The Making of the Mosque: A Survey of Religious Imperatives (Islamic History and Thought) 9781463207274, 1463207271

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The Making of the Mosque

Islamic History and Thought

 Series Editor Series Editorial Board Peter Adamson Beatrice Gründler Beatrice Gruendler Ahmad Ahmad Khan Khan

Jack Tannous Isabel Toral-Niehoff Manolis Manolis Ulbricht Ulbricht

Jack Tannous

Advisory Editorial Board Islamic History and Thought provides a platform for scholarly research on any geographic areaUlbricht within the expansive Islamic Manolis Binyamin Abrahamov Konrad world, stretching from the Mediterranean to Hirschler China, and dated to Asadthe Q.eve Ahmed Howard-Johnston any period from of Islam untilJames the early modern era. This Jan Just Witkam Mehmetcan Akpinar Maher Jarrar(Arabic, Persian, series contains original monographs, translations Syriac, Greek, and Latin) and edited volumes. Abdulhadi Alajmi Marcus Milwright Mohammad-Ali Amir-Moezzi Harry Munt Arezou Azad Gabriel Said Reynolds Massimo Campanini Massimo Campanini Walid A. Saleh Agostino Series Editorial Board: Godefroid de Callataÿ Jens Scheiner Maria Conterno Delfina Serrano Peter AdamsonFarhad Daftary Farhad Daftary Georges Tamer Beatrice Gruendler Wael Hallaq Ahmad Khan

Jack Tannous Islamic History and Thought provides a platform for scholarly research Isabel Toral-Niehoff on any geographic area within the expansive Islamic world, stretching from the Mediterranean to China, and dated to any Manolis Ulbricht period from the eve of Islam until the early modern era. This series contains original monographs, translations (Arabic, Persian, Syriac, Jan Justand Witkam Greek, Latin) and edited volumes.

The Making of the Mosque

A Survey of Religious Imperatives

Essam Ayyad

gp 2019

Gorgias Press LLC, 954 River Road, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA www.gorgiaspress.com Copyright © 2019 by Gorgias Press LLC All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise without the prior written permission of Gorgias Press LLC. ‫ܕ‬

1

2019

ISBN 978-1-4632-0727-4

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A Cataloging-in-Publication Record is available at the Library of Congress. Printed in the United States of America

TABLE OF CONTENTS Table of Contents ..................................................................................... v Acknowledgments ................................................................................... ix Transliteration .......................................................................................... xi Charts, Tables, Plates and Figures ...................................................... xiii Charts ....................................................................................... xiii Tables ....................................................................................... xiii Plates......................................................................................... xiii Figures ...................................................................................... xiv Chapter One. Introduction—Aim and Scope ..................................... 1 1.1 Why has the religious context for mosque evolution been underestimated to date? ............................................... 4 1.2 Dominant perspectives on the Prophet and his homeland ................................................................................. 7 1.3 Problems with these views .................................................... 21 1.3.1 Problems with identifying the origins of the mosque type .................................................................... 21 1.3.2 Problems with identifying the type of prompts for the institution of the mosque ................. 38 1.4 Questions and methodology ................................................. 43 Chapter 2. Sources for the Study of Early Mosques ......................... 47 2.1 Introduction ............................................................................. 47 2.2 Arabic literary sources ............................................................ 48 2.2.1 Sources on the mosque of Madina .............................. 57 2.3 Other existing evidence .......................................................... 69 2.3.1 Archaeology .................................................................... 69 2.3.2 Topography and urban-morphology .......................... 77 2.3.3 Numismatics ................................................................... 82 2.3.4 Papyrology....................................................................... 83 2.3.5 Early non-Muslim writings ........................................... 86 2.4 Conclusion ............................................................................... 87 v

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Chapter 3. Studying Ḥadīth ................................................................... 93 3.1 Introduction ............................................................................. 93 3.2 Ḥadīth in modern scholarship ............................................... 96 3.3 History of ḥadīth transmission .............................................106 3.3.1 The earliest years (ca. 610 AD–41/750) ...................106 3.3.2 Under the Umayyads (41–132/661–750).................112 3.3.3 Under the ʿAbbāsids (132–656/750–1258) .............118 3.4 Dialectics about the authoritativeness of the tradition ...123 3.5 Conclusion .............................................................................133 Chapter 4. The ‘House of the Prophet’ or the ‘Mosque of the Prophet’? .......................................................................................137 4.1 Introduction ...........................................................................137 4.2 Existing theories on the Prophet’s building .....................138 4.3 The ‘House of the Prophet’ theory ....................................147 4.4 The ‘Mosque of the Prophet’ theory .................................150 4.4.1 What is the mosque? ...................................................150 4.4.2 Description of the Prophet’s mosque ......................152 4.5 Ḥadīth and the ‘Mosque of the Prophet’ ...........................166 4.6 The Qurʾān and the ‘Mosque of the Prophet’..................180 4.7 Other mosques in the time of the Prophet .......................196 4.7.1 Pre-Hijra mosques at Makka ......................................196 4.7.2 Pre-Hijra mosques at Madina.....................................197 4.7.3 Other early Madinan mosques ...................................203 4.8 Conclusion .............................................................................205 Chapter 5. A Prophetic Perspective of the Mosque: Layout and Architectural Components .........................................................209 5.1 Introduction ...........................................................................209 5.2 Status of the mosque ............................................................211 5.3 Site ...........................................................................................216 5.3.1 Building mosques over tombs ...................................221 5.3.2 The meaning and legality of taking graves as mosques .........................................................................223 5.4 Mosque layout .......................................................................229 5.5 Architectural components of the mosque ........................231 5.5.1 The miḥrāb (concave prayer niche) ............................231 5.5.2 The minaret ...................................................................246 5.5.3 The minbar (pulpit) .......................................................254 5.5.4 The maqṣūra ...................................................................261 5.6 Conclusion .............................................................................265

TABLE OF CONTENTS

vii

Chapter 6. A Prophetic Perspective of the Mosque: Elaboration and Decoration ............................................................................269 6.1 Introduction ...........................................................................269 6.2 Discussing anti-building traditions .....................................269 6.3 Mosque-related ḥadīths: a theoretical framework..............284 6.4 Decoration .............................................................................299 6.5 Conclusion .............................................................................313 Chapter 7. Evolution of Mosque Architecture: Between ‘Orthodoxy’ and Other Modalities ...........................................315 7.1 Introduction ...........................................................................315 7.2 Evolution of the mosque under the Rāshidūn .................322 7.2.1 What did the Rāshidūn mosques look like? .............326 7.2.2 Perspective of ʿUmar versus that of ʿUthmān ..........328 7.2.3 Perspectives held by other Companions ..................344 7.3 Evolution of the mosque under the Umayyads ...............347 7.3.1 Who built the Umayyad mosques?............................350 7.3.2 The Umayyad mosques as compared to the Prophet’s paradigm ......................................................359 7.3.3 Why did the Umayyads elaborate their mosques? ........................................................................369 7.3.4 Why was the Dome of the Rock built? ....................374 7.3.5 How were the Umayyad mosques regarded by contemporary religious authorities? .....................378 7.3.6 Examples of ḥadīth influence on mosque architecture ....................................................................384 7.4 Conclusion .............................................................................389 Chapter 8. Conclusions .......................................................................395 Bibliography ..........................................................................................407 Note on the Qurʾān and ḥadīth ..................................................407 Later references............................................................................407 Primary sources............................................................................407 Secondary scholarship ................................................................422 Index .......................................................................................................455

The Making of the Mosque: A Survey of Religious Imperatives by Essam S. Ayyad Do not delete the following information about this document. Version 1.0 Document Template: Template book.dot. Document Word Count: 12772 Document Page Count: 489 To the soul of my mother And to my father, wife and kids

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This work would not have been achieved without the kind help and support of many people to whom I am cordially grateful. I would like to extend sincerest thanks to Professor Richard Morris and Professor Hugh Kennedy who supervised my post-graduate studies at the University of Leeds. Both sincerely applied their notable erudition and outstanding scholarship to my doctoral studies and continued to offer help and support since then. I would also like to thank Dr Mary Swan, the Director of Studies at the Institute for Medieval Studies during my time at Leeds, for her devoted encouragement and permanent backing. I would also like to take this opportunity to express my thanks to the examiners of my PhD thesis, Professor Ian Wood, Dr Andrew Marsham and Dr Mustapha Sheikh, for their insightful comments and support during the viva and since. Gratitude is furthermore owed to colleagues in the Institute for Medieval Studies at the University of Leeds for their thoughtful encouragement and support during my doctoral studies and since. I was fortunate to have chapters of this book read and commented on by a number of notable specialists, particularly Professor Dionisius Agius, Dr Ann Christys, Professor David King, Dr Amr Osman, Mr Benedikt Koehler, Dr Ahmed Ghanem, Dr Michael Feener, Mr Adam Marley and the anonymous reviewers for Gorgias Press, whose discerning comments and suggestions have had a great impact on this work. Also, the chapters of this book and my overall approach to it have benefitted considerably from the time I spent as a visiting scholar and then a visiting research fellow in the Centre of Islamic Studies at the University of Cambridge and the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies respectively. Both are two great places for excellent research and scholarship. I have learned a lot from discussions and conversations with the notable staff at both places. I would like to ix

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take this opportunity to thank Professor Yasir Suleiman and Dr Farhan Nizami, the Directors of the former and the latter, respectively, for their kind support, discerning advice and insightful views. Also, it was through my time at Cambridge and Oxford that I luckily had access to a number of important sources, which I was having difficulty finding, at the libraries of both reputed institutions. I am also grateful to the library staff at the University of Leeds for their devoted help and support during my time there. I would like to thank the editors of the Islamic History and Thought Series at Gorgias Press for kindly dedicating this generous space to getting my work published with them. Special thanks are to Mr Adam Walker, the Acquisitions Editor, for kindly bringing to my attention this great chance. I also thank him, as well as Dr Melonie Schmierer-Lee, the Senior Acquisitions Editor, for their continuous support—as well as patience—throughout the publication process. I am also indebted to my parents and siblings who provided me with indescribable affection, care and guidance. My greatest debt, however, is to Marwa, my wife, who continues to show limitless understanding and make countless sacrifices at all times. Finally, I want to thank Mazen and Malak, my son and daughter respectively, who make me smile even at the most difficult moments.

TRANSLITERATION Consonants Long vowels Diphthongs ‫ء‬: [ʾ] ‫ـَﺎ‬: [ā] ‫ـَﻮ‬: [aw] ‫ث‬: [th] ‫ـُﻮ‬: [ū] ‫ـَﻲ‬: [ay] ‫ح‬: [ḥ] ‫ـِﻲ‬: [ī] ‫خ‬: [kh] Short vowels (ḥarakāt) ‫ذ‬: [dh] َ ‫( ـ‬fatḥa): [a] ‫ش‬: [sh] ِ‫( ـ‬kasra): [i] ‫ص‬: [ṣ] ُ ‫( ـ‬ḍamma): [u] ‫ض‬: [ḍ] ‫ط‬: [ṭ] ‫ظ‬: [ẓ] ‫ع‬: [ʿ] ‫غ‬: [gh] ‫ق‬: [q] ‫ ة‬in pause: [a] (ṣalāh and zakāh are exceptions) otherwise: [at]

xi

CHARTS, TABLES, PLATES AND FIGURES Charts Chart 1: Dates of the major (re-)constructions of the Prophet’s mosque in the first/seventh century and the main sources for them Chart 2: Dates of the earliest major mosques and those of the main sources for them Tables Table 1: Main categories of ḥadīth based on perceived degree of authenticity Table 2: Early ḥadīth compilers Plates Plate 1: Bull-headed capital from Persepolis apadāna (the National Museum of Iran) Plate 2: A recent photo of the Dome of the Rock Plate 3 (a & b): Parts of the remaining walls of uṭum Banū Wāqif Plate 4 (a & b): The use of reed in construction in southern Iraq (after W. Thesiger, 1964) Plate 5: An ancient muṣallā at Wādī Rānūnāʾ Plate 6: Ruins of uṭum Banū Wāqif (now known as ḥiṣn Banū Miẓyān) Plate 7: Ruins of the majlis of the Banū Wāqif (included in their uṭum) where the Prophet reportedly used to meet them Plate 8: Mosaic representations from the Umayyad mosque in Damascus

xiii

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THE MAKING OF THE MOSQUE

Plate 9: Mosaic floor showing images of animals from the palace of Khirbat al-Mafjar Plate 10 (a & b): Calligraphic bands and mosaics of floral designs on the spandrels of the interior arches of the Dome of the Rock (top) and Qurʾānic inscriptions as well as geometric patterns on its outer walls Plate 11: Mosaics at the Dome of the Rock Figures Figure 1: Rome: plan of St. Peter’s basilica, 333–90 AD (after Fletcher, 1905) Figure 2: A reconstruction of the façade of the Persepolis apadāna in Fars, Iran (after Kaveh Farroukh, 2017) Figure 3: Plan of Persepolis apadāna (after Schmidt, 1953) Figure 4: Plan of the synagogue at Dura-Europos (after Lambert, 1950) Figure 5: Plan of the mosque of Wāsiṭ (after Safar, 1945) Figure 6: Reverse of the so-called ‘Miḥrāb and ʿAnaza’ dirhem (after Miles, 2002) Figure 7: A leaf of the Aphrodito papyri at the Oriental Institute, University of Chicago (after Abbott, 1938) Figure 8: Madina: reconstruction of the plan of the Prophet’s mosque and dwellings (after Creswell, 1969) Figure 9: Isometric reconstruction of the Prophet’s mosque (after Kuban, 1974) Figure 10: Isometric reconstruction of the Prophet’s mosque (after Helen and Richard Leacroft, 1976) Figure 11: Isometric reconstruction of the Prophet’s mosque (after Hillenbrand, 1994) Figure 12: Reconstruction of the plan of the Prophet’s mosque (after Fikrī, 1963) Figure 13: Isometric reconstruction of the Prophet’s mosque (after Shāfiʿī, 1970)

CHARTS, TABLES, PLATES AND FIGURES

xv

Figure 14: Plan of the mosque of the Prophet after the change of the qibla (after al-Shihrī, 2001) Figure 15: Reconstruction of the plan of the Prophet’s mosque and dwellings (after Akkouche, 1935) Figure 16: Reconstruction of the plan of the Prophet’s mosque and dwellings of his wives and Companions (after al-Shinqīṭī, 1991) Figure 17: Plan of the mosque in the time of the Prophet with the positions of the famous usṭuwānāt indicated (after al-Shihrī, 2001) Figure 18: Isometric plan of the temple of Khonsu at the Karnak complex in Luxor, where increase in sanctity is accentuated by decrease of illumination, through elevating the level of the floor and reducing that of the ceiling (after Ziegler and Bovet, 2001) Figure 19: Positions of the apartments of the Prophet’s wives (after M. al-Nafīsī, 2004) Figure 20: Samarra: Qubbat al-Ṣulaybiyya (after Shāfiʿī 1970) Figure 21: The miḥrāb of the mosque at Qaṣr al-Ukhayḍir (Shāfiʿī, 1970) Figure 22 (a & b): A stone miḥrāb at Qaṣr al-Mshatta (after Shāfiʿī, 1970) Figure 23: Jerusalem: the so-called ‘miḥrāb of Sulaymān’ under Qubbat al-Ṣakhra (72/962) (after Fehérvári, 1993) Figure 24: Drawing of the temenos at the time of the conquest (by F. Shāfiʿī) Figure 25: Drawing of the pulpit found by Quibell at Saqqara, Egypt (after Shāfiʿī, 1970) Figure 26: Positions of the Companions’ houses around the mosque of the Prophet, after al-Mahdī’s expansion in 165/782 (after M. Ilyās ʿAbd al-Ghanī, 1999) Figure 27: Different kinds of bricks and techniques used by the Prophet to build his mosque (after al-Shihrī, 2001) (a) First type of adobe; (b) Second type; (c) al-samīṭ; (d) al-sāʿida; (e) al-dhakar wa-lunthā

xvi

THE MAKING OF THE MOSQUE

Figure 28: Fusṭāṭ: reconstructed plan of ʿAmr’s mosque as built in 21/642 (The Egyptian Department of Antiquities) Figure 29: Plan of the Prophet’s mosque as rebuilt by ʿUthmān in 29/650 (after Shāfiʿī, 1970) Figure 30: Isometric view of the Prophet’s mosque as rebuilt by ʿUthmān in 29/650 (after Shāfiʿī, 1970) Figure 31: Kūfa: plan of the first mosque, (after Creswell, 1969 [top]; and Shāfiʿī, 1970) Figure 32: Plan of the Prophet’s mosque in the time of al-Walīd (top to bottom: Sauvaget 1947; Creswell 1969; and Fikrī 1963) Figure 33: Damascus: plan of the Umayyad mosque (after Creswell, 1969 [top]; and Shāfiʿī, 1970) Figure 34: Jerusalem: Raby’s reconstruction of the pre-Marwānīd Aqṣā mosque (after Johns, 1999) Figure 35: Jerusalem: plan of the Aqṣā mosque (after Fikrī, 1963) Figure 36: Jerusalem: plan of the Marwānīd Aqṣā mosque (after Shāfiʿī, 1970) Figure 37: Jerusalem: plan of the Marwānīd Aqṣā mosque (after Hamilton, 1949) Figure 38: Kūfa, reconstruction of the plan of the mosque as rebuilt by Ziyād in 50/670 (after Creswell, 1969 [top]; and Fikrī, 1963) Figure 39: Jerusalem: plan of the Dome of the Rock (after Creswell, 1969) Figure 40: Jerusalem, plan of the Dome of the Rock (after Choisy, 1899)

CHAPTER ONE. INTRODUCTION—AIM AND SCOPE Since my undergraduate years in Egypt, I have wondered how such massive and lavishly decorated mosques of medieval Cairo would compare to the modesty assigned to the Prophet Muḥammad by Muslim traditions and the conventional concepts on his preference for simplicity in housing, eating, clothing, etc. The idea that the Prophet’s career has only very little to do with such elaborate Islamic sanctuaries is almost ingrained in the literature. In the eye of art historians, these are artistic achievements of later times. In the eye of many Muslim legalists, however, they are later ‘unorthodox’ innovations. For example, some of the recent Ḥanbalīs believe that the mosque should be simple in form and material just as that built by the Prophet more than fourteen centuries ago. They build unpretentious mosques of no minarets, domes, concave prayer niches, etc. and call these masājid aṣḥāb al-ḥadīth, ‘mosques of ḥadīth advocates’.1 Likewise, the modern Ibāḍīs remain doctrinally loath to use minarets, looking at them as a novelty unknown in the Prophet’s time.2 Commenting on such ‘pietistic’ endeavours, Robert Hillenbrand states: See Ibrāhīm b. Ṣāliḥ al-Khuḍayrī, ‘Aḥkām bināʾ al-masājid fī alsharīʿa al-Islāmiyya’, in M. A. Ṣāliḥ and A. al-Qūqānī (eds.), Sijil buḥūth nadwat ʿimārat al-masājid (Riyadh: Kulliyyat al-ʿImāra wa-l-Takhṭīṭ biJāmiʿat al-Malik Suʿūd, 1999), viii, 33–60 (p. 35). 2 Marcus Milwright, ‘Islamic Art and Architecture’, in Robert Irwin (ed.), The New Cambridge History of Islam: Volume IV, Islamic Cultures and Societies to the End of the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), pp. 682–742 (p. 704); Paolo Costa, Historic Mosques and Shrines of Oman (Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, 2001), p. 35. 1

1

2

THE MAKING OF THE MOSQUE It is salutary to remember the willed austerity of the arrangements for worship as defined and practised by Muhammad. In the centuries to come Muslims never entirely forgot the starkness of his example, and periodically the forces of revivalism and pietism attempted at least a partial return to the pristine simplicity of the earliest Islamic worship. The mosques erected in Saudi Arabia by the Wahhabis typify the attempt to reconcile early Islamic practice with the accumulated traditions of a millennium and more of mosque architecture. The polarities are virtually irreconcilable, but it is highly significant that such consistent attempts have been made over the centuries to bring them together.3

Islamic culture is represented by a variety of architectural types: religious, domestic, military, funerary, etc.4 Each includes a set of building forms, of which the mosque is regarded as the supreme type. This is due to its distinctive outline, architectural influence on other Islamic buildings, and its superlative spiritual impact on the Muslim community. The mosque, per se, has been the subject of extensive research since Islamic lands and their artistic legacy began to be studied by Western scholarship. The fact that many features are standard to the oldest surviving mosques suggests that a canonical type, mostly a courtyard surrounded by four porticoes, did exist right in the first century AH—hence the chronological scope of the present study.5 Such a template would have been copied by the builders of later mosques, combined with modifications inspired by Robert Hillenbrand, Islamic Architecture: Form, Function and Meaning (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), p. 31. 4 As we shall see in the following chapters, however, both ‘religious architecture’ and ‘funerary architecture’ are two problematic terms in Muslim scholarship. The latter, in particular, is widely disputed and tends to signify cultural rather than religious dimensions. For a relevant discussion, see Oleg Grabar, ‘Islamic Art: Art of a Culture or Art of a Faith’, Art and Archaeology Research Papers, 13 (1978), 1–6. 5 See Oleg Grabar (ed.), The Formation of Islamic Art (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987), p. 104; Jeremy Johns (ed.), ‘The ‘‘House of the Prophet’’ and the Concept of the Mosque’, Bayt al-Maqdis: Jerusalem and Early Islam (1999), ii. 59–112 (pp. 64–9). 3

1. INTRODUCTION—AIM AND SCOPE

3

the varying local architectural heritage.6 The evolution of such a universally-endorsed prototype, and the many influences that shaped it, have been copiously discussed. However, all views on the non-Islamic provenance of the mosque failed to withstand the scrutiny of subsequent scholarship. A typical case in the literature is that a group of scholars adopt a theory which is soon demolished by another group who themselves propose their own that is disproved by a third group and so on (infra). All of these theories failed to provide convincing answers for such central questions as when, where and how a certain architectural type (or types) inspired the mosque. While not excluding the clear impact of foreign types on the architectural character of the mosque, this study seeks to explore whether, how and to what extent Islamic religious—rather than cultural—prompts and modalities influenced the creation of the mosque during the first century AH. More particularly, it will examine and contextualize the different aspects of this influence, should it exist, and integrate the verdict with the political, socioeconomic and environmental contexts in which the mosque materialized. Islam’s holy book, the Qurʾān, while giving interesting insights into architecture, does not expound on the topic.7 We thus look into the second main source of Islamic law, i.e. ḥadīth, ‘traditions of the Prophet Muḥammad’.8 In this introduction, the original aspects of the study will be indicated through discussing the main reasons behind undervaluing the devotional prompts for mosque institution, and the problems this has caused. The main questions of the study and the methodologies applied to them will then be reviewed.

See Johns, ‘House of the Prophet’, pp. 64–71. A good example of the Qurʾān’s influence on mosque design is the verses on changing the qibla direction from Bayt al-Maqdis in Jerusalem to the Kaʿba at Makka. Qurʾān 2. 143–4. 8 The term ‘tradition’ is usually used in this study to refer to the Prophet’s ḥadīth/sunna. The same term, however, is also used in the literature to refer to Islamic literary sources in a general sense. Whenever this latter usage is applied, I will make sure the context indicates that clearly. 6 7

4

THE MAKING OF THE MOSQUE

1.1 WHY HAS THE RELIGIOUS CONTEXT FOR MOSQUE EVOLUTION BEEN UNDERESTIMATED TO DATE? Islamic archaeology evolved out of two distinct strands of enquiry. One was an interest in the historical significance of art; the other emerged in the context of Orientalist studies. The coalescence of these two strands in the late nineteenth century marked the real beginning of the academic exploration of the architectural patrimony of the Islamic lands.9 Could such a disjunctive evolution have had any bearing on why not adequate heed has thenceforth been paid to the religious context in which Islamic architecture originally developed? Typically, however, a religion, cult, or a philosophical or political scheme is the heart of any civilization. Architecture is the mistress art, and the architecture of a given civilization is normally a faithful representation of its ideological values and intellectual culture. Seemingly inspired by this concept, a few scholars such as Oleg Grabar and Robert Hillenbrand considered the influence of Islam on the architectural types which borrowed its name.10 Nonetheless, it is Islamic customs and conventions, as distinct from Islamic faith and religious teachings, that are usually addressed. Even with this approach, scholars have been generally reluctant to investigate any possible influence of the Prophet’s traditions (ḥadīth and sunna) on mosque architecture, regarding such features as minarets, domes, miḥrābs and minbars as belonging to later times. The fact that this already-limited approach declined in later studies is attributed, in addition to the historiographical prob-

See Stephen Vernoit, ‘The Rise of Islamic Archaeology’, Muqarnas, 14 (1997), 1–10 (p. 1). See also J. M. Rogers, ‘From Antiquarianism to Islamic Archaeology’, Quaderni dell’Istituto Italiano di Cultura per la R.A.E., 2 (1974), 9–65. 10 See Grabar, Formation, pp. 106 ff. Hillenbrand, Islamic Architecture, p. 36. Other scholars, such as Caetani, Pedersen and Johns, while discussing the nature of the Prophet’s communal building (infra), paid attention to the ḥadīths on mosque ordinances. See Leone Caetani, Annali dell’Islam, 10 vols (Milan: Ulrico Hoepli, 1905–26), i. 437–8, 447–60; iii. 965; J. Pedersen and others, art., ‘Masdjid’, EI2 (1991), vi, 644–707 (pp. 645–6); Johns, ‘House of the Prophet’, pp. 59–112. 9

1. INTRODUCTION—AIM AND SCOPE

5

lems of the Islamic literary sources (with ḥadīth included),11 to the belief that the mosque type did not materialize during the Prophet’s time. As we shall see, scholarship regarding this, and other topics at stake, is clearly—albeit very unhelpfully—divided into Muslim and Western. This book, while not encouraging such a classification of modern scholars (as it is based on extra-academic identities), cannot ignore its existence and conspicuous influences on the relevant discussions. Although the majority of studies adhere to the old, yet still admitted, view that the hypaethral building which the Prophet put up once he emigrated to Madina in 622 AD provided the early prototype of the mosque,12 they differ in respect of what function such a structure was principally set to serve. Many, hesitating to see it as a mosque, prefer to call it the ‘House of the Prophet’.13 It is worth noting, here, that this building was traditionally known as the

See Richard Ettinghausen, Oleg Grabar and Marilyn JenkinsMadina, Islamic Art and Architecture: 650–1250, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), p. 20; Jonathan M. Bloom and Sheila Blair, Islamic Arts (London: Phaidon, 1997), p. 5. 12 G. T. Rivoira, Moslem Architecture: Its Origins and Development, transl., Gordon McNeil Rushforth (New York: Hacker Art Books, 1918; repr. 1975), p. 1. See also Edward Lane’s explanation of jāmiʿ: Arabic English Lexicon: Derived from the Best and the Most Copious Eastern Sources, 8 vols (London: Williams and Norgate, 1863–93); Elie Lambert, ‘Les Mosquées du Type Andalou en Espagne et en Afrique du Nord’, Al-Andalus, 14 (1949), 273–89; J. Sauvaget, La Mosquée omeyyade de Médine: Études sur les origines architecturales de la mosquée et de la basilique (Paris: Vanoest, 1947), 121 ff.; Oleg Grabar, ‘The Umayyad Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem’, Ars Orientalis, 3 (1959), 33–62 (p. 61); Hillenbrand, Islamic Architecture, pp. 33– 9. 13 For example, see A. C. Dickie, ‘The Great Mosque of the Omeiyades, Damascus’, Palestine Exploration Quarterly, 29 (1897), 268–82; K. A. C. Creswell (ed.), Early Muslim Architecture: with a Contribution on the Mosaics of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem and the Great Mosque in Damascus by Marguerite Gautier-van Berchem (New York: Hacker Art Books, [1940, 1969], 2 vols. in 3, 1979), i. 1, 6–16 (hereafter cited as EMA). 11

6

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‘Mosque of the Prophet’ until Leone Caetani,14 followed by K. A. C. Creswell et alii,15 theorized that it could not have been a place of worship in the time of the Prophet, mainly because of the assumption that the Prophet had passed away before the ritual of ṣalāh fully matured, the non-specific use of the term ‘masjid’ in the Qurʾān,16 and the non-sacred nature of the activities which the building is reported to have accommodated. The nature of the Prophet’s building was not discussed effectively in subsequent studies. One group of academics, taking the Caetani-Creswell theory on trust, contented themselves with referring to the building as ‘the House of the Prophet’.17 The other group, without explaining, referred to it as the ‘Mosque of the Prophet’.18 The impact of the Caetani-Creswell theory can be seen from the fact that even the latter group come up with such confusing expressions as: ‘the first mosque was the house of the Prophet Muhammad in Medina’,19 ‘the Prophet’s house in Medina—the

Caetani, Annali, i. 437–8, 447–60; iii. 965 Creswell, EMA, i. 1, 6–7, 9–10. Caetani’s theory was also taken up by G. Fehérvári, ‘Art and Architecture’, in The Cambridge History of Islam (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), vol. 2B, 703; Oleg Grabar, Formation, pp. 107–8; W. M. Watt, Muhammad at Medina (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956), pp. 199, 305ff; Lucien Golvin, Essai sur l'Architecture Religieuse Musulmane (Paris: Klincksieck, 1970), pp. 21, 33. 16 Pedersen, ‘Masdjid’, pp. 644–5; Johns, ‘House of the Prophet’, pp. 88–93. 17 See, for example, Milwright, ‘Islamic Art and Architecture’, pp. 687–8. 18 See, for example, Nasser Rabbat, ‘Islamic Architecture as a Field of Historical Enquiry’, Architectural Design, 74 (2004), 18–23 (p. 19); F. Barry Flood, ‘From the Prophet to Postmodernism: New World Orders and the End of Islamic Art’, in Elizabeth Mansfield (ed.), Making Art History: A Changing Discipline and its Institutions (London: Routledge, 2007), pp. 31–53 (p. 33). 19 Andrew Petersen, Dictionary of Islamic Architecture (London: Routledge, 1996; repr. 1999), p. 195. 14 15

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primordial mosque of Islam’.20 More recently, some have even preferred to call it ‘house-mosque’.21 This, while assuming that the ‘mosque’ evolved from the ‘house’ of the Prophet, sidesteps the issue. As we shall see in Chapter 4, the building, particularly its courtyard and front ẓulla, ‘shelter’, could not have served the two functions in the Prophet’s time; it was either a mosque or a house.

1.2 DOMINANT PERSPECTIVES ON THE PROPHET AND HIS HOMELAND

The underestimation of the Prophet’s contribution to the foundation of the mosque type, as definable today, is reinforced by traditional views on his adoption of a conspicuously censorious attitude toward the elaboration of buildings, or indeed toward building itself. As such, the Prophet’s career has been generally dismissed as of no particular significance to the history of art.22 Grabar, for example, refers to the Hijra and the events it brought until the Prophet’s passing as inconsequential to the arts.23 With Ettinghausen as co-author of one book, he maintains: ‘Muḥammad did not rule on or consider problems which immediately affected the arts or artistic activities either in the Koran or in his otherwise wellRobert Hillenbrand, Islamic Art and Architecture (London: Thames & Hudson, 1999), p. 25. 21 Ettinghausen, Grabar and Jenkins-Madina, Islamic Art and Architecture, p. 5; Jonathan M. Bloom, ‘Mosque’, in Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān, (2003), iii, pp. 426–37 (p. 428); See also Robert Irwin, Islamic Art (London: Laurence King, 1997), p. 59. 22 Such views were first maintained by some of the Western vanguard. See, for example, Martin Briggs, Muhammadan Architecture in Egypt and Palestine (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924), p. 1; Ernest Richmond, Moslem Architecture 623 to 1516: Some Causes and Consequences (London: The Royal Asiatic Society, 1926), p. 9. Some even thought of the Prophet Muḥammad as ‘entirely without architectural ambitions’. See Creswell, EMA, i. 1. 11; id. ‘Architecture’, EI2 (1986), i, 608–24 (p. 609). See also Creswell, EMA, i. 1. 7, 9, 10. For more on these early negative views, see M. Hamidullah, ‘Ästhetik und Kunst in der Lehre des Propheten’, Akten des 24. Orientalisten-Kongresses (1959), 359–362. 23 Grabar, Formation, p. 7. 20

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documented actions’.24 Such negative views on the Prophet’s architectural inclination are usually supported by: (i) historical reports on the simple living conditions of him and his household;25 (ii) and some exhaustively iterated, but not effectively probed, ḥadīths depicting building as a wasteful activity. Creswell, for instance, considered one certain ḥadīth from Ibn Saʿd (d. 230/845) in three positions of his classical Early Muslim Architecture, the first—and still by far most—encyclopaedic work in this field of inquiry, to opine that the Prophet was reluctant about construction.26 The traditional concepts of the Prophet’s apathy to building are in a symbiotic relationship with persistent ideas on Islam as ‘the religion of the desert’ and ‘the religion of nomadic simplicity’.27 The earliest writings spoke of nearly the whole of pre- and early Islamic Arabia as a vast barren land.28 Such views were further developed Richard Ettinghausen and Oleg Grabar, The Art and Architecture of Islam: 650–1250 (New Haven; London, Yale University Press, 1994), pp. 17–25 (p. 20). See also John D. Hoag, Western Islamic Architecture: A Concise Introduction (Mineola NY: Dover Publications, 2005), p. 10. 25 Creswell, EMA, i .1, 9. 26 Ibid, i. 1. 8, 11, 40, nt. 2; Ibn Saʿd, K. al-Ṭabaqāt al-Kabīr, ed. ʿAlī M. ʿUmar, 11 vols (Cairo: Maktabat al-Khānjī, 2001), i, 429–30. This, and other ḥadīths of the same capacity, will be discussed later in detail (see Chapter 6). 27 On such views, see L. Carl Brown, Religion and State: the Muslim Approach to Politics (New York: Columbia University Press: 2000), p. 28. 28 In 1914, G. Bell wrote: ‘The Mohammadan invaders were essentially nomadic; their dwelling was the black tent, their grave the desert sands. The inhabitants of the rare oases of western and central Arabia were content, as they are to-day, with a rude architecture of sun dried brick and palm trunks, unadorned by any intricate device of the imagination, and unsuited to any but the simplest needs’: Palace and Mosque at Ukhaiḍir: a Study in Early Mohammadan Architecture (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1914) p. vii. For similar views, see Richmond, Moslem Architecture, p. 9. In his History of Architecture, J. Fergusson, for example, had already gone so far as to argue: ‘Had the religion been confined to its native land, it is probable that no mosque worthy of the name would ever have been erected’. James Fergusson, A History of Architecture in All Countries: From the 24

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by later scholars, most notably Creswell,29 whose perception of seven-century Arabia is rightly represented in the subheading he chose for this relevant section of his work: ‘architecture nonexistent in Arabia at that time’.30 This broad-brush approach was later reassessed by a number of modern academics, but most of the emphasis has been placed upon the material culture of South and North Arabia. Quite much has been written on the kingdoms of the ancient Yemen, such as Maʿīn (fl. fourth–second century BC), Sabaʾ (ca. 800 BC–275 AD) and Ḥimyar (ca. 115 BC–525 AD). The Northern Arabian kingdoms, on the other hand, included Nabataea (ca. fourth century BC–106 AD), Palmyra (fl. third century BC–273 AD), the Ghassānids (third century–638 AD) and the Lakhmīds (late third century–602 AD).31 Earliest Times to the Present Day, ed. R. Phené Spiers, 3rd edn, 2 vols (London: John Murray, 1893), ii, 514. B. Fletcher, the author of another History of Architecture, held similar views, stating: ‘Although Arabia was the birthplace of the new faith, neither Mecca nor Medina can boast of any noteworthy buildings. […] and the erection of mosques appears to have been immaterial.’ Banister F. Fletcher, A History of Architecture on the Comparative Method, 5th rev. edn (London: Batsford, 1905), p. 657. 29 Creswell contended that even the rudest type of architecture was only known to and practiced by the ‘settled’ Arabs who, as he maintains, only constituted one-tenth of pre-and early Islamic Arabia. He went even further to argue that the rest of Arabia’s population were Bedouins whose finest architecture was the tent of hair, and who suffered a ‘congenital claustrophobia’. Creswell concluded: ‘It is clear that Arabia constituted an almost perfect architectural vacuum, and the term ‘Arab’ should never be used to designate the architecture of Islam.’ Creswell, EMA, i. 1, 64; id. ‘Architecture’, pp. 608–9. Such a standpoint was first adopted by Caetani. See his Annali, i, 442–4. 30 Creswell, EMA, i. 1, 10–11. 31 For the range of scholars’ writings on pre- and early Islamic Arabia, see: Robert Hoyland, Arabia and the Arabs: from the Bronze Age to the Coming of Islam (London: Routledge, 2001), pp. 167–97; G. R. D. King, The Traditional Architecture of Saudi Arabia (London: I.B. Tauris, 1998); id., ‘Creswell’s Appreciation of Arabian Architecture’, Muqarnas, 8 (1991), 94–102, at 99; id., ‘Building Methods and Materials in Western Saudi Arabia’, in Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies, 14 (1989), pp. 71–8; Martin

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Research on more inward districts, on the other hand, did not meet the same level of success, mainly due to the dearth of meaningful archaeological findings.32 Unlike the periphery, most of the interior did not enjoy enough water resources or fertile soil, and was thus unsuited to agriculture. Nor was it ruled by a central government that exercised any sort of coercive authority.33 In a sense, Sicker, The Pre-Islamic Middle East (Westport Conn.: Praeger, 2000); Andrey Korotayev, Ancient Yemen: Some General Trends of the Evolution of the Sabaic Language and Sabaean Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995); id., Pre-Islamic Yemen: Socio-political Organization of the Sabean Cultural Area in the 2nd and 3rd Centuries AD (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag , 1996); Barbra Finster, ‘Zu der Neuauflage von K. A. C. Creswell “Early Muslim Architecture”’, Kunst des Orients, 9 (1973–4), 89–98; id., ‘The Material Culture of Pre- and Early Islamic Arabia’, in F. Barry Flood and Gülru Necipoğlu (eds.), A Companion to Islamic Art and Architecture, 2 vols., (Hoboken: WileyBlackwell, 2017), pp. 61–88. 32 See Jawād ʿAlī, al-Mufaṣṣal fī tārīkh al-ʿArab qabl al-Islām, 2nd edn, 10 vols (Baghdad: University of Baghdad, 1993); Ṣāliḥ al-ʿAlī, al-Ḥijāz fī ṣadr al-Islām: dirāsāt fī aḥwālih al-ʿumrāniyya wa-l-idāriyya (Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Risāla, 1990); Michael Lecker, ‘Pre-Islamic Arabia’, in Chase F. Robinson (ed.), The New Cambridge History of Islam: Volume 1: The Formation of the Islamic World Sixth to Eleventh Centuries, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), pp. 153–70; ʿA. R. al-Anṣārī and Ḥ. Abū al-Ḥassān, The Civilization of Two Cities: Al-ʻUlā & Madāʾin Sāliḥ (Riyadh: Dār al-Qawāfil, 2001); Wahbi al-Hariri-Rifai and Mokhless Al-Hariri-Rifai, The Heritage of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (Washington: GDG Publications, 1990); Neil G. Smith, Luca Passone, Said al-Said, Mohamed al-Farhan and Thomas E. Levy, ‘Drones in Archaeology: Integrated Data Capture, Processing, and Dissemination in the al-Ula Valley, Saudi Arabia’, Near Eastern Archaeology, 77 (2014), 176–81. On Madina’s architectural heritage in pre- and early Islam, see W. M. Watt, ‘Al-Madīnah’ EI2 (1986), v, 994–8; Fahd al-Harigi, ‘The Relationship Between the Prophets’ Mosque and its Physical Environment: al-Medina, Saudi Arabia’, (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Edinburgh, 1989), pp. 6–11; H. al-Pāshā, Madkhal ilā al-āthār alIslāmiyya, (Dār al-Nahḍa al-ʿArabiyya, 1990), pp. 16–8; Marco Schöller, ‘Medina’ in Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān (2003), iii, 367–71, (pp. 367–8). 33 However, some advanced forms of administration and cultural life seem to have existed in the ancient kingdoms of Lihyan (also known as

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11

this is comparable to the Romans’ tendency to divide the Arabian Peninsula into three main regions: arabia petraea or the Roman Arabian province (which included southern Syria, Jordan, the Sinai Peninsula and the north-western part of modern Saudi Arabia, with Petra acting as the capital), arabia felix (lit. ‘Fortunate Arabia’, which signified the Yemen) and arabia deserta or arabia magna (‘Arabia of the Desert’, which denoted the desert interior of the Peninsula). However, important towns in the pre-Islamic Ḥijāz region, particularly Makka and Yathrib (pre-Islamic Madina), maintained during the sixth and early first/seventh centuries active trading relations with the Yemen and Abyssinia in the south as well as Bilād al-Shām and Iraq in the north. Thanks to such an economic networking, the material culture in these towns showed a considerable amount of diversity, as suggested by the artefacts quarried from an old mercantile settlement known as Qaryat al-Fāw (ca. fourth century BC – fourth century AD). Located in the south-western part of modern Saudi Arabia, this small town, formerly known as Dhāt Kāhil, was the capital of the first kingdom of Kinda, which took the form of a tribal confederation.34 Like other towns in the Arabian desert, both Makka and Yathrib were, in a sense, under the influence of the kingdoms of the periphery in North and South Arabia (who in turn were client states to the bordering imperial powers, i.e. Persia and Byzantium). Such an influence was usually exercised through roaming preachers, merchants, tributary tribes and vassal castes in the desert interiors. As such, the type of civilization and urbanity, found elsewhere in the Middle East, were somehow seeping into Arabia, but these and the inducements they offered were never full enough to help Arabia set up its own civilization by the late sixth century. Dedan) in the north-western region of the Arabian Peninsula and Dilmun in Eastern Arabia and the Bahrain region. 34 See ʿA. R. al-Anṣārī, Qaryat al-Fau: A Portrait of Pre-Islamic Civilisation in Saudi Arabia (London: University of Riyadh, 1982); Milwright, ‘Islamic Art and Architecture’, p. 684. See also D. T. Potts, The Arabian Gulf in Antiquity, 2 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990); Derek Kennet, ‘On the Eve of Islam: Archaeological Evidence from Eastern Arabia’, Antiquity, 79 (2005), 107–18.

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Arabia, which was primarily a home of camps and oases,35 remained in clear contrast with the imperial world that was majorly citied.36 As a result, the type of settlements and visual arts found in places like the Ḥijāz at that time were far less developed than those of the kingdoms in the north and south of Arabia and the other Middle Eastern societies.37 In the northern part of the Ḥijāz, however, particularly in alʿUlā district, stands an important archaeological site, Madāʾin Ṣāliḥ or al-Ḥijr (alias Hegra), which has come to be the first World Heritage Site in Saudi Arabia. Most of the ruins there belong to the Nabatean reign of the region, with some traces from an older Liḥyānite presence (dating the third–second century BC). In 106 AD, the northern Ḥijāz, including al-Ḥijr, which then represented the southernmost settlement in the Nabatean Kingdom, was incorporated into the Roman province of Arabia. Later under the Roman occupation, al-Ḥijr began to lose the fortunate status it once enjoyed as a pivotal trade centre, mainly because of change in the trading routes. As a result, the town, which for quite a while was the second largest settlement in the Nabatean Kingdom, was abandoned.38 As Carl Brown argues, Islam arose as the religion of oasis urbanities, which had synergetic relations with the desert and its nomadic inhabitants: Religion and State, p. 28 36 Ira M. Lapidus, A History of Islamic Societies, 2nd edn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 10–13. 37 See Irfan Shahȋd, ‘Pre-Islamic Arabia’, in P. M. Holt, Ann K. Lambton and Bernard Lewis (eds.), The Cambridge History of Islam: Volume I A the Central Islamic Lands from Pre-Islamic Times to the First World War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970); D. T. Potts, J. Schmidt, Paolo M. Costa and Alessandro De Maigret, ‘Arabia: Pre Islamic’, in Jane Turner (ed.), The Grove Dictionary of Art, 34 vols (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), ii, 246–75; Hoyland, Arabia and the Arabs, pp. 167–97; See also Lapidus, Islamic Societies, pp. 10–17. 38 J. F. Healey, ‘The Nabataean Tomb Inscriptions of Medaʾin Salih’, in jss Supp.1 (1993); J. Bowsher, ‘The Frontier Post of Medain Saleh’, in P. Freeman and D. Kennedy (eds.), The Defense of the Roman and Byzantine East (Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, 1986), pp. 19–30; A. A. Nāif, al35

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13

In fact, we know very little about the history of al-Ḥijr in the period from the Roman era to the rise of Islam, but this little confirms its aridity and lack of settlement. This may explain why the archaeological findings from the site, and which are chiefly funerary, did not change the stereotype perception regarding the little involvement of the Prophet’s community and homeland in shaping Islamic architecture.39 Milwright states: ‘Islam had its origins in the Hijaz, but this arid region on the western side of the Arabian Peninsula plays a less significant role in the history of Islamic art and architecture’.40 This is to be scrutinized in Chapters 4, 5 & 6. The dominant belief, therefore, is that the most distinctive features of mosque architecture, from minarets to finials, did not ʿUlā: dirāsa fī al-turāth al-ḥaḍarī wa-l-ijtimāʿī (Riyadh: [n. pub?], 1995); id., alʿUlā: An Historical and Archaeological Survey with Special Reference to its Irrigation System (Riyadh: King Saud University, 1988); A. al-Wohaibi, The Northern Hijaz in the Writings of the Arab Geographers: 800–1150 (Beirut: al-Risāla, 1973); F. S. Vidal, ‘Al-Ḥidjr’, EI2, iii, 365–6. 39 Located 400 km. north-west of Madina, al-Ḥijr does not seem to have played any role of significance in the creation of Islamic architecture. The reports on the only time the Prophet is said to pass by it, while heading for Tabūk in a military expedition, established a negative sentiment towards the site in Muslim tradition. So dominant has this sentiment been that it still represents a challenge for modern Saudi authorities to locally market the site as a tourism destination. During this forced and very quick sojourn, the Prophet warned his followers against entering the houses once belonging to al-Ḥijr’s infidel inhabitants. Referred to in the Qurʾān as the people of Thamūd, these were punished by God for their arrogance and disownment. See Qurʾān 7. 73–9; 11. 61–8; 17. 59; 29. 38; 41. 13. The Prophet was reportedly concerned that a similar punishment would come upon his followers unless they show piety and fearfulness and take a warning by looking at the ruins of those disbelievers. See Bukhārī, no. 433; Muslim, nos. 7464–7. In this study, all the ḥadīths from the six canonical compilations will be cited, alongside their numbers, from Mawsūʿat alḥadīth al-sharīf: al-kutub al-sitta, Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, Sunan Abī Dāwūd, Jāmiʿ al-Tirmidhī, Sunan al-Nasāʾī wa-Sunan Ibn Māja, rev. Shaykh Ṣāliḥ b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz Āl al-Shaykh (Riyadh: Dār al-Salām, 1999). Ḥadīth and Arabic accounts are my own translation unless otherwise specified. 40 Milwright, ‘Islamic Art and Architecture’, p. 683.

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materialize in the Ḥijāz, as did Islam itself. Indeed, Islam’s architectural heritage is by far better represented elsewhere in such places as Iraq, Syria, Egypt, etc. In pre-modern times, and apart from the two noble sanctuaries at Makka and Madina, almost nothing worthy of mention was found in the region.41 The difference between the artistic legacy of the cradle of Islam and that of its subordinate territories was too glaring to be unnoticed even by the medieval Muslim historians, travellers and pilgrims. While giving this part of Arabia credit for being the home of the Prophet and the birthplace of Islam, they generally accentuated its little urbanity and rustic primitiveness when compared to other Islamic regions, including their own homelands. Such an approach is quite evident in the writings of, among others, al-Muqaddasī (d. 380/990), Ibn Jubayr (d. 614/1217) and Ibn Baṭṭūṭa (d. 779/1377).42 However, the writings of the celebrated Maghrebi intellectual Ibn Khaldūn (d. 808/1406) have had the deepest impact in this regard. Applying his own philosophy of ʿumrān, ‘urbanization’, to central Arabia, Ibn Khaldūn expressly maintained that the Arabs, particularly those of the interior, were indifferent to arts and ignorant of crafts.43 The heading he chose to put across his views in this regard is enough to tell his overall impression: ‘the Arabs were the furthest people from crafts’. Such was enough for many of the Western forefront to think of this part of pre-and early Islamic Arabia as an aesthetic tabula rasa and of its inhabitants as largely nomads—preferring to use such Eurocentric terms as ‘Saracens’, As Stephen Vernoit puts it, ‘it was generally believed that in Arabia, where the Islamic faith originated, artistic traditions were negligible’: ‘Rise of Islamic Archaeology’, p. 1. 42 See al-Muqaddasī, The Best Divisions for Knowledge of the Regions: a Translation of Aḥsan al-taqāsīm fī maʿrifat al-aqālīm, transl. Basil Anthony Collins, reviewed by M. Hamid al-Tai (Doha: Centre for Muslim Contribution to Civilization; Reading: Garnet, 1994); Ibn Jubayr, Riḥlat Ibn Jubayr (Beirut: Dār Ṣādir li-l-Ṭibāʿa wa-l-Nashr, 1964); Ibn Baṭṭūṭa, Riḥlat Ibn Baṭṭūṭa al-musammāh tuḥfat al-nuẓẓār fī gharāʾib al-amṣār wa-ʿajāʾib al-asfār, 2 vols (Cairo: al-Maṭbaʿa al-Khayriyya, 1904). 43 Ibn Khaldūn, Muqaddima, ed. ʿAbd Allāh M. al-Darwīsh, 2 vols (Damascus: Dār Yaʿrub, 2004), ii. 97–9; i. 287–8. 41

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‘Moors’ and ‘Mahometans’ when referring to them.44 It is of interest to note, in this context, that such early negative thoughts on the Arabs’ involvement in Islamic art and architecture were later adopted by quite a number of Arab scholars.45 It may be enough here to say that the renowned Legacy of Islam,46 where similar views on Arabia and its inhabitants are produced,47 was translated into Arabic by such an authority in Islamic art history as Zakī M. Ḥasan in 1984. The thinking that ‘the first Arab conquerors had no architectural skill or taste’ seems to be taken generally as granted; the book has been well received by the Arab readership and its authors are acclaimed, in the translation’s preface, for their objective views.48 Comparable ideas on the crude living conditions of the first Arab conquerors are still presented by some more recent studies.49 The traditional ideas on the poor cultural heritage of arabia deserta have further ingrained the thinking that the Prophet’s community, whether at Makka or Madina, was not capable of any archi-

In this early period, the same terms were used to designate the type of architecture in the Muslim lands, before eventually settling on ‘Islamic’ architecture somewhere around the end of the nineteenth century. See Nasser Rabbat, ‘What is Islamic Architecture Anyway?’, Journal of Art Historiography, 6 (2012), 1–15 (p. 2). 45 See Kamāl al-Dīn Sāmiḥ, al-ʿImāra fī ṣadr al-Islām (Cairo: al-Hayʾa al -ʿĀmma al-Miṣriyya li-l-Kitāb, 1982), pp. 3–5; Zakī M. Ḥasan, Fī al-funūn al-Islāmiyya (Cairo: Maṭbaʿat al-Iʿtimād, 1938), pp. 8–10. 46 Thomas Arnold and Alfred Guillaume (eds.), The Legacy of Islam, (Oxford: the Clarendon Press, 1931). 47 See M. Briggs, ‘Architecture’, in Thomas Arnold and Alfred Guillaume (eds.), The Legacy of Islam (Oxford: the Clarendon Press, 1931), pp. 155–79. 48 Turāth al-Islām: fi al-funūn al-farʿiyya wa-l-taṣwīr wa-l-ʿimāra, transl. Zakī M. Ḥasan (Damascus: Dār al-Kitāb al-ʿArabī, 1984). 49 See, for example, Patricia Crone, ‘“Barefoot and Naked”: What Did the Bedouin of the Arab Conquests Look Like?’, Muqarnas, 25 (2008), 1–10. 44

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tectural success;50 a community that needed a foreign hand to rebuild its supreme but simple sanctuary, the Kaʿba.51 This perception, while based on inefficiently examined reports, as we shall see, has led some to wonder how such a basic arrangement as that of the Prophet’s building at Madina inspired the mosque type.52 In his conclusion on ‘primitive Islam’, Creswell already stated: Muḥammad, as we have seen above […] despised architecture. The detailed descriptions which we possess of what became the first congregational mosque of Islam, the courtyard of Muḥammad’s house at Madīna, show it to have been primitive in the extreme […].53

With this, as well as the problematic nature of the textual evidence, in mind, some began to doubt the description which the sources give for the building,54 not considering it to have been a mosque (supra). As a result, many recent writings on early Islamic architecH. Lammens, La Cité arabe de Ṭāʾf à la veille de l’Hégire, 8 vols (Beirut: Imprimerie Catholique, 1922), viii, 183. 51 Milwright, ‘Islamic Art and Architecture’, pp. 684. Bāqūm, a visiting Rūmī carpenter, is said to have supervised the work. See Creswell, EMA, i. 1, 1–5. This Bāqūm, however, is also said to have made the minbar for the Prophet. See ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Ṣanʿānī, al-Muṣannaf, ed. Ḥabīb al-Raḥmān al-Aʿẓamī, 11 vols ([n.p.]: al-Majlis al-ʿIlmī, 1970–83), no. 5244; Ibn Rajab al-Ḥanbalī, Fatḥ al-bārī: sharḥ Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, eds. M. S. ʿAbd al-Maqṣūd, M. A. al-Shāfiʿī, I. al-Qāḍī et al., 10 vols (Medina: Maktabat al-Ghurabāʾ al-Athariyya, 1996), iii, 316. F. Shāfiʿī remarks that the minbar was made some forty years later than the Qurayshī reconstruction of the Kaʿba. Thus, if we were to believe that Bāqūm was still alive, he would be too aged and weak to make the minabr. Farīd Shāfiʿī, al-ʿImāra alʿarabiyya fī Miṣr al-Islāmiyya: ʿaṣr al-wulāh (Cairo: al-Hayʾa al-Miṣriyya alʿĀmma li-l-Taʾlīf wa-l-Nashr, 1970), pp. 625–8. 52 See Grabar, Formation, p. 104; Milwright doubts the theory that the Prophet and his family would have their dwellings in the same ensemble where the Muslim people gathered for worship: ‘Islamic Art and Architecture’, p. 688. 53 Creswell, EMA, i. 1, 64. 54 Johns, ‘House of the Prophet’, ii. 59–112 (pp. 110–11). 50

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ture begin with a discussion of an Umayyad monument, leaving behind a crucial half a century or so of mosque development. In addition to the lack of archaeological evidence for the earliest mosques, this is due to crediting the introduction of the mosque type to the time of the great conquests. That being said, the views on the Prophet’s anti-building disposition have not been subjected to methodical examination thus far. Whilst the Prophet’s attitude toward fine arts such as music, painting, sculpture, etc., has been discussed by many (even if largely legal) studies, that toward architecture is very rarely considered. A notable exception is the work of F. Shāfiʿī, whose analysis of preIslamic Arabia is more revealing than his concise discussion of the Prophet’s approach to building.55 Shāfiʿī’s position is weakened by the fact that he, following Caetani and Creswell, dealt with the Prophet’s structure at Madina as a private dwelling and not a mosque. More recently, however, the Prophet’s position toward mosque form, in particular, has been discussed.56 Mainly undertaken by Islamic jurists, such works are more related to fiqh than to architecture, and have had little impact in the circles of modern archaeologists and art historians. A defect in these writings, which See F. Shāfiʿī, ʿImāra ʿarabiyya, pp. 37–64 (pp. 47–9); id, al-ʿImāra al-ʿarabiyya al-Islāmiyya: māḍīhā wa-ḥāḍiruhā wa-mustaqbaluhā (Riyadh: Maṭbaʿat Jāmiʿat al-Malik Suʿūd, 1982), pp. 1–11. 56 See, for example, Khayr al-Dīn al-Wānilī, al-Masjid fī al-Islām: aḥkāmuh, ādābuh, bidaʿuh, 2nd edn (Kuwait: al-Dār al-Salafiyya, 1980); Yūsuf al-Qaraḍāwī, al-Ḍawābiṭ al-sharʿiyya li-bināʾ al-masājid (Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Risāla, 2000). Some works appeared as essays in 1999 in Sijil buḥūth nadwat ʿimārat al-masājid (Proceedings of the Seminar on Mosque Architecture): Ṣāliḥ b. Ghānim al-Sadlān, ‘al-Ḍawābiṭ al-sharʿiyya li-ʿimārat almasājid’, in M. A. Ṣāliḥ and A. al-Qūqānī (eds.), Sijil buḥūth nadwat ʿimārat al-masājid (Riyadh: Kulliyyat al-ʿImāra wa-l-Takhṭīṭ bi-Jāmiʿat al-Malik Suʿūd, 1999), viii, 1–32. Also in the same proceedings: Manṣūr al-Jadīd, ‘al-Masjid fī al-Islām, ḥudūd, tārīkh: abraz al-ḍawābiṭ al-sharʿiyya almutaʿalliqa bi ʿimāratih’, viii, pp. 89–132; M. ʿAbd al-Sattār ʿUthmān and ʿAwaḍ M. al-Imām, ‘ʿImārat al-masājid fī ḍawʾ al-aḥkām al-fiqhiyya: dirāsa taṭbīqiyya athariyya’, viii, pp. 133–60. 55

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are only found in Arabic, is that they applied a literalist approach: mainly confined to narrating the best known and most relevant traditions on the topic, an approach already represented in such medieval works as Iʿlām al-sājid bi-aḥkām al-masājid by al-Zarkashī (d. 794/1392),57 a prominent Shāfiʿī authority, and Tuḥfat al-rākiʿ wa-lsājid bi-aḥkām al-masājid by al-Jurāʿī (d. 883/1478),58 a Ḥanbalī jurisconsult. The former is the first monograph to be dedicated to discussing the ordinances and proprieties related to the mosque.59 These works are barely more than a listing of some relevant ḥadīths. They, however, will represent—in addition to the Qurʾān, ḥadīth collections and commentaries as well as other early writings by historians, geographers, local chroniclers, travellers and jurists—an important source for our discussion. The limited impact of such works, medieval and modern, is largely the result of current scholarship’s unpreparedness to consider ḥadīth material in discussions related to mosque architecture,60 mainly because of the historical issues of the ḥadīth genre and the belief that the Prophet did not fundamentally know the mosque Al-Zarkashī, Iʿlām al-sājid bi-aḥkām al-masājid, ed. M. Marāghī, 5th edn (Cairo: Ministry of Waqfs, 1999). 58 Al-Jurāʿī, Tuḥfat al-rākiʿ wa-l-sājid bi-aḥkām al-masājid, eds. Ṣāliḥ Sālim al-Nahām, Muḥammad Bānī al-Maṭayrī, Ṣabāḥ ʿAbd al-Karīm alʿAnzī and others (Farawāniyya: Wazārat al-Awqāf wa-l-Shuʾūn alIslāmiyya, 2004). 59 Al-Zarkashī’s work is only preceded by a chapter on mosques in al-Ṭurṭūshī’s (d. 530/1136) al-Ḥawādith wa-l-bidaʿ, ed. ʿAlī b. Ḥasan alḤalabī, 3rd edn (Dammam: Dār Ibn al-Jawzī, 1998), pp. 103–126. The topic of the mosque form was also dealt with in eighth–ninth-century ḥadīth commentaries. The best example is Ibn Rajab’s Fatḥ: see iii, 281–93. 60 Western scholars, however, dealt with the ḥadīths on the Prophet’s meek living conditions, usually in the context of general writings on his biography. Reports on the modesty of the Prophet’s life and belongings are also considered by a number of art historians, typically in terms of Islam’s attitude towards arts and aesthetics. See K. A. C. Creswell, ‘The Lawfulness of Painting in Early Islam’, in Jonathan M. Bloom (ed.), Early Islamic Art and Architecture (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002), pp. 101–8; Oleg Grabar, Formation, pp. 81–3. 57

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type. An exception is M. J. Kister’s ‘A Booth like the Booth of Moses’.61 However, while the title of the article is itself a part of one ḥadīth that specifies the form which the Prophet wished for his ‘mosque’, Kister uses the ḥadīth in question to discuss topics other than the Prophet’s perception of mosque architecture.62 Apart from M. J. Kister, ‘“A Booth Like the Booth of Moses…”: A Study of an Early Ḥadīth’, Bulletin of the Society of Oriental and African Studies, 25 (1962), 150–55. Baber Johansen has also approached, from a juristic perspective, how the erection of mosques would relate to the urban aspects of a major Islamic city, al-miṣr al-jāmiʿ: Contingency in a Sacred Law: Legal and Ethical Norms in the Muslim Fiqh (Leiden: Brill, 1999), pp. 87 ff. 62 This ḥadīth, having been incorrectly noted by Kister as not included in any of the orthodox ḥadīth compilations, is used by him to enhance his argument that early ḥadīth compilers tended to omit the early traditions that would include any unsuccessful divination of the Prophet and those attesting to a Jewish influence on early Islam. See also his discussion of the ḥadīth on the exclusive journey to the three supreme mosques of Makka, Madina and Jerusalem. M. J. Kister, ‘“You Shall Only Set Out for Three Mosques”: A Study of an Early Tradition’, in Studies in Jāhiliyya and Early Islam (London: Variorum, 1980), pp. 173–196. The ḥadīth on the ‘booth of Moses’ was also regarded by some medieval Islamic authorities as not found in any of the ḥadīth collections. Tāj al-Dīn al-Subkī (d. 771/1370), for example, states that he found no isnād for it: Ṭabaqāt alshāfiʿiyya al-kubrā, eds. M. Muḥammad al-Ṭanāḥī and A. Muḥammad alḤulw, 10 vols (Cairo: al-Bābī al-Ḥalabī, 1964), vi, 313. Contrary to such judgements, the ḥadīth is reported by ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Ṣanʿānī (d. 211/826) in his relatively lately published Muṣannaf (no. 5135), through a trustful strand of transmitters. On the isnād of this ḥadīth, see al-Albānī, Silsilat al-aḥadīth al-ṣaḥīḥa, 7 vols (Riyadh: Maktabat al-Maʿārif, 1992–2002), ii, 178–81 (ḥadīth no. 616). Shared by others, Kister’s hypothesis was that the Prophet’s tendency to build ephemeral structures was due to his conviction that either death or the Last Day would soon come, particularly in his lifetime. See Rosenthal, ‘The Influence of the Biblical Tradition on Muslim Historiography’, in B. Lewis and M. Holt (eds.), Historical Writings of the Peoples of Asia Volume IV (London: Oxford University Press, 1962), pp. 35–45 (pp. 36–9). Kister (‘Booth of Moses’, pp. 150–55) believes that this ‘early’ tradition was intentionally omitted by the third/ninth century ḥadīth compilers for its inclusion of an unrealized prophecy. Indeed, quite 61

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a number of ḥadīths in the third/ninth century compilations preach obvious eschatological as well as apocalyptic concepts. Many include clearer references to a ‘short’ time between the advent of the Prophet and the Last Day, but ‘short’ here does not necessarily mean months or years. It should arguably be estimated in relation to the age of this world. Neither the above ḥadīth nor any other in the ‘canonical’ compilations states, as suggested by Kister (‘Booth of Moses’, p. 152), that the Prophet believed the Day of Judgment ‘would happen in his own lifetime’. In fact, the Prophet is reported, through an almost countless number of ḥadīths, to have addressed things and events that would occur after his passing. The phrase baʿdī, ‘after my own days’, is copiously found in the traditions. His particular statement, ‘al-amru aʿjalu [in another narration, asraʿu] min dhālik’, which is included in the tradition on the ‘booth of Moses’ and which is considered by Kister et alii to reach the above conclusion, will be put in context later (Chapter 6). Here, I will only refer to another ḥadīth that is also used by Kister to support his argument. On the authority of ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAmr: ‘The Prophet passed by me while I was treating with mud a wall (ḥāʾiṭ) in my shack (khuṣṣ). He asked: “What is this ʿAbd Allāh?” I replied: “A wall which I am restoring.” He, then, said: “The affair is not that long (al-amru aʿjalu min dhālik)”.’ This ḥadīth is found in al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ al-adab al-mufrad, ed. M. Nāṣir al-Albānī, 4th edn (Jubeil: Maktabat alDalīl, 1994), no. 354; Abū Dāwūd, nos. 5235–6; Ibn Māja, no. 4160. In this ḥadīth, however, the Prophet clearly did not mean that either death or Doom’s Day would come soon, may be before ʿAbd Allāh finishes his work, as Kister maintains. Indeed, he only wanted to draw his follower’s attention to that there were more important things to take care of in such an early stage. Kister’s argument is further weakened by a cluster of ḥadīths reporting of the Prophet a totally different approach to what he suggests: ‘If the Last Day comes while a seedling is in someone’s hand, they should plant it (if possible)’. Abū Bakr al-Bazzār, al-Baḥr al-zakhkhār al-maʿrūf biMusnad al-Bazzār, ed. M. Zaynullāh A. Saʿd, 15 vols (Medina: Maktabat alʿUlūm wa-l-Ḥikam, 1988–2006), no. 7408; al-Haythamī, Majmaʿ al-zawāʾid wa-manbaʿ al-fawāʾid, ed. M ʿAbd al-Qādir ʿAṭā (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub alʿIlmiyya, 2001), no. 6236; al-Adab al-mufrad li-l-Bukhārī, no. 371.

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rare fortuitous instances,63 the dismissive approach persisted. It may be telling, in this connection, that the most earnest attempt to investigate how the scriptures of Islam could have influenced its art and architecture, and which is credited to Oleg Grabar, only considered the Qurʾān and not ḥadīth. The author reaffirmed one concept on which the ‘House of the Prophet’ theory has been based, i.e. the so-called ‘Qurʾān non-specific use of the term masjid’.64

1.3 PROBLEMS WITH THESE VIEWS The formulaic views on Arabia and Islam (a region of poor architectural and artistic heritage; a religion dismissive of building and decoration) as well as the belief that the mosque was not introduced until after the passing of the Prophet have led scholars to follow two dubious lines of enquiry: seeking the origins of the mosque in non-Islamic types; and attributing its institution to material rather than devotional prompts.65 1.3.1 Problems with identifying the origins of the mosque type A quick look at the literature is enough to reveal, under the scrutiny of subsequent scholarship, the fragility of the theories put forward about the origin of the mosque. For example, Henri Saladin supposed, almost without foundation,66 that the mosque design deA good example is Moshe Sharon’s brief reference to ḥadīth interdiction of the heightening and beautifying of mosques. See Corpus Inscriptionum Arabicarum Palaestinae, 31 vols (Leiden: Brill, 1997), i, 58. 64 Oleg Grabar, ‘Art and Architecture and the Qurʾan’ in Oleg Grabar (ed.), Early Islamic Art, 650–1100, I, Constructing the Study of Islamic Art (Hampshire: Ashgate, 2005); first published in Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān, 1 (2001), pp. 161–75. 65 Hillenbrand may be the only exception. He discussed, albeit briefly, how the way in which the Muslim, whether individually or collectively, prays influenced the mosque layout: Islamic Architecture, pp. 35–8. 66 Saladin’s main point of departure was the similarity he noted between the orientation of the Qayrawān mosque and that of the ancient Egyptian and Chaldean temples. Basically, and for geographical convenience, it is the early mosques of Egypt, not Tunisia (the orientation of both is governed by where they locate in relation to Makka), that need to 63

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rived from the Pharaonic and Chaldean temples.67 Saladin’s theory was contested by M. Briggs, who concluded that no architectural divergence could be clearer than the one noted between the mosque and such ancient temples.68 The architectural type of the mosque has also been regarded by some as a descent from that of the church.69 Giovanni Rivoira, for example, assumed that the Umayyad Aqṣā mosque had a T-shaped plan formed by a central nave upheld by arches resting on isolated piers, and that it had a dome over the miḥrāb.70 Rivoira attempted to use this hypothesis to support his theory that the origins of the mosque are to be sought in the Christian architecture in Armenia and the Iberian Peninsula. Nevertheless, a later study by Hamilton revealed that in the Umayyad period, such a central nave was never adopted for the Aqṣā mosque and thus demolished Rivoira’s theory (Fig. 37. cf. Figs. 34, 35 & 36).71 It was further argued by Creswell and others that the conversion of churches into mosques was a regular procedure in early Islam. The mosque of Ḥamā, as he maintains based on a report by al-Balādhurī (d. 297/892), was erected on the ruins of the chief church in the town, ‘al-kanīsa al-ʿuẓmā’.72 This theory is criticized by be considered if a link between the mosque and the Pharaonic temple is to be theorized. 67 See Henri J. Saladin: La Mosquée de Sidi Okba à Kairouan (Paris: E. Leroux, 1899), p. 37. Forty years afterwards, this hypothesis of Saladin was supported by Louis Hautecœur and Gaston Wiet: Les mosquées du Caire (Paris: E. Leroux, 1932). 68 Briggs, Muhammadan Architecture, p. 15. 69 A clear, even if old, example of this tendency is to be found in Rivoira’s Moslem Architecture. 70 Ibid, p. 21. 71 R. W. Hamilton, The Structural History of the Aqṣā Mosque: A Record of Archaeological Gleanings from the Repairs of 1938–1942 (Jerusalem: Published for the Government of Palestine by Oxford University Press, London, 1949); id., ‘Once again the Aqṣā’, in J. Raby and J. Johns (eds.), Bayt al-Maqdis: ʿAbd al-Malik’s Jerusalem, Oxford Studies in Islamic Art vol. IX part 1, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992); Creswell, EMA, i. 2, 379–80. 72 See Creswell, EMA, i. 1, 17–22.

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Sauvaget who believes that Creswell adopted the idea without verification. Having studied the ruins of the mosque of Ḥamā, Sauvaget produced a plan for the mosque that shows it to be completely different to the layout of contemporary churches.73 Mainly drawing on some medieval accounts, however, a number of scholars believe that the mosque of Damascus was built on the ruins of the church of St. John the Baptist. This, however, was denied by Rivoira and Creswell.74 The latter, relying on literary and archaeological evidence, contested such views in a clearly cogent way.75 Sauvaget went further to conclude that the Umayyad mosque owed nothing to the church once pre-existed in situ.76 Creswell, while contesting the idea that the Umayyad mosque was built on the foundations of an older church, maintained that it, just like other Syrian mosques of the time, derived from the type of the Syrian churches, arguing mainly from the tripartite arrangement of the bayt al-ṣalāh.77 This, however, is backed by neither textual nor archaeological evidence. Creswell himself confusingly admitted that the type of the Umayyad mosque is not comparable to that of any Syrian church. The Umayyad mosque, in particular, was reportedly deemed unique by contemporaries. According to al-ʿUmarī (ca. 740/1340), when the ʿAbbāsid caliph al-Maʾmūn saw the mosque, he was particularly amazed by the fact that it was built after the fashion of no precedent ‘ʿalā ghayri mithālin mutaqaddim’.78 The views

Sauvaget, La Mosquée omeyyade de Médine, pp. 103–8 [fig. 8]. The case of the mosque at Ḥamā has also been dealt with recently by Bernard O’Kane: ‘The Great Mosque of Hama Redux’, in Bernard O’Kane (ed.), Creswell Photographs Re-examined: New Perspectives on Islamic Architecture (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2009), pp. 219–46. 74 See also F. Barry Flood, the Great Mosque of Damascus: Studies on the Makings of an Umayyad Visual Culture (Leiden: Brill, 2000). 75 See Creswell, EMA, i. 1, 187–96. 76 Sauvaget, La Mosquée Omeyyade de Médine, p. 95. 77 Creswell, EMA, i. 1, 187–96. 78 Ibn ʿAsākir, Tārīkh madīnat Dimashq: wa-dhikr faḍlihā wa-tasmiyat man ḥallahā min al-amāthil aw ijtāza bi-nawāḥīhā min wāridīhā wa-ahlihā, ed. Muḥibb al-Dīn ʿUmar al-ʿAmrawī, 80 vols (Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, 1995–2000) ii, 247; 73

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of Creswell were systematically refuted by A. Fikrī who pointed out the architectural differences between the mosque and such a church type.79 Some scholars maintained that the type of the mosque, particularly in the western part of the Islamic world, derived from Roman basilicas, or reception halls.80 Georges Marçais, followed by others, maintained that the design of the Qayrawān mosque, for example, was inspired by that of some churches of Byzantine Africa, such as Damous el-Karita in Carthage.81 Nonetheless, early Christian basilicas, particularly in Italy and Syria, usually took the form of a rectangle with a wide central nave terminating with an altar and flanked with aisles of equal sizes. In most cases, the basilica was preceded by an atrium—sometimes a narthex (Fig. 1). Further, this type, having materialized only two centuries before the rise of Islam, had no influence on the mosque type over the first ten centuries of Islamic history. It was not until the Ottoman period that some influence existed.82 The difficulty for the church with atrium, notwithstanding its perceived eligibility, to have inspired the mosque in its early phase has already been noted by Jeremy Johns (infra).83 It is worth noting that the Christian (or genus) basilica was formerly suggested by van Berchem to have inspired the mosques at Jerusalem and Damascus.84 al-ʿUmarī, Masālik al-abṣār fī mamālik al-amṣār: al-juzʾ al-awwal, ed. A. Zakī (Cairo: Dār al-Kutub al-Miṣriyya, 1924), i, 192. 79 Aḥmad Fikrī, Masājid al-Qāhira wa-madārisuhā: al-madkhal (Alexandria: Dār al-Maʿārif, 1963), pp. 272–5. 80 Richmond, Moslem Architecture, p. 3. Sauvaget, La Mosquée Omeyyade de Médine, pp. 123, 134–5, 137, 143, 157. 81 Georges Marçais, Manuel d’Art musulman: L’Architecture, Tunisie, Algérie, Maroc, Espagne, Sicile, 2 vols (Paris: Auguste Picard, 1926–7), i, 17; Saladin: La Mosquée de Kairouan, p. 40. See also Dieulafoy’s reconstruction of the Cordoba mosque: Espagne et Portugal (Paris: Hachette, 1921), p. 41 [fig. 94]. 82 See F. Shāfiʿī, ʿImāra ʿarabiyya, pp. 125–7; Aḥmad Fikrī, al-Masjid al-jāmiʿ bi-l-Qayrawān (Cairo: al-Maʿārif, 1936), pp. 29–35. 83 Johns, ‘House of the Prophet’, p. 102. 84 Max van Berchem ‘Architecture’, in EI1 (1913), i, 422–5.

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Figure 1: Rome: plan of St. Peter’s basilica, 333–90 AD (after Fletcher, 1905)

Other less popular theories have compared the mosque to the Persian palaces and apadānas.85 Generally, scholars before Creswell (1879–1974) argued that there are two types of mosques: the Christian (Syrian) and the Persian (Iraqi), and that the latter derived from the type of the Persian apadānas, namely audience or reception halls in the Achaemenid imperial architecture (Figs. 2 & 3).86 This hypothesis was resurrected and yet elaborated by Creswell, who argues that the similarity between the Iraqi mosques and the Persian apadānas is represented, alongside the quadrangular layout, in the use of labin, ‘mud brick’, ājurr, ‘kiln-baked brick’, stone piers and flat wooden ceilings.87 The two cases suggested by Creswell to support the theory on the influence of the apadāna style on mosque architecture were from Qazwīn and Iṣṭakhr. His hypothesis on the latter is largely based on a report by a-Muqaddasī that the congregational mosque at Iṣṭakhr had round columns with bull-headed capitals, and that the building was said to have formerly been a fire

See, for example, Elie Lambert, ‘Les Origines de la Mosquée et l’Architecture Religieuse des Omeiyades’, Studia Islamica, 6 (1956), 5–18. 86 See, for example, E. Diez, Die Kunst der Islamischen Völker (Berlin: Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft Athenaion m.b.h, 1915), pp. 8 ff. 87 Creswell, EMA, i. 1, 21–2. 85

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temple.88 This argument of Creswell is profoundly weakened by the fact that al-Muqaddasī himself did not speak of any conversion of an apadāna into a mosque, but noted the reuse of some bull-headed capitals (see Plt. 1) that could well be spolia taken from an earlier (apadāna) building. In all cases, however, there is no evidence to say that such Persian halls continued to preserve any identifiable form in the Muslim era. Indeed, a number of aspects unite to discredit any continuity of form, which is an indispensable feature for any suggested architectural or stylistic influence. Persepolis, as we know, was burned by Alexander the Great, and there is no evidence for any post- Achaemenid restoration or erection of apadānas by any of the Seleucids, Parthians or Sasanians. In addition to the chronological gap between the two types, two other problems are noted by Th. Antun for any architectural association between the reception halls of the First Persian Empire (ca. 550–330 BC) and the hypostyle mosques of immediate post-conquest Iraq. The first of these is represented in the reports on the hypostyle design having appeared in Arabia at an earlier date. King also argues that such a layout developed first in Arabia, particularly with the establishment of the Prophet’s ‘mosque’ at Madina, and was later adopted in Iraq.89 The second problem concerns the historiographical issues of Sayf b. ʿUmar’s (d. 180/796) account that is usually used by modern scholarship to assume a Persian descent of the hypostyle mosque. According to Sayf, the architect who built the Kūfa mosque was a Persian dihqān, ‘chief’: ‘banā dhālika lahu Ruzbih [b. Buzurgmihr b. Sāsān]’.90 The topological nature of this account is noted by An-

Al-Muqaddasī, Aḥsan al-taqāsīm fī maʿrifat al-aqālīm, ed. M. J. De Goeje (Leiden: Brill, 1877), p. 436. According to al-Muqaddasī, the congregational mosque at Sūsa was also built on rounded pillars. 89 G. R. D. King, Historical Mosques of Saudi Arabia (London: Addison-Wesley Longman, 1986), p. 189. 90 Al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh al-rusul wa-l-mulūk, ed. M. Abū al-Faḍl Ibrāhīm, 2nd edn, 10 vols (Cairo: Dār al-Maʿārif, 1967), iv, 45. See also, ibid, iv, 46, 48. 88

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tun.91 The theory on the mosque’s derivation from the apadāna is further contested by Ettinghausen and Grabar, who convincingly argued why the mere adoption of the hypostyle outline for the early mosques cannot stand by itself as evidence for such a theory. In this regard, they conclude: ‘This was no conscious mutation of the old models of Persian apadānas, Roman fora, or Egyptian temples: it arose rather from the combination of the need for large space in the newly created cities and the availability of disused units of construction like columns’.92

Figure 2: A reconstruction of the façade of the Persepolis apadāna in Fars, Iran (after Kaveh Farroukh, 2017) Thallein M. Antun, ‘The Architectural Form of the Mosque in the Central Arab Lands: From the Hijra to the End of the Umayyad Period: 1/622–133/750’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Oxford, 2007), pp. 74–7. 92 Richard Ettinghausen and Oleg Grabar, The Art and Architecture of Islam 650–1250 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987), p. 36. 91

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Plate 1: Bull-headed capital from Persepolis apadāna (the National Museum of Iran)

Figure 3: Plan of Persepolis apadāna (after Schmidt, 1953)

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Other scholars, such as Lane-Poole and Ernst Diez believed that the Muslim Arabs took the type of the mosque from the Qurayshī temple. Also, Henri Lammens argued that the mosque is a development of the Arab pre-Islamic tribal majlis (i.e. chieftain tent or council).93 The theory that the origin of the mosque is to be found in religious building types of pre-Islamic Arabia is indeed challenged by the fact that only inadequate information is available on these types thus far. However, the probable impact of Arabia’s preIslamic temples on the mosque, particularly that of a cubical from, has been investigated by Barbara Finster.94 This mosque type, chiefly of a simple quadrangular layout with or without a protruding miḥrāb, is usually referred to as the bādiya or quṣūr mosque. Basic similarities between a number of cubical pre-Islamic temples, including the Kaʿba, and such a type of mosques are noted, but any claim for direct influence is challenged by the enormous gap of time separating between such temples and the earliest cubical mosque. While all such types seem to follow the same outline, the sheer simplicity of some mosques in this category—some are no more than a simple hall—as well as their relatively late date make it quite unlikely that their evolution influenced the formation of the mosque type. Similar complications confront the case of the hypaethral ‘mosques’ found in, for instance, the desert regions of the Negev. Identified as mosques, these structures were adjacent to a number of settlement sites in the region. The latter, however, were excavated during a sequence of archaeological soundings (from the 1950s to the 1990s), and are mainly dated to the sixth–eighth centuries AD.95 Comparable structures are found in eastern Jordan, such as Henri Lammens, ‘Ziād ibn Abīhi’, in Rivista delgi Studi Orientali (1911), iv, 199–250 (pp. 240–50). 94 Barbra Finster, ‘Cubical Yemeni Mosques’, in Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies (1991) xxi, 49–68. See also id., ‘An Outline of the History of Islamic Religious Architecture in Yemen’, Muqarnas, (1992), 124–47. 95 Gideon Avni, ‘Early Mosques in the Negev Highlands: New Archaeological Evidence on Islamic Penetration of Southern Palestine’, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, 294 (1994), 83–100; id., No93

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the mosques at Rīsha, Wādī Jilāt and Wādī Dhobai.96 The main problem here is that the archaeological record is so problematic that it could be even unviable to try to date any of such structures on stratigraphic basis.97 In addition, such mosque types do not belong to a certain time or region,98 casting doubt on them having once acted as the archetype of the mosque. All of the above theories are disqualified by either typological considerations or geographical or chronological barriers. Divergent opinions about the origins of the mosque flow not only from scholars who adopt the same theory but also from the same scholar. A clear example is Elie Lambert who first argued in favour of the church being the origin of the mosque type. Later on, Lambert abandoned this theory and posited that there were two types of mosque design. The first derived from the Prophet’s ‘house’ at Madina, where architectural emphasis was centred on three main features: (i) the bayt al-ṣalāh extending from east to west; (ii) the qibla wall; (iii) and the spaciousness of the ṣaḥn, ‘open courtyard’. The second type, as he maintains, was informed by the type of the Aqṣā mosque, which—in turn—was a descent from the church design, where the use of multi-aisles was the ruling architectural element.99 Lambert produced a modified plan for a section of the Cordoba mosque to prove his theory. Five years later, he contested the views mads, Farmers and Town-Dwellers: Pastoralist-Sedentist Interaction in the Negev Highlands, 6th-8th centuries C.E. (Jerusalem: Israel Antiquities Authority, 1996); Jodi Magness, The Archaeology of the Early Islamic Settlement in Palestine (Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 2003). 96 See S. Helms, Early Islamic Architecture of the Desert: A Bedouin Station in Eastern Jordan, (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1990), pp. 73, 76–80. 97 On such dating issues, see Helms, Early Islamic Architecture of the Desert, pp. 73–82; Johns, ‘House of the Prophet’, p. 81; Antun, ‘Architectural Form of the Mosque’, pp. 83–4. 98 Such mosques continue to be erected until now and can still be seen in the Sinai Peninsula, Transjordan and Northern Arabia. See Antun, ‘Architectural Form of the Mosque’, p. 84; King. Historical Mosques of Saudi Arabia, p. 83. 99 Elie Lambert, ‘Les Mosquées du Type Andalou’, pp. 273–89.

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about the church origin of the mosque and underlined, based on the well-defined discrepancy between the Muslim and the Christian rituals, the difference between the mosque components and their counterparts in church architecture. Instead, Lambert tentatively argued a similarity between the mosque and the synagogue and maintained that the minbar in the former is comparable to the bimah (or bema), which is a platform from which the Torah is read out in the synagogue (Fig. 4).100

Figure 4: Plan of the synagogue at Dura-Europos (after Lambert, 1950)

Sauvaget blames the scholars’ unsuccessful quest for the origin of the mosque on a common weakness so serious that it robs them of any authority: ‘Toutes les théories avancées jusqu’à ce jeur présentent en effet, une faiblesse commune, si grave qu’elle leur retire partiquement toute autoElie Lambert, ‘La Synagogue de Doura-Europos et les Origines de la Mosquée’, Semitica, 3 (1950), 67–72; id., ‘Les Origines de la Mosquée’, pp. 5–18. 100

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rité.’101 By this, he means their inattention to the various practical/material impulses that conjoined to shape mosque design. Nor did such theories, according to Sauvaget, consider the interrelation between such impulses and the influences of ritual and/or political dynamics.102 Sauvaget, for his part, argues that the mosque, having been used for formal and public rather than devotional assemblies, derived from the Roman basilicas, where market, court and official meetings took place.103 As we just saw, the mosque’s derivation from the basilica was already argued for by a number of scholars before Sauvaget, but he associated the mosque to the palatial rather than religious forms of the basilica. Sauvaget elaborated the theory on the basilical origin of the mosque more than any other did, tracing how the former evolved and was employed from the Hellenistic Near East down to early Islam. Nonetheless, the main weakness with Sauvaget’s approach lies in his endeavour to prove a basilical derivation of all mosques, maintaining that the architectural character of the mosque is largely owed to one single monumental type, i.e. the basilica. To prove this, he cited mosques with axial nave exclusively, neglecting the by far larger number of those lacking such an architectural feature—let alone the hypostyle mosques.104 Sauvaget contends that the type of the mosque was established in the Umayyad period, with the Umayyad building of the Prophet’s mosque providing the model. In this period, the mosque was used to house the public on Fridays, not for the communal prayer but to listen to the khuṭba which, he maintains, had no bearing on the Friday prayer. For Sauvaget, this situation obtained in the time of the Prophet except that, in the latter’s time, the mosque was a public space attached to his ‘house’, whereas in the Umayyad period it was a place for official gatherings attached to the caliphal palace. Such a function, according to him, likens the mosque to Sauvaget, La Mosquée Omeyyade de Médine, p. 122. Ibid, pp. 92, 122. Oleg Grabar also refers to the scholars’ negligence of what he calls ‘the historical context’ in which the sanctuaries of Islam were erected: ‘Umayyad Dome of the Rock’, p. 34. 103 Sauvaget, La Mosquée Omeyyade de Médine, p. 123. 104 Ibid, pp. 124–9. 101 102

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Roman audience halls.105 As such, Sauvaget thinks of the mosque as a basically non-sacred institution, regarding politics and religion as a firmly interlocked duality, as echoed in the analogous architecture of both palace and mosque. In pursuing this line, Sauvaget ironically makes the same mistake that he attributes to other scholars, namely neglecting the interrelation between the ceremonial functions of the mosque and the material conditions, here political, in which it evolved. Grabar, while supporting Sauvaget’s insights regarding the princely make-up of the basilical form,106 criticizes the latter’s overall thesis as do many other scholars in the field.107 More recently, Jeremy Johns has sought the origins of the mosque in a group of Late Antique architectural types; each had been considered, albeit individually, to have inspired the mosque design. Johns calls these: ‘the family of the mosque: synagogue, church, and bayt al-ʿArab’.108 His rationale for such selectivity was, in addition to geographical propinquity, the fact that all such types are mainly composed of a peristyle forecourt leading to a covered space (sanctuary). Nonetheless, Johns himself recognizes a number of difficulties in such an approach. The initial problem of Johns’ endeavour is that he compares these architectural types to a temIbid, pp. 134–5, 137–8, 143, 157. See Oleg Grabar, ‘La Grande Mosquée de Damas et les Origines Architecturales de la Mosquée’, in André Grabar (ed.), Synthronon: Art et Archéologie de la fin de l’Antiquité et du Moyen Âge (Paris: Klincksieck, 1968), pp. 107–14. Sauvaget takes the early Islamic practice of having a main axis, usually with emblematic and monarchical associations, as an implication for royal ideology beyond mosque architecture (that would in turn help explain the selection of forms). 107 See Grabar, ‘La Grande Mosquée de Damas’, pp. 107–14; Hillenbrand, Islamic Architecture, pp. 33–42; Lambert, ‘La Synagogue de DouraEuropos’, pp. 67–72; Lambert, ‘Les Origines de la Mosquée’, pp. 5–19; H. Stern, ‘Les Origines de l’Architecture de la Mosquée Omeyyade, à l’Occasion d’un Livre de J. Sauvaget’, in Syria, 28 (1951), 269–79; Estelle Whelan, ‘The Origins of the Miḥrāb Mujawwaf: A Reinterpretation’ in Jonathan M. Bloom (ed.), Early Islamic Art and Architecture (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002), pp. 373–91. 108 Johns, ‘House of the Prophet’, pp. 96–103. 105 106

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plate which the mosque attained only after several decades since the rise of Islam, while his main objective has been to explore how the ‘concept of the mosque’, as he terms it, came into existence. On the comparison between the mosque and the synagogue, in particular, Johns states that there is so far no archaeological evidence to disclose the form of the pre-Islamic synagogues in Arabia.109 He further maintains that even in the rare cases where the design of the synagogue is quite analogous to that of the mosque, as in Dura-Europos (Fig. 4),110 the evidence for a straightforward connection is disqualified by chronological and geographical distance. Johns adds that other synagogues with axial peristyle forecourt are too rare (indeed, an exception in synagogue architecture), generally built much earlier than the rise of Islam, and located far away in the Diaspora, making it quite implausible that they influenced the earliest mosques.111 Further, in the very few examples where the existence of a courtyard is supported by archaeological evidence, as in the case of Capernaum, courtyards were normally attached to one side of the assembly hall. This means that they were ‘neither axial nor forecourts’.112 According to Johns, similar conditions preclude the influence of the pre-Islamic temples found

See Johns, ‘House of the Prophet’, p. 99. However, Lecker, drawing on a single account by al-Balādhurī (Ansāb al-ashrāf, vol. i, ed. M. Hamidullah; Cairo, 1959), i, 277), argues that a synagogue did exist in preIslamic Madina. Michael Lecker, Muslims, Jews, and Pagans: Studies on Early Islamic Medina (Leiden: Brill, 1995), pp. 41–2. 110 The architectural similarity between both types is attributable, beside the overall arrangement, to their orientation towards a certain direction of prayer (qibla), the existence of the Torah-niche (miḥrāb), the seat of honour (minbar), and the ablution device in the forecourt (mīḍaʾa). Similar features existed in other Diaspora synagogues, such as Priene and Sardis. See Elie Lambert, ‘La synagogue de Doura-Europos’, pp. 67–72; id., ‘Les Origines de la Mosquée’, pp. 5–18; Johns, ‘House of the Prophet’, p. 97. See also Jodi Magness, ‘The Date of the Sardis Synagogue in Light of the Numismatic Evidence’, American Journal of Archaeology, 109, (2005), 443–75. 111 Johns, ‘House of the Prophet’, pp. 96–101 (p. 101). 112 Ibid, p. 98. 109

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at Nabataea and the Yemen.113 It should be noted, here, that the word ms1gd for synagogue is found in Himyaritic inscriptions in the Yemen.114 Although the basilical church with atrium is both chronologically and geographically eligible to have influenced the architectural evolution of the mosque, particularly in the Umayyad period, the possibility that it could have served as its prototype is markedly little. ‘It is simply the wrong shape’, as stated by Johns based on the patently different proportions of the church and the mosque.115 That said, he continues to regard the mosque as a member of such a family of Late Antique types, in spite of conceding that none of such types seems to have been its immediate prototype (taking into Ibid, pp. 101–2. See A. F. L. Beeston and others, Sabaic Dictionary (Beirut: Librairie du Liban; Louvain: Peeters, 1982), p. 125. According to Alexander V. Sedov, a big synagogue was erected at Qani, Yemen around the fifth century AD: ‘Sea-Trade of the Ḥaḍramawt Kingdom from the 1st to the 6th Centuries A.D.’, in A. Avanzini (ed.), Profumi d’Arabia: Atti del Convegno (Roma: L'Erma di Bretschneider, 1997), pp. 365–84 (p. 376); id., Temples of Ancient Hadramawt (Pisa: Plus-Pisa University Press, 2005), pp. 165, 166 [fig. 77], 169–71; id., ‘The Port of Qanaʾ and the Incense Trade’, in D. Peacock and D. Williams (eds.), Food for the Gods: New Light on the Ancient Incense Trade (Oxford: Oxbow, 2007), pp. 71–111 (pp. 74, 88 [fig. 4.15], 92, 99 [fig. 4.24], 103); J. F. Salles, and A. V. Sedov, Qāniʾ: Le Port Antique du Hadramawt Entre la Mediterranée, L'Afrique et L’Inde (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010), pp. 87–122; Glen W. Bowersock, Roman Arabia (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994). On the Jews of pre-Islamic Arabia see: Z. Rubin, ‘Byzantium and Southern Arabia’, in D. H. French and C. S Lightfoot (eds.), The Eastern Frontier of the Roman Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989); A. F. L. Beeston, ‘Judaism and Christianity in PreIslamic Yemen’, in J. Chelhod and others (eds.), L’Arabie du Sud: Histoire et Civilisation, 1, Le Peuple Yémenite et ses Racines (Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose, 1984), pp. 259–69, 271–8; Michael Lecker, Jews and Arabs in Pre- and Early Islamic Arabia (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998). 115 Johns, ‘House of the Prophet’, p. 102. Hillenbrand also states: ‘From the very beginning Islamic architects rejected the basilica, and with it the standard Christian church of Western type, as a suitable source of inspiration for the mosque’: Islamic Architecture, pp. 36, 38. See also infra. 113 114

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account the difficulty of specifying the date, place and how the mosque became a distinctive type).116 His main grounds for maintaining such a view, beside a Qurʾānic passage (22. 40), which we will deal with in Chapter 4, is the similarity of the roles played by the forecourt in the three building types and the courtyard in the mosque. Johns concludes: The attribution of the concept of the mosque to a Late Antique family of religious building types has not, however, brought us any closer to identifying the immediate origins of that concept. This line of inquiry peters out in the absence of archaeological evidence for the mosque in the Ḥijāz during the jāhilī and Prophetic periods. That all my attempts to trace the evolution of the mosque have ended in failure, persuades me to retrace my steps and pick up a thread left hanging towards the beginning of this article, when it was suggested that the crucial question is whether the mosque gradually evolved from pre-existing architectural forms, or whether it was created by the new Islamic elite.’117

The architectural divergence between the mosque and non-Muslim places of worship is in fact ascribed to the distinctive, however simple, ritual imperatives for which the former was set up. Hillenbrand, while noting the obvious foreign influences on mosques architecture, credibly explains why non-Islamic types were inapt to accommodate the Muslim prayer on a regular basis: Yet the materials and ideas which they [i.e. the early Muslim conquerors] quarried from these buildings were not enough to make the mosque an Islamised church, fire sanctuary or temple. The places of worship used by the adherents of religions which Islam supplanted were basically ill-suited to Muslim needs. Churches emphasised depth rather than breadth, if they were of basilical form, and centrality if they were a variation of the martyrium type. The sanctuaries of fire worship in the Iranian empire were built for ceremonies involving a few priests, 116 117

Johns, ‘House of the Prophet’, p. 111. Ibid, pp. 102–3.

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not large congregations—indeed, the congregation foregathered in the open air—while the temples of Arabia and India also put no premium on housing great numbers of worshippers within a covered hall, let alone ensuring easy visibility between them. For these practical reasons the cultic centres of other religions were of limited value to early Muslim architects, who looked elsewhere for inspiration.118

With such difficulties in detecting the origin of the mosque layout, a number of scholars preferred to compare the architectural components of the mosque to those of some earlier non-Islamic places of worship. This was a more successful endeavour, but the main misstep here is generalization; the similarity of some elements in the mosque to counterparts in pre-existing building types should not lead to regarding the latter as the origins of the mosque simply because it was not until the late first century AH that many of these elements were introduced to mosque architecture. It is the first-half century mosques AH, then, that need to be considered when the origin of the mosque is concerned.

Hillenbrand, Islamic Architecture, p. 36. Mattia Guidetti has recently remarked: ‘Historical sources and archaeological surveys both convey a picture of the Islamic conquest as having a minimal effect on cityscapes. […] The transformation of the sacred landscape of the conquered cities, their first wave of “Islamization”, should be analysed by bearing in mind the limits imposed by the treaties which, to an extent, “froze” the urban fabric’: ‘The Contiguity between Churches and Mosques in Early Islamic Bilād al­Shām’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 76 (2013), 229–58. See also Mattia Guidetti, In the Shadow of the Church: The Building of Mosques in Early Medieval Syria (Leiden: Brill, 2016); id., ‘The Byzantine Heritage in the Dār al-Islām: Churches and Mosques in al-Ruha between the Sixth and Twelfth Centuries’, Muqarnas, 26 (2009), 1–36. However, the reign of the controversial Fāṭimid caliph al-Ḥākim bi-Amr Allāh in Egypt denotes a spell of extreme intolerance in this regard. See Jennifer Pruitt, ‘Method in Madness: Recontextualizing the Destruction of Churches in the Fatimid Era’, Muqarnas, 30 (2013), 119–39. 118

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1.3.2 Problems with identifying the type of prompts for the institution of the mosque This book is not an attempt to isolate early Islamic culture from its Late Antique context; it is simply sterile to try to do so. Islamic societies were indeed built upon the framework of pre-existing Middle Eastern civilizations. However, the belief that the Prophet’s career has no bearing on mosque design has led to inaccurate readings of the sources and dictated an unwieldy path of inquiry. The creation of the mosque has been attributed to prompts of various types, i.e. material, practical, etc., but religious ones.119 In addition to the above examples, it is Creswell’s taking up of Caetani’s argument (that the Prophet’s structure retained the character of a house throughout the first-half century AH)120 which led him to credit the inception of the congregational mosque, as defined in the modern sense, to purely political motives. According to him, this happened when Ziyād b. Abīh enlarged the mosque of Baṣra in 45/665 with the aim of diverting the attention of his subjects away from the tribal mosques whose political influence was on the rise.121 For Creswell, Ziyād wanted the mosque to act as a court for his political speeches.122 Some have attributed the introduction of the mosque and the foundation of its architectural character even to ‘trivial facts’. For example, the first introduction of pebbles to cover the mosque floor instead of sand is attributed by Creswell to either ʿUmar b. alKhaṭṭāb or Ziyād b. Abīh. Both are said, through accounts in Ibn

See how Grabar, for instance, tackles this question: ‘Islamic Art: Art of a Culture or Art of a Faith’, pp. 1–6. 120 Creswell, EMA, i. 1, 43–4. Nevertheless, Creswell paradoxically states, in a different position, that the ‘mosque’ of ʿAmr at Fusṭāṭ (21/640–1) was influenced, in some features, by the model of ʿUmar at Madina (17/638): EMA, i. 1, 37. 121 This opinion was first suggested by Lammens. See Creswell, EMA, i. 1, 43 (quoting Lammens, Ziād ibn Abīhi from his Études sur le siècle des Omayyades (Beirut: Imprimérie Catholique, 1930), iv, 27–163 (pp. 30–1). 122 Creswell, EMA, i. 1, 44–5. 119

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Saʿd and al-Balādhurī respectively,123 to have strewn the floor of the mosque with pebbles upon watching the congregation clapping their hands after each ṣalāh to get rid of the sand attached to them after prostration. It was feared that in the course of time later generations should misguidedly take this as an integral finale of the Muslim prayer.124 Pebbles, however, were—according to more authentic reports—used to replace sand since the time of the Prophet.125 The same also applies to the illumination of the mosque with oil lamps and the use of saffron to perfume the qibla wall (infra). Other ‘trivial’ facts to which the institution of the mosque is attributed include: the incidence of demarcating the mosque proper by arrow-shots;126 and the need to protect the bayt al-māl from burglary.127 Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, iii, 264; al-Balādhurī, Futūḥ al-buldān, eds. A. Anīs al-Ṭabbāʿ and U. Anīs al-Ṭabbāʿ (Beirut: Dār al-Nashr li-l-Jāmiʿiyyīn, 1957), pp. 389–90. 124 See Creswell, EMA, i. 1, 28, 45. 125 Muslim, no. 1219; Musnad al-imām Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, eds. ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAbd al-Muḥsin al-Turkī and others, 50 vols (Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Risāla, 1995–2001), v, 150; Abū Dāwūd, nos. 458–60. The Prophet is further reported to have prayed, albeit individually, on more comfortable floor coverings, such as busuṭ, ‘rugs’. See Abū Dāwūd, no. 333. 126 At Kūfa, the quadrangular layout of the mosque was marked out, at Saʿd’s command, by four arrow-shots at four right angles. Al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, iv, 44; al-Balādhurī, Futūḥ, p. 388; Yāqūt al-Ḥamawī, Muʿjam albuldān, 5 vols (Beirut: Dār Ṣādir, [1955–7] 1977), iv, 491. For practical reasons, nonetheless, this is seen by F. Shāfiʿī as a clear topos: ʿImāra ʿarabiyya, p. 239. 127 K. A. C. Creswell, A Short Account of Early Muslim Architecture (Beirut: Librairie du Liban, 1958; new impression 1968), p. 9. See also Grabar, Formation, p. 103. Also at Kūfa, when the State Treasury, that was set in the palace of the governor Saʿd b. Abī Waqqāṣ, was robbed, Saʿd sent a message to the caliph ʿUmar at Madina asking for his advice. The latter told him to shift the mosque so as to abut the State Treasury. As explained by ʿUmar, his vision was that the latter would be guarded by the people themselves who frequented the mosque day and night, ‘fa-inna l-il masjidi ahlan bi-llayli wa-l-nahār, wa-fī-him ḥiṣnun li-mālihim’. Al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, iv, 46. It should be noted, however, that the Islamic bayt al-māl had a pre123

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In his Formation of Islamic Art, Grabar credits the evolution of early mosques to ‘practical’ impulses. However, the very example he gives reveals the weakness of his argument.128 He sees ʿUthmān b. Maẓʿūn’s (d. ca. 3/625) treatment of the qibla with saffron paste (as a penance for mistakenly spitting on it), along with Ibn Rusta’s taking this as the first incidence of perfuming the qibla, as an example of how long-standing practices can spring from spontaneous occurrences. In fact, the one who covered the qibla wall with saffron, according to Ibn Rusta’s account,129 was not the narrator ʿUthmān—as misread by Grabar—but his wife, Khawla alSulamiyya, ‘fa-ʿamadat [not ʿamadtu] ilā l-qiblati fa-ghasalathā, thumma ʿamilat khalūqan (fa-)khallaqathā, fa-kānat awwala man khallaqa l-qibla.’130 The precedent of treating the position of a spit with saffron is, nevertheless, attributed by so many accounts, including a ḥadīth by ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿUmar (d. 74/693–4),131 to the Prophet himself.132 Ibn ʿUmar expressly states that saffron paste was henceforth prepared (ṣuniʿa) in mosques. The behaviour of ʿUthmān’s wife was

Islamic precedent; a similar structure is said to have existed in the court of Alexander the Great, for example. See Patricia Crone, Medieval Islamic Political Thought (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2005), p. 308. 128 Grabar, Formation, p. 103, nt. 129 This was formerly reported by ʿUmar b. Shabba. See al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ al-wafā bi-akhbār dār al-muṣṭafā, ed. M. Muḥyī ad-Dīn, 4 vols (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, [Cairo, 1955] 1984), ii, 660. 130 Ibn Rusta, al-Aʿlāq al-nafīsa wa-yalīhi Kitāb al-Buldān li-l-Yaʿqūbī (ed. M. J. De Goeje: Kitâb al-aʿlâḳ al-nafîsa… et Kitâb al-boldân; Leiden: Brill, 1891), p. 66. 131 See Abū Dāwūd, no. 479; Ibn Khuzayma, Ṣaḥīḥ, ed. M. Muṣṭafā al-Aʿẓamī, 4 vols (Beirut: al-Maktab al-Islāmī, 1980), no. 1295; al-Bayhaqī, al-Sunan al-kubrā, ed. M. ʿAbd al-Qādir ʿAṭā, 3rd edn, 11 vols (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 2003), no. 4310; A. J. Wensinck, A Handbook of Early Muhammadan Tradition: Alphabetically Arranged, (Leiden: Brill, 1960), p. 154. See also al-Bukhārī, nos. 405–17. 132 On these accounts, see al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, 659–61; al-Bayhaqī, nos. 4308–11.

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not, thus, ad-libbed but based on a Prophetic example and a number of ḥadīths that warn against spitting towards the qibla.133 The mosque outline and many of its constituent elements were prompted by a number of devotional essentials. The large number of ḥadīths on the obligatory nature of ṣalāh and the virtue of performing this ṣalāh in the mosque should have been the foremost grounds for erecting mosques and attending them, giving scope for their architectural evolution.134 The prerequisite of having the mosque oriented to the qibla is not a trivial matter, but emerged from the Qurʾān and ḥadīth directive to face the qibla during prayer. The same thing also applies to the restrictions on building mosques over the graves of the Muslim saints. Similarly, the need for a high platform for the muezzin is a result of the Qurʾānic and Prophetic command of adhān.135 Other formal rudiments that provided the context for the institution of the mosque and also dictated its shape included the obligation that the worshippers arrange themselves in straight parallel lines.136 Their need to listen to the khaṭīb, ‘orator’, and see the imām, ‘prayer leader’, to guarantee synchronization of prayer movements, puts more architectural emphasis on width than on depth. The worshippers’ keenness to gain the reward promised for those praying in the first line has further accentuated such a feature. Further, the above dismissive views are often marred by inconsonance. Paradoxical, or indeed contradictory, statements not only proceed from scholars who generally hold the same standpoint but also from the same scholar. Martin Briggs, for instance, The first instance of treating the qibla wall with saffron is attributed, according to Anas b. Mālik, to an anonymous Anṣārī woman whose conduct was well-regarded by the Prophet and thus taken as a matter of his sunna. See al-Nasāʾī, no. 729; Ibn Khuzayma, no. 1296. 134 See, for example, al-Bayhaqī, al-Jāmiʿ li-shuʿab al-īmān, ed. Mukhtār al-Nadawī, 14 vols (Riyadh: Maktabat al-Rushd, 2003), nos. 2567–703. 135 See Qurʾān 5. 58. For ḥadīths on adhān, see al-Bukhārī, nos. 603– 873. Creswell’s ‘trivial facts’ have been also contested by Johns: ‘House of the Prophet’, pp. 85–8. 136 Also, the Qurʾān (61. 4), praising the steadfastness of the faithful warriors on the battlefield, compares their lines to solid brickwork. 133

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began his book by saying: ‘It cannot be claimed that the date of Muhammad’s birth in Mecca, in AD 570, forms in itself a definite landmark in the history of art’.137 A few pages afterwards, Briggs explains how the architectural elements of a typical mosque evolved from features provided by the Prophet’s archetype at Madina (see Chapter 4).138 C. Becker, who also shares the opinions about the Prophet’s preference for simplicity, confusingly states that the latter, having become a great man receiving delegates, took the minbar to serve as his throne.139 But if the Prophet became so attached to pompousness, why did he continue—down to the last of his days as we shall see—to resist proposals to get his mosque (which also served as his councils of state) elaborated? An elaborate court is usually the most favourite holding of a ‘great man’. Finally, the reigning wisdom in modern scholarship, which also coincides with the Islamic traditional views, that the elaboration of mosques reflect only a later ‘liberal’ attitude goes counter to the fact that the earliest architectural innovations made to the mosque were commanded by patrons known for their adherence to the Prophet’s model rather than liberal attitudes. For example, the reconstruction of the Prophet’s mosque by ʿUthmān b. ʿAffān, the third caliph in Islam and one of the Prophet’s closest Companions, in 29/649–50 witnessed the first recorded use of dressed stones in mosque architecture. Another example is the works of the pious ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz who, while acting as al-Walīd b. ʿAbd alMalik’s governor at Madina, made massive changes to the Prophet’s mosque in 88–90/707–9. ʿUmar’s works included the introduction of some elements, such as the minaret, the concave prayer niche and the wooden maqṣūra, for the first time to the Prophet’s mosque and quite possibly in the history of mosque architecture.

Briggs, Muhammadan Architecture, p. 1. Ibid, pp. 21–2. 139 Carl H. Becker, ‘Die Kanzel im Kultus des alten Islam’, in Carl Bezold (ed.), Orientalische Studien Theodor Nöldeke zum siebzigsten Geburtstag 2 vols (Giessen: Töpelmann, 1906), i, pp. 331–51. 137 138

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1.4 QUESTIONS AND METHODOLOGY This study provides fresh evidence, supported by the Qurʾān, ḥadīth and early poetry, that the building put up by the Prophet was a real mosque and not just a private residence as believed by a majority of scholars in the West and a number of Muslim scholars as well (see Chapter 4). Such a finding, attesting to early Islam’s capacity to produce the mosque type as institutionally and architecturally defined, presents a different framework of inquiry and introduces a new perspective as far as the making of the mosque is concerned. Against this background, we need to know whether such an archetype was authoritative for the subsequent evolution of mosque design. A mosque founded and approved by the Prophet would constitute a religious context for the development of the mosque and give the considerable number of mosque-related ḥadīths more point and more reliability. The Prophet must have given advice and/or commands concerning the form of his mosque and the mosque in general. The first main question in this study is: to what extent could these two determinants—the Prophet’s mosque as a practical framework and his relevant ḥadīths as a theoretical one—be sufficient to deliver ‘a Prophetic model’ of the mosque? This, in turn, prompts a set of subsequent questions: to what extent can ḥadīth be reliable for architectural purposes? What features did such a model have? How did it relate to the cultural life of the time? Was it binding or only optional? How did it compare to the elaborateness of the Umayyad and ʿAbbāsid mosques? We need to know which element was predominant over the other: devotion or architecture. Islamic civilization is rightly celebrated for its assimilative capacity, and foreign influences on mosque architecture and decoration illustrate this capacity quite patently. Therefore, the second main question is: how far did the builders (i.e. patrons, architects, masons, etc.) of the early mosques adhere to a ‘Prophetic model’, should it exist, while also taking inspiration from the architectural types of other cultures? Other consequential questions include: Was it likely for such builders to be acquainted with ḥadīths that assign particular building methods for mosques? Would such knowledge influence the architecture of the mosques they built? How could we know? How can we use ḥadīth to look at the question of how Muslims perceived their sanctuaries? How were they to be used? How were they to be decorated? What facilities did they have to make them usable? What other purposes could have been

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served by frequent references to mosque fabric, location and layout, if these were not being influenced directly? What reasons were there for the elaboration of mosques in later milieus? Did mosques and their architectural forms influence ḥadīth literature in any way? In dealing with these and other related questions, this survey sets out to scrutinize two dominant tendencies regarding the mosque type: the modern Western views on its non-Islamic origins and the Islamic legalistic views on what it should look like. Of all the questions above, however, the two most urgent are: the one regarding the extent to which ḥadīths literally reflect the presumed view of the Prophet on the topic; and that on the feasibility of using the early Arabic accounts for the study of the earliest nonarchaeological mosques. Generally, both literary sources offer abundant material on the formation of the mosque type, and thus represent a clearly expedient context for investigation through looking, for example, into the possible implications for variations, omissions and contradictions in the related texts. Whenever applicable, particular attention, as well as weight, will be given to incidental evidence found scattered in the sources than to narratives of direct substance or those having the character of comparable literary constructs. This approach, which also harnesses other branches of knowledge such as etymology, philology, Qurʾānic exegesis, early poetry, urban and geomorphology, etc. is well represented in the imminent discussion on the nature of the Prophet’s building at Madina (Chapter 4), for which no archaeological evidence whatsoever is existing. As such, the way in which this copious, albeit clearly complicated, material is used is what really matters. The key issue here is to understand properly the sources under consideration and thus establish sensible boundaries of what can and cannot be inferred from them, bearing in mind that sometimes, it is simply futile, at the mildest, to try to evaluate the amount of actuality that a particular narrative would present. This situation, dictated by the deficiency of both the relevant archaeological evidence and the theories on the non-Islamic origins of the mosque, obliges us—or so it would seem—to dedicate a fairly considerable space of this book (i.e. two following chapters) to looking into each of these literary genres: the caveats related to using them, the issues they have and the chances they may offer. In view of these very considerations, however, two things need to be

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stated clearly here. First, this inquiry is positioned at the intersection between art, historiography, religious sciences and politics; it is not a typical monograph on architecture. As we shall see, it cuts across topics such as early Islam’s outlook on visual arts and aesthetics in general. Second, this study is based on the thinking (already held by a growing number of modern Western specialists) that ḥadīth, while not methodically committed to writing from the outset, contains a genuine core that could be reached through careful scrutiny and thoughtful analysis. Those convinced that it does not may find it difficult to follow our attempt to use this material to draw conclusions about the practices and thoughts of the Prophet and the first Muslim community. Ḥadīth has already been considered, albeit to a limited extent, by a number of modern art historians (particularly in the debate concerning the nature of the Prophet’s building), but this is the first monograph to use it quite extensively in connection with mosque architecture, and Chapter 3 is to explain why we think it can be used in this way. However, for those not needing to concern themselves with ḥadīth historiographical issues, it would be sufficient to read the conclusion of that chapter to know our standpoint in this regard.

