Theology and Society in the Second and Third Centuries of the Hijra. Volume 2, A History of Religious Thought in Early Islam (Handbook of Oriental Studies, 116) (English and Arabic Edition) [Bilingual ed.] 9004342028, 9789004342026

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Theology and Society in the Second and Third Centuries of the Hijra Volume 2

Handbook of Oriental Studies Handbuch der Orientalistik section one

The Near and Middle East

Edited by Maribel Fierro (Madrid) M. Şükrü Hanioğlu (Princeton) Renata Holod (University of Pennsylvania) Florian Schwarz (Vienna)

VOLUME 116/2

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/ho1

Theology and Society in the Second and Third Centuries of the Hijra A History of Religious Thought in Early Islam VOLUME 2

By

Josef van Ess Translated from German by

Gwendolin Goldbloom

LEIDEN | BOSTON

Translated from Josef van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra. Eine Geschichte des religiösen Denkens im frühen Islam. © Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin, Boston. All rights reserved. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Ess, Josef van, author. | O’Kane, John, 1940– translator. Title: Theology and society in the second and third centuries of the Hijra : a history of religious thought in Early Islam / by Josef van Ess ; translated from German by John O’Kane. Other titles: Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra. English | Handbuch der Orientalistik. Erste Abteilung, Nahe und der Mittlere Osten ; 116. Bd., 1. Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2017. | Series: Handbuch der Orientalistik = Handbook of Oriental studies. Section one, The Near and Middle East ; volume 116/1 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016047963 (print) | LCCN 2016052965 (ebook) | ISBN 9789004323179 (hardback : alk. paper) | ISBN 9789004323384 (e-book) Subjects: LCSH: Islam—Doctrines—History. | Islamic philosophy—History. Classification: LCC BP166.1 .E8413 2017 (print) | LCC BP166.1 (ebook) | DDC 297.209/021—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016047963

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 0169-9423 isbn 978-90-04-34202-6 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-34402-0 (e-book) Copyright 2017 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi and Hotei Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

In memory of Helmut Ritter’s 100th birthday (27. 2. 1892)

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Contents 2.2 Basra ............................................................................................................................................................................  2.2.1 The “Heretics” ....................................................................................................................................  2.2.1.1 Bashshār b. Burd ..................................................................................................  2.2.1.2 Ṣāliḥ b. ʿAbd al-Quddūs ..............................................................................  2.2.1.3 The Sumaniyya ......................................................................................................  2.2.1.4 Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ ......................................................................................................  2.2.1.4.1 A Text against Islam ............................................................  2.2.1.4.2 The Parody of the Quran .................................................  2.2.1.5 The Context. “Natural Philosophers” ........................................  2.2.2 Ḥasan al-Baṣrī and His Spiritual Successors .............................................  2.2.2.1 The Qadariyya .........................................................................................................  2.2.2.1.1 Qadarite Ideas in hadith .................................................  2.2.2.1.2 Qadarite Traditionists .......................................................  2.2.2.1.2.1 The Generation Following Ḥasan al-Baṣrī ............................................  2.2.2.1.2.2 The Middle Generation .................  2.2.2.1.2.3 Pupils of Saʿīd b. Abī ʿArūba .....  2.2.2.1.2.4 Other Qadarites in the Second Half of the Second Century ......  2.2.2.1.3 The Uswārīs ....................................................................................  2.2.2.1.4 Qadarites among the Basran Grammarians ..............................................................................  2.2.2.2 Qadariyya and Asceticism ......................................................................  2.2.2.2.1 Ḥasan al-Baṣrī’s Younger Contemporaries .........................................................................  2.2.2.2.2 The Next Generation ............................................................  2.2.2.2.2.1 The Significance of ʿAbbādān ...........................................................  2.2.2.2.3 Theological and Juristic Divergent Opinions within the Circle of Basran Ascetics ..................  2.2.2.2.3.1 The Bakriyya ................................................  2.2.2.2.4 Asceticism and Rationality ..........................................  2.2.3 The Jurists ..............................................................................................................................................  2.2.3.1 The Case of Iyās b. Muʿāwiya ...............................................................  2.2.3.2 Early Theoretical Texts ................................................................................  2.2.3.3 Experts and Jurisconsults ........................................................................ 

1 4 6 17 23 26 33 39 41 46 57 58 61 62 69 83 86 91 98 101 103 110 119 123 125 137 141 143 152 155

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2.2.3.4 Kullu mujtahid muṣīb .....................................................................................  2.2.4 Murjiʾites in Basra. The “Ghaylāniyya” ...............................................................  2.2.4.1 Faḍl al-Raqāshī ......................................................................................................  2.2.4.2 Abū Shamir and His School ..................................................................  2.2.4.3 “Jahmites” .....................................................................................................................  2.2.5 The Ibāḍiyya ......................................................................................................................................  2.2.5.1 The Case of ʿAbdallāh b. Ibāḍ .............................................................  2.2.5.2 The Development of the Basran Community ...............  2.2.5.3 The Question of qadar ................................................................................  2.2.5.4 The Quarrel over the Anthropomorphisms .....................  2.2.5.5 Further Controversial Issues ................................................................  2.2.5.6 The Environment ...............................................................................................  2.2.5.7 The Relation between Sin and Faith .........................................  2.2.5.8 Puritanism and Scrupulousness ......................................................  2.2.6 The Early Muʿtazila ...................................................................................................................  2.2.6.1 Wāṣil b. ʿAṭāʾ ..............................................................................................................  2.2.6.1.1 The Chronology of his Life. His Origins and Profession .............................................................................  2.2.6.1.2 Wāṣil the khaṭīb. His Appearance before ʿAbdallāh b. ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿazīz ......................  2.2.6.1.3 Wāṣil’s Speech Defect ..........................................................  2.2.6.1.4 Wāṣil’s Relations with the ʿAlids in Medina .................................................................................................  2.2.6.1.5 The Image of Wāṣil’s Personality ..........................  2.2.6.1.6 Wāṣil’s Relationship with ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd and Ḥasan al-Baṣrī ...............................................................  2.2.6.1.7 The Doctrine of the Intermediate State .........  2.2.6.1.7.1 Sin and Penitence ..................................  2.2.6.1.7.2 Wāṣil’s Relationship with Khārijites and Murjiʾites ...............  2.2.6.1.8 Wāṣil’s Political Views .........................................................  2.2.6.1.9 Further Points of Doctrine ............................................  2.2.6.1.9.1 Epistemological Issues ....................  2.2.6.2 ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd ........................................................................................................  2.2.6.2.1 Biographical Data ..................................................................  2.2.6.2.2 Political Decisions ...................................................................  2.2.6.2.2.1 The Relationship with Manṣūr ................................................................ 

177 189 192 200 211 215 215 218 233 237 245 248 258 266 268 269 270 276 282 285 290 292 298 305 306 309 312 315 319 321 325 327

Contents

2.2.6.2.3 The Image of ʿAmr’s Personality ............................  2.2.6.2.4 His Relationship with Ḥasan al-Baṣrī .................................................................................................  2.2.6.2.4.1 ʿAmr as an Exegete ...............................  2.2.6.2.5 ʿAmr as a Legal Scholar ....................................................  2.2.6.2.6 ʿAmr as a Traditionist .........................................................  2.2.6.2.7 Theology and Politics ..........................................................  2.2.6.3 The Pupil Generation ....................................................................................  2.2.6.3.1 The Circle around Wāṣil ..................................................  2.2.6.3.1.1 The duʿāt ...........................................................  2.2.6.3.1.2 Wāṣil’s Other Pupils ............................  2.2.6.3.2 The Circle around ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd ........................  2.2.6.3.2.1 Jurists and Traditionists ................  2.2.6.3.2.2 The “Muʿtazilites” of the Uprising of AH 145 ................................  2.2.6.4 The Origin of the Name Muʿtazila ................................................  2.2.7 The Traditionist Reaction ...................................................................................................  2.2.7.1 Opposition against ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd ..............................................  2.2.7.1.1 Ayyūb al-Sakhtiyānī .............................................................  2.2.7.1.2 Yūnus b. ʿUbayd .........................................................................  2.2.7.1.3 ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAwn ......................................................................  2.2.7.1.4 Sulaymān al-Taymī ...............................................................  2.2.7.1.5 Abū ʿAmr Ibn al-ʿAlāʾ ...........................................................  2.2.7.2 The Next Generation .....................................................................................  2.2.8 The Muʿtazila in Basra during the Second Half of the Second Century .......................................................................................................  2.2.8.1 Ṣafwān al-Anṣārī ..................................................................................................  2.2.8.1.1 The Image of the Early Muʿtazila in Ṣafwān’s qaṣīda ..........................................................................  2.2.8.2 The Principle of amr bil-maʿrūf wal-nahy ʿan al-munkar ...........................................................................................................  2.2.8.2.1 The Case of Muḥammad b. Munādhir ..........  2.2.8.3 The Position of the Muʿtazila in Basra after 145 ..........  2.2.8.4 The Development of Theology and Law ..............................  2.2.8.4.1 Al-Aṣamm .........................................................................................  2.2.8.4.1.1 Aṣamm’s “Ontology” ..........................  2.2.8.4.1.2 Aṣamm’s Quranic Commentary ................................................ 

ix 336 338 339 342 344 348 352 353 353 360 366 366 372 382 390 390 391 401 404 418 421 427 434 435 436 440 443 446 448 450 452 457

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2.2.8.4.1.3 The Consensus of Muslims .......  2.2.8.4.1.3.1 Consensus and Political Theory ......................  2.2.8.4.1.4 Aṣamm the Lawyer ..............................  2.2.8.4.2 Ibn ʿUlayya .......................................................................................  2.2.8.4.3 Further Basran Muʿtazilites ........................................  2.2.9 Basran Shīʿites .................................................................................................................................  2.3 Wāsiṭ ............................................................................................................................................................................  2.4 The Jazira ...............................................................................................................................................................  2.4.1 Ḥarrān ......................................................................................................................................................  2.4.1.1 The Ṣābians ................................................................................................................  2.4.1.2 Ḥarrān and Islamic Theology .............................................................  2.4.2 Diyār Rabīʿa ........................................................................................................................................  2.4.2.1 The Khārijites ..........................................................................................................  2.4.2.2 Mosul .................................................................................................................................  2.4.2.3 Nisibis ................................................................................................................................  2.4.3 Raqqa .........................................................................................................................................................  2.4.3.1 Sulaymān al-Raqqī ............................................................................................  2.4.3.2 Extreme Shīʿites ....................................................................................................  3 Iran ................................................................................................................................................................................................  3.0 General Preliminary Remarks ....................................................................................................  3.1 Eastern Iran ........................................................................................................................................................  3.1.1 Jahm b. Ṣafwān ...............................................................................................................................  3.1.1.1 The Connection between Jahm and the Jahmiyya ........................................................................................................................  3.1.2 The Cities ................................................................................................................................................  3.1.2.1 Balkh ...................................................................................................................................  3.1.2.1.1 Quranic Exegesis ......................................................................  3.1.2.1.1.1 Muqātil b. Ḥayyān .................................  3.1.2.1.1.2 Muqātil b. Sulaymān ..........................  3.1.2.1.1.2.1 Muqātil’s Theological Views ...................................................  3.1.2.1.2 ʿUmar b. Ṣubḥ and the rafʿ al-yadayn .............  3.1.2.1.3 Murjiʾites and Ḥanafites ..................................................  3.1.2.1.4 The Beginnings of Eastern Iranian Mysticism ..........................................................................................  3.1.2.2 Marv ....................................................................................................................................  3.1.2.3 Tirmidh ............................................................................................................................ 

461 463 469 473 477 479 487 498 500 501 509 520 520 527 530 532 533 548 551 551 553 556 571 572 572 573 574 581 594 598 600 611 615 626

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3.1.2.4 Samarqand ..................................................................................................................  3.1.2.5 Herat ...................................................................................................................................  3.1.3 Sīstān ..........................................................................................................................................................  3.1.3.1 The Khārijites ..........................................................................................................  3.1.3.1.1 Ḥamza b. Ādharak’s Uprising ..................................  3.1.3.2 Non-Khārijite Groups ...................................................................................  3.1.4 The Western Part of the Province of Khorasan .........................................  3.1.4.1 Khorasanian Khārijites ...............................................................................  3.1.4.1.1 The Bayhasiyya ..........................................................................  3.1.4.1.1.1 Yamān b. Riʾāb ............................................  3.1.4.1.2 The Ibāḍiyya ..................................................................................  3.1.4.2 Nishapur ........................................................................................................................  3.2 Central and Southern Iran ..............................................................................................................  3.2.1 The Khārijites ....................................................................................................................................  3.2.1.1 Yazīd b. Unaysa and the uprising of Abū ʿĪsā al-Iṣfahānī .........................................................................................................  3.2.1.2 Later Khārijites ......................................................................................................  3.2.2 ʿAbdallāh b. Muʿāwiya ............................................................................................................  3.2.3 The Cities ................................................................................................................................................  3.2.3.1 Isfahan ..............................................................................................................................  3.2.3.2 Qom .....................................................................................................................................  3.2.3.3 Hamadan .......................................................................................................................  3.2.3.4 Rayy ...................................................................................................................................... 

628 636 642 642 656 660 662 662 666 671 674 678 686 687

4 The Arabian Peninsula .......................................................................................................................................  4.1 The Hijaz ................................................................................................................................................................  4.1.1 Mecca .........................................................................................................................................................  4.1.1.1 The Qadarites ..........................................................................................................  4.1.1.2 The Khārijites ..........................................................................................................  4.1.1.2.1 The Ibāḍites ....................................................................................  4.1.1.3 The Murjiʾites ...........................................................................................................  4.1.1.4 The Shīʿites ..................................................................................................................  4.1.2 Medina ......................................................................................................................................................  4.1.2.1 The Khārijites ..........................................................................................................  4.1.2.2 The Murjiʾa ..................................................................................................................  4.1.2.3 The Qadarites ..........................................................................................................  4.1.2.3.1 Al-Nafs al-zakiyya’s Uprising ....................................  4.1.2.3.2 Later Developments. Resistance against the Qadariyya ..............................................................................  4.1.2.4 The Jahmiyya ........................................................................................................... 

717 718 718 721 734 735 738 743 744 746 748 749 759

688 693 700 702 703 707 708 709

770 785

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4.2 Southern Arabia ...........................................................................................................................................  4.2.1 Yemen .........................................................................................................................................................  4.2.1.1 The Qadarites ..........................................................................................................  4.2.2.1 Other Trends .............................................................................................................  4.2.2 Oman and Ḥaḍramawt ........................................................................................................ 

787 787 791 794 796

5 Egypt ...........................................................................................................................................................................................  5.0 General Preliminary Remarks ....................................................................................................  5.1 Shīʿite Tendencies .......................................................................................................................................  5.2 Counter-Trends. The Ibāḍiyya ....................................................................................................  5.3 Implicit Theology. Hadith ................................................................................................................  5.4 Explicit Theology. Kalām ..................................................................................................................  5.4.1 Theologians of Uncertain Affiliation .................................................................... 

800 800 803 806 810 816 822

Supplementary Remarks .................................................................................................................................  831

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2.2 Basra The rise of Basra began with ʿAlī’s death. Kufa’s short time as the capital was over; Muʿāwiya ensured his popularity in the sister foundation by bestowing land on his followers.1 Money was now circulated from here; when issuing coins for Iraq and Iran, Basra took a clear lead over Kufa.2 It was the residence of the first governors: Ziyād, whom Muʿāwiya recognised as his brother through istilḥāq, and his son ʿUbaydallāh. The city repaid the Umayyads with loyalty; in Kufan eyes the city was “ʿUthmānite”.3 This changed under Ḥajjāj’s rule; Basran “Quran reciters” were involved in Ibn al-Ashʿath’s uprising,4 whereupon Ḥajjāj moved his residence to Wāsiṭ. This did not, however, lead to a fundamental change. Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, seen later as the most important figure among the learned Basrans, kept his distance from the uprising,5 as did Jābir b. Zayd alAzdī who was believed to be an Ibāḍite and consequently was not very favourably inclined towards the ruling political order.6 Ḥasan’s pupil and successor Qatāda was an adviser to the authorities.7 When Ḥammād b. Abī Sulaymān, the teacher of Abū Ḥanīfa, visited from Kufa after 110/728 he said that the Basrans appeared to him like Syrians.8 Yazīd III’s coup was appreciated only among those who followed Qaḍarite ideas,9 but the majority of the population rose up against him.10 Wāṣil b. ʿAṭāʾ paid his respects to Yazīd’s governor ʿAbdallāh b. ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz in Wāṣit,11 but in Basra people rallied around Saʿīd b. ʿAmr b. Jaʿda al-Makhzūmī, a scholar of the Quraysh who would later also

1  Cf. Morony in: The Islamic Middle East 161. 2  Gaube, Arabosasanidische Numismatik 4ff. 3  Cf. e.g. Muwaffaq b. Aḥmad, Manāqib Abī Ḥanīfa II 101, 2ff.; Barrādī, Jawāhir 86, 3ff. after Ḥasan al-Baṣrī. For general information on the ʿUthmāniyya see Pellat, Milieu basrien 189ff.; a clear instance of this tendency is provided by the positive biography of ʿUthmān in Ta‌ʾrīkh al-Madīna by the Basran ʿUmar b. Shabba (ed. Shaltūt, p. 952ff.). 4  Sayed, Revolte des Ibn al-Ašʿaṯ 348ff. 5  See p. 47f. below. 6  See p. 220 below. 7  See p. 159f. below. 8  IS VI 232, 20f.; a slightly different interpretation in Madelung, Qāsim 235. Regarding Ḥammād see vol. I 211ff. above. 9  If indeed this is not merely a later Qaḍarite view of history (see p. 270f. below). 10  Caetani, Chronographia 1591. 11  See p. 277ff. below.

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support Marwān II.12 When the Abbasids came to power, leading Basran citizens refused to appear before Saffāḥ; some had already fled.13 The city centre was divided into five tribal quarters called akhmās.14 Over time it was among these old-established inhabitants, generously encouraged by patronage, that a class of landowners emerged.15 The Azd were the last of the early settlers; in the years 60–61/679–80 they were joined by their cousins from Oman.16 The latter had long been seafaring experts;17 Oman dominated the trade with India and throughout the Persian Gulf. They continued this tradition in Basra as the city had a port and was only 15 miles from the Shatt al-Arab. Being merchants they were wealthy and accustomed to being independent, but they were not greatly respected, as they had not taken part in the conquest, and the offices of honour had already been allotted. They were not convinced by the concept of the caliphate, either; the events of the early years of Islam had been very far from Oman indeed. Consequently they continued to keep to themselves; the core of the Ibāḍiyya evolved among them, described in the heresiographers’ categories as peaceful, “quietist” Khārijites. Towards the end of the first century they had consolidated their position18 and were able to retain it for more than two generations.19 The city was growing fast. According to Yaḥyā b. Aktham whom Ma‌ʾmūn had appointed qāḍī there20 it had 109,000 mosques (16,000 of which had fallen out of use) and 100,000 ṭirāz workshops for the embroidery of ceremonial fabrics; 300,000 canals are said to have been built for the ever-precarious water supply. These were figures to impress people who had no means of checking

12  Muʾarrij al-Sadūsī, Nasab Quraysh 75, apu. ff., where he is called the ṣāḥib al-fitna after Walīd’s death. Concerning his relationship with Marwān cf. Ṭabarī III 224, 14ff., and 204, 10ff. 13  Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ, Risāla fī l-ṣaḥāba para. 45 Pellat. Concerning the circumstances cf. also p. 146 and 365 below as well as Madelung in: SI 70/1989/23. 14  In more detail Ṣāliḥ Aḥmad al-ʿAlī, Khiṭaṭ al-Baṣra wa-minṭaqatihā 81ff. and Morony, Iraq 245ff.; Pellat in EI2 I 1085f. s. v. Baṣra. 15  Cf. Morony in: T. Khalidi, Land Tenure and Social Transformation in the Middle East 211ff. 16  Ṣāliḥ al-ʿAlī 96ff.; Morony 248f.; Strenziok in EI2 I 811ff. s. v. Azd. 17  Cf. also Caskel, Ǧamharat an-nasab II 217 b. 18  Cf. Donner in: Khalidi, Land Tenure 107. 19  For more information see p. 214ff. below. 20  See ch. C 3.3.5 below.

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them; the account is found in Rāzī’s Ta‌ʾrīkh Ṣanʿāʾ.21 Still, there is no doubt that the city was a metropolis. Its sphere of influence extended as far as the island of ʿAbbādān two and a half days’ journey away.22 The place was teeming with foreigners; not only Persians coming across from the Gulf, but also Indians, Malays and East Africans.23 When the poet Yazīd b. Mufarrigh spoke disrespectfully of Ziyād’s mother Sumaiya, he was led around the town ignominiously in punishment; street urchins were calling after him in Persian, and he replied in Persian as well.24 The presence of Indians was a matter of course, so much so that when the philologist ʿĪsā b. ʿUmar al-Thaqafī, overcome by sudden heart trouble in the street, addressed passers-by in stilted gharīb-gobbledegook, they thought he was speaking Indian.25 Most money changers were Indians; they were considered to be very honest.26 The merchants who travelled on sailing ships from the subcontinent probably had emporia on ʿAbbādān, as that was the place for pious Muslims to go to convert Indians.27 The priorities of intellectual life were different from those in Kufa. It seems that the Jews occupied a rather lowly position,28 but there was a strong presence of Christians; tradition had it that St Thomas the apostle had taken the sea route to India from here.29 Seleucid Charax Spasinu, wherever it may have been, had become a bishop’s residence,30 and Mesene the home of numerous Christian communities.31 In the late eighth or early ninth century the 21  P. 116, 3ff.; after a Basran source. Yaʿqūbī mentions only 7000 mosques, and even that is a round number (Buldān 361, 4f./transl. Wiet 361). More precise topographical information may be found in Ṣāliḥ al-ʿAlī, Khiṭaṭ al-Baṣra 144ff. (canals) and 253f. (mosques). 22  Regarding this island see p. 119 below. 23  Pellat, Milieu basrien 34ff. 24  Meier, Die schöne Maḥsatī 9f.; Pellat in EI2 III 881f. s. n. Ibn Mufarrig̲ h̲. 25  Qifṭī, Inbāh II 377, 7ff. 26  Jāḥiẓ, Fakhr al-sūdān ʿalā l-bīḍān, in: Rasāʾil I 224, –4ff.; also MacLean, Religion and Society in Arab Sind 93. 27  See p. 119 below. 28  Cf. Sadan in: Festschrift Ayalon 365 and earlier; more generally also S. S. Sassoun in: JQR NS 17/1936–27/407ff. and J. Obermeyer, Die Landschaft Babylonien 338ff. (but only for the tenth cent.). 29  A. Dihle, Antike und Orient 63ff. 30  Cf. J. Hansman in: Iranica Antiqua 7/1967/21ff.; more generally RE III 2122, and XV1 1083f. 31  Also Sachau in: Abh. Preuß. Akad. Wiss. 1919, no. 1, p. 48ff., and Schaeder in: Der Islam 14/1925/29ff.; briefly also Colpe, Siegel der Propheten 132f. Regarding the environment in general see RE XV1 1082ff., LThK VII 318 and esp. EI2 VI 918ff. (s. v. Maisān); also RahimiLaridjani, Die Entwicklung der Bewässerungslandwirtschaft im Iran 36f.; regarding its

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Nestorian patriarch Timothy addressed a pastoral letter to his flock in Basra and nearby Ubulla/Apologos.32 Unlike the Jews the Christians had developed a rational theology. The Nestorian ʿAmmār al-Baṣrī attracted Abū l-Hudhayl’s polemic; his writings, composed in Arabic, were rather close to those of the Muslim mutakallimūn in terms of language as well as style of argument.33 The Basrans enjoyed kalām, as the Syrian Walīd b. Muslim noted,34 but there were irrational trends from the very beginning, too. Ecstatics, so-called “leapers” (qaffāzūn), dropped to the ground writhing; a phenomenon known already to Abū l-Jawzāʾ Aws b. ʿAbdallāh,35 a Basran Quran reciter who died in Ibn alAshʿath’s uprising.36 Zurāra b. Awfā al-Jurashī (d. 108/726–7?), temporarily qāḍī of Basra, suffered a heart attack during the Feast of the Sacrifice while reciting a verse from the Quran which mentioned the trumpet of the Last Judgment.37 As Ibn Taymiyya would clearly see later, Basra became the cradle of Islamic asceticism and mysticism. Much more than in Kufa the consciousness of being chosen was kept in check by the awareness of the vanity of the world and the sinfulness of the people here.38 2.2.1 The “Heretics” A frequently quoted account from the K. al-Aghānī noted that in the late Umayyad era there were six people in Basra who were interested in kalām, i.e. probably: religious debate. They are reported to have met in the house of an Azdite in order to debate there. Two of them, Wāṣil b. ʿAṭāʾ and ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd, later became Muʿtazilites, while two others showed genuine remorse (ṣaḥḥaḥā l-tawba), namely ʿAbd al-Karīm b. Abī l-ʿAwjāʾ and Ṣāliḥ b. ʿAbd al-Quddūs, whom history counts among the “heretics”. A fifth one, the poet Bashshār history during the Parthian era cf. Nodelman in: Berytus 30/1960/83ff. The metropolitan’s residence was not in Charax (= Karḵā) but Perāth de Mayshan (for its situation cf. Schaeder 31). 32  Significantly, on the question of whether Christ may be called ʿabdā “serf”; cf. Hurst, Syriac Letters of Timothy I 44. Regarding Timothy see ch. C 1.2.3 below. 33  More detailed information in ch. C 1.3.1.2 and 3.2.1.3.4.2 below. 34  Cf. Dunlop in: Studies in Islam (New Delhi) 1/1964/14. 35  Abū Nuʿaym, Ḥilya III 80, 1ff. 36  Cf. Sayed, Revolte des Ibn al-Ašʿaṯ 351. 37  Wakīʿ, Akhbār al-quḍāt I 294, –4ff.; Dhahabī, Ta‌ʾrīkh al-Islām III 368, 10f. 38  Abū Nuʿaym, Ḥilya II 94, –6f.; Ibn Taymiyya, Risālat al-Ṣūfiya wal-fuqarāʾ, transl. E. Homerin in: Arabica 32/1985/219ff., esp. 222f., 229 and 231. Ibn Taymiyya also based his account on the case of Zurāra b. Awfā (ibid. 223 with comm. 239). Cf. also F. Meier in: Saeculum 32/1981/76.

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b. Burd, remained “confused and chaotic” all his life.1 The sixth one, the Azdite, was interested in the views of the Sumaniyya, “an Indian doctrine”, and always presented the same demeanour at least outwardly.2 We should not take this account at face value. It immediately poses philological problems,3 and the source, a certain Saʿīd b. Sallām – probably Saʿīd b. Sallām al-ʿAṭṭār al-Baṣrī who transmitted from Sufyān al-Thawrī (d. 161/778) among others, probably did not himself experience the time which he described. He had moved from Basra to Baghdad where he could say all sorts of things about his native city which could not easily be checked.4 And there is a parallel in Ibn Taghrībirdī which embellishes the episode further. Here we have ten people who meet, each of them with a little label to ensure we all know which opinion he adheres to: Ṣāliḥ b. ʿAbd al-Quddūs (dualist), Khalīl b. Aḥmad (Sunni),5 al-Sayyid al-Ḥimyarī (Shīʿite), Sufyān b. Mujāshiʿ (Ṣufrite),6 Bashshār b. Burd (freethinker), Ḥammād ʿAjrad (zindīq), the son of Rēsh gālūthā (Jewish poet), Ibn Naẓīr (Christian mutakallim), ʿAmr b. Ukht alMuʾayyad (Zoroastrian),7 and Ibn Sinān al-Ḥarrānī (Sabian). This time they do not engage in kalām but recite poetry to one another. It is not possible to identify the transmitter, a certain Khalaf b. al-Muthannā.8 What is probably correct is that the “orthodoxy” among Basran intellectuals in pre-Abbasid days left much to be desired. They would revise their positions later, each in his own way. The gentlemen who met in this “debating society”9 had not yet, after all, reached a ripe old age. Bashshār would die at the end of 1  mutaḥayyir mukhallaṭ. The edition reads mukhalliṭ “causing confusion”; this is also possible. Regarding mutaḥayyir “sceptic” cf. my Erkenntnislehre 226. 2  Agh. III 146, 10ff. > Ibn Nubāta, Sarḥ al-ʿuyūn 300, 9ff., and Ibn Ḥajar, Lisān al-Mīzān IV 51, apu. ff.; cf. also Fück, Arabische Kultur 258ff. and 267 (= Festschrift Kahle 95). 3  This gives rise to the question of concerning what the two heretics should “show genuine remorse”. Because of their interest in kalām, maybe? The phrase ṣaḥḥaḥā l-tawba is unusual as it is. It is possible to correct tawba to read thanawiyya (as Fück does 259, n. 1 and 267, n. 2). But ṣaḥḥaḥā would still be problematic. Should we translate it as “agree, believe to be correct”? Later traditions would change it: Ibn Nubāta has fa-ṣārā ilā l-thanawiyya; the editors of Dīwān Bashshār b. Burd read fa-ṣammamā ʿalā l-thanawiyya. Cf. in more detail Festschrift Spuler 65, n. 63. 4  Regarding him see TB IX 80f. no. 4661; ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ II 108f. no. 580; Mīzān no. 3195. 5  The well-known grammarian, of course (regarding him see p. 253ff. below). 6  Not documented elsewhere. 7  The editor wonders whether this should be read al-Mōbadh instead of al-Muʾayyad. 8  Nujūm II 29, 3ff.; cf. also Ibn al-Muʿtazz, Ṭab. 91, 10ff. Also Vajda in: RSO 17/1938/204. 9  Fück 241.

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the 60s; in those days he was thirty at the most. Wāṣil and ʿAmr, too, were born around the year 80/700. We can safely assume that all of them drifted apart quite soon. ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd is said to have driven Ibn Abī l-ʿAwjāʾ out of Basra because he was “corrupting the younger generation”,10 and Bashshār b. Burd did not escape the Muʿtazila unharmed either. It is true that the persecution of heretics under al-Mahdī seems to have barely touched Basra and Kufa;11 by that time officials and poets had followed the call – or the attraction – of the court. However, before that there had been some fairly violent clashes of opinions within the respective cities. 2.2.1.1 Bashshār b. Burd Still, it is not at all easy to determine to which degree Bashshār was indeed a “heretic”. His confrontation with the Muʿtazila is only one of many phases of a biographical development within which someone like al-Jāḥiẓ already found it difficult to distinguish a clear line. Modern observers, too, such as F. Gabrieli, only found syncretism and aimlessness in this poet.1 He was a typical social climber: highly talented, but rather indiscriminate as to the means he employed. His father had been the slave of one of Muhallab’s wives, a brick maker,2 who was freed when his blind son was born.3 He found this 10   Agh. III 147, 3ff.; see vol. I 516 above and p. 442 below. 11  But for Abū l-Hudhayl see ch. C 3.2.1.1 below. 1  In: BSOAS 9/1937/154. Regarding Bashshār see also: Moḥammad Badīʿ Sharīf, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Mawālī-Bewegung im Osten des Kalifenreiches (PhD Basel 1942), p. 50ff.; Attia Rizk, Baššār b. Burd, ein Dichter der ʿabbasīdischen Moderne, in der Überlieferung und der Darstellung des Kitāb al-Aġānī (PhD Heidelberg 1966); for general information GAS 2/455ff. and Schoeler in CHAL II 276ff. On his being a zindīq see Vajda in: RSO 17/1938/197ff.; Fück, Arabische Kultur 262f. and 267, n. 3. More recently and in detail Fārūq ʿUmar in: Buḥūth fī l-ta‌ʾrīkh al-ʿabbāsī 286ff. If I diverge from these accounts, I am aware that a final appreciation will only be possible once the surviving sections of the dīwān have been examined and the akhbār in Abū l-Faraj al-Iṣfahānī, Ibn al-Muʿtazz etc. have been analysed. This has by no means been achieved so far; the authors of the two PhD theses mentioned above are not familiar with the concept of source criticism. The akhbār traditions are on the whole anecdotal in character and must not be mistaken for historical documents. The failure to take this into account sufficiently is, indeed, the weakness of the most compelling interpretation of Bashshār’s character so far: R. Blachère, Le cas Baššār, in: Analecta 583ff. This is a sketch composed only in the last weeks before the scholar’s death; consequently minor mistakes e.g. in the chronology should be overlooked. 2  Agh. III 137, 8ff., and 207, ult.; also Text XII 2, v. 27. 3  Agh. III 136, 3ff. Or was Bashshār the only one to be freed, as the parallel account 136, 15 claims?

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background distressing and made up a fantastic Iranian genealogy for himself which went back 25 generations to Luhrāsp, the father of Wīshtāspa in the time of Zarathustra.4 When Wāṣil reached the cusp of his fame, after the audience with ʿAbdallāh b. ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz in 126/744, Bashshār flattered him for his rhetorical skills;5 but he had no intention of supporting his cause. He regaled the governors who followed ʿUmar II’s son, men like Ibn Hubayra or Salm b. Qutayba for whom the religious opposition in Iraq had little affection, with panegyrics; even a qasidah on Marwān II survives.6 When the Abbasids took the helm he praised the “knights from Khorasan” and discovered that he, whose grandfather had grown up in Tokharistan,7 was really one of their number.8 The calculation paid off and his tributes were accepted gracefully. His colourful past was overlooked as a matter of course. He even came in contact with al-Manṣūr and seems to have accompanied him on his pilgrimage to Mecca. He claims to have boasted of his Iranian origins in al-Mahdī’s presence: while he was an Arab in language and dress, his roots were among the “Quraysh of the Persians”.9 Now, however, times had changed; when the vizier Yaʿqūb b. Dāwūd felt insulted by him and the caliph had him flogged to death and thrown into the Baṭīḥa marshes, his “heresy”, namely his Iranian style, was regarded as the reason for the execution.10 If it is true that the newly appointed judge of heretics Muḥammad b. ʿĪsā, known as Ḥamdōya, carried out the execution, his death should be dated to the year 168/784.11 The accusation of zandaqa, if indeed it did play a part at the crucial moment, was presumably only a pretext at the time. Involving the judge of 4  Ibid. 135, 2ff.; cf. the references in Attia Rizq, Bashshār b. Burd 76, n. 2. Significantly it was transmitted by a Shuʿūbite. In his poetry, Bashshār also hinted at being descended from “Kisrā and Sāsān” (Dīwān I 377, 8f., transl. in Wagner, Grundzüge der klassischen arabischen Dichtung II 90, and also in Schoeler, CHAL II 279f.); he also referred to himself as a nephew of the Basileus (ibid. I 380, 2f.). 5  See p. 279 below. 6  Dīwān I 306ff.; also Gabrieli in BSOAS 1837, 153f. Regarding this and the following in general see Blachère in EI2 I 1080f., and Fārūq ʿUmar Fawzī in: Mawrid 16/1987/75ff. 7  Agh. III 135, 6f. 8  Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 49, 4ff.; also Agh. III 138, 11ff. Cf. also the praise for Saffāḥ, Dīwān III 29ff., esp. 37, ult. 9    Agh. III 138, 1ff. Regarding his relationship with al-Mahdī cf. also Ibn al-Muʿtazz, Ṭab. 21, 12ff. 10  Ibid. 243, 9ff., and 245, 4ff.; also Ibn al-Muʿtazz 24, apu. ff., Fück 262f., and Vajda 202. 11  Ibid. 250, 1ff.; cf. also my Ṭailasān des Ibn Ḥarb. 167 is also frequently named as the date, possibly because it was known that this was the year of the great persecution of heretics (see ch. C 1.2.2 below).

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heretics does not mean the accused was necessarily a heretic. There were also other voices who claimed that Bashshār had been accused of Khārijite leanings.12 Being versatile he had probably noticed earlier signs of what was coming. Occasionally he would stress his orthodoxy in downright obtrusive fashion;13 he praised Mahdī for being harsh towards those who “deny themselves to guidance”.14 He reviled Ibn Abī l-ʿAwjāʾ, who had been executed years before, as a zindīq and accused him of neither praying nor fasting.15 But it is significant that he clashed with Yaʿqūb b. Dāwūd of all people, who had replaced Abū ʿUbaydallāh Muʿāwiya when the latter lost favour because of, among other things, his son’s zandaqa scandal.16 As for public opinion, one thing led to another. Someone who wrote such unrestrained poetry could not have been a pious and decent man. The Basran ascetic Mālik b. Dīnār (d. 131/748)17 is reported to have visited him at home, in keeping with the duty of amr bi-l-maʿrūf, to reproach him that he was offending public decency by “propositioning” women in his love poems.18 Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, too, is said to have been outraged at his conduct, even though Bashshār was not even fifteen years old at the time of Ḥasan’s death.19 The poet’s response to all this was sarcasm; he called Ḥasan al-Baṣrī a “clergyman” (qass),20 and Mālik b. Dīnār was “not really his type”.21 In order to confirm that he did not observe the duty to prayer people are said to have spread sand at his place and not found any marks in it afterwards;22 Bashshār was, of course, blind. Apparently he once attempted to complete the hajj with the aim of changing the image 12  Ibn al-Muʿtazz, Ṭab. 21, 15f. 13   Dīwān II 36, 3; this is, however, in an oath. 14  Ibid. II 86, 1. 15   Agh. III 147, 5ff. The question remains of whether these verses are genuine. Tradition takes pleasure in having zanādiqa bearing witness against one another (see vol. I 521ff. above). 16  Cf. Sourdel, Vizirat I 100ff.; also ibid. 106 Bashshār’s verses insulting him. In Buḥūṯ 294ff. Fārūq ʿUmar considers the political situation to be the definitive moment, believing the accusation of heresy to be a pretext. Regarding Bashshār’s attitude of conforming with the government cf. also Sahron, Black Banners 77, n. 8. 17  More information on him on p. 105ff. below. 18   Agh. III 170, 8ff.; also Marzubānī, Nūr al-qabas 118, 5ff. (where the correct reading of l. 6 is istihtār, not ishtihār). 19   Agh. 169, 15ff. This was probably one of the reasons why Abū ʿUbayda said that Bashshār’s tongue was feared before he had even reached majority (ibid. 143, 3f.). 20  Ibid. 168, 16. The word is used in the following poem without mentioning Ḥasan al-Baṣrī by name. This, presumably, was the origin of the anecdote. 21   mā huwa min ashkālī wa-lā aḍrābī (170, 12). 22  Murtaḍā, Amālī I 138, 10f.

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people had of him, but ended up drinking wine somewhere in low company the entire time and at the end rejoined the returning pilgrims in Qādisiyya, shaven-headed.23 The Muʿtazilites in particular, being famously straight-laced, kept adding details to this image. The Iraqi scholar ʿAlī al-Zubaydī has shown that many Bashshār traditions in the K. al-Aghānī originated with Muʿtazilites.24 They did not really pay much attention to the truth, either. Jāḥiẓ quoted an outraged philippic by Wāṣil who, like the prophet in Medina before him, asked whether there was no-one who could put a stop to the freethinker’s (mulḥid) activities.25 The text is easily spotted as a fake as it very carefully avoids the letter r which was a danger to Wāṣil; later narrators made sure that Wāṣil should remember his luthgha even in anger, and thus polished these anecdotes thoroughly.26 It had become hard to imagine that Wāṣil, who had once been praised by Bashshār, should not have noticed the kind of rascal he was dealing with. The falling-out was documented reliably only later, in the attacks of the Muʿtazilite poet Ṣafwān al-Anṣārī, whose verses probably date to around 160. These also unfurl Bashshār’s past, but in a rather more concrete fashion – so concrete, in fact, that some of the allusions are barely comprehensible to us. Bashshār is said to have been in contact with Abū Manṣūr al-ʿIjlī’s nurse Maylāʾ as well as a certain ʿĀṣim,27 placing him definitely within radical Shīʿite circles. Some decades earlier Abū Manṣūr’s followers had spread fear among the citizens of Kufa by terrorist methods; some verses name Maylāʾ herself as the chief of these “stranglers” (khannāqūn) who gained entry into houses posing as musicians, and then murdered the inhabitants under cover of the noise.28 This had been a long time before; Abū Manṣūr had been executed under Yūsuf b. ʿUmar al-Thaqafī (120/738–126/744). But the sect had not died. His son was put on trial under al-Mahdī; it seems that he had pretended to be a prophet and made much money that way which the caliph was only too pleased to have flowing into his own coffers.29 This was the danger of denunciation. If Bashshār had 23   Agh. III 185, 5ff. This was reported in similar fashion about other people, too (cf. Vajda in: RSO 17/1938/199, n. 3). 24   Maṣādir akhbār Bashshār b. Burd, in: Maj. Kull. Ādāb Baghdād 7/1964/129ff. 25   Agh. 146, 1ff.; also Bayān I 16, 10ff. After this Mubarrad, Kāmil 924, 1ff.; Ibn al-Nadīm 202, –4ff. etc. 26  See p. 281 below. Abū ʿUbayda adopted this tradition, too, but phrased Wāṣil’s statement differently – once again without r (Marzubānī 118, 8f.). 27  Text XII 2, v. 24; also vol. I 314 above. 28  Jāḥiẓ, Ḥayawān VI 389, ult.; cf. vol. I 466, n. 4 above. Aʿshā Hamdān had already been executed after Ibn al-Ashʿath’s uprising (GAS 2/345). 29  Halm, Gnosis 86ff.

