'Do what you will for I have already granted you pardon.' They also believe that none of those who gave the oath of allegiance to the Prophet under the tree 6 ? will enter hell as the Prophet himself confirmed. Indeed, God was pleased with them and they with him, they having been more than a thousand love for that act. If there had been in his heart a fear of God capable of overcomming it, he would not have committed adultery... The one who is genuinely devoted to God will never commit adultery. 65. For a systematic treatment of Ibn Taymiya's views on the Companions, see Essai, pp. 204-220. Cf. Massignon, La passion, pp. 728-730. 66. On this battle see Watt, 'Badr,' EP, I, pp. 867-868. 67. This is a reference to the Pledge of Good Pleasure (bay'at ar-ri^wSn) given to the Prophet by his supporters at or about the time the treaty of Hudaibiya was being negotiated. The precise content of the pledge is not entirely clear. For a discussion of the pledge and some of the problems posed by it, see Watt, Muhammad at Medina, pp. 46-52.

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and four hundred in number. They will certify in paradise those on behalf of whom the Prophet bore testimony, such as Thabit b. Qais b. Shammas 68 and others of the Companions. The Ahl as-Sunna affirm, on the basis of a tradition going all the way back to 'Ali b. Abi Talib and having numerous transmitters, that the best of this community, after the Prophet, was Abu Bakr followed by 'Umar. They assign the third place to 'Uthman and the fourth to 'All, in accordance with tradition and the consensus of the Companions. While the Ahl as-Sunna are in agreement on the superiority of Abu Bakr p. 31 and 'Umar, not all agree on the respective merits of 'Uthman and 'All. I Some regard 'Uthman as superior without commenting on the position of 'All; others regard 'Ali as superior; still others refrain from taking any position whatever. However, the dominant position among the Ahl as-Sunna is that 'Uthman is superior to 'Ali. On the other hand, the question of the respective merits of 'Uthman and 'All is not regarded by the majority of the Ahl as-Sunna as a fundamental issue in respect of which one could be accused of error. However, the question of the caliphate is just such a fundamental issue. They believe that the caliphs after the Prophet were Abu Bakr, 'Umar, 'Uthman and 'Ali. Whoever attacks the caliphate as an institution is more misguided than his own donkey. 54 [The Ahl as-Sunna] love the Prophet's family and make them the object of veneration. They preserve the counsel (waslya) of the Prophet concerning them when he said on the day of Ghadir Khumm: 69 'I will say to God that you are from my family.' On another occasion he said to his paternal uncle al' Abbas who had complained to him that one of the Quraish had mistreated one of the Banu Hashim: 'By the One who has my soul in his hand: They will not become true believers until they love you for God's sake and for the sake of my kinship with you.' And he continued: 'God has chosen the Banu Isma'il; from the Banu Isma'il he chose the Kinana, and from the Kinana he chose the Quraish, and from the Quraish he chose the Banu Hashim, and from the Banu Hashim he chose me.' 55 [The Ahl as-Sunna] venerate the wives of the Prophet as mothers of the Faithful, and they believe that they will be the wives of the Prophet in the next p. 32 life, expecially Khadija, 70 /mother of most of his sons and the first to believe and to aid him in his mission. She indeed was held in high esteem by him. They 68. One of several poets associated with Muhammad. He was a member of the Medinan tribe of Khazraj and lost his life during the reign of Aba Bakr while on a military campaign in the Yemen. See 'Asqalani, Tahdhib at-Tahdhib (HaidarSbad), II, pp. 12-13. 69. The name of a pool located between Mecca and Medina which the Prophet is reported to have visited in the year 10 A.H. on his way back to Medina after having performed his last pilgrimage of Mecca. For the Shi'ite and Sunni views of what occurred at Ghadir Kumm, see the excellent article by L. Veccia Vaglieri in EI2, II, pp. 993-994. 70. The first and, in many ways, the most venerated of the wives of the Prophet. See the art. by Buhl on her in SEI, pp. 231-232.