CHAPTER 2. SOURCES FOR THE STUDY OF EARLY MOSQUES 2.1 INTRODUCTION The study of the earliest mosques is essential for understanding the history and development of the mosque type and, more generally, the evolution of the Muslim community. This is difficult, however, owing to the problematic nature, sometimes total absence, of archaeological evidence: some of these earliest mosques were made of ephemeral materials and most of them were repeatedly altered or utterly superseded by more spacious ones to accommodate the continually escalating numbers of congregants. Archaeological evidence for those built before 40/660 is not yet available. That being so, the study, analysis, and reconstruction of such crucial, albeit missing, structures rely heavily on Arabic literary sources, whose disputed reliability represents yet another challenge for researchers.1 This chapter is an attempt to analyse such sources,2 with the aim of identifying the extent to which they can be considered to produce a picture of the historical mosques—especially where archaeological evidence is scanty, awkward to interpret, or totally lacking—in which we can have some confidence. These early AraOn the historiographical issues of the early Arabic sources, see, for example, Stephen Humphreys, Islamic History: A Framework for Inquiry, rev. edn (London and New York: I. B. Tauris, 1991); Albrecht Noth and Lawrence I. Conrad, The Early Arabic Historical Tradition: A Source-Critical Study, 2nd edn (Princeton: Darwin Press, 1994). 2 Particular attention will be given to those on the mosque of Madina. 1

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bic writings will also be our main source to investigate whether and how the clients of early mosques reacted to the Prophet’s relevant tradition.

2.2 ARABIC LITERARY SOURCES Apart from the ‘mosque’ of the Prophet at Madina, nonarchaeological mosques, in particular, were in most cases either dealt with cursorily or completely overlooked by the earliest scholarship on Islamic art and architecture.3 In 1932, however, K. A. C. Creswell studied many of these mosques in volume I of his Early Muslim Architecture, his main source being the medieval Arabic accounts. Also, based on the latter as well as on the findings of the then-recent archaeological excavations, Creswell put forward hypothetical plans for the later reconstructions of these mosques.4 Although Creswell’s attempts were not the first or the most accurate, they were, and largely remain, the most acknowledged ones in the circles of Islamic archaeology and art history.5 Creswell’s reconstruction of the Prophet’s mosque, in particular, and the sources on which it was based were critically examined by M. Akkouche who

For a detailed discussion of the Arabic literary sources on the early non-archaeological mosques, See Essam S. Ayyad, ‘An Historiographical Analysis of the Arabic Accounts of Early Mosques: With Special Reference to Those at Madina, Baṣra and Kūfa’, Journal of Islamic Studies, 30 (2019), 1–33. 3 The works of such pioneers as H. Saladin and E. Richmond typify the start of this dismissive attitude. See Henri Saladin, ‘Muhammadan Architecture’ in James Hastings (ed.), Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, 13 vols (Edinburgh: T. Clark, 1908–26), i, 745–57; Richmond, Moslem Architecture. However, some of the earliest mosques were dealt with, albeit not thoroughly, by Rivoira in his Moslem Architecture. 4 The first edition of volume I of Creswell’s book was published in Oxford in 1932. 5 A good example of earlier endeavours is Guy Le Strange, Palestine under the Moslems: A Description of Syria and the Holy Land from A.D. 650 to 1500 (London: Alexander Watt, 1890). For more successful attempts than those of Creswell, see Fikrī, Madkhal, pp. 182–227; F. Shāfiʿī, Imāra ʿarabiyya, pp. 65–71, 242.

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produced a more practical reconstruction of the mosque (see Chapter 4).6 Jeremy Johns criticizes the fact that Akkouche’s telling criticisms ‘continue to be dismissed, in Sauvaget’s words as “le point de vue musulman traditional”’.7 Some of the earliest non-archaeological mosques were also dealt with in later works, including monographs on the earliest Islamic towns.8 As seen by many of today’s specialists, however, the studies by Creswell, Sauvaget et alii present an acceptable perception of the earliest mosques.9 Robert Hillenbrand, for example, refers to the latter as having ‘been convincingly analysed on the basis of the copious literary sources’.10 Likewise, Jeremy Johns, whose writings generally show conspicuous scepticism towards the sources,11 wonders how the many concise reports, which we have of the erection of dozens of the first/seventh-century jawāmiʿ, have See M. Akkouche, ‘Contribution une étude des origines de l’architecture musulmane, La Grande Mosquée de Médine: al-Ḥaram alMadanī’, Mélanges Maspéro (Cairo: Imprimerie de l’institut français d’archéologie oriental, 1935; Mélanges Maspero, v. 3; offprint Mémoires de l’institut français, t. 68), 377–410 7 Johns, ‘House of the Prophet’, p. 75; Sauvaget, La Mosquée omeyyade de Médine, p. 7, nt. 2. 8 See Hichem Djaït, Al-Kufa, naissance de la ville islamique (Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose, 1986); W. B. Kubiak, Al-Fustat: Its Foundation and Early Urban Development (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 1987). See also K. al-Janābī, Masjid al-Kūfa: takhṭīṭuh wa-ʿumrānuh khāṣṣatan fī al-ʿaṣr al-umawī (Baghdad: Dār al-Jumhūriyya, 1966). 9 Recently, however, the reconstructions proposed by Creswell and others have been refuted by T. Antun, who refers to such attempts as ‘functionalist’—not on the basis that more convincing reconstructions can be generated, but because the endeavour itself is judged unwise (at the mildest). See Thallein Antun, The Architectural Form of the Mosque in the Central Arab Lands, from the Hijra to the End of the Umayyad Period, 1/622– 133/750 (Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, 2016). 10 Hillenbrand, Islamic Architecture, p. 38. 11 See Johns, ‘House of the Prophet’, pp. 71–109; id., ‘Archaeology and the Early History of Islam: The First Seventy Years’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 46 (2003), 411–36. 6

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never been methodically gathered. A workable, as well as unique, example he sees in this regard is B. Finster’s cataloguing of Iran’s early non-archaeological mosques.12 That being said, the vast stretch of time that separates the dates of such first/seventh-century mosques and those of our earliest sources for them (charts 1 & 2) overshadows, as it usually does, the extent to which we can trust and build arguments on the latter. It is, of course, safer to use these sources for an understanding of how their authors, and the communities in which they lived, looked back at the earliest mosques while inspired by those of their own day,13 especially that such sources contain a lot of topoi as well as anecdotal detail and show biases of various sorts.14 It is true that medieval Arabic accounts have been used extensively by scholars of Islamic art and architecture, but this is presumably due to the B. Finster, Frühe Iranische Moscheen: Vom Beginn des Islam bis zur Zeit Salǧūqischer Herrschaft (Berlin: Reimer, 1994). As seen by Johns, Finster’s endeavour ‘demonstrates how useful this approach could be for the study of the development of the mosque throughout the early Islamic world’. Johns, ‘House of the Prophet’, nt. 15. 13 For similar perceptions, see Humphreys, Islamic History, pp. 69–70; Johns, ‘Archaeology’, pp. 412–4. Two recent studies of memory and history in an early Islamic context are Sarah Savant, The New Muslims of PostConquest Iran: Tradition, Memory, and Conversion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013); and Antoine Borrut, ‘Remembering Karbalāʾ: The Construction of an Early Islamic Site of Memory’, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam, 42 (2015), 249–82. 14 Recently, both Görke and Schoeler have tried to find an exit strategy from this cul-de-sac by breathing some confidence into the material we have on the biography of the Prophet in particular. See Andreas Görke and Gregor Schoeler, Die ältesten Berichte über das Leben Muḥammads: Das Korpus ʿUrwa ibn az-Zubair (Princeton: The Darwin Press, 2008). Compare this with Stephen J. Shoemaker, ‘In Search of ʿUrwa’s Sīra: Some Methodological Issues in the Quest for ‘Authenticity’ in the Life of Muḥammad’, Der Islam, 85 (2011), 257–344; and the response to that by Andreas Görke, Harald Motzki and Gregor Schoeler, ‘First Century Sources for the Life of Muḥammad? A Debate’, Der Islam, 89 (2012), 2– 59. 12

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absence/paucity of other types of evidence much more than to the established admissibility of such sources. It is noteworthy that the narrative given by the classical Arabic sources of some of the earliest mosques, particularly that of Madina, was doubted by Creswell himself and before him by Leone Caetani.15 Against this background, a careful appraisal of such accounts seems imperative, but this is not easy or safe. Nor is it achievable in all cases. The debate on the reliability of the classical Arabic sources began as early as the second half of the nineteenth century. The writings of, among others, M. J. de Goeje16 and Julius Wellhausen,17 reflected clearly sceptical views towards the ‘historicity’ of the Arabic sources. According to others, such sources are quite adequate for good historical impression, and their relatively late date does not inevitably make them fictitious. However, scholars of the latter group did not usually mount a solemn defence of their position, mainly due to their poor grasp of the historiographical tradition and how it evolved.18 In the face of rising criticism, however, some of the Western vanguard attempted to understand how the sources we have in our libraries today came to have the form they do. It was in this context that Carl Becker,19 Josef Horovitz20 and Johann

15

See Creswell, EMA, i. 1, 6–10; Caetani, Annali, i, 437–8, 447–60;

iii, 965. 16

See M. J. de Goeje, Mèmoire sur la conquête de la Syrie (Leiden: Brill,

1864). For example, see Julius Wellhausen (ed.), ‘Prolegomena Zur Ältesten Geschichte Des Islams’, in Skizzen und Vorarbeiten (Berlin: Reimer, 1899), vi, 1–160. 18 See Fred M. Donner’s introduction to Lawrence Conrad’s translation of ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz Dūrī’s The Rise of Historical Writing among the Arabs (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), pp. vii, x–xi. 19 Carl. H. Becker, Papyri Schott- Reinhardt I (Heidelberg: C. Winter, 1906). 20 Josef Horovitz, ‘Alter und Ursprung des Isnād’, Der Islam, 8 (1918), 39–47. 17

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Fϋck,21 for instance, examined the interrelations of the early generations of Arab historians. In spite of their clear significance, the first exclusively historiographical studies, such as David Margoliouth’s Lectures on Arabic Historians, had only very nebulous and broad-spectrum views about the development of the tradition.22 It was not until 1938, when H. Gibb had his ‘Taʾrīkh’ published in the supplement to The Encyclopaedia of Islam, that a new and a more progressive departure was made.23 It might have been this article of Gibb that stimulated Franz Rosenthal to write his A History of Muslim Historiography.24 Rosenthal’s book offered a clearly fuller understanding of the origins of Arabic historiography than did Gibb’s concise feature. The Western scrutiny provoked some modern Arabic academics too to deal more scrupulously with their sources.25 This is not to say, nevertheless, that none of the medieval Arabic historians had developed critical approaches towards the older sources: the critiques of Ibn Khaldūn and al-Sakhāwī (d. 902/1497), for example, already showed remarkable heedfulness to the historiographical problems with the reports of earlier informants.26 Johann Fϋck, Muḥammad ibn Isḥâq: literarhistorische Untersuchungen (PhD diss., Goethe University; Frankfurt am Main, 1925). 22 D. S. Margoliouth, Lectures on Arabic Historians (Calcutta: University of Calcutta, 1930; repr. New York, 1972). 23 H. A. R. Gibb, ‘Taʾrīkh’, in The Encyclopaedia of Islam: Supplement to First Edition (Leiden: Brill, 1938), pp. 233 ff. See also Gibb, Mohammedanism: An History Survey (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1949). 24 Franz Rosenthal, A History of Muslim Historiography (Leiden: Brill, 1952). 25 See, for example: A. Ḥajjī, Naẓariyyāt fī dirāsat al-tārīkh al-Islāmī, rev. 3rd edn (Beirut: Maktabat al-Ṣafwa, 1979); A. Khiḍr, al-Muslimūn wakitābat al-tārīkh: dirāsa fī al-taʾṣīl al-Islāmī li- ʿilm al-tārīkh, 2nd edn (Herndon: al-Maʿhad al-ʿĀlamī li-l-Fikr al-Islāmī, 1995); A. Diyāb, Taḥqīq al-turāth alʿArabī: manhajuh wa-taṭawwuruh (Cairo: Dār al-Maʿārif, 1993); R. A. Tawwāb, Manāhij taḥqīq al-turāth bayna al-qudāma wa-l-muḥdathīn (Cairo: Maktabat al-Khānjī, 1985). 26 Ibn Khaldūn, The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History, transl. F. Rosenthal, ed. N. J. Dawood, with new introduction by Bruce B. Law21

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Among the many revisionists who reacted against early Western scepticism, two seem to have had the most significant impact: Nabia Abbott, who, relying on a range of evidence including Umayyad papyri fragments, argues a scheme of early unbroken written tradition;27 and Fuat Sezgin who has made an outstanding contribution with regard to the cataloguing of early texts.28 The works of these two intellectuals, in addition to ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz alDūrī’s Baḥth fī nashʾat ʿilm al-taʾrīkh ʿinda l-ʿArab (translated by Lawrence I. Conrad as The Rise of Historical Writing among the Arabs), have answered many of the earlier queries about the evolution of the Arabic tradition. In his introduction to the latter work, Fred M. Donner argues: The relatively late date of the sources does not necessarily make them fraudulent, of course, and it became generally accepted by modern historians that some of the information in these sources—perhaps most of it—is considerably older material that was preserved and transmitted until it found its way into the library compilations now available to us.29

While this statement by Donner could still be disputed by those representing the sceptical tendency, it becomes quite clear that most of the debate has now come to be centred on how far we can use the sources efficiently. Stephen Humphreys, for instance, states: Islamists like to complain about the state of their sources, but in fact what they have is extraordinarily rich and varied, far

rence (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005); al-Sakhāwī, al-Iʿlān bil-tawbīkh li-man dhamma ahl al-tārīkh, ed. F. Rosenthal (Damascus: al-Qudsī, 1930). 27 Nabia Abbott, Studies in Arabic Literary Papyri, 3 vols (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957–72). 28 Fuat Sezgin, Geschichte des Arabischen Schrifttums, transl. Fahmī Ḥijāzī as: Taʾrīkh al-turāth al-ʿarabī, 10 vols (Ryadh: Idārat al-Thaqāfa wa-lNashr, 1983–1991). 29 Fred M. Doner’s introduction to Dūrī’s Rise of Historical Writing, p. viii.

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THE MAKING OF THE MOSQUE surpassing the miserable fragments which challenge the student of the late Roman Empire or early medieval Europe. The real problem is to use this patrimony effectively. To a large degree that is a matter of asking good questions, but good questions in turn depend on understanding the character of one’s sources.30

In our case, we need to know how a given author acquired his31 knowledge on a specific mosque. Did he himself witness the foundation of that mosque? Did he see it in later times? If the answer to both questions is no, how did he know about its history and/or form? What sources did the author consider? How did he use them? Also, such issues as the author’s general expertise, methodology, competence in description, and familiarity with ‘archaeological’ investigation as well as terminology should be taken into consideration. It is also important to try to find out how the author was seen by contemporary and later scholars. It is no less important to try to investigate the way the mosque-related material was constructed, presented and used, i.e. to contextualize the source material, where authors and their writings are related to their varying intellectual environment. For example, heed should be paid to such matters as the authors’ religious views, sectarian affiliation, socio-political tendencies and/or agendas, and association with authorities of various types. It should be noted, however, that the plausibility of the answers we may produce for the above queries are always dependent on the nature of the existing documentary evidence. For example, to try to explore the reliability of the earliest providers of knowledge, we are forced—on the face of it—to follow the only path available to us, i.e. to look through the eyes of the early and medieval Arabic critics. Almost each of our earlier informants has in the sources two different capacities: one as muḥaddith (ḥadīth transmitter), and another as akhbārī (chronicler). Assessment usually comes from prestigious historians and ḥadīth scholars. The views Humphreys, Islamic History, p. 25. This pronoun is used here because all but a very few of our sources for early mosques are males. 30 31

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of the latter, however, are more heard of and more substantial. Generally, most of the earlier informants are criticized as ḥadīth transmitters and praised as akhbārīs. Sometimes, the two divergent appraisals flow from the same critic. So, such expressions as: ‘but as an akhbārī, he […]’ and ‘his akhbār, on the other hand, are […]’ are common in the literature. The standards of assessment maintained by ḥadīth scholars are traditionally conceived as being quite rigorous, mainly because of the belief that the material they tackled carried more religious than historical import.32 For that reason, they, unlike historians, developed a distinct genre of biographical evaluation (ʿilm al-jarḥ wa-ltaʿdīl, otherwise known as ʿilm al-rijāl).33 In this context, the technique of isnād, ‘a careful examination of the chain of transmitters’, was employed and as time went on developed into the only accepted currency in the circles of ḥadīth specialists (see Chapter 3). Paradoxically, however, this drove some of the early scholars to prefer specializing in history than in ḥadīth. For example, it is reported through al-Aṣmaʿī (d. ca. 213/828) that when ʿAwāna b. al-Ḥakam (d. ca. 158/775) was asked to whom two verses of poem he had recited are referred, he angrily replied: ‘I have abandoned [the transmission of] ḥadīth because of my dislike of isnād (bughḍan minnī li-l-isnād), but I see you do not exempt me from it with poetry’.34 While isnād was used by historians, particularly at Makka and Madina, down to the time of al-Ṭabarī (d. 310/923),35 some, such as alYaʿqūbī (d. ca. 292/905) and al-Masʿūdī (d. 346/957), chose to free W. al-Qāḍī, ‘Biographical Dictionaries as the Scholars’ Alternative History of the Muslim Community’, in Gerhard Endress (ed.), Organizing Knowledge: Encyclopaedic Activities in the Pre-Eighteenth Century Islamic World (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 23–76; Harald Motzki, Nicolet Boekhoff-van der Voort and Sean W. Anthony, Analysing Muslim Traditions: Studies in Legal, Exegetical and Maghāzī Ḥadīth (Leiden: Brill, 2010), p. 449. 33 On ʿilm al-rijāl, see Iftikhar Zaman, ‘The Science of Rijāl as a Method in the Study of Ḥadīths’, Journal of Islamic Studies, 5 (1994), 1–34. 34 Yāqūt al-Ḥamawī, Muʿjam al-udabāʾ: irshād al- arīb ilā maʿrifat al-adīb, ed. Iḥsān ʿAbbās, 7 vols (Beirut: Dār al-Gharb al-Islāmī, 1993), v, 2135. 35 Al-Sayyid ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz Sālim, al-Tarīkh wa-l-muʿarrikhūn al-ʿarab, (Beirut: Dār al-Nahḍa al-ʿArabiyya, 1981). pp. 53, 75. 32

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themselves from it.36 Conversely, the excessive reliance on isnād by other historians led some of them to transmit many unrealistic reports, as remarked by Ibn Khaldūn, on the grounds that they already mentioned their isnāds.37 The same practice was also criticized by Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ (d. 643/1245).38 This overlapping between ḥadīth and Islamic history is understandable. The earliest forms of the latter were mainly founded on reports on the Prophet’s biography, alongside other historical material, such as tribal memory, genealogy, recollections of the conquests and the influence of the Syriac historical tradition. The early Muslim historians from Ibn Isḥāq (d. ca. 151/768) to Ibn Saʿd and al-Ṭabarī depended considerably on the material collected by earlier informants of ḥadīth, such as ʿUrwa b. al-Zubayr (d. 94/712) and Ibn Shihāb al-Zuhrī (d. 124/741–2).39 Sometimes, the works of later historians, such as Ibn Sayyid al-Nās (d. 734/1334) and Ibn Kathīr (d. 774/1373), cite reports by ʿUrwa et alii that are not included in the works of earlier historians.40 In what follows, we will try to keep the above source-criticism concerns in mind in the course of our discussion of the literary sources on the Prophet’s mosque at Madina, as an example of early M. ʿAbd al-Ghanī Ḥasan, ʿIlm al-taʾrīkh ʿinda al-ʿarab (Cairo: Muʾassasat al-Maṭbūʿāt al-Ḥadītha, 1961), p. 162. 37 For Ibn Khaldūn’s critique of early Arabic writings, see Muqaddima, i, 92–7. 38 Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ, ʿUlūm al-ḥadīth (Muqaddimat Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ), ed. Nūr alDīn al-ʿItr (Damascus: Dār al-Fikr, 1986), pp. 14–7. See also Gregor Schoeler, The Genesis of Literature in Islam: From the Aural to the Read, transl. Shawkat M. Toorawa (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press; rev. edn 2009), p. 124. 39 On the roles of ʿUrwa and al-Zuhrī in preserving ḥadīth and ṣīra, see Schoeler, Genesis, pp. 41–50; Dūrī, Rise of Historical Writing, pp. 25–30, 76–121; Tarif Khalidi, Arabic Historical Thought in the Classical Period (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994; repr. 1995 and 1996), 30–4; Sezgin, Geschichte (Ḥijāzī’s transl.), ii, 65–86 (esp. 70–1, 74–9). See also J. M. B. Jones, ‘Ibn Isḥāḳ’, EI2 (1971), iii, 810–1; J. W. Fück, ‘Ibn Saʿd’, EI2 (1971), iii, 922–3. 40 Dūrī, Rise of Historical Writing, pp. 7–8. 36

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non-archaeological mosques. While we must begin by unravelling the complexities related to dating and transmission, the main objective remains to identify how and by whom our information on these missing mosques came down to us. 2.2.1 Sources on the mosque of Madina Like other early non-archaeological mosques, attempts to reconstruct the mosque of the Prophet in his time have been based heavily on literary evidence; the original structure was overwritten by many later rebuildings. In addition, the whole area is now occupied by the vast, and exceptionally sacred, present mosque and thus denies to archaeology which is, over and above, not allowed so far.41 Fortunately, however, and due to its outstanding pre-eminence and supreme authority, the Prophet’s mosque at Madina is celebrated through a large number of writings by traditionists, historians, biographers, geographers, jurists, travellers and pilgrims. Many of these accounts include anecdotal and hagiographic detail, but the copiousness of this material permits some weighing up of its dependability. It may also add to our optimism that the later designers and builders of the mosque were reputedly keen to place any new architectural element in the same position as its predecessor. According to Sauvaget, whenever the mosque was to be renewed or expanded, there was always a desire to retain the old form.42 This tradition can, according to al-Samhūdī, be traced back to the time of ʿUthmān b. ʿAffān, the first to use stone for the mosque (see Chapter 7). On the authority of Khārija b. Zayd,43 in the time of ʿUthmān the task of positioning the new stone columns, in the same place where the old trunks of palm-trees were standing, was assigned to the former’s father Zayd b. Thābit, the Prophet’s per-

See Johns, ‘Archaeology’, p. 433. Sauvaget, La Mosquée Omeyyade de Médine, pp. 117–8, 120. See also Fikrī, Madkhal, p. 187. 43 Khārija (d. 99–100/717–718), the son of Zayd b. Thābit, was one of the seven (or ten) chief faqīhs of Madīna. See Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, vii, 158–9; Ibn Khallikān, Wafayāt al-aʿyān wa-anbāʾ abnāʾ al-zamān, ed. Iḥsān ʿAbbās, 8 vols (Beirut: Dār Ṣādir, 1968–72), ii, 223. 41 42

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sonal scribe who had been fostered at the adjacent house of the Prophet and under his custody.44 In addition to classical ḥadīth collections, the earliest extant books to deal with the mosque of the Prophet include: al-Ṭabaqāt al-kabīr by Ibn Saʿd,45 and al-Aʿlāq al-nafīsa by Ibn Rusta (d. ca. 300/912).46 Of all the different genres of writing, the works of local chroniclers and topographers provide the richest and the most usable information on the mosque of the Prophet throughout its long and eventful history.47 From the first six centuries, however, only two books on Madina and its mosque have survived: Akhbār alMadīna by ʿUmar b. Shabba (d. 262/876)48 and al-Manāsik by Ibrāhīm b. Isḥāq al-Ḥarbī (d. 285/898).49 A single manuscript of each, that of the former incomplete,50 has been found and published. Our knowledge of Madina and its mosque in the time of the Prophet and afterwards is mainly based on later local histories, such as: al-Durra al-thamīna fī tārīkh al-Madīna by Ibn al-Najjār (d. 643/1245),51 Bahjat al-nufūs wa-l-asrār fī tārīkh dār hijrat al-Nabī almukhtār by al-Marjānī (8th/14th century),52 al-Taʿrīf bi-mā ansat al-

Al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, 505. Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, i, 205–21. 46 Ibn Rusta, Aʿlāq, pp. 64–78. 47 For a recent discussion of early Islamic Madina and its local historians, see Harry Munt, The Holy City of Medina: Sacred Space in Early Islamic Arabia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014). 48 Ibn Shabba, Kitāb Akhbār al-Madīna al-Nabawiyya, ed. ʿAbd Allah b. Muḥammad al-Duwaysh, 4 vols (Buraydah, Saudi Arabia: Dār al-ʿAliyyān, 1990). 49 Ibn Isḥāq al-Ḥarbī, Kitāb al-Manāsik wa-amākin ṭuruq al-ḥajj wamaʿālim al-Jazīra, ed. Ḥamad al-Jāsir, (Riyadh: Dār al-Yamāma, 1969). 50 It is this incomplete manuscript that, as discussed below, is quoted by al-Samhūdī. 51 Ibn al-Najjār, al-Durra al-thamīna fī tārīkh al-Madīna, ed. M. Z. ʿAzab (Cairo: Maktabat al-Thaqāfa, 1981). 52 Al-Marjānī, Bahjat al-nufūs wa-l-asrār fī tārīkh dār Hijrat al-Nabī alMukhtār (ms. held in Maktabat al-Ḥaram al-Makkī, Makka, no. 13, Tārīkh). 44 45

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hijra min maʿālim dār al-hijra by al-Maṭarī (d. 741/1340),53 Taḥqīq alnuṣra bi-talkhīṣ maʿālim dār al-hijra by al-Marāghī (d. 816/1413)54 and al-Tuḥfa al-laṭīfa fī tārīkh al-Madīna al-sharīfa by al-Sakhāwī.55 However, Wafāʾ al-wafa bi-akhbār dār al-Muṣṭafā by al-Samhūdī (d. 911/1505), as is well known, is certainly our most significant source.56 Al-Samhūdī’s book provides invaluable and detailed contextual information on the city, its history, ancient boundaries, topography, urban aspects, landmarks and most relevantly congregational mosque. The significance of al-Samhūdī’s work does not lie only in his harvesting of older histories whose originals no longer exist, but also in the interestingly analytical treatment he applies to them. As M. Lecker states, ‘al-Samhūdī is an outstanding scholar; he not only quotes his predecessors, but often also adds his own illuminating observations and critical remarks.’57 His book is described by H. Gibb as ‘a work of extraordinary erudition’.58 Al-Samhūdī et alii heavily quoted two earlier sources: Akhbār al-Madīna by Ibn Zabāla (d. post 199/814) and another bearing the same title by Yaḥyā al-ʿAqīqī (277/890) neither of which is extant today. The book of Ibn Zabāla, however, is definitely more substantial than that of Yaḥyā, who indeed took many of his accounts from Ibn Zabāla.59 Yaḥyā quoted one account from each of over Al-Maṭarī, al-Taʿrīf bi-mā ansat al-hijra min maʿālim dār al-Hijra, ed. Sulaymān al-Raḥīlī (Riyadh: Dārat al-Malik ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, 2005). 54 Al-Marāghī, Taḥqīq al-nuṣra bi-talkhīṣ maʿālim dār al-Hijra, ed. M. alAṣmaʿī (Medina: al-Maktaba al-ʿIlmiyya, 1955). 55 Al-Sakhāwī, al-Tuḥfa al-laṭīfa fī tārīkh al-Madīna al-sharīfa, 3 vols (Cairo: Asʿad Ṭarabzūnī al-Ḥusaynī, 1979). 56 On al-Samhūdī and his work, see Ḥamad al-Jāsir, Rasāʾil fī tārīkh al-Madīna (Riyadh: Dār al-Yamāma, 1972); Harry Munt, ‘Mamluk Historiography Outside of Egypt and Syria: ʿAlī b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Samhūdī and his Histories of Medina’, Der Islam, 92 (2015), 413–41. 57 See Lecker, Muslims, Jews, and Pagans, p. xii. 58 Hamilton Gibb, ‘Arab-Byzantine Relations under the Umayyad Caliphate’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 12 (1958), 219–33 (pp. 228–9). 59 On Ibn Zabāla and his work, see Ibn al-Nadīm, al-Fihrist, ed. Riḍā Tajaddud, 10 vols (Tehran: Marvi Offset Printing, 10 parts in 1, 197?), iii, 121; Rosenthal, History, p. 475, n.6; Sezgin, Geschichte (Ḥijāzī’s transl.), ii, 53

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eighty informants, whereas he quoted Ibn Zabāla much more extensively. This means that most of our information on the Prophet’s mosque is owed to Ibn Zabāla, who was truly Madina’s first local chronicler.60 The great impact of Ibn Zabāla is quite evident from the fact that al-Samhūdī alone cited him in more than six hundred reports. Even the structure and methodology of the latter’s book could largely be derived from the former’s. According to Fuat Sezgin, the missing work of Ibn Zabāla was known to alSakhāwī who described it as a huge volume.61 Ibn Zabāla’s Akhbār al-Madīna was the main source, not only for the above post-six-century works, but also for the third/ninthcentury writings and oral transmissions on the city and its mosque (infra). This heavy reliance on Ibn Zabāla is properly rationalized by Sauvaget as follows: This work is for us of capital importance. Its interest lies (1) in the personality of the author, a disciple of the great Medinian doctor Mālik b. Anas […] Ibn Zabāla was in a position to assemble on the spot, in the best conditions for both transmission and criticism, the local tradition relating to the ancient history of the Mosque [of Madina]; (2) in his date. This gives us the assurance that the evidence of contemporaries could have been noted down without an excessive number of intermediaries […].62

201–2; Harry Munt, ‘Writing the History of an Arabian Holy City: Ibn Zabāla and the First Local History of Medina’, Arabica, 59 (2012), 1–34. 60 Ibn Zabāla’s monograph on Madina is only predated by al-Ḥujja ʿalā ahl al-Madīna by Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan al-Shaybānī (d. 189/805), which fortunately reached us. The former, however, remains the first to deal with the Prophet’s mosque, and the other significant landmarks of the city, as the book of al-Shaybānī is mainly a comparative study of Madinan and other (especially Iraqi) old schools of jurisprudence. 61 Sezgin, Geschichte (Ḥijāzī’s transl.), ii, 201–2; Rosenthal, ʿIlm altārikh ʿinda-l-muslimīn, transl. Ṣāliḥ al-ʿAlī, 2nd edn (Beirut: Muʾassasat alRisāla, 1983), p. 642; C. E. Bosworth, ‘al-Samhūdī’, EI2 (1995), viii, 1043. 62 Sauvaget, Mosquée Omeyyade de Médine, p. 26, as translated by H. Gibb: ‘Arab-Byzantine Relations’, p. 228).

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In addition to Mālik b. Anas (d. 179/795), Ibn Zabāla took knowledge from quite a number of Madinan authorities—many of whom were also sources for Ibn Isḥāq and al-Wāqidī (d. 207/822) as well as for early ḥadīth scholars.63 Luckily, Ibn Zabāla usually mentions his sources. He quoted more than one hundred informants—of whom only few were cited more than once. Most of his reports on Madina in his own day, however, are credited to nobody, as he preferred to depend on his own observation. That said, early scholars, while trusting and copiously citing Ibn Zabāla’s historical information, were mostly reluctant to accept the ḥadīths he transmitted.64 In all cases, however, most of the ḥadīths he reports in his Akhbār al-Madīna are indeed found, just in the same words, in the third/ninth century ḥadīth compilations. Al-Samhūdī, while referring to the negative views on Ibn Zabāla’s credibility as a ḥadīth narrator, defends the authenticity of his accounts on Madina, underscoring that such accounts were quoted with no comment whatsoever by a more acknowledged scholar in the circles of ḥadīth specialists, i.e. Yaḥyā al-ʿAqīqī.65 Ibn Zabāla was seemingly a permanent and proud resident of Madina.66 Generally, his style is simple and clear, not over-adorned or convoluted, and shows no political or sectarian biases.67 Ibn Zabāla’s work on Madina was preceded only by the oral akhbār of ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. ʿImrān al-Zuhrī (alias, Ibn Abī Thābit alAʿraj, d. 197/813) that were transmitted, seemingly orally still, by some of his disciples such as: Abū Ghassān al-Kinānī (d. post 190/806),ʿAlī b. Muḥammad al-Madāʾinī (d. ?225/840), Ibrāhīm alSee al-Mizzī, Tahdhīb al-kamāl fī asmāʾ al-rijāl, ed. Bashshār ʿAwwād Maʿrūf, 35 vols (Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Risāla, 1980–92), xxv, 60–7. 64 Ibid; al-Dhahabī, Mīzān al-iʿtidāl fī naqd al-rijāl, ed. ʿAlī M. alBajāwī, 4 vols (Beirut: Dār al-Maʿrifa, 1963 [?]), iii, 514; Ibn Abī Ḥātim alRāzī, Kitāb al-jarḥ wa-l-taʿdīl, ed. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Muʿallamī, 9 vols (Hyderabad: Dāʾirat al-Maʿārif al-ʿUthmāniyya, 1952), iii, 308. 65 Al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, i, 352; Abbott, Arabic Literary Papyri, i, 108. 66 See Munt, ‘Writing the History’, 11–13, 26, n. 121, and the references therein. 67 See Ṣāliḥ al-ʿAlī, ‘al-Muʾallafāt al-ʿarabiyya ʿan al-Madīna wa-lḤijāz’, Majallat al-Majmaʿ al-ʿIlmī al-ʿIrāqī, 11 (1964), 118–57 (pp. 128–9). 63

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Ḥizāmī (d. 236/850), Abū Muṣʿab al-Zuhrī (d. 242/856) and Abū Ḥudhāfa al-Sahmī (d. 259/873). Some statements in Ibn Shabba’s Akhbār al-Madīna, nonetheless, imply that the knowledge of ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. ʿImrān was once committed to writing: ‘ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz’s inaccuracies were frequent, because he had burned his books, and thus depended only on his memory’.68 It is noteworthy that while scholars looked with suspicion at ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. ʿImrān’s ḥadīth, they usually accepted his historical akhbār; he was primarily celebrated for his ample knowledge of Madina’s history.69 His above students, on the other hand, were all seen by ḥadīth critics as highly trustworthy. This created a context in which ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. ʿImrān’s annals were carefully sifted by his students, particularly Abū Ḥudhāfa al-Sahmī.70 The knowledge they took from him was more assuredly transcribed by later Madinan akhbārīs. For example, the reports conveyed through Ibrāhīm al-Ḥizāmī and Abū Muṣʿab al-Zuhrī were recorded by the notable early historian, genealogist and qāḍī al-Zubayr b. Bakkār (d. 256/870) in his Akhbār al-Madīna (now missing),71 while those transmitted by al-Kinānī were documented in Akhbār al-Madīna by Ibn Shabba.

Ibn Shabba, Tārīkh al-Madina al-munawwara, ed. Fahīm M. Shaltūt, 4 vols (Makka: H. M. Aḥmad, 1979), i, 123. It is noteworthy that the editor, Shaltūt, has given Ibn Shabba’s book a wrong title, Tārīkh al-Madina, while most sources refer to it as Akhbār al-Madīna (and this how I will refer to it hereafter). Robinson calls attention to that the main reason for some of those having willingly torched their writings was their concern that later people might be led astray by the mistakes they included. Chase F. Robinson, Islamic Historiography (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 172. 69 Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, Tahdhīb al-tahdhīb, ed. Ibrāhīm al-Zaybaq and ʿᾹdil Murshid, 4 vols (Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Risāla, 1995 [?]), ii, 591–2. 70 ʿAbd Allāh A. ʿUsaylān, al-Madīna al-munawwara fī āthār al-muʾallifīn wa-l-bāḥithīn: qadīman wa-ḥadīthan (Medina: published by author [?], 1997), pp. 18–20. 71 Other early missing books on Madina and its mosque include Bayna-l-masjidayn and al-Madīna—both by ʿAlī b. Aḥmad al-ʿAqīqī (d. 298/911). 68

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Ibn Zabāla’s Akhbār al-Madīna is the oldest book on the city (and its mosque), that of Ibn Shabba is the oldest such work that survives. The one manuscript we have of it is a recension written, most probably, by Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī (d. 852/1449). It was kept in the library of Maẓhar al-Fārūqī at Madina before it was published in 1979. Six years earlier, the manuscript was the subject of a doctoral study at Manchester University.72 Ibn Shabba was almost unanimously respected as both muḥaddith and akhbārī. His writings covered such areas as history, literature, philology, genealogy and Qurʾān exegesis.73 Although some parts of his Akhbār al-Madina are unfortunately missing, the information it gives on the Prophet’s mosque is certainly invaluable, even if it relates to the mosque’s proprieties more than to its architectural history.74 The latter topic, however, is dealt with by the lost part of the manuscript, of which we luckily find several pages redacted in al-Radd ʿalā al-Akhnāʾī by Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1328), who had access to Ibn Shabba’s book in its complete form.75 Most of Ibn Shabba’s material on the mosque was passed down to him by al-Kinānī, who is more frequently referred to by the former as Muḥammad b. Yaḥyā or Abū Ghassān. Unlike Ibn Zabāla and ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. ʿImrān, al-Kinānī was trusted by notable ḥadīth scholars, including: al-Bukhārī (d. 256/870), Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī (d. 277/890) and Ibn Ḥibbān (d. 354/965). As Ibn Shabba himself indicates, al-Kinānī was highly appreciated by the ʿAbbāsids; he was praised by Abū al-Faḍl ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Jaʿfar (the son of Madina’s ruler in al-Kinānī’s time), as a descendant of a family famous for knowledge, perspicacity and literary skills. Just as did his father and uncle and before them his Sulaymān al-Ghannām, ‘First Part of the Kitāb Akhbār al-Madīna of ʿUmar b. Shabba: a Critical Edition with Introduction and Summary of Contents, etc.’, (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Manchester, 1973). 73 One of his lost books was called Kitāb al-Baṣra, and another called Kitāb al-Kūfa. See Ibn al-Nadīm, al-Fihrist, iii, 125. 74 Ibn Shabba, Akhbār al-Madīna (Shaltūt ed.), i, 25–37 75 Ibn Taymiyya, al-Radd ʿalā al-Akhnāʾī qāḍī al-mālikiyya, ed. al-Dānī M. Āl Zahwī (Beirut: al-Maktaba al-ʿAṣriyya, 2002) i, 131–9. 72

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paternal and maternal grandfathers, al-Kinānī served as a kātib, ‘scribe’, at the dīwāns at Madina.76 This could well have given him access to documents on the ancient history of the mosque. There are implications in Ibn Shabba’s book that not all of alKinānī’s knowledge on Madina and its mosque was transmitted to him orally, and that quite a part of this knowledge was quoted by Ibn Shabba from a book of the former. As Ibn Shabba states: ‘Among what I found in the book of Abū Ghassān and which he read out to me […]’.77 In any case, al-Kinānī luckily names the strands of transmitters from whom he took the major part of his accounts on the first-century enlargements of the mosque. These are given as follows: On the expansion in 7/629, during the lifetime of the Prophet: al-Kinānī ← ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Anṣārī (d. ca. 162/779) ← a shaykh from their mawālī who had lived in the time of, i.e. possibly heard ← ʿUthmān b. Ḥunayf (an eyewitness ṣaḥābī who died in the caliphate of Muʿāwiya) On the expansion under ʿUmar in 17/638: al-Kinānī ← Muḥammad b. ʿUthmān78 ← Muṣʿab b. Thābit [b. ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Zubayr] (d. 157/774) ← Khabbāb [b. al-Aratt] (an eyewitness ṣaḥābī) Also: al-Kinānī ← ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. ʿImrān ← Fulayḥ b. Sulaymān (d. 168/785) ← [ʿAbd al-Raḥmān] ibn Abī ʿAmra (an early Madinan tābiʿī79 who is said to have been born in the time of the Prophet) See al-Mizzī, Tahdhīb al-kamāl, xxvi, 636–9; Ibn Ḥajar, Tahdhīb altahdhīb, iii, 731. 77 Ibn Shabba, Akhbār al-Madīna (Shaltūt ed.), ii, 688. See also ibid, i, 75, 108, 121, 138, 175. 78 If, as here, a death date is not given, it is because the available sources do not seem to mention it. 79 Usually, albeit literally, translated as ‘Follower’, a tābiʿī is a learned member of the next generation of Muslims after the ṣaḥābīs. 76

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On the expansion under ʿUthmān in 29/649–50: al-Kinānī ← ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. ʿImrān ← ʿAbd Allāh b. Abī ʿĀʾisha ← Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm b. al-Ḥārith (d. 120/738) ← his father [Ibrāhīm b. al-Ḥārith al-Taymī] an eyewitness ṣaḥābī) Also: al-Kinānī ← ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Saʿd ← his shaykhs Also: al-Kinānī ← someone not named by Ibn Shabba ← Ibn Abī alZinād (d. 174/790) ← Khārija b. Zayd (an early tābiʿī who witnessed the caliphate of ʿUthmān, d. 99/718) On the expansion under al-Walīd I in 88–90/707–9: al-Kinānī ← Isḥāq b. Ibrāhīm ← Hārūn b. Kathīr Also: al-Kinānī ← ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. ʿImrān ← Jaʿfar b. Wardān ← his father (an eyewitness) Also: al-Kinānī ← Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl ← Muḥammad b. ʿAmmār ← his grandfather On the apartments of the Prophet’s wives before their demolition under alWalīd al-Kinānī ← Ibn Abī Fudayk (d. 200/816) ← Muḥammad b. Hilāl [b. Abī Hilāl al-Madanī], (a trustworthy transmitter, d. 162/779) Also: al-Kinānī ← al-Wāqidī ← ʿAbd Allāh b. Zayd al-Hudhalī (an eyewitness) Also: al-Kinānī ← al-Wāqidī ← Muʿādh b. Muḥammad al-Anṣārī ← ʿAṭāʾ al-Khurāsānī (an eyewitness, d. 135/753). Sometimes, the credibility of a narrative given by a certain source was tested by a higher authority. The last mentioned informant for example, ʿAṭāʾ al-Khurāsānī, related his account on the form of the

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apartments in presence of another eyewitness, ʿImrān b. Abī Anas (d. 117/735), a widely respected Madinan savant, who endorsed the former’s account and further elucidated on the contemporaries’ grief-stricken response to al-Walīd’s decree to demolish the apartments (see Chapter 7). To recapitulate, our information on the mosque of Madina comes mainly from Madinan chroniclers. In the first three centuries, oral accounts existed side by side with and eventually evolved into written ones. While Ibn Zabāla is still our foremost source on the city and its mosque, other relevant information is taken from the likes of ʿUmar b. Shabba and Abū Ghassān al-Kinānī. Given its organic link with the Prophet’s biography, the city and its mosque were dealt with by a big number of chroniclers. The wealth of information they provided on the city appears to have sufficed for the following three centuries. It was not until the first half of the seventh century AH that a second flurry of writing occurred (see chart 1). This is not to say, however, that Madina and its mosque were not the subject of some few monographs in the interim. Examples include: Faḍāʾil al-Madīna by Abū Saʿīd al-Mufaḍḍal alJanadī (d. 308/920), Faḍāʾil al-Madīna wa-l-ḥujja la-hā by Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-Tasturī (d. 345/956), al-Intiqāʾ fī akhbār al-Madīna by Abū Ṭāhir al-Mukhalliṣ (d. 393/1003), Akhbār dār al-hijra by Razīn b. Muʿāwiya al-ʿAbdarī (d. 535/1141) and al-Anbāʾ al-mubīna ʿan faḍl al-Madīna by Abū al-Qāsim b.ʿAsākir al-Dimashqī (d. 571/1176). Unfortunately, these works are missing and only known through the sources. The only exception is the first one, of which a unique nine-page recension is kept in the Ẓāhiriyya library in Damascus. It was written by ʿUmar b. Abī Yaʿqūb, a student of Ibn ʿAsākir who revised the manuscript himself at the Umayyad mosque of Damascus in 548/1153.80

Abū Saʿīd al-Mufaḍḍal al-Janadī, Faḍāʾil al-Madīna, eds., M. Mūṭīʿ al-Ḥāfiẓ and Ghazawa Budayr (Damascus: Dār al-Fikr, 1985). 80

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Chart 1: Dates of the major (re-)constructions of the Prophet’s mosque in the first/seventh century and the main sources for them81 81

deaths.

The dates given for the sources denote the years of the authors’

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Chart 2: Dates of the earliest major mosques and those of the main sources for them

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2.3 OTHER EXISTING EVIDENCE In what follows, we will try to see how the textual evidence for early mosques would be checked against other existing evidence of different types. To that end, we will shed light on incidents where the veracity of the Arabic historical writings on early mosques can be contrasted with: archaeology, epigraphy, urban-morphology, numismatics, papyrology and early non-Arabic writings. Our main objective is to explore the extent to which such counter-proofs can serve as a practical benchmark to weigh up the accounts we have of those mosques for which archaeological evidence is problematic or misplaced.82 2.3.1 Archaeology Driven by stark scepticism of the Arabic narrative on the early Islamic period in general, a number of scholars began to consider archaeology while calling into question the Islamic traditional perception of the period. P. Crone and M. Cook, in particular, went so far as to suggest stepping outside the Islamic tradition as a whole and start de novo.83 In addition to non-Islamic sources, they took archaeology into account.84 Their approach was later adopted by J. Koren and Y. Nevo.85 R. Hoyland, a student of Crone, has also deployed archaeological evidence.86 By the same token, the earliest years in the present millennium witnessed the rise of a tendency to deal with archaeology as a ‘sovereign discipline that is not the mere See Essam S. Ayyad, ‘The Arabic Narratives of Early Mosques as Compared to Other Existing Evidence’, The Islamic Quarterly, 62 (2018), 207–28. 83 Patricia Crone and Michael A. Cook, Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), p. 3. 84 Ibid, p. 23. See also Patricia Crone, Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, [1987] 2004), p. 198. 85 Judith Koren and Yehuda D. Nevo, ‘Methodological Approaches to Islamic Studies’, Der Islam, 68 (1991), 87–107. 86 See Robert Hoyland, Seeing Islam as Others Saw It: A Survey and Evaluation of Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian Writings on Islam (Princeton: Darwin, 1997), pp. 545–90, 687–703. 82

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slave of history’.87 Thus far, the outcome of this ambitious quest is unfortunately modest.88 On the whole, archaeology has very little to say about the Muslim community in the formative period, particularly the first seven decades.89 Mosques are no different. In spite of the increasingly extensive excavations, no archaeological evidence of significance has been found so far for any pre-Umayyad mosques. The oldest mosque to be wholly excavated and whose date is decided on an archaeological basis is that of al-Ḥajjāj b. Yūsuf al-Thaqafī at Wāsiṭ, Iraq (84/703). Former mosques where reliable archaeological evidence is existing are the Aqṣā mosque (early 40s/660s) and the second phase of the Kūfa mosque (50/670).90 Promising sites for excavating pre-Umayyad mosques, and where diligent archaeologiSee Johns, ‘Archaeology’, p. 414; Norman Yoffee, ‘Editor’s Note’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 45 (2002), 423. 88 For example, the declaration of faith ‘bism Allāh’ (sometimes the full form: bism Allāh al-raḥmān al-raḥīm) is found as early as 22/643 on coins, papyri, building inscriptions, tombstones, travellers’ graffiti, and possibly a ṭirāz silk. Nonetheless, no mention of the Prophet or of Islam itself is found before those on the Dome of the Rock (72/691). According to Hoyland, non-Muslim sources—as well as analysis of early Arabic poetry—before the reign of ʿAbd al-Malik speak of a new religion with Muḥammad as its prophet. Jeremy Johns, nonetheless, looks at the absence of the Prophet’s name and of the term ‘Islam’, on the available Islamic first-seventy-year epigraphy, as an issue that calls for interpretation. Such an absence, however, could well be attributed to the rarity of the epigraphical evidence discovered so far. It could equally be due to the noticeable conciseness of the earliest writings in question. For example, the earliest tombstone text to be found (31/652) is brief and the mention of the Prophet and/or Islam would seem rather inessential. 89 Marcus Milwright, An Introduction to Islamic Archaeology (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2010), pp. 25–9. 90 See Grabar, Formation, pp. 106–12; Johns, ‘House of the Prophet’, pp. 59, 62–9, 71. For archaeological reports on early Kūfa, see M. A. Mustafa, ‘Preliminary Report on the Excavations in Kufa during the Third Season’, Sumer, 19 (1963), 36–65; Kāẓim al-Janābī, Takhṭīṭ madīnat al-Kūfa ʿan al-maṣādir al-tārīkhiyya wa-l-athariyya (Baghdad: al-Majmaʿ al-ʿIlmī alʿIrāqī, 1967). 87

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cal investigation is still demanded, include Ṣanʿāʾ in the Yemen and Birk al-Ghimād as well as Jawāthā in Saudi Arabia. The latter, for example, is allegedly dated to 7/629. According to documentary evidence, however, in the first four decades of Islam, mosques were mainly built of evanescent materials and had a hypaethral outline, consisting of an open courtyard and a shaded portico in the qibla direction. This archetypal configuration later produced the socalled ‘Arab plan’, i.e. the hypostyle mosque type which prevailed throughout the Islamic territories since the second half of the first century AH. In this regard, the Dome of the Rock (Plt. 2) signals a crucial watershed in the study of Islamic art and archaeology. It is equally important for the historiography of early Islam, especially in light of the above dispute over our sources on the first century and a half. The Dome of the Rock was erected by ʿAbd al-Malik b. Marwān (r. 65–86/685–705). Dated 72/691–2, this unique Islamic monument is imperative in many aspects: it is widely regarded as the first architectural achievement in Islam; the earliest extant Islamic monument that maintains its seventh-century plan and elevation and whose interior retains ample amount of the original decorative programme. It thus provides specialists with the oldest surviving extensive inscriptions in Islamic history.91 Such inscriptions include the first clear and detailed proclamation of Islam and account on the Prophet’s career. Epigraphical discoveries dating to former Islamic years are scarce, very sketchy in style and intelligibly of no use to our present study.92

Milwright, Islamic Archaeology, p. 25; Johns, ‘Archaeology’, p. 416. The first Muslim monarch whose name appears in archaeology is ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb. ʿUmar’s name was found on a rock-inscription at Qāʿ al-Muʿtadil, Ḥāʾil, Saudi Arabia. The name of Muʿāwiya, on the other hand, was found on a Greek inscription dated 42/662–3, as well as on an Arabic rock inscription dated 58/678. The latter inscription celebrates the building of a dam near al-Ṭāʾif, Saudi Arabia. See Milwright, Islamic Archaeology, p. 26; Johns, ‘Archaeology’, nt. 11. 91 92

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Plate 2: A recent photo of the Dome of the Rock

An immediately later epigraphical finding comes from Shivta (Sobata), where the excavations executed at its mosque in 1933–4 revealed significant inscriptions, including the second earliest corpus of Qurʾānic passages after those at the Umayyad Dome of the Rock. It was through careful palaeographic analysis that these inscriptions were dated to the Umayyad or early ʿAbbāsid period, ca. 81–143/700–60.93 From the first/seventh century, we have incidents where archaeology attests to the fidelity of relevant historical accounts. At Baṣra, for example, the mosque site has undergone a series of excavations by local archaeological teams, i.e. the Iraqi DirectorateGeneral of Antiquities in 1965–6 and the University of Basra during the 1980s. The findings reveal that after Ziyād b. Abīh’s construction in 45/665, the qibla riwāq, ‘front arcade’, was composed of five rows of columns. This agrees with al-Balādhurī’s account of the mosque: ‘lammā banā Ziyād al-masjid, jaʿala ṣuffatahu l-muqaddama khams sawārī […]’.94

See the discussion in Bilha Moor, ‘Mosque and Church: Arabic Inscriptions at Shivta in the Early Islamic Period’, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam, 40 (2013), 73–141. 94 Al-Balādhurī, Futūḥ, p. 485. 93

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At Kūfa, likewise, the excavations indicated that the qibla riwāq of its mosque, as structured by Ziyād in 50/670, was composed of five aisles, while the other riwāqs were made of two aisles each—a fact already indicated by Ibn Jubayr who saw the building in May 580/1184 and gave the most detailed account we can find of it in the sources.95 However, K. A. C. Creswell, having worked out the measurements given by Niebuhr who saw the mosque in a ruined condition in 1765, opined that the size of the second phase of the mosque (due to Ziyād) was identical to that of the first phase (due to Saʿd b. Abī Waqqāṣ in 17/638), as relayed by the Arabic historians.96 This implies that the mosque was enlarged by neither alMughīra b. Shuʿba (r. 21–5/642–6 and 41–50/661–70) nor Ziyād b. Abīh (r. 50–3/670–3), as mistakenly stated by al-Balādhurī: ‘wassaʿahu’; ‘zāda fī-hi’.97 In this connection, al-Ṭabarī, who underlined that Ziyād’s structure was still standing in his own day, used a more applicable terminology.98 At Wāsiṭ, the findings of the excavations carried out in 1936– 4299 indicate that the mosque was of a square outline, just as stated by the historian Yāqūt al-Ḥamawī (d. 622/1229), whose reports on the mosque dimensions were also substantiated by archaeological soundings (Fig. 5).100 The excavations also revealed remnants of sandstone columns. According to archaeologist Fuad Safar, who Ibn Jubayr, Riḥla, pp. 187–8; Creswell, EMA, i. 1, 46. According to al-Ṭabarī, the qibla riwāq (ẓulla) was 200 cubits in length: Tārīkh, iv, 45; Creswell, EMA, i. 1, 48. 97 See al-Balādhurī, Futūḥ, p. 389. 98 Al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, iv, 46–7. 99 See Fuad Safar, Wāsiṭ: natāʾij al-mawsim al-sādis li-l-tanqīb (Cairo: alMaʿhad al-ʿIlmī al-Firinsī li-l-Āthār al-Sharqiyya, 1952), pp. 20, 34. 100 The qibla wall was 200 cubits in length. See Yāqūt, Muʿjam albuldān, v, 350. See also Creswell, EMA, i. 1, 134. While stating that alḤajjāj built a congregational mosque in Wāsiṭ, Baḥshal, Wāsiṭ’s main chronicler (d. 292/905), gave no detail on what it looked like. See Baḥshal, Tārīkh Wāsiṭ, ed. Gurgīs ʿAwwād (Beirut: ʿĀlam al-Kutub, 1986). The agreement between the literary sources and the findings of the excavations at Wāsiṭ has also been noted by Markus Hattstein and Peter Delius (eds.), Islam: Art and Architecture (Köln: Könemann, 2004), p. 68. 95 96

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led excavations there, each of these columns consisted of an evenly-rounded drum that was drilled and superimposed by an iron rod which ran through a hole in the centre. The rod itself was set in a lead bedding. Traces of both iron and lead survived.101 As Creswell remarks: ‘this is exactly the construction of the columns in the Great Mosque of Kūfa due to Ziyād ibn Abīhi in A.D. 670 as described by Ibn Jubayr.’102 A corresponding description of the columns of the Kūfa mosque is also given, yet in fuller detail, by a much earlier source, namely al-Ṭabarī.103 Ibn Jubayr, further, commented that he had already seen the same technique being applied to the columns of the Umayyad construction of the Prophet’s mosque at Madina (88–90/707–9).104 However, this technique discovered at Wāsiṭ, was reportedly employed, for the first time in Islamic architecture, at the mosque of Madina when rebuilt by the caliph ʿUthmān b. ʿAffān in 29/649–50.105 It is also at Wāsiṭ where archaeology supports what seems to be the most peculiar historical report on mosque architecture, that is the mosque being meant by al-Ḥajjāj to be situated substantially obliquely to the qibla direction (Fig. 5)—as stated in a treatise on the Umayyad monarchs by alJāḥiẓ (d. 255/868).106 Safar, Wāsiṭ, p. 25. Creswell, EMA, i. 1, 136. 103 Al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, iv, 46. 104 Ibn Jubayr, Riḥla, p. 188. 105 See Ibn al-Najjār, Durra, p. 174; al-Barzanjī, al-Tārīkh al-musammā nuzhat al-nāẓirīn fī masjid Sayyid al-awwalīn wa-l-ākhirīn (Cairo: Maṭbaʿat alJamāliyya, 1914), p. 12. 106 See Rasāʾil al-Jāḥiẓ, ed. ʿAbd al-Salām M. Hārūn, 4 vols (Cairo: Maktabat al-Khānjī, 1964), ii, 16. See also A. Farīd al-Rifāʿī, ʿAṣr alMaʾmūn, 2nd edn, 3 vols (Dār al-Kutub al-Miṣriyya, 1927), iii, 77. A number of accounts, however, suggest that Iraq’s first qibla was to the west and that it was later changed to the south by Ziyād b. Abīh. This was apparently connected with Ziyād’s relocation of the governor’s residence to the southern side of the mosque. The above account on the qibla of Wāsiṭ’s congregational mosque, thus, might not be polemical—in both cases, the aim was to pray to the Kaʿba at Makka. The earliest Muslims in Iraq, it seems, only tried to pray in the general direction of Makka (which 101 102

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The descriptive accuracy of Ibn Jubayr, in particular, is further indicated by archaeological investigations at Ḥarrān, where his account of its mosque is seen by Creswell—based on Preusser’s archaeological records as well as on Creswell’s own observation—as ‘clearly’ corresponding to existing material evidence.107 Nevertheless, Creswell admitted that he was not able to propose a complete plan for the mosque because of the confusing positioning of the scattered debris.108 A. Fikrī, on the other hand, did not see such a difficulty and put forward a full plan of the mosque that, as he maintains, matches both the findings of the recent excavations and the description of Ibn Jubayr.109 Other examples of agreement between historical sources and archaeological record include the cases at Tiberias and Jarash, where the accounts of al-Muqaddasī (d. 380/990) and Nasir-i Khusraw (d. ca. 467/1075) are validated by recent archaeological research.110 Al-Muqaddasī, in particular, is frequently used by modern scholars. For example, the description he gives for the Aqṣā mosque in his own day was trusted and amply consulted, beside archaeological evidence, by Robert Hamilton, whose fieldwork as well as ensuing studies still constitute our main reference for the is both south and west of Iraq), rather than attempting to work out the exact direction, which is a difficult calculation. 107 See Ibn Jubayr, Riḥla, p. 221. Excavation works as well as documentary evidence argue that the congregational mosque in Ḥarrān was built in the period 126/744–132/750, when the city was made the capital of the Umayyad caliphate in the time of Marwān b. Muḥammad (r. 127– 32/744–50). See Creswell, EMA, i. 2, 644–8. See also Fikrī, Madkhal, p. 225. 108 Creswell, EMA, i. 2, 644–8. 109 Fikrī, Madkhal, pp. 226–7. 110 On Tiberias, see Timothy P. Harrison, ‘The Early Umayyad Settlement at Ṭabariyah: A Case of Yet Another Miṣr?” Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 51, 1 (1992), 51–9; Katia Cytryn-Silverman, ‘The Umayyad Mosque of Tiberias’, Muqarnas, 26 (2009), 37–61. On Jarash, see Alan Walmsley and Kristoffer Damgaard, ‘The Umayyad Congregational Mosque of Jarash in Jordan and Its Relationship to Early Mosques’, Antiquity, 79 (2005), 362–78.

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architectural history of the mosque.111 This is mainly due to alMuqaddasī’s remarkable competence in giving workable accounts of the buildings which he visited.112 Al-Muqaddasī’s accounts were mainly based on careful personal inspection as well as consultation of reliable sources.113 There are cases, however, where archaeology challenges popular historical beliefs. A good example is Jean Sauvaget’s archaeologically-based refutation of the traditional narrative that the mosque of Ḥamā was erected on the ruins of the city’s main church (alkanīsa al-ʿuẓmā) that once stood in the same place (see Chapter 1).114 There are also cases where archaeological input is not decisive enough to furnish adequately convincing reconstructions, leaving us rather in the dark as to what extent the relevant Arabic accounts could be trusted.

See Hamilton, Structural History of the Aqṣā Mosque; id., ‘Once again the Aqṣā’, pp. 141–5. 112 For more on al-Muqaddasī and the weight of his book, see Basil Antony Collins, al-Muqaddasī, the Man and his Work: with Selected Passages Translated from the Arabic (Michigan, University of Michigan, 1974). 113 Speaking of the methodology which he used for his Aḥsan altaqāsīm, al-Muqaddasi states in the introduction of the same book: ‘Among its [i.e. his book] supports and pillars, moreover, in the establishing of which I sought assistance, was my putting questions to men of intelligence whom I knew to be neither careless nor confused, about the districts and the areas in the border territories distant from me, which it was not possible for me to reach. For that on which they agreed, I accepted as authentic: that on which they differed, I rejected’. Al-Muqaddasī, Aḥsan alTaqāsīm (Collin’s trasl.), p. 3. 114 See Sauvaget, La Mosquée omeyyade de Médine, pp. 103–8, [fig. 8]. See also Creswell, EMA, i. 1, 17. 111

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Figure 5: Plan of the mosque of Wāsiṭ (after Safar, 1945)

2.3.2 Topography and urban-morphology According to tradition, crude stones were used for the foundation and the lower part of the enclosure wall of the Prophet’s mosque, while the rest of the wall was built with labin, ‘sun-dried mud bricks’.115 The front ẓulla, which was made out of twigs, palm leaves and shrubs, was upheld by columns of palm trunks.116 It was not until the caliphate of ʿUthmān b. ʿAffān that these were replaced with ashlars and teakwood.117 How do such reports compare to the urban-morphology of the first/seventh-century Madina? As a part of eastern Ḥijāz, Madina is sandwiched between central Arabia (where labin was the common building material), and the platIbn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, i, 206; Ibn al-Najjār, Durra, p. 146; al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, i, 336. 116 Al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, i, 335–36. 117 Al-Bukhārī, no. 446; Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāya wa-l-nihāya, ed. ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAbd al-Muḥsin al-Turkī, 20 vols (Jiza: Dār Hajr, 1997), iv, 533–4; Ibn al-Najjār, Durra, 174; al-Ḥarbī, Manāsik, p. 364; al-Maṭarī, Taʿrīf, pp. 231–2; al-Marjānī, Bahja, 128; al-Marāghī, Taḥqīq, p. 47; al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, 501–2. 115

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eaus of western Ḥijāz (where stone was usually applied). As a result, Madina knew a vernacular style of building that engaged both labin and stone (Plt. 3). While the former was abundant in the valleys (wādīs and baqīʿs) in and around the town, the latter was usually brought from the outside lava beds. In the case of the Prophet’s mosque, stones were reportedly brought from the bordering hills, whilst labin was moulded at a place in the outskirts of Madina, known as Baqīʿ al-Khabkhaba.118 It is of interest to note that such an indigenous way of building, which can still be seen in the ruins of some of the āṭām of pre- and early Islamic Madina (Plts. 3, 6 & 7),119 remained popular down to a recent date.120 According to a less familiar narrative, however, the mosque of the Prophet, in the first four years, was only made of jarīd, ‘palmbranches’. This was rejected by al-Samhūdī for its oddness as well as contradiction with relevant ḥādīths of more weight of authenticity.121 It can rather be refuted on account of material reasons. The mosque settings should have entailed the use of stone for the foundation from the first day.122 We are told by an earlier source, Ibn Saʿd, that the mosque site was partially occupied by small ponds of sluggish water.123 We also understand from yet an earlier source, Ibn Zabāla, that the mosque continued to be exposed to

Al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, i, 334. See also al-Fayrūzabādī, al-Maghānim almuṭāba fī maʿālim ṭāba, ed. Ḥamad al-Jāsir (Riyadh: Manshūrāt Dār alYamāma, 1969), pp. 63–4. 119 On āṭām, see Chapter 6. 120 See G. R.D. King, The Traditional Architecture of Saudi Arabia; id., ‘Creswell’s Appreciation of Arabian Architecture’, p. 99; id., ‘Building Methods and Materials in Western Saudi Arabia’, pp. 71–8; G. Marçais, ‘Bināʾ’, EI2 (1986), i, 1226–9 (p. 1226); Antun, ‘Architectural Form of the Mosque’, pp. 113–5. 121 Al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, i, 327. 122 On the authority of Ibn Saʿd, the base courses of the wall were made of stone to the height of three cubits, while the rest were made of labin: Ṭabaqāt, i, 206. 123 See Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, i, 205. 118

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inundation or episodes of ponding in wet weather down to the reign of al-Mahdī (r. 158–68/775–85).124 Later at Kūfa, it is reported of the caliph ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb to have hesitated to allow the early Muslim settlers to use reed to build the congregational mosque and the houses of the newlyfounded town (see Chapter 7).125 Some take such reports on ʿUmar’s austerity as overstated or romanticized, seeing that nearly nothing could have been less pretentious than a structure of reed. Indeed, the reed on the fertile banks of the Mesopotamian rivers usually grows up to eight meters high, and can hence be used to build rather sumptuous vernacular structures, as seen in the Marsh Arabs in southern Iraq (Plt. 4: a & b).126

Al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, 683. See also al-Diyārbakrī, Tārīkh al-khamīs fī aḥwāl anfas nafīs, 2 vols (Cairo: Maṭbaʿat ʿUthmān ʿAbd al-Rāziq, 1885), i, 343. 125 Al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, iv, 43; Ibn Khaldūn, Tarīkh ibn Khaldūn almusammā dīwān al-mubtadaʾ wa-l-khabar fī tārīkh al-ʿarab wa-l-barbar wa-man ʿāṣarahum min dhawī-l-shaʾn al-akbar, eds. Khalīl Shaḥāda and Suhayl Zakkār, rev. edn, 8 vols (Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, 2000–1), ii, 550. At Baṣra, likewise, the congregational mosque and the houses of the Muslim individuals were allowed by ʿUmar to be made of qaṣab in 14/635. See al-Balādhurī, Futūḥ, p. 483; Ibn Qutayba, al-Maʿārif, ed. Tharwat ʿUkāsha, 2nd edn, (Cairo: Dār al-Maʿārif, 1969), p. 563. 126 Wilfred Thesiger, The Marsh Arabs, reissue edn (London: Penguin Classis, 2007). 124

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(a)

(b) Plate 3 (a & b): Parts of the remaining walls of uṭum Banū Wāqif

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(a)

(b) Plate 4 (a & b): The use of reed in construction in southern Iraq (after W. Thesiger, 1964)

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2.3.3 Numismatics Islamic coinage materialized relatively late. The first Muslim monarch whose name appeared on coins is Muʿāwiya b. Abī Sufyān (r. 41–60/661–80).127 Perhaps, the earliest, as well as clearest, example where numismatics could offer a meaningful contribution to mosque-related discussions is that concerning the origins of the miḥrāb, ‘concave prayer niche’. According to the sources, this unmistakable feature of the typical mosque was introduced for the first time at Madina in 88–90/707–9, when ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, who was by-then al-Walīd’s governor there, rebuilt the mosque of the Prophet at the latter’s command.128 However, the depiction of a niche-like motif on an early drachm (Fig. 6) has stirred interesting relevant discussions. Perceiving this as a representation of a simple miḥrāb, some have posited that this architectural element could have appeared in mosque architecture at an earlier date than alWalīd’s time.129 Although the antique coin under consideration has no mint date on it, scholars believe that it was struck in the mid-70s AH.130 Even so, this could be an imitation of the movable miḥrābs which were common in the Muslim world before the concave prayer niche was introduced, most probably in the time of al-Walīd (see Chapter 5). There is also a counterargument that it is a sacrum, and not a miḥrāb depicted at all.131

Muʿāwiya’s name appears on what is now known as the ‘Drachm of Muʿāwiya’, Dārābjird (ca. 54–55/674). See Johns, ‘Archaeology’, pp. 418–9; Milwright, Islamic Archaeology, p. 26. 128 Some scholars, however, argue that the miḥrāb was known before the time of al-Walīd. See Fikrī, Madkhal, p. 297; Fikrī, Masjid al-Qayrawān, pp. 57–9; F. Shāfiʿī, Imāra ʿarabiyya, p. 611; Creswell, EMA, i. 1, 100. 129 Johns, ‘Archaeology’, p. 431; Bloom, ‘Mosque’, p. 430. 130 On this early Drachm, see George C. Miles, ‘Miḥrāb and ʿAnaza: A Study in Islamic Iconography’, in Jonathan M. Bloom (ed.), Early Islamic Art and Architecture (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002), pp. 149–65; Johns, ‘Archaeology’, p. 431. 131 See W. L. Treadwell, ‘“Mihrab and ʿAnaza” or “Sacrum and Spear”? A Reconsideration of an Early Marwanid Silver Drachm’, Muqarnas, 22 (2005), 1–28. 127

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Figure 6: Reverse of the so-called ‘Miḥrāb and ʿAnaza’ dirhem

2.3.4 Papyrology Significant information on the labourers and craftsmen of the Kaʿba when rebuilt by Ibn al-Zubayr in 64–5/684, the Umayyad mosque of Damascus (87/706), and the mosque of Fusṭāṭ when rebuilt by Qurra b. Sharīk in 92/710 is given by the Aphrodito papyri (Fig. 7).132 Discovered in 1901 at Kūm Ishqāw in Sohag Governorate, Egypt, this invaluable early document represents official correspondence between Qurra b. Sharīk, the Umayyad ruler of Egypt (r. 90–6/709–14, and Basilius, the administrator of the Aphrodito village in Upper Egypt.133 In addition to giving scholars opportunity to scrutinize the reports given by the sources on the builders of the above three structures, the Aphrodito papyri has been a significant authority in the classical controversy on to whom the Marwānīd construction of the Aqṣā mosque should be accredited. See H. I. Bell, ‘The Aphrodito Papyri’, The Journal of Hellenic Studies, 28 (1908), 97–120. 133 Nabia Abbott, The Ḳurrah Papyri From Aphrodito in the Oriental Institute (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1938). See also Petra M. Sijpesteijn and Lennart Sundelin (eds.), Papyrology and the History of Early Islamic Egypt (Leiden: Brill, 2004), pp. 1, 107; Max van Berchem, ‘Notes on Arab Archaeology’, in Early Islamic Art and Architecture, ed. Jonathan M. Bloom (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002), pp. 1–6. 132

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According to a majority of early historians, such as alMuqaddasī, the author of the first Muthīr (d. 752/1351), Ibn Tamīm al-Maqdisī (d. 765/1363),134 and Mujīr al-Dīn (d. 901/1496),135 the mosque was built by ʿAbd al-Malik b. Marwān (in ca. 65/685).136 Up to the early twentieth century, this view represented the conventional wisdom in modern scholarship. It was adopted by such scholars as Becker,137 De Vogüé,138 Rivoira,139 and Briggs.140 However, depending on historical reports by Eutychius (d. 327/939),141 Ibn al-Athīr (d. 630/1233),142 Bar Hebraeus (d. 685/1286) and Ibn al-Ṭiqṭaqā (d. post-701/1301),143 as well as on the Aphrodito papyri’s mentioning of labourers being employed at the work site of the mosque of Jerusalem in the time of al-Walīd, Shihāb al-Dīn al-Maqdisī, Muthīr al-gharām ilā ziyārat al-Quds wa-lShām, ed. A. al-Khuṭaymī (Beirut: Dār al-Jīl, 1994), pp. 175–6. 135 Mujīr al-Dīn al-Ḥanbalī, al-Uns al-jalīl bi-tārīkh al-Quds wa-l-Khalīl, eds. ʿAdnān Yūnus Abū Tabbāna and Maḥmūd ʿAwda al-Kaʿābina, 2 vols (Amman: Maktabat Dandīs, 1999), i, 400–1. 136 This opinion is also adopted by al-Ṭabarī, Ibn ʿAsākir and Abū alMaḥāsin. 137 Carl H. Becker, ‘Der Tempel zu Jerusalem’, Allgemeine Bauzeitung, 58 (1894), 14–18. 138 Melchior de Vogüé, Le Temple de Jérusalem: monographie du Haramech-Chérif, suivie d'un essai sur la topographie de la Ville-sainte (Paris: Noblet et Baudry, 1864). 139 Rivoira, Moslem Architecture, p. 11. 140 Briggs, Muhammadan Architecture, p. 37. 141 Eutychius, Kitāb al-tārīkh al-majmūʿ ʿalā al-taḥqīq wa-l-taṣdīq, eds. L. Cheikho, B. Carra de Vaux and H. Zayyat, 2 vols (Paris and Beirut 1905 [vol 1] and 1909 [vol 2]), i, p.42. 142 Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kāmil fī al-tārīkh, eds. ʿAbd Allāh al-Qāḍī and M. Yūsuf al-Daqqāq, 11 vols (Beirut, Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1987–2003), iv, 292. 143 Ibn al-Ṭiqṭaqā, Kitāb al-fakhrī fī al-ādāb al-sulṭānīya wa-l-duwal alIslāmīya, ed. H. Derenbourg (Paris: E. Bouillon, 1895), p.173. This opinion is also held by Gregorius b. Hārūn al-ʿIbrī, al-Mukhtaṣar fī tārīkh alduwal (Beirut: [n. pub?] 1890), p. 113; Ibn Khaldūn, Muqaddima, ii, 25; alQalqashandī, Ṣubḥ al-aʿshā fī kitābat al-inshā, 14 vols (Cairo: Dār al-Kutub al-Miṣriyya, 1913–22), xiv, 368. 134

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Creswell argues that the Marwānīd Aqṣā mosque is definitely due to the former (ca. 87/706).144 Based on a more systematic analysis of all the evidence available (i.e. archaeology, papyrology and Muslim as well as non-Muslim early sources), a majority of scholars now come to believe that the Marwānīd construction of the Aqṣā mosque was initiated by ʿAbd al-Malik and completed by his son al-Walīd.145 Some, however, maintain that the latter’s contribution was confined to ornamentation.146

Figure 7: A leaf of the Aphrodito papyri at the Oriental Institute, University of Chicago (after Abbott, 1938) Creswell, EMA, i. 2, 373–4. The same opinion (as well as grounds) was already adopted by Robert Hamilton who conducted significant excavations in the site in 1938–42. See Hamilton, Structural History of the Aqṣā Mosque, p.73. 145 Johns, ‘House of the Prophet’, p. 59. 146 See Antun, ‘Architectural Form of the Mosque’, p. 57. 144

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2.3.5 Early non-Muslim writings As already mentioned, the non-Muslim writings on the earliest years of Islam are generally limited in number and detail.147 Those on the earliest mosques are yet more limited. Meanwhile, there are cases where such few accounts can be of great help to modern scholars. For example, the relatively late reports on the caliph ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb building a mosque when Jerusalem was conquered in 16/637 are doubted by many academics on account that such a mosque, as they assume, is not mentioned by any of the early Arabic sources. Creswell mistakenly states: ‘None of the early Arabic historians, such as Balādhurī and Ṭabarī speaks of the construction of a mosque when Jerusalem capitulated to ʿUmar in 637’.148 That ʿUmar ordered a mosque to be built at Jerusalem immediately after the conquest of the city is indeed mentioned by alṬabarī.149 The story of ʿUmar’s mosque is further told by a number of later Muslim historians.150 Moreover, the mosque of ʿUmar is also mentioned by such early Christian historians as Sebeos (wr. 40s-50s/660s-670s), Theophanes (d. 201/818), Elias of Nisibis (d. 438/1046), and Michael the Syrian (d. 595/1199).151 However, the For a recent, as well as thorough, endeavour to survey such writings, see James Howard-Johnston: Witnesses to a World Crisis: Historians and Histories of the Middle East in the Seventh Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011). See also Robert Hoyland, ‘The Earliest Christian Writings on Muhammad: An Appraisal’, in Harald Motzki (ed.), The Biography of Muhammad: The Issue of the Sources (Leiden, Boston, Köln, Brill, 2000). 148 K. A. C. Creswell, A Short Account of Early Muslim Architecture, ed. J. Allan (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1989), p. 8. 149 Al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, iii, 610–11. 150 See al-Maqdisī, Muthīr, p. 166; al-Suyūṭī, Itḥāf al-akhiṣṣā bi faḍāʾil almasjid al-aqṣā, ed. A. R. Aḥmad, 2 vols (Cairo: al-Hayʾa al-Miṣriyya alʿĀmma li-l-Kitāb, 1982–4), i, 235–41; Ibn Kathīr, Bidāya wa-nihāya, ix, 656, 662. 151 Sebeos, The Armenian History Attributed to Sebeos, eds. R.W. Thomson, J. Howard-Johnson, and T. Greenwood, 2 vols (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1999), i, 102–3; ii, 249; Theophanes, The Chronicle of Theophanes Confessor: Byzantine and Near Eastern History, AD 284–813, transl. C. Mango and R. Scott (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), lxxxii–lxxxvii, 471– 147

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most acknowledged, as well as detailed, account on ʿUmar’s mosque is given by a Christian eyewitness, Arculf, a Frankish bishop who made the pilgrimage to the Holy Land in around 50/670.152 As Arculf states: ‘In that famous place where the Temple once stood, near the [city] was on the east, the Saracens [i.e. Muslims] now frequent an oblong house of prayer which they pieced together with upright planks and large beams over some ruined remains. It is said that the building can hold three thousand people.’153 It should be noted, however, that while Arculf’s description of ʿUmar’s mosque is still seen by many scholars as a generally accepted account of the structure,154 Lawrence Nees has recently argued that it is unreliable.155

2.4 CONCLUSION Based on the above discussions, the Arabic narratives on early mosques should not be trusted gullibly. Nor should they be wholly denied or looked upon as topoi, only because the material they offer concurs with what is perceived by us as a ‘formulaic’ account of mosque history. Rather, feasible approaches should be advanced to handle the demanding queries on the accuracy of these sources. It 2; 476. See also Beatrice St. Laurent and Isam Awwad, ‘The Marwani Musalla in Jerusalem: New Findings’, Jerusalem Quarterly, 54 (2013), 7–30. 152 Arculf, The Pilgrimage of Arculfus in the Holy Land about the Year A.D.670, transl. and ed. J.R. MacPherson (London: [n. pup.], 1895), p. 6. 153 Arculf’s statement as translated by Irwin: Islamic Art, pp. 58–9. See also Bloom and Blair, Islamic Arts, p. 25. On this statement of Arculf, see also Robert Hoyland and Sarah Waidler, ‘Adomnán’s De locis sanctis and the Seventh-Century Near East’, English Historical Review, 129 (2014), 787–807 (pp. 798–9). 154 See, for example, Jonathan Brown, Misquoting Muhammad: The Challenge and Choices of Interpreting the Prophet's Legacy (London: Oneworld, 2014), pp. 20–1. 155 Lawrence Nees, ‘Insular Latin Sources, ‘Arculf,’ and Early Islamic Jerusalem’, in Michael Frassetto, Matthew Gabriele, and John Hosler (eds.), Where Heaven and Earth Meet: Essays on Medieval Europe in Honor of Daniel F. Callahan (Leiden: Brill, 2014), pp. 81–100; id., Perspective on Early Islamic Art (Leiden: Brill, 2016), pp. 5–57.

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is found helpful, in this sense, to relate the Arabic accounts on the early mosques to place and time, taking into consideration such matters as local urban and geo-morphology. It is equally useful, depending on availability, to check them against existing archaeological record, i.e. architecture and artefacts as well as other applicable competences such as epigraphy, numismatics, papyri and early non-Muslim writings. Such counter-proofs can act as effective touchstones, and thus help us identify the extent to which we can depend on the textual evidence at stake to produce a fuller image of the early mosques, where archaeological evidence is scanty, awkward or totally absent. As we have seen, even in the presence of archaeological evidence, of whatever weight, scholars always need to consider the sources to provide workable reconstructions of the missing mosques. There are quite a number of cases where historical accounts on such mosques are ratified by recent material evidence. Broadly speaking, the more the incidents where a given source accords with available material evidence, the more the weight his accounts on purely literary mosques gain. Nonetheless, while agreement between archaeological evidence and the author’s account of a certain missing mosque palpably supports his authority in general, such an authority should not be carried over to his accounts of other mosques without adequate investigation. We should differentiate here between two types of historical accounts: those in which the informant gives description of a mosque he saw himself; and those where he quotes the description given by another (typically earlier) informant of a mosque to which he had no access because of temporal or spatial limitations. In the former case, accord with existing material evidence generally substantiates the author’s descriptive aptitude, and thus gives more credibility and more point to his accounts of the other mosques which he saw—including those for which archaeological evidence is not available. In the latter case, however, such accord indicates the author’s carefulness to use reliable sources. Either way, however, further analysis is required; there is always the possibility that the informant at issue did not maintain the same standards of scrutiny to all of his mosque-related accounts. Our information on the earliest mosques is mainly taken from writings by medieval Arabic historians, geographers, travellers, pilgrims, biographers, local chroniclers, traditionists, jurists—

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sometimes even by philologists and genealogists. Given their supreme authority and precedence, the three mosques of Makka, Madina and Jerusalem are celebrated in abundant literature by all of the above types of writers. Generally, however, mosques are quintessentially dealt with in the context of writing on two particular, overlapping topics: the histories of Islamic conquests and the histories of Islamic cities.156 In spite of the fact that some of the works in these two categories are coloured by loyalties, even chauvinism, they generally provide valuable information on local mosques. The establishment of mosques was an urgent demand after most conquests. It is true that a number of pre-existing nonIslamic sanctuaries, i.e. churches, fire temples, Hindu or Jain temples, are reported to have been used either wholly or partially for the Muslim prayer, but this was seemingly a matter of expediency and not a permanent policy (infra) as custom-built mosques began to be erected in the first decade after the conquests.157 A congregational mosque (jāmiʿ) was the first thing to be erected in a new Islamic city. It was usually put up in the centre and around which the whole community gathered. In early Islam, the mosque was the defacto headquarters for councils of state.158 As the focal point for the community, it was the obvious place where the governor’s prestige and architectural ambition would be embodied. For travellers, however, mosques were places of worship and/or pilgrimage, significant landmarks to visit and convenient stopovers. For traditionists, jurists and philologists, mosques were the institutions where their teachers flourished and their disciplines materialized. Nonetheless, the fact that the oldest extant sources on the early mosques were composed a long time after the buildings they describe were erected casts doubt on the extent to which we can depend on the material provided by the former to build a cogent The histories of Islamic cities emerged in the second/eighth century. In addition to those on the history of the two holy cities of Makka and Madina, examples of local chronicles include: Futūḥ Miṣr wa-akhbāruhā by Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam (d. 257/870), Tārīkh Baghdād by Ibn Ṭayfūr (d. 280/893), and Tārīkh Dimashq by Ibn ʿAsākir (d. 571/1175). 157 See Hillenbrand: Islamic Architecture, p. 33. 158 See Creswell, EMA, i. 1, 43. 156

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understanding of the latter. This problem, which is usually conceived as a general historiographical issue for our sources on early Islam, poses the pressing questions of how, and by whom, our information on these mosques came down to us. In dealing with these and other consequential queries, one should bear in mind, though, that the mosque is a structure, only its foundation is an event. Therefore, the hiatus separating the foundation of a certain mosque and our source for it should be taken into account when we look at such issues as the historical settings in which a certain mosque was erected. For design and architectural features, interest in the date of foundation should be replaced by description of the development and modification of those features. The time gap can be lessened further when the date of the written source for a particular structure is replaced by that of the earliest informant on whom the written source is relying. The majority of the extant sources are indeed recensions of missing earlier writings,159 which typically took the form of akhbār, ‘compendia of traditions’, by such earlier informants as Sayf b. ʿUmar, Ibn Zabāla, Abū ʿUbayda Maʿmar b. alMuthannā (d. ca. 209/824), and al-Madāʾinī.160 The information on mosques was conveyed, alongside other information, in the form

While still largely indeterminable, the veracity of such earlier writings is generally assumed by a majority of modern scholars. See S. A. Nigosian, Islam: Its History, Teaching and Practices (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004), p. 6; F. C. de Blois and others, ‘Taʾrīkh’, EI2 (2000), x, 257–302 (p. 273). See also Fred M. Donner, Narratives of Islamic Origins: The Beginnings of Islamic Historical Writing (Princeton: Darwin Press, 1998), pp. 276–82. 160 Some scholars have tried to explore the sources of such earlier collections. See, for example, Martin Hinds who tried to specify Sayf b. ʿUmar’s sources for Arabia: Martin Hinds, Studies in Early Islamic History, eds. J. Bacharach, Lawrence I. Conrad and Patricia Crone, with an introduction by G. R Hawting, (Princeton: Darwin, 1996), pp. 143–59. See also Montgomery Watt, ‘The Materials Used by Ibn Ishaq’, in Bernard Lewis and P. M. Holt (eds.), Historians of the Middle East (London: Oxford University Press, 1962), pp. 23–34. 159

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of oral and/or written material,161 to these earlier informants by yet earlier local authorities, who either depended on or themselves were eyewitnesses (see the above discussion on the sources for the mosque of Madina). One of the most common problems of such earlier informants, nonetheless, is their tendency to commingle historical reports and folkloric storytelling.162 Other defects of these, and later better documented, sources include anachronism, misattribution and post hoc interpretation, while fortes are mostly represented in the congruous descriptions given for the same structure by different historians. In some cases, this is no more than the result of quoting the same earlier source(s) or of simply copying one another. In others, it reflects a genuine agreement between those who saw the structure in different eras, providing interestingly varied perspectives and giving opportunity to detect architectural evolution and/or track changed conditions of conservation/dilapidation. The heterogeneous nature of this patrimony can provide an interesting scope for study, where the Arabic accounts in question can be assessed through the comparative analysis of different related discourses. It is true that many of these writings include hagiographic, topological, anecdotal, and sometimes even legendary detail, but their abundance offers a workable framework of inquiry, where cross-checking and examination of incidental detail could lead to significant results. Later accounts—especially those by travellers—offer a further significant seam of written record for the study of early mosques, seeing that: (i) they are generally better-documented and more organized than the earlier writings; (ii) sometimes they give information that is not mentioned by the latter; (iii) also in connection For the range of scholars’ views on the problem of oral vs. written transmission, see R. S. Humphreys and others, ‘Taʾrīkh’, EI2 (2000), x, 257–302 (pp. 271–6). See also Gregor Schoeler, The Oral and the Written in Early Islam, ed. James E. Montgomery, transl. Uwe Vagelpohl (Abingdon: Routledge, 2006); Marston Speight, ‘Oral Traditions of the Prophet Muḥammad: a Formulaic Approach’, in Mustafa Shah (ed.), The Ḥadīth: Critical Concepts in Islamic Studies (Abingdon: Routledge, 2010), pp. 69–78. 162 See Dūrī, Rise of Historical Writing, pp. 43–4, 46–7, 144; Schoeler, Genesis, pp. 74–5. 161

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with the previous point, their authors were in a position to quote older sources that are no longer available to us; (iv) in some cases, they had the chance to see mosques, or remnants of mosques, that are now missing; (v) in others, they got information from those who had seen the mosques; (vi) and quite a number of such later writers applied critical treatment to the earlier sources, based on sensitive historiographical discussion as well as personal observation. Finally, the gap in time between written reports and what they are describing might be narrowed by tracing back our literary sources on the earliest mosques, given that traditions do not usually spring up out of nothing. However, it cannot be claimed that this is a consistently effective approach. In many cases, it seems more feasible still that the positivist approach and its obsession with the (in)authenticity of early accounts be relaxed in favour of a more historicist approach. The scope, thus, may be extended by taking stock of how the memory of predecessors was formulated and disseminated. The source being itself historical evidence can help us to understand how memory was shaped and/or created in different milieus by an array of changing imperatives and modalities. As such, the way in which the predecessors’ legacy was memorialized and the nature of the ensuing debates and/or polemics can tell us much about the religious, political, legal and socio-economic trends of the later generations. Therefore, while the source material at hand is mainly analysed here to investigate how the mosque was made by the first Muslim community and how religio-cultural prompts and modalities of different types intermingled to canonize its main features, it remains intriguing to use the same material to try to investigate, more fully, the patterns of the relevant debates arising in the third/ninth century and to compare early Islam with other Late Antique monotheistic traditions. The present study does the latter functions sometimes, but not to a sufficient degree. Admittedly, more still needs to be done in this regard—perhaps in a further work.

CHAPTER 3. STUDYING ḤADĪTH 3.1 INTRODUCTION The term ‘ḥadīth’ refers to all that is new. It also means khabar, ‘news [that is reported]’.1 Conventionally, ḥadīth is the tradition relating to the sayings, deeds, rulings and comportments of the Prophet Muḥammad of Islam. According to jurists, there are three sorts of ḥadīth: what the Prophet said (or what was said about him), what he did and what he approved.2 A related term is sunna, which is traditionally taken to denote the Muslim orthodox way of life as based on the Prophet’s actions and directions.3 Together, both ḥadīth and sunna constitute an integral part of Islamic scripture; the greater segment of Islamic theology and law is derived, not from the Qurʾān, but from the interpretive tradition of the Prophet who is regarded as the infallible living example of how Islam should be practised. This could well explain why a number of later Muslim specialists tend to refer to the Prophet Muḥammad as the ‘possessor of the two revelations’. Admittedly, sunna is not as commanding as the Qurʾān, but it is a more elucidated scripture.4 Al-Azharī, Tahdhīb al-Lugha, ed. M. ʿAwaḍ Murʿib, 15 vols (Beirut: Dār Iḥiyāʾ al-Turāth al-ʿArabī, 2001), iv, 234–5, Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān alʿArab, eds. A. al-Kabīr, M. A. Ḥasab Allāh and H. M. al-Shādhilī, rev. edn, 6 vols (Cairo: Dār al-Maʿārif, 1981), ii, 797. According to Ibn Manẓūr, the verbal noun from ḥaddatha, ‘to tell or report’ is taḥdīth and not ḥadīth: Lisān, ii, 796–7. 2 While not generally considered by the Muslim jurists, the physical features of the Prophet are also regarded by some as a part of his ḥadīth. 3 On the difference between sunna and ḥadīth, see Chapter 7. 4 J. Brown, Misquoting Muhammad, p. 18. 1

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Sīra is another Islamic lore that is related to the life and sayings of the Prophet. It is, however, represented by a much broader material than that of ḥadīth. The clearest difference between both corpora, nevertheless, lies in the way in which each was collected. Although much of the early sīra literature was equipped with isnād, sīra is not commonly known to have been subjected to the same degree of authentication, as was ḥadīth. This could be attributed to the fact that the content of the latter was looked upon as by far more crucial for Islamic law. Type of ḥadīth

Definition

musnad (subjective/ supported)

a ḥadīth whose unbroken strand of transmission goes back to the Prophet

ṣaḥīḥ (sound)

a musnad ḥadīth that is neither shādhdh, ‘unique/anomalous’, nor muʿallal ‘faulty/defective’, with unbroken chain of reliable narrators a musnad ḥadīth narrated by a reliable chain, but of lesser grade than ṣaḥīḥ

ḥasan (fair) ḍaʿīf (weak)

gharīb (strange/rare)

maqṭūʿ (disconnected/ cut-off) marfūʿ (traceable/raised)

a ḥadīth that does not qualify for the standards of being ṣaḥīḥ or ḥasan and, hence, cannot be taken as a foundation of religious judgment a ḥadīth, whether ṣaḥīḥ or ḍaʿīf, which differs in context with another ḥadīth of a more reliable strand a ḥadīth terminating with a tābiʿī, a ḥadīth with an incomplete strand, or a saying of a ṣaḥābī that begins: ‘We used to do […]’ a ḥadīth attributed to the Prophet that could be muttaṣil (connected), munqaṭiʿ or mursal

mawqūf (untraceable/ halted)

a ḥadīth (also known as athar) of, or about, a ṣaḥābī

muḍṭarib (confounding)

a ḥadīth whose different narrations, which are equally reliable, disagree on the strand or in the text. It is regarded as a kind of ḥadīth ḍaʿīf

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a ḥadīth with an incomplete strand or a strand that includes an anonymous transmitter a ḥadīth in which a tābiʿī attributes a saying to the Prophet without referring to the ṣaḥābī from whom he took the ḥadīth.

Table 1: Main categories of ḥadīth based on perceived degree of authenticity5

Ḥadīth, however, forms a controversial topic for Muslim as well as Western scholars. Both groups believe that a big number of ḥadīth, having been primarily written in the third/ninth century,6 were doctored or wholly fabricated in later times to serve political or sectarian agendas or ulterior purposes.7 The main difference between the two teams is that the criteria used by Muslim scholars to judge the authenticity of a certain ḥadīth are in some aspects different to those employed by their Western counterparts. Generally, Muslim scholars highly appreciate what are traditionally known as the ‘six canonical books of ḥadīth’.8 They tend to take these and The categories of ḥadīth are thoroughly discussed by Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ alShahrazūrī, An Introduction to the Science of Ḥadīth: Kitāb maʿrifat anwāʿ alḥadīth, transl. Eerik Dickinson (Reading: Garnet, 2006). For a glossary of technical terms used in the ḥadīth literature, see also Alfred Guillaume, The Traditions of Islam: An Introduction to the Study of the Hadith Literature (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924), pp. 181–2; G. H. A. Juynboll, Encyclopedia of Canonical Ḥadīth (Leiden: Brill, 2007), pp. xxiii-xxv; Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, Bulūgh al-marām min adillat al-aḥkām: Attainment of the Objective According to Evidence of the Ordinances (Riyadh: Dār al-Salām, 1996), pp. 549–78. 6 For information on the date, content and weight if authenticity of these collections, see J. Robson, ‘Ḥadīth’, EI2 (1986), iii, 23–8 (p. 24). Ṣaḥīḥ ḥadīths are not to be found in canonical collections exclusively; many of them can still be found in less renowned collections like the Muwaṭṭaʾ of Mālik, Musnad of Ibn Ḥanbal, Sunan of al-Dārimī and others. See also Muqaddimat Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ, p. 19; Juynboll, Canonical Ḥadīth; J. Brown, The Canonization of al-Bukhari and Muslim: The Formation and Function of the Sunni ḥadīth Canon (Leiden: Brill, 2007). 7 See J. Brown, Misquoting Muhammad, p. 9. 8 These are: the Ṣaḥīḥ of al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ of Muslim, Sunan of Ibn 5

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other comparable collections on trust, mainly because both their matn, ‘text’, and sanad or isnād were repeatedly examined by careful scholars who subjected them to what is widely agreed to be a high degree of scrutiny and authentication.9 Quite a number of Western scholars, on the other hand, are deeply suspicious of ḥadīths regarding the overwhelming majority of them, including those most highly rated by Muslim scholars, as later forgeries and thus could not be safe as historical sources.10 This is not to say, however, that ḥadīth was always safe from criticism by early Muslim scholars— irrespective of what religious group they belonged to. Reservations about wholesale acceptance of ‘sound’ ḥadīths were formerly expressed by ahl al-kalām, ‘speculative theologians’, and the Muʿtazila factions—most notably represented by the founder of the latter group, Wāṣil b. ʿAṭāʾ (d. 131 /748) and one of its main exponents, Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm b. Sayyār, best known as al-Naẓẓām (d. ca. 229/844).

3.2 ḤADĪTH IN MODERN SCHOLARSHIP In modern times, the earliest scepticism towards ḥadīth authenticity came from leading nineteenth-century Orientalists.11 William Muir Māja, Sunan of Abū Dāwūd, Sunan of al-Tirmidhī and Sunan of al-Nasāʾī. 9 This approach is presented, perhaps in the best-argued form we can find, by Iftikhar Zaman, Evolution of Hadith (Piscataway NJ: Gorgias Press, 2017). There are cases, however, where modern Muslim scholars adopt different opinions to those developed by early ḥadīth scholars regarding the authenticity of a certain ḥadīth. 10 See G. H. A. Juynboll, ‘Ḥadīth and the Qurʾān’, in Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān (2002), ii, 376–97 (pp. 378–9). See also Sebastian Günther, ‘Modern Literary Theory applied to Classical Arabic Texts: Ḥadīth Revisited’, in M. Shah (ed.), The Ḥadīth: Critical Concepts in Islamic Studies (Abingdon: Routledge, 2010), pp. 28–33; id., ‘Fictional Narration and Imagination within an Authoritative Framework: Towards a New Understanding of Ḥadīth’, in M. Shah (ed.), The Ḥadīth: Critical Concepts in Islamic Studies (Abingdon: Routledge, 2010), pp. 34–68. 11 Although the vanguard of the Western scholars dedicated much of their work to studying Islamic literary heritage, they came to ḥadīth relatively late.

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and Aloys Sprenger, were the first Western intellectuals to cast doubt upon the extent to which ḥadīth would represent the Prophet’s exact words and acts.12 However, it is Ignaz Goldziher’s Muhammedanische Studien, completed in 1890, that has been widely regarded as the basis for ḥadīth studies in the West.13 Goldziher developed a generally sceptical sentiment towards ḥadīth. According to him, fabricating ḥadīths (and attributing them to the Prophet) was the most effective way to claim legitimacy for the views of conflicting politico-legal parties.14 Ḥadīth, as he maintains, was thus invented and utilized as an influential, even if counterfeit, polemical ideological tool.15 Goldziher’s theory exempted neither rulers nor pious jurists. According to him, they all fabricated ḥadīths to reinforce their legal positions or validate already-existing practices.16 Some late Islamic reformists too, such as Sayyid Ahmed Khan of India and in a more timid manner both Muhammad Iqbal (who is widely identified as Pakistan’s spiritual father) and Muḥammad ʿAbduh of Egypt, called for caution when dealing even with the material in the canonical collections. This current of Muslim scrutiny was practised in the context of a broader reformist tendency, more than being inspired by the above Western criticism or simply a reaction to colonialism.17 Later modern Islamic criticism came, See Daniel W. Brown, Rethinking Tradition in Modern Islamic Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 21. 13 Ignaz Goldziher, Muhammedanische Studien, 2 vols (Halle: 1888–90), ed. S. M. Stern, transl. C. R. Barber and S. M. Stern as: Muslim Studies, 2 vols (Chicago: Aldine, 1971). On the significance of Goldziher’s studies, see Guillaume, Traditions, p. 5. 14 Goldziher, Muslim Studies, i, 44. 15 Similar views are lately presented by Bernard Lewis: The End of Modern History in the Middle East (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 2011), pp. 77–85. 16 John Burton, An Introduction to Ḥadīth (Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 1994), p. xvi. 17 See D. Brown, Rethinking Tradition, p.6–42; John Esposito, Islam: the Straight Path. rev. edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 134; M. A. H. Ahangar, ‘Iqbal and Hadith: A Legal Perspective’, Iqbal Review: Journal of Iqbal Academy, 37 (1996), 92–118. 12

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beside the Indian ahl al-Qurʾān, from Modernist Egyptian sceptics, particularly Muḥammad Tawfīq Ṣidqī18 and Maḥmūd Abū Rayya,19 an associate and a disciple respectively of the renowned Syrian reformist Muḥammad Rashīd Riḍā.20 Later Muslim critiques were presented by such Modernists as Fatima Mernissi, a Moroccan feminist and sociologist who attended the Sorbonne and Brandeis University, and Fazlur Rahman Malik, a Pakistani intellectual who taught at the universities of California, Los Angeles and Chicago. The rebuttals of the above and other ‘iconoclasts’ are mainly based, beside the fabrication of isnād and the long period of time that elapsed before ḥadīth was committed to writing, on questions regarding the conflict perceived between a number ‘sound’ ḥadīths.21 They also wondered: should ḥadīth be meant to function alongside the Qurʾān as the Muslim scriptures, why did not God clearly reveal and make available the means to guarantee its preservation? Why do we need ḥadīth when the Qurʾān—as self-described—is intact, complete, unequivocal, comprehensive and perfected? In the West, similar views to those of Goldziher were held by D. Samuel Margoliouth,22 Henri Lammens,23 and Leone CaeM. Tawfīq Ṣidqī, ‘Al-Islām huwa al-Qurʾān waḥdahu’, al-Manār, 9 (1906), 515–24; id. ‘Al-Islām huwa al-Qurʾān waḥdahu: radd li-radd’, alManār, 9 (1906), 906–25. See also D. Brown, Rethinking Tradition, pp. 88–9. 19 Maḥmūd Abū Rayya, Aḍwāʾ ʿalā al-sunna al-Muḥammadiyya: aw difāʾ ʿan al-ḥadīth (Cairo: Dār al-Maʿārif, 1958 [?]). See also Jonathan A. Brown, Hadith: Muhammad's Legacy in the Medieval and Modern World (Oxford: Oneworld, 2009; repr. 2010), pp. 246–8. For a thorough critique of Abū Rayya’s work, see ʿA. al-Muʿallamī al-Yamānī, al-Anwār al-kāshifa: li-mā fī Kitāb ‘Aḍwāʾ ʿalā al-Sunna’ min al-dhalal wa-l-taḍlīl wa-l-mujādhafa (Beirut: ʿAlam alKutub, 1958). 20 In recent times, Muslim scholarship on ḥadīth is carried out, beside Islamic modernists, by traditionalist Salafis and late Sunni traditionalists. 21 Mohammad O. Farooq, Toward Our Reformation: From Legalism to Value-Oriented Islamic Law and Jurisprudence (London: International Institute of Islamic Thought, 2011), pp. 94–140. 22 See his Lectures on Arabic Historians. 23 Henri Lammens, Islam: Belief and Institutions, transl. E. Denison Ross (London: Methuen, 1929). 18

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tani24—all applied to ḥadīth the historical critical method. Nonetheless, it was not until some thirty years after Goldziher passed away that his sweeping views on ḥadīth genre were developed significantly—an effort credited to the renowned German-British Arabist Joseph Schacht, whose Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence assimilated Goldziher’s overall thesis and applied it to legal issues with deeper criticism of ḥadīth.25 Schacht’s hypothesis was that isnād,26 which had knowingly been regarded and utilised as a weapon of debate, was generally spurious.27 For decades, it proved very difficult a task to recognize any middle ground between this Orientalist approach and an ensuing philoIslamic approach. The latter was campaigned by a number of nonMuslim scholars as well as Muslim scholars who received training in Western institutions. If the scholarship of the former approach was critical but indiscriminate, that of the latter ranged from tetchy protests and evangelic-apologetic writings to well-grounded studies. Two of the most influential from the latter group are Nabia Abbott and Fuat Sezgin. The latter, in particular, argued a scheme for the restoration of the earlier written sources on which the third/ninth century collections were based.28 Sezgin also pointed out a significant weakness in the Orientalist understanding of early Islamic intellectual history. The earliest studies, particularly those of Sprenger and Goldziher, do not seem to make out the subtle, yet very significant, lines between three different phases of early ḥadīth conservation: kitāba, ‘writing down’, tadwīn, ‘documentation’ and taṣnīf, ‘codification’.29 Sezgin, further, casts light upon eight ways of acquiring knowledge, a uniquely Islamic feature known traditionally as taḥammul al-ʿilm. Sprenger and Goldziher identified only three of See his Annali dell’Islam. Joseph Schacht, The Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1950; repr. 1975). 26 On the definition and usage of isnād, see below. 27 Schacht, Muhammadan Jurisprudence, pp. 163–75. See also his ‘A Revaluation of Islamic Traditions’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 81 (1949), 143–54. 28 Sezgin maintains that he has found some of these earlier sources. 29 Sezgin, Geschichte (Ḥijāzī’s transl.), i, 119–120. 24 25

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these: ijāza (where someone is acquiesced to transmit knowledge on the authority of a scholar without reading), munāwala (where a transmitter is handed knowledge in the form of written material) and wijāda (where knowledge is taken from a script or other written format without any contact whatsoever between the shaykh and the student).30 Of the other five techniques samāʿ is generally looked upon as the most reliable mode of transmission. Literally meaning ‘audition’, samāʾ denotes the case in which the student was listening to the shaykh reciting knowledge—whether from notes or memory. Equally superior was qirāʾa, ‘recitation’ (or ʿarḍ, ‘presentation’), where the student was doing the above role of the shaykh in samāʿ, while the latter was listening and correcting. The other three ways of transmission were: kitāba or mukātaba (writing ḥadīth for someone), waṣiyya (where written material is consigned to someone) and iʿlām (where someone is handed over some material, written or oral, alongside a note of the informer’s permission to this particular individual to acquire such knowledge—the right to pass it to others would, however, remain undecided unless stated clearly by the former). It is worth noting that those techniques not involving a direct hearing from the informer were usually deemed of inferior reliability.31 So significant has the impact of the above scholars’ efforts been on subsequent scholarship that some believe they are compelling enough to settle the question of ḥadīth authenticity. Gregor Schoeler, for example, states, ‘With the works of these two scholars [i.e. Abbott and Sezgin], earlier claims about the largely oral transmission of Arabo-Islamic sciences up to the time of the major See Aloys Sprenger, ‘Ueber das Traditionswesen bei den Arabern’, Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, 10 (1856), 1–17; Goldziher, Muhammedanische Studien, ii, 188. See also Robinson, Islamic Historiography, p. 176. 31 Sezgin, Geschichte (Ḥijāzī’s transl.), i, 123–5; M. Muṣṭafā al-Aʿẓamī. Studies in Ḥadīth Methodology and Literature (Indiana: American Trust Publications, 1977), pp. 16–24; Ṣ. al-Dīn al-Munajjid, ‘Ijāzat al-samāʾ fī almakhṭūṭāt al-qadīma’, Majallat Maʿhad al-Makhṭūṭāt al-ʿArabiyya, Revue de l’institut des manuscrits arabes, 1 (1955), 232–51; Schoeler, Oral and Written, pp. 29–30. 30

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compilations seemed to have been laid to rest’.32 It is true that due to these, and other works of the same capacity, early absolutism dwindled in later research, but the sceptical tendency remained vigorous as presented in the works of John Wansbrough33 and those of its two main exponents, Patricia Crone and Michael Cook.34 Together, these and other similar writings took the form of a revisionist approach that called into question the entirety of the traditional Muslim narrative on early Islam (see Chapter 2). Since 1980s, a new, and a conceivably moderate, approach began to materialize in the West. Scholars in this group, while praising Goldziher’s insight and critical method, do not find plausible his non-exempting views regarding ḥadīth falsification. As John Burton explains, it remains difficult for such scholars, himself included, to accept as true that zealous adherents and devout people would associate themselves with a supposedly sweeping drift of falsifying, in favour of their own views, a material of whose sacredness they were mindful, while criticising those applying less meticulous methods when dealing with it.35 For this, and other reasons, a growing number of modern scholars, such as Wilfred Madelung, Fred Donner, Harald Motzki, and Gregor Schoeler, etc., have come to believe that it is imprudent to assume that the Arabic tradition lack any genuine core.36 According to this approach, the set Schoeler, Oral and Written, p. 28. See also Herbert Berg, The Development of Exegesis in Early Islam: The Authenticity of Muslim Literature from the Formative Period (Richmond: Curzon, 2000), pp. 18–21 33 John Wansbrough, The Sectarian Milieu: Content and Composition of Islamic Salvation History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978). 34 Michael Cook, Early Muslim Dogma: A Source-Critical Study (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982). 35 Burton, Introduction to Ḥadīth, p. xvii. Burton accordingly concludes that the wholesale rejection of ḥadīth misses the point, namely that ḥadīth, or part of it, must be preserving some material on the thinking of early Muslims, if not precisely in the age of the Prophet, then very soon after that, i.e. in what he calls ‘the age of the Qurʾān’: Introduction to Ḥadīth, p. 181. 36 See Wilfred Madelung The Succession to Muhammad: A Study of the Early Caliphate, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997; repr. 1997 32

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of coincidences and assumptions, which the sceptical tendency requires the reader to accept, is by far more improbable than the likelihood of a certain ḥadīth to date back to the birth of Islam. Further, some academics, having examined certain texts, conclude that ḥadīth was indeed subjected to a considerable amount of scrutiny and criticism very early in the Islamic history.37 Speaking of this approach, i.e. the Western revaluation—as he terms it,38 Jonathan Brown states: This approach has rejected the extremes of the Revisionist Approach while continuing criticism of the early Islamic period according to the Historical Critical Method. Rejecting the radical skepticism of the Revisionists, however, has led some Western scholars to recognize both that the Orientalist method involves some questionable assumptions and also that the Muslim Hadith tradition is much more sophisticated than previously believed.39

Today’s scholarship is influenced by two extremes, i.e. GoldziherSchacht’s theory on the one side and the modern Muslim scholars’ on the other.40 In 1983, Juynboll, who is generally known for his and 2001); Fred M. Donner, Narratives of Islamic Origins; Harald Motzki (ed.), The Biography of Muhammad: The Issue of the Sources (Leiden, Boston, Köln: Brill, 2000); Motzki, van der Voort and Anthony, Analysing Muslim Traditions. See also a review on the latter work by Jonathan Brown in the Journal of the American Oriental Society, 131 (2011), 473–6; Schoeler, Oral and Written; id., Genesis, pp. 1–12. Similar views are also held by Tarif Khalidi. 37 As an example, see Eerik Dickinson, The Development of Early Sunnite Ḥadīth Criticism: The Taqdima of Ibn Abī Ḥātim al-Rāzī (240/854– 327/938) (Leiden, Boston, Köln: Brill, 2001). 38 It is termed ‘the tradition-critical approach’ by Donner: Narratives of Islamic Origins, p. 275. 39 J. Brown, Hadith, p. 204. 40 See M. Abū Shuhba, Difāʿ ʿan al-sunna wa-radd shubah al-mustashriqīn wa-l-kuttāb al-muʿāṣirīn (Cairo: Maktabat al-Sunna, 1989); Saʿd al-Marṣafī, al-Mustashriqun wa-l-sunna (Kuwait: Maktabat al-Manār al-Islāmiyya, 1990); M. Muṣṭafā al-Aʿẓamī, On Schacht’s ‘Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence’ (Chichester, John Wiley, 1996; [first published in Riyadh, King Saud Uni-

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critical views, wrote: ‘I realized that I did not take sides, neither in the disputes among Oriental and Western scholars. I had been influenced by the books of Goldziher and Schacht, of course, but also by those of modern Muslim scholars.’41 Recent influential writings in this regard include: Robinson’s Islamic Historiography; ElHibri’s Parable and Politics in Early Islamic History: The Rashidun Caliphs;42 and Shoemaker’s The Death of a Prophet: The End of Muhammad’s Life and the Beginnings of Islam.43 This latter approach, i.e. the Western revaluation, is also influenced by new discoveries of ḥadīth material. As T. Khalidi states, ‘Within the last half century or so, a lot of early Hadith texts have come to light, often necessitating modification or rejection of existing theories or views.’44 In addition to the above contributions of Abbott and Sezgin,45 M. al-Aʿẓamī, for example, states that he identified copies of twelve ḥadīth manuscripts dated to the second cen-

versity, 1985]); Talal Maloush, ‘Early Ḥadīth Literature and the Theory of Ignaz Goldziher’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2000). 41 Juynboll, Muslim Tradition: Studies in Chronology, Provenance and Authorship of Early Ḥadīth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), p. 1. 42 Tayeb El-Hibri, Parable and Politics in Early Islamic History: The Rashidun Caliphs (Columbia: Columbia University Press, 2010). See also, id., Reinterpreting Islamic Historiography: Hārūn al-Rashīd and the Narrative of the ʿAbbasid Caliphate (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). 43 Stephen J. Shoemaker, The Death of a Prophet: The End of Muhammad’s Life and the Beginnings of Islam (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012). 44 Khalidi, Arabic Historical Thought, p. 17. 45 According to Gregor Schoeler, ‘with the works of these two scholars [namely Abbott and Sezgin], earlier claims about the largely oral transmission of Arabo-Islamic sciences up to the time of the major compilations seemed to have been laid to rest’: Oral and Written, p. 28.