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ever been an “extremist”, he had by then outgrown such youthful foolishness. Still, his father had been close to that movement, and that was what Ṣafwān seized on.30 Later biographical tradition did not differentiate anymore at all: in his abovementioned apocryphal invective Wāṣil mentioned in passing that he really did not want to employ the tactics (ghīla) of the paid killers that were the ghulāt. In the following verses Ṣafwān let the cat out of the bag: Bashshār mocked Wāṣil himself. He called him the “yarn-seller” or “spinner” and made fun of his misshapen neck.31 This is obviously a reference to some of Bashshār’s verses which have survived thanks to Jāḥiẓ: Why would I join a spinner who has a neck like the ostrich in the desert, whether he shows it from the front or the back –  a giraffe’s neck. I want no part of you. ‫ ٭‬You declare people to be infidels who have (themselves) called others infidels.32 While Jāḥiẓ claimed that Bashshār directed these verses against Wāṣil himself after the latter had criticised him, he was merely following the fixed Muʿtazilite image of history of the time. Bashshār used the plural; he was addressing Wāṣil’s followers, and nobody tells us that Wāṣil was still alive at that time. They were intolerant, declaring other Muslims infidels, but they were not the only ones, as this is common practice among fanatics. Bashshār presented this sarcastically as a chain reaction where one points a finger at the other; he was clearly thinking of the Khārijites who were branded heretics by the Muʿtazilites but who had themselves branded someone else, namely ʿAlī, a heretic. He probably emphasised this so much because the Muʿtazilites around Ṣafwān al-Anṣārī

30  Regarding this interpretation cf. my essay in: Festschrift Steppat, WO 28/1988/148ff. It also leads to the chronological approach to the verses suggested above; it fits with the dates we have for Ṣafwān (see p. 434f. below). However, we must not overlook the fact that he also reviled Bashshār’s mother (Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 31, 1f.; transl. Pellat in: Festschrift Wickens 25); this probably dated back some time. Still, the two are not necessarily connected, and in addition those verses are, despite being addressed to the mother, of course directed mainly against Bashshār himself. 31  Text XII 2, vv. 24–26. 32   Agh. 145, 11ff.; Bayān I 16, 1ff.; quoted in Mubarrad, Kāmil 922, 4ff.; Murtaḍā, Amālī I 139, 4ff.; IKH VI 11, 1f. I am going with Aghānī’s tukaffirūna rather than a-tukfirūna as in Bayān, and have consequently translated the last hemistich as a statement instead of a question. The Jāḥiẓ tradition may be the older one, but the version in K. al-Aghānī has been preferred by all subsequent sources.

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had called him an unbeliever, too.33 Ṣafwān took up the accusation: Bashshār not only renounced ʿAlī – like the Khārijites – but also disparaged Abū Bakr.34 This is indeed as far removed from Wāṣil’s neutralist views35 as could be, and at the same time it seems to contradict the ultra-Shīʿite tendencies he previously ascribed to Bashshār. Jāḥiẓ accordingly followed this up by deepening the contradiction: “Bashshār believed in the Parousia (rajʿa; like the Shīʿites) and considered the entire community to be unbelievers”36 – for in his view Abū Bakr’s followers had gone astray as far as ʿAlī’s. Still, what we are looking at here is not the result of inconsistent thought; it is the doctrine of the Kāmiliyya.37 And once again it was not so much Bashshār who followed it but rather his father who “knew nothing but clay”, and Bashshār laid his own extravagance at his father’s door.38 It does, however, seem that he would agree with the Kāmiliyya’s demand that the imam should assert his own right even later, as he was said to have paid homage to Muḥammad b. ʿAbdallāh “al-nafs al-zakiyya” and dedicated a qaṣīda to him celebrating him as Fatima’s descendant and announcing the end of Manṣūr’s reign. It is true that the Kāmiliyya, like many of Abū Manṣūr al-ʿIjlī’s followers, changed sides to support Muḥammad b. ʿAbdallāh.39 Still, the authenticity of this poem does not seem to me to be beyond doubt. The qaṣīda must have been written quite early as it was transmitted only because Bashshār, when he began to find the situation embarrassing, rewrote it directing it at Manṣūr and Abū Muslim in such a way that all praise was directed at the caliph and all criticism at Abū Muslim.40 This would hardly have been a sensible or advisable course of action after the general’s downfall in 136, but then there were nearly ten years 33  Fück tries to read this into the last verse and translates: “You mean to declare others to be infidels! You should only do this to one man (namely your leader Wāṣil)” (Arab. Kultur 242); i.e. he reads kaffirū or akfirū instead of kaffarū or akfarū. However, this abrupt imperative in the middle of the verse as well as the additions Fück has to presume in order for it to make sense, seems to me to be asking rather too much. I agree with Rizq’s translation (Bashshār 93). – Wāṣil would be addressed directly only if ʿunqa l-zirāfati at the beginning of the second verse were understood as a vocative. However, there is not much in that. 34  Text XII 2, vv. 27f. 35  See p. 308ff. below. 36   Agh. III 145, 8 and 224, 2. 37  For more information see vol. I 311 above. 38  V. 28. 39  See vol. I 313 above. 40   Agh. III 156, 6ff., and 213, 13ff.; transl. in Rizq 109ff. and 196ff. Cf. also Vadet, Esprit Courtois 168 and Beeston, Selections from the poetry of Bashshār 48ff.

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until the uprising of 145. Of course we do know that Muḥammad b. ʿAbdallāh was being “built up” for quite some time before this,41 but in fact this was only in secret, not to the sound of blaring panegyrics; furthermore tradition insists that Bashshār only carried out the correction once the uprising had failed.42 In all probability we are looking at a piece of fiction after all. Regarding the phenomenon of reusing a panegyric qaṣīda cf. Kilito, L’Auteur et ses doubles 31ff.; also the example in vol. I 120 above. –  U. F. Fawzī read one verse in the qaṣīda Dīwān II 297ff. as polemic against ʿAbdallāh b. al-Ḥasan and his two sons Muḥammad and Ibrāhīm (Maurid 16/1987/1, p. 84); in that case it could be even more firmly ruled out that Bashshār ever committed himself to al-Nafs al-zakiyya. However, this hypothesis is based on an incorrect reading (muddaʿiyayni instead of muddaʿīna in 300, 5); this is impossible due to the metre. Also the qaṣīda was addressed to al-Mahdī referring to him as caliph (312, 3); consequently it must have been composed at least 13 years after the uprising. Bashshār’s ongoing connection to the Kāmiliyya would be confirmed if we could link it to the last line of the poem mentioned on p. 10 above. We would have to base our argument on Jāḥiẓ’ version and translate the line “Do you want to declare people to be infidels who have called someone else an infidel?” The “people” would then be the Kāmiliyya, and “someone else” ʿAlī. This is how Chokr, Zandaqa 435, interpreted the verse, but it is hard to believe that Bashshār should have employed his opponents’ terminology. In fact Jāḥiẓ was the first to claim that the Kāmiliyya “declared ʿAlī an infidel”. – The fact that Bashshār had no time for the Rāfiḍites (Agh. III 168, 1f.) is not relevant to these considerations. Among the heresiographers Baghdādī was the first to point out Bashshār’s connection with the Kāmiliyya.43 He used it to illustrate the rather vague remarks in Jāḥiẓ’ text and quoted an anecdote the latter had already recounted: When someone asked Bashshār whether ʿAlī, too, had apostasised, the poet replied with another verse: Not the worst of the three, o Umm ʿAmr, / is your companion (here), from whom you withhold the morning cup.44 41  See vol. I 465 above. 42   Agh. III 156, 9 and 213, 15. 43   Farq 39, 6ff./54, 4ff. 44  Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 16, 8f.; Agh. 224, 8ff.; ʿAskarī, Awāʾil II 136, pu. ff. In his translation Rizk erroneously links the story to Wāṣil.

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In other words: ʿAlī at least converted in the end; Abū Bakr and ʿUmar on the other hand continued to follow the wrong path. The phrase itself is a quotation, usually located in ʿAmr b. Kulthūm’s Muʿallaqāt,45 but also transmitted from ʿAmr b. ʿAdī b. Naṣr al-Lakhmī.46 Anbārī included this verse in his commentary on the Muʿallaqāt, but not a next one.47 This story, too – if indeed it is genuine – probably dates to Bashshār’s early years; neither Jāḥiẓ nor Baghdādī considered the possibility of development on Bashshār’s part. Later, when the Kāmiliyya had lost its meaning in the common consciousness, only his rajʿa belief was still used as a motif: when the cattle in his house made a noise he is said to have believed that the Day of Judgment had come, and that people knocked on the graves of the dead to make them come out.48 When Ṣafwān al-Anṣārī took his anger out on the follies of Bashshār’s youth, this was probably also due to the fact that he and the Muʿtazilites were a long way from enjoying the social prestige Bashshār had. The Muʿtazilites had actually played a part in al-Nafs al-zakiyya’s uprising.49 Therefore he not only reviled Bashshār’s father as a clay worker, but also brought in a “plebeian” (ʿilj) of the name of ʿĀṣim with whom Bashshār was in contact, and a “gentleman” (mawlāka) who “if an injustice is done him, will resolve the matter with the barge-pole”.50 Sailors were not respected much;51 we can easily believe that many of them were slaves, and most of them were Iranians.52 But Ṣafwān really only wanted to divert attention, as the major part of his qaṣīda was devoted to refuting Bashshār’s theory of the elements. For 22 verses he sang the praises of earth,53 because Bashshār had declared fire to be the nobler element.54 This was not at all plebeian, and it did not have anything to do with the Kāmiliyya at first glance. Jāḥiẓ preserved the point of reference, albeit in one verse only:

45  Cf. Muʿallaqāt with Zawzanī’s commentary, ed. Muḥammad ʿAlī Ḥamdallāh, Damascus 1383/1963. p. 239, v. 6/transl. Nöldeke in: SB Wiener Ak. Wiss., Phil.-Hist. Kl. 140/1899 no. 7, p. 24. 46  Marzubānī, Muʿjam 11, 4f. 47  Ed. ʿAbd al-Salām Muḥ. Hārūn, Cairo 1963, p. 374 with n. 2. The phrase “the worst of the three” (sharr al-thalātha) actually recalls hadith pronouncements concerning the prostitute’s child (see vol. I 23 above and Text XXII 254, 8b). 48   Agh. 160, 7ff. 49  See p. 372 below. 50  Text XII 2, vv. 24 and 26. We are not given further insights into who these people were. 51  Cf. Ibn Qutayba, ʿUyūn I 70, 17ff.; also Muḥāsibī, Aʿmāl al-qulūb 104, 13 and 106, 9ff. 52  Ṣāliḥ al-ʿAlī, Tanẓīmāt ijtimāʿiyya 246ff. 53  See p. 447 below. 54  Text XII 2, v. 1.

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Earth is dark; fire, however, luminous. / Fire has been worshipped ever since there first was fire.55 He added with the merest sneer that Bashshār would seem to have agreed with Satan – a reference to sura 7:12: “I am better than he (i.e. Adam). Me you created out of fire, but him (only) from clay (i.e. earth).” Maʿarrī later confirmed this in his Risālat al-Ghufrān where he has Satan thanking Bashshār for honouring him in the following verses: Satan is more excellent than your father Adam./ You can be sure of it, you evil people!/ Fire is his element; Adam, however, is clay./ But clay will never equal the position of fire.56 Still, it seems that this is pure fiction. These verses, which would have served to prove Bashshār’s heresy much more effectively than the verse Jāḥiẓ quoted, are transmitted nowhere else. The verse quoted by Jāḥiẓ really points in an entirely different direction, as does Ṣafwān al-Anṣārī’s refutation. With it, Bashshār joined in the discussion of the elements which the “heretics” had learned from the dualists – or, more precisely, with his worship of fire he seems like a Kantaean. Shahrastānī described the Kantaeans as “fanatics of fire”; but at the same time they regarded it as one of the elements together with earth and water.57 The Muslims themselves realised that Bashshār was no Manichaean: they noted that he ate meat.58 He was certainly no Kantaean either, but he might have got the seed of his ideas from them, and maybe Ṣafwān al-Anṣārī was referring to them when he mentioned a “barge-pole”. After all, Bashshār was not only a poet but also a khaṭīb who employed sajʿ, and he wrote “well-known treatises (rasāʾil)”.59 With the last named genre he infringed on the Muʿtazilites’ territory, and it is possible that some of his prose writings discussed topics of natural philosophy.

55   Bayān I 16, 5f. > Agh. 145, 9f.; also Murtaḍā, Amālī I 138, 9 (but with the first half of the verse inverted). 56   Ġufrān 302, 1ff. 57   Milal 196, pu. ff./649, 2ff.; for more information see vol. I 509f. above. 58  Mubarrad, Kāmil 923, 5ff. > Murtaḍā, Amālī I 138, 4ff.; cf. also Vajda in: RSO 17/1938/201, n. 2. 59  Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 49, 9f. > Agh. III 145, 3f.

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If we can believe one of his nephews, even the Ḥarrānians played a part: he allegedly studied with them.60 This is not impossible; he wrote a panegyric to Sulaymān b. Hishām b. ʿAbd al-Malik when the latter was governor of Ḥarrān.61 With Marwān II, who was residing in Ḥarrān, he apparently went to war against the Khārijite Ḍaḥḥāk b. Qays;62 he also mentioned the caliph’s punitive expeditions against the Syrian cities.63 Ṣafwān al-Anṣārī, too, said that he left Basra only towards the end of the Umayyad era, returning “to the (Iraqi) cities (amṣār) only after (the death of) Wāṣil”, having “wandered about the coastal area (tahāʾim) and the highlands (nujd).64,65 He did in fact write a poem about the Banū ʿĀmir in the Yamāma in 126.66 But the “coastal area” and the highlands should not be thought to refer precisely to the Hijaz, but rather read per merismum, to mean “everywhere” – and looking from Basra, Ḥarrān was of course in the mountains. Ṣafwān seems to have intended to hint that Bashshār fled Iraq because he was afraid of Wāṣil, preparing the way for later tradition. Still, it is unlikely that he hit upon the truth; Bashshār left Basra simply because he wanted to carve a career for himself elsewhere. The subsequent, last three lines of the poem show how much the author’s pen was guided by moral outrage –  as, indeed, it would be in later tradition as well: Bashshār harassed strange women, although he was as ugly as a monkey. Ṣafwān then advised him to look to the women around Abū Manṣūr al-ʿIjlī. While we cannot recognise all the names he mentioned, we can see that these were ascetics.67 It may be that Bashshār developed his doctrine of fire in order to buttress an idea attributed to the later Kāmiliyya, namely that imamate and prophethood are a spark of light passing from one person to the next.68 Ṣafwān believed that this was thanks to tanāsukh, metempsychosis.69 When Sulaymān al-Aʿmā (d. 179/795), the brother of Ṣarīʿ al-ghawānī and like he a poet,70 described the body as the “temple” (haykal) of the soul, to be inhabited by the latter, people 60  Ibn al-Muʿtazz, Ṭab. 22, ult. ff. 61   Dīwān I 291ff. 62  Regarding him see p. 525f. below. 63  For more information see vol. I 130 above. Cf. Blachère, Analecta 594. 64  Thus instead of nujud in the rhyme. 65  Text XII 2, v. 30. 66   Dīwān II 8ff. 67  Text XII 2, vv. 32f. with commentary. Bashshār’s ugliness was probably reviled by Ṣafwān again in the last two verses in Ibn al-Dāʿī, Tabṣira 169, 12f. 68  See vol. I 367 and 533f. above. 69  V. 31. 70  Regarding both of them cf. GAS 2/528f.

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immediately presumed that he had learned this from Bashshār, whom he used to visit in his youth.71 However, in Bashshār’s view this light was not an independent force, a primal principle as it was understood by dualist theory. Mismaʿī said this quite clearly in a doxographical account which is entirely isolated, unlike everything else we have adduced so far: Bashshār the blind’s prominence was due to the following views in particular: Humans do not have duties beyond understanding and avoiding whatever is an abomination by nature: murder, robbery (ghaṣb), theft, vice. He denied that the substance light, as the dualists presume, was a god, a lord and a ruler, or deserving of divine, lordly or regal honours. He denied that part of (this) substance prayed to another, or abased itself before the other.72 This is a rejection of core dualist beliefs. The light is not God, but rather, as we may add based on the foregoing, implanted in certain humans by God. It may be similar to the divine light, but it is not part of it in the way the Manichaeans would say that in the act of praying the particle of light within the believing human comes into contact with the primal light of which it is a part. In this, Bashshār is a Muslim as well as a self-confident intellectual: he is not led by a revelation, but purely by his reason. Humans do not have duties beyond understanding – which probably means: creating an image of God through reason – and to follow a natural moral code. The theologians of the opposition preferred to interpret this differently: Bashshār, they claimed, said he recognised only what he saw with his own eyes,73 which smacked of sensualism.74 Conflict with them was unavoidable. But he did not go far enough for zandaqa in the strict sense of the term.

71  Jāḥiẓ, Ḥayawān IV 195, 6ff. However, like Ṣafwān – and in opposition to Bashshār – he sang the praises of the earth (Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 31, 6ff.). 72  Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Mughnī V 20, 12ff.; the translation in Monnot, Penseurs 173, is wrong. Slightly abbreviated also in Malāḥimī, Muʿtamad 590, 9ff. 73   Agh. III 227, 1ff.; Murtaḍā, Amālī I 138, 14. 74  See vol. I 530 above.

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2.2.1.2 Ṣāliḥ b. ʿAbd al-Quddūs The third “freethinker” in this circle, Abū l-Faḍl Ṣāliḥ b. ʿAbd al-Quddūs b. ʿAbdallāh,1 was an entirely different type. He, too, composed verses, but they were world-weary and misanthropic. No love poem by him survives, instead much sage rhetoric and moralising preaching. Later generations regarded him as a qāṣṣ;2 the Muʿtazilites ought to have delighted in him. But in the end they looked at him rather differently; Abū l-Hudhayl is said to have debated with him and – of course – refuted him. This was due to the fact that people thought they knew that Ṣāliḥ had been executed as a zindīq; during the persecutions in Baghdad the mutakallimūn had, after all, had the task to bring the “heretics” to account. However, it is difficult to grasp his execution as actual fact. If we assume that it did indeed take place it is only because there are numerous anecdotes surrounding it. Still, they only illustrate attempts at retrospective justification or explanation of the event: someone reading Ṣāliḥ’s worthy and highly-principled verses could not possibly imagine him to have been a heretic. I have described the events in detail elsewhere3 and am only briefly going to recall the most important points. In the oldest sources that refer to Ṣāliḥ, Jāḥiẓ and Ibn al-Mudabbir (d. 279/ 892),4 not a word was said about the execution. On the contrary, Jāḥiẓ quoted – without commenting – the very verses which were later said to have been alMahdī’s pretext for the execution.5 In its surviving form Saʿīd b. Sallām’s account of the “debating society” only tells us that Ṣāliḥ “showed genuine remorse”.6 The first explicit statements appeared in Ibn al-Muʿtazz’s (murdered 296/908) writings. He did, however, refer to an older tradition whose features had become blurred by that time, because by then people were not sure anymore which caliph had taken action against Ṣāliḥ, al-Mahdī or Hārūn al-Rashīd. Later, Hārūn was barely ever mentioned in the context, and al-Mahdī gained predominance in the tradition. Consequently secondary sources have usually, and supported by Brockelmann’s authority,7 focussed on him. But as far as the origin of the 1  Regarding the kunya cf. TB IX 303, 8; on the grandfather’s name Yāqūt, Irshād IV 268, 10f. 2  Yāqūt, Irshād IV 269, 11f.; Ibn ʿAsākir, TTD VI 375, 9; Mīzān no. 3810; Ṣafadī, Wāfī XVI 260, 10ff., and Nakt al-himyān 171, 7f.; all after Ibn ʿAdī (d. 365/976?). 3  In: Festschrift Spuler 53ff. The most important biographical information has been collated by Cheikho in: Mashriq 22/1924/819ff. 4  In his Risāla ʿAdhrāʾ; see p. 18 below. 5  Bayān I 120, 9f.; also Ḥayawān III 102, 6f. 6  See p. 4 above. It seems, however, that he only did this when threatened with death (Maʿarrī, Ghufrān 429, 4ff.). 7  G AL S 1/110f.

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tradition is concerned, it is likely to have been exactly the reverse. The Hārūn tradition is older; in the K. al-Aghānī it goes back to an older contemporary of Ibn al-Muʿtazz, the philologist Thaʿlab (d. 291/904).8 His version was also the shortest one of the story that would subsequently be embellished again and again. However, this version already bore all the hallmarks of legend. Al-Mahdī took Hārūn’s place because in the consciousness of later generations he would be the great champion against the zanādiqa. This also explains the date of his death usually – albeit not until rather late – transmitted: 167, the exact year when al-Mahdī began the persecutions in Baghdad. For this very reason, it is certainly wrong, too. The reports give us no reliable information on either the date or the reason for the execution. The so far oldest source for 167 as the date of Ṣāliḥ’s death is perhaps Yaʿqūbī, Taʿrīkh I 483, 1ff., where, although it is not mentioned explicitly, it is followed directly by news of the year 168, relating to Ṣāliḥ b. Abī ʿUbaydallāh’s execution. He was one of al-Mahdī’s kuttāb, and probably the son of the vizier Abū ʿUbaydallāh (see Vajda in: RSO 17/1938/186f.). – The editor of the Dīwān Bashshār b. Burd considered whether Bashshār, when he reminded the caliph of two drinking companions who had “passed away” might have been referring to Ṣāliḥ b. ʿAbd al-Quddūs (and an unknown colleague) (II 287, 3), but I should think this was most unlikely. In all probability Ṣāliḥ was not a qāṣṣ, either. Ibn al-Mudabbir knows him as an official in Manṣūr’s chancellery who, in concert with Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ and Jabal b. Yazīd, and with his dissembling correspondence lured Abū Muslim to his doom.9 If he really gave paraenetic lectures in the mosque in Basra, as the qāṣṣ traditions claim, this may have been later; one of his poems tells us he went blind.10 He was a mawlā, although people were not sure later where exactly he

8  Agh. XIV 177, 1ff. 9  Risāla ʿAdhrāʾ 42, pu. ff.; see also Festschrift Spuler 65. Regarding Jabal b. Yazīd cf. Ibn alNadīm, Fihrist 132, 1f., and Ṣafwat, Jamharat rasāʾil al-ʿArab III 135ff. and 148ff.; he was a translator (probably from Middle Persian) and served especially as ʿUmāra b. Ḥamza’s secretary, who was in his turn considered a zindīq (see vol. I 524f. and 534 above, also p. 700 below). 10  Only, of course, if the poem is genuine (cf. Ṣafadī, Nakt al-himyān 71, 12ff.; ibid. also his biography 171, 7ff.). A qāṣṣ was considered to be particularly good if he was blind (Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 93, 15).

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belonged. The Asad11 were mentioned, then the Azd,12 and among the latter either the Duḥaiy13 or the Judhām.14 His father ʿAbd al-Quddūs, the son of a convert, probably of Iranian descent, is also said to have written poetry – heretical poetry, people hastened to add.15 There was a certain ʿAbd al-Quddūs among Ḥasan al-Baṣrī’s pupils,16 but however characteristic the name may seem to us, it was in fact not all that rare at the time.17 When admonishing people, the son used hadith, too; Ibn ʿAdī had some examples in front of him.18 Other early authors confirmed this;19 the material would be forgotten later. It was not easy to craft him into a convincing zindīq. Arguments used by the zanādiqa were of course attributed to him; the tradition about Abū l-Hudhayl employed this strategy. However, it was even more difficult to decide whether he should be a dualist or a sceptic;20 furthermore, the competition between schools became so dominant that in one of the versions al-Naẓẓām replaced Abū l-Hudhayl.21 One passage claims, against all probability, that he joined Bashshār b. Burd,22 but often people were content with just some

11   T B IX 303, 8. 12   I KH II 492, 3; also GAL S 1/110. Azd developed by assimilation out of Asd; consequently Azd and Asad were occasionally seen as synonymous (EI2 I 811f. s. v. Azd). Concerning the Asad see E. Landau-Tasseron in: JSAI 6/1985/1ff. 13  Ibn Durayd, Ishtiqāq 511, apu. f. 14   T TD VI 373; thus also GAS 2/461. Regarding the Judhām cf. EI2 II 573b. 15  Cf. Maʿarrī, Ghufrān 428, 6f., where he wished destruction on Mecca, because the city had ruined so many visitors. Maʿarrī may well have worked deliberately with fiction (see p. 13f. above regarding Bashshār). In the same passage he also claims to know that a son of Ṣāliḥ’s was incarcerated for being a heretic (429, 1ff.). 16  Muqātil, Tafsīr I 3, pu. f.; see p. 51f. below. 17  Cf. Fasawī, Index s. n.; Mīzān no. 472 and 5155ff.; regarding the Dhū l-Nūn in Egypt see my essay in: WO 12/1981/102ff. 18   Mīzān no. 3810. 19  Such as Nasāʾī, Ḍuʿafāʾ 57, 7 no. 299; IAH II1 408 no. 1794; ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ II 203 no. 731 > Ibn Ḥajar, Lisān al-Mīzān III 172 no. 699. 20  A dualist according to Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Faḍl 258, 5ff. > IM 46, 12ff.; similarly Murtaḍā, Amālī I 144, 11ff. and in some detail Malāḥimī, Muʿtamad 593, 5ff.; Abū Rashīd, “Fī l-tawḥīd” 264, pu. ff. presents a different argument; also Murtaḍā 144, 8ff. A sceptic according to Ibn al-Nadīm 204, 7ff. > IKH IV 265, apu. ff. > Ṣafadī, Wāfī V 162, 22ff. and Nakt 279, 2ff. Even a K. al-Shukūk was attributed to him. Cf. ZDMG 135/1984/22ff. 21  See ch. C. 3.2.1.1 below. 22  Ibn Durayd, Ishtiqāq 511, pu.

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vague suspicion23 or with saying that he was just dissimulating.24 When people saw him praying and asked him why he did so, he is reported to have replied “Custom of the land, habit of the body, well-being of wife and child”.25 The same saying was attributed to other heretics as well.26 As Goldziher noted, the Dīwān does not offer any reliable clues.27 Ṣāliḥ’s poetry was much appreciated later: by Ibn al-Muʿtazz for instance, who simply could not understand how a zindīq could say things so worth heeding,28 or by Buḥturī who included around two thirds of all extant fragments in his Ḥamāsa.29 Qalqashandī still recommended employing quotations by Ṣāliḥ in the mannered prose of chancellery style (inshāʾ).30 This was due to the gnomic style of his verses; Abū ʿUbayd quoted him several times in his Faṣl al-maqāl because of this.31 This is also where critics found a foothold, such as Jāḥiẓ and, following him, Ibn Rashīq.32 We could, of course, assume that an orthodox selection would have been made,33 but this is not likely considering that the Dīwān comprised a mere 50 sheets.34 It is possible on the other hand to prove that heretical verses were deliberately attributed to Ṣāliḥ retrospectively.35 In the Nuṣayri tradition, in amongst poems by Khaṣībī (d. 346/957)36 we find a long qaṣīda containing esoteric speculation on the meaning of letters which, as is pointed out there, “was attributed wrongly to him (Khaṣībī) and was in fact the work of Ṣāliḥ b. ʿAbd al-Quddūs”.37 There is no clear delimitation ­between 23  Ibn al-Nadīm 185, apu. and 401, 17f.; Murtaḍā, Amālī I 128, 5; Marzubānī in: Ṣafadī, Nakt 171, 10 > Kutubī, Fawāt I 391, 9f./II 116, –7f.; a Dahrite according to Ibn Qutayba, Ta‌ʾwīl mukhtalif al-ḥadīth 356, 2f. = 279, 11/transl. Lecomte 310 no. 300a and Tawḥīdī, Imtāʾ II 20, 13, and Mathālib al-wazīrayn 183, 2. 24  Maʿarrī, Ghufrān 429, 4. 25  Murtaḍā, Amālī I 144, 14f.; slightly different and more detailed Ibn al-Muʿtazz, Ṭab. 91, 10ff. 26  Thus Ibn Abī l-ʿAwjāʾ after Ibn Bābōya, Tawḥīd 242, 1; cf. Monnot, Penseurs 314. 27  In: Transactions of the 9th Intern. Congr. of Orientalists (London 1893) II 104ff. (= Ges. Schr. III 1ff.), there 110ff./7ff. The poems have been collected by ʿAbdallāh Khaṭīb, Ṣāliḥ b. ʿAbd al-Quddūs al-Baṣrī (Basra 1967). 28   Ṭabaqāt al-shuʿarāʾ 91, 16ff. and 92, 7; also TB IX 304, 1. 29  Cf. the Facsimile edition by Geyer and Margoliouth, Index s. n. 30   Ṣubḥ al-aʿshāʾ I 292, 14f. 31  Ibn Ṭabāṭabā notes the similarity to a saying of Aristotle’s on the death of Alexander (ʿIyār al-shiʾr 80, 3ff.). 32   Bayān I 206, 8ff.; also Goldziher 110/7. 33  Thus Fück, Arab. Kultur 261, n. 24. 34   Fihrist 185, pu. (unless this is already the selection). 35   Festschrift Spuler 60ff. 36  For more information about him see Halm in: Der Islam 55/1978/258ff. 37   M S Manchester, John Rylands Library, Arabic 452 (655), fol. 72 a.

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Ṣāliḥ’s oeuvre and that of ʿAbdallāh b. Muʿāwiya, either.38 The gnomic verses in particular could easily be used like set pieces anywhere. If we wish to adduce the Dīwān in explanation despite all this, we should preface it with the question of whether Ṣāliḥ was not in fact too pious for some people or, in other words, whether his verses perhaps touched on what we would call “Revolutionstheologie” nowadays. This was ancient kātib tradition; Ghaylān al-Dimashqī was imagined in a similar fashion. Ṣāliḥ’s understanding of free will was rather absolute: God does not guide the actions of humans; indeed, he does not even have any part in them, otherwise we could not be responsible for our own actions.39 As in the case of Ghaylān, this was linked to social criticism: religion is better than riches; on earth, the gifts of fortune are unfairly distributed.40 Disdain for the ruling class can be felt:41 they surround themselves with ignorant fools who wrongly wield influence.42 Consequently the paraenesis in which Ṣāliḥ revelled43 might well not have been to everyone’s taste. The latter tendency was absolutised in the Qiṣṣat Ṣāliḥ b. ʿAbd al-Quddūs maʿa rāhib al-Ṣīn, in which a Chinese “monk” – a Nestorian? a Manichaean? a Buddhist? – gives Ṣāliḥ a talking-to.44 The monk lives on seeds and herbs, but the language he speaks is entirely Islamic. While he does not quote the Quran, as that would have been stylistically incongruous, he is otherwise indistinguishable from a Muslim zāhid. He addresses his sinful ego (nafs), he cries and condemns this corrupt world and advises against acquiring anything prohibited.45 It makes the reader wonder whether Ṣāliḥ did not put his own ideas into the monk’s mouth. Monks, like Jesus, enjoyed a good reputation at the time;46 there was no tradition of zuhd in Islam as yet. However, there are also noticeable discrepancies to the Dīwān: the latter describes poverty as being worse that unbelief, and a life without worldly influence is seen as worthless.47

38  Cf. the edition in Muṭṭalibī, al-Adīb al-mughāmir 268f. and 299. 39  Khaṭīb 139 no. 46; also 83, 5ff. 40  Ibid. 150 no. 81; general: 79ff. 41  Ibid. 120 no. 7. 42  Goldziher 111/8. 43  Khaṭīb 124, vv. 19ff.; Goldziher 112/9. 44  Ed. Isḥāq Armala in: Mashriq 14/1926/274–78 and 334–38; reprinted in Khaṭīb 93ff. 45  Khaṭīb 95, 5ff. 46  See vol. I 145 and 167 above; also Köbert in: Orientalia 42/1973/520ff. Cf. also ch. C 1.4.3.2.1 below. 47  Goldziher 111/8.

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This does sound more like a chancellery official’s philosophy.48 The qiṣṣa probably is apocryphal after all. Maybe it was his style that made Ṣāliḥ seem suspicious. In Iraq, gnomic expressions and moralising in general could quickly seem Iranian. After all, hadith had not assumed this function at that time. Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ emphasised in his introduction to Kalīla wa-Dimna that his aims were not joking and passing the time (hazl, lahw) but rather that his audience should find the moral, the ḥikma, in his stories.49 In fact he did not like the idea that the fables might have merely entertainment value. The book of the panther and the fox, written by Sahl b. Hārūn, al-Ma‌ʾmūn’s secretary and head of the bayt al-ḥikma, was also written in this style; the fox describes the vanity of the world to the king.50 Saḥl b. Hārūn, born in Dastmaysān, lived in Basra at first.51 The Damascene poet Ṣāliḥ b. Janāḥ al-Lakhmī, who was active around the same time (for more information see TTD VI 369ff. and Ṣafadī, Wāfī XVI 255, 1ff.) wrote in a similar vein. His Risāla fī l-adab wal-muruwwa survives, which Khaṭīb has reprinted (p. 159ff.; originally edited by Ṭāhir al-Jazāʾirī in: al-Muqtabas 7/1912/648ff.; see also Ziriklī, Aʿlām III 275). As is frequently the case in paraenetic texts it praises reason; the relation between reason and learning (adab) is the same as between inclination and environment, between talent and education (Khaṭīb 165, 1ff). Wealth depends on reason, but reason also depends on wealth (ibid. 172, 14ff.). This similarity in their approaches led Khaṭīb to the rather daring idea that the two poets might have been the same. This is not possible due to the geographical distance. Furthermore, in his book the Damascene warned against discussing with sectarians (ahl al-ahwāʾ), as one would only confuse oneself, while the opponents could only be refuted by means of dubious arguments (ibid. 174, 12ff.). This does not sound like Ṣāliḥ b. ʿAbd al-Quddūs, who was presented as a more of a mutakallim. Moreover, Khaṭīb developed his hypothesis only because he considered a late, certainly apocryphal, Syrian version of the account of the execution (cf. Festschrift Spuler 54f.) to be a reliable source. 48  It is true that already in the view of the Zoroastrians, poverty was a consequence of sin among the lower classes (Dēnkart, transl. de Menasce 143; Duchesne-Guillemin, La religion de l’Iran ancien (335f.). The Khurramiyya was later accused of a similar mindset (cf. Madelung, Religious Trends in Early Islamic Iran 12, n. 28). 49  Ed. Būlāq 1297/1880, p. 19, 11f., and 15f.; p. 23, 17ff. 50  P. 112, 3ff./ transl. 87f. 51  Ibid. 13.

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2.2.1.3 The Sumaniyya There is no reason why we should devote much time to the “Sumanite” mentioned in our anecdote. His person and his doctrine remain unclear. A later transmitter, the historian Yaḥyā b. ʿAlī al-Munajjim (241/855–300/913),1 tried to identify the anonymous Azdite with Jarīr b. Ḥāzim, who would become quite a respected traditionist and historian and wrote a book on the Azraqites, among other things.2 He was indeed acquainted with Ṣāliḥ b. ʿAbd al-Quddūs; in a poem the latter criticised him, saying that he was never sure of Jarīr’s friendship.3 But in the early 120s he would still have been rather young; he died only in 170/786, although he was allegedly born in 85/704. Ibn al-Munajjim’s speculation was probably really only a shot in the dark.4 It would, on the other hand, be important what in fact a Basran narrator thought a Sumanite was. He was probably simply evoking a stereotype. The Sumanites were regarded as sensualists who did not believe in any spiritual reality; this is how they were said to have confronted Jahm b. Ṣafwān.5 This was exactly what was expected of a zindīq as well; we have seen it in the case of Bashshār b. Burd,6 and there are more examples.7 The Indian physician with whom Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq converses in the “Book of the Myrobalan”8 is presented in the same way. And there were indeed Indian physicians in Basra. Hārūn alRashīd would later invite them to his court; some translated Sanksrit texts on behalf of the Barmakids.9 It seems that their comand of Arabic was quite good, and even if that had been a problem, clearly an interested Muslim intellectual could always find a decent translator in Basra. This was how texts on rhetoric were made accessible;10 the Indians were regarded as especially exemplary.11 Jāḥiẓ was able to form an opinion on Indian literature in general: Indian books, he found, did not have one specific author but were transmitted over 1  Agh. III 146, 14, where he appears as Abū Aḥmad; for more information see GAS 1/375f. 2  Regarding him see GAS 1/310f. 3  Tawḥīdī, Baṣāʾir II 811, 3ff./2IX 188 no. 628; also Buḥturī, Ḥamāsa 92, 7ff. 4  Cf. also Fück, Arab. Kultur 259, n. 3. 5  See p. 566 below; cf. also Gimaret in: JA 1969, p. 299ff. 6  See p. 15f. above. 7  Cf. e.g. Kulīnī, Kāfī I 78, –7; further material see vol. I 530, n. 13 above. 8  See p. 550f. below. 9  Ullmann, Medizin 105 f. It was on behalf of the Barmakid Yaḥyā b. Khālid that the oldest (?) account of the Indian religion was written, which would be used by later authors time and time again (Minorsky, Sharaf az-Zamān on China 125ff.). 10  Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 92, 4ff.; Maʿmar Abū l-Ashʿath, who converses with an Indian physician here, came from Basra (see p. 42 below). 11  Ibid. III 14, 6ff.

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centuries.12 Basran Muʿtazilites such as Abū l-Hudhayl or al-Naẓẓām studied the “Sumanite” doctrine that the earth is constantly falling down.13 Of course not all Indians, not even all Indian physicians, were believed to be Sumanites. Still, the question who they actually were is not easy and can be answered in individual cases at best.14 The etymology of the word seems to be clear per se: Sanskr. śramaṇa, or its Middle Indian equivalent samana. The concept and the word were already known to the Greeks during the Hellenistic era. Megasthenes, who was the ambassador of Seleucus I at the Mauryan court of Pataliputra from 302–291 BCE, mentions Σαρμα̃ναι describing ascetics in the wider sense, including travelling physicians, soothsayers etc. Half a century later Clement of Alexandria added the form Σαμαναι̃οι, now without the r (as in Pali) and a suffix influenced by Aramaic; he understood the word to refer to Buddhist monks from Bactria.15 Analogous loan words are found in the Kartir inscription on “Zoroaster’s Kaʿba” – where the zanādiqa are mentioned as well – and in Sogdian texts.16 Like Clement, the Arabs knew the “Sumanites” mainly from Iran. Ibn al-Nadīm said that the majority of the population of Transoxiana followed their teachings; as he mentioned “their prophet Būdāsaf / Bodhisattva” in this context, he was probably referring to Buddhists here.17 He was relying on a foreign source; he himself, in Iraq, does not seem to have had a very concrete idea. Iranian authors such as Bīrūnī or Pazdawī use the form Shamaniyya which is nearer to the original; the u in Sumaniyya does not seem to be justified in any way. After Mahmud of Ghazna destroyed the legendary temple of Sūmanāt, this place name was used as a retrospective explanation. The question is worth considering of whether the numerous instances of the adjective sumanī/samanī found in the Chach-Nāma, a source on the Arab conquest of Sind only surviving in Persian, can be traced back to older expressions. The text clearly refers to older Iraqi accounts, 12  Ibid. III 27, 9ff. 13  See ch. C 3.2.1.3.1.5 and 3.2.2.2.1.2 below. 14  For more detailed information on the following cf. my discussion in Erkenntnislehre 257ff., and Calverley in: MW 54/1964/200ff. 15  Cf. Elliot-Dowson, History of India I 506, n. 1; more recently and in greater detail A. Dihle, Indische Philosophen bei Clemens Alexandrinus, in: Mullus, Festschrift Klauser 60ff. = Antike und Orient 78ff., p. 62f./80f. regarding the derivation of the ending -αι̃ος from the Aramaic plural ending -aiyā. The question remains of whether the Arabic word is based on an Aramaic form as well. 16  Back, Staatsinschriften 261; the word entered the language via Sogdian. 17   Fihrist 408, 16ff.

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maybe Madāʾinī’s (cf. Friedmann in: Islam in Asia I 23ff., esp. p. 29 and 31; more recently also MacLean in EIran IV 605f.). It is certain that this text is talking about Buddhists in general, not only Buddhist monks (MacLean, Religion and Society in Arab Sind 5). There are no reports of śramaṇa actually travelling as far as Basra. Jāḥiẓ mentions “monks of the zanādiqa” who always travelled in twos and never stayed anywhere for longer than two nights,18 but he had this information secondhand, and it probably referred to eastern Iran.19 But then one would really expect merchants in Basra in any case. And then it is interesting that in Sind at least, where the Muslims gained a foothold in India, and to where many trading connections from Basra extended, the Buddhists appear to have played a much greater part in trade than the Hindus;20 Sumanites may well have been a designation for Buddhist merchants. Still, references to their beliefs never grew tangible. “Sumaniyya” remained a label for everything that contradicted a revealed religion: scepticism towards the spiritual, denying the prophecy; combined with information on Indian religions in general.21 The sensualism that was our starting point can of course be found in Indian sources as well, for instance in Lokāyata’s school of thought.22 We are also able to prove that an educated man like Bīrūnī knew this; he recorded without any indication of surprise that the astronomer Āryabhaṭa (b. 476 CE) presumed that “what the senses do not perceive we are unable to know”.23 But generalising this would be too bold. To a scholar in eastern Iran the Shamaniyya was reality, but we are dependent on speculation as regards the Sumaniyya in Basra. If the designation śramaṇa was not exactly concrete in the Indian sources, it became merely an empty formula in Iraq.

18   Ḥayawān, IV 457, ult. ff.; also Goldziher, Vorlesungen 161f. 19  His source Abū Shuʿayb al-Qallāl was a Sogdian (see ch. C 1.4.3.2.2 below). 20  MacLean, Religion and Society 58ff. 21  The opponents of the “Sumanites” are generally the “Brahmins”, i.e. the Hindus; cf. Gimaret in: JA 1969, 263ff. and ch. C 8.2.2.3.7 below. 22  Cf. the references in Erkenntnislehre 263f. 23   Taḥqīq mā lil-Hind 183, 15f./transl. Sachau I 225. Regarding Āryabhaṭa cf. Pingree in: DSB I 308f.