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also show special regard for Siddlqa bint as-Siddîq ('A'isha) about whom the Prophet said: "À'isha is superior to other women71 as broth-moistened bread (tharld) is over other foods.' 56 [The Ahl as-Sunna] declare themselves free of the teaching of the Rawafi

60. The early Muslim theologians in a sense evoked this opposition from the revelation as it was one thing they saw there when they sought to understand discursively its truth; thus, one might say that the combination of the theologians' basic perceptions of reality and the raw material of the Qur'an yielded certain fundamental rational constructions, perhaps the most important of which is the opposition with which we are concerned. In the early days of the kalam, the opposition became manifest in the theologians' concerns with such problems as the 'free-will - predestination' conflict; then, throughout the later development of thought, the opposition often became an issue in itself as well as the foundation of a larger group of problems such as, for example, the one in our texts. We must note, finally, that in our talk of 'basic perceptions of reality - experiental and conceptual' we do not mean to mystify the issue; we simply refer to that broad sense of understanding the world which all sensitive and reflective persons have. What it was in detail that the Muslim theologians brought to the revelation we do not know. We simply say that the theologian seizes on his understanding of the Qur'an according to his broad understanding of the world. And we see the result. 61. Certain thinkers of the Mu'tazilah sought to effect such a combination. For example, Bishr ibn al-Mu'tamir (d. A.D. 825) originated the doctrine of tawallud or 'generation' which, in reference to the question of man's capacity to create his own actions, held that man generates (tawallada) his external actions and is somehow responsible for them. Or, Mu'ammar ibn 'Abbad (d. A.D. 809) developed the notion of tab' or 'nature' according to which accidents act upon one another naturally and thus are subject to secondary causality, while God creates the atoms. For a brief superficial and non-analytical survey of these ideas in English, see Frank E. Peters, Aristotle and the Arabs, New York, New York University

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the dispute is similar to that of the classical theology versus philosophy controversy, the present debate is acted out wholly within the context of the metaphysics and problems of the traditional kalam; as is much of the rest of the Ihqaq, where the same necessity versus non-necessity conflict organizes debate on the standard theological problems. Thus, to speak of two religious outlooks here is even more appropriate than to do so for the earlier theology versus philosophy controversy where one side is based on a demonstrably alien worldview and set of concerns. However, whichever form one might choose to examine, it is obviously true that the two outlooks do constitute a major and longstanding division within the community of thinkers in Islam. The final level of meaning is that of the explicit problem, perception, and its derivative issue, vision of God. At this level, as we have seen each opponent builds his argument for or against the idea that perception occurs only under certain conditions; and he does so on the basis of his religious outlook. Let us now lay bare the frameworks of both positions in order to show here the quality of organic unity and comprehensiveness implicit in them. For Ibn al-Mutahhar, perception, like anything else, occurs necessarily under certain conditions, cannot in any way occur without those conditions, and therefore is absolutely unable to help man to see God, a being whose presence would not fulfill perception's conditions. Nor could God create such vision for man as a miracle, because even His miracles must occur as part of the regular pattern of events in the world - however unexpected the miracles might be. Thus, the view that the world possesses a basic pattern of inviolable necessary relationships which are amenable to man's understanding - one rationalized religious outlook - permeates and organizes discussion of two derived issues, that is, perception and the problem whether or not man will see God. The discussion, then, is not solely about perception, nor is it primarily really about vision of God, nor essentially about the natural necessity inherent in the universe. It is about all these issues with the latter being used as a theoretical foundation and organizing principle. For Ibn Ruzbihan, perception, like all other things, occurs through God's direct creative activity under conditions that He has made a part of His customary behavior. Man perceives this quasi-regularity and necessity which helps him to be oriented in the world, but he ought to understand that in principle it is susceptible of change by the Creator, although in practice it will probably remain constant. With this distinction between the conceptually or rationally impossible (muhal laqli) and the customarily impossible (mulial 'adi), Ibn Ruzbihan strives to maintain some epistemological stability without diminishing God's power. Thus, he appears almost to be saying that the Press, 1968, pp. 136-146. However, we have seen no evidence that the Ithna'ashariyah used either of these ideas.