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tury AH. Of these, he edited and published the shortest, namely, the Ṣaḥīfa of Suhayl b. Abī Ṣāliḥ (d. 138/755).46 Another important discovery is the Ṣaḥīfa of Hammām b. Munabbih (d. 101/719), which is taken by many to be the oldest surviving ḥadīth script. The compiler, Hammām, was a Yemenite disciple of the Companion Abū Hurayra (d. 58/677).47 Two copies of the manuscript are held in libraries in Berlin and Damascus.48 While 98 of the Ṣaḥīfa’s 138 ḥadīths are found in the two Ṣaḥīḥs of al-Bukhārī and Muslim, 136 of these are found en bloc in the Musnad of Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal. This means that canonical books of ḥadīth digested only what was regarded authentic according to the standards of each compiler. That not all of the ḥadīths in the Ṣaḥīfa, in spite of their perceived authenticity, were selected by al-Bukhārī and Muslim seems to enhance the type of standards maintained by both scholars to accept a certain ḥadīth. Having compared the ḥadīths of the Ṣaḥīfa with 1500 variant readings of the same ḥadīths in the third/ninth century compilations (including those of Ibn Ḥanbal, alBukhārī and Muslim),49 Speight concludes that the common texts

Al-Aʿẓamī publishes a copy (written in 598/1201) of Suhayl’s manuscript. See M. Muṣṭafā al-Aʿẓamī, Dirāsāt fī al-ḥadīth al-nabawī wataʾrīkh tadwīnih (Beirut: al-Maktab al-Islāmī, 1980), pp. 471–585. 47 M. Hamidullah, An Introduction to the Conservation of Hadith: in the Light of the Sahifah of Hammam ibn Munabbih, (Kuala Lumpur: Islamic Book trust, 1953; repr. 2003). We are told about other students of Abū Hurayra, such as Bashīr b. Nahīk, who also set the latter’s ḥadīths down to writing. See al-Dārimī, Sunan, ed. H. Salīm al-Dārānī, 4 vols (Riyadh: Dār alMughnī, 2000), no. 511; al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī, Taqyīd al-ʿilm, ed. Saʿd ʿAbd al-Ghaffār ʿAlī (Cairo: Dār al-Istiqāma, 2008), p. 129; Sezgin, Geschichte (Ḥijāzī’s transl.), i, 126, 149. 48 See M. Hamidullah, Ṣaḥīfah Hammām Ibn Munabbih: The Earliest Extant Work on the Ḥadīth (Paris: Centre Culturel Islamique, 10th rev. edn., 1979); M. Speight, ‘A Look at Variant Readings in the Ḥadīth’, in Mustafa Shah (ed.), The Ḥadīth: Critical Concepts in Islamic Studies (Abingdon: Routledge, 2010), pp. 79–89 (p. 79). 49 Speight, ‘Variant Readings’, p. 79. 46

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are nearly identical.50 Another example of early ḥadīth writing is the Muṣannaf of ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Ṣanʿānī, which has been carefully studied by Harald Motzki. In his resulting article, Motzki concludes: While studying the Muṣannaf of ʿAbd al-Razzaq, I came to the conclusion that the theory championed by Goldziher, Schacht, and in their footsteps, many others—myself included—which in general, reject hadith literature as a historically reliable source for the first century AH, deprives the historical study of early Islam of an important and a useful type of source.51

Motzki then developed a new method of analysing and dating ḥadīth, the isnād-cum-matn—as he terms it. This method, well received by many specialists and even applied by some of them, ascribes the variants of a certain ḥadīth, at least in part, to the process of transmission and interprets the isnāds of such variants as echoing the actual course of their transmission. If the matns of these variants, which derive from a shared source, prove to be sufficiently comparable and independent, that would qualify such a source as an ‘authentic moment’ of transmission. The significant twist offered by this isnād-cum-matn analysis is that deliberate forgery should be relaxed in favour of commonplace, reasonable, and entirely unsurprising factors as a more practical justification for the complicated network of ḥadīth transmissions. As such, the dominant tendencies now are neither dismissive nor gullible, but seek to harness ḥadīth, or aspects of it, to good historical effect.52 The fact that Speight, ‘Variant Readings’, pp. 79–80, 85. See also M. Abdul Rauf ‘Ḥadīth Literature-I: The Development of the Science of Ḥadīth’, in A. F. L. Beeston and others (eds.), Arabic Literature to the End of Umayyad Period (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 272–88 (p. 272). 51 H. Motzki, ‘The Musannaf of ʿAbd al-Razzaq al-Sanʿani as a Source of Authentic Ahadith of the First Century A.H.’, Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 50 (1991), 1–21 (p. 21). 52 For a thorough review of scholastic atmosphere in this regard, see Herbert Berg’s Development of Exegesis in Early Islam, where modern scholars are grouped based on their views regarding ḥadīth authenticity. See also Juynboll, Muslim Tradition, pp. 1–8; Schoeler, Genesis, pp. 1–9. 50

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most of the compilations we possess today were written in the third/ninth century does not necessarily mean that ḥadīth was not committed to writing at an earlier date. In the following section, we will try to see how this patrimony could have evolved from oral to written transmission.

3.3 HISTORY OF ḤADĪTH TRANSMISSION 3.3.1 The earliest years (ca. 610 AD–41/750) According to tradition, interest in learning the Prophet’s teachings began as early as his time.53 He advised his followers to pass on the knowledge they took from him to others, and permitted some to put it in writing: ‘istaʿin bi-yamīnik (use your own hand [i.e. in writing]’, ‘uktubū li-Abī Shāh (write down for Abū Shāh)’.54 Mālik b. al-Ḥuwayrith narrated: ‘the Prophet commanded us: “Go back to your people and teach them [i.e. the knowledge which he told Mālik and his comrades]”.’55 When asked ‘Who among the people would be the most deserving of your intercession [with God] on the Day of Judgement?’, the Prophet said: ‘I reckoned no one before you Abū Hurayra would ask me about that, for what I see of your ardency to learn ḥadīth!’.56

See Abū Dāwūd, nos. 3646–50; Schoeler, Genesis, pp. 40–1. See al-Tirmidhī, nos. 2666–8; al-Dārimī, nos. 500–28; al-Khaṭīb alBaghdādī, Sharaf aṣḥāb al-ḥadīth, ed. M. Saʿīd Ughlī (Ankara, University of Ankara, 1969), pp. 15–21; id., Taqyīd, pp. 74–83, 86–107; Ibn Qayyim alJawziyya, Zād al-maʿād fī hadī khayr al-ʿibād, eds. Shuʿayb and ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Arnaʾūṭ, 5 vols (Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Risāla, 1991), iii, 457–8; Sezgin, Geschichte (Ḥijāzī’s transl.), i, 153–4; Abū Zahwu, al-Ḥadīth wa-lmuḥaddithūn: ʿināyat al-umma al-Islāmiyya bi-l-sunna al-sharīfa (Cairo: Maṭbaʿat Miṣr, 1958), p. 54. 55 Al-Bukhārī, no. 87. 56 Ibid, no. 99. 53 54

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On the authority of Abū Hurayra, the Prophet said: ‘He who is asked for knowledge (ʿilm) but does not pass it (fa-katamahu) will be bridled with a curb of fire on the Last Day.’57 On the authority of Zayd b. Thābit, the Prophet said: ‘May God make bright and beautiful (the face of) him who hears a ḥadīth from me, learns it by heart and then passes it down to another. It is possible that one would convey knowledge to another that is more knowledgeable than he is. It is also possible that someone who bears knowledge is not knowledgeable’.58

For their part, the earliest believers, fully convinced that following in the Prophet’s footsteps was the one and only route to salvation, showed clear enthusiasm for learning his teachings. To this end, they reportedly took turns escorting him, exchanged knowledge between one another, travelled to Madina (if not living there) to take knowledge from him and transcribed his sayings.59 Among those said to have committed ḥadīth to writing were Saʿd b. ʿUbāda (d. 15/636), ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAmr b. al-ʿĀṣ (d. 65/684) and Jābir b. ʿAbd Allāh (d. 87/706).60 Sprenger argued what still seems to be Abū Dāwūd, no. 3658; Ibn Māja, nos. 261–6. See also al-Tirmidhī, nos. 2659–61. For more ḥadīths on the Prophet’s command to his followers to promulgate the knowledge they had from him, see al-Haythamī, nos. 581–98. 58 In another narration, ‘It is possible for one who is told [about my ḥadīth] to be more attentive than that who heard it [from me]’. See alTirmidhī, nos. 2656–8; Ibn Māja, nos. 230–6. 59 See al-Bukhārī, nos. 78, 88, 89, 103, 104, 105, 116, 117. On ḥadīths about the importance and merit of learning and seeking knowledge, see alDārimī, nos. 581–91; al-Haythamī, nos. 472–566. On a tentative chronology of seeking knowledge in early Islam, see Juynboll, Muslim Tradition, pp. 66–70. 60 For a more comprehensive list of the Companions who committed ḥadīth to writing and the content of their ṣuḥuf, ‘scripts’ of ḥadīth, see al-Aʿẓamī, Dirāsāt, pp. 92–142; Akram al-ʿUmarī, Buḥūth fī tārīkh al-sunna al-musharrafa, 5th edn, 2 vols (Medina: Maktabat al-ʿUlūm wa-l-Ḥikam, 1984 [?]), ii, 294–6. See also Abbott, Arabic Literary Papyri, ii, 238. For more information on the Companions’ stances towards writing down 57

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adequate evidence that already within the lifetime of the Prophet a number of ḥadīths were indeed put down to writing.61 The following ḥadīth, however, has stirred debate since early Islam vis-à-vis the legality of writing down ḥadīth. On the authority of Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī, the Prophet said: ‘Do not write down [anything] of me. Whoever writes other than the Qurʾān should delete it […]’.62 According to the Muslim view, this and other less known and less authentic ḥadīths of the same meaning63 are peculiar to the time of the Prophet—particularly when the Qurʾān was being revealed.64 The Prophet was concerned that ḥadīth would be confused with the Qurʾān. Once the revelation was completed and it was assured no more of it was going to be revealed, it became permissible and even essential to write ḥadīth down. Other ‘provisional’ reasons were argued for the aversion of writing. These included the desire to avoid a methodical mistake committed by the followers of former Abrahamic faiths who, according to the Muslim belief, committed themselves for books other than the divine revelation alone ḥadīth, see ʿAjjāj al-Khaṭīb, al-Sunna qabl al-tadwīn, 2nd edn (Cairo: Maktabat Wahaba, 1988), pp. 309–21; al-Zahrānī, Tadwīn al-sunna al-nabawiyya: nashaʾtuh wa-taṭawwuruh min al-qarn al-awwal ilā nihāyat al-qarn al-tāsiʿ al-hijrī (Riyadh: Dār al-Minhāj, 2005), pp. 25–30; Abū Zahwu, al-Ḥadīth wa-lmuḥaddithūn, pp. 65–79. 61 See Aloys Sprenger, ‘On the Origin and Progress of Writing down Historical Facts among the Musulmans’, Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 25 (1856), 303–29, 375–81; id., ‘Notes on Alfred von Kremer’s Edition of Waqidy’s Campaigns’, Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 25 (1856), 53–74, 199–220; id., ‘Ueber das Traditionswesen bei den Arabern’, pp. 1–17; id., The Life of Mohammad from Original Sources (Allahabad: Presbyterian Mission Press, 1851), pp. 63–74. See also Guillaume, Traditions, pp. 15–8 62 Muslim, no. 7510; Abū Yaʿlā, al-Musnad, ed. H. Salīm Asʿad, 2nd edn (Beirut: Dār al-Maʾmūn li-l-Turāth, 1989), no. 1288. 63 On these ḥadīths, see al-Tirmidhī, no. 2665; al-Haythamī, nos. 606– 8, 666; al-Baghdādī, Taqyīd, pp. 17–41; ʿAjjāj, Sunna, p. 303. 64 See, for example, al-Baghdādī, Taqyīd, pp. 49–66; al-ʿUmarī, Buḥūth, i, 291–2; ʿAjjāj, Sunna, pp. 303–20; Abū Zahwu, al-Ḥadīth wa-lmuḥaddithūn, 122–7; al-Aʿẓamī, Dirāsāt, pp. 76–83.

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(e.g. the Mishnah and the Tosefta in Judaic religious tradition).65 The early Muslims were afraid that ḥadīth records could distract people from the Qurʾān.66 This is in addition to unease related to the possibility of ḥadīth collectors relying heavily on writing and thus losing the needed faculty to learn it by heart.67 Early traditionists were also anxious about the possibility that written ḥadīth would fall into dishonest hand that would misuse it.68 Some of them were even reported to have asked their heirs to destroy the documents they wrote after they would die.69 Another reason was the limited number of those who were familiar with writing. It was thought that priority should be assigned to activities related to the transcription and codification of the Qurʾān. It is, however, said that when the number of the literate Companions multiplied later in the time of the Prophet, he asked some of them to write down ḥadīth.70 It was also argued that the Prophet prevented his followers from writing down ḥadīth because many of them did not manage to write properly, and there was thus the risk of making many mistakes.71 In See al-Haythamī, no. 12446; al-Muʿallamī, Anwār, pp. 38–41. Al-Dārimī, nos. 485, 487, 493–7; al-Baghdādī, Taqyīd, pp. 49–61; Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, Jāmiʿ bayān al-ʿilm wa-faḍlih, ed. Abū al-Ashbāl al-Zuhayrī, 2 vols (Dammam: Dār Ibn al-Jawzī, 1994), nos. 335–58; ʿAbd al-Ghanī ʿAbd al-Khāliq, Ḥujjiyyat al-Sunna (Mansura: Maṭābiʿ al-Wafāʾ, 1992 [?]), p. 427. 67 Al-Baghdādī, Taqyīd, pp. 62–5; Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, Jāmiʿ, nos. 335– 85; ʿAbd al-Khāliq, Ḥujjiyya, pp. 428–9; Schoeler, Oral and Written, p. 118. It is, however, reported that some of those who obliterated the ḥadīths they once transcribed regretted that later. See al-Baghdādī, Taqyīd, pp. 64– 5. 68 Al-Dārimī, nos. 481, 483; al-Baghdādī, Taqyīd, pp. 66–9; Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, Jāmiʿ, no. 364. 69 Al-Baghdādī, Taqyīd, pp. 67–9; Schoeler, Oral and Written, pp. 117– 8. 70 ʿAbd al-Khāliq, Ḥujjiyya, p. 429. See also al-Dārimī, no. 500; alSuyūṭī, Miftāḥ al-janna fī al-iḥtijāj bi-l-sunna (Cairo: Idārat al-Ṭibāʿa alMunīriyya, [n.d]), p. 37. 71 Ibn Qutayba, Taʾwīl mukhtalif al-ḥadīth, ed. M. M. al-Aṣfar, 2nd rev. edn (Beirut, al-Maktab al-Islāmī, 1999), p. 412. 65 66

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all cases, however, the early dialectics related to the above disapproving ḥadīth show it to have indeed affected negatively the number of ḥadīths being reported. Of course, the contradictory reports on writing may well be attributed to later discourses. Hence, the use of reports, particularly those of direct address, from the third/ninth-century collections to prove the authenticity of the very collections is of course fraught with real possibilities of ending up having a typical case of circulus in probando. However, the recent discoveries of earlier ḥadīth writings give such reports a better standing. Further, Islamic teachings are primarily based upon two sources: the Qurʾān and the Prophet’s sunna. In the absence of a definitive text integrating these two codes in the early period, dispute occasionally arose regarding the exact wording and/or meaning of a verse or a ḥadīth. Within the lifetime of the Prophet, this problem was not especially taxing.72 After he passed away, the need for documented forms of both the Qurʾān and ḥadīth became more pressing.73 The rise of doctrinal and political tensions and the ensuing episodes of turbulence, whose harmful effect began to be felt right after the Prophet’s time, made it almost unavoidable to work towards having such documented forms, i.e. scriptures. More significantly, the preservation of ḥadīth was a basic requirement for Muslim people who were, and remain to be, commanded according to the Qurʾān to follow the Prophet’s example (this will be discussed below in detail).74 While restrictive procedures, particularly in the time of ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb,75 must have affected the amount of ḥadīth being

For an example of how the Prophet arbitrated a dispute over the accurate reading of a Qurʾānic verse, see Muslim, no. 6776; Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, al-Musnad, eds. Aḥmad M. Shākir and Ḥamza A. al-Zayn, 20 vols (Cairo: Dār al-Ḥadīth, 1995), nos. 158, 277. See also Guillaume, Traditions, pp. 13–4; al-Zahrānī, Tadwīn, pp. 25–6. 73 See Burton, Introduction to Ḥadīth, pp. 55–91; Sezgin, Geschichte (Ḥijāzī’s transl.), i, 55–62, See also ibid, i, 63–82. 74 Qurʾān 3. 32, 132; 4. 59; 5. 92; 8. 1, 20, 46; 24. 54, 56; 47. 33, etc. 75 There are reports, however, that ʿUmar policies did not arguably retard the process of ḥadīth documentation; he himself is reported to have 72

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transmitted negatively,76 they could have prompted those who narrated it to take extra care.77 For some, such restrictions on the transmission of ḥadīth were indeed one way to preserve the true teachings of the Prophet, which in illo tempore were mainly kept in the memories of the ṣaḥābīs. Those ṣaḥābīs did not reportedly lack awareness of their responsibility to transmit such knowledge to other people—both existing and coming.78 In the first generation after the Prophet, nonetheless, it was feared that if ḥadīth was freely transmitted, its original text would become more vulnerable to deformation either intentionally (by antagonists) or unintentionally (by pious adherents through forgetfulness, faulty manipulation, accident and the like).79 Therefore, a number of strategies were implemented at this early stage to scrutinize the oral transmission of ḥadīth. For example, a transmitter was required to provide other witnesses and take an oath, while the ḥadīth reported was usually compared with the supreme textual authority—the Qurʾān.80 AlAʿẓamī maintains that fifty of the Prophet’s Companions either wrote ḥadīth or assigned others to write on their behalf, mainly besaid: ‘Bind knowledge with writing.’ Al-Dārimī, no. 514. See also Sezgin, Geschichte (Ḥijāzī’s transl.), i, 127. 76 Al-ʿAbbās b. ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib, al-Zubayr b. al-ʿAwwām and Abū ʿUbayda b. al-Jarrāḥ were among the Companions who narrated a restricted number of ḥadīths. They advised people not to narrate all they had heard for fear of making mistakes. 77 Ibrahim al-Qaṭṭān, ‘Tadwīn al-sunna wa-aṭwāruh’, in ʿAbd Allāh I. al-Anṣārī (ed.), al-Buḥūth wa-l dirāsāt al-muqaddama li-l-muʾtamar al-ʿālamī althālith li-l-sīra wa-l-sunna al-nabawiyya, 7 vols (Beirut: Manshūrāt al-Maktaba al-ʿAṣriyya, 1981), iii, 178–9. 78 See al-Dārimī, nos. 560, 579. 79 See al-Nawawī, ‘Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim’ bi-sharḥ al-Nawawī, 18 vols (Cairo: alMaṭbaʿa al-Miṣriyya, 1929–30), i, 80–8. 80 See Abū Zahwu, al-Ḥadīth wa-l-muḥaddithūn, pp. 69–70, 69. A telling example is reported by Ibn Saʿd: Ṭabaqāt, iv, 19–20. See also alMuttaqī al-Hindī, Kanz al-ʿummāl fī sunan al-aqwāl wa-l-afʿāl, ed. Isḥāq alṬībī, 2nd edn, 2 vols (Beirut: Bayt al-Afkār al-Duwaliyya, 2005), nos. 23095–6; al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, 483–4. See also Ibn al-Najjār, Durra, p. 172.

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cause of their ignorance of writing.81 However, the greater part of ḥadīth was narrated by only seven of them.82 Ṣaḥābīs are said to have studied ḥadīth together and advised the tābiʿīs to learn it.83 Centres for ḥadīth learning were reportedly established as early as the time of the conquests in places including: Madina, Makka, Kūfa, Baṣra, Damascus and Fusṭāṭ.84 3.3.2 Under the Umayyads (41–132/661–750) In the Umayyad period, a number of reasons led to the favouring of written over oral transmission.85 These included the fact that the chains of transmitters had become longer and that many Companions had passed away. The emergence of more antagonistic movements and the circulation of writing in general further mitigated the usual dependency on memory. Against this background, the reasons for maintaining restrictions on writing down ḥadīth no longer existed.86 The efforts of the tābiʿīs to preserve ḥadīth came into blos-

Examples include the ṣuḥuf of Abū Mūsā al-Ashʿarī (d. 50/670), Samura b. Jundub (d. 60/680) and Jābir b. ʿAbd Allāh (d. 78/697). On the written ḥadīths in the time of the Companions and the Followers, see alAʿẓamī, Dirāsāt, pp. 84–327. See also Robson, ‘Ḥadīth’, p. 24. Some old copies of these early ṣaḥīfas are said to have survived to the present time. See al-Zahrānī, Tadwīn, pp. 71–3; Ṣubḥī al-Sāmarrāʾī’s introduction to alKhulāṣa. Al-Ḥusayn b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Ṭeib, al-Khulāṣa fī uṣūl al-ḥadīth, ed. Ṣubḥī al-Sāmarrāʾī (Baghdad: Maṭbaʿat al-Irshād, 1971), p. 10. 82 These are: Abū Hurayra (5374 ḥadīths), ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿUmar (2630), Anas b. Mālik (2286), ʿĀʾisha (2210), ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAbbās (1660), Jābir b. ʿAbd Allāh (1540), and Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī (1100). See Muqaddimat Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ, p. 295 ff. 83 Al-Baghdādī, Sharaf, pp. 93–8; Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, Fatḥ al-Bārī bī-sharḥ ‘Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī’, 14 vols (Cairo: Muṣṭafā al-Ḥalabī, 1959), i, 170, 175; ʿAjjāj, Sunna, p. 147. 84 For more information on the earliest development of these centres, their teachers and students, see Juynboll, Muslim Tradition, pp. 39–66; ʿAjjāj, Sunna, pp. 164–75. 85 See Maʿmar b. Rāshid (in Muṣannaf ʿAbd al-Razzāq), nos. 20484–9. 86 Al-Zahrānī, Tadwīn, p. 74. 81

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som and the result was a number of ṣuḥuf.87 Some of these, or rather recensions of which, have reached us.88 Also under the Umayyads, the activities of collecting, assessing and cataloguing ḥadīth developed significantly. Two of the most zealous figures in this respect were the caliph ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz (r. 99–101/717–20) and Ibn Shihāb al-Zuhrī.89 According to al-Bukhārī et alii, ʿUmar commanded ḥadīth to be written down by a number of trustworthy scholars, lest it should be mislaid over time.90 He then dispatched the records (dafātir) resultant from these activities to the territories under his caliphate so that they would be used as a supreme reference beside the Qurʾān.91 Al-Zuhrī, on the other hand, was one of those to whom this task was assigned and by far the most vigorous in this regard. Some of his ḥadīth records, now missing, were reportedly still preserved in the Umayyad periFor examples of these ṣuḥuf, see al-Zahrānī, Tadwīn, p. 75. See Sezgin, Geschichte (Ḥijāzī’s transl.), i, 153–64. 89 See Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, Jāmiʿ Bayān al-ʿIlm, i, 320–1, 332–4; alBaghdādī, Taqyīd, pp. 137–9. On the efforts of the two men in this regard, see Guillaume, Traditions, pp. 18–9; Schoeler, Genesis, pp. 2, 47–50. Ibn Shihāb al-Zuhrī was a renowned ḥadīth scholar on whose authority a large number of ḥadīths are reported. Apart from his al-Maghāzī al-nabawiyya, which fortunately reached us, al-Zuhrī’s works are mainly known to us through quotations by later ḥadīth compilers and historians. On him, see Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt,vii, 429–39; al-Dhahabī, Siyar aʿlām al-nubalāʾ, ed. Ḥassān ʿAbd al-Mannān, rev. edn, 3 vols (Beirut: Bayt al-Afkār al-Duwaliyya, 2004), pp. 3700–8; Dūrī, Rise of Historical Writing, pp. 28, 95–110; N. A. Fārūqī, Early Muslim Historiography: A Survey of the Early Transmitters of Arab History from the Rise of Islam up to the End of the Umayyad Period (Delhi: Idarah-i Adabiyat-i Delli, 1979); J. Horovitz ‘The Earliest Biographies of the Prophet and their Authors’, Islamic Culture, 2 (1928), 22–51. See also critiques by M. Lecker: ‘Biographical Notes on Ibn Shihāb al-Zuhrī’, Journal of Semitic Studies, 41 (1996), 21–63; id., ‘al-Zuhrī’, EI2 (2002), xi, 565–6; H. Motzki, Analysing Muslim Traditions, pp. 1–46. 90 See al-Bukhārī, no. 100. 91 Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, Jāmiʿ Bayān al-ʿilm, i, 331; Abū Nuʿaym alAṣbahānī, Ḥilyat al-awliyāʾ wa-ṭabaqāt al-aṣfiyāʾ (Cairo: Maṭbaʿat al-Saʿāda, 1938), iii, 363. 87 88

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od.92 In addition to al-Zuhrī, ʿUmar entrusted the task of documenting ḥadīth with scholars such as Abū Bakr b. Muḥammad b. Ḥazm (d. 120/737), who was then Madina’s governor and qāḍī. ʿUmar said to him: ‘Consider what has been [extant] of the ḥadīth of the Prophet or the sunna of the past or the ḥadīth by ʿAmra and write them down; I fear that knowledge would vanish and its people would pass away.’93 Having been raised under the guardianship of ʿĀʾisha, ʿAmra bt. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Najjāriyya (d. ca. 106/724), a maternal aunt of Abū Bakr b. Ḥazm, was seen by ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz as one of the most knowledgeable ḥadīth figures in the Umayyad period.94 Generally, the efforts to collect ḥadīth under the Umayyads were confronted with the emergence of conflicting religious sects such as the Shīʿīs and the Khārijīs—both influenced, in a way, the

See Ibn ʿAsākir, Tārīkh Dimashq, lix, 390–422 (p. 400). For more on al-Zuhrī and his pioneering efforts in collecting ḥadīth, see Harald Motzki, ‘Der Fiqh des Zuhri: die Quellenproblematik’, Der Islam, 68 (1991), 1–44; Harald Motzki, The Origins of Islamic Jurisprudence: Meccan Fiqh before the Classical Schools, transl. Marion H. Katz (Leiden: Brill, 2002), p. 27; Sezgin, Geschichte (Ḥijāzī’s transl.), i, 121; Juynboll, Muslim Tradition, pp. 146–58, 168–71. See also Schoeler, Genesis, pp. 47–50; Harald Motzki (ed.), Ḥadīth: Origins and Developments (Aldershot: Ashgate/Variorum, 2004), p. 6. 93 Muwaṭṭaʾ al-imām Mālik: riwāyat Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan al-Shaybānī, ed. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb ʿAbd al-Laṭīf, 4th edn (Cairo: al-Majlis al-Aʿlā li-lShuʾūn al-Islāmiyya, 1994), no. 936; Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, ii, 332–3; alDārimī, no. 504–5; al-Baghdādī, Taqyīd, pp. 136–7. In modern ḥadīth studies, attention to this ḥadīth was first paid by Muir, but doubted by Goldziher who maintains that this ḥadīth, reported by Mālik only through alShaybānī, just reflects the dominant views on the piety and zealousness of ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz. William Muir, The Life of Mahomet: With Introductory Chapters on the Original Sources for the Biography of Mahomet, and on the PreIslamite History of Arabia, 4 vols (London: Smith and Elder, 1858–61), i, xxxiii; Goldziher, Muhammedanische Studien, ii, 211. On this ḥadīth, see also Sezgin, Geschichte (Ḥijāzī’s transl.), i, 120–2; Guillaume, Traditions, pp. 18–9. 94 On Abū Bakr b. Ḥazm, see Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, ii, 333; vii, 414–5 92

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development of ḥadīth transmission.95 This is in addition to other factors such as: the rise of elaborate theological, philosophical and legal polemics as well as disputes in the religious and political circles; the appearance of zindīqs, ‘heretics or heresiarchs’, mubtadiʿūn, ‘innovators, in the negative sense’, and qaṣṣāṣūn, ‘storytellers’; tribal and sectarian fanaticism; the over-pietistic desire to urge people to do good deeds; and the flattery of the rulers.96 In response to these threats, the early tābiʿīs implemented a number of measures to preserve ḥadīth, and the efficacy of writing seemed so evident as to need little explanation. A number of ṣaḥīfas or ṣuḥuf were written by scholars such as: Ibrāhīm al-Nakhaʿī (d. 96/715), Saʿīd b. al-Musayyib (d. 96/715), al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī (d. 110/728), Rajāʾ b. Ḥaywa (d. 112/730), ʿUrwa b. al-Zubayr, his son Hishām (d. 146/763) and Ibn Shihāb al-Zuhrī.97 According to Sezgin, many leafs of the third/ninth century recensions of such On the Shīʿīs and the Khārijīs, how they emerged, their religious and political views, and how they affected ḥadīth and early historical accounts, see fourth and fifth parts of al-Ṭabarī’s Tarīkh; Julius Wellhausen, Aḥzāb al-muʿāraḍa al-siyāsiyya al-dīniyya fī ṣadr al-Islam: al-khawārij wa-l-shīʿa (The Religio-Political Opposition Parties in Early Islam: Khawārij and Shiʿites), transl. A. Badawī (Maktabat al-Nahḍa al-Miṣriyya, 1958); Ibn Ḥazm, alFiṣal fī al-milal wa-l-ahwāʾ wa-l-niḥal, eds. M. Ibrāhīm Naṣr and ʿAbd alRaḥmān ʿUmayra, 2nd, 5 vols (Beirut: Dār al-Jīl, 1996), v, 35–56; ʿAbd alQāhir al-Baghdādī, Kitāb al-milal wa-l-niḥal, ed. Albert N. Nader (after a Manuscript conserved at the Library of Waqfs in Baghdad) (Beirut: Dār āl-Mashriq, 1970); al-Ḥākim al-Naysābūrī, An Introduction to the Science of Tradition: Being al-Madkhal ilā maʿrifat al-Iklīl, ed. and transl. J. Robson (London: Royal Asiatic Society, 1953), p. 28; Ersilia Francesca, ‘Khārijīs’, in Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān (2003), iii, 84–9; al-ʿUmarī, Buḥūth, ii, 22–5; Abū Zahwu, al-Ḥadīth wa-l-muḥaddithūn, pp. 86–7, 96–7; ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz M. Nūr Walī, Athar al-tashayyuʿ ʿalā al-riwāya al-taʾrīkhiyya fī al-qarn al-awwal alhijrī (Medina: Dār al-Khuḍayrī, 1996); Juynboll, Muslim Tradition, pp. 129– 31; Khalidi, Arabic Historical Thought, pp. 39–40. 96 See al-Ḥākim (Robson’s transl.), pp. 27–30; D. Brown, Rethinking Tradition, pp. 113, 134; Burton, Introduction to Ḥadīth, pp. 144–7; al-ʿUmarī, Buḥūth, ii, 25–4; ʿAjjāj, Sunna, pp. 187–218. 97 See al-ʿUmarī, Buḥūth, pp. 294–9 (and the references therein). 95

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early ṣuḥuf and kutub are preserved in the library of Shahid Ali in Turkey and Dār al-Kutub al-Ẓāhiriyya in Damascus.98 The aftermath of such early efforts was a flurry of ḥadīth compilation and its writing down in what became traditionally known as muṣannafāt.99 Muṣannafāt, the plural of muṣannaf, ‘assorted compilations’, were anthologies arranged in chapters based on subjects of Islamic jurisprudence. Later collections, whose material was mainly based on the earlier ṣuḥuf, had such titles as: sunan, ‘traditions’, muwaṭṭaʾ, ‘the well-trodden [path] or the readable [work]’, and jāmiʿ, ‘compiler’. The manuscripts of some of which have been found, edited and published.100 Here, ḥadīth was set side by side with addenda of sayings by ṣaḥābīs and fatwas, ‘religious judgements’, by early tābiʿīs.101 It was also in the Umayyad period that isnād was established, theoretically to protect ḥadīth from the above threats (see also Chapter 2).102 Caetani maintains that the technique of isnād was first developed by al-Zuhrī, and that it was later elaborated by some of his disciples such as Mūsā b. ʿUqba (d. 141/757) and Ibn Isḥāq.103 See Sezgin, Geschichte (Ḥijāzī’s transl.), i, 153–64. On scholars’ variant responses to Sezgin’s method and claims, see Schoeler, Oral and Written, pp. 28–9. 99 See Robson, ‘Ḥadīth’, p. 24; G. H. A. Juynboll, ‘Muṣnnaf’, EI2 (1993), vii, 662; Burton, Introduction to Ḥadīth, p. 119. 100 On these, see al-ʿUmarī, Buḥūth, ii, 143–325. 101 See Khalidi, Arabic Historical Thought, p. 18. 102 On isnād, its definition, function, development and disputed practicality, see Muqaddimat Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ, pp. 1–4–26; Robson, ‘Ḥadīth’, pp. 23– 8; J. Robson, ‘Isnād’, EI2 (1997), iv, 207; id., ‘Al-Djarḥ wa’l Taʿdīl’, EI2 (1991), ii, 462; al-Ḥākim al-Naysābūrī, Introduction to the Science of Tradition, pp. 9–12; Speight, ‘Oral Traditions’, p. 70; Juynboll, Canonical Ḥadīth, pp. xvii-xxiii; id., Studies on the Origins and Uses of Islamic Ḥadīth (Aldershot: Variorum, 1996), pp. 343–83; Herbert Berg, ‘Competing Paradigms in Islamic Origins: Qurʾān 15:89–91’, in Herbert Berg (ed.), Method and Theory in the Study of Islamic Origins (Leiden: Brill, 2003), pp. 259–90. 103 Caetani, Annali, i, 31. See also M. Zubayr Ṣiddīqī, Ḥadīth Literature: Its Origin, Development & Special Features (Cambridge: Islamic Texts Society, 1993; repr. 2008), p. 79. 98

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According to Horovitz, however, isnād appeared and was authorized as early as 75/694.104 In spite of the set of evidence adduced by Horovitz in support of his theory, it was challenged by Schacht who—quoting Ibn Sīrīn’s statement on the institution of isnād— argued that it was not until the beginning of the second/eighth century that isnād was required and applied.105 Ibn Sīrīn said: ‘People used not to ask about isnād, but when the civil war (fitna) occurred, they began to say: “Name your narrators!”’106 Based on the date of Ibn Sīrīn’s death, which is 110/728, and the date of the civil war, which was instigated by the murder of the Umayyad caliph alWalīd b. Yazīd in 126/744, Schacht concluded that the above statement is misattributed to Ibn Sīrīn.107 According to Robson, however, Ibn Sīrīn’s reference to fitna would best denote the arbitration which took place in the aftermath of the struggle between ʿAlī and Muʿāwiya in 36–7/657–8.108 Robson, accordingly, opined that isnād would have appeared, albeit in a primitive form, as early as the mid-first century AH.109 This hypothesis of Robson was later adopted by Abbott who further enhanced it by a plethora of then recently discovered material evidence.110 Bushayr b. Kaʿb al-ʿAdawī, a trustworthy Baṣran ḥadīth scholar who died somewhere at the turn of the first-second centuries AH, is reported to have narrated ḥadīths before ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAbbās (d. 68/687) who asked him to repeat the first ḥadīth. Bushayr, then, Horovitz, ‘Alter und Ursprung des Isnad’, pp. 43–4. Schacht, Muhammadan Jurisprudence, pp. 36–7. 106 Translated by Ṣiddīqī (Ḥadīth Literature, p. 79), this statement of Ibn Sīrīn was reported by Muslim in his introduction to bāb: bayān anna alisnād min al-dīn, ‘The Chapter of Indicating that Isnād is a Matter of Religion’. See also al-Dārimī, no. 430; al-Nawawī, Sharḥ Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, i, 84; Schacht, Muhammadan Jurisprudence, pp. 36–7. 107 Schacht, Muhammadan Jurisprudence, pp. 36–7. 108 J. Robson, ‘Standards Applied by Muslim Traditionists’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 43 (1961), 459–79 (p. 460). 109 See J. Robson, ‘The Isnād in Muslim Tradition’, reprinted from Transactions of the Glasgow University Oriental Society, 15 (1965), 15–26. 110 Abbott, Arabic Literary Papyri, ii, 2; cf. ii, 5–32. See also Ṣiddīqī, Ḥadīth Literature, p. 80. 104 105

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wondered: ‘I am not certain whether you recognized all my ḥadīths and denied this one, or recognized this one and denied all my other ḥadīths.’ Ibn ʿAbbās replied: ‘We used to report the Prophet’s ḥadīth [i.e. as passed down to us by others] as no one was attributing lies to him. Nonetheless, when the people became less meticulous about attributing to him actions and sayings (fa-lammā rakiba al-nāsul-ṣaʿbata wa-l-dhalūl, ‘lit. when the people rode both wild and tame camels’), we refrained from reporting his ḥadīth’—in a different narration, ‘we no longer take ḥadīth but from whom we know’.111 In the same manner, al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī was asked to provide isnād for the ḥadīths he reported, ‘fa-asnidhā lanā’.112 Such a rising tone of scepticism led to that, by passage of time, isnād developed into the only valid instrument in the circles of ḥadīth scholars—as mentioned earlier. Ibn Sīrīn is reported to have said: ‘This information one gathers is religion. Hence, consider from whom you take your religion.’113 Similar statements are also attributed to such early specialists as Ṭāwūs b. Kaysān (d. 106/724),114 and ʿAbd Allāh b. alMubārak (d. 181/797) who said: ‘Isnād is a religious affair; unless there was isnād, anyone could say anything.’115 Sufyān al-Thawrī, (d. 161/778) is also reported to have said: ‘Isnād is the weapon [namely evidence] of a believer. If he has no weapon, with what will he fight?’116 3.3.3 Under the ʿAbbāsids (132–656/750–1258) Although the Umayyad period witnessed an early phase of documentation, the legacy of the Prophet kept to be largely passed

Al-Dārimī, no. 440; Ajjāj, Sunna, p. 222. Al-Haythamī, no. 669. 113 See al-Dārimī, no. 433. See also Burton, Introduction to Ḥadīth, p. 111 112

106. 114

Al-Dārimī, nos. 428, 439. On Ṭāwūs, see al-Dhahabī, Siyar, pp.

2053–7. Al-Baghdādī, Sharaf, p. 41; al-Nawawī, Sharḥ Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, i, 87; J. Brown, Misquoting Muhammad, p. 40. 116 Al-Baghdādī, Sharaf, p. 42; ʿAjjāj, Sunna, p. 223. 115

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down orally for more than a century after his passing.117 The majority of the ḥadīth compilations that we possess today were written down at a relatively early stage of the ʿAbbāsid period. The past dependency on oral transmission, along with other already mentioned factors, had resulted in a massive corpus of tradition, of which quite much was falsified. Thus, the technique of isnād, whose importance had been already perceived in the Umayyad period, was heavily applied by compilers in the early ʿAbbāsid period, who found themselves in charge of sifting such a fundamental heritage.118 Generally, a ḥadīth was not to be accepted unless it was equipped with a reliable isnād that could be traced back to the Prophet or at least a Companion. A number of criteria were, and are still, used by ḥadīth scholars to decide whether a certain isnād is trustable. For example, transmitters ought to be known for reliable knowledge, reputation and memory. Two consecutive transmitters in a strand must have lived in the same time and place or at least been known to have once met. Like isnād, the matn, ‘text’ of an alleged ḥadīth was to be scrutinized. Ideally, it should be logically convincing, linguistically flawless and, more decisively, not contradict any of the verses of the Qurʾān.119 Any report failing to meet these principal standards, as conceived and applied by each of the compilers (who normally added their own conditions), was rejected.120 Like in the case of the collections compiled in the late Umayyad period, the entries of the ḥadīth books written under the ʿAbbāsids were arranged according to the masānīd, namely the clusRobinson, Islamic Historiography, p. 20. See also Speight, ‘Oral Traditions’, pp. 69–78. 118 See J. Brown, Misquoting Muhammad, p. 22. 119 While these were recurrently declared by compilers as their main standards for accepting a certain ḥadīth, quite a number of the reported ḥadīths are arguably incongruous with some or all of these standards. 120 See Muḥammad b. Idrīs al-Shāfiʿī, al-Risāla, ed. Aḥmad. M. Shākir (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1939 [?]), pp. 370–83; Ibn ʿAdī, al-Kāmil fī ḍuʿafāʾ al-rijāl, 7 vols. (Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, 1985), i, 125; J. Brown, Misquoting Muhammad, pp. 40–1. On criticism of ḥadīth by Muslim scholars, see Guillaume, Traditions, pp. 77–97. 117

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ter of ḥadīths narrated by each ṣaḥābī, even if these addressed different subjects.121 Examples are: the Musnad of ʿAbd al-Malik b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Dhimārī (d. 200/816), the Musnad of Muḥammad b. Yūsuf al-Firyābī (d. 212/827),122 the Musnad of ʿAbd Allāh b. alZubayr al-Ḥumaydī (d. 219/834)123 and the better known Musnad of Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal (d. 240/854). After naming 37 of such collections, al-ʿUmarī argued that these do not seem to be the only early Musnads to survive, for hundreds of ḥadīth manuscripts, already kept in libraries in Istanbul, Morocco and other places around the world, still need to be dated and identified.124 Name and date

Place

ʿAbd al-Malik b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Jurayj (d. 150/767)

Makka

Muḥammad b. Isḥāq (d. 151/768)

Madina

Maʿmar b. Rāshid (d. 153/770)

Yemen

Saʿīd b. Abī ʿArūba (d. 156/773)

Baṣra

Abū ʿAmr ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Awzāʿī (d. 156/773)

Shām

Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Abī Dhiʾb (d. 158/775)

Madina

Rabīʿ b. Ṣabīḥ (d. 160/777)

Baṣra

Shuʿba b. al-Ḥajjāj (d. 160/777)

Baṣra

Abū ʿAbd Allāh Sufyān al-Thawrī (d. 161/778)

Kūfa

Al-Layth b. Saʿd (d. 175/791)

Egypt

Ḥammād b. Salama b. Dinār (d. 176/792)

Baṣra

Mālik b. Anas (d. 179/795), the compiler of al-Muwaṭṭaʾ

Madina

See Burton, Introduction to Ḥadīth, p. 119; Guillaume, Traditions, pp. 2–6; al-ʿUmarī, Buḥūth, ii, 302. 122 This was an exception in that it was not ordered according to the masānīd of the ṣaḥābīs. 123 Volume 1 of this Musnad was edited by Ḥabīb al-Raḥmān alAʿẓamī and published in Karachi in 1963. 124 Al-ʿUmarī, Buḥūth, ii, 307. 121

3. STUDYING ḤADĪTH ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Mubārak (d. 181/797)

121 Khurasān

Hishām b. Bashīr (d. 188/804)

Wāṣit

Jarīr b. ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd al-Ḍabbī (d. 188/804)

Rayy

ʿAbd Allāh b. Wahb (d. 197/813)

Egypt

Sufyān b. ʿUyayna (d. 197/813)

Makka

Wakīʿ b. al-Jarrāḥ al-Ruʾāsī (d. 197/813)

Iraq

Abū Dāwūd al-Ṭayālisī (d. 204/819)

Baṣra

ʿAbd al-Razzāq b. Hammām al-Ṣanʿānī (d. 211/826), the compiler of al-Muṣannaf Saʿīd b. Manṣūr (d. 227/842), the compiler of al-Sunan125 Ibn Abī Shayba (d. 235/849), the compiler of alMuṣannaf126

Yemen Khurasān and Makka Kūfa

Table 2: Early ḥadīth compilers

The fact that such collections included both sound and weak ḥadīths most likely made them difficult to use; not all readers had the necessary knowledge to judge the amount of authenticity in a certain report. This, in addition to their awkward arrangement, might have impelled Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl al-Bukhārī (d. 256/870) to write his Ṣaḥīḥ, which he restricted to sound ḥadīths. Al-Bukhārī organized the chapters of his book according to the subjects of fiqh, ‘Islamic The Sunan of Saʿīd b. Manṣūr is composed of two big volumes. Volume I, which is unfortunately still missing, includes two parts and is supposed to contain ḥadīths about ṣalāh and mosques. Fortunately, however, volume II, which includes parts 3 and 4, has been found. Part 3 has been edited by Ḥabīb al-Raḥmān al-Aʿẓamī: Saʿīd b. Manṣūr, Sunan (Part 3), ed. Ḥabīb al-Raḥmān al-Aʿẓamī, 2 vols (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub alʿIlmiyya, 1967). Only half of the fourth part, however, has been edited by Āl Ḥumayyid: Saʿīd b. Manṣūr, Sunan (Part 4), ed. Saʿd b. ʿAbd Allāh Āl Ḥumayyid, 5 vols (Riyadh: Dār al-Ṣumayʿī, 1993). 126 Ibn Abī Shayba, al-Muṣannaf, ed. M. ʿAwāma, 26 vols (Jeddah: Dār al-Qibla; Beirut: Muʾassasat ʿUlūm al-Qurʾān, 2006). 125

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jurisprudence’. The same method was adopted by Muslim b. alḤajjāj al-Naysābūrī (d. 261/875) in his Ṣaḥīḥ. These two collections were, and continue to be, considered by the majority of Muslim scholars to include the most authentic ḥadīths.127 Other comparable, albeit less prestigious, works were compiled by the likes of Abū Dāwūd (d. 275/888), Ibn Māja (d. 273/886), al-Tirmidhī (d. 279/892) and al-Nasāʾī (d. 303/916).128 However, some argue that while the third/ninth century witnessed the most diligent activities of ḥadīth compilation, it took nearly a century for the above and other collections to be widely accepted and circulated. As already hinted, it was also in the third/ninth century that ḥadīth collections were more basically dedicated to the sayings and deeds of the Prophet. Such a movement was highly influenced by the earlier efforts of Muḥammad b. Idrīs al-Shāfiʿī (d. 204/820) to secure for ḥadīth a legislative authority beside the Qurʾān (infra). In contrast to the more inclusive content of the earlier works, ḥadīth collections after al-Shāfiʿī, and whose compilers were mainly Shāfiʿīs, were largely restricted to reports on the Prophet. In the later centuries, ḥadīth scholars applied themselves to such tasks as explaining and commenting on the material in the ḥadīth compilations or critiquing the chains of narrators.129 Ḥadīth materialized as a distinct Islamic discipline with branches such as: uṣūl al-ḥadīth, ‘principles of ḥadīth’, muṣṭalaḥ al-ḥadīth, ‘terminology (and classification) of ḥadīth’, and ʿilm al-jarḥ wa-l-taʿdīl.130 Two centuries after the Prophet, writing became increasingly vital as a practical method of transmitting religious and secular Burton, Introduction to Ḥadīth, pp. 123–5. See Ibn Rajab al-Ḥanbalī, Sharḥ ʿIlal al-Tirmidhī, ed. Nūr al-Dīn ʿItr ([n.p.]: Dār al-Mallāḥ, [n.d.]), pp. 37–42; Robson, ‘Ḥadīth’, p. 24. On the canonical collections of ḥadīth, see also Schoeler, Genesis, pp. 79–81. 129 Al-ʿUmarī, Buḥūth, ii, 308; ʿAjjāj, Sunna, p. 220. 130 On the latter, see Juynboll, Muslim Tradition, pp. 134–7, 161–76; Dūrī, Rise of Historical Writing, p. 75. The following are good examples: alMizzī, Tahdhīb al-kamāl; id., Tuḥfat al-ashrāf bi-maʿrifat al-aṭrāf, ed. ʿAbd alṢamad Sharaf al-Dīn, 2 vols (Bombay: al-Dār al-Qayyma, 1965); alDhahabī, Mīzān al-iʿtidāl fī naqd al-rijāl; al-Kaʿbī, Qabūl al-akhbār wa-maʿrifat al-rijāl, 2 vols (Beirut: dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 2000). 127 128

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knowledge. However, audition maintained its eminent status as the most trustworthy medium of transmitting Prophetic traditions and Qurʾānic hermeneutics as well as other literary disciplines. The seekers for knowledge used to travel to hear scholars read out their writings and then asked for leave to write down and transmit such knowledge. Audition became greatly linked with manuscript culture. Copying a book was often regarded as the most fallible method of transmission. While practised in antiquity (a part of Aristotle’s teachings, for example, were passed down in the exclusive form of lectures), orality and in a lesser degree aurality have developed into exquisitely Islamic practices in the teaching of the sciences.131 In a way, this also brings to mind oral history—in the modern sense. Islamic tradition is full of stories about scholars, whether in ḥadīth or other genres, who enjoyed prodigious memories.132 It is quite astonishing to note, in this regard, that the 1343/1924 ‘official’ Egyptian edition of the Qurʾān was not compiled by means of comparing the existing manuscripts, as one may think, but based on information gathered from audition as well as the literature of readings.133

3.4 DIALECTICS ABOUT THE AUTHORITATIVENESS OF THE TRADITION

A relevant and evidently critical point to discuss here is the fervent controversy over the authenticity and authoritativeness (ḥujjiyya) of the sunna, which was usually interchangeably used with ḥadīth to refer to the tradition of the Prophet Muḥammad.134 Some believe Jonathan Bloom, ‘Literary and Oral Cultures’, in Robert Irwin (ed.), The New Cambridge History of Islam: Volume IV, Islamic Cultures and Societies to the End of the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), pp. 668–81 (p. 676); Schoeler, Oral and Written, pp. 29–30; id., Ecrire et transmettre dans les débuts de l'Islam (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2002), p. 130. 132 Robinson, Islamic Historiography, pp. 172–3; Bloom, ‘Literary and Oral Cultures’, pp. 675–6. 133 R. Paret, ‘Ḳirāʾa’, EI2 (1986), v, 127–9. 134 For a recent survey of the earliest extant discussions on the topic and how these would compare to relevant modern debates, see Aisha Y. 131

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that the Prophet’s sunna was not seen peremptory, at the mildest, in the first two centuries AH. The tendency to dismiss ḥadīth in legal discussions, and the big debate which it later kindled, was mainly centred on questions related to the genuine attribution of the sunna to the Prophet.135 Some sects rebuffed ḥadīth to the hilt, on the grounds that there is no way to make sure that a certain ḥadīth, whether mutawātir or āḥād,136 is credibly traceable to the Prophet.137 This early anti-ḥadīth movement was particularly campaigned by such sects as ahl al-kalām and ahl al-raʾy, ‘legal pragmatists’.138 Ahl alkalām, however, are said to have been more radical in this regard.139 Perhaps, the most resilient position in rebuffing ḥadīth was taken by the Muʿtazila, who were rightly engrossed in the Hellenistic heritage.140 Other groups accepted the authoritativeness of the ḥadīth Musa, Ḥadīth as Scripture: Discussions on the Authority of Prophetic Traditions in Islam (Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008); Adis Duderija (ed.), The Sunna and its Status in Islamic Law: The Search for a Sound Ḥadīth (Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). See also Schacht, Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence, pp. 40–57; D. Brown, Rethinking Tradition, pp. 6–20. 135 ʿAbd al-Khāliq, Ḥujjiyya, pp. 245–6. 136 According to Juynboll, ‘tawātur is the technical ḥadīth term for such a broad attestation of a particular ḥadīth through multiple isnād strands in the sources that large-scale mendacity in that tradition thus supported is considered to be absurd (muḥāl), or: out of question’: Canonical Ḥadīth, pp. xxiv-xxv. See also Juynboll, Muslim Tradition, pp. 206–17. Khabr al-wāḥid is a ‘tradition or report going back to one single authority’. Juynboll, ‘Khabar al-Wāḥid’, EI2 (1997), iv, 896. On akhbār al-āḥād, see also al-Bukhārī, nos. 7246–67. 137 See Muḥammad b. Idrīs al-Shāfiʿī, Jimāʿ al-ʿilm, ed. Aḥmad M. Shākir (Giza: Maktabat Ibn Taymiyya, 1986), pp. 13–22. This view was contested by al-Suyūṭī: Miftāḥ, pp. 2–5. 138 On them, see Ibn Qutayba, Taʾwīl, pp. 47–60; al-Suyūṭī, Miftāḥ, pp. 3–4; Muṣṭafā al-Sibāʿī, al-Sunna wa-makānatuhā fī al-tashrīʿ al-Islamī ([n.p.]: Dār al-Warrāq, 2000), pp. 147–64. 139 See D. Brown, Rethinking Tradition, pp. 13–5. 140 See Usman Ghani, ‘The Concept of Sunna in Muʿtazilite Thought’, in Adis Duderija (ed.), The Sunna and its Status in Islamic Law: The Search for a Sound Ḥadīth (Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), pp. 59– 73; Abū Zahwu, al-Ḥadīth wa-l-muḥaddithūn, pp. 316–32.

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mutawātir only, for it is reported by a number of narrators large enough to make inconceivable any collaboration on forgery.141 Scholars, however, disagree in terms of the number of the channels of transmission needed for a certain ḥadīth to be judged as mutawatir.142 A larger third group, however, accepted both the mutawātir and the āḥād,143 but they differed regarding the standards according to which the latter can be accepted.144 There was also a fierce dispute over the supposed authoritativeness of ḥadīth even if attested, in terms of historicity, by the techniques then approved. According to some, it cannot still stand independently, i.e. without evidence from the Qurʾān, as a foundation for any legal decisions.145 There also emerged a quarrel regarding the aptitude of ḥadīth to abrogate whatsoever stated by the Qurʾān.146 Logically, such a context called for practical criteria to distinguish between what the Prophet said and did as a legislator and what he said and did as an ordinary mortal. He himself is reported to have said: ‘I am a human being. When I command you to do anything concerning your religion, then accept it; while when I

See al-Sibāʿī, Sunna, pp. 165–75. On how highly the ḥadīth mutawātir is rated by scholars, see al-Aʿẓamī, Studies in Ḥadīth, pp .42–3; Ṣiddīqī, Ḥadīth Literature, p.110. 142 Wael Hallaq, ‘The Authenticity of Prophetic Hadith: A PseudoProblem’, Studia Islamica, 99 (1999), 75–90. 143 See Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, Jāmiʿ, nos. 2299–335, 2369–89. 144 See al-Shāfiʿī, Risāla, pp. 369–470; A. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Shinqīṭī, Khabar al-wāḥid wa-ḥujjiyyatuh (Medina: al-Jāmiʿa al-Islāmiyya, 2002); ʿAbd al-Khāliq, Ḥujjiyya, pp. 246–7; M. Nāṣir al-Albānī, al-Ḥadīth ḥujja bi-nafsih (Riyadh: Maktabat al-Maʿārif, 2005), pp. 49–70. 145 See al-Suyūṭī, Miftāḥ, pp. 5–6; al-Aʿẓamī, Dirāsāt, pp. 21–2. This view was contested by al-Shāfiʿī. See his Jimāʿ al-ʿilm, pp. 120–2; Risāla, pp. 53–105. 146 See ʿAbd al-Khāliq, Ḥujjiyya, pp. 247–8, 488–94. See also alAʿẓamī, Dirāsāt, pp.29–33. For reports challenging the common wisdom that ḥadīth cannot do so, see al-Dārimī, nos. 606–10. 141

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command you to do anything on account of my personal opinion, then you should know that I am also a human being’.147 For a majority of Sunnī jurists, however, any religiously significant ḥadīth meeting the standards of genuineness at the time should be taken, beside the Qurʾān, into account when considering a legal issue.148 This assumption of ḥadīth general acceptance, and which is said to have been also consented by ahl al-raʾy,149 is enhanced, according to some, by the fact that no implication of dispute over such an issue is found in the writings of meticulous uṣūliyyūn, ‘jurisprudents’, such as Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111), Sayf al-Dīn al-Āmidī (d. 631/1233) and Abū al-Yusr alBazdawī (d. 493/1100).150 Indeed, we are told about some religious sects, such as the Khārijīs, the Niẓāmīs, the Rawāfiḍ, and the Dahriyya who did not accept the authoritativeness of ḥadīth.151 Many of these used to reject all ḥadīths but those passed down by members of their own band.152 This knotty situation first appeared in Iraq, where a group of early jurists preferred to use such techniques as ijtihād, ‘independent judgment’, istinbāṭ, ‘eduction’, qiyās, ‘analogical reasoning’, istiṣlāḥ, ‘consideration of public interest’, and istiḥsān, ‘juristic discretion’, at the cost of ḥadīth. For such scholars, all legal decisions (aḥkām) should be attuned to logic, consistent and serve common princiMuslim, no. 6127 (as translated by Ṣiddīqī, Ḥadīth Literature, p. 112); Shāh Walī Allāh al-Dihlawī, Ḥujjat Allāh al-bāligha, ed. al-Sayyid Sābiq, 2 vols (Beirut: Dār al-Jīl, 2005), i, 224. 148 See M. Hashim Kamali, Principles of Islamic Jurisprudence, 3rd rev. edn (Cambridge: Islamic Texts Society, 1991), p. 48. 149 Ṣiddīqī, Ḥadīth Literature, p. 112. Ahl al-raʾy, however, are traditionally known to have placed particular reliance on independent judgment. 150 ʿAbd al-Khāliq, Ḥujjiyya, p. 248 151 See al-Shāfiʿī, Jimaʿ al-ʿilm, pp. 13–46; Ibn Qutayba, Taʾwīl, pp. 61–122. 152 For a majority of Sunnī scholars, this opinion is radical and challenged with the established principle that the Prophet could not have intentionally told lies, especially when things are related to God’s commands to the people. 147

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ples, given that they are basically issued for the benefit of the people. As such, scholars of this tendency tended to work on the texts (nuṣūṣ): examining them, comparing them to one another and assigning priority to some of them at the expense of the others. They applied istinbāṭ in cases where no ḥadīth was there to ‘clearly’ judge. The excessive dependence on raʾy, ‘own opinion’, however, resulted in neglecting even the clearly unequivocal meanings of some ḥadīths and utterly disregarding others.153 Ahl al-ḥadīth, on the other hand, as their name insinuates, amply depended on the ḥadīth of the Prophet and the judgements of his ṣaḥābīs and abided strictly by the explicit purport of both. They, thus, adopted a quasi-literalist reading of the text. The big respect which ahl al-ḥadīth showed to this religious heritage made them timid to apply their own ijtihād, even in cases where no relevant ḥadīth was known to them.154 This school was mainly based in the Ḥijāz where, unlike in Iraq for instance, scholars were not usually faced with many first-time issues—chiefly because their cultural life remained largely unmolested since the time of the Prophet.155 Mālik b. Anas, however, regarded the ʿamal ahl al-Madīna, ‘religious practices of the Madinan community’, as a considerable— sometimes overriding—legal authority.156 Like Abū Ḥanīfa (d. 150/772), Mālik also assigned to qiyās a higher legal significance than to ḥadīths of limited weight of authenticity, such as khabar alwāḥid.157 See W. Hallaq, The Origins and Evolution of Islamic Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005). 154 Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, Jāmiʿ, nos. 1592–629. 155 See al-Aṣfar’s introduction to Ibn Qutayba’s Taʾwīl mukhtalif alḥadīth, p. 16. 156 Umar F. Abd-Allah, ‘Malik’s Concept of ʿAmal in the Light of Maliki Legal Theory’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Chicago, 1978); Ṣiddīqī, Ḥadīth Literature, p. 112. 157 While Mālik gave more credibility to qiyās over all the āḥād (particularly those not seconded by the sunan of the ṣaḥābīs or the tābiʾīs), Abū Ḥanīfa considered some of the āḥād after being sifted according to his own standards. In so doing, Abū Ḥanīfa is said to have followed an example once set by ʿUmar b. al Khaṭṭāb. Ṣiddīqī, Ḥadīth Literature, p. 112. 153

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Of all imams, however, al-Shāfiʿī stands out as the most influential when the establishment of ḥadīth authority is concerned. As indicated by his remarkable works such as al-Risāla and Jimāʿ al-ʿilm, al-Shāfiʿī was able to mastermind a pro-ḥadīth campaign solid enough to later develop into the main tendency of the so-called ahl al-ḥadīth (also, ahl al-sunna wa-l-jamāʿa).158 He engaged himself in a big number of arguments with those, such as the disciples of Abū Ḥanīfa and Mālik as well as the Muʿtazila, who underrated the role of ḥadīth as a main source of Islamic jurisprudence.159 Al-Shāfiʿī maintains that as God commanded the faithful to copy the Prophet, ‘You have indeed in the Messenger of God an excellent exemplar for him who hopes in God and the Final Day’,160 He must have definitely made available the means to do that. The quintessence of al-Shāfiʿī’s thesis is that ḥadīth, once proved to belong to the Prophet, must be considered to reach the relevant legal decisions. In this, al-Shāfiʿī did not stipulate ḥadīth compliance with ʿamal ahl al-Madīna as did Mālik,161 or the many further conditions set out by Abū Ḥanīfa who heavily applied such techniques as qiyās and istiḥsān.162 Ordered in terms of priority, al-Shāfiʿī’s official ways

On al-Shāfiʿī’s role in defending ḥadīth, see al-Suyūṭī, Miftāḥ, pp. 3, 9–11, 28–9; Schacht, Muhammadan Jurisprudence, pp. 6–20; al-Sibāʿī, Sunna, pp. 478–9; ʿAbd al-Khāliq, Ḥujjiyya, pp. 250–77; Burton, Introduction to Ḥadīth, 153–6. See also, Ibn Qutayba, Taʾwīl, pp. 61–138; al-Baghdādī, Sharaf, pp. 74–9. 159 J. Brown, Misquoting Muhammad, pp. 36–9. While al-Shāfiʿī did not tell us who exactly developed the views which he was contesting, he mentioned that these was held by some of the people in Baṣra—a mecca for ahl al-raʾy and ahl al-kalām who later produced the Muʿtazila faction. See al-Shāfiʿī, Jimāʿ al-ʿilm, pp. 13–20. 160 Qurʾān 33. 21. See also Qurʾān 24. 54. For more Qurʾānic verses of the same significance, see infra. 161 See al-Shāfiʿī, Jimāʿ al-ʿilm, pp. 67–8. 162 Al-Suyūṭī, Miftāḥ, p. 31; J. Brown, Misquoting Muhammad, pp. 26–7, 36; al-Sibāʿī, Sunna, p. 479. See also Aḥmad al-Ghumārī, Masālik al-dilāla ʿalā masāʾil matn al-Risāla, 3rd edn (Cairo: Maktabat al-Qāhira, 1995), pp. 217–8. 158

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of acquiring knowledge of the divine will were: the Qurʾān, ḥadīth, qiyās, and ijmāʿ, ‘consensus’.163 Generally, scholars from all Islamic regions at the time, as fervently jostling for the most practical method to understand God’s commands, assumed they were firmly devoted to the sunna of the Prophet, i.e. in the sense of his overall example. They, however, disputed vehemently over the most practical ways to verify this sunna and turn it into a set of dos and don’t’s.164 Al-Shāfiʿī’s reliance on ḥadīth was significantly heavier than that of Mālik and Abū Ḥanīfa; he accepted the āḥād and gave them priority over such ‘mental’ instruments as ijtihād.165 The Muʿtazila, bearing the brunt of al-Shāfiʿī’s campaign, did not manage to advance a workable answer for his main question of how in the absence of ḥadīth we would know about the details of such basic rituals as prayer, fasting, etc.166 Due to his efforts in this regard, al-Shāfiʿī was called the ultimate ḥadīth advocate (nāṣir al-ḥadīth).167 In addition to al-Shāfiʿī, the position of ahl al-raʾy was further challenged by scholars such as ʿAbd Allāh b. Muslim b. Qutayba al-Dīnawarī (d. 276/889), a disciple of al-Shāfiʿī’s comrade Isḥāq b. Rāhwayh (d. 238/852), and then and more intensely by the Ḥanbalīs who evolved into the normative Sunnī school of law.168 In the course of time, ahl al-raʾy, represented by many of the Ḥanafī and Mālikī jurists, came to be more convinced of the legislative status which ahl al-ḥadīth had claimed for it as a main source of Islamic law beside the Qurʾān. They, while continuing to apply legal reasoning, confined its use to

163

See al-Shāfiʿī, Jimāʿ al-ʿilm, p. 40; Burton, Introduction to Ḥadīth,

p.153. J. Brown, Misquoting Muhammad, p. 36. Al-Shāfiʿī, Jimāʿ al-ʿilm, pp. 75–78. Al-Shāfiʿī, however, was generally reluctant to use the mursal ḥadīth unless it was passed down through notable tābiʿīs such as Saʿīd b. al-Musayyib. See al-Sibāʿī, pp. 479–80; Burton, Introduction to Ḥadīth, pp. 153–68. 166 J. Brown, Misquoting Muhammad, p. 36–7. See also Shāh Walī Allāh al-Dihlawī, Ḥujjat Allāh, i, 228–42, 253–60. 167 Al-Sibāʿī, Sunna, pp. 479–80. 168 See Ibn Qutayba, Taʾwīl, pp. 61–127. 164 165

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understanding these scriptures. The Ḥanbalīs, on their part, began to apply qiyās even if within a strictly scriptural framework.169 But how valued was ḥadīth in the period before al-Shāfiʿī, and which denotes the time scope of this study? The above stances, while revealing a crucial dispute over the legal authority of the Prophetic tradition during the second/eighth century, seem to offer only a truncated narrative of early Islamic intellectual history. As already pointed out, reservations about the use of ḥadīth were mainly expressed by legists and theologians from Iraq,170 who, beside being under the impact of Hellenistic philosophy, had only little knowledge of ḥadīth until the time of Abū Ḥanīfa (who foregrounded a strongly established school of ḥadīth at Kūfa).171 However, already at Kūfa in the second/eighth century, the authority of ḥadīth was being defended by prominent Kūfan scholars, such as Sulaymān b. Mihrān al-Aʿmash (d. 148/765), who was a shaykh of Abū Ḥanīfa. This earlier generation was inspired by yet an earlier and a long-established pro-ḥadīth tendency. As al-Aʿmash reports, the Companion ʿAbd Allāh b. Masʿūd, who was the qāḍī of Kūfa in the caliphate of ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb, was gathering one day with some of his comrades, when a Bedouin passed by and asked: ‘For what (reason) do these gather?’ He was answered by Ibn Masʿūd: ‘[They gather] for the legacy of Muḥammad, peace be upon him, to share it out.’172 Likewise, early episodes of exclusive interest in the Qurʾān are mainly related to Iraq and Khurasan. Some of these are said to have faced the CompanionʿImrān b. Ḥuṣayn (d. 52/672), who was dispatched to Baṣra in the caliphate of ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb as a qāḍī and instructor of Islamic precepts. ʿImrān’s knowledge and personality were highly appreciated by the people of Baṣra that he decided to stay there for the rest of his life. One day, while he was reporting ḥadīth to a group of people, a man asked: ‘O Abū Nujayd See Lapidus, Islamic Societies, pp. 156–8, 166–9, 177. This tendency of using legal reasoning at the expense of ḥadīth was then transferred eastward to western Iran, Khurasan and Transoxiana. 171 See J. Brown, Misquoting Muhammad, pp. 26–7, 36. 172 Al-Baghdādī, Sharaf, p. 45. 169 170

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[en epithet of ʿImrān], tell us about the Qurʾān.’ ʿImrān replied: ‘You and your friends read the Qurʾān; can you tell me about ṣalāh and its details and regulations? Can you tell me about the zakāh of gold, camels, cows, and the different types of wealth? […].’ The man then commented: ‘You have granted me life; may God grant life to you!’173 This reasoning seems to have dominated throughout the first century. An interesting attempt to investigate all legal and theological issues from the Qurʾān exclusively is said to have been made by Umayya b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Khālid, the governor of Khurasan in 74– 8/693–7. Having been confronted with substantial difficulties, he interrogated ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb (d. 74/693) about the reason behind that. The latter explained: ‘God sent to us Muḥammad, peace be upon him, while we were acquainted with nothing. Therefore, we do as Muḥammad, peace be upon him, did.’174 A similar situation is said to have faced Ayyūb al-Sakhtiyānī (d. 131/749) who was also from Baṣra.175 There is a chapter in the Sunan al-Dārimī with the heading: ‘Expediting the Punishment of Whoever Told about a Ḥadīth of the Prophet But did not Dignify or Respect it’ (bāb taʿjīl ʿuqūbat man balaghahu ʿan al-Nabī ṣallā Allāhu ʿalayhi wa-sallama ḥadīthun fa-lamm yuʾaẓẓimhu wa-lamm yuwaqqirhu). Under this, al-Dārimī (d. 255/869) reported a number of ḥadīths asserting the importance of considering ḥadīth and complying with it. According to one of these, Saʿīd b. Jubayr (d. 95/714) ostracized a man because he told him about a ḥadīth of the Prophet, but the man neglected it and acted differently.176 Similar attitudes of resentment to those flouting ḥadīth or preferring to it opinions of faqīhs are attributed to ʿAbd Allāh b. Mughaffal (d. 60/680), Ibn Sīrīn, ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿUmar, ʿUbāda b. al-Ṣāmit (d. ca. 34/655) and Saʿīd b. al-Musayyib.177 Also, Companions such as Abū al-Dardāʾ and Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī are said to Al-Ḥākim al-Naysābūrī, al-Mustadrak ʿalā al-Ṣaḥīḥayn, 4 vols (Hyderabad: Majlis Dāʾirat al-Maʿārif, 1921), i, 109–10. 174 Al-Ḥākim, Mustadrak, i, 258. 175 Al-Aʿẓamī, Dirāsāt, pp. 21–2. 176 Al-Dārimī, no. 453. 177 Ibid, nos. 451–60. 173

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have abandoned certain places because some of the people there favoured their own views to relevant ḥadīths.178 While such reports evince an early bout of playing down ḥadīth, their limited number suggests that respecting it was the convention that, when offended, required response from the existing authorities. This is quite understandable in view of unequivocal evidence from the Qurʾān, as already mentioned, that Muslims are advised—indeed commanded—to follow the model of the Prophet:179 Say: ‘If you do love God, follow me: God will love you and forgive you your sins: For God is Oft-forgiving, most merciful.’180 O you who believe! Obey God, and obey the Messenger, and those charged with authority among you. If you differ in anything among yourselves, refer it to God and His Messenger, if you do believe in God and the Last Day: that is best and most suitable for final determination.181 But no by your Lord, they can have no (real) faith. Until they make you judge in all disputes between them. And find in their souls no resistance against your decisions, but accept them with the fullest convictions.182 He who obeys the Messenger, obeys God: but if any turn away, We have not sent you to watch over them.183

ʿAbd al-Khāliq, Ḥujjiyya, p. 285; Ṣiddīqī, Ḥadīth Literature, p. 111. For more on how ḥadīth was regarded by the ṣaḥābīs and early tābiʿīs, see al-Suyūṭī, Miftāḥ, pp. 20–4; ʿAbd al-Khāliq, Ḥujjiyya, pp. 283–91. 179 On Qurʾānic evidence for the authoritativeness of the sayings and actions of the Prophet, see al-Shāfiʿī, Risāla, pp. 73– 87; Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, Jāmiʿ, pp. 1181–98. 180 Qurʾān 3. 31. 181 Qurʾān 4. 59. 182 Qurʾān 4. 65. 183 Qurʾān 4. 80. 178

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And We have sent down unto you (also) the Message; that you may explain clearly to men what is sent for them, and that they may give thought.184 So take what the Messenger gives you, and refrain from what he prohibits you.185

It is difficult, after all, to believe that the legacy of the Prophet, who was Islam’s legislator and exemplary model, was not closely observed by his followers.186 They must have attempted to imitate him even in the finest details, including the way he was behaving, drinking, eating, dressing, etc.187 He himself is reported to have stressed the commanding position of the model which he had established: ‘Hold fast to my sunna and that of the righteous caliphs who would come after me. Clung onto it by your [premolar] teeth), […].’188

3.5 CONCLUSION While discussing ḥadīth is palpably crucial for this study, the present chapter—for reasons to do with space and genre—is not meant to engage fully in discussing its well-known historiographical issues. Nor does it aim to dismiss as insignificant any of the above tendencies regarding the overall historicity of ḥadīth. It is clear, nevertheless, that none of the radical perspectives regarding ḥadīth authenticity, whether dismissive or susceptible, fits the case. In this sense, this study is in accord with the so-called Western revaluation approach (supra). Ḥadīth was not systematically documented from the very beginning, but there is evidence that the compilations we Qurʾān 16. 44. Qurʾān 59. 7. 186 Also, he must have been watched carefully by his enemies, who needed to counteract his plans and contest his thoughts. 187 See chapters on the kinds of food (al-aṭʿima), beverages (alashriba), and apparel and jewellery (al-libās wa-l-zīna) in ḥadīth collections. See also J. Brown, Misquoting Muhammad, pp. 18–20. 188 Al-Dārimī, no. 96. On other evidence for ḥadīth authoritativeness, see al-Dārimī, nos. 228–32; al-Shāfiʿī, Risāla, p. 87; Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, Jāmiʿ, nos. 2299–335. 184 185

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possess today are the outcome of an early organic process where oral traditions occurred side by side with, and then evolved into, written ones. The authority of ḥadīth, more frequently referred to as sunna, was established as a fundamental source of religious law and ethical inspiration throughout the first century AH. In later times, however, and due to a plethora of new cultural inputs as well as the lack of an early systematic documentation of ḥadīth, different perspectives were introduced to the circles of Islamic theology and jurisprudence. This situation produced, mainly in Iraq, groups such as ahl-raʾy and ahl-kalām whose assessment of ḥadīth was a topic of much debate. At no point, however, was ḥadīth neglected tout court. Rather, it was read or used differently depending on different conditions, including the availability of other evidence of relevance and the agendas of those who reported or used it. This verdict, however, does not allow us to relax standards of critical judgment when dealing with this clearly problematic material. Rather, it, while indicating the presence of a genuine core, necessitates careful examination and sifting. Generally, ḥadīth and other early Arabic writings can, if handled insightfully, provide a historically valuable source for the study of early Islam. This is not to say that doing so is always possible, but the other option—that of all-inclusive dismissal—would deprive us of an important and nearunique source for the study of the period. Just as in the case of the literary sources for early non-archaeological mosques (Chapter 2), it is obviously safer to quit what some would refer to as ‘speculations’ on ḥadīth’s historicity and use it instead to see how the third/ninth century compilers dealt with the memory of their ancestors. How was it to be approached, selected, emendated, and/or invented? However, this, while representing the bottom line and a definitely more cautious approach (through avoiding the caveats concerning the make-up of this patrimony), would leave unresolved many vital issues relating to the genesis of the Islamic community. As already stated, if what the Prophet built at Madina was a real mosque, then it would be quite plausible to look into the mosque-related ḥadīths to try to see whether he recommended a certain form for that mosque and the mosque in general. As we shall see, ḥadīth was used by scholars such as Creswell, Pedersen, Johns and Grabar when tackling issues related to Islamic art and architecture. The latter, for instance, referred to the ḥadīths he used

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as ‘authentic’.189 None of them, however, explains his grounds for using particular ḥadīths. In this study, priority will be given to those whose isnāds satisfy the standards of third/ninth century scholars, such as al-Bukhārī and Muslim, and modern specialists, such Harald Motzki and Gregor Schoeler. In addition, the content of these ḥadīths, including those equipped with highly rated isnād, will be carefully examined.190 A ḥadīth can be largely or in some respects ‘genuine’, i.e. in the sense that it could accurately reflect what was being said at a particular time, but also interpretatively problematic (for instance because it may have been composed to further, or indeed to counter, a particular point of view or agenda). Even if the ḥadīths in question are wholly authentic, they cannot still be understood apart from the motives behind their composition, audiences or contexts of circulation.

See, for example, Grabar, Formation, pp. 81–3. This opinion is already adopted by a number of Muslim scholars, including classical critics and modern revivalists. See D. Brown, Rethinking Tradition, p. 109. 189 190

CHAPTER 4. THE ‘HOUSE OF THE PROPHET’ OR THE ‘MOSQUE OF THE PROPHET’? 4.1 INTRODUCTION The nature of the building which the Prophet built at Madina needs to be reconsidered for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that the question about it has not yet been convincingly answered. Neither of the two theories put forward so far seems to have undone the other. In addition, both theories are marred by clear weaknesses. Generally, those who argue for the structure being a house acknowledge its public character, its use for prayer in the time of the Prophet, and its principal influence on the mosque type. They fail to disprove, or at least properly to contextualize into their hypothesis, the fact that the building was quintessentially the focal point of the Prophet’s community. Nor do they correctly interpret the Qurʾān’s clear reference to a mosque attended by the Prophet and the believers (infra). Equally, those who see it as a mosque, including early informants, did not maintain a solid or systematic defence for their theory. Reconsidering the question on the nature of the Prophet’s building may also help resolve a number of undecided relevant issues. Perhaps, the most outstanding of these is the identification of the immediate origin of the mosque. As we have seen in Chapter 1, the inconclusive argument of those regarding the building as a mosque has been one of the main reasons that scholars looked for

Most of this chapter was published as a journal article. See Essam S. Ayyad, ‘The ‘House of the Prophet’ or the ‘Mosque of the Prophet’?’, Journal of Islamic Studies, 24 (2013), 273–334.

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the origins of the mosque in non-Islamic types.1 It is true that attention has been paid to this relatively sizable building, especially that it reportedly attained a communal character in the Prophet’s lifetime, but there has usually been an emphasis that it was a house and not a mosque. In the beginning, the idea that the mosque type evolved from residential architecture seemed intriguing, given the parallel in church history. Recently, however, characterization of the structure as a ‘house’ raised doubt as to how the prototype of the mosque could have evolved from a set of ‘basic’ formal requirements and a building regarded as having very little of architecture.2 This view got additional impetus from the tendency to attribute the origins of the mosque to pre-Islamic types (see Chapter 1).3 While not excluding the probable impact of such types on the evolution of mosque architecture, the present chapter sets out to explore whether the Prophet’s building at Madina was truly a mosque and thus provided the immediate origin of subsequent mosques in Islam. This chapter would, thus, investigate whether early Islam, as embodied in the framework of the Qurʾān and the Sunna, sufficed to provide the necessary prompts for the functional and essential, as well as architectural, features of the mosque.

4.2 EXISTING THEORIES ON THE PROPHET’S BUILDING Dissent about the nature of the Prophet’s building clusters around mainly two opposing views. According to the first, the building was built by design as a mosque; no sooner had the Prophet emigrated to Madina than he and his Companions put up a mosque to serve as the mainstay of the newly Islamized community.4 The second On other reasons for such a tendency, see Chapter 1. Grabar, Formation, p. 104; Johns, ‘House of the Prophet’, pp. 110– 1. See also Briggs, Muhammadan Architecture, p. 28. 3 Muslim scholars’ response to this theory varies. Some see nothing shameful in borrowing for the mosque some architectural features from non-Islamic types. Others, regarding the mosque as a religion-related matter, fiercely defend the originality of its institution and form. 4 See al-Bukhārī, no. 428; Muslim, no. 1173; Abū Dāwūd, no. 453. See also al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, ii, 397; al-Dhahabī, al-Sīra al-nabawiyya, ed. Ḥusām al-Dīn al-Qudsī (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, [ 1927] 1988), 1 2

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view contends that he built it to be his residence, that it gained a communal character later in his lifetime, and that it assumed the sacred form of a mosque in the early decades after his death.5 The first opinion represents the traditional stance of the medieval Muslim scholars. The building is dealt with and referred to as the ‘Mosque of the Prophet’ by the early ḥadīth compilers, Prophetic biographers and local chroniclers (see Chart 1). There are, for instance, entire chapters in the third/ninth century canonical collections of ḥadīth on mosques and their regulations; references to the Prophet’s mosque are almost countless.6 Such was enough for later Muslim scholars to take the existence of the Prophet’s mosque as granted. This concept held sway until Islamic cultural heritage began to be studied by Western academics in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In the beginning, Western Islamists, including the two earliest ḥadīth critics Muir and Sprenger, were satisfied to deal with the building as a mosque.7 Later, Caetani’s

pp. 232–3; al-Suhaylī, al-Rawḍ al-unuf fī tafsīr ‘al-Sīra al-nabawiyya li-Ibn Hishām’, ed. Magdī Manṣūr al-Shūrā, 4 vols (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub alʿIlmiyya, 1997), ii, 336; Ibn Kathīr, Bidāya wa-nihāya, iv, 530–1; Wensinck, Early Muhammadan Tradition, p. 154; Juynboll, Canonical Ḥadīth, p. 487. 5 However, the exact time of mosque institution is, as we shall see, disputed among scholars of this tendency. 6 While these are mainly dealt with in Kitāb al-Ṣalāh, ‘Book of Prayer’ in ḥadīth compilations, in al-Tirmidhī, the ḥadīths about mosques are listed under ‘K. al-Masājid’, ‘Book of Mosques’. In Muslim, they are compiled under ‘K. al-Masājid wa-mawāḍiʿ al-ṣalāh’, ‘Book of Mosques and Places of Prayer’. In Ibn Māja, they come under the heading of ‘Abwāb al-masājid wal-jamāʿāt’, ‘Entries on Mosques and Congregational Prayers’. In al-Bayhaqī, the ḥadīths on mosques are amassed under: ‘Jimāʿ abwāb al-ṣalāh bi-l-najāsa wa-mawḍiʿ al-ṣalāh min masjid wa-ghayrih’, ‘Collection of Entries on [the Ordinance of] Praying at Unclean Places and the Places of Prayer like Mosques, etc.’ The ḥadīths related to the building of the ‘Mosque of the Prophet’ are usually gathered under the bāb ‘bunyān al-masjid’, ‘Entry on Building the Mosque’. 7 For example, see William. C. Taylor, The History of Mohammedanism and Its Sects: Derived Chiefly from Oriental Sources, 2nd edn (London: John W.

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reading of the sources led him to maintain that it could not have been a mosque in the time of the Prophet, his main contention being that a number of activities were accommodated in the structure that he considers to be unacceptable for a place of worship. 8 Caetani, thus, argues that what the Prophet built was a private residence. The difference between Caetani’s approach and that of the earlier Western pioneers may be attributable to the radical effect of Goldziher’s sweeping views on the historical unreliability of ḥadīth (see Chapter 3). Caetani’s argument is generally based (as well as on extreme scepticism towards the sources) on an assumption that many of the activities which the building is reported to have accommodated were ‘profane’ and could not have taken place in a mosque; an assumption that the system of house building observable in Arabia in his own day had also existed, in the same way, in the early Middle Ages; and the improbability of anyone foreseeing the future requirements of a layout before the rites it was to serve had taken shape.9 This argument developed into a recognized basis for later research. It was accepted and further advanced by exponents such as Creswell who, elaborating on ḥadīths from al-Bukhārī, tries to corroborate the building’s non-sacred nature.10 Creswell’s conclusion was that the early Arab informants did not successfully interpret the mass of traditions related to the Prophet’s building.11 He believes that the institution of the mosque was less the upshot of one man’s decision than of an organic evolution that welded together the myriad aspects of early Islam. Applying Caetani’s approach, and at times even literally translated words, Creswell holds that the building put up by the Prophet was no more than a replica of the private dūr, ‘houses’, in Arabia at that time. He then maintains that material culture of Arabia on the eve of Islam could not have afParker, 1839), p. 97; Muir, Life of Mahomet, iii, 18–23; Aloys Sprenger, Das Leben und die Lehre des Moḥammad: Volume 3 (Berlin: Nicolai Verlag, 1865). 8 Caetani, Annali, i, 437–8, 447–60; iii, 965. 9 See Caetani, Annali, i, 437–8. See also Creswell, EMA, i. 1, 6–7. 10 Creswell, EMA, i. 1, 9–10. 11 Ibid, i. 1, p. 7.

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forded a proper context for any architectural achievement in early Islam.12 According to him, this is indicated by the ‘primitive’ arrangement, as he sees it, of the Prophet’s residence (Figs. 8, 9 & 10),13 and the modesty of his surroundings and living conditions— Creswell’s use of ‘primitive’, almost every time he refers to the Prophet’s building, is excessive. He also re-stressed Caetani’s premise that the building was not intended to be a mosque, for had it been so intended, a more enduring lodging would have been organized for the ahl al-ṣuffa, not just a roofed shelter,14 and a more private space secured for the Prophet’s wives.15 In his curtailed discussion of some relevant Qurʾānic passages, Creswell determinedly, yet inaccurately, states that the only two mosques mentioned by the Qurʾān are al-Masjid al-Ḥarām (Makka) and al-Masjid al-Aqṣā (Jerusalem), and that there is no mention of the so-called ‘Mosque of the Prophet’.16

Creswell (ibid, i. 1, 10–11) tried to enhance his views with a somewhat long discussion on Arabia’s ‘poor’ cultural heritage, under the subheading: ‘Architecture non-existent in Arabia at this time’. 13 The Isometric reconstructions of Kuban and the Leacrofts (Figs. 9 & 10 respectively) are mainly based on Creswell’s reconstructed plan. 14 Ahl al-ṣuffa were, among the Prophet’s Companions, the most indigent and, having no shelter, were allowed to live in a roofed place at the rear of the mosque. On the ṣuffa, its inhabitants and their living conditions, see Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, i, 219–20; Ibn al-Najjār, Durra, pp. 165–6; alSamhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, 453–7; al-Diyārbakrī, Tārīkh, i, 347; al-Barzanjī, Nuzha, p. 10. 15 Creswell, EMA, i. 1, 9. 16 Ibid, i. 1, 10. 12

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Figure 8: Madina: reconstruction of the plan of the Prophet’s mosque and dwellings (after Creswell, 1969)

Figure 9: Isometric reconstruction of the Prophet’s mosque (after Kuban, 1974)

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Figure 10: Isometric reconstruction of the Prophet’s mosque (after Helen and Richard Leacroft, 1976)

A more detailed discussion of the mosque in the Qurʾān was carried out by Oleg Grabar who, based on the hypothesis that no Muslim religious type is specified therein, also sees the building as a private house. While conceding that the Qurʾān—through the indication of the obligatory nature of ṣalāh—created a later context for the evolution of the mosque, Grabar stresses that ṣalāh, as far as the Qurʾān is concerned, was an individual act in the earliest years of Islam. He credits the collective character it assumed, as well as the actual forms it took, to the Muslim community’s life in the period between 622 and 632.17 In his judgement, the Prophet did not establish a distinctive place of worship for Muslims because of his strong reservations about visual representations and about priesthood. Grabar’s only reason for doubting the theory of the ‘House of the Prophet’ is the existence of a few short fragments of poetry referring to a distinct mosque built by the Prophet. He gives no details about these fragments.18 Pedersen, who considered a larger number of sources than Caetani and Creswell, insists that the building was envisioned as a mosque from the outset, even though it assumed little of the disposition of a sacred building.19 His main reason for this is that the Grabar, Formation, pp. 99–100. Grabar, Formation, p. 103. These will be discussed below. 19 Pedersen, ‘Masdjid’, pp. 645–6. 17 18

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building accommodated religious rites from the start and that its holding of other activities was justifiable in early Islam.20 It is only recently that the Caetani-Creswell theory has come under critical scrutiny. Nonetheless, here too paradoxes subsist. For example, Hillenbrand indicates, based on size and layout, how the Prophet’s building was different from Arabia’s houses of the time (Fig. 11). He also notes many signs to the effect that the building was used for congregational prayer on a regular basis, and goes even further to state that the mosque was custom-built from the beginning—a conclusion that, as he maintains, ‘coincides with the Islamic tradition itself’.21 Nevertheless, Hillenbrand continues to call the building a ‘house’ in spite of his belief that it was the ‘first mosque’, pointing out that the 620s mosque was different from our general concept of the mosque: The matter of origins is surprisingly straightforward. Islamic tradition champions the decisive impact of a single building on the evolution of the mosque: the house of the Prophet. Nor is this emphasis misplaced.22

Figure 11: Isometric reconstruction of the Prophet’s mosque (after Hillenbrand, 1994)

Perhaps the most resilient refutation of the Caetani-Creswell theory is that of Jeremy Johns, who convincingly contests many of its Ibid, p. 646. See also Grabar, Formation, p. 99. Hillenbrand, Islamic Architecture, pp. 39–40. 22 Ibid, pp. 33 ff. 20 21

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grounds. Johns reveals, through the discussion of a number of relevant ḥadīths, that the Prophet’s structure was not a profane structure as suggested by Caetani and Creswell. He goes so far as to say that the building—as conveyed by the sources—could have been the ‘immediate’ origin of the mosque, but he seems disinclined to accept the description which the sources give for it. Further, Johns’ discussion of the mosque in the Qurʾān led him to think that the mosque, while established institutionally, was not connected to any architectural expression in the time of the Prophet. He, then, suggests that the type or types that became the mosque could have been adopted, and not created, by the Muslim elite after the passing of the Prophet, particularly in the time of ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb, and that the history of the mosque was retrospectively recorded by the second or the third century traditionists, who were inspired by the type of the mosques they then frequented.23 Johns’ uncertainty about the structure, despite the various features he noted in favour of its being a mosque, is well-represented in the title he chose for his notable article: ‘The “House of the Prophet” and the Concept of the Mosque’. The Caetani-Creswell theory has also provoked a number of Muslim scholars. The most outstanding position was taken by A. Fikrī whose reconstruction of the building (Fig. 12) seems better argued than the more recognized one of Creswell (Fig. 8). Nevertheless, Fikrī’s argument regarding the type of the building, while presenting interesting insights, does not seem adequately systematic.24 He maintains that both Caetani and Creswell relied on weak ḥadīths; of which he specifies none. His attempt to elicit from the Qurʾān evidence for the building being a mosque is markedly succinct and sometimes abstruse. While maintaining that all Muslim historians as early as the beginning of the second/eighth century agreed that what the Prophet built was a mosque, he confusingly states that the earliest relevant account is that of Ibn Saʿd, which he then quotes at length. These shortcomings, and the absence of any translation of his work on the Prophet’s building, have diminished the impact of Fikrī’s argument. The building continued to be de23 24

See Johns, ‘House of the Prophet’, pp. 71, 109. Fikrī, Masjid al-Qayrawān, pp. 39–46; id., Madkhal, pp. 263–8.

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fined as a house, even by Islamic scholars such as Kamāl al-Dīn Sāmiḥ and Farīd Shāfiʿī.25 Others such as Suʿād Māhir and Ḥasan al-Pāshā, without taking investigation any further, refer to the building as a mosque.26

Figure 12: Reconstruction of the plan of the Prophet’s mosque (after Fikrī, 1963)

Kamāl al-Dīn Sāmiḥ, al-ʿImāra fī Ṣadr al-Islām, pp. 5–6; F. Shāfiʿī, al-ʿImāra ʿarabiyya, pp. 64–66; id., ʿImāra ʿarabiyya Islāmiyya, pp. 1–3. 26 Suʿād Māhir, Masājid Miṣr wa-awliyāʾuhā al-ṣāliḥūn, 5 vols (Cairo: alMajlis al-Aʿlā li-l-Shuʾūn al-Islāmiyya, 1971), i, 32–43; Ḥasan al-Pāshā, Mawsūʿat al-ʿimāra wa-l-āthār wa-l-funūn al-Islāmiyya, 5 vols (Beirut: Awrāq Sharqiyya, 1999), i, 48. 25

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Figure 13: Isometric reconstruction of the Prophet’s mosque (after Shāfiʿī, 1970)

In this introductory section, we reviewed the scholars’ positions on the nature and functions of the Prophet’s building. This was done through narrating the history of the discussion of the issue in both Western and Islamic scholarship. We already tried to explain (see Chapter 1) why the question needs to be re-asked and what conceiving the building as a ‘house’ or a ‘mosque’ means in terms of identifying the immediate origin of the mosque type and the kind of impulses that would have prompted it, and in terms of the functional and architectural features of the mosque in general. While discussing, in what follows, the two main theories about the nature of the Prophet’s building, we will point out which designation, ‘house’ or ‘mosque’, should be accepted and why. While so doing, we will try to indicate how the question interrelates with topics such as: (i) the meaning of the word ‘mosque’ generally, i.e. the specialization of the term for the distinctive place of worship for Muslims rather than non-Muslims; (ii) the distinctive architectural disposition and style, as well as authority, of the building and its space at Madina; (iii) and the relation between the residence of the head of the state and the location of his councils of state.

4.3 THE ‘HOUSE OF THE PROPHET’ THEORY The theory of the ‘House of the Prophet’ cannot be accepted for several reasons. Caetani maintains that it was not until 54/674 that

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the ‘house’ of the Prophet was formally converted into a mosque. According to him, this happened when the Aḍḥā feast was ‘for the first time’ celebrated in it instead of the muṣallā.27 Here, Caetani has made two critical mistakes. First, he reckons the building remained a ‘house’ at the beginning of the caliphate of ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib (r. 35–40/656–61), whose moving of the caliphal seat to Kūfa in 36/657 was—as Caetani maintains—a significant step en route to the mosque institution.28 This hypothesis is challenged by an early poem of Ḥassān b. Thābit (infra). Ḥassān was known (and honoured) as the Prophet’s bard. The poem affirms that the building had already been a mosque by ʿUthmān’s assassination in 35/655– 6.29 Further, Caetani’s claim would require us to believe that the mosques of the amṣār were established before that of Madina, the first Islamic capital and the home of the Prophet and his Companions. According to the sources, territorial mosques began to be established as early as 14/635 or earlier, and there is now reliable archaeological evidence for some being rebuilt in the early 40s/660s (see Chapter 2). Creswell, who followed the two suggestions of Caetani, nevertheless also accepts the dates given in the sources for the foundation of the mosque at Baṣra in 14/635,30 and at Kūfa in 17/638,31 the year he affirms for ʿUmar’s rebuilding of the structure at Madina: ‘In this year ʿUmar also enlarged the mosque at Madina’.32 Does Creswell admit the building having been a mosque before the caliphate of ʿUmar? Another reason to reject the ‘House of the Prophet’ theory is the size of the structure, which is not comparable to any of the Arab houses of the time as described by Caetani and Creswell them27

Annali, i, 441–2. This view was also adopted by Creswell: EMA, i.

1, 10. Caetani, Annali, i, 442, 445–6. ʿUthmān is said to have been murdered in his house which was located in the mosque vicinity. On ʿUthmān’s house, see al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, i, 528. 30 Creswell, EMA, i. 1, 22. 31 Ibid, i. 1, 24 32 Ibid, i. 1, 27–8 28 29

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selves. The structure, as reported by the sources and accepted by Caetani and others, is too large to have been built as a private dwelling.33 The idea that it was built as the Prophet’s private residence conflicts with the many reports about his modest living and with those that praise simplicity and emphasize the transitory nature of this life (see Chapter 6). The most, if not only, acceptable explanation for such a large structure is that it was meant to serve the whole Muslim community. The communal, and not private, character of the building is also supported by two further particulars. First, in contrast to Caetani-Creswell’s account of the Arab dār, which usually had one entrance, the Prophet’s structure was provided with three gates, most probably to assist the ingress and egress of a large number of attendants.34 Second, the enlargement of the building in 7/628 was carried out along with the introduction of the minbar for the first time.35 Another feature that argues against the Caetani-Creswell theory is the placing of the apartments of the Prophet’s wives against the exterior of the enclosure wall (Figs. 8, 9 & 10). This is a strong implication that the provision of dwellings for the Prophet and his wives was only ancillary to the main function of providing the earliest Muslims with a place to meet and pray. The building was above all else the focal point of the Islamic community at Madina.36 In envisaging how the typical mosque evolved from the Prophet’s ‘house’, commentators such as Briggs and Creswell have noted a number of significant points for our discussion. Firstly, the shelter, put up by the Prophet to protect the congregants from extreme weather, is seen as the ‘origin’ of the later līwān. Secondly, the three-step pulpit he used to deliver sermons is thought to have been the ‘embryo’ of the later minbar. Thirdly, the custom of Bilāl calling to prayer from an elevated place in the mosque vicinity is See Hillenbrand, Islamic Architecture, p. 39; Johns, ‘House of the Prophet’, p. 74. 34 See Johns, ‘House of the Prophet’, p. 74. 35 Al-Tirmidhī, no. 3703; al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, i, 338, 340–59. 36 See Hillenbrand, Islamic Architecture, pp. 39–40; Johns, ‘House of the Prophet’, p. 74. See also Ettinghausen, Grabar and Jenkins-Madina, Islamic Art and Architecture, p. 5. 33

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believed to have inspired the later minaret.37 While the first two features are taken by the advocates of the ‘House of the Prophet’ theory as indicators of a communal, but not ceremonial, function, the third plainly indicates the building’s use for collective prayer. The fact that a new shelter was added at the southern end of the building immediately after the qibla was switched from north to south, indicates that the use of the structure for collective prayer was frequent.38

4.4 THE ‘MOSQUE OF THE PROPHET’ THEORY 4.4.1 What is the mosque? Before the evidence for the structure being a mosque is assessed, we need to define what a mosque is. The word ‘mosque’ is the English equivalent for the Arabic masjid which, according to Arabic dictionaries, designates the place where a worshipper prostrates himself (yasjud).39 At its simplest, the mosque is a levelled piece of Briggs, Muhammadan Architecture, pp. 21–2. See also Creswell, EMA, i. 1, 7, 9; Johns, ‘House of the Prophet’, p. 85; Bloom and Blair, Islamic Arts, p. 23. 38 See Hillenbrand, Islamic Architecture, p. 42. On the event of changing the qibla, see Mālik, Muwaṭṭaʾ, no. 546; al-Bukhārī, nos. 403, 4488–94; al-Dārimī, no. 1270; Ibn Rajab, Fatḥ, iii, 99–102. See also Ibn Khuzayma, nos. 430–6; Sulaymān al-Bājī, al-Muntaqā: sharḥ ‘Muwaṭṭaʾ Mālik’, ed. M. ʿAbd al-Qādir ʿAṭā, 9 vols (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1999), ii, 398–9. 39 Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān, iii, 1941. See also al-Zarkashī, Aḥkām almasājid, pp. 26–8. Other archaic pronunciations are Masjad and Masyid. See al-Jurāʿī, Tuḥfa, p. 47. The Arabic ‘masjid’ could have been derived from the Aramaic ‘msgdʾ, which designated a place of worship, stele or sacred pillar. It is found in Aramaic as early as the Jewish Elephantine Papyri of the fifth century BC. However, the Syriac form msgd’ and Amharic masged are late loans from Arabic. The form ms1gd, ‘oratory or place of prayer’ is also found in Epigraphic South Arabian. Before the Prophet migrated to Madina and erected his mosque, the word masjid was used to refer to sanctuaries, especially al-Bayt al-Ḥarām, ‘the Makkan Sacred Mosque’, and alMasjid al-Aqṣā, ‘the Further Mosque’, which is usually taken to specify the 37

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land demarcated by whatever scheme seems viable, with the only formal condition, beside cleanliness, being its regular use for prayer. The one structural requirement is some device (a wall, ditch or a reed fence, for example) that assures the worshippers’ orientation towards the qibla and their arrangement in straight parallel lines.40 But even this requirement could be dispensed with: the term masjid does not seem in and of itself to connote a building of any kind.41 However, some of the Mālikīs stipulated a roofed mosque for the Friday sermon.42 Their view is based on a Qurʾānic verse which sanctions houses (of worship) wherein the name of God is remembered (infra).43 The Mālikīs, based on the consensus of the exegetes that ‘house’ here is taken to refer to the ‘mosque’, argue that a ‘house’ should have a roof resting on walls. The majority opinion does not accept this condition and is in better agreement with the relevant ḥadīths. The mosque, as far as devotion is concerned, is any clean piece of land; the Prophet is reported to have said: ‘the whole earth is made a mosque for me (and my nation), [meaning that prayer is valid on any land]’.44 Conventionally, however, the mosque is a place, particularly a building, where prayers are done collectively on a regular basis. According to some scholars, this last

sanctuary at Jerusalem. See Beeston and other, Sabaic Dictionary, p. 125; A. Jeffery, The Foreign Vocabulary of the Qurʾān (Cairo: Oriental Institute Baroda, 1938), pp. 263–4; Pedersen, ‘Masdjid’, p. 644; Johns, ‘House of the Prophet’, p. 89; Bloom, ‘Mosque’, 426–7. 40 On such liturgical needs, see Ibn Ḥajar, Fatḥ, ii, 348–53; Ṣāliḥ ʿA. al-Ābī, Jawāhir al-iklīl: Sharḥ Mukhtaṣar al-Shaykh Khalīl fī madhhab al-imām Mālik imām dār al-tanzīl, 2 vols (Beirut: al-Maktba al-Thaqāfiyya, [n.d.]), i, 55. 41 See Hillenbrand: Islamic Architecture, p. 31. 42 Ibrāhīm Ṣ. al-Khuḍayrī, Aḥkām al-masājid fī al-sharīʿa al-Islāmiyya, 2 vols (Riyadh: Wazārat al-Shuʾūn al-Islāmiyya wa-l-Awqāf wa-l-Daʿwa wal-Irshād, 1998), ii, 18. 43 Qurʾān 24. 36. 44 Al-Bukhārī, no. 438; Muslim, nos. 1161–7; al-Dārimī, no. 1429; Ibn Ḥanbal, nos. 11858, 11727. See al-Nawawī, Sharḥ Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, v, 2–5.

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definition excludes the muṣallās, ribāṭs, khanqās and madrasas for these types were mainly established to serve different functions.45 With such an intrinsic simplicity of definition, mirrored also in form and function, the making of the ‘mosque’ by the Prophet and the first Muslim community was as fundamental as straightforward. But what did it look like? Study of the form of the ‘Mosque of the Prophet’ has been mainly brief and introductory in manner. There has always been an emphasis on its ephemeral material and simple form, which, according to many, cannot be described as ‘architectonic’. Only few works have considered the different stages of the building during the time of the Prophet in chronological order, and even fewer among these have paid adequate attention to its plan, material, and constituents at each of these stages.46 The earliest phase, in particular, has always been superficially dealt with. 4.4.2 Description of the Prophet’s mosque On the authority of Anas b. Mālik, When the Prophet arrived at Madina, he alighted at the outskirts (ʿawālī al-Madīna) among a tribe called the Banū ʿAmr b. ʿAwf. He stayed there for fourteen nights. Then, he sent for the Banū al-Najjār and they came armed with their swords. As if I am looking [just now] while the Prophet was on his mount with Abū Bakr riding behind him and all the Banū alNajjār around him until he dismounted at the courtyard of Abū Ayyūb’s house. [Formerly], the Prophet loved to pray wherever the time of a prayer was due, even at sheepfolds. Later on, he ordered that a mosque should be built and summoned a clique of the Banū al-Najjār and said, ‘O Banū al-Najjār, ask me a price of this [walled] piece of land of yours. They replied: ‘No, by God. We do not ask Al-Jurāʿī, Tuḥfa, p. 49; al-Zarkashī, Aḥkām al-masājid, p. 386. On the muṣallā al-ʿīd, see below. On definition, function and architectural form of ribāṭ, see Jacqueline Chabbi, ‘La fonction du ribat à Bagdad du Ve siècle au début du VIIe siècle’, Revue des Études Islamiques, 42 (1974), 101–21. On madrasas, see J. Pedersen [G. Makdisi], Munibur Rahman and R. Hillenbrand, ‘Madrasa’, art. ‘Madrasa’, EI2 (1986), v, 1123–54. 46 See Fikrī, Madkhal, pp. 163–97; M. Hazzāʿ al-Shihrī, ʿImārat almasjid al-nabawī: mundhū inshāʾihi ḥattā nihāyat al-ʿaṣr al-Mamlūkī, (Cairo: Dār al-Qāhira li-l-Kitāb, 2001). 45

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for its price except from God’. Anas continued: ‘The site was hitherto occupied by what I told you: pre-Islamic graves, ruins, and palm trees. The Prophet ordered the graves to be dug up, (ponds of stagnant water were emptied),47 the ruins to be levelled to earth and the date-palm trees to be cut down. Then, they [i.e. the Companions] arranged the latter towards the qibla of the mosque, and made its two piers (ʿiḍādatayhi) of stone.48 They kept on carrying stone while enchanting “There is no goodness except that of the Hereafter! O God! We beseech you to forgive the Anṣār, ‘Muslim community of Madina’ and the Muhājirūn, ‘Muslim emigrants from Makka”.49 Repeated in a number of canonical collections, this rather long ḥadīth is usually referred to when the story of building the Prophet’s mosque is discussed in Muslim scholarship. Until he built his houses and mosque, the Prophet stayed at the house of Abū Ayyūb, an Anṣārī Companion.50 Stones were brought from the adjacent hills and labin ‘unbaked brick’ was moulded at Baqīʿ al-Khabkhaba, a place in the outskirts of Madina.51 On the authority of Umm Salama, one of the Prophet’s wives, when the Prophet was building his Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, I, 205; al-Diyārbakrī, Tārīkh, i, 343. According to Ibn Manẓūr, the word ʿiḍāda can mean the side [of a house], or the jamb of a door. ʿAḍud al-bināʾ is what is put around it, by which it is tightened and buttressed. Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān, iv, 2983–4. 49 Al-Bukhārī, no. 428; Muslim, no. 1173; Abū Dāwūd, no. 453. See also Khān’s translation of the same ḥadīth: M. Huḥsin Khān, The English Translation of Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī with the Arabic Text, vols (Riyadh: Dar-usSalam, 1996); al-Ṭabarī, Tarīkh, ii, 397; al-Dhahabī, Sīra, pp. 232–3; alSuhaylī, Rawḍ, ii, 336–7; Ibn Kathīr, Bidāya wa-nihāya, iv, 530–1; Ibn Ḥajar, Fatḥ, ii, 71–2; Ibn Rajab, Fatḥ, iii, 211; al-Nawawī, Sharḥ Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, v, 7; Ibn Hishām, al-Sīra al-Nabawiyya, ed. ʿUmar A. Tadmurī, 3rd edn, 4 vols (Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb al-ʿArabī, 1990), ii, 138; Ibn Sayyid al-Nās, ʿUyūn alathar fī funūn al-maghāzī wa-l-shamāʾil wa-l-siyar, ed. M. al-Khaṭrāwī and Muḥyī al-Dīn Mistū, 2 vols (Medina: Maktabat Dār al-Turāth, 1992), i, 315; Ibn al-Najjār, Durra, p. 146; al-Marāghī, Taḥqīq, p. 42; Wensinck, Early Muhammadan Tradition, p. 154; Juynboll, Canonical Ḥadīth, p. 487. 50 Al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, ii, 296; Ibn Rusta, Aʿlāq, 64. 51 Al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, i, 334; al-Fayrūzabādī, Maghānim, pp. 63–4. 47 48

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mosque at Mirbad al-Tamr, he brought the labin and all (the materials and tools) that would be needed for work near to him, and took off his ridāʾ ‘over garment’, [as a sign of getting ready for work]. When the Muhājirūn and the Anṣār saw that, they likewise took off theirs and began working and declaiming enthusing rajaz poetry.52 According to Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī, the Companions were carrying one mud brick at a time while ʿAmmār [ibn Yāsir], one of the Prophet’s most cherished comrades, was carrying two at once.53 Ibn Kathīr added that the Prophet was working with his Companions until his chest was covered in dust.54 Formerly used as a threshing-floor for dates (hence its name), the mosque site was said to have been owned by two orphans, Sahl and Suhayl, who were from the tribe of the Banū al-Najjār and under the guardianship of an Anṣārī Companion called Muʿādh b. ʿAfrāʾ.55 Jeremy Johns, however, has pointed out four aspects of similarity between this Islamic narrative about the foundation of the Prophet’s mosque at Madina and that about the foundation of the Temple in Jerusalem (as retold by the Muslim sources). According to Johns, the site of each of the two sanctuaries: (i) was chosen by a divinely-inspired guide;56 (ii) formerly served as an agricultural enclosure; (iii) belonged to two orphans; (iv) and it was only after a

Ibn Rusta, Aʿlāq, pp. 64–5; al-Diyārbakrī, Tārīkh, i, 344. Al-Bukhārī, no. 447; Ibn Hishām, Sīra, ii, 138. See also Maʾmūn M. Yāsīn, al-Riḥla ilā al-Madīna al-Munawwara (Damascus: [n. pub], 1987), pp. 118–20. 54 Ibn Kathīr, Bidāya wa-nihāya, iv, p. 532. 55 The History of aṭ-Ṭabarī, transl. M. V. McDonald, annot. W. Montgomery Watt (New York: State University of New York Press, 1987), vii, 5–6. See also Ibn Hishām, Sīra, ii, 137–8; al-Suhaylī, Rawḍ, ii, 336. According to some, the two orphans were under the custody of Asʿad b. Zurāra. See al-Balādhurī, Futūḥ, p. 12; al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, i, 322; Ibn al-Qayyim, Zād, iii, 62. 56 The role of the Prophet’s she-camel in choosing the site of the mosque is also reminiscent of some Late Antique traditions on the role of animal guides in the foundation of a number of cities, such as Antioch, Rome, Thebes and Troy. 52 53

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struggle that the founder managed to buy it.57 However, the Temple site was chosen by the angel of the Lord, while that of the mosque was decided by giving reign to the Prophet’s she-camel until it knelt at a place where his mosque and the apartments of his wives were then erected. Also, the Prophet Muḥammad is not reported to have struggled to acquire the site of the mosque; its owners are said to have even ‘sought to make him a present of it’.58 Struggle, however, occurred when ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb wanted to enlarge the mosque during his caliphate. There, the story on the foundation of the Temple was used by the caliph’s dissidents to enhance their positions (see Chapter 7). 4.4.2.1 Stages of the mosque Mainly regarding the different dimensions and materials which the sources give for the Prophet’s mosque as conflicting, scholars usually adopt those conveyed by one account and dismiss the others without imparting any explanation. As we shall see, however, such measurements and materials relate to the different stages of the building.59

Johns, ‘House of the Prophet’, pp. 103–7 (p. 106). Ibid, p. 103. See also the above ḥadīth. 59 Followed by al-Samhūdī, Ibn Rajab was the first to draw attention to that the mosque was built more than once in the lifetime of the Prophet. The Prophet first built his mosque on a part of the mirbad. Later, he included the other part to expand the mosque. Al-Samhūdī, Khulāṣat alwafā bi-akhbār dār al-Muṣṭafā, ed. M. M. al-Jakanī, 2 vols (Medina: al-Jakanī, 1978), p. 209. On other grounds for such a theory about the multiple rebuildings of the mosque in the time of the Prophet, see Ibn Rajab, Fatḥ, iii, 302–3. Based on reports about Abū Hurayra participating in building the mosque, Ibn Rajab remarked that this should be a rebuilding of the mosque, for it was late in the life of the Prophet when Abū Hurayra embraced Islam. Ibn Rajab, Fatḥ, iii, 307–8; al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, i, 337–8. AlSamhūdī’s reading of the early sources led him to conclude that the Prophet built his mosque twice. When he first came to Madina, he built it on an area of less than 100 x 100 cubits. The second time was soon after the battle of Khaybar (wa-zāda ʿalayhi mithlahu fī al-dūr). Ibn Rusta, Aʿlāq, p. 57 58

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4.4.2.1.1 Early stages Al-Marāghī (d. 816/1413) relates, on the authority of Ibn Zabāla, that the mosque at first had no roof, and thus the Muslim congregation complained to the Prophet about the hot weather. They then asked for his permission to build a shelter. When he agreed, they built its columns with splits of palm trunks (shiqqan shiqqan).60 The Prophet built an enclosure wall and made a raḥba, ‘courtyard’, in the middle.61 Al-Marāghī, then, commented that this could most likely be the form which the mosque took in the first phase.62 This, however, could not be so; the raḥba, having been located ‘in the middle’, should have been flanked, from at least two sides, by ẓullas, ‘shaded spaces.’ It was not until the second year AH, following the changing of the qibla direction, that the mosque had two ẓullas, one in the south and another in the north. We can, however, observe three stages of construction in the early stage: a) In the beginning, the mosque was no more than a rectangular enclosure (63 x 54.33 cubits),63 made of sun-dried brick and rising on a stone foundation three cubits high. The overall height of the enclosure, which was set towards Bayt al-Maqdis,64 was a bit higher than a qāma,65 ‘a fathom or the height of an average man’, or a basṭa,66 ‘a standing man stretching his arms up’. It was pierced with an entrance in each side expect for the qibla wall.67 The latter was purposely kept solid to avoid the reprimanded 64; Ibn al-Najjār, Durra, p. 147; al-Marāghī, Taḥqīq, p. 44; al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, i, 338. 60 Al-Marāghī, Taḥqīq, p. 44. 61 Ibid. Ibn al-Najjār mentioned a ḥadīth of the same meaning. Ibn alNajjār, Durra, p. 147. 62 Al-Marāghī, Taḥqīq, p. 45. 63 These dimensions were reported by Ibn Isḥāq al-Ḥarbī, on the authority of Muḥammad b. Yaḥya: al-Manāsik, p. 359; al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, i, 341. 64 Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, i, 206; Ibn al-Qayyim, Zād, iii, 63. 65 Al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, i, 335. 66 Ibn al-Najjār, Durra, p. 147; Qutb al-Dīn, Tārīkh, p. 93. 67 Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, i, 206; Ibn al-Najjār, Durra, p. 146; al-Maṭarī, Taʿrīf, p. 103; al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, i, 336.