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2.2.1.4 Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ There is no documentary evidence of the presence of Manichaeans in Basra either, but that people were prepared for them is suggested by Wāṣil’s “1000 questions to refute the Manichaeans”1 – if, indeed, this text, of which we have no trace, was not merely an apocryphon. The extent of the problem becomes clear in the case of Abū ʿAmr2 ʿAbdallāh b. al-Muqaffaʿ. At the beginning of the Abbasid era he lived in Basra where he was until his death the secretary of ʿĪsā b. ʿAlī, one of those uncles against whom the young Manṣūr had to be on his guard at the beginning of his rule.3 He had grown up there, too, learning his excellent Arabic at the time. His teachers, on the other hand, remain shadowy, and if it were not for the fact that at least one of them is documented elsewhere, one might be inclined to think that their names were chosen as a joke: Abū l-Ghūl and Abū l-Jāmūs, both apparently Bedouins.4 His career took him to Iran, first to Masīḥ b. al-Ḥawārī, the governor of Nishapur from 126/744 onwards, and then to Dāwūd b. Yazīd b. Hubayra in Kerman (130/748–131/749).5 He came from a distinguished Iranian family from Persis. His father Dādōya had been a tax collector under al-Ḥajjāj and Khālid al-Qasrī; he was tortured and his fingers crippled for alleged peculation. This was reason enough for the Arabs to give him the nickname al-Muqaffaʿ; he had called himself Mubārak when he was with them. The name stayed with the son, too, who may not have been too pleased about it. In his view the Arabs were upstarts; everything he wrote expressed his pride in the greatness of the Iranian past. And he does seem to have learned from his father’s fate: while he, too, made a fortune in Kerman, he would later share it with the influential people in Basra and Kufa.6 Still, it seems that it was his very prudence and his distrust of the Arabs’ treachery that led to his downfall. When his employer’s brother ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAlī, another of the caliph’s uncles, had worked off his resentment in an uprising,7 he went into hiding in Basra awaiting a guarantee of protection by al-Manṣūr. Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ was employed by the ʿumūma to draft the document at an 1  Catalogue of Works IX, no. 13. 2  Regarding the kunya cf. Jāḥiẓ, Muʿallimīn, in: Rasāʾil III 44, 2f. 3  Regarding the part played by the ʿumūma cf. Lassner in: Festschrift Wiet 69ff. and SI 49/1979//39ff.; for general information on Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ cf. F. Gabrieli in: EI2 III 883ff. and Fārūq ʿUmar in: Buḥūth fī t-ta‌ʾrīkh al-ʿabbāsī 260ff.; also Latham in: CHAL II 48ff. 4  Regarding Abū l-Jāmūs Thawr b. Yazīd cf. Ibn al-Nadīm, Fihrist 50, –6ff.; he was acquainted with the family of ʿĪsā b. ʿAlī’s brother Sulaymān in Basra, but did not settle there. Could Abū l-Ghūl be referring to the poet of that name of the ʿAbdshams? He did, however, live in Kufa. 5  ʿUmar, Buḥūth 261f. after Balādhurī. 6  Jahshiyārī, Wuzarāʾ 109, 7ff.; also Sourdel in: Arabica 1/1954/311f. 7  Lassner, Shaping of ʿAbbāsid Rule 31ff., and in: Festschrift Wiet 69ff.

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expert level, but it seems that he furnished it with such detailed clauses that the caliph took offense and gave the nod to have him removed.8 We must refrain from going into too much detail, not just for brevity’s sake but also because of the sources: tradition concerning Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ is just as anecdotal as that around Bashshār b. Burd. The way in which he was killed was later described with cruel imagination: he was said to have been thrown into a furnace, possibly because fire was what people wished on the zanādiqa in any case.9 In reality, not much was known. There is a report according to which he found time to commit suicide,10 and entirely different explanations for his death can be found as well.11 Both the biography and the person of Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ still have many riddles for us, and it is probably wiser to present the difficulties than attempt a coherent picture.12 Firstly, there is the question of the date of his death. Answering it means taking a decision in the matter of the cause of death as well. If – and there are many indications in favour of this – the caliph did indeed order his murder, one may assume that Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ was only arrested once the influence of the ʿumūma had waned in Basra, i.e. after Sulaymān b. ʿAlī, the third of the trio of uncles, had been deposed as governor of the city. In fact the execution is always laid at the door of his successor Sufyān b. Muʿāwiya, a Muhallabid whom Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ had already annoyed in Iran, and who had had to put up with attacks from him in Basra as well as long as the uncles’ protection held.13 The shift in power has so far always been dated to 139 following Ṭabarī. Khalīfa b. Khaiyāṭ, on the other hand, named Ramadan 137/Feb. 755, and also dated Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ’s death to this year.14 This takes us very close to the date of Abū Muslim’s murder. At the same time we are settling Goitein’s question of how Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ could have dared after these events to address his Risāla fī-l-ṣaḥāba to the caliph, giving him advice on how to administer his office.15 The text must have 8  Cf. Jahshiyārī’s text in Sourdel, op. cit. 313ff. Sourdel points out that an amān was composed by the petitioner in each case (319). 9  Thus said directly in Jahshiyārī 107, 1; see vol. I 489 above. 10  Qummī, Maqālāt 67, 13f. 11  Thus e.g. Ḥammād ʿAjrād in Jahshiyārī 109. 1ff. 12  The fundamental study is still F. Gabrieli in: RSO 13/1932/197ff. Further reading in later summaries by the same author in: EI2 III 885, and in: Elaboration de l’Islam 26ff. We may leave the flood of Arabic publications on the subject aside. 13  Jahshiyārī 104, –5ff.; also Sourdel 309. 14   Ta‌ʾrīkh 638, 2f. and 674, 1f. 15  In: IC 28/1949/120ff. = Studies in Islamic Hisrory and Institutions 149ff.; regarding the text cf. also CHAL II 64ff.

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been composed earlier, at the very beginning of Manṣūr’s caliphate, when nobody could have guessed how quickly the Iranians’ influence would be spent in the new surroundings; maybe as early as 136/764. Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ was recommending that the young ruler should make sure to consider the members of his own family when appointing offices,16 but then events came thick and fast. ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAlī staged his uprising. Abū Muslim defeated him in Jumādā II 137/Nov. 754 in the Jazīra, and was in turn removed himself. In reaction to these events, and still in the same year, Sinpādh revolted in Rayy.17 When in these circumstance Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ, a Persian, used his pen in support of a rebel such as ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAlī, it is not surprising that the caliph’s suspicions were awakened. It also seems more than natural that Sulaymān b. ʿAlī was deposed a mere four months after his brother’s defeat. Goitein already claimed that all this might have played a part in Manṣūr’s decision; Sourdel pointed it out, too (Arabica 1/1954/318ff.). The most recent discussion of the subject is by Fārūq ʿUmar (Buḥūth 264ff.). However, we do not even know if the Risāla ever reached the caliph (regarding the wider issue cf. C. Pellat, Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ, ‘Conseilleur’ du Calife 2ff.). Shifting the date also leads to certain difficulties. We must assume that in more than one instance the information in Ṭabarī’s lists of governors is incorrect (III 121, 8f., and 124, 16; especially 125, ult. f.). This could only be explained if an old misreading of 137 for 139 for Sulaymān b. ʿAlī’s deposition, which was then made explicit by Ṭabarī or his source for the years 137 and 138. Khalīfa 673, ult. ff. has a much more precise list of governors than the one Pellat, Milieu 280f. compiled based on Ṭabarī and Ibn al-Athīr (whose work was also based on Ṭabarī’s). Azdī, who quoted the amān extensively, reported it for the year 138 (Ta‌ʾrīkh al-Mawṣil 167, –4ff.). According to the abovementioned note in Ibn al-Mudabbir’s version, Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ was supposed to have colluded in luring Abū Muslim to Iraq. Manṣūr may in fact have known him from his time in Fārs where he had worked with ʿAbdallāh b. Muʿāwiya for a time (see p. 334 below). The second question concerns Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ’s age and arises due to the large number of writings attributed to him. Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ is said to have completed only 36 years. If this were true, he would have been surprisingly young in his office in Kerman, and the anecdote that tells how in a precarious situation he pretended to be his friend ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd b. Yaḥyā, who was significantly 16   Ṣaḥāba 56f. para. 50 Pellat. 17  Khalīfa 637, 15; Ṭabarī III 119, 11ff. For more information on him see p. 708f. below.

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older, would be incomprehensible.18 Furthermore his son Muḥammad was a kātib in Egypt before 140/758 and seems to have died not long after.19 The figure 36 is less deserving of trust than has been thought; it is too “round” (3 × 12) and has also been found to be incorrect when applied to other persons.20 Only a small number of Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ’s writings, on the other hand, was actually composed by him; most of them are translations.21 This leads us to assume that we are looking at a workshop: the authenticity is not assured in every case anyway. And the question immediately following on from this is, who commissioned the work. Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ appears to have been wealthy, but there is no reason to assume that he would have funded everything himself. His time in Basra was too short to allow for the volume of production. Consequently we must look at Kerman or Fars. Texts like the Khvatāynāmak/ Khudāynāmeh, the Kitāb Mazdak (= Mazdaknāmak?),22 the Letter of Tansar etc. were much more at home there; Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ received the last-named text from a scholar from Fars named Bahrām, son of Khorzād.23 Sadly this region lies shrouded in darkness during the late Umayyad period. What is apparent is that Hishām sponsored the translation of Mirrors for Princes, and not only in Syria where Abū l-ʿAlāʾ Sālim was his secretary.24 Masʿūdī saw a book of this kind in Iṣṭakhr that was made for the caliph and had been finished around the middle of Jumādā II 113/August 731.25 Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ

18  Jahshiyārī 80, 1ff.; of course, it is made up anyway. Regarding ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd b. Yaḥyā see Brinner in: EIran I 111f. and Latham in: CHAL I 164ff. as well as ʿAbbās in his introduction to the Rasāʾil. 19  See p. 30f. below. 20  See ch. C 3.2.2 below regarding al-Naẓẓām. 21  Cf. Gabrieli, loc. cit.; discussed with particular consideration of their Iranian character by Colpe, Manichäismus 155ff. 22  Cf. Klima, Beiträge 53f.: Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ may have included a section on Mazdak in the Khudāynāmeh. Also Yarshater in: CHI III994. Tafazzoli in: Festschrift Duchesne-Guillemin (Acta Iranica 23), p. 507ff., is of a different opinion: the title Mazdaknāmak in his view is a misreading of Mrdk-nāmag. 23  Cf. M. Boyce, The Letter of Tansar 4. In a hidden place, ʿAbdallāh al-Baghdādī’s book of the secretaries, even the translation of Hazār afsāne, the original version of the Thousand and One Nights, is attributed to Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ (ed. Sourdel in: BEO 14/1952–4/140, 9). Regarding this genre in general see Boyce in: HO IV 2, 1 (Iranistik: Literatur), p. 57ff., and Bosworth in: CHAL I 488f. 24  See, most recently, Latham in: CHAL I 154ff. 25   Tanbīh 106, 5ff. The so-called ʿAhd Ardashīr may have been translated into Arabic around this time as well (cf. the edition by I. ʿAbbās, Beirut 1387/1967, introduction, p. 33ff.).

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was a tutor to the Arab aristocracy living in Iran.26 We can safely assume that he was supposed to use the texts translated by him or under his supervision to instruct his pupils in the art of government or manners in polite society, and at the same time teach them about their Iranian surroundings. Later his translation work was associated with his “heresy”. Yaʿqūbī claimed in his R. mushākalat al-nās li-zamānihim27 that he “translated the books of the dualist Mani and the dualist Ibn Dayṣān”, and Masʿūdī repeated it after him or after a common source.28 Finally people claimed to have heard al-Mahdī say that he had never seen a heretical book that could not be traced back to Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ.29 It is not necessary to reject these reports out of hand, for if such heretical texts were indeed translated in Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ’s “workshop”, it was only the clients’ intention that would later be misinterpreted: at the time people thought they might learn something from such texts, without necessarily succumbing to heresy themselves. The stated objective would be entirely assured if the earliest surviving Arabic translation of Aristotle, an epitome of the Organon which, in keeping with the scholarly tradition of the time, comprised the text as far as the end of the Prior Analytics,30 could also be attributed to Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ. Aristotle, of course, had no connection to either Iranian tradition or the zanādiqa. The editor of the text, Muḥammad Taqī Dānishpazhūh, left no doubt as to the authorship,31 and Western academics have followed his lead.32 However, P. Kraus’s theory that the actual translator was Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ’s son Muḥammad33 is also worth considering. Not only the corrupted MS Beirut 1927 has his name, but also another, Indian MS consulted by Dānishpazhūh (no. 2) mentions him on the title page. Most 26  Thus e.g. among the Banū l-Ahtam who played a part in Khorasan under the Umayyads (Jāḥiẓ, Muʿallimīn, in: Rasāʾil III 44, 1f.) Regarding them cf. Eisener, Zwischen Faktum und Fiktion 26, n. 87, and 95; also Balādhurī, Ansāb, ed. Reisülküttap 598, II 976 and 992. 27  24, 3f. Millward. 28   Murūj VIII 293, 2ff./V 212, 3ff. The entire section agrees overall with Yaʿqūbī, although Masʿūdī did add Markion; to even it out he allowed other translators besides Ibn alMuqaffaʿ. More generally Bīrūnī, Hind 220, 2ff./transl. Sachau I 264. 29  Murtaḍā, Amālī I 134, ult. f. 30  Cf. Meyerhof, Von Alexandrien nach Bagdad 8; Walzer, Greek into Arabic 98. 31   Al-manṭiq li-bn al-Muqaffaʿ; Tehran 1398/1978. Introduction 62ff. 32   Thus Troupeau in: Arabica 28/1981/242ff.; Ch. Hein, Definition und Einleitung der Philosophie 41ff.; Endreß in GAP II 420; Elamrani-Jamal in Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques I 510. 33  In: RSO 14/1934/1ff.; regarding earlier research cf. also Colpe, Manichäismus 155f.

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importantly, he is mentioned in the colophon of every manuscript that is furnished with one; influenced by secondary tradition Dānishpazhūh corrected his findings against the MSS.34 Evidence in favour of Muḥammad b. ʿAbdallāh al-Muqaffaʿ himself has also come to light; he was Maʿn b. Zāʾida’s secretary when the latter was governor of Egypt under Manṣūr, and it seems he died there before Maʿn was transferred to Yemen in 142.35 Which means that as far as the chronology of the journey of the translation is concerned it makes no real difference if he was indeed the translator. Later versions appear to have been based on this text; the colophon shows the development quite clearly.36 Regarding the terminology cf. the abovementioned article by Kraus; also Zimmermann in: Festschrift Walzer 529ff. Troupeau (loc. cit.) pointed out that the grammatical terminology used in the epitome of the Hermeneutics was not adopted by Sībawayh. The third and most complex question concerns Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ’s personal development and his understanding of the world. He has had more than his fair share of trouble. Gabrieli mentions the “évolution du mazdéisme de ses aïeux, à travers l’Islam embrassé extérieurement, vers un scepticisme rationaliste qui se serait enfin apaisé dans la revelation dualiste”.37 Colpe believes that he did not “find an inner home in Islam, although on the other hand he became alienated from Mazdaism due to his conversion; in the end he became a ‘free-thinker’ . . .”.38 Colpe does not see this as a contradiction of his being Manichaean, as “zindīq here describes a man who, thinking independently of Islamic dogma, attempted to link his rational explanation of the world to a personal guarantee of salvation, in which attempt he was in line with the rational component of Manichaeism”.39 A Paris dissertation of 1957 instead calls Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ a “humanist of the second/eighth century”.40 In order to see more clearly we must ask once again which sources we are looking at. 34  This is true of three of the four manuscripts that have come to light; one is incomplete (cf. introduction 73ff. and Text 93, –5ff.). The title page of only one manuscript (Hamadān, Madrasa-yi Gharb 4750) clearly states the father as the translator. Regarding the secondary tradition cf. in detail Dānishpazhūh 63ff.; that the father was unanimously believed to be the translator, rather than the well-nigh unknown son, is hardly surprising. 35  Balādhurī, Ansāb III 236, –4ff.; concerning the date cf. EI2 VI 345 a. 36  Text 93, –5ff. 37  In: Elaboration de l’Islam 28. 38   Manichäismus 154. 39  Ibid. 190. 40  M’hamed Ben Ghazi, Un humaniste du IIe/VIIIe siècle, ʿAbd Allāh Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ.

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It is anything but certain that Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ was a Zoroastrian. If people said that he “hummed like the magi”,41 this is no more than a label; he was thought to be a dualist while at the same time people were unable to distinguish between the rituals of the different dualist religions. Even less is known concerning his father’s faith. He seems to have converted to Islam rather late, allegedly at the insistence of ʿĪsā b. ʿAlī.42 At that time he probably exchanged his Persian name Rōzbih for the usual convert’s name ʿAbdallāh. Many stories named him together with well-known zanādiqa, with Ibn Abī l-ʿAwjāʾ, with Muṭīʿ b. Iyās, Wāliba b. Ḥubāb and others. He did in fact occasionally spend time in Kufa, where he would have been most likely to meet them; one anecdote described how he made snide remarks about the qāḍī Ibn Shubruma because he was hostile to the Persians.43 However, he did not have much time in Iraq, even if the early date we are assuming for his death should turn out to be incorrect. The stories mainly reflect the image people had of Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ later; this is adab, not historiography. What is significant, though, is that the zandaqa was not brought in as a reason for his execution.44 The assumption that Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ was a sceptic is based on one text, namely the introduction to Kalīla wa-Dimna, with which Burzōya, royal physician at the court of Anōshirwān I, prefaced his Middle Persian translation. Nöldeke assumed that one passage from this text, in which the author described how in his youth he weighed the religions against one another and found that none of them satisfied him entirely, was interpolated by Ibn alMuqaffaʿ. He did not provide philological evidence, but assumed that this kind of attitude would have been unthinkable during the late Sasanid era under the dominion of Mazdaism. Although it has become clear that this presumption was incorrect, that the middle of the sixth century was in fact the time when a kind of enlightenment emerged at the Persian court, scholarship has found it difficult to abandon Nöldeke’s theory again, all the more since there is a passage in Bīrūnī stating that Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ “interpolated Burzōya’s chapter”. However, this has probably been misinterpreted as well, as Bīrūnī was not 41  Thus Balādhurī according to Goitein in: IC 23/1949/131, n. 4, and Sourdel in: Arabica 1/1954/311, n. 1; also ʿUmar, Buḥūth 264. Regarding the “humming” (zamzama) cf. Duchesne-Guillemin, La religion de l’Iran ancien 295; Widengren, Religionen Irans 249f. 42  Balādhurī, op. cit.; also Dhahabī, Ta‌ʾrīkh VI 91, 2f., 9ff. and passim. 43   Mīzān I 249, 3ff.; based on Wakīʿ, Akhbār III 117, 7ff., where circumstances are not quite so clear. 44  It is, however, claimed that he saw one of his sons arrested together with other zanādiqa (Agh. XXI 107, pu. ff.).

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referring to the genuineness but merely criticised that Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ wrote his own introduction to precede Burzōya’s but still kept the latter’s with all its sceptical content. Bīrūnī believed this to have been due to Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ’s intention of “precipitating those of little faith into doubt and leading them to Manichaeism”. There was no mention of anything being added to Burzōya’s introduction. We must take the radical decision: Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ had nothing to do with that passage. Consequently we cannot use it as proof that he was a sceptic. We could, however, interpret the passage in Bīrūnī as meaning that he considered Burzōya’s entire introduction a fiction. This seems to be what Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār was trying to say in a similarly phrased statement (Tathbīt dalāʾil al-nubuwwa I 72, 4ff.), and Bīrūnī was after all only one generation younger than he. In that case Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ would have been a sceptic after all. Even so, the theory is as good as untenable in this universal form. – For more detailed information cf. my discussion in Erkenntnislehre 222. Other literature to be added is Goitein in: IC 23/1949/120ff. and Sourdel in: Arabica 1/1954/307ff., in more detail Colpe, Manichäismus 165ff. and more recently Chokr, Zandaqa 290ff.; briefly also Khaleghi-Motlagh in EIran IV 382 a, and Latham in CHAL II 51f. A genuine addendum by Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ, on the other hand, is the trial of Dimna at the end of the chapter on the bull and the lion. The motive, however, is entirely different here: the dastardly scheming of the sly jackal could not be taken lying down (thus Nöldeke, Burzōes Einleitung 2). This re-evaluation has not been properly thought through (Richter, Fürstenspiegelliteratur 25ff.); calling Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ a moralist on the base of it is problematic. 2.2.1.4.1 A Text against Islam Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ’s Manichaeism hangs on a text that survives only in fragments embedded in a wordy and not necessarily straightforward refutation that can be traced back to the Zaidite al-Qāsim b. Ibrāhīm.1 Whether the text was indeed composed by a Manichaean is not proved quite as clearly by the surviving passages as Qāsim claimed in his polemic. The burden of proof rests in the main on a rather isolated fragment which is yet to be interpreted

1  M. Guidi, La lotta tra l’Islam e il Manicheismo, Rome 1927. Cf. Nyberg’s suggestions for improvement in OLZ 32/1929/425ff. and Bergsträsser in Islamica 4/1929–31/311ff.

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satisfactorily,2 and also on the foreword which begins with a parody of the basmala and then adds a hymn to Light.3 At the end Qāsim fulminated against the doctrine of mixture and the fantastic vocabulary: father of greatness, mother of life, beloved of lights, primordial man, archontes, pillar of glory.4 However, he did not find these in the text he had in front of him: he would not have missed the opportunity to skewer it within the actual wording. He was honest enough not to ascribe it to Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ alone, but to the Manichaeans in general. It was part of his tactics of making Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ into a Manichaean. What is clear is that the text was not written by a Muslim. This degree of contempt for Islam has never before nor since been expressed in Arabic within the dominion of that faith. The author knew of no religion that “was more uneducated, unreasonable, worldly and sensual”, it had a corrupting influence on its followers and “if churned, would ooze bad cream”. It encouraged obscurantism as it commanded “neither to study nor to ask questions”, but required people “to believe in something they do not know, and hold true something they do not understand”.5 Add to this a furious hatred of the Arabs: Muḥammad is a “man from the Tihāma”,6 i.e. an uncouth Bedouin. Unbearable that in his person primitiveness was victorious, but it was due to force of arms only, not thanks to religion or divine intervention. Muḥammad “fought for worldly dominance only”.7 In another place, however, the author admitted implicitly that God sent his angels to help devout Muslims;8 but this was meant dialectically. He knew Islam and directed his polemic at several targets. He quoted the Quran9 and refuted the image of God it promotes as anthropomorphic and leaving the question of theodicy unresolved. God sits on his throne by himself, and according to sura 53:8–9 descended from it in order to approach the prophet

2  Text V 9 with commentary. 3  Text V 1. Whether this is indeed a hymn, as I maintained in: bustan 5/1964, vol. 2, p. 11, is not absolutely certain. The fragment has no metric structure. If we were to assume such a structure for the Middle Persian original, we run into trouble with the re-worded basmala; bismi l-nūri l-raḥmāni l-raḥīm can only have been devised in Arabic. It is possible to assume that it was simply prefaced to the hymn itself. 4  Lotta 50, 7ff., and 52, 20ff. 5  Text V 4. 6  Ibid. 4, e. 7  Ibid. 4, a–b with commentary. 8  Text 3, b. 9  Text 3, a; 5, a; 8, a; maybe also 3, d (cf. the commentary).

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to two bows’-lengths away, or nearer,10 he feels sadness, sorrow and anger.11 At the same time this God is powerless; unable to overcome evil or rather, worse still, unable to control his own creation, for evil as an independent principle does not exist for Muslims. He must defend himself against them and does this in a transparently clumsy fashion: he throws shooting stars12 or has angels act on his behalf. If they win, he takes the credit for the success.13 This is again a sign of his all too human character: he enjoys boasting of his achievements,14 although there really is no call for that at all. His enemies were able to kill the prophets he sent into the world, and he did not take revenge immediately but postponed the punishment until the Day of Judgment.15 If one of his followers is beaten, he justifies himself by saying that he only wanted to test him.16 Sometimes disaster comes from him directly: when he sends disease to earth. He has ruined his own creation.17 Satan remains victorious, most people follow him.18 It is really worth asking whether God existed by himself in the beginning.19 It would certainly be easier to say that an evil principle, the opposite of the very Light addressed in the preface, existed beside him from the beginning and should be held responsible for all the inconsistencies and ills mentioned. After all, God showed two ways20 – this is probably another reference to the Quran where, as Qāsim adds, we read in sura 4:76 that some fight in the way of God, while others fight in the way of the dark force (al-ṭāġūt).21 God created the world for good,22 consequently he cannot want what is evil. It is furthermore absurd to assume that he created it from nothing; nothing does not exist,

10  Text 8, a. This is probably a reference to a miʿrāj narrative. 11  Text 6; also 8, b. 12  Text 3, a. Further information in ch. C 1.2.3 below. 13  Ibid. 3, b. 14  Text 5, a. 15  Text 3, c. The author leaves out the legends of punishment contained in the Quran. It is possible that the “enemy” on whom God does not revenge himself immediately refers to Satan, but the context suggests a more collective interpretation. 16  Ibid. 3, b. 17  Ibid. 3, d. 18  Text 5, b. 19  Text 2. 20  Text 7, a. 21   Lotta 34, 5f. The meaning of ṭāġūt was debated; it is not impossible that the author interpreted it in the same way as Iranian propaganda does today. 22  Text 7, b–c.

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and it is impossible to imagine, too.23 On the contrary, something has always been, and the world emerged, we may surely continue, through “mixture” – or else it was the work of the adversary. This is the only course of reasoning that does not force us to believe that God’s delight in the world must have turned to ill will, and that he follows his mercy on his creatures with punishment immediately.24 This is denying fundamental dogmas indeed. The author obviously believes in the eternal duration of the world, or rather: the fight between good and evil takes place on the substratum of eternal matter. God creating things “with his own hand” is clearly regarded as too anthropomorphic.25 The more transcendent idea that he brought things into existence with his creative word did not satisfy the author either: it is not possible to address something that is not already there.26 Similar views would be expressed later in the Shkand gumānīk vičār.27 The Quran is criticised before the backdrop of a spiritual understanding of religion and a rational explanation of the world. The author shows himself to be elitist; those who imagine God like themselves or hint at the deeper meaning of sigla and formulae in the Quran28 only betray an underdeveloped faculty of thought. We should, however, assume that creatio ex nihilo became a constitutive point of faith in Islam only relatively late.28a The various doctrines of elements to which Qāsim, too, refers in his refutation,29 could still leave ample space for God’s creative impulse. As for anthropomorphism, Jahm b. Ṣafwān and his followers were abandoning it in Iran during Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ’s time. Consequently it is not easy to deduce the text’s historical location by analysing it. The rational religion it promoted would suit an intellectual aware of his Iranian heritage; it is aggressive and infused with Shuʿūbite elements. Jāḥiẓ also mentioned that from their lofty scientific watchtower the “Dahrites” smiled

23  Text 8, c and e. 24  Ibid. 8, d. Cf. also the reconstruction of the train of thought in Levi Della Vida in: OM 8/1928/85, and in Colpe, Manichäismus 181ff. and 253ff.; also Nagel, Rechtleitung 315ff., and my article in: bustan 5/1964, vol. 2, p. 10ff. Colpe assumes that Qāsim rearranged the fragments; I do not think this is necessarily the case. 25  Text 8, e. 26  Ibid., commentary after Lotta 43, pu. f. 27  187 (78ff.) de Menasce. 28  Text 8, commentary. 28a  Cf. ch. D 1.3.2.1 below. 29   Lotta 45, 5ff.

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down on e.g. the Quranic explanation of shooting stars.30 But this does not help determine the author. Wansbrough recently called the text a “Muʿtazilite tour de force” interpreting the preamble bismi l-nūri l-raḥmāni l-raḥīm as mere “childish trite humour”,31 and clearly understanding the text as a Muslim falsification. I have examined this theory before,32 and can only repeat: it seems to me that a falsification would have looked different. It would have emphasised those aspects of Manichaeism that are suppressed here: its “mad” mythology, its enigmatic imagery. Fragment 9 would have been phrased much more clearly. The falsifier would presumably have provided a refutation at the same time. Qāsim, however, is unlikely to have been the falsifier as his style is entirely different from that of the fragments: undisciplined, long-winded and, above all, not yet skilled in Muʿtazilite theology.33 But Qāsim suggests another possibility. His refutation was, as can be deduced from his untrained style, an early work probably composed in Egypt where he stayed between around 199/815 and 211/826.34 The rather harsh rhyming prose and the way in which ideas are presented suggest that the text was intended to be heard rather than read; probably in the form of sermons.35 Sermons, however, only make sense if they have an actual occasion. Was the text circulated in Egypt as an apocryphon, attributed to Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ only because he was by that time the most famous “Manichaean”? It is entirely possible that there were still genuine Manichaeans in Egypt at the time;36 Shīʿite tradition imagined that Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq debated with a zindīq from Egypt named ʿAbd al-Malik Abū ʿAbdallāh among others,37 although going by his name, this zindīq would presumably have been a Muslim. It is thus possible that Qāsim was aiming at Muslim circles whom he considered to be susceptible to Manichaean theories. It is less probable that Manichaean circles publicised Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ’s text. This would not have been entirely wise. And it is not at all certain that the text was composed in Egypt at all. The author believed that the end of the world 30   Ḥayawān VI 272, 4ff., and 496, –4ff. Also ch. C 3.2.2.2.4.2.2.3 below. 31   Quranic Studies 160. 32   Festschrift ʿAbbās 162. 33  Cf. Madelung, Qāsim 111. Concerning the style of the refutation in detail cf. esp. Bergsträsser’s thorough analysis in: Islamica 4/1929–31/296ff. 34  Madelung, ibid. 88ff. 35  Thus already Bergsträsser 301. More generally Madelung 153. 36  See vol. I 491 above. 37  Ṭabrisī, Iḥtijāj II 72, ult. ff. (after Hishām b. al-Ḥakam); but cf. the parallel in vol. I 529, n. 3, where al-Baṣrī is written rather than al-Miṣrī.

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was nigh, he did not think Islam had much time left.38 This fits most probably into the last years of the Umayyad era. The loathing of the “man from the Tihāma” sounds Iranian, and during the collapse of the public order before the Abbasid restoration, dualist ideas would have been most likely to have gained the freedom in which the formula “in the name of Light, the merciful and compassionate” would not have been merely trite humour. Unlike in eastern Iran, Islam did not really take root in central Iran until the Abbasid era.39 Thus there is no strong argument against Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ; he had not yet become a Muslim at the time. Manichaeism, if interpreted with so little mythology, could be regarded as the continuation of Zoroastrianism and the summary of Iranian religious thought.40 Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ need not have identified with the text directly; being a translator he merely conveyed Iranian material, and his Arab patrons were certainly interested in finding out what was happening in the anti-Islamic scene. The text is not, however, a translation. The paths of transmission are too complex to permit the hope that comparisons of style would be of use, but at least, as Gabrieli noticed,41 the comparison with the bazar where the buyer examines the wares as carefully as one should also do in the case of religion appears in Burzōya’s foreword to Kalīla wa-Dimna, too. This provides a last piece of evidence in favour of the Iranian background.42 This framework of the text’s chronological and geographical position is all we need for our research. It is unlikely that it will ever be proved43 that Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ was indeed the author as Qāsim claims;44 to the imagination of later generations he was too much the exponent of a particular tendency to be considered. Still, we should not take scepticism too far, as Mismaʿī’s review points out: Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ was characterised by the following doctrine: light rules (dabbara) over darkness and surges into it spontaneously, as this is ultimately more beneficial (aṣlaḥ) for it. He rejected the objectionable stories told by the Manichaeans about the struggle between the two principles. 38  Text 4, d. 39  In more detail p. 686ff. below. 40  Thus Colpe, Manichäismus 189f. Richter regard the intellectualisation of ethics as expressed in Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ’s Adab al-kabīr as a typically Manichaean trait (Fürstenspiegelliteratur 13ff.). 41  In: RSO 13/1932/239. 42  Regarding agreement with Shkand gumānīk vičār see p. 36 above. 43  Cf. Vajda’s critical attitude in: JA 228/1936/350, and RSO 17/1938/228, n. 1, as well as Madelung in GAP II 361; more recently also Chokr, Zandaqa 297ff. 44   Lotta 8, 5ff.

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This is not a synopsis of the text in question, at least not of the extant fragments. The remarks on the theory of movement touch on a completely different topic which, as we have seen, interested the zanādiqa in general.46 The reference to Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ’s dislike of mythology, on the other hand, exactly captures the basic tendency of the text refuted by Qāsim. Someone who identified the light with Allāh could have said that light “rules over” darkness. Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār pointed out that a fundamental principle of dualism was violated here: when light invades darkness spontaneously, it takes responsibility for the evil that originates there.47 This might in fact have been the intention of someone hoping to unify Islam and dualism. 2.2.1.4.2 The Parody of the Quran Guidi believed that the text he brought to wider notice when he edited Qāsim’s refutation of it was the very Muʿāraḍat al-Qurʾān that would later be attributed to Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ from time to time.1 This view immediately met with justified criticism by Bergsträsser2 and then Gabrieli.3 The conclusive proof to the contrary can be found in a few fragments brought to light in a Zaydite text some time ago.4 They show what we should look for in the Muʿāraḍa: parodies of Quranic style which employ rhyming prose to repeat the effect of Meccan suras either with freely invented subject matter or drawing on Quranic 45   Mughnī V 20, 5ff.; transl. Monnot, Penseurs 172f. Now also Malāḥimī, Muʿtamad 590, 2ff. 46  See vol. I 513 and 518f. above. 47  Mughnī V 69, 17ff./Monnot 243f. 1  Thus Balʿamī in his Persian adaptation of Ṭabarī’s history of the world (cf. Festschrift ʿAbbās 153); critical review by Bāqillānī (ibid. 161). 2  Islamica 4/1929–31/295, n. 5. 3  RSO 13/1932/240 and EI2 III 885a. 4  Initially by Madelung, Qāsim 90, n. 27; subsequently edited by me in: Festschrift ʿAbbās 151ff. The text, which was available to me in manuscript form only, has now been edited: Aḥmad b. al-Ḥusayn al-Muʾaiyad billāh (333/944–411/1020), K. ithbāt nubuwwat al-nabī, ed. Aḥmad Ibrāhīm al-Ḥājj (Beirut, al-Maktaba al-ʿIlmiyya, n. d.). The oldest surviving textual witness, MS Cairo, Dār al-kutub, kalām 1567, to which I did not have access at the time, does not provide new variants. The edition diverges slightly in places, although not necessarily with better readings.

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set pieces. Only one fragment is different, in which the author explained his intention: “(The conclusion) remains that both texts (i.e. the Quran and the attempt at parody) are equal in that (human) conviction may find a difference in quality and accordingly rank one higher, and dismiss the other. Ultimately, one must merely be recited as frequently as the other, and soon people will believe the style of both equally pleasing and elegant. For it is by habituation that a recited text becomes pleasing just as (by habituation) food, drink, and sexual intercourse become enjoyable. Through alienation and lack of familiarity, on the other hand, people will be repelled and kept from what is right. Thus one should train (?) one’s vocal cords with this (text) as much as with the other”.5 After this there is no need for us to look at the other fragments, six in total. They are only of interest to us in that their contents do not contradict a date of composition before 137. On the contrary, two of them play on historical associations that must have been fresh in everyone’s memory at the time. Fragment 5 mentions the Iraqis and accuses them of discord and hypocrisy (al-shiqāq wal-nifāq), like al-Ḥajjāj had done in his famous accession speech in Kufa. Fragment 4 is directed at the Syrians who committed many crimes and who have now been overwhelmed by people from the east who live in tents and chastise them.6 As we know, Syria had just been conquered by ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAlī: we are very close to the ʿumūma. A second point is just as important: the historical associations ensured that everybody understood that the text would not have been found in the Quran in this form. The author was not imitating the Quran in order to replace or improve it, but merely to show that the Quranic style was nothing special, that the awe people felt when they heard the suras was due to their being accustomed to hearing them in a liturgical context. The reasoning shows that there must already have been a diffuse conviction that the language of the Quran was perfect and inimitably beautiful, a conviction presumably held mainly by Arabs. However, the text does not assume the dogma of iʿjāz or use the term. There is nothing heretical about the text, either; it was not until later that people read heresy into it. It may have been composed by Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ; as an Iranian he would have had particular reason to object to the expanding Arabic “dogma”. He did indeed dabble in kalām, as Jāḥiẓ pointed out, too; adding, however, that he did not seem to be very knowledgeable in it.7

5  Festschrift ʿAbbās 159f. 6  Ibid. 156ff. with further details. 7  Muʿallimīn in: Rasāʾil III 44, 5f.

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The Quran itself may be furnishing an early instance of a parody of Quranic style. Sura 89:1–4 has been interpreted as a failed muʿāraḍa of Meccan suras, directed against the prophet’s claim to inimitability by his opponents, maybe poets; in that case verse 5 would be Muḥammad ridiculing it (thus I. Shahid in: JAL 14/1983/9, n. 21; similar but without reference to verse 5 also Bell 654 in the preliminary remarks on his translation of the sura; cf. Paret, Komm. 509 on the passage). 2.2.1.5 The Context. “Natural Philosophers” Just as in Kufa, in Basra people like Ṣāliḥ b. ʿAbd al-Quddūs and Bashshār b. Burd were not alone, either, but the “sympathiser scene” was not documented in quite so much detail, and of course they were not drawn from the ranks of the Shīʿa. The poet Munqidh b. ʿAbdarraḥmān al-Hilālī1 was regarded as a zindīq, as was Salm al-Khāsir (d. 186/802), who went on to seek his fortune in Baghdad under al-Manṣūr and his two successors.2 Abān al-Lāḥiqī also went to the capital; he was a client of the Raqāsh who was sponsored by the Barmakids for whom he translated Iranian literature into Arabic: the biographies of Ardashīr and Anōshirwān for instance, but also the book about Mazdak (?) and finally the legend of the Buddha, the famous K. Bilawhar wa-Būdhāsaf which reached the West under the title Barlaam and Josaphat.3 Abū Nuwās reviled him as a zindīq in a satire that had slander written all over it; it was all about money and influence.4 Ṣūlī later tried to rehabilitate him; with justification, it would seem.5 The world of the “heretics” remained attractive; it was not taboo during the second half of the second century, as it did not only cloak itself in poetry, but in fact had much to offer that was useful. Several Basran theologians, most of whom had more or less close links with the Muʿtazila, but also the historian

1  Cf. GAS 2/466 with further literature. Also Marzūqī, Sharḥ al-Ḥamāsa 1052f. no. 369, and 1198f. no. 446. 2  G AS 2/511f. 3  Ibn al-Nadīm 132, –7ff.; Vajda in: RSO 17/1938/207ff.; Stern in: EI2 I 2; ʿAbbās in: EIran I 58f.; GAS 2/515f. Regarding the Mazdaknāmak see p. 29, n. 22 above; regarding Bilawhar wa-Būdhāsaf cf. Gimaret, Le Livre de Bilawhar et Būḏasf (Paris 1971). Fragments of his verse version of Kalīla wa-Dimna probably survive in Ḥamza al-Iṣfahānī’s K. al-amthāl al-ṣādira ʿan buyūt al-shiʿr (cf. Schoeler, Katalog arab. Handschriften II 309). 4  Vajda 208; translation in Pellat, Milieu 220. 5  Awrāq 37, –6ff.; more generally Taheri-Iraqi, Zandaqa 228ff.

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Madāʾinī, studied with a physician, who was apparently so rich that he could afford several assistants (ghulām),6 named Maʿmar Abū l-Ashʿath7 whom Jāḥiẓ called “a philosopher among the mutakallimūn”, comparing him to people like Muḥammad b. al-Jahm al-Barmakī or Ibrāhīm b. al-Sindī, freethinkers whom he met later at court in Baghdad.8 Maʿmar probably never left Basra; there is no source from the capital preserving his memory. Even when he associated with the Indian physicians with whom the Barmakid Yaḥyā b. Khālid surrounded himself, this was in all likelihood in Basra, before the visitors travelled on to Baghdad.9 He was naturally interested in them as colleagues, but he quizzed them concerning the manner in which rhetoric was practised in their home country. His curiosity extended much further than the boundaries of his own profession. He observed bats and believed that when they gave birth to twins they would carry both of them around with them and only later, when the young became too heavy, make them take turns.10 Following a belief widely held among intellectuals like him he did not allow a menstruating woman to approach a vessel with milk; Jāḥiẓ, who considered this rather outlandish, surmised that he might have believed her to exude a strong smell or emanation that could mix with the milk.11 Above all, he did not eat beans. His pupil Abū Shamir would later find a fairly rational explanation.12 For Abū l-Ashʿath, on the other hand, it may well have been an age-old philosophical custom; the bean taboo has had a long history around the Mediterranean ever 6  Ibn al-Nadīm, Fihrist 113, 17ff. after a handwritten note by the Muʿtazilite Bakr Ibn al-Ikhshīd (270/883–326/938) which it seems Ibn al-Nadīm had in front of him (qara‌ʾtu bikhaṭṭ Abī Bakr Ibn al-Ikhshīd). However, this is directly followed by the remark wa-qara‌ʾtu bi-khaṭṭ Ibn al-Kūfī which, being a different reading, can really only have been written by someone else. It is probably one of those later glosses that appear in the Fihrist from time to time (cf. Sellheim in: IOS 2/1972/430). Ibn al-Nadīm quotes Ibn al-Kūfī (254/868– 348/960) rather frequently (cf. GAS 1/384f.). He probably turns up here because shortly afterwards, he is the source for the entire catalogue of Madāʾinī’s works (113, –6ff.). 7  Ibn al-Nadīm has Ibn al-Ashʿath instead of Abū l-Ashʿath. This is contradicted by all parallel passages in Jāḥiẓ (cf. Ḥayawān III 357, n. 8). He is frequently confused with the Muʿtazilite Muʿammar, one of his pupils. 8  Ḥayawān II 140, 9f. Regarding the other two see ch. C 1.3.2 and 3.1 below. 9  Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 92, 4ff.; cf. p. 22 above. 10   Ḥayawān III 530, 6f. Or had he read it somewhere? 11  Ibid. II 140, 9ff. 12  See p. 202f. below.