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customarily impossible will always be the case, but that conceptually we must maintain God's power for the sake of consistency in belief. However, in fact, this distinction cannot erase the deep sense of uncertainty and contingency in the Ash'ari notion of custom ("adah); nor does Ibn Ruzbihan really mean to blur the traditional meaning. For he says that at least in a few instances God already has altered His custom - the most relevant case here being His blinding of the Quraysh guards in order to permit Muhammad to escape. For this event, according to Ibn Ruzbihan and his school, was a true breaking of custom (kharq al-'adah), as are all miracles, and not just an unexpected but natural occurrence, as the Ithna'ashariyah hold. 62 Why not, then, the possibility that someday, in some way, God might enable man to see Him, as the Asha'irah understand the revelation to say? And this in spite of the absence of vision's usual conditions. Here, too, then, we have a totally and tightly unified discussion permeated and organized by the basic religious outlook. To end, we should like now to return to the question of History of Religions as a perspective for the study of rationalized thought in Islam. We have argued that when the mind of the Muslim theologian confronts the revelation in order discursively to defend and understand that truth, part of what emerges is the theologians' consciousness of the problem of God's power versus natural necessity; and in this consciousness the opposed outlooks are forged, each thinker choosing one or the other. Then, that opposition becomes a dominant theme in Muslim religious thought, organizing discussion of various problems, as our text so clearly illustrates. It is the centrality of this opposition and its status as a rationalized manifestation of certain basic perceptions that should make it a fit subject for History of Religions. For if the phenomenologist of religion is concerned with 'structures' of religious phenomena, such structures being sharply defined respresentative aspects of feeling, thought, and action in a particular tradition, then perhaps we have here, in the two oulooks, some basic structure of the Muslim understanding of things - in spite of that structure's being expressed as rationalization. For we assume that real religious sentiment often expresses itself in the form of 62. The Asha'irah obviously hold what we might call a theory of statistical probability - in the modern sense - rather than a thoroughgoing epistemological nihilism. For they claim not that there are no regularities in the world, but that they understand the truth about the regularities, viz., that their occurrence may be seen as being probable, as they represent God's customary - but not necessary - mode of acting. God exercises His freedom in creating miracles which constitutes a real break in His customary behavior and a true suspension of natural regularities for man. And it is here that we see the qualitative difference between this Ash'ari doctrine and that of the Ithna'ashariyah. For in the Ithna'ashari view natural necessity completely binds God so that H e is unable to act contrary to it, even in His making of miracles. Thus, necessities and regularities in the world may be characterized as absolute and inviolable rather than probable, and man's understanding as absolute certainty rather than as the quasi-certainty of the Ash'ari outlook.

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reasoned argument and even 'scholasticism' and 'law', these modes really not being qualitatively different from the expression of religious sentiment in, say, myth and ritual. The rational frameworks merely represent a different form. Thus, if a phenomenology (whatever one means by the term) of myth and ritual is possible, why not a phenomenology of theological thought and sacred law? It remains our task to approach each form of rationalized religion in such a way as to identify its broader religious perspective.

Postscript Our purpose here was to reveal a problem; to suggest one possible way of handling that problem, using a heretofore unstudied tradition of kalam as our example; and, finally, to indicate certain attitudinal, theoretical, and methodological perspectives which might help in carrying out more extensive and sophisticated attempts along these lines. Thus, our analysis and interpretation of the text were meant to point up one way in which we might begin to understand the religious significance of this particular piece of rationalized religion - rather than just treat its 'philosophical' foundations. Many problems obviously remain in refining such an approach. For example, how might one define more specifically here 'religion' and 'religious' and in what way does the basic structural quality of the 'religious outlooks' differentiate them from ordinary philosophical concepts and argumentation? Or, what would the relationship be between a 'phenomenolgy' of 'scholastic' texts and a rigorous conceptual and terminological analysis of the thought, the latter having been done only partially here in order to emphasize the former? And so on. We shall discuss these matters and related ones in an attempt to go beyond the present study theoretically and methodologically in a paper which will appear in Humaniora Islamica, vol. II, as part of the proceedings of a symposium on History and Social Anthropology in the study of Islam.