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habit of the late comers moving through the rows of the congregants (to sit in the front lines).68 The entrances were simple openings in the wall (furajun lā aghlāqa ʿalayhā).69 This fully hypaethral structure seems to have been suitable for: (i) the ritual and societal needs of the earliest Muslim community; (ii) the concurrent climate; (iii) and the size of the congregation in the earliest months after the Hijra. Al-Samhūdī states that the number of those who welcomed the Prophet to Madina was about five hundreds.70 b) The rapid escalation in the number of congregants dictated that the mosque should be expanded to reach 70 x 60 cubits.71 The height of the enclosure was slightly more than that of a standing man. The whole area of the mosque was still open to the sky. c) The mosque needed to be rebuilt for yet a third time, given the shape of a square slightly less than 100 cubits per side,72 before its front was roofed with a simple shelter in response to the Companions complaining of the scorching sun heat. Made of The Prophet is reported to have commanded: ‘Complete the front line and then the one next to it [and so forth]! Any vacant space should be left to the last line.’ Abū Dāwūd, no. 671. See also al-Nasāʾī, no. 817; alBājī, Muntaqā, ii, 139–40. These instructions were to tackle the practice of passing in front of a worshipper, while in prayer, and which is reproached by a big number of traditions. See Mālik b. Anas, al-Muwaṭṭaʾ: riwāyat Abī Muṣʿab al-Zuhrī, ed. Bashshār Maʿrūf and Maḥmūd Khalīl, 3rd edn, 2 vols (Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Risāla, 1998), no. 409; al-Bukhārī, no. 510; alDārimī, nos. 1456–7; al-Bayhaqī, nos. 3452, 5886–9. See also Mālik, Muwaṭṭaʾ, nos. 408– 12. 69 Ibn al-Maḥjūb, Qurrat al-ʿayn fī awṣāf al-ḥaramayn, leaf 65. 70 Al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, i, 255. 71 These dimensions were reported by Zayd b. Thābit (d. 45/665) who was a personal scribe of the Prophet. See al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, i, 334; al-Sakhāwī, Tuḥfa, i, 45; al-Marāghī, Taḥqīq, p. 44. On Zayd, see L. Veccia Vaglieri ‘Ḥafṣa’, EI2 (1971), iii, 63–5 (p. 65); A. T. Welch and J. D. Pearson ‘al-Ḳurʾān’, EI2 (1986), v, 400–32 (pp. 404–5). The above dimensions are close to those mentioned by Ibn al-Najjār (Durra, p. 146) according to whom the mosque was a square of side 70 cubits. 72 Al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, i, 336. 68

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palm trunks, the columns were stretched across with ʿawāriḍ, ‘beams’, and thatched with khaṣaf, ‘plaited fronds’, and idhkhar, ‘lemon grass’.73 According to some narratives, the mosque at this stage attained 7 cubits in height.74 This building might have been retained until the qibla was changed in 2 AH. The mosque might have undergone all such three stages in a time of seven months: a period during which the Prophet is reported on the authority of al-Balādhurī to have stayed at the nearby house of Abū Ayyūb ‘until his mosque and houses were built’.75 This would imply a building that was repeatedly modified, strengthened and improved. The assumption that such stages of building occurred in less than a year’s time is seconded by the fact that the sources, while specifying the Companions’ motives to propose putting up the shelter and treating it with mud, used such expressions as: ‘when it became excessively hot’ and ‘when it rained’—implying that these were the first weather extremes to have been experienced after the mosque was set up. 4.4.2.1.2 After the changing of the qibla In the second year AH, the qibla was diverted from Bayt al-Maqdis in Jerusalem to the Kaʿba at Makka.76 The ẓulla, which had been put up in the north to protect the worshippers from the hot weather, was retained to provide shelter for the neediest among the Prophet’s followers, and who were henceforth referred to as the ahl al-ṣuffa, ‘the people of the portico’. A new ẓulla, however, was added at the southern part of the mosque, where the new qibla was moved. The area between the two shelters was left open to the sky Ibid, i, 335–36. Ibid, i, 336; al-Samhūdī, Khulāṣa, ii, p. 15; al-Sakhāwī, Tuḥfa, i, 45. 75 Al-Balādhurī, Futūḥ, p. 12; Ibn al-Najjār, Durra, p. 145. According to other accounts, the Prophet stayed at the house of Abū Ayyūb for ten months. See al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, i, 265. 76 Mālik, no. 546; al-Bukhārī, nos. 403, 4488–94; al-Dārimī, no. 1270; Ibn Rajab, Fatḥ, iii, 99–102. See also Ibn Khuzayma, nos. 430–6; al-Bājī, Muntaqā, ii 398–9. See also J. Chabbi, ‘Mecca’, in Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān (2003), iii, 337–41. 73 74

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forming a wide raḥba (Fig. 14).77 It is believed by many that these two arbours represented the embryo of the later riwāq, while the remaining raḥba they flanked served as the origin of the later ṣaḥn.78 On a number of counts, shifting of the ẓullat al-qibla from the north to the south should have required the walls of the mosque being repositioned to retain the shape of a regular square.79 First, the three cities of Madina (where the mosque is situated), Jerusalem (towards which it was formerly positioned) and Makka (which it later faced) do not lie on the same longitude.80 While Madina is located on 39.36˚ east, Makka is on 40.9˚ east and Bayt al-Maqdis is on 35.13˚ east. This means that the new qibla could not simply have been represented by the southern wall of the mosque, or a mark on it. If it was that effortless, why did the Prophet, according to alMarjānī (eighth/fourteenth century), ask a number of his Companions to stand at the corners of the mosque to help him set the new qibla correctly?81 Ibn al-Najjār mentioned that the Prophet was helped by a rahṭ, ‘group of people’ standing at the angles of the mosque so that the new qibla would be rightly laid out.82 4.4.2.1.3 Expansion of 7 AH The previous form of the mosque was probably retained until 7/628, when the Prophet returned from the battle of Khaybar. There was no need to change it heretofore; we have already seen that the mosque was not to be changed unless there was a substantial need to do so.83 According to ḥadīth, when the mosque had no See al-Barzanjī, Nuzha, p. 10; Fikrī, Madkhal, p. 171. Al-Pāshā, Mawsūʿa, i, 49. 79 See al-Shihrī, al-Masjid al-nabawī, p. 43. 80 Al-Shihrī, al-Masjid al-nabawī, p. 43. 81 Al-Marjānī, Bahja, 116; Ibn al-Najjār, Durra, p. 70; al-Maṭarī, Taʿrīf, p. 230; al-Marāghī, Taḥqīq, p. 20. The same accounts state that Gabriel, the archangel, showed to the Prophet [the location of] the Kaʿba to be guided with while setting the new qibla. It was, thus, surmised by the prophetic biographers that marking the new qibla out was indeed a task. 82 See Ibn al-Najjār, Durra, p. 147 83 This is only contradicted by one account claiming that the Prophet built his mosque with mud, for the first time, in 4/625. See Ibn al-Najjār, 77 78

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longer given enough room for worshippers by 7 AH, the Prophet enlarged it by adding an adjacent piece of land whose price was paid up by ʿUthmān b. ʿAffān.84 The area of the mosque reportedly attained 100 x ca. 100 cubits. Scholars have attempted to work out the dimensions of the mosque after this expansion.85 Mainly drawing on the accounts of al-Samhūdī,86 Fikrī, for example, argued that after the conquest of Khaybar, the mosque was enlarged from the east by 10 cubits or an usṭuwāna, ‘the space between two columns’, from the east by 20 cubits or two usṭuwānas,87 and from the north by 40 cubits. According to al-Sakhāwī, the height of the mosque attained 7 cubits, equal to 3.2 meters, after these works.88 No changes were reportedly made at the mosque in the lifetime of the Prophet after these works. Our most authentic source for the description of this final form is a ḥadīth reported on authority of ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿUmar (d. 73/692),89 ‘In the time of the Prophet, the mosque was built of labin, ‘unbaked brick’, its roof was made of the stalks of palm leaves, and its columns were of palm trunks […]’.90 However simple this form would seem, it fitted the temporal as well as spatial settings of the mosque and the functions for which it was built.

Durra, p. 152; al-Marāghī, Taḥqīq, p. 20; al-Ḥarbī, Manāsik, p. 403. Attention to the weakness of this account has already been drawn (see Chapter 2). 84 Al-Tirmidhī, no. 2703. See also al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, i, 338. This ḥadīth is regarded as ḥasan by Ibn Rajab, Fatḥ, iii, 300–2. 85 See al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, i, 340–59; M. Akkouche, ‘La Grande Mosquée de Médine’, pp. 387 ff.; Antun, ‘Architectural Form of the Mosque’, pp. 115–7. 86 Al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, i, 340–59. 87 Fikrī, Madkhal, p. 171. 88 Al-Sakhāwī, Tuḥfa, i, 45; Fikrī, Madkhal, p. 171. 89 ʿAbd Allāh is said to have been the last Companion to die at Makka. Veccia Vaglieri, ‘ʿAbd Allah b. ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb’, EI2 (1960), i, 53– 4. 90 Al-Bukhārī, no. 446; Ibn Ḥanbal, no. 6139; al-Bayhaqī, no. 4294; Ibn Rusta, Aʿlāq, p. 66.

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Attempts have been made to reconstruct the plan of the mosque in the time of the Prophet. One of the best known is that of Creswell whose reconstructed plan has usually been quoted, or reproduced in isometric forms by later scholars,91 many of whom have accepted the plan without testing the sources on which it was based. Creswell’s plan seems flawed for several reasons; notably the fewness of the sources upon which he relied, and the insufficiently critical approach which he applied to those he used.92 According to Creswell’s plan, the front ẓulla rested on two rows of columns, while according to the sources, three of the famous usṭuwānāt, ‘palm trunks’, of the rawḍa were arranged in a vertical row that linked the qibla wall with the ṣaḥn. Usṭuwānat al-wufūd, ‘column of delegates’, which was the first one from the ṣaḥn,93 was located on the same vertical row which included usṭuwānat al-tawba, ‘column of repentance’. According to al-Samhūdī, these two enclosed a third one known as usṭuwānat muṣallā ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib.94 Based on that, the front ẓulla rested, after the expansion of AH 7, on three horizontal rows of columns,95 each was made up of nine columns. According to al-Samhūdī, the mosque in the time of the Prophet had five (rows of) columns to the left of the minbar and four to its right.96

See Suʿād Māhir, Masājid Miṣr, i, 37 [fig. 1]; Doğan Kuban, Muslim Religious Architecture: The Mosque and Its Early Development (Leiden: Brill, 1974), i, 2, [fig. 1]; Helen Leacroft and Richard Leacroft, The Buildings of Early Islam (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1976); Hillenbrand, Islamic Architecture, p. 39 [fig. 2.54]. Creswell’s plan of the Prophet’s mosque was, however, criticized by Sauvaget and Fikrī. See J. Sauvaget, La Mosquée Omeyyade de Médine, pp. 8–9, 92; Fikrī, Madkhal, p. 184. 92 See Creswell, EMA, i. 1, 10–6. 93 Al-Maṭarī, Taʿrīf, pp. 91–2; al-Marāghī, Taḥqīq, p. 60. 94 Al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, 449. 95 According to al-Shihrī, the same arrangement was adopted for the rear ẓulla which then served as the shelter of the ahl al-ṣuffa: al-Masjid alnabawī, p. 55. 96 Al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, i, 352–9. Al-Samhūdī states, on the authority of Ibn Zabāla, that, in the beginning, the minbar was flanked with three (rows of) columns on each side: Wafāʾ, i, 348–9. 91

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The rear ẓulla was, according to Creswell’s plan, supported on a single row of columns, and it was restricted to the northwestern side of the mosque (Fig. 8). Having served as the front ẓulla before the qibla was shifted to the south, the rear ẓulla should have run uninterruptedly between the eastern and western walls of the mosque.97 However, the hypothesis of Creswell and his proponents could be valid if we accept, as I think we should, that the whole mosque was repositioned after the changing of the qibla. However, none of the sources identifies the precise location of the portico of the mosque’s rear. They only tell us that it was dedicated to the ahl al-ṣuffa, whose number was estimated to range from 70 to 100 persons. Further, Creswell’s placement of the dwellings of the Prophet’s wives looks less practical when compared to that of Akkouche whose plan of the mosque and the dwellings seems to be based on a more convincing reading of the sources (Fig. 15).98 A more tenable plan of the Prophet’s mosque was put forward by Fikrī (Fig. 12). However, while handling the above issues more successfully, Fikrī’s plan has a number of defects too. For example, it shows the length of the qibla wall as 90 cubits. This conflicts with the many accounts which agree that the mosque, after the expansion of 7 AH, was a square of 100 cubits per side.99 Also, the plan of Fikrī includes the Bāb al-Nisāʾ, ‘gate of women’, although it was not until the caliphate of ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb, according to all sources available to us, that this gate was opened in the mosque’s enclosure wall.100 Further, Fikrī’s plan does not show

See Fikrī, Madkhal, p. 186. See Akkouche, ‘La Grande Mosquée de Médine’, pp. 377–410. 99 Al-Maṭarī, Taʿrīf, p. 230; al-Marāghī, Taḥqīq, p. 44; al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, pp. 353, 355. 100 Abū Dāwūd, nos. 462–4. See also Ibn al-Najjār, Durra, p. 171; alSamhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, 495–6; al-Maṭarī, Taʿrīf, p. 230; al-Marjānī, Bahja, 127; al-Marāghī, Taḥqīq, p. 46; al-Diyārbakrī, Tārīkh, i, 347; Wensinck, Early Muhammadan Tradition, p. 154. 97 98

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the gate which was moved, subsequent to the changing of the qibla, from the southern to the northern wall of the mosque.101 Did such a building have the features of a mosque? In dealing with this question, we rely mainly on the earliest historical accounts. While considering as many relevant and reliable sources as possible, special attention is paid, for a number of reasons, to the Qurʾān and ḥadīth. First, these are the very sources on which both theories about the structure are based. Also, the Qurʾān in particular is seen by most scholars, both Western and Muslim, as the most accepted source for the study of early Islam.102 The ḥadīth corpus, however, provides the most relevant material on the topic; some of it reported to us by people who were themselves part of the action.

This assessment of the scholar’s attempts to reconstruct the plan of the Prophet’s mosque is mainly based on al-Shihrī, al-Masjid al-nabawī, pp. 57–61. 102 On a historiographical appraisal of the Qurʾān and how it was collected, see Frederik Leehmuis, ‘Codices of the Qurʾān’, in Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān (2001), i, 347–51; John Burton, ‘The Collection of the Qurʾān’, in Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān (2001), i, 351–61; Juynboll, ‘Ḥadīth and the Qurʾān’, pp. 376–97; François Déroche, ‘Manuscripts of the Qurʾān’, in Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān (2003), iii, 254–75; F. E. Peters, ‘The Quest of the Historical Muḥammad’, The International Journal of Middle East Studies, 23 (1991), 291–315. 101

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Figure 14: Plan of the mosque of the Prophet after the change of the qibla (after al-Shihrī, 2001)

Figure 15: Reconstruction of the plan of the Prophet’s mosque and dwellings (after Akkouche, 1935)

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Figure 16: Reconstruction of the plan of the Prophet’s mosque and dwellings of his wives and Companions (after al-Shinqīṭī, 1991)

Figure 17: Plan of the mosque in the time of the Prophet with the positions of the famous usṭuwānāt indicated (after al-Shihrī, 2001)

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4.5 ḤADĪTH AND THE ‘MOSQUE OF THE PROPHET’ The perspective in Caetani-Creswell theory implies that the early Arab historians and biographers of the Prophet, while recording the history of the ‘first’ mosque, retained a number of accounts that, from Caetani’s point of view, reveal the building’s nature as a house and not a mosque. A key question here is: why did such early informants not omit, or at least explain, those accounts which appear to contradict the character of a mosque? It is difficult to believe that such accounts were passed down by mistake or, as presumed by Caetani and Creswell, not identified as indications of a non-sacred building. If we presume that such a mistake was made by scholars in charge of writing an exemplary, and supposedly consistent, history of the ‘primordial’ mosque,103 the notion is yet more implausible. It becomes more dubious still when we know that such early historians and ḥadīth compilers lived at a time when such allegedly non-sacred activities were no longer taking place at mosques. Further, the historical evidence for the existence of the Prophet’s mosque is found scattered in divergent texts among the early sources. For example, we learn that Umm Salama, one of the Prophet’s wives, concerned for her privacy, built a screen wall in front of her apartment to block the gaze of the attendants.104 This implies that the sizable courtyard built by the Prophet was not a private place for his wives as was the case with the Arabian dūr of the time. The fact that this ḥadīth about Umm Salama’s conduct is mainly deployed as an argument against ‘superfluous’ building is a strong hint that the history of the Prophet’s mosque is difficult to conceive as having been written purely retrospectively.105 We will shortly see that it was not in fact the first mosque in Islam according to textual evidence. 104 See Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, i, 429; Ibn al-Najjār, Durra, p. 153; alSamhūdī, Wafāʿ, ii, 461. 105 Likewise, in the context of faḍāʾil (or manāqib), ‘merits’ of Abū Bakr, it is reported, on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās, that when the Prophet, during his last sickness, was unable to attend and lead the congregational prayer, he asked Abū Bakr to lead the people in ṣalāh. Al-Bukhārī, nos. 683, 713; Muslim, no. 936; Ibn Ḥanbal, no. 2055. For other ḥadīths 103

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Among the wide range of activities that the structure is reported to have accommodated in the time of the Prophet, some— as already indicated—are considered by the holders of the ‘House of the Prophet’ theory as prosaic, secular and non-sacred, and hence inappropriate for a mosque. These included: receiving nonMuslim delegations, tending battle-wounded men, trussing of a war captive and a pageant performed by a band of Abyssinian lancers.106 However, among these, and other comparable activities, one should differentiate between those condemned by the Prophet and those he approved or allowed. In one ḥadīth, the Prophet warns against spitting towards the qibla.107 Included in a cluster specifying the ‘dos and don’ts’ in a mosque, this ḥadīth and its like are not evidence for non-reverence of the Prophet’s mosque.108 Indeed, they

which can serve as implicit evidence for the existence of the Prophet’s mosque, see al-Bukhārī, nos. 655–6; Muslim, nos. 1518–20; Ibn Ḥajar, Fatḥ, ii, 280; al-ʿAynī, ʿUmdat al-qārī: sharḥ ‘Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī’, ed. ʿAbd Allāh Maḥmūd ʿUmar, 25 vols (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 2001), vi, 251– 3. 106 On these and other episodes, see al-Bukhārī, nos. 451–75. On the reception of non-Muslim delegations in the mosque, see al-Bayhaqī, nos. 4330–5; Ibn Ḥazm, al-Muḥallā, eds. M. Munīr al-Dimashqī and A. Muḥammad Shākir, 11 vols (Cairo: Idārat al-Ṭibāʿa al-Munīriyya, 1933), iv, 243; Ibn Ḥajar, Fatḥ, ii, 107; Ibn Taymiyya, Majmūʿat al-fatāwā, eds. ʿĀmir al-Jazzār and Anwar al-Bāzz, 3rd edn, 37 vols (Mansura: Dār al-Wafāʾ, 2005), xxii, 119; Ibn Hishām, Sīra, ii, 216–7; al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām wa-wafayāt al-mashāhīr wa-l-aʿlām, ed. Bashshār A. Maʿrūf, 17 vols (Beirut: Dār al-Gharb al-Islāmī, 2003), i, 465–6; Ibn Kathīr, Bidāya wa-nihāya, vii, 271; Ibn al-Qayyim, Zād, iii, 629. 107 Ṣaḥīfat Hammām b. Munabbih: ʿan Abī Hurayra raḍiya Allāhū ʿanh, ed. R. Fawzī ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib (Cairo: Maktabat al-Khānjī, 1985), no. 120; Mālik, al-Muwaṭṭaʾ bi-riwāyat Abī Muṣʿab al-Zuhrī, nos. 544–5; al-Bukhārī, nos. 405–17; Abū Dāwūd, nos. 474–81; al-Nasāʾī, nos. 724–8. 108 One ḥadīth (no. 174) in al-Bukhārī states, on the authority of Ḥamza b. ʿAbd Allāh, that dogs used to move freely back and forth in the mosque.

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enhance it.109 More conjecturally, it may just have been that the unassuming form of the structure, whose floor scarcely differed from any spot in the surrounding desert, encouraged some attendants to deem such activities permissible. Many of the newlyconverted nomads who attended were accustomed to living in the desert, where such acts were in no way constrained. Moreover, the very discussion of such unbecoming behaviours implies that they did not occur routinely at the mosque.110 The fact that they were addressed by the Prophet is attributable not to their frequency but to his keenness to tackle them: he is reported (as noted in Chapter 1), on the authority of ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿUmar, to have treated the mark of a spit with saffron.111 In sum, the reports on inappropriate behaviour do not furnish decisive evidence that the building was a private abode and not a place of worship—it is in any case hard to believe that such behaviour would have been tolerated in a ‘house’, especially not that of the Prophet. The other group of non-sacred activities, those approved or allowed by the Prophet, likewise provide no evidence for a private abode. Rather, they denote the multi-functional nature of the mosque, which at that time accommodated functions that nonMuslims may well designate ‘secular’.112 For example, it was in the mosque that delegates were received: new converts, who came to declare faith and allegiance, and non-converts who came for political purposes or for theological debate.113 In the case of the latter, the mosque might have been chosen to impress, as the place where See al-Bukhārī, nos. 423, 439–41, 445, 451–75; Ibn Rajab, Fatḥ, iii, 105–40. 110 A good example is the report about a Bedouin urinating in the Prophet’s mosque: al-Bukhari, nos. 219–21. 111 Ibn Khuzayma, no. 1295. See also al-Bukhārī, nos. 405–17; alBayhaqī, no. 4310; al-Nasāʾī, no. 729; Wensinck, Early Muhammadan Tradition, p. 154. 112 For examples of such functions, see al-Bukhārī, nos. 421–3, 439– 40, 454–7, 461–4, 472, 475; Ibn Khuzayma, nos. 1328–42. 113 See Ibn Isḥāq, al-Sīra al-nabawiyya, ed. A. Farīd al-Mazīdī (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 2004), pp. 615–65; Ibn Hishām, Sīra, iv, 210–39; Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, i, 252–309. 109

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the head of the community officially received delegations. As for the new converts, they were received there so that their proclamation of faith would be witnessed by the Muslim community who, in turn, would be strengthened by that.114 In the same way, the tradition about the Prophet allocating in the mosque gifts to his followers indicates a communal, not a ‘profane’, edifice.115 It was also under the umbrella of such a societal role of the mosque that other activities of ‘mundane’ disposition such as: lying down, stretching out, sleeping and conversing,116 were allowed but only occasionally and in a way that would not conflict with the main function of providing a place for praying and preaching.117 Likewise, the reports giving the impression of a military headquarters should be considered while bearing in mind that warfare was looked upon as a religious undertaking. In Islam, temporal and religious spheres are in many cases difficult to separate; in the formative period almost every activity was laced with religious significance. In other words, there was not a distinctive barrier between the dues of God and those of Caesar. This could explain why in the time of the Prophet and afterwards the mosque was never exclusively, however central that role, a place for prayer, but served other political, judicial, didactic and social functions.118 Such a multi-purpose character, not denied by the early Muslim historians and ḥadīth compilers, does not necessarily disprove the sacredness of the structure, given that these diverse purposes were inte-

Also, in the case of new converts, the mosque might have been chosen to welcome them because conducting prayer was, and remains, one of the prerequisites of being a Muslim. Ṣalāh is linked to the act of quitting infidelity and embracing Islam: ‘establish ṣalāh and be not of the disbelievers’. Qurʾān 30. 31. 115 See al-Bukhārī, no. 421. See also Pedersen, ‘Masdjid’, p. 646. 116 Al-Bukhārī, nos. 451–75. 117 See Pedersen, ‘Masdjid’, p. 646. On the manifold functions of the mosque in early Islam, see also Guillaume, Traditions, p. 39. 118 L. Golvin, La Mosquée: ses Origines- sa morphologie, ses diverse functionsson rôle dan la vie musulmane (Algiers: Institut d’Études Supérieures Islamiques d’Alger, 1960), pp. 97–99; Abbott, Arabic Literary Papyri, ii, 13. 114

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gral to the new religion.119 The Prophet did not dedicate a separate space to administer ‘secular’ matters, restricting the mosque to exclusively formal religious observances. In contrast to the situation in pre-Islamic Arabia, where the like of the Qurayshī Dār alNadwa—and not the Kaʿba—usually served as the place for political public assembly,120 the ‘Mosque of the Prophet’ served, in addition to its central role as a place of worship, as the locus of administrative authority, councils of state, to which the residence of the leader was attached.121 In spite of such a political function, which, ordinarily, would have closed or restricted the space to the public, the ‘Mosque of the Prophet’ was open. It had no restricted parts or ‘holy of holies’; it was frequented day and night by the Muslim individuals, encouraged to do so by the Prophet, to attend prayer, whether collective or individual, obligatory or supererogatory. From the evidence we have, there was no time when the mosque had the character of a restricted place; we cannot find in tradition any example of a special enclave from which ‘commoners’ were excluded. Its character, as conveyed by the sources, is that of a respected, but not restricted, place of worship. Its hypaethral layout made every side of it visible and accessible to every attendant. However, it seems that in the beginning, there was an inequality in sacredness between the shaded front and the open courtyard, 122 but later the whole area of the mosque was dealt with as evenly sacred. The notion of sacredness here is not attributable to the restriction of the space to a clerical or political elite, as in the Ancient Egyptian temples, for example, where the sanctuaries (unlike peristyle halls) were exclusive to priesthood and royalty (Fig. 18). The saDispensing justice at the mosque, for instance, is commanded by the Qurʾān itself (5. 106). 120 Dār al-Nadwa, reportedly built by Quṣayy b. Kilāb (ca. 400–80 AD), was to begin with his private abode; later it turned into the meetingplace of the Quraysh chiefs. 121 Such was the same procedure followed by the Muslim rulers at Baṣra, Kūfa, Fusṭāṭ, Qayrawān, etc. See Pedersen, ‘Masdjid’, pp. 647–8. 122 On differentiation between the makshūf, ‘open space’, and the mughaṭṭā, ‘covered one’, see Pedersen, ‘Masdjid’, pp. 654–5; Hillenbrand, Islamic Architecture, pp. 32, 35 119

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credness of the mosque parts, particularly in early Islam, was based on the regular observance therein of performing ṣalāh.

Figure 18: Isometric plan of the temple of Khonsu at the Karnak complex in Luxor, where increase in sanctity is accentuated by decrease of illumination, through elevating the level of the floor and reducing that of the ceiling (after Ziegler and Bovet, 2001)

Many of the contentious activities took place in the raḥba, ‘courtyard’, which in contrast to the shaded front (as just noted) does not seem, initially, to have been conceived as a part of the mosque in that it was not regularly used for prayer. On the authority of ʿĀʾisha (d. 58/678), when the women who observed iʿtikāf (devotional retreat) were overtaken by menstruation, ‘the Prophet ordered them to be taken out of the mosque and stay in tents in its raḥba until they were pure [again]’.123 Later, during the lifetime of the Prophet, and as the size of the congregation grew, the raḥba of

123

Al-Zarkashī, Aḥkām al-masājid, p. 383.

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the mosque was used for prayer on a more regular basis.124 This may explain one thing that seems to have perplexed medieval as well as modern historians: the fact that the word masjid is sometimes used in traditions to refer to the whole building, and at other times to refer to the front ẓulla exclusively.125 The Prophet himself is reported to have referred to the mosque, in its early stage (supra), as a ʿarīsh, ‘shelter’.126 This could not be the description of the whole building, but of the front ẓulla where prayer was usually conducted in the beginning. Further, while those seeing the building as a private dwelling depend on a variety of narratives on mundane, military and communal activities, they do not provide, nor could we find, any account that would link the building—particularly the enclosing wall and the ẓulla—with household activities. According to the sources, chiefly the Qurʾān and ḥadīth, such domestic activities were held in the appended apartments, where the Prophet lived with his wives. Some chores, however, are reported to have come about at the rear ṣuffa, where the Prophet met with those of his disciples resident there.127

We learn from the sources that even with this overflow the Prophet had to enlarge the mosque on a number of occasions to accommodate the rapidly-growing congregation. 125 As an example of the latter case, see Ibn ʿUmar’s description of the mosque in al-Bukhārī, no. 446; Ibn Ḥanbal, no. 6139; al-Bayhaqī, no. 4294. See also Ibn Shihāb al-Zuhrī’s report on the mosque in Ibn Rusta, Aʿlāq, pp. 65–6. 126 See Ibid, p. 66; al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, i, 327, 335; al-Diyārbakrī, Tārīkh, i, 346. 127 Nor would the provision of a shelter for ahl al-ṣuffa be an indication of a domestic building, for it was dedicated to the most indigent amongst the Prophet’s Companions, not to his family members. A passage in Sūrat al-Mujādila (Qurʾān 58. 11) ordains the procedure for taking one’s place in the Prophet’s gathering: ‘O you who believe! When you are told to make room in the assemblies, [spread out and] make room: God will provide for you [ample] room. And when you are told to rise up [for prayer or jihād, or for other good deed], rise up [. . .].’ See al-Wāḥidī, As124

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The argument that the building was not a mosque on account of the other activities it held beside prayer is further enfeebled by the fact that mosques continued to accommodate such diverse functions even after they had clearly acquired a more sacred character.128 The mosque maintained its role as the centre and seat of public and political administration even after the introduction of the dawāwīn and majālis.129 Under the Umayyads and the ʿAbbāsids, it housed the treasury and, at times, even served as a hospice. Writings were normally read out in it as a means of public proclamation.130 The political significance of the mosque, in some respects comparable to today’s ‘parliament’,131 outclassed that of the dār alimāra, which was no more than the ruler’s private residence. We are told by Ibn Khaldūn that the Umayyad mosque in Damascus, for instance, was known as al-Walīd’s court.132 As such, the mosque not only replaced the church and the synagogue, but also superseded the agora which was the chief meeting-place in the ancient Greek city-state.133 All that said, the demolition of the Prophet’s mosque by later caliphs is argued by some to reflect a lack of reverence for the structure.134 In fact, the earliest mosques were pulled down in order to rebuild them bigger and better and of more durable materials. There were also cases, as we shall see, where rebuilding was seized by rulers as a convenient moment to make conspicuous displays of bāb nuzūl al-Qurʾān, ed. Kamāl B. Zaghlūl (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub alʿIlmiyya, 1991), pp. 431–2. 128 For example, the reputed Christian poet, al-Akhṭal (d. ca. 92/710), is reported to have been invited to the mosque to arbitrate a dispute. See Abū al-Faraj al-Iṣfahānī, al-Aghānī, (Beirut: Dār al-Thaqāfa, 1957), viii, p. 303. 129 Pedersen, ‘Masdjid’, pp. 668–71. 130 Irwin, Islamic Art, p. 59. See also Hillenbrand, Islamic Architecture, p. 42. On early oral publication, see Schoeler, Genesis, p. 69. 131 See Creswell, EMA, i, 1, 43. 132 Ibn Khaldūn, Muqaddima, ii, 25. 133 Hugh Kennedy, The Byzantine and Early Islamic Near East (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), pp. 15–6. 134 For example, see Johns, ‘House of the Prophet’, p. 108.

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piety. Rebuilding was in any case mostly unavoidable as the originals, many of which had used ephemeral materials, were damaged by the passage of time. For example, we are told that the caliph ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb rebuilt the mosque at Madina because the palm trunks had decayed.135 Another reason for rebuilding the mosque was that it no longer provided enough space for the fast growing number of attendants (see also Chapter 7).136 On the authority of ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿUmar: The number of people multiplied (kathurū) in the time of ʿUmar. So, they asked him to expand it [the mosque of the Prophet]. ʿUmar replied that ‘unless I heard the Prophet saying, “I long for enlarging the qibla of this mosque of ours,” [in another narration: “expand our mosque”137] ‘I would not expand it.’138

The enlargement of the building by ʿUmar can only be understood in the context of its regular use by a growing Muslim community. His need to legitimize the enlargement of this particular structure implies that the existing structure was by then already deemed saAl-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, 482, 489. See also Ibn al-Najjār, Durra, p. 171; al-Marāghī, Taḥqīq, p. 46. 136 This opinion was also adopted by a number of early jurisconsults such as Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal and Sufyān al-Thawrī. See Ibn Rajab, Fatḥ, iii, 288–9. 137 Ibn Ḥanbal, no. 330; al-Muttaqī al-Hindī, Kanz, no. 23080; Ibn Rajab, Fatḥ, iii, 287; Ibn al-Najjār, Durra, p. 170; al-Maṭarī, Taʿrīf, p. 230; al-Marāghī, Taḥqīq, p. 45; al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, 481–2. 138 Al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, 482; al-Marāghī, Taḥqīq, p. 45; al-Maṭarī, Taʿrīf, p. 230. See also al-Ḥarbī, Manāsik, p. 361. According to al-Samhūdī (Wafāʾ, ii, 502–3), these were the same reasons for ʿUthmān to rebuild the mosque. See also al-Marjānī, Bahja, 128; al-Maṭarī, Taʿrīf, p. 231; alMarāghī, Taḥqīq, p. 47. For another narration of the same ḥadīth, see alḤarbī, Manāsik, p. 361; Ibn al-Najjār, Durra, p. 171; al-Marāghī, Taḥqīq, p. 46; al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, 481. This ḥadīth is regarded by Ibn Rajab (Fatḥ, iii, 292) and al-Albānī (Silsilat al-aḥādīth al-ḍaʿīfa wa-l-mawḍūʿa wa-atharuha alsayyiʾ fī al-umma, 14 vols (Riyadh, Maktabat al-Maʿārif, 1992), no. 973) as having a weak grade of authenticity. 135

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cred by virtue of its association with the Prophet as well as regular use for ṣalāh. There remains the possibility, of course, that this account reflects a later concern linked back to the time of ʿUmar. In the light of the reports, misunderstood by some as indicating an under-respected structure, mosques generally—and the ‘Mosque of the Prophet’ most particularly—were highly revered spaces (See Chapter 5). For example, business transactions and announcement of lost properties should not, according to some ḥadīths, happen at mosques. The Prophet is reported, on the authority of Abū Hurayra, to have said: ‘Should you see anyone sell or buy [anything] in the mosque, say [to him]: “May God not make your trade profitable!” and should you see anyone seek a lost property in it, say [to him]: “May God not bring it back to you!”139 In the Ṣaḥīḥ of Muslim, the Prophet explains: ‘Mosques have not been established for such [matters],’140 and in a different narration, he adds: ‘Mosques have been established for what they have been established for.’141 This is further explained by another ḥadīth, narrated on the authority of ʿAbd Allāh b. Masʿūd, in which the Prophet warns: ‘Do not take mosques as roads; [thoroughfares] only for remembrance [of God] or prayer’.142 It is of interest that the relevant ḥadīths use the word mosque in the plural, insinuating that more than one mosque existed in the time of the Prophet. The use of ḥadīth by the proponents of the ‘House’ theory as evidence for the non-sacred nature of the building is not adequately thought out. Most of the defects in their approach can be found combined in a single example. That is the singing of two femaleservants, followed by the pageant by Abyssinian (or Sudanese) lancers in the mosque. First, the two incidents were unique; both happened once only on the day of the Aḍḥā feast.143 Second, the two Anṣārī female-maids are reported to have sung in the abutting apartment of ʿĀʾisha and not the mosque. Third, their conduct was censured by Abū Bakr and ʿUmar, but permitted by the Prophet Al-Tirmidhī, no. 1321; See also al-Nasāʾī, nos. 715, 718. Muslim, no. 1260. See also Abū Dāwūd, no. 473. 141 Muslim, nos. 1262–3; Ibn Māja, nos. 765. 142 Al-Albānī, Ṣaḥīḥa, no. 1001. 143 See Muslim, no. 2063. 139 140

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for the occasion of the feast-day.144 It was with the same excuse and for the sake of the communal function of the mosque that the lancers were allowed to perform,145 and that was indeed in the courtyard, which (as indicated above), was not regularly used for prayer in the beginning. Furthermore, the building is referred to as the ‘Mosque of the Prophet’ not only in the third/ninth century ḥadīth collections, but also in earlier sources such as the Sīra of Ibn Isḥāq,146 the Jāmiʿ of Maʿmar b. Rāshid,147 the Muwaṭṭaʾ of Mālik b. Anas,148 and the Akhbār al-Madīna of Ibn Zabāla. There are also references to the mosque in early papyrus documents.149 Further, evidence for the institution of collective prayer as well as a place of worship in the time of the Prophet is provided by the allegedly earliest extant ḥadīth collection, the Ṣaḥīfa of Hammām b. Munabbih (see Chapter 3). One of these ḥadīths states: Angels ask blessings on (tuṣallī ʿalā) anyone of you as long as he stays in his muṣallā, at which he has prayed, and they keep on saying: ‘O God! Forgive him! O God! Have mercy on him’, […].’150

Medieval ḥadīth commentators agree that the word ‘muṣallā’ is, here, taken to denote the mosque, or a space in it. Al-ʿAynī (d. 855/1451), for instance, suggests that muṣallā could refer to the

Al-Bukhārī, nos. 987, 2906, 3529, 3931, 5190, 5236. On his arrival at the scene, ʿUmar was ready to hurl pebbles at them but the Prophet ordered him to leave them alone: Muslim, no. 2069. 145 Al-Bukhārī, nos. 454, 455, 950, 988, 3530; Muslim, nos. 2063–8. 146 Ibn Isḥāq, Sīra, pp. 651, 655. 147 See Maʿmar b. Rāshid (in Muṣannaf ʿAbd al-Razzāq), nos. 19801, 19886. See also Abbott, Arabic Literary Papyri, i, 71. 148 Mālik, al-Muwaṭṭaʾ bi-riwāyat Abī Muṣʿab al-Zuhrī, nos. 458, 463, 517. 149 See document of Qutayba b. Saʿīd (late second/eighth century). Abbott, Arabic Literary Papyri, ii, 135; document of Rishdīn b. Saʿd (late second-early third/early ninth century), ibid, ii, 203. 150 Hammām b. Munabbih, Ṣaḥīfa, no. 9. 144

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particular spot in the mosque at which a worshipper prayed.151 This may be why the term ‘muṣallā’, and not ‘masjid’, is used in this ḥadīth. Other interpreters, such as al-Qasṭallānī (d. 923/1517),152 believed that the whole mosque is here meant. Al-Qasṭallānī’s judgement is based on Maʿmar b. Rāshid’s narration of the same ḥadīth, also on the authority of Hammām, but in a different wording: ‘[…] so long as he is in the mosque (mā-kāna fī al-masjid).’153 That the mosque, as such, is meant in the above ḥadīth is supported by another ḥadīth in al-Bukhārī, also on the authority of Abū Hurayra but through another of his disciples, Abū Ṣāliḥ Dhakwān (d. 101/720). According to this tradition, the Prophet states: A man’s prayer in congregation is twenty five times more superior (in reward) to his prayer in his house or market, because if he performs ablution and does it perfectly, and then heads for the masjid with the one and only intention of praying, there will be no step he takes [towards the mosque] without being upgraded a grade and a sin of his being omitted in return for it [namely the step towards the mosque]. If he performed prayer, the angels would keep on praying for him as long as he is in his muṣallā, [saying]: ‘O God! Be Merciful with him, O God! Forgive him’.154

Al-ʿAynī, ʿUmda, v, 258. See al-Qasṭallānī, Irshād al-sārī li-sharḥ ‘Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī’ (Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb al-ʿArabī, 1983), ii, 31. 153 ʿAbd al-Razzāq, nos. 2210–1. The same ḥadīth is also found in the Musnad of Ibn Ḥanbal (no. 8016), who reported the Ṣaḥīfa of Hammām in toto. For the same ḥadīth, see also Muslim (nos. 1506–12) who reported it with the same isnād as that of the Ṣaḥīfa. 154 Al-Bukhārī, no.647; Ibn Ḥanbal, nos. 7542, 9422. See also Hammām b. Munabbih, Ṣaḥīfa, no. 9; Mālik, Muwaṭṭaʾ, nos. 322–5, 527– 30; Abū Yaʿlā, nos. 1011, 1361, 5076, 6156; al-Dārimī, nos. 1312–3; Ibn Ḥajar, Fatḥ, ii, 271–76; Ibn Mufliḥ, Kitāb al-Furūʿ: wa-maʿahu Taṣḥīḥ al-Furūʿ wa-Ḥāshiyat Ibn Qundus, ed. A. A. al-Turkī, 13 vols (Beirut: Muʾassasat alRisāla; Riyadh: Dār al-Muʾayyad, 2003), ii, 419; Wensinck, Early Muhammadan Tradition, pp. 155, 192–3. 151 152

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Both terms (masjid and muṣallā) occur in this ḥadīth. The use of the latter is nearly exactly the same as in the ḥadīth in the Ṣaḥīfa, which is also reported by al-Bukhārī on the authority of Abū Hurayra, through al-Aʿraj ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Hurmuz (d. 117/735).155 This makes it difficult to regard al-Bukhārī and Maʿmar’s versions of the ḥadīth as having retrospectively introduced later terms (and sentiments) to describe earlier usages. Ḥadīth no. 36 in the Ṣaḥīfa of Hammām urges Muslims to attend the daily prayers in the mosque, in the strongest possible terms. Ḥadīth no. 43 talks in detail about the role of the imam in congregational prayer, while no. 44 commands the congregation to straighten their lines. Ḥadīth no. 104 advises the imam to lighten the duration of prayer (yukhaffif), lest an elderly or a sick worshipper should suffer. Ḥadīth no. 109 urges the Muslims to walk, not jog, while proceeding to the mosque for prayer. The clearest reference to the Prophet’s mosque itself is found in some lines from the Dīwān of Ḥassān b. Thābit (d. ca. 54/674),156 first edited by H. Hirschfeld in 1910.157 As mentioned earlier, a verse in Ḥassān’s poem shows evidence that by the time of ʿUthmān’s assassination, the building had been an established mosque. It describes the Companions’ grief in the wake of ʿUthmān’s murder:

ِ ِ ‫وَﻛﺄَ ﱠن أَﺻﺤﺎب اﻟﻨ‬ ِ ‫اﳌﺴ ِﺠـﺪ‬ ‫َْ َ ﱢ‬ ْ ‫ﱠﱯ َﻋﺸﻴﱠﺔً ﺑُ ْﺪ ٌن ﺗُـﻨَ ﱠﺤُﺮ ﻋْﻨ َﺪ ﺑَﺎب‬ َ

Al-Bukhārī, no. 659. It could be this poem that is meant by Grabar’s comment (Formation, 103): ‘But recent work based on a small number of poetic fragments has raised doubts about the traditional explanation that the house of the Prophet was transformed into a masjid and, as suggested, that a separate building was in fact built.’ By ‘recent work’, Grabar could be referring to Ghazi I. Bisheh, ‘The Mosque of the Prophet at Madīnah throughout the First Century A.H: with Special Emphasis on the Umayyad Mosque’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Michigan, 1979), pp. 122–4. 157 Hartwig Hirschfeld (ed.), The Dīwān of Ḥassān b. Thābit (OB. A.H. 54) (Leiden: Brill; London, Luzac, 1910). 155 156

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At evening the Prophet’s Companions were as sacrifices slaughtered by the gate of the mosque.158

Underlining the Prophet’s qualities, for which the people of Yathrib had faith in him, Ḥassān writes:

ِ ‫ﻧَﱯ ﻳـﺮى ﻣﺎ َﻻ ﻳـﺮى اﻟﻨﱠﺎس ﺣﻮﻟَﻪ وﻳﺘﻠُﻮ ﻛِﺘَﺎب‬ ‫اﷲ ﰲ ُﻛ ﱢﻞ َﻣ ْﺴ ِﺠ ِﺪ‬ َ ََ ُ ْ َ ُ ََ َ ََ ‫ﱡ‬ A Prophet who sees what the people around him do not see, and recites the Book of God in every mosque.159

Grieving for the Prophet’s passing, Ḥassān b. Thābit wrote:

ِ ِ ِ ‫ﻮم َوﺗَـ ْﻬ َﻤ ُـﺪ‬ ُ ‫ﺑِﻄَْﻴﺒَﺔَ َر ْﺳ ٌﻢ ﻟﻠﱠﺮ ُﺳﻮل َوْﻣ َﻌﻬ ٌﺪ ُﻣﻨﲑٌ َوﻗَ ْﺪ ﺗَـ ْﻌ ُﻔﻮ اﻟﱡﺮ ُﺳ‬ ِ ِ ِ ٍِ ِ ‫وَﻻ ﺗَـْﻨﻤ ِﺤﻲ اﻵﻳ‬ ‫ﺼ َﻌ ُﺪ‬ ُ َ ْ َ‫ﺎت ﻣﻦ َدا ِر ُﺣ ْﺮَﻣﺔ َﺎ ﻣْﻨﺒَـُﺮ ا ْﳍَﺎدي اﻟﱠﺬي َﻛﺎ َن ﻳ‬ َ َ ِ ِ ِ ِ ٍ ِ ِ ‫ﺼﻠﱠﻰ َوَﻣ ْﺴﺠ ُـﺪ‬ َ ‫َوَواﺿ ُﺢ آﻳَﺎت َوﺑَﺎﻗﻲ َﻣ َﻌﺎﻟـ ـ ٍﻢ َوَرﺑْ ٌﻊ ﻟَﻪُ ﻓﻴﻪ ُﻣ‬ ِ ِ ِ ‫ﻀﺎءُ َوﻳُﻮﻗَ ُـﺪ‬ ٌ ‫َﺎ ُﺣ ُﺠَﺮ‬ َ َ‫ﻮر ﻳُ ْﺴﺘ‬ ٌ ُ‫ات َﻛﺎ َن ﻳَـْﻨ ِﺰُل َو ْﺳـﻄَ َﻬﺎ ﻣ َﻦ اﷲ ﻧ‬ ِ ِ َ‫ﺎﱂ َﱂ ﺗُﻄْﻤﺲ ﻋﻠَﻰ اﻟْﻌﻬ ِﺪ آﻳﻬـﺎ أَﺗَﺎﻫﺎ اﻟْﺒِﻠَﻰ ﻓ‬ ‫ﱠد‬ ُ ‫ﺎﻵي ﻣْﻨـ َﻬﺎ َﲡَـﺪ‬ َ َ ُ َْ َ ْ َ ُ ‫َﻣ َﻌ‬ ُ At Ṭayba [i.e. Madina] is a trace of the Messenger, a muchstoried [i.e. rich in memories] and enlightened place. Traces are [eventually] effaced and extinguished, but not [ever to be] erased are the marks of a sacred house wherein is a minbar the Guide used to ascend, and clear signs and enduring landmarks—and an area where he had a muṣallā and a masjid, and apartments that used to accommodate the sending down from God of a light illuminating [hearts] and kindling [zeal]— landmarks such that their signs are not blotted out over time; the wearing down [of age naturally] came upon them, but the signs of them [i.e. of the landmarks] are being renewed.160

Verse 31 of the same elegy reads: A. Muhannā (ed.), Dīwān Ḥassān b. Thabit, 2nd edn (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1994), p. 68. 159 Ibid, p. 60 160 Ibid, pp. 60–1 158

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ِ ِ ‫ﺎت ﻟَِﻔ ْﻘ ِﺪ ِﻩ َﺧ َﻼءٌ ﻟَﻪُ ﻓِ ِﻴﻪ َﻣ َﻘ ٌﺎم َوَﻣ ْﻘﻌـَ ُﺪ‬ ُ ‫َوَﻣ ْﺴﺠ ُﺪﻩُ ﻓَﺎﳌُﻮﺣ َﺸ‬

And [mourns also] his mosque. And the forlorn places, on account of his decease, are become vacant, wherein he had a place he stood in and a place he sat in.161

4.6 THE QURʾĀN AND THE ‘MOSQUE OF THE PROPHET’ A close survey of the usage of the mosque (masjid) in the Qurʾān is essential for this discussion.162 As affirmed above, the Qurʾān is a widely acknowledged source for the study of early Islam.163 Further, the two main rationales for those who doubt the existence of a mosque in the Prophet’s time are: the so-called Qurʾān’s ‘nonspecific’ use of the word ‘masjid’;164 and the assumption that the Prophet had passed away before the rites of ṣalāh fully matured. The word ‘masjid’, is mentioned 28 times in the Qurʾān: 22 in the singular and 6 in the plural. Of these, 15 occurrences denote alMasjid al-Ḥarām at Makka.165 Al-Masjid al-Aqṣā is referred to twice—once explicitly and once implicitly.166 ‘Masjid’ is also used to refer to other pre-Islamic places of God worship.167 Such a wideranging usage does not necessarily mean that the mosque proper, whether as an institution or as a structure, was not established in the time of the Prophet.168 That said, the mentions of masjid in the Ibid, p. 63 See Robert Schick, ‘Archaeology and the Qurʾān’, in Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān (2001), i, 148–57. 163 See Ettinghausen, Grabar and Jenkins-Madina, Islamic Art and Architecture, p. 5. 164 Pedersen, ‘Masdjid’, pp. 644–5; Johns, ‘House of the Prophet’, pp. 88–93; Grabar, ‘Art and Architecture and the Qurʾan’, pp. 161–75. 165 Qurʾān 2. 144, 149, 150, 191, 196, 217; 8. 34; 9. 7, 28; 22. 25; 48. 25, 27. For a discussion on the mosque in the Qurʾān, see Johns, ‘House of the Prophet’, pp. 88–93. 166 Qurʾān 17. 1, 7. 167 Qurʾān 18. 21. 168 The same opinion is held by Pedersen (‘Masdjid’, p. 647) and Ettinghausen, Grabar and Jenkins-Madina (Islamic Art and Architecture, pp. 5–6). See also Bloom, ‘Mosque’, p. 428. 161 162

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pre-Hijra Makkan verses seem to have confused exegetes. They avoid the issue by interpreting these mentions of masjid as reference to ‘any act of worship’. While this seems acceptable in certain positions,169 the term could still refer to the mosque in its technical meaning. As we shall see shortly, mosques were known to the Muslim pre-Hijra community. One Makkan verse (72. 18) states: ‘And the places of worship (masjids) are for God (alone): so invoke not anyone along with God’. Although this is usually taken by exegetes to denote al-Masjid al-Ḥarām, there is also the possibility that it could refer to Islamic mosques, especially in that the word masjids is plural. The Qurʾānic use of masjid to refer to places of worship of God generally should be related to the fact that Islam portrays itself as the legitimate heir of earlier Abrahamic religions: For had not God driven back one group of people by means of another, there would surely have been torn down ṣawāmiʿ [retreats of Christian hermits], biyaʿ [Christian churches or Jewish synagogues], ṣalawāt [places of prayer], and masājid, in which the name of God is abundantly commemorated.’170

The mosque was no more than another of these types of masjids, but it was the last of such a type, as indicated in this Prophetic ḥadīth: ‘[…] verily, I am the last prophet and my mosque is the last of [all] mosques.’171 Like the Prophet himself, the mosque belongs to a preceding family. Here, the Prophet seems to be referring to the mosque as a type and not to his own. According to many reports, he advised that other mosques should be built and himself participated in the foundation of others than his own (infra). The same idea of attributing the Islamic masjid to a family of houses of worship is indicated by a number of ḥadīths conceding the utmost

A good example is Qurʾān 7. 29: ‘Say: “My Lord has commanded justice; and that you set your whole selves (to Him) at every time and place of prayer (ʿinda kulli masjidin)’ 170 Qurʾān 22. 40, as translated by Johns, ‘House of the Prophet’, p. 102. 171 Muslim, no. 3376. 169

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merit (faḍl) to al-Masjid al-Ḥarām at Makka.172 However, the verse just cited (22. 40), does not, as suggested by Johns, imply any unity of form;173 it simply underscores the diversity of the places where the God of all prophets is praised. The Qurʾānic use of the term masjid to denote earlier Godworship sanctuaries, such as the Kaʿba, does not mean that the term had not been Islamized by early Islam; rather it is the case that such sanctuaries were deemed Islamic. There are also ḥadīths, albeit few, where masjid refers to Jewish and Christian places of worship.174 Such a usage in ḥadīth, where masjid normally refers to Muslim places of worship, suggests that the Qurʾān’s expansive use of the word is not sufficient evidence that the mosque did not exist in the time of the Prophet. Indeed, the word masjid continued to be used for the places of worship of other faiths down to the fourteenth century AH: a period when the mosque, as a specific Islamic type, was positively established.175 However, the presence of the Prophet’s mosque, along with other mosques in his time, helped give the term a considerable degree of specialization as a place of worship for Muslims, rather than for the pre-Islamic polytheists at the Inviolable Sanctuary, or for the other God-worshippers of the Jewish or Christian faiths. The narrowing down of practice led to the narrowing down of terminology. Before the mosque was built, the Prophet is said to have performed both individual and collective prayers on a variety of spots which he considered masjids in the Muslim, nos. 3376–83. See Johns, ‘House of the Prophet’, pp. 102–3 174 See al-Bukhārī, nos. 427, 434, 1342. Ibn Abī Shayba, no. 7626; Mālik, Muwaṭṭaʾ, no. 570; Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr al-Andalusī, al-Tamhīd li-mā fī alMuwaṭṭaʾ min al-maʿānī wa-l-asānīd, general eds. Muṣṭafā al-ʿAlawī and Muḥammad al-Bakrī, 26 vols; vol v. ed., Saʿīd A. Aʿrāb (Rabat: al-Maṭbaʿa al-Malakiyya, vol. v., 1976), v, 41–2. The same usage of the term ‘masjid’ is also attributed to Ibn ʿAbbās: see Aḥmad al-Khaṭṭābī, Maʿālim al-sunan: sharḥ ‘Sunan al-Imām Abī Dāwūd (d. AH 275)’, ed. M. Rāghib al-Ṭabbākh, 4 vols (Aleppo: al-Maṭbaʿa al-ʿIlmiyya, 1933), i, 140–2; Ibn Ḥajar, Fatḥ, ii, 85–6. 175 See Johns, ‘House of the Prophet’, p. 89, Pedersen, ‘Masdjid’, p. 645. 172 173

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simplest from. But once his mosque was built, he reportedly generally satisfied himself with praying in it.176 The following verse from Sūrat al-Tawba, ‘Repentance’(which is held by some to be the last-revealed chapter of the Qurʾān), speaks of the masjid as an Islamic type: It is not for such as associate gods with God, to maintain (attend) the mosques of God while they witness against their own souls to infidelity […]. The mosques of God shall be visited and maintained by such as believe in God and the Last Day, establish regular prayers, […].177

Here, as in verse 72. 18 (cited above), the passage marks mosques (alMasjid al-Ḥarām included but not singled out)178 as places of worship exclusive to Muslims. The link between conviction in Islam and the attending of mosques is also affirmed in the ḥadīth: ‘Should you see a man attending the mosque on a frequent basis, you must bear witness for his fidelity.’ The specialization of the mosque for Muslim monotheists is further indicated by the fact that out of the six Qurʾānic usages of the plural masājid, three speak of the ‘mosques of Allāh’ (masājid Allāh), one says ‘mosques are for Allāh’ (wa-anna-l-masājida li-llāh), and one ‘mosques, in which the name of Allāh is remembered’ (masājidu yudhkaru fī-hā ismu-l-lāh). These usages reflect a strong zeal to distinguish the mosques of the Muslims from other contemporary places of worship where, beside Him, other deities were worshipped. In practice, the Prophet wanted to secure distinctiveness for his mosque from the outset. He rejected proposals to use the Christian semantron or the Jewish shofar for summoning the believers to prayer.179 Narrated ʿUmayr b. Anas:

176

Al-Bukhārī, no. 429; Ibn Ḥajar, Fatḥ, ii, 72–3; al-ʿAynī, ʿUmda, iv,

265–6. Qurʾān 9. 17–18. Grabar (Formation, p. 99), adopting the view of most expositors, says that it is al-Masjid al-Ḥarām that is here meant. 179 See al-Bukhārī, nos. 603–4. According to some narrations, he considered but never adopted either of the two methods. 177 178

184

THE MAKING OF THE MOSQUE The Prophet was in a dilemma as to how to call the people for prayer. It was said to him: ‘Install a banner when a prayer is due, so that when the people see it they tell one another’. However, he did not like that. Then, he was told about the Jewish shofār (qunʿ or shabbūr), but he did not like that [either] and said: ‘It is related to the Jews!’ Then, he was told about the bell, but he did not like that either and said: ‘It is related to the Christians!’ […].180

In the same vein, he refused to have the mosque rebuilt after the fashion of the Syrian edifices even if the work were to be voluntarily funded by the Anṣār (see Chapter 6).181 His longing for the change of the qibla from Bayt al-Maqdis in Jerusalem to the Kaʿba at Makka can also be understood in the same context. The Prophet is said to have expressly stated his wish to protect his religion and all of its symbols, the mosque included, from the beliefs and practices of those who did not believe in him.182 Quite a number of early ḥadīths command: ‘Act differently to the Jews and the Christians!’ (khālifū l-yahūda wa-l-naṣārā); ‘Do not imitate the Jews and the Christians!’ (lā tashabbahū bi-l-yahūdi wa-l-naṣārā).183 We are told by ʿĀʾisha that when two of the Prophet’s wives, Umm Ḥabība and Umm Salama, told him about a church they had seen in Abyssinia (during the believers’ emigration to it), the Prophet condemned the fact that churches were usually built over the tombs of saints and

Abū Dāwūd, no. 498. Al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, i, 339; al-Samhūdī, Khulāṣa, ii, 15; Kister, ‘Booth’, pp. 150–5. See also Ibn Rusta, Aʿlāq, p. 66; al-Sakhāwī, Tuḥfa, p. 43. 182 See Grabar, Formation, p. 101. 183 As reported by Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī (al-Bukhārī, no. 7320), the Prophet condemned: ‘Surely, you will follow the ways (sanan) of those who lived before you; one span after another and one ell after another. Even if they passed through (salakū) the burrow of a dabb lizard, you would likewise pass through it’. We asked: ‘[Do you mean] the Jews and the Christians?’ He answered: ‘Who [else] then?’. In a different narration (al-Bukhārī, no. 7319), the people asked, ‘O Messenger of God! Do you mean] such as the Persians and the Byzantines?’. See also Qurʾān 9. 69. 180 181

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that their walls and ceilings were covered with icons and other representations (see Chapter 5). This said, the Prophet wanted the ẓulla of his mosque, for example, to take the form of the booth of Moses, whom he identified as ‘my brother’.184 How can this be understood? Considering the traditions, the Prophet was as eager to link himself to earlier prophets and their immediate followers as to deplore the observances of their late followers. In his vision of himself, he was the seal of all prophets (supra). His principal task, beside preaching a renewal, was to restore monotheism—as once preached by Abraham, the first ḥanīf,185 and the following prophets—and to rid it of any later corruption. Consequently, a Muslim has to believe in the messages of all prophets and show the highest respect to them: Say you: ‘We believe in God, and the revelation given to us, and to Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, and the Tribes, and that given to Moses and Jesus, and that given to (all) prophets from their Lord: we make no difference between one and another of them: and submit to God.186 The Messenger believes in what has been revealed to him from his Lord, as do the men of faith, each one (of them) believes in God, His angles, His books, and his Messengers. ‘We make no distinction (they say) between one and another of His Messengers’. And they say: ‘We hear, and we obey: (we seek) Your forgiveness, our Lord, and to You is the end of all journeys’.187

One of the main foundations of the ‘House of the Prophet’ theory is the hypothesis that a mosque could not have materialized in the time of the Prophet while the rites of ṣalāh had yet to develop.188 Ibn Rusta, Aʿlāq, p. 66; al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, i, 333. Qurʾān 3. 67–8; 16. 123. 186 Qurʾān 2. 136. See also Qurʾān 21. 92. 187 Qurʾān 2. 285. 188 See M. Khaleel, ‘The Foundation of Muslim Prayer’, Medieval Encounters, 5 (1999), 17–28. See also J. P. Heinz, ‘The Origins of Muslim Prayer: Sixth and Seventh Century Religious Influences on the Ṣalāt Ritual’ (unpublished master’s thesis, University of Missouri-Columbia, 2008). 184 185

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The two main proponents, Caetani and Creswell, posit that the Prophet, being uncertain of the nomads’ tractability to formal worship, did not wish to establish an obligatory Friday prayer.189 According to them (and others), the only two prayers to have been known and observed in the Prophet’s time were those at the two ends of the day.190 They base this mainly on their understanding that the Qurʾān (24. 58) mentions only two times of prayer, namely al-fajr and al-ʿishāʾ. However, the Qurʾān refers distinctly to four times of prayer in this passage: So glory be to God, when you reach eventide, and when you rise in the morning. To Him be praise, in the heavens and on earth; and in the late afternoon and when the day begins to decline.191

While this was understood by Ibn ʿAbbās (d. 68/687) as a reference to the five daily prayer times,192 S. D. Goitein, (as also many commentators), understands it to specify four prayer times: evening (maghrib), morning (fajr), early at night (ʿishāʾ) and at noon (ẓuhr). Goitein pointed out that also in the Qurʾān (2. 238) a fifth time of prayer, namely al-ʿaṣr, is mentioned: ‘Guard strictly your [habit of] prayers, especially the middle prayer; and stand before God in a devout [frame of mind].’ In effect, many passages in the Qurʾān

Caetani, Annali, pp. 447 ff.; Creswell, EMA, i. 1, 10, 15. See Uri Rubin, ‘Morning and Evening Prayers in Early Islam’, in Gerald R. Hawting (ed.), The Development of Islamic Rituals (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), pp. 105–29. According to some reports, on the authority of ʿĀʾisha, in the beginning, two prayers of two rakʿas each were enjoined. Al-Balādhurī, Ansāb, i, 257, 271; Ibn Hishām, Sīra, i, 277–9. However, as indicated by countless reports, the five daily prayers (the above two included) were prescribed in the Prophet’s lifetime, particularly during the Night Journey (ca. 621 AD). 191 Qurʾān 30. 17–8. 192 According to al-Ṭabarī, Ibn ʿAbbās understands the Qurʾān mention of ‘eventide’ to include both the maghrib and ʿishāʾ prayers. 189 190

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deal with ṣalāh and emphasize its obligatory nature.193 The following passage, for instance, strengthens the view that the daily prayers were known to, indeed enjoined upon, the earliest Muslim community: When you have performed the [congregational] prayers, remember God, standing, sitting down, or lying down on your sides; but when you are free from danger, set up regular prayers: for such prayers are enjoined on the believers at stated times.194

The Qurʾān mentions in some detail the procedure of wuḍūʾ, ‘ablution’, a precondition for the ṣalāh.195 It also refers to the adhān, ‘call to prayer’.196 The requirement to face the qibla during prayer, and the event of its being changed from al-Masjid al-Aqṣā to al-Masjid al-Ḥarām, are also recorded in the Qurʾān.197 The following two passages, while chiefly explaining how collective prayer should be done in the abnormal circumstances of battle, clearly indicate that communal prayer was already formalized in the time of the Prophet, with him acting as the imam: […] and when you travel though the earth, you will incur no sin by shortening your prayers if you have reason to fear that those who are bent on denying the truth might suddenly fall upon you.’198 Thus, when you are among the believers and about to lead them in prayer, let [only] a party of them stand up with you, retaining their arms. Then, after they have finished their prayer, let them provide you cover while another group, who have not yet prayed, come forward and pray with you, being fully preSee Qurʾān 2. 43; 11. 114; 23. 2, 9; 25. 60; 29. 45; 31. 4; 70. 23; 73. 2; 87. 15; 107. 4–5; 108. 2. 194 Qurʾān 4. 103. 195 Qurʾān 5. 6. See Marion Holmes Katz, ‘Cleanliness and Ablution’, in Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān (2001), i, 314–4. 196 Qurʾān 5. 58; 62. 9. 197 Qurʾān 2. 143–4. 198 Qurʾān 4. 101. 193

188

THE MAKING OF THE MOSQUE pared against danger and retaining their arms: (for) those who are bent on denying the truth would love to see you oblivious of your arms and your equipment, so that they might fall upon you in a surprise attack.199

It is not surprising, in view of such conditions, that the Prophet and the elite of the new religion prepared a place for collective prayer once this became possible: and of course, the right condition for such a place was not secured until the Hijra.200 At Madina, according to the reports, the Prophet and his followers built a mosque, to which two apartments for his wives, ʿĀʾisha and Sawda, were annexed—just outside the eastern enclosure wall (Fig. 14). Nonetheless, some argue that, for the congregational assemblies, a different site was used, namely the muṣallā al-ʿīd (place of the feastday prayer), an open space situated in the outside desert some 1000 cubits (510 m.) to the west of the Prophet’s mosque.201 This view is based on reports of the Prophet having on occasion done the congregational prayers there.202 However, such a hypothesis would entail that the Prophet, and with him almost the whole community of believers, walked such a distance, even if not too long, five times a day and, for no obvious reason, ignored the much nearer and more convenient space of the Prophet’s building. The muṣallā was the more spacious and appropriate location for two particular types of congregational prayer: the one on feast-days (ṣalāt al-ʿīd) and the one for rain (ṣalāt al-istisqāʾ). In the case of the feast-day, the preference of the muṣallā is explained by the Prophet’s desire to assemble as much of the whole community as possible. The muṣallā continued to be the venue for the two feast-day prayers during the cali-

Qurʾān 4. 102. See also Qurʾān 9. 18; Patrick D. Gaffney, ‘Friday Prayer’, in Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān (2002), ii, 271–2. 200 See Pedersen, ‘Masdjid’, p. 645. 201 Grabar, Formation, p. 103. See also Pedersen, ‘Masdjid’, p. 653. Meanwhile, the Prophet is reported to have, on occasion, done some prayer individually at the nearby township of Qubāʾ. 202 The practice of holding the two feast-day prayers at the muṣallā goes back to the second year AH. 199

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phate of ʿAlī and afterwards.203 In the case of ṣalāt al-istisqāʾ the muṣallā was preferred for its sheer openness to the sky. It is recorded that the Prophet did not allow building in this space.204 Moreover, the walking to the muṣallā was itself expressive of humility and neediness of God’s help. While it is reported that the Prophet did once do ṣalāt al-istisqāʾ in the mosque, he usually called the people to go out for it. The use of the muṣallā was, therefore, due to its convenience for particular occasions of prayer, and not due to the absence of the mosque.205

Plate 5: An ancient muṣallā at Wādī Rānūnāʾ

As for the Friday congregational prayer, it is reported that the Prophet did not allow it to be held except in his mosque (infra). The Madinan Sūrat al-Jumuʿa, commands attendance to the congregational prayer on Friday: O you who believe! When the call is proclaimed to prayer on Friday, hasten earnestly to the remembrance of God, and leave off business! That is better for you if you but knew!206

Al-Qasṭallānī, Irshād, ii, 209–10. See Pedersen, ‘Masdjid’, p. 653. 205 The caliph ʿUmar also led the people in the ṣalāt al-istisqāʾ just outside of the Prophet’s mosque. See Johns, ‘House of the Prophet’, p. 84. 206 Qurʾān 62. 9. 203 204

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The imperative, ‘fa-sʿaw ilā’, ‘hasten earnestly to’, connotes the congregation’s resorting to a specific place. In the following verse— ‘And when the [Friday] prayer is finished, then disperse through the land and seek the bounty of God […]’207—the imperative, ‘fantashirū’, ‘disperse’, implies that the worshippers were held for a while at a specific place. This must be the ‘spacious’, ‘communal’ and ‘contiguous’ building of the Prophet—three features of the structure agreed upon by the holders of both the ‘House’ and the ‘Mosque’ theories. The next (and last) verse of the sūra criticizes those who quit the place of prayer while the Prophet was addressing them: But when they see some bargain or some pastime, they disperse headlong to it, and leave you standing. Say: ‘That which God has is better than any pastime or bargain’! And God is the best to provide [all needs].’208

The strong impression given here (in the context of a jumuʿa assembly) is of a khuṭba or sermon, which the Prophet delivers standing (qāʾiman), and which implies a space formally ordered for that purpose. However, it is possible that ‘standing’ refers to a part of the ṣalāh itself, and the sin of those who leave the Prophet then is all the more grave and deserving of the reproach. The verse on Masjid al-Ḍirār (infra), warning the Prophet not to pray in it, uses the negative command: ‘lā taqum fī-hi’, ‘Never stand [in prayer] in it’. Also, in praising the one who offers supererogatory prayer in the night, the Qurʾān uses the words ‘sājidan waqāʾiman’, ‘prostrating and standing’.209 Both words: qāʾim and taqum, share the same triliteral root of ‘qawama’, ‘to stand [up]’. Qiyām, ‘standing’, is one of the obligatory postures of ṣalāh and it is quite striking that the term ‘qawma’ was sometimes used by traditionists to denote a unit of prayer, more conventionally called rakʿa.210

Qurʾān 62. 10. Qurʾān 62. 11. 209 Qurʾān 25. 64; 39. 9. 210 See al-Zamakhsharī, Asās al-balāgha, ed. Muḥammad B. ʿUyūn alSūd, 2 vols (Beirut, Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1998), ii, 110. 207 208

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Places of worship are described in the Qurʾān as ‘[…] houses [of worship], which God has permitted to be raised to honour; for the celebration in them of His name: in them He is glorified in the mornings and in the evenings, (again and again)’.211 Those who attend them are qualified as ‘men whom neither trade nor sale can divert from the remembrance of God, nor from regular prayer, […].’212 In three particulars, this verse could not signify al-Masjid al-Ḥarām only. First, it refers to a plurality of ‘houses’. Second, it states that God is celebrated ‘in them’—the people usually prayed around, not inside, the Kaʿba. Third, the verse talks about men who praise God and pray to Him—the early Muslims at Makka were not allowed to practice their rites freely near the Kaʿba. Further, if those here praised for not being diverted by commerce from attending prayer in the mosque are compared to those criticized in Sūrat al-Jumuʿa for doing the opposite, it becomes more likely that it is the Prophet’s mosque that is meant in both sūras. The Qurʾān also mentions the fact that in the time of the Prophet mosques, as well as ṣalāh, accommodated functions such as dhikr (meditation on the names and attributes of God) and iʿtikāf (supra): who is more unjust than he—who forbids that in places for worship of God (masājida l-lāh), His name should be celebrated (yudhkara fī-hā asmuh)—whose zeal is (in fact) to ruin them?213 […] but do not associate with your wives while you are in retreat [abide in meditation] in the mosques.214

Perhaps the most telling verse, as far as the mosque is concerned, is that of Masjid al-Ḍirār,215 a mosque built by a group of hypocrites to serve as a base for their malevolent schemes. They invited the Prophet to pray in it so that it should be sanctified. As the Prophet Qurʾān 24. 36. Qurʾān 24. 37. 213 Qurʾān 2. 114. 214 Qurʾān 2. 187. According to the Qurʾān (5. 106), mosques were also used for the administering of justice. 215 See Michael Lecker, Muslims, Jews, and Pagans, pp. 74–146. 211 212

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was preparing to do so, he received revelation exposing to him the actuality of this mosque and its refractory founders: And there are those who put up a mosque by way of mischief and infidelity […]. Never stand [in prayer] in it. There is a mosque whose foundation was laid from the first day on piety; it is more worthy of your standing [in prayer] therein. In it are men who love to be purified; and God loves those who make themselves pure.216

This verse expressly refers to a mosque frequently attended by the Prophet and the first of the believers. It also implies that other mosques were erected in the time of the Prophet, and that his mosque, and the mosque in general, was the religious and political nucleus of the community. The apartments of the Prophet’s wives, on the other hand, are clearly dealt with in the Qurʾān as private premises: O you who believe! Do not enter the Prophet’s houses—until leave is given you—for a meal, (and then) not (so early as) to wait for its preparation: but when you are invited, enter; and when you have taken your meal, disperse, without seeking familiar talk. Such [behaviour] annoys the Prophet; he is shy to dismiss you, but God is not shy [to tell you] the truth. And when you ask [his household] for anything you want, ask them from before a screen: […].217

It is of interest that the verse mentions buyūt al-Nabī, ‘the houses’, not ‘house’, of the Prophet. This arguably applies to the small apartments attached to the mosque.218 It is of no less interest that while ḥadīth usually speaks of bayt ʿĀʾisha,219 bayt Ḥafṣa,220 etc., and Qurʾān 9. 107–8. This verse was also taken by Fr. Buhl as evidence that a mosque was built in the time of the Prophet. Fr. Buhl, ‘Art. al-Madina’, EI1 (1936), iii, 90. 217 Qurʾān 33. 53. 218 See also Ettinghausen, Grabar and Jenkins-Madina, Islamic Art and Architecture, p. 5. 219 Al-Bukhārī, nos. 2581, 4450; Abū Dāwūd, no. 5040. 220 Al-Bukhārī, nos. 148, 2646, 3105, 5099; Abū Dāwūd, no. 3345. 216

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collectively refers to these as Buyūt azwāj al-Nabī or Buyūt nisāʾ alNabī, ‘the dwellings of the Prophet’s wives’,221 the expression ‘bayt al-Nabī’, ‘the house of the Prophet’ is very rarely found. Abū Hurayra reports: ‘The Prophet used to sit with us in the mosque, talking to us, and when he stood up we stood up [watching him leaving] until we saw him entering one of the apartments of his wives […].’222 This indicates a clear structural distinction between the mosque of the Prophet and the dwellings of his wives, of which not all were built against the eastern wall of the courtyard. Contrary to what was suggested by Creswell and others (Figs. 8, 9 & 10), some of these apartments, like that of Ḥafṣa and Ṣafiyya,223 were not even built onto the perimeter wall of the mosque. In this regard, the reconstructed plans of Akkouche (Fig. 15), al-Shinqīṭī (Fig. 16), and al-Shihrī (Fig. 17) seem in better accord with the sources. However, such ad hoc arrangements were not, it seems, enough to prevent episodes of anxiety as far as the privacy of the Prophet and his family was concerned: O you who believe! Do not raise your voices above the voice of the Prophet, nor speak aloud to him in talk, as you may speak aloud to one another, lest your deeds become vain and you do not perceive. […] Those who shout out to you from behind the apartments (al-ḥujurāt)—most of them lack understanding. If only they had patience until you could come out to them, it would be best for them: but God is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.224

According to Ibn Kathīr, the apartments of the Prophet’s wives were low structures with adjoining yards, (masākina qaṣīrata l-bināʾi qarībata-l fināʾ). That is, they were provided with their own patios, Al-Bukhārī, nos. 2581, 5063. Ibn Ḥanbal, nos. 2003, 2504. Abū Dāwūd, no. 4775. 223 Al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, 458–65 (p. 460); According to one ḥadīth (al-Bukhārī, no. 2038), Ṣafiyya came to visit the Prophet while he was observing iʿtikāf in the mosque. When she intended to leave, the Prophet insisted on accompanying her to her house, which was located in the dār of Usāma b. Zayd. 224 Qurʾān 49. 2, 4–5. 221 222

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for the private and exclusive use of the Prophet’s wives.225 This implies another function of the abutting walled courtyard. This space was not for the Prophet and his wives; it was for him and the Muslim community. In light of the Qurʾānic verses just cited and those below, both functions could not have been held in the same place and at the same time (given the degree of privacy that the wives of the Prophet enjoyed): O Consorts of the Prophet! You are not like any of the [other] women: if you do fear God, do not be too complaisant of speech, lest one in whose heart is a disease should be moved with desire: but speak you a speech [that is] just. And stay quietly in your houses, and make not a dazzling display, like that of the former times of ignorance; and establish regular prayer […].226

The Prophet’s wives are usually linked with the private dwellings appended to the structure. In each of the very few instances where they are linked with the public part of it, i.e. the courtyard, there is an emphasis on their privacy. The ḥadīth about the band of Abyssinians playing with lances in the courtyard, and which is quoted by Caetani, Creswell and others as evidence for a non-sacred building, states that the Prophet’s wife (ʿĀʾisha) watched the display from her apartment while concealed behind the Prophet himself or veiled by his mantle (ridāʾ).227 In brief, the advocates of the ‘House of the Prophet’ theory failed to make out the many indications in the Qurʾān for the existence of the mosque in the time of the Prophet. They appear to have expected the Qurʾān to make explicit by-name reference to the mosque of the Prophet. But the Qurʾān does not, typically, identify individuals or places in that way. Even individuals like Abū Bakr, ʿUmar, ʿUthmān and ʿAlī, who enjoyed high eminence and Ibn Kathīr, Bidāya wa-nihāya, iv, 545. Qurʾān 33. 32–3. 227 ʿĀʾisha narrated: ‘One day, the Prophet was, at the gate of my apartment, concealing me with his ridāʾ while I was watching the Abyssinians perform in the mosque […]’. Al-Bukhārī, nos. 454, 950, 988, 3530; Muslim, nos. 2063–8. 225 226

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influence at the time, are not directly mentioned in the Qurʾān; indeed, even the name of the Prophet himself is rarely found in the Qurʾān228—he is usually referred to as ‘the Prophet’ or ‘the Messenger’.

Figure 19: Positions of the apartments of the Prophet’s wives (after M. al-Nafīsī, 2004) He is mentioned four times as Muḥammad and once as Aḥmad. See Qurʾān 3. 144; 33. 40; 47. 2; 48. 29; 61. 6. 228

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4.7 OTHER MOSQUES IN THE TIME OF THE PROPHET The reported existence of other mosques in the time of the Prophet—some antecedent to the Hijra—strengthens the possibility that the structure he built at Madina was a mosque, indeed the central one. According to Islamic tradition, ṣalāh was enjoined while the Prophet was still at Makka, particularly during the celebrated Night Journey (Riḥlat al-Isrāʾ wa-l-Miʿrāj). As indicated above, it was not until the Hijra that he and the earliest Muslims were able to establish a place for collective prayer, but how and where did they perform ṣalāh, whether individually or collectively, before the Hijra? 4.7.1 Pre-Hijra mosques at Makka It is reported by Ibn Hishām that the Prophet occasionally conducted prayer along with a few of his earliest followers, most notably his cousin ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib, in the adjacent defiles (shiʿāb) around Makka.229 The Prophet is also reported to have conducted prayer individually in his house—sometimes also in the vicinity of the Holy Sanctuary, the Kaʿba, but this latter was quite a rare deportment. It was not until the conversion to Islam of ʿUmar b. alKhaṭṭāb that the believers reportedly had the courage to pray, however tentatively, beside the Kaʿba.230 We do not possess any historical evidence, nonetheless, to say that this was done on any regular basis. Rather, the first devotees gathered for prayer in a house on the Mt. al-Ṣafā that was owned by al-Arqam b. Abī al-Arqam, an early young convert.231 This too was a secret undertaking. That being said, some notable Muslims began, before the Hijra, to make what the sources refer to as mosques. It is recorded of Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq, for instance, through al-Bukhārī and others that he adopted ‘for himself’ a mosque in the courtyard of his house at Makka.232 These, however, were no more than individual places of prayer, i.e. mosques for private, rather than public, prayer. Ibn Hishām, Sīra, i, 282–3; al-Suhaylī, Rawḍ, ii, 4. Ibn Hishām, Sīra, i, 369; al-Suhaylī, Rawḍ, ii, 120. 231 Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, iii, 108, 223–5. 232 Al-Bukhārī, no. 476; Ibn Ḥajar, Fatḥ, ii, 110; Wensinck, Early Muhammadan Tradition, p. 155. 229 230

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Such a conduct was naturally censured by the Quraysh, who were concerned that their folks might be tempted to convert by such devotional displays.233 These restrictive conditions were manipulated by the fact that in Islam prayer can be performed on any piece of land. The Prophet is reported to have affirmed that one of the five privileges given to him exclusively is that the whole land is made a mosque to him and his adherents.234 4.7.2 Pre-Hijra mosques at Madina In response to the Quraysh stubborn resistance to the Prophet’s preaching, he began to proselytise members of the other Arabian tribes, who used to come to Makka for pilgrimage on an annual basis. His call did not fall on deaf ears, as he managed to make his first converts from Yathrib in 620 AD, where six men of the Khazraj clan embraced Islam and acknowledged him as a Prophet. In the following year, the number was doubled, representing converts from both of the two chief clans in Yathrib, the Aws and the Khazraj. This was known as the first ʿAqaba pledge that was followed by another (the second ʿAqaba pledge) in 622 AD, where a deputation of seventy-five converts vowed to facilitate the Prophet’s moving to the city.235 Later in the same year, the Prophet and his earliest adherents from Makka made the journey to Yathrib, that was henceforth better known as al-Madīna al-Munawwara, ‘the illuminated city’, namely the city that is enlightened by the Prophet taking it as his new hometown. It was also before the Hijra that the burgeoning Muslim community of Madina, thanks to the proselytising efforts of the earliest Anṣārī Muslims and of Muṣʿab b. ʿUmayr,236 began to gathAl-Bukhārī, no. 476. Al-Bukhārī, no. 438; Muslim, nos. 1161–7; al-Dārimī, no. 1429; Ibn Ḥanbal, nos. 11858, 11727. See also al-Nawawī, Sharḥ Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, v, 2–5. 235 Al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, ii, 351–69; Ibn Hishām, Sīra, ii, 76, 82; alSuhaylī, Rawḍ, ii, 247, 252. 236 Muṣʿab was sent by the Prophet to Madina, following the first ʿAqaba Pledge, to teach the Qurʾān and the principles of Islam. To Madinan Muslims, he was, hence, known as the muqriʾ, ‘reader’: al-Ṭabarī, 233 234

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er for collective prayer.237 However, there is disagreement in the sources as to where and by whom the congregation was first assembled. Anas b. Mālik (d. ca. 93/712) reports that, a year before the Prophet came to Madina, Muṣʿab led in prayer an assembly of the Anṣār and early Muhājirūn at the place where the mosque of the Prophet was later built.238 According to Anas b. Mālik, Muṣʿab is said to have been the first to lead, at the Prophet’s command, the Friday midday prayer in congregation.239 More information is given by Ibn Saʿd, who explains that Muṣʿab asked the Prophet’s permission to hold the Friday sermon with the Muslims of Yathrib. The Prophet, agreeing, advised him to assemble them on the day when the Jews prepare for their Sabbath, i.e. on Friday.240 The Prophet is reported to have expressed gratitude for having been properly

Tārīkh, ii, 357; A. Guillaume, The Life of Muḥammad: A Translation of Ibn Isḥāq’s ‘Sīrat Rasūl-Allāh’ (Lahore/Karachi/Dacca: Pakistan Branch of Oxford University Press, [1955] 1967), pp. 198–99. According to some accounts, Muṣʿab was dispatched to Madina in response to a request by its nascent Muslim community. Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, i, 187; iii, 110. On Muṣʿab, see also Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, iii, 107–13. Muṣʿab was reportedly hosted and helped in preaching by Asʿad b. Zurāra from Banū al-Najjār. Their preaching efforts, added to the earlier efforts of the first Anṣārī converts, resulted in there being hardly a household in Yathrib/Madina without some of its members embracing Islam. See Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, i, 187; iii, 110; al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, ii, 355–69 (pp. 355–9); Ibn Hishām, Sīra, ii, 78, 82; al-Suhaylī, Rawḍ, ii, 247, 252; al-Balādhurī, Ansāb, i, 243; Guillaume, Life of Muḥammad, p. 230. 237 Al-Balādhurī, Ansāb, i, 243, 266; Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, i, 205. 238 Ibn Saʿd reports, through Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad al-ʿAbdarī, that they met for the first time at the house of Saʿd b. Khaythama and that their number was twelve: Ṭabaqāt, iii, 110. 239 Al-Marāghī, Taḥqīq, p. 42. See also Ibn Rusta, Aʿlāq, p. 194; Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, iii, 110. 240 See Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, iii, 110–1; al-Suhaylī, Rawḍ, ii, 254–5. See also S. D. Goitein, ‘The Origin and Nature of the Muslim Friday Worship’, in Studies in Islamic History and Institutions (Leiden: Brill, 1966), pp. 111–25.

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guided, along with his Companions, to the institution of the Friday service even before Sūrat al-Jumuʿa was revealed.241 According to other accounts, such precedence goes to Asʿad b. Zurāra who led forty people in prayer at a place called Hazm alNabīt, also known as Naqīʿ al-Khaḍimāt,242 at Ḥarrat Banī Bayāḍa.243 Such accounts, seen by Wensinck as conflicting, led him to theorize that although the Friday service was established at Madina before the Prophet’s emigration, there was no fixed place for it until his mosque was built.244 While this seems to be supported by the reports (cited earlier) about the Prophet praying—before his mosque was built—wherever he was when a prayer was due, the narration just cited could accurately be recalling the many places where congregational prayer was done in the pre-Hijra Yathrib. This view is enhanced by al-Samhūdī who, quoting ʿUmar b. Shabba, relates of Jābir b. ʿAbd Allāh (d. 78/ 697) that he said: ‘We spent two years at Madina, prior to the Prophet’s advent, building mosques and doing the [congregational] prayer.’245 If they spent two years before the Hijra, which took place in 662 AD, this means that they used to meet for collective prayer even before Muṣʿab was dispatched in 621 AD. The chronology of those who led the earliest congregation can be further sorted out in light of an account by ʿUbāda b. al-Ṣāmit (d. ca. 34/655), who states that Asʿad See al-Suhaylī, Rawḍ, ii, 254–7. See also Muslim, nos. 1978–83; alNasāʾī, no. 1368. According to Abū Hurayra, the first Friday service was led by the Prophet at Makka. See al-Nasāʾī, no. 1369. 242 According to Ibn Isḥāq, the place was called Baqīʿ al-Khaḍimāt. Al-Suhaylī mentions both names: Rawḍ, ii, 254. 243 Ibn Hishām, Sīra, ii, 82–3; al-Suhaylī, Rawḍ, ii, 254. Others specify the place as the site where the Prophet later built his mosque. See alBalādhurī, Ansāb, i, 266; Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, i, 205. Asʿad b. Zurāra (d. nine months after the Hijra) was the chief of the Banū al-Najjār and one of the first Anṣār to embrace Islam. See Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, iii, 562–5; Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī: al-Iṣāba fī tamyīz al-ṣaḥāba, 9 vols (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub alʿIlmiyya, 199– [repr. Calcutta: Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1853), I, 32–3. 244 A. J. Wensinck, Muhammad and the Jews of Medina (Berlin: Freiburg, 1975), p. 84. 245 Al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, i, 250. 241

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used to gather (yujammiʿ) the congregation before Muṣʿab b. ʿUmayr was sent to Madina, and that when Muṣʿab came he took up that responsibility.246 On the authority of Yaḥyā al-ʿAqīqī, when Muṣʿab left Madina, the worshippers were (once again) led by his ex-host and co-preacher Asʿad b. Zurāra.247 It is understood from Ibn Hishām that, even after his death in 1/622, Asʿad continued to be credited by other Companions for his initiation of the Friday assembly.248 On the authority of al-Nawwār bt. Mālik, ‘the Prophet first prayed at this mosque [namely the mosque of Asʿad], and [later] he built it, so it became his mosque today’.249 Al-Balādhurī explains that the Prophet prayed at the mosque of Asʿad for a time, then asked the latter, who was usually referred to as the chieftain of the Banū al-Najjār, to sell him the adjacent mirbad, ‘threshing floor’, presumably to build a bigger mosque for the bigger Muslim community.250 We saw above that the Prophet, offering the Banū alNajjār a price for the mosque site, said to them: ‘O Banū al-Najjār! Ask me a price for ḥāʾiṭikum hādhā’. The word ‘ḥāʾiṭikum’ could mean a wall or a (walled) orchard.251 The site of the mosque, which was mainly a mirbad, was partially occupied by the earlier mosque of Asʿad. We do not have an adequate description of Asʿad’s mosque, but scholars assume that it could not have been much different, in form and material, from those mosques built at Madina ahead of the Prophet’s arrival. Rifʿat and Fikrī surmise that these were simpIbn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, i, 187–8. Ibn Hishām relates, on the authority of Ibn Isḥāq, that Muṣʿab was chosen as either of the main tribes, the Aws and the Khazraj, wanted to be led by someone from the other tribe. Ibn Hishām, Sīra, ii, 82. 247 Al-Marāghī, Taḥqīq, p. 42. 248 Ibn Hishām, Sīra, ii, 82–3; al-Suhaylī, Rawḍ, ii, 253–4. 249 Al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, i, 325. Creswell, nonetheless, mistakenly states: ‘Yet, throughout all this period, which lasted at least seven months, he never once used the open space which became the courtyard of his house, and ultimately a mosque’. Creswell, EMA, i. 1, 9. 250 Al-Balādhurī, p. 12. See also Ibn Sayyid al-Nās, ʿUyūn, i, 316. 251 Ibn Rajab, Fatḥ, iii, 206–7. 246

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ly open areas demarcated by stones to indicate their sanctity.252 Traditions tell more. According to Ibn Saʿd, the mosque of Asʿad was ‘jidāran mujaddaran’. While ‘jidār’, implies a structural wall, the adjective, ‘mujaddar’, is derivative from the verb jadara, ‘to enclose’.253 It was, thus, an enclosure wall and not simply a shelter of wood and twigs or even aligned stone pieces as suggested by some (see, for example, plt. 5).254 Ibn Saʿd added that this mosque, which was oriented towards Bayt al-Maqdis, had no roof and that it was built by Asʿad to hold communal prayers and Friday sermons before the Prophet came to Madina.255 While approaching Madina, the Prophet is also said to have built (according to some reports only founded256) a mosque at Qubāʾ for the Banū ʿAmr b. ʿAwf.257 The Prophet liked to call upon this Muslim clan to pay tribute and have some rest. During his stay there, which lasted for a period between 3 and 22 days, he founded for them that mosque.258 Here too, an earlier mosque is attributed to an early Madinan convert, Kulthūm b. al-Hidm, who hosted the Prophet during his stay at Qubāʾ. Kulthūm is said to have assembled the people of Qubāʾ at his mirbad, which the Prophet later bought and enlarged before leaving Qubāʾ.259 This mosque is thought by some to be described in the verse, cited earlier, as founded ‘on piety’. AlSamhūdī remarks that the mosque of Qubāʾ was the first to have

Ibrāhīm Rifʿat, Mirʾāt al-Ḥaramayn: al-Riḥlā al-Ḥijāziyya wa-l-ḥajj wamashāʿiruh al-dīniyya, 2 vols (Cairo: Maṭbaʿat Dār al-Kutub al- Miṣriyya, 1925), i, 461; Fikrī, Madkhal, p. 169. 253 The form ijtadara means ‘to build’. See Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān, i, 566. 254 See al-Shihrī, al-Masjid al-Nabawī, p. 27 255 Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, i, 205. 256 Ibn al-Najjār, Durra, p. 112; Ibn Sayyid al-Nās, ʿUyūn, i, 313; Ibn Hishām, Sīra, ii, 136. See also al-Balādhurī, Futūḥ, p. 9. 257 Al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, i, 252. 258 Ibn al-Najjār, Durra, p. 112; Ibn Sayyid al-Nās, ʿUyūn, i, 313; Ibn Hishām, Sīra, ii, 136. See also al-Balādhurī, Futūḥ, p. 9. 259 Al-Marjānī, Bahja, 113; al-Marāghī, Taḥqīq, p. 18; al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, i, 256. 252

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been built for the Prophet and the Muslim community. It is also said to have been visited by the Prophet each Saturday.260 Such narratives on earlier mosques seem to have muddled medieval historians. According to Ibn Hishām, the first to have built a mosque was ʿAmmār b. Yāsir.261 Al-Suhaylī (d. 581/1185), in his commentary on the Sīra of Ibn Hishām, wondered how the foundation of the mosque of ‘Madina’ could be attributed to ʿAmmār when he, like many other Companions, merely participated in it. He explained that Ibn Hishām must be referring here to the mosque of Qubāʾ.262 According to al-Suhaylī, Ibn Hishām credits it to ʿAmmār as he proposed its erection,263 collected stones for that purpose and completed it after the Prophet’s layout.264 On leaving Qubāʾ for Madina, the Prophet was overtaken by the Friday midday prayer. According to al-Balādhurī, he prayed it in congregation for the first time with the Banū Sālim b. ʿAwf at a place known as Wādī Rānūnāʾ.265 According to many accounts, the Prophet, while with the Banū Sālim b. ʿAwf, did his first ever Friday congregational prayer at a mosque called the ‘Friday mosque’.266 No doubt, however, this mosque was built and given its name in later times so as to celebrate the incident.267

Al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, i, 250. Ibn Hishām, Sīra, ii, 139. The same opinion is held by Ibn Rusta, Aʿlāq, 195. On ʿAmmār, see Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, iii, 227–45. 262 Al-Suhaylī, Rawḍ, ii, 339. 263 When the Prophet arrived at Qubāʾ, ʿAmmār suggested: ‘The Prophet must have a place to shade himself after he wakes up and [also] to pray at.’ Then, he collected stones and built the mosque of Qubāʾ. AlSamhūdī, Wafāʾ, i, 250. 264 Al-Suhaylī, Rawḍ, ii, 339. 265 Al-Balādhurī, Futūḥ, p. 12. See also al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, ii, 394. Ibn Hishām, Sīra, ii, 136; Ibn Sayyid al-Nās ʿUyūn, i, 313. On Wādī Rānūnāʾ, see al-Fayrūzabādī, Maghānim, p. 150. 266 See Ibn Sayyid al-Nās, ʿUyūn, i, 313. 267 H. Lammens, ‘Les Sanctuaires pré-Islamites dans l’Arabie occidentale’, Mélanges de I'Université de Saint-Joseph, 11 (1926), 39–173 (pp. 119– 20). 260 261

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4.7.3 Other early Madinan mosques In addition to the two mosques at Madina and Qubāʾ, the Prophet is said to have founded a number of other mosques. For example, he marked out one for the Anṣārī clan of Juhayna.268 It is also reported of the Prophet to have built a small mosque in the course of the battle of Khaybar in 7/628–9. He is also said to have founded a mosque in Liyya during his several-day siege of the two tribes of Thaqīf and Hawāzin at al-Ṭāʾif in 8/630. Apart from those founded or supervised by the Prophet, other mosques are said to be founded by Muslim tribes and yet others were founded by individuals. Some argue that the number of mosques in the time of the Prophet were nine.269 Others go further to say that these were as many as the tribes themselves.270 However, the former view seems more consistent with the reports on Madina as comprising, in the Prophet’s time, nine principal districts. 4.7.3.1 Tribal mosques In addition to the already mentioned mosques of the Banū ʿAmr b. ʿAwf and their kin the Banū Sālim b. ʿAwf, al-Ṭabarī tells us that a mosque was built, albeit out of jealousy, by their competing cousins the Banū Ghanm b. ʿAwf. This is the notorious Masjid al-Ḍirār (supra).271 Another example for tribal mosques is that erected in the outskirts of Madina by the Banū Salima (see Chapter 5) and which was later better known as Masjid al-Qiblatayn, ‘the mosque of the two qiblas’, on account of its witnessing of the revelation about changing the qibla direction from Bayt al-Maqdis in Jerusalem to the Kaʿba at Makka. We also know from al-Bukhārī and others that a very early mosque was attributed to the Banū Zurayq and that it was visited by the Prophet who was impressed by the precision of its qibla. Reportedly initiated by Rāfiʿ b. Mālik (d. 3/624), one of Al-Ṭabarānī, al-Muʿjam al-kabīr, ed. Ḥamdī A. al-Salafī, new edn, 25 vols (Cairo: Maktabat Ibn Taymiyya, 1994 [?; vols. 13–16, 21 as yet unpublished]), nos. 1786–7. 269 Al-Balādhurī, Ansāb, i, 273. 270 Ibn al-Najjār, Durra, 187–91; al-Samhūdī, Khulāṣa, ii, 469–87. 271 Qurʾān 9. 107–8. See also Pedersen, ‘Masdjid’, p. 649. 268

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the first six men from Yathrib to embrace Islam, this mosque—or rather the site where it was later erected—is said to be the first place of prayer ever where the Qurʾān was recited.272 It was, apparently, expected for tribes converting to Islam to establish their own mosques. Examples included the Anṣārī clan of Saʿd b. Bakr who erected mosques in 5/626–7. Similar mosques are reported to have been built by the clan of the Banū al-Muṣṭaliq upon their embracing of Islam. According to another episode, representatives of the newly converted tribe of the Banū Ḥanīfa asked the Prophet for the water remaining from his ablution. They wanted to sprinkle it on the floor of a church (bīʿa) they had in their neighbourhood so that they can take it as a mosque. Such tribal mosques were usually built around Madina, not in the heart of it where the chief mosque of the Prophet stood. Other tribal mosques included those attributed to the Banū Ẓafār, Banū Qurayẓa, Banū Ḥāritha, Banū Wāʾil and Banū Ḥarām. While some tribes could have indeed set up their own neighbourhood mosques, as prompted to do so by certain practical reasons (see Chapter 5), some of the reports on tribal mosques should be understood in the context of later clannish tendency to share the pride of being among the earliest to have a religious foundation. 4.7.3.2 Private mosques Private mosques also existed alongside those attributed to tribes. Some of them occasionally accommodated collective prayer. A good example is the one founded by ʿItbān b. Mālik, an Anṣārī Companion who suffered visual impairment and who was usually leading his kin in prayer at their mosque. Usual torrents prevented ʿItbān from attending that mosque, so he asked the Prophet to allow him to perform prayer at his ‘private mosque’. For that reason, ʿItbān’s mosque, which was located in his house, needed to be canonized by the Prophet as a place for congregational prayer.273 Al-Bukhārī, no. 420; Saʿīd b. Manṣūr, Sunan (Part 3), no. 2956; Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, i, 186; Pedersen, ‘Masdjid’, p. 649; al-Samhūdī, Khulāṣa, ii, 330–1. 273 Al-Bukhārī, no. 425; Mālik, Muwaṭṭaʾ, no. 572; Muslim, no. 1496. 272

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Other private mosques were attributed to al-Barāʾ b. ʿĀzib and ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAbbās. That of the former is also said to have been located in his house.274 Like the above-mentioned Friday mosque of the Banū Sālim b. ʿAwf, many mosques were built after the Prophet’s time so as to honour places related to his memory,275 particularly those at which he is said to have prayed. Practically, however, these are too many to be counted—let alone identified. They include the places where he conducted prayer while at Makka and at Madina before the erection of his mosque and the adoption of the muṣallā. This is in addition to those where he reportedly prayed during his travels, excursions, visits, stopovers, and battles.276 As a result, we have dozens of mosques that are said to celebrate incidents of the Prophet’s biography, but whose dates of foundation are largely disagreed upon.277 Meanwhile, both in the time of the Prophet and afterwards a mosque needed not to be sanctified by a religious authority or a clergy; any given Muslim community, no matter big or small, can found their own place of worship.

4.8 CONCLUSION In spite of its persistence, the ‘House of the Prophet’ theory is found tenuous in the light of its many contradictions and the many questions it fails to answer. It is further weakened by the several indications to the effect that the Prophet’s structure was indeed a mosque. Apart from the traditions that so refer to it (some are early enough to settle the question), the nature of the actions it reportedSee al-Bukhārī, no. 425. On such mosques, see Ibn al-Najjār, Durra 187–91; al-Samhūdī, Khulāṣa, ii, 255–353. For Caetani, such reports on pre- and early Hijra mosques were concocted after the time of the Prophet in the context of a clear tendency to attribute to his biography later events and structures. As indicated, however, the presence of mosques in the time of the Prophet is clearly established in the Qurʾān. Some are reported to have been erected right in his lifetime to celebrate special events in his career. 276 See Quṭb al-Dīn al-Ḥanafī, Tārīkh al-Madīna, ed. M. Zaynuhum M. ʿAzab (Cairo: Maktabat al-Thaqāfa al-Dīniyya, 1998), pp. 153–6. 277 On these, see al-Samhūdī, Khulāṣa, ii, 287–354, 469–502. 274 275

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ly accommodated accord with its function as a mosque. The ḥadīths, considered by the advocates of the ‘House of the Prophet’ theory, provide no evidence for a non-sacred building. They either warn against improper acts or denote the multi-functional nature of the building. Some were rare incidents of certain peculiarity; many took place in the raḥba or the ṣuffa. The misunderstanding arises from viewing such activities, when secular functions were accommodated in the same space as devotional practices, in contrast with later times when mosque functions underwent a substantial degree of specialization. Also the evidence for the mosque’s existence, found scattered in the sources, is difficult to perceive as written retrospectively. The evidence from ḥadīth shows that there were indeed episodes where the building served as: a venue for meeting nonMuslim emissaries, a hospice for those wounded in action, a detention place for a captive and an arena for a display by Abyssinian lancers. However, these, and other similar activities,278 could be divided into two main groups: what the Prophet condemned; and what he allowed. The former group includes, as an example, reports on some of the congregants spitting in the qibla direction,279 and more shockingly a Bedouin urinating in it.280 The other group of activities, those authorised by the Prophet and deemed non-sacred by Caetani and his proponents, seem to denote the multi-functional nature of the mosque, at a stage when it, beside serving as a place for prayer, accommodated other activities that would seem ‘secular’—particularly as compared to later times when the mosque gained a better-defined sacred character. For example, the Prophet gave permission to his wife, Umm Salama, on account of her sickness, to do the ṭawāf around the Kaʿba, while riding a camel. The same thing is also said, on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās, to have been done by the Prophet himself. Al-Bukhārī (no. 464) reports these two ḥadīths under the sub-heading: ‘Allowing the camel to enter the mosque for a reason’. 279 Hammām b. Munabbih, Ṣaḥīfa, no. 120; Mālik, Muwaṭṭaʾ, nos. 544–5; al-Bukhārī, nos. 405–17; Abū Dāwūd, nos. 474–81; al-Nasāʾī, nos. 724–8. 280 Al-Bukhārī, nos. 219–21. 278

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Such activities can be official (e.g. receiving delegates, discussing military issues and dispensing justice), societal (e.g. allotting gifts), or mundane (e.g. lying down, sleeping and conversing). Such administrative, legal, educational and social functions of the mosque were not seen as conflicting with its reverence as a place of prayer, given the fact that such aspects were looked upon as indispensable ancillaries of the nascent Islamic community.281 As such, the aspects of sacredness that were applied to the third/ninth century mosques should not be carried over to those of the firsthalf century AH. The evidence from the Qurʾān, on the other hand, reveals that ṣalāh was established in the Prophet’s time; its prerequisites (adhān, wuḍūʾ, facing the qibla, etc.) are described in detail. ‘Masjid’ is used in the Qurʾān to mean place of worship generally and sometimes explicitly as an Islamic place of worship. The command to establish prayer and to observe the rites of prayer several times a day means that the Prophet and his followers were not just expected but required to provide the appropriate facilities for that. Moreover, congregational prayer was obligatory and, as the Qurʾān indicates, was observed during the Prophet’s life. The Qurʾān also mentions that mosques were frequented by the Muslims to practice a variety of devotional acts, and it makes clear reference to a mosque frequented by the Prophet and the pious believers. The general use of the word ‘masjid’ to denote a variety of types of structure, or even specific devotional acts, does not necessarily exclude its denoting also an Islamic place of worship. The formal prompts in early Islam were sufficient for the mosque of the Prophet to have been constructed, along with other mosques, during his lifetime. The practice of the first generation of Muslims was consistent enough to define the function and basic form of an Islamic place of worship. This universal basic type, was then variously influenced, as far as architecture and decoration are concerned, by stylistic features that Muslims considered agreeable and compatible with it. The mosque was not prompted by political or other material circumstances and then underwent an organic 281

13.

Golvin, La Mosquée, pp. 97–99; Abbott, Arabic Literary Papyri, ii,

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phase of devotional specialization. Indeed, it was the other way round. The mosque started as a place of worship that also served other public functions, giving an excuse for succeeding mosques to do the same. This situation lasted for almost a century before the mosque came to be mainly, though even then not exclusively, dedicated to worship.

CHAPTER 5. A PROPHETIC PERSPECTIVE OF THE MOSQUE: LAYOUT AND ARCHITECTURAL COMPONENTS 5.1 INTRODUCTION Based on the previous discussion, the structure which the Prophet built after the Hijra was meant to be a mosque, and not just a private residence. This archetypal mosque was not a primitive structure or an ‘embryonic formal arrangement’, as suggested by many,1 especially when related to its topographical and urban morphological settings. This chapter, however, seeks to investigate, based on the reported description of this mosque as well as on pertinent ḥadīths, the design and constituent parts of the mosque type according to the Prophet’s perspective. Although the exterior of the mosque and its internal arrangement vary from one place to another, it can be safely argued that the mosque has what can be called a universally recognized appearance. No matter to which style it belongs, a number of architectural elements give the mosque its unique character. These include the miḥrāb, the minbar, the minaret, the dome, the decorated façade, etc. As already stated (Chapter 1), the conventional belief is that the mosque of the Prophet and those built under the Rāshidūn caliphs (11–40/632–61) were void of such distinctive architectural elements of the classical mosque.2 1

See, for example, Creswell, EMA, i. 1, 7–9; Grabar, Formation, p.

2

Pedersen, ‘Masdjid’, pp. 646–8; Hillenbrand, Islamic Architecture, p.

103. 31.

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The persistent questions of when, how, where and by whom these and other elements were introduced to mosque architecture have been dealt with by quite a number of scholars,3 who usually emphasize the foreign derivation of such elements. Before dealing with the standard elements of the mosque with the aim of exploring whether and how each was influenced by the Prophet’s actions and/or directives, we will shed light on the status of the mosques in the Muslim communities, the aspects of their sacredness and the virtue of building and furnishing them. Then, there will be a discussion on whether there is an ‘orthodox’ form of the mosque according to ḥadīth. And if so, what features did it represent? This is to be used as a benchmark to help figure out the extent to which early mosques followed that Prophetic model. The making of the mosque by the Prophet himself would explicably introduce a fresh and significant input to the extended debate on the evolution of its type and provide a religious context for such a process. Mainly, three types of ḥadīth will be considered in this discussion: the form of the mosque of the Prophet in his lifetime (which by definition embodies his sunna regarding mosques); ḥadīths about mosques; and ḥadīths which, while addressing other topics, have incidental bearing on mosque architecture. Although the mosque of the Prophet had no minaret, minbar or miḥrāb as later defined, it included the rudiments of each of such long-established features of mosque architecture. As for the elements, which were neither included in the mosque of the Prophet nor referred to by any of his ḥadīths, two types of material will be taken into consideration.4 The first is the opinions of the ṣaḥābīs and the early tābiʿīs, who either saw the In addition to the above works of Rivoira, Creswell, Sauvaget, etc., see, for examples, Robert Irwin, Islamic Art in Context: Art, Architecture, and the Literary World (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1997); George Michell (ed.), Architecture of the Islamic World: Its History and Social Meaning, texts by Ernst J. Grube and others (London: Thames and Hudson, 1995); Martin Frishman, and others (eds.), The Mosque: History, Architectural Development and Regional Diversity (London: Thames and Hudson, 1994). 4 The maqṣūra and the concave prayer niche are good examples. 3

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mosque of the Prophet or had knowledge from those who had seen it. Also, their views regarding mosque architecture in general may have been based on ḥadīths with which they were acquainted but whose texts did not reach us. The second is the precepts of Islamic law (sharīʿa). It is true that it was not until a century and a half after the Prophet’s death that such precepts crystalized, but they are mainly based, beside the Qurʾān, on the sunna of the Prophet and the practices of the earliest Muslim community (see Chapter 3). The same sources will be consulted for the elements that were sanctioned by the Prophet only in their primitive forms, and which later developed considerably.5

5.2 STATUS OF THE MOSQUE Mosques are referred to by the Prophet as ‘God’s most preferred places on Earth’.6 They are also designated as buyūt Allāh, ‘houses of God’:7 ‘On Earth, mosques are the houses of God […]’.8 This is not to say, nevertheless, that God is to exist there exclusively. Rather, it is where He is to be dignified and worshipped. The canonical collections preserve numerous ḥadīths emphasizing the high status which the mosque enjoyed in the Muslim community.9 While a Muslim individual is allowed to pray anywhere, attending the mosque was preferable and even mandatory at least once a week. A great reward is promised for those attending it on a regular basis (see Chapter 4). To encourage those living far away from the mosque, the Prophet is reported, through Abū Mūsa al-Ashʿarī, to have said: ‘The people who get the utmost reward are the farthermost [from the mosque], and then those who are next farthermost

Examples are the portico and the minaret. Ibn Khuzayma, no. 1293. 7 Abū Dāwūd, no. 1455; Muslim, nos. 666, 2699. 8 Although this ḥadīth is widely seen as ḍaʿīf, its meaning is supported by the fact that the Qurʾān (2. 125; 22. 26) speaks of the Kaʿba as God’s house: ‘baytī (My own House)’. Also, in ḥadīth, when the term ‘bayt Allāh’ is used, it is the Kaʿba that is meant exclusively. 9 For example, see Maʿmar (in Muṣannaf ʿAbd al-Razzāq), nos. 20584–5. 5 6

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and so on […].’10 Immense thawāb, ‘reward’, is promised not only to worshippers, but also to builders and personnel. According to a number of ḥadīths, the Prophet commanded that mosques should be built properly, cleaned and scented.11 Some ḥadīths even talk about the merit of living in their vicinity.12 Mosques should be kept safe from animals, mischievous youngsters, insane people, fights, loud voices, unsheathed blades, executing penalties and versification.13 The list extends to include those who just ate onion or garlic lest the odour of their breaths should annoy other worshippers.14 Ḥadīth states that the building of mosques is such a virtuous deed whose remuneration is no less than a house in Heaven.15 On the authority of Anas b. Mālik, the Prophet said: ‘Whoever builds a mosque, no matter small or big, asking by that God’s pleasure, God will build him a house in Paradise.’16

Such ḥadīths encouraged believers to build as many mosques as possible, an aspect which itself should have accelerated the evoluAl-Bukhārī, nos. 651; Muslim, nos. 1513, Al-Tirmidhī, no. 594; Abū Dāwūd, no. 455; al-Bayhaqī, no. 4308; Ibn Māja, nos. 758–8; al-Baghawī, Sharḥ al-sunna, eds. Zuhayr al-Shāwīsh and Shuʿayb al-Arnāʾūṭ, 2nd edn, 16 vols (Beirut: al-Maktab al-Islāmī, 1983), ii, 399; al-Khaṭṭābī, Maʿālim, i, 142; Wensinck, Early Muhammadan Tradition, p. 154. 12 Ibn Ḥanbal, nos. 23180, 23278. 13 Al-Bukhārī, nos. 451, 457; al-Tirmidhī, no. 322; Ibn Māja, nos. 748–50; al-Ṭabarānī, Kabīr, nos. 3130–1; al-Zarkashī, Aḥkām al-masājid, p. 312; Wensinck, Early Muhammadan Tradition, p. 154. See also al-Tirmidhī, no. 322; al-Nasāʾī, no. 716 14 Muslim, nos. 1248–59; al-Nasāʾī, no. 708. 15 Ibn Hubayra, al-Ifṣāḥ ʿan maʿānī al-ṣiḥāḥ: sharḥ li- ‘al-Jamʿ bayn alṣaḥīḥayn’ li-Abī ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥumaydī al-Andalusī, ed. Fuʾād ʿAbd alMunʿim, 8 vols (Riyadh: Dār al-Waṭan, 1996), i, 232; Ibn Ḥajar, Fatḥ, ii, 90–1. 16 Al-Tirmidhī, nos. 318–9. See also al-Bukhārī, no. 450; Muslim, nos. 1189–90; al-Dārimī, no. 1432; Ibn Khuzayma, nos. 1291–2; Wensinck, Early Muhammadan Tradition, p. 155. 10 11

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tion of mosque architecture. Mainly considering the ḥadīth’s use of the verb ‘build’, a late commentator, al-Shawkānī (d. 1255/1839), argued that the reward mentioned in the ḥadīth just cited is only obtainable through building a mosque literally, and not by merely dedicating a piece of land for a mosque to be built.17 In addition to the many ḥadīths which urge the Muslim individuals to build, or participate in the building of, mosques, there is another practical reason that could have helped the number of mosques multiply. That is the permission, or rather command, of the Prophet for people to build mosques in their neighbourhoods.18 The Prophet, it seems, wanted to make it easy for all the believers, no matter where they lived, to attend mosques. The Muslims of the time were not required to attend the mosque of Madina on a daily basis if that proved arduous. Rather, they could build their own mosques and perform the five daily prayers in them (see Chapters 4 & 6. cf. infra). However, in early Islam, it was not advisable from a juridicopolitical point of view to build more than one Friday mosque in the same town, as to do so would conflict with the primary societal role of congregational mosques, i.e. enhancing the solidarity of the Muslim community.19 On the authority of Anas b. Mālik, the Prophet said: ‘A man’s prayer in his house counts as [only] one prayer; his prayer in the tribal mosque counts as twenty-five prayers; and his prayer in the congregational mosque (al-ladhī yujammaʿu fī-hi) counts as five-hundred prayers […].’20 According to the four

Al-Shawkānī, Nayl al-awṭār min asrār muntaqā al-akhbār, ed. M. Ṣubḥī Ḥallāq, 8 vols (Dammam: Dār Ibn al-Jawzī, 2006), ii, p. 213. 18 Al-Tirmidhī, no. 594; Abū Dāwūd, no. 455; al-Bayhaqī, no. 4308; Ibn Māja, nos. 758–8; al-Baghawī, Sharḥ al-sunna, ii, 399; al-Khaṭṭābī, Maʿālim, i, 142; Wensinck, Early Muhammadan Tradition, p. 154. 19 Al-Zarkashī, Aḥkām al-masājid, pp. 18–20. This is thoroughly discussed by Johansen: Contingency in a Sacred Law, pp. 97–104. 20 Ibn Māja, no. 1413; Ibn Mufliḥ, Furūʿ, ii, 454. On the merit of performing prayers at al-masjid al-jāmiʿ, ‘congregational mosque’, see alNawawī, Kitāb al-Majmūʿ: sharḥ al-Muhadhdhab li-l-Shirāzī, ed. M. Nagīb al Muṭīʿī, 23 vols (Jeddah: Maktabat al-Irshād, 1980), iv, 92; al-Zarkashī, 17

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main Sunnī imams21 it is not acceptable to establish more than one Friday mosque in a town, their contention being that there was only one Friday mosque in the time of the Prophet,22 who is reported to have commanded: ‘Pray [just] as you have seen me praying.’23 It is also reported of Ibn ʿUmar to have said: ‘Friday [prayer] is not to be performed except in the mosque where the imam [usually] prays.’24 It is perhaps in view of such devotional perspectives, beside political considerations, that tribal mosques were not patronized by the state. As Grabar argues, ‘Only the latter [namely the Friday mosque] was directly supervised and paid for by the central Muslim authority […].’25 Few legal conditions would permit another ‘Friday mosque’ to be built beside an existing one; for instance when the main mosque no longer gave enough space for the worshippers,26 or if the town expanded to such an extent that would make it difficult for distant inhabitants to attend it.27 According to some scholars, however, it would be more advisable still to enlarge the already-existing mosque than to build a new one.28 The Prophet passed by a group of the Anṣār while building a mosque. He said to them: ‘Make it Aḥkām al-masājid, p. 376; al-Sarakhsī, Kitāb al-Mabsūṭ, 31 vols (Beirut: Dār al-Maʿrifa, [n.d.]), ii, 120–1. 21 These are Abū Ḥanīfa, Mālik, al-Shāfiʿī and Ibn Ḥanbal. See alSarakhsī, Mabsūṭ, ii, 120–3. 22 Al-Sarakhsī, Mabsūṭ, ii, 121; al-Khuḍayrī, Aḥkām al-masājid, ii, 19; al-Jadīd, ‘al-Masjid fī al-Islām’, p. 105. 23 Al-Albānī, Ṣaḥīḥ al-jāmiʿ al-ṣaghīr wa-ziyādatuh (al-Fatḥ al-kabīr), 2 vols, 3rd edn (Beirut: al-Maktab al-Islāmī, 1988), no. 893. 24 Ibn Qudāma al-Maqdisī, al-Mughnī, eds. A. ʿAbd al-Muḥsin alTurkī and ʿAbd al-Fattāḥ al-Ḥulw, 3rd rev. edn, 15 vols (Riyadh: Dār ʿĀlam al-Kitāb, 1997), iii, 212. 25 Grabar, Formation, p. 107. See also Patricia L. Baker, Islam and the Religious Arts (London: Continuum, 2004), p. 82. 26 This opinion is attributed to Ibn Ḥanbal. See al-Jurāʿī, Tuḥfa, p. 366; ʿUthmān and al-Imām, ‘ʿImārat al-masājid’, p. 135. 27 Ibn Qudāma, Mughnī, iii, 212; al-Khuḍayrī, Aḥkām al-masājid, ii, 18–20. 28 See Ibn Mufliḥ, Furūʿ, iii, 133–64; Ibn Ḥazm, Muḥallā, iv, 43.