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since Pythagoras.13 Elitist, aristocratic groups were especially partial to spreading it, as beans were a food for the common people and not everyone was able to afford more expensive foods instead. Abū Shamir thought beans damaged the brain not only as a food but also with their smell or through contact with the plants – a typical intellectuals’ phobia which probably hid other, nameless fears.14 The “superstructure” recalls the Sabians; they, too, believed that beans made the mind sluggish,15 but they looked at it within the framework of their cosmology: the bean’s cubic shape makes it an enemy of the heavens which are spherical.16 Abū Shamir’s argument, on the other hand, was more agronomical: everything that grows head down is harmful, which led him to name the aubergine together with the beans. Elsewhere we are more likely to find lentils and garlic listed with beans.17 Abū Shamir was not the only one to be infected by his teacher. The Muʿtazilite Muʿammar and Madāʾinī shared his fear, as did Maslama b. ʿAbdallāh b. Muḥārib al-Fihrī, known as a grammarian and Quran reciter in Basra,18 and also a certain Wakīʿī, a pupil of Wākiʿ b. al-Jarrāḥ, probably the traditionist Aḥmad b. Jaʿfar al-Ḍarīr who died in Baghdad in 215/830.19 Clearly the taboo was not characteristic of one particular denomination; it did not divide 13  Cf. Th. Klauser’s comprehensive article in: RAC II 489ff.; regarding ideas of taboo ibid. 493ff., and M. D. Grmek, Les maladies à l’aube de la civilisation occidentale 307ff. Also K. E. Müller, Pseudo-islamische Sektengebilde 321ff., and W. Burkert, Weisheit und Wissenschaft 164ff. 14  During antiquity people believed that beans were home to the spirits of the dead whom one would consume with the food and who would then try to force their way out (cf. Klauser, loc. cit.). However, it must be taken into consideration that a specific “bean disease” (favism) does indeed occur in Gīlān and Māzandarān which may be triggered by merely breathing in the pollen (cf. H. Aʿlam in: EIran III 724f.). 15  Bīrūnī, Āthār 205, ult./transl. 188; also F. Dölger, Ichthys II 74ff. (within the context of his discussion of the prohibition of electric fish). Also Ibn al-Ṭayyib al-Sarakhsī in Ibn al-Nadīm 384, 14, and p. 505 below. A fundamental study is Chwolsohn, Ssabier II 109ff. 16  Cf. Pines in: Proc. Israel Acad. of Sciences and Humanities II 13, p. 30, n. 117 after Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Tathbīt I 163, 11f. 17  Thus also among the Sabians (cf. Ibn al-Nadīm, loc. cit.); see p. 129f. below. 18   Ḥayawān III 357, apu. ff. = Text II 19, c. Regarding him cf. Ibn al-Jazarī, Ṭab. II 298 and Qifṭī, Inbāh III 262 no. 748 with further sources. He was a nephew of the early grammarian Ibn Abī Isḥāq al-Ḥaḍramī (Inbāh II 104ff. no. 316) and is quoted as an authority by Jāḥiẓ in his Bayān as well as his K. al-Ḥayawān, always with the shorter form of his name Maslama b. Muḥārib. 19  Regarding him TB IV 58f. no. 1675. Concerning the nisba in general Samʿānī, Ansāb XIII 355, 12ff. The person referred to could also be Aḥmad b. ʿUmar b. Ḥafṣ al-Wakīʿī, but he came from Kufa and died only in 235/850 (TB IV 284f. no. 2038).

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“orthodox” and “unorthodox”. Maybe it accompanied other ascetic customs. It seems that Maslama b. Muḥārib was very punctilious about trimming one’s moustache and wearing short garments, as was the custom among pietists,20 but we do not know this for certain.21 One rather gets the impression of dealing with Kneipp disciples.22 However, we must not overlook the greater context. Ashʿarī linked Muʿammar, or, in the alternative reading, Maʿmar, with certain “natural philosophers” (aṣḥāb al-ṭabāʾiʿ) he sometimes mentioned.23 He did not say quite clearly whom he meant; it is more of a vague collective term that probably referred to “philosophers” outside of Basra as well. They certainly were not philosophers in our understanding of the word.24 As the name shows, they put the ṭabāʾiʿ at the centre of their thought, the ṭabāʾiʿ being the elementary properties of Aristotelian physics: cold and hot, moist and dry. In their view, the world was composed of these; they argued about whether πνευ̃μα (rūḥ) joined them as the fifth principle.25 Even living creatures could, if one so wished, do without it; those whose concept of humans did not include a separate πνευ̃μα, i.e. no soul, believed that the spirit of life was provided by “natural warmth” (al-ḥarāra al-ġarīziyya).26 The elementary properties were regarded as bodies which mix,27 they are eternal.28 The process of mixing implies movement; but 20  Jāḥiẓ, Bayān II 97, 1f.; cf. p. 437f. below. Cf. also his tradition after ʿĀmir b. ʿAbdqays ibid. III 143, 12ff.; concerning the latter see p. 101 below. 21  The passage could also be interpreted differently. Furthermore Maslama was otherwise most interested in rhetorical texts, as one would expect from a grammarian (ibid. II 61, 12ff.; 48, 7ff. etc.). 22  There were also traditions which recommended eating beans (as for the Shīʿa cf. al-Ḥurr al-ʿĀmilī, Wasīlat al-Shīʿa XVII 100f.); they probably reflect the ideas of the less educated classes. 23  Thus Maq. 382, 13f. and 517, 2. The second passage certainly refers to Muʿammar, as the correspondence between 517, 1 and 405, 14 proves (cf. Text XVI 14, commentary). In the case of the first passage this is not entirely clear, but considering that Maʿmar Abū Ashʿath is not mentioned elsewhere in Ashʿarī, we can reasonably safely decide in Muʿammar’s favour here, too (cf. Text XVI 61). 24  Cf. ch. C 3.1 below. 25   Maq. 309, 1ff. and 348, 3ff.; Abū ʿĪsā al-Warrāq in Malāḥimī (in: MUSJ 50/1984/390, 4ff.; 391, 12f.; 393, 13). A general overview by Gimaret in: Livre des Religions 208f., n. 42. 26   Maq. 335, 7ff.; the rūḥ was identical with the “pure, unsullied and uncorrupted blood”, which in turns was composed of the four elementary properties. 27   Maq. 348, 3f.; also 309, 1ff., where we read jawāhir “substances” instead of ajsām “bodies”. Regarding “mixture” cf. Maq. 333, 5 (ikhtilāṭ) and Abū ʿĪsā al-Warrāq in: MUSJ 50/1984/390, 10f. 28  At least according to Baghdādī, Uṣūl al-dīn 70, 13ff.

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once again there was no agreement on whether this movement was an attribute to be regarded as separate. If this was indeed the case, it would certainly have been the only attribute.29 This model uses the same building blocks as the cosmology of the dualists.30 Hishām b. al-Ḥakam, too, had some ideas in common with them, down to the details.31 From among the Muʿtazilites, not only Muʿammar but also Naẓẓām would later build on this.32 What we must bear in mind is that while the idea of elementary properties and the number four are Aristotelian in origin, the way in which they are applied here is far removed from the Aristotelian foundation. Aristotle did not regard hot, cold, moist, and dry as bodies but as mere attributes differentiating the materia prima;33 furthermore, he never called them φύσεις which would correspond to Ar. ṭabāʾiʿ.34 Here, they played a much more independent part, recalling Stoic thought;35 but the decisive impulse may have been due to the fact that in dualist understanding natural principles were able to compete independently and underived.36 This would presumably have been convenient for the aṣḥāb al-ṭabāʾiʿ in alchemical consideration. They believed to be able to produce minerals etc.; this went as far as the creation (tawlīd) of the homunculus.37 The author of the Jābir texts appears to count himself among them.38

29   Maq. 348, 5, and 7ff. Motion cannot be more than an attribute, as inanimate objects never start moving of their own accord (Maq. 431, 7f.). 30  Cf. vol. I 497ff., and ch. C 3.2.2.2.1.7 below; motion as a separate attribute in Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ see p. 38f. above. 31  Cf. esp. Text IV 33, c–e, according to which he, like the aṣḥāb al-ṭabāʾiʿ regarded motion as a maʿnā, but not rest (cf. vol. I 419f.). Ashʿarī, however, doubted the authenticity of the tradition. In any case the similarities may be explained by Hishām’s dependence on dualist cosmology without the need to involve the aṣḥāb al-ṭabāʾiʿ. 32  See ch. C 1.3.2.1.1 and 3.2.2.2.1.3 and 6 below. 33  Thus already Kraus, Jābir II 161ff. 34  Ibid. II 165; regarding the origin of the term ibid. n. 7. 35  Ibid. 168ff. 36  In the Zoroastrian view, moist is part of Ahriman’s anti-creation which combines with Ahura Mazda’s creation; that is why it destroys fire. However, they were also aware of the elements; they were created by Ahura Mazda (Gujastak Abālish, ed. Barthélemy 34). 37   Rasāʾil Jābir b. Ḥaiyān 461, 5ff. (K. al-Sabʿīn); cf. also Kraus, Jābir II 98. 38  Kraus II 16ff.; regarding the role of the ṭabāʾiʿ in the Corpus Ǧabirianum ibid. II 151 and 162ff. The K. al-Ikhrāj distinguishes between the immaterial elementary properties and material, but otherwise identical with them, proto-elements (Rex, Naturprozesse 18). Cf. also Tadbīr al-iksīr al-aʿẓam li-Jābir b. Ḥaiyān, ed. Lory, index s. v. aṣḥāb al-ṭabāʾiʿ.

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Their ideas are sometimes labelled with the term Dahriyya;39 however, the informative value of this name is smaller still; it was usually interpreted only to mean that God the creator was rejected and the world was believed to be eternal.40 But a Dahrite, like a zindīq, was expected to recognise only sensual perceptions; a prophet would not have stood much of a chance there.41 At the beginning of the third century, Ḥumayd b. Saʿīd b. Bakhtiyār, a Muʿtazilite theologian of Iranian origin and probably a secretary like so many zanādiqa, wrote denouncing a Basran “atheist” who was attacking Islam and other revealed religions.42 The Basran grammarian Quṭrub, possibly a pupil of Naẓẓām’s,43 wrote a Radd ʿalā l-mulḥidīn which addressed doubts of the internal logic of the Quran or, as Muslims said, “unclear” verses (mutashābihāt) whose meaning had to be explained.44 Influence wielded by these critical ideas can be traced all the way to Ibn al-Rēwandī.45 2.2.2 Ḥasan al-Baṣrī and His Spiritual Successors Shortly after the turn of the century ʿUmar b. Hubayra engaged the Basran Iyās b. Muʿāwiya,1 expecting three things from him: that he should be able to recite the Quran, know a fair amount of poetry by heart, and have an understanding of the ayyām al-ʿAjam, the Persian heroic legend.2 This was Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ’s educational ideal as well.3 Piety or knowledge of the prophetic tradition was not in demand. The latter virtues flowered less in the administration and more among the simple citizens, in a pietist movement that soon acquired fundamentalist traits. However, as usual the boundaries were not firmly defined, as is illustrated clearly by one man who paved the way for this development at the threshold of the second century, whom the city would invoke in later times in a number of different ways: 39  Thus in Abū ʿĪsā al-Warrāq, loc. cit. 387ff.; also in Jāḥiẓ (cf. Text XXII 81, a–b). 40   E I2 II 95ff. s. v. Dahriyya. According to Abū ʿĪsā they did not only believe the world to be eternal in duration but also infinite in size (392, 7ff.); cf. also Text XXII 120 with commentary. 41  Jāḥiẓ, Ḥayawān VI 269, 11ff.; Mutawallī, Mughnī 3, 5f. 42  Catalogue of works XXXIb, no. 2; also ch. C 5.1.2 below. 43  See p. 99f. below. 44  Ibn al-Nadīm, Fihrist 58, –4; a fragment from it in Ibn Ṭāwūs, Saʿd al-suʿūd 270, –9ff. 45  See ch. C 8.2.2.3.3 below. 1  See p. 147f. below. 2  Wakīʿ, Akhbār al-quḍāt I 351, –4ff.; also Ibn Qutayba, ʿUyūn I 18, 4ff., where knowledge of the commandments (farāʾiḍ) is added. 3  Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ the poet, cf. Ibn al-Nadīm, Fihrist 191a, 17.

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Abū Saʿīd Ḥasan b. Yasār al-Baṣrī, 21/642–110/728.4 He was the son of an Iranian named Pērōz who had been captured during the conquest of Mesene and was later freed by his owner, a woman from Medina.5 Whether he himself grew up in the Hijaz, as tradition claimed,6 seems dubious.7 As a young man he accompanied ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Samura on his campaigns in eastern Iran when he advanced as far as Kabul from 43/663 onwards. He joined the administration in Sīstān under ʿAbd alRaḥmān’s successor Rabīʿ b. Ziyād in 46/666; the governor entrusted him with the task of setting up the dīwān of taxes.8 Earlier, still under Ibn Samura, he had made himself useful as teacher of forced converts in the newly built mosque.9 For this position it was necessary that he spoke Persian; he had probably learnt it as a child, even if he may not have grown up in Basra. The position in the administration required more extensive knowledge: he had to be able to read Pahlavi, and to be versed in Sasanid chancellery practice. We do not know on what he lived after he returned to Basra. Of course he would have received a “veteran’s” pension, but this is unlikely to have amounted to much. Like his younger brother Saʿīd he was a qāṣṣ;10 this may have brought him a salary.11 Or maybe he remained with the administration; not a profession that needed to be remembered later when people began to idealise his image.12 As early as the second half of the 60s he commanded sufficient influence and prestige to address a letter to ʿAbdallāh b. al-Zubayr in whose sphere of control 4  Cf. for general information H. Ritter’s article in EI2 III 247ff., with further literature. The first modern Arabic monograph on the subject is by Iḥsān ʿAbbās (Al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī. Sīratuhū, shakhṣiyyatuhū, taʿālīmuhū wa-ārāʾuhū, Cairo 1952), an early work of the author’s, in which he attempts to write a chronological biography based on numerous sources which he did not, however, evaluate according to their date. Muṣliḥ Sayyid Baiyūmī’s extensive study Al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī (Cairo 1980) is absolutely uncritical and untouched by any knowledge of secondary sources. 5  In more detail Schaeder in: Der Islam 14/1925/44ff. 6  Ritter, loc. cit., follows this; as does ʿAbbās 21f. 7  Thus Schaeder 47f. 8  Schaeder 48ff.; Bosworth, Sīstān 22f. and 26. 9  Bosworth ibid.; cf. vol. I 48f. above. 10  Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 367, 4. 11  The only certain documentary evidence we have comes from Egypt (cf. e.g. Kindī, Quḍāt Miṣr 317, 3f., according to whom a qāṣṣ received the same salary as a qāḍī; concerning the issue see Pellat in EI2 IV 734, also Morony, Iraq 437). 12  Should we draw this conclusion from the fact that he was frequently seen in public wearing a ṭaylasān? (IS VII1 117, 7ff.).

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the city was at the time, reminding him of his responsibilities as a ruler.13 He may have been speaking in the name of the common people, for Ḥajjāj would later say that the best orator of his day was “the man with the black turban” who worked “among the reed huts of Basra”, i.e. in the slums outside the city.14 Unlike his brother he did not let himself be drawn into Ibn al-Ashʿath’s uprising;15 the understandable course of action if he was indeed a public official. Tradition, firmly on the side of the qurrāʾ, found this hard to stomach –  especially as he advised those who had been less cautious than he to claim during the interrogation that they were infidels, just as Ḥajjāj demanded of them by way of penance. Men like Saʿīd b. Jubayr, who refused to do this, lost their lives as a consequence.16 The rift between Ḥasan and the governor came when Ḥajjāj moved the seat of the government to Wāsiṭ; Ḥasan criticised this decision, which also affected the officials of the administration.17 From then on he was forbidden to appear in public. His military pension may have been stopped even before then; it would not be paid again until ʿUmar’s time.18 Under the last-named caliph he even was a qāḍī for a short time.19 Considering his client status this was a most unusual occurrence; one cannot help feeling slightly sceptical towards that particular tradition. We do, however, know that ʿUmar acted like this in Egypt as well,20 and only one generation later ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAwn (d. 151/768) would date events from the time that Ḥasan assumed the office of judge.21 Farazdaq is said to have divorced his wife Nawār before Ḥasan al-Baṣrī in his old age; the verses in which he regretted

13  He was at least believed to be capable of it; the authenticity of the source is not certain (Balādhurī, Ansāb V 196, 3ff. Goitein). 14  Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 398, 6ff.; slightly altered also Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Faḍl 224, 5ff.; also ʿAbbās 70f. Or do the “reed huts” simply refer to the particular character of the city? (Cf. Donner in: EIran III 851f.). Regarding the black turban cf. IS VII1 117, 4ff. Unfortunately we do not know what the meaning of the colour would have been. Ḥasan’s contemporary Ibn Sīrīn used to wear a white turban (IS VII, 148, 25). 15  For more detail cf. Schaeder 53ff.; also Ritter in: Der Islam 21/1933/53ff., and Sayed, Revolte des Ibn al-Ašāṯ 349. 16  Azdī, K. al-Mutawārīn in: RAAD 50/1975/571, 6ff., cf. vol. I 181 above. 17  Cf. Schaeder 59f.; Ritter 55. 18  Fasawī II 51, 1f.; IS V 256, 20ff. The latter passage indicates that this was Hajjāj’s collective punishment for Basrans after the uprising (cf. Anfänge 123). 19   I S V 251, 18; Pellat, Milieu 289, n. 7. Further information p. 146f. below. 20  Kindī, Quḍāt Miṣr 338, 2ff. 21  Wakīʿ, Akhbār II 6, –4ff.; Fasawī II 45, 6f. Regarding ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAwn see p. 404f. below.

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having taken this step were quoted frequently.22 The attempts at reform failed in the end. ʿUmar’s governor, ʿAdī b. Arṭāt, seems to have considered Ḥasan to be weak23 and himself too old;24 he is said to have burst into tears repeatedly during meetings.25 His failure was hinted at in a tactful way:26 “His expertise did not meet with praise”. Fasawī II 49, 8f.: lam yuḥmad fahmuhū. Concerning legal maxims attributed to Ḥasan cf. Juynboll, Muslim Tradition 52ff.; ʿUmar is said to have asked him through ʿAdī b. Arṭāt to elucidate the status of the Zoroastrians (Abū Yūsuf, Kharāj 285, –4ff. > Ṣafwat, Jamharat rasāʾil al-ʿArab II 313, no. 213). The Basra-born Mālikite Ibrāhīm b. Ḥammād (see GAS 2/302) later collated a concordance between Mālik’s and Ḥasan’s doctrines (Ibn Farḥūn, Dībāj I 262, 4). It is interesting that Ḥasan disdained calculating shares of inheritance precisely, preferring – possibly trained by his administrative experience – to determine them freely. Iudex non calculat (Wakīʿ II 8, 1f.). After all this it is not surprising that Ḥasan remained faithful to the caliph during Yazīd b. al-Muhallab’s uprising. While Ibāḍites and Murjiʿites allied themselves with him in considerable numbers, Basran Qadarites kept their distance.27 It seems that Ḥasan did not leave his house at all during this time.28 When the news arrived that Ibn al-Muhallab had been beaten by Maslama b. ʿAbd al-Malik near ʿAqr,29 he [Ḥasan] was asked to give the Friday sermon as the governor, a brother of Ibn al-Muhallab’s who had ousted ʿAdī b. Arṭāt, did not have enough authority anymore.30 He was probably the man of choice not least because he was qāḍī at the time. This was probably also the reason 22   Agh. XXI 290, 6ff.; Akhbār al-Zajjājī 90, 12ff. etc. Their authenticity is, however, debated (negative e.g. Blachère in: EI2 II 789a and Histoire 500). Ḥasan is also reported to have said the prayer for the dead over Nawār (Agh. XXI 391, 5ff.). 23  Wakīʿ II 7, 15ff. 24  Ibid. 7, 6f. 25  Ibid. II 7, 10ff., and 9, 1f. 26  Ibid. II 8, –5ff., and 9, 3ff. 27  This also included e.g. Farqad al-Sabakhī (see p. 108f. below) and Qatāda (see p. 159f. below). Regarding the Murjiʿites see vol. I 188ff. above; regarding the Ibāḍiyya cf. Lewicki in: Cahiers d’histoire mondiale 13/1971/70f. 28  Wakīʿ II 14, apu. f.; also Ṭabarī II 1400, 8ff., and Ibn al-Aʿtham, Futūḥ VIII 9, 2ff. 29  Ṣafar 202/Aug.–Sept. 817. Further details in vol. I 190f. above. 30  Wakīʿ, Akhbār II 117, pu. ff.; Fasawī II 265, 4ff.

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why he was part of a delegation to negotiate with the rebel’s other brothers; he appears to have persuaded several of them to surrender to ʿAdī.31 He had also been in contact with the Muhallabids for a long time; conversations with them show that they protected him from Hajjāj. Maslama b. ʿAbd al-Malik, who would later become governor himself, presented him with a long coat (jubba) and a black garment made from heavy silk with a coloured hem (khamīṣa) which he wore to pray from then on.32 Still, the authorities kept a watchful eye on him. Shortly before his death, when he was already in his late eighties, Mālik b. al-Mundhir al-ʿAbdī, the city’s police chief since Dhū l-Qaʿda 106/ March 725,33 warned him to stay away from certain but unspecified “riotous gatherings” (jumūʿ).34 ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAwn paid him the, probably true, compliment that there was none among the mawālī who was as similar to the Arabs as he.35 It certainly seems that he never was on a genuinely friendly footing with the merchants, most of whom were of Iranian origin like himself.36 When he heard that someone asking for his granddaughter’s hand in marriage was very wealthy despite his client status, he would not have anything to do with that marriage.37 Too many people had made their fortune by speculation.38 If he was indeed an administration official, it becomes even more understandable that he should have felt this way. All of this must not be regarded too superficially. The “world” as such seemed suspicious to him; humans collecting possessions within it in order to indulge their vanity and thus giving themselves up to hypocrisy (riyāʾ); whoever does this is a munāfiq like those among the prophet’s contemporaries who were his followers only outwardly. In his ground-breaking study Ritter collected

31  In more detail Schaeder 64ff. It is clear from Wakīʿ II 81, 6 that he was qāḍī at the time. Yazīd al-Muhallab confirmed him in this office (ibid. 14, 14ff.), but he had probably appointed by ʿAdī b. Arṭāt (see p. 146f. below). 32   I S VII1 126, 1ff.; Serjeant, Islamic Textiles 14. 33  Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 535, 6f. 34   Al-ʿuyūn wal-ḥadāʾiq I 87, 4ff. Is this connected to the events of the year 109 reported in Ṭabarī II 1495, 11ff.? 35  Fasawī II 43, 2f. 36  Ibid. II 42, 4ff., and 43, 9ff.; cf. ʿAbbās 119ff. and 135. This is probably why he did not get on with Muḥammad b. Sīrīn, a cloth merchant (Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif 441, 14; regarding him EI2 III 947f., and p. 413 below). Ibn Sīrīn actually declined ʿUmar II’s offer to pay him the ʿaṭāʾ once again (see n. 18 above). 37   I S VII, 125, 19ff. 38  Cf. Morony, Iraq 257.

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relevant source material.39 However, nearly all the sources are later devotional texts; the question of how and where they found the information has still not been resolved.40 They have, of course, been shaped by later tendencies; but on the other hand many fragments contain “gripping images, striking antitheses, resonant and inspired prose rhyme”41 marking them as individually coined speech.42 Through his sermons Ḥasan contributed to awakening the consciousness of sin like no other, paving the way for a typically Basran kind of asceticism. He was not a mystic; he had no inclination to meditation either,43 but he was not simply serving “the powerful” by trivialising the hardships of life on earth. We can never be sure whether some of the other texts attributed to Ḥasan al-Baṣrī might not be apocrypha as well.44 The K. al-Ikhlāṣ, quoted in a Ḥallāj tradition,45 does not assume a definite shape.46 The “Quran commentary” should probably be regarded as some kind of lecture notes written by different people and later evaluated in different ways. A letter to a “brother” in Mecca in which Ḥasan exhorts him not to leave the holy city, which was later circulated under titles like Risālat Faḍāʾil Makka was-sakan fīhā, may have a genuine core, but we know nothing about the addressee, nor why it would have been so disastrous if he left Mecca. The most important redaction of the Tafṣīr went back to ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd (see p. 339f. below). Some material by a second Qadarite transmitter, Mubārak b. Faḍāla, was incorporated into the Iraqi review of Muqātil’s Quran commentary (see p. 77 below). Muqātil himself referred to two other authorities of whom we have no further knowledge: ʿAbd al-Karīm and ʿAbd al-Quddūs (Tafṣīr Muqātil 3, pu. f.). Even Muḥammad al-Ṭūsī, whose Tibyān was firmly in the Muʿtazilite tradition, had two different strands of transmission (qawlān), of which 39  Der Islam 21/1933/12ff. 40  Cf. ibid. 9ff. critical examination of Massignon. The oldest coherent sermon texts are found in Jāḥiẓ, Bayān III 132, 5ff. A new source worth consulting is Ābī, Nathr al-durr V 177ff. 41  Ritter 13. 42  Of course this does not prove that this was genuinely composed by him. ʿAbbās has shown that some of these expressions also occur in the Nahj al-balāgha or elsewhere (p. 15ff.). 43  Schaeder 50f. 44  Cf. GAS 1/592ff. 45   T B VIII 138, 20; Al-ʿuyūn wal-ḥadāʾiq IV 217, 2ff.; Ibn al-Dāʿī, Tabṣira 125, 3ff. 46  But cf. p. 115 below.

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one only may be identical with ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd’s. Among Ḥasan’s idiosyncrasies was that he read malikayn rather than malakayn in sura 2:102: in his view, Hārūt and Mārūt were not two angels but two Chaldean kings (Ibn Ḥazm, Fiṣal IV 33, 11f.; Ibn Qutayba, Ta‌ʾwīl mukhtalif al-ḥadīth 223, 1ff. = 178, apu. ff./misinterpreted in Lecomte’s translation 198 para. 203 a). Angels, he argued, are incapable of disobedience; consequently he did not regard Satan as an angel, either (Māturīdī, Ta‌ʾwīlāt ahl al-sunna I 235, 2ff.). The Muʿtazilite Aṣamm adopted this theory and added to Ḥasan’s arguments (Text XIII 20; concerning the problem cf. Qāḍī ʿIyād, Shifāʾ II 857, 6ff., and Ṭūsī, Tibyān VII 56, 10ff.). Consequently Satan could not have lived in the heavenly paradise where Adam dwelt, but God ensured that he could reach Adam (Māturīdī I 120, 1f.). – In more detail p. 54f. below, and ʿAbbās 151ff.; concerning his offences against correct grammar in his philological explanations cf. Fück, Arabiya 18. Regarding Ḥasan’s qirāʾāt cf. G. Bergsträsser in: Islamica 2/1926/11ff. (and p. 22 concerning sura 2:102). The letter to his “brother” in Mecca survives in a number of manuscripts (GAS 1/592f. no. 4). Fākihī included the entire text in his Ta‌ʾrīkh Makka (cf. Arazi in: JSAI 5/1984/213ff.); it was also circulated in Spain (Ibn Khayr, Fahrasa 298, –5ff.). There is a Persian as well as a Turkish translation (GAS 1/593; Ritter in: Der Islam 21/1933/8, n. 2). However, Muṣṭafā Ḥāmī’s Ottoman version, printed under the title Faḍīlat al-mujāwara in a pilgrims’ booklet in 1280/1863 (Istanbul, Maṭbaʿa-yi ʿĀmira, pp. 2–39), has obviously been revised; it mentions Abū Ḥanīfa (p. 9, 5). Fākihī names the “brother” as ʿAbdallāh b. Ādam; we are told that he was wealthy and had retired to Mecca not for business reasons but simply for contemplation. Then, however, he got the idea to go to Yemen “because of a man from there” (fī sababi rajulin min ahlihā), and Ḥasan found a multitude of Quranic verses, prophetic dicta and other arguments to convince him that Mecca was the better place to be. These details are left uncertain in all the other transmitted versions; the addressee’s name is different even though it is not quite clear whether it was ʿAbd al-Raḥīm or ʿAbd alRaḥmān b. Anas al-Ramādī. Sezgin identifies him with ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Anas al-Sulamī, whom Ṭabarī I 1906, 11 mentions once as a transmitter (GAS 1/592); however, there is nothing to support this assumption. In this version the text provides a long riwāya by way of legitimation; unfortunately the authority who received it from Ḥasan is once again entirely unknown and not always transmitted in the same form. Cf. Sāmī Makkī al-ʿĀnī’s edition (Kuwait 1400/1980), which is based on three manuscripts.

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Ḥasan’s much-discussed summary of Qadarite doctrine, which he is said to have written at ʿAbd al-Malik’s request, is of great theological significance. For a long time research unanimously considered it to be genuine; some ten years ago, by way of adding a full stop to this train of thought, I collected all the arguments in favour.47 Since then, however, scepticism has emerged, the impulse coming from J. Wansbrough who understood the text as evidence of an uṣūl controversy juxtaposing the pure word of scripture on the one hand and the conclusion by analogy and the tradition – going back to the companions or to the prophet himself – on the other.48 M. Cook subsequently criticised my arguments in a thorough analysis.49 This resulted in a dispute concerning the chronology: while I supported a date between 75/694 and 80/699,50 Cook regarded the Risāla as an example of the fictitious “successor-epistle” belonging in the late Umayyad period,51 Wansbrough even going as far as the late second/ eighth century.52 The authenticity of the document cannot, in fact, be proved beyond doubt. We can say that in the years preceding ʿAbd al-Malik’s death (86/705), and before his final rift with Ḥajjāj in Basra, Ḥasan was the right man for the caliph to write to – all the more if he was indeed employed in the administration, as we are assuming. It is also possible to imagine that the caliph had an interest in finding out more about the Qadariyya at a time when he wanted to restore ideological unity in his realm after defeating Ibn al-Zubayr,53 or at the time when Ibn al-Ashʿath’s ideologically motivated uprising erupted in Iraq.54 All of this is, of course, mere hypothesising; the versions of the text transmitted are not consistent, and the way in which Ḥasan emphasises to the caliph that his interpretation is the doctrine of the ancients (in one version going so far as to address the caliph as ʿabd Allāh ʿAbd al-Malik) is really rather self-important.55 In addition this would presume that there were no Qadarites in Syria at the time; but in view of the precision and the detail of its argument it 47   Anfänge 27ff.; this includes a reference to earlier secondary sources. Cf. also the Turkish translation by Y. Kutluay and L. Doğan in: Ankara Üniv. Ilah. Fak. Dergisi 3/1954, issue 3–4/75ff., and the English partial translation, based mainly on M. Schwarz in: Oriens 20/1967/15f., in: Rippin and Knappert, Textual sources for the study of Islam 115ff. 48   Quranic Studies 160ff.; critically: Juynboll, Muslim Tradition 50f. 49   Early Muslim Dogma 117ff. 50   Anfänge 18; also HT 31. 51   Dogma 120 and 153ff. 52   Quranic Studies 163. 53  Thus my theory in Anfänge 6, referring to K. al-Irjāʾ. 54  In response to Cook’s arguments (p. 119). 55  This mode of address only “on the cover”, in the text proper always amīr al-muʾminīn. The emphasis on the salaf is explained by the way in which ʿAbd al-Malik phrased his request;

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is undeniable that Ḥasan’s Risāla presents the beginnings of Qadarite thought. Thus for the time being all we can do, considering our intention to focus on the second century, is to record the following: 1.

During Ḥasan’s later years Qadarite thought did exist as a dogmatic position in Iraq. The most convincing evidence is provided by the verses from a paean to Maslama b. ʿAbd al-Malik in which Ruʾba attacked the Qadarites.56 While Maslama did not die until 120/738 or 121/739, Ruʾba began his panegyric to the Umayyads around 96/715.57 2. Ḥasan was a Qadarite, and that in a rather specific sense. The best definition of his position is found in ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Ṣanʿānī’s Muṣannaf, who heard it from his teacher Maʿmar b. Rashid (d. 154/770): the things that are predestined are the date of one’s death (ajal), one’s personal wealth (rizq), tribulations and good deeds; sins on the other hand originate with man himself, or with Satan.58 3. This “asymmetrical”59 idea of qadar is the one expressed in the Risāla, too.60 It was considered to be characteristic of one particular school61 and was attacked specifically in predestinarian hadith.62 4. “Orthodox” tradition later attempted to clear him of this flaw. The Muʿtazila, on the other hand, was happy to refer to his authority, without, however, ever blurring the differences from its own doctrine (according to which good as well as evil is in man’s power). Cf. the sources in Ritter 60ff. and in Anfänge 27f. Numerous traditions aiming to absolve Ḥasan of the accusation of being a Qadarite also in Fasawī II 38, 10ff. The true circumstances were emphasised by Kufans in

this is the very passage on which Wansbrough based his argument (ed. Ritter in: Der Islam 21/1933/67f.). 56  Ahlwardt, Sammlungen alter arabischer Dichter, p. 6 v. 43ff. 57   G AS 2/367f. He is said to have debated the qadar problem with Dhū l-Rumma (d. 117/735), who was a Qadarite, before Bilāl b. Abī Burda, during the latter’s governorship between 110/728 and 120/738 (Murtaḍā, Amālī I 19, 12ff.); however, the story is probably made up. 58   X I 119 no. 20086. 59  Cook’s description (Dogma 149). 60  Cf. Schwarz in: Oriens 20/1967/23. 61  Malaṭī, Tanbīh 126, 15ff./165, ult. ff. 62   H T 115ff.

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particular (ibid.; also Kardarī, Manāqib Abī Ḥanīfa II 85, 7ff., or Muwaffaq b. Aḥmad, Manāqib II 103, 10ff.). Kashshī presents Ḥasan as the ra‌ʾīs alQadariyya, who would echo the statements made by any sect, and, being power-hungry, dissimulate (Rijāl 97, ult. f.). In his exegesis of the Quran Ḥasan advanced the view that the unbelievers were themselves responsible for their unbelief, and that God would “seal” their hearts only when they exceeded a certain limit (Māturīdī, Ta‌ʾwīlāt 81, 8f., and 42, ult. f.). This corresponds to the attitude expressed in the Risāla (cf. Schwarz in Oriens 20/1967/24). Consequently he read āmarnā in sura 17:16 instead of amarnā, disarming the controversial statement that when God wants a city to perish, he will command those living a life of luxury to transgress (Bergsträsser in: Islamica 2/1926/39). His reading asāʾa instead of ashāʾu in sura 7:156 resulted in God not speaking of himself saying “My chastisement – I smite with it whom I will” but rather “. . . whomever has transgressed” (ibid. 33). It is, however, not possible to rule out entirely that all these readings were only attributed to Ḥasan by a later redaction, maybe ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd’s. Cook compared the different versions of the Risāla in great detail. The version edited by Ritter, which he calls R 1, still provides the most complete and detailed text. There is also an abbreviated version (R 2) which was already collated by Ritter and subsequently edited twice, by Muḥammad ʿImāra (in: Rasāʾil al-ʿadl wal-tawḥīd, Cairo 1971, vol. I 82ff., after a Cairene manuscript) and by ʿAbd al-Amīr Dixon in: Al-muʾtamar ad-duwalī li-ta‌ʾrīkh bilād al-Shām, Amman 1974, p. 57ff.; following the MS consulted by Ritter. This version lacks many of the explicitly Qadarite passages, but the overall character is retained; in places it is even more detailed (cf. Ritter 78 and 79, n.). It is joined by a Muʿtazilite tradition that first became tangible in Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār’s writings (Faḍl 215, ult. ff.) and made its way from there via Ḥākim al-Jushamī to Ibn al-Murtaḍā’s Ṭabaqāt al-Muʿtazila (M 1 – M 3 in Cook). ʿAbd al-Jabbār has only excerpts which at first correspond to R 1, but differ significantly in the second half (Faḍl 218, apu. ff.; with the exception of one small corresponding at 219, –4ff. = Ritter 75, 6ff.). R 2 ends with an added passage in which a third person conveys Ḥasan’s text to the caliph, with appreciative words about the author; it “sounds like a contrived letter from Ḥajjāj to ʿAbd al-Malik” (Ritter 80, n. a; cf. ʿImāra 88, 3ff., and Dixon 63, 13ff.). Ibn al-Murtaḍā mentions Ḥajjāj explicitly (Ṭab. 19. 3f. = M 3) as the one who wrote to Ḥasan. However,

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the two strands (R and M) of the tradition, which had long been separate by this point, did not come together again; Cook was probably correct to assume that both were spinning out the presumed historical context independently of one another (Dogma 118f.). It is not easy to find criteria for an evaluation of R compared to M. Both versions not only present the Qadarite doctrine as requested, but pass into polemic against the predestinarians. R uses more colourful arguments, while M descends ever deeper into a dry list of scriptural evidence the longer it continues. M even contains discussion of one hadith (Faḍl 220, 3ff.; cf. Cook 121); R avoids quoting hadith altogether. M addresses ʿAbd al-Malik as ayyuhā l-amīr every time, which is probably the result of a pietistic redaction. R 1 and R 2 both contain the “address”. In R 2 it is expressed in exactly the form that we would expect in a letter to someone of higher rank: li-ʿAbd alMalik min Ḥasan b. Abī l-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī. In R 1, on the other hand, Ḥasan names himself first: min al-Ḥasan . . . This “impolite” order was not entirely without parallel at the time. The Syrian Khālid b. Maʿdān had also used it in a letter to the caliph (AZ 350 no. 751; see vol. I 131 above), as did ʿAbdallāh b. ʿUmar in Medina; this style, it was claimed in the context, had been used when writing to Muʿāwiya (Ibn Manẓūr, Mukhtaṣar TD XXIX 215, 7f.). But Ibn ʿUmar was the son of a caliph, and Khālid b. Maʿdān a respected tribal leader, while Ḥasan was only a mawlā. The lack of any of ʿAbd al-Malik’s titles in R 2 is also worth noting; a chancellery official would not have permitted himself such a slip. In its Muʿtazilite version the Risāla was refuted by the Ḥanbalite Najm al-Dīn al-Ṭūfī as late as the turn of the eighth/fourteenth century; the short treatise is entitled K. darʾ al-qawl al-qabīḥ bil-taḥsīn wal-taqbīḥ and survives in the manuscript collection Şehit Ali 2315 (cf. Ṭūfī, ʿAlam al-jadhal 123, 3f.). – Shīʿite tradition also knows of a correspondence between Ḥasan al-Baṣrī and Ḥasan b. ʿAlī on the same subject, in which the latter espouses an entirely predestinarian attitude. Ḥasan himself takes on the role of the inquirer; he would not have been twenty yet at the time when Ḥasan b. ʿAlī was recognised as caliph in Iraq. The text is found in Ḥarrānī, Tuḥaf al-ʿuqūl 162, 4ff. and in Biḥār V 40f. no. 63 as well as 123f. no. 71; in a Tehran MS (Univ. Bibl. 1022) it is even transmitted together with the Risāla to ʿAbd al-Malik. The oldest record appears to be Shalmaghānī’s K. al-taklīf that would later be known under the name of Fiqh al-Riḍā (cf. Mudarrisī, Introd. to Ḥākim al-Jushamī, Risālat Iblīs 4f.).

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2.2.2.1 The Qadariyya When it came to hadith, Ḥasan al-Baṣrī had not exercised any particular care.1 A gradual change took place over the following generations; among his pupils we already find some who would become indispensable to the science of tradition later. More than a few of them, possibly even the majority, were Qadarites like he; if this was known, they are mentioned as such in rijāl works. Until the third century they did not have to fear criticism in the city greatly. Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal had no choice but to accept the Qadarites among his Basran authorities because, as he said, on closer inspection they made up around a third of the resident muḥaddithūn,2 and Muqaddasī would write around 380/990 that the majority of Basrans were Shīʿites (sic!) and Qadarites.3 In Kufa it was said that each of them claimed to provide his own guidance.4 Nowhere else do we find isnāds that are Qadarite for generations;5 and nowhere else do we hear so clearly that Qadarite traditionists were preferred to the “orthodox” colleagues6 or that people had a great following whose reputation would later not be among the best.7 Like the Murjiʾa in Kufa the Qadariyya in Basra was not really a “sect”; the Muʿtazila was the first to cause offence. It is remarkable that neither Ashʿarī nor Baghdādī or Shahrastānī used the term as classifying criterion in their heresiographical works. Outside of Ashʿarite heresiographical tradition the term Qadariyya sometimes replaced the Muʿtazila entirely, thus e.g. in Abū Muṭīʿ al-Nasafī. Kulīnī, Kāfī I 351, –6 makes clear that both groups were still distinguished in Kufa after 150/767 (concerning the text see vol. I 403, n. 66 above). Regarding the origin of the word Qadariyya cf. HT 122ff. In fact, it did not refer to the school or “sect” only but also to the doctrine: cf. qadariyyatī “my Qadarite convictions” in TB VII 147, 15. 1  Ritter 2f.; ʿAbbās 144ff.; Juynboll, Muslim Tradition 49ff. 2  T B XII 200, 1ff. and TT VIII 114, 11 with reference to Abū Qaṭan ʿAmr b. al-Haytham who died 198/814 (see p. 84f. below). 3  Aḥsan al-taqāsīm 126, 13f. This raises the question of whether he included the Muʿtazilites among the Qadarites. 4  Ibn al-Faqīh, Buldān 168, 16f.; similar also Kardarī, Manāqib Abī Ḥanīfa II 85, 7ff. with reference to Ḥasan al-Baṣrī. 5  See p. 84f. below. 6  See p. 76 below. 7  See p. 80f. below. For general information cf. also HT 62ff.