J. CH. BÜRGEL

Psychosomatic methods of cures in the Islamic Middle Ages

As is well known there is a certain set of interrelations and interactions between man's body and soul; it is this interdependence, in recent days usually labelled 'psychosomatic', that forms a basis not only of religious but also of manifold medical theories and practices. Bodily reactions to psychic incidents or proceedings are part of our daily experience: We shake with fear, lose colour in dismay, or blush with shame. Fright may stiffen the limbs of our body, or turn the black colour of a young person's hair into the white of an old man's. Prolonged grief or, particularly unhappy love affairs can emaciate the body or even produce serious illnesses. Physicians know the importance of belief in the process of healing. The patient's belief in the efficacy of a treatment or medicament is perhaps as important as its actual effect, or even more important, for such belief may turn medicaments which by modern standards are inefficacious or even potentially harmful into successful ones, as is generally the case with amulets and charms. Psychic sufferings and conflicts may turn into physical ones. Modern medicine has gradually realized that unconscious conflicts and repressed wishes and urges can produce organic complaints as well as mental ones. Psychoanalysis tries to make these conflicts and repressions conscious and thereby cure the pain. Man's soul, at one time the object of spiritual circumspection and guidance and sometimes also of exploitation by priests and theologians has, in our day, become increasingly a subject for psychology, psychiatry, psychotherapy, psychopathology, and psychosomatics. The scientific care of man's soul is a fashion and a symptom of our day. Still, the experience with these psychosomatic facts is old, as old as the healing art itself. The practices of medicinemen and magicians are based on this experience, and the Greek and Arab medicine incorporated it into their scientific systems. While our remarks will show in what degree and forms this psychosomatic approach played its part in the Islamic Middle Ages, it is self-evident that I should have to refer, not only to Arab and Persian but sometimes also to Greek sources, as it is the medicine of ancient Greece, the medicine of Hippocrates, Galen, Rufus and other great medical men which forms the basis Humaniora Islamica I (1973),pp.

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of Arabic and Persian medicine. Hundreds of medical texts were translated from Greek into Arabic under the Caliph al-Ma'mun and his successors and served the great law-givers of Arabic and Persian medicine, Razi, 'All b. 'Abbas and Ibn Sina, as indispensable sources. The following points concern us here: a) The role of psychosomatic facts in the physician's dealings with his patients. b) The question of the physician's competence in evaluating sufferings of the soul. c) The treatment of melancholia. d) The factor of faith as a therapeutic element. e) The exploitation of psychosomatic interrelations in the healing of certain bodily sufferings by arousing fear, shock or shame.

1. The role of psychosomatic facts iu the physician's everyday dealings with his patients The great medical men of the Islamic Middle Ages knew that the physician must assure the patient if the therapy is to be successful. As these assurances begin with the physician's own outward appearance, physicians examined the so-call Testament of Hippocrates to find their guidelines for deportment in this area. It says among other things: 'The cut of [the physician's] hair should be well-proportioned; he should not be bald-headed, but neither should he let his hair grow moppy; he must not cut his finger-nails excessively, nor should he let them grow longer than his finger-tips. His clothes should be white, clean, and light in weight; he must not hurry, because this means thoughtlessness, nor should he drag himself along, as this indicates mental sluggishness. When he is called to a sick person he ought to sit down seriously and inform himself calmly and with deliberation, not with restlessness and excitement.'1 The idea of asking the patient only what is absolutely necessary goes hand in hand with these instructions. A good physician recognizes most things without asking, solely by examination, especially by the uroscopy, which the mediaeval patient expected to produce wonders in diagnosis and prognosis. A physician asking too many questions was considered liable to arouse doubts about his qualifications in dealing with critical patients.2 1. Ibn abi Usaibi'a, 1884, pp. 1,26. 2. This advice is given by Ishaq ibn 'All ar-Ruhawi, the author of an interesting book entitled Adab at-tabib, 'The Education of the Physician'. Ar-Ruhawi deals with questions of diagnosing in the seventh chapter 'on what the physician should ask the patient and those looking after him'. Ruhawi's book was translated into English by Martin Levey (1967). Unfortunately his translation is full of gross mistakes as I showed in a detailed review (Biirgel, 1968). I have largely drawn on Ruhawi's book, using a microfilm of the unique