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large [so that] you should have it filled up [with worshippers]’.29 It is reported that the two tribes of the Banū Salima and the Banū Ḥarām, having lived a bit far from the Prophet’s mosque, were sometimes prevented by the incidence of torrential rains from attending the Friday prayer with the Prophet. Therefore, they asked for his permission to leave their houses and move to a place near to his mosque, but the Prophet, disliking the idea of leaving the houses uninhabited, explained to them the reward of walking to the mosque:30 On the authority of Anas b. Mālik, the Prophet said: ‘O Banū Salima! Do not you reckon [the reward for] your footprints [towards the mosque]?’ Regarding the verse: ‘We record that which they have sent before [them], and their traces’, 31 Mujāhid remarked: “their traces” means their footsteps [while heading for prayer].’32 Jābir b. ʿAbd Allāh narrated: ‘Our houses were far from the mosque [i.e. of the Prophet], therefore we wanted to buy others in the mosque vicinity, but the Prophet forbad us from doing so and said: “You are rewarded a [higher] grade (daraja) for each of your steps [to the mosque]”.’33

We shall see in what follows how the supreme status of the mosque enhanced its architectural evolution, i.e. through encouraging both the political elite and the ordinary people to build as many mosques as possible and sometimes ‘titivate’ the way they looked.

Al-Bayhaqī, nos. 4305–6; Ibn Khuzayma, no. 1320. Al-Bukhārī, no. 656; Muslim, nos. 1518–20; Ibn Ḥajar, Fatḥ, ii, 280; al-ʿAynī, ʿUmda, v, 252–5. It is also reported, on the authority of Abū Qatāda, that when the two tribes complained to the Prophet of this, he advised them to move to the plateaus near the mountain of Salʿ, where nothing would cause them such a trouble. See al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, i, 203–4. 31 Qurʾān 36. 12. 32 Al-Bukhārī, no. 655. See also Khān’s transl. of the same ḥadīth. 33 Muslim, no. 1518. See also Ibn Ḥajar, Fatḥ, ii, 280. 29 30

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5.3 SITE As already noted, the whole land is considered a mosque. But what did that mean in practice? From a legal point of view, prayer would be allowed on any given piece of land after ensuring that it is free from impurity. This remarkable tolerance in choosing mosque location is, according to some, attributable to that land is clean quintessentially by the effect of the sun, the air and the rains.34 It follows that unless a place is known for sure to be impure, it should be suitable for prayer.35 This principle is believed to have given builders freedom to choose whatever site they deemed convenient according to other temporal and spatial parameters. It could be due to such a freedom that the Prophet allowed prayer to be done even at sheepfolds.36 He is reported to have prayed himself at sheepfolds,37 However, Abū al-Tayyāḥ (d. 128/647 or 130/648), on whose authority the relevant ḥadīth is reported, explains that this was only so before the Prophet built his mosque.38 Anas, who is an earlier transmitter in the isnād of the same ḥadīth, relates: ‘He [the Prophet] loved to pray whenever a prayer was due, and he would pray [even] at sheepfolds.’39 Ibn Ḥajar commented that this was a matter of expedience, for the Prophet was not reported to have prayed at sheepfolds after his mosque was built.40 Thus, the main implication in this ḥadīth is that a prayer should be performed once due. This assumption seems to be supported by another ḥadīth: ‘If you do not find [a place to pray] except sheepfolds (marābiḍ al-ghanam) and kneeling places of camels (aʿṭān al-ibil), then pray at sheepfolds and do not pray at the kneel-

Ibn Ḥajar, Fatḥ, i, 534; al-Shawkānī, Nayl, ii, 233; Ibn Taymiyya, Fatāwā, xxi, 347–8. This opinion is based on a ḥadīth of Ibn ʿUmar. See alṬabarānī, al-Muʿjam al-awsaṭ, eds. Ṭāriq b. ʿAwaḍ Allāh and ʿAbd alMuḥsin al-Ḥusaynī (Cairo: Dār al-Ḥaramayn, 1995), no. 1181. 35 Ibn Ḥajar, Fatḥ, ii, 79. 36 Ibn Māja, nos. 769–70. 37 Al-Bukhārī, no. 429; al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, ii, 397. 38 Al-Bukhārī, no. 429; al-ʿAynī, ʿUmda, iv, 265–6. 39 Al-Bukhārī, no. 428. 40 Ibn Ḥajar, Fatḥ, ii, 72–3. 34

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ing places of camels.’41 Some scholars restrict this permission to old and dry sheepfolds.42 As explained by a number of early legalists, the former are usually contaminated due to camels’ behaviour.43 It is true that the Prophet is also reported to have taken his camel as a sutra while in prayer,44 but a number of early jurists argued that this could not apply to places where a group of camels usually kneel as they habitually scuffle and this would distract the worshipper.45 We already saw (Chapter 4) that the site where the Prophet’s mosque and houses were built is said to be chosen by letting his she-camel kneel freely.46 Yet, there is nothing in tradition to imply that it was its usual kneeling-place. On the other hand, the only type of a place where the Prophet preferred to pray is ḥīṭān, ‘orchards’.47 He is not reported, nonetheless, to have recommended them as mosque sites. Ibn Māja, no. 769; Ibn Ḥanbal, nos. 20409, 20434; Ibn Khuzayma, no. 795; al-Muttaqī al-Hindī, Kanz, no. 19169. See also Ibn Mufliḥ, Furūʿ, ii, 105. 42 On these views, see Ibn Ḥajar, Fatḥ, ii, 72–3. 43 According to others, there is no difference, in this regard, between the two animals. Ibn Ḥajar, Fatḥ, ii, 72–3; al-ʿAynī, ʿUmda, iv, 268. See also al-Khaṭṭābī, Maʿālim, i, 148–9. For more on this discussion, see Ibn Rajab, Fatḥ, iii, 217–26. 44 Al-Bukhārī, no. 430; Ibn Khuzayma, nos. 801–2; Wensinck, Early Muhammadan Tradition, p. 223. The same thing was also reported of ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿUmar while travelling. See Mālik, Muwaṭṭaʾ, no. 418; al-Dārimī, no. 1452. 45 See Ibn Ḥajar, Fatḥ, ii, 73, and the references therein. See also alʿAynī, ʿUmda, iv, 266. 46 Ibn Hishām, Sīra, ii, 135; al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, ii, 396; al-Masʿūdī, Murūj al-dhahab wa-maʿādin al-jawhar, ed. Kamāl Ḥasan Marʿī, 4 vols (Beirut: al-Maktaba al-ʿAṣriyya, 2005), ii, 220; al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, i, 323–4; alDhahabī, Sīra, p. 233; Ibn Sayyid al-Nās, ʿUyūn, i, 313; al-Suhaylī, Rawḍ, ii, 334–6; Ibn al-Najjār, Durra, p. 145; al-Barzanjī, Nuzha, pp. 9–10. 47 Al-Tirmidhī, no. 334; Wensinck, Early Muhammadan Tradition, p. 191. See also Ibn Māja, no. 744. As already noted, the Prophet, while offering Banū al-Najjār a price for their piece of land, referred to it as ‘ḥāʾiṭ’, ‘[walled] garden’. Ibn Rajab, Fatḥ, iii, 206–7. 41

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Some understand the Prophet’s choice of a mirbad, ‘threshing floor’, as the location of his mosque to imply a sort of devotional preference.48 Johns, for instance, takes it to argue a link between the mosque and the celebration of the fruit of this land, a practice that goes back to ancient religions.49 However, the meanings given by the Arabic dictionaries for the term ‘mirbad’ are: a pen for cattle, a threshing-floor, and a place where dates are kept to dry. In effect, all these can be reduced to one origin, a bar preventing livestock from breaking out.50 This gives mirbad the basic meaning of an ‘enclosed’ piece of land. Whether the mirbad is a threshing-floor or a pen is indicated by a particularizing genitive: mirbad al-tamr, ‘the mirbad of dates’, or mirbad al-ghanam, ‘the mirbad of sheep’.51 The mirbad of Sahl and Suhayl, where the Prophet built his mosque, was expressly described by the sources as Mirbad al-Tamr.52 Quoting Lane, who cited Abū ʿUbayd al-Qāsim (d. 224/838), Johns states: ‘Both mirbad and jarīn are the Ḥijāzī equivalents for the andar of Syria and the baydar of Iraq. The primary meaning of andar, baydar and jarīn is a threshing-floor for wheat and other grains’. Johns then comes to the conclusion that there could be a tentative link between the mirbad and the threshing-floor. Such a link, as presented by the Arabic lexicons, however, is not credited to similarity in function between the mirbad on one side and any of the andar, baydar and jarīn on the other. Rather, it is due to the openness of each. The relevant passage in Lisān al-ʿArab can be translated as follows: Abū ʿUbayd [al-Qāsim] said; mirbad is also the place for [drying] dates, like jarīn. [While] mirbad and jarīn are familiar to the Ḥijāzis, the andar is familiar to the Syrians. Al-Jawharī said: ‘the place where dates are dried is called mirbad by the Madinans, The only ḥadīth according to which the Prophet preferred to pray in ḥīṭān, ‘orchards’ is widely thought of as ḍaʿīf. See al-Tirmidhī, no. 334; Wensinck, Early Muhammadan Tradition, p. 191. 49 Johns, ‘House of the Prophet’, pp. 81–5. 50 Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān, iii, 1555–56. 51 Al-Zamakhsharī, Asās, i, 329. 52 Al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, i, 324. 48

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and it is known as misṭaḥ and jarīn for the people of Najd. The mirbad for dates is like the baydar for wheat.’53

The last sentence is of a special significance for this discussion; it states that the similarity between mirbad and baydar lies in the fact that both are levelled pieces of land used to keep two different kinds of crops. While the former is for dates, the latter is for wheat. There is nothing in this passage to say that mirbad is for wheat in any of the Arabic colloquials. Further, the mirbad of Sahl and Suhayl, where the Prophet built his mosque, was clearly defined by alSamhūdī and others as a place where dates were to be dried.54 Advancing with such a hypothesis about the relation between the mosque and the fruit of this land, Johns maintains, based on alBukhārī and Wensinck, that the Prophet is said to have prayed in marābid, plural of mirbad, before his mosque was built.55 In fact, the term used in al-Bukhārī, as well as many other ḥadīth collections, is not marābid but marābiḍ, which means sheepfolds (supra).56 Even in the less authentic ḥadīths where the former are specified as places where the Prophet prayed, on occasion, before the erection of his mosque, they are always characterized as ‘marābid al-ghanam’, invalidating any link between these and the fruit of this world. The selection of a mirbad to be the site of the Prophet’s mosque could be more practically attributed to its being a levelled piece of land that would not require much effort to turn into a ‘hypaethral’ mosque, especially that it was partially occupied by an already-existing mosque (see Chapter 4).57 Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān, iii, 1556. Al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, i, 324. 55 Johns, ‘House of the Prophet’, p. 81. 56 Al-Bukhārī, no. 428; al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, ii, 397; Wensinck, Early Muhammadan Tradition, p. 154; Juynboll, Canonical Ḥadīth, p. 487. See also Ibn Māja, no. 769; Ibn Ḥanbal, nos. 20409, 20434; Ibn Khuzayma, no. 795; al-Muttaqī al-Hindī, Kanz, no. 19169. See also Ibn Mufliḥ, Furūʿ, ii, 105. 57 The same thing is noted by Johns himself (‘House of the Prophet’, p. 82): ‘marābid were particularly well-suited as places of prayer because, they had clean, level floors’. 53 54

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Johns further argued that the marābid, which were often located on high places so as to catch the breeze, are comparable to the high places which were often sacred sites in ancient Semitic religions.’58 However, the mirbad of Sahl and Suhayl does not seem to have been higher than its vicinity; it contained what Ibn Saʿd calls ‘māʾ mustanjal’,59 i.e. water gathering at low places and forming little wetlands. Further, although Madina is a relatively high place [elevation 608 m. (1,995 ft.)], the site on which the mosque was built was not higher than the vicinity. Is there places where prayer is not allowed to be performed? On the authority of Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī, the Prophet said: ‘The whole land is a mosque except the tomb and the bathroom (ḥammām), in a narration, the lavatory (ḥashsh).’60 Other places which ḥadīth specifies as unsuitable mosque sites include the kneeling places of camels, and the places that witnessed God’s punishment against the disbelievers.61 The Prophet also banned praying at graveyards, abattoirs, rubbish dumps, roads, and the roof of the Kaʿba.62 According to Ibn Qudāma (d. 620/1223) and others, the rationale behind this listing (with the exception of the latter) is to avoid praying at unclean spots and to eschew the emulation of non-Muslims who took the tombs of their saints as places of worship.63 Ibid. Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, i, p. 205. 60 Al-Dārimī, no. 1430; al-Tirmidhī, no. 317; Abū Dāwūd, no. 492; Ibn Māja, no. 745; Ibn Ḥanbal, no. 11858; Ibn Khuzayma, no. 791; alBaghawī, Sharḥ al-sunna, ii, 409. 61 Abū Dāwūd, no. 490. This ḥadīth is judged as ḍaʿīf by al-Albānī. 62 Al-Tirmidhī, nos. 346, 347; Ibn Māja, nos. 746,7; al-Baghawī, Sharḥ al-sunna, ii, 410; Ibn Mufliḥ, Furūʿ, ii, 107; al-Mirdāwī, al-Inṣāf fī maʿrifat al-rājiḥ min al-khilāf ʿalā madhhab al-imām al-mubajjal Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, ed. M. Ḥāmid al-Faqī, 12 vols ([n.p.]: King Suʿūd, 1956), i, 489–91; Wensinck, Early Muhammadan Tradition, p. 191. This ḥadīth is regarded by al-Tirmidhī himself as ḍaʿīf. For discussion on the places where ṣalāh is not allowed, see also Ibn Mufliḥ, Furūʿ, ii, 105–13. 63 Ibn Qudāma, Mughnī, ii, 470–5; Ibn Taymiyya, Fatāwā, xxii, 99. See also Ibn Mufliḥ, Furūʿ, ii, 106. 58 59

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Briefly, there is nothing in the Prophet’s sunna to say that mosques should be built at certain places, but there are places where prayer should not be performed. Some places are judged by a ṣaḥābī or an early jurisconsult as not suitable for prayer. Ibn Ḥanbal, for instance, did not recommend building a mosque on an aqueduct (qanṭara) only on account that Ibn Masʿūd64 did not recommend it.65 5.3.1 Building mosques over tombs Islamic teachings convey a clearly deprecatory attitude towards funerary architecture. According to a large number of ḥadīths, a grave must not be treated in any way that would apply significance to it. Practices such as tajṣīṣ, ‘treating with lime mortar’, taṭyīn, ‘coating with clay’, and kitāba, ‘marking with inscriptions’, are all prohibited.66 First and foremost, mosques must not be built on a tomb or at a gravesite.67 Islam’s disapproval of building structures, especially religious ones, over tombs is usually understood to reflect a substantial resistance to idolatry, which—as perceived by Muslim tradition—evolved from eulogizing the graves of the departed ancestors, particularly the pious among them.68 Al-Qurṭubī (d. 672/1274) relates, on the authority of Muḥammad b. Kaʿb (d. 108/726),69 that some people from the previous nations made images for the pious On ʿAbd Allāh b. Masʿūd, see Ibn Ḥajar, Iṣāba, iv, 129–30. Al-Jurāʿī, Tuḥfa, p. 366. 66 Al-Tirmidhī, no. 1052; Abū Dāwūd, no. 3225; Ibn Māja, nos. 1562–5. See also Abū Yaʿlā, no. 1020; al-Khaṭṭābī, Maʿālim, i, 319. Such ḥadīths are always found in Bāb al-Janāʾiz, ‘Chapter of Obsequies’, in ḥadīth collections. See also Ibn al-Qayyim, Zād, i, 542. Al-Tirmidhī (no. 1052), however, reported that some early scholars like al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī (d. 110/728) allowed treating the graves with mud. 67 Al-Bukhārī, no. 432. See also Ibn Taymiyya, Fatāwā, xxiv, 177–8; al-Mirdāwī, Inṣāf, ii, 249–50. On how differently this ḥadīth is interpreted by early scholars, see Ibn Rajab, Fatḥ, iii, 193–204, 232–4. 68 See Ibn Qudāma, Mughnī, ii, 474. 69 Muḥammad b. Kaʿb al-Quraẓī, whose father was a captive from the Banū Qurayẓa, was a renowned scholar in ḥadīth and Qurʾān exegesis. See al-Dhahabī, Siyar, p. 3647. 64 65

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deceased and placed these near the latter’s graves in the belief that such images would serve as an aide-mémoire and an incentive for religious zeal. Those people were succeeded by later generations who forgot the original wisdom behind having such images and were deluded by the Satan about their actuality. They thought their predecessors had worshipped such images, and thus they were tempted to do so.70 According to this Islamic conception of how paganism developed, the ‘cult of saints’, and in fact celebrating them in any way or measure, would represent a genuine threat to the new religion. Leisten suggests that the abundance of the disapproving religious texts, including ḥadīths, commentaries and pious tracts, was in reaction to an already existing and widely practised cult of the dead in Arabia before Islam.71 Seemingly, however, most of the Arab idolaters before Islam worshipped and offered sacrifices to idols of whose tradition they were not generally aware. In all cases, the worship of these were thought of, as we understand from the Qurʾān, as a means of getting nearer to God.72 According to Pedersen, early Islam’s opposition to idolatry is clearly echoed in many ḥadīths which were ‘certainly in the spirit of the Prophet’.73 From the outset, he was reportedly keen on challenging such a doctrinal menace; he continued to warn against it down to the last moments of his life. He was seriously concerned that his own grave would become an object for pilgrimage.74 Al-Qurṭubī, al-Jāmiʿ li-aḥkām al-Qurʾān: wa-l-mubayyin li-mā taḍammanahu min al-sunna wa-āy al-Furqān, ed. A. ʿAbd al-Muḥsin al-Turkī, 24 vols (Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Risāla, 2006), xxi, 261–5; Ibn Taymiyya, Iqtiḍāʾ al-ṣirāṭ al-mustaqīm li-mukhālafat aṣḥāb al-jaḥīm, ed. Nāṣir al-ʿAql, 2 vols (Riyadh: Maktabat al-Rushd, [n.d.]), ii, 679–80; Ibn Ḥajar, Fatḥ, ii, 71; Ibn Rajab, Fatḥ, iii, 203–4, 71 Thomas Leisten, ‘Between Orthodoxy and Exegesis: Some Aspects of Attitudes in the Sharīʿa toward Funerary Architecture’, Muqarnas, 7 (1990), 12–22. 72 Qurʾān 39. 3. 73 Pedersen, ‘Masdjid’, p. 651. 74 See Mālik, Muwaṭṭaʾ, no. 571; al-Dārimī, no. 1443; Ibn Ḥajar, Fatḥ, ii, P.78; Ibn Taymiyya, Iqtiḍāʾ, i, 298–303. 70

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On the authority of ʿAṭāʾ b. Yāsir, the Prophet said: ‘O God! Do not let my grave be worshipped as an idol; God is truly wrathful to those who took the graves of their prophets as mosques.’75 [In another narration: ‘as idols’].76

On the authority of Ibn Jurayj, the ṣaḥābīs were uncertain of where to bury the corpse of the Prophet, until Abū Bakr said: ‘I heard the Prophet saying: “A prophet is to be buried nowhere but where he dies”.’ Then, they took out his firāsh, ‘bed’, and dug [a grave] underneath.77 Later, in the time of al-Walīd, when the Prophet’s grave was absorbed into the mosque (that by then had to be expanded) they surrounded it with high walls lest the public should reach it.78 5.3.2 The meaning and legality of taking graves as mosques According to Islamic law, there are three forms of taking graves as mosques: praying over them, praying towards them, and building mosques over them. The prohibition of each of the three practices is established through ḥadīths and opinions of early scholars.79 The following ḥadīths represent the main vehicle for a majority of Muslim authorities, past and present, to argue that a mosque should not be built on a tomb or a grave:80 On the authority of ʿĀʾisha, both Umm Ḥabība and Umm Salama [two of the Prophet’s wives] mentioned a church they had seen in Abyssinia, in which there were pictures. They told Ibn Abī Shayba, no. 7626; Mālik, Muwaṭṭaʾ, no. 570; Ibn ʿAbd alBarr, Tamhīd, v, 41–2. 76 Mālik, Muwaṭṭaʾ, no. 570; Ibn Abī Shayba, no. 7626; Ibn ʿAbd alBarr, Tamhīd v, 41–2; al-Albānī, Taḥdhīr al-sājid min ittikhādh al-qubūr masājid, 4th edn (Beirut: al-Maktab al-Islāmī, 1983), no. 11. 77 Al-Albānī, p. Taḥdhīr, pp. 10–11. See also al-Muttaqī al-Hindī, Kanz, nos. 32235–8. 78 Al-Nawawī, Sharḥ Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, v, 13–4; al-ʿAynī, ʿUmda, iv, 257; Ibn Taymiyya, Iqtiḍāʾ, ii, 677. For more information on this incident, see Chapter 7. 79 Al-Albānī, Taḥdhīr, pp. 21–32. 80 According to Ibn Taymiyya, all imams agreed that a mosque must not be built on a tomb or a grave: Fatāwā, xxii, p. 119. 75

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THE MAKING OF THE MOSQUE the Prophet about it and he said: ‘If any pious man dies among those people, they would build a masjid (here to mean a church or a place of prayer in general) at his grave and make such pictures in it. Those are the worst creatures in the view of God on the Day of Judgment.’81

ʿĀʾisha commented that this was the foremost reason why the grave of the Prophet had not been made visible for the people.82 According to Ibn Baṭṭāl (d. 449/1957)83 and Ibn Ḥajar, such ḥadīth provides compelling evidence for the prohibition of both building mosques on the graves of saints and making images for them. Ibn Ḥajar argues that such practices are prohibited whether done to incur blessings, seek intercession, remember the devout ancestors and their good deeds or even out of entertainment. In all of such cases, the craftsmen involved are to suffer the direst woe on the Day of Judgment as they dared to compare themselves to the Creator.84 Quite a number of ḥadīths reflect the Prophet’s conspicuous willingness to preclude such practices: Ibn ʿAbbās narrated: ‘The Prophet cursed the females who visit graves frequently, and those [both males and females] who build mosques or place lamps over them’.85 On the authority of Abū Marthad al-Ghanawī, the Prophet said: ‘Do not sit on the graves and do not pray while facing them.’86

Al-Bukhārī, no. 427; Muslim, nos. 1183–4; Ibn Abī Shayba, no. 7630; al-Muttaqī al-Hindī, Kanz, nos. 19186–197. See also Muslim, no. 1188; Wensinck, Early Muhammadan Tradition, p. 154. Ibn Ḥajar argues that the images, mentioned here by Umm Salama and Umm Ḥabība, were not relievos, but simple mural paintings (lam yakun lahā ẓill, lit. ‘had no shadow’). 82 Ibn Abī Shayba, no. 7629; al-Albānī, Taḥdhīr, p. 27. 83 Al-ʿAynī, ʿUmda, iv, 257. 84 Al-Albānī, Taḥdhīr, pp. 13–4. See also Ibn Taymiyya, Iqtiḍāʾ, ii, 659–740. 85 Al-Tirmidhī, no. 320; al-Baghawī, Sharḥ al-sunna, ii, 417. 81

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On the authority of ʿAbd Allāh b. Masʿūd, the Prophet said: ‘Among the evilest people are those who would be alive when the Day of Judgment comes and those who take the graves as mosques.’87

According to Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, prayer must not be done at graves whether exhumed, covered with something to avoid impurity, included in a cemetery or standing alone.88 This opinion of Ibn Ḥanbal was later adopted by the Ẓāhirīs.89 According to a number of ḥadīths though, the Prophet and some of his ṣaḥābīs are reported to have prayed on graves. According to one of these, the Prophet prayed on a grave when he missed a funeral of a Muslim female. Likewise, when ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb saw Anas praying on a grave he warned: ‘[Beware of] the grave! The grave!’, but he did not ask him to repeat his prayer, implying that it was sound.90 The Shāfiʿīs, accordingly, argued that if someone finds a clean spot on a grave, it is acceptable to pray on it.91 A clearly more permissive opinion was adopted by Mālik who argued that it is generally allowed to pray on tombs or at cemeteries.92 In this, Mālik was This ḥadīth is found in all Ṣaḥīḥ collections except those of alBukhārī and Ibn Māja. See, for example, Muslim, nos. 2250–1; alTirmidhī, no. 1050. 87 Al-Albānī, Taḥdhīr, no. 12. 88 Al-ʿAynī, ʿUmda, iv, 255; al-Shawkānī, Nayl, iii, 498–9. See also Ibn al-Qayyim, Zād, i, 512. 89 Ibn Ḥazm, Muḥallā, iv 27–33; al-ʿAynī, ʿUmda, iv, 256. The Ẓāhirīs are the followers of Dāwūd al-Ẓāhirī (d. ca. 270/883), with Ibn Ḥazm alAndalusī as the most outstanding exponent of the Ẓāhirī school of fiqh. On Ibn Ḥazm, see R. Arnaldez, ‘Ibn Ḥazm’, EI2 (1971), iii, pp. 790–9. 90 Such ḥadīths are usually compiled under headings like Bāb mā-jāʾa fī al-ṣalāh ʿalā al-qabr, ‘Chapter of What is Narrated Regarding Praying over the Grave’. See al-Tirmidhī, no. 1037; Abū Dāwūd, no. 3203; Ibn Māja, nos. 1527–33; al-Mirdāwī, Inṣāf, ii, 531. 91 Al-Nawawī, Majmūʿ, iii, 164–5; al-Khaṭṭābī, Maʿālim, i, 147; alʿAynī, ʿUmda, iv, 255; al-Shawkānī, Nayl, iii, 499. 92 Mālik b. Anas, al-Mudawwana al-kubrā, 4 vols (Beirut: Dār alKutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1994), I, 182. See also al-Baghawī, Sharḥ al-sunna, ii, 411. However, al-Ṣanʿānī takes the above ḥadīth to opine that prayers 86

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followed by some later exponents such as Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr (d. 463/1071) and Ibn Qudāma.93 Other Mālikīs, however, argued that Mālik reconsidered this opinion afterwards.94 In all cases, Mālik’s lenience in this regard is challenged by positions taken by no less influential scholars such as al-Thawrī, al-Awzāʿī and Abū Ḥanīfa. According to them, it is makrūh to conduct prayer on tombs, regardless of existing conditions.95 According to Ibn Taymiyya, a corpse ought not to be buried in a mosque, and if it was found buried beneath it, certain procedures had to be taken. If the mosque pre-existed the grave, the latter ought to be destroyed and levelled to the ground or exhumed if it was new, whereas if it was the grave that preceded the mosque, then either the mosque or the grave structure (ṣūrat al-qabr) was to be removed.96 Ibn Ḥazm (d. 456/1064) named five of the prominent ṣaḥābīs who are said to have forbidden praying on tombs: ʿUmar b. alKhaṭṭāb, ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib, Abū Hurayra, Anas b. Mālik and ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAbbās. Ibn Ḥazm added that he knew none of the Prophet’s Companions to have held a divergent opinion.97 Al-ʿAynī disagreed with such a generalization of Ibn Ḥazm and related, on the authority of al-Khaṭṭābī (d. 388/998),98 that ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿUmar allowed praying at graveyards, and that al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī was also reported to have prayed at them.99 Nonetheless, generalization seems to persist to the present time. Al-Albānī, for example, has

are not acceptable on or between graves, no matter to whom these would belong: Subul al-salām al-mūṣila ilā bulūgh al-marām, ed. M. Ṣubḥī Ḥasan Ḥallāq, 2nd rev. edn, 8 vols (Dammam: Dār Ibn al-Jawzī, 2000), ii, 92. 93 Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, Tamhīd, v, 220, 234; Ibn Qudāma, Mughnī, ii, 468. 94 See al-ʿAynī, ʿUmda, iv, 255. 95 Al-Shawkānī, Nayl, iii, 500. 96 Ibn Taymiyya, Fatāwā, xxii, 119. 97 Al-ʿAynī, ʿUmda, iv, 255. See Ibn Ḥazm, Muḥallā, iv, 30–1. 98 Al-Khaṭṭābī, Maʿālim, i, 147–8. See also pp. 141, 315. 99 Al-ʿAynī, ʿUmda, iv, 255. It is reported of the Prophet to have, albeit on few occasions, prayed on graves. See al-Tirmidhī, nos. 1037–8.

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argued that all schools of Islamic law agree that it is religiously illegal to build mosques over tombs.100 The above discussions on the Prophet’s attitude, and the resultant judgements of the early faqīhs, regarding praying on tombs and building mosques over them suggest that it was interdiction— rather than permissibility—that was meant. This is not only because it has been affirmed by larger number of early as well as modern legalists, but also because it is more attuned with ḥadīth, whether relevant ones or those conveying the general principles of Islamic law. So strong was such a tendency that it guaranteed the prevention of erecting any funerary structure for at least several decades after the Prophet’s time. This thinking seems to backed by the absence of any reliable archaeological evidence for tombs or mausolea dating to the time of the Rāshidūn or the Umayyads. Some ascribe this to mutilation caused to such structures by the ʿAbbāsids who wanted to obliterate the history of their political adversaries by destroying their tombs, unearthing their graves and burying their bones in secret anonymous places.101 It may be for this reason that the burial places of the majority of the ʿAbbāsid caliphs were hidden.102 We are told, for instance, that a hundred pseudo graves were made for Abū Jaʿfar al-Manṣūr (r. 136– 58/754–75), lest his body should be desecrated if tracked down. There is, nonetheless, no material or historical evidence for such an assumption, which also fails to explain the absence of any reference by the sources to an Umayyad tomb—if any once existed. The most acceptable theory is that the Umayyads did not in fact erect funerary domes. In keeping with this line of thinking, Creswell states that the prohibition of building domes on graves was observed until the third/ninth century. The first caliph whose burial place was meant Al-Albānī, Taḥdhīr, p. 33. F. Shāfiʿī, Imāra ʿarabiyya, p. 256. The ʿAbbāsids might have retained the Umayyad palaces as they represented valuable assets, while mosques could not have been demolished because of their sanctity. 102 See F. Shāfiʿī, ʿImāra ʿarabiyya, p. 256. M. Ḥamza al-Ḥaddād, alQibāb fi al-ʿimāra al-miṣriyya al-Islāmiyya (Cairo: Maktabat al-Thaqāfa alDīniyya, 1993), p. 37. 100 101

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to be revealed was al-Muntaṣir (r. 247–8/861–2). A dome, known as al-Ṣulaybiyya (Fig. 20), was built for him in Samarra in 248/862 at command of his Greek mother, known in the Arabic sources as Ḥubshiya.103 Oleg Grabar, providing a useful chronological listing for the earliest Islamic mausolea,104 theorizes that the Dome of Ṣulaybiyya was followed by that of Ismāʿīl al-Sāmānī in Bukhara (295/907). According to him, the tomb of imam ʿAlī at Najaf was topped with a dome for the first time in 289/902.105 The reports on the comrades of the ṣaḥābī ʿUtba b. Usayd (whose epithet was Abū Baṣīr) building a mosque on his grave in 6/627–8 are deemed by a majority of art historians as antedated.106 There are reports, however, that funerary domed structures were introduced to Islam in the late second/eighth century, i.e. before the Ṣulaybiyya. We are told that when the mother of the vizier al-Faḍl b. Yaḥyā b. Barmak died, Hārūn al-Rashīd (r. 170–93/786–809) ordered a dome to be built over her grave. It was later known as the Barmakīd Dome.107 Further, al-Maʾmūn (r. 198–218/813–33) erected a dome over the tomb of his father, Hārūn al-Rashīd, and that of ʿAlī b. Mūsā alRiḍā (d. 203/819).108

Al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, ix, 254; Kamāl al-Dīn Sāmiḥ, ‘Taṭawwur alqubba fī al-ʿimāra al-Islāmiyya, Bulletin of the School of Arts, 12 (1950), p. 7. This dome is believed to also include the corpses of the caliphs al-Muʿtazz and al-Muhtadī. 104 Oleg Grabar, ‘The Earliest Islamic Commemorative Structures: Notes and Documents’, Jerusalem, 4 (2005), 65–110 (p. 73), first published in Ars Orientalis, 4 (1966), pp. 7–46. On the dome of Ṣulaybiyya, see also Alastair Northedge, The Historical Topography of Samarra, 2nd rev. edn (London: British School of Archaeology in Iraq, 2007). 105 Grabar, ‘Islamic Commemorative Structures’, p. 75. 106 Pedersen, ‘Masdjid’, p. 651. 107 Abū al-Ḥasan al-Shābashtī, al-Diyārāt, ed. Kurkis Awwad, 3rd edn. (Beirut: Dār al-Rāʾid al-ʿArabī, 1986), p. 229. 108 Zakariyya al-Qazwīnī, Āthār al-bilād wa-akhbār al-ʿibād (Beirut: Dār Ṣādir, [n.d.]), p. 392. 103

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Figure 20: Samarra: Qubbat al-Ṣulaybiyya (after Shāfiʿī 1970)

5.4 MOSQUE LAYOUT Although there is no predetermined outline or ground plan for the mosque, it is a devotional prerequisite for worshippers to be orientated towards the qibla and to be arranged in straight parallel lines. It is, therefore, argued by a number of medieval Muslim scholars that the qibla should be set up in a way that would keep the rows of the worshippers evenly aligned,109 and this dictated that the quadrangular plan best fitted the mosque. Other plans, such as the circular and the triangular, were not preferred. Some went on to say it is makrūh to build such mosques or pray in them.110 From a ritual point of view, however, the most, if not only, decisive requirement for mosque design is having the qibla wall straightened and correctly orientated towards the Kaʿba. It is, par excellence, the ruling element of mosque outline, by which its whole layout is governed. This may explain why it was always the Prophet, and later on his ṣaḥābīs, who were in charge of laying out the qibla wall of the Ibn Ḥajar, Fatḥ, ii, 348–53; al-Ābī, Jawāhir al-Iklīl, i, 55. Muḥammad ʿA. al-Dusūqī, Ḥāshiyat al-Dusūqī ʿala al-sharḥ al-kabīr, ed. Muḥammad ʿUlaysh, 4 vols (Cairo: Dār Iḥiyāʾ al-Kutub al-ʿArabiyya, [n.d.]), i, 255; al-Ābī, Jawāhir al-Iklīl, i, 55. 109 110

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mosques built under their supervision.111 As we have seen, the qibla wall was the first, sometimes the only, part to be laid out by the Prophet when involved in the foundation of a certain mosque. The influence of the liturgical functions of the mosque on its structural requirements has been best explained by Hillenbrand, who argues that: The fact of the matter is that the Muslim liturgy does not demand any man-made structure for its celebration. […]. The various prescribed movements of prayer, involving as they did outstretched arms. Kneeling and prostration meant that each worshipper ideally required a minimum space of 1 x 2 meters. Moreover, prayer was communal. It was thus clearly desirable that its constituent movements should be synchronized. The alternative would be visually chaotic and might even suggest spiritual discord. The functions of the imam included the leading of communal prayer, and to this end it was important that he should be as widely visible as could be. Thus there developed the custom of disposing the worshippers in long lines parallel to the qiblah. In this way it was possible for hundreds, not scores, of people to follow the movements of the imam. By contrast, the disposition of worshippers within most Christian churches in lines perpendicular to the altar. […]. These remarks are not intended to suggest that the imam was visible in a large mosque to a congregation of, say, several thousands. But the grouping of worshippers in comparatively few long and well-spaced lines, rather than in many short lines close together, did ensure the easy intervisibilty of worshippers and thus facilitated precise timing in the movements prescribed for prayers. […] This lateral grouping of worshippers, which might fairly be termed a liturgical convenience, but was in no sense a doctrinal imperative, proved to be the single vital factor in the layout of future mosques.112

On putting up the qibla (wall) at Madina and Qubāʾ, see Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, i, 210; al-Suhaylī, Rawḍ, ii, 332, 336; al-Samhūdī, Wafā̕, i, 332. 112 Hillenbrand, Islamic Architecture, pp. 36–8. 111

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This properly explains why the quadrangular layout with—or even without—a simple enclosure and a porticoed courtyard was adopted by the builders of the early mosques.

5.5 ARCHITECTURAL COMPONENTS OF THE MOSQUE This section sets out to investigate whether and how the architectural features of a typical congregational mosque during the first century AH were influenced by Islamic religious modalities. 5.5.1 The miḥrāb (concave prayer niche) 5.5.1.1 Etymology and origins Scholars of Semitic languages generally believe that the Arabic ‘miḥrāb’ derived from the Himyarite ‘mikrab’ that was introduced, alongside Christianity, to the Yemen from Abyssinia.113 Its Abyssinian form, ‘mekurab’, meant a church, temple or an apse where the statue of a saint was usually placed.114 The word was used by the Christians of Najrān to refer to the apse (ḥanya) in the wall of a church. In Arabic, the word miḥrāb had a primary meaning of the front part of a house and the most respected place in it.115 It was used in early Arabic poetry to refer to royal edifices.116 In pre-Islamic times, the Arab people used the word ‘miḥrāb’ to refer to palaces. Otherwise, it was used to designate lion lairs and communal places.117 Theodor Nöeldeke, Neue Beiträge zur Semitischen Sprachwissenschaft, (Strasbourg: K.J. Trübner, 1910), p. 40. See also J. Horovitz, ‘Bemerkungen zur Geschichte und Terminologie’, Der Islam, 16 (1927), 249– 63. 114 This idea was adopted and even expatiated upon by H. Lammens in his ‘Ziyād ibn Abīh’. J. Sauvaget argues that the word ‘miḥrāb’ was used in the (Near) East in Late Antiquity to refer to ‘semi-circular recess or rounded niche’: ‘The Mosque and the Palace’, in Jonathan M. Bloom (ed.), Early Islamic Art and Architecture (Hampshire: Ashgate, 2002), pp. 109–47 (p. 134). 115 Al-Azharī, Tahdhīb, v, 17; Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān, ii, 817. 116 Nöldeke, Semitischen Sprachwissenschaft, p. 52, nt. 3. 117 Al-Azharī, Tahdhīb, v, 17; Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān, ii, 818. 113

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When miḥrābs were attributed to the Banū Isrāʾīl, in particular, it was usually their places of worship that were meant.118 In Islam, as al-Zajjāj (d. 311/923) explains, miḥrāb denotes the most significant place in a mosque for it represents the mark of the qibla.119 According to al-Azharī (d. 370/980), however, the word is traditionally taken to signify the specific place where the imam stands to lead the congregation in prayer.120 Miḥrābs are usually set at the mosque front to indicate the qibla, towards which worshippers must be orientated when in prayer. 121 In spite of the many references to miḥrāb in the Qurʾān, ḥadīth and the early Arabic accounts, there are good reasons to think that the word was primarily used in the early period to refer to something other than the concave prayer niche, which was rather referred to as ‘al-ṭāq’ (infra).122 In early Islam, as al-Khalīl b. Aḥmad alFarāhīdī (d. 170/786) and al-Azharī point out, ‘miḥrāb’ began to be mainly (but not exclusively) used to designate the imam’s usual position in the mosque. It, however, continued to denote other things such as the garret. According to one ḥadīth, the Prophet sent ʿUrwa b. Masʿūd to his kin in the Yemen. So, he went to them and entered his ‘miḥrāb’. At dawn, he looked out of it (ashraf ʿalayhim) and called for the fajr prayer. Al-Zajjāj takes this episode to opine that miḥrāb is an upper chamber (ghurfa).123 Al-Azharī states, on the authority of Ibn al-Anbārī, that miḥrāb was so called because it marks the place where the imam stands isolated (i.e. distinguished) from

Al-Azharī, Tahdhīb, v, 17; Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān, ii, 817. Al-Azharī, Tahdhīb, v, 17; Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān, ii, 817. 120 Al-Azharī, Tahdhīb, v, 17; Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān, ii, 817; alFayrūzabādī, al-Qāmūs al-muḥīṭ, 4 vols (Cairo: al-Hayʾa al-Miṣriyya alʿĀmma li-l-Kitāb, 1978–80), i, 53; Ibn Abī Bakr al-Rāzī, Mukhtār al-ṣiḥāḥ, ed. Dāʾirat al-Maʿājim fī Maktabat Lubnān, rev. edn (Beirut: Maktabat Lubnān, 1989), p. 128. 121 Ibn Ḥajar, Fatḥ, ii, p. 48. 122 Originally a loan from Persian, ṭāq (lit. recess) specifies any structure/building element that is arched, such as an aqueduct or a window. 123 See al-Azharī, Tahdhīb, v, 17; Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān, ii, 817. 118 119

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the other congregants.124 This last explanation seems to relate to most of the above definitions of the term. Having discussed the derivation and early use of the word from the Qurʾān, early sources and poetry, Serjeant concludes: ‘I prefer to regard all meanings here as secondary to the basic sense of miḥrāb as a row of columns with their intervening spaces. From this basic sense one might render miḥrāb as ‘niche’, but more likely as the side of the monk’s cell, or the side of a chancel, i.e. a wall linking columns […].’125 Many tend to link the miḥrāb in the mosque with the apse in the church.126 Creswell went further to argue that the miḥrāb was derived from the haykal in Coptic churches in particular.127 Others criticize such views for their negligence of the etymological aspects of the term.128 Sauvaget, for example, states: ‘The mihrab cannot have been a simple, literal copy of the niche used in Coptic liturgy’.129 Sauvaget, while suggesting that the miḥrāb in Islamic architecture is especially made for the imam, does not agree that it was invented by the Muslims, but derived from pre-Islamic domestic, i.e. palatial, architecture.130 Briggs, on the other hand, takes the early Muslims’ keenness to resist the emulation of the formalities of the other faiths as the basis to contest the theories on the non-Islamic origin of the miḥrāb: […] as the niche is a very elementary feature in architectural development, and as the early Muslims were careful not to imitate Christian or other infidel ritual for their worship, it seems more likely that they adopted the niche-form for its simplicity

Al-Azharī, Tahdhīb, v, 24; al-Zarkashī, Aḥkām al-masājid, p. 364. R. B. Serjeant, ‘Miḥrāb’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 22 (1959), 439–53 (p. 450). 126 See, for example, G. Fehérvári, ‘Miḥrāb’, EI2 (1993), vii, 7–15 (p. 9). 127 Creswell, EMA, i. 1, 148. 128 Sauvaget, ‘Mosque and Palace’, p. 133. 129 Ibid, p. 143–4, nt. 185. 130 Ibid, p. 138. Unlike Fikrī, however, Sauvaget does not see the miḥrāb as an Islamic innovation: ‘Mosque and Palace’, p. 133 nt. 140. 124 125

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Unlike the altar, nonetheless, the apse is not a main component of church architecture; many churches lack it. The main difference between the miḥrāb and the altar or the apse lies in the function each was set to do.132 Although the traditional view is that the mosque of the Prophet did not have a miḥrāb in his time, the Prophet is reported, according to a single ḥadīth, to have prayed in what the narrator, Wāʾil b. Ḥujr, called ‘miḥrāb’: ‘I saw the Prophet when he went to the mosque, entered the miḥrāb and then raised his hands up and said: “Allāhu Akbar, ‘God is the Greatest’”.’133 The miḥrāb referred to here, however, does not seem to be a device indicating the qibla direction, but a space at the mosque front where the Prophet usually prayed. Typically called ‘muṣallā rasūli-llāh’ by other reporters, this space was identified with a number of other elements such as the minbar and the usṭuwānāt (see Chapter 4). According to al-ʿUmarī, however, the qibla of the Prophet’s mosque was said by some to have been made out of a stone buildup (ḥijāratin manḍūdatin baʿḍuhā ʿalā baʿḍ) […].”’134 The qibla of the mosque of Qubāʾ is also said to have been made up of stone

Briggs, Muhammadan Architecture, p. 59. For a detailed discussion on the origins of the Islamic miḥrāb, see Whelan, ‘The Origins of the Miḥrāb Mujawwaf’, pp. 373–91; Miles, ‘Miḥrāb and ʿAnaza’, pp. 149–65; Fehérvári, ‘Miḥrāb’, pp. 7–15; Serjeant, ‘Miḥrāb’, pp. 439–53. 132 See Ḥusayn Muʾnis, al-Masājid, (Kuwait: al-Majlis al-Waṭanī li-lThaqāfa wa-l-Funūn wa-l-Adāb, 1981), p. 68. 133 Al-Bayhaqī, no. 2335. This ḥadīth, however, is of disputed authenticity; it is considered authentic by M. Zāhid al-Kawtharī and weak by alAlbānī: Ḍaʿīfa, i, 643. 134 Al-ʿUmarī, Masālik, i, 124. The same account is also mentioned by al-Suhaylī on the authority of Ibn Isḥāq: Rawḍ, ii, 339. The qibla of the Prophet’s mosque is, however, said by most accounts to have been made of labin. 131

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blocks.135 Mainly relying on such reports, Farīd Shāfiʿī argues that the word qibla could here refer to the miḥrāb as we know it—not merely the front wall. According to him, the shallow alcove of such primitive miḥrābs was formed by the difference in thickness between the qibla wall (that was made of labin) and the miḥrāb (that was made of stone). He argues that such basic miḥrābs could have taken the same form as that of the mosque at Qaṣr al-Ukhayḍir (Fig. 21). Shāfiʿī, further, understands the early references to two stone jambs in the Prophet’s mosque, ‘wa-jaʿalaū ʿiḍādatayhi min ḥijāra’,136 as denoting the two sides of that embryonic prayer niche. According to him, the concavity of such a niche was further accentuated in the later rebuildings of the mosque until it gained the complete form of a standard miḥrāb in the time of ʿUthmān.137

Figure 21: The miḥrāb of the mosque at Qaṣr al-Ukhayḍir (Shāfiʿī, 1970)

Al-Diyārbakrī, Tārīkh, i, 344; al-ʿUmarī, Masālik, i, 107. See also al-Suhaylī, Rawḍ, ii, 332. Ibn Kathīr mentions a ḥadīth attributing the same feature to the qibla of the Madina mosque: Bidāya wa-nihāya, iv, 539. 136 See also al-Bukhārī, no. 428; Abū Dāwūd, no. 453. 137 F. Shāfiʿī, ʿImāra ʿarabiyya, pp. 598–9. 135

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(a)

(b) Figure 22 (a & b): A stone miḥrāb at Qaṣr al-Mshatta (after Shāfiʿī, 1970)

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Besides, the Prophet is reported to have normally thrust a ʿanaza, ‘spear’, in front of him before praying at the muṣallā al-ʿīd. 138 This served as a mark of the qibla direction and a device to avoid the sinful act of passing in front of a worshipper while in prayer.139 The latter function was also achieved by the sutra, ‘anything put in front of the worshipper’s specific place of prayer’.140 Further, the Prophet advised that each worshiper, particularly in open prayer spaces, should insert a lance (ḥarba) or draw a line in front of himself so as to delimit the area of his sujūd.141 However, Jābir b. Usāma al-Juhanī reports of the Prophet to have marked out, with his foot, a mosque for the former’s people and pierced a piece of wood in the qibla [wall].142 If this piece of wood was set in the middle of the qibla wall, that would represent a Prophetic precedent for highlighting this particular spot in the mosque. Whether the miḥrāb, as known to us, is linked with any of the Prophet’s actions is still unclear. It could have derived from either of the two devices, i.e. ʿanaza or sutra. It could have also appeared in al-Walīd’s rebuilding of the mosque of Madina as a precise memorial to commemorate the place where the Prophet used to pray.143 However, the Prophet’s conspicuous keenness to personally lay out the qibla wall for the mosques he founded must have informed the later generations of its significance and the importance

Al-Bukhārī, nos. 494–5, 489–500; Muslim, nos. 1115–27; alDārimī, nos. 1449–50; Ibn Khuzayma, nos. 798–9; Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, iii, 216–7; Wensinck, Early Muhammadan Tradition, p. 223. 139 Muslim, nos. 1128–33. 140 On sutra, see Muslim, nos. 1111–4; al-Bayhaqī, nos. 3453–65; alBājī, Muntaqā, ii, 276–84; Ibn Ḥajar, Fatḥ, ii, 117–31; al-Muttaqī al-Hindī, Kanz, nos. 19201–2; al-Nawawī, Sharḥ Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, iv, 216–29; al-Dusūqī, Ḥāshiya, i, 246–7. See also al-Bukhārī, nos. 496, 497; Ibn Ḥajar, Fatḥ, ii, 123; Wensinck, Early Muhammadan Tradition, p. 223. 141 Al-Bayhaqī, nos. 3466–70; al-Muttaqī al-Hindī, Kanz, no. 19206. 142 Al-Ṭabarānī, Kabīr, nos. 1786–7. According to al-Albānī (Ḍaʿīfa, i, p. 646), this ḥadīth possesses a reasonable weight of authenticity. 143 Ettinghausen and Grabar, Art and Architecture of Islam, p. 40; Milwright, ‘Islamic Art and Architecture’, pp. 695–6. 138

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to try to mark it out as accurately as possible.144 According to one ḥadīth, facing the qibla in prayer is one of three features by which an individual is identified as a Muslim.145 In fact, the reports on the Prophet marking out the qibla give an impression that it is the front wall, rather than a niche, that is meant. This seems understandable, as this wall, or indeed the straight line it represents, is the actual direction to which worshippers must be orientated in prayer. Even in later times, the miḥrāb was not significant for itself; worshippers do not face the central point embodied by the miḥrāb but the straight line that cuts across it. We do not possess adequate information on how the qibla was marked in the mosques that were built under the Rāshidūn Caliphs. However, the mosque of ʿAmr at Fusṭāṭ might have had a miḥrāb when it was first built in 21/641–2, for when one was added to it in the Umayyad period, it was said to have been set in a line with the

However, many of the qiblas of the surviving early mosques proved inaccurate, most likely owing to the lack of proper astronomical devices in the time of their foundation. On how accurate these qiblas are according to recent scientific research, see David A. King, ‘Al-Bazdawî on the Qibla in Early Islamic Transoxiana’, Journal for the History of Arabic Science, 7 (1983/1986), 3–38; id., ‘The Sacred Direction in Islam: A Study of the Interaction of Religion and Science in the Middle Ages’, Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, 10 (1985), 315–28; id., ‘The Orientation of Medieval Islamic Religious Architecture and Cities’, Journal for the History of Astronomy, 26 (1995), 253–74. The qibla of the mosque of Fusṭāṭ, for instance, and which is said to have been laid out by eighty Companions in 21/641, was corrected by the Umayyad governor Qurra b. Sharīk later in 92/711. Dr Ann Christys, however, has kindly drawn my attention to, and translated relevant passages from, a recent Spanish paper which argues that some inaccurate qiblas of the earliest mosques in Andalusia, and which were attributed to prestigious tābiʿīs, were intentionally retained by the later patrons. See Susana Calvo Capilla, ‘Las primeras mezquitas de al-Andalus a través de las fuentes árabes (The First Mosques in al-Andalus According to the Arabic Sources: 92–170/711–85)’, Al-Qantara, 28 (2007), 143–79. 145 Al-Bukhārī, nos. 391–3; Ibn Ḥajar, Fatḥ, ii, p.42; Ibn Rajab, Fatḥ, iii, 51–8. See also Ibn Khuzayma, no. 454. 144

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older miḥrāb, i.e. that of the first mosque.146 That older miḥrāb was not a concave niche (miḥrāb mujawwaf).147 According to alQalqashandī (d. 821/1418), the qibla (of the first mosque) was marked by means of colonettes.148 Behrens-Abouseif takes this to theorize that the mosque of Fusṭāṭ could have included a ‘flat niche formed of two pairs of columns with an arch drawn between them’.149 Now, the afore-mentioned belief that the miḥrāb was borrowed ‘reluctantly’ from church architecture, has been built on a link between two early accounts. According to the first of these, the concave prayer niche was first introduced when ʿUmar b. ʿAbd alAzīz rebuilt the mosque of the Prophet at Madina in the caliphate of al-Walīd I.150 According to the second, the caliph al-Walīd sent Byzantine and Coptic masons to participate in rebuilding the mosque. Creswell supported these views by citing material from alSamhūdī and al-Suyūṭī (d. 911/1505). The former relates that the front part of the mosque, where the miḥrāb is normally located, was made by the Copts.151 In his Iʿlām al-arīb bi-ḥudūth bidʿat al-maḥārīb,152

Al-Maqrīzī, Kitāb al-Mawāʿiẓ wa-l-iʿtibār bi-dhikr al-khiṭaṭ wa-l-āthār: al-maʿrūf bi- ‘al-Khiṭaṭ al-Maqrīziyya’, 2nd edn, 2 vols (Cairo: Maktabat alThaqāfa al-Dīniyya, 1987), ii, 249; Ibn Duqmāq, al-Intiṣār li-wāsiṭat ʿiqd alamṣār, 5 vols (Cairo: al-Maṭbaʿa al-Kubrā al-Amīriyya, 1891–2), iv, 64, Ibn Taghrībirdī, al-Nujūm al-zāhira fī mulūk Miṣr wa-l-Qāhira, introduced and annotated by M. Ḥusayn Shams al-Dīn, 16 vols (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub alʿIlmiyya, 1992), i, 88. 147 Creswell, EMA, i. 1, 37. 148 Al-Qalqashandī, Ṣubḥ, iii, 341. 149 Doris Behrens-Abouseif, Islamic Architecture in Cairo: An Introduction (Leiden: Brill, 1989), p. 47. See also Richard Yeomans, The Art and Architecture of Islamic Cairo (Reading: Garnet, 2006), p. 20. 150 This is stated by Ibn Duqmāq (Intiṣār, v, 62) and al-Maqrīzī (Khiṭaṭ, ii, 247) who both quoted al-Wāqidī. It should be noted, nonetheless, that this account is not found in al-Wāqidī’s book. However, it is also reported by other informants such as Ibn Baṭṭūṭa. Riḥla, i, 85. 151 Al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, 524; Creswell, EMA, i. 1, 148. According to both scholars, it was also the Copts who, two years later (i.e. in the time 146

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al-Suyūṭī compiles a number of ḥadīths (infra) judging miḥrābs as bidʿa, ‘detestable innovation’, and criticizing praying in them. Creswell concludes that the miḥrāb was introduced to mosque architecture by the Copts and that it is hence reproached in ḥadīth literature.153 This view relies on three foundations: (i) that the miḥrāb made by ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-Azīz in the mosque of the Prophet was the earliest example of a concave prayer niche; (ii) that it was made by the Coptic masons; and (iii) Islam’s reluctance to its adoption. Firstly, it is not agreed that the first to introduce the miḥrāb was ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz. Ibn Baṭṭūṭa, for example, gives three different accounts of to whom the first introduction of the miḥrāb is due. According to one of these, it was ʿUthmān b. ʿAffān in 29/649–50. According to another, it was Marwān b. al-Ḥakam in 65/684, while the third assumes that it was ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz who did so.154 According to Ibn al-Faqīh (fourth/tenth century), Muʿāwiya was the first to adopt miḥrābs.155 Further, Fikrī’s archaeological work at the mosque of Qayrawān puts forward some evidence that a concave prayer niche was made there by ʿUqba b. Nāfiʿ, the founder of the city and its congregational mosque, in 50/670, i.e. almost forty years earlier than ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz’s works at the mosque of Madina.156 of Qurra b. Sharīk), introduced the concave prayer niche to the mosque of Fusṭāṭ. See Fikrī, Madkhal, p. 277. 152 Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī, Iʿlām al-arīb bi-ḥudūth bidʿat al-maḥārīb, ed. ʿImād Ṭāhā Farra, 2nd edn. (Tanta: Dār al-Ṣaḥāba li-l-Turāth, 1990); N. Yūnus al-Ḥājj, al-Maḥārīb al-ʿIrāqiyya mundhū al-ʿasr al-Islāmī ilā nihāyat al-ʿaṣr al-ʿAbbāsī (Baghdad: Mudīriyyat al-Āthār, 1876), pp. 36–43; al-Shihrī, alMasjid al-nabawī, p. 120. 153 Muʾnis (Masājid, p. 70) doubted the true attribution of this treatise to al-Suyūṭī in the belief that its content is not supported by any earlier historian. Indeed, many of the ḥadīths included in the treatise are also found in some ḥadīth collections, particularly the Sunan of al-Bayhaqī. 154 Ibn Baṭṭūṭa, Riḥla, i, 85. 155 Ibn al-Faqīh, Kitāb al-Buldān, ed. Yūsuf al-Hādī (Beirut: ʿĀlam alKutub, 1996), p. 159. 156 Fikrī, Madkhal, p. 297. Fikrī systematically criticized the views on the non-Islamic origins of the miḥrāb. See his Masjid al-Qayrawān, pp. 57–

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F. Shāfiʿī, however, argues that the earliest extant concave prayer niche could be the one in the southern side of the outer octagon of the Dome of the Rock, and which was built before al-Walīd’s time.157 Also speaking of the miḥrāb beneath the Rock, and referring to the type of ornaments and the archaic Kūfic inscription it shows (Fig. 23), Creswell argues that this miḥrāb, albeit not seen by him as concave, could be attributed to the founder, ʿAbd al-Malik, and thus would be ‘the oldest miḥrāb in Islam, dating from the days before the concave miḥrāb was introduced’.158 Such an early date, nonetheless, is questioned by quite a number of recent scholars. There is also evidence that in the Umayyad period movable miḥrābs were used before the introduction of concave prayer niches.159 Whatever the oldest example of a concave prayer niche in Islam could be, if that of ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz was not the first, then it should have been inspired by its Islamic predecessors (even if these were not in the form of true concave prayer niches) and not the apse of the church. The latter is further disqualified to play that role due to its clearly different design and size in the standard cases.160

60; id., ‘Bidʿat al-Maḥārīb’, Majallat al-Kātib al-Maṣrī, 14 (1946), 306–20; id., Nouvelles recherches sur la Grand Mosquée de Kairouan (Paris: H. Laurens, 1934), p. 62. 157 According to him (ʿImāra ʿarabiyya, p. 611), the second earliest is the central miḥrāb in the Umayyad mosque in Damascus, which is widely seen as the earliest extant one. See Ettinghausen and Grabar, Art and Architecture of Islam, p. 40. 158 Creswell, EMA, i. 1, 100. According to Fehérvári (‘Miḥrāb’, p. 8), this marble panel is known as the miḥrāb of Sulaymān. 159 Muʾnis, Masājid, p. 70. 160 The architectural difference between the miḥrāb and the altar was discussed by Pautey and Fikrī.

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Figure 23: Jerusalem: the so-called ‘miḥrāb of Sulaymān’ under Qubbat al-Ṣakhra (72/962) (after Fehérvári, 1993)

Secondly, the story about the non-Muslim workers, while adopted by Caetani and Creswell, is widely disputed.161 Sauvaget regards it as a legend,162 pointing out the implausibility of the Umayyads asking their enemies for help with regard to such a significant religiopolitical venture as rebuilding the mosque of their Prophet. According to him, even if the foreign masons took part in the work, this would not necessarily mean they affected the form of the building.163 Sauvaget argued that a similarity between two architectural elements in two different types would not per ipsum stand as evidence that one of which was inspired by the other, unless conSee Yeomans, Islamic Cairo, pp. 19–20. Sauvaget, La Mosquée Omeyyade de Médine, pp. 113–4. 163 Ibid, pp. 115–6. 161 162

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crete reasons for such a derivation did exist.164 Sauvaget was not the only one to suspect the story of the Copts; M. van Berchem and F. Shāfiʿī also doubted its authenticity.165 Both came to the conclusion that those who built and decorated the Dome of the Rock in the time of ʿAbd al-Malik and the Umayyad mosque in the time of his son al-Walīd were from Syria and that they had their own school of art and architecture.166 Such local workers might have been used at the site of the Umayyad construction of the Prophet’s mosque. Comparing the number of workers linked with the latter, as given by the sources, with the labour that would be needed to erect and decorate the mosque, F. Shāfiʿī concludes that the participation of the foreign workers was confined to decoration.167 The third foundation on which the theory of the nonIslamic origins of the miḥrāb is based, i.e. the ḥadīths on the abhorrence of its adoption in mosques, will be dealt with below. 5.5.1.2 The legality of adopting miḥrābs Some ḥadīth collections, such as the Muṣannaf of ʿAbd al-Razzāq alṢanʿānī,168 the Muṣannaf of Ibn Abī Shayba169 and the Sunan of alBayhaqī (d. 458/1066),170 include whole chapters on the legality of praying in the miḥrāb, that is therein referred to as ṭāq, ‘lit. niche’. Generally, these ḥadīths convey the attitudes of certain ṣaḥābīs and tābiʿīs (but not the Prophet). While it is usually the concave prayer niche that is meant in both cases, it is of interest to note that the Ibid, p. 145; Sauvaget, ‘Mosque and Palace’, pp. 133–4. The first to mention the story of the Byzantines and the Copts is al-Yaʿqūbī. Eight years earlier, al-Balādhurī mentioned that al-Walīd sent to ʿUmar gold, mosaic and masons without saying anything about the help of the Roman king. See F. Shāfiʿī, ʿImāra ʿarabiyya, 589–97. However, this argument of Sauvaget and van Berchem about the historical unreliability of the story of the Byzantine and Copt artisans was contested by H. Gibb. ‘Arab-Byzantine Relations’, pp. 225–9. 166 F. Shāfiʿī, ʿImāra ʿarabiyya, pp. 593, 597. 167 Ibid, pp. 588–90. 168 ʿAbd al-Razzāq, nos. 3899–3903. 169 Ibn Abī Shayba, nos. 4727–44. 170 Al-Bayhaqī, no. 4304. 164 165

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term madhbaḥ, ‘altar’, is generally used when reporting the attitudes of the ṣaḥābīs, whereas ṭāq is used with the tābiʿīs. A group of the ṣaḥābīs and the early tābiʿīs argued that the adoption of miḥrābs is makrūh.171 Others believed it is mubāḥ, ‘religiously accepted’. The former opinion is said to have been adopted by such ṣaḥābīs as ʿAbd Allāh b. Masʿūd, Abū Dharr al-Ghifārī and ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib.172 Anas b. Mālik too is said to have disliked the adoption of miḥrābs. However, early lexicographers, such as alAzharī and Ibn Manẓūr, having interpreted ‘miḥrāb’ as the front of a meeting-place, ascribed the attitude of Anas to his reluctance to distinguish himself with a special place in gatherings.173 Some of the ṣaḥābīs and tābiʿīs in this group disliked the adoption of miḥrābs at mosques on the grounds that it is an emulation of non-Islamic practices.174 Most of the banning ḥadīths are also found in al-Suyūṭī’s above treatise, i.e. Iʿlām al-arīb bi-ḥudūth bidʿat al-maḥārīb. The authenticity of many of these ḥadīths has also been advocated by some modern scholars such as al-Albānī.175 In addition to reports on the reproachful attitude of some ṣaḥābīs and tābiʿīs to praying in the miḥrāb, there is only one ḥadīth (of the Prophet) to say that it is not acceptable to adopt it in mosques. This ḥadīth is reported by alBayhaqī who deemed it as ḥasan.176 According to Ibn Kathīr, the salaf, ‘pious ancestors’, denounced the adoption of miḥrābs because they were invented after the Prophet’s time.177 Another reason for resentment could be the fact that in most cases miḥrābs were lavishly decorated.178 Al-Albānī argues that the adoption of miḥrābs cannot be regarded as one of the public interests (maṣāliḥ mursala), because its function as a mark of the qibla direction can be done by other orthodox substitutes, For more details, see Ibn Ḥazm, Muḥallā, iv, 239–40. Ibn Abī Shayba, nos. 4727–38. 173 Al-Azharī, Tahdhīb, v, 17; Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān, ii, 817. 174 See Ibn Taymiyya, Iqtiḍāʾ, i, 349, 351. 175 Al-Albānī, Ḍaʿīfa, nos. 448. See also Ibid, i, 639– 47. 176 Al-Bayhaqī, no. 4304. 177 Ibn Kathīr, Bidāya wa-nihāya, xii, 565–6. 178 See al-Qazwīnī, Āthār, p. 108. 171 172

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such as the position of the minbar, a small miḥrāb set in the qibla wall or a column fixed where the imam usually stands.179 Many of the early scholars, however, refer to miḥrābs as an acceptable device to indicate the qibla direction, an indispensable feature in any mosque.180 Some of them went further to argue that it is even wājib, ‘compulsory’, to adopt them for mosques built in big cities.181 They, however, stipulated that a miḥrāb should not be set higher than the lines of congregation.182 For a majority of scholars, it is jāʾiz, ‘allowed or acceptable’ to perform prayer in it.183 Ibn Abī Shayba reported of quite a number of notable ṣaḥābīs and tābiʿīs, such as al-Barāʾ b. ʿĀzib, Suwayd b. Abī Ghafla (d. 81/700)184 and Saʿīd b. Jubayr (d. 95/714)185 to have prayed in the ṭāq.186 The divergent attitudes reported of the ṣaḥābīs and the tābiʿīs regarding their willingness to pray in the miḥrāb, and which could reflect later discourses and tendencies, did not preclude the agreement of early jurists that prayer would be sound if performed in it (mainly because of the mantra that ‘the whole land is a masjid’). Also, the miḥrāb was, and remains to be, generally accepted in mosques. After reviewing the opinions of earlier scholars, alZarkashī, the author of the most important book on mosque regulations, stated: ‘It is well-known that the adoption of the miḥrāb is Al-Albānī, Ḍaʿīfa, i, 643–7. See, for example, Ibn ʿĀbidīn, Ḥāshiyat radd al-muḥtār ʿalā al-durr al-mukhtār: sharḥ tanwīr al-abṣār fiqh Abī Ḥanifa, 8 vols (Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, 2000), i, 433–4,658. 181 Al-Mirdāwī, Inṣāf, ii, 298; Ibn Mufliḥ, Furūʿ, ii, 126. 182 Mālik, Mudawwana, i, 175; Ibn Qudāma, Mughnī, iii, 47–9. 183 Only few scholars disagree. We are told, on the authority of ʿAbd al-Razzāq (no. 3901), that al-Ḥasan [al-Baṣrī], for example, avoided praying in the miḥrāb. 184 Suwayd b. Ghafla learned ḥadīth from a number of the ṣaḥābīs, including the Rāshidūn caliphs. The ḥadīths he transmitted are trusted by the likes of al-Nakhaʿī and al-Shaʿbī. See: Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, vi, 76. 185 Saʿīd b. Jubayr was a prominent tābiʿī and one of those who transmitted the largest number of ḥadīths in the generation after the Companions. 186 Ibn Abī Shayba, nos. 4739–44; ʿAbd al-Razzāq, no. 3898. 179 180

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allowed—with no detestation at all’. He adds that people until his time adopted it with no objection whatsoever.187 In the same way, miḥrābs are still used in the present time, with common acceptance, even in the two most sacred mosques of Makka and Madina. In practice, however, the miḥrāb developed into a regular feature in mosque architecture due to a number of material reasons. It guides the worshippers to the direction of the qibla. Also, it could have been made concave so as to include the imam (who usually prays individually in the front) and thus save a complete line for congregants. This function of the miḥrāb became particularly essential in light of the ḥadīth that the Prophet used to leave a space of three cubits, or at least the space of what would permit a sheep to pass, between himself and the qibla wall.188 The concave prayer niche would, thus, enable the imam to fulfil this devotional requirement without wasting much space. The miḥrāb would also amplify the voice of the imam, and thus made his recitation and takbīr heard by a larger number of congregants.189 It is also noticeable that the form, number, and positions of the early miḥrābs were not uniform. The miḥrāb may, and may not, be set in the middle of the qibla wall. There is no rule here. For example, it was not set in the middle of it in the Umayyad mosque of Madina, the ʿAlawī mosque at Iskāf Banī Junayd, the mosque of Ḥarrān190 and the mosque of ʿAmr at Fusṭāṭ.191 5.5.2 The minaret In Arabic, three words have been in use to designate the minaret: ‘ṣawmaʿa’, ‘miʾdhana’ and ‘manāra’. The first of these, ṣawmaʿa, is originally used to designate hermits’ towers and granaries. It was also used to refer to the earliest minarets, which were no more than simple cubic structures. Generally, the term ṣawmaʿa is more comAl-Zarkashī, Aḥkām al-masājid, p. 364. Al-Bukhārī, nos. 496, 497; Ibn Ḥajar, Fatḥ, ii, 123; Wensinck, Early Muhammadan Tradition, p. 223. 189 N. al-Ḥājj, Maḥārīb, p. 29 190 On the mosque of Ḥarrān, see Ibn Jubayr, Riḥla, p. 221; Creswell, EMA, i. 2, 644–8; Fikrī, Madkhal, pp. 225–7 191 See Fikrī, Madkhal, p. 298. 187 188

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mon in North Africa and Syria, where minarets built before the seventh/thirteenth century were mainly square. The second term miʾdhana, whose other less familiar forms are maʾdhana and mīdhana, is given such a name for its provision of a high place for adhān, ‘calling to prayer’. It has become the most common term for this classical feature of the mosque from the late Middle Ages onwards. The third term, manāra, from which the English ‘minaret’ derives, comes from ‘manār’ which denotes the place providing people with light (nūr), typically as a result of making fire (nār) on it. Since the manār is usually a high structure visible from a far distance, a feature also held by the minaret, the same term comes to be used to designate the latter.192 Manār also means banner, and possibly beacon, by which people are guided during enormous gatherings in such events as as wars, rallies and parades.193 Just like the miḥrāb, the minaret is seen by many to owe its origins to pre-Islamic structures (such as the ancient Mesopotamian ziggurats). It is true that we possess neither archaeological nor historical evidence to suggest that in the time of the Prophet the mosque had a minaret, as definable today. The latter, nevertheless, was most probably inspired from the habit of Bilāl, the Prophet’s

192 193

Al-Rāzī, Mukhtār, pp. 602–3; al-Zamakhsharī, Asās, ii, 307–8. Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān, vi, 4572.

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muezzin, to call to prayer from the highest roof near the mosque,194 which reportedly belonged to a woman from the Banū al-Najjār.195 ʿUrwa b. al-Zubayr reported of a woman from the Banū alNajjār to have said: ‘My house was one of the tallest around the mosque, so Bilāl used to mount it to call for al-fajr prayer […].’196

According to Ibn Saʿd, however, ‘Once the Prophet put up [the ẓulla of] his mosque, Bilāl used its rooftop to call to prayer; an elevated platform was therein set for him.’197 It might be this platform, which is referred to by other narratives as an usṭuwān, ‘pillar’, (some even called it manāra), that was used by Bilāl for the purpose of adhān. According to some reports, it stood at the contiguous apartment of Ḥafṣa bt. ʿUmar (d. ca. 41/661), a wife of the Prophet.198 The apartment, and with which the manāra, was handed down to her brother ʿAbd Allāh and then to his son ʿUbayd Allāh.199 Bilāl Briggs, Muhammadan Architecture, p. 22; Milwright, ‘Islamic Art and Architecture’, p. 704. The practice of calling to prayer from a raised place is also legalized by reports on the Prophet commanding Bilāl to call to prayer from the roof of the Kaʿba upon the conquest of Makka. See Ibn Abī Shayba, no. 2344; Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, iii, 215. The relevant ḥadīths are reported by Abū Dāwūd under the heading of ‘Entry on Calling to Prayer atop the Manāra’, and by al-Bayhaqī under ‘Entry on Calling to Prayer in the Manāra’. See al-Kutub al-sitta, p. 1262; al-Bayhaqī, Sunan, i, 625–6. They are reported by Ibn Abī Shayba under ‘The Muezzins Calling to Prayer from an Elevated Place, Manāra and the Like’. See Ibn Abī Shayba, no. 2190. Some early religious authorities such as Ibn Jurayj and Abū Ḥanīfa said, based on such ḥadīths, that it is allowed to pray in the minaret (miʾdhana). Ibn Abī Shayba, nos. 6221–2. 195 Abū Dāwūd, no. 519; al-Bayhaqī, no. 1995; al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, 529. See also Wensinck, Early Muhammadan Tradition, p. 12. 196 Abū Dāwūd, no. 519; al-Bayhaqī, no. 1995. 197 Ibn Saʿd mentions the woman’s name as al-Nawwār bt. Mālik, the mother of Zayd b. Thābit. Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, v, 306. See also alSamhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, 529. 198 Ibn al-Najjār, Durra, p. 164; al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, 530. 199 See al-Samhūdī: Wafāʾ, ii, 530; 718. On how the apartments of 194

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is said to have used aqtāb to manage to mount the usṭuwān.200 Known as al-Miṭmār, this embryonic manāra, and which we are told was quadrangular, survived for several centuries and was seen by alAqshahrī (d. ca. 731/1330).201 Ibn Isḥāq al-Ḥarbī stated: ‘We have not been told that the mosque [of the Prophet] had a minaret [to be] used for adhān, other than that usṭuwān and the aqtāb’.202 Sauvaget believed that this primitive upper dais was the forerunner of the typical minaret.203 While such reports imply that the minaret derived from a Prophetic prototype, the later foreign architectural influences it received are incontrovertible. More importantly, the group of the Prophet’s wives and the houses of his Companions were arranged around the mosque, see Ibn al-Najjār, Durra, pp. 152–3; al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, 458–65; 717–34; M. Ilyās ʿAbd al-Ghanī, Buyūt al-ṣaḥāba raḍiya Allāhu ʿanhum ḥawla al-masjid al-nabawī al-sharīf: dirāsa ʿan al-ḥujurāt al-sharīfa wa-l-ṣuffa wa-buyūt baʿḍ al-ṣaḥāba raḍiya Allāhu ʿanhum wa-saqīfat Banī Sāʿida wa-l-Baqīʿ, 4th edn (Medina: Maktabat al-Malik Fahd al-Waṭaniyya, 1999); Ṣafwān Dāwūdī, al-Ḥujurāt al-sharīfa: sīratan wa-tārīkhan (Medina: Maktabat al-Malik Fahd al-Waṭaniyya, 2001). The apartment which Ḥafṣa bequeathed to ʿAbd Allāh, and to which he presumably moved the manāra, was not that which the Prophet built for her, but an abutting one which was formerly a mirbad where the wives of the Prophet used to do ablution. It was given to Ḥafṣa by the Caliph ʿUthmān in return for a part of her apartment which he needed in 29/650 so as to expand the mosque. See alSamhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, 508–10. The remaining part of Ḥafṣa’s apartment was reportedly merged into the mosque in al-Walīd’s expansion in 91/710. Āl ʿUmar, the legitimate heirs of Ḥafṣa, were given as compensation a house known as Dār al-Raqīq. See al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, 514–6; 718; M. ʿAbd alGhanī, Buyūt al-ṣaḥāba, pp. 81–4. 200 Aqtāb is the plural of qitb or qatab. It is a small saddle, usually in the size of a camel’s hump. Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān, v, 3523–4. 201 Ibn al-Najjār, Durra, p. 164; al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, 530. 202 Ibn Isḥāq al-Ḥarbī, Manāsik, p. 368. See also Ibn Rusta, Aʿlāq, p. 70; al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, 526. On these minarets, see Ibn Jubayr, Riḥla, p. 173. 203 Sauvaget, La Mosquée omeyyade de Médine, p. 156. See also Jonathan M. Bloom, Minaret: Symbol of Islam (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 28.

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ḥadīths about adhān must have inspired the early Muslims to adopt for the muezzin a high structure, of no specific form, so that his voice would reach as many people as possible. The expansion of towns and the increase of their populations might have further enhanced the need for such a dramatic feature.204 Ibn Isḥāq al-Ḥarbī added: ‘[Later], when ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz [re-]built the mosque, he provided it with four manāras, one at each corner’. There should have been thinking (during and after ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz’s works) that the mosque ought to be equipped with proper minarets, especially after the adjacent houses were demolished. A majority of Muslim scholars agree that it is jāʾiz to adopt minarets for the mosques on the account that similar procedures were already approved by the Prophet.205 Ibn Abī Shayba narrates on the authority of Hishām b. ʿUrwa (d. ca. 146/ 763): ‘The Prophet ordered Bilāl to call to prayer from the [roof of the] Kaʿba on the day of conquest’.206 ʿAbd Allāh b. Shaqīq al-ʿUqaylī (d. ca. 108/726)207 said that it is a matter of the Prophet’s sunna to call to prayer in the manāra and to do the iqāma, ‘the second call to prayer’ in the mosque.208 It was clearly enough for a certain practice to be judged orthodox, by the Prophet’s immediate followers, once proved to have derived from any of his actions or sayings. The ḥadīths on minarets are reported under such headings as: ‘Calling to Prayer on the Manāra’, ‘Calling to Prayer in the Manāra’,209 and ‘The Muezzins Calling to Prayer on an Elevated Place—Manāra and the Like’, by Abū Dāwūd, al-Bayhaqī and Ibn Abī Shayba respectively. Ibn Sīrīn criticized the then late habit of the muezzin swinging around while calling to prayer in the manāra,210 but he, like other See al-Shihrī, al-Masjid al-nabawī, p. 122. See al-Khuḍayrī, Aḥkām al-masājid, ii, 61–2; al-Sadlān, ‘Ḍawābiṭ’, pp. 12–3. 206 Ibn Abī Shayba, no. 2344; Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, iii, 215. 207 He is a trustworthy narrator of ḥadīth according to a majority of medieval ḥadith specialists. 208 Ibn Abī Shayba, no. 2345. 209 Al-Bayhaqī, Sunan, i, 625–6. 210 Most probably, lest he should—even if unintentionally—glance at women in the neighbourhood. Ibn Abī Shayba, no. 2190. 204 205

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early scholars,211 is not reported to have faulted those who adopted it. However, some Muslim authorities in the present denounce minarets, especially the lofty and ornate ones, on the basis that they are pretentious, superfluous and similar to church towers and steeples.212 These are the very reasons why the mosques built in Arabia by the late orthodox Wahhābīs (eighteenth century onwards) are void of minarets.213 According to this tendency, the past need for minarets is now undone by the introduction of speakers and loudhailers.214 Others argue that even today minarets are still essential as they help such modern devices do their job more efficiently, and because they have become an unmistaken announcement of mosque existence.215 It is argued by Ettinghausen and Grabar that the minarets of the earliest Islamic towns, where Muslims were only a minority, did two functions: conveying adhān to the scattered Muslim individuals, and declaring the presence of an Islamic community.216 It should be noted, however, that the minaret was not a standard component of mosque architecture; some mosques had no minarets at all while others had four or more.217 When was the first standard minaret introduced? There is no agreement in the sources about to whom the introduction of the minaret should be attributed. According to al-Balādhurī, a minaret of stone was introduced for the first time in the mosque of Baṣra in

Some early religious authorities such as Ibn Jurayj and Abū Ḥanīfa allowed praying in the miʾdhana, ‘minaret’. Ibn Abī Shayba, nos. 6221–2. 212 On these views, see, al-Wānilī, Masjid, pp. 18–20. 213 See R. Hillenbrand, ‘Manāra, Manār’, EI2 (1991), vi, 361–8, (p. 361). Some scholars, while accepting the adoption of minarets, strongly criticize elevating and decorating them. See al-Sadlān, ‘Ḍawābiṭ’, p. 13; alKhuḍayrī, ‘Aḥkām’, p. 51; al-Jadīd, ‘al-Masjid fī al-Islām’, pp. 125–7; ʿUthmān and al-Imām, ‘ʿImārat al-masājid’, pp. 145–7. 214 For these views, see al-Wānilī, Masjid, pp. 18–20. 215 Al-Khuḍayrī, Aḥkām al-masājid, ii, 62. 216 Ettinghausen and Grabar, Art and Architecture of Islam, pp. 36–7. 217 Fikrī, Madkhal, p. 276. 211

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the time of Ziyād b. Abīh in 45/665.218 Creswell, while doubting this account for it is only found in al-Balādhurī, suggests the possibility that the mosque of Kūfa was provided with a minaret in the time of Ziyād. Creswell established this suggestion on a report by Ibn al-Athīr stating that the minarets of the mosques of Kūfa were commanded to be pulled down by the governor Khālid al-Qasrī (r. 105–20/723–38). The reason given by Ibn al-Athīr for al-Qasrī’s taking such a radical action could give a further clue as how devotional considerations would influence mosque architecture. AlQasrī heard a poet saying that the muezzin [when mounting the minaret] could see, and communicate with, the people on the roofs of the adjacent houses.219 It is certainly objectionable to build a minaret or use the roof of the mosque to spy on the private life of those living in the vicinity.220 When Saḥnūn b. Saʿīd al-Tanūkhī (d. 240/854), a notable Mālikī scholar in the Maghreb, was interrogated about a similar case, he replied that the patron of the mosque must build a screen wall on the roof to obstruct the gazes of the attendants.221 Other scholars believe that the first to build minarets in Islam was Maslama b. Mukhallad, when he rebuilt the mosque of Fusṭāṭ in 53/673.222 According to Creswell, the four cubic structures

This opinion is mentioned by al-Balādhurī (Futūḥ, p. 485) on the authority of al-Walīd b. Hishām b. Qaḥdham. See also Creswell, EMA, i. 1, 45; Irwin, Islamic Art, p. 64. 219 Creswell, EMA, i. 1, 47. 220 See Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Lakhmī (known as Ibn al-Rāmī al-Bannāʾ), al-Iʿlān bi-aḥkām al-bunyān, ed. Farīd b. Sulaymān (Tunisia: Markaz al-Nashr al-Jāmiʿī, 1999), pp. 77–9; al-Sadlān, ‘Ḍawābiṭ’, pp. 8–9; al-Jadīd, ‘alMasjid fī al-Islām’, pp. 108–9. 221 Ibid. 222 According to al-Maqrīzī, Maslama ordered, at Muʿāwiya’s command, that minarets should be adopted for all mosques except those of Tujīb and Khawlān: Khiṭaṭ, ii, 248. On these four ṣawāmiʿ, see also Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam, Futūḥ Miṣr wa-akhbāruhā (The History of the Conquests of Egypt, North Africa and Spain), ed. Charles C. Torrey (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1922), p. 131. Al-Maqrīzī (Khiṭaṭ, ii, 248) expressly states 218

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(ṣawāmiʿ) erected by Maslama—each at one of the mosque corners—were inspired by the four watchtowers at the Roman temenos of Jupiter in Damascus. These watchtowers are said to have been used as minarets for the Umayyad mosque, which replaced the temenos in the time of al-Walīd (Fig. 24).223 F. Shāfiʿī remarks that the watchtowers, having been not tall enough, served only as bases for the minarets of the mosque. According to others, the earliest minaret was that of the mosque of ʿUqba b. Nāfiʿ at Qayrawān, built in 50–5/670–5.224 Whatever the first proper minaret in Islam might be, its introduction in the Umayyad period should have been prompted by the many ḥadīths about adhān and the necessity to convey this adhān to as many believers as possible.

Figure 24: Drawing of the temenos at the time of the conquest (by F. Shāfiʿī) that the mosque of ʿAmr had no minaret before these four structures of Maslama were put up. 223 This argument of Creswell also depends on Ibn al-Faqīh who said that al-Walīd retained them when he built his mosque. The same opinion was adopted by al-Masʿūdī. On these minarets, see also Ibn Kathīr, Bidāya wa-nihāya, xii, 578; Creswell, EMA, i. 1, 59–61; Jonathan M. Bloom, ‘Creswell and the Origin of the Minaret’, Muqarnas, 8 (1991), 55–8. 224 See Muʾnis, Masājid, p. 56.

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5.5.3 The minbar (pulpit) The word ‘minbar’ derives from the verb ‘nabara’ which means ‘to raise something’, especially one’s voice.225 Technically, the minbar is a ‘raised’ place on which the khaṭīb, ‘preacher’, delivers the khuṭba, ‘religious talk’, usually at the top of his voice. According to Ibn Manẓūr, it is called minbar due to its elevation.226 According to traditions, the first minbar in Islam, a simple one though, was adopted by the Prophet himself in 8/629 to replace the palm stem (jidhʿ) upon which he used to lean when delivering the khuṭba.227 The Prophet stood on that minbar while preaching and sat on it between the two khuṭbas.228 There is, however, disagreement in the sources as to whom the idea and the making of the minbar should be credited. Ibn Zabāla and Ibn Saʿd relate, on the authority of Khālid b. Saʿīd b. Abī Maryam and Abū Hurayra respectively, that the minbar was made for the Prophet by Tamīm al-Dārī (d. 40/660) after the former gained weight.229 Upon his knowledge of the Prophet’s suffering from some weakness in his feet, Tamīm suggested: ‘O Prophet of God! I shall make a minbar for you just as I saw [the people do] in the Levant (kamā raʾaytu yuṣnaʿu bi-l-Shaʾm).’230 Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān, vi, 4323; al-Zamakhsharī, Asās, ii, 242, al-Rāzī, Mukhtār, p. 565. 226 Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān, vi, 4323. 227 On the story of making the minbar, see ʿAbd al-Razzāq, no. 5244; al-Bukhārī, nos. 448–9, 917–20, 928, 2094; Muslim, no. 1216; Abū Dāwūd, nos. 1080–1; al-Bayhaqī, nos. 5229–30,5696–7; Ibn Māja, nos. 1416, 1994–6; Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, i, 215–7; Ibn al-Najjār, Durra, 155–60; Ibn Rajab, Fatḥ, iii, 315–6; al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, 388, 391; Ibn Ḥajar, Fatḥ, ii, p. 90; Qutb al-Dīn, Tārīkh, p. 101; Wensink, Early Muhammadan Tradition, p. 198; Juynboll, Canonical Ḥadīth, p. 584. 228 Al-Bukhārī, nos. 917–20, 928; Muslim, nos. 1994–6. 229 Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, i, 215; Abū Dāwūd, no. 1081, al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, 391. 230 More specifically, al-Shaʾm is taken to denote the north-western part of the Arabian Peninsula that was once included in the Nabatean Kingdom. Al-Muʿjam al-wasīṭ, eds. Sh. ʿA. ʿAṭiyya and others, 4th edn. (Cairo: Maktabat al-Shurūq al-Duwaliyya, 2004), p. 469. See also Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān, iv, 2177–8. 225

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Tamīm’s proposal was discussed by the chief ṣaḥābīs who then agreed.231 This may be why another account argues that the adoption of the minbar was suggested by the ṣaḥābīs collectively (some speak of one anonymous ṣaḥābī)232 so that the Prophet would be easily seen and his khuṭba would be clearly heard by the congregants, whose number significantly multiplied.233 Ibn Saʿd also relates, on the authority of Ibn Shihāb al-Zuhrī, that it was the Prophet himself who put forward the idea and then asked for advice from his Companions.234 The name of the carpenter is no less moot.235 It seems that the disagreement regarding the minbar’s proposer and maker goes back to the first century AH. Those engaged in the controversy went to Sahl b. Saʿd al-Sāʿidī (d. 91/ 710) for arbitration: On the authority of Abū Ḥāzim b. Dinār, a group of people came to Sahl b. Saʿd al-Sāʿidī, disputing about what thing the minbar [of the Prophet] was made of. When they asked him Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, i, 215; Ibn al-Najjār, Durra, pp. 157–8; Ibn Rajab, Fatḥ, iii, 315; Quṭb al-Dīn, Tārīkh-Madīna, p. 101. 232 Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, i, 217. This anonymous companion might be Tamīm al-Dārī. 233 Ibid, i, 216–7. 234 Ibid, i, 216. 235 Some identify the carpenter as Kilāb, a servant of al-ʿAbbās b. ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib. See Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, i, 215; Ibn al-Najjār, Durra, p. 158. According to others, the minbar was made by Sahl b. Saʿd himself who was helped out by an unnamed carpenter, the only one at Madina at that time. See Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, i, 216; Ibn Rajab, Fatḥ, iii, 314–5. Some sources named the carpenter as Mīnā. Ibn al-Najjār, Durra, 158; Quṭb alDīn, Tārīkh-Madīna, p. 101; Ibn Rajab, Fatḥ, iii, 317. Others, however, refer to him as Ṣabāḥ. Quṭb al-Dīn, Tārīkh al-Madīna, p. 102. According to yet another account, he was a slave of Nuṣayba al-Makhzūmī. AlSamhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, 391. Others argue that he was a slave of Saʿīd b. al-ʿĀṣ known as Bāqūl. According to some, the carpenter was a Rūmī convert called Bāqūm. See ʿAbd al-Razzāq, no. 5244; Ibn Rajab, Fatḥ, iii, 316–7. Some accounts, given greater weight by modern scholars, state that it is Tamīm himself who made the minbar for the Prophet. Abū Dāwūd, no. 1081; Ibn Rajab, Fatḥ, iii, 315; Quṭb al-Dīn, Tārīkh al-Madīna, p. 101. 231

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THE MAKING OF THE MOSQUE about that, he replied: ‘By God! I do know what thing it was made of [in another narration, ‘no one else alive is more familiar with this than myself’].236 […]. The Prophet sent to so and so, an Anṣārī woman whose name was mentioned by Sahl [but of which the sub-narrator was uncertain], saying to her: “Ask your slave carpenter to make a wooden pulpit (aʿwād) for me to take as a seat when I speak to the people”. And so she did. He, the carpenter, made it of tamarisk wood (ṭarfāʾ) from the forest and brought it in. Then, she sent it to the Prophet and it was placed here. Later on, I saw the Prophet praying on it and saying: “Allāhu Akbar” and then bowing (rakaʿa) while he was on it. Then, he stepped down off it and prostrated himself at the aṣl al-minbar and then returned. When he finished, he addressed the people and said: “O people! I did that so that you emulate me and learn my prayer”.’237

According to another account, the women first offered to make the pulpit and the Prophet agreed.238 As Ibn Ḥajar suggests, when the work delayed the Prophet asked her to speed it up.239 Early chroniclers, however, agreed that the minbar was no more than a threestep seat.240 The Prophet used to sit on its upper step with his feet resting on the second, which Abū Bakr later sat on when he succeeded the Prophet as the first caliph in Islam. Later, ʿUmar b. alKhaṭṭāb, the second caliph, used to sit on the lower step and put his feet on the ground.241 The measurements, passed down on the

Ibn Māja, no. 1416; al-Bayhaqī, nos. 5229–30; Juynboll, Canonical Ḥadīth, p. 584. 237 Al-Bukhārī, nos. 917, 2094, 2569; Muslim, no. 1216; Abū Dāwūd, no. 1080; al-Bayhaqī, no. 5697; Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, i, 217; Ibn al-Najjār, Durra, 157; Wensinck, Early Muhammadan Tradition, p. 198. See also alBukhārī, nos. 448–9. 238 Al-Bukhārī, no. 449; Ibn al-Najjār, Durra, p. 157; Wensinck, Early Muhammadan Tradition, p. 198. 239 Ibn Ḥajar, Fatḥ, ii, p. 90. 240 Ibn al-Najjār, Durra, p. 159. 241 Ibid. 236

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authority of Ibn Zabāla, reveal that the minbar was small in size and that it had a back and two armrests.242 It is generally noticeable, based on the above accounts, that historians were more comfortable than ḥadīth scholars about the possibility of a foreign provenance, as well as maker, for the minbar. The latter were, perhaps, prompted to think in this way by the previously mentioned ḥadīths on the Prophet’s reluctance about using a Jewish or a Christian device to call to prayer and those asking the Muslim people not to imitate the Jews and the Christians (see Chapter 4). Ibn Saʿd, who held the two characters of a respected muḥaddith and akhbārī, seems to represent the most balanced position in this regard. While reporting most of the above accounts, Ibn Saʿd gives Tamīm al-Dārī a central role in the inception of the minbar. As we just saw, Tamīm is also accredited with either the idea or the making of the minbar according to the other sources. Therefore, the adoption of the minbar could have been first suggested by Tamīm and then approved by the Prophet and his Companions. Having converted to Islam relatively late in the Prophet’s lifetime (i.e. 9/630), Tamīm was a Christian from the Arab tribe of the Banū Lakhm who lived in the then Christian-dominated land of Palestine before joining the Prophet at Madina.243 It is quite possible, therefore, that the minbar of the Prophet was inspired by the type of minbars prevalent in Palestine at that time and of which Tamīm was evidently familiar. This may explain why the Prophet was keen on passing the idea to the ṣaḥābīs for consideration. Unlike the device for calling to prayer, it seems, the minbar was judged as an element of utilitarian, rather than symbolic, significance. Having derived from a Prophetic precedent, the adoption of minbars is seen by most Muslim scholars,244 past and present, as an 242 243

Ibn al-Najjār Durra, p. 160; Quṭb al-Dīn, Tārīkh-Madīna, p. 102. Al-Mizzī, Tahdhīb al-kamāl, iv, 326–29; al-Dhahabī, Siyar, i, 1261–

63. Ibn Hubayra, Ifṣāḥ, i, 233; al-Zarkashī, Aḥkām al-masājid, p. 373; Ibn Mufliḥ, Furūʿ, iii, 175; Abū Shāma, al-Bāʿith ʿalā inkār al-bidaʿ wa-lḥawādith, 2nd edn (Makka: Maṭbaʿat al-Nahḍa al-Ḥadītha, 1978), p. 21; alSadlān, ‘Ḍawābiṭ’, p. 10; al-Khuḍayrī, ‘Aḥkām’, pp. 51–2; ʿUthmān and alImām, ‘ʿImārat al-masājid’, p. 143. 244

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orthodox practice. Nonetheless, many early medieval authorities condemned the high and lavishly decorated ones because they distracted the worshippers, disrupted their front lines and occupied an unacceptably big area at the mosque front.245 We are not helped with adequate information on the earliest minbars in Islam. According to Yāqūt al-Ḥamawī (d. 622/1229), the mosque of Baṣra, for example, had a minbar that was first set in the middle,246 but we have no information on what it looked like. It seems, however, that early Islam’s strictness deterred the adoption of lofty minbars. According to Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam, when ʿAmr b. al-ʿĀṣ, the first Muslim ruler of Egypt, adopted a minbar in the mosque which he built at Fusṭāṭ, the caliph ʿUmar sent a strict message to him: ‘Is not it enough for you to stand up while the Muslim congregation are sitting at your feet?’ He ordered ʿAmr to pull it down. So he did.247 It is said, however, that ʿAmr ‘rebuilt’ it after the caliph’s passing.248 Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam’s use of ‘rebuilt’ suggests that the minbar of ʿAmr could have been an elevated structure, and would hence explain ʿUmar’s resentment. The minbar of ʿAmr, which seems to have had a political significance, was apparently in contrast with other contemporary minbars. As Sauvaget points out: ‘Various evidence allows one to imagine that particular minbars of the first two centuries of the Hijra were very modest in height, a feature shared by the minbar of Muhammad.’249 With the advent of the Umayyads, the use of minbars became clearly more heard of. Muʿāwiya is reported to have adopted for himself a movable wooden minbar of six steps. He is reported to have taken it with him when he visited Makka and left it there until the time of the ʿAbbāsid caliph Hārūn al-Rashīd. We are also told See al-Zarkashī, Aḥkām al-masājid, p. 374–5; Ibn al-Ḥājj, alMadkhal, 4 vols (Cairo: Maktabat Dār al-Turāth, [n.d]), ii, 212–3. 246 Yāqūt, Muʿjam al-buldān, i, 433. 247 Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam, Futūḥ Miṣr, p. 92; Ibn Khaldūn, Muqaddima, i, 455; al-Suyūṭī, Ḥusn al-Muḥāḍara fī tārīkh Miṣr wa-l-Qāhira, ed. M. Abū alFaḍl Ibrāhīm, 2 vols (Dār Iḥyāʾ al-Kutub al-ʿArabiyya, 1967), 132; Ibn Taghrībirdī, Nujūm, i, 85; al-Maqrīzī, Khiṭaṭ, ii, 247. 248 Al-Qalqashandī, Ṣubḥ, iii, 341. 249 Sauvaget, ‘Mosque and Palace’, pp. 127–8. 245

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that some of the Umayyad caliphs used to take their own minbars with them wherever they travelled. This suggests that the minbar may have served, beside its basic ritual function, as a symbol of sovereignty in the Umayyad period and afterwards.250 As far as the origin of the minbar is concerned, an identical passage in both Ibn Duqmāq (d. 809/1407) and al-Maqrīzī (d. 845/1442) is usually considered. Speaking of the minbar that was set in the mosque of Fusṭāṭ when rebuilt by Qurra b. Sharīk in 92– 3/710–12, the passage reads: […] and he [namely Qurra] installed the new minbar in AH 94 and removed the one which was already in the mosque. It was said that ʿAmr b. al-ʿĀṣ had put it [i.e. the older minbar] there—most probably after the death of ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb. It was [also] said that it [i.e. the older minbar] was due to ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Marwān and that it had been brought to him from one of the Egyptian churches. It was said [as well] that it had been gifted to ʿAbd Allāh b. Saʿd b. Abī Sarḥ by Zakariyyā b. Marqanā, the king of Nubia, who had sent along as well a carpenter to fix it.251 The name of the carpenter was Buqṭur of Dendara. This minbar remained at the mosque until it was enlarged by Qurra b. Sharīk [who] installed another one as mentioned above. In villages, the khutba was delivered [while the imam was standing] on sticks (ʿiṣiy) until ʿAbd al-Malik b. Mūsā b. Nuṣayr al-Lakhmī was appointed as governor of Egypt by Marwān b. Muḥammad. [He] ordered minbars to be adopted in villages in AH 132. It was also said that no minbar is known to be older than it, namely the minbar of Qurra b. Sharīk, except that of the Prophet […].252

Scholars have read this passage differently. Creswell, for example, takes it to suggest a Christian origin of the Islamic minbar. He arC. Becker, ‘Die Kanzel’, p. 342; Lammens, ‘Ziād ibn Abīhi’, pp. 31, 33, 36. Horovitz, ‘Bemerkungen’, pp. 258–9; Creswell, EMA, i. 1, 14; J. Pedersen and others, ‘Minbar’, EI2 (1993), vii, 73–80 (p. 74). 251 ʿAbd Allāh b. Saʿd was the ruler of Egypt in the period 25– 35/646–55. 252 Ibn Duqmāq, Intiṣār, iv, 63; al-Maqrīzī, Khiṭaṭ, ii, 248. 250

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gues that the minbar which was brought to ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Marwān from one of the Egyptian churches was seemingly inspired by a sixcentury structure discovered by James Quibell in one of the monasteries at Saqqara, Egypt (Fig. 25).253 This opinion was later refuted by Sauvaget.254

Figure 25: Drawing of the pulpit found by Quibell at Saqqara, Egypt (after Shāfiʿī, 1970)

K. A. C. Creswell, ‘Coptic Influences on Early Muslim Architecture’, Bulletin de la Société d’ Archéologie Copte, 5 (1939), 25–42 (p. 30). F. Shāfiʿī, however, argues that it is the minbar of the monastery in Saqqara that was derived from the Islamic minbar: ʿImāra ʿarabiyya, p. 633. 254 Sauvaget, La Mosquée omeyyade de Médine, p. 140. See also Sauvaget, ‘Mosque and Palace’, pp. 128, 130. 253

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Although al-Maqrīzī and Ibn Duqmāq mentioned different accounts about the older minbar of the mosque of ʿAmr, Creswell, for no particular reason, accepted only one. Of these accounts, two were not mentioned by any earlier historian. Further, the passage contains some conflicting reports and ends with a statement that undoes its whole content,255 that is the minbar of Qurra was the second oldest in Islam after that of the Prophet,256 insinuating that the mosque of ʿAmr had no minbar before 92/711. Creswell linked between the previous passage of al-Maqrīzī and Ibn Duqmāq and another of al-Ṭabarī, according to which the Prophet’s minbar was made by a Roman carpenter called Bāqūm.257 This Bāqūm, however, is also said to have supervised the Qurayshī rebuilding of the Kaʿba no less than twenty five years earlier, whereas most accounts refer to the anonymous carpenter of the Prophet’s minbar as a youthful servant: ‘murī ghulāmaki!” 5.5.4 The maqṣūra The maqṣūra is a chapel-like structure made for the imam to pray inside. The term derives from the verb qaṣara, which means ‘to confine’. This is because the maqṣūra was typically confined to the ruler’s exclusive use. It is unanimously agreed by the early chroniclers that the mosque of the Prophet in his time had no such an element. However, the question of to whom its introduction is attributed is disagreed upon. According to Ibn Zabāla and others, ʿUthmān b. ʿAffān was the first to build a maqṣūra of labin (that also had kuwa, ‘small wickets’, through which the people could see the imam).258 As Mālik b. Anas explains, ʿUthmān built it for fear of See Sauvaget, ‘Mosque and Palace’, p. 129. F. Shāfiʿī, however, accepts that a minbar was adopted by ʿAmr. 256 F. Shāfiʿī, ʿImāra ʿarabiyya, pp. 632–3. 257 F. Shāfiʿī doubted that ‘Bāqūm’ could be the name of a Roman: ʿImāra ʿarabiyya, pp. 625–8. However, while the name does not sound Roman, ‘Roman’ could embrace people anywhere in the Empire, if they were imperial servants, for instance. 258 Ibn al-Najjār, Durra, p. 174; al-Maṭarī, Taʿrīf, p. 232; al-Marjānī, Bahja, 128, al-Marāghī, Taḥqīq, p. 48; al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, 510; al-Maqrīzī, Khiṭaṭ, ii; 247; Pedersen, ‘Masdjid’, p. 661. 255

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being assassinated while in prayer like his former, the caliph ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb, who was murdered during al-fajr prayer in 23/644. ʿUmar b. al-ʿAzīz is said to have replaced it with another of teakwood.259 According to others, the first to build a maqṣūra of dressed stones was Marwān b. al-Ḥakam, while acting as the governor of Madina in the caliphate of Muʿāwiya b. Abī Sufyān, after being stabbed by a Yemeni militant in 44/664. He is also reported to have enhanced it with latticework.260 Muʿāwiya b. Abī Sufyān is also said to have been the first to introduce a maqṣūra into the mosque in 40/660–1, or four years later after he was knifed by an agitated Khārijī insurgent.261 According to others, he adopted it because he saw a dog on the minbar.262 Yet, other historians attributed this innovation to Ziyād b. Abīh, Muʿāwiya’s governor at Baṣra.263 Based on such reported episodes of violence, a majority of historians argued that the maqṣūra was adopted to protect the ruler who also acted as the imam in prayer. Lammens, however, disagrees—his contention being that the Umayyad monarchs were normally escorted by their own guards. He also did not agree with the idea that the maqṣūra was introduced to distinguish the rulers from the laity. According to him, the Umayyad caliphs did not need to do so as they were already distinguished by their position on the minbar. For Lammens, the maqṣūra was a chamber dedicated to the caliph in the congregational mosque so that he would meditate and

Al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, 510; al-Maqrīzī, Khiṭaṭ, ii, 247. Al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, v, 215; Ibn Khaldūn, Muqaddima, i, 455; Ibn Sayyid al-Nās, ʿUyūn, i, 316; Creswell, EMA, i. 1, 42–3; Pedersen, ‘Masdjid’, p. 661. 261 Ibn Khaldūn, Muqaddima, i, 455; Ibn al-Faqīh, Buldān, p. 159; alYaʿqūbī, Tārīkh, ed. ʿAbd al-Amīr Muhannā, 2 vols (Beirut: al-Aʿlamī li-lMaṭbūʿāt, 2010), ii, 132; Pedersen, ‘Masdjid’, p. 661. See also Ibn al-Ḥājj, Madkhal, ii, 206; al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, 511–2. 262 Ibn Rusta, Aʿlāq, 192; Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif, p. 553. 263 Al-Balādhurī, Futūḥ, p. 485. On the introduction of maqṣūra to Islam, see Bloom, ‘Mosque’, p. 429. 259 260

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also rest between successive meetings.264 Sauvaget argued that the adoption of the maqṣūra was mainly to ‘enhance the majesty and prestige of the leader rather than to assure his security’.265 Creswell tries to use archaeological evidence to further enhance the above views of Lammens and Sauvaget that the introduction of the maqṣūra had only little to do with the rulers’ security. He, then, states: ‘The invention of the maqṣūra dates from the time when the empire had become powerful, and when luxury had begun to appear. It has been the same with all the other practices which add to the pomp of sovereignty.’266 Maqṣūras could have been first introduced by the caliph ʿUthmān b. ʿAffān for security purposes, but then evolved into a symbol of authority and ostentation. The different interpretations of why the maqṣūra was mainly adopted date back to early Islamic times and led to different positions taken by the late ṣaḥābīs and early tābiʿīs regarding its legality. A number of these are reported to have prayed in it, while others are said to have criticised such a practice. The first group includes such authorities as: Anas b. Mālik, al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, Sālim267 and al-Qāsim,268 while the other group includes al-Aḥnaf b. Qays (d. 67/687) and al-Shaʿbī (d. ca. 103/721).269 Some of the latter group disliked praying in the maqṣūra as it was introduced after the Prophet.270 While reported to have served other functions than just See H. Lammens, Études sur le règne du calife omaiyade Moʿâwia Ier (Beirut: Imprimerie Catholique, 1906). 265 Sauvaget, ‘Mosque and Palace’, p. 141. 266 Creswell, EMA, i. 1, 42. This opinion is also adopted by Hillenbrand: Islamic Architecture, pp. 49–50. 267 He is Sālim b. ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb (d. 107/725), a tābiʿī who took knowledge from his father, ʿAbd Allāh, ʿĀʾisha, Abū Hurayra, Saʿīd b. al-Musayyib and others. On him, see Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, vii, 194–200; al-Sakhāwī, Tuḥfa, ii, 106. 268 Ibn Abī Shayba, nos. 4642–9. Al-Qāsim b. Muḥammad b. Abī Bakr al-Ṣiddīq (d. 108/726) was a renowned legalist and ḥadīth scholar. On him, see Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, vii, 186–93; Ibn ʿAsākir, Tārīkh Dimashq, xlix, 157–93. 269 Ibn Abī Shayba, nos. 4650–3. 270 Al-Zarkashī, Aḥkām al-masājid, p. 375; al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, 512. 264

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providing the ruler with a private retreat in the mosque, for many of the conservative party it is definitely not in the spirit of Islam to adopt a device that would segregate the ruler from his subjects.271 Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal’s criticism of the maqṣūra is attributed by Abū alWafāʾ b. ʿAqīl (d. 513/1119) to the former’s belief that it was usually related to the tyrants and those obsessed with the pleasures of this world. It is also reported of Aḥmad to have disliked it because of its exclusivity to the rulers and their entourage.272 Such a preferential segregation was indeed the main reason for a majority of scholars to dislike the adoption of the maqṣūra.273 Yet, others, such as the late medieval prominent Ḥanbalī jurist Shams al-Dīn b. Mufliḥ (d. 763/1362), disliked it—whether or not attended by guards preventing the public from praying in it—on the grounds that it usually interrupted the lines of the worshippers.274 As a result, the dispute over the lawfulness of the adoption of the maqṣūra seems to have ingrained the idea that it should not be adopted by benevolent rulers unless there was a substantial menace if not doing so. It was probably because of this that the ʿAbbāsid caliph al-Mahdī, for instance, considered removing the maqṣūras from all congregational mosques in 161/778.275 A majority of recent scholars, however, believe it is jāʾiz to build the maqṣūra and to pray in it considering that there is no canonical form of the mosque.276 Some have even compared it to the partition of ḥaṣir, ‘straw mat’, which the Prophet reportedly took in the mosque to seclude himself for night prayer during the month of Ramaḍān.277

271

Ibn al-Ḥājj, Madkhal, ii, 204–5. See also Pedersen, ‘Masdjid’, p.