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Nevertheless we must consider the type of our sources. The rijāl books reveal how much Qadarite thought in Basra infiltrated even such an “orthodox” sector as hadith. Of course they only cover those traditionists who were conspicuous as Qadarites either because of their material or their behaviour; there is proof that there were more of their kind. We can also safely assume that circumstances were no different in the rest of the population, even though the only reliable information we have in that regard concerns grammarians and philologists – probably because they engaged in Quranic exegesis and betrayed their true colours in that way.8 On the other hand, “Qadarite” does not necessarily always mean one and the same thing. As opposed to, e.g., “Muʿtazilite”, this term only emphasises one particular aspect of someone’s personal religious conviction; it was possible to be a Qadarite and at the same time a Khārijite or Murjiʾite. Furthermore there was more than one variety of the doctrine. Ḥasan’s “asymmetrical” model would find followers until the first half of the third century,9 but Malaṭī listed six further varieties10 and Abū Muṭīʿ al-Nasafī as many as twelve.11 This shows much superfluous systematising, but maybe also the occasional correct observation. Thus we do not know who the Aḥmad was who, according to Abū Muṭīʿ, believed that God’s justice implied that man had to make all his own decisions,12 or which Qadarites claimed that God could not have created Satan.13 Qatāda, on the other hand, attracted the accusation of being a Qadarite simply by saying sin was provoked by Satan.14 2.2.2.1.1 Qadarite Ideas in hadith Conscientious collectors, especially those who came from out of town, attempted to select some from among their colleagues in Basra. ʿAbdallah b. al-Mubārak (d. 181/797) transmitted from Saʿīd b. Abī ʿArūba and Hishām alDastuwāʾī,1 even from ʿAbd al-Wārith b. Saʿīd,2 but not from ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd, because the former “kept their mouths shut”.3 A Muʿtazilite was regarded 8  Regarding them see p. 97ff. below. 9  Cook, Dogma 205, n. 28. 10   Tanbīh 126, 14ff./165, pu. ff. 11   Ar-radd ʿalā l-bidaʿ 87, 14ff. 12  A Muʿtazilite? Cf. Radd 87, 15ff.; also p. 20f. above. 13  Ibid. 90, 5ff. 14  See p. 158f. below. 1  Regarding them see p. 69ff. below. 2  Regarding him see p. 367ff. below. 3  Fasawī, Maʿrifa II 263, 8f.; Dhahabī, Ta‌ʾrīkh VI 109, 10ff.

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simply as a dāʿiya “propagandist”.4 This criterion took hold only gradually; for a time hadiths were transmitted from ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd as well.5 But this would soon lead to traditions being withdrawn from circulation if they clearly expressed a Qadarite point of view: only very few examples of this kind survive.6 This gives rise to the question of how those who did not “engage in propaganda” could be recognised as Qadarites? Of course the opinions of pupils and contemporaries played a part, but there were also objective criteria. Some motifs in the hadiths transmitted could awaken suspicion, even if they had nothing in common with the doctrine of free will. Praising reason (ʿaql) was among them; the conclusion that it was reason that gave man the faculty of decision suggested itself. Still, this was not incontrovertible evidence as there were also ascetics and Shīʿites who, while not seeing themselves as Qadarites, set great store by reason.7 Another motif was clearer, and it seems to have evolved in Basra in particular: the part played by certain harmful animals in the plan of divine salvation. Much thought was devoted to snakes and stinging insects. “He who omits to kill a snake out of fear of its revenge will be smitten by the curse of God and the angels” was transmitted, or “We have not made peace with them since we declared war on them” or, even more directly, “He who kills a snake kills an unbeliever”.8 The latter sounds like an allusion to popular ideas of transmutation, and would later be understood as such.9 In Basra, however, that was probably not how it was understood, as the Basran ascetic Rabīʿ b. Ṣabīḥ10 had heard from ʿAṭāʾ al-Khurāsānī: “What the snakes were accused of was, among other things, that they did not show themselves. He who (!) among them shows himself, may be killed. Fighting them is like fighting unbelievers. Only a doubter will fail to kill them”.11 Of the stinging insects only the bees found mercy, all others ending in the fires of hell.12 How different the destiny of the sheep: “Wash the snot off the sheep and clean their pens of thorns and rocks, for they 4  Concerning this term see vol. I 70 above. 5  Cf. al Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī, Kifāya 124, 10ff. with reference to ʿAlī b. ʿĀṣim al-Ṣiddīqī (d. 201/816); concerning him see p. 364f. below. 6  They are listed in vol. I 266 above, and p. 61ff. below, among the prosopographical material. A summary may be found in HT 68ff. and 119ff. 7  See p. 137ff. below; also vol. I 416. 8  Jāḥiẓ, Ḥayawān IV 293, 1f. and pu. ff., with Qadarite Basran isnād in both cases (see p. 73f. below). 9  Cf. ch. 3.2.2.2.7.3 below. 10  Regarding him see p. 121 below. 11   Ḥayawān IV 294, 3ff. 12  Ibid. III 392, 4ff. (cf. p. 80f. and p. 89f. below); cf. also p. 56 and 65.

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shall be in paradise”;13 and even, in fact, the frogs: “Do not rail against the frogs, for their croaking praises God”.14 Now while it is clearly true that similar hadiths were also found outside Basra: Jāḥiẓ who, being a Basran, naturally relied on local material first, also has other instances,15 it cannot be overlooked that the Basran Muʿtazila would later use these examples to illustrate the theodicy problem.16 “More than a few mutakallimūn” believed that some animals would go to paradise, others to hell.17 The perspective had changed by Jāḥiẓ’ time: he believed that flies formed an “army” with which God would punish and destroy evildoers,18 or that snakes, scorpions and similar creatures were meant to be a trial for humans.19 Originally, however, it is likely that harmful animals were condemned or fought simply because they caused harm. People at the time were well aware that they were moving very close to Zoroastrian ideas. The magi persecuted snakes and scorpions as being creatures of evil; even the New Testament counts them among the “power of the enemy”.20 Hell is teeming with them, Ahriman created them.21 The Dēnkart polemicised against the idea that God might also have created wolves,22 and Jāḥiẓ was amused by the Mazdaist idea that the mouse was created by God, the cat on the other hand by Satan.23 This was not what the Qadarites intended to express. They were not thinking of an anti-creation. But they did embrace a controversial issue, and calling them the “Zoroastrians of the community” might have alluded to this, too.

13  Ibid. V 503, pu. ff. (also p. 766f. below). 14  Ibid. V 536, 3f. (also p. 73f. below). 15  Regarding Kufa cf. Mīzān IV 424, 8ff. (no. 9695), or Majlisī, Biḥār LXIV 267 no. 22f., and 269ff. no. 32ff. (on snakes); regarding Syria cf. the hadith by Waḍīn b. ʿAṭāʾ after Yazīd b. Marthad: “A spider is a devil, therefore you should kill it!” (Suyūṭī, La‌ʾālī I 161, –4f.; concerning the isnād see vol. I 93 above). General: Conc. I 544f. s. v. ḥaiya. 16  See ch. C 1.3.2.1.3 and 3.2.2.2.4.2.2.2 concerning Text XVI 44; cf. Geries in: SI 52/1980/85f. 17   Ḥayawān IV 288, 7ff. 18  Ibid. III 304, 2ff. 19  Ibid. III 300, 3ff. 20  Luke 10:19. 21  Thus already Abū Qurra, Mīmar fī wujūd al-khāliq 207, 6f.; cf. Widengren, Religionen Irans 113f. and Boyce, Zoroastrians 44 (cf. also the Herodotus quotation ibid. 76). 22  Transl. de Menasce 100 para. 94 and 102 para. 96 (end). 23   Ḥayawān IV 298, 4ff. and V 219, pu. ff. Cf. also Text XV 36, a.

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S. and G. G. Stroumsa have recently sought to see this apocryphal prophetic dictum as reference to the Manichaean background of the qadar debate (HTR 81/1988/54f.). However, primarily the emphasis was rather different (HT 137ff.). Others who also deliberated on the deeper purpose of vermin were the Stoics, the Jews, and the Early Church Fathers (cf. passages in Hengel, Judentum und Hellenismus 3262ff. and Ormsby, Theodicy 56, n. 77). 2.2.2.1.2 Qadarite Traditionists Many of the muḥaddithūn whom we must discuss in the following will remain rather colourless. They did not intervene in politics; the Qadarite doctrine was above all an ideology for the middle class. Some have simply been forgotten, in particular some of Ḥasan’s pupils whose names survive only on one list of Qadarites in Jāḥiẓ’ K. al-amṣār1 or in occasional Kufan documents. Then there are others who were remembered from time to time but whom only Jāḥiẓ – who, having himself grown up in Basra, presumably is a reliable source – identified as Qadarites; later “orthodox” tradition was unaware of this despite grave individual concerns. This may be due to the fact that Ḥasan’s “asymmetric” point of view allowed a variety of determinist statements among which the one characteristic deviation, the “freedom to commit sins”, vanished; if someone was forgotten, it was probably not because he had been too extreme a Qadarite, but because Ḥasan held barely any interest for professional muḥaddithūn. The following list is chronological as far as possible; some persons, however, can only be dated approximately as we have no precise information. It should start with Qatāda, but he will be discussed later, among the jurists.2 Other Qadarites can be found in the chapter on ascetics, on the Ibāḍiyya, or on the circle of ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd’s pupils.3 Biographical sources which do not furnish information on Qadarite leanings are marked in the respective sections with “cf. also . . .”.4

1  See vol. I 71 above. 2  See p. 155ff. below. 3  See p. 103ff., 232ff. and 366ff. below. 4  Kaʿbī’s extensive unique materials have been ignored in the main. Unlike Jāḥiẓ, he collected second-hand, and his sources would have to be examined first.

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2.2.2.1.2.1

The Generation Following Ḥasan al-Baṣrī

Abū Muʿādh ʿAṭāʾ b. Abī Maymūna Manīʿ al-Baṣrī, mawlā of Anas b. Mālik1 and Ḥasan’s pupil, died in the “year of the plague” 131/7482 or later.3 In Ḥammād b. Zayd’s (d. 179/795)4 view he was among those who mistakenly presented Ḥasan as a Qadarite: he is said to have called on Ḥasan together with Maʿbad al-Juhanī before Ibn al-Ashʿath’s uprising and complained to him that the Umayyads claimed that all the wrongs they were committing against the Muslims were predestined, whereupon Ḥasan said: “God’s enemies tell lies”. This led him to conclude that Ḥasan rejected predestination.5 Later there would be debates on whether ʿAṭāʾ himself was a prominent Qadarite or not.6 Ibn Saʿd already noted his views and so would many later authors such as Bukhārī,7 Ibn Abī Ḥātim,8 ʿUqaylī,9 Dhahabī,10 Ibn Ḥajar,11 Suyūṭī,12 as well as Muʿtazilite sources,13 all of these probably second-hand. The Muʿtazilite sources made the same claim concerning his son Rawḥ b. ʿAṭāʾ b. Abī Maymūna,14 who also transmitted from Ḥasan. Zakariyyāʾ b. Yaḥyā al-Sājī (d. 307/920), a Basran and Ashʿarī’s teacher,15 confirmed this in his K. al-Ḍuʿafāʾ.16 Others, on

1  Fasawī III 397, 12. 2  Thus Kaʿbī 99, 4ff.; concerning the date see p. 271 below. 3  Thus IS VII2 13, 3ff. 4  Regarding him cf. EI2, Suppl. 384b. 5  ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ III 404, 2ff.; Ibn Qutayba (Maʿārif 441, 7ff.) has ʿAṭāʾ b. Yasār tell the story of ʿAṭāʾ b. Abī Maymūna. 6  TT VII 216, 2ff. 7  Ta‌ʾrīkh III2 469 no. 3012. 8  Jarḥ III1 337 no. 1862. 9  Ḍuʿafāʾ III 404, 1. 10   Mīzān no. 5650, and Ta‌ʾrīkh al-Islām V 280, 6ff. 11   T T VII 215, apu. and Hady al-sārī II 148, 14. 12   Tadrīb al-rāwī I 329, 4. 13  Kaʿbī 99, 4ff. > Faḍl 343, 8 > IM 138, 13. 14  Kaʿbī 106, 1 > Faḍl 343, 8 > IM 138, 13 (here incorrectly Mufarrij instead of Rawḥ). 15  Regarding him see GAS 1/349f. 16  Ibn Ḥajar, Lisān al-mīzān II 467, 3; cf. also Dhahabī, Ta‌ʾrīkh loc. cit.

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the other hand, regarded him as merely “weak” and his hadith as “objectionable” (munkar).17 Abū Sahl ʿAwf b. Abī Jamīla Bandōya (?) al-Aʿrābī, b. between 57/677 and 59/679,18 d. 146/763;19 mawlā of the Ṭayyiʾ, transmitted from Ḥasan. He was one of his oldest pupils and had studied with him even before Ibn al-Ashʿath’s uprising.20 His traditions are quoted by Jāḥiẓ several times, in Bayān as well as in Ḥayawān; he seems to have enjoyed great esteem in Basra. He is described as a Qadarite by Ibn Qutayba,21 ʿUqaylī,22 Dhahabī,23 Ibn Ḥajar,24 and the Muʿtazilite sources.25 However, he was also a Shīʿite,26 as is clearly shown by his traditions as published by Ṭabarī.27 He appears to have followed his teacher closely in his Qadarite views. He transmitted the following dictum from him: “He who denies predestination, denies Islam. There is divine predestination: God created humans (al-khalq) due to predestination, he apportioned the manner of death due to predestination, he apportioned his gifts (arzāq) according to predestination, he apportioned health according to predestination, and God gave commandments and prohibitions”.28 Only those who had ears to hear noticed that human action, the reaction to “commandments and prohibitions”, was left out. Consequently ʿAwf disagreed when Mūsā al-Uswārī referred to Ḥasan when remarking that humans could influence the time of their death.29 He seems to have had differences with ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd as well; he suspected him of transmitting certain prophetic dicta only because

17  ʿUqaylī II 57f. no. 494; Mīzān no. 2806. 18  Concerning his birthdate cf. Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 272, 12, and Fasawī II 267, 8f. 19  Fasawī I 130, 11; IS VII2 22, 14; Khalīfa, Ṭab. 527, 2, and Ta‌ʾrīkh 652, 5. 20   I S VII2 22, 13f. 21   Maʿārif 625, 10. 22   Ḍuʿafāʾ III 429 no. 1471. 23   Mīzān, no. 6530. 24   T T VIII 166 no. 301, and Hady al-sārī II 155, –9. 25  Kaʿbī 89, 11ff. > Faḍl 341, apu. f. > IM 137, 12. 26  Cf. e.g. IS VII2 22, 8f., where he is listed only as such; also Fasawī III 135, 8. 27  Cf. e.g. I 1579, 2ff.; also I 3136, 13ff. 28  Fasawī II 47, apu. f. and earlier. 29  See p. 91f. below.

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of his dogmatic viewpoint,30 and he disapproved of him pretending that their mutual teacher Ḥasan’s dicta were hadiths.31 Abū l-Faḍl Khālid b. Rabāḥ al-Hudhalī, a pupil of Ḥasan’s. He was esteemed on account of his polished language (ʿarabiyya), but people thought him ruined by Qadarite inclinations. A Qadarite according to Kaʿbī 98, 11ff.; Bukhārī II1 148 no. 508; Ibn Ḥibbān, Majrūḥīn I 281, 3ff.; ʿUqaylī II 5 no. 403; Mīzān no. 2421; Lisān al-Mīzān II 375. Cf. also IAH I2 330 no. 1482. ʿAnbasa b. Saʿīḍ al-Naḍrī al-Qaṭṭān al-Wāsiṭī, a pupil of Ḥasan’s.32 He appears to have transmitted Qadarite hadith directly, but as he was much respected otherwise, people claimed that he had been “mad” at times.33 The discredited material probably included the animal traditions which Jāḥiẓ preserved in his K. al- Ḥayawān.34 A Qadarite according to Mīzān no. 6503; TT VIII 157ff,; Kaʿbī 106, 2f. (after Dāwūd al-Iṣfahānī) > Faḍl 343, 12f. Cf. also IAH III1 399 no. 2231; ʿUqaylī III 366 no. 1404. – His brother Abū l-Rabīʿ al-Ashʿath b. Saʿd al-Sammān was also suspected of Qadarite leanings, although in his case this was generally assumed to be slander (TT I 352, 4). However, the Muʿtazilite sources repeated the suspicion (Kaʿbī 106, 2 > Faḍl 343, 12 > IM 139, 4). On his reputation cf. also Bukhārī I1 430 no. 1386, and Mīzān no. 995. Both were apparently members of the merchant class. Abū Ismāʿīl ʿAlī b. Nijād al-Yashkurī al-Rifāʿī transmitted from Ḥasan. He seems to have been esteemed highly by Shuʿba.35

30  Muslim, Muqaddima I 22, 10ff. 31   I S VII2 22, 9ff. The difficulties Sachau had with the passage (cf. ibid. p. lv f.) can be resolved in part, but l. 12 remains problematic. 32  Cf. e.g. Jāḥiẓ, Bayān II 108, 10ff. 33   T T VIII 157, 14f. and earlier. 34   I II 392, apu. ff., and V 503, 7ff.; cf. p. 59f. above. 35  Fasawī II 250, 5f.

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A Qadarite according to Kaʿbī 99, 13ff. > Faḍl 343, 9 > IM 138, 15 (which incorrectly states al-Daqqāq instead of al-Rifāʿī); confirmed by ʿUqaylī III 240 no. 1238 > Mīzān no. 5895 and TT VII 366 no. 591. Cf. also Bukhārī III2 288 no. 2424; IAH III1 196f. no. 1080; Abū Nuʿaym, Ḥilya VI 310ff.; Ibn Ḥibbān, Majrūḥīn II 112, 9ff. Abū Ḥamza Isḥāq b. al-Rabīʿ al-ʿAṭṭār36 al-Ubullī al-Baṣrī transmitted from Ḥasan and Ibn Sīrīn. A Qadarite according to Faḍl 342, –4f. > IM 138, 8, and TT I 232. Regarding his reputation cf. also Fasawī III 234, 1f. Also Bukhārī I1 386 no. 1237; IAH I1 220 no. 756; Mīzān no. 754. Abū ʿUmāra (or Abū ʿAmmār) Ḥamza b. Najīḥ al-Aʿwar37 transmitted from Ḥasan. Mūsā b. Ismāʿīl al-Tabūdhakī al-Baṣrī (d. 223/838) described him as a Muʿtazilite;38 but even Muʿtazilite sources regarded him as nothing more than a Qadarite.39 – Yazīd b. Hārūn (d. 206/821) said the same of Sahl b. Abī l-Ṣalt al-Sarrāj al-ʿAyshī, another pupil of Ḥasan’s who appears to have been a saddler. No Muʿtazilite leanings were perceivable in his hadith, and the Muʿtazilite sources are silent on him. Cf. ʿUqaylī II 156f. no. 660 > Mīzān no. 3582. Bukhārī II2 101 no. 2103 without reference; IAH II1 200 no. 862; TT IV 254f. no. 437. Abū Jabala b. ʿAbdallāh al-Dārimī, a goldsmith, transmitted from Ḥasan that ʿUmar condemned a thief to forty lashes after having his hand cut off when the thief claimed that predestination

36  In TT incorrect: al-ʿUṭāridī. 37  Concerning this laqab cf. Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 280 no. 1807. However, the connection is not entirely certain. 38  Bukhārī II1 52 no. 196 > ʿUqaylī I 290 no. 355; Mīzān no. 2309; TT III 34 no. 55 . 39   Faḍl 342, 18 > IM 138, 7. Surprisingly Kaʿbī does not list him. Cf. IAH I2 216 no. 951.

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led him astray. However, he had to confess to having made the story up out of thin air and was forced to confirm this in writing in front of witnesses.40 – ʿAbdarraḥmān (b.) al-Aṣamm a Qadarite according to ʿUqaylī III 4f. no. 960 and TT VI 141 no. 288,41 was another quite interesting case. He had been, presumably in his youth, muʾadhdhin to al-Ḥajjāj. If he already held Qadarite convictions at the time, they would not have worried the governor. In later years he spent most of his time in Madāʾin. – Jāḥiẓ’ list furthermore contains the following names: Abū Rajāʾ Muḥammad b. Sayf al-Azdī al-Ḥuddānī, d. c. 130/748. He transmitted from Ḥasan42 and composed a Tafsīr of which not even a trace has survived.43 Is he identical with Muḥammad b. Sayf b. ʿAlī who was part of Ḥasan’s qirāʾa tradition via an intermediary?44 Abū l-Haytham Qaṭan b. Kaʿb al-Quṭaʿī al-Zubaydī. Thus only Kaʿbī 107, 3. Cf. also IAH III2 138 no. 776 and TT VIII 381f. no. 676. Regarding his grandson see p. 85 below. Abū Yūnus Salm b. Zarīr al-ʿUṭāridī, d. c. 160/777.45 Jāḥiẓ testimony loses some conviction as the father’s name was written differently by Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār,46 whose text was based on Kaʿbī, and by Ḥākim al-Jushamī, too.

40   Mīzān no. 2386. Regarding him also IAH I2 248 no. 1103. 41  Cf. also Bukhārī III1 259 no. 836. 42  Khalīfa, Ṭab. 523 bi, 1820; IS VII2 22, 3ff.; IAH III2 281 no. 1519; TT IX 217 no. 337. 43  Kaʿbī 107, 2f.; Ibn al-Nadīm, Fihrist 37, 2f.; Dāwūdī, Ṭabaqāt al-mufassirīn II 154f. no. 498. 44  Ibn al-Jazarī, Ṭabaqāt al-qurrāʾ II 152 no. 3058. 45  Kaʿbī 107, 3f.; cf. also Mīzān no. 3370 and TT IV 130f. no. 220. 46   Faḍl 343, –4.

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Abū ʿĀmir Ṣāliḥ b. Rustum al-Khazzāz al-Muzanī, a silk merchant and client of the Muzayna,47 d. 152/769. He transmitted the same moderate creed from Ḥasan as ʿAwf b. Abī Jamīla.48 Kaʿbī 107, 4 > Faḍl 343, apu. > IM 139, 6. Cf. also IAH II1 403 no. 1764; ʿUqaylī II 203 no. 732; Mīzān no. 3791; TT IV 391 no. 658. According to Jāḥiẓ his son ʿAbdallāh (Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār: ʿUbaydallāh) was a Qadarite. However, the latter is not on record anywhere else, biographers mentioning only another son named ʿĀmir (TT V 70 no. 113). Abū Naʿāma ʿAmr b. ʿĪsā b. Suwayd al-ʿAdawī, a nephew of Isḥāq b. Suwayd’s who attacked Wāṣil and ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd in a poem.49 He lived to be very old;50 before his death his memory grew so weak that he was unable to tell isnāds apart. This is what the term ikhtalaṭa usually refers to (cf. e.g. Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 19 no. 82, 110 no. 662, 168 no. 1030, 373 no. 2471, and 371 no. 2480f.); more generally it can mean “to be confused, to be mad” (Abū Nuʿaym, Ḥilya V 165, 13f.; vol. I 343, n. 63 above). Regarding him see Kaʿbī 107, 5 > Faḍl 343, pu. > IM 139, 7; cf. also Mīzān no. 6418, TT VIII 87 no. 130. Abū Diḥya Ḥawshab b. ʿAqīl al-Jarmī and/or al-ʿAbdī51 was an authority of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Mahdī’s.52 Ibn Ḥanbal considered him to be reliable53 with the result that he enjoyed a good reputation later, too.54 – Two further muḥaddithūn, they, too, apparently Ḥasan’s pupils, cannot 47  Khalīfa, Ṭab. 533 no. 1864. 48  Fasawī II 47, 10ff.; see p. 63 above. 49  See p. 273 below. 50  Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 155, 7. 51  Kaʿbī 107, 5 > Faḍl 344, 1 > IM 138, 6. 52  Fasawī II 114, 2ff. and III 123, 9f.; regarding him see p. 88f. below. 53   ʿIlal 51 no. 291; 179, ult. ff.; 298 no. 1938. 54  Bukhārī II1 100 no. 348; IAH I2 280f. no. 1253; ʿUqaylī I 298 no. 372; Mīzān no. 2380; TT III 65, –5ff.

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be identified at all: Ḥasan b. ʿAbdallāh al-ʿAṭṭār55 and Jahm b. Yazīd al-ʿAbdī.56 The same is true of a certain Yūnus b. Bashīr named together with Wāṣil and ʿAmr b. ʿUabyd as a Qadarite pupil of Ḥasan’s57 by Abū Ḥanīfa’s biographers Muwaffaq b. Aḥmad al-Khwārizmī (d. 568/1172) and Kardarī (d. 642/1244). Ghaylān b. Jarīr, however, who is also mentioned with him there, seems to be identical with Ghaylān b. Jarīr al-Maʿwalī al-Azdī, who appears to have been connected with the Qadarite ascetic Muṭarrif b. ʿAbdallāh b. al-Shikhkhīr58 and died in 129/747. Once again the experts of the jarḥ wal-taʿdīl would seem to have been ignorant of this inclination. Regarding him cf. IS VII2 9, 8f.; Bukhārī IV1 101f. no. 455; IAH III2 52f. no. 297; TT VIII 253f. – Another possibility is a certain Ghaylān, who has not been identified further, whom we find mentioned as a Qadarite in Ibadite sources. However, this is more likely to refer to Ghaylān al-Dimashqī. A final early Qadarite from Jāḥiẓ’ list, Bukayr b. Abī l-Samīṭ, a mawlā of the Mismaʿī’,59 transmitted little from Ḥasan; he was more focussed on Qatāda. However, he also transmitted form Ibn Sīrīn who died in the same year as Ḥasan. He was blind. The name is misspelt in Kaʿbī 107, 7 > Faḍl 344, 1 > IM 139, 8. The correct reading was pointed out by Fück in: OLZ 59/1964/374. More information on him in Ibn Ḥibbān, Majrūḥīn I 195, 4f.; Mīzān no. 1305; TT I 490 no. 904.

55  Kaʿbī 107, 5f. > Faḍl 343, ult. > IM 139, 8. 56  Kaʿbī 107, 6 > Faḍl 343, pu. f. > IM 139, 7. 57   Manāqib Abī Ḥanīfa II 103, pu. f. and 86, 3 (in the former, earlier, passage only as “Yūnus”). 58  Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 103, pi. f. and 195, 1; Fasawī II 80, pu. ff., and 90, apu. ff. (which also confirms the connection with Ḥasan al-Baṣrī). 59  Cf. ch. C 4.2.4.3 below.

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The Middle Generation

The following traditionists are slightly younger and widely documented. Abū Saʿīd al-Ḥasan b. Dīnār1 al-Tamīmī transmitted from Ḥasan al-Baṣrī and Qatāda, among others. He had a great following in Basra;2 maybe his audience enjoyed hearing the hadith according to which the angels surrounding the throne speak Persian (Darī), and that God, too, proclaims his revelations in Persian when he is in a good humour, and in Arabic only when he is enraged.3 He did not seem to have any qualms transmitting from written material of which he was not the author.4 Ṭabarī mentions him several times as a transmitter, in one instance together with ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd.5 Famous people such as Ibn al-Mubārak,6 Wakīʿ b. al-Jarrāḥ,7 and even ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Mahdī8 are said to have kept their distance from him. Fasawī, however, compiled good as well as bad opinions of him.9 These were probably influenced by his circulating hadiths in praise of intelligence.10 Qadarite according to Kaʿbī 91, 6f. and 103, 9 (also 105, ult., under the name of “Ḥasan b. Wāṣil” after a list by Dāwūd al-Iṣfahānī) > Faḍl 342, 2f. > IM 137, 15; Naysābūrī, Maʿrifat ʿulūm al-ḥadīth 137, pu.; ʿUqaylī I 122f. no. 271; Mīzān no. 1843; Lisān al-Mīzān II 205, 2f. Cf. also Bukhārī I2 292 no. 2513; IAH I2 11f. no. 37; Anfänge 57. Abū Bakr Hishām b. Abī ʿAbdallāh Sanbar al-Dastuwāʾī al-Rabaʿī, d. 152/768 or 153/770,11 allegedly aged 78. He was a mawlā of the Sadūs and consequently close to Qatāda, who was a member of the same tribe. People believed that he was the younger by only seven or eight years, but the various

1  Or: “b. Wāṣil”. Dīnār was his stepfather. 2  Fasawī III 34, 7f. 3  Ibn Ḥibbān, Majrūḥīn I 232, –5ff. 4  IS VII2 37, 9ff.; also Azmi, Studies 131 no. 95. 5  I 299, 15ff.: both according to Ḥasan al-Baṣrī. 6  Regarding him see p. 618ff. below. 7  Regarding him see vol. I 271 above. 8  Regarding him see p. 88f. below. 9  Cf. III 63, 2ff. and II 127, 13f., and III 141, 11f.; also II 17, 4ff. 10  Ibn Ḥibbān, Rawḍat al-ʿuqalāʾ 4, 7f. 11   I S VII2 37, 19ff.; Khalīfa, Ṭab. 531 no. 1851 etc.

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pieces of information do not quite add up.12 It is true that he transmitted a great amount of material from Qatāda;13 he was a Qadarite14 but of a similarly moderate persuasion. For while it is said that he rejected the compulsion (jabr) to evil,15 he did adopt a prophetic dictum from Qatāda according to which no one who recited the shahāda and performed even the smallest of good deeds would remain in the fires of hell for eternity.16 Humans who were not aware of the revelation, or who could not grasp it because they were deaf or feebleminded, would not be able to enter paradise, but hell would cool down for them.17 Some of his hadiths recommended deeper piety and renunciation of the world; he also spread apocryphal dicta of Jesus.18 This was the reason why Abū Nuʿaym included him in his Ḥilya;19 Ibn al-Jawzī followed his example.20 His prestige in Basra was great: while he did not have the greatest following,21 he was referred to as the “commander of the faithful in hadith”.22 As a lawyer he followed the line of Ḥasan al-Baṣrī and Ibn Sīrīn.23 It seems that he was no friend of the Abbasids. Abū Muslim is said to have sworn revenge on him because he ranked ʿUthmān above ʿAlī.24 One wonders why he came to Abū Muslim’s attention in particular; after all, he was a long way from Basra. But Hishām had business connections to Iran; he sold silk fabrics imported from Dastawā in Ahwāz.25 He was probably the agent of one of the merchants there: sometimes his name is given as Hishām ṣāḥib al-Dastuwāʾī.26 12  See p. 155f. below. 13  Azmi, Studies 98; also AZ 469 no. 1214, and 452 no. 1137. 14  Confirmed IS VII2 37, 16; Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 237 no. 1491; Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif 625, 9; al-Khaṭīb, Kifāya 125, 13, and TB XII 184, 15; Mīzān no. 9229, and TH 164 no. 159; TT XI 43, and Hady al-sārī II 169, 15; Kaʿbī 94, 10ff. > ? > IM 138, 1f. Nothing in IAH IV2 59ff. no. 240. 15  Kaʿbī 94, 13f. 16  Fasawī II 257, 12ff.; slightly differently Ḥilya VI 286, 8ff. 17  Ibn Ḥazm, Fiṣal IV 79, 11ff., once again as hadith following Qatāda. 18   Ḥilya IV 280, 7ff., and 279, 6ff.; Ājurrī, Akhlāq al-ʿulamāʾ 101, 6 (allegedly “from a book”). 19  Ibid. VI 278ff. 20   Ṣifa III 262f.; early traces already in IS VII2 37, 16ff. 21  Fasawī III 34, 7; cf. p. 81f. below. 22  This went back to Abū Dāwūd al-Ṭayālisī (d. 203/818; Mīzān no. 9229). Concerning the importance of Hishām cf. also Azmi, Studies 133. 23  Shīrāzī, Ṭabaqāt al-fuqahāʾ 90, 9. 24  Jāḥiẓ, Burṣān 136, 6ff. 25  Bukhārī IV2 198, 12; Samʿānī, Ansāb V 348, 1f.; Yāqūt, Muʿjam al-buldān s. v. Dastawā. The Dastawā region, from Pers. Dastabā or Dastbē, was north of Sāwa (cf. also Schwarz, Iram 383). 26  Jāḥiẓ, Ḥayawān V 536, pu.; Ibn al-Mubārak, Zuhd 419, 1.

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One of his business partners was based in Wāsiṭ.27 He was probably of Iranian origin as his father’s name Sanbar is unlikely to mean “expert, specialist” as suggested by Abū ʿAmr Ibn al-ʿAlāʾ,28 but goes back to a Persian proper name such as Σαμβάρης or Σαναβάρης.29 The manufacturers in Dastawā were Ibāḍites; they gave him their goods together with instruction to distribute them among the Bedouin in the Kalb area between Iraq and Syria in order to win them over to the Ibāḍiyya. He is said to have hoped, in true Qadarite spirit, that their racial pride might be tempered by the Islamic ideal of equality.30 This was really “home mission”;31 but if it took place towards the end of the Umayyad era, there may have been political objectives to it as well. It is not certain whether he himself was an Ibāḍite; the sources do not mention it. Abū l-Naḍr Saʿīd b. Abī ʿArūba Mihrān32 al-ʿAdawī, a client of the Banū ʿAdī33 and apparently a merchant,34 d. 156/773 or 157/774 in his eighties. He emphasised that his Qadarite views were a continuation of his teacher Qatāda’s as well as Ḥasan al-Baṣrī’s tradition;35 Ibn Ḥanbal, however, stated that like his precursors, he did not display his views openly.36 He did not meet with any direct opposition, as Ibn Ḥanbal also tells us that he was able to continue Ḥasan al-Baṣrī’s majlis37 as the successor of Qatāda and Maṭar al-Warrāq (d. before 130/747).38 It was not until later that criticism arose: Sufyān b. ʿUyayna (d. 196/812) limited the material he transmitted from him as he disapproved of his Qadarite views.39 Of course, Sufyān was living in Mecca. The isnād Ḥasan > Qatāda > Saʿīd b. Abī ʿArūba occurs frequently in Abū 27  Baḥshal, Ta‌ʾrīkh Wāsiṭ 100, –8ff. The position of agent (shārik) was known in pre-Islamic times (cf. W. Reinert, Das Recht in der altarabischen Poesie 37; regarding the later juristic interpretation A. Udovitsch, Partnership and Profit 17ff.). 28  Cf. Lisān al-ʿarab s. v. 29  Justi, Namenbuch 281b and 282a. 30  Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 33, 2ff.; cf. Pellat in: FO 12/1970/199, n. 22, and van Ess in: Studies on the First Century of Islamic Society 121. 31  See vol. I 49 above. 32  Or Dīnār (Khalīfa, Ṭab. 529 no. 1844). 33  Dhahabī, Siyar VI 413, 5. 34  See vol. I 137 above. 35  Kaʿbī 94, 1ff. 36   Mīzān II 152, 14. 37   A Z 301, 6ff. 38  Regarding him cf. IS VII2 19, 14ff., and Mīzān no. 3587. 39  Khaṭīb, Kifāya 123, apu. ff.

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Rifāʿa ʿUmāra b. Wathīma’s (d. 289/902) K. Badʾ al-khalq wa-qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ;40 Saʿīd obviously heard a great number of Ḥasan al-Baṣrī’s prophetic tales from Qatāda. He was particularly close to Qatāda. The latter, being blind and consequently entirely reliant on memory, believed that his traditions would be safest with Saʿīd;41 his K. al-manāsik survives only in Saʿīd’s recension, with passages added by him.42 He also preserved historical information from Qatāda.43 He wrote down the Tafsīr at the request of a man from Kufa,44 although the authoritative recension of this text was the work of another Saʿīd for whom he is sometimes mistaken:45 Saʿīd b. Bashīr.46 Some of the hadiths were probably adopted into the works published under his own name: the K. al-sunan ( fī l-ḥadīth)47 and K. al-ṭalāq; the latter appears to have been used directly as a manual for a time.48 However, despite the concentration of material, in retrospect there was a clear shortcoming: it had not always been received in direct contact with the teacher – who, after all, had died early. This is true of the Tafsīr,49 but also of many hadiths: they were not copied during a lecture, as samāʿ, but collected in various other ways, sometimes with Qatāda’s approval. He did correctly use the formula dhakarahū in these cases rather than ḥaddathanā.50 He used the same approach with other authorities.51 During lectures he made do without written notes; he quoted from memory.52 He is said to have been the first one in Basra to have arranged hadiths according to subject matter, in the style of 40  Cf. R. G. Khoury’s edition Les légendes prophétiques dans l’Islam, p. 42, 11ff.; 46, 17ff.; 65, 4ff. etc., (ca. 50 times altogether); for general information Index s. n. and Introduction 86ff. 41  Fasawī II 89, 9ff.; see p. 160f. below. 42  See p. 165 below. 43  Ibn Qaiyim al-Jawziyya, Aḥkām al-dhimma 107, 5ff., and 154, 10ff.: regarding Kufa. 44  See p. 161f. below. 45  Thus in GAS 1/92. 46  Regarding him see vol. I 136ff. above. 47   Fihrist 283, 12; also Bağdatlı Paşa, Hadiyya I 387, 17ff. 48  Jāḥiẓ, Burṣān 136, 2f. 49   G AS 1/65. 50   I S VII2 33, 17f.; Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 373, 9f. – It is possible that this is an early indication of the systematism of the following generations; in his recension of K. al-manāsik he always refers to Qatāda using ʿan. Cf. also Azmi, Studies 99. 51  Fasawī II 123, –4ff.; also Nasāʾī’s (d. 303/915) compilation, Dhikr man ḥaddatha ʿanhu Ibn Abī ʿArūba wa-lam yasmaʿ minhu, MS Istanbul, Ahmet III 642, fol. 14b–15a (cf. GAS 1/91 and 169). Also Azmi 157. 52  Cf. GAS 1/57, n. 4, questioning Goldziher, Muh. Studien II 212; also Schoeler in: Der Islam 62/1985/206 and 66/1989/219.

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a muṣannaf.53 His lax methods were anathema to later experts such as Yaḥyā b. Saʿīd al-Qaṭṭān;54 they recollected that even one of his contemporaries had refused to lend him the original of one of Qatāda’s writings, presumably to prevent misuse.55 In all this, his methods were not really different from those of many of his colleagues. That this was emphasised more in his case may have been due to his Qadarite affiliation,56 as his leanings are clearly apparent in the extant material; the intention may have been to dispose of it in this manner. He knew that there was a prophet, Esra, who had spoken of qadar in the past, and traced this back to Ḥasan al-Baṣrī via Qatāda;57 in the same place he contradicted the well-known tradition of the dialogue between Adam and Moses that played such an important part in predestinarian circles.58 He claimed to have heard a dictum from Saʿīd b. Jubayr praising reason: “Everything has a limit, an end, and a conclusion, except for reason. But humans do not all have an equal amount of reason, there is a world of difference between them. The Quran was revealed through reason,59 and the prophets were sent gifted with reason: it was due to reason that they were superior to their communities”.60 The Qadarite spirit might also have been detected in the “zoological” hadiths he had heard from Qatāda.61 A glimpse of the Qadariyya’s political objectives may be caught from the political information – which he once again heard from Qatāda – that ʿUmar would have appointed a Persian mawlā, Sālim b. Maʿqil,

53  Elsewhere the introduction of the muṣannaf type in Basra is attributed to Rabīʿ b. Ṣabīḥ who was around a generation younger (see p. 121 below). 54  Fasawī II 144, pu. ff., and III 61, 9ff. 55   I S VII2 33, 13ff. 56  Confirmed by Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif 508, 3, and 625, 10, and Ta‌ʾwīl mukht. al-ḥadīth 11, 7. = 10, 7/transl. 9 para. 17; Khaṭīb, Kifāya 125, 13, and TB XII 184, 15; Mīzān no. 3242; Kaʿbī 94, 1ff. > Faḍl 342, 7ff. > IM 137, 17ff. Cf. also HT, Index s. n. Nothing in Bukhārī II1 504f. no. 1679; ʿUqaylī II 111ff. no. 587; IAH II1 65 no. 276; TH I 177f. no. 176; TT IV 63. The story found in Ibn ʿAbdrabbih (ʿIqd II 380, 15ff.) in which Qatāda emphasises the validity of divine predestination to Saʿīd is probably made up; the statement attributed to Qatāda there that indeterminism was originally a Persian concept is a motif found in the context of several scholars (cf. HT 137ff.). 57  ʿUmāra b. Wathīma, Badʾ 292, 8ff. 58  Ibid. 293, 15ff.; cf. also HT 161ff. 59   unzila bil-ʿaql. What exactly does it mean? 60   Badʾ 128, 9ff.; another tradition of this kind ibid. 214, 11ff. 61   Ḥayawān IV 293, pu. ff., and V 536, 3f.; the second tradition in similar form also from Hishām al-Dastuwāʾī (ibid. 536, 5ff.). Cf. also p. 60 above.

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his successor if he had still been alive at the time.62 He was certainly claimed to have said that nothing made him think more than Moses’ statement in sura 7:155, that the earthquake that frightened him and the chosen 70 men after the laws had been revealed had been only a trial from God with which he could lead people astray, or rightly guide them, however he decreed.63 It is worth noting that he was not quite himself anymore (ikhtalaṭa)64 after Ibrāhīm b. ʿAbdallāh was defeated in 145. It sounds as if he, like the “Muʿtazila”, had been mixed up in the affair65 and later been shunned or deliberately sidelined. Sometimes, on the other hand, his unsound mind was explained as simple memory loss,66 and the point in time at which people started to shun him is occasionally dated earlier.67 Like Hishām al- Dastuwāʾī, he was on Abū Muslim’s black list, as he, too, was a ʿUthmānite.68 This is also confirmed by the account of ʿUthmān’s murder, which he copied from Qatāda.69 While Abū Nuʿaym did not spare him, unlike Hishām al-Dastuwāʾī, even a single line, there are reports indicating that he – possibly more than Hishām – was a follower of the Basran trend of asceticism. He is said never to have touched a woman; he certainly did not have any children.70 He transmitted from Ḥasan al-Baṣrī that Solomon used to wear wool,71 and he quoted an account from Kaʿb al-aḥbār that he had heard from Qatāda, according to which the Jewish ascetics went to become hermits in the desert or the mountains and lived off leaves and similar things there.72 Like many other devout persons he considered it his duty to feed the poor, but he even took the commandment of sura 76:8 seriously, that one should feed them with foods one is particularly partial to (ʿalā ḥubbihī): he gave them sugar cane to chew.73

62  Ṭabarī I 2776, 9ff.; where the same report is also traced back to the Qadarite Mubārak b. Faḍāla (see p. 77 below) among others. 63  Ibn Qutayba, Ta‌ʾwīl 100, 13ff. = 84, 9ff./transl. 94 para. 120. 64   A Z 452 no. 1141 and passim. 65  Cf. p. 372ff. below. 66  Fasawī III 62, 2ff. 67  Ibid. III 61, 9ff.; aksi AZ 452 no. 1138: he had to be heard during Yūnus b. ʿUbayd’s lifetime, i.e. before 139/756 (see p. 400f. below). 68  Jāḥiẓ, Burṣān 136, 6ff.; see p. 70f. above. 69  Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 188, 7ff.; cf. also ʿUqaylī II 113, 12f. 70  Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif 508, 4f.; Jāḥiẓ, Burṣān 136, 5. He found his way into the K. al-Burṣān because he limped (cf. also Maʿārif 583, 14). 71  ʿUmāra b. Wathīma, Badʾ 131, 14. 72  Ibid. 236, 15ff. 73  Jāḥiẓ, Bayān III 158, 14f.; regarding ʿalā ḥubbihī cf. Paret, Kommentar 496f.