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There were other things that were viewed as part of the everyday psychology of the physician: He should see to it that bad news, for instance the death of a friend or a commercial failure, is kept from the patient. In fact, consideration of the sick man's psyche goes even further. Galen laid stress upon the admonition originated by Hippocrates to remove everything from the sickroom which could be disagreeable to the patient: Pictures, flowers, etc.; indeed, every accommodation as to the colours and flavours ought to be made to the patient's personal taste. 3 The idea that certain psychic effects are produced by sensual perceptions was expounded further by an Arab physician of the thirteenth century named Badruddin al-Muzaffar Ibn Qâdï Ba'albakk. In his book Mufarrih an-nafs (the 'Joy-maker of the Soul'), he discusses how the perceptions of each sense - colour, fragrance, taste, sound, and touch - affect the soul. We shall refer to this work in connection with the treatment of melancholy.4 We are still dealing with the sick-room. There are some measures taken for the sake of the patient's state of mind which could prove objectionable. Thus, the practitioner must make allowance as much as possible for the patient's wishes and dislikes regarding dietetic prescriptions. For example, a strict regimen must not lead to the patient's beginning to hate his doctor or stopping to eat at all. On the contrary, the physician has to try through a degree of indulgence with regard to diet, to gain the patient's trust, so that the latter more easily obeys the decisive prescriptions.5 This practice, recommended by Galen, is explained by Râzï in a small treatise, the very title of which expresses the idea as follows: 'Epistle about the requirement that the physician proceed ingeniously and tactfully in order to let people attain satisfaction for their craving, inasmuch as the damage befalling them thereby is inferior to the one ensuing from the repressions of the desires, and that he not compell them to renounce those.' 6 Another charge advanced by Râzï is in line with this, namely, that distasteful drugs be coated or mixed with savoury substances, which also serves the manuscript Edirne Sellimiye 1658, in my 'Studien zum ärztlichen Leben und Denken im arabischen Mittelalter', forthcoming in 1973. 3. This is again emphasised by ar-Ruhâwi who in the fifth chapter 'on the good manners of the visitors of the patients' quotes a famous passage from Galen's commentary of the Hippocratic 'Epidemics' (Adab at-tabib: fol. 63r-63v; Corpus Medicorum Graecum V, 10, 2.2, p. 200). 4. This book is mentioned by Brockelmann, but with incorrect indication of the author's name {GAL, S1901). The correct name is evident from the manuscript Aya Sofya 3637 and from the mention of this book in the biography of Muzaffar ibn Qâçli Ba'albakk in Ibn abï Usaibi'a's 'UyUn al-anbä' (1884, pp. 2, 259squ). Cf. my paper on this book in the proceedings of the 6th Congress of the 'Union Européenne d'Arabisants et d'Islamisants' held at Visby and Stockholm in August 1972. 5. Corpus Medicorum Graecorum V, 10,2.2,310/2. 6. The Arabic text is extant in the Codex Escorialensis Arabicus 887, fol. 1-4. A German translation by the present author was published recently: Deichgräber, 1970.