662. Ibn Mufliḥ, Furūʿ, ii, 117. See al-Zarkashī, Aḥkām al-masājid, p. 375. 274 Ibn Mufliḥ, Furūʿ, ii, 117. 275 Al-Ṭabarī quoted by Pedersen, ‘Masdjid’, p. 662. 276 Al-Khuḍayrī, ‘Aḥkām’, p. 52; al-Sadlān, ‘Ḍawābiṭ’, p. 15. 277 See Sauvaget, ‘Mosque and Palace’, pp. 139, and the references therein. 272 273

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5.6 CONCLUSION The mosque of the Prophet delivered the prototype of the typical mosque. It also included the rudiments of some of the classical features of the latter. However, the mosque gained most of its unique architectural character in later times (see Chapter 7). This recalls the question of what methodologies could help us weigh up the acceptability of each of such classical features. Some of these are recurrently referred to in Islamic legal writings as bidaʿ, plural of bidʿa. Linguistically, bidʿa, ‘novelty’, can denote a good or a bad innovation. Conventionally, however, the term is used to designate deviant practices and corrupted ideologies that would lead to deforming the orthodox religion.278 According to al-Shāfiʿī et alii, some religious innovations could be acceptable, provided their compliance with the spirit and general principles of Islam.279 Some argue that any action which the Prophet did not do—in presence of a need and absence of an impediment—must not be done after his death and if done, it would be regarded as a bidʿa. Before applying this concept to mosque architecture, we need to know what type of actions are here meant. According to a majority of Muslim specialists, bidʿa is a new way of worship that is based on neither the Qurʾān nor the Sunna. As such, this does not include other worldly activities such as agriculture and construction, for instance.280 One ḥadīth states that people are generally more familiar, than the Prophet is, with the specifics of their worldly life (see Chapter 7).281 Nonetheless, some, such as Ibn Taymiyya,

See Ibn Taymiyya, Iqtiḍāʾ, i, 54–5; Wael B. Hallaq, ‘Innovation’, in Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān (2002), ii, 536–7. See also Ibn ʿĀbidīn (Ḥāshiya, i, 560) who, in discussing the different types of bidaʿ, regarded decorating mosques as a bidʿa makrūha, ‘detested innovation’. 279 Abū Shāma, Bāʿith, pp. 20–2. 280 However, these too should comply with the general Islamic principles. 281 Muslim, no. 6128. See also Chapter 3 and Ibn Māja, no. 2470–1. It is true that Islam has regulated many of these activities such as agricultural and commercial affairs, but that is usually in the context of administering people’s dues and rights. 278

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deal with mosques as worship-related objects.282 This would make applicable to them the above definition of bidʿa, and thus any innovation regarding their form would count as a violation (unless there was no need for the Prophet to do it, or that there was a need but something prevented him). In fact, one would not expect those who introduced or later adopted any of the above or other architectural features of the mosque to have struggled to defend their positions, if the above rule were to be applied. Some, already believing so, tried to relate every feature of the mosque in their days, no matter how spontaneous or clearly non-Islamic it was, to the Prophet’s career. For example, such a natural improvement as the use of comfortable material to cover the mosque floor was legalized through relevant reports attributed to the Prophet.283 This practice of using ḥadīth to substantiate later practices was put into effect widely in the third/ninth century—if not earlier. Notwithstanding, many of these practices were introduced in the context of the progress that occurred to the people’s cultural life, and thus did not need any statutory vindication. In practice, this latter point of view seems to have been adopted by the majority of Muslim people with regard to mosque architecture. They, presumably, relied on two simple, but sufficiently compelling, postulates: that the Prophet did not specify a fixed form for the mosque; and that things are fundamentally acceptable in Islam unless otherwise specified. The Prophet is reported to have said: ‘Ḥalāl, ‘religiously accepted’ is what God has sanctioned in His Book [i.e. the Qurʾān], and ḥarām, ‘religiously prohibited’, is what He has forbidden in His Book. What He has not addressed

Ibn Taymiyya, Iqtiḍāʾ, ii, 348–51. Al-Bukhārī, nos. 380–3; Muslim, no. 1219; Ibn Ḥanbal, Musnad, v, 150; Abū Dāwūd, nos. 458–60; al-Bayhaqī, nos. 4190–200; Ibn Khuzayma, nos. 1004–8; al-Dārimī, nos. 1413–4; Ibn Qudāma, Mughnī, ii, 479– 8; al-Khaṭṭābī, Maʿālim, i, 183; Ibn Ḥajar, Fatḥ, ii, pp. 28–9; Ibn Rajab, Fatḥ, iii, 12–29. See also Bloom, ‘Mosque’, p. 431; Baker, Islam and the Religious Arts, pp. 78–80. 282 283

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(wa-mā sakata ʿanhu) should be taken as a pardon.’284 According to another ḥadīth, ‘God has enjoined obligations (farāʾiḍ). So, do not disregard them. And He has set limitations. So, do not violate them. And He has not addressed many [things], without oblivion. So, do not assume them. This has been a mercy from God. So, accept it’. In another narration, ‘[…] Thus, accept from God His pardon, as God would have forgotten nothing’.285 In the absence of a certain religious rule, this all-embracing precept is believed to have given Muslims freedom of action in different ways in the different aspects of life, provided that no well-established Islamic principle was to be infringed.

Al-Tirmidhī, no. 1726. According to al-Tirmidhī, this ḥadīth is gharīb. According to al-Albānī, it is ḍaʿīf. 285 Al-Ṭabarānī, Awsaṭ, nos. 7461, 8938. 284

CHAPTER 6. A PROPHETIC PERSPECTIVE OF THE MOSQUE: ELABORATION AND DECORATION 6.1 INTRODUCTION The existence of the Prophet’s mosque makes it necessary to discuss his attitude towards what the mosque should look like, i.e. as far as elaboration and decoration are concerned. Such a discussion becomes more plausible in view of a clear recent shift in modern scholarship towards the reception of ḥadīth, attempting to make a sensible use of it for historical purposes (see Chapter 3). The present chapter sets out to deal with this. It will further attempt to understand and contextualize the reasons for the Prophet to adopt or reject a particular ‘artistic’ feature—if that is not too grand an adjective to use here—for the mosque. How did such Prophetic preferences relate to the cultural life of the time? Were they binding or only elective? Such an inquiry, as we shall see, cuts across other topics such as Islam’s outlook on visual arts and aesthetics on the whole. In the following section, we will try to investigate how the Prophet thought of building in general, an indispensable preamble to a subsequent discussion on his perspective of what the mosque should look like. We will also try to give insights into why there are ambivalent traditions on the legitimacy of mosque elaboration.

6.2 DISCUSSING ANTI-BUILDING TRADITIONS The prevalent views on the Prophet’s apathy towards building dictate that, before his perspective of the mosque appearance is surveyed, his attitude to building—as an activity—should be explored. Traditions are full of reports on the Prophet’s abhorrence, at the mildest indifference, towards building. These, however, are indeed 269

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various narrations of three main ḥadīths: one related to Umm Salama; another to Khabbāb b. al-Aratt; and a third to an anonymous Anṣārī individual. The first is perhaps the best known to Western scholarship. Creswell, while advocating the notion of the Prophet’s reluctance towards building, quotes a fairly lengthy passage from Ibn Saʿd, in which the latter gives a somewhat detailed account of the simple apartments of the Prophet’s wives (which were attached to his mosque). Included in this account is a report which Ibn Saʿd relates on the authority of one ʿAbd Allāh b. Zayd al-Hudhalī, who saw the apartments just before being demolished by al-Walīd in 88/707 (so as to be merged in the mosque area). According to this, the Prophet blamed one of his wives, Umm Salama, for building a wall of labin: I saw the apartments of the Prophet’s wives just before being pulled down by ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz [who was by then alWalīd’s governor at Madīna (86–93/705–12)]. They were apartments (buyūt) of labin, having chambers (ḥujar) of palm stalks plastered with mud. I have counted nine apartments with their chambers […]. And I saw Umm Salama’s apartment and chamber made of labin. Therefore, I asked the latter’s grandson [about why her chamber was different]. He said: ‘While the Prophet was engaged in the battle of Dūmat [al-Jandal (5/626)], Umm Salama (re-)built her chamber with labin. Upon his coming back, the Prophet, having noticed the new labin structure, went to her before any other of his wives. He wondered: “What is this building?” She replied: “O God’s Apostle! I wanted to obstruct the gazes of the public!” He then commented: “O Umm Salama! The worst thing on which the money of the Muslims would be squandered is building”.’1

In spite of its presumed perspicuity, the Prophet’s reaction, as reported in this episode, should not be interpreted to reflect an essentially reproachful attitude against building; four out of the nine apartments of his wives had—according to Ibn Saʿd’s account of ʿImrān b. Abī Anas—already been built with labin.2 The Prophet, as 1 2

See Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, i, 429–30; Creswell, EMA. i. 1. 8–9. Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, i, 430.

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seen above, had also used labin and stone for his mosque.3 He, thus, could not have meant that building with labin is a generally wasteful act. Rather, he did not want Umm Salama’s chamber (not apartment) to look distinguished from those of his other wives;4 especially that she, as stated by Abū Dāwūd’s mursal version of the same ḥadīth,5 was a well-to-do woman.6 The Prophet, it seems, was afraid that she might pride herself in such worldly matters. Further, the Prophet, who was just back from a battle, wanted that all the potentials of the first believers—money is certainly included— would rather be assigned to defending and disseminating the new religion. In such a context, any ‘inessential’ act of building would have usually been deemed wasteful and redundant. Later, when Islam had a more stable ground, such activities were admitted. The two accounts of ʿAbd Allāh al-Hudhalī and ʿImrān b. Abī Anas, when considered together, imply an adaptive attitude on the Prophet’s part. In the beginning, only four apartments were built with labin. The other five were made of palm-leaf stalks and daubed with mud. Later, all nine were built with labin. The second of the main ‘anti-building’ traditions, and which is widely regarded by ḥadīth scholars as possessing a good degree of Stone and mortar (jiṣṣ) were likewise applied for the mosque of Ṣanʿāʾ, which is said to have been built in the time of the Prophet (ca. 6/627) at his command and under supervision of one of his Companions (most probably Muʿādh b. Jabal). See Ibn Rusta, Aʿlāq, p. 110. A different, and a palpably more austere, approach is attributed by early chroniclers, such as al-Layth and Ṭāwūs, to Muʿādh when founding the mosque. See Ibn Rajab, Fatḥ, iii, 283. 4 Al-Samhūdī related, also on the authority of ʿAbd Allāh b. Yazīd al-Hudhalī, that all chambers but that of Umm Salama were made of the stalks of palm leaves: Wafāʾ, ii, 541. 5 On the ḥadīth mursal, see Chapter 3. See also Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ, Introduction (Dickinson’s transl.), pp. 39–41. 6 Abū Dāwūd, al-Marāsīl maʿa al-asānīd, ed. A. ʿIzz al-Dīn al-Sayrawān (Beirut: Dār al-Qalam, 1986), p. 237. The ḥadīth is also reported by ʿAbd al-ʿAẓīm al-Mundhirī: al-Targhīb wa-l-tarhīb, eds. M. Nāṣir al-Dīn al-Albānī and Mashhūr Āl Salmān, 4 vols (Riyadh: Maktabat al-Maʿārif, 2003), ii, 753–4. It is graded as ḍaʿīf by the editors. 3

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authenticity, states: ‘A Muslim is rewarded for anything [money, effort, time, etc.] he gives up, except what he pays out in this sand7 (according to another narration, “in building”)’.8 This ḥadīth, however, is not an utterance of the Prophet but of Khabbāb,9 a Companion who according to the same ḥadīth was, at that time, in such a poor health as to declare: ‘Unless the Prophet had forbidden us from inviting death, I would have invited it.’10 Therefore, it could be this glumness on the part of Khabbāb that led him to speak of building in such a negative way. Ibn Ḥajar posits that Khabbāb, here, only meant superfluous building.11 Having the biggest number of narrations among the three main anti-building traditions, the third is the most familiar in Muslim scholarship—particularly in the spheres of religious studies: On the authority of Anas b. Mālik, one day, the Prophet saw an elevated high dome [with crenellations] (qubbatan musharrafatan). When he asked: ‘What is this?’, he was answered: ‘It belongs to so and so, a man from the Anṣār.’ The Prophet said nothing, but kept that to himself. Then, its owner came and greeted the Prophet in the presence of other people, but the Prophet did not reply (aʿraḍa ʿanhu). This continued to be the Prophet’s reaction insomuch that the man became sure of the latter’s resentment toward him. The man complained about that to the Companions, saying: ‘By God, I see in the face of the Prophet signs of resentment for which I ignore the reason (innī la-unkiru rasūlallāh)!’ They explained: ‘When he [namely, the

Al-Bukhārī, no. 5672; Ibn Māja, no. 4163; al-Tirmidhī, no. 2483. This ḥadīth is regarded as ṣaḥīḥ by al-Albānī. See al-Adab al-mufrad li-lBukhārī, no. 353. See also Abū Dāwūd, no. 5237; Ibn Māja, no. 4161; alTirmidhī, no. 2482. 8 Ibn Māja, no. 4163. See also Kister, ‘Booth’, p. 151. 9 All narrations attributing this saying to the Prophet are either weak or very weak. See al-Mundhirī, Targhīb wa-tarhīb (pp. 752–3), and the judgment of the editor therein. 10 See also al-Bukhārī, nos. 6349–50. 11 See M. al-Ghazālī, al-Sunna al-nabawiyya bayn ahl al-fiqh wa-ahl alḥadīth, 6th edn (Cairo: Dār al-Shurūq, 1996), p. 107. 7

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Prophet] went out [the other day], he saw your dome.’ Then, the man turned to his dome and pulled it down to the ground. When the Prophet went out another day and did not see it, he wondered: ‘What happened to the dome?’ They replied: ‘Its owner has complained to us about your resentment toward him (iʿrāḍaka ʿanhu), and we told him [about the reason]. So, he demolished it.’ The Prophet, then, said: ‘Verily, each [affair of] building is against (wabālun ʿalā) whom it belongs to [maker or owner], except what is indispensable.’12

Another narration excepted the mosque,13 and a third excepted the house.14 Some clearly fictitious narrations went so far as to state that the builder of any structure, more than seven cubits in height, is to be called: ‘O worst of all debauchees! To where [are you raising your building]?’15 This and other comparable concocted reports were evidently an extreme response to a rising post-Rāshidūn tendency to vanity and vainglory. They could echo over-pietistic and resentful voices of indigent and aggrieved people in the face of the Umayyad and ʿAbbāsid ‘lavishness’, even if related to mosques. More than markets or other public spaces of any type, mosques were the regular meccas for people par excellence; it was there where cultural, and more importantly religio-political, tendencies materialized. Some rulers, having realized the importance of mosques to their political propaganda, spent huge amounts of the empire revenues on building and elaborating them. As we shall see, nonetheless, such an excessive outlay on mosques sometimes irritated the public instead of satisfying them. In such cases, the ruler had to put forward some explanation (see supra as well as Chapter 7). This may Abū Dāwūd, no. 5237; Ibn Māja, no. 4161; Abū al-Qāsim alZamakhsharī, Rabīʿ al-abrār wa-nuṣūṣ al-akhbār, ed. Amīr Muhannā 5 vols (Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Aʿlamī, 1992), i, 297, al-Mundhirī, Targhīb wa-tarhīb, ii, 752. This ḥadīth is regarded by al-Albānī as ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ. 13 See Ibn Māja, no. 4161; al-Albānī, Ṣaḥīḥa, vi, 794, no. 2830. 14 Al-Bazzār, no. 7473. 15 Al-Mundhirī Targhīb wa-tarhīb (ii, 754), where the ḥadīth is considered mawḍūʿ, ‘forged’, by the editor. On the ḥadīth mawḍūʿ, see Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ, Introduction (Dickinson’s transl.), pp. 77–8. 12

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help us understand the rhetorical layer of some texts in this category. Another ḥadīth states: ‘God has not commanded us to use what he granted us [of bounties] (fī-mā razaqanā) in veneering stone and mud’.16 The complete text of this ḥadīth, however, reveals that the Prophet said so in objection to ʿĀʾisha’s taking a namaṭ, ‘a kind of decorated rug’, as a shutter on her doorway while he was away on a military campaign. This is reminiscent of the above ḥadīth on Umm Salama’s mud-brick construction. It is not practical, however, to argue that the Prophet’s wives took advantage of his absence to introduce such new features; ʿĀʾisha stated in the same ḥadīth: ‘I was expecting his homecoming (fa-kuntu ataḥayyanu qufūlahu)’. This, rather, gives the impression that she might have done so to please him. It is noted that the Prophet, as stated by ʿĀʾisha herself, did not blame her for later making two cushions of this namaṭ.17 According to Abū Dāwūd and Ibn Ḥibbān’s versions of the same ḥadīth,18 ʿĀʾisha used the namaṭ to cover a wall (ʿaraḍ or maʿriḍ), and not the doorway as reported by Muslim. This seems in better accord with the Prophet’s above statement. Other ḥadīths (infra), most probably relating to the same incident, recorded of the Prophet the same reaction—but not dictum. According to these, what ʿĀʾisha covered was a sahwa, ‘niche’, and what she covered it with was a qirām, ‘a (woollen) fabric with marks and figures’.19 Other narra-

Muslim, no. 5520. This ḥadīth is graded by Ibn Ḥibbān as ṣaḥīḥ: Ṣaḥīḥ ibn Ḥibbān bi-tartīb Ibn Balbān, ed. Shuʿayb al-Arnaʾūṭ, 2nd rev. edn, 18 vols (Beirut, Muʾassasat al-Risāla, 1993), no. 5468. 17 According to a relevant narration, she saw the Prophet leaning on one of them. Ibn Māja, no. 3653. 18 Abū Dāwūd, no. 4153; Ibn Ḥibbān, no. 5468. 19 In this narration, the Prophet states that those who compare themselves to the Creator are to suffer the direst agony on the Day of Judgment. Al-Bukhārī, nos. 5954, 2479, (see also no. 374); Muslim, nos. 5520, 5524, 5528–33; Maʿmar b. Rāshid (in Muṣannaf ʿAbd al-Razzāq), no. 19484; Ibn Māja, no. 3653; Juynboll, Canonical Ḥadīth, p. 617. See also Yeomans, Islamic Cairo, pp. 17–8. On the ḥadīths of prohibition, see Ibn Māja, no. 3649–52; Wensinck, Early Muhammadan Tradition, p. 108. 16

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tions speak of a durnūk including images of winged horses.20 Given the above context of early Islam, this was more worthy of being considered by the Prophet as excessive. It is indicative that in later times, i.e. the Umayyad and ʿAbbāsid periods, the erection of high domes and towering minarets usually went uncriticised by the contemporary ulema (see Chapter 7). Their general silence could imply a ‘liberal’ interpretation of the Prophet’s above position regarding the labin construction of Umm Salama and the crenelated dome of the Anṣārī man. They were presumably helped to think in such a permissive way by authentic reports on the Prophet’s applying, on occasion, a less stringent manner. Until his mosque and the first two apartments (those of ʿĀʾisha and Sawda) were built, the Prophet is said to have stayed in a two-storey house owned by Abū Ayyūb al-Anṣārī.21 The Prophet himself is reported to have had a garret (ʿulliyya).22 His attitude as recorded above might rather be understood in the sense of not wanting the well-off to boast about their wealth—a meaning confirmed by another saying of him, ‘the Last Day will not come until the people compete in elevating [their] buildings’.23 Taken for their first value, the three main ḥadīths of interdiction would be enough to depict building as a sinful act or a crime.24 Should they, however, be related to the context in which each was said, our grasp of the Prophet’s actual attitude to building would be firmer. It is revealing, in this connection, that al-Mundhirī (d. 656/1258), the author of the most famous work on al-Targhīb wa-lMuslim, no. 5523; Ibn Ḥanbal, no. 26287. Al-Bukhārī, no. 428; Muslim, no. 1173; Abū Dāwūd, no. 453; alṬabarī, Tārīkh, ii, 296; Ibn Rusta, Aʿlāq, p. 64. See also al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, ii, 398–400; Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, i, 206; al-Dhahabī, Sīra, pp. 232–3; al-Suhaylī, Rawḍ, ii, 336; Ibn Kathīr, Bidāya wa-nihāya, iv, 530–1; Wensinck, Early Muhammadan Tradition, p. 154; Juynboll, Canonical Ḥadīth, p. 487; Quṭb alDīn al-Ḥanafī, Tārīkh al-Madīna, p. 94; Ibn Rajab, Fatḥ, iii, 209; al-Barzanjī, Nuzha, pp. 10–1; Ibn al-Qayyim, Zād, iii, 63. 22 The relevant ḥadīth (no. 5238) is narrated by Abū Dāwūd under the heading of ‘The Adoption of Ghuraf, (Chambers)’. 23 Al-Adab al-mufrad li-l-Bukhārī, no. 350. 24 Al-Ghazālī, Sunna, p. 108. 20 21

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tarhīb, and who collected many relevant traditions, chose the following subheading to report them: ‘Warning against [the Erection of] Superfluous Buildings in Pursuit of Pride and Lavishness’. A related statement by such an early ḥadīth authority as Qatāda (d. 118/736) would further specify the kind of buildings that is reproachable: ‘Each building made in search of pretension (kullu bināʾin riyāʾan) will surely bring bad consequences (wabāl) upon whom it belongs to’. Qatāda, then, excepted the one who builds a mosque even if out of pretension: ‘it is neither for nor against him’.25 The question on glorifying God or wasting money was indeed circulating across Late Antique communities. Similar discourses already existed in early Christianity, as represented in the heated discussions on the relationship between God and Gold.26 In brief, the Prophet, based on the above ḥadīths, did not prohibit building, but rather warned against bragging and lavishness. Such a discretion seems understandable when related to the earliest years, where the situation of the new Muslim community was precarious and their main attention was centred on advocating the new religion; the whole community was permanently engaged in such issues as daʿwa and jihād. It was seen that any ‘secondary’ matters had to be deferred until such a time when Islam would establish its strong state. But this in no way means that building and construction were generally looked upon as wasteful activities in early Islam. The Qurʾān states that the main wisdom, beside worship, for which mankind was created is to populate the earth: ‘huwa anshaʾakum min al-arḍ wa-staʿmarakum fī-hā’.27 This required iʿmār would only be achievable through activities such as husbandry and construction. The fact that the verse addresses the people of Thamūd, who excelled in the latter activity (infra), implies that in Islam construction (if practically practised) should be viewed as a godly, not an outrageous, affair. Let us now see how the above reports on the Prophet’s attitude to building would relate to the urban morphology of his Ibn Rajab Fatḥ, iii, 323. See Dominic Janes, God and Gold in Late Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). 27 Qurʾān 11. 61. 25 26

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homeland (see also the relevant discussion in Chapter 2). In addition to mud-brick houses and orchard enclosures (ḥīṭān), Arabia in general, and Madina in particular, knew a type of architecture called āṭām (or uṭūm, plural of uṭm or uṭum).28 In addition to ḥuṣūn, ‘fortifications’, these served defensive as well as residential functions. They were usually built near water resources and trade roads. In the main, the āṭām were multi-tiered quadrangular buildings including open yards (riḥāb), enclosed by walls and equipped with bastioned entrances. Some were elevated cylindrical structures, i.e. tower houses, rising upward for some tens of meters. The āṭām were frequently constructed of crude stone blocks, ashlars and bricks and cemented with mud. Their walls were usually plastered with stucco and adorned with various drawings and inscriptions.29 Sometimes, the āṭām were populated by tribes and clans that were responsible for guarding the caravan roads; in other cases, they were used as trade hubs, depots for weapons and military supplies, watchtowers or public gathering places.30 There were allegedly 198 of these āṭām at Madina in the time of the Prophet.31 Of these, al-Khayyārī names 59 built by the Jews, 13 by the Arabs before Islam, and 56 built by the Anṣār in reOn the āṭām of Madina. See Ibn al-Najjār, Durra, p. 42; al-Maṭarī, Taʿrīf, pp. 134; 154; 216–7; al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, i, 190–215; id., Khulāṣa, ii, 15; i, 551–71; Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān, i, 93; Schöller, ‘Medina’, pp. 367–8; Watt, ‘Al-Madīnah’, pp. 994–8; A. ʿUbayd Madanī, ‘Uṭūm al-Madīna alMunawwara’, Majallat Kuliyyat al-Ādāb bi-Jamiʿat al-Riyadh, 3 (1974), 213– 26. 29 See D. S. Margoliouth, Mohammed and the Rise of Islam, 3rd edn (New York: Putnam, 1905), pp. 190–1; F. Shāfiʿī, ʿImāra ʿarabiyya, p. 63; alPāshā, Madkhal, pp. 17– 8; ʿAbd al-Quddūs al-Anṣārī, Āthār al-Madīna alMunawwara, 3rd edn (Medina: al-Maktaba al-Salafiyya, 1973), p. 64. 30 See F. Shāfiʿī, ʿImāra ʿarabiyya, p. 63; al-Pāshā, Madkhal, pp. 17–8. 31 Al-Pāshā, Madkhal, pp. 16–8. See also King, ‘Creswell’s Appreciation of Arabian Architecture’, pp. 98– 9. According to al-Khayyārī, there once stood 128 āṭām at Madina: Tārīkh maʿālim al-Madīna al-Munawwara: qadīman wa-ḥadīthan, 2nd edn (Medina: al-Amāna al-ʿĀmma li-l-Iḥtifāl biMurūr Māʾat ʿĀm ʿalā Taʾsīs al-Mamlaka al-ʿArabiyya al-Suʿūdiyya, 1999), p. 29. 28

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sponse to the Prophet’s advice.32 According to al-Samhūdī, nonetheless, the last to be built was an uṭum called al-Muʿriḍ, which the Prophet allowed the Banū Sāʿida to complete after the Hijra.33 The ruins of some of these āṭām have survived to the present day.34 A number of the surviving ones, such as the uṭum of the Banū Wāqif—situated some five hundred meters southeast of the modern Qubāʾ mosque (Plts. 3, 6 & 7)—are linked with the Prophet’s biography.35 The Prophet is even said, on the authority of Ibn ʿUmar, to have prevented the demolition of such āṭām. The wording of his relevant ḥadīth is quite telling with regard to his actual disposition towards building: ‘Do not pull down the āṭām! They are the adornment of Madina (innahā zīnatu-l-Madīna)’.36 It is of no less interest that the Prophet, having been concerned about the fact that not all the believers at Madina could hear the adhān, contemplated commanding some of his Companions to call to prayer from the top of these āṭām.37 Al-Khayyārī, Maʿālim al-Madīna, pp. 30–41. Al-Khayyārī takes a ḥadīth in al-Haythamī’s Majmaʿ al-zawāʾid (no. 5790), in which the Prophet commands those having [real] assets (uṣūl) at Madina to hold onto them and those having not to take assets for themselves, as prophetic advice to build new āṭām: Maʿālim al-Madīna, pp. 28–9. 33 Al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, i, 208–9. 34 Among these are the uṭum of the Banū Ḥāritha (alias, uṭum Ṣirār), the two uṭūm of al-Shaykhān, ḥiṣn Kaʿb b. al-Ashraf, uṭum al-Ḍaḥiyān and uṭum Abū Dujāna b. Simāk. On these, see al-Anṣārī, Āthār al-Madīna, pp. 65–78. Munt, The Holy City of Medina, p. 46. On the uṭum al-Ḍaḥiyān, in particular, see also al-Fayrūzabādī, Maghānim, p. 457. On the uṭum at Ṭāʾif, see T. Kowalski (ed.), Der Dīwān des Ḳais ibn al-Ḥaṭīm (Leipzig: Otto Harrasowitz, 1914), pp. xv–xx; Lammens, Ṭāʾf, viii, 184. 35 See al-Maṭarī, Taʿrīf, p. 216; al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, i, 195–6; Ibrāhīm A. al-ʿAyyāshī, al-Madīna bayn al-māḍī wa-l-ḥāḍir (Medina: al-Maktaba alʿIlmiyya, 1972), pp. 272–4. 36 Al-Dhahabī, Mīzān, ii, 513; al-Haythamī, no. 5789; al-ʿAynī, ʿUmda, x, 327. See also al-Bukhārī, bāb āṭām al-madīna: no. 1878. The āṭām are also described by Ibn al-Najjār to have been a source of ultimate glory (ʿizz) for the people of Madina: Durra, p. 39. 37 Abū Dāwūd, no. 506. 32

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Plate 6: Ruins of uṭum Banū Wāqif (now known as ḥiṣn Banū Miẓyān)

Plate 7: Ruins of the majlis of the Banū Wāqif (included in their uṭum) where the Prophet reportedly used to meet them

Moreover, in most of the communities of pre-Islamic Arabia, stone idols of different sizes and forms were reportedly constructed.38 The description given for some of them by such early informants as Ibn al-Kalbī (d. 204/819) and al-Azraqī (d. 250/864) implies quite a good competence of craftsmanship.39 Also, the Kaʿba was Michael Lecker, ‘Pre-Islamic Arabia’, p. 161. Ibn al-Kalbī, Kitāb al-aṣnām, ed. Aḥmad Zakī Pāshā, 2nd edn (Cairo: Dār al-Kutub al-Miṣriyya, 1924); al-Azraqī, Akhbār Makka wa-mā jāʾa 38 39

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adorned in the interior with images of trees, angels and prophets such as Abraham, Jesus and his mother Virgin Mary. The latter two are said to be the only exception with regard to a Prophetic command to obliterate, upon the conquest of Makka in 8/630, all the images in the Holy Sanctuary.40 Some reports, however, attribute wattle-and-daub structures to a number of Madinan individuals (including the Prophet’s household as we have seen), but these were seemingly ancillary housings. The mosque of the Prophet was surrounded with a big number of labin houses owned by his ṣaḥābīs and an uṭum known as Fāriʿ belonging to his favourite bard, Ḥassān b. Thābit (Fig. 26). The ruins of Ḥassān’s uṭum were coincidentally excavated in 1953 during the first Saudi expansion of the Prophet’s mosque.41 Quite a number of ḥadīths imply that in the Prophet’s time most of the inhabitants of Madina, just like the other towns in Arabia in the first/seventh century, lived in constructed houses. The fact that these ḥadīths concern a variety of topics, not necessarily building, gives them more weight and more point. One of them reckons as a martyr whomsoever dies because of a house collapse (wa-man yaqaʿu ʿalayhi-l-baytu fa-huwa shahīd).42 One narration adds the one falling down from the rooftop of a house.43 Another ḥadīth warns against elevating one’s building to such a height that may prevent breeze from getting into his neighbour’s house.44 These, and other ḥadīths fīhā min-l-āthār, ed. ʿAbd al-Malik Duhaysh, 2 vols (Makka: Maktabat alAsadī, 2003), pp. 187–205. 40 Al-Azraqī, Akhbār Makka, i, 248–54. 41 See al-Khayyārī, Maʿālim al-Madīna, p. 36. On the uṭum of Fāriʿ, see also al-Ṭabarānī, Awsaṭ, no. 3754; al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, i. 210–1. 42 Al-Albānī, Ṣaḥīḥ al-jāmiʿ, no. 4172. 43 Al-Suyūṭī, Jāmiʿ al-aḥādīth: al-Jāmiʿ al-ṣaghīr wa-zawāʾiduh wa-l-Jāmiʿ al-kabīr (qism al-aqwāl), eds. ʿAbbās A. Ṣaqr and Aḥmad ʿAbd al-Jawwād, 12 vols (Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, 1994), no. 14673. While considered ṣaḥīḥ by al-Suyūṭī, this narration is judged by al-Albānī as ḍaʿīf: Ḍaʿīf al-jāmiʿ al-ṣaghīr wa-ziyādatuh (al-Fatḥ al-kabīr), ed. Zuhayr al-Shāwīsh, 3rd rev. edn (Beirut: al-Maktab al-Islāmī, 1990), no. 3927. On the ḥadīth ḍaʿīf, see Chapter 3. See also Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ, Introduction (Dickinson’s transl.), p. 24. 44 Al-Bayhaqī, Shuʿab al-īmān, nos. 9113–4.

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of the same significance, give a strong impression that the Prophet’s coevals usually lived in houses—not tents or arbours as argued by many. The traditional use of restrictive ḥadīths to portray the Prophet as a ‘despiser of building’ seems to run counter to a number of reports implying his appreciation of it. In one ḥadīth, he likens the consolidation of the Muslim community to a construction (bunyān) whose constituents buttress one another. In another, he gives an example for his position among the earlier prophets with ‘a man who built a house and completed and perfected it (fa-akmalahu waatmamahu [in a narration, “fa-ḥassanahu”, ‘beautified it’]), except for the position of a [missing] brick (labina). Thus, the people kept wandering through it, showing admiration and saying: “How beautiful this house is except for that missing brick.” I am the brick as I completed the Prophets.’45 Also in tension with the literalist views are many Qurʾānic and ḥadīth statements about Paradise’s pleasant life and charming lodgings. These, while not necessarily illustrating the Prophet’s attitude towards architecture in the mundane world (infra), are clear enough to attest to his awareness of building and receptivity to architectural beauty. One verse states: ‘But it is for those who fear their Lord, that lofty mansions, one above another, have been built: beneath them flow rivers (such is) the promise of God.’46 There are whole chapters in the canonical compilations of ḥadīth on Paradise and the daintiness of its dwellings, rivers and gardens:47 Abū Hurayra narrated: ‘We asked [the Prophet] about Paradise: of what is it built? He replied: “A brick of silver and another of

Al-Bukhārī, nos. 3534, 3535; Muslim, nos. 5959–63; Hammām b. Munabbih, Ṣaḥīfa, no. 2. 46 Qurʾān 39. 20. See also 25. 75; 29. 58; 34. 37. 47 See Hammām b. Munabbih, Ṣaḥīfa, no. 86; Maʿmar b. Rāshid (in Muṣannaf ʿAbd al-Razzāq), nos. 20866–90; Wensinck, Early Muhammadan Tradition, p. 181–3. On the visions of Paradise in Islamic art and architecture, see Baker, Islam and the Religious Arts, pp. 115–38. On how beauty is appraised in the Qurʾān, see Rosalind Ward Gwynne, ‘Beauty’, in Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān, (2001), i, 212–4. 45

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THE MAKING OF THE MOSQUE gold. It is mortared with musk of the most exquisite quality. Its floor is strewn with pearls and ruby and its soil is made of saffron. He who enters it will have a blissful life and will never grieve […]’.”48

Also in this life, luxurious dwellings are regarded as a pleasant convenience generally. Addressing the people of Thamūd, the Qurʾān records of the Prophet Ṣāliḥ to have advised: And remember how He made you inheritors after the ʿĀd people and gave you habitations in the land: you build for yourselves palaces and castles in (open) plains, and carve out homes in the mountains; so bring to remembrance the benefits (you have received) from God, and refrain from evil and mischief on the earth.49

It is of interest to note that, while in Paradise a blissful life cannot turn into grief, in this life residing in such wondrous structures may bring arrogance, which could in turn lead to turpitude. Ṣāliḥ’s above advice was soon denied, as the Qurʾān states, by ‘the arrogant party among his people’.50 This indeed recalls a number of comparable quotes from Late Antique monotheistic scriptures and traditions. For example, the Bible (tower of Babel), like the Qurʾān, includes several passages that condemn ostentatious architecture as a diversion from the worship of God and the pursuit of the afterlife.

Abū Dāwūd, no. 2526. On Paradise, see also Muslim, nos. 7141– 44; Ibn Māja, nos. 4328–41. 49 Qurʾān 7. 74. See also 14. 45 and 32. 26. Also, the Qurʾān (61. 4.), praising those who fight in God’s cause in battle array, likens them to a solid cemented structure (bunyānun marṣūṣ). 50 Qurʾān 7. 75–9. 48

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Figure 26: Positions of the Companions’ houses around the mosque of the Prophet, after al-Mahdī’s expansion in 165/782 (after M. Ilyās ʿAbd al-Ghanī, 1999)

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The precepts in the above story of the people of Thamūd are quite clear, and may help explain why the Prophet was never reported to have aspired to a fancy life, but this is not to say that he opted for extreme austerity. He, for example, regarded a spacious house as an aspect of one’s felicity.51 He is also reported, through a less authentic account, to have stated: ‘He who builds a structure (bunyān) should build it properly (fa-l-yutqinh).’52 Another ḥadīth states: ‘He who erects a building or grows a plant, not out of prejudice or aggression, will continue to be rewarded for that as long as it benefits any of God’s creatures’.53

6.3 MOSQUE-RELATED ḤADĪTHS: A THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

The discussion in the previous two chapters reveals that the mosque of the Prophet, in spite of its simplicity, could have delivered the straightforward prototype of the mosque. In addition to a distinct and handy outline, it included the embryos of the key architectural features of a typical mosque—as defined in later times. Simplicity was the reigning aspect though. What reasons were there for such a simplicity? Did it reflect a premeditated well-defined Prophetic attitude to mosque architecture? Was it parallel to the simple ritual needs of early Islam? Was it a manifestation of the cultural life related to place and time? On the authority of Anas b. Mālik, the Prophet warns: ‘The Day of Judgment will not come until the people boast at mosques.’54 The same ḥadīth was reported Other indications are a congenial neighbour and a docile mount. Al-Bayhaqī, Shuʿab al-īmān, no. 9111; al-Adab al-mufrad li-l-Bukhārī, no. 355. According to al-Albānī, the editor of al-Adab al-mufrad (p. 175), this ḥadīth is ṣaḥīḥ. 52 Ibn ʿAbd Rabbih, Kitāb al-ʿiqd al-farīd, eds. Aḥmad Amīn, Ibrāhīm al-Ibyārī and ʿAbd al-Salām Hārūn, [2nd edn (?)], 7 vols (Cairo: Maṭbaʿat Lajnat al-Taʾlīf wa-l-Tarjama wa-l-Nashr, 1940–9), vi (1949), 221. 53 Ibn Ḥanbal, no. 15308. 54 Abū Dāwūd, no. 449; Ibn Māja; no. 739; al-Nasāʾī, no. 690; alBayhaqī, no. 4299; Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, al-Waraʿ bi-riwāyat al-Marrūdhī, ed. Samīr al-Zuhayrī, 2nd edn (Riyadh: Maktabat al-Maʿārif, 2000), no. 607; Abū Yaʿlā, no. 2798; al-Dārimī, no. 1448; Wensinck, Early Muhammadan 51

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by Ibn Abī Shayba, but in different words: ‘A time will come when the people build mosques to boast about, but hardly attend, them.’55 Abū Nuʿaym explained: ‘They will boast about the multitude of mosques.’56 According to al-Ṣanʿānī, bragging about mosques can be by simply saying: ‘My mosque is better than yours’, or by exaggerating their elevation and decoration.57 In another ḥadīth, the Prophet, on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās, foretells:’ I see that you will heighten your mosques and decorate them with crenellations (satusharrifūna masājidakum) after my passing, just as what the Jews did with their synagogues and the Christians with their churches’.58 The Prophet is also reported, by Anas b. Mālik, to have advised: ‘Build mosques and make them jumman, ‘shorn of crenellations’.’59 Such was enough for a majority of medieval Muslim ulema to think of heightening and decorating mosques as reproachable practices. Both are linked with two objectionable matters: (i) they are prophesied to occur shortly before the Day of Judgment (it is known according to other ḥadīths that the Day of Judgment will come while the earth is populated with depraved people);60 (ii) and they are an emulation of non-Islamic nations Tradition, p. 154. Although this ḥadīth is reported only through Ḥammād b. Salama (d. 167/783), a notable ḥadīth narrator and grammarian, it is regarded by a majority of scholars, past and present, as ṣaḥīḥ. 55 Ibn Abī Shayba, no. 3163. 56 Ibn Ḥajar, Fatḥ, ii, 85–6. 57 Al-Ṣanʿānī, Subul, p. 154. 58 Ibn Māja, no. 740. This ḥadīth is rated as ḍaʿīf by al-Nawawī and alAlbānī and ḥasan, by al-Suyūṭī. Its meaning, however, accords with a more authentic saying of Ibn ʿAbbās: ‘[Surely], you will decorate them just as what the Jews and the Christians had done’. Abū Dāwūd, no. 448; alKhaṭṭābī, Maʿālim, i, 140–2; Ibn Ḥajar, Fatḥ, ii, 85–6. 59 Al-Bayhaqī, nos. 4300–1; Ibn Abī Shayba, no. 3171. The authenticity of this ḥadīth is widely disagreed upon. It is graded as ḥasan by alSuyūṭī, mursal by Ibn al-Qaṭṭān, munqaṭiʿ by al-Dhahabī, and ḍaʿīf by alAlbānī. According to al-Nawawī, ‘jumman’ means ‘having no shuraf’: Majmūʿ, ii, 208. Ibn Manẓūr explains that shuraf are those [decorative elements] usually put atop palaces and towns: Lisān, iv, 2241–2. 60 Muslim, no. 7373; Abū Yaʿlā, no. 5248.

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from whom the Muslims must differentiate themselves, especially in religious matters.61 As far as mosque form is concerned, we already saw (Chapter 4) that the Prophet refused suggestions to take a Jewish or a Christian device to summon the people for prayer.62 Such deprecatory views seem to be backed by a ḥadīth marfūʿ:63 ‘I have not been commanded to apply tashyīd to mosques.’64 Tashyīd is taken to mean heightening and elaborating in one sense,65 and coating with shīd, ‘stucco’, in another.66 The former meaning, however, is seen by most commentators to be the one meant in this particular ḥadīth;67 mosques must not be elevated to such an extent that would prevent breeze or sunlight from reaching those who live in the vicinity.68 Some medieval Muslim jurists argued that the Prophet refrained from adopting tashyīd, lest it should be taken as a pretext for decoration in later times.69 However, the very words of See al-Bukhārī, nos. 7319–20. On the Prophet’s tendency to criticize the formal observances of the followers of the other faiths (i.e. those who did not believe in him), see supra. See also Ibn Taymiyya who dedicated the whole of his Iqtiḍāʾ al-ṣirāṭ al-mustaqīm to discussing this subject. 62 Abū Dāwūd, no. 498. 63 On the ḥadīth marfūʿ, see Chapter 3. See also Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ, Introduction (Dickinson’s transl.), p. 33. 64 Abū Dāwūd, no. 448; ʿAbd al-Razzāq, no. 5127; Ibn Ḥanbal, Waraʿ, no. 608; Ibn Abī Shayba, no. 3164; al-Bayhaqī, no. 4298; al-Baghawī, Sharḥ al-sunna, ii, 348; al-Ṭurṭūshī, Ḥawādith, p. 104; Wensinck, Early Muhammadan Tradition, p. 155. This ḥadīth is considered ṣaḥīḥ by al-Albānī (Ṣaḥīḥ al-jāmiʿ, no. 5550) and Ibn Ḥibbān, (no. 1615). See also al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, i, 336. 65 Al-Baghawī, Sharḥ al-sunna, ii, 349; al-Zamakhsharī, Asās, i, 529; Ibn Ḥajar, Fatḥ, ii, p.86. 66 Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān, iv, 2374; al-Fayrūzabādī, Qāmūs, i, 303. 67 See al-Baghawī, Sharḥ al-sunna, ii, 349; al-Khaṭṭābī, Maʿālim, i, 140; al-ʿAynī, ʿUmda, iv, 302; al-Shawkānī, Nayl, iii, 557–8. 68 It is reported of the Prophet to have said: ‘There should be neither harming nor reciprocating harm (lā ḍarara wa-lā ḍirār).’ Ibn Māja, nos. 2340–2. On how this principle applies to building, see Ibn al-Rāmī, aḥkām al-bunyān, pp. 57–102; al-Sadlān, ‘Ḍawābiṭ’, pp. 8–9. 69 Ibn Ḥajar, Fatḥ, ii, 86; al-Ṣanʿānī, Subul, ii, 153–6. 61

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the ḥadīth under consideration imply a less strict approach: ‘I have not been commanded to apply tashyīd to mosques’. It does not say: ‘I have been commanded not to apply tashyīd to mosques’. Also, the use of the singular pronoun, ‘mā umirtu’, connotes that the attitude of not applying tashyīd to mosques may be pertinent to the Prophet alone—not all Muslims irrespective of place and time. According to the Muslim belief, some ordinances and regulations are exclusive to the Prophet(s). This view is supported by quite a number of ḥadīths. One of a good weight of authenticity, ḥasan, states: ‘It is not allowed for me, or any other prophet, to enter a decorated house (baytan muzawwaqan).’70 It is noticeable here that the Prophet, while refraining from entering the house (to which he alongside ʿAlī and Fāṭima was invited for a meal), did not blame the host or asked his kin to leave it. As already noted, the mosque of the Prophet, having been mainly composed of an open space and a humble shelter, is usually thought of to fully mirror the above stance of restrictiveness. We have seen, however, that the mosque of the Prophet, particularly when compared to its cultural and geomorphological context, was built with adequate care. Much effort was exerted to prepare the site, which was formerly occupied by dilapidated structures, graves, ponds of stagnant water and palm trees. The latter were cut and (most likely in a while), arranged in parallel rows to uphold the front ẓulla, adobe was moulded, stone foundation was laid, and walls were constructed.71 In the face of the above restrictive reports, we are told that the Prophet wanted his mosque to be

Abū Dāwūd, no. 3755; al-Muttaqī al-Hindī, Kanz, nos. 6355–7. See also Ibn Ḥanbal, nos. 1269, 9040; Ibn Māja, nos. 3649–52; Ibn al-Qayyim, Zād, iii, 458. 71 Al-Bukhārī, no. 428; Muslim, no. 1173; Abū Dāwūd, no. 453; alṬabarī, Tārīkh, ii, 397; Abū al-Faraj b. al-Jawzī, Muthīr al-gharām al-sākin ilā ashraf al-amākin, ed. Muṣṭafā al-Dhahabī (Cairo: Dār al-Ḥadīth, 1995), pp. 462–3; Ibn Ḥajar, Fatḥ, ii, 71–2; Ibn Rajab, Fatḥ, iii, 211; Ibn Kathīr, Bidāya wa-nihāya, iv, 531; Ibn Sayyid al-Nās, ʿUyūn, i, 315; al-Suhaylī, Rawḍ, ii, 337; Ibn al-Najjār, Durra, p. 146; al-Marāghī, Taḥqīq, p. 42; al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, i, 334. 70

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properly built. He not only supervised the work, but also himself participated in it (see Chapter 4).72 Further, the Prophet praised one of the associates, Ṭalq b. ʿAlī, a new convert from the Banū Ḥanīfa at Yamāma, who participated in the erection of the mosque, for his skill in mixing mud and moulding adobe. The Prophet, having been displeased with the other partakers’ inadequate treatment of mud, asked Ṭalq to do nothing but mix mud, and asked them to leave this particular work for him, as he perfected it. Ṭalq narrated, ‘I built the mosque with the Prophet, who kept on saying: “Let the Yamāmī [an epithet of Ṭalq] be close to the clay; he is the best amongst you in handling and moulding it (aḥsanukum lahu massan wa-ashaddukum lahu sabkan)”.’73 The same ḥadīth is also reported of Ṭalq by Ibn Ḥanbal but in other words: ‘I took the shovel and mixed the mud in a way that satisfied the Prophet, so he said: “Leave the mud to the Ḥanafī (another epithet of the narrator); he is the most skilful amongst you in handling it’. In a variant narration, the Prophet exclaimed: ‘This Ḥanafī is an expert in [working with] clay’.74 To encourage the other partakers to play their parts in the same manner, the Prophet asked God’s mercy to be conferred upon those who did their bit in the true sense: ‘May God be merciful to whomsoever does his work in a proper way (aḥsana ṣanʿatahu)’.75 Ibn Rusta, Aʿlāq, pp. 64–5; al-Diyārbakrī, Tārīkh, i, 344; Ibn Kathīr, Bidāya wa-nihāya, iv, p. 532. 73 Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, Aṭrāf Musnad al-imām Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal: almusammā iṭrāf al-musnid al-muʿtalī bi-aṭrāf al-Musnad al-ḥanbalī, ed. Zuhayr alNāṣir, 10 vols (Damascus, Dār Ibn Kathīr, 1993), no. 2948; Ibn Ḥajar, Fatḥ, ii, 89–90; Ibn Rajab, Fatḥ, iii, 303–4. 74 According to al-Samhūdī, this ḥadīth is also reported on the authority of al-Zuhrī.: Wafāʾ, ii, 333–34; al-Diyārbakrī, Tārikh, i, 344. 75 This ḥadīth has long been thought of as not included in any of the ‘nine’ canonical collections, which include beside the six known ones each of Muwaṭṭʾ Mālik, Sunan al-Dārimī and Musnad Aḥmad. It is, however, found in a recent, and a more complete, edition of the latter in a section entitled ‘al-Mulḥaq al-mustadrak min musnad al-Anṣār’. See Musnad al-imām Aḥmad (al-Turkī’s ed.), xxxix, 463, 465–6. The same ḥadīth is also reported by al-Samhūdī on the authority of al-Zuhrī: Wafāʾ, ii, 333–34. On this 72

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He further urged, using almost the same terms, that the same approach of maintaining proper work (ḥusn al-ṣanʿa) be applied to all other mosques. Samura b. Jundub narrated: ‘The Prophet commanded us to build mosques in our dūr, ‘communities of kinship’, and to build them properly (nuṣliḥa ṣanʿatahā) and clean them’.76 In ʿĀʾisha’s narration of the same ḥadīth: ‘[…], and commanded that they [namely mosques] should be cleaned and scented’.77 It is also recorded of the Prophet, through a weak ḥadīth nevertheless,78 to have praised Tamīm al-Dārī for illuminating, for the first time, the mosque with oil lamps brought from al-Shām (although Tamīm did not ask for permission to apply such a ‘novelty’): ‘You have illuminated Islam! May God grant you light in this and the next world! Had I had an unmarried daughter, I would have surely got her married to you!’79 The same thing applies to the Prophet’s reaction to the first use of pebbles to cover the floor of the mosque.80 In each of the above episodes, the Prophet approved a device/matter, which he had not ordained. Such spontaneous improvements are

ḥadīth of Ṭalq, see also Ibn al-Athīr, Jāmiʿ al-uṣūl fī aḥādīth al-Rasūl, ed. ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Arnaʾūṭ, 12 vols (Damascus, Maktabat Dār al-Bayān, 1969– 72), no. 8716; Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, viii, 113; al-Diyārbakrī, Tārīkh, i, 344; Ibn Ḥajar, Aṭrāf Musnad al-imām Aḥmad, no. 2948; Ibn Ḥajar, Fatḥ, ii, 89–90; Ibn Rajab, Fatḥ, iii, 303–4. 76 Abū Dāwūd, no. 456; Ibn Ḥanbal, no. 20060; al-Bayhaqī, no. 4309; Wensinck, Early Muhammadan Tradition, p. 154. This ḥadīth is seen as ṣaḥīḥ by al-Haythamī and ḥasan by al-Albānī. While reported to us through a weak strand of transmitters, the ḥadīth is backed by another of the same meaning that narrated by ʿĀʾisha. 77 Al-Tirmidhī, no. 594; Abū Dāwūd, no. 455; al-Bayhaqī, no. 4308; Ibn Māja, nos. 758–8; Ibn Khuzayma, no. 1294; al-Bazzār, no. 4622; alBaghawī, Sharḥ al-sunna, ii, 399; al-Khaṭṭābī, Maʿālim, i, 142. 78 It is considered ḍaʿīf by Ibn Ḥajar: Iṣāba, i, 191. 79 See Ibn Māja, no. 760; al-Jurāʿī, Tuḥfa, p. 362. 80 Ibn ʿUmar narrated: ‘One night, we became wet because of rain, insomuch that each one [of us] began to collect pebbles using his own clothes and strew them beneath himself. The Prophet then applauded: ‘How good this is!’ Abū Dāwūd, nos. 458–60.

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quite attuned to what is known about Islam’s appreciation of doing work in a thoughtful manner (itqān al-ʿamal) (see Chapter 7). The above reports, however, seem to convey two paradoxical attitudes, on the Prophet’s part, regarding what the mosque should look like, i.e. in terms of austerity vs. betterment. This paradoxicality can, of course, be indicative of another context for the shaping of ḥadīth, as couched in the later relevant discussions between the holders of different positions. We, thus, need to try to explore the actual standards which the Prophet considered to approve or deny an ‘architectural’ feature for the mosque. Reported by Ibn Zabāla, the following story may bring us a bit closer to this. The Prophet is reported, on the authority of Khālid b. Maʿdān (d. ca. 103/721), to have approached the mosque of Madina while being surveyed by ʿAbd Allāh b. Rawāḥa and Abū al-Dardāʾ,81 who used a qaṣaba, ‘gauging rod’, for that purpose. He wondered: ‘What are you doing?’ They replied: ‘We want to (re-)build the mosque after the Syrian buildings (ʿalā bināʾ al-Shām): a work to be shared out between the Anṣār.’ The Prophet took the qaṣaba, threw it away saying: ‘No! I want it in the form of thumām—a few pieces of wood and twigs, and an arbour like that of Moses, as he explained. The Prophet, then, commented: ‘The affair [namely this life] is more evanescent than that’.82 According to other accounts, he was asked: ‘What is

According to some accounts, Ibn Rawāḥa was accompanied by Ubayy b. Kaʿb. See Kister (‘Booth’, pp. 150–1), and the references therein. 82 ʿAbd al-Razzāq, no. 5135; al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, i, 339; Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, i, 206; al-Ṭurṭūshī, Ḥawādith, p. 104; Ibn Baṭṭūṭa, Riḥla, i, 84; Ibn Rajab, Fatḥ, iii, 281–2. Al-Samhūdī et alii mentioned a similar ḥadīth according to which, ‘the Anṣār collected money and came [with it] to the Prophet saying: “O Prophet of God! Build the mosque and adorn it for us! Until when shall we pray under these palm fronds?” […].’ See alSamhūdī, Khulāṣa, ii, 15. According to Ibn Kathīr, however, this ḥadīth is gharīb, i.e. reported by only one transmitter on the authority of his shaykh or informant: Bidāya wa-nihāya, iv, 532–3. 81

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the arbour of Moses?’ and he replied: ‘When he stood up, his head touched the celling’.83 This is not to say, nonetheless, that the Prophet did not respond to the needs dictated by location, climate, etc. As already seen, he adopted stone for the foundation of his mosque to stand firm against the usual torrents (Chapters 2 and 4). Such a responsiveness is also represented by the Prophet’s adoption of the minbar and his making of the ẓulla at behest of his Companions. Furthermore, he rebuilt his mosque a number of times to accommodate the speedily growing number of congregation, and each time a new part was added and a better method of building was applied. According to tradition,84 the walls of the mosque were first built using a vernacular building technique called al-samīṭ. It was simply one adobe on top of the other.85 In the second phase, a better technique was used, al-saʿīda, making the wall one brick and a half in thicknesses. Here, bricks of two different sizes were employed. In the third phase, yet a better building technique was applied, aldhakar wa-l-unthā, the wall thickness being made of two pairs of brick placed crosswise (Fig. 27).86 In this phase, the walls were made particularly thick so as to hold the roof whose introduction, presumably for the first time, also dictated raising the wall height (see Chapter 4).87 Al-Samhūdī tells us that he saw, during the restoration works of the Mamlūk sultan Qāytbāy in 879/1474, a number of antique bricks of two different sizes taken from the walls of the Prophet’s apartments. According to him, these might have been some of the mud bricks once used in the time of the Prophet, as they were fitSee Ibn Rusta, Aʿlāq, p. 66; al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, i, 339; al-Sakhāwī, Tuḥfa, i, 43. An abridged form of this account is mentioned in a ḥadīth reported by al-Bayhaqī in his Dalāʾil. This ḥadīth, however, is judged by Ibn Kathīr as mursal: Bidāya wa-nihāya, iv, 532. 84 Ibn al-Najjār, Durra, p. 147; al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, i, 335–36; alSakhāwī, Tuḥfa, i, 45; Quṭb al-Dīn, Tārīkh al-Madīna, p. 93; al-Diyārbakrī, Tārīkh, i, 346. 85 Ibn al-Najjār, Durra, p. 147; Quṭb al-Dīn, Tārīkh al-Madīna p. 93. 86 Ibn al-Najjār, Durra, p. 70; al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, i, 346. 87 Al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, i, 335. 83

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ted in a later wall made wholly of kiln-baked bricks, and they were kept there most likely to invoke blessings.

a

b

c

d

e Figure 27: Different kinds of bricks and techniques used by the Prophet to build his mosque (after al-Shihrī, 2001) (a) First type of adobe; (b) Second type; (c) al-samīṭ; (d) al-sāʿida; (e) aldhakar wa-l-unthā

These were deemed basic ‘architectural’ arrangements, and thus approved by the Prophet. The elaboration of the building, on the other hand, was looked upon as surplus—even if the Companions’ aspiration was, according to other episodes, brought down to only treating the ẓulla with more mud,88 or applying a kohl-like paint to the walls.89 In both incidents, the Prophet insisted: ‘[I want it in the form of] a ʿarīsh as that of Moses’. The above phrase, ‘the affair is more evanescent than that (al-amru aʿjalu min dhālik)’, is of a particular significance for our discussion; it brings out one reason for Al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, i, 335. Ibn Ḥanbal, Waraʿ, no. 612; al-Diyārbakrī, Tārīkh, i, 346; Ibn Rajab, Fatḥ, iii, 282; al-Zarkashī, Aḥkām al-masājid, pp. 335–7. 88 89

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which the Prophet did not want his mosque to be massive or elaborate, i.e. considering the transitory nature of this life. According to many Qurʾānic verses and ḥadīths, the obsession with this life would lead to losing sight of the afterlife and in turn backsliding to worldly interests.90 It is interesting to note that, unlike the case with erecting mosques on graves, for instance, where the repercussion is no less than God’s wrath, the Prophet did not specify any punishment for the elaboration of mosques.91 It could be safely argued, then, that the more untoward the repercussions of a transgression, the more plainspoken the reason for interdiction and the bigger the penalty promised. It is quite difficult to believe that the Prophet wanted the mosque to look wretched while himself asked the worshippers, through some sound ḥadīths, to spruce up before attending it.92 The Qurʾān itself commands: ‘O children of Adam! Wear your beautiful apparel at every time and place of prayer: eat and drink: but waste not by excess, for God loves not the wasters’.93 Just like building, both clothing and eating, while made for people’s delight, should not be approached excessively or in any wasteful manner. It seems See Qurʾān 2. 86; 2. 204; 3. 14; 3. 152; 3. 185; 4. 77; 4. 94; 4. 32; 6. 70; 7. 51; 8. 67; 9. 38; 10. 24; 13. 26; 14. 3; 18. 45; 29. 64; 31. 33; 57. 20. In addition, whole chapters in the canonical books of ḥadīth are dedicated to discussing this issue, usually under the title, ‘K. al-zuhd’, ‘Book of Asceticism’. 91 The ḥadīth which vows destruction as a punishment for decorating mosques is reported by al-Ṭurṭūshī (Ḥawādith, p. 105), al-Baghawī (Sharḥ al-sunna, ii, 350), and al-Zarkashī (Aḥkām al-masājid, p. 337) as a statement by Abū al-Dardāʾ. It is widely judged as mawqūf. See Ibn Ḥanbal, Waraʿ, no. 606. On the ḥadīth mawqūf, see Chapter 3. See also Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ, Introduction (Dickinson’s transl.), p. 34. Others (al-Muttaqī al-Hindī, no. 23125; Saʿīd b. Manṣūr, Sunan (Part 4), no. 165) report this ḥadīth as the saying of Abū Hurayra. It is regarded by Āl Ḥumayyid, the editor of the latter work (ii, 486–90), as ḍaʿīf, while al-Albānī (Ṣaḥīḥ al-jāmiʿ, no. 585) ranks it as ṣaḥīḥ. 92 Abū Dāwūd, no. 1078; Ibn Māja, nos. 1095–8; Ibn Ḥibbān, no. 2777; Ibn Khuzayma, no. 1765. 93 Qurʾān 7. 31. 90

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that the many incidents in which the Prophet warned against bragging about such matters caused some to get bewildered. One man wondered whether it is of pride (kibr) to have a clean garment, anointed hair, a new footwear, etc. The Prophet replied: ‘God is beautiful; He loves beauty.94 He also loves to see the effect of His bounties on His servant, (and hates misery or affecting it, ‘wayakrahu l-buʾsa wa-l-tabāʾus’).95 Pride is to stultify the truth and disdain the people’.96 This meaning complies with the Qurʾān, which, just following the above verse on beautifying for prayer, asks: Say: Who has forbidden the beautiful (gifts) of God, which He has produced for His servants, and the things, clean and pure, (which He has provided) for sustenance? Say: They are, in the life of this world, for those who believe, (and) purely for them on the Day of Judgment. Thus We explain the signs in detail for those who know. Say: The things that my Lord has indeed forbidden are: indecent deeds, whether open or secret; sins and trespasses against truth or reason […].97

In one ḥadīth, the Prophet further sets a conspicuous principle to follow: ‘Eat whatever you want and wear whatever you want, as long as you avoid two features: lavishness and pride.’98 It is true that he was usually dressed in simple clothes, but he is also reportA sign for God’s loving of beauty is highlighted by the Qurʾān, where one reason for which stars are created is to adorn the sky for those looking at it: Qurʾān 15. 16; 37. 6; 41. 12; 50. 6; 67. 5. 95 The latter addition is a narration of both Abū Hurayra and Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī. See al-Suyūṭī, Jāmiʿ al-aḥādīth, nos. 5234, 5324. See also no. 833. 96 Al-Ṭabarānī, Awsaṭ, nos. 4668, 6633; al-Albānī, ṣaḥīḥa, iv, 165–8; al-Ṭaḥāwī, Sharḥ mushkil al-āthār, ed. Shuʿayb al-Arnaʾūṭ, 16 vols (Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Risāla, 1994), nos. 5557–63 (at 5559). 97 Qurʾān 7. 32–3. 98 Ibn Abī Shayba, nos. 25374–5; Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, Hidāyat alruwāh ilā takhrīj aḥādīth ‘al-Maṣābīḥ’ wa ‘al-Mishkāh’, eds. M. Nāṣir al-Albānī and A. Ḥasan al-Ḥalabī, 6 vols (Dammam: Dār Ibn al-Qayyim, 2001), nos. 4306–7. This ḥadīth is also reported by al-Bukhārī, but as a comment (taʿlīqan). See Hidāyat al-ruwāh, iv, 217. 94

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ed to have on occasion worn luxurious attires.99 Also, when ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAbbās went to the Ḥarūriyya, a branch of the Khārijīs who denied ʿAlī’s right to the caliphate, to discuss the issue with them, he reportedly loved to wear the best type of a Yemeni costume. When they looked angrily at him, he said: ‘What are you criticizing about me? I saw the Prophet clad in the best outfits’.100 Meanwhile, the Prophet was often keen on linking his followers with the unwavering pleasure, i.e. that of the Hereafter. He is reported to have once worn a jubba of dībājj or sundus, interwoven with gold threads, that he was gifted. He ascended the minbar, sat down but did not speak. When he descended, the people kept on touching and looking admirably at it. Having been concerned about them getting over fascinated by such a dazzling outfit, he said to them: ‘Are you amazed with it?’ They replied: ‘We have not seen a better dress!’ He then said: ‘The kerchiefs of Saʿd b. Muʿādh [a martyr ṣaḥābī] in Paradise are assuredly more elegant than what you see!’101 The Prophet always accentuated that spiritual qualities are more important than physical features or material belongings: ‘Verily God does not look at [namely, consider] your looks or wealth, but He does with your hearts and deeds.’102 Thus, the tendency in ḥadīth to apply simplicity to building could, in addition to resisting pride and lavishness, be attributed to that early Islam did not want its followers to be attached to any transient matter or object—here represented in structures. The group of ḥadīths urging the believers to offer prayer at certain mosques denote spaces and not structures.103 This is reminiscent of a Daoist concept, according to which the value of a bowl is in its emptiness (i.e. space), not See al-Bukhārī, nos. 5783–849; Muslim, nos. 5401–51; Abū Dāwūd, nos. 4020–79; al-Tirmidhī, nos. 1720–35. 100 Abū Dāwūd, no. 4037. 101 Al-Tirmidhī, no. 1723; al-Bukhārī, no. 5836; Muslim, nos. 6348– 52. 102 Muslim, no. 6543. 103 Three particular mosques are usually concerned with the highest reward for praying in them. These are al-Masjid al-Ḥarām at Makka, the Aqṣā mosque in Jerusalem and the mosque of the Prophet at Madina. See al-Bukhārī, nos. 1189, 1197, 1846, 1995. 99

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form; for pious Muslims, it seems, the value of a masjid is in their prostration to God in it, not the physical forms of their bodies or the surrounding structure. During the earliest years, there was an unequivocal Islamic resistance to the veneration of objects or structures.104 There is nothing in mainstream Islam that would compare to the Ark of the Covenant, for instance, which according to the Qurʾān itself incurred tranquility, guidance and triumph to the Banū Israel after Moses. From the outset, the Prophet was reportedly keen to face such a ‘creedal menace’; he continued to warn against it down to the last moments of his life. He was seriously concerned that his own grave would turn into an object of pilgrimage in later times (see Chapter 5).105 Also, the so-called tree of God’s satisfaction (shajarat al-riḍwān), which allegedly witnessed the pledge sworn to the Prophet by his Companions at Ḥudaybiyya to retaliate for the rumoured assassination of ʿUthmān b. ʿAffān in 6/628,106 is said to have been later eradicated by the caliph ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb who was concerned about the people starting to call on it for prayer and supplication.107 Islamic tradition is generally strict against the making, adoption of or belief in totems, talismans or amulets. There is a whole subset of ḥadīth criticizing ruqā, tamāʾim and tiwala, regarding these as aspects of polytheism. Quite a big number of ḥadīths urge Muslims not to laud structures or even apply to them any sort of significance (i.e. through such practices as elaboration, decoration, etc.). Where did this aniconism derive from? Apart from some Jewish and Christian communities in pre-Islamic Arabia, old monotheism was immensely adulterated by a number of polytheistic practices. Household idols and tribal gods were some clear manifestations of this religious

See Abū Dāwūd, no. 5237; Ibn Māja, no. 4161; al-Tirmidhī, no. 2180. See also Abū Shāma, Bāʿith, pp. 23–5. 105 On such ḥadīths, see Mālik, Muwaṭṭaʾ, no. 571; al-Dārimī, no. 1443; Ibn Ḥajar, Fatḥ, ii, 78; Ibn Taymiyya, Iqtiḍāʾ, i, 298–303. 106 Ibn Hishām, Sīra iii, 261–9. 107 Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt ii, 93–6. 104

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context.108 Admittedly, however, and due to rarity of material evidence, we know really little about the religious landscape of seventh-century Arabia. In addition, the Arabs, before Islam, did not show much interest in recording their history.109 Apart from some ancient poems, prose and genealogies, our information about life in pre-Islamic Arabia is mainly based on works by early Muslim historians, such as Wahb b. Munabbih (d. ca. 114/732) and Hishām b. al-Kalbī,110 according to whom, Arabia knew idols of different forms, materials and meanings (supra).111 Islam’s crucial liability as recurrently declared by the Qurʾān itself was to put an end to polytheism and paganism and reinstate uncompromising monotheism,112 as once did Abraham:113 ‘Remember Abraham said: “O my Lord! Make this city [i.e. Makka] one of peace and security; and preserve me and my sons from worshipping idols. O my Lord! They have indeed led astray many among mankind […]”.’114 While See Gerald Hawting, ‘Idolatry and Idolaters’, in Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān (2002), ii, pp. 475–80; Lapidus, Islamic Societies, 14–17; Irfan Shahȋd, ‘Pre-Islamic Arabia’, 24. 109 For a survey of the history and literary environment of preIslamic Arabia, see M. C. A. McDonald, Literacy and Identity in Pre-Islamic Arabia (Surrey: Ashgate, 2008). See also al-Dūrī, Rise of Historical Writing, pp. 14–20. Schoeler, Genesis, pp. 16–24. 110 For a detailed list of the early Muslim scholars who wrote about the jāhilī period and their works on this topic, see Sezgin, Geschichte (Ḥijāzī’s transl.), ii, 27–63. 111 See Ibn Isḥāq, Sīra i, 60–5; Ibn al-Kalbī, Aṣnām; Ibn Hishām, Sīra, i, 63, 93–104. See also M. Lecker, ‘Pre-Islamic Arabia’ 161–3. For a critique of Ibn al-Kalbī’s account of the idols in pre-Islamic Arabia, see Jamal J. Elias, Aisha’s Cushion: Religious Art, Perception, and Practice in Islam (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2012), 102–7. 112 See Jonathan Berkey, ‘Islam’, in Robert Irwin (ed.), The New Cambridge History of Islam Volume 4: Islamic Cultures and Societies to the End of the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), pp. 19– 59 (20–3). 113 On idols and the religion of Abraham, see J. Elias, Aisha’s Cushion, 108–11. 114 Qurʾān 14. 35–6. 108

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en route to defeat paganism,115 Islam prohibited the adulation of representations, tombs, structures and indeed any material object. We just saw that, upon the conquest of Makka, the Prophet commanded that all the pagan symbols around the Kaʿba and all the images that were hung on its interior walls and columns throughout time ought to be eliminated.116 Contrary to paganism where divinities were given corporal forms, Islam demands its followers to have faith in the Unseen, the one and only God who is definable in transcendent terms exclusively.117 It is in the same vein that spiritual merits were emphatically given more weight than ‘carnal’ traits or material properties. This may explain Islam’s preference, particularly in matters of religious art, of what is non-representational over what is representational. As Kuban puts it, ‘a dependence on any implied value in forms is inherently anti-Islamic. Forms are transient. Only Allāh, who is formless, is eternal. Thus the perception of any continuity of form is not a religious but a cultural attitude’.118 For many modern scholars, there was a stark break with the practices of Late Antiquity. Nor is there a parallel in the Muslim culture for the mediaeval Christian preoccupation with religious symbolism, which is likewise echoed in the Latin Bestiary in the middle Byzantine mosaic programmes.119 However, while Islam is better described as aniconistic than iconoclastic, its general denunciation of representations and statuSee Gerald Hawting, ‘Idols and Images’, in Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān (2002), ii, 481–4. 116 See Abū Dāwūd, no. 4156. 117 Qurʾān 2. 3; 5. 94; 21. 49; 35. 18; 36. 11; 50. 33; 67. 12. 118 Doğan Kuban, ‘Symbolism in Its Regional and Contemporary Context’, in Jonathan G. Katz (ed.), Architecture as Symbol and Self-Identity (Philadelphia: the Ağa Khan Award for Architecture, 1980), pp. 12–7 (p. 13). This is not to say, however, that Islamic art did not develop symbolic dimensions in later times. The minaret, for example, has become more symbolic than utilitarian; its main function now is visually to announce the presence of a mosque or of a Muslim community rather than to be used by muezzins to call to the prayer. 119 See Hillenbrand, Islamic Architecture, p. 16. 115

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ary brings to mind the recurrent iconoclastic campaigns in the Christian history as championed by such Byzantine emperors as Leo III (r. 717–41) and then and more vigorously and systematically by his son and successor Constantine V (r. 741–75). The anxieties reflected in the early Islamic textual evidence are very coherent, indeed, with Jewish and early Christian debates around the legitimacy of images in the religious context. Islam, however, opted very consistently for one approach to the detriment of other positions. Islam’s early and sturdy rejection of ‘pagan’ practices reflects an earlier and sturdier conviction that obsession with material objects is an old and ingrained human proclivity. The tendency to catch a symbolic hold of whatever cherished, praised or even feared seems to have convinced mankind to give deities material forms since the dawn of history.120 In Islam, the mosque gained its reverence from that of the rites it was made to accommodate, i.e. ṣalāh, dhikr, iʿtikāf, etc. In later times, however, and due to different cultural milieus, a new type of holy places, i.e. funerary, emerged. Countless mausolea, sepulchres and cenotaphs were erected in different parts of the Muslim world by patrons and clients and were visited by the public to supplicate, seek intercession and give offerings. The expression ‘mujarrab’ (verified) is normally used by the sources to confirm the prestige of a given place as where supplications and appeals are likely to be answered.121

6.4 DECORATION Mainly depending on relevant ḥadīths and ensuing discussions of early jurists, we will try in this part of the study to examine the early See Essam S. Ayyad, ‘What Made a Place Holy in Early Islam?’, in A. Görke and M. Guidetti (eds.), Holy Places in Islam (Leiden: Brill, forthcoming 2019). Also here, the same dialectic of material vs. anti-material is recurrent in Judaic and Christian discourses, particularly in the early period of each of the two monotheistic traditions. See Exodus 32; Hosea 2:17; Deuteronomy 32:17; Leviticus 26:1. 121 For example, see al-Maqrīzī, Khiṭaṭ, ii, 441. See also Abū al-Ḥasan Nūr al-Dīn al-Sakhāwī, Tuḥfat al-aḥbāb wa-bughyat al-ṭullāb: fī al-khiṭaṭ wa-lmazārāt wa-l-tarājim wa-l-biqāʾ al-mubārakāt, eds. M. Rabīʿ and H. Qāsim (Cairo: Maktabat al-ʿUlūm wa-l-Adāb, 1937), 129. 120

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Islamic attitude towards the decoration of mosques. Decoration is the English equivalent for the Arabic ‘zakhrafa’. According to Ibn Manẓūr, it is derived from ‘zukhruf’, which basically means ‘gold’, but later came to be applied to all sorts of ornamentation.122 However, for al-Khaṭṭābī and others, zakhrafa was also taken to mean the elaboration of structures and providing them with opulent furniture.123 Mainly considering the above banning ḥadīths (and whose full texts are cited below),124 a majority of medieval Muslim jurists (conventionally referred to as the jumhūr) see that the decoration of mosques is at least makrūh, ‘reprehensible’, if not ḥarām, ‘forbidden’, as it would lead to distraction:125 On the authority of ʿĀʾisha, the Prophet prayed [while clad] in a khamīṣa, ‘a square garment with marks’. During prayer, he looked at its marks. So, when he finished the prayer he said, ‘Take this khamīṣa of mine to Abū Jahm [a Companion] and bring me his inbijāniyya, ‘a plain woollen garment’, because it [namely the khamīṣa] has distracted me during prayer.’126 ʿĀʾisha bought a numruqa, ‘cushion’, including images (taṣāwīr). When the Prophet was standing by the door, (fa-qāma al-nabiyyu bi-l-bāb), he did not enter. So, she said: ‘I repent to God of what I have committed of sins’. The Prophet exclaimed: ‘What 122

Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān, iii, 1821. See also al-Ṭurṭūshī, Ḥawādith, p.

105. See al-Khaṭṭābī, Maʿālim, i, 140; al-Atharī, Taḥdhīr al-rākiʿ wa-l-sājid min bidʿat zakhrafat al-masājid, (Beirut: Dār al-Jīl, 1991), p. 15. 124 See also the above-mentioned ḥadīth (Chapters 4 & 5) on the Abyssinian church that was described by two of the Prophet’s wives. 125 See al-Shawkānī (Nayl, iii, 560) and the references therein. See also al-Zarkashī, Aḥkām al-masājid, pp. 335–37; Wensinck, Early Muhammadan Tradition, p. 189. According to Ibn Ḥazm, the practice of adorning mosques, except that of Makka, with gold and silver is ḥarām. Ibn Ḥazm, Muḥallā, iv, 247. 126 Al-Bukhārī, no. 373. See also Khān’s transl. of the same ḥadīth. See also ibid, nos. 752, 5817; Wensinck, Early Muhammadan Tradition, p. 108. 123

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is this numruqa?’ She replied: ‘It is for you to sit and rest your head on’. He said: ‘Verily, the people of these images (inna aṣḥāba hādhihi al-ṣuwar) will be agonized on the Day of Judgement; it will be said to them: “Give life to what you had created.” [The Prophet then added]: ‘The angels do not enter a house containing images.’127 On the authority of ʿĀʾisha, the Prophet came back from travelling while I was covering sahwatan, ‘an alcove in the wall or the interior of a chamber’,128 of mine with qirām, ‘a garment, usually of wool, or a piece of cloth with marks’,129 including figures of statues (tamāthīl). When the Prophet saw it, he saw red (talawwana wajhuh) and said: ‘O ʿĀʾisha, the people to be afflicted with the worst agony on the Day of Judgment are those who emulate God’s creation (yuḍāhiʾūna bi-khalqi-llāḥ).’ She said: ‘We then tore it and made out of it a cushion or two.’130 On the authority of ʿĀʾisha, the Prophet came back from travelling while I was putting on my door a durnūk including [images of] winged horses. He then ordered me to take it off, and so I did.131

Al-Bukhārī, nos. 5957, 5961. See also ibid, nos. 5949–51; Muslim, nos. 5514–19, 5533–45; Abū Dāwūd, nos. 4152–58; Ibn Māja, nos. 3649– 51; Ibn Ḥanbal, nos. 632, 815, 16297–8, Wensinck, Early Muhammadan Tradition, p. 108; Juynboll, Canonical Ḥadīth, pp. 539. Grabar, Formation, p. 82. 128 Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān, iii, 2137–8. 129 Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān, v, 3605. 130 Al-Bukhārī, nos. 5954, 2479, (see also no. 374); Muslim, nos. 5520, 5524, 5528–33; Maʿmar b. Rāshid (in Muṣannaf ʿAbd al-Razzāq), nos. 19484; Ibn Māja, no. 3653; Juynboll, Canonical Ḥadīth, p. 617. See also Yeomans, Islamic Cairo, pp. 17–8. For the ḥadīths of prohibition, see Ibn Māja, nos. 3649–52; Wensinck, Early Muhammadan Tradition, p. 108. 131 Muslim, no. 5523; Ibn Ḥanbal, no. 26287. 127

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THE MAKING OF THE MOSQUE Jābir b. ʿAbd Allāh narrated: ‘The Prophet forbade having an image in one’s house and he forbade [us] to do so’.132

For others, this ḥukm, ‘judgement or decision’, is mitigated to makrūh karāhat taḥrīm, ‘an abominable action more inclined to ḥarām than to ḥalāl’’,133 while for a third tendency it is even makrūh karāhat tanzīh, ‘properly, not duly, disapproved’. According to the latter, such ḥadīths are weak and do not, by their text, state that decorating mosques is ḥarām.134 Some of the Ḥanafīs reckon the decoration of mosques as jāʾiz and some of them went further to say that it is even mustaḥab, ‘recommended but not obligatory’.135 They assumed that as mosques are prestigious buildings in Islam, they should be of no less majesty or inferior appeal than the houses of the Muslim individuals, particularly the well-to-do among them. This group of scholars believed that decoration and adornment would make the mosque a more desirable place.136 They added that since God permitted mosques to be raised (turfaʿ),137 they should be raised in every way that would honour them, and decoration is one of such ways.138 In addition, this group of scholars argued that when alWalīd I built and decorated the mosque of Damascus (87/706), the religious authorities at the time did not criticize him.139 However, the restrictive tendency was later advocated by some of the twelfth/eighteenth and thirteenth/nineteenth-century jurists. Two of the most influential were al-Ṣanʿānī (d. 1182/1768) Al-Tirmidhī, no, 1749. Al-Nawawī, Majmūʿ, ii, 183; al-Samarqandī, Tanbīh al-ghāfilīn, ed. al-Sayyid al-ʿArabī (Mansura: Maktabat al-Īmān, 1994). 134 Al-Zarkashī, Aḥkām al-masājid, pp. 336–7; al-Shawkānī, Nayl, ii, 255–60. 135 See Ibn ʿĀbidīn, Ḥāshiya, i, 658. 136 According to others, this is only true for those who come to look at such ‘accessories’, while those attending the mosque for worship and meditation would surely be distracted. See al-Shawkānī, Nayl, iii, 560. 137 Qurʾān 24. 36. 138 Al-Shawkānī (Nayl, iii, 558) commented that mosques should be elevated (turfaʿ), as the Qurʾān states, by protecting them from heinous talks and all sorts of impurities. 139 On these views, see al-Khuḍayrī, ‘Aḥkām’, p. 38. 132 133

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and al-Shawkānī. According to the latter, it is defective to validate the decoration of mosques, which he tags as bidʿa, on the pretext that it would make the mosque a more desirable place. In his judgment, the decoration of mosques is an emulation of the nonMuslim nations, a means of bragging and a precursor of the Doomsday.140 Like Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, both scholars attribute the silence of the early religious authorities about decorating the two holiest mosques (those at Makka and Madina) by the Umayyads to a concern that their opposition should lead to tribulation.141 According to Mālik, the people resented the decoration applied to the qibla of the Madina mosque in al-Walīd’s time because it distracted them during prayer.142 Al-Shawkānī added that some of the early scholars raised their objection to decoration before the patrons of the mosques in question.143 According to al-Shawkānī, it could not be looked upon as an agreeable innovation, ‘bidʿa mustaḥsana’, as claimed by some, because the Prophet said: ‘Whoever innovates anything not belonging to our affair [namely Islam]; this thing is rejected.’144 The restrictive tendency further maintained that it is not practical to argue that decoration would make the mosque a more attractive place, because it would make it so only in the eye of those who attend it to look at such decoration, while those attending it for worship would be distracted.145 As al-Shawkānī maintains, mosques should be ‘raised’, as the Qurʾān states, not by decorating them but by protecting them from improper talks and all sorts of impurities.146

Al-Shawkānī, Nayl, iii, 559. Ibn Ḥajar, Fatḥ, ii, 86–7; al-Ṣanʿānī, Subul, p. 155; al-Shawkānī, Nayl, iii, 559–60. 142 Mālik, Mudawwana, i, 197; al-Ṭurṭūshī, Ḥawādith, p. 106; Ibn alḤājj, Madkhal, ii, 214. On undesirability of distraction during prayer, see Wensinck, Early Muhammadan Tradition, p. 189. 143 Al-Shawkānī, Nayl, iii, 560. 144 Al-Bukhārī, no. 2697. 145 Al-Shawkānī, Nayl, iii, 560. 146 Al-Shawkānī, Nayl, iii, 558. 140 141

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Above all, the forte of the pejorative approach lies in the noted contrast between the reported simplicity of the Prophet’s mosque and the pompousness of those erected in the Umayyad era and afterwards. As they maintain, the simplicity adopted by the Prophet was held on to by ʿUmar, during whose reign the state was vastly expanded and money became abundant. Likewise, ʿUthmān who inherited a wealthier throne improved the mosque (see Chapter 7), but did not apply to it what could be called decoration or embellishment.147 According to the notable ḥadīth commentator, Ibn Baṭṭāl (d. 449/1057), one reason why ʿUmar and ʿUthmān did not wish to rebuild the mosque of the Prophet in the finest form available at the time was that they wanted to set a good example for later people to apply an economical attitude in this life.148 According to this tendency, mosques should be as utilitarian as possible: only sufficient to provide the worshippers with shelter from weather extremes.149 The Syrian Shāfiʿī intellectual Jamāl al-Dīn al-Qāsimī (d. 1332/1914) reports of an anonymous early righteous man (fāḍil) from Baṣra to have said: [There were days when] competition attained its apogee in erecting massive walls and domes for the mosques, decorating them and spending huge amounts of money on furnishing them. Who amongst the people of Baṣra [in such days] would have dared to say to those heretics (mubtadiʿīn): ‘You have erected [such] structures to engage the people in heresies and spent your money to convert the religion [i.e. Islam] into paganism’? This is exactly what happened to the previous nations when they replaced the beauty of religion with the beauty of temples, and the light of faith with the lights of chapels. As such, they made the rites of religion similar to banquet parties and meal gatherings. In such extravaganzas, minds would normally become engrossed in the mural inscriptions and decorations, the soffits of the windows and the splendour of the Ibn Ḥajar, Fatḥ, ii, 86–7. Al-ʿAynī, ʿUmda, iv, 304. 149 Al-Ṣanʿānī, Subul, p. 155. 147 148

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minarets. This is despite the fact that these assemblies were essentially arranged to free the minds from such distractions of this materialistic world and to disengage them from the magnetism of the earthen charms […].150

It seems that dialectics regarding the decoration of mosques is quite old. Al-Jurāʿī reported a relevant argumentation in which two notable scholars, Abū Bakr al-Marrūdhī (d. 275/888) and his comrade Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, were involved. The former interrogated the latter about a group of people arguing for the legality to treat the mosque walls with stucco, their contention being that the ḥadīth forbidding graves to be coated with stucco do not say that this prevention should also be applied to other structures (such as mosques).151 Ibn Ḥanbal commented that this lacks evidence. Then, al-Marrūdhī told him that imam Ibn Aslam al-Ṭūsī (d. 242/856) did not coat the walls of his mosque with stucco and that he tended to remove any stucco from all of the mosques in Tarsus. Ibn Ḥanbal agreed and added that coating the walls with stucco is a manifestation of worldly vanity ‘min zīnat al-dunyā’.152 Al-Baghawī argued that if decoration was subsidized voluntarily by an individual (i.e. not by the state treasury or the waqfs) in appreciation of prayer as a supreme Islamic formality, it should not be taken as a serious violation. It was tolerated by some scholars and totally allowed by others.153 In this fervent disputation over the legality of mosque decoration, special attention was paid to the decoration of the miḥrāb, in particular. It is recorded of the Prophet to have commanded ʿUthmān b. Ṭalḥa to promptly conceal two sheep horns he found Jamāl al-Dīn al-Qāsimī, Iṣlāḥ al-masājid min al-bidaʿ wa-l-ʿawāʾid, ed. M. Nāṣir al-Dīn al-Albānī, 5th edn (Beirut: al-Maktab al-Islāmī, 1983), pp. 95–6. 151 Muslim, no. 2245. 152 Ibn Rajab, Fatḥ, iii, 282, 284; al-Jurāʿī, Tuḥfa, p. 358. 153 See al-Baghawī, Sharḥ al-sunna, ii, 336; al-Zarkashī, Aḥkām almasājid, p. 336. Al-ʿAynī, on the other hand, said that it is makrūh in all cases, because it either distracts the worshippers or wastes the money of the Muslim community: ʿUmda, iv, 302. 150

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inside the Kaʿba. The Prophet, then, commented: ‘There should not be, in the qibla of the House, something that would distract the worshippers’.154 Al-Shawkānī takes this ḥadīth as sufficient evidence to judge the decoration of the miḥrāb as makrūh.155 Mālik is said to have condemned the execution of Qurʾānic inscriptions on the qibla wall. His objection is based on the possibility that these inscriptions would distract the worshippers.156 A group of the Shāfiʿīs applied the same judgement to writing Qurʾānic verses on the ceiling as the roof is usually trodden by the mosque attendants.157 ʿUmar b. al-ʿAzīz is reported through Abū ʿUbayd to have said: ‘Do not write the Qurʾān where it might be trampled’.158 ʿUmar himself was seen punishing one of his sons for inscribing on the wall ‘Bism Allāh al-Raḥmān al-Raḥīm’, ‘In the Name of Allāh, the Most Gracious and Most Merciful’.159 It was feared, it seems, that these mural ‘holy’ writings would be damaged or fall down one day, resulting in them being demeaned.160 In spite of the plausibility of some reports in this category, the distraction of worshippers would turn, as we shall see (Chapter 7), into a clear topos repeated over and over again to blame innovations. It was literally hackneyed by the medieval Muslim conserva-

Ibn Abī Shayba, no. 4621; al-Azraqī, Akhbār Makka, i, 322. According to al-Shawkānī, ‘the horns of the kabsh’ belonged to the sheep which Abraham offered as a sacrifice to save his son Ishmael. AlShawkānī, Nayl iii, 599. 155 Al-Shawkānī, Nayl, iii, 599. 156 See Ibn al-Ḥājj, Madkhal, ii, 214. 157 Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī, al-Itqān fī ʿulūm al-Qurʾān, eds. Sh. Arnāʾūṭ and M. Shaykh Muṣṭafā, rev. edn (Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Risāla, 2008), pp. 753–4. 158 Al-Harawī, Faḍāʾil al-Qurʾān, eds. M. al-ʿAṭiyya, M. Kharāba and W. Taqī al-Dīn (Damascus: Dār Ibn Kathīr, 1999 [?]), p. 121. 159 Ibn Abī Shayba, no.4623. Other authorities allowed it. See Ibn Abī Shayba, no. 4621. 160 Al-Atharī, Taḥdhīr, p. 27. 154

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tives who used it to resist such innovations as crenellations,161 elevated minbars, ornamented floor coverings and decorated miḥrābs.162 In practice, mosques were opulently ornamented as early as the second half of the first century AH. A multitude of ornamental materials, techniques and motifs were employed (see Plts. 8, 10 & 11). The earliest instance of using mosaics, for example, is attributed to the ‘pious’ ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Zubayr when he rebuilt the Kaʿba in 64–5/684.163 According to al-Masʿūdī (d. 346/957), these mosaics were taken from a church built by Abraha the Abyssinian in Ṣanʿāʾ.164 According to al-Yaʿqūbī, the first to apply gilt to the Kaʿba in Islam was al-Walīd I.165 The Dome of the Rock is another outstanding example of early Islamic ornamentation.166 Let us consider the case of the Umayyad mosque in Damascus with some detail. The walls, ceilings, domes and minarets of the mosque were lavishly decorated. Precious materials such as gold, turquoise, carnelian and variegated marble were all employed.167 As Ibn Ḥajar points out, al-Walīd’s decoration of this and other mosques was witnessed by quite a number of the late ṣaḥābīs, who refrained—in their majority—from criticizing it. Some of the early scholars even licensed it. Abū Ḥanīfa, for example, thought of mosque decoration as jāʾiz, provided that it is done to glorify the mosque and that the expenditure on that is not from the bayt alSee al-Nawawī, Majmūʾ, ii, 183. See Ibn Abī Shayba, no. 4621; al-Azraqī, Akhbār Makka, i, 322; al-Shawkānī, Nayl, iii, 599. 163 Creswell (EMA, i. 1, 63) states: ‘This is the earliest instance of using mosaics in Islam, for it antedates those of the Dome of the Rock by eight years’. 164 Al-Masʿūdī, Murūj, iii, 74. 165 Al-Yaʿqūbī, Tārīkh, ii, 206. 166 See al-Muqaddasī (Collins’s transl.), p. 154; al-Maqdisī, Muthīr, pp. 175–6. The decorations of the Dome of the Rock have been thoroughly studied by Marguerite van-Berchem (1927–8) and published by Creswell in 1932. See also Richard Ettinghausen: Arab Painting, 2nd edn (New York: Rizzoli, 1977). 167 For a detailed description, see al-Muqaddasī (Collins’s transl.,), p. 145; al-ʿUmarī, Masālik, i, 195; Ibn Kathīr, Bidāya wa-nihāya, xii, 573. 161 162

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māl’.168 In the case of the mosque of Damascus, for example, both conditions of Abū Ḥanīfa seem to have been fulfilled (see Chapter 7). When al-Walīd was told that the people spoke of him wasting the money of the state treasuries on decorating the mosque,169 he gathered them, ordered the money of the state treasuries to be presented before them and declared that the whole expenditure on that was from his own money. Then, he addressed them: ‘O people of Damascus! You take pride in four things […] and I wished to add a fifth to you, namely this mosque.’170 According to less familiar accounts, building and decorating the mosque consumed sevenyear revenues of the Muslim empire, and when the financial records were brought to al-Walīd, he ordered them to be burned, saying: ‘Why would we pursue something we have expended for the sake of God?’171

Plate 8: Mosaic representations from the Umayyad mosque in Damascus Ibn Ḥajar, Fatḥ, ii, 86–7. Ibn ʿAsākir, Tārīkh Dimashq, ii, 267–9; al-ʿUmarī, Masālik, i, 186. 170 Ibn ʿAsākir, Tārīkh Dimashq, ii, 269; al-ʿUmarī, Masālik, i, 188; Ibn Kathīr, Bidāya wa-nihāya, xii, 576. See also Yāqūt, Muʿjam al-buldān, ii, 466. 171 Ibn al-Faqīh, Buldān, pp. 157–8; Yāqūt, Muʿjam al-buldān, ii, 466. 168 169

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Plate 9: Mosaic floor showing images of animals from the palace of Khirbat al-Mafjar

With all this said, the influence of Islamic religious teachings on this subject is usually taken as most evidently reflected in the avoidance of making representations of humans, animals and birds. As seen by many, this is why the mosaic scenes in the Umayyad mosque of Damascus (Plt. 8), for instance, do not show the representation of any living creatures,172 and neither do the mosaics of the Dome of the Rock (see Plt. 11).173 The representations of the Umayyad mosque, in particular, with their rivers, gardens and palaces are quite reminiscent of Paradise, which is made ready and waiting for its fortunate inhabitants. Ibn Thawbān (d. 165/782) is reported to have said that no one should be more eager to attain Heaven than the people of Damascus; the beauty of which is al-

172 173

Yāqūt, Muʿjam al-buldān, ii, 465. Al-Pāshā, Madkhal. p. 201.

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ready envisaged in their mosque.174 It is also reported of some of the mosaic workers engaged in the Umayyad reconstruction of the Prophet’s mosque at Madina, to have declared: ‘We made them [i.e. the ornamental motifs] in emulation of what we have conceived of the trees and palaces of Paradise’.175 The fact that representations of humans and animals appear in Umayyad secular architecture disqualifies any argument that their absence in mosque architecture is due to inability to make them (see Plt. 9).176 Quite an interesting reading of Islam’s attitude to images is conveyed by Theodore Abū Qurra, the bishop of Ḥarrān who lived in the time of the ʿAbbāsid caliphs Hārūn al-Rashīd (r. 170–93/786–809) and al-Maʾmūn (r. 198–218/813–33). Abū Qurra refers to the Muslims as ‘those who assert that he who paints anything living, will be compelled on the Day of Resurrection, to breathe into it a soul’.177 This phrase of Abū Qurra, an almost literal citation of a previously mentioned relevant ḥadīth, is taken by some as the earliest ḥadīth reference to the abhorrence of images.178 The argument that ḥadīths of interdiction did not occur before the second half of the eighth century AD is mainly based on the fact that John, the Patriarch of Damascus (d. ca. 132/750) who was contemIbn ʿAsākir, Tārīkh Dimashq, ii, 246; Yāqūt, Muʿjam al-buldān, ii, 467. On the mosque of Damascus, see ʿAlī Ṭanṭāwī, al-Jāmiʿ al-Umawī fī Dimashq: waṣf wa-taʾrīkh (Jeddah: Dār al-Manāra, 1990). 175 Al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, 519; Ibn al-Najjār, Durra, p. 176. 176 The stone façade of Qaṣr al-Mshatta, now on exhibition at Berlin Museum, showcases magnificent examples for such representations. Other examples are also found in the palace of Hishām at Khirbat al-Mafjar (Plt. 9). See Hamilton, Khirbat al-Mafjar: An Arabian Mansion in the Jordan Valley (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1959); E. Baer, ‘Khirbet al-Mafjar’, EI2 (1986), v, 10–17. 177 Creswell, ‘Lawfulness’, p. 162. See also Margaret S. Graves, ‘Islam and Visual Art’, in Frank B. Brown (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Religion and the Arts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), pp. 310–20 (p. 315). 178 This opinion, first put forward by Creswell, is adopted by Grabar: Formation, p. 83. Others, such as F. Shāfiʿī and Ḥ. al-Pāshā, argue that the ḥadīths of prevention were only operative in the early years of Islam when pagan practices represented a substantial threat. 174

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porary to the decoration of Quṣyar ʿAmra, said nothing about the Muslim’s condemnation of pictures.179 This, however, is not sufficient evidence and is challenged by the total absence of representations of humans, animals or birds in all of the earlier surviving decorations in religious architecture. Grabar argues: ‘The undeniable denunciations of artists and of representations found in many traditions about the life of the Prophet are taken as a genuine expression of an original Muslim attitude.’180 He, then, maintains: Whatever reasons led to the growth of this position, it clearly clashed with a considerable body of authentic information about the presence of beautiful objects with figures—mostly textiles and metalwork—in the Prophet’s immediate surroundings.181

(a) Creswell, ‘Lawfulness’, pp. 161–2. Grabar, Formation, p. 83. The same opinion was already held by Thomas Arnold who argued that such attitude could be traced back to the time of the Prophet: Painting in Islam: A Study of the Place of Pictorial Art in Muslim Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1928), pp. 4–9, 19. 181 Grabar, Formation, p. 83. 179 180

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(b) Plate 10 (a & b): Calligraphic bands and mosaics of floral designs on the spandrels of the interior arches of the Dome of the Rock (top) and Qurʾānic inscriptions as well as geometric patterns on its outer walls

Nonetheless, these ḥadīths which Grabar refers to as ‘authentic’ convey a stark tone of interdiction (supra). None of such objects is reported to have been brought by the Prophet himself. Nor is he said to endorse possessing any of them. There is, however, another group of ḥadīths that evidently allude to a more lenient position. According to one of these, the Prophet went out one day while putting on mirṭan muraḥḥalan, ‘a garment with marks’, made of black hair.182 It is also narrated, albeit through less authentic reports, that he used to pray while clad in such muraḥḥalāt.183 It is true that the tone of interdiction seems higher in theory, but there are also indications to the effect that a parallel, and ostensibly stronger, drift of permissiveness dominated in practice. The decoration of mosques, it seems, was perceived in the context of an Muslim, nos. 5445, 6261; Abū Dāwūd, no. 4032. Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān, iii, 1610; al-Pāshā, Mawsūʿa, i, 129. See also Abū Yaʿlā, no. 7095. 182 183

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acceptable appreciation of beauty. However, the clearly binding restrictions on drawings of humans and animals, particularly in religious architecture, led early Muslim artisans to develop other unique artistic designs. These were mainly composed of geometric, vegetal and calligraphic ornamental motifs.184 Mosque decorations, and early Islamic arts in general, were subject to a superfluity of influences from different artistic styles such as the Roman, the Byzantine, the Coptic and the Sassanian,185 but the spirit of Islam had the greatest impact on them.

6.5 CONCLUSION There are, generally, two groups of ḥadīths which appear to reflect divergent attitudes to the elaboration of mosques, and thus explain a lot of the later relevant discourses. The first group seems to adopt a generally critical standpoint against this practice, while the second seems not only to permit but also to actively urge people to build mosques in a proper form. The former sentiment is by far more dominant in the relevant literature, given an older and a more established tendency to depict the Prophet as quite critical of building activities. Such a perception of the Prophet is adopted by a majority of Muslim jurists, both now and then. It also represents the dominant wisdom in Western scholarship. The reports on the Prophet’s criticism of building activities have, however, been found specific to certain episodes and thus cannot be taken to reflect a general attitude. Some of these, particularly the most rigorous, just reflect a later ascetical tendency in the face of the Umayyad and ʿAbbāsid ‘lavishness’—as then assumed. Some are not the Prophet’s own saying, but belong to a Companion or an early religious authority. Further, most of such reports address what was conceived as ‘sumptuous’ building, i.e. as related Irwin, Islamic Art, p. 61; Bloom, ‘Mosque’, pp. 435–7. For examples of Umayyad abstract figures and images, see F. Shāfiʿī, ʿImāra ʿarabiyya, pp. 262–3. 185 See, for example, Barbara Brend, Islamic Art (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1991), pp. 20–46; Oleg Grabar, Islamic Art and Beyond (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006). 184

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to time and place. Also, the attribution of such an extremely austere attitude to the Prophet contradicts more authentic reports on his mosque and apartments as well as many ḥadīths and Qurʾānic verses that give a more positive, as well as consistent, account of his general approach in this regard. It also contradicts the cultural heritage of seventh-century Madina, as evidenced by a variety of early reports and ḥadīths—many do not address the particular topic of building. It is also supported by archaeology. More importantly, the negative reports on building conflict with the clearly stated reason, beside worship, for which mankind was created, i.e. iʿmār alarḍ. The Prophet’s attitude towards building, and which is found justly comparable to his towards clothing, eating, etc., reflects an economical but not austere approach. The mosque of the Prophet rightly reflects this view. In spite of its simplicity, it was built with carefulness, involving participation from almost the whole community of believers. With the continually growing influx of worshippers, the mosque was enlarged a number of times and each time a better technique of building was applied. Thus, to better understand the paradoxical context presented by the mosque-related ḥadīths and whether third/ninthcentury polemics created or just reacted to it, we need to pinpoint the number of things which the Prophet is said to have condemned. These include: extravagance, boastfulness, distraction and imitation of non-Muslims. Such a list of restrictions did not, arguably, prevent him from building his mosque in a proper way. But ‘proper’ here does not mean elegant and massive. It rather means simple but practical, frugal but durable, and handsome but neither distractive nor pretentious.

CHAPTER 7. EVOLUTION OF MOSQUE ARCHITECTURE: BETWEEN ‘ORTHODOXY’ AND OTHER MODALITIES 7.1 INTRODUCTION The rapid Muslim conquests of the first/seventh century were marked by the prompt establishment of garrison towns, which served as local administrative capitals as well as logistical military bases. These towns were usually of a configuration much simpler than that of those already-standing in the conquered territories. The earliest Islamic towns included Baṣra (ca. 14/635), Kūfa (17/638), Fusṭāṭ (20–1/641) and Qayrawān (50/670). Almost in the centre of each of these, and of later towns,1 a congregational mosque was founded—around which the community clustered.2 These central mosques in the Islamic territories were called masājid al-amṣār.3 Such an arrangement, which became the blueprint for later urban planning for new towns, was inspired by the example which the Prophet established at Madina in 622 AD (see Chapter

A good example is Wāsiṭ (ca. 83/702), so called because it is about the same distance from Baṣra and Kūfa, thus a ‘middle’ one. 2 The space around each of these central mosques was usually occupied by an administrative centre (dār al-imāra), a marketplace and dwellings for immigrant tribes. 3 Otherwise, they are referred to as ‘courtyard mosques’. See Hattstein and Delius, Islam: Art and Architecture, p. 67. 1

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4), promptly after his emigration to the city.4 Similar mosques were put up in some older capitals, such as al-Madāʾin (the Arabic synonym of Ctesiphon) and Jerusalem.5 As noted in Chapter 2, the lack of archaeological evidence and the problematic nature of textual evidence comprise the main reasons why only a few scholars have paid adequate attention to studying pre-Umayyad mosques, even if writing under such titles such as ‘Early Islamic Art and Architecture’ or ‘The Birth of Islamic Art’.6 According to Hillenbrand, ‘The need for some serviceable gathering place for these thousands of Muslims was acute, and a simple enclosure best fitted that need’.7 Commenting on the simple arrangement of the earliest mosques, Hillenbrand adds: ‘It is highly significant that their austerity of plan and elevation ran increasingly counter to contemporary taste’.8 The main question that arises in this regard is why the patrons and builders of these mosques opted for ‘austerity’ when most of these were built in newly Islamized territories where long artistic traditions already existed. The earliest mosques were built by or under the auspices of well-known ṣaḥābīs, whose biographies are regarded by some to constitute part of the sunna, considering that their approaches were based on the teachings of the Prophet.9 Whole entries in ḥadīth colOn the connection between the hijra and foundation of the mosque, see Patricia Crone, ‘The First-Century Concept of “Hiǧra”’, Arabica, 41 (1994), 352–87. 5 See early Arabic topographical writings such as Ibn Khurdādhbih, al-Masālik wa-l-mamālik, ed. M. J. de Goeje (Leiden: Brill, 1889); Ibn Ḥawqal, al-Masālik wa-l-mamālik, ed. M. J. de Goeje (Leiden: Brill, 1873). See also Pedersen, ‘Masdjid’, p. 648. 6 For example, see Jonathan M. Bloom (ed.), Early Islamic Art and Architecture (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002). 7 Hillenbrand, Islamic Architecture, p. 34. 8 Ibid, p. 67. See also Andrew Marsham, ‘The Early Caliphate and the Inheritance of Late Antiquity (c. AD 610 - c. AD 750)’, in P. Rousseau (ed.), A Companion to Late Antiquity (Oxford: Blackwell, 2009), pp. 479–92. 9 See Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, Iʿlām al-muwaqqiʿīn ʿan Rab al-ʿĀlamīn, eds. Mashhūr b. Ḥasan and Abū ʿUmar Aḥmad ʿAbd Allāh, 7 vols (Dammam: Dār Ibn al-Jawzī, 2002), iv, 11. 4

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lections are dedicated to the merits of such ṣaḥābīs, most notably those who succeeded the Prophet as the earliest caliphs.10 Traditionally known as al-Khulafāʾ al-Rāshidūn, ‘the Rightly-guided Caliphs’, these were Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq (r. 11–3/632–4), ʿUmar b. alKhaṭṭāb (r. 13–23/ 634–44), ʿUthmān b. ʿAffān (r. 23–35/644– /56) and ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib (r. 35–40/656–61).11 It is believed by Sunni Muslims that these caliphs were the heirs in spirit to the inspired political leadership of the Prophet. According to Pedersen, the memory of the Prophet was considered ‘so precious’ by his followers that they liked to imitate him in everything, even loving to pray in the places where he used to pray.12 As Alfred von Kremer already stated: ‘The life of the Prophet, his discourses and utterances, his actions, his silent approval and even his passive conduct constituted next to the Qurʾān the second most important source of law for the young Muslim empire’.13 It is thus interesting to investigate how such devout followers observed the model of their Prophet in a new milieu with dramatically changing modalities. How did they perceive the features of his model? Were their perspectives of it uniform or diverse? Did they

See al-Bukhārī, Muslim and Ibn Māja, chapters of Faḍāʾil aṣḥāb alNabī (Virtues of the Companions of the Prophet), and Manāqib al-Anṣār (Commendable Characteristics of the Anṣār). 11 See al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, iii, iv; Ibn Kathīr, Bidāya wa-nihāya, ix, x; Hugh Kennedy, The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates: The Islamic Near East from the Sixth to the Eleventh Century (London: Longman, 1986), pp. 50– 81. Some historians, however, consider the disputed six-month reign of al-Ḥasan b. ʿAlī as part of the Rāshidūn caliphate. Ibn Kathīr, Bidāya wanihāya, xi, 131–4; al-Suyūṭī, Tārīkh al-khulafāʾ, ed. M. Riyāḍ al-Ḥalabī (Beirut: Dār al-Maʿrifa, 1996), pp. 166–171. See also al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, v, 158– 60; al-Yaʿqūbī, Tārīkh, ii, 121–2; Ibn al-Athīr, Kāmil, iii, 267. 12 Pedersen, ‘Masdjid’, p. 650. 13 Alfred von Kremer, Orient under the Caliphs (Delhi: Idarah-i Adabiyat-i Delli, 1983), p. 269. This opinion is still adopted by many modern academics. See, for example, J. Brown, Misquoting Muhammad, pp. 19–20. See also Esposito, Islam, p. 13. On the nature of the Prophetic authority, see D. Brown, Rethinking Tradition, pp. 60–80. 10

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regard it as requisite? Did the Prophet’s mosque exert any authority on subsequent mosques? In spite of having greatly expanded the empire and achieved outstanding administrative improvements, the Umayyads who succeeded the Rāshidūn are generally viewed with disapprobation in Muslim religious circles as having abused the sunna of the Prophet and his immediate successors.14 While Muslim historiography on the Umayyads has been coloured by retrospective polemics written, most probably by ʿAbbāsid affiliates, to denounce them, there are egregious events that support the negative view of their caliphate. The most notable of these are the slaughter of al-Ḥusayn b. ʿAlī and many of the Prophet’s descendants at Karbala, and (more prosaically) the political subversion of the caliphate system itself, when Muʿāwiya bequeathed the throne to his son Yazīd, thus effectively instituting a monarchy antithetical to Islam.15 There is also a belief that the Umayyads brought to the Muslim societies a liberal attitude that was in stark contrast to the conservative austerity of the Rāshidūn Caliphs and subsequent pious ulema. The Umayyads realized that their legitimacy was to be based, at least in the eye of their subjects, on how loyal they would be to the Prophet’s archetype, but it is controversial whether they followed it from a religiopolitical point of view. It should be noted, however, that the aim in this chapter is not to disclaim the clear non-Islamic influences on mosque architecture, nor to discuss such influences, which are extensively addressed in numerous other studies. Rather, this chapter investigates whether the Prophet’s mosque and the relevant ḥadīth represented ‘orthodoxy’ as far as mosque architecture is concerned in the immediate years after the Prophet. If this is so, it will be seen how mosque architecture developed under the influence of two main determinants: ‘orthodoxy’ and natural evolution. The definition of orthodoxy is always problematic, raising questions concerning which and whose orthodoxy, and how it was Al-Suyūṭī, Tarīkh al-khulafāʾ, pp. 18–9; Kennedy, The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates, 119–20. 15 See al-Ṭabarī, Tarīkh, v, 301–7, 322–3; al-Suyūṭī, Tarīkh al-khulafāʾ, pp. 173–4; Ibn al-Athīr, Kāmil, iii, 368–9, 374. 14

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to be formulated.16 In Islam, ‘orthodoxy’ generally connotes adherence to the sunna, basically meaning beaten track, straight route or way of life based on the deeds and teachings of the Prophet Muḥammad.17 According to this definition, the sunna is fundamentally based in ḥadīth (see Chapter 3).18 However, during the first two centuries of Islam, great importance was also attached to the living practices and traditions of the early generations of Muslims, particularly the community in Madina, and the worldview of the Quraysh. This survives in the school of Mālik b. Anas,19 in whose jurisprudence the sunna designated ʿamal, ‘practice’, which had an authoritative character, while ḥadīth designated texts and thus had an illustrative character.20 Since early Islam, the term sunna specified all that is proved by legitimate evidence, whether from the Qurʾān, the reports of the Prophet, or the practices of the ṣaḥābīs and their successors.21 Its opposite is bidʿa (see Chapter 5).22 A group of early scholars also applied ‘sunna’ to the life approaches of Abū Bakr and ʿUmar as See John B. Henderson, The Construction of Orthodoxy and Heresy: Neo-Confucian, Islamic, Jewish, and Early Christian Patterns (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998); Rowan Williams (ed.), The Making of Orthodoxy: Essays in Honour of Henry Chadwick (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002); A. Knysh, ‘“Orthodoxy” and “Heresy” in Medieval Islam: An Essay in Reassessment’, The Muslim World, 83 (1993), 48–67. 17 Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān, iii, 2124–5. 18 This is the same definition applied to sunna by ḥadīth scholars. See ʿAjjāj, Sunna, pp. 15–8. On sunna, its definition, and status in Islam, see Chapter 3. See also Juynboll, Muslim Tradition, pp. 30–9; id., Origins and Uses of Islamic Ḥadīth, pp. 97–118; Guillaume, Traditions, pp. 10–1. 19 M. Guraya, ‘The Concept of Sunna in the Muwatta of Malik b. Anas’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, McGill University, 1969). 20 See Yasin Dutton, The Origins of Islamic Law: the Qurʾan, the Muwaṭṭaʾ, and Madinian ʿAmal, 2nd edn (New York: Routledge, 2002), p. 178. On differences between Prophetic sunna and Prophetic ḥadīth, see D. Brown, Rethinking Tradition, pp. 10–12. 21 The compilation of the Qurʾān and the adoption of dawāwīn are good examples. 22 Al-Sibāʿī, Sunna, p. 66; ʿAbd al-Khāliq, Ḥujjiyya, p. 46. 16

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well as the histories of the earliest Muslim community.23 The ancient schools of law, including the Madinan, Syrian and Iraqi used the term to refer to the community’s ideal way of life, which had to be mirrored in the doctrine of the school itself.24 Schacht assumes that sunna was used at such an early stage to designate the broad meaning of a past practice. Nonetheless, evidence from the literature suggests that the notion of continuity of practice, which must be attributable to the Prophet, was usually subsumed in this understanding.25 One of the main consequences, as well as premises, of ahl alḥadīth’s successful campaign to defend the sunna (see Chapter 3) was to narrow down its concept to designate alone the deeds and sayings of the Prophet, whether or not these had any bearing on legislation.26 Although the Iraqis were the first to assign to the term sunna the commands of the Prophet, labelling it as ‘the sunna of the Prophet’, it was not until the time of al-Shāfiʿī that sunna was used to refer to the Prophet’s traditions solely.27 The relatively slow development of the doctrines of the ancient schools of law compared to that of the traditions, particularly those related to the Prophet, paved the way for al-Shāfiʿī’s thriving movement to particularize the term to denote the sayings and actions of the Prophet exclu-

ʿAbd al-Khāliq, Ḥujjiyya, p. 57. See Ch. Melchert, The Formation of the Sunni Schools of Law in the 9th– 10th Centuries (Leiden: Brill, 1997); Schacht, Muhammadan Jurisprudence, pp. 58–77. 25 This concept is evidently presented in Mālik’s letters to al-Layth b. Saʿd and Abū Yūsuf about the authoritativeness of ʿamal ahl al-Madīna. See Dutton, Origins of Islamic Law, p. 164. 26 According to the uṣūliyyūn, the legacy of the Prophet is divided into two main categories: what he said and did as a messenger and what he said and did as an ordinary human. See Shāh Walī Allāh al-Dihlawī, Ḥujjat Allāh, i, 223–4. See also ʿAbd al-Khāliq, Ḥujjiyya, pp. 56–60. 27 Schacht, Muhammadan Jurisprudence, pp. 73–80; Z. I. Ansari, ‘Islamic Juristic Terminology before Shafiʾi: A Semantical Analysis with Special Reference to Kufa’, Arabica, 19 (1972), 255–300. 23 24

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sively.28 It was through this process, termed by some the ‘ḥadīthification of sunna’, that the corpus of knowledge based on welldocumented ḥadīths evolved into sunna’s solely accepted means of transmission/embodiment, leading to ḥadīth-dependent methodology of sunna’s derivation.29 The first section of the present chapter sets out to explore how the Prophet’s orthodoxy influenced his ṣaḥābīs perceptions of mosque architecture in the Rāshidūn caliphate. The second section assays how the orthodoxy of both the Prophet and his ṣaḥābīs influenced the architectural evolution of the mosque in the Umayyad period. As the mosque gained the greater part of its architectural character after the Prophet, we will need to know what standards were applied in regarding the introduction of new architectural elements, or ameliorating ones already authorized by him, as acceptable. Could such additions be taken as natural development of mosque architecture to meet changeable conditions? Such changeable conditions, which accompanied the expansion of the Muslim empire, may have properly included variant climates, local artistic styles, and cultural lives, as well as the accessibility and cost of building materials, labour, etc. This is in addition to the desire to build impressive mosques of no less prestige than the temples witnessed

This secured for the sunna a higher legislative authority. See Schacht, Muhammadan Jurisprudence, p. 80; D. Brown, Rethinking Tradition, pp. 9–10. See also Patricia Crone and Martin Hinds, God’s Caliphs: Religious Authority in the First Centuries of Islam (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; repr. 2003; first published Cambridge: 1986), pp. 43–57; G. H. A. Juynboll, ‘Some New Ideas on Development of Sunna as a Technical Term in Early Islam’, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam, 10 (1987), 97– 118 (p. 101). 29 See Adis Duderija, ‘Introduction: The Concept of Sunna and its Status in Islamic Law’, in Adis Duderija (ed.), The Sunna and its Status in Islamic Law: The Search for a Sound Ḥadīth (Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 1–12 (pp. 2–3); Aisha Y. Musa, ‘The Sunnification of Ḥadīth and the Hadithification of Sunna’, in Adis Duderija (ed.), The Sunna and its Status in Islamic Law: The Search for a Sound Ḥadīth (Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 75–95. 28

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in the conquered territories, and the ruling dimension that came to be incorporated into the mosque with the passing of time.