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The following are the names of later pupils of Ḥasan’s: Abū Isḥāq74 Ismāʿīl b. Muslim75 al-Makkī, d. c. 160/777.76 Despite his nisba he came from Basra and only spent a few years in Mecca.77 In 158/77578 he probably accompanied al-Mahdī – before the latter came to power – to Rayy, where he died.79 He was a pupil of Ḥasan al-Baṣrī’s80 but also studied under Zuhrī.81 Only few sources noted his Qadarite views.82 They may be expressed in animal hadiths, which were in turn quoted by Jāḥiẓ.83 It is just as likely that he believed in maskh, as he transmitted the following dictum from Ibn ‘Abbās: “Black dogs are evil spirits (jinn), and spotted ones, too”.84 Later his reputation was generally poor;85 he seems to have confused hadiths all the time.86 At the same time people did not deny that the material he transmitted was well known.87 While he was believed to be nearly as dangerous as ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd, he was not dropped altogether.88 Like him, alMakkī transmitted traditions from Ḥasan al-Baṣrī which went back to Samura

74  Thus e.g according to IS VII2 34, 2; Ibn al-Jazarī, Ṭabaqāt al-qurrāʾ I 169 no. 788 etc.; the kunya “Abū Rabīʿa” given by Ibn Ḥibbān, Majrūḥīn I 120, 9 > Mīzān I 249, ult., is probably due to a mistake. Ibn Ḥibbān traced hadiths transmitted in Kufa by Ṣāliḥ b. Ḥaiy back to Ismāʿīl b. Muslim. The isnād mentions the kunya Abū Rabīʿa, and nothing else. It clearly refers to a different person (Majrūḥīn I 121, 5ff. > Mīzān I 250, 4ff.). 75  Dhahabī, Mīzān no. 842 appears to list him once more as Ismāʿīl b. Ibrāhīm al-Makkī, but this is probably due to a mistake on the part of Zakariyyāʾ b. Yaḥyā al-Sājī (d. 307/902) whom he quotes there. 76  Ibn al-Jazarī, ibid. 77   I S VII2 34, 4f.; Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif 597, 1f.; also Fasawī II 114, ult. f. 78  Cf. Ṭabarī III 445, 18. 79   I AH I1 198, 4. 80  Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal I 372 no. 2465. 81  Fasawī II 781, 6ff. 82  Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif 625, 10f.; ʿUqaylī I 92, –4. The Muʿtazilites did not mention him. 83   Ḥayawān III 392, 4ff. and IV 293, 1f.; also Mīzān I 249, apu. f., and Suyūṭī, La‌ʾālī II 463, –4ff. with a different isnād. Cf. p. 25 above. 84  Ibid. I 291, 8f. 85  Cf. already Ibn al-Madīnī, ʿIlal 69, 7; AZ 681, pu. ff. 86   Mīzān I 248, ult. f. 87  Fasawī III 66, 8f. 88   I AH I1 199, 4ff. at no. 669. Abū Zurʿa (loc. cit.) also seems to mention him, probably together with ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd (misspelt as ʿUbayda/ʿAbīda).

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b. Jundab.89 Ibn Saʿd had very positive words for al-Makkī; his teacher had studied under him.90 He taught in the same mosque as Yūnus b. ʿUbayd,91 where he had greater success as a teacher. Another opponent of ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd’s, Ayyūb al-Sakhtiyānī, was named together with them but without implying any kind of tension; the same anecdote informs us that Sufyān b. ʿUyayna, who was younger, spoke of him with respect.92 An explanation of these inconsistencies suggested later was that there were several persons of the same name who were distinguished mainly by their nisbas;93 however, this is not the place to examine whether this is correct and to what extent the correct information has been ascribed to each person.94 We must also bear in mind that Ismāʿīl b. Muslim was not only a traditionist but that he was also respected as a Quran reciter and a jurist. He had received his qirāʾa training in Mecca and became a follower of Ibn Kathīr (d. 120/738).95 In jurisprudence, however, he followed Ḥasan al-Baṣrī’s practice.96 His fatwās were famous; he was compared to ʿUthmān al-Battī.97 Still, he never became a qāḍī, probably because he was a mawlā. The qāḍī ʿUbaydallāh b. al-Ḥasan b. al-ʿAnbarī98 consulted his hadith.99 He also had connections with Kufan jurists such as Ibn Shubruma, and was acquainted with Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ.100 His prestige is finally evident from his presence in one of the traditions about Wāṣil’s khuṭba before ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz as a further representative of the city of Basra.101 He would once again lead negotiations on the city’s behalf in 132/749.102 89  Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal I 372 no. 2463; regarding ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd see p. 347f. below. 90   I S VII2 34, 1ff. 91  Regarding him see p. 400ff. below. 92  Fasawī II 718, 6ff. 93  “Al-Makhzūmī” and “al-ʿAbdī” besides “al-Makkī”. Cf. Bukhārī I1 372 no. 1178–80 and IAH I1 196ff. no. 667–69; also Ibn Ḥibbān, Majrūḥīn I 120, 10f. 94  Ibn Ḥajar’s statement (TT I 333 no. 599) that Ismāʿīl b. Muslim did not meet Ḥasan al-Baṣrī in person is probably due to one such error (cf. already IAH I1 198, 2). Interestingly Ibn Saʿd has only one person of this name. 95  Ibn al-Jazarī I 169 no. 788; also Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal I p. 372, 5. 96  Shīrāzī, Ṭabaqāt al-fuqahāʾ 90, 7f. 97   I S VII2 34, 5. Regarding ʿUthmān al-Battī see p. 168ff. below. 98  Regarding him see p. 178ff. below. 99  Wakīʿ, Akhbār II 90, 11ff. 100  Cf. the different versions of the story told by Wakīʿ, III 117, 7ff., and Dhahabī, Mīzān I 249, 3ff. 101  See p. 280f. below. 102  See p. 168f. below.

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Abū Faḍāla al-Mubārak b. Faḍāla b. Abī Umayya al-Qurashī al-ʿAdawī, d. 164/781103 or 165/782,104 grandson of one of ʿUmar’s slaves who had bought his own freedom,105 and possibly an official of the administration,106 was said to have attended Ḥasan’s lectures for a further thirteen years. Ṭabarī often cites him as an authority for Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, in particular his Tafsīr; some of this material went via him into the Iraqi recension of Mujāhid’s Quranic commentary produced by Ādam b. Abī Iyās (d. 220/835), maybe via ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd (whom Mubārak does not mention).107 However, it was remarked that Mubārak attended Yūnus b. ʿUbayd’s lectures as well and transmitted hadith in his presence.108 The ascetic tendencies that several sources ascribed to him were also evident in his traditions: he stated that the prophet never used perfume.109 He was compared to Rabīʿ b. Ṣabīḥ, the founder of the colony of ascetics on ʿAbbādān, for various reasons.110 It was said about him, as about ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd, that before the uprising of al-Nafs al-zakiyya he visited Manṣūr by the “bridge” and begged him to show magnanimity, whereupon he did not enter the city.111 A Qadarite according to Mīzān no. 7048; TT X 31, 5; Kaʿbī 93, 14ff. > Faḍl 342, 6f. > IM 137, 16f. Cf. also IS VII2 35, 20ff.; Bukhārī IV1 426 no. 2867; TB XIII 211ff. no. 7183; ʿUqaylī IV 224f. no. 1816; TH 200f. no. 183. – The Muʿtazilite sources also name his brother al-Faraj b. Faḍāla b. Nuʿmān al-Tanūkhī al-Ḥimṣī, d. 176/792, finance administrator at the beginning of Hārūn al-Rashīd’s caliphate. It remains to be proved that this was indeed his brother, although the fact that both brothers had different nisbas does not necessarily mean anything. Faraj certainly did not belong in Basra,

103  Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 688, 6. 104   I S VII2 35, 21 etc. 105  Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif 190, 7f. 106  He went to Isfahan with one of Manṣūr’s governors (Abū l-Shaykh, Ṭabaqāt al-muḥaddithīn I 397, –4 > Abū Nuʿaym, Dhikr akhbār Iṣbahān II 318, 4). 107  Stauth, Korankommentar Muǧāhid b. Ǧabrs 80f. and 100. 108   I AH IV1 338, 16f., and 339, 3f.; TB XIII 212, 16ff. 109   A Z 562 no. 1543; a tradition showing a similar tendency ibid. 644, no. 1897. 110   T B XIII 214, 6ff.; regarding Rabīʿ b. Ṣabīḥ see p. 121f. below. 111  Boughanmi, Studien über al-Ābī, Ar. section, p. 73 no. 103. Cf. also p. 328 below.

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and it is possible that it was not originally Mubārak’s home, either.112 Cf. also IS VII2 70, 20ff.; Bukhārī IV1 134 no. 608; IAH III2 85f. no. 483; ʿUqaylī III 462 no. 1518; Mīzān no. 6696. Qadarite inclinations are not mentioned here, but his hadith is criticised. Abū Hilāl Muḥammad b. Sulaym al-Rāsibī, client of the Sālim b. Luʾayy, d. 165/782113 or 167/784;114 transmitted from Ḥasan and Qatāda. He is named as a Qadarite in TB XII 184, 15; Mīzān no. 7646; Kaʿbī 92, 1ff. > Faḍl 342, 2 > IM 137, 14. This may remain doubtful as he transmitted a predestinarian dictum of Ḥasan’s115 as well as the hadith that John the Baptist was created a believer already in his mother’s womb. From Qatāda he had heard the (anti-Zubayrid?) hadith: “If there are two caliphs to pay homage to, kill one of them.” This was later adopted by ʿAbd al-Ṣamad b. ʿAbd al-Wārith (d. 207/822), the son of ʿAbd al-Wārith b. Saʿīd,116 who may have adduced it to justify Ma‌ʾmūn murdering his brother Amīn in 198/813. Abū Ḥilāl was blind;117 which makes it all the more remarkable that he and Qatāda, who was also blind, were said to have attended the lectures of Saʿīd b. al-Musayyab in Medina together.118 Abū Rawḥ Sallām b. Miskīn al-Namarī al-Azdī, a Yemeni, d. 167/784.119 His accounts collected by Jāḥiẓ, Bayān III 110, 6f., and Wakīʿ, Akhbār II 7, 6f., show that he was a pupil of Ḥasan’s. His Qadarite leanings were emphasised by Khaṭīb, Kifāya 125, 14, and TB XII 184, 16; Mīzān no. 3355; TT IV 286f. (after Abū Dāwūd); Kaʿbī 100, 4f. > Faḍl 343, 10 > IM 139, 1. Ibn Ḥanbal considered him to be trustworthy nevertheless (ʿIlal 179 no. 1115). Cf. also IS VII2 40, 8ff.; Bukhārī II2 134 no. 2228; IAH II1 258 no. 1117. 112  Fasawī II 26, 4ff. indicates connections to Medina. Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif 190, 9f. mentions two other brothers. 113   I S VII2 36, ult. and Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif 512, 3. 114  Khalīfa, Ṭab. 536 no. 1873 etc. 115  Fasawī II 36, 8ff. 116  Regarding him see p. 367ff. below. 117   I S VII2 36, 22; Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif 512, 2. 118   Maʿārif 572, 6f. 119  Khalīfa, Ṭab. 538 no. 1883, andTa‌ʾrīkh 691, 12.

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Abū Bishr Ṣāliḥ b. Bashīr b. Wādiʿ al-Murrī, freedman of a woman of the Banū Murra b. al-Ḥārith of the ʿAbd al-Qays;120 d. 172/788,121 173/789, or 176/792. He is said to have transmitted from Ḥasan, Ibn Sīrīn and Qatāda, although he could have known them only in his earliest youth; some of his hadiths from Ḥasan were preserved by Abū Nuʿaym, as well as some from Thābit al-Bunānī and Yazīd al-Raqāshī.122 This selection reflects Ṣāliḥ’s mentality: he was a popular preacher (qāṣṣ) and inclined to that type of emotional religiosity usually associated with the “weepers” (bakkāʾūn). Abū Nuʿaym quoted samples of his style, showing his ability to make the Judgment come alive for his audience employing the whole range of apocalyptic afflictions.123 In all of this he displayed great eloquence and sophisticated use of language; Jāḥiẓ admired him greatly for it.124 He appears to have been admitted at court and is said to have been a positive influence on Sulaymān b. Makhlad al-Mūriyānī, Manṣūr’s vizier.125 He was also acquainted with ʿUbaydallāh al-ʿAnbarī, the qāḍī of Basra, who was then also governor.126 His hadith was rejected;127 but a story was circulated which had a prominent opponent, who fundamentally disagreed with the attitude of the quṣṣāṣ, praising him unreservedly after attending one of his lectures.128 The Muʿtazilite texts called him a Qadarite,129 as did Ibn Qutayba;130 but on the other hand he was one of the transmitters of the famous hadith according to which the prophet used to be irritated by qadar discussions in his vicinity.131 120  Ibn al-Jawzī, Ṣifat al-ṣafwa III 265, 8. 121  Thus according to Khalīfa, Ṭab. 539, 5, andTa‌ʾrīkh 712, 6. 122   Ḥilya VI 173, 5ff., and 175, 3ff. 123  Ibid. 165, –4ff.; Jāḥiẓ, Bayān III 288, 1ff.; also Ibn al-Jawzī, Quṣṣaṣ para. 155–57. Ibn alNadīm counts him among the zuhhād (Fihrist 235, 15). Jāḥiẓ, Ḥayawān VII 62, 7ff., uses a delightful turn of phrase that recalls the “fowls of the air” in Matthew 6:26. 124  Cf. the appreciation in Bayān I 369, 7f.; also ibid. I 119, 7, and 364, 2. 125  Ibid. III 149, 9ff. 126  Ibn ʿAqīl, Funūn 46 no. 47. The dictum mentioned there is found similarly phrased in several other sources (cf. e.g. Jāḥiẓ, Bayān III 171, ult. ff.). Regarding ʿAnbarī see p. 178ff. below. 127  Thus already Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, Muqaddima I 23, –4ff. 128  According to the majority of reports this is supposed to have been Sufyān al-Thawrī (already IS VII2 39, 3ff. > Ibn al-Jawzī, Quṣṣāṣ para. 65 and 156 etc.); but Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 369, 8ff., shows that this originally referred to a different Sufyān. 129  Kaʿbī 95, 9ff. (after Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Shāfiʿī and Dāwūd al-Iṣfahānī) > Faḍl 342, 16 > IM 128, 4. 130   Maʿārif 420, 17f., and 625, 14. 131   H T 158f.

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Cf. also Bukhārī II2 273 no. 2782; IAH II1 395f. no. 1730; Ibn Ḥibbān, Majrūḥīn I 371, pu. ff.; ʿUqaylī II 199f. no. 723; Mīzān no. 3773; TT IV 382f. no. 641. Regarding the question of whether he was an Ibāḍite see p. 248f. below. al-Rabīʿ b. ʿAbdallāh b. Khuṭṭāf al-Aḥdab. He, too, transmitted from Ḥasan, but became known later for attending ʿAmr b. Fāʾid al-Uswārī’s lectures every Friday.132 The latter had studied under ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd and lived in the second half of the second century.133 Abū Juzayy Naṣr b. Ṭarīf al-Bāhilī al-Qaṣṣāb, a butcher (qaṣṣāb), who had not learnt to read and write. He had the best memory in Basra, but it could of course happen that he confused hadiths.134 During an illness he had felt some qualms and retracted a few traditions; later he refused to admit this.135 ʿAffān b. Muslim (d. 220/835), who made a name for himself in the miḥna,136 had two little bags or chests (qimaṭr) tied up with string at the head of his bed in which he kept hadith notes inherited from Naṣr, but due to scruples he did not open them until his death.137 For all that, Naṣr had a greater following than Hishām al-Dastuwāʿī; on one occasion so many people congregated in the mosque of the Banū ʿAdī that the hall could not hold them all, and he could not give his lecture.138 He had attended Abū Ḥanīfa’s lectures in Kufa and considered him not only a Murjiʾite but also a Jahmite.139 Ibn al-Mubārak noted that Naṣr himself held Qadarite views.140 – Another illiterate butcher like him141 was 132  ʿUqaylī II 49 no. 479; TT III 249 no. 475. Cf. also Bukhārī II1 272 n. 927; IAH I2 466 no. 2087; Mīzān no. 2742. Not in Muʿtazilite sources. 133  Regarding him see p. 94ff. below. 134   Mīzān no. 9034; Ibn Ḥibbān, Majrūḥīn III 52, 8ff. 135  Fasawī III 62, 6ff. 136  Regarding him see ch. C 3.3.1 below. 137  ʿUqaylī IV 297, 6ff.; concerning the meaning of qimaṭr see ch. C 3.2.1.1 below. 138  Fasawī III 34, 6ff., in ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Mahdī’s recollections of his youth. The Masjid Banī ʿAdī had been built during Ziyād’s reign (Ṣāliḥ al-ʿAlī, Khiṭaṭ al-Baṣra 56). 139  Ibid. II 783, 5ff. 140  ʿUqaylī IV 296, –7f. > Mīzān, loc. cit. 141  However: jazzār rather than qaṣṣāb. M. Ullmann has pointed out to me that according to Shayzarī’s ḥisba treatise (Nihāyat al-rutba fī ṭalab al-ḥisba, p. 27ff.), a jazzār is the butcher who must obey the rules for butchery set out in the sunna, while a qaṣṣāb is the meat seller who is responsible for the counter being clean etc. Regarding the organisation of

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Abū Umayya Ayyūb b. Khūṭ142 al-Baṣrī al-Ḥabaṭī, from whom ʿAbbād b. Ṣuhayb al-Kulaybī (d. 212/828)143 heard traditions. He instructed his employees in hadith.144 His Qadarite views are only reported vaguely;145 people may have assumed them as he transmitted one of those hadiths according to which all winged insects would go to hell.146 Abū ʿAbdallāh Hammām b. Yaḥyā b. Dīnār al-ʿAwdhī, d. Ramadan 164/May 781.147 He transmitted from a “book” containing Qatāda’s hadiths.148 Ibn Qutayba added him to his list of Qadarites.149 Nobody followed his example, but Kaʿbī quoted a report from Dāwūd al-Iṣfahānī stating that Hammām refused to transmit the well-known predestinarian hadith according to which the reed pen with which the predestined fate was written down was “dry already”.150 We also learn that Hammām refused to believe that a prayer could not change the date of death determined by God.151 He was a qāṣṣ.152 ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Mahdī, himself a moderate Qadarite,153 considered him to be just as reliable as Saʿīd b. Abī ʿArūba.154 Cf. also IS VII2 39, 12ff.; Bukhārī IV2 237 no. 2852; Mīzān no. 9253; TTXI 67ff. no. 108; [especially p. 368 below].

the butcher’s trade, albeit in much later times, cf. A. Cohen, Economic Life in Ottoman Jerusalem 11ff. 142  On the reading of the name cf. Dhahabī, Mushtabih 259, 4. Fasawī II 666, 2, has the incorrect “Ḥawṭ”. 143  See p. 89f. below. 144   T T I 403, –4ff. 145   T T I 402, ult. Nothing in Muʿtazilite sources or Bukhārī I1 414 no. 1318; Ibn Ḥibbān, Majrūḥīn I 166, 1ff.; ʿUqaylī I 110ff. no. 129; Mīzān no. 1074. Regarding him also Azmi, Studies 124 no. 66, who probably assumes his dates slightly too early. 146   Mīzān I 286, 9f.; cf. also p. 59 above. 147  Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 687, 9. 148  Fasawī II 141, 2f.; cf. also p. 162f. below. For more general information see Azmi, Studies 130, no. 91. 149   Maʿārif 625, 11. 150   Maq. 94, pu. ff.; cf. also HT 79. 151  Fasawī II 280, ult. ff.; regarding the issue cf. HT 86f. 152  Fasawī I 150, 4; a sample of his style: cf. ʿUqaylī IV 369, 10ff. 153  See p. 88 below. 154   I AH IV2 108, 13; cf. also ʿUqaylī IV 368, 3f. and ult. f.

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Abū Salama ʿUthmān b. Miqsam al-Burrī155 al-Kindī, d. 173/789.156 He studied under Qatāda and other Basran authorities, but came originally from Kufa.157 He was not only a Qadarite,158 but also noticeable for reinterpreting the scales of the Day of Judgment as a metaphor for divine justice and mocking the literal interpretation.159 This was close to Muʿtazilite views, and he was indeed sometimes considered to be one of them.160 It seems that in his youth he was acquainted with Wāṣil b. ʿAṭāʾ.161 It may have been ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd who taught him that Abū Lahab could not have been included in the heavenly original of the Quran, as that would mean eternal damnation for him.162 Still, the Muʿtazilite sources regarded him as nothing more than a Qadarite.163 Like Abū Juzayy he had a greater following during his lifetime than Hishām al-Dastuwāʾī,164 and despite his “innovations” he would not be unanimously rejected later.165 Abū ʿAwāna (d. 176/792), however, called him “honey in a pigskin”, i.e. that his knowledge while outwardly pleasing, was in fact useless.166 Later he would be accused of having confused isnāds, and it was advised to burn his collections.167 Cf. also IS VII2 41, 15f.; Bukhārī III2 252f. no. 2319; IAH III1 167ff no. 918; Ibn Ḥibbān II 101, 9ff.; Lisān al-Mīzān IV 155f. no. 364.

155   I S VII2 41, 16 . 156  Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 713, 8. 157  Samʿānī, Ansāb II 194, 1ff.; also Azmi, Studies 175 no. 229. 158  Thus according to Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif 625, 11; ʿUqaylī III 217ff. no. 1220; Mīzān no. 5568. 159  ʿUqaylī 218, apu. ff.; Mīzān III 56, –8, and 57, 9f. 160  Thus from Sājī (cf. ʿUqaylī III 217, n.). 161  Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 22, 2; cf. also p. 282 below. 162  ʿUqaylī III 220, 3f.; cf. p. 124f. and 341f. below. 163  Maybe because Kaʿbī already merely copied Dāwūd al-Iṣfahānī’s list of Qadarites (100, 1ff. > Faḍl 343, 10 > IM 138, 15f.). 164  Fasawī III 34, 6ff. 165  Ibid. II 123, 7ff. with a positive opinion by ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Mahdī; similar IAH III2 168, 11ff. The previous report also goes back to Ibn Mahdī. 166  ʿUqaylī III 218, 11ff. etc. Abū ʿAwāna does not refer to the author of Musnad, who only died in 316/928, but a traditionist from Wāsiṭ who would later lecture in Baghdad (TB XIII 460ff. no. 7330; Baḥshal, Ta‌ʾrīkh Wāsiṭ 160, 1ff. etc.). 167  Thus the tendency of the traditions found in Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 231f. no. 1455.

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Pupils of Saʿīd b. Abī ʿArūba

Ibn Abī ʿArūba gathered many pupils around him; they were as highly respected as he.1 Among them was Abū Bakr ʿImrān b. Muslim al-Qaṣīr al-Minqarī. He may have been older than the others; he was regarded as a companion of Ḥasan’s. In fact Abū Nuʿaym quoted some dicta that ʿImrān transmitted from Ḥasan,2 but it did not worry him that ʿImrān also transmitted hadith from Anas b. Mālik,3 where the isnād was certainly incomplete. The notes ʿImrān was said to have taken on wooden tablets (alwāḥ) confirmed that he studied under Abī ʿArūba.4 Yaḥyā al-Qaṭṭān (d. 198/813) regarded him as a Qadarite,5 but not even the Muʿtazilites included him in their lists.6 His hadiths as preserved by Abū Nuʿaym do indeed point in a different direction. They recommend not to talk about qadar.7 Faith and purity of heart are sufficient to save someone from hell;8 the prophet’s intercession is real.9 It would seem that ʿImrān was simply a devout man. Prayer appears to have been very important to him;10 he slept only when he could not help himself.11 It is interesting that he did not consider the mutʿa verse of the Quran (4:28) to have been abrogated, or was aware of any prophetic dictum that prohibited this form of marriage.12 Thus if he was not a Shīʿite, he must have followed those who transmitted such a prohibition only from ʿUmar.13 His reputation was quite undisputed.14 In an inconspicuous passage we read that a certain Abū Ṭufayla al-Hirmāzī served him as muʾadhdhin for ten years;15 consequently he cannot have been very poor. 1  Jāḥiẓ, Burṣān 136, 4. 2  Ḥilya VI 178, 16ff. 3  Ibid. 179, 13ff. 4  Khaṭīb, Taqyīd al-ʿilm 113, 7; also Azmi, Studies 160. 5  ʿUqaylī III 305 no. 1315; Mīzān no. 6313; Hady al-sārī II 155, 15; Suyūṭī, Tadrīb I 329, 4f. 6  Cf. also IS VII2 30, 9f.; Bukhārī III2 419 no. 2840; IAH III1 304f. no. 1690; TT VIII 137ff. no.239. 7  Ḥilya VI 182, 1ff.; also HT 153f. 8  Ibid. 182, 10ff. 9  Ibid. 181, 13f. 10  Ibid. 180, –7ff. 11  Ibid. 178, 5; also Ibn al-Jawzī, Ṣifat al-ṣafwa III 233, 8. Ibn al-Jawzī does, however, consider the possibility that this might have been a different ʿImrān (ibid. 233, pu. ff.). 12  Ibid. 180, 14ff. 13   H W 552 s. v. Mutʿa; also my K. al-Nakth 36. 14  Cf. e.g. Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 340 no. 2230. 15  Abū ʿUbayda, Majāz al-Qurʾān II 15, n., l. 5f.

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Abū ʿUthmān Kahmas b. al-Minhāl al-Sadūsī. Named as a Qadarite by Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif 625, 14; Bukhārī IV1 240 no. 1029; Mīzān no. 6982; TT VIII 451 and Hady al-sārī II 158, –10; Suyūṭī, Tadrīb I 329, 5; Faḍl 342, 19 > IM 138, 7. Cf. also IAH III2 no. 973. Abū l-Khaṭṭāb Muḥammad b. Sawāʾ b. ʿAnbar al-Sadūsī, d. 187/803 or 189/805. Cf. Mīzān no. 7658 (ghālī fī l-qadar); TT IX 208, 3, and Hady al-sārī II 160, 21; Tadrīb I 329, 5f.; Kaʿbī 107, 8 (after Jāḥiẓ). Neither early jarḥ wal-taʿdīl works such as Madīnī’s or Ibn Ḥanbal’s K. al-ʿIlal, contain criticism in connection with his name, nor does IS VII2 48, 12f.; Bukhārī I1 106 no. 300; IAH III2 282 no. 1521. He obviously knew something about genealogy.16 Abū Hammām Abū Muḥammad17 ʿAbd al-Aʿlā b. ʿAbd al-Aʿlā b. Muḥammad al-Sāmī, d. 189/805.18 He mainly transmitted from Saʿīd b. Abī ʿArūba; the typical Qadarite isnād was noted as ʿAbd al-Aʿlā < Saʿīd < Qatāda.19 This is how Qatāda’s K. al-Manāsik came down to us.20 Jāḥiẓ studied under him21 and recalled his slightly strange pronunciation of the final a.22 He was not believed to be dāʿiya, and consequently well-regarded later in spite of everything. His Qadarite views were noted by Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 284 no. 1837; ʿUqaylī III 58f. no. 1020; Mīzān no. 4728; TT VI 96, 3, and Hady al-sārī II 140, 5; Tadrīb I 329, 2. Cf. also IS VII2 45, 7ff.; Bukhārī III2 73 no. 1748; TH 296 no. 277. Muʿtazilite sources do not mention him.

16  Khalīfa, Ṭab. 148, 1f., and 149, 3f. 17  Thus Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 341 no. 2239; IAH III1 28 no. 147. 18  Thus according to Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 736, 5 and Ṭab. 542, 5f., as well as IS VII2 45, 9; “198/814” in TT VI 96, 14, is probably a mistake. 19   Mīzān II 151, 14f. 20  See p. 165 below. Another instance of this isnād in Ṭabarī I 122, ult. 21   Burṣān 136, 3. 22  E. g. in the 3rd sg. perf., with corresponding assimilation of the suffix pronoun (Bayān II 220, 11f.).

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Abū Qaṭan ʿAmr b. al-Haytham b. Qaṭan al-Quṭaʿī, d. 4 Shaʿbān 198/30 March 814 at 77 years of age.23 His grandfather had already been a Qadarite.24 He came to Baghdad at a mature age and transmitted from Basran authorities, among them Shuʿba b. al-Ḥajjāj. Ibn Ḥanbal studied under him25 and did not want to do without his traditions even when he was informed that after returning to Basra, Abū Qaṭan behaved like a Qadarite again and even supported this doctrine in debates.26 – Like him, Abū Naṣr ʿAbd al-Wahhāb b. ʿAṭāʾ b. Muslim al-Khaffāf al-ʿIjlī, apparently a bootmaker by profession, went to Baghdad permanently and made a name for himself through the Basran traditions he transmitted. He died in Baghdad in 204/820 or 206/822.27 It was said that in his home town, people had not taken him quite seriously.28 Once in Baghdad, however, he reaped the rewards of having received all Ibn Abī ʿArūba’s hadith collections (muṣannafāt) from him and written them down;29 at times, he had been his mustamlī.30 He also transmitted from ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd, from Hishām al-Dastuwāʾī and from ʿAwf al-Aʿrābī;31 he also owned a “book” by the Meccan Qadarite Ibn Abī Dhiʾb.32 However, his students could also hear traditions from ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAwn and Yūnus b. ʿUbayd from him, both of whom were eminent opponents of the Qadarites.33 He had studied Quran recitation with the “orthodox” Abū ʿAmr Ibn al-ʿAlāʾ, among others.34 More than one books of his were known, presumably published lecture notes: a K. al-Sunan fī l-fiqh, a Quran commentary every 23   T B XII 201, 1f. 24  See p. 66 above. 25   T B XII 199, 6; examples in his K. al-ʿIlal 87 no. 504 and 197 no. 646. Regarding Shuʿba cf. HT, Index s. n. 26  Ibid. 200, 3ff.; also 199, ult. f. Regarding his Qadarite tendencies also ibid. 200, 8; Kaʿbī 107, 8f.; TT VIII 114, 10f. Nothing in Bukhārī III2 381 no. 2703, and IAH III1 268 no. 1480. 27   I S VII2 76, 5f.; TB XI 21ff. no. 5688. 28   T B XI 22 6ff. 29   I S VII2 76, 2f.; Mīzān II 153, 10f.; TB XI 22, ult. ff. Cf. also Azmi, Studies 160. 30   T B XI 22, 17f.; Samʿānī, Adab al-imlāʾ 86, 11f.; Weisweiler in: Oriens 4/1951/31. 31   T B XI 21, 10ff. Cf. Azmi 133. 32  Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 109 no. 657. Cf. Azmi 152. Regarding Ibn Abī Dhiʾb see p. 763ff. below. 33   I S 76, 3f. Regarding them see p. 400ff. below. He occasionally transmits from Ibn ʿAwn in Wakīʿ (cf. e.g Akhbār II 328, –4ff.: on Shurayḥ). 34  Ibn al-Jazarī, Ṭabaqāt al-qurrāʾ no. 1996. Regarding Abū ʿAmr see p. 421ff. below.

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trace of which appears to have been lost entirely, a K. al-nāsikh wal-mansūkh,35 a K. al-Ṣiyām36 and even, if we can believe a later source, a Ta‌ʾrīkh.37 The Muʿtazilite sources38 and Dhahabī39 name him as a Qadarite; in Baghdad, nobody seems to have noticed this. Abū Sulaymān al-Dārānī was so displeased at his views that he refused to pray behind him in the mosque again.40 He was close to the ascetics in that he would cry again and again during his lectures.41 A pro-Abbasid hadith he transmitted from Thawr b. Yazīd al-Ḥimṣī indicates that he had connections to Syria.42 Cf. also Bukhārī III2 98 no. 1824; IAH III1 72 no. 372; ʿUqaylī III 77 no. 1043; TH 339 no. 321; TT VI 450ff. no. 935. 2.2.2.1.2.4

Other Qadarites in the Second Half of the Second Century

Abū Shaykh Jāriya b. Harim al-Fuqaymī was a “leading mind in qadar” according to ʿAlī Ibn al-Madīnī (d. 234/849).1 He transmitted from Ibn Jurayj (d. 150/767 or 151/768), among others. Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. Dīnār al-Ṭāhī al-Azdī was acquainted with the qāḍī Sauwār b. ʿAbdallāh (d. 156/773)2 and seems to have been interested in the law in general.3 Despite his Qadarite leanings he also transmitted from the “orthodox” Yūnus b. ʿUbayd. 35  These three titles in Ibn al-Nadīm 284, 20 and, probably copied from there, in Dāwūdī, Ṭabaqāt al-mufassirīn I 364, 6. Regarding the Tafṣīr cf. also TB XI 22, 20f. Does this refer to a recension of Qatāda’s commentary which he received from Saʿīd b. Abī ʿArūba? Of course, it might just as well refer to a simple booklet of exegetical notes. 36  ḤKh 1434, 13f. 37  Dāwūdī 364, 6. Cf. also Kaḥḥāla, Muʿjam VI 225, on the entire subject. 38  Kaʿbī 98, 14f. > Faḍl 343, 7 > IM 138, 12. 39   Mīzān no. 5322. 40   Mīzān ibid. (II 682, 5f.). Regarding him see vol. I 163f. above. 41   T B XI 22, 18f. 42  Cf. also SI 31/1970/285, n. 2. 1  ʿUqaylī I 203, 10f. > Mīzān no. 1430. 2  Wakīʿ II 68, –5ff.; regarding Sauwār b. ʿAbdallāh, who was governor at the same time, see p. 177f. below. 3  Ibid. II 246, 5ff.; 250, 10ff.; 254, 8ff. (information on Shurayḥ); II 110, 8ff. (on Sauwār’s successor ʿUbaydallāh al-ʿAnbarī).

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A Qadarite according to Mīzān no. 7504; TT IX 155f. no. 225; Faḍl 342, 19 > IM 138, 8f. Cf. also Bukhārī I1 77 no. 200; IAH III2 249 no. 1367; Ibn Ḥibbān II 272, 1ff.; ʿUqaylī IV 63f. no. 1616. Abū ʿAbdallāh Mahdī b. Hilāl al-Baṣrī also transmitted from Yūnus b. ʿUbayd among others, but was still regarded as an “innovator” by Ibn Maʿīn. Yaḥyā b. Saʿīd al-Qaṭṭān is said to have called him as well as the controversial Medinan Ibrāhīm b. Abī Yaḥyā4 liars publicly.5 Qadarite according to Kaʿbī 106, 4 > Faḍl 343, 11; ʿUqaylī IV 227f. no. 1819; Mīzān no. 8827; Lisān al-Mīzān VI 106. Cf. also Bukhārī IV1 425 no. 1863; IAH IV1 336f. no. 1548; Ibn Ḥibbān III 30, 10ff. Abū Sulaymān Jaʿfar b. Jasr b. Farqad al-Qaṣṣāb was one of the very few traditionists of whom Qadarite hadith survives. He transmitted the following prophetic dictum that he had heard from his father: “When the Day of Judgment has arrived and God has gathered the first ones and the last ones without distinction, then whoever finds room for his foot will be glad. And someone will call from beneath the Throne: He who absolves his master of (the responsibility for) his sins and takes them upon himself may enter into paradise!” And another dictum, which he had also heard from his father, who had it from Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, could also be interpreted in a Qadarite way: “God has spared this community three things: error, oblivion, and being forced to do something”.6 A Qadarite according to ʿUqaylī I 187 no. 232; Mīzān no. 1493; Ibn al-Jawzī, Mawḍūʿāt I 272, 7ff.; Suyūṭī, Laʾālī I 253, –6ff.; also HT 120. Cf. also IAH I1 476 no. 1938. Not in the Muʿtazilite sources. He appears to have transmitted only from his father. Consequently the latter ought to have been a Qadarite as well, but the sources do not mention this in his case. He seems to have supported ʿUthmānite tendencies, as he transmitted that ʿUthmān would intercede for an entire tribe on the Day of Judgment (Ājurrī, Sharīʿa 351, 5ff.). The son inherited his sobriquet al-Qaṣṣāb “the butcher”; this does not, of course, mean that he could not have had the same profession as his father as well (cf. ʿUqaylī I 202f. no. 249; Mīzān 4  Regarding him see p. 781ff. below. 5  I AH IV1 336, ult. f. 6  However, the word used is yukrahūna rather than yujbarūna.

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no. 1480). Was he the grandson of the ascetic Farqad al-Sabakhī? It is not said anywhere. Regarding the latter see p. 108f. below. Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Muʿāwiya b. ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Thaqafī al-Ḍāll, d. 180/796. He was connected to the family of the prophet’s companion Abū Bakr as a client who had originally been a slave of the Thaqīf in Ṭāʾif who were very influential in Basra at times.7 He bore the epithet al-Ḍāll because he had once got lost on the way to Mecca. He lived to be very old; consequently it was said that he had heard hadith from Ḥasan. A Qadarite only according to Jāḥiẓ’ list (Kaʿbī 107, 8 > Faḍl 344, 2 > IM 139, 9). Cf. also IS VII2 41, 134.; Bukhārī IV1 337 no. 1451; IAH IV1 381 no. 1749; Mīzān no. 8628; TT X 213f. no. 392. Qurṭ b. Ḥurayth al-Bāhilī, a client of the Bāhila, came to Yaḥyā b. Maʿīn’s attention as a Qadarite when he visited him at home and heard him exhort his pupils to “keep God pure of these sins”. ʿUqaylī III 490 no. 1552; Mīzān no. 6890; Kaʿbī 98, 3ff. (where the name is given as Qurt b. Ḥawshab; also in Lisān al-Mīzān IV 472 no. 1482). Abū Muḍar Ghassān b. Muḍar al-Azdī al-Namarī, d. 184/800, was overall very well regarded.8 He was also interested in historical traditions,9 but ʿAbd al-Ṣamad b. ʿAbd al-Wārith (d. 207/822–3)10 called him a Qadarite – maybe only because he had vilified Shuʿba b. al-Ḥajjāj.11

7  EI2 I 111; cf. also p. 252f. below. 8  TT VIII 247f. no. 458. 9  Ṭabarī II 90, 17ff.; Fasawī III 200, apu. ff., and 331, 2ff. 10  Regarding him see p. 369 below. 11   Mīzān no. 6665.

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Abū Saʿīd ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Mahdī b. Ḥassān al-Luʾluʾī al-ʿAnbarī, 135/753–198/814. He was a pearl merchant12 and highly regarded as a traditionist.13 His Qadarite views are only vaguely documented,14 but he transmitted from numerous Qadarites. He is said to have issued a fatwā declaring the Jahmites to be deserving of death.15 Shāfiʿī composed his Risāla at his suggestion;16 he was also in touch with Mālik’s school and spread his ideas in Basra.17 Abū ʿAbdallāh Hārūn b. Mūsā al-ʿAtakī al-Azdī al-Aʿwar, d. before 200/815. He is said to have heard hadith from Yazīd al-Raqāshī; later he moved to Baghdad. While he was a confirmed Qadarite according to the opinion of Sulaymān b. Ḥarb al-Wāḥishī (d. c. 224/839),18 he was still quoted in every canonical hadith collection.19 His case is interesting in that he converted from Judaism.20 It would seem that someone who became a Muslim at the time considered Qadarite thought innocuous and quite normal. Hārūn was also an expert in Quran recitation and in grammar.21

12  Samʿānī, Ansāb XI 230, 3ff. 13  Cf. Ibn Abī Ḥātim’s eulogies in: Jarḥ, Muqaddima 251ff.; also ibid. II2 288ff. no. 1382. Also IS VII2 50, 19ff. 14   T T VI 279, ult.; Kaʿbī 100, 6f. (after Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al- Shāfiʿī) > ? > IM 139, 1. 15  Lālakāʾī, Sharḥ uṣūl iʿtiqād ahl al-sunna 316, 503. 16  This is a genuine “missive” (cf. ʿAbbādī, Ṭabaqāt al-Shāfiʿiyya 19, 12f., and 36, 11ff.). Cf. also M. Khadduri, Islamic Jurisprudence 19ff.; Makdisi in: SI 59/1984/6; GAS 1/488. 17  Qāḍī ʿIyād, Tartīb I 399ff.; Bayhaqī, Manāqib al-Shāfiʿī I 231, 5ff. 18  Fasawī II 264, 3f. > TB XIV 4, 9f. > TT IX 14, pu. f. See also Suyūṭī, Tadrīb I 329, 6; Kaʿbī 105, ult. f. (after Dāwūd al-Iṣfahānī) > Faḍl 343, 9 > IM 138, 15. Cf. also Bukhārī IV2 222f. no. 2794. 19   Hady al-sārī II 168, 18; also 179, pu. 20  Qifṭī, Inbāh III 361, 15ff. 21  Cf. e.g. Ibn al-Jazarī, Ṭabaqāt al-qurrāʾ no. 3763; TB XIV 3ff. no. 7346; Qifṭī, Inbāh III 361f.; Abū l-Barakāt al-Anbārī, Nuzhat al-alibbāʾ 32f. no. 10 etc. – Not to be confused with Abū ʿAbdallāh Hārūn b. Mūsā b. Sharīk al-Naḥwī al-Dimashqī (211/826–291/904) or Abū Naṣr Hārūn b. Mūsā b. Jandal al-Naḥwī, both of whom were also grammarians (cf. Yāqūt, Irshād VII 235 no. 143, and Ibn Khayr, Fahrasa 311, 11ff.).