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purpose of keeping the patient in good humour. 7 Here also belongs the physician's duty upon leaving of always encouraging his patients, even when in all likelihood the case is hopeless.8

2. The question of the physician's competence in evaluating sufferings of the soul Not only did the physician have to prove his psychological skill in keeping up the patient's spirits; indeed Greek and, in its wake, Arabian and Persian medicine demanded more of him: He had to be a leader of souls, and this in the following regard. The essential idea of Greek and Arabian medicine was symmetry, in Arabic i'tidal. Health was based on the equilibrium of the temperaments, the mixture of the humours, and i'tidal almizag.9 The maintenance of this equilibrium required a series of vital factors, the umur daruriya, which also had to be kept in balance. According to Ibn Sina and other great medical men, these umur daruriya were the following: Climate, food and drink, sleeping and waking, motion and rest, excretion and retention (mainly referring to sexual intercourse), and such psychic actions as, for example, joy or grief, ire and leniency. 10 Thus it is evident that the healthy conduct of life was closely connected with ethics, as the idea of symmetry was also the central point of the philosophical ethics of Aristotle. But who was to tell men how much sleep, food, exercise, joy or wrath was beneficial to them? The answer is not as easy as one would think; it depends on a set of individual factors such as one's period of life, profession, place of residence, and individual humours, among other things. Only the competent physician is able to relate this information. Therefore, it is understandable that medical men of both antiquity and the Islamic Middle Ages considered themselves also to be philosophers. Galen wrote a treatise 'Concerning the fact that the excellent physician is at the same time a philosopher'. 11 Above all, returning to our main point, the physicians' claims to their competence, not only in bodily but also for mental welfare, resulted from the 7. This problem was tackled by Razi in a small treatisce entitled at-Tibb al-mulnki, The Royal Healing Art, contained in the Escorial manuscript mentioned above, note 6. 8. This advice is given by Sa'id ibn al-Hasan in his Taswiq at-tibbi, 'The Medical Encouragement', manuscript Gotha 1908, fol. 22v. (Spies, 1968); German translation 102 (Taschkandi, 1968). 9. The maintenance of this equilibrium is also one of the leading ideas in ar-Ruhawi's A dab at-tabib, cf. my 'Adab und i'tidal..Biirgel, 1967). 10. umur daruriya literally means 'necessary things'; their number differs, and there is also no standardized terminology in the medical textbooks of the Arabic Middle Ages. I have discussed this problem in a chapter of my 'Studien...' (cf. note 2 at the end). 11. The Arabic version of this text together with a German translation and Greek-Arabic vocabulary was recently published by P. Bachmann (Bachmann, 1968).

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doctrine of symmetry. This theory not only claims that the body is influenced by emotions - excessive grief makes one thin, lasting joy fat - but also that mental sensations are functions depending on the body. And again it is Galen who deals with this interrelation in an essay entitled 'That the powers of the soul are dependent on the mixture of humours'. 12 To be sure, the doctors' claim of being competent not only with regard to the body but also the soul did not go unchallenged. The philosophers indeed felt themselves threatened in their competence. The controversy began in antiquity and continued in Islamic times, where occasionally theologians also pointed out to physicians that the latters' domain was only the body, not the soul, of men. Likewise in our own time many clergymen regard psychotherapy as an unacceptable interference in the concerns of theologians, the church or the ministerial office. To cite just a few examples on both sides of the question, we see that the doctors' claims manifest themselves even in the titles of their treatises. Thus, Abu Zaid from Balh wrote in the third century H. a Kitab masalih al-abdan wal-anfus ('Book about the welfare of bodies and souls')13 and Ibn Gumai' in the sixth century A. H. a Kitab al-irSad limasalih al-anfus wal-agsad ('Book of Guidance for the welfare of the souls and the bodies').14 Other authors expressed this claim in a more or less polemical form; Ibn Rabban at-Tabari says in the introduction to his famous Firdaus al-hikma ('Paradise of Wisdom'): Only the physicians are in a position to help man to the i'tidal almizag ('equilibrium of temperament') because they specialize in the guidance (siyasa) of bodies and souls.15 And Ishaq b. 'All ar-Ruhawi, author of an interesting treatise with the title Adab at-tabib ('The physician's education') rates medicine higher than philosphy, arguing that philosophy is only able to help the soul, whereas medicine cures the body and the soul.16 In opposition to this, Farabi, in his Fusul al-madani ('Aphorisms of the statesman') - to cite only one antagonist - differentiates clearly between the mu'alig al-abdan, 'the one who cares for the bodies' as he defines the physician, and the mu'alig al-anfus, 'the one who cares for the souls' who, for him, is the philosophic head of the state. 17 12. The Arabic version of this text was worked on by H. H. Biesterfeldt: his book will be published before long. 13. GAL I, p. 229; S I, p. 408; Munaggid 1959, p. 218. 14. GAL I, p. 489; S I, p. 892; Dietrich 1966, 45.1 plan to edit these two works within a project financed by the Swiss National Foundation. 15. Ibn Rabban, 1928, p. 4, line 5 squ. 16. This argument is advanced at the end of the twelfth chapter of his Adab at-tabibiol. 97 v. 17. Aphorisms, pp. 3,4,13,19,25. The confrontation of the physician and the statesman is also to be found in Farabx's Kitab al-Milla, cf. Alfarabi's book of Religion and Related Texts. Arabic Texts, edited with Introduction and Notes by Muhsin Mahdi, Beirut, 1967, p. 56 squ.