7.2 EVOLUTION OF THE MOSQUE UNDER THE RĀSHIDŪN With the exception of some reports on Abū Bakr renewing the Prophet’s mosque, there is no historical evidence that he achieved any work of architectural significance. According to some accounts, the roof and columns of the mosque were renewed in his caliphate because they had decayed (nakhirat).30 At first glance, such accounts seem to contradict a ḥadīth in al-Bukhārī according to which, ‘Abū Bakr added nothing to the Prophet’s mosque’,31 for he was entirely engaged in the wars of apostasy.32 According to al-Samhūdī, the apparent contradiction in these accounts is only superficial, for what was denied according to the ḥadīth at issue is expansion, not restoration (lam yazid fī-hi Abū Bakr shayʾan).33 The reign of the second caliph ʿUmar, on the other hand, witnessed a flurry in the erection of mosques that accompanied the spreading out and consolidation of the Muslim empire. Congregational mosques were founded at Baṣra,34 Kūfa (Fig. 31),35 Fusṭāṭ (Fig. 28),36 and Jerusalem.37 ʿUmar also rebuilt the Prophet’s Abū Dāwūd, no. 452; Ibn Kathīr, Bidāya wa-nihāya, iv, 533; alSakhāwī, Tuḥfa, i, 45. 31 Al-Bukhārī, no 446; al-Bayhaqī, no. 4294. 32 Al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, 481. 33 Al-Bukhārī, no. 446; Abū Dāwūd, no. 451–2; al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, 481. 34 On the first mosque of Baṣra see al-Balādhurī, Futūḥ, pp. 390, 483–4; Ibn al-Faqīh, Buldān, pp. 230–1; Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif, p. 563; Yāqūt, Muʿjam al-buldān, iv, 432–3, 491; Pedersen, ‘Masdjid’, p. 647. 35 On the first mosque of Kūfa see al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, iv, 44–6; alBalādhurī, Futūḥ, p. 388; Yāqūt, Muʿjam al-buldān, iv, 491; Ibn al-Athīr, Kāmil, ii, 373–4; Creswell, EMA, i. 1, 24; Pedersen, ‘Masdjid’, pp. 647–8, 660; F. Shāfiʿī, ʿImāra ʿarabiyya, p. 239. 36 On the first mosque of Fusṭāṭ, see Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam, Futūḥ Miṣr, pp. 96–7; al-Maqrīzī, Khiṭaṭ, ii, 246–7; Ibn Taghrībirdī, Nujūm, i, 85; alQalqashandī, Ṣubḥ, iii, 341; Rivoira, p. 23–4; Creswell, EMA, i. 1, 37; Yeomans, Islamic Cairo, pp. 14–21. 30

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mosque at Madina and commissioned some architectural works in the Holy Mosque at Makka. In the time of ʿUthmān, the mosque of Madina was rebuilt in a more advanced form (see Figs. 29 & 30). Having ruled in a time of vehement political turmoil and civil war, the fourth caliph ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib, was not reported to have patronized the construction of any major mosques. Simultaneously, small mosques were built to serve small Muslim communities throughout the Rāshidūn’s reign. Al-Balādhurī, for example, recounted that there was already a multitude of mosques at Kūfa in the caliphate of ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb.38 The many Prophetic reports on the virtue of building mosques (see Chapter 5) must have assisted their multiplication from an early stage. This must have affected mosque architecture, for with many mosques being built a context for their architectural evolution was provided. As Pedersen indicates, ‘In the early period, the building of mosques was a social obligation of the ruler as representative of the community and the tribes’.39 However, in the beginning, Friday sermons could only be delivered in ‘approved’ mosques, usually the central urban congregational mosques designated for that purpose. ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb is said to have asked his governors in the different territories to build in the villages mosques for the five daily prayers,40 but for such small mosques to be abandoned on Fridays in favour of the cities’ congregational mosques.41 The latter is parOn the first mosque of Jerusalem (i.e. the mosque of ʿUmar), see Ibn Kathīr, Bidāya wa-nihāya, ix, 656, 662; Titus Tobler and others, Itinera hierosolymitana et descriptiones Terrae Sanctae bellis sacris anteriora & latina lingua exarata sumptibus Societatis illustrandis Orientis latini monumentis, 2 vols (Geneva: J. Fick, 1879) i, 145; Rivoira, Moselm Architecture, p. 14 (quoting Caetani, Annali, iii, 2, 950, 951; iv, 507–509). See also Rivoira, Moslem Architecture, pp. 15–8; Pedersen, ‘Masdjid’, p. 648; Creswell, Short Account, p. 10; Irwin, Islamic Art, p. 58–9; Bloom and Blair, Islamic Arts, p. 25. 38 Al-Balādhurī, Futūḥ, p. 391. 39 Pedersen, ‘Masdjid’, p. 653. 40 Ḥadīth states that mosques could also be built in markets. 41 Al-Muttaqī al-Hindī, Kanz, no. 23075; al-Maqrīzī, Khiṭaṭ, ii, 246. AlMaqrīzī also reports that Friday sermons in the time of ʿAmr b. al-ʿĀṣ were held in the central mosque exclusively. This implies that in the be37

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ticularly distinguished by its capacity to welcome greater numbers of congregants—hence its Arabic name, ‘al-masjid al-jāmiʿ’. Ḥadīth states that a prayer at the congregational mosque is better rewarded than that at the tribal (i.e. local community) mosque (see Chapter 5). The early caliphs, it seems, resisted having a multitude of Friday sermons in the same town for religious as well as sociopolitical considerations; it would act against the consolidation of the Muslim community.42 In addition, the development of Friday mosques may have been linked with the centralization of caliphal sovereignty. For early Muslim governors, the mosque was quintessentially the cornerstone of every new community. This tendency later developed into a deeply held Islamic tradition. When ʿUtba b. Ghazwān and Saʿd b. Abī Waqqāṣ founded the two towns of Baṣra and Kūfa in 14/635 and 16–17/637–638, respectively, the first thing they laid out in each of the two cities was the mosque. The sites of the two mosques were seemingly chosen for no particular reason apart from situating in the middle of free wide areas that would later be divided into khiṭaṭ to be inhabited by the migrant Arab tribes (infra). More specific information, however, is available on the site of the mosque of ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb in Jerusalem and that of ʿAmr b. al-ʿĀṣ at Fusṭāṭ. The former was built to commemorate a sacred location, whereas the place where the latter was built was formerly a khān, ‘caravansary’, seized by a migrant ṣaḥābī, Qaysaba b. Kulthūm al-Tujībī, who preferred to donate it so that the mosque would be built there.43 This recalls the story about the two orphans and their custodians giving their mirbad to the Prophet to build his mosque at Madina (see Chapter 4). According to the famous chronicler of Islamic Egypt, Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam (d. 257/871), the area around the mosque was once occupied by orchards and vineyards.44 It is true that there is a similarity between the site of the mosque of ʿAmr and its precedent at Madina, but this is not necessarily to say that ginning Friday sermons were held at villages and rural areas. 42 Al-Jadīd, ‘al-Masjid fī al-Islām’, pp. 104–6. 43 Al-Maqrīzī, Khiṭaṭ, ii, 246; Ibn Taghrībirdī, Nujūm, i, 84, alQalqashandī, Ṣubḥ, iii, 341; Yāqūt, Muʿjam al-buldān, iv, 265. 44 Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam, Futūḥ Miṣr, p. 92; al-Suyūṭī, Ḥusn, p. 132.

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ʿAmr chose this site particularly to emulate what the Prophet had done. While there is the possibility that this account of choosing the site for the mosque of Fusṭāṭ was romanticized to attribute to ʿAmr and his comrades the grace of following the Prophet’s footsteps, there is nothing in tradition to say that the Prophet recommended certain sites for mosques as a general policy (see Chapters 4 & 5).45 Indeed, it is this very lack of specificity which may have helped accelerate the erection of many mosques to accommodate the rapidly increasing numbers of believers in the different Muslim societies.46 As the central congregational mosque usually served as the urban nucleus of prospective communities,47 it was important to establish it at a levelled location with a wide, free vicinity in the surroundings. The mosque at Baṣra, for instance, was built in a place known in the time of al-Balādhurī as the raḥba, ‘wide yard’, of the Banū Hāshim.48 As soon as these mosques were marked out, the area around each of them was divided into khiṭaṭ, ‘plots’, each of which was assigned to one of the migrant tribes.49 It is argued by some that the decisions on site selection in a new town or where to lay out its mosque, dār al-imāra and other main buildings were taken by the governors who usually asked for advice from informed people. There is doubt, however, as to whether the tribes played any significant role in this regard. An account by al-Mawardī (d. 450/1058) ascribed such tasks to the existing ṣaḥābīs. It is worth noting, however, that ‘ṣaḥābī’ could refer to ordinary citizens or authorities, for it technically means any Muslim individual who talked with, or even just saw, the Prophet.50

However, he appointed particular directions for the construction of some mosques, such as that in Ṣanʿāʾ. 46 Irwin, Islamic Art, p. 59. 47 Hillenbrand, Islamic Architecture, p. 42. 48 Al-Balādhurī, Futūḥ, p. 483–4; Ibn al-Faqīh, Buldān, p. 230. 49 See Jamel Akbar, ‘Khiṭṭa and the Territorial Structure of Early Muslim Towns’, Muqarnas, 6 (1989), 22–32. 50 Ibid, p. 26. 45

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7.2.1 What did the Rāshidūn mosques look like? Judged by their plans and materials, as described by the sources, the Rāshidūn’s mosques followed the Prophet’s rustic paradigm, largely by design rather than logistical expediency. With the exception of that of Fusṭāṭ (infra), these were relatively sizable. As we saw in Chapter 5, the Prophet advised the builders of one mosque to make it large. The dominant scheme was that of an open courtyard, typically a quadrangle, with a simple ẓulla in the qibla side. The method of demarcating the mosque proper was a wall of mud-brick as at Fusṭāṭ, a furrow as at Kūfa, or a reed fence as at Baṣra.51 Like the mosque of the Prophet to which the apartments of his wives were attached, the earliest mosques were usually abutted by dār alimāra, ‘the governor’s residence’, and sometimes the State Treasury. That these earliest mosques were influenced by the ‘mosque’ of the Prophet at Madina is a generally accepted idea,52 and the earliest historical allusion to this was made by al-Ṭabarī.53 Inspired by the Prophet’s model, this group, a mosque and a bordering official residence, represented the seed of a complex that prevailed for more than two centuries afterwards. A notable exception from the hypaethral design was the mosque of ʿAmr at Fusṭāṭ which, according to tradition, had no ṣaḥn when first built (Fig. 28),54 despite the fact that the lane between the mosque and the adjacent house of ʿAmr served as the Al-Balādhurī, Futūḥ, pp. 483–4; Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif, p. 563; alṬabarī, Tārīkh, iv, 45; Yāqūt, Muʿjam al-buldān, iv, 432; Pedersen, ‘Masdjid’, pp. 647–8; Hillenbrand, Islamic Architecture, p. 34 52 See Pedersen, ‘Masdjid’, p. 646, 648; Hillenbrand, Islamic Architecture, p. 33; Hattstein and Delius, Islam: Art and Architecture, p. 67; Ettinghausen, Grabar and Jenkins-Madina, p. 20; Bloom and Blair, Islamic Arts, p. 25; Irwin, Islamic Art, p. 58. However, not all of the early mosques had courtyards. See Johns, ‘the House of the Prophet’, pp. 62–9. 53 Al-Ṭabarī excepted the holy sanctuary at Makka. According to him, the ṣaḥābīs did not wish to imitate its unique configuration for the exceptional status it enjoyed. Al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, iv, 45. 54 See Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam, Futūḥ Miṣr, pp. 91–2; al-Maqrīzī, Khiṭaṭ, ii, 247–8; Ibn Taghrībirdī, Nujūm, i, 85; Kubiak, Fustat, p. 129. See also Yeomans, Islamic Cairo, p. 20 51

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defacto courtyard,55 an arrangement suitable enough to have delayed, for more than three decades, the introduction of a proper one. Why was the mosque of Fusṭāṭ different? The mosque was built during the winter of 21/641–2.56 It may be that ʿAmr et alii did not see any urgent need to build a courtyard, which is more frequently used in summer than in winter. This, together with the pressing need for a place of prayer, may have made a ṣaḥn somewhat redundant.57 Kubiak, noting the mosque’s relatively limited size, suggested that it was originally intended to be dedicated to the Muslim troops, usually referred to as ahl al-rāya, ‘lit. people of the banner’, rather than to the whole Muslim community of Fusṭāṭ.58 Nonetheless, the 32–year period that elapsed before the Umayyad governor Maslama b. Mukhallad rebuilt the mosque in 53/673 rather weakens the suggestion that it was intended to be only temporary.

Figure 28: Fusṭāṭ: reconstructed plan of ʿAmr’s mosque as built in 21/642 (The Egyptian Department of Antiquities)

See Ibn Taghrībirdī, Nujūm, i, p. 85; ʿAlī Mubārak, al-Khiṭaṭ alTawfīqiyya al-jadīda, 20 vols (Bulāq: al-Maṭbaʿah al-Amīriyya al-Kubra, 1889). Pedersen, ‘Masdjid’, p. 661. 56 See Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam, Futūḥ Miṣr, pp. 91–2. 57 For more on how climate could have influenced Islamic architecture, see F. Shāfiʿī, ʿImāra ʿarabiyya, p. 233. 58 Kubiak, Fustat, p. 129. See also Yeomans, Islamic Cairo, p. 20. 55

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In fact, the lack of an open courtyard did not initially represent a problem. Later when it did, one was added. The 80 ṣaḥābīs who reportedly supervised the foundation of the mosque did not, it seems, regard the form of the Prophet’s mosque—in whose construction some of them had participated—as binding per se. It was thus clear from an early stage that whether the mosque included a ṣaḥn or a portico was seemingly left to the builders, whose treatment was chiefly influenced by the conditions of place, climate, the number of worshippers, and other locally varying parameters. Even the wall was not thought of as a must-follow enclosing device (seeing that it was what the Prophet adopted for his mosque); the ṣaḥābīs thus used ‘whatever came to hand’.59 The question is why, in view of such modifications, the earliest mosques (the mosque of ʿAmr included) are repeatedly referred to in the sources as following the Prophet’s model? The most noticeable, as well as transferable, trait in the Prophet’s structure was simplicity, and the Rāshidūn mosques were mostly utilitarian, void of any embellishments later associated with Islamic religious architecture, such as wall decorations, minarets, domes, monumental façades, and concave prayer niches, etc. Simplicity was, thus, the most decisive criterion to regard a specific mosque as compliant with the Prophet’s sunna, although no certain form or material were specified. 7.2.2 Perspective of ʿUmar versus that of ʿUthmān The ṣaḥābīs, however, differed in their perception of ‘simplicity’, and whether it is austerity or modesty that was meant by the Prophet. The above paradoxes we can see in the reports related to the Prophet were seemingly mirrored in the ṣaḥābīs’ divergent understandings. The most salient example is the positions held by two of the Prophet’s closest Companions, the caliphs ʿUmar and ʿUthmān, who had the most influential impacts on mosque evolution in the first half-century AH. Each of them rebuilt the Prophet’s mosque during his caliphate. ʿUmar represented the conserva59

p. 431.

See Bloom and Blair, Islamic Arts, p. 23. See also Bloom, ‘Mosque’,

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tive school, and his work reflects that very clearly. The structure he built was a replica of the Prophet’s archetype, applying to it the same form and materials.60 It is seen by Briggs, for instance, as being ‘far from constituting architecture as we understand it’.61 According to his son ʿAbd Allāh, the mosque was expanded (in 17/638) by ʿUmar, who rebuilt it on the same pattern it had been in at the time of the Prophet. ʿUmar employed unbaked brick and date palm leaves, and replaced its old wooden pillars with new ones.62 Ibn Baṭṭāl took ʿUmar’s structure to emphasize that the Prophet’s sunna regarding mosque architecture is frugality, inasmuch as ʿUmar (having ruled a wealthy empire) had other choices. Nonetheless, he only renewed the mosque because the fronds had tattered by his time.63 On the authority of Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī (d. ca. 64/683), ʿUmar commanded the Prophet’s mosque to be (re-)built and said (i.e. to those in charge): ‘Provide the people with shelter from the rain and do not use red or yellow [paint], lest they should be led astray [i.e. distracted during their prayer] (fa-taftin al-nās)’.64 It was assumed by Ibn Baṭṭāl that this attitude of ʿUmar might have been based, in addition to an exclusive knowledge from the Prophet, on the latter having sent away a khamīṣa, ‘woollen garment with marks’, after praying in it, saying: ‘it diverted my attention during

See Ibn Kathīr, Bidāya wa-nihāya, iv, 533; Ibn al-Najjār, Durra, p. 170; al-Barzanjī, Nuzha, p. 12; Wensinck, Early Muhammadan Tradition, p. 154; Rivoira, Moslem Architecture, p. 3; Briggs, Muhammadan Architecture, p.29. According to Ibn Zabāla, the new pillars were made of labin, but alSamhūdī had more confidence in the account conveyed by a certain ṣaḥīḥ ḥadīth, according to which, ʿUmar used the same materials that were formerly applied by the Prophet. See al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, 481; Ibn Ḥajar, Fatḥ, ii, 85–7; al-Barzanjī, Nuzha, p. 12. 61 Briggs, Muhammadan Architecture, p. 29. 62 Al-Bukhārī, no. 446. 63 Ibn Ḥajar, Fatḥ, ii, 86–87. 64 Al-Bukhārī, no. 446; Ibn Ḥajar, Fatḥ, ii, 85; Pedersen, ‘Masdjid’, p. 661. 60

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prayer’.65 Ibn Baṭṭāl’s assumption may be practical, given the fact that the above conduct of the Prophet is ascribed, according to another narration of the same ḥadīth, to his fear of being distracted: ‘I looked at its marks while in prayer; and was thus afraid I may go astray (fa-akhāfu an-taftinanī)’.66 Then again, it is rather clear that ʿUmar is manifesting ‘orthodoxy’ here—as the preeminent authority with unmatched status in the Muslim community at that time. He is said to have been the first to cover the mosque floor with matting for example (i.e. reed mats), which, together with some Prophetic precedents, provided legitimization of the later introduction of carpets due to his unassailable orthodoxy.67 In any case, ʿUmar seems to have been strictly against the heightening and decorating of mosques. He is reported to have said: ‘No nation committed sinful acts without also adorning their mosques’.68 ʿUthmān, on the other hand, rebuilt the mosque in a larger size (Figs. 29 & 30), in a more advanced form, and using better materials. The walls were built of ashlars (al-ḥijārati-l-manqūshati-lmuṭābiqa) and coated with stucco (qaṣṣa). Stone was used for the columns, and teak for the roof.69 The columns were drilled and fitted

Al-Bukhārī, no. 373; Ibn Ḥajar, Fatḥ, ii, 85. See also al-Bukhārī, nos. 752, 5817. 66 Al-Bukhārī, no. 373; Ibn Rajab, Fatḥ, ii, 418. 67 Al-Jurāʿī, Tuḥfa, p. 361; al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, 663. In Shīʿī jurisprudence, prostration should be performed on the earth (e.g. a clay stone) or something grown from the earth (e.g. a reed mat), and not woollen carpets. 68 Ibn Māja (no. 471), however, reports this statement as a ḥadīth of the Prophet and not a saying of ʿUmar. According to Ibn Ḥajar, the narrators of this ḥadīth are all trustworthy except for of Jubāra b. al-Mughallas: Fatḥ, ii. 85. According to al-Albānī, it is ḍaʿīf: Ḍaʿīf al-jāmiʿ al-ṣaghīr, no. 5075. This ḥadīth is reported, in similar words, by ʿAbd al-Razzāq in his Muṣannaf (nos. 5131–4) on the authority of ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib. For more details on the possible implications of this ḥadīth and the scholars’ different interpretations of it, see Chapter 6. 69 Al-Bukhārī, no. 446; Ibn Kathīr, Bidāya wa-nihāya, iv, 533–4; Ibn alNajjār, Durra, p. 174. al-Ḥarbī, Manāsik, p. 364, al-Maṭarī, Taʿrīf, pp. 231– 65

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with iron dowels set in lead bedding.70 While not applying any sort of decoration, ʿUthmān received strong criticism from the conservative ṣaḥābīs for ‘supposedly’ departing from the Prophet’s archetype.71 According to an eyewitness, ʿUbayd Allāh al-Khawlānī,72 when the people criticized ʿUthmān for rebuilding (with modifications) the Prophet’s mosque, he said to them: ‘You have overstated [the matter]; I heard the Prophet saying: “Whoever builds a mosque (Bukayr, a sub-narrator, said: ‘I thought he said: “for God’s satisfaction’”) [in another narration, “even if in the size of a sandgrouse nest”], God will build for him one like it in Paradise.”’73 This discussion implies that the mosque, having been initiated by the Prophet himself, served as a reference point for immediately subsequent mosques. It is of interest, however, to note that the ḥadīth here cited by ʿUthmān does not necessarily mean that mosques should be elaborated, for it would still be a good deed if built in a modest way. It was ʿUthmān’s understanding, which might have been built on the phrase ‘like it’, that led him to make such improvements. The erection of mosques is, in any case, a charitable work, and ṣaḥābīs loved to honour the alms they gave in the hope that they would gain in return a more pleasing reward from God. For instance, it is reported of ʿĀʾisha that she scented the coins before she gave it to the needy. When she was asked about that, she replied: ‘It falls in the hand of God before it falls in the hand of the 2; al-Marjānī, Bahja, 128, al-Marāghī, Taḥqīq, p. 47; al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, 501–2. 70 Ibn al-Najjār, Durra, p. 174; al-Barzanjī, Nuzha, p. 12. According to another account, the roof, in the time of ʿUthmān, rested on pillars made of ājurr ‘sun-dried brick’. Abū Dāwūd, no. 452; Ibn Kathīr, Bidāya wa-nihāya, ii, 170. 71 Muslim, no. 1190; al-Baghawī, Sharḥ al-sunna, ii, 349; Ibn Ḥajar, Fatḥ, ii, 86–7. As seen in Chapter 2, a clearer resentment is reported with regard to al-Walīd’s diktat to pull down the houses of the Prophet’s wives and merge them into the mosque proper. 72 ʿUbayd Allāh b. Aswad al-Khawlānī was a tabiʿī narrator of ḥadīth who was fostered by Maymūna bt. al-Ḥārith, a wife of the Prophet. 73 Al-Bukhārī, no. 450; al-Ṭabarānī, Awsaṭ, no. 1857.

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poor’.74 More generally, the keenness to perfect work stems from a well-known ḥadīth—a principle indeed: ‘Verily, God loves it when anyone of you works to do perfectly’.75 It is natural that when much attention is paid to perfection, it should gradually turn into beautification.76 Maḥmūd b. Labīd al-Anṣārī (d. ca. 96/715) narrated: ‘When ʿUthmān wanted to build the mosque, the people disliked the proposal and wished that he would retain for it the original form and materials’.77 Such a controversy between ʿUthmān and the other ṣaḥābīs got some of the later commentators, such as al-Baghawī (d. 516/1122), to argue that the use of hewn stones ‘ḥijāra manqūsha’ to build mosques is only allowed if that would help fortify (iḥkām) the structure.78 It is informative that the critics did not comply until the caliph proved the legality of his project with a quote from the Prophet himself.79 This implies that the mosque built by the Prophet was widely thought of, in this early period, as referential for later mosques. ʿUthmān’s desire to use different materials does not necessarily imply a lack of reverence for or rejection of the Prophet’s model. For example, he was keen on setting his new stone columns in the same positions of the palm trunks, or usṭuwānāt, originally laid A ḥadīth gharīb of the same meaning is reported by Abū Nuʿaym in his Ḥilyat al-awliyāʾ. See also al-Albānī, Ḍaʿīfa, nos. 5074, 6739. 75 Al-Bayhaqī, Shuʿab al-īmān, nos. 4929–32; al-Ṭabarānī, Awsaṭ, no. 897; Abū Yaʿlā, no. 4386. This ḥadīth is not of a high degree of authenticity because its strand includes Muṣʿab b. Thābit, who did not enjoy a reliable memory according to many medieval ḥadīth critics. However, it is accepted by a majority of scholars for its sound meaning. See Abū Yaʿlā, Musnad, p. 349, no. 4386; al-Albānī, Ṣaḥīḥ al-jāmiʿ, no. 1880; id, Ṣaḥīḥa, no. 1113. 76 Al-Pāsha, Mawusūʿat, i, 99. 77 Muslim, no. 1190. According to al-Baghawī, ʿUthmān was blamed for the use of carved stones and not for expanding the Prophet’s mosque: Sharḥ al-sunna, ii, 349. 78 Al-Baghawī, Sharḥ al-sunna, ii, 349; al-Zarkashī, Aḥkām al-masājid, p. 336. 79 Ibn Kathīr, Bidāya wa-nihāya, iv, 534. 74

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down under the Prophet’s direction (see Chapter 4), and later renewed by ʿUmar to support the roof of the mosque.80 This task was assigned to Zayd b. Thābit, the Prophet’s personal scribe.81 ʿUthmān is also reported to have retained the original number and locations of the mosque doors.82

Figure 29: Plan of the Prophet’s mosque as rebuilt by ʿUthmān in 29/650 (after Shāfiʿī, 1970)

Al-Ḥarbī, Manāsik, p. 364; al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, 505. Columns associated with particular events in the sīra and Islamic history continued to be noted and venerated by worshippers until the end of the Ottoman period. 81 Ibn al-Najjār, Durra, p. 174; al-Maṭarī, Taʿrīf, pp. 231–2; al-Marjānī, Bahja, 128; al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, 505. 82 Al-Marjānī, Bahja, 128; al-Maṭarī, Taʿrīf, pp. 231–2; al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, 507. 80

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Figure 30: Isometric view of the Prophet’s mosque as rebuilt by ʿUthmān in 29/650 (after Shāfiʿī, 1970)

The positions held by each of the two caliphs match the image given by the sources for each of them. The personality of ʿUmar is that of a ruler who was as potent as pious and conservative. However, traditions are full of narratives that would define him as a substantial arbiter of orthodoxy. After the early Muslim migrants settled in Kūfa, they dared not to use qaṣab, ‘reed’, to build its congregational mosque and houses until they were given permission by the caliph ʿUmar.83 He advised that the soldiers guarding the frontiers would become effete if they indulged in a ‘snug’ life of comfort (inna-l-ʿaskara ashaddu [in al-Ṭabarī, ajaddu] li-ḥarbikum waadhkaru [wa-adhkā] lakum), but he declared that he did not want to Al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, iv, 43; Ibn al-Athīr, Kāmil, ii, 373. The houses and mosque of Baṣra were also built of qaṣab, ‘reed’, in 14/635. See alBalādhurī, Futūḥ, p. 483; Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif, p. 563. 83

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dissent or prevent measures deemed appropriate by those on the scene.84 Judging from the reports of this correspondence, it would appear that ʿUmar was ignorant of what qaṣab looked like and what it was used for. According to al-Ṭabarī, when he inquired about it, he was answered: ‘[It is a plant similar to] couch grass which when irrigated becomes firm like reed (idhā rawiya qaṣṣab, faṣāra qaṣaban). As explained (Chapter 2), reeds in these regions can be used to build elaborate structures. ʿUmar agreed and said: ‘It is your own affair (shaʾnukum)’. Therefore, the people of the two towns, i.e. Baṣra and Kūfa, used reed.85 This account is reminiscent of the Prophet’s reaction to the ṣaḥābīs’ desire to rebuild his mosque in a more advanced form (see Chapter 6). Likewise, ʿUmar’s statement ‘it is your affair’ could have been inspired from the ḥadīth: ‘You are more aware of the specifics of this life of yours’.86

Al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, iv, 43; Ibn Khaldūn, Tarīkh, ii, 550; Ibn al-Athīr, Kāmil, ii, 373. 85 Al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, iv, 43. Professor Hugh Kennedy has kindly drawn my attention to the fact that building with reeds is still common in parts of Oman. 86 Muslim, no. 6128. See also Ibn Māja, no. 2470–1. 84

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(a)

(b) Figure 31: Kūfa: plan of the first mosque, (after Creswell, 1969 [top]; and Shāfiʿī, 1970)

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Similarly, labin, already in use in Mesopotamia at that time,87 was not used for mosques and houses until a great conflagration broke out at both towns.88 The Muslim governor and commander-inchief, Saʿd b. Abī Waqqāṣ,89 dispatched envoys to ask ʿUmar for his permission to rebuild the houses.90 ʿUmar agreed, with the proviso that ‘None of you would build more than three houses (abyāt)’, adding: ‘Do not compete in elevating your buildings (wa-lā taṭāwalū fī al-bunyān), and adhere to the sunna so that the state would be adherent to you (i.e. patronize you)’. 91 It is said that ʿUmar sent the same message to Baṣra.92 On the authority of al-Ṭabarī, ʿUmar was given the people’s pledge that they would not elevate a building to exceed the qadr which ʿUmar specified, as ‘what would keep oneself clear of lavishness and near to frugality, (qaṣd)’.93 According to al-Ṭabarī, in the time of ʿUmar, (many) mosques had neither structures nor banners (min ghayri bunyānin wa-lā aʿlām). Al-Ṭabarī also stated that ʿUmar ordered markets also to be in the fashion of mosques (i.e. essentially large, open spaces).94 On the authority of Abū Mikhnaf (d. 157/773–4), Saʿd b. Abī Waqqāṣ adopted for his ‘palace’ a wooden gate (bāban mubawwaban min khashab) and a reed hut (khuṣṣan min qaṣab).95 [Hearing of this,]

Antun, ‘Architectural Form of the Mosque’, p. 4 Al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, iv, 43–4; Ibn al-Athīr, Kāmil, ii, 373; Ibn Kathīr, Bidāya wa-nihāya, x, 34–5. 89 On Saʿd, see Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, ii, 127–38; al-Mizzī, Tahdhīb alkamāl, x, 309–14; Ibn Ḥajar, Iṣāba, iii, 83–5; al-Dhahabī, Siyar, pp. 1784– 90. 90 Al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, iv, 43; Ibn al-Athīr, Kāmil, ii, 373, Ibn Kathīr, Bidāya wa-nihāya, x, 34–5. 91 Al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, iv, 43–4; Ibn al-Athīr, Kāmil, ii, 373; ʿAlī D. alAʿẓamī, Mukhtaṣar taʾrīkh al-Baṣra, ed. ʿAzza Rifʿat (Cairo: Maktabat alThaqāfa al-Dīniyya, 2001 [?]), p. 17. 92 Ibid. 93 Al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, iv, 44. 94 Al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, iv, 45. 95 Working from scanty and problematic archaeological evidence, Antun argues that the dār of Saʿd could have been more elaborate than 87 88

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ʿUmar ordered Muḥammad b. Maslama al-Anṣārī to go and verify this, and to raze the gate and the hut. 96 According to Ibn al-Athīr (d. 630/1233), ʿUmar resented the fact that his client took for himself what the people called ‘the palace of Saʿd’. ʿUmar’s rebuke to Saʿd stated: I have been informed that you took for yourself a palace, and you made [it] a stronghold. [I have been also told] that it is called by the people as ‘the palace of Saʿd’ and that there is a gate separating between you and the people. This is not your palace. [Rather,] it is the palace of corruption. Step down to a place next to the Treasury and close this.97

What ʿUmar disliked the most about the gate of Saʿd was that it could have prevented the people from easily meeting their governor. Ibn Kathīr noted that ʿUmar was particularly incensed because Saʿd used to close the gate. Therefore, he ordered him not to do so, and not to appoint a chamberlain or a doorkeeper to prevent those who wished to meet him.98 These and other reports on ʿUmar imply his willingness to intervene personally to put an end to whatever seemed for him a violation to the sunna.99 The latter tendency is confirmed by al-Ṭabarī, who stated that ʿUmar was consulted about whatever the Muslim rulers were about to adopt or discard.100 Nonetheless, ʿUmar’s austerity does not seem to have prevented him from having the that depicted by the sources: ‘Architectural Form of the Mosque’, pp. 32– 3. 96 Al-Balādhurī, Futūḥ, p. 392; Ibn al-Athīr, Kāmil, ii, 374; Ibn Kathīr, Bidāya wa-nihāya, x, 35. 97 Ibn al-Athīr, ii, Kāmil, 374. Ibn al-Athīr added when Saʿd swore to God he did not say what the people said he did, ʿUmar believed and forgave him. Ibn al-Athīr, Kāmil, ii, 374. 98 Ibn Kathīr, Bidāya wa-nihāya, x, 35. 99 For more accounts on ʿUmar ’s approach to building, see Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam, Futūḥ Miṣr, p. 107; al-Suyūṭī, Tārīkh al-Khulafāʾ, p. 135; Ibn Qutayba, ʿUyūn al-akhbār, 2nd edn, 4 vols (Cairo: Dār al-Kutub aMiṣriyya, 1996), i, 312. See also Yeomans, Islamic Cairo, p. 19 100 Al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, iv, 43–4.

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mosque of the Prophet rebuilt in a ‘proper’ way. He is reported to have asked the builders to thicken the courses of the walls and tighten the planks used in construction. A number of reports give the impression that a more liberal attitude prevailed during the caliphate of ʿUthmān. Al-Masʿūdī, in particular, mentioned that in the time of ʿUthmān a number of ṣaḥābīs had farms (ḍiyāʿ) and [large] houses (dūr).101 Of those, he named al-Zubayr b. al-ʿAwwām, Ṭalḥa b. ʿUbayd Allāh, ʿAbd alRaḥmān b. ʿAwf and others. According to al-Masʿūdī, al-Zubayr, for example, built for himself houses in Baṣra, Fusṭāṭ, Kūfa and Alexandria, while the house of Saʿd, at the valley of ʿAqīq,102 was high and wide, with crenellations ‘shurufāt’.103 Nonetheless, if alMasʿūdī’s reports are generally coloured with Shīʿism, as thought by some,104 it would be enough reason for him to try to attribute dissipation and corruption to the days of ʿUthmān. In fact, the afore-mentioned ṣaḥābīs are said to have been well-off since the time of the Prophet. We should also bear in mind the early informants’ different usages of ‘qaṣr’, which is generally translated as palace, but which was evidently used for more humble structures than this would suggest. Ibn Rusta, for instance, characterized as quṣūr (plural of qaṣr) the dwellings of the tanners of Ṣanʿāʾ in his time.105 In fact, ʿUthmān’s more liberal attitude, especially when compared to that of ʿUmar, does not mean that he ignored the Prophet’s warning against distraction in prayer. For example, he is said to have ordered a stucco flask (utrujja),106 hung in the ceiling of the mosque, to be removed when told that the worshippers kept looking up at it.107 Al-Masʿūdī, Murūj, ii, 262–3. On the valley of ʿAqīq, see al-Fayrūzabādī, Maghānim, p. 454. 103 Al-Masʿūdī, Murūj, ii, 262–3. On the houses of the ṣaḥābīs in the time of ʿUthmān, see also Ibn al-Faqīh, Buldān, p. 159. 104 See Walī, Athar al-Tashayyuʿ, pp. 243–61. 105 Ibn Rusta, Aʿlāq, p. 110. 106 Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān, i, 425; al-Fayrūzabādī, Qāmūs, i, 179; al-Rāzī, Mukhtār, p. 67. 107 Ibn Abī Shayba, no. 4617; al-Baghawī, Sharḥ al-sunna, ii, 349. He is also reported, through his housemaid, to have ordered the relief of a sar101 102

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Both men observed the model of the Prophet differently. ʿUmar’s approach was clearly more rigorous than that of ʿUthmān. Muslim b. Ḥubāb related that one day while he was in the mosque, the Prophet pointed to the qibla and said: ‘Shall we expand our mosque?’ Attempting to do ‘literally’ what the Prophet had said, the ṣaḥābīs in the time of ʿUmar caused a man to sit down in the Prophet’s usual place of prayer in the mosque and then to raise and lower his hand until they saw it was similar to the expansion referred to by the Prophet. Then, they caused him to hold one end of a cord (miqāṭ) which they stretched to the qibla. They kept moving it forward and backward until they thought it was identical to the length referred to by the Prophet.108 While ʿUmar’s decision to expand the mosque must have been mainly based on clearly expedient reasons (see Chapter 4), the way he applied such an expansion could reflect the amount of his loyalty to the Prophetic model. Further, there is the possibility that this account, which was first reported by Ibn Zabāla, reflects a later debate referred back to the memory of the Prophet and ʿUmar’s desire to fulfil the constructional projects envisioned by him. He provided the mosque with six entrances,109 one of which was known as Bāb al-Nisāʾ, ‘the gate of women’, so named because the Prophet was reported to have said: ‘I wish we could dedicate this gate for women’.110 ʿUmar accordingly prevented men from using it; his son, ʿAbd Allāh, is said to have never used it until he died.111 cophagus towards which he was praying to be obliterated. Ibn Abī Shayba, ḥadīth 4620. 108 Ibn al-Najjār, Durra, p. 171; al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, 482; alMarāghī, Taḥqīq, p. 46. According to al-Albānī, this ḥadīth is ḍaʿīf jiddan: Ḍaʿīfa, no. 974. 109 On these entrances and their names and positions, see al-Maṭarī, Taʿrīf, p. 230; al-Marāghī, Taḥqīq, p. 46; al-Marjānī, Bahja, 127; al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, 495–6, 686. 110 Abū Dāwūd, nos. 462–4. See also Ibn al-Najjār, Durra, p. 171; alSamhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, 495–6; al-Marjānī, Bahja, 127; al-Marāghī, Taḥqīq, p. 46; al-Diyārbakrī, Tārikh, i, 347; Wensinck, Early Muhammadan Tradition, p. 154. 111 Al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, 691–2.

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The fact that the positions taken by each of ʿUmar and ʿUthmān are based on a Prophetic action or report seems to enhance the negative views on ḥadīth authenticity (see Chapter 3). However, this situation could also be attributed to how each of them understood the same ḥadīth, or to the possibility that one of them was acquainted with ḥadīths of which the other side was not. In some cases, particularly in later times, the different opinions of scholars could equally be attributed to their different evaluations of the authenticity of relevant ḥadīths. There are incidents where individuals or factions acted in accordance with a certain ḥadīth which was later abrogated by another of which they were ignorant. Sometimes, argument arose on whether a certain ḥadīth had been abrogated. Disagreement might also have emerged concerning the religious significance of a specific act of the Prophet; the wisdom behind it; and whether it was exclusive to a specific situation or applicable to others.112 It is possible that the proponents of certain tendencies might have exaggerated or simply fabricated ḥadīths to substantiate their positions. While this was possible in later times, in early Islam fabricating ḥadīth was indeed a risky affair, given that many of the Prophet’s closest Companions were still alive.113 For example, the ḥadīth mentioned by ʿUthmān b. ʿAffān on the reward of building mosques was also narrated by other Companions such as ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib,114 ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb,115 and Anas b. Mālik.116 Hence, for a ḥadīth to be deemed trustworthy it usually ought to be acknowledged by others.117 The following story recounted by Ibn

On reasons for the variation of early scholars’ judgments, see Fathiddin Beyanouni, ‘Ḥadīth and its Principles in the Early Days of Islam: a Critical Study of a Western Approach’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Glasgow, Faculty of Arts, 1994), pp. 79–85. 113 For more on that, see ʿAjjāj, Sunna, pp. 92–125. 114 Ibn Māja, no. 737. 115 Ibn Ḥanbal, no. 126; Ibn Māja, no. 735. 116 Al-Tirmidhī, no. 319. 117 For more on the strategies implemented by the ṣaḥābīs to disseminate ḥadīth, see Chapter 3. 112

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Saʿd casts light on how ḥadīth could have been considered to arbitrate a mosque-related debate at such an early stage: When ʿUmar wanted to expand the area of the mosque, he bought all the adjacent houses so as to merge their areas into it. The exception was the apartments of the Prophet’s wives and the house of al-ʿAbbās b. ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib, a Muslim uncle of the Prophet. ʿUmar, thus, told al-ʿAbbās that he wanted to buy his house, as there was no way he could take the apartments of the Prophet’s wives. When al-ʿAbbās refused, ʿUmar offered him three options: to buy the house, to exchange it for another piece of land at Madina and build it for him, or that alAbbās donates it. When the latter accepted none, ʿUmar asked him to choose anybody he wished to judge that case. AlʿAbbās chose Ubayy b. Kaʿb who, when told the story, cited a ḥadīth in which the Prophet tells a similar story that happened to Prophet David when ordered by God to build the Temple. [According to that ḥadīth,] when David outlined it, he realized he would need to merge to its area an abutting house owned by an Israelite individual. David considered taking it (forcefully) from the man, but God blamed him for that. The penalty was that he would not be allowed to build the Temple. Hearing that, ʿUmar grabbed Ubayy and said to him: ‘You have to find a way out of this’. He then led Ubayy to the mosque [of Madina] and when they entered it, ʿUmar caused him to stand by a circle of the ṣaḥābīs, with Abū Dharr included. Ubayy said: ‘By God, is there a man among you who heard the Prophet telling the ḥadīth of Bayt al-Maqdis when He ordered David to build it?’ Abū Dharr and others said: ‘We did’. So, ʿUmar set Ubayy free. The latter blamed ʿUmar: ‘O ʿUmar! Do you accuse me of fabricating the Prophet’s ḥadīth?’ ʿUmar said: ‘No Abū alMundhir [an epithet of Ubayy]; by God, I did not, but I wanted the Prophet’s ḥadīth to be disseminated’. ʿUmar, accordingly, said to al-Abbās: ‘Go [freely]; I will not try to take your

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house. On hearing that, al-Abbās said: ‘As you said so, I donate it so that the mosque will be enlarged […]’.118

In addition to showing that ḥadīth was used to arbitrate mosquerelated discussions, this incident evidences the illegality of building mosques on a usurped land, a judgement emphasized by the Ḥanbalīs.119 It is also reflective of the third/ninth-century ideas on the relation between polity represented in ʿUmar and the social elite represented in al-ʿAbbās. ʿUmar’s reaction to the ḥadīth he heard is of great interest. Al-Samhūdī mentioned six other accounts of this incident. While such episodes foreshadow later discourses on ḥadīth authoritativeness, they also shed light on the techniques devised to analyse texts in the earliest Islamic decades (see Chapter 3). The following incident may illuminate this. When ʿUmar saw Ḥassān b. Thābit reciting poetry in the mosque, he stared [angrily] at him. Ḥassān commented: ‘I was saying poem in it while a better one than you [namely the Prophet] was there. Then, Ḥassān looked at Abū Hurayra and said to him: ‘Tell me by God! Did not you hear the Prophet saying [to me]: “Answer [the unbelievers] on my behalf. O God, support him with the Holy Spirit”?’ Abū Hurayra said:’ Yes, by God I did’.120 In a narration of Yaḥyā, ʿUmar left [the mosque] as he knew that Ḥassān meant the Prophet.121 However, according to another ḥadīth, the Prophet forbade versification at mosques.122 Ibn Ḥajar, trying to conciliate the two divergent traditions, argued that what the Prophet denied was recitIbn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, iv, 19–20; al-Muttaqī al-Hindī, nos. 23095–6; al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, 483–4. On the same story, see Ibn al-Najjār, Durra, p. 172. 119 Al-Mirdāwī, Inṣāf, i, 491–2. See also Ibn Mufliḥ, Furūʿ, ii, 117; alShawkānī, al-Sayl al-jarrār al-mutadaffiq ʿalā ḥadāʾiq al-azhār (Beirut: Dār Ibn Ḥazm, 2004), p. 104. 120 Al-Bukhārī, no. 453; Abū Yaʿlā, no. 5885; Ibn Khuzayma, no. 1307; Ibn Ḥajar, Fatḥ, ii, 94–5; Ibn Rajab, Fatḥ, iii, 330; Wensinck, Early Muhammadan Tradition, p. 154. 121 Al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, 500. 122 Al-Tirmidhī, no. 322. 118

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ing the poetry of the pre-Islamic idolaters and heretics (al-jāhiliyya wa-l-mubṭilīn).123 According to others, versifying is generally denied at mosques because it would cause distraction from prayer and remembrance of God.124 Either way, ʿUmar’s stance toward versification led him to think of an architectural solution: he attached to the mosque an open yard called al-Buṭayḥāʾ, where those who wanted to versify, converse, or raise their voices could stay.125 There is also evidence from the second/eighth century that caliphs applied changes to mosque architecture based on religious attitudes. Al-Quḍāʿī, for instance, mentioned that in 161/777, the pious ʿAbbāsid caliph al-Mahdī ordered that lofty minbars should be shortened and given a simpler form, such as that adopted by the Prophet.126 It is also reported that when al-Mahdī visited Madina to make the pilgrimage, there was a plan to remove the alabaster that had later been added to the Prophet’s minbar and thus return it to its original form. However, Mālik b. Anas pointed out that the original minbar would be damaged by removing the retrofitted alabaster, thus al-Mahdī did not change it.127 Al-Mahdī is further said to have ordered the maqṣūra in the mosque of Madina to be demolished in 160/778.128 Such ‘orthodox reforms’ continued throughout Islamic history.129 7.2.3 Perspectives held by other Companions The reported relevant attitudes of some other prominent ṣaḥābīs suggest that simplicity was purposely observed. ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿUmar stated that the ṣaḥābīs, were commanded (by the Prophet) not to pray in a mosque that was musharraf, ‘heightened and

Ibn Ḥajar, Fatḥ, ii, 94–5. On these views, see, al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, 500. 125 Al-Ṭurṭūshī, Ḥawādith, p. 124; al-Muttaqī al-Hindī, Kanz, nos. 23085; al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, 497–8. According to al-Fayrūzabādī, it was a platform, one cubit in height, built outside the mosque: Maghānim, p. 57. 126 Al-Maqrīzī, Khiṭaṭ, ii, 247. 127 Ibn al-Najjār, Durra, pp. 159–60. 128 Al-Balādhurī, Futūḥ, p. 14. 129 Hillenbrand, Islamic Architecture, p. 31. 123 124

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adorned with crenellations’.130 ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib is reported to have reprovingly referred to a musharraf mosque belonging to the tribe of Taym as ‘the church of Taym’, evoking the Prophet’s criticism of the illuminations in the churches of the Abyssinian Christians, described by the Companions who fled there prior to the Hijra (see Chapter 5).131 However, while iconography is a reprehensible matter of creed in Islam, abhorred as a form of idolatry (see Chapter 6), mere embellishment is a much less serious issue, and the main religious objection to it was, as al-Nawawī (d. 676/1300) explained, that such shuraf, ‘crenellations’, would distract worshippers.132 Extravagance was the main objection of ʿAbd Allāh b. Masʿūd (d. 32/653), who when he passed by a decorated mosque, said: ‘May God curse those who decorated it; the poor are in more need for the money spent on that’.133 The last statement, together with the evidence in Chapter 6, imply that the acceptability of spending money on the elaboration of mosques was conditional on change in the people’s cultural life. ʿAbd Allāh b. Shaqīq (d. ca. 108/726) stated: ‘[In the early days] mosques, unlike towns, had no crenellations’,134 and those with crenellations were recent.135 Generally, the ṣaḥābīs favoured the Prophet’s simplicity over the pursuit of more advanced styles, especially in that the former was sufficient for their ritual needs.136 This attitude, however, cannot be ascribed to them disdaining Ibn Abī Shayba, no. 3172. See also Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān, iv, 2242. This also recalls the later, and more common, use of musharraf to mean ‘ennobled’. 131 ʿAbd al-Razzāq, no. 5128; Ibn Ḥanbal. Waraʿ, no. 609; Ibn Abī Shayba, no. 3167; Ibn Ḥazm, Muḥallā, iv, 248. The same attitude is reported of Ibn ʿUmar. See Ibn Taymiyya, Iqtiḍāʾ, i, 348–9. 132 Al-Nawawī, Majmū, ii, 183. 133 Al-Zarkashī, Aḥkām al-masājid, p. 336. 134 ʿAbd al-Razzāq, no. 5126. A statement of the same meaning is attributed to Ibn ʿAbbās: ‘We have been commanded to make the mosques jumman and the towns shurrafan.’ Ibn Abī Shayba, no. 3169; al-Bayhaqī, no. 4303; al-Muttaqī al-Hindī, Kanz, no. 23076. 135 Ibn Abī Shayba, no. 3168. 136 See Hillenbrand, ‘Masdjid’, EI2, vi, 677–88 (p. 679). 130

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or not appreciating the grandeur of such pre-Islamic styles. For example, when ʿAmr b. al-ʿĀṣ conquered Alexandria he sent a lengthy message to the caliph ʿUmar describing to him how splendid the city was.137 The fact that the mosque of ʿAmr at Fusṭāṭ and that of ʿUmar at Jerusalem were built in such an understated way, despite the local availability of more durable materials and sophisticated architectural expertise, speaks volumes about the ṣaḥābīs’ preferences.138 The fittingness of the Prophet’s archetype, in spite of its simplicity,139 derived from its provision of three essential conveniences: a praying space, a device indicating the qibla direction, and a shelter.140 As Hillenbrand puts it, it ‘answered to a nicety the needs of Muslim liturgy and prayer’.141 The courtyard, for instance, suited the sunny climate of the southern Mediterranean and the Near East. As such, the so-called ‘Arab plan’, thanks to its ‘fecund’ simplicity and versatility, was capable of extensive adaptation dictated by changeable contextual factors.142 One feature of supreme importance for consideration in the plan of such early mosques was facing the qibla.143 Despite considerable efforts and extended discussions, many of the early qiblas were not set accurately, primarily due to the lack of reliable devices. There is an interesting subheading in al-Maqrīzī’s Khiṭaṭ, ‘The Miḥrābs of Egypt: The Reasons for their Variation and Indicating What is Accurate and Inaccurate Among Them’.144 Under this, he fully discussed the subject from astronomical and jurisprudential See Yāqūt, Muʿjam al-buldān, i, 182–9. The simplicity of ʿUmar’s mosque in Jerusalem was confirmed by Arculf, Pilgrimage, p. 6. See also Tobler, Itinera, i, 145; Rivoira, p. 18; Pedersen, ‘Masdjid’, p. 648; Irwin, Islamic Art, pp. 58–9; Bloom and Blair, Islamic Arts, p. 25. 139 Irwin argues that such a simplicity ‘facilitated the extension of mosques to accommodate their ever-growing numbers of worshippers’: Islamic Art, p. 59. 140 Bloom and Blair, Islamic Arts, p. 23. 141 Hillenbrand, ‘Masdjid’, 679. 142 Ibid. See also Bloom, ‘Mosque’, p. 432. 143 Al-Jadīd, ‘al-Masjid fī al-Islām’, pp. 109–11. 144 Al-Maqrīzī, Khiṭaṭ, ii, 256 ff. 137 138

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perspectives. We have just seen that the process of setting the qibla of the mosque of ʿAmr, for example, was said to have been supervised by eighty Companions.145 According to some authorities, it was ʿAmr himself who set the qibla.146 It should be noted that prayer would still be valid if, for some reason, facing the qibla was unattainable. The Prophet is reported to have said: ‘What is between the East and the West is [generally] a qibla’.147

7.3 EVOLUTION OF THE MOSQUE UNDER THE UMAYYADS Many mosques were erected by the Umayyads, including pioneering developments and reconstructions of prior structures. The following are some of the most significant royal patrons and their architectural works at mosques: x

Muʿāwiya b. Abī Sufyān (r. 41–60/661–80): rebuilt the mosques of Baṣra (45/665)148 and Kūfa (50/670) in Iraq,149 the mosque of

Al-Suyūṭī, Tārīkh al-Khulafāʾ, p. 132; Yāqūt, Muʿjam al-buldān, iv, p. 265; Ibn Taghrībirdī, Nujūm, i, 84; al-Qalqashandī, Ṣubḥ, iii, 341. 146 Al-Maqrīzī, Khiṭaṭ, ii, 247. 147 Mālik, Muwaṭṭaʾ, no. 548; al-Tirmidhī, no. 342. This has been interpreted as a universal dispensation when one does not know the accurate qibla, or a precise specification of the permissibility of praying within a 180° range (i.e. in the case of Madina, to the north of Makka, between due east and due west). 148 See Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif, p. 563; al-Balādhurī, Futūḥ, p. 485; Creswell, EMA, i. 1, 45; Fikrī, Madkhal, pp. 199–200. 149 See Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif, p. 565; al-Balādhurī, Futūḥ, pp. 389, 485; al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, iv, 46; al-Muqaddasī (Collins’s transl.), p. 106; Yāqūt, Muʿjam al-buldān, i, 492–3; Ibn Jubayr, Riḥla, pp. 187–8; Creswell, EMA, i. 1, 46–8; Fikrī, Madkhal, pp. 200–3. 145

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THE MAKING OF THE MOSQUE Fusṭāṭ in Egypt (53/673)150, and probably the Aqṣā mosque in Jerusalem.151 x

ʿAbd al-Malik b. Marwān (r. 65–86/685–705): built the Dome of the Rock (72/691–2),152 and the mosque of Wāsiṭ (83 or 84/703–4),153 and rebuilt the mosques of Aqṣā154 and Qayrawān (84/703).155

See Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam, Futūḥ Miṣr, p. 131; al-Maqrīzī, ii, Khiṭaṭ, 247–56; Yāqūt, Muʿjam al-buldān, iv, 265; Ibn Taghrībirdī, Nujūm, i, 86; alSuyūṭī, Ḥusn, pp. 132–3; al-Qalqashandī, Ṣubḥ, ii, 342; Creswell, EMA, i. 1, 58–60, 149–51; Kamāl al-Dīn Sāmiḥ, al-ʿImāra al-Islāmiyya fī Miṣr (Cairo: Dār al-Maʿārif, 1977), p. 4; Fikrī, Madkhal, pp. 67–9; Yeomans, Islamic Cairo, pp. 20–6. 151 Julian Raby argues that the two preliminary phases of the first Aqṣā mosque were built under Muʿāwiya as a governor and then as a caliph (see Fig. 34). Johns, ‘House of the Prophet’, p. 62; Antun, ‘Architectural Form of the Mosque’, p. 57. 152 See, for example, Creswell, EMA, i. 1, 65–129; Oleg Grabar, ‘The Umayyad Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem’, 33–62; id., ‘Ḳubbat al-Ṣakhra’, EI2 (1986), v, 298–9; Ettinghausen and Grabar, Art and Architecture of Islam, pp. 28–34; Hattstein and Delius, Islam: Art and Architecture, p. 64; Bloom and Blair, Islamic Arts, pp. 25–30. See also Ernest T. Richmond, The Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem: A Description of its Structure and Decoration, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924); Gülru Necipoqlu, ‘The Dome of the Rock as Palimpsest: ʿAbd al-Malik’s Grand Narrative and Sultan Süleyman’s Glosses’, Muqarnas, 25 (2008), 17–105. 153 See al-Masʿūdī, Kitāb al-Tanbīh wa-l-ishrāf, (Leiden: Brill, 1893), p. 360; Ibn al-Athīr, Kāmil, iv, 222; Yāqūt, Muʿjam al-buldān, V, 35. According to Baḥshal, the process of building of the mosque began in 75/694 and lasted for three years: Tārīkh Wāsiṭ, p. 22. See also Creswell, EMA, i. 1, 132–8. 154 According to a number of historians, the Aqṣā mosque was [re]built by ʿAbd al-Malik b. Marwān in 65/685 (see Chapter 2). 155 See al-Bakrī, al-Masālik wa-l-mamālik, 2 vols (Tunisia: Bayt alḤikma, 1992), ii, 673; Unknown Author, Kitāb al-Istibṣār fī ʿajāʾib al-amṣār (Casablanca: Dār al-Nashr al-Maghribiyya, 1985), p. 114; Fikrī, Masjid alQayrawān, p. 23; id., Madkhal, pp. 203–9; Muʾnis, Masājid, p. 56; Creswell, EMA, i. 1, 61, 138–41; i. 2, 521. 150

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x

Al-Walīd b. ʿAbd al-Malik (r. 86–96/705–15): built the mosques of Damascus (87/706),156 ʿAnjar, Khirbat al-Minyā and Jabal Says. He also rebuilt the Prophet’s mosque at Madina (88– 90/707–9),157 the mosque of Fusṭāṭ (92–3/710–12), and the mosque of Ṣanʿāʾ, and decorated the Aqṣā mosque (87/706).158 He also built, jointly with his younger brother and successor Sulaymān, the mosque of Aleppo.

x

Hishām b. ʿAbd al-Malik (r. 105–25/724–43): rebuilt the mosque of Qayrawān (105/723) and built a number of small mosques such as Jerash, Khirbat al-Mafjar, Qaṣr al-Ḥayr al-Gharbī and Qaṣr al-Ḥayr al-Sharqī.

It is worth noting that the Umayyads, having been overthrown by the ʿAbbāsids, established in Hispania an independent emirate in 138/756 and then a caliphate in 317/929 where their cultural tradiSee al-ʿUmarī, Masālik, i, 178–203; al-Muqaddasī, (Collins’s transl.), pp. 144–7; Ibn Kathīr, Bidāya wa-nihāya, xii, 563–605; Ibn Jubayr, Riḥla, pp. 236–46; Creswell, EMA, i. 1, 151–210; Fikrī, Madkhal, pp. 216– 20; Hillenbrand, Islamic Art and Architecture, pp. 25–8; Ettinghausen and Grabar, Art and Architecture of Islam, pp. 37–45; Bloom and Blair, Islamic Arts, pp. 31–3. 157 See al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, vi, 435–6; Ibn al-Najjār, Durra, p. 174–8; alSamhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, 513–35; Abū al-Fidāʾ, al-Mukhtaṣar fī akhbār al-bashar, 4 vols (Cairo: al-Maṭbaʿa al-Ḥusayniyya, 1907), i, 198; Quṭb al-Dīn, Tārīkh al-Madīna, 111–3; Yāqūt, Muʿjam al-buldān, v, 87; al-Qazwīnī, Āthār, p. 108; Ibn Baṭṭūṭa, Riḥla, i, 85–6; Ibn ʿAbd Rabbih, ʿIqd, vi, 260–1; Ibn Rusta, Aʿlāq, pp. 70–8; Ibn Jubayr, Riḥla, pp. 168–73; al-Batanūnī, al-Riḥla alḤijāziyya: li-walī al-niʿam al-ḥājj ʿAbbās Ḥilmī Pāshā al-Thānī khidīwī Miṣr, 2nd edn (Cairo: Matbaʿat al-Jammāliyya, 1911), p. 244; Creswell, EMA, i. 1, pp. 142–9; Sauvaget, La Mosquée Omeyyade de Médine; Suʿād Māhir, Masājid fī al-Sīra al-Nabawiyya (Cairo: al-Hayʾa al-Miṣriyya al-ʿĀmma li-l-Kitāb, 1987), p. 37. 158 See Hamilton, Structural History of the Aqṣā Mosque, pp. 10–2, 16; Creswell, EMA, i. 2, 373–8; Oleg Grabar, ‘The Haram al-Sharif: An Essay in Interpretation’, Bulletin of the Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies, 2 (2000), 1–13; Oleg Grabar, ‘Al-Masjid al-Aqṣā’, EI2 (1991), vi, 707–8; N. J. Johnson, in Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān (2001), i, 125–7; Johns, ‘House of the Prophet’, p. 62. 156

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tions and architecture continued to develop.159 However, none of the mosques they built there is dealt with in this study as they fall outside its chronological scope.160 It is generally considered that the Umayyad period witnessed the real onset of Islamic architecture. It was under such art-loving caliphs as ʿAbd al-Malik b. Marwān and his son al-Walīd that many of the mosque’s architectural features, whose prototypes had emerged in the early caliphate, materialized. A comparison between the Prophet’s mosque, as conveyed by the sources, and any of the surviving Umayyad mosques (built only slightly more than half a century afterwards) reveals a large gap in terms of form and materials. This gap looks even wider when the reported description of these mosques in their heydays are compared to the simplicity of the ‘Prophet’s model’. What explains this contrast? In order to address this and other questions of relevance, we will investigate how the Umayyad mosques compared to the Prophet’s model. However, did the builders of the Umayyad mosques think that the Prophet had a model at all? If so, how did they know about it? How did they appreciate it? Did they think of it as a fixed architectural arrangement or an approach? What reasons were there for the elaboration of the Umayyad mosques? What positions did the contemporary religious authorities take regarding such elaboration? How did the clients and designers of early mosques observe the Prophet’s model, while naturally inspired by the architectural types of other cultures? 7.3.1 Who built the Umayyad mosques? The question of who built the Umayyad mosques opens out another question as to what we mean when we talk about the role of a patron in the conceptualization, design, and construction of a piece of architecture. Primary sources often place patrons in the centre of decision-making, e.g. Justinian and the Hagia Sophia, ʿAbd alMalik and the Dome of the Rock (infra), al-Manṣūr and Baghdad, See al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, vi, 468; John Gill, Andalucía: A Cultural History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. 71–2. 160 See Grabar, Formation, p. 20. 159

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and so on, but it is unsafe to read such accounts too literally. In these cases, it is better perhaps to see the buildings as resulting from a complex dynamic between the imperial court (including the figure of the ruler) and architects, craftspeople, and advisors etc. Most projects were subject to adaptation during the construction phase(s). In fact, we do not possess adequate information on the architects of the Umayyad mosques, but we are told about two key figures to whom ʿAbd al-Malik b. Marwān assigned the task of erecting the Dome of the Rock: Rajāʾ b. Ḥaywa and Yazīd b. Sallām.161 While their duties are seen by some to have been restricted to financial and administrative issues,162 there is evidence that they were also responsible for designing and decorating the structure.163 Rajāʾ b. Ḥaywa (d. 112/730) was a renowned faqīh and ḥadīth narrator.164 The ḥadīths he transmitted were trusted and reported by prominent authorities such as al-Zuhrī and Qatāda. His religious knowledge and zeal were praised by a group of prominent jurists and traditionists such as Saʿīd b. Jubayr and Abū Nuʿaym al-Aṣbahānī, and he was regarded as thiqa (‘trustworthy’) by renowned hadīth compilers such as al-Nasāʾī and Ibn Ḥibbān.165 It is also reported that his religious knowledge was trusted, and he was consulted by ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz.166 Rajāʾ was one of the earliest to commit ḥadīth to writing. He narrated that one day the caliph Hishām b. ʿAbd al-

Yazīd, who was from Bayt al-Maqdis, was a servant of ʿAbd alMalik. According to Mujīr al-Dīn, two sons of Yazīd were also entrusted with the work: al-Uns al-jalīl, i, 401. 162 See Creswell, EMA, i. 1, 100. 163 See Mujīr al-Dīn, al-Uns al-jalīl, i, 401–3; al-Maqdisī, Muthīr, pp. 172, 343; Ibn Kathīr, Bidāya wa-nihāya, xii, 41–4. 164 Al-Maqdisī, Muthīr, pp. 343–4. According to Ibn Saʿd, the Caliph Sulaymān consulted Ibn Ḥaywa about his intention to choose ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz as the next caliph. Ṭabaqāt, vii, 329–33. 165 See al-Dhahabī, Siyar, 1688–9. Ibn Ḥajar, Tahdhīb, i, 601–2. 166 Ibn Kathīr, Tārīkh al-dawla al-Umawiyya: khulāṣat tārīkh Ibn Kathīr, ed. M. Aḥmad Kanʿān (Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Maʿārif, 1997), pp. 379, 384. 161

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Malik asked him about a particular ḥadīth. He said: ‘I have forgotten it, but I have it written down’.167 According to al-Maqrīzī,168 when the mosque of ʿAmr at Fusṭāṭ was rebuilt by order of Qurra b. Sharīk, the work was supervised by one Yaḥya b. Ḥanẓala. The same thing is ascertained by the Aphrodito papyri.169 Unfortunately, we do not possess any information about Yaḥya apart from that he was a client of the Banū ʿĀmir b. Luʾayy.170 In Damascus, al-Walīd entrusted his brother and crown prince, Sulaymān b. ʿAbd al-Malik, with the erection of the Umayyad mosque,171 which the latter completed after he succeeded the former.172 According to Ibn ʿAsākir, Zayd b. Wāqid (d. 138/755), whose epithet was Abū ʿAmr al-Dimashqī, was put in charge of overseeing the workers.173 Zayd was a prominent traditionist who took ḥadīths from quite number of early tābiʿīs such as Nāfiʿ al-Madanī, ʿAbd al-Malik b. Marwān and al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī. Some of the ḥadīths he narrated are reported by al-Bukhārī, Abū Dāwūd, al-Nasāʾī and Ibn Māja.174 He was seen as thiqa by the likes of Aḥmad b Ḥanbal, Ibn Maʿīn, and al-Dāraquṭnī.175 More information is available on workers and artisans from the Umayyad period compared to the early Islamic era. According to tradition, al-Walīd summoned a great number of craftsmen, architects and labourers to build the Umayyad mosque.176 AlMuqaddasī, for example, relates that al-Walīd gathered skilful arti-

Al-Dārimī, no. 522; al-Baghdādī, Taqyīd, p. 139. Al-Maqrīzī, Khiṭaṭ, ii, 248. 169 Creswell, EMA, i. 1, 150–1. 170 Al-Maqrīzī, Khiṭaṭ, ii, 248. 171 Ibn ʿAsākir, Tārīkh Dimashq, ii, 264; Ibn Kathīr, Bidāya wa-nihāya, xii, 570. 172 Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif, p. 360. 173 Ibn ʿAsākir, Tārīkh Dimashq, ii, 241. 174 On Zayd, see Ibn ʿAsākir, Tārīkh Dimashq, xix, 524–9; al-Mizzī, Tahdhīb al-kamāl, x, 108–11. 175 Ibn Ḥajar, Tahdhīb, i, 671. 176 Ibn Kathīr, Bidāya wa-nihāya, xii, 570. 167 168

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sans from Persia, India, the Maghreb, and al-Rūm, ‘Byzantium’.177 According to the Aphrodito papyri,178 workmen from Egypt were also employed. When al-Walīd sent a message to malik al-Rūm, ‘the Byzantine king’, asking him to send marble workers, the king sent him 200 craftsmen.179 Ibn Khaldūn also refers to skilful builders and mosaic workers being sent to al-Walīd by the ‘Roman Emperor’ to help him erect his mosques and decorate them with mosaics.180 However, traditions about malik al-Rūm are doubted by many scholars, whose scepticism seems to be enhanced by the fact that identical tales are repeated with regard to the mosque of Madina, but with more details on non-Muslim builders (particularly Copts; see also Chapter 5).181 Whether foreign builders were employed or not, a considerable part of the work at the Prophet’s mosque was undertaken by local builders. According to al-Ṭabarī, ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, along with the local builders of Madina, ‘began to pull down the rooms of the wives of the Prophet, may God bless and preserve him, and build the mosque. Soon afterwards, there arrived the workmen sent by al-Walīd’.182 Al-Ṭabarī adds: Ṣāliḥ [b. Kaysān] said: he [namely ʿUmar] put me in charge of pulling it down and building it [again]. We pulled it down using the workers of Medina, and we began to pull down the rooms Some earlier scholars, such as Ibn Qutayba in ʿUyūn al-akhbār and Ibn ʿAsākir in Tārīkh Dimashq (lxiii, 177) also mentioned the Byzantine Emperor being associated with the construction of the mosque of Damascus. See also Ibn Baṭṭūṭa, Riḥla, i, 62; al-ʿUmarī, Masālik, i, 183. 178 Creswell, EMA, i. 1, 151. 179 Ibn Kathīr, Bidāya wa-nihāya, xii, 570–1. 180 Ibn Khaldūn, Muqaddima, ii, 25. See also al-Qazwīnī, Āthār, p. 108. 181 Ibn al-Najjār, Durra, p. 175; al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, 518–9. An abridged version of the story was also mentioned by al-Ṭabarī. See The History of al-Ṭabarī: Volume XXIII the Zenith of the Marwānīd House, transl. Martin Hinds, (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990), 142. On the same story, see also Ibn Rusta, Aʿlāq, p. 69; Abū Ḥanīfa alDīnawarī, al-Akhbār al-ṭiwāl, ed. Vladimir Guirgass (Leiden: Brill, 1888), p. 329; Ibn Kathīr, Bidāya wa-nihāya, xii, 570. 182 Al-Ṭabarī, xxiii (Hinds’s transl.), p. 141. 177

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THE MAKING OF THE MOSQUE of the wives of the Prophet, may God bless and preserve him. [This went on] until there came to us the workmen sent by alWalīd.183

According to Ibn Saʿd, Ibn ʿAsākir and al-Mizzī (d. 742/1341), Ṣāliḥ b. Kaysān (d. post- 140/758) was a trusted ḥadīth scholar who took ḥadīths from, among others, ʿUrwa and al-Zuhrī.184 He shared with the latter the pioneering efforts to preserve ḥadīth and sunna (see Chapter 3).185 Ṣāliḥ is the third in the chain of transmitters on whose authority al-Bukhārī (among others) reported the principal ḥadīth on the form and materials of the Madina mosque in the time of the Prophet and the first two caliphs (see Chapter 4 as well as supra).186 He took this ḥadīth from Nāfiʿ on the authority of Ibn ʿUmar. There is every reason that he brought his knowledge of the Prophet’s archetype to the worksite of the new building, which was supervised by such a zealous authority as ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz.

(a)

Al-Ṭabarī, xxiii (Hinds’s transl.), 142; al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, 522. Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, vii, 513; Ibn ʿAsākir, Tārīkh Dimashq, xxiii, 362–72; al-Mizzī, Tahdhīb al-kamāl, xiii, 79–84. 185 Ibn ʿAsākir, Tārīkh Dimashq, xxiii, 367–9; al-Mizzī, Tahdhīb alkamāl, xiii, 82–3; al-Baghdādī, Taqyīd, p. 137. 186 See Abū Dāwūd, no. 451. 183 184

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(b)

(c) Figure 32: Plan of the Prophet’s mosque in the time of alWalīd (top to bottom: Sauvaget 1947; Creswell 1969; and Fikrī 1963)

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The Umayyad structure of the Prophet’s mosque, as described by the sources, does not seem to have required the employment of foreign masons, especially as there were already skilful builders at Madina, such as ʿUthmān b. ʿUrwa and Wardān al-Bannāʾ. The latter was summoned by ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz to rebuild the eastern wall of the Prophet’s houses after it had collapsed, when the builders were digging to lay the foundations of the columns of the mosque in the time of al-Walīd.187 The Madinan builders who had participated in the construction of the mosque in the caliphate of ʿUthmān some sixty years previously must have bequeathed their craftsmanship to later generations (i.e. their descendants in the family tree). The involvement of non-Muslim builders was also attributed to the mosque of Kūfa. According to al-Ṭabarī, the caliph al-Walīd revealed to them his wish for the mosque form, but he was not able to describe it properly (ashtahī min dhālika shayʾan lā aqaʿu ʿalā ṣifatih). One builder, who formerly worked for Khusrau, told the caliph that the only way to perfect this structure and erect it as wished was by using stone columns from Jabal al-Ahwāz, scooping them out, drilling them and fitting them together by means of leads and dowels of iron (safāfīd).188 The approach of hiring non-Muslim workers is also said to have been applied to the Muslims’ most venerated structure, namely the Kaʿba.189 According to some reports, Persian masons were employed by Ibn al-Zubayr, the Umayyads’ rival, when he reconstructed the Kaʿba.190 The Aphrodito papyri states that skilled Egyptian workmen also took part in that reconstruction of the Kaʿba.191 According to Sauvaget, however, such reports on non-Muslim workers could have been invented by al-Walīd’s pious critics, who Al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, 545; al-Shihrī, al-Masjid al-nabawī, p. 113. Al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, iv, 46; Creswell, EMA, i. 1, 46. 189 On the exceptional status of the Kaʿba in the Muslim religious culture, see A. J. Wensinck, ‘Kaʿba: the Most Famous Sanctuary of Islam’, EI2 (1997, iv, 317–22; Gerald R. Hawting, ‘Kaʿbah’, in Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān (2003), iii, 75–80. 190 See Creswell, EMA, i. 1, 63–4. 191 Ibid, i. 2, 373. 187 188

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attempted to attribute to him the calumny of betraying the most sacred trust of the Quraysh (particularly the Hāshimīs) to preserve the Kaʿba as well as the Prophet’s mosque from non-Muslims and ancestral enemies such as the Persians, contrasting this with the supposed rigour of the ʿAbbāsids.192 Hamilton Gibb contested this opinion, which had been shared by Creswell and van Berchem.193 According to Gibb, there was no evidence for it apart from what he called ‘certain pietistic traditions against the decoration of mosques in general’.194 Gibb added: ‘If there had really been any widespread, or even factitious, resentment of al-Walīd’s initiative, one would expect to find it expressed in much more open terms, without having to guess at an anti-Umayyad implication’.195 There are, indeed, some reports on transgressions and indecencies attributed to some of the non-Muslim masons while building the Prophet’s mosque. Ibn Rusta, for example, mentions that one of the Byzantines made a representation of a pig above five windows in the qibla wall and when ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz knew of that he ordered his head to be cut off.196 Al-Muqaddasī adds that one of the non-Muslim workers, having thought the mosque was empty of people, tried to urinate on the grave of the Prophet.197 Such narratives, however, are clear fabrications. They could have been invented later to vilify the Umayyads and show them as desecrating the houses of God by hiring such infidel masons. Why would people risk their lives for such ‘shenanigans’? A vindictive Christian would rather carve a cross than a pig, while the obsession with urination is more of an Arab-Islamic taboo. However, these narratives could be reflective of how the later generations perceived the reasons for which non-Muslim workers should be supervised if hired at mosque sites.

See Gibb, ‘Arab-Byzantine Relations’, pp. 227–8. Creswell, EMA, i. 1, 151–3. 194 Gibb, ‘Arab-Byzantine Relations’, p. 228. 195 Ibid. 196 Ibn Rusta, Aʿlāq, p. 69. 197 Al-Muqaddasī, Aḥsan al-Taqāsīm (De Goeje ed.), p. 81; Ibn Rusta, Aʿlāq, p. 69. 192 193

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Meanwhile, there are implications that such employment of non-Muslim masons by al-Walīd was approved, or at least went uncriticised, by contemporary religious authorities.198 There is nothing in ḥadīth to say that non-Muslim masons should not be hired to build a mosque. Indeed, a ḥadīth in al-Bukhārī mentions an incident where unbelievers, particularly Jews and Christians, were allowed to enter the Prophet’s mosque.199 Under the heading: ‘An Unbeliever to Enter the Mosque Except that of Makka’, al-Bayhaqī reports a set of ḥadīths that deal with some episodes where non-Muslim individuals or groups entered the Prophet’s mosque.200 According to one of these, the Prophet let a non-Muslim group of Thaqīf to stay in a ‘dome’, presumably a tent, in the mosque. While Mālik saw that it is not at all allowed for non-Muslims to enter the mosque, both Abū Ḥanīfa and al-Shāfiʿī excepted the People of the Scripture, namely the Jews and the Christians, who are allowed to enter all mosques except that of Makka.201 The latter opinion may have been based on a better-known ḥadīth, according to which the Prophet allowed a group of Christians from Najrān to enter his mosque and even perform their prayers in it. In addition to the roles of patrons and builders, the work at the Umayyad mosques was invigilated by contemporary scholars, some of whom transmitted the most important ḥadīths on mosques. Examples are Abū Qilāba al-Jarmī (d. 104/722),202 Saʿīd b. alMusayyib,203 Nāfiʿ (d. 117/735), ʿUrwa b. al-Zubayr,204 his son Hishām (d. 146/763)205 and al-Zuhrī.206 The ḥadīth about how the See Ibn Rajab, Fatḥ, iii, 297. Juynboll, Canonical ḥadīth, p. 278. See also al-Bukhārī, no. 469. 200 Al-Bayhaqī, nos. 4330–5. 201 See Ibn Ḥazm, Muḥallā, iv, 243; Ibn Ḥajar, Fatḥ, ii, 107; Ibn Taymiyya, Fatāwā, xxii, 119. See also al-Khaṭṭābī, Maʿālim, i, 145; Ibn Rajab, Fatḥ, iii, 390–4. 202 Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, ix, 182–5; Ibn Ḥajar, Tahdhīb, ii, 339–40. 203 Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, vii, 119–43. 204 On ʿUrwa, see Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, vii, 177–81; Ibn ʿAsākir, Tārīkh Dimashq, xl, 237–86. 205 On Hishām, see Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, vii, 462–3; al-Mizzī, Tahdhīb alkamāl, xxx, 232– 42. 198 199

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Prophet founded his mosque was narrated by ʿAbd al-Wārith b. Saʿīd (d. 180/796)207 from Abū al-Tayyāḥ (d. 128/647 or 130/648).208 Many of these scholars were reported to have participated in the erection of the Umayyad mosques. The fact that mosques frequently accommodated the teaching circles of such scholars should have put their architectural development under continuous vigilance of the ‘pious’. 7.3.2 The Umayyad mosques as compared to the Prophet’s paradigm In the Umayyad period, the ground plan of the Prophet’s prototype was adopted, with modification, by a majority of mosques, but with betterment in every way. The walls were made of cut stones in lieu of rubble. After having been rough, they were coated with stucco and ornamented with fine decorations—in several cases glass mosaic was applied. Floors were paved instead of being covered with sand or strewn with pebbles. Palm trunks were replaced with marble columns, roofs were made of teak beams instead of rushes, and in several cases, domes and gables were used. The components of a typical mosque, whose rudiments were already included in the Prophet’s mosque, crystalized under the Umayyads.

206

On al-Zuhrī, see Chapter 3. See also Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, vii, 429–

207

See al-Dhahabī, Siyar, pp. 2595–6; Ibn Ḥajar, Tahdhīb, ii, 634–5. See al-Dhahabī, Siyar, p. 4221; Ibn Ḥajar, Tahdhīb, iv, 409.

39. 208

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Plate 11: Mosaics at the Dome of the Rock209

Generally, the clearest change in the Umayyad mosques, as far as outline is concerned, is the abandonment of the hypaethral design—particularly in some of al-Walīd’s mosques. As a replacement of the ṣaḥn, the transept, a foreign component, was introduced. In Damascus, the ṣaḥn was retained, albeit in relatively reduced dimenThe central wheel image here looks like a Byzantine Chi-Rho symbol, probably a borrowed motif, and the design is very rustic compared to later Islamic geometrical constructions. 209

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sions (Fig. 33). Departing from tradition, it did not occupy a quarter of the total area of the mosque, nor was it set in the middle. One explanation for this alteration is that the existence of a sufficiently high enclosure of the ancient temenos might have prompted the architect to make use of it, especially as it was situated in the qibla direction (Fig. 24). If the architect had followed the hypaethral layout, the front ẓulla would have been shallow and congested.210 Continuing with the example of the Umayyad mosque, the Byzantine influences are unmistakable, represented in the style of the miḥrāb, the tripartite arrangement of the sanctuary or the prayer hall (bayt al-ṣalāh), the axial nave and the dome in front of the miḥrāb. The influence of the Prophet’s mosque, however, is clear in the connection between the ṣaḥn, the porticoes and the bayt al-ṣalāh.211 Similarly, the mandating spatial and climatic conditions, Grabar’s ‘unique settings’, could explain why in the Marwānīd construction of the Aqṣā mosque (ca. 65/685) the ṣaḥn was replaced by a central nave (Figs. 34, 35 & 36).212 Generally, the favouring of the transept over the ṣaḥn as well as the use of gable roofing is attributable to the relatively cold weather in Syria and Jerusalem. Such an architectural adaptation should not necessarily be regarded as a violation to the Prophet’s model, any more than the adoption of features of his mosque should be interpreted as compulsory.

Al-Shihrī, ‘Ṣaḥn’, p. 8. For similar views, see Ettinghausen and Grabar, Art and Architecture of Islam, p. 38; Hillenbrand, Islamic Art and Architecture, p. 25; Oleg Grabar, ‘Islamic Art and Byzantium’, in Oleg Grabar (ed.), Early Islamic Art: 650–1100: Constructing the Study of Islamic Art, Volume I (Hampshire: Ashgate, 2005), pp. 1–41 (p. 7). 212 Grabar, Formation, p. 107. According to Antun, although the first Aqṣā mosque had a wider central aisle, the open courtyard remained its main theme: ‘Architectural Form of the Mosque’, pp. 38, 169. Also attributed to al-Walīd, the smaller mosques of ʿAnjar, Minya and Jabal Says had no ṣaḥn. See Johns, ‘House of the Prophet’, p. 62. 210 211

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(a)

(b) Figure 33: Damascus: plan of the Umayyad mosque (after Creswell, 1969 [top]; and Shāfiʿī, 1970)

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Figure 34: Jerusalem: Raby’s reconstruction of the preMarwānīd Aqṣā mosque (after Johns, 1999)

Figure 35: Jerusalem: plan of the Aqṣā mosque (after Fikrī, 1963)

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Figure 36: Jerusalem: plan of the Marwānīd Aqṣā mosque (after Shāfiʿī, 1970)

Figure 37: Jerusalem: plan of the Marwānīd Aqṣā mosque (after Hamilton, 1949)

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As far as workmanship is concerned, the Umayyad mosques were glaringly different from the model of the Prophet and the Rāshidūn. Pedersen has already distinguished between what he called ‘the old-fashioned attitude’ and the ‘Umayyad attitude’, which on the face of it was a more liberal one. It may be enough here to quote Hayter Lewis on the Umayyad Dome of the Rock, which still preserves most of its original form (dating to the late seventh century AD).213 Lewis says: ‘It is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful buildings existing, and I cordially agree with these eloquent words of Mr. Fergusson: — “[…]. There is an elegance of proportion […] which does not exist in any other building I am acquainted with.”’214 In the Umayyad period, iḥkām, ‘perfection’, was the keyword quintessentially. The idea of perfecting mosques emerged very early in the Umayyad period. Al-Balādhurī expressly stated, on the authority of Abū ʿUbayda Maʿmar b. al-Muthannā, that Ziyād rebuilt the mosque of Kūfa ‘and perfected it (fa-aḥkamahu)’.215 The same attitude is also reported of al-Walīd I, when building the Umayyad mosque, by al-Masʿūdī who used the same words, ‘wa-aḥkama bināʾahu’.216 It was for the sake of iḥkām that the workers of the Umayyad mosque dug so deep in the ground to lay the foundations of its great dome that they reached groundwater.217 Al-Walīd refused a proposal to use, as a part of the foundation, a firm Greek groundwork which the workers came upon while digging. He said: ‘I yearn for nothing but perfection (iḥkām). Also, I like being sure of it, and I do not trust the aptness of this wall’.218 Bloom and Blair, Islamic Arts, p. 28. The same view is held by Creswell: EMA, i. 1, 68. 214 Hayter Lewis, The Holy Places of Jerusalem (London: John Murray, 1888), pp. 26–7. The architecture of the Dome of the Rock has likewise been praised by other scholars such as van Berchem. See Creswell, EMA, i. 1, 74. 215 Al-Balādhurī, Futūḥ, p. 389. 216 Al-Masʿūdī, Murūj, ii, 201. 217 Ibn ʿAsākir, Tārīkh Dimashq, ii, 261; Ibn Kathīr, Bidāya wa-nihāya, xii, 572. 218 Yāqūt, Muʿjam al-buldān, ii, 466. 213

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Besides, there is a strong impression that the Umayyads had a clear tendency towards manifestations of pomp and vanity, that later led to a dominant aura of beautification. They certainly erected ornate palaces and elaborate mosques. This palace-mosque duality could, in a sense, be prompted by the trope that Islamic legitimacy for rulers is based on their ‘establishing the prayer’, thus if they wanted to live in massive palaces they had to build commensurately monumental mosques. History provides us with many examples of how proud of their mosques the Umayyad patrons were. In many cases, the work was inspected by the monarch himself. When the mosque of Baṣra was rebuilt in 45/665, Ziyād was keen to examine it himself, while accompanied by the local personages. Apart from the slenderness of some columns, upon which he remarked, he admired almost everything.219 As quoted by alBalādhurī, ʿAbd al-Malik b. ʿUmayr (d. 136/753) saw Ziyād going around the then-recently completed mosque of Kūfa and bragging: ‘How comparable to [great] mosques it is! I have spent 1800 [dinars] on each of its columns’.220 Similar statements are attributed to a number of other Umayyad patrons. On the authority of Yāqūt alḤamawī (d. 622/1229), when ʿUbayd Allāh b. Ziyād rebuilt the mosque of Kūfa, he gathered the people, mounted the minabr and said: ‘O people of Kūfa! I have built for you a mosque with no peer on earth, and I have spent on each of its columns 1700 [dinars]. No one will pull it down except a tyrant or a renegade’.221 This also recalls a report by Abū Ghassān al-Kinānī and others, according to which when the rebuilding of the Prophet’s mosque, at the command of al-Walīd I, was completed in 90/709, the caliph visited Madina to inspect the mosque and receive felicitations from the local community.222 Impressed by how the ceiling of the maqṣūra was wrought, he said to his governor ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz: ‘I wish you had made the roof of the whole mosque like that’. ʿUmar replied: ‘Then, the expenditure would have been excessive’. AlIbn al-Faqīh, Buldān, p. 230; al-Balādhurī, Futūḥ, pp. 484–5; Yāqūt, Muʿjam al-buldān, i, 433. 220 Al-Balādhurī, Futūḥ, p. 389; Yāqūt, Muʿjam al-buldān, iv, 492–3. 221 Yāqūt, Muʿjam al-buldān, iv, 492. 222 Al-Yaʿqūbī, Tarīkh, ii, 206–7. 219

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Walīd said: ‘Even if [it would have been so]!’223 ʿUmar himself is reported to have paid the workers an extra 30 dirhams for every big tree of mosaic they did.224 In some cases, such an art-loving tendency turned into absolute pride. While touring the mosque, alWalīd looked at Abān b. ʿUthmān b. ʿAffān (d. between 95/713 and 105/733),225 and said: ‘Look at the big difference between our construction and yours [i.e. that of your father, the third Caliph]!’ Abān replied: ‘We had built it as a mosque, but you built it as a church!’226 However, many of such reports could reflect a general thirdcentury (i.e. ʿAbbāsid) campaign to portray the Umayyads as pretentious and profligate. Some reports, for instance, went so far as to attribute to Qurra b. Sharīk (d. 96/715), al-Walīd’s client in Egypt and who rebuilt the mosque of Fusṭāṭ with much improvement, the indecency of giving shameless night parties at the mosque of ʿAmr after the workers left.227

223

Al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, Ibn Rusta, Aʿlāq, p. 71; al-Barzanjī, Nuzha,

p. 13. Al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, 519; Ibn al-Najjār, Durra, p. 176. Abān was an early ḥadīth scholar who also showed interest in the study of maghāzī, ‘battles of the Prophet’. His accounts about maghāzī were written down by one of his disciples. See al-Dūrī, Rise of Historical Writing, pp. 24–5; K. V. Zetterstéen, ‘Abān b. ʿUthmān’, EI2 (1986), i, 2–3. 226 Ibn Taymiyya, al-Radd ʿalā al-Akhnāʾī, i, 131; al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, 523; Ibn al-Najjār, Durra, p. 177. 227 Ibn ʿAsākir, Tārīkh Dimashq, xlix, 307 224 225

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(b) Figure 38: Kūfa, reconstruction of the plan of the mosque as rebuilt by Ziyād in 50/670 (after Creswell, 1969 [top]; and Fikrī, 1963)

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7.3.3 Why did the Umayyads elaborate their mosques? There were numerous reasons why the Umayyads desired to develop and perfect mosques, and to build new ones. At Kūfa and Baṣra, for example, Ziyād b. Abīh had a clear tendency to erect massive structures and a great palace whose eminence might have surpassed that of his lord Muʿāwiya in Damascus.228 According to Creswell, Ziyād, having formerly ruled at Iṣṭakhr, was instilled with ideas about the grandeur of the ruler’s court. The first place of which he thought to apply such an approach was the mosque, which by that time had become the focal point of the Muslim community and the place where the most important gatherings were held.229 Another rationale for the Umayyads to elaborate their mosques, particularly the congregational ones, was to counteract the competing political sway of the tribal and sectarian mosques.230 There are also reports that some of the Umayyad mosques were built to substantiate fanatical procedures. For example, alMuqaddasī argued that al-Walīd enlarged the Prophet’s mosque ‘not for God’s satisfaction’, but to be able to take over the house of al-Ḥasan b. al-Ḥasan b. ʿAlī, whose door opened onto the mosque.231 Expanding the mosque was no more than a pretext to demolish the house of a political opponent. However, here too there is the possibility that such reports were invented to discredit the Umayyads and strip them of any Islamic merit or legitimacy. It is likely that al-Walīd might have rebuilt the Prophet’s mosque because he realized, during his visit to Madina, that it no longer had enough capacity for worshippers, and plans for a large expansion, incorporating the area of the contiguous houses, already existed during the caliphate of ʿAbd al-Malik.232 Indeed, the Prophet’s Creswell, EMA, i. 1, 43. Ibid. 230 Pedersen, ‘Masdjid’, pp. 648–9; M. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz Marzūq, al-Fann al-Miṣrī al-Islāmī (Cairo, Dār al-Maʿārif, 1952), pp. 17–8. 231 Al-Muqaddasī, Aḥsan al-Taqāsīm (De Goeje ed.), p. 80; Ibn alFaqīh, Buldān, p. 157; Ibn Rusta, Aʿlāq, p.67. See also al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii 513. 232 Al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, 515. 228 229

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mosque had become so congested that the worshippers were reportedly allowed to pray and sit in the apartments of the Prophet’s wives for Friday assemblies, thus the mosque had already absorbed the neighbouring dwellings in practice.233 For many medieval religious authorities, the Umayyad obsession with erecting sumptuous buildings is attributed to a general devotional decline. Modern academics, on the other hand, tend to consider the strong impact of the artistic heritage in the conquered territories.234 Nonetheless, there is historical evidence that some of such mosques were erected with other approaches, mainly religiopolitical, in view. Some clients did not want the mosque to seem inferior in shape to non-Muslim places of worship, particularly the Christian and pagan masterpieces they encountered in former Roman territories. Al-Muqaddasī states: Now, talking to my father’s brother one day said I: ‘O my uncle, surely it was not fitting for al-Walīd to expend the resources of the Muslims on the mosque at Damascus. Had he expended as much in building roads, or the water tanks, or in repairing the fortresses, it would have been more proper and more to his credit’. Said he: ‘You simply do not understand, my dear son. Al-Walīd was absolutely right, and it was open to him to do a worthy work. For he saw that Syria was a country settled by the Christians, and he noted there their churches do handsome with their enchanting decorations, renowned far and wide, such as are the Qumāma [namely, the church of the Holy Sepulchre], and the churches of Ludd (Lydda) and al-

Al-Marāghī, Taḥqīq, p. 50, al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, 517. See also Mālik, Muwaṭṭaʾ, no. 458. 234 Both perspectives here disregard the role of public works. Modern public work programmes, such as the New Deal in the US during the 1930s, were to a large degree instituted to provide employment and disburse funds. Why would Umayyad political economy be any different? Furthermore, governments need to keep craftsmen and skilled personnel on their payroll by such projects of public utility. If they suddenly decided to build a road or a fortress while they had no quarries, supply chains and skilled workers, they would most probably do nothing. 233

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Ruhā. So he undertook for the Muslims the building of a mosque that would divert their attention from the churches, and make it one of the wonders of the world. Do you realize how ʿAbd al-Malik, seeing the greatness of the dome of the Qumāma and its splendour, fearing lest it should beguile the hearts of the Muslims, hence erected, above the Rock, the dome you now see there?’235

It is quite interesting to know that the caliph al-Walīd, in order to give the Umayyad mosque the utmost grandeur, is reported to have considered making the upper part of its dome (ʿiqdu raʾsihā) of pure gold. The architect, a grandfather of the informant Ibrāhīm b. Ḥawshab al-Naṣrī, explained to the caliph that this would be beyond anyone’s capacity. After having one brick moulded of pure gold, al-Walīd stated that he could still achieve the task, but that it would be overly lavish and prodigal. According to a more plausible account, al-Walīd admitted from the beginning the inability to secure the expenditures needed for such an endeavour.236 Ibn Kathīr, a zealous sunnī historian and a robust advocate of such concepts as umma and khilāfa,237 highlighted a supposedly pious side in alWalīd’s personality. According to him, al-Walīd surmised: ‘It would be better if this [amount of money] is spent for the sake of God and for the benefit of those in need’.238 In the beginning of his caliphate, ʿUmar b ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, contemplated eliminating what the Umayyad mosque included of gilt, marble and mosaics, returning all these to bayt al-māl, and employing mud (ṭīn) and ropes instead.239 He surmised: ‘The people are Al-Muqaddasī (Collins’s transl.), p. 146. Ibn ʿAsākir, Tārīkh Dimashq, ii, 262; al-ʿUmarī, Masālik, i, 184. 237 See R. Hrair Dekmejian, Islam in Revolution: Fundamentalism in the Arab World, 2nd edn (Syracuse NY: Syracuse University Press 1995), pp. 15, 38–40. 238 Ibn Kathīr, Khulāṣa, p. 319–11. 239 Ibn al-Faqīh, Buldān, p. 158; al-Ṭurṭūshī, Ḥawādith, p. 106; alʿUmarī, Masālik, i, 191–2; Ibn Rajab, Fatḥ, iii, 285; Yāqūt, Muʿjam al-buldān, ii, 468; Ibn Kathīr, Bidāya wa-nihāya, xii, 580–2. See also Ibn Ḥazm, Muḥallā, iv, 248. It is also reported that ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz removed 235 236

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distracted from their prayers by looking at them’.240 This thinking of ʿUmar annoyed the Damascene notables, who pointed out that most of the mosque’s marble did not belong to the bayt al-māl, rather it had been donated by individuals, who brought it from various Muslim territories. Simultaneously, when the head of a Byzantine delegation visiting Damascus at that time saw the splendour of the mosque and the beauty of its ornaments, he said: ‘I would not think the Muslims could build such an edifice; I reckoned that their time would be more evanescent!’ Having been told of this, ʿUmar, reassured, commanded that the mosque be let as it was. A number of accounts exaggerated the reaction of the Byzantine chief delegate; according to some, he was shocked profoundly, according to others, he even fell unconscious.241 While this story seems to be coloured by patriotism, we cannot dismiss it downright. The original Umayyad mosque, as far as literary and archaeological evidence tells, was a striking piece of architecture, especially when its temporal and spatial contexts are taken into account; it must have impressed visitors and viewers. Al-Shāfiʿī, for example, counted the mosque of Damascus as one of the wonders of the world in his time.242

the 600 gilt chains used to hang the lanterns of the Umayyad mosque and deposited them in the state treasury, and replaced them with new ones made of copper and iron. Ibn ʿAsākir, Tārīkh Dimashq, ii, 275; alDiyārbakrī, Tārīkh, ii, 348. According to al-Muqaddasī, the people of Damascus persuaded him to give up the idea: Best Divisions (Collin’s transl.), p. 147. It is also reported of ʿUmar that he intended to return to the Christians the church which al-Walīd once took from them. Al-Balādhurī, Futūḥ, p. 171–2; Ibn ʿAsākir, Tārīkh Dimashq, ii, 273–4; Ibn Kathīr, Bidāya wa-nihāya, xii, 582. According to al-Balādhurī, he did return to the Damascene Christians one of the churches that had fallen in Muslim hands after the conquest: Futūḥ, p. 169. 240 Mālik, Mudawwana, i, 197. 241 Al-Ṭurṭūshī, Ḥawādith, p. 106; al-ʿUmarī, Masālik, i, 191–2; Ibn Kathīr, Bidāya wa-nihāya, xii, 581–2. See also Ibn al-Faqīh, Buldān, pp. 158– 9; Ibn ʿAsākir, Tārīkh Dimashq, ii, 275–7. 242 Al-ʿUmarī, Masālik, i, 193.

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In all cases, the extensive ḥadīths praising the building of mosques should have kindled, alongside other political and sectarian reasons, the Umayyad patrons to erect as many mosques as possible. The references in the Qurʾān and ḥadīth on the exceptional status of the three holy mosques of Makka, Madina, and Jerusalem should have stimulated the Umayyad patrons to take special ‘architectural’ care of these. For the pious, the foundation of mosques sprang from an intrinsic longing to beseech God’s satisfaction. For others, it was a civil commitment and a workable stratagem to build up good reputation among the people in general and the religious authorities in particular—the latter’s views were enormously critical for the rulers’ public image and legitimacy. Furthermore, ʿUthmān b. ʿAffān, having perfected the mosque of Madina, must have set a good example for the Umayyads to perfect theirs. While the structures of the Prophet and of ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb soon decayed, the building of ʿUthmān stood for 58 years before it was replaced by that of al-Walīd,243 and that replacement was not due to wear and tear. There is evidence that ʿUthmān’s mosque remained durable down to the caliphate of ʿAbd al-Malik. Al-Azraqī relates, on the authority of al-Wāqidī, that during the reign of ʿAbd al-Malik the fabric, particularly dībājj, used to cover the Kaʿba, were sent each year to Madina and put on the columns of its mosque.244 In brief, we have instances in which elaboration was sought to embody the conceit of the patrons, and others where it was applied to confer majesty on the mosque appearance, lest the early Muslim conquerors and migrants should be over-fascinated by the architectural grandeur of the non-Muslim places of worship. In the latter sense, the elaboration of mosques formed a part of Islamic competitive propaganda and served a religio-political agenda. However, in most cases, the work was perfected to pursue durability and not merely to catch the eye.

243 244

Al-Ḥarbī, Manāsik, p. 364; al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, 513. Al-Azraqī, Akhbār Makka, i, 359.