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Abū Bishr Muʿādh b. Hishām al-Dastuwāʾī, d. 200/815, son of Hishām b. Abī ʿAbdallāh al-Dastuwāʾī,22 who owned his father’s hadith collection (kitāb) and transmitted it further.23 Qadarite according to Mīzān no. 8615; TT X 196, 13, and Hady al-sārī II 165, 11; Faḍl 342, 11f. > IM 138, 2. The opinion was based on the fact that he could not bring himself to regarding sins as predestined. Cf. also Bukhārī IV1 366 no. 1572; TH 325 no. 307. Abū Bakr ʿAbbād b. Ṣuhayb al-Kulaybī, d. Shawwāl 212/January 828. Was considered to be dāʿiya and falsifier of hadith; he owned many hadith collections none of which have survived, presumably not least because of his bad reputation. He transmitted from, among others, Ayyūb b. Khūṭ;24 like him he transmitted the prophetic dictum that all stinging flying creatures would go to hell, with the exception of the bees.25 He seems to have enjoyed some esteem in the city; the governor came to pray over his bier.26 Concerning his Qadarite views cf. IS VII2 50, 15; Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif 625, 14; IAH III1 81 no. 417; Ibn Ḥibbān II 164, 11; Mīzān no. 4122; Kaʿbī 92, 17ff. Cf. also Bukhārī III2 43 no. 1643. Yaḥyā b. Bisṭām b. Ḥurayth al-Zahrānī al-Muṣaffar,27 d. after 214/829.28 He appears to have been an ascetic and was regarded as dāʿiya. Bukhārī IV2 264 no. 2938; IAH IV2 132 no. 556; Ibn Ḥibbān III 119, 8ff.; ʿUqaylī IV 394 no. 2013; Mīzān no. 9465; Faḍl 342, 18 > IM 138, 7f.

22  Regarding him see p. 69ff. above. 23  Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 353, –6f. no. 2328; Fasawī II 146, 3ff. 24  Fasawī II 666, 2f.; regarding him see p. 81 above. 25   Ḥayawān III 392, 4ff.: together with Ismāʿīl b. Muslim al-Makkī (see p. 75 above). 26   I S VII2 50, 16f. 27  Ibn Abī Ḥātim has “al-Aṣfar”. 28  At that time Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī (105/811–277/890), the father of Ibn Abī Ḥātim, received hadith from him (IAH IV2 132, 8).

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Abū ʿAbdallāh Muḥammad b. Maḥbūb al-Bunānī, d. 223/838, was a moderate Qadarite in Ājurrī’s view.29 Abū Maʿmar ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAmr b. Abī l-Ḥajjāj Maysara al-Minqarī al-Tamīmī, d. 224/839, was an esteemed Basran traditionist who later also lectured in Baghdad. Nobody had collected the hadith material of ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd’s pupil ʿAbdalwārith b. Saʿīd more comprehensively than he.30 Even ʿAlī Ibn al-Madīnī (d. 234/849), who had received it from ʿAbd al-Wārith’s son ʿAbd al-Ṣamad, admitted this, but he disliked greatly that Abū Maʿmar – like ʿAbd al-Wārith himself – sang the praises of ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd.31 His Qadarite tendencies were well-known in Baghdad and not forgotten later; which makes it all the more surprising that the Muʿtazilite sources do not mention him at all.32 2.2.2.1.3 The Uswārīs There are two Qadarites whom we have to discuss separately, who were Quranic exegetes and quṣṣāṣ rather than traditionists. They are linked by the same nisba, al-Uswārī, which marks them as descendants of the asāwira, the riders (usvārān) of Yazdagird’s vanguard who allied themselves with the Arabs and later settled under the Tamīm’s protection in Basra. They had been members of the late Sasanid lower nobility,1 but actually had, as de Goeje showed, their roots in Sind,2 and were consequently not of Iranian stock; they were later joined by genuinely Iranian elements. Their number in the first century AH has been estimated around 2500. Like the Arabs they received a state pension (ʿaṭāʾ); the highest sum, in fact: 2,000 dirham a year.3 Ziyād built a mosque in their quarter of the city;4 ʿUbaydallāh b. Ziyād grew up among them.5 Their privileged position came to an end only when they went their 29   T T IX 429f. no. 700. 30  Azmi, Studies 118. Regarding ʿAbd al-Wārith see p. 367ff. below. 31   T B X 25, 1f., and 24, 17ff. 32  Ibid. 24, ult., and 25, 7ff.; TT V 336, 13f. and Hady al-sārī II 139, 8; Suyūṭī, Tadrīb I 329, 2. Cf. also Bukhārī III1 155 no. 475; IAH II1 119f. no. 549. 1  Nöldeke, Ṭabarī 441. 2  Mémoire sur la migration des Tsiganes à travers l’Asie (Leiden 1903), p. 17f. 3  Donner, Early Conquests 257. 4  Balādhurī, Ansāb IV1 201, 19ff.; Ṣāliḥ al-ʿAlī, Khiṭaṭ al-Baṣra 56. 5  Jāḥiẓ, Bayān II 210, 8.

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own political ways, joined Muṣʿāb b. al-Zubayr’s side during the second civil war, and finally joined Ibn al-Ashʿath; Ḥajjāj had their houses destroyed and the state benefits cancelled. Ṣāliḥ al-ʿAlī, Al-tanẓīmāt al-ijtimāʿiyya 69f. General information on them in Pellat, Milieu 35; Morony in: Iran 14/1976/51 and 57ff. with further references; id. Iraq, Index s. v.; Crone, Slaves on Horses 237f., no. 362, and Roman Law 54f.; Sayed, Ibn al-Ashʿaṯ 142; Bosworth in: EIran II 706f. – Concerning the reading of the nisba cf. Samʿānī, Ansāb I 250, 7ff. (with lacuna; cf. n. 2) and Dhahabī, Mushtabih 23, 4ff.; Aswārī, as it is occasionally found in secondary sources, refers to a village near Isfahan called Aswāriyya according to Yāqūt (Muʿjam al-buldān I 190f.; cf. also Samʿānī I 247, 9ff.). According to a gloss in the manuscript of Mushtabih Muḥammad b. Mūsā al-Ḥāzimī (d. 584/1188) also allowed the reading “Iswārī” in his K. al-Muʾtalif walmukhtalif (cf. GAL S 1/605); but this is probably secondary. Even after losing their political influence they still played an important part in Basra’s intellectual life. At the end of the first century we encounter a certain Abū ʿĪsā al-Uswārī from whom Qatāda transmitted,6 and even before Ibn al-Ashʿath’s uprising Abū Yūnus al-Uswārī seems to have secretly suggested Qadarite heresies to Maʿbad al-Juhanī. The latter story is probably a myth,7 but there is barely any doubt that many of them were noted because of these views. They were regarded as most intelligent in religious matters, and as dangerous opponents in debates.8 The first one to stand out was Mūsā b. Sayyār9 al-Uswārī, a pupil of Ḥasan al-Baṣrī and Qatāda who probably died early in the second half of the second century. He stated that Ḥasan did not consider murder as one of the predestined manners of death, but met with criticism from ʿAwf al-Aʿrābī, 6  Samʿānī I 251, 1f.; Mushtabih 23, 5. 7  Cf. my deliberations in: Festschrift Meier 61 and 63f. 8  Cf. the dictum of Iyās b. Muʿāwiya p. 151 below. In the parallel passage in Wakīʿ I 345, 6f., the the Qadarites have taken the place of the asāwira. 9  Thus according to Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 368, 5. ʿUqaylī erroneously read “Yasār” (Ḍuʿafāʾ IV 171 no. 1740); consequently both Dhahabī and Ibn Ḥajar list him twice (Mīzān no. 8874 and 8943; Lisān al-Mīzān VI 120 and 136). Mūsā b. Yasār was the name of Ibn Isḥāq’s uncle (EI2 III 810b); he lived in Jordan (AZ 384 no. 856). “Mūsā b. Sinān” in Samʿānī, Ansāb I 251, 2, is also wrong.

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who had studied with Ḥasan for longer. In fact, he had not heard this from Ḥasan himself, but from ʿAbdalwāḥid b. Zayd,10 who, when pressed, had to admit that he had made a mistake.11 He did not get on with predestinarians like Dāwūd b. Abī Hind (d. early 140/mid-757?);12 when he prayed behind Ayyūb alSakhtiyānī13 once during Ramadan, he caused a stir.14 He was not only a qāṣṣ but also a Quran reciter. He had probably studied this art, which brought him great renown in Basra,15 in Kufa under ʿĀṣim b. Abī Najjūd (d. 127/745).16 He used both skills in his lessons, which had a mainly exegetic focus; which may also have been due to the Kufan influence of ʿAṭiyya b. Saʿd al-ʿAwfī (d. 111/729), who also influenced Kalbī and is named as one of his teachers.17 His lectures were attended by Arabs as well as mawālī (i.e. Persians); he had them sit separately and taught each group in their own language. He was equally fluent in both languages, speaking without an accent.18 Otherwise his Quran recitation would not have given people much pleasure. Malicious tongues had it that he was well aware of the Iranian–Arabian difference on the cultural level; he is said to have expressed it in the following way: “The prophet’s companions were uncouth Bedouins, and then we Persians came and added the commentary to their religion (lakhkhaṣnā)”.19 He had special ties to Iran, as shown by the report that during the civil war (al-fitna), probably towards the end of the Umayyad era, he moved to Khūzistān in order to “preserve his faith”. He seems to have been well-regarded there, for Āzādmard, presumably the leading dihqān of the area, sent him everything he needed (matāʿ), and Mūsā came to visit him at the time of his death.20

10  Regarding him see p. 111 below. 11  ʿUqaylī IV 171, 12ff. > Mīzān IV 227, 10ff. (in both passages the text is garbled at the proper names, due to transmitters’ or printers’ errors). Cf. Massignon, Essai2 174ff. and Passion2 I 677/I 626; my Anfänge muslimischer Theologie 172, n. 1. 12  The two appear to have been business partners (ʿUqaylī IV 171, 6ff. > Mīzān no. 8943 > Lisān al-Mīzān VI 136, 14ff.; Ibn Ḥazm, Naqṭ al-ʿarūs 246, 20f.). 13  Regarding him see p. 391ff. below. 14  Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 368, 11. 15  Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 368, 11. 16   Mīzān, loc. cit.; cf. also GAS 1/7. 17  Samʿānī I 251, 3ff.; Mīzān, loc. cit.; cf. also GAS 1/30f. 18   Bayān I 368, 5ff. > Faḍl 271, 10ff. (abridged) > IM 60, 14; Pellat, Milieu 100. 19  ʿUqaylī IV 171, 8ff. > Mīzān no. 8943 > Lisān VI 136, 16ff. Regarding lakhkhaṣa “to comment on, to provide a commentary on” cf. WKAS II 426f. 20   ʿIqd III 167, 20ff., and similar 229, 17ff.

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Āzādmard “the free one, the noble one” is a frequently used Iranian honorific which the Arabs interpreted as a title (cf. P. Kraus in: Aṯ-Ṯaqāfa no. 224, p. 12ff.). In the present context the person referred to may be Āzādmard b. al-Hirbidh Kāmkār who was ruler of the city of Fasā in Fārs during Ḥajjāj’s time and appears to have been very wealthy (Justi, Namenbuch 53; Mubarrad, Kāmil 1148, 6ff., and 261, –6ff.; cf. also Tanūkhī, Nishwār al-muḥāḍara I 136ff. and Faraj baʿd al-shidda I 398f., where Hirbidh is written incorrectly as Firind). Later the title is documented e.g. in Iṣṭakhrī, Masālik 145, 1ff. (for a Kurd). The “ʿUthmānite” standpoint which Mūsā b. Sayyār, being a Basran, would have adopted is expressed in a hadith he transmitted from Ḥasan: “God has a sword which he keeps in its sheath for as long as ʿUthmān is alive. But if ʿUthmān is murdered, he will draw the sword and not sheathe it again until the Day of Judgment”.21 This saying may well have been imbued with even keener topicality in those days when Mūsā went to Ahwāz in order to “preserve his faith”. It shows at the same time that Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār was hardly correct when he counted Mūsā among the Muʿtazilites.22 He appears to link him to someone of the same name whom he believes to have preceded him23 but who in fact was his assistant (ghulām)24 and later became his successor in the asāwira mosque: Abū ʿAlī ʿAmr b. Fāʾid al-Uswārī25 al-Tamīmī al-Anṣārī. He was also active as a qāṣṣ and was said to have explained the Quran for 36 years.26 Due to the breadth and detail of his lectures it seems that he never went through the entire text, despite the many years of teaching. He would sometimes spend several weeks over a single verse; he considered the individual interpretations (ta‌ʾwīlāt) and in particular referred to the prophet’s 21   Mīzān III 283, apu. ff. 22  Cf. p. 95 below. 23   Faḍl 270, 8ff. 24  Ibn Abī Khaythama, Ta‌ʾrīkh (MS Medina, Makt. Maḥmūdiyya, Uṣūl al-ḥadīth 36), fol. 9b, 2ff. 25  When Abū Mūsā al-Iṣfahānī (d. 581/1185) in his notes on Ibn al-Qaysarānī’s Ansāb almuttafiqa claims that he heard the name pronounced as “Aswārī” as well, this only illustrates the fluctuating usage of his day, and the preponderance of the Aswārīs in his home city of Isfahan, as the only derivation he knows is the same, from aswār/suwār (Al-ansāb al-muttafiqa 172, ult. ff.). The connection was already emphasised by Ibn al-Nadīm (Fihrist 205, 5.). 26  A round number; see p. 28f. above.

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vita.27 One has the impression that he, like Mūsā b. Sayyār before him, did this professionally;28 it is possible that the rich inhabitants of the quarter paid him a salary at the mosque. We do not know whether his Tafṣīr was ever set down in writing; there is a lacuna in Fihrist where it should discuss ʿAmr b. Fāʾid’s books.29 People did, however, recall a tradition of his on the ḥurūf al-Qurʾān, i.e. the readings of specific passages; thus he was said to have read iyyāka in the Fātiḥa (verse 5) without tashdīd.30 As was to be expected, he took umbrage at sura 81:29: “But will you shall not, unless God wills”. He included the preceding verse “for whosoever of you who would go straight”, and interpreted: “but you do not want to go straight, unless God wills it so”. In this interpretation the verse referred only to those who reject “straightness” (istiqāma) deliberately, to unbelievers or hardened sinners; they can be forced to salvation by God. Read in this way the divine will would still imply compulsion (mashīʾat al-qahr), but only with the result that God prevents evil, not that he intends evil.31 On behalf of humans God can only “will” what he has already offered; amr and irāda are identical. The question was discussed in great depth in Basra at the time; Faḍl al-Raqāshī came to a similar conclusion.32 ʿAmr b. Fāʾid occasionally met with criticism from Muqātil b. Sulaymān: while God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son, he did not in fact will it. ʿAmr’s response was to claim that Abraham had only dreamt God’s command. Muqātil pointed out to him that this was not possible due to the context, as the son says “Father, do as you were bid (= commanded) to do” (sura 37:102). The debate was probably contrived, but it illustrates where the weak point of the theory would be found later.33

27  Probably not yet according to Ibn Isḥāq’s Sīra; cf. Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 368, 13ff. and, following him, Pellat, Milieu. 28  When Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār says about him that he “recited the Quran” for 30 years (Faḍl 271, 9), this may merely have been copied incorrectly from Jāḥiẓ’ account on ʿAmr b. Fāʿid. The Qāḍī mentions nothing of the sort with regard to the latter. 29  P. 205, 8; the section on Tafṣīr works (p. 36ff.) does not even mention him. However, the Qāḍī refers to a tafṣīr kabīr (Faḍl 271, 4 > IM 60, 11). Ibn al-Faraḍī (Ta‌ʾrīkh al-ʿulamāʾ bilAndalus) has an interesting note stating that Ḥasan al-Baṣrī’s commentary was transmitted through him; he might have received it from ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd (see p. 96f. below). Or it might simply be a transmitter’s error for ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd. In more detail p. 340 below. 30  Ibn al-Jazārī, Ṭab. I 602, apu. f. 31   Faḍl 271, 5ff. 32  See p. 195 below. 33  Ibn Qutayba, Ta‌ʾwīl mukhtalif al-ḥadīth 37, 9ff. = 30, 3ff./transl. Lecomte 35 para. 40f. Concerning this issue cf. also al-Manṣūr billāh, Shāfī II 238, –4ff.

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His Qadarite view of the world was clearly more advanced than that of his predecessor. Still, one cannot easily turn him into a Muʿtazilite, either,34 because like Ḥasan he believed the time of death and the manner of making a living to be predetermined – “astonishingly”, as he put it.35 He did not think much36 of ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd under whom he had studied.37 The philologist Yūnus b. Ḥabīb, on the other hand, who was one of the very few of his calling in Basra not to be suspected of Qadarite deviation,38 took lessons in Bedouin Arabic usage with him, and quoted him.39 He appears to have shared Ḥasan’s view that Satan could not be a fallen angel;40 he did not think he could even be a jinn. He interpreted the verse contradicting him (sura 18:50), as saying that once upon a time Satan had shared the jinns’ creed (diyāna) and their home, but that he had never been of their kind.41 Determining ʿAmr b. Fāʾid’s dates is difficult. His connection with ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd (d. 143/760) and Muqātil b. Sulaymān (d. 150/767) means that he must have been born around 120/738 at the latest. There was even a hadith which he had allegedly received42 from Maṭar b. Ṭahmān al-Warrāq (d. before 130/747).43 On the other hand, Jāḥiẓ met him and confirmed that he was a most righteous man;44 he also had him provide a short overview of the Basran quṣṣāṣ.45 He is said to have died shortly after 200/815,46 but all this information is either not above doubt or not precise enough. Ibn al-Nadīm’s note that he was a member of the circle around the Abbasid Muḥammad b. Sulaymān b. ʿAlī47 seems 34  Thus not only Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, loc. cit., and Ḥākim al-Jushamī, Risālat Iblīs 48, ult., but also ʿUqaylī (Ḍuʿafāʾ III 290, ult. > Mīzān no. 6421 > Lisān al-Mīzān IV 372, 15f.). Interestingly, Kaʿbī took no notice of him. He is listed as a Qadarite in Ibn Qutayba (Maʿārif 625, 9; also Ta‌ʾwīl 11, 6 = 10, 6f./transl. 9 para. 17, and 102, 7 = 85, –5/transl. 95 para. 122). 35  Jāḥiẓ, Ḥayawān VII 203, 9f. 36  Tawḥīdī, Baṣāʾir IV 71, ult. ff. (with correction p. 349)/2IV 61 no. 157; also Ibn Abī l-Ḥadīd, ŠNB VII 112, 5ff. (where ʿAlī must be corrected to Abū ʿAlī). 37  Ibn al-Nadīm 205, 9f. 38  See p. 98f. below; regarding him GAS 9/49ff. 39  Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 369, 1f. Or does kalām al-ʿArab refer to the sayings of pre-Islamic wise men and khuṭabāʾ? 40  See p. 52 above. 41  Jāḥiẓ, Ḥayawān VI 191, 4ff. 42  Regarding him IS VII2 19, 14ff.; Mīzān no. 3587. 43   Mīzān no. 6421; the hadith intended to tighten the purity laws. 44   Bayān I 369, 5f.: he never denounced or criticised anyone. 45  Ibid. I 367, 2ff. 46   Fihrist 205, 5f. > Lisān al-Mīzān IV 373, 9f. 47  Ibid. 205, 4f.

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to be the most reliable report. Sulaymān was governor of Basra several times; first briefly after 146, before Manṣūr transferred him to Kufa,48 then again in 160/777,49 as well as later under Hādī (169/785) and Hārūn al-Rashīd (from 170/786); he died in 173/789.50 It was in his presence that ʿAmr b. Fāʾid refuted the Quran reciter Abū l-Mundhir Sallām b. Sulaymān al-Muzanī (d. 171/787–8), a predestinarian.51 A clearly apocryphal story, on the other hand, has him as an old man who found climbing stairs difficult, and links him to the father of this Abbasid, who died in 142/759, and had been governor of Basra a little earlier, between 136/753 and 137/755 (cf. J. Lassner, The Shaping of Abbasid Rule, index s. n., and H. Kennedy, The Early Abbasid Caliphate 75f.). It is reported only in Muʿtazilite tradition (Faḍl 270, 9ff. > IM 60, 2ff.) and pursues two tendencies: firstly to refute that a Qadarite like ʿAmr b. Fāʾid could not agree with religious formulae such as lā ḥawla wa-lā quwwata ilā billāh, which recognise God’s omnipotence: he used them himself. A story in a similar style circulated among predestinarians: that the Qadarite Rabīʿ b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Barra did not want to say iʿṣimnī (see p. 364f. below). Secondly, the objective was to invalidate the statement in sura 10:100 according to which humans are only believers “with God’s permission”. ʿAmr b. Fāʾid is said to have countered it with sura 7:158, which implies that at God’s command the prophet called all humans to become believers, and thus gave them the power of decision. Faith, it says, is there for all those who have heard the message. Ḥasan al-Baṣrī was also said to have explained God’s “leave” or “permission” in sura 10:100 as “command” (Ṭūsī, Tibyān V 501, 1), and ʿAmr b. Fāʾid is unlikely to have understood more than that God sent the prophet and thus made faith possible (more detailed information on this exegesis may be found in Anfänge 73f.). The story is nothing more than presenting a theological problem in literary form. It cannot be redeemed, either, by substituting Sulaymān b. ʿAlī with his son Muḥammad b. Sulaymān, as the editor of K. Faḍl al-iʿtizāl tried to do. However, he only did it in one passage (270, –5), when it also needed to be done in the immediately following one (270, pu.). Furthermore this solution is contradicted by Ibn al-Murtaḍā’s text, which was based 48  Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 652, 15. 49  Ibid. 671, 2f. 50  Ibid. 743, 3f. He was born 122/740 (ibid. 527, 9f.) and had fought against al-Nafs al-zakiyya (ibid. 649f.). Regarding him cf. also TB V 291f. 51   Fihrist 205, 6f. Regarding Sallām b. Sulaymān see p. 439f. below .

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on Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, and finally the governor was not a friend of the theologian like Muḥammad b. Sulaymān, but his opponent. The anecdote proves one single thing: that in Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār’s day people had no concrete idea of who ʿAmr b. Fāʾid, the alleged Muʿtazilite, actually had been. According to the Qadarite Ibn Abī Khaythama’s (d. 279/892)52 Ta‌ʾrīkh, one of ʿAmr b. Fāʾid’s pupils was a man from Mosul, ʿAfīf b. Sālim, a client of the Bajīla, who travelled far and wide in matters relating to hadith, and became a great authority in his native city. He died in 180/796 already, or shortly afterwards, around the same time as Muʿāfā b. ʿImrān, the other eminent scholar from Mosul at that time.53 There is no mention of this connection in the bio­ graphies the rijāl works dedicated to him;54 they were careful not to spoil the traditionist’s reputation. Among the Uswārīs themselves, however, theologians emerged who genuinely were Muʿtazilites: Ṣāliḥ b. ʿAmr al-Uswārī, who may have been ʿAmr b. Fāʾid’s son, and ʿAlī b. Khālid al-Uswārī, who came under Naẓẓām’s influence. They will be examined elsewhere.55 2.2.2.1.4 Qadarites among the Basran Grammarians Like the traditionists, grammarians were the focus of scholarly interest, but biographers emphasised different aspects. Their religious views are only ever mentioned in passing. The Basran philologists’ interest in the Qadariyya was noted first by their Kufan colleagues. Ibrāhīm b. Isḥāq al-Ḥarbī (198/814–Dhū l-Ḥijja 285/December 898), originally from Marv,1 reported that in Basra only four of them were not among the “heretics” (aṣḥāb al-ahwāʾ): Khalīl, Abū ʿAmr Ibn al-ʿAlāʾ, Yūnus b. Ḥabīb, and Aṣmaʿī. Abū Ḥayyān al-Tawḥīdī quoted the remark, substituting the Qadariyya for the aṣḥāb al-ahwāʾ, certainly quite correctly.2 Abū ʿAmr Ibn al-ʿAlāʾ was in fact very close to Murjiʾite views that were popular in Kufa and seems to have spoken out against the Muʿtazila; Aṣmaʿī was his pupil and circulated the relevant information concerning 52  See n. 24 above; regarding his works cf. GAS 1/319f. 53  Regarding him GAS 1/348. 54   T B XII 312ff. no. 6754; Mīzān no. 5680. 55  See p. 369f. and ch. C 3.2.2.2.7.1 below. 1  Regarding him see Qifṭī, Inbāh I 155ff. no. 93; TB VI 27ff.; listed as a Kufan “Sunnite” in Baghdādī, Uṣūl al-dīn 316, 10 (which has incorrect al-Ḥ-r-tī instead of al-Ḥarbī). 2  TB X 418, 14ff. > Tawḥīdī, Baṣāʾir III 592, 8ff./2III 124 no. 420 (which has incorrect alḤarrānī instead of al-Ḥarbī).

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his teacher.3 For the same reason he is said to have thrown Jāḥiẓ out of his lectures.4 Yūnus b. Ḥabīb had also studied under Ibn al-ʿAlāʾ, as well as under Ḥammād b. Salama, a follower of ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd’s “orthodox” opponents;5 people said he had no wish to waste any thought on the problem of qadar.6 Khalīl b. Aḥmad’s alleged theological naivety provoked the Muʿtazilites’ derision.7 We are able to verify Ibrāhīm al-Ḥarbī’s opinion in a few more cases. We have already seen that a Qadarite traditionist such as Hārūn b. Mūsā al-ʿAtakī could be a grammarian as well.8 The “middle” Akhfash (d. between 210/825 and 221/835) followed Abū Shamir’s doctrine, i.e. he was a Qadarite without being a Muʿtazilite.9 Abū Zayd Saʿīd b. Aws al-Anṣārī, who died 214/830 or 215/831 at the age of 93,10 was well-versed not only in grammar but also in hadith and appears to have had no qualms about the Qadarites in this field: he transmitted from ʿAwf al-Aʿrābī, Saʿīd b. Abī ʿArūba, and even from ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd, but of course also from his teacher Abū ʿAmr Ibn al-ʿAlāʾ and other “orthodox” authorities.11 Consequently opinions on his affiliation are divided. Zubaydī12 and Yāqūt13 remarked that he was thought to be a Qadarite; Qifṭī even counted him among the ahl al-ʿadl.14 The jarḥ wal-taʿdīl experts, on the other hand, attempted to refute the accusations;15 his hadith appears to have generally been regarded as good. Abū ʿUbayd (d. 224/838) was undoubtedly a Qadarite;16 but it would probably be going too far to call him a Muʿtazilite as well.17 Muḥammad b. Sallām al-Jumaḥī, the author of Ṭabaqāt al-shuʿarāʾ (d. 231/846) was considered trustworthy only as far as his poetical traditions went, but not with regard to hadith, for the same reason.18 Aṣmāʿī accused Abū ʿUthmān al-Māzinī 3  See p. 421ff. below. 4  Baghdādī, Uṣūl 316, 17f. 5  Regarding him see p. 427ff. below; also EI2, S 384b. 6  Qifṭī, Inbāh IV 68, 2, and 70, 5. 7  See p. 256f. below. 8  Cf. p. 89. 9  More details p. 209 below. 10  Cf. EI2 I 167b. 11  Qifṭī, Inbāh II 30, 9; Ṣafadī, Wāfī XV 201, 1f. 12   Ṭabaqāt al-naḥwiyyīn 182, 12. 13   Irshād IV 238, 17. 14  Also among the Shīʿites; cf. Inbāh II 33, 15. However, we must wonder whether ahl al-ʿadl refers to something more than mere Qadarites in this context. 15   Mīzān no. 3141; TT IV 3, 15. 16  Lecomte in: Arabica 12/1965/161ff. 17  Lecomte 172. The basis of the verdict was probably his K. gharīb al-ḥadīth (cf. HT 107ff.). 18   Akhbār al-Zajjājī 90, 12ff.; Mīzān no. 7611. Also Faḍl 344, 3 > IM 139, 10.

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(d. 248/862?) of Qadarite and Muʿtazilite tendencies; later he was also believed to have been a Murjiʾite.19 In his K. uṣūl al-dīn Baghdādī later tried to counterbalance these views.20 He regarded the “middle” Akhfash as a Sunnite (probably because Abū Shamir was a Murjiʾite, too), as well as the older grammarian of the same name, Abū l-Khaṭṭāb ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd b. ʿAbd al-Majīd (d. 177/793). He also listed ʿAbdallāh b. Abī Isḥāq al-Ḥaḍramī, who died in 117 on the same day as Qatāda,21 and ʿĪsā b. ʿUmar al-Thaqafī (d. 149/766), a cousin of the “Murjiʾite” Muways b. ʿImrān;22 they are both reported to have reproached Wāṣil b. ʿAṭāʾ for not accepting ʿAlī’s and Ṭalḥa’s testimony.23 Among the scholars of the second century he finally mentioned, besides Khalīl, Abū ʿAmr Ibn al-ʿAlāʾ and Aṣmaʿī, Khalaf al-Aḥmar (d. 180/796).24 Like the elder Akhfash, he was a pupil of Ibn al-ʿAlāʾ’s as well as ʿĪsā b. ʿUmar al-Thaqafī’s. Consequently we have to expect a “Murjiʾite” minority among the Basran philologists, whose most vocal spokesperson was clearly Abū ʿAmr Ibn al-ʿAlāʾ. The middle Akhfash – and possibly others besides him – then went to find a compromise in the company of Abū Shamir. Muʿtazilite influence began to emerge towards the end of the century as well. Quṭrub (d. 206/822) who, as we have seen,25 attacked the zanādiqa, had been acquainted with Ḍirār b. ʿAmr who repeated to him a report on Wāṣil b. ʿAṭāʾ.26 In a qaṣīda by Abū Dulaf, of whose circle he was a member, he was praised for his great knowledge of “the teachings of Naẓẓām”.27 As his religious convictions found expression in his Quran exegesis he had to be prepared for protests when he intended to recite his tafsīr in the main mosque,28 and consequently asked for police protection.29 Farrāʾ, who died only a year after him 19  Yāqūt, Irshād II 389, 10ff. and 381, 1. Both together would result, as in the case of Akhfash, in the doctrine of Abū Shamir; al-Māzinī, however, was a Shīʿite, a follower of ʿAlī b. Mītham (regarding him see p. 482ff. below). – Al-Manṣūr billāh also has a list of Qadarite philologists (Shāfī I 154, 20ff.). 20  P. 316, 11ff. 21  Regarding him cf. Qifṭī, Inbāh II 104ff. no. 316. For Baghdādī we must add Abī. 22  Regarding him cf. Fück in EI2 IV 91a; regarding Muways b. ʿImrān see ch. C 2.5.1 below. 23   Uṣūl al-dīn 316, 14; cf. also p. 311f. below. 24  Regarding him cf. Pellat in EI2 IV 919a. 25  P. 46 above. 26  Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 21, pu. ff.; cf. also p. 282, n. 1 below. 27  Marzubānī, Nūr al-qabas 174, 19. This does not necessarily imply anything above familiarity with Muʿtazilite ideas. 28  Probably in Baghdad. Maybe in Ruṣāfa? (see ch. C 3.3 below). 29  Ibn al-Anbārī, Nuzhat al-alibbāʾ 91, 6ff.; cf. also Makdisi, Rise of Colleges 16f. Regarding Quṭrub as a Muʿtazilite cf. Versteegh in: Historiographia Linguistica 8/1981/418 and 422,

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(207/822), showed his rejection of determinism in his Maʿānī al-Qurʾān.30 He was known to be favourably inclined towards the Muʿtazila;31 he was the tutor of Ma‌ʾmūn’s two sons. When dictating he used “philosophical” terminology,32 but he had no talent for dialectical debate (kalām).33 2.2.2.2 Qadariyya and Asceticism However influential Ḥasan al-Baṣrī was, it is not possible to see him as the ancestor of the Qadariyya. While it would be problematic to look beyond him further into the past, there are others besides him who, although slightly younger, probably did not learn their Qadarite creed from him. The ideal of piety they adhered to also differed from his in some ways. They did share his trend to individualisation, but they ventured further forward: some to a personal love of God, others to ostentatious “monkishness” that was a slap in the face of bourgeois lifestyle, and sometimes also of pietistic devoutness. In Basra in particular early signs of this development could be observed. During ʿUthmān’s caliphate, ʿĀmir b. ʿAbd (al-)Qays al-ʿAnbarī – still a young man at the time1 – had been posted to the Syrian military district under Muʿāwiya because he refused to get married and was alleged to stay away from Friday prayers.2 The governor may have feared that the defensive capability of the only recently established army camp might be compromised, for ʿĀmir was by no means the only one,3 and his tribe was very powerful.4 He had another quirk as well: he did not eat meat or dairy products, unless they came from

n. 3; regarding his nickname “the werewolf” cf. Ullmann in: WZKM 68/1976/171ff., esp. p. 179. General information in GAS 8/61ff. and 9/64ff. 30  In detail Abū Zayd, Al-ittijāh al-ʿaqlī 156ff.; also Beck in: Muséon 65/1951/187ff. Concerning the work cf. Cerrahoğlu, Tefsir tarihi I 279ff. 31  Qifṭī, Inbāh IV 7, ult. He lived very close to Bishr al-Marīsī (regarding him see ch. C 2.4.1 below), but they did not influence one another (ibid. 8, 3f.). 32  Ibn al-Nadīm, Fihrist 73, 18f. 33  Regarding him R. Blachère in EI2 II 806ff.; GAS 8/123ff. and 9/131ff. 1  Despite the early date he was counted among the tābiʿun, e.g. by Ibn Saʿd. His father appears to have converted to Islam but continued to be called ʿAbdqays all the same (IS VII1 76 pu.). Biographical works on the ṣaḥāba do not mention him. 2  IS VII1 75, 4ff. and 21ff.; 77, 22ff.; 60, 23f. 3  Ibid. 78, 16, and 79, 14ff. 4  Regarding the Banū l-ʿAnbar see p. 178f. below; concerning the genealogy cf. Ibn Ḥazm, Jamhara 208, 12ff. and 2f.

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irreproachable – by which he meant: Bedouin – production.5 Even so, the defensive capability could not be preserved in the long run. While the majority of the population did not become ascetics, they did become civilians. As a result, the demeanour of the dissenters changed. Some neglected their appearance and wore rags (taqashshuf); others wore only wool, such as the poet Jaḥḥāf when he had had an awakening during Ḥajjāj’s time: he went on the hajj with a group of people, dressed in wool and with a camel ring through his nose.6 The “hair-shirt” was a sign of renouncing the world; beggars wore wool.7 When Yazīd b. Marthad, apparently a rich Arab from the South,8 wanted to demonstrate asceticism, he went into the street without footwear (khuff) and wore his fur coat inside out – as it would be worn nowadays, with the “wool” on the outside; as a consequence he was considered a lunatic.9 Until the early Abbasid era, woollen clothing was also a sign of humiliation: Walīd II had had Sulaymān b. Hishām flogged, shorn, and then condemned him to wear a woollen garment;10 Yazīd b. ʿAbd al-Malik had already decreed similar punishments,11 and when Manṣūr suspected ʿAbd al-Jabbār al-Azdī of rebelling, he was brought to Iraq sitting back-to-front on a camel and wearing a woollen garment.12 Conversely, ʿAbdallāh b. Muʿāwiya dressed in woollen clothes when he began his uprising in Kufa;13 punishment and protest were close together.14 In Basra as elsewhere a positive appreciation of this “new look” was made public through the medium of hadith, e.g. with authority from Abū Hurayra: 5  IS 74, apu. ff. (with the correction in the ʿAbbās edition, Beirut 1380/1960, VII 105, 2), and 77, 11ff.; also Ṭabarī I 2924, 7ff., and Ibn al-Mubārak, Zuhd 298, 8ff. In the city itself the provision of foodstuffs was probably mainly in the hands of non-Muslims. For general information see the extensive bibliography in Ibn ʿAsākir, TD, ed. Fayṣal 323ff.; Pellat in EI2 I 441a with further references. 6  Agh. XII 203, ult. ff.; cf. also Goldziher, Ges. Schr. IV 163f. 7  Ṭabarī II 1452, 6f. The ring was probably meant to symbolise ʿubūdiyya. 8  Regarding him see vol. I 93 above. 9  Abū Nuʿaym, Ḥilya V 165, 10ff. 10  Balādhurī in Derenk, Walīd b. Yazīd 45, 8f. 11  Dhahabī, Ta‌ʾrīkh IV 143, 3f. 12  Daniel, Political and Social History of Khurasan 161, regarding him cf. also EI2 I 59. 13   Agh. XII 228, 13; cf. p. 699ff. below. 14  Cropping one’s beard was also a punishment as well as a sign of asceticism (see vol. I 124 above, and p. 436f. and 751 below). For more information on the subject cf. Goldziher, Vorlesungen über den Islam 155. Regarding the possible influence of Christian asceticism cf. Andrae, Zuhd und Mönchtum in: MO 25/1931/296ff., and Morony, Iraq 463; concerning the term ṣūfī see Ogén in: AO 43/1982/33ff. and Meier, Bahāʾi Walad 73f.

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“He who enjoys sitting with God should sit with those who wear wool”.15 However, the development is difficult to analyse in detail. The representatives of the new and ostentatious piety saw themselves as “friends of God” (awliyāʾ Allāh), in a reference to a Quranic phrase. However, they saw the phrase as an absolute recalling John 15:15: “Henceforth I shall call you not servants, for a servant does not know what his lord does: but I have called you friends”.16 The more the taqashshuf became a symbol of their identity,17 however, the stronger was the criticism levelled at them; frequently by the very persons who also rejected the Qadariyya.18 Ḥasan could also serve as a reference point;19 after all, he had visited the mosque wearing a state robe given to him by Maslama b. ʿAbd al-Malik.20 In order to gain a clear picture, we must first distinguish the different generations. 2.2.2.2.1 Ḥasan al-Baṣrī’s Younger Contemporaries We will start with a Qadarite who appears to have died between 110/729 and 120/738,1 surviving Ḥasan by only a few years, and who enjoyed great esteem in the latter’s circle:2 Abū ʿAmr Yazīd b. Abān b. ʿAbdallāh al-Raqāshī. He transmitted from Ḥasan and in turn passed hadith on to Qatāda. His father Abān b. ʿAbdallāh had been a traditionist before him, but none of his material had survived as Yazīd, who was the only one who preserved it, was not much respected in matters of hadith.3 He was interested only in the substance; 15  Suyūṭī, La‌ʾālī II 264, 10ff.: Ḥasan > Mālik b. Dīnār. 16  The New Testament refers to Jewish usage; cf. Strack-Billerbeck, Kommentar zum NT II 564f. 17  Observed in Ibn Qutayba, Ashriba 84, 4ff. 18  Cf. e.g. p. 391ff. below regarding al-Sakhtiyānī and his circle. 19   I S VII1 123, 5ff. 20  See p. 50 above. 1  TT XI 311, 7, after Bukhārī’s Ta‌ʾrīkh al-awsaṭ. Khalīfa b. Khayyāṭ ranked him among the fourth ṭabaqa of Basrans (Ṭab. 513 no. 1775). The year of his death 131/749 given by Pellat, Milieu 101 and 113, originates with Massignon, Passion 1749/2III 218 and is probably due to an error. The story in Masʿūdī, Murūj VI 137, 4ff./IV 117, 1ff., which linked Yazīd al-Raqāshī with Saffāḥ, is apocryphal. Ibn Saʿd called him a Qadarite (VII2 13, 8f.), but had nothing else to say about him. 2  Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 308, 9ff. 3  Samʿānī, Ansāb VI 150, 10ff.; also Ibn Ḥibbān, Majrūḥīn I 84, 2ff. > Mīzān no. 12.

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the source was of no relevance to him. People complained that he confused everything, for instance tracing traditions from Ḥasan back to Anas b. Mālik. He apparently spoke of the “substitutes” (abdāl) representing the community before God in a special way, forty altogether, twenty-two in Syria and eighteen in Iraq, whose number is restored every time one of them dies, until all of them will be taken on the Day of Judgment.4 They also take upon themselves the ills of all humanity, for “if God loves a man and has true affection for him, he will shower him with trials . . .”.5 But “the prophets and those who fell in the holy struggle will envy them, because (in paradise) they will sit near God on a dais (? manābir) of light, where everyone can recognise them . . . They are the ones who awaken love of God in humans, and love of humans in God, who walk the earth dispensing wise counsel . . .”.6 They will be given gifts, and finally they will look upon the face of God.7 Hardened sinners, on the other hand, will remain in hell forever;8 even the sun and the moon will be consumed by fire, like “castrated bulls”.9 Ḥasan expressed his surprise at the last of these ideas: what evil did sun and moon do?10 But for Yazīd b. Abān, this day of reckoning for all creation seems to have been part of his Qadarite world view. If he justified it from a Qadarite point of view, the punishment had to be deserved, which it was because in Abraham’s day, sun and moon had been objects of worship (Suyūṭī 82, apu. ff.). This probably referred to sura 21:98: “You and everything you worship in God’s stead will (all) be fuel for hell”. Similar considerations were already found in Judaism; but the noticeable image of thawrān ʿaqīrān is not easy to explain (cf. D. J. Halperin and G. D. Newby, Two Castrated Bulls. A Study in the Hggadah of Kaʿb al-Aḥbār, in: JAOS 102/1982/631ff.). Ḥasan’s objection was – later? – attributed to Ibn ʿAbbās; the Jewish origin of the phrase was noted 4  TD I 279, 19ff.; Suyūṭī, La‌ʾālī II 332, 7 regarding 331, apu. ff. (after Anas b. Mālik). General: Conc. I 153b. s. v. abdāl and TD I 277ff.; also Jāḥiẓ, Tarbīʿ 28, 2ff. para. 43/transl. Arabica 14/1967/35f., and Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Khatm al-awliyāʾ 434, 5ff. Concerning the idea cf. Goldziher in EI2 I 94f. s. v. Abdāl and Massignon, Essai2 132f., also M. Moosa, Extremist Shiites 110ff. 5  Suyūṭī II 399, –4ff., also after Anas. 6  Makkī, Qūt al-qulūb I 222, 18ff.: the so-called ḥadīth al-ghibṭa. Cf. Massignon, Passion2 III 218/Engl. transl. III 206 and, with a related text, Graham, Divine Word 144f. A detailed description of paradise in Suyūṭī, La‌ʾālī (where the text has been abridged). 7  Cf. the hadith in Qushayrī, Risāla 88, –ff./transl. Gramlich, Sendschreiben 275. 8  This is indicated by the statement in Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 262, 7ff. and III 159, 3f. 9  Suyūṭī, La‌ʾālī I 82, 5ff. 10  Ibn Qutayba, Ta‌ʾwīl mukhtalif al-ḥadīth 121, 7ff. = 101, 1ff./transl. 113 para. 141.