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The controversy, however, is due to a certain extent to a lack in terminological elucidation: 'Soul' for the philosopher is not necessarily the same as for the physician. If the philosopher, for example Farabi, speaks of a mental unbalance that ought to be healed by philosophy, he means above all moral deficiencies such as jealousy, wickedness, cowardice and so on, while the physician primarily thinks of melancholy or mania, as we shall see later. Thus, many mediaeval physicians of the Islamic world worked hard to heal and to keep man's soul healthy. And it was not philosophy that finally outstripped them in this struggle but superstition dressed more or less in religious garb. Mental sufferings were considered to be caused by ¿inn and were treated with conjurings and amulets. However, we shall speak here only of the psychotherapeutical practice and the psychosomatic methods of the rational physicians of the Middle Ages.

3. The treatment of melancholy Among mental diseases, melancholy, then as now, was central. The Greek name of this disease is based on the above-mentioned humoral pathology; to be sure, like all sicknesses, melancholy is due to a disorder in the equilibrium of the humours, to a surplus of the 'black bile'. A famous Greek physician of the first century A. D., Rufus of Ephesus, wrote a fundamental treatise on this 'chyme' and disease. This work was translated into Arabic. Razi and other great physicians quote it. Its main revision was made by the Maghribian Ishaq b. 'Imran who was court physician to the Aghlabid Ziyadatallah III at Qairawan. Mediaeval Arab scientists praise it as unexcelled and indeed it was. It greatly influenced, not only the medical literature of the Islamic world but also of Europe, thanks to the Latin translation by Constantinus Africanus, an erudite physician of Maghribian origin who adopted the Christian faith. 18 The treatment of melancholy recommended by Rufus and his followers was based first on drugs. Secondly, there were psychotherapeutical remedies, particularly that of listening to music; and thirdly there was the psychic healing of mania. Let us look closely at each of these three. First of all, treatment by medicaments. I do not intend to go into detail here about the compounds of some drugs or their possible effects. Such investigations must be left to historians of pharmacy. Nevertheless, it is interesting to learn in the history of medicine that modern antidepressives and other 'soul' drugs are not as modern an invention as a layman might suppose but have very ancient predecessors. Already Homer's Odyssey speaks of a potion 18. About the Arabic reception of Rufus cf. Ullmann, 1970, pp. 71-76.