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7.3.4 Why was the Dome of the Rock built? Three theories have been put forward to explain why the unique Dome of the Rock was built and to interpret its religious and political meaning.245 According to the first, the Dome was built to protect and commemorate the Holy Rock, which is venerated in Islamic tradition as the place where the Prophet ascended to Heavens in the course of the celebrated Night Journey.246 It is reported by the Alexandrian Melkite priest, Eutychius, that ʿAbd al-Malik ‘enlarged the masjid so that the Rock was included within the praying place’.247 In addition to evidence from the Qurʾān and ḥadīth, ‘a passage, possibly written before the accession of ʿAbd al-Malik, in the poems of ʿUmar b. Abī Rabīʿa (born 23 H. = A.D 644), shows that Jerusalem had already come to be regarded as the place whence Muhammad had made his famous night journey to heaven’.248 Mainly based on an account by al-Yaʿqūbī (d. ca. 284/897), a different theory was first proposed by Goldziher and then adopted by Creswell. According to this, ʿAbd al-Malik was gravely exasperated by the fact that his Syrian subjects kept making the pilgrimage to Makka, which was by then under the sway of his political adversary Ibn al-Zubayr. Having been concerned that they may turn sympathetic to his rival, ʿAbd al-Malik forbade the Syrians from For a detailed discussion on the possible interpretations of the Dome of the Rock, see Grabar, ‘The Umayyad Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem’, 33–62; Grabar, Formation, pp. 46–57; Ettinghausen and Grabar, Art and Architecture of Islam, pp. 28–34; Hattstein and Delius, Islam: Art and Architecture, p. 64; Bloom and Blair, Islamic Arts, pp. 25–30; Rabbat, N., ‘The Meaning of the Umayyad Dome of the Rock’, Muqarnas, 6 (1989), 12–21. 246 Ibn al-Jawzī, Faḍāʾl al-Quds, ed. Gibrāʾīl Jabbūr 2nd edn (Beirut: Dār al-Afāq al-Jadīda, 1980), pp. 116–21; Ḍiyāʾ al-Dīn al-Ḥanbalī, Faḍāʾil bayt al-Maqdis, ed. M. Muṭīʿ al-Ḥāfiẓ (Damascus: Dār al-Fikr, 1988); Mujīr al-Dīn, al-Uns al-jalīl, i, 401–4; Heribert Busse, ‘Jerusalem’, in Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān (2003), iii, 2–7. 247 Creswell, EMA, i. 1, 66. 248 Ibid. Some scholars, however, are more inclined to think that the ascension of the Prophet was associated with the Dome of the Rock later. 245

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going to Makka, even if for pilgrimage. The people became irritated by a decision that would deprive them from conducting the fifth pillar of Islam. They said to him: ‘How do you forbid us from making the pilgrimage to God’s house, seeing that the same is a commandment of Him upon us?’ ʿAbd al-Malik replied: ‘Has not Ibn Shihāb al-Zuhrī [the renowned ḥadīth scholar] told you that the Prophet said: “Men shall journey to but three mosques, al-Masjid Ḥarām [at Makka], my mosque [at Madina], and the mosque of Jerusalem”?’249 So this last is now appointed for you in lieu of alMasjid al-Ḥarām. And this Rock, of which it is reported that upon it the Prophet set his foot when he ascended into heaven, shall be unto you in the place of the Kaʿbah’. He accordingly erected a dome above the Rock and ‘hung it around with curtains of brocade’. He then installed a doorkeeper and let the people circumambulate the Rock in the same manner as the Hajj pilgrims do with the Kaʿba—a practice that lasted throughout the Umayyad period.250 Although the same story is also mentioned by other medieval Muslim as well as Christian historians,251 it has been criticized by some modern scholars such as Akkouche and al-Aʿẓamī.252 The former remarked that had ʿAbd al-Malik prevented the people of This ḥadīth is reported by al-Bukhārī (no. 1189) on the authority of al-Zuhrī. See also al-Dārimī, no. 1461; Ibn Ḥanbal, no. 11347; Abū Yaʿlā, no. 1167, 5880. On al-Zuhrī’s first meeting with ʿAbd al-Malik and the ‘ḥadīth of the three mosques’, see M. Lecker, ‘Biographical Notes on Ibn Shihāb al-Zuhrī’, pp. 41–8. On the merit of performing prayer at the two holy sanctuaries of Makka and Madina, see Mālik, Muwaṭṭaʾ, no. 517; al-Dārimī, nos. 1458–60. 250 Al-Yaʿqūbī, Tarīkh, ii, 177–8, as translated by G. Le Strange in his Palestine under the Moslems, p. 116. See also Creswell, EMA, i. 1, 66; Kister, ‘You Shall Only Set Out for Three Mosques’, pp. 173–196. 251 These are Eutychius, Ibn ʿAbd Ribbih, al-Makīn, Ibn Kathīr, Abū al-Maḥāsin, Mujīr al-Dīn and al-Diyārbakrī. See also Abū Shāma, Bāʿith, p. 30. 252 In his Studies in Early Ḥadīth Literature (p. 290 ff.), al-Aʿẓamī contests this narrative under the subheading: ‘Did al-Zuhrī Provide a Substitute for the Pilgrimage? Refutation of al-Yaʿqubī and Goldziher’. 249

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Syria from making the pilgrimage to Makka, it would surely be regarded by the people in his time and afterwards as an unforgivable crime against Islam.253 S. D. Goitein also wondered as how such a major event as building a rival sanctuary to that of Makka could have been ignored by observant historians such as al-Ṭabarī and alBalādhurī and by zealous partisans such as al-Muqaddasī. Goitein added that had ʿAbd al-Malik done so, it would have been a remarkable religio-political sin, for he would have been deemed renegade by the great majority of contemporary Muslims, and it would have led many of them to claim jihad against him.254 Grabar, on the other hand, disqualifies it for the errors it has regarding dates and misattribution of events. Grabar further concludes that the source of this anecdote is only one account that was reiterated by later historians.255 It is telling that even if ʿAbd al-Malik did this, he had to legitimise it by quoting ḥadīth. According to a more recent theory, the erection of the Dome of the Rock was a part of a theological and political ‘cold war’ between Islam and the other two monotheistic religions.256 It is worth noting that this latter theory, which seems to better match the historical context of the period, is consistent with the accepted Islamic framework of the time of ʿAbd al-Malik’s who, based on al-Wāsiṭī’s account, did not embark upon this ‘national’ project before getting his subjects’ acquiescence.257

Maḥmūd ʿAkkūsh, ‘Bināʾ Qubbat al-Sakhra’, Majallat al-Sharq alʿArabī, 14 and 15 (1946). See also ʿAjjāj, Sunna, pp. 502–15. 254 S. D. Goitein, ‘The Historical Background of the Erection of the Dome of the Rock’, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 70 (1950), 104–8. 255 Grabar, ‘Umayyad Dome’, p. 5. 256 Ibid, p. 43. See also Oleg Grabar, ‘Qubbat al-Sakhrah’, Jerusalem, 4 (2005), 114–5. 257 Al-Wāsiṭī, Faḍāʾil al-Bayt al-Muqaddas, ed. Isaac Hasson (Jerusalem: Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1979), pp. 81–1, account no. 136, as translated by Nasser Rabbat in his ‘The Dome of the Rock Revisited: Some Remarks on al-Wasiti's Accounts’, Muqarnas, 10 (1993), 66–75 (p. 68). For the same account, see al-Maqdisī, Muthīr, pp. 171–2; Mujīr al-Dīn, al-Uns al-jalīl, i, p. 401. 253

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Figure 39: Jerusalem: plan of the Dome of the Rock (after Creswell, 1969)

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Figure 40: Jerusalem, plan of the Dome of the Rock (after Choisy, 1899)

7.3.5 How were the Umayyad mosques regarded by contemporary religious authorities? The sources distinguish between two main positions taken by the ulema of the time regarding the elaboration of mosques: one was tolerant and the other was censorious; neither was positively supportive. Open criticism was mainly applied to minor mosques rather than major ones. Aside from a few reports of resentment and quibbles, extensions and decoration of larger mosques were not generally condemned. The architectural works of ʿAbd al-Malik b. Marwān and his son al-Walīd were not usually considered excessive innovations. According to Ibn Kathīr, for example, none of the ṣaḥābīs except Anas b. Mālik (d. 93/712) saw al-Walīd’s mosque in Damascus (arguably, because they had died or lived in other plac-

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es). Anas, who narrated quite a number of important mosquerelated ḥadīths, was reported to have prayed in the mosque of Damascus while it was in the final stage of construction (thus implicitly endorsing it); the only thing he criticized was the delay in performing prayers.258 Mosques in the Umayyad period, just as in any other time, were hubs for zealous scholars and pious imams, and it is quite expected that if any of those scholars who saw what had been done thought it to transgress the sunna, they would have at least referred to that in their writings. It is reported, through al-Wāqidī that a major authority, Saʿīd b. al-Musayyib, observed the work in progress in the mosque of Madina, remarking that the Copts’ work was neater than that of the Byzantines.259 Known as the chief of all tābiʿīs (sayyid al-tābiʿīn), Ibn al-Musayyib in particular was famous for his strong views against the Umayyad caliphs.260 At Madina, the people only resented the demolition of the apartments of the Prophet’s wives.261 An eyewitness, ʿAṭāʾ alKhurāsānī, recounted: I was there when al-Walīd’s edict was being declaimed commanding that the apartments of the Prophet’s wives be incorporated into the mosque. [I bear witness that] I have not seen more wailers than on that day. I heard Saʿīd b. al-Musayyib saying: ‘I wish that they had left them so that a comer would have seen what the Prophet was contented with in this life. It should have been an aide-mémoire for people not to boast or extravagate’.262

Ibn Kathīr, Bidāya wa-nihāya, xii, 590. See al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, 524–5. 260 On Saʿīd b. al-Musayyib and his confrontation with the Umayyad caliphs al-Walīd and Hishām, see Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, vii, 119–43. 261 Al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, 547. On the incorporation of these apartments into the mosque, see also Wensinck, Early Muhammadan Tradition, p. 154. 262 Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, i, 430; al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, 517; Ibn al-Najjār, Durra, p. 153. 258 259

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Abū Umāma b. Sahl b. Ḥunayf said: ‘I wish they had been left to survive so that the [later] people would not lay much emphasis on [the affair of] building and see what God has been content with for His Prophet while the keys of this world are in His hands’.263 While this incident does not mean that the contemporary religious authorities criticized al-Walīd’s intention to rebuild the mosque, it proves they were able to express their objection when there was need, as they reckoned, to do so. Their wide-ranging silence about the architectural works of ʿAbd al-Malik and his son would thus imply that they did not see them as stark contraventions. The Madinan jurists also protested against al-Walīd’s intention to include the grave of the Prophet and his two Companions Abū Bakr and ʿUmar in the mosque. We have already seen that the erection of mosques on tombs was reproached by many ḥadīths (see Chapter 5).264 One of the dissidents and of Qyraysh’s eminent scholars,265 ʿUthmān b. ʿUrwa, advised ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz to enclose it with a pentagon-shaped screen (juʾjuʾan),266 lest the laity should pray towards it if they could do so. We are told that ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz purposely angled the sides of this structure in order to make it further difficult for anyone to be orientated towards the qibla if facing it.267 The authority of the Prophet’s mosque and its sacredness had already been well established by the Umayyad period. The caliph alWalīd had to put forth a compelling reason to rebuild it. In order to convince his pious client ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz of the legality of demolishing (and rebuilding) the mosque, al-Walīd said to him: ‘[In this], you have the good ideals of ʿUmar and ʿUthmān [who Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, i, 430. Al-Albānī (Taḥdhīr, pp. 9–20) has mentioned 14 ḥadīths in this regard. See also al-Shihrī, al-Masjid al-nabawī, p. 112. 265 Al-Sakhāwī, Tuḥfa, iii, 161. 266 Al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, 548. See also Yāsīn, Riḥla, p. 124; alNawawī, Sharḥ Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, v, 14; Ibn Taymiyya, al-Jawāb al-bāhir fī zuwwār al-maqābir, eds. Sulaymān b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Ṣunayʿ and Abd alRaḥmān b. Yaḥyā al-Muʿallamī (Riyadh: Idārat al-Buḥūth al-ʿIlmiyya wa-lIftāʾ, 1984), p. 12. 267 Al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, 548; Ibn Jubayr, Riḥla, pp. 168–9. 263 264

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formerly rebuilt the mosque]’.268 ʿUmar was palpably ardent to have the project carried out in the least provocative way. He reportedly asked advice from the chief Madinan scholars in almost every aspect. On the authority of an eyewitness, Muḥammad b. Mūsā b. Yaʿqūb, ʿUmar pulled down the mosque while accompanied by the notable Madinan jurists.269 They showed to him the key features (aʿlām) of the old mosque, estimated its area and laid its foundations.270 As Ibn Isḥāq al-Ḥarbī explains, ‘They showed to him the [foundation of] the first mosque of the Prophet so that ʿUmar should know the marks of the first mosque which once stood in the time of the Prophet’.271 Al-Muqaddasī relates that before ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz pulled down the miḥrāb, he called the notable sons of both the Muhājirūn and the Anṣār (Ibn Rusta added: ‘the notables from the Arabs and the non-Arabs’) and said [to them]: ‘Attend the erection of your qibla lest you should later say ʿUmar changed it!’272 ‘He did not take out a stone without putting [a new] one in its position’.273 Such reports could have been invented, emendated, or selected by later pro-Umayyad historians to imply the latter’s keenness on respecting the Prophet’s legacy. Yet, there are also reasons to think that such reports do not lack a genuine awareness, on the part of the Umayyads, of the authority of the model which the Prophet and his early caliphs once established. This thinking is, indeed, backed by a number of procedures which they applied, such as retaining the positions and names of the old columns of Al-Ṭabarī, xxiii (Hinds’s transl.), 141. Sources usually speak of ten scholars in particular. Of them the most agreed upon are al-Qāsim b. Muḥammad b. Abī Bakr al-Ṣiddīq, Sālim b. ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb, Abū Bakr b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. al-Ḥārith, ʿUbayd Allāh b. ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿUtba, Khārija b. Zayd and ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿUmar. See Ibn Kathīr, Bidāya wa-nihāya, xiii, 18; xii, 681. 270 Al-Ṭabarī, xxiii (Hinds’s transl.), 142. 271 Al-Ḥarbī, Manāsik, p. 366. 272 Al-Muqaddasī, Aḥsan al-Taqāsīm (De Goeje ed.), pp. 80–1; Ibn Rusta, Aʿlāq, p.69. 273 Ibn Rusta, Aʿlāq, p. 69. 268 269

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the Prophet’s mosque. His minbar and miḥrāb were also kept in their original positions. Further, the new three doors of Bāb Jibrīl, Bāb al-Nisāʾ and Bāb al-Raḥma were set on the same axes of the older ones and had the same names.274 ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz’s introduction of crenellations, reportedly for the first time in mosque architecture,275 was not thought of as a violation by such foremost religious authorities as al-Qāsim b. Muḥammad and Sālim b. ʿAbd Allāh. On the authority of Yaḥya b. al-Ḥusayn, when al-Qāsim and Sālim looked at the crenellations made by ʿUmar, they said: ‘Verily, these are of [i.e. they belong to] the decoration of the mosque (innahā min zīnat al-masjid)’.276 We cannot find in the sources, however, a clue to tell us whether this statement was intended negatively or positively by the two scholars. However, its vague tone could imply that it was not a strong criticism. Al-Qāsim and Sālim seem to have had somewhat liberal views regarding the ‘unavoidable’ development of mosque architecture. We have already seen that they tolerated the adoption of the maqṣūra (see Chapter 5). Later, however, the reports on ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz’s use of crenellations were denied by al-Samhūdī, who did not believe that such a zealous personage as ʿUmar would adopt a novelty that is clearly denounced by ḥadīth (see Chapter 6). Like other historians, al-Samhūdī attributes the introduction of crenellations to ʿAbd alWāḥid b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Naḍrī, the ruler of Madina in 104–6/722– 4.277 According to al-Azraqī, the Holy Mosque at Makka was also adorned with crenellations after the works of al-Walīd in 91/710. In all cases, al-Samhūdī’s rationale is weakened by the reports on

Al-Pāshā, Madkhal, pp. 105–6. Al-Ḥarbī, Manāsik, p. 368; Ibn al-Najjār, Durra, p. 176; alMarāghī, Taḥqīq, p. 51; al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, 525. 276 Al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, 525. 277 Ibid. According to other sources, his surname as al-Naṣrī, whereas Ibn Rusta (Aʿlāq, p. 70) gives it as al-Bahzī. See al Ḥarbī, Manāsik, p. 385. Al-Shihrī, however, argues that crenellations might have been introduced to the mosque in the time of ʿUmar and then renewed, 14 years later, in the time of al-Naḍrī: al-Masjid al-nabawī, p. 125. 274 275

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ʿUmar having applied gilding and mosaic to the mosque walls, a practice denounced by more circulating ḥadīths in fact. In brief, despite a few reports of resentment, the architectural sophistication of the Umayyad mosques was not generally condemned by contemporary religious pundits. We are thus left to conclude that the elaboration of mosques was not regarded by the scholars of the time as a transgression. For common people, things were more straightforward. According to Ibn ʿAsākir,278 one of the reasons why al-Walīd was regarded by the people of Syria as one of their most beneficent monarchs is that he built (congregational) mosques.279 In spite of their clear elaboration, the mosques of alWalīd continued to be referred to by Ibn Khaldūn as following the sanan (‘orthodoxy’) of the mosques in Islam.280 This thinking is supported by the reports on some of the contemporary jurists taking part in the work.281 As already hinted, criticism is more obvious when small, normally anonymous, mosques are concerned. On the authority of Abū Qilāba al-Jarmī (d. 104/722): One morning, we, accompanied by Anas b. Mālik, headed towards Zāwiya. Then, the fajr prayer became due. Anas suggested praying it in a mosque we passed by, but the other people said: ‘Not until we reach the other [presumably a betterlooking] mosque’. Anas wondered: ‘What mosque?’ They replied: ‘A mosque that has been erected recently’. Anas then reprimanded: ‘The Prophet said: “A day would come when the

See Ibn ʿAsākir, Tārīkh Dimashq, lxiii, 164–87 (p. 176). Al-Diyārbakrī, Tārikh, ii, 348. Al-Walīd’s building of the Umayyad mosque and his works at the Prophet’s mosque were regarded by such scholars as Muḥammad b. al-Madāʾinī as two of the former’s most outstanding feats. See Ibn Kathīr, Khulāṣa, pp. 297, 301–3; al-Suyūṭī, Tārīkh alkhulafāʾ, p. 198. 280 Ibn Khaldūn, Muqaddima, ii, 25. 281 It is also reported that notable Madinan traditionists helped ʿAbd al-Malik choose the site of his mosque. Creswell, EMA, i. 1, 66. 278 279

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Based on this, Anas, who was the last of all the Companions to die, did not consider the beautification of mosques to be important, and his reported practice underscores his antipathy to the ‘new’ and embellished mosques of the Umayyad period. He is reported by Thābit al-Bunānī (d. ca. 123/741) to have usually wondered before praying in a mosque for the first time whether it was new. If the answer was in the affirmative, then he normally left it for another [apparently older] one.283 According to al-Layth b. Saʿd (d. 175/791), Abū Wāʾil Shaqīq b. Salama (d. 82/701) missed prayers at the mosque of so and so, and left many new ones so as to pray in the mosque of so and so [an older one].284 7.3.6 Examples of ḥadīth influence on mosque architecture The partitioning of arcades into smaller horizontal aisles or bays seems to have been prompted by the many ḥadīths demanding the believers to arrange themselves in prayer in straight lines.285 We already saw that the portico of the Prophet’s mosque was supported by rows of palm trunks, which ran parallel to the qibla wall. In one ḥadīth, the Prophet commanded: ‘[…] straighten the line in prayer, as straightening the line is one sign of prayer’s meritoriousness’.286 To fulfil such a requirement, the ṣaḥābīs used to touch the

Al-Baghawī, Sharḥ al-sunna, ii, 351; al-ʿAynī, ʿUmda, iv, 302. The same statement of the Prophet is also reported by Ibn Abī Shayba (no. 3163). 283 Ibn Abī Shayba, no 6300. This was the same approach of other authorities such as Mujāhid (no. 6301) and Abū Wāʾil [Shaqīq b. Salama al-Asadī] (no. 6299). 284 Ibn Abī Shayba, no. 6299. 285 Al-Bukhārī, nos. 717–8. See also Ibn Māja, nos. 992–5; Ibn Ḥanbal, nos. 5724, 11950, 81452; al-Khaṭṭābī, Maʿālim, i, 183–4. The same thing is reported of ʿUmar and ʿUthmān. See Mālik, Muwaṭṭaʾ, nos. 422–3. 286 Hammah b. Munabbih, Ṣaḥīfa, no. 45; al-Dārimī, no. 1298; Ibn Ḥanbal, no 10239. 282

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feet and shoulders of one another.287 On the authority of Bushayr b. Yasār al-Anṣārī, when Anas b. Mālik came back to Madina, he was asked [by its locals]: ‘What [amongst our deeds] have you denied ever since you accompanied (ʿahidta) the Prophet?’ He said:’ I have denied nothing except that you do not straighten up (tuqīmūn) your lines’.288 In addition to giving insight into the tābiʿīs’ keenness to check the legality of their ceremonial practices, this incident connotes that Anas found nothing outrageous in terms of the form of the mosque, or he would have commented upon it.289 Ideally, in Islamic jurisprudence, the rows of worshippers should run continuously, and not disjointed by columns or piers. The Prophet forbade the worshippers to purposely arrange themselves between the columns (sawārī), thus wide spans were the ideal of Umayyad mosques, although obviously pillars have always been inevitable in any structure; perhaps this explains why donors boasted of the expense and size of their pillars in particular, as larger pillars would allow for fewer breaks in the prayer rows.290 While the dividing of the bayt al-ṣalāh into parallel aisles is likely to have been inspired by the Prophet’s acts and instructions, there is no rule to say into how many aisles it should be divided. There could be only one aisle, as in the mosque of Ukhayḍir, two as in Boṣra, three as in the mosque of Damascus, four as in Ḥarrān, or five as in the mosques of Madina, Kūfa, Wāsiṭ and Iskāf Banī Junayd. Likewise, the influence of ḥadīth is reflected in the fact that, in many mosques, the first aisle was made wider than any other, most likely to accommodate as many rows of worshippers as possible. According to ḥadīth, there is special virtue for those coming early to mosque at the Friday sermon. There is also a special reward for Al-Bukhārī, no. 725. See also al-Tirmidhī, no. 277. Al-Bukhārī, no. 724. 289 This is a different episode to a well-known one in which Anas criticizes: ‘I know nothing [of your actual practices that is reminiscent] of what was in the time of the Prophet except prayer, and it has been wasted’. Al-Bukhārī, no. 530. This latter incident took place in Damascus. 290 Ibn Māja, no. 1002. See also Ibn Abī Shayba, nos. 7578–84. Some of the tābiʿīs are reported to have been more lenient on praying between columns. Ibn Abī Shayba, nos. 7585–93. 287 288

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performing the five daily prayers in the first line behind the imam. On the authority of Abū Hurayra, the Prophet said: ‘[…], and if they [namely the Muslim people] knew what is promised for those attending in the front line, they will surely draw lots for it (lastahamū ʿalayhi)’.291 Also, the first aisle was also made wider as it contained the miḥrāb, minbar and maqṣūra. This, however, was not a regular procedure. As in the period of the Rāshidūn, we can find in the literature clear, if few, incidents where ḥadīth was used to arbitrate mosquerelated discussions. The rarity of such episodes could be attributable to the disputes that arose in the second/eighth century regarding the authoritativeness of ḥadīth (see Chapter 3). There is also the possibility that the incidents of ḥadīth consultation were more frequent, but that we are not told about them. In other words, the rarity of evidence does not necessarily mean evidence of rarity. In all cases, however, the ones we are told about are quite instructive. In addition to those mentioned above, ʿĀʾisha recounted: I once asked the Prophet—God’s peace and blessings be upon him—whether the Hijr is part of the Sacred House. He answered, ‘Yes’. I then asked him: ‘Then why have they not included it in the House?’ He said that the people fell short of funds for the cost. I also asked him concerning the door of the House, why it is raised above the ground. He replied: ‘Your people did so that they might admit whom they willed to enter, and deny whom they willed. And indeed, were it not that your people had only recently been in contact with paganism, so that I feared that their hearts would be changed, I should certainly have considered including the Hijr in the House, and fixing the door on a level with the ground’.292 Ibn al-Zubayr is said to have brought in ten of the chief Companions of the prophet to hear this from ʿĀʾisha herself. He then ordered the Al-Bukhārī, no. 721. On the virtue of praying in the first line, see Ibn Māja, nos. 996–9; al-Dārimī, no. 1300; Wensinck, Early Muhammadan Tradition, p. 193. On the meaning of istaham, see Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān, iii, 2135. 292 See al-Bukhārī, nos. 126, 1583–6, 3368, 4484, 7243. 291

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Kaʿbah to be pulled down. […] and he rebuilt it in accord with what ʿĀʾisha had told him, […].293

This account not only indicates that ḥadīth was consulted in architectural affairs, but also shows how this was implemented. When ʿAbd al-Malik had control over Makka after defeating Ibn alZubayr, al-Ḥajjāj wrote to him that the latter added to the Kaʿba what had not been part of it and made another door in it. Al-Ḥajjāj asked ʿAbd al-Malik to allow him to return the holy structure to its original form (i.e. as it had been built by the Quraysh before Islam). ʿAbd al-Malik agreed and explained to him how to do so without needing to pull down the whole structure of Ibn al-Zubayr.294 After the work was finished, al-Ḥārith b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Makhzūmī (d. post- 65/685) visited ʿAbd al-Malik. The latter said: ‘I do not assume that Abū Khubayb, an epithet of Ibn al-Zubayr, truly heard from ʿĀʾisha what he claimed he had heard from her regarding the Kaʿba’. Al-Ḥārith said: ‘I did hear that from ʿĀʾisha’. ʿAbd al-Malik asked: ‘What did you hear from her?’ He replied: ‘I heard her saying: “the Prophet told me [and he mentioned the above ḥadīth].”’ ʿAbd al-Malik wondered: ‘Did you truly hear her saying that?’ AlḤārith replied: ‘Yes, Commander of the Faithful; I heard that from her’. ʿAbd al-Malik then bowed his head, kept scratching the ground with a stick for a while, and then said: ‘By God, I wish I had left Ibn al-Zubayr and what he said he had heard in this respect (wa-mā taḥammala min dhālik)’.295 Nonetheless, it is not reported of ʿAbd al-Malik, or any later Umayyad monarch, to have undertaken any architectural procedure in response, most probably for fear that it would be taken as a lack of reverence for the Holy Sanctuary (i.e. if he demolished and built it again). Ironically, however, the pietistic remorse conveyed here on the part of ʿAbd al-Malik is challenged by the fact that it was the Umayyads themselves who reportedly struck the Kaʿba with catapults during their siege of Ibn al-Zubayr’s troops at Makka. Al-Muqaddasī (Collins’s transl.), p. 74. Al-Azraqī, Akhbār Makka, i, 305–7; Ibn ʿAbd Rabbih, ʿIqd, vi, 256, Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif, p. 560. 295 Al-Azraqī, Akhbār Makka, i, 305–7. 293 294

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Another example from the Umayyad period of how religious modalities influenced mosque architecture took place at Baṣra. When Ziyād saw the imam going across the lines of worshippers to reach the minbar,296 which was located in the middle of the mosque, he objected and said: ‘It is not allowed for the emir to step over the worshippers’ necks and shoulders (yatakhaṭṭā riqāb al-nās)’. Ziyād accordingly shifted the dār al-imāra so that it was situated in front of the mosque and turned the minbar to the front.297 It is also noticeable that in the Umayyad period, and later, no public gates were open in the qibla wall. The Prophet criticized those who came late and, wishing to pray in the front lines, disturbed the other worshippers who came earlier:298 On the authority of Abū Juhaym, the Prophet said: ‘If he who passes in front of a worshipper in prayer knows what he committed of sin (mādhā ʿalayhi), he would wait standing for forty (Abū al-Naḍr, a sub-narrator, said: “I forgot whether he said forty days, months or years”). This would be better for him than passing in front of the latter’.299

We already saw (Chapter 1) that Ziyād b. Abīh strew the floors of the two mosques at Baṣra and Kūfa with pebbles when he saw the worshippers clapping their hands after each prayer to get rid of the sand attached to them after sujūd. Ziyād said: ‘I am afraid that by passage of time, people would think of dusting hands in prayer as a matter of the sunna’.300 It was, theoretically, Ziyād’s vigilance to maintain the orthodox form of prayer that led him to introduce such improvements. The Prophet is reported to have said: ‘Pray as For ḥadīths forbidding this practice, see Ibn Māja, no. 1115–6; Ibn Hubayra, Ifṣāḥ, no. 172. 297 Al-Balādhurī, Futūḥ, p. 484; Ibn al-Faqīh, Buldān, p. 230; Yāqūt, Muʿjam al-buldān, i, p. 433. 298 See al-Bājī, Muntaqā, ii, 139–40. 299 Mālik, Muwaṭṭaʾ, no. 409; al-Bukhārī, no. 510; al-Dārimī, nos. 1456–7; al-Bayhaqī, no. 3452, 5886–9. See also Mālik, Muwaṭṭaʾ, nos.408– 12. 300 Al-Balādhurī, Futūḥ, pp. 389–90, 468; Yāqūt, Muʿjam al-buldān, i, 433–4. 296

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you have seen me praying’.301 Further, these episodes give an insight into a capacity to imagine forwards to counter the risk of the emergence of a popular false assumption.

7.4 CONCLUSION The pre-Umayyad mosques are argued by some to have been simpler copies of more elaborate structures.302 However, as described by the sources, these do not seem to closely resemble any of the pre-existing architectural types in the conquered countries. That being the case, it is more consistent to think that their rustic configuration was inspired by the Prophet’s archetype at Madina. The above discussion reveals that from an early stage we begin to note evidence of diversity of form within unity of underlying principles. Such underlying principles were extracted from a varied range of sources, including the Prophet’s model and the practices of the chief Companions. Although the 30–year Rāshidūn Caliphate followed directly the time of the Prophet, the substantial political and social changes it witnessed produced a truly different milieu. Under the Rāshidūn, the outline of the Prophet’s mosque was observed. The recorded change in some mosques—the most noticeable example being the lack of a ṣaḥn in the mosque of Fusṭāṭ— could well be ascribed to the fact that the Prophet did not set out a binding architectural form for the mosque. The Rāshidūn ruled in a time where the Muslim communities located in various places of widely contrasting climate and geology, and of different cultural backgrounds. Although they reportedly adhered to the Prophet’s model of simplicity, there were harbingers that some inevitable evolution would soon happen to mosque architecture. The use of hewn stones by ʿUthmān could be taken as a step to dismiss, albeit in a relative sense, old, primordial simplicity. Another good example is the use of antique columns by Saʿd b. Abī Waqqāṣ for the mosque of Kūfa,303 giving its colonnade the

Al-Albānī, Ṣaḥīḥ al-jāmiʿ, no. 893. See Johns, ‘House of the Prophet’, p. 81. 303 See Pedersen, ‘Masdjid’, p. 660; Hillenbrand, ‘Masdjid’, p. 679. 301 302

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look of a somewhat fine ‘gallery’.304 Some of the Companions, it seems, surmised that sheer simplicity was not intended by the Prophet for its own sake or for all time. By the caliphate of ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb, the Muslim empire had already been capable, in terms of resources and workmanship, to get the Prophet’s mosque rebuilt in the utmost elegant form then available. Why did he, then, prefer simplicity? As already denoted, the ‘simplicity’ of the Prophet’s mosque is attributed by some to inadequate experience of seventh-century Arabia.305 While such a reasoning may seem plausible on the face of it, it makes no sense when applied, for instance, to the also-simple mosques at Fusṭāṭ in Egypt and Jerusalem in Palestine—two lands of outstanding architectural heritage. The simplicity of the latter mosque is confirmed by a non-Muslim eyewitness, i.e. Arculf (see Chapter 2).306 According to Pedersen’s translation of Arculf’s text, the mosque of ʿUmar in Jerusalem is described as being ‘[…] built with little art with boards and large beams […]’.307 Rivoira attributed Arculf’s brief account of the building to its artless form.308 In addition to emulating the Prophet’s model, as he saw it, one reason why ʿUmar did not want to build massive mosques could be the fact that his period was characterized by a large rich-poor divide due to the rapid conquests and problems of consolidation. For example, there are reports of earthquakes and famines in the Ḥijāz in his time, and caravans of aid being sent from Egypt. In this context, spending on architecture would surely be profligate. The divergent attitudes of ʿUmar and ʿUthmān regarding what the mosque should look like could be attributable to their differing experiences of the Prophet’s relevant sayings and actions. It could equally be ascribed to their different understandings of the same

Rivoira, Moselm Architecture, p. 8. For more details, see King, ‘Creswell’s Appreciation of Arabian Architecture’, pp. 94–102. 306 See Tobler, Itinera, i, 145. 307 Pedersen, ‘Masdjid’, 648. 308 Rivoira, Moselm Architecture, p. 18. 304 305

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sayings and actions.309 A telling, as well as familiar, example is how the ṣaḥābīs responded to the Prophet’s command to expel the Jews of the Banū Qurayẓa after violating, during the Battle of the Confederates, the pact they had agreed with the Prophet. The instruction declared: ‘He who believes in God and the Last Day should not perform the ʿaṣr prayer except in the fortresses of the Banū Qurayẓa’. A faction of the ṣaḥābīs were overtaken by the ʿaṣr prayer before reaching the Banū Qurayza. Some of this faction insisted not to pray it until they would reach there, in literal obedience to the Prophet’s command, while others interpreted this instruction figuratively and insisted they had to pray in the customary time. Thus, one group prayed at the time, while the remainder waited until they had occupied the fortifications of the Banū Qurayẓa. When they later informed the Prophet of their interpretations, he did not rebuke either group.310 Varied, sometimes conflicting, readings of the same text are a common occurrence in every time and culture. In many cases, the way in which the text is read (shaped by the recipient’s general attitude, knowledge, and biases, etc.) is more important than the text itself. A good example is a quite familiar (albeit pseudo-) ḥadīth that states: ‘Do for the present life as if you would live forever, and do for the Afterlife as if you would die tomorrow’. Commonly thought of as a sound ḥadīth, this statement is publicly taken to allow/urge people to work towards worldly success and a comfortable life, while a more conservative reading could present an almost opposite meaning, i.e. people are not supposed to give priority to worldly matters (at the expense of religious ones) as if there were an infinite time to tackle these. Many of the universally recognized elements of a typical mosque, or at least their forerunners, were either adopted by the Prophet at his mosque or judged by his actions and/or utterances. By the end of the Umayyad period, the main components of the mosque comprised the ṣaḥn, riwāqs, minaret, pulpit, maqṣūra, and On why the ṣaḥābīs and the tābiʿīs sometimes held divergent views regarding specific subjects, particularly furūʿ, see Shāh Walī Allāh alDihlawī, Ḥujjat Allāh, i, 243–53. 310 Al-Bukhārī, no. 4119; Muslim, no. 4602. 309

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concave prayer niche. These, and other elements, can be categorized into two groups. The first includes those which were arbitrated by the Prophet, either because they—or more commonly their precursors—were parts of his mosque, or because he wished to warn against adopting them after he would die.311 The second group, on the other hand, contains the elements which were neither included in the Prophet’s mosque nor referred to by any of his ḥadīths, such as the central nave and the concave prayer niche. The Umayyad hypostyle mosques (also known as the Arabplan mosques), such as Baṣra II, Kūfa II, Fusṭāṭ II, Ṣanʿāʾ and Ḥarrān, were built after the Prophet’s mosque, which ‘became the model in newly founded cities’.312 Nonetheless, other Umayyad mosques, especially those built by ʿAbd al-Malik and al-Walīd, adopted different architectural types. The Dome of the Rock in particular is held to have been influenced by Late Antique, particularly Byzantine, architectural types.313 It represents a separate category of Umayyad religious architecture, distinguished from alWalīd’s mosques as one group, and the hypaethral mosques as another.314 Apart from advancement in form and material, the Umayyad mosques were distinctly different from one another. In the absence of a fixed outline, many details were left to be settled in the light of locally changeable conditions. Freedom of choice is further indicated by the fact that there are no ideal dimensions for a mosque, or any specifically favoured proportions for its constituent parts. Some argue that a certain proportion linked between the length of A good example is the ḥadīths on decorating mosques and building them on graves. 312 Ettinghausen and Grabar, Art and Architecture of Islam, p, 36. 313 Bloom and Blair, Islamic Arts, p. 28. See also Bloom, ‘Mosque’, p. 430. 314 Ettinghausen and Grabar, Art and Architecture of Islam, pp. 27–8. According to Mujīr al-Dīn, the Dome of the Rock was modelled after an abutting smaller structure, known as Qubbat al-Silsila, ‘the Dome of the Chain’. This structure, still standing until today, is said to have been built for this particular purpose (i.e. to serve as a model for the Dome of the Rock): al-Uns al-jalīl, i, 401. 311

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the qibla wall and the depth of the bayt al-ṣalāh. The measurements of these parts in many mosques, however, reveal that such a governing rule never existed. Nor were there any universally advised ratios for later modifications/enlargements for these mosques. Rather, the length and depth of the bayt al-ṣalāh depended, both during the Umayyad period and afterwards, on such practical factors as: (i) the size of the population of the town/village in which the mosque would be established and, in turn, the estimated number of the prospective worshippers it would serve; (ii) the number of available antique columns that would be re-used to support the roof, or the accessibility and cost of the material to be used in making new columns/piers; (iii) and the height of the bayt al-ṣalāh itself, as well as the method to be used to uphold its roof.315

Fikrī, Madkhal, pp. 302–3; Walmsley and Damgaard, ‘The Umayyad Congregational Mosque of Jarash’, pp. 372–6. 315

CHAPTER 8. CONCLUSIONS The foreign influences on the post-conquest evolution of the mosque, while undeniable, do not suffice to substantiate an essentially non-Islamic provenance. As we have seen, the necessary prompts for the making of the mosque and the shaping of its essential functional and architectural features were capably provided by early Islam, as represented in the Prophet’s teachings and practices as well as the Qurʾān. Furthermore, the initiation of the mosque by the Prophet himself enhances its Islamic character. The Prophet was rather in favour of a simpler and a more regionaloriented type of building that best fitted the simple formal requirements of the Muslim rituals as practiced by the earliest Muslim community. The pre-eminence, prestige and authority of the Prophet’s mosque and its space at Madina, on account of its affiliation to the Prophet, are clearly established through an extensive corpus of writings by traditionists, historians, geographers, travellers, and pilgrims. The perception that the mosque was instituted by the Prophet himself explains the great reverence for its layout and space, which were connected to the memory of him. The reported commitment of the early patrons to keeping the orientation of the qibla wall of his mosque, for instance, is attributed to their belief that it was marked out by the Prophet himself and is hard to explain otherwise. The same thing applies to their persistence in preserving the exact positions of the older columns each time these were replaced with newer ones.1 In both cases, it is space and not 1

See al-Ḥarbī, Manāsik, 364; al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii. 505.

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object that is venerated. The components of the building, on the other hand, were not kept for long. This is due to the robust campaign, already initiated by the Prophet himself, against the reverence of objects, let alone the transient material of such components. This study has endeavoured to offer insights on how religious modalities, as reflected in the sayings and actions of the Prophet and the practices of the earliest Muslim community, prompted the architectural evolution of the mosque. To do so, we have dealt with two main questions: what does ḥadīth have to say about the building of mosques? How far did the instructions it gives in this regard influence the architecture of early congregational mosques? In addressing the first question, we have been confronted with a large body of ḥadīth literature and larger addenda of later commentaries which, prima facie, give an impression of the Prophet’s abhorrence of (or at least lack of enthusiasm for) the erection of massive mosques, their decoration, and in fact building in general (see Chapter 6). This seems to be enhanced by reports implying that the ‘simplicity’ of the Prophet’s mosque was determined, and not due to inexperience and poor material. On the other hand, there are indications to the effect that the Prophet appreciated architectural beauty and that he wanted his mosque, and the mosque in general, to be properly built. Of course, such paradoxical statements could be taken to reflect later discourses regarding mosque architecture. They may also be attributable to the anecdotal and topological nature of the sources.2 However, in order for us to investigate the question of how the Prophet thought of mosque form, we need to assess his mosque not as a thing alone, but in the physical and cultural setting in which it was placed. As purveyed by the sources, the Prophet’s mosque well matched the cultural life of the people for whom it was instituted at the time. The Prophet did not want his mosque to be built after the fashion of the Syrian edifices (see Chapters 4 & 6), as it was not located in Syria; rather, it was located in a much simpler environment, among relatively rustic people. We could imSee Ettinghausen, Grabar and Jenkins-Madina, Islamic Art and Architecture, pp. 5–6; Antun, ‘Architectural Form of the Mosque’, pp. 87–8. 2

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agine the startling visual impact that an elaborate structure might have had on viewers if planted in such a simple locality as that of Madina in illo tempore. The earliest converts, whose contact with paganism was still recent, would in that case attend the mosque to feast their eyes rather than to ‘feed their souls’. In the years to come, this could develop into a sheer cult. In other words, the Prophet did not want the mosque to be exalted for its striking appearance and material beauty, but for the religious, spiritual, and social roles it was set to play. He was keen to take every precaution to resist idolatry which, as he believed, originated from venerating material objects. In the same vein, we could understand the Prophet’s annoyance when a Muslim individual erected a private domed structure (see Chapter 6). There is nothing in the Prophet’s biography to say that no domes should be built, but rather that he did not want the man to boast about a structure that must have seemed sumptuous in comparison to other contemporary lodgings. The Prophet also disapproved of the fact that the man paid much attention to such worldly and ephemeral concerns. Further, we saw that the theory on the Prophet’s negative attitude towards building contradicts other ḥadīths with a higher degree of authenticity. According to these, one of the two fundamental reasons for which humankind was created is to populate the earth through activities such as cultivation and construction. The Prophet’s mosque was made in such a form not because there was no way to build a more elaborate one, or because the Prophet disliked building. It was made simple to match the simplicity of its surroundings and of the Islamic ritual requirements, which needed no more than a clean, levelled piece of land. By the second year AH, particularly after changing the qibla direction, the mosque had been composed of an open courtyard surrounded by two porticoes. This outline, while not predetermined by the Prophet, represents the prototype for later mosques. Even the most distinguishing constituents of a typical mosque, i.e. the minaret, miḥrāb and minbar could have derived from features and practices already included in the Prophet’s template. The Prophet’s receptiveness with regard to what the mosque should look like is indicated by his consent to improvements which he did not command or suggest, e.g. adopting the minbar, treating the qibla wall with saffron, using oil lamps to illuminate the mosque and using

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pebbles to cover the floor. Generally, the Prophet’s attitude, we find, is more nuanced than the dogmatic outlook subsequently projected onto him by many scholastic commentators. In the early caliphate, the Prophet’s paradigm was retained. The big number of ḥadīths on the virtue of building mosques and attending them must have been a strong impetus for the Prophet’s immediate followers to erect as many mosques as possible. This, in turn, provided a context for the architectural evolution of the mosque. There are also clear examples where ḥadīths were consulted in mosque-related discussions and decisions. However, the evident scope of diversity in ḥadīth is mirrored in the different understandings adopted by the Companions. The most salient example is represented by the divergent attitudes held by ʿUmar and ʿUthmān, two of the Prophet’s closest Companions. As we saw in Chapter 7, each of the two patrons rebuilt the Prophet’s mosque during his caliphate. ʿUmar’s structure was a straightforward reproduction of the Prophet’s archetype, while ʿUthmān rebuilt the mosque on the same plan but in a more sophisticated form. The fact that some steps were already taken by some of the Prophet’s Companions to relieve old simplicity would imply their realization that such a simplicity was not intended for its own sake or for all time. The Prophet wanted the mosque to be built in a way that was ‘frugal’ but ‘proper’. These two adjectives should be considered in a relative sense. Being ‘frugal’ does not mean that it should be poor in form or material; rather it should be neither wasteful nor distractive. Likewise, ‘proper’ does not mean massive and striking, but handsome and durable. In the Umayyad period, we are not told about many cases in which ḥadīth was considered when a mosque was to be built, but this does not mean that such negotiations did not occur. Under the Umayyads, the plan of the Prophet’s mosque was replicated by the majority of mosques (i.e. they were mainly composed of an open courtyard surrounded by porticoes). From the rise of Islam to the end of the Umayyad period, no mosques were built over tombs. The avoidance of making representations for humans or animals on the walls of mosques is another aspect of how devotional imperatives affected the mosque appearance. Furthermore, the group of ḥadīths commanding the worshippers to be arranged in straight parallel lines, as well as their need to see the imam and listen to the khaṭīb, laid clear architectural emphasis on width rather than depth.

8. CONCLUSIONS

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Unlike the Prophet’s mosque, however, the Umayyad mosques were evidently perfected and elaborated (see Chapter 7). While this could be attributable to the patrons seeking the reward promised for the perfection of work (itqān al-ʿamal), sometimes the elaboration of mosques echoed the patrons’ conceit and ostentatious display. There are also cases where the intention was to provide the early Muslim migrants, some of whom began to be fascinated by the architectural grandeur of the non-Muslim places of worship, with a source of solace and pride in their own civilization. As such, the elaboration of mosques was one aspect of Islamic competitive propaganda, especially in that the mosque was the foremost token of Islamic civilization and the nucleus of its religious manifestation. It was not simply a place of prayer, but held other religious, political, military, and social functions. It should be noted that in early Islam, as in contemporaneous civilizations such as the Byzantine Empire, the realms of secular and religious were difficult to separate, and indeed such distinctions would be considered artificial or abhorrent. In many cases, the work was perfected for expediency, in pursuit of effective functionality and durability, and not simply to catch the eye, while being firmly rooted in religious intentions and purposes. This may explain, even if partially, why the elaborate Umayyad mosques—particularly the major ones—were not vociferously denounced by contemporary religious authorities, who opined mild criticism based on social justice concerns (i.e. spending money on buildings rather than on the poor) rather than due to ostentation or innovation per se. It might have been deemed inevitable that such elaborate mosques should be erected, to match the general advancement in cultural life. It would not seem reasonable for Muslim societies or citizens to build mosques structurally inferior to the houses of Muslim and non-Muslim individuals. We can imagine the negative impact that would be produced by the sight of a mosque (built of rubble and labin, roofed with rushes and lit with oil lamps) in a setting of appealing buildings. Furthermore, the Prophet did not want the mosque to look odd in its surroundings. Given the simplicity of the surroundings of the Prophet’s mosque in his time and the need for all resources to support the Islamic daʿwa and jihād, the elaborating of the Prophet’s mosque—or any other building—was looked upon as excessive. This view is further backed by the fact that one of the primary reasons for the late ṣaḥābīs and ear-

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ly tābiʿīs to denounce the elaboration of mosques was their belief that the money spent on such non-essentials should have been assigned to the benefit of the needy. This restriction was mitigated in later times due to the general advancement that happened to the community’s standards of living. Further, as Islam lays special emphasis on aʿmāl al-qalb, ‘actions of the heart’, the religious acceptability of the form of a given mosque would mainly be judged by the builder’s purpose and intention, which are naturally imponderable. A mosque could be elaborated and still be regarded as religiously appropriate if that was done for God’s pleasure, i.e. by honouring mosques which are defined as ‘the houses of God’. On the other hand, a mosque could be built in a modest way, but still not be regarded as compliant with the model of the Prophet, e.g. if this was the only option available at the time. It could even count against the builder if he did so out of miserliness, which is a serious character flaw in Islam usually associated with cowardice. While the erection of mosques usually brought good reputation to the patrons, in some cases the competition in elevation and beautification led to pride, which is a religiously detestable trait. There are also rare instances where building mosques was a source of notoriety, i.e. if they were built to facilitate malevolent schemes against the believers. The most famous example is Masjid al-Ḍirār which was reproached by the Qurʾān (see Chapter 4). As we saw in Chapters 4 & 6, there is historical evidence that the idea of amelioration was already initiated by the Prophet himself. Furthermore, the existence of the Prophet’s mosque would mean that the Arabs knew such a religious building type before the time of the conquests. Could this properly explain why the early mosques were hypaethral? Was their architecture, in terms of how space was planned, inspired by the Prophet’s prototype? One could safely argue that, apart from the re-use of antique columns for the colonnade of the Kūfa mosque,3 the descriptions given by the sources for the earliest mosques (the latter is included besides those at Baṣra and Fusṭāṭ) do not show them to be influenced by any of

3

See Pedersen, ‘Masdjid’, p. 660; Hillenbrand, ‘Masdjid’, p. 679.

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the pre-Islamic styles in Mesopotamia or Egypt.4 In subsequent renovations of these mosques, however, space was re-designed under the influence of the architectural styles of such territories, while continuing to be governed in the main by Islamic devotional determinants. The same thing applies to the architecture of the early mosques, in terms of how space was occupied. Let us take the minaret as an example. The minaret could have been prefigured by the habit of Bilāl calling to prayer from the highest roof in the vicinity (including the Kaʿba itself during the conquest of Makka). It is of interest to note in this connection that the Prophet, having been concerned about the adhān not being heard by all the believers at Madina, contemplated commanding some of his Companions to call to prayer from the top of higher structures, the āṭām.5 Also, the minaret could have been a direct improvement of the Miṭmār, a pillar reportedly mounted by Bilāl for the same purpose.6 At the same time, external architectural influences on the minaret design and decoration are very clear. Hence, the need for a raised place to call to prayer, a convention which goes back to the Prophet, was kindled by the formal procedure of adhān, while the architectural realization of form and height of the raised place was variously influenced. Similarly, the concave prayer niche could have derived from the fact that the Prophet used to thrust a spear in front of himself before praying so as to mark the qibla, and to preclude anyone from passing in front of him while in prayer. The group of ḥadīths on the need for the imam to put something in front of him, i.e. sutra, and to leave a space between himself and the qibla wall might have prompted the introduction of the concave prayer niche, seeing that it would include the imam and thus save a complete line for other worshippers. Some have argued that simpler recessed prayer niches already existed in the time of the Prophet (Chapter 5). Likewise, the Such early mosques are argued by some to have been simpler copies of more elaborate structures. See Johns, ‘House of the Prophet’, p. 81. 5 See Abū Dāwūd, no. 506. 6 See Ibn al-Najjār, Durra, p. 164; al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, ii, 530; Sauvaget, La Mosquée Omeyyade de Médine, p. 156. 4

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Umayyad minbar must have been inspired by the three-step wooden pulpit which was made for the Prophet. More basically, the group of ḥadīths on the qibla and the necessity of being orientated towards this qibla during prayers should have led to attention being paid to the qibla wall and the miḥrāb. In other words, the architectural elements of the mosque derived from two sources: the practices of the Prophet and the earliest Muslim community, in terms of devotional origin; and an array of variable influences, in terms of architectural form. The point to underscore here is that the effect of one source does not necessarily contradict that of the other. Taking into consideration such a perspective, while investigating the question on the formation of the mosque, may lead to a firmer grasp of the diverse prompts that moulded mosque architecture, and of how they amalgamated and interacted. Generally, the practice of building mosques was governed by both Islamic law and the convention of the Muslim people of the time. It was governed by Islamic law because providing the worshippers with a place to pray is itself a worship, while the form and materials of mosques were governed by the convention of Muslim people, seeing as the Prophet did not specify a canonical form for the mosque. Consequently, the forms of mosques varied by time and place, relative to broad, essential religious requirements and particular contextual manifestations. In the time of the Prophet and the Companions, the convention was to build simple hypaethral mosques, but in later times, for the reasons explained, this changed. In the Umayyad period, the Prophet’s mosque was rebuilt in a more developed form. Many architectural features were introduced, allegedly for the first time, including minarets, concave prayer niche, wooden maqṣūra, crenellations and decoration. It is noticeable, however, that such elements, which became the main architectural components of later mosques, were introduced to the Prophet’s site by Ṣāliḥ b. Kaysān, who narrated the most significant and trusted ḥadīth on the form of

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the mosque in the time of the Prophet and the Rāshidūn caliphs (see Chapter 7).7 Ṣāliḥ’s architectural works claim more significance by being supervised by the pious emir ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, and a community whose consent (ʿamal ahl al-Madīna) was shortly to be considered by Mālik b. Anas and other early eminent jurists as an important source of Islamic jurisprudence (see Chapter 3).8 Such a sublime stature began to be conferred upon the community of Madina as early as the emirate of ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz,9 who was aided by a consultative council consisting of the ten most celebrated Madinan scholars at the time. ʿUmar is particularly said to have never violated the opinion of Saʿīd b. al-Musayyib.10 As Hitti puts it, ‘ʿUmar was entirely under the influence of the theologians and has enjoyed through ages a reputation for piety and asceticism that stands in glaring contrast with the alleged impiety of the Umayyad régime. He was, in fact, the Umayyad saint’.11 This very quality of the early Madinan community also applies to the consensus of the Muslim nation at any time; the Prophet is reported to have said: ‘God has protected my nation from consenting to a perversity [i.e. uniting upon misguidance]’.12 Under the Umayyads, a number of foreign components were introduced to mosque architecture. A good example is the central nave. While in the Aqṣā mosque it completely replaced the ṣaḥn,13 in the mosque of Damascus the latter was retained, but in a smaller See al-Bukhārī, no. 446; Ibn Ḥanbal, no. 6139; al-Bayhaqī, no. 4294; Ibn Rusta, Aʿlāq, p. 66. 8 On the weight of ʿamal ahl al-Madīna in Islamic jurisprudence, see Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām al-Muwaqqiʿīn, i, 175; Schacht, Muhammadan Jurisprudence, pp. 82 ff; J. Brown, Misquoting Muhammad, pp. 28–30; al-Tirmidhī, no. 2680 9 Some propose earlier dates. 10 Ibn Kathīr, Bidāya wa-nihāya, xii, 681. 11 Philip Hitti, History of the Arabs: From the Earliest Times to the Present, 10th edn (London: Macmillan, 1970), p. 222. 12 See Abū Dāwūd, no. 4253; Ibn Māja, no. 395. 13 However, the adoption of a central nave for the Umayyad Aqṣā mosque is a moot point. See and compare Figs. 34–7. 7

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size. The Dome of the Rock, on the other hand, is a unique type of religious building not only in the Umayyad period but also in history of Islamic architecture taken together (see Chapter 7). Did such architectural changes violate the Prophet’s model? According to some puritan strands in various schools, they did. For example, a group of modern Shīʿīs continue to call to prayer from a doorway or a roof instead of using minarets or loudhailers,14 while the Wahhābī mosques of Arabia (from the eighteenth century onwards) and, in a lesser degree, those of some modern Salafīs in Egypt and elsewhere also exemplify such a literalist approach.15 However, the Prophet’s model, as already hinted, does not include a must-follow architectural form. We have no Qurʾānic verse, ḥadīth or historical account to say that he commanded, or even advised, that the plan of his mosque should be copied by others. Therefore, whether the mosque had a ṣaḥn—or any other component—was left to the builders to determine according to climate, space, and other local conditions. While the courtyard suited the sunny climate in Arabia and the southern Mediterranean regions, the seasonally cold and rainy weather in Syria and Jerusalem dictated that a spacious courtyard should be replaced by another architectural element that would permit light and air but protect the mosque from rains and cold winds at the same time. A central nave best fitted these needs. Equally, the nature of the activities which the ṣaḥn accommodated since the time of the Prophet, along with its suitability for the summer months, led the patrons to retain it, albeit in a smaller size. In early Islam, the adoption of a new architectural element was not inevitably regarded as a breach of the Prophet’s model just because it was not included in his mosque or because of its nonIslamic derivation. The Prophet’s keenness to make the rites of the new religion distinct from those of the other faiths did not preclude his adoption of the minbar, in spite of the fact that it was referred to by the Companion who proposed the idea and reported the feature as a Syrian device.16 On the other hand, such innovaBloom, ‘Mosque’, p. 430. See Hillenbrand, ‘Manāra’, p. 361. 16 Ibn al-Najjār, Durra, p. 158. See also al-Bayhaqī, nos. 5698–9. 14 15

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tions would surely be judged transgressive if they breached the general principles which the Prophet set for the mosque form, i.e. if any was lavish, pretentious, or distracting, etc. More importantly, the mosque should not include any representations of humans, animals or birds. This very restrictiveness, however, impelled the Muslim artists to develop uniquely intricate vegetal, geometric and calligraphic decorative motifs (see Plts. 10 & 11). Finally, there are indeed cases where the architectural evolution of the mosque influenced ḥadīth literature. First, quite a number of ḥadīths of controversial authenticity, praise specific mosques and specify considerable reward for praying at them.17 Such ḥadīths are typically reported by local chroniclers. The Damascene Ibn ʿAsākir, for instance, reported of ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb to have said: ‘He who performs an enjoined prayer at one of the amṣār mosques will get the reward of an accepted pilgrimage, and if he performs a supererogatory prayer [there], he will get the reward of a blessed ʿumra’.18 It should be noted here that such reports on the faḍāʾil, ‘virtues or merits’, of certain people, times, regions, etc. are generally debatable.19 Some ḥadīth compilations, such as the Muṣannaf of Ibn Abī Shayba and that of ʿAbd al-Razzāq, include chapters on architectural elements that were definitely introduced after the Prophet’s time, such as the minaret, the maqṣūra and the miḥrāb. With the exception of a few (usually spurious) ḥadīths, linking such elements with the Prophet’s career, these were mainly reports on the ṣaḥābīs’ different attitudes towards the adoption of these elements. Significantly, the architectural development of mosques influenced the style of grouping what was thought of as relevant ḥadīths It is telling, in this regard, that the reports on the precedence of the mosque of Kūfa, for example, are given by a Kūfan, Ibn Abī Shayba (Muṣannaf, v, 174), and those related to the mosque of Damascus are given by Damascene, Ibn ʿAsākir (Tārīkh Dimashq, ii, 236–48). The precedence of the former, however, is also argued by Ibn al-Faqīh, Buldān, pp. 210–11 18 Ibn ʿAsākir, Tārīkh Dimashq, ii, 244; al-Muttaqī al-Hindī, Kanz, nos. 23073; al-Maqrīzī, Khiṭaṭ, ii, 246. 19 See Juynboll, Muslim Tradition, pp. 12–4, 17; id., Origins and Uses of Islamic Ḥadīth, pp. 70–2. 17

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in later compilations. Al-Bayhaqī, for example, reported a number of ḥadīths on piousness as an inevitable feature in the muezzin under the heading: ‘No One is Allowed to Call to Prayer Unless he is Trustworthy and Honest for he Could Catch Sight of the People’s Private Life’. Al-Bayhaqī’s choice of such a heading is palpably influenced by later practices as well as development in the minaret construction and height. In the same manner, al-Bukhārī, who also tended to imply legal positions through the headings he chose for ḥadīth entries, reported the ḥadīth about the maker of the minbar under: ‘Using the Carpenters and the Craftsmen in [the Making of] the Minbar and [the Building of] the Mosque’. As the mosque architecture continued to develop, later expositors of ḥadīth such as alNawawī, Ibn Ḥajar and al-ʿAynī had to expound, in their commentaries, on the architectural features of the mosque. We have seen cases where, in contrast to the dominant concepts on its austerity and rigidity, early Islam’s approach towards certain architectural features was indeed significantly multifaceted. Due to limitations of time and space, nonetheless, not all such features have received the adequate attention. Further, while this study has been mainly based on literary evidence, I hope that the coming years will bring forth some meaningful archaeological evidence that would help scholars proceed, on a firmer ground, with the study of the various dynamics that shaped early Islamic architecture. Also, the historical material considered in this book might incite to new questionings and a more in-depth study (or studies) of some important, and scarcely addressed, theo-philosophical issues, particularly philosophical aesthetics and political theology in relation to architecture in Islam.

BIBLIOGRAPHY NOTE ON THE QURʾĀN AND ḤADĪTH Qurʾānic passages are quoted from The Holy Quran: English Translation of the Meanings and Commentary, rev. and ed. the Presidency of Islamic Researches, Ifta, Call and Guidance (Medina: King Fahd Holy Qurʾān Printing Complex, 1990) Ḥadīths from the Six Canonical Books are cited from Mawsūʿat alḤadīth al-Sharīf: al-Kutub al-Sitta, Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, Sunan Abī Dāwūd, Jāmiʿ al-Tirmidhī, Sunan al-Nasāʾī wa-Sunan Ibn Māja, rev. Shaykh Ṣāliḥ b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz Āl al-Shaykh (Riyadh: Dār al-Salām, 1999) Ḥadīth and Arabic accounts are my own translation unless otherwise specified.

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Welch, A. T., and J. D. Pearson ‘al-Ḳurʾān’, EI2 (1986), v, 400–32 Wellhausen, Julius, (ed.), ‘Prolegomena Zur Ältesten Geschichte Des Islams’, in Skizzen und Vorarbeiten (Berlin: Reimer, 1899), vi, 1–160 ———, Aḥzāb al-muʿāraḍa al-siyāsiyya al-dīniyya fī ṣadr al-Islam: alkhawārij wa-l-shīʿa (The Religio-Political Opposition Parties in Early Islam: Khawārij and Shiʿites), transl. A. Badawī (Maktabat alNahḍa al-Miṣriyya, 1958) Wensinck, A. J., A Handbook of Early Muhammadan Tradition: Alphabetically Arranged, (Leiden: Brill, 1960)Wensinck, A. J., ‘Kaʿba: the Most Famous Sanctuary of Islam’, EI2 (1997, iv, 317–22 ———, Muhammad and the Jews of Medina (Berlin: Freiburg, 1975) Whelan, Estelle, ‘The Origins of the Miḥrāb Mujawwaf: A Reinterpretation’ in Jonathan M. Bloom (ed.), Early Islamic Art and Architecture (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002), pp. 373–91. Williams, Rowan (ed.), The Making of Orthodoxy: Essays in Honour of Henry Chadwick (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002) al-Wohaibi, A., The Northern Hijaz in the Writings of the Arab Geographers: 800–1150 (Beirut: al-Risāla, 1973) Yāsīn, Maʾmūn M., al-Riḥla ilā al-Madīna al-Munawwara (Damascus: [n. pub], 1987) Yeomans, Richard, The Art and Architecture of Islamic Cairo (Reading: Garnet, 2006) Yoffee, Norman, ‘Editor’s Note’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 45 (2002), 423 al-Zahrānī, M. Maṭar, Tadwīn al-sunna al-nabawiyya: nashaʾtuh wataṭawwuruh min al-qarn al-awwal ilā nihāyat al-qarn al-tāsiʿ al-hijrī (Riyadh: Dār al-Minhāj, 2005) Zaman, Iftikhar, Evolution of Hadith (Piscataway NJ: Gorgias Press, 2017) ———, ‘The Science of Rijāl as a Method in the Study of Ḥadīths’, Journal of Islamic Studies, 5 (1994), 1–34. Zetterstéen, K. V., ‘Abān b. ʿUthmān’, EI2 (1986), i, 2–3

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Ziegler, Christiane and Jean-Luc Bovet, Manuels de l’École du Louvre, Art et archéologie: l’Égypte Ancienne (Paris: École du Louvre, 2001)

INDEX Abān b. ʿUthmān b. ʿAffān 367 Abattoir 220 al-ʿAbbās b. ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib 111n76, 255n235, 342–3 ʿAbbāsid 23, 43, 63, 72, 118–9, 173, 227, 258, 264, 273, 275, 310, 313, 318, 344, 349, 357, 367 Abbott, Nabia 53, 85, 99, 101, 103, 117 ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAbbās 112n82, 117–8, 166n105, 182n174, 186, 205, 206n278, 224, 226, 285, 295, 345n134 ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Mubārak 118, 121 ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Zubayr 83, 307, 356, 374, 386–7 ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAmr b. al-ʿĀṣ 20n62, 107 ʿAbd Allāh b. Mughaffal 131 ʿAbd Allāh b. Rawāḥa 290 ʿAbd Allāh b. Shaqīq 250, 345 ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿUmar (also Ibn ʿUmar) 40, 112n82, 131, 160, 168, 172n125, 174, 214, 217n44, 226, 278, 289n80, 344, 354 ʿAbd Allāh b. Wahb 121 ʿAbd Allāh b. Zayd al-Hudhalī 65, 270–1 ʿAbd al-Malik b. Marwān 70n88, 71, 84–5, 241, 243,

348, 350–2, 369, 371, 373–6, 378, 380, 383n281, 387, 392 ʿAbd al-Malik b. ʿUmayr 366 ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. ʿAwf 339 ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Ṣanʿānī 19n62, 105, 121, 243, 245n183, 330n68, 405 ʿAbd al-Wārith b. Saʿīd 359 Ablution 34n110, 177, 187, 204, 249n199 Abraha 307 Abraham (also Abrahamic) 108, 181, 185, 280, 297, 306n154 Abū al-Dardāʾ 131, 290, 293n91 Abū al-Maḥāsin 84n136, 375n251 Abū al-Tayyāḥ 216, 359 Abū Ayyūb al-Anṣārī 152–3, 158, 275 Abū Bakr al-Marrūdhī 305 Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq 152, 166n105, 175, 194, 196, 223, 256, 317, 319, 322, 380 Abū Bakr b. Muḥammad b. Ḥazm 114 Abū Baṣīr (ʿUtba b. Usayd) 228 Abū Dāwūd al-Sijistānī 122, 248n194, 250, 271, 274, 275n22, 352 Abū Dāwūd al-Ṭayālisī 121 Abū Dharr al-Ghifārī 244, 342

455

456

THE MAKING OF THE MOSQUE

Abū Ḥanīfa 127–30, 214n21, 226, 248n194, 251n211, 307–8, 358 Abū Hurayra 104, 106–7, 155n59, 175, 177–8, 193, 199n241, 226, 254, 263n267, 281, 293n91, 294n95, 343, 386 Abū Jaʿfar al-Manṣūr 227, 350 Abū Jahm 300 Abū Mikhnaf 337 Abū Mūsā al-Ashʿarī 112n81, 211 Abū Muṣʿab al-Zuhrī 62 Abū Nuʿaym al-Aṣbahānī 285, 332n74, 351 Abū Qatāda (al-Ḥārith b. Ribʿī) 215n30 Abū Qilāba al-Jarmī 358, 383 Abū Rayya, Maḥmūd 98 Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī 108, 112n82, 131, 154, 184n183, 220, 294n95, 329 Abū Saʿīd al-Mufaḍḍal al-Janadī 66 Abū Ṭāhir al-Mukhalliṣ 66 Abū ʿUbayd al-Qāsim 218, 306 Abū ʿUbayda Maʿmar b. alMuthannā 90, 365 Abū Yūsuf 320n25 Abyssinia (also Abyssinian) 11, 167, 175, 184, 194, 206, 223, 231, 300n124, 307, 345 Achaemenid 25–6 ʿĀd 282 Adam (prophet) 293 Aḍḥā feast 148, 175 Adhān 41, 187, 207, 247–51, 253, 278, 401 Adobe 270, 287–8, 291–2 Aesthetics 18n60, 45, 269, 406 Age of the Qurʾān 101n35 Āḥād 124–5, 127n157, 129 Ahl al-ḥadīth 127–9, 320

Ahl al-kalām 96, 124, 128n159 Ahl al-Qurʾān 98 Ahl al-raʾy 124, 126, 128n159, 129 Ahl al-rāya 327 Ahl al-ṣuffa 141, 158, 161n95, 162, 172n127 Ahl al-sunna wa-l-jamāʿa 128 Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal 104, 174n136, 214n21, 214n26, 221, 225, 264, 288, 305, 352 ʿĀʾisha bt. Abī Bakr 112n82, 114, 171, 175, 184, 186n190, 188, 192, 194, 223–4, 263n267, 274–5, 289, 300–1, 331, 386–7 Ājurr (kiln-baked brick) 25, 331n70 Akhbār 55, 61–2, 90 Akhbārī 54–5, 62–3, 257 Akkouche, Maḥmūd 48–9, 162, 164, 193, 375 al-Albānī 220n61, 226, 237n142, 244, 267n284, 272n7, 273n12, 280n43, 284n51, 286n64, 289n76, 293n91, 330n68, 340n108, 380n264 Aleppo 349 Alexander the Great 26, 40n127 Alexandria 339, 347, 374 ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib 117, 148, 189, 194, 196, 226, 228, 244, 287, 295, 317, 323, 330n68, 341, 345 ʿAmal 127, 290, 319, 399, 403 ʿAmal ahl al-Madīna 127, 320n25, 403 Aʿmāl al-qalb 400 al-Aʿmash, Sulaymān b. Mihrān 130 Amharic 150n39 al-Āmidī, Sayf al-Dīn 126

INDEX ʿAmmār b. Yāsir 154, 202 ʿAmra bt. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān alNajjāriyya 114 Amṣār (also garrison towns) 148, 315, 405 Anas b. Mālik 41n133, 60–1, 112n82, 152, 198, 212–3, 215, 244, 263, 272, 284–5, 341, 378, 383, 385 ʿAnaza (also spear) 83, 237, 401 Ancient Egyptian temple (also Pharaonic temple) 21n66, 22, 27, 170 Andar 218 Angel (also archangel) 155, 159n81, 176–7, 280, 301 Aniconism (also aniconistic) 296, 298 Animal (also livestock and cattle) 154n56, 212, 217n43, 218, 309–11, 313, 398, 405 ʿAnjar 349, 361n212 Anṣār (also Anṣārī) 41n133, 153–4, 175, 184, 197–8, 199n243, 203–4, 214, 256, 270, 272, 275, 277, 290, 381 Antioch 154n56 Antique column 389, 393, 400 Apadāna 25–8 Aphrodito papyri 83–5, 352–3, 356 Apse 231, 233, 234, 241 ʿAqaba pledge 197–200 Aqṣā mosque (also al-Masjid alAqṣā) 22, 30, 70, 75, 83, 85, 141, 180, 187, 295n103, 348, 349, 361, 363–4, 403 al-Aqshahrī 249 Aqtāb 249 Arab plan 71, 346 Arabia 2, 8, 9, 11, 12, 14–15, 17, 21, 26, 29, 34, 37, 77, 90n160, 140, 141n12, 144,

457 222, 251, 277, 280, 297, 390, 404 Arabia deserta 11, 15 Arabia felix 11 Arabia magna 11 Arabia petraea 12 Arabian Peninsula 11, 13, 254n230 Aramaic 150n39 Arculf 87, 346n138, 390 ʿArḍ 100 ʿArīsh 172, 292 Aristotle 123 Ark of the Covenant 296 Armenia 22 al-Arqam b. Abī al-Arqam 196 Arrogance 13n39, 282 Asʿad b. Zurāra 154n55, 198n236, 199–201 Ashlar 77, 277, 330 Ashriba (also drinking) 133, 293 al-Aṣmaʿī 55 ʿAṣr 186, 391 ʿAṭāʾ al-Khurāsānī 65, 379 Āṭām (or uṭūm, plural of uṭm or uṭum) 78, 80, 277–80, 401 Aʿṭān al-ibil (also kneeling places of camels) 216, 220 Aṭʿima (also eating) 1, 133, 293, 314 Atrium 24, 35 Aurality (also aural) 123 Aʿwād (simple wooden pulpit) 256, 402 ʿAwāna b. al-Ḥakam 55 ʿAwāriḍ 158 Aws 197, 200n246 al-Awzāʿī, Abū ʿAmr ʿAbd alRaḥmān 120, 226 al-ʿAynī 176, 226, 305n153, 406 Ayyūb al-Sakhtiyānī 131

458

THE MAKING OF THE MOSQUE

al-Aʿẓamī, M. Muṣṭafā 103, 104n46, 111, 375 al-Azharī 232 al-Azraqī 279, 373, 382 Azwāj al-Nabī (also nisāʾ al-Nabī) 193 Bāb al-Nisāʾ 162, 340, 382 Bāb al-Raḥma 382 Bāb Jibrīl 382 Bādiya or quṣūr mosque 29 al-Baghawī 305, 332 Baghdad 350 Bahrain 11n33 Baḥshal 73, 100, 348n153 al-Balādhurī 22, 34n109, 39, 72–3, 86, 158, 200, 202, 243n165, 251–2, 323, 325, 365–6, 376 Banū al-Muṣṭaliq 204 Banū al-Najjār 152, 154, 198n236, 199n243, 200, 217, 248 Banū ʿĀmir b. Luʾayy 352 Banū ʿAmr b. ʿAwf 152, 201, 203 Banū Ghanm b. ʿAwf 203 Banū Ḥanīfa 204, 288 Banū Ḥarām 204, 215 Banū Ḥāritha 204, 278n34 Banū Hāshim (also Hāshimī) 325, 357 Banū Isrāʾīl 232, 296 Banū Qurayẓa 204, 221n69, 391 Banū Sāʿida 278 Banū Sālim b. ʿAwf 202–3, 205 Banū Salima 203, 215 Banū Wāʾil 204 Banū Wāqif 80, 278–9 Banū Ẓafār 204 Banū Zurayq 203 Baqīʿ 78 Baqīʿ al-Khabkhaba 78, 153

Baqīʿ al-Khaḍimāt (also Naqīʿ al-Khaḍimāt) 199 Bāqūm (alias Bāqūl) 16n51, 255n235, 261 al-Barāʾ b. ʿĀzib 205, 245 Bar Hebraeus 84 Barmakīd Dome 228 Bashīr b. Nahīk 104n47 Basilica (also basilical) 24, 25, 32–3, 35–6 Basilius (pagarch/prefect of the Aphrodito village in Upper Egypt) 83 Baṣra 72, 79n125, 112, 120–1, 128n159, 130–1, 170n121, 262, 304, 315, 322, 324, 326, 335, 337, 339, 369, 388 Baṣra mosque 38, 148, 251, 258, 322, 325, 334n83, 347, 366, 388, 392, 400 Battle (also battlefield) 41n136, 155n59, 159, 167, 187, 203, 205, 270–1, 282n49, 367n225, 391 Battle of the Confederates 391 Baydar 218–9 al-Bayhaqī 139n6, 240n153, 243–4, 248n194, 250, 291n83, 358, 406 Bayt (also buyūt and abyāt) 192– 3, 211, 270, 280, 287, 337 Bayt al-ʿArab 33 al-Bayt al-Ḥarām 150n39 Bayt al-māl 39, 371–2 Bayt al-Maqdis 3n7, 156, 158– 9, 184, 201, 203, 342, 351n161 Bayt al-ṣalāh 23, 30, 361, 385, 393 al-Bazdawī, Abū al-Yusr 126 Becker, Carl H. 42, 51, 84 Bedouin 9n29, 130, 168n110, 206 Bīʿa (also biyaʿ) 181, 204

INDEX Bible (tower of Babel) 282 Bidʿa 240, 265–6, 303, 319 Bilād al-Shām (also al-Shām) 11, 120, 289, 290 Bilāl 149, 247–8, 250, 401 Bimah (also bema) 31 Birds 309, 311, 405 Birk al-Ghimād 71 Booth (also arbour and ʿarīsh) of Moses 19, 20n62, 185, 290–2 Boṣra 385 Bragging 276, 285, 294, 303, 366 Briggs, Martin 22, 41–2, 84, 149, 233, 329 Buddhist temple 234 al-Bukhārī 20n62, 63, 104, 113, 121, 135, 140, 167n108, 172n125, 177–8, 196, 203, 219, 294n98, 322, 352, 354, 358, 406 Bunyān 139n6, 281, 282n49, 284, 337 Bushayr b. Kaʿb al-ʿAdawī 117 Busuṭ 39n125 al-Buṭayḥāʾ 344 Buyūt Allāh 211 Byzantium, Byzantine 11, 24, 184n183, 239, 243n165, 298–9, 313, 353, 357, 360n209, 361, 372, 379, 392, 399, Emperor 353n177 Caesar 169 Caetani, Leone 4n10, 6, 9n 29, 17, 38, 51, 116, 139, 140, 141, 143, 144, 145, 147, 148, 149, 166, 186, 194, 205n275, 206, 242 Caetani-Creswell theory 6, 144, 145, 149, 166 Calligraphy (also calligraphic) 312–3, 405

459 Calling to prayer 149, 247, 248n194, 250, 257, 401 Canonical ḥadīth compilations 13n39, 20n62, 95, 97, 104, 122n128, 139, 153, 211, 281, 288n75, 293n90 Canonical type (of the mosque) 2 Capernaum (synagogue) 34 Carpenter 16n51, 255–6, 259, 261, 406 Carpet 330 Carthage 24 Ceiling 25, 171, 185, 306–7, 339, 366 Chaldean temples 21n66, 22 Changing (also switching) of the qibla 150, 156, 158, 162–4, 184, 187 Chieftain 29, 200 Chi-Rho 360n209 Christian 22, 24, 25, 31, 35n115, 86–7, 173n128, 181–4, 230–1, 233–4, 257, 259, 285–6, 296, 298–9, 345, 357–8, 370, 372n239, 375 Christianity 231, 276 Church 22–4, 30–1, 33, 35–6, 76, 89, 138, 173, 181, 184, 204, 223–4, 230–1, 233–4, 239, 241, 251, 259–60, 285, 300n124, 307, 345, 367, 370–1, 372n239 Church of St. John the Baptist 23 City-state 173 Cleanliness (also clean) 151, 212, 216, 219n57, 225, 289, 294, 397 Clergy (also clerical) 170, 205 Coin (also coinage) 70n88, 82, 331 Colonialism 97

460

THE MAKING OF THE MOSQUE

Concave prayer niche 1, 42, 82, 210n 4, 231–246, 328, 392, 401, 402 Concave prayer niche 1, 42, 82, 210n4, 231–2, 239–41, 243, 246, 328, 392, 401–2 Constantine V 299 Convert 168–9, 196–7, 198n236, 201, 204, 255n235, 257, 288, 397 Copt (also Coptic) 233, 239– 40, 243, 313, 353, 379 Cordoba mosque 30 Craftsmen (also craftsmanship) 83, 224, 279, 352–3, 356, 370n234, 406 Creator 224, 274n19 Crenellations (also shurufāt, shuraf and sharārīf) 272, 285, 307, 339, 345, 382, 402 Creswell, K. A. C. 6, 8–9, 16– 7, 22–6, 38, 41, 48–9, 51, 73–5, 85–6, 134, 140–5, 148–9, 161–2, 166, 186, 193–4, 200n249, 227, 233, 239–42, 252, 253n223, 259, 261, 263, 270, 307n163, 307n166, 310n177–8, 336, 355, 357, 362, 369, 374, 377 Cushion 274, 300–1 Custom-built mosque 89, 144 al-Ḍabbī, Jarīr b. ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd 121 Dafātir 113 Dahriyya 126 Ḍaʿīf (weak ḥadīth) 94, 211n8, 218n48, 220n61, 220n62, 267n284, 271n6, 280n43, 285n58–9, 289n78, 293n91, 330n68, 340n108 Damascus 66, 104, 112, 116, 253, 308–10, 352, 360, 369, 372, 385n289 Damous el-Karita (church) 24

Daoist (Daoism) 295 Dār (also dūr) 140, 149, 155n59, 166, 193n223, 289, 337n95, 339 Dār al-imāra 315n2, 325, 388 Dār al-Nadwa 170 Dār al-Raqīq 249n199 al-Dāraquṭnī 352 Ḍarar 286n68 al-Dārimī 131 Date palm leaves 77, 329 David (prophet) 342 Daʿwa 276, 399 Day of Judgment 20n62, 224–5, 274n19, 284–5, 294, 301 De Goeje, M. J. 51 Dedān 11n33 Dhakar wa-unthā 291–2 Dhāt Kāhil 11 Dhikr 191, 299 al-Dhimārī, ʿAbd al-Malik b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān 120 Diaspora (synagogue) 34 Dībājj 295, 373 Dihqān 26 Dilmun 11n33 Ḍirār 286n68 Disbeliever (also unbeliever) 13n39, 169n114, 220, 343, 358 Dispensing (also administering) justice 170n119, 191n214, 207 Dīwān (also dawāwīn) 64, 173, 319n21 Ḍiyāʿ 339 Dome of the Rock (also Qubbat al-Ṣakhra) 70n88, 71–2, 241–2, 243, 307, 309, 312, 348, 350–1, 360, 365, 374, 376, 377–8, 392, 404 Doom’s Day (also Doomsday) 20n62, 303 Dūmat al-Jandal 270

INDEX Dura-Europos 31, 34 al-Dūrī, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz 53 Durnūk 275, 301 Earth 151, 153, 186–7, 211, 276, 282, 285, 330n67, 366, 397 Eastern Arabia 11n33 Egypt (also Egyptian) 1, 14, 21n66, 37n118, 83, 97–8, 120–21, 123, 258–60, 324, 346, 348, 353, 356, 367, 390, 401, 404 Elephantine Papyri 150n39 Elias of Nisibis 86 Elite 36, 145, 170, 188, 215, 343 Eutychius 84, 374, 375n251 Expedience (also Expediency) 89, 216, 326, 399 Faḍāʾil (also manāqib) 166n105, 317n10, 405 Fajr 186, 232, 248, 262, 383 Faqīh 57n43, 131, 227, 351 Farāʾiḍ (also obligation) 41, 267, 323 Fāriʿ (uṭum) 280 Fāṭimid 37n118 Fatwa 116 al-Fayrūzabādī 344n125 Feast-day 176, 188 Fikrī, Aḥmad 24, 75, 145–6, 160, 162, 200, 233n130, 240, 241n156, 241n160, 355, 368 Fiqh 17, 121, 225n89 Firāsh 223 Fire temple 26, 36, 89 al-Firyābī, Muḥammad b. Yūsuf 120 Fitna 117 Five daily prayers 186, 188, 213, 323, 386 Fora 27 Friday 32, 189, 198, 323, (midday) prayer 32, 186, 189–90,

461 198, 202, 214–5, assembly (also sermon and service) 151, 198–201, 323–4, 370, 385 Friday mosque (in general) 213–4, 324 Friday mosque (of the Banū Sālim b. ʿAwf) 202, 205 Front line (of worshippers) 157, 258, 386, 388 Fruit 218–9 Funeral (also funerary) 2, 13, 221, 225, 227–8, 299 Fusṭāṭ 112, 170n121, 315, 339 Gable 359, 361 Gabriel 159n81 Garden 217n47, 281, 309 Garlic 212 Genus 24 Gharīb (rare ḥadīth) 94, 267n284, 290n82, 332n74 Ghassānid 9 al-Ghazālī, Abū Ḥāmid 126 Ghurfa 232 Gibb, Hamilton 52, 59, 357 Gold 131, 243n165, 276, 282, 295, 300, 307, 371 Goldziher, Ignaz 97–103, 105, 114n93, 140, 374 Governor’s residence 74n106, 326 Grabar, Oleg 4, 7, 21, 27, 32n102, 33, 38n119, 40, 134, 143, 178n156, 214, 228, 251, 310n178, 311–2, 361, 376 Ḥafṣa bt. ʿUmar 192–3, 248, 249n199 Hagia Sophia 350 Ḥāʾiṭ (also ḥīṭān) 20n62, 200, 217, 217n47, 218n48, 277 al-Ḥajjāj b. Yūsuf 70, 73n100, 74, 387 al-Ḥākim bi-Amr Allāh 37n118 Ḥalāl 266, 302

462

THE MAKING OF THE MOSQUE

Ḥamā 22–3, 76 Hamilton, Robert 22, 75, 85n144, 364 Ḥammām (also ḥashsh, bathroom and lavatory) 220 Ḥanafī 129, 302 Ḥanbalī 1, 18, 129, 130, 264, 343 Ḥanya 231 Ḥarām 266, 300, 302 Ḥarba 237 al-Ḥārith b. ʿAbd Allāh alMakhzūmī 387 Ḥarrān 75, 310 Ḥarrān mosque 75, 246, 385, 392 Ḥarrat Banī Bayāḍa 199 Hārūn al-Rashīd 228, 258, 310 Ḥasan (fair ḥadīth) 94, 160n84, 244, 273n12, 285n58, 285n59, 287, 289n76 al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī 115, 118, 221n66, 226, 245n183, 263, 352 al-Ḥasan b. ʿAlī 317n11 Ḥaṣir (also mat and matting) 264, 330, (finding all “mat” is a bit problematic) Ḥassān b. Thābit 148, 178–9, 280, 343 Hawāzin 203 Haykal 233 Hazm al-Nabīt 199 Heaven 186, 212, 309, 374–5 Heightening 21n63, 285–6, 330 Hellenistic 32, 124, 130 Hereafter (also Afterlife) 153, 289, 295, 282, 293, 391 Heretic (also heresiarch) 115, 304, 344 Ḥijāra manqūsha 330, 332 Ḥijāz (also Ḥijāzī) 11–13, 14, 36, 77, 78, 127, 218, 390

Hijra 7, 157, 188, 196, 197, 199, 205, 209, 258, 278, 316n4, 345 Hillenbrand, Robert 1, 4, 21n65, 35n115, 36, 49, 144, 230, 263n266, 316, 346 Ḥimyar (also Himyarite, Himyaritic) 9, 35, 231 Hishām b. ʿAbd al-Malik 310n176, 349, 351–2, 379n260 Hishām b. Bashīr 121 Hishām b. ʿUrwa Ḥiṣn (also ḥuṣūn) 39n127, 277, 278n34, 279 Hispania 349 al-Ḥizāmī, Ibrāhīm 61–2 Holy of holies 170 Holy Sanctuary 196, 280, 326n53, 387 Holy Sepulchre 370 Holy Spirit 343 Horovitz, Josef 51, 117 Hospice 173, 206 House of the Prophet 5, 6, 21, 58, 143, 144, 145, 147–50, 167, 178, 185, 193, 194, 205, 206 Ḥudaybiyya 296 Ḥujjiyya 123 Ḥujurāt (also ḥujar, buyūt, apartments, rooms and dwellings of the Prophet’s wives) 16n52, 65–6, 142, 149, 155, 162, 164, 165–6, 172, 179, 188, 192–4, 195, 248–9n199, 270–1, 275, 291, 314, 326, 342, 353–4, 370, 379 Ḥukm (also aḥkām) 126, 302 al-Ḥumaydī, ʿAbd Allāh b. alZubayr 120 Humphreys, Stephen 53

INDEX Hypaethral 5, 29, 71, 157, 170, 219, 326, 360–1, 392, 400, 402 Hypostyle mosque 26, 32, 71, 392 Ibāḍīs 1 Iberian Peninsula 22, Andalusia 238n144 Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr 226 Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam 89n156, 258, 324 Ibn Abī Dhiʾb, Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān 120 Ibn Abī Shayba 121, 243, 245, 248n194, 250, 285, 405 Ibn al-Athīr 84, 252, 338 Ibn al-Faqīh 240, 253n223 Ibn al-Kalbī 279, 297 Ibn al-Najjār 58, 159 Ibn al-Rāmī al-Bannāʾ 252n220 Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ 56, 95n5 Ibn al-Ṭiqṭaqā 84 Ibn Aslam al-Ṭūsī 305 Ibn Baṭṭāl 224, 304, 329–30 Ibn Baṭṭūṭa 14, 240 Ibn Duqmāq 259, 261 Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī 63, 216, 224, 256, 272, 303, 307, 330n68, 343, 406 Ibn Ḥazm al-Andalusī 225n89, 226, 300n125 Ibn Ḥibbān 63, 274, 351 Ibn Hishām 196, 200, 202 Ibn Isḥāq al-Ḥarbī 58, 156n63, 249, 250, 380 Ibn Isḥāq, Muḥammad 56, 61, 116, 120, 176, 200n246 Ibn Jubayr 14, 73–5 Ibn Jurayj, ʿAbd al-Malik b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz 120, 223, 248n194, 251n211

463 Ibn Kathīr 56, 154, 193, 235n135, 244, 290n82, 338, 371, 378 Ibn Khaldūn 14, 52, 56, 173, 353, 383 Ibn Maʿīn 352 Ibn Māja 122, 139n6, 225n86, 317n10, 330n68, 352 Ibn Manẓūr 93n1, 153n48, 244, 254, 285n59, 300 Ibn Masʿūd, ʿAbd Allāh 130, 175, 221, 225, 244, 345 Ibn Mufliḥ, Shams al-Dīn 264 Ibn Qudāma 220, 226 Ibn Qutayba al-Dīnawarī 129, 353n177 Ibn Rajab 18n59, 155n59 Ibn Rusta 40, 58, 339, 357, 381 Ibn Saʿd 8, 56, 58, 78, 145, 198, 201, 220, 248, 254, 255, 257, 270, 354 Ibn Sayyid al-Nās 56 Ibn Shihāb al-Zuhrī 56, 113–6, 172n125, 255, 288n75, 351, 354, 358, 375 Ibn Sīrīn 117–8, 131, 250 Ibn Tamīm al-Maqdisī 84 Ibn Taymiyya 63, 226, 265, 286n61 Ibn Thawbān 309 Ibn Zabāla 59–61, 63, 66, 78, 90, 156, 161n96, 176, 254, 257, 261, 290, 329n60, 340 IbnʿAsākir al-Dimashqī 66, 84n136, 352, 354, 383, 405 Ibrāhīm al-Nakhaʿī 115, 245n184 Icon (also iconography) 185, 345 Iconoclast (also iconoclastic) 98, 298–9 ʿIḍāda 153, 235 Idhkhar 158

464

THE MAKING OF THE MOSQUE

Idolatry (also idol and idolater) 221–3, 279, 296–7, 344–5, 397 Iḥkām 332, 365 Ijāza 100 Ijmāʿ 129 Ijtihād 126–7, 129 Iʿlām 100 ʿIlm al-jarḥ wa-l-taʿdīl (also ʿilm alrijāl) 55, 122 Images (also pictures) 222–4, 275, 280, 298–302, 309–11, 313n184, 360n209 Imām (i.e. prayer leader) 41, 178, 187, 214, 230, 232–3, 245–6, 259, 261–2, 386, 388, 398, 401 Iʿmār 276, 314 Improvement (also betterment and amelioration) 266, 289–90, 318, 331, 359, 367, 388, 397, 400–1 ʿImrān b. Abī Anas 66, 270–1 ʿImrān b. Ḥuṣayn 130–1 Inbijāniyya 300 India (also Indian) 37, 97–8, 353 Innovation 1, 42, 233n130, 240, 262, 265–6, 303, 306–7, 330, 378, 399 Intercession 106, 224, 299 Inviolable Sanctuary 182 Iqāma 250 Iran (also Iranian) 27–8, 36, 50, 130n170 Iraq (also Iraqi) 11, 14, 25–6, 60n60, 70, 72, 74–5n106, 79, 81, 121, 126–7, 130, 134, 218, 320, 347 ʿIshāʾ 186 Isḥāq b. Rāhwayh 129 Iskāf Banī Junayd 246, 385

Isnād (also sanad) 19n62, 55–6, 94, 96, 98–9, 105, 116–9, 124n136, 135, 177n153, 216 Isnād-cum-matn 105 Iṣṭakhr 25, 369 Istanbul 120 Istiḥsān 126, 128 Istinbāṭ 126–7 Istiṣlāḥ 126 ʿItbān b. Mālik 204 Iʿtikāf 171, 191, 193n223, 299 Itqān 290, 399 ʿIzz 278n36 Jabal al-Ahwāz 356 Jabal Says 349, 361n212 Jābir b. ʿAbd Allāh 107, 112n81–2, 199, 215, 302 Jāhiliyya (also jāhilī) 36, 297n110, 344 al-Jāḥiẓ 74 Jāʾiz 245, 250, 264, 302, 307 Janāʾiz 221n66 Jarash 75 Jarīd 78 Jarīn 218–9 Jawāthā 71 Jerusalem 3n7, 19n62, 25, 84, 86, 89, 141, 151n39, 158–9, 184, 203, 242, 295n103, 316, 322–3n37, 324, 346, 348, 361, 363–4, 373–4, 375, 377–8, 390, 404 Jesus 185, 280 Jew (also Jewish) 19n62, 35n114, 150n39, 181–4, 198, 257, 277, 285–6, 296, 299, 358, 391 Jidār 201 Jidhʿ 254 Jihād 172n127, 276, 376, 399 John (Patriarch of Damascus) 310 Jordan 11, 29 Jubba 295

INDEX Judaic 109, 299n120 Juhayna 203 Juʾjuʾ 380 Jumhūr 300 Jumuʿa 189–91, 199 al-Jurāʿī 18, 305 Justinian 350 Juynboll, G. H. A. 102, 124n136 Kaʿba 3n7, 16, 29, 74n106, 83, 158, 159n81, 170, 182, 184, 191, 196, 203, 206n278, 211n8, 220, 229, 248n194, 250, 261, 279, 298, 306, 307, 356–7, 373, 375, 387, 401 al-Kanīsa al-ʿuẓmā 23, 76 Karbala 318 Karnak (temple) 171 Kātib 64 Khabar 93 Khabar al-wāḥid 127 Khabbāb b. al-Aratt 64, 270, 272 Khālid al-Qasrī 252 Khamīṣa 300, 329 Khān 324 Khanqā 152 Khārija b. Zayd 57, 65, 381n269 Khārijī 114, 115n95, 126, 262, 295 Khaṣaf 158 Khaṭīb 41, 254, 398 al-Khaṭṭābī 226, 300 Khawla al-Sulamiyya 40 Khaybar 155n59, 159–60, 203 Khazraj 197, 200n246 Khilāfa 371 Khirbat al-Mafjar 309, 310n176, 349 Khirbat al-Minyā 349, 361n212 Khiṭaṭ 324–5 Khurasān 121, 130–1 Khusrau 356

465 Khuṣṣ 20n62, 337 Khuṭba 32, 190, 254–5 al-Kinānī, Abū Ghassān 61–6, 366 Kinda 11 Kitāba 99–100, 221 Kūfa 39n126–7, 70n90, 73, 79, 112, 120–1, 130, 148, 170n121, 315, 323–4, 334–5, 339, 366, 369 Kūfa mosque 26, 70, 74, 148, 252, 322, 326, 336, 347, 356, 365–6, 368, 385, 388–9, 392, 400, 405n17 Kulthūm b. al-Hidm 201 Kuwa 261 Labin (also mud brick, sun-dried mud brick, unbaked brick) 25, 77–8, 153–4, 160, 234n134, 235, 261, 270–1, 275, 280, 291, 329, 337, 399 Labina 281 Laity (also mobs and commoners) 170, 224, 262, 380 Lakhmīd (also Banū Lakhm) 9, 257 Lambert, Elie 30–1 Lammens, Henri 29, 38n121, 98, 231n114, 262–3 Lamp 39, 224, 289, 397, 399 Lantern 372n239 Last Day 19n62, 20n62, 107, 132, 183, 275, 391 Late Antique 33, 35–6, 38, 92, 154n56, 276, 282, 392 Late Antiquity 231n114, 298 Latin Bestiary 298 Lavishness 273, 276, 294–5, 313, 337 al-Layth b. Saʿd 120, 271n3, 320n25, 384 Leo III 299 Levant 254

466

THE MAKING OF THE MOSQUE

Libās (also clothing) 1, 133n187, 293, 314 Liḥyān (also Liḥyānite) 10n33, 12 Liturgy (also liturgical) 151n40, 230, 233, 346 Līwān 149 Ludd (Lydda) 370 al-Madāʾin (Ctesiphon) 316 Madāʾin Ṣāliḥ (also al-Ḥijr, Hegra) 12–13 al-Madāʾinī, ʿAlī b. Muḥammad 61, 90, 383n279 Madelung, Wilfred 101 Madhbaḥ 244, Madrasa 152 Maghāzī 113n89, 367n225 Maghreb (also Maghrebi) 14, 252, 353 Maghrib 186 al-Mahdī (ʿAbbāsid caliph) 79, 264, 283, 344 Maḥmūd b. Labīd al-Anṣārī 332 Maʿīn 9 Majlis (also majālis) 29, 173, 279 Makrūh 226, 229, 244, 300, 302, 305n153, 306 Makshūf 170n122 Malik al-Rūm 353 Mālik b. Anas 114n93, 120, 127–9, 176, 225–6, 261, 303, 306, 319, 320n25, 344, 358, 403 Mālikī 129, 151, 226, 252 Maʿmar b. Rāshid 120, 176–8 al-Maʾmūn (ʿAbbāsid caliph) 23, 228, 310 Manāra (also manār) 246–50 Mansion 281 al-Maqrīzī 239n150, 252n222, 259, 261, 323n41, 346, 352 Maqṣūra 42, 210n4, 261–4, 344, 366, 382, 386, 391, 402, 405

Maqṭūʿ (disconnected ḥadīth) 94 al-Marāghī 59, 156 Marābiḍ 216, 219 Marble 241n158, 307, 353, 359, 371–2 Marçais, Georges 24 Marfūʿ (traceable ḥadīth) 94, 286 Margoliouth, David Samuel 52, 98 al-Marjānī 58, 159 Market (also marketplace) 32, 177, 273, 315n2, 323n40, 337 Martyrium (church type) 36 Marwān b. al-Ḥakam 240, 262 Marwān b. Muḥammad 75n107, 259 Masājid aṣḥāb al-ḥadīth, 1 Maṣāliḥ mursala 244 Masjid al-Ḍirār 190–1, 203, 400 Masjid al-Qiblatayn 203 al-Masjid al-Ḥarām 141, 181– 2, 183n178, 187, 191, 295n103 al-Masjid al-jāmiʿ (also jawāmiʿ) 49, 89, 213n20, 324 Maslama b. Mukhallad 252–3, 327 al-Masʿūdī 55, 253n223, 307, 339, 365 al-Maṭarī 59 Matn 96, 105, 119 Mausoleum (also sepulchre and cenotaph) 227–8, 299 al-Mawardī 325 Mawḍūʿ (forged ḥadīth) 273n15 Mawqūf (untraceable ḥadīth) 94, 293n91 Maymūna bt. al-Ḥārith 331n72 Mediterranean 346, 404 Mesopotamia 79, 247, 337, 401

INDEX Metalwork 311 Michael the Syrian 86 Mīḍaʾa 34n110 Middle Ages (also medieval) 1, 14, 18, 19n62, 23, 48, 50, 52, 54, 88, 139–40, 172, 176, 202, 229, 247, 250n207, 258, 264, 285–6, 300, 306, 332n75, 370, 375 Middle East 11, 12, 38 Miʾdhana 246–7, 248n194, 251n211 Minaret 1, 4, 13, 42, 150, 209– 10, 211n5, 246–53, 275, 298n118, 305, 307, 328, 391, 397, 401–2, 404–6 Miqāṭ 340 Mirbad 155n59, 200–1, 218–20, 249n199, 324 Mirbad al-ghanam 218 Mirbad al-tamr 154, 218 Mirṭ 312 Mishnah 109 Misṭaḥ 219 Miṭmār 149, 401 al-Mizzī 354 Monastery 260 Monotheism (also monotheist and monotheistic) 92, 183, 185, 282, 296–7, 299n120, 376, scriptures 282 Morocco (also Moroccan) 98, 120 Mosaic 243n165, 298, 307–10, 312, 353, 359–60, 367, 371, 383 Moses (prophet) 185, 296 Mosque floor 38–9, 168, 204, 266, 289, 307, 330, 359, 388, 398 Mosque of ʿAmr at Fusṭāṭ 38n120, 83, 238–9, 240n151, 246, 252, 258–9, 322, 324–7,

467 346–9, 352, 367, 389–90, 392, 400 Mosque of Asʿad b. Zurāra 200–1 Mosque of Damascus (also Umayyad mosque) 23, 66, 83, 173, 241n157, 243, 253, 302, 307–9, 352, 353n177, 361–2, 365, 371–2, 379, 383n279, 385, 403, 405n17 Mosque of Qubāʾ 201–3, 230n111, 234, 278 Mosque of Ukhayḍir 385 Mosque of ʿUmar at Jerusalem 86, 323n37, 324, 346, 390 Mt. al-Ṣafā 196 Muʿallal (faulty ḥadīth) 94 Mubāḥ 244 Mubtadiʿ 115, 304 Mubtadiʿūn 115, 304 Mud 20n62, 158, 159n83, 221n66, 270–1, 274, 277, 288, 292, 371 Muḍṭarib (confounding ḥadīth) 94 Muezzin 41, 248, 250, 252, 298n118, 406 Mughaṭṭā 170n122 al-Mughīra b. Shuʿba 73 Muḥaddith (also ḥadīth transmitter) 54–5, 63, 257 Muhājirūn 153–4, 198, 381 Muḥāl 124n136 Muḥammad ʿAbduh 97 Muhammad Iqbal 97 Muḥammad Rashīd Riḍā 98 Muḥammad Tawfīq Ṣidqī 98 Muir, William 96, 114n93, 139 Mujāhid 215, 384n283 Mujīr al-Dīn 84, 351n161, 375n251, 392n314 Mukātaba 100 Munāwala 100

468

THE MAKING OF THE MOSQUE

al-Mundhirī, ʿAbd al-ʿAẓīm 271n6, 275 Munqaṭiʿ (disconnected ḥadīth) 94–5, 285n59 al-Muqaddasī 14, 25–6, 75–6, 84, 352, 357, 369–70, 372n239, 376, 381 Muqriʾ 197n236 Muraḥḥalāt 312 al-Muʿriḍ (uṭum) 278 Mursal (loose ḥadīth) 94–5, 129n165, 271, 285n59, 291n83 Mūsā b. ʿUqba 116 Muṣʿab b. ʿUmayr 197 Muṣallā 148, 152, 176–9, 188– 9, 205 Muṣallā al-ʿīd 188, 237 Muṣallā rasūli-llāh 234 Muṣannaf (also muṣannafāt) 19n62, 105, 116, 121, 243, 405 Musharraf 272, 344, 345 Musk 282 Muslim b. al-Ḥajjāj 104, 117n106, 122, 135, 139n6, 175, 274 Muslim scripture 21, 93, 98, 110, 130 Musnad (also masānīd) 94, 119, 120 Musnad of Ibn Ḥanbal 104, 120 Mustaḥab 302 Muṣṭalaḥ al-ḥadīth 122 Mutawātir (also tawātur) 124–5 Muʿtazila 96, 124, 128–9 Nabataea (also Nabatean) 9, 12, 35, 254n230 Nāfiʿ 352, 354, 358 Najd 219 Najrān 231, 358 Namaṭ 274 al-Nasāʾī 122, 351–2 Nasir-i Khusraw 75

Nation (also umma) 151, 221, 285, 303–4, 330, 371, 384, 403 Nave (central/axial) 22, 24, 32, 361, 392, 403–4 al-Nawawī 285n58, 345, 406 al-Nawwār bt. Mālik 200, 248 al-Naẓẓām, Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm b. Sayyār 96 Near East 32, 231n114, 346 Negev 29 Niebuhr 73 Niẓāmīs 126 Nomad (also nomadic) 8, 12n35, 14, 168, 186 Non-archaeological mosques 48n*, 49–50, 57, 134 North Arabia (also Northern Arabian kingdoms) 9, 30n98 Novelty 1, 265, 289, 382 Numismatics 69, 82, 88 Numruqa 300–1 Nuṣūṣ 127 Onion 212 Open courtyard 30, 71, 170, 326, 328, 361n212, 397–8 Orality (also oral) 60–1, 64, 66, 91, 100–1, 103n45, 106, 111–2, 119, 123, 134, 173n130 Orientalist 4, 96, 99, 102 Orthodoxy (also orthodox) 19n62, 93, 210, 244, 250–1, 258, 265, 315, 318–9, 321, 330, 334, 344, 383, 388 Ottoman period 24, 333n80 Paganism (also pagan) 222, 297–9, 304, 310n178, 370, 386, 397 Palace 25, 32–3, 39n127, 227n101, 231, 282, 285n59, 309–10, 337–9, 366, 369 Palestine 257, 390

INDEX Palm trees 57, 153, 287, stems 254, trunks 8n27, 57, 77, 156, 158, 160–1, 174, 332, 359, 384, branches 78, leaf stalks 270–1, fronds 290n82 Palmyra 9 Papyri (also papyrology) 53, 69, 70n88, 83–5, 88, 150n39, 176, 352–3, 356 Paradise 212, 281–2, 295, 309– 10, 331 Parliament 173 Parthians 26 Patriotism 372 Patron (also client) 42–3, 48, 238n144, 252, 299, 303, 316, 347, 350, 358, 366, 370, 373, 395, 398–400, 404 Pearl 282 Pebble 38–9, 176n144, 289, 359, 388, 398 Pedersen, Johs. 4n10, 134, 143, 180n168, 222, 241n158, 317, 323, 365, 390 People of the Scripture 358 Peristyle 33–4, 170 Persepolis 26–8 Persia (also Persian) 11, 25–7, 184n183, 232n122, 353, 356–7, palaces 25 Petra 11 Piety (also pious, piousness, pietistic and pietism) 1–2, 13n39, 42, 97, 111, 114n93, 115, 174, 192, 201, 207, 221–2, 224, 244, 273, 296, 307, 318, 334, 344, 356–7, 359, 371, 373, 379, 380, 387, 403, 406 Pilgrim 14, 57, 88, 395 Pilgrimage (also ḥajj) 87, 89, 197, 222, 296, 344, 374–6, 405

469 Poetry (also poem, poet) 43–4, 55, 70n88, 143, 148, 154, 173n128, 178, 231, 233, 252, 297, 343–4, 374 Polytheist (also Polytheism) 182, 296–7 Pomp, pompousness 42, 263, 304, 366 Pre-Hijra 181, 196, 197, 199 Pre-Islamic Arabia 29, 35n114, 170, 279, 296, 297 Pretension 276 Pride (also kibr) 204, 271, 276, 294–5, 308, 367, 399, 400 Priest (also priesthood) 36, 143, 170, 374 Propaganda 273, 373, 399 Prostration (also prostrate) 39, 150, 190, 230, 256, 296, 330n67 Qāʿ al-Muʿtadil 71n92 Qāḍī 62, 114, 130 Qadr 337 al-Qalqashandī 239 Qanṭara (also aqueduct) 221, 232n122 Qaryat al-Fāw 11 Qaṣab (also reed) 79, 81, 151, 326, 330, 334–5, 337 Qaṣaba 290 Qaṣd 337 al-Qāsim b. Muḥammad b. Abī Bakr 263, 381n269, 382 al-Qāsimī, Jamāl al-Dīn 304 Qaṣr (also quṣūr) 339 Qaṣr al-Ḥayr al-Gharbī 349 Qaṣr al-Ḥayr al-Sharqī 349 Qaṣr al-Mshatta 236, 310n176 Qaṣr al-Ukhayḍir 235 Qaṣṣāṣūn 115 al-Qasṭallānī 177 Qatāda [b. Diʿāma] 276, 351 Qawma 190 Qayrawān 170n121, 315

470

THE MAKING OF THE MOSQUE

Qayrawān mosque 21n66, 24, 240, 253, 348–9 Qaysaba b. Kulthūm al-Tujībī 324 Qazwīn 25 Qibla riwāq (front arcade) 72–3 Qibla wall 30, 39–40, 41n133, 73n100, 156, 161–2, 229–30, 235, 237, 245–6, 306, 357, 384, 388, 393, 395, 397, 401, 402 Qirāʾa 100 Qirām 274, 301 Qiyās 126–30 Qubāʾ 188n201, 201, 202 Qubba 272 Qubbat al-Silsila 392n314 Qubbat al-Ṣulaybiyya 228–9 al-Quḍāʿī 344 Quibell, James 260 Quraysh (also Qurayshī) 16n51, 29, 170, 197, 261, 319, 357, 387 Qurra b. Sharīk 83, 238, 240n151, 259, 261, 352, 367 al-Qurṭubī 221 Quṣyar ʿAmra 311 Rabīʿ b. Ṣabīḥ 120 Rāfiʿ b. Mālik 203 Raḥba 156, 159, 171, 206, 325 Rain 158, 188, 215–6, 289n80, 329, 404 Rajāʾ b. Ḥaywa 115, 351 Rajaz 154 Rakʿa 186n190, 190 Ramaḍān 264 Rāshidūn 209, 227, 238, 245n184, 317–8, 321–3, 326, 328, 365, 386, 389, 403 Rawāfiḍ 126 Rawḍa 161 Rayy 121 Razīn b. Muʿāwiya al-ʿAbdarī 66

Resurrection 310 Revivalism (also revivalist) 2, 135n190 Ribāṭ 152 Richmond, Ernest 48n3 Ridāʾ 154, 194 Rightly-guided caliphs (also Righteous caliphs) 133, 317 Riḥāb 277 Riḥlat al-Isrāʾ wa-l-Miʿrāj (Night Journey) 186n190, 196, 374 River 79, 281, 309 Rivoira, Giovanni 22–3, 48n3, 84, 210n3, 390 Riwāq 73, 159, 391 Road 175, 220, 277, 370 Roman 11, 12, 13, 253, 261, 313, 370, Empire 54, emperor/king 243n165, 353, basilica 24, 32, audience hall 33 Rome 25, 154n56 Rosenthal, Franz 52 Rubbish dump 220 Ruby 282 al-Ruhā 370–1 al-Rūm (also Rūmī) 16n51, 255n235, 353 Ruzbih b. Buzurgmihr 26 Sabaʾ (Sheba) 9 Sabbath 198 Saʿd b. Abī Waqqāṣ 39n127, 73, 324, 337, 389 Saʿd b. Bakr 204 Saʿd b. Muʿādh 295 Saʿd b. ʿUbāda 107 Safāfīd 356 Safar, Fuad 73, 77 Saffron 39–40, 41n133, 168, 282, 397 Ṣafiyya [bt. Ḥuyayy b. Akhṭab] 193

INDEX Ṣaḥīfa (also ṣuḥuf and kutub) 107n60, 112n81, 113, 115, 116 Ṣaḥīfa of Hammām b. Munabbih 104, 176–8 Ṣaḥīfa of Suhayl b. Abī Ṣāliḥ 104 Ṣaḥīḥ (sound ḥadīth) 94, 95n6, 272n7, 274n16, 280n43, 284n51, 285n54, 286n64, 289n76, 293n91, 329n60 Ṣaḥīḥ of al-Bukhārī 104, 121 Ṣaḥīḥ of Muslim 122, 175 Sahl and Suhayl 154, 218–20 Sahl b. Saʿd 255–6 Ṣaḥn 30, 159, 161, 326–8, 360– 1, 389, 391, 403–4 Saḥnūn b. Saʿīd al-Tanūkhī 252 Sahwa 274, 301 Saʿīd b. Abī ʿArūba 120 Saʿīd b. al-Musayyib 115, 129n165, 131, 263n267, 358, 379, 403 Saʿīd b. Jubayr 131, 245, 351 Saʿīd b. Manṣūr 121 Saʿīda 291–2 Saint 41, 184, 220, 222, 224, 231, 403 al-Sakhāwī 52, 59–60, 160 Salʿ (mountain) 215n30 Saladin, Henri 21–2, 48n3 Salaf (also salafī) 98n20, 244, 404 Ṣalāh 6, 39, 41, 121n125, 131, 139n6, 143, 166n105, 169n114, 171, 175, 180, 185, 187, 190, 191, 196, 207, 220n62, 225n90, 299 Ṣalāt al-ʿīd 188 Ṣalāt al-istisqāʾ 188–9 Ṣāliḥ (prophet) 12, 282 Ṣāliḥ b. Kaysān 353–4, 402–3

471 Sālim b. ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿUmar 263, 381n269, 382 Samāʿ 100 al-Samhūdī 57–61, 78, 155n59, 157, 160–1, 174n138, 199, 201, 219, 239, 271n4, 278, 288n74, 290n82, 291, 322, 329n60, 343, 382 Samīṭ 291–2 Samura b. Jundub 112n81, 289 Ṣanʿāʾ 71, 307, 339 Ṣanʿāʾ mosque 71, 271n3, 325n45, 349, 392 Sanan 184n183, 383 al-Ṣanʿānī, Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl 225n92, 285, 302 Sand 8n28, 38–9, 272, 359, 388 Sassanian 26, 313 Sauvaget, Jean 23, 31–3, 49, 57, 60, 76, 161n91, 210n3, 231n114, 233, 242–3, 249, 258, 260, 263, 355–6 Ṣawāmiʿ (minarets) 252n222, 253 Ṣawāmiʿ (retreats of Christian hermits) 181 sawārī 72, 385 Sawda bt. Zamʿa 188, 275 Ṣawmaʿa 246 Sayf b. ʿUmar 26, 90 Sayyid Ahmed Khan 97 Schacht, Joseph 99, 102–3, 105, 117, 320 Sebeos 86 Seleucids 26 Semantron 183 Semitic 220, 231 Sezgin, Fuat 53, 60, 99, 101, 103, 115, 116n98 Shādhdh (anomalous ḥadīth) 94 al-Shāfiʿī 122, 125n145, 128– 30, 265, 320, 358, 372 Shāfiʿī (Sunni sect) 18, 122, 225, 304, 306

472

THE MAKING OF THE MOSQUE

Shāfiʿī, Farīd 16n51, 17, 39n126, 146, 229, 235, 236, 241, 243, 253, 260, 261n255, 310n178, 333–4, 336, 362, 364 Shahīd (also martyr) 280, 295 Shahid Ali (library) 116 Shajarat al-riḍwān 296 al-Shaʾm 254 Shaqīq b. Salama 384 Sharīʿa (also Islamic law and Islamic jurisprudence) 3, 94, 116, 121–2, 128–9, 134, 211, 223, 227, 385, 402–3 al-Shawkānī 213, 303, 306 al-Shaybānī, Muḥammad b. alḤasan 60n60, 114n93 She-camel (of the Prophet) 154n56, 155, 217 Sheepfold 152, 216–7, 219 Shelter 7, 141, 149–50, 156–8, 161n95, 172, 201, 287, 304, 329, 346 Shiʿāb 196 Shīd 286 Shīʿī (also Shīʿism) 114, 115n95, 330n67, 339, 404 Shivta 72 Shofār (also qunʿ and shabbūr) 183–4 Shuʿba b. al-Ḥajjāj 120 Silver 281, 300n125 Simplicity 1, 2, 8, 29, 42, 149, 152, 233, 284, 295, 304, 314, 328, 344–6, 350, 389–90, 396–9 Sinai Peninsula 11, 30n98 Sīra 94, 176, 202, 333n80 Sky 157–8, 189, 294n94 Sovereignty 259, 263, 324 Spolia 26 Sprenger, Aloys 97, 99–100, 107, 139

State Treasury 39n127, 173, 305, 308, 326, 338, 372n239 Stucco (also mortar, qaṣṣa and jiṣṣ) 221, 271n3, 277, 286, 305, 330, 339, 359 Ṣuffa 72, 172, 206 Sufyān al-Thawrī 118, 120, 174n136, 226 Sufyān b. ʿUyayna 121 al-Suhaylī 199n242, 202, 234n134 Sujūd (also yasjud) 150, 237, 388 Sundus 295 Sūsa 26n88 Sutra 217, 237, 401 al-Suyūṭī, Jalāl al-Dīn 124n137, 239–40, 244, 280n43, 285n58–9 Symbol (also symbolic and symbolism) 184, 257, 259, 263, 298–9, 360n209 Synagogue 31, 33–5, 173, 181, 285 Syria (also Syrian) 11, 14, 23–5, 98, 184, 218, 243, 247, 290, 304, 320, 361, 370, 374, 376, 383, 396, 404 Syriac 56, 150n39 al-Ṭabarī 55–6, 73–4, 84n136, 86, 186n192, 203, 261, 326, 334–5, 337–8, 353, 356, 376 Tābiʿī 64–5, 94–5, 112, 115–6, 129n165, 132n178, 210, 238n144, 243–5, 263, 331n72, 352, 379, 385, 391n309, 400 Tabūk 13n39 Tadwīn 99 Taḥammul al-ʿilm 100 al-Ṭāʾif 71n92, 203, 278n34 Tajṣīṣ 221 Ṭalḥa b. ʿUbayd Allāh 339 Ṭalq b. ʿAlī 288, 289n75

INDEX Tamāʾim (also ruqā, tiwala, totem, talisman and amulet) 296 Tamarisk 256 Tamāthīl 301 Tamīm al-Dārī 254–5, 257, 289 Ṭāq 232, 243–5 Tarsus 305 Taṣāwīr (also ṣuwar) 300–1 Tashyīd 286–7 Taṣnīf 99 al-Tasturī, Muḥammad b. Aḥmad 66 Taṭyīn 221 Ṭawāf 206n278 Ṭāwūs b. Kaysān 118, 271n3 Ṭayba (an epithet of Madina) 179 Taym 345 Teak 77, 262, 330, 359 Temenos 253, 361 Template, 2, 33–4, 397 Textile 311 Thābit al-Bunānī 384 Thamūd 13n39, 276, 282, 284 Thaqīf 203, 358 Thawāb (also reward and remuneration) 41, 177, 211–3, 215, 272, 284, 295n103, 324, 331, 341, 385, 399, 405 Thebes 154n56 Theodore Abū Qurra 310 Theophanes 86 Thiqa 351–2 Three supreme mosques (also three holy mosques) 19n62, 373 Thumām 290 Tiberias 75 Ṭīn 371 Ṭirāz 70n88 al-Tirmidhī 122, 139n6, 220n62

473 Tomb (also grave, gravesite, graveyard and cemetery) 8n28, 41, 153, 184, 220–8, 287, 293, 296, 298, 305, 357, 380, 389, 392n311 Torah 31, 34n110 Torah-niche 34n110 Torrent (also torrential) 204, 215, 291 Tosefta 109 Trade (also commerce and commercial) 12, 175, 191, 265n281, 277 Transept 360–1 Transjordan 30n98 Transoxiana 130n170 Trivial facts 38–9, 41n135 Troy 154n56 Tunisia 21n66 ʿUbāda b. al-Ṣāmit 131, 199 ʿUbayd Allāh al-Khawlānī 331 ʿUbayd Allāh b. Ziyād 366 Ubayy b. Kaʿb 290n81, 342 al-ʿUlā 12 Ulema 275, 285, 318, 378 ʿUlliyya 275 ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz 42, 82, 113–4, 239–41, 243n165, 250, 262, 270, 306, 351, 353–4, 356–7, 366–7, 371–2, 380–3, 403 ʿUmar b. Abī Rabīʿa 374 ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb 39n127, 64, 71n92, 79, 86, 110, 130, 145, 148, 155, 162, 174–5, 176n144, 189n205, 194, 225, 258–9, 262, 296, 304, 319, 322–3, 324, 328–30, 333–5, 337–44, 346, 373, 380, 384n285, 390, 398, 405 ʿUmar b. Shabba 40n129, 58, 62–6, 199 al-ʿUmarī, Shihāb al-Dīn 23, 234

474

THE MAKING OF THE MOSQUE

Umayya b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Khālid 131 Umayyads 112–4, 173, 227, 242, 258, 303, 318, 347, 349, 356–7, 359, 366–7, 369, 373, 381, 387, 398, 403 Umm Ḥabība 184, 223, 224n81 Umm Salama 153, 166, 184, 206n278, 223, 224n81, 270– 1, 274–5 ʿUmra 405 ʿUmrān 14 the Unseen 298 ʿUqba b. Nāfiʿ (also his mosque at Qayrawān) 240, 253 ʿUrwa b. al-Zubayr 56, 115, 248, 354, 358 Usṭuwāna (also usṭuwān and usṭuwānāt) 160–1, 165, 234, 332, 248–9, al-tawba 161, alwufūd 161, muṣallā ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib 161 Uṣūl al-ḥadīth 122 Uṣūliyyūn 126, 320n26 ʿUtba b. Ghazwān 324 ʿUthmān b. ʿAffān 42, 57, 65, 74, 77, 148, 160, 174n138, 178, 194, 235, 240, 249n199, 261, 263, 296, 304, 317, 323, 328, 330–4, 339–41, 356, 373, 380, 384n285, 389–90, 398 ʿUthmān b. Maẓʿūn 40, ʿUthmān b. Ṭalḥa 305 Utilitarian 257, 298n118, 304, 328 Utrujja 339 Valley of ʿAqīq 339 van Berchem, Max 25, 243, 357 Virgin Mary 280 von Kremer, Alfred 317 Wabāl 273, 276

Wādī 78 Wādī Rānūnāʾ 189, 202 Wahb b. Munabbih 297 Wahhābī 2, 251, 404 Wājib 245 Wakīʿ b. al-Jarrāḥ al-Ruʾāsī 121 al-Walīd b. ʿAbd al-Malik (also al-Walīd I) 42, 65–6, 82, 84–5, 173, 223, 237, 239, 241, 243, 249n199, 253, 270, 303, 307–8, 331n71, 349–50, 352–3, 356–8, 360, 361n212, 365–7, 369–71, 372n239, 373, 378–80, 382,-3, 392 al-Walīd b. Yazīd 117 Wansbrough, John 101 Waqf 305 al-Wāqidī 61, 65, 239n150, 373, 379 Wardān al-Bannāʾ 356 Wars of apostasy 322 Wāṣil b. ʿAṭāʾ 96 Wāsiṭ 70, 73–4, 315n1 Wāsiṭ mosque 70, 73, 74n106, 77, 348, 385 al-Wāsiṭī 376 Waṣiyya 100 Watchtower 253, 277 Wattle-and-daub 280 Wellhausen, Julius 51 Wensinck, A. J. 199, 219 Wijāda 100 Workmanship 365, 390 Wuḍūʾ 187, 207 Yaḥyā al-ʿAqīqī 59, 61, 200, 343 Yaḥya b. Ḥanẓala 352 Yamāma 288 al-Yaʿqūbī 55, 243n165, 307, 374 Yāqūt al-Ḥamawī 73, 258, 366 Yathrib 11, 179, 197–9, 204 Yazīd b. Muʿāwiya 318

INDEX Yazīd b. Sallām 351 Yemen 9, 11, 35, 71, 120, 121, 231, 232, 262 Ẓāhirī 225 Ẓāhiriyya (library) 66, 116 al-Zajjāj 232 Zakāh 131 Zakhrafa (zukhruf) 300 al-Zarkashī 18, 245 Zayd b. Thābit 57, 107, 157n71248n197, 333 Zayd b. Wāqid 352 Ziggurat 247 Zīna (also vanity) 133n187, 273, 278, 305, 366, 382 Zindīq 115

475 Ziyād b. Abīh 38, 72–4, 252, 262, 365–6, 368–9, 388 al-Zubayr b. al-ʿAwwām 111n76, 339 al-Zubayr b. Bakkār 62 Zuhd (also asceticism and ascetical) 293, 313, 403 Ẓuhr 186 al-Zuhrī, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. ʿImrān 61 Ẓulla 7, 73n96, 77, 156, 158, 159, 161, 162, 172, 185, 248, 287, 291, 292, 326, 361 Ẓullat al-qibla 159