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which lets grief fall into oblivion. In the Islamic Middle Ages a famous drug for melancholia was know under the name mufarrih an-nafs, meaning the merry-maker of the soul, and was expected to turn grief and sadness into joy. We possess formulas of such drugs, for instance in the above-mentioned work which was named after this drug. There were simple and compound mufarrihat. The former included certain kinds of plants and fruits and fragrances, gold, silver and precious stones such as ruby; the latter were more or less complex compositions of these and other ingredients. It is worth mentioning that these formulas in the Mufarrih an-nafs are classified, not only according to the different temperaments of men, but also according to the three classes of Mediaeval Islamic society, upper, middle, and lower class, the ingredients being different according to the different financial state of these classes. Which means that the formulas for the upper and sometimes the middle classes contain jewels or other expensive things but not those for the lower class. The Mediaeval poets, who used to compare the lips of lovers to rubies, found herein the stuff for forming a nice poetical conceit: Only the beloved can heal the melancholy of the lover, as he or she after all possesses the ruby needed for the preparation of the merry-maker of the soul (mufarrih an-nafs). Hafiz expresses this idea inversely as follows: 'The merry-maker of ruby is in thy medicine-chest; give me the medicament for the sickness of my heart with your lips'. 19 As for the music-therapy, it is likewise very old. With the Arabs, the legend goes that the first medical men of mankind were the inventors of the reedpipe in Phrygia and Mysia.20 They are said to have healed the sufferings of the soul with their flute-playing and thereby also the physical pains. 'This art is largely lost nowadays', says Ibn Hindu, an author of the tenth century, in his Miftah at-tibb, The Key of Medicine, 'yet still we know its main principles. We know that there is a sort of melody and way of beating the drum and blowing the flute and a kind of rhythm which evoke sadness, and that there is another kind evoking joy, one which appeases and relaxes, another which disquiets and oppresses, another which makes one sleepless, another which lulls one to sleep, and in the therapy of melancholies we prescribe [listening of music in] the gamuts that are fitting and useful to them.' 21 In another passage of his book, Ibn Hindu tells the story of a musician's being attacked by a group of enemies. As he carried no weapon, he began to play on his instrument a tune that slackens muscles and joints. Then his enemies dropped their arms, unable to do him any harm. 22 We do not know whether this story 19. DiwSn-e Hafiz-e SirOzi, M. Qazwinl and Q. Ghani, Cap-e Sina, Eds., No. 34, p. 4. 20. Ibn abi Usaibi'a, 1884, pp. 1,4 (last two lines). 21. Mscr. Istanbul, Kopriilii 981, fol. 28 r. I plan to edit this manuscript, cf. note 14. 22. Mscr. Istanbul, Kopriilii, 981, fol. 9r. 14-9v. 4. I have published these two passages of the Key of Medicine in a short article; cf. Biirgel, 1972.

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is legendary or true; but as a matter of fact, music often was prescribed to melancholies and in this the orthodox prohibition of it was more or less disregarded. And likewise in the case of wine. We know of one instance where a famous doctor explicitly justifies himself for prescribing music and wine. This doctor was Maimonides the great Jewish physician and philosopher of the twelfth century who lived in Egypt, engaged in the service of the Ayyubides. His words of medical advice to al-Malik al-Afdal, Saladin's son, are a good example: 'May our Lord not blame this modest servant because he recommended in this prescription the preparation of wine and listening to music, both of which are abhorred by religious law. Yet, he does not prescribe the use of these things; he only mentions and recommends everything necessary for the medical art. Religion prescribes what is helpful for the other world, while the physician, on the contrary, has to indicate what is beneficial, and to warn of what is noxious, in this world. 23 From today's point of view the treatment of hallucinations seems particularly interesting. Rufus narrates such cases; for example, that of a man who imagined having no head, and whom he cured by ordering him to wear a leaden helmet which by its weight reminded him constantly of the existence of his head - a therapy which Ishaq b. 'Imran at Qairawan also tried successfully. 24 Galen, in healing a man who suffered from the fixed idea of having swallowed a snake, procured a snake of the kind described to him by the patient and then gave him an emetic and bandaged his eyes. When the patient vomited, the snake was manipulated into the vomit and the bandages removed. The patient was then convinced that his pain had been cured. 25 The principle of this therapy which apparently consists in taking the patient's delusion seriously was adopted by the physicians of the Islamic Middle Ages and practiced independently in similar cases. Well-known also is a case of successful therapy carried out by Ibn Sina and related by Nizami-ye 'Aru