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critically there (Ṭabarī I 62, 14ff./transl. Rosenthal, History I 232ff.). Rosenthal translates thawrān ʿaqīrān as “two hamstrung oxen”, which may be a closer interpretation of the meaning of the image: the two hamstrung oxen will have fallen to their knees awaiting the butcher’s axe. Yazīd was a mawlā. The clan he had joined, the Banū Raqāsh, was part of the federation of the Shaybān, and bore the name of an ancestress to whom the jurist Qatāda, among others, traced his genealogy.11 There were famous names among the clients: the poet Abān al-Lāḥiqī for instance,12 but in particular numerous traditionists13 as well as Yazīd b. Abān’s nephew Faḍl b. ʿĪsā, who would later become an eminent theologian.14 They probably lived in the same quarter of the city for a while and ensured a lively intellectual atmosphere. Yazīd b. Abān was a qāṣṣ and khaṭīb;15 maybe he was even employed at the mosque of the quarter. It was said that even ʿUmar II had allowed him to admonish him.16 Abū ʿUbayda’s explanation for his rhetorical skills was that his ancestors had already held the office of khaṭīb under the Sasanids.17 Maybe they had been intermediaries between the Arabs and the Iranian state authorities. Yazīd’s ascetic inclinations were emphasised by Abū Nuʿaym in particular;18 he was said to have fasted even in the greatest heat.19 Regarding him cf. Jāḥiẓ, Bayān, Index s. n.; Bukhalāʾ 266f. no. 20; Ibn Qutayba, ʿUyūn II 295, 7ff.; Bukhārī IV2 320 no. 3166; IAH IV2 251f. no. 1053; ʿUqaylī IV 373f. no. 1983; Samʿānī, Ansāb VI 150, 15ff.; Dhahabī, Ta‌ʾrīkh V 183, pu. ff., and Mīzān no. 9669; TT XI 309ff. no. 597; Pellat, Milieu 101. It is interesting that a tradition survived among the Ibāḍites according to which he refused to take literally that God sits on a throne (Khamīs b. Saʿīd al-Shaqaṣī, Manhaj al-ṭālibīn I 334, 5ff., and 505, 8ff.). The two verses Pellat quotes from Bayān I 404, 1ff., which are addressed to a certain, not further identified, Raqāshī do not refer, as Pellat presumes, to Yazīd b. Abān but to one Faḍl al-Raqāshī, as proved by the 11   Agh. XXIV 155, 3f.; Ibn Ḥazm, Jamhara 317, 10ff. Regarding Qatāda see p. 156ff. below. 12  Regarding him Agh. XXIV 155f. and p. 41 above. 13  Samʿānī, Ansāb VI 149ff. 14  See p. 192ff. below. 15  Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 308, 9ff., and 353, ult. f. 16  Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam, Sīrat ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz 90, 6ff.; Ghazzālī, Iḥyāʾ, transl. Gramlich, Stufen zur Gottesliebe 388. 17   Bayān I 308, 12ff.; transl. Goldziher, Muh. Studien I 198f. 18   Ḥilya III 50ff. > Ṣifat al-ṣafwa III 210f. 19  Ibid. 50, 12ff.; also Ibn Qutayba, ʿUyūn I 297, 9.

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parallel in Ibn ʿAbdrabbih, ʿIqd II 299, 5ff. The person of the poet should have been enough to indicate this, for whoever among this dynasty of officials and poets was addressed as Ibn Abī Umayya (cf. GAS 2/607f.), they would all have been too young to have been Yazīd b. Abān who died during the Umayyad era. According to the parallel passage in ʿIqd the poem was thought to be by Abū Nuwās. Consequently we can assume that this refers to the poet Faḍl b. ʿAbd al-Ṣamad of whom we know that he did not get along with Abū Nuwās (TB XII 345, 2f.; Agh. XVI 244; regarding him see p. 193 below). – In his commentary on Bukhalāʾ 266 Ṭāhā al-Ḥājirī made the same mistake as Pellat. Abū Yaḥyā Mālik b. Dīnār al-Sāmī (d. 127/745)20 appears to have developed independently of Ḥasan as well. He was the client of a woman of the Banū Sāma b. Luʾayy. Kaʿbī’s numbering him among the Qadarites was due to the fact that Mālik collected and then transmitted Maʿbad al-Juhanī’s traditions.21 However, this is not sufficient evidence by itself. It primarily informs us that at that time Maʿbad’s reputation had not been completely ruined by the accusation that he was the first Qadarite; the hadiths that survived from him did not exhibit any particular Qadarite tendency.22 Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār furnished another piece of evidence, Mālik’s exhortation: “Do not blame your lord unjustly for your sins (dhunūb). He will only punish you twice. Seek to be closer to him instead!”23 Ibn al-Jazarī reports along similar lines that Mālik, when he missed out a piece while reciting the Quran, said: “It was through my own fault (bi-dhanbin minnī)! God does not wrong humans”,24 illustrating that due to his ascetic attitude he always particularly emphasised human responsibility. Interestingly he was the one (the very first one?) to whom the call for jihād to be directed just as much – or above all – against one’s own self, the “self that incites to evil”, was attributed.25 20  The precise date of his death is noted only in Ibn al-Jazarī, Ṭabaqāt al-qurrāʾ no. 2643, and Ibn al-ʿImād, Shadharāt al-dhahab I 173, 3ff. Elsewhere it became customary to say, following Ibn Saʿd and other early authorities, that he died “shortly before the pestilence” (131/749; IS VII2 11, 19; Khalīfa, Ṭab. 518 no. 1792; Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif 470, 13f. etc.; also GAS 1/634). This was presumably where Ibn al-Nadīm deduced his date of 130 (Fihrist 9, apu.). 21   Maq. 89, 9, and 96, 2 > Faḍl 341, 12 > IM 137, 7f.; also Dhahabī, Ta‌ʾrīkh III 304, 11ff. 22  Cf. my article in: Festschrift Meier 56ff. 23   Faḍl 341, 12f. > IM 137, 8f. 24   Ṭabaqāt II 36, 7. 25   Ḥilya II 363, 6f.; following him Pellat, Milieu 99, and Reinert, Tawakkul 82. Much earlier, certainly, than in Syria (see vol. I 164f. above).

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He was not a political activist like Maʿbad al-Juhanī. He expressed a certain respect for Ḥajjāj’s skills as an orator,26 and may have been paid by him;27 consequently he would certainly not have supported Ibn al-Ashʿath’s uprising. In legal matters, however, he was a rigorist;28 he was annoyed if people asked him questions such as: whether a certain kind of nabīdh was permissible.29 He was a bookseller (warrāq)30 and was said to have made a living from copying the Quran.31 Thus it is probably an exaggeration to claim, like Pellat, that he preached absolute poverty;32 but a saying of his was preserved that “a market makes fortune grow, and religion dwindle”.33 A certain renunciation of worldly things was indeed attributed to him; he was thought to expect a truly pious man to leave his wife behind, like a widow, as it were, and seek refuge in the rubbish heap like a dog.34 It was said that he neglected his appearance (yataqashshafu);35 another account specifies that he wore a woollen izār in the summer, and a fur coat in the winter.36 Jāḥiẓ counted him among the ascetic pulpit orators;37 he probably had in mind his invectives against the worldly qurrāʾ of the kind that were preserved by pietistic tradition,38 as well as certain contributions to the Qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ quoted for instance by Ṭabarī.39 The notes collected by Abū Nuʿaym convey the impression that he frequently argued using apocryphal sayings of Jesus and pseudepigraphic quotations from

26  Jāḥiẓ, Bayān II 173, 4ff.; with a little distance also ibid. II 268, 9ff. (after Abū ʿUbayda) = 1 394, 6ff. = 193, 13ff. 27  Ibid. I 394, 9ff. 28  Dhahabī, Mīzān I 14, apu. f. (in the biography of Abān b. Abī ʿAyyāsh). 29   Ḥilya II 386, 1f.: nabīdh al-jarr, probably a particular preserving method (regarding the issue see p. 134f. below). 30  Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif 577, 5. 31  Ibn al-Nadīm, Fihrist 9, –4f. Allegedly each copy took him four months, and he only charged as much as he needed to live on (Ḥilya II 368, 17ff.). Regarding the duties of a warrāq cf. Pedersen, Arabic Book 43ff., and Bosch/Carswell/Petherbridge, Islamic Bindings and Bookmarking (Chicago 1981), p. 10f. 32   Milieu basrien 99f. as part of a more extensive “portrait”. 33   Ḥilya II 385, –3f.; also ibid. 360, 5ff., and Reinert, Tawakkul 185. It was possible to imagine greater aloofness from earthly possessions than his, as illustrated by a dialogue between him and his colleague Muḥammad b. Wāsiʿ, a pupil of Ḥasan al-Baṣrī’s (Fasawī II 253, 5ff.). 34   Ḥilya II 359, 4ff., probably an exaggeration once again. 35   Mīzān I 14, 9f. 36   Ḥilya II 368, 16f. 37   Bayān I 354, 1. 38   Ḥilya II 358, apu. ff.; also Ibn al-Jawzī, Ṣifa III 197, 5ff., and 198, ult. ff. 39   Ta‌ʾrīkh I 388, 11ff., and 518, 10ff.

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pre-Islamic holy texts.40 His dicta contain the term munāfiq, clearly used as the opposite of muʾmin.41 “If the munāfiqūn had tails”, he was quoted as saying, “then the believers would not have room to walk”.42 Regarding him cf. also IS VII2 11, 20ff.; Bukhārī IV1 309f. no. 1320; IAH IV1 208 no. 916; Ibn al-Nadīm, Fihrist 235, 13 (the name only); IKh IV 139f. no. 551; Mīzān no. 7016; TT X 14f. no. 15. Massignon, Essai2, Index s. v.; Pellat in EI2 VI 266f. – In Essai, Massignon remarks without further reference that the Muslims on the Indian Malabar coast (i.e. present-day Kerala), the so-called Māppiḷa, were converted to Islam by followers of Mālik’s. However, tradition is vague and it is impossible to make a firm statement. It is true that the Muslim community in Kerala is very old, and a certain Mālik b. Dīnār features in its foundation myths; he is said to have converted Cheraman Peramāl, a prince of the area, to Islam, and then have stayed there as a qāḍī until the end of his life. His dates, on the other hand, are controversial, and he is usually assumed to have lived rather later. Cf. Roland E. Miller, Mappila Muslims of Kerala 39ff., and Aziz Ahmad, Studies in Islamic Culture in the Indian Environment 84 (after Massignon); more sceptically Cherian in: Indica 6/1969/1ff. Regarding the religious ideas of the present-day Māppiḷa cf. G. Koovackal in: Islam in India, ed. Troll, I 64ff.; more generally EI2 VI 206f. s. v. Malabar, and 458ff. s. v. Mappila (where the early origins of the community are considered). The man who was most noticeable in Ḥasan’s circle because of his woollen jubba43 was Abū Yaʿqūb Farqad b. Yaʿqūb al-Sabakhī, d. 131/749 of the “pestilence”.44 Ḥasan held him up to ridicule when he was too scrupulous to partake of some special delicacy.45 Kaʿbī was probably justified in

40   Ḥilya II 358, 7ff.; 359, 16ff.; 370, 15ff.; 376, 15ff.; 377, 5ff.; 381. 11ff.; 382, –6ff. 41   Ḥilya II 376, 10 and 13. 42  Ibid. 376, –4f. 43   Ḥilya III 47, apu.; Ibn al-Jawzī, Ādāb Ḥasan al-Baṣrī 43, 1f.; Ābī, Nathr al-durr V 199, 10ff. Regarding the item of clothing cf. Dozy, Dictionnaire des vêtements 107ff. 44   I S VII2 11, 16ff. 45   I S VII1 128, 22ff.; slightly differently ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ III 459, 12ff.

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naming him as a Qadarite;46 Ayyūb al-Sakhtiyānī, opponent of ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd,47 refused to recognise him as a transmitter.48 People generally respected his piety, while his hadith was regarded with scepticism.49 Foreigners were unable to hide their amazement at his attire: when Ḥammād b. Abī Sulaymān from Kufa came to visit,50 he apparently advised him to “let go of his Christianity”,51 a reference to his past: he had converted to Islam and had moved to Basra from Armenia.52 Among the Nestorians monks, priests, and itinerant scholars wore woollen clothing as a sign of their spiritual calling.53 In fact, as in the case of Mālik b. Dīnār, Farqad al-Sabakhī has many apocryphal references to Jesus, or the “Torah” and the “Israelites”.54 But it is quite possible that his attire simply symbolised his solidarity with the “working people”, for like Ḥasan he had some influence on the mawālī. Yazīd b. al-Muhallab was said to have tried in vain to obtain Farqad’s support for his uprising in 101/719. Yazīd’s brothers, on the other hand, thought that such a request was really beyond the pale, as Farqad was a weaver (ḥāʾik).55 But he was clearly not poor; he had bought his freedom in his younger days56 and paid taxes on his professional activity.57 Regarding him cf. also Ibn al-Jawzī, Ṣifa III 195, 9ff., and Quṣṣāṣ 74, 10ff.; Ibn al-Nadīm, Fihrist 235, 9f. (after Jaʿfar al-Khuldī); Bukhārī IV1 131 no. 592; IAH III2 81 no. 464; Ibn Ḥibbān, Majrūḥīn II 204, ult. ff.; Dhahabī, Mīzān no. 6699, and Ta‌ʾrīkh V 121, –5ff.; TT VIII 262ff. no. 486; Yāqūt, Muʿjam albuldān s. v. al-Sabakha. One qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ-tradition in Ṭabarī I 410, 6ff. goes back to him (referring to the story of Josef). Cf. Massignon, Essai2, Index s. n. Farqad; Pellat, Milieu 100f.

46   Maq. 97, 1f. 47  Regarding him see p. 390ff. below. 48  Muslim, Muqaddima 5 = I 27, 10f. ʿAbdalbāqī. 49   I AH III2 81f. no. 464. 50  See vol. I 211f. above. 51  Ibn Qutayba, ʿUyūn I 298, 9ff. = Ḥilya IV 221, ult. f. 52  ʿUqaylī III 459, 3. 53   Chronik von Seert in: PO XIII 4, p. 633, 1f.; generally on this custom of Christian asceticism Ogén in: AO 43/1982/40ff. 54   Ḥilya III 45, 2ff.; 46, 1ff. and 8ff. etc. 55  Sayed, Ibn al-Ašʿaṯ 365f.; Juda, Aspekte der mawālī 169f. Regarding the social position of the weavers see p. 274f. below. 56   I AH III2 82, 9. 57   Ḥilya III 47, 1.

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2.2.2.2.2 The Next Generation The tendencies described developed in different directions in the following generation, while at the same time there was an increasing desire to be seen to be connected to Ḥasan; everyone tried to profit from his reputation. This is illustrated by the case of Khālid b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, called al-ʿAbd “the slave”, a Qadarite1 who died after 148/766. Abū Juzayy and Mubārak b. Faḍāla, Qadarites like him,2 agreed that they had never seen him in the presence of their teacher.3 All the same, al-ʿAbd transmitted from him – allegedly from a scroll (darj) written by someone more famous, namely Hishām b. Ḥassān alQardūsī (d. 148/766),4 whose name al-ʿAbd had scratched out.5 Abū ʿAmr6 Aḥmad b. ʿAṭāʾ al-Hujaymī, another active Qadarite (dāʿiya), transmitted from him. He was also accused of transmitting from a scroll he had purchased, but not actually heard from its original owner.7 He lectured in the mosque on Fridays, incorporating Qadarite material into his talks. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Mahdī regarded this as an infringement of convention and consequently advised against attending his lectures: precisely because he was such a pious man, a pupil could not possibly contradict him.8 Abū Saʿīd Ibn al-Aʿrābī (d. 341/952), who transmitted this in his Ṭabaqāt al-nussāk,9 hastened to add that Hujaymī was indeed a Qadarite, but not a Muʿtazilite. We will return to him once more in the context of ʿAbd al-Wāḥid b. Zayd.10 He did not die until 200/815,11 and consequently belongs to a later time. Here we are concerned with evidence that among the 1  Thus according to ʿUqaylī II 12 no. 417. 2  Regarding them see p. 79f. and 75f. above. 3  ʿUqaylī II 12, 10ff. 4  Regarding him Azmi, Studies 133 no. 101. 5  ʿUqaylī 12, –5ff.; Bukhārī II1 165f. no. 567; Ibn Ḥibbān I 280, –4ff.; also IAH I2 364, 3ff., and Mīzān no. 2489; cf. Azmi 202, and also Mīzān no. 2438 and Azmi 83. 6  Thus according to Mīzān no. 468 (in the isnād). Jāḥiẓ, Bayān III 286, 7, has Abū ʿUmar. 7  Dhahabī, Siyar IX 409, 6ff.; Ibn Ḥajar, Lisān al-Mīzān I 221, 14ff. Was it the same one? Or is it just the same tradition? 8  Siyar 408, 10ff. 9  Regarding him cf. GAS 1/660f. 10  See p. 113f. below. 11  Thus according to Siyar 409, –6.

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traditionists who continued Ḥasan’s legacy the ascetics were gradually acquiring the reputation of not playing according to the rules of scholarship. The same was true of a man whose nisba recalled Yazīd b. Abān and who was counted among the “friends of God”:12 Abū Ḥurra Wāṣil b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Raqāshī, d. 152/769 or 153/770.13 Once again there were doubts as to whether he had actually himself heard the traditions he transmitted from Ḥasan; the question was whether the deception might, in fact, have been his successor’s fault.14 In Kaʿbī’s opinion he, too, was a Qadarite,15 just like Abū ʿUbayda Bakr b. (Abī) al-Aswad al-Nājī, who transmitted from Ḥasan and Ibn Sīrīn and whose taqashshuf attracted universal attention.16 How different this type was from that of the average traditionist is illustrated by the example of Abū Muḥammad Ḥabīb b. Muḥammad al-ʿAjamī (also: al-Fārisī) d. 156/772, a Persian ascetic who had been a merchant but apparently gave up trading under Ḥasan al-Baṣrī’s influence (i.e. in his youth). It was said about him that his faith in God (tawakkul) was so great that he incurred debts “on God’s account”, i.e. that he would take out a loan for some good cause, hoping that God would enable him to pay it back somehow.17 A Qadarite according to Kaʿbī 99, 1 (who writes al-Aʿjamī) > Faḍl 343, 8 > IM 138, 12f. (writes al-Aʿjam). Cf. also Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 364, 1; Abū Nuʿaym, Ḥilya VI 149ff.; Ibn al-Jawzī, Ṣifa III 236ff.; Jullābī, Kashf al-maḥjūb 107, 2ff.; Dhahabī, Mīzān no. 1721 and Ta‌ʾrīkh V 233, 14ff.; TT II 189 no. 347. Dhahabī 12  Thus in Mīzān no. 9324. 13  Khalīfa, Ṭab. 533 no. 1865. 14  Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 89 no. 518. Cf. also Fasawī II 633, 7; ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ IV 326 no. 1930; TT XI 104f. no. 180 (where the nisba al-Raqāshī is denied him); Azmi, Studies 176. Cf. also Bukhārī IV2 170f. no. 2582; IAH IV2 31 no. 141; Mīzān no. 9324. 15   Maq. 91, pu. f. (where there is a mistake in the kunya) > Faḍl 342, 2 > IM 137, 14. His brother on his mother’s side was classified in the same way (see p. 364f. below). 16  Kaʿbī 97, 9ff. > Faḍl 343, 6; ʿUqaylī I 147 no. 182; Ibn Ḥibbān, Majrūḥīn I 187, 4ff.; Mīzān no. 1271; Lisān al-Mīzān II 47 no. 174. 17  Reinert, Tawakkul 270; also 172.

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and Ibn Ḥajar claimed that he transmitted hadith from Ḥasan al-Baṣrī and Ibn Sīrīn, which Abū Nuʿaym denied; the muḥaddith is supposed to have been Ḥabīb al-Muʿallim (Ḥilya VI 154, ult. f.; also Mīzān no. 1713). He clearly spoke barely any Arabic (Ḥilya VI 149, –4ff.; Qushayrī, Risāla 177, –8f./transl. Gramlich, Sendschreiben 527). In his list of ascetics Ibn alNadīm wrote incorrectly: Muḥammad b. Ḥabīb al-Fārisī (Fihrist 235, 16). The most important man among those who shifted Ḥasan’s teachings towards Yazīd b. Abān’s ideas was Abū ʿUbayda ʿAbd al-Wāḥid b. Zayd, a client of the Banū Jaḥdar18 and according to Kaʿbī an active Qadarite as well (dāʿiya).19 In fact, Ashʿarī recorded the information from “some of his followers” that he rejected the idea that “something could be made incumbent on someone if he was prevented from carrying it out”. Consequently he rejected the taklīf mā lā yuṭāq and drew the conclusion that someone whose heart God had “sealed” did not have a duty to genuine worship of God (ikhlāṣ) anymore.20 His opponents did not deny this, but added that ʿAbd al-Wāḥid did not follow ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd either.21 This is not surprising, as he was not only a puritan and pietist, but through the steadfastness of his internalised ideal of piety he also emphasised the submission to God’s will (riḍā)22 and the faith in divine favour (luṭf).23 His followers believed that depending on their actions humans would see God in the otherworld; the more beautiful he was, the more devout they had been in the world.24 As far the ethics of reward went, this corresponded with Muʿtazilite doctrine, but the reward was described in entirely different terms. The reward of seeing God is an existential necessity for those who love God; otherwise they would die of sorrow.25

18  Jāḥiẓ, Burṣān 282, 8. 19   Maq. 96, pu. f. > Faḍl 343, 5. 20  Text VI 7, d–e. 21  Dhahabī, Ta‌ʾrīkh VI 243, apu. ff. 22  Reinert, Tawakkul 121. 23  Thus at least according to Dhahabī (Ta‌ʾrīkh VI 244, 13). 24  Ashʿarī, Maq. 214, 7f. 25  Muḥāsibī, Al-qaṣd wal-rujūʿ ilā llāh 167, 9ff. Quwatlī: traced back from ʿAbd al-Wāḥid to Ḥasan al-Baṣrī.

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The date of ʿAbd al-Wāḥid’s death is unknown. The date of 177/793 given by Massignon and repeated elsewhere26 is based on an error.27 He probably died as early as the middle of the second century, or shortly afterwards. After a stroke he was immobile and bedridden towards the end of his life.28 The mosque at which he taught was situated in the quarter of perfume bottle makers (aṣḥāb al-qamāqim).29 His main activity was as a qāṣṣ;30 Jāḥiẓ remarked on his rhetorical talent.31 As a muḥaddith he was well-regarded only among the ascetics; the experts shunned him.32 His spiritual profile is not easy to distinguish anymore. To Ibn al-Nadīm he was merely one ascetic among many.33 Not even the traditions he quoted from ʿAbd al-Wāḥid were particularly characteristic on the whole.34 Hadiths that people said they had heard from him preached scrupulousness (waraʿ)35 or to beware of sins of the mind such as vanity and pride.36 On the other hand, there is the famous ḥadīth qudsī, ʿashiqanī wa-ʿashiqtuhū that was traced back to Ḥasan al-Baṣrī through him.37 Some of his pupils obviously concluded from this that it was possible to experience paradise on earth. There were attempts 26   Essai2 214 > Pellat, Milieu 102; also Reinert, Tawakkul 293; Gramlich, Derwischorden II 304, n. 1621; Nwyia in EIran I 167. 27  Massignon himself warns of confusing him with the traditionist ʿAbd al-Wāḥid b. Ziyād (Essai2 214, n. 1), but falls for it himself in the end. For 177/793 is the date of this very Ibn Ziyād’s death (IS VII2 44, 11ff.; Khalīfa, Ṭab. 540 no. 1897 and Ta‌ʾrīkh 717, 5; Fasawī I 168, 11etc.). The same error is probably responsible for Dhahabī’s report (Duwal al-Islām I 83, 16, and ʿIbar I 270, 2ff.) on which Ritter bases his information in the Index on Ashʿarī’s Maqālāt (p. 644). When Massignon has Ziyād die in 179 in order to distinguish between the two men, this is simply misread for 177. 28  Jāḥiẓ, Burṣān 282, 5ff. 29  Ibid. 282, 8f.; qumqum is a brass flask used to sprinkle guests with rosewater (Goitein, Mediterranean Society IV 149). 30   I AH III1 20 no. 107. 31   Bayān I 364, 3. 32  Cf. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Mahdī’s verdict (Fasawī III 61, 8; regarding him see p. 87f. above) and that of Bukhārī (Ta‌ʾrīkh III2 62, no. 1713); more generally also Essai2 239. 33   Fihrist 235, 14. 34   Ḥilya VI 155ff. 35  “A body (jasad) nourished with forbidden foods will not enter into paradise”, marfūʿ transmitted from Abū Bakr (!) (Mīzān no. 5288). Jāḥiẓ mocked the excessive waraʿ exhibited by one of his youthful followers. 36  Suyūṭī, La‌ʾālī II 336, 4ff. after Thawr b. Yazīd (sic! Regarding him see vol. I 131ff. above). When ʿAbd al-Wāḥid exhorted his pupils to be ashamed (Jāḥiẓ, Bayān III 171, 10 = Ṣifat al-ṣafwa III 241, 6ff.) he probably meant this with reference to their sins, too. 37   Ḥilya VI 165, 7.

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to absolve him from having a part in such excesses: when those pupils invited him to share their visions, he immediately noticed that the maidens of paradise had horses’ hooves.38 Still, he was said to have dreamt of them himself – just like Abū Sulaymān al-Dārānī, who also transmitted this account from ʿAbd alWāḥid.39 They apparently cured him of an illness in his sleep.40 Presumably he imagined that the rūḥ left humans in their sleep and, if the human was one of the “friends of God”, visited paradise temporarily during that time.41 The problem with the ḥadīth qudsī mentioned is not so much its attribution but rather what ʿishq actually means here. R. Gramlich was in favour of interpreting it as “neither passion nor being in love nor, as Ritter appears to assume (Meer der Seele 560), a heightened affection, but rather as unrequited (on the side of humans) love, love at a bitter distance, unfulfilled desire as opposed to the delights of love (Die schiitischen Derwischorden Persiens II 304f., n. 1621). This interpretation, entirely on the side of humans, does not answer the question of whether it is possible for God’s love to be unrequited, but it is supported by ʿAbd al-Wāḥid also having used the phrase shawq ilā llāh “yearning for God” (Ibn al-Jawzī, Ṣifa III 242, 1). Massignon claims that ʿAbd al-Wāḥid avoided the word maḥabba (Essai2 214); this, however, is incorrect (cf. Nwyia in: EIran I 168). Jāḥiẓ preserved a list of his pupils.42 Most of them did not become well-known, but the Qadarite Aḥmad b. ʿAṭāʾ al-Hujaymī was also among them.43 He shared ʿAbd al-Wāḥid’s belief in divine favour and prayed, fasted and starved himself in order to bring them about. He only ever ate a certain amount,44 and lived on the labour of his own hands.45 In the quarter of the Balhujaym, of whom he was a member or with whom he was associated as a client, he founded accommodation for novices through a trust, where he himself would give edifying lectures. According to Ibn al-Aʿrābī he was the first to take this kind of 38  Sarrāj, Lumaʿ 429, 2ff. Nicholson/transl. Gramlich 593f. 39   Ḥilya VI 157, apu. ff.; regarding Dārānī see vol. I 165 above. 40  Ibid. 161, 11ff. 41  Malaṭī, Tanbīh 73, 14ff./93, –5ff. also indicates this. 42   Burṣān 282, 9ff.; cf. also Dhahabī, Ta‌ʾrīkh VI 245, 6f. 43  Abū Nuʿaym ignored him altogether, probably because of his views, but mentioned him in the isnād of a tradition after ʿAbd al-Wāḥid b. Zayd (Ḥilya VI 155, apu. ff.). The most detailed biography is in Dhahabī’s Siyar aʿlām al-nubalāʾ (IX 408f. no. 132). Cf. also Massignon, Essai2 238f. 44   Al-maʿlūm min al-qūt. Or is he referring to ritually pure foods? 45   Siyar 408, 4ff.

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initiative in Basra.46 Interestingly he is part of the isnād of the so-called ḥadīth al-ikhlāṣ which was traced back through him and ʿAbd al-Wāḥid to Ḥasan alBaṣrī, and which spoke of the “secret” of genuine worship that God shared only with his friends;47 the mystics would later feel reminded of the “esoteric meaning” (bāṭin) of their devotion.48 Viewed from the outside, this appeared rather different: Shahrastānī said of him that he admitted that God could shake his “friends’” hand on earth, and they could embrace him here.49 This corresponds to an account by the Ibāḍite Abū ʿAmmār ʿAbd al-Kāfī according to which ʿAbd al-Wāḥid’s followers were convinced that God would not only be seen in the otherworld, but also on earth; they are said to have based this on sura 53:6ff. which describes a vision of Muḥammad’s.50 This passage was linked frequently to Muḥammad’s journey to heaven.51 The rationalists, on the other hand, believed that Muḥammad did not see God in this instance but merely the angel Gabriel. Thus already presumed by Ibn Isḥāq, Sīra 153, 3ff.; cf. also Ṭabarī, Tafsīr 2XXVII 42, –8ff. Regarding the Muʿtazilite interpretation cf. Qāḍī ʿAbd alJabbār, Tanzīh al-Qurʾān 405, 2ff., and Mutashābih al-Qurʾān 622, 2ff. (describing in detail the opposing view ascribed to “a few ignorant people”). Regarding the Quranic passage itself see Paret, Kommentar 460f. When ʿAbd al-Wāḥid b. Zayd referred to Ḥasan al-Baṣrī concerning the vision of God (see n. 25 above), this corresponds to the account that Ḥasan was heard swearing that Muḥammad had seen his lord with his own eyes (Abū l-Shaykh, Ṭabaqāt al-muḥaddithīn bi-Iṣbahān I 402, 3f.). People such as Aḥmad b. ʿAṭāʾ al-Hujaymī may have found their own valid evidence in the possibility of seeing God in a dream, just like the paradise maidens; one instance adduced was the Kufan khāṭib Raqaba b. Maṣqala al-ʿAbdī 46  Ibid. 408, –4ff. 47  Quoted as ḥadīth qudsī in Qushayrī, Risāla 95, 22ff./transl. Gramlich, Sendschreiben 295f. The next transmitter in the isnād, Aḥmad b. Ghassān, was also a Qadarite. However, he protested against the khalq al-Qurʾān and was imprisoned during the miḥna because of this. It is not clear whether these impressions influenced him to renounce his Qadarite views (Siyar 409, –5ff.). 48  Thus according to a parallel drawn in the anonymous Adab al-mulūk, ed. Radtke 34, 15ff., where the hadith is mentioned as an ordinary prophetic dictum. Cf. also Massignon, Passion2 I 595f./I 548f., and p. 51 above. 49   Milal 77, 2ff./174, 5ff. 50   Mūjaz II 267, pu. f.; cf. Ashʿarī, Maq. 438, 14ff., and Ibn Fūrak, Mujarrad 85, 17ff. (discussed in Gimaret, Ashʿarī 344). 51  Abū ʿAwāna, Musnad I 136, 11f.; Qushayrī, K. al-Miʿrāj 54, 12f., and 94, apu. ff.

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(d. 129, 747; cf. Ashʿarī, Maq. 214, 9ff., and p. 420 below, for general information also Ibn Fūrak, Mujarrad 85, ult. ff.). Nocturnal prayers of the kind that were in vogue among ascetics at the time were presumably sometimes performed half asleep; apparitions could easily happen. The escalations to which the subject lent itself can be observed in the astonishing texts by Jalaluddin Rumi’s father (Meier, Bahāʾ-i Walad 344ff.). For more information cf. ch. D 1.2.1.2 and 1.2.3. The Shahrastānī passage poses several questions. Hujaymī appears in the company of two other “anthropomorphists”; Shahrastānī refers to a passage in Ashʿarī which the latter appears to have quoted from a text by a certain Muḥammad b. ʿĪsā, i.e. probably Burghūth’s Maqālāt. This makes reasonable sense as Burghūth was from Basra and chronologically close to the events;52 but Hujaymī does not refer to the parallel passage in Ashʿarī’s Maqālāt alIslāmiyyīn, which seems to be the one in question,53 and he does not mention Burghūth, either.54 Of the two mushabbiha appearing by themselves, only one can be proved to have been an immediate pupil of ʿAbd al-Wāḥid b. Zayd’s, a certain Muḍar, whom Abū Nuʿaym mentions as Muḍar al-Qāriʿ or Muḍar alʿĀbid,55 bearing the kunya Abū Saʿīd.56 Still, we are not able to identify him more precisely.57 The other one, Kahmas by name, does not seem to have been a pupil at all, but rather a contemporary; not, however, the Qadarite Kahmas b. al-Minhāl al-Sadūsī,58 but rather

52  Regarding him see ch. C. 5.2.2.1 below. 53   Maq. 214, 4ff. 54  Thus already noted in Gimaret, Livre des Religions 341, where Hujaymī is, however, identified wrongly in n. 14. Cf. also Ritter, Meer der Seele 450f., who points out a parallel in Kaʿbī; he could have been the link between Burghūth and Ashʿarī. 55   Ḥilya VI 156, –5; 157, 17; 163, 6; cf. also 164, pu. 56  Ibid. 160, 13. 57  Ritter lists him with Ashʿarī in the index (p. 657), and in Meer der Seele identifies him as the Quran reciter Muḍar b. Muḥammad b. Khālid al-Ḍabbī al-Asadī, quoting Ibn al-Jazarī, Ṭabaqāt al-qurrāʾ II 299f. no. 3613. However, this one was called Abū Muḥammad, and he was a Kufan. 58  Regarding him see p. 84 above.

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Abū l-Ḥasan (?)59 Kahmas b. al-Ḥasan al-Qaysī al-Tamīmī al-Ḥanafī, an ascetic of uncertain tribal affiliation,60 who transmitted from Ḥasan alBaṣrī61 and died in 149/767. He was associated with ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd;62 he may have been a Qadarite, too. The accounts of his scrupulousness and his supererogatory prayer were nothing short of marvellous,63 but nowhere do we find out how he imagined a personal meeting with God, the idea thanks to which he was a heretic in Ashʿarī’s – and Burghūth’s? – eyes. Was he, too, thinking of dream apparitions or visions? He was reported to have said to God during his nocturnal prayer: “Will you chastise me, even though you are the light of my eyes, o beloved of (my) heart?”64 Later it was believed that God could manifest himself in a boy’s beauty,65 in which case a handshake and an embrace would of course have had deeper meaning. But we would need explicit evidence all the more in order to assume that this idea was already considered by Kahmas. We are not able to follow every member of the circle of pupils around ʿAbd al-Wāḥid b. Zayd. Like Kahmas, Riyāḥ b. ʿAmr al-Qaysī had connections with the Qays. Another similarity they shared was the idea that the sins of a true ascetic were part of his friendship with God.66 The one who reached the greatest fame was a woman, called Rābiʿa al-Qaysiyya by Jāḥiẓ,67 and Rābiʿa al-ʿAdawiyya elsewhere (d. 185/801). More than her contemporaries she 59  Thus according to Dhahabī, Siyar VI 316, 7. Ibn Ḥanbal has Abū l-Ḥusayn instead (ʿIlal 264 no. 1707); elsewhere we find Abū ʿAbdallāh (e.g. Ibn al-Jawzī, Ṣifat al-ṣafwa III 234, 3). The former is more probable due to the correspondence with the father’s name. Regarding the name cf. also Gramlich, Sendschreiben 174. 60  According to Ibn Ḥanbal he lived among the Qays (b. Thaʿlaba); according to Khalīfa, Ṭab. 531, ult., he was their mawlā. Abū Nuʿaym counted him among the Banū Ḥanīfa (Ḥilya VI 212, 2). Ibn Saʿd gives him the nisba al-Qaysī only (VII2 31, 12); elsewhere the other two nisbas are more prominent (e.g. in Dhahabī, Siyar). 61  Dhahabī, Siyar VI 316, 10. 62   Ḥilya VI 212, –8ff. 63  Cf. the entries Ḥilya VI 211ff. and Ṣifat al-ṣafwa III 234f.; Dhahabī, Siyar, loc. cit., and Mīzān no. 6081. 64  Ibn al-Jawzī 235, 5f. 65  Ritter, Meer der Seele 470ff. 66  Cf. the negatively biased text in Malaṭī, Tanbīh 74, 1ff./94, 7ff. = Massignon, Recueil 7; transl. Schacht, Islam 90. Regarding the correct reading of his name cf. Ritter, Meer der Seele 749 and 751. 67  In his list Burṣān 282, 10.

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used poetry as well to express her mystic experiences. This was a brave step; echoing love poems emotionalised the relationship with God even further, profaning it unbearably in the eyes of the critics. Rābiʿa’s poetry and other texts still await thorough examination with regard to their genuineness, but it is remarkable in itself that a woman could play such a part at all. Rābiʿa was, however, not alone, nor was she the beginning of a development; in fact, she was closer to being its conclusion. During the first century Muʿādha b. ʿAbdallāh al-ʿAdawiyya had been noted for her particular devotion; she was the wife of Ṣila b. Ashyam, who was also known to be an ascetic and died in 75/695 during a military campaign (in which he probably took part as a volunteer).68 Her foster-daughter was an ascetic as well,69 as were two sisters of Ibn Sīrīn’s.70 Ḥabīb al-ʿAjamī’s wife must be mentioned,71 and Rābiʿa herself had a maidservant who was just as pious as her mistress.72 Members of the Banū ʿAdī stand out here, and also among the Qadarites: in their quarter, which even had its own mosque, asceticism appears to have been endemic.73 On this subject cf. M. Smith’s dissertation Rābiʿa the Mystic and her FellowSaints in Islam (where other female ascetics are discussed p. 137ff.), and especially ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Badawī, Shahīdat al-ʿishq al-ilāhī Rābiʿa alʿAdawiyya (Cairo 1962, with a collection of texts); further Ritter, Meer der Seele, Index s. n.; Smith in EI1 III 1177f., and A. Schimmel in: ER XII 193f. – Regarding a parallel development in Syria, which does, however, seem to have been influenced by Basra, see vol. I 166 above. Regarding female ascetics in Kufa ibid. 397f.; among the Khārijites cf. Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 365, 2.

68  Ibn al-Jawzī, Ṣifa IV 13ff.; Dhahabī, Ta‌ʾrīkh III 304, 2ff.; TT XII 452 no. 2896; Pellat, Milieu 104 and 96f.; already mentioned in Jāḥiẓ, Bayān 364, 4. Qatāda transmitted from her (see p. 161 below). 69  Ibn al-Jawzī IV 20, pu. ff. 70  Ibid. 15, 10ff. 71  Ibid. 23, 6ff.; regarding Ḥabīb al-ʿAjamī see p. 111f. above. 72  Ibid. 21, 5ff.; Rābiʿa was thus not necessarily poor. 73  See p. 80 above.

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The Significance of ʿAbbādān

Massignon regarded ʿAbd al-Wāḥid b. Zayd as the one who founded the “agglomération cénobitique” in ʿAbbādān.1 This fact is not as well documented as has been claimed since.2 It is certain that ʿAbd al-Wāḥid did visit ʿAbbādān, but it is quite impossible to determine the extent to which he may have influenced the organisation of the place. Ibn Taymiyya described events rather more prosaically: according to him some of ʿAbd al-Wāḥid’s pupils built the first “hut” (duwayra) there for Sufis.3 This may not have been a “convent”, much less an “agglomération cénobitique”,4 but the initiative soon found followers. In a few verses Abū l-ʿAtāhiya invoked God’s blessing for ʿAbbādān and those who had settled there.5 It seems that there were many Qadarites among them; the Muʿtazila would later have a foothold there.6 When the predestinarians began to spread, a man who had built a “house” (dār) – a simple hostel for Sufis? – there at his own expense threatened to have it pulled down again.7 Later, people such as Abū Sulaymān al-Dārānī, Bishr al-Ḥāfī, Sarī al-Saqaṭī or Sahl al-Tustarī used it as a temporary retreat.8 To us, the most important question is what could compel Basran ascetics to go to ʿAbbādān. They might have been leaving urban life behind, as the adjective “cénobitique” indicates, but there seems to have been a more pressing motive. ʿAbbādān was situated on an island in the Persian Gulf, framed by the Shatt al-Arab to the west, the Kārūn (Dujayl) to the north and the Bahmanshīr to the east, a day and a half’s journey from Basra. It was the last settlement before the open sea, of importance to shipping as it was possible to travel further upriver on either side; Iṣṭakhrī reports wooden lighthouses on the bank of the canal opposite the town.9 Early on, a small garrison had been established

1  Essai2 214. 2  Cf. e.g. Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions 31. 3  Meier, Abū Saʿīd 304; in general Rubinacci in AIUON 10/1961/37ff. 4  Duwayra is more probably the diminutive form of dār rather than dayr (Meier, ibid., n. 70). Homerin translates as “cloister” all the same” (Arabica 32/1985/223). 5  Dīwān, ed. Fayṣal 313 no. 321. 6  See ch. C 7.1 below. 7  Jāḥiẓ, Bukhalāʾ 209, pu. ff.; cf. also ch. C 2.3. below. 8  Böwering, Mystical Vision of Existence 47f. 9  For further details cf. Elwell-Sutton in: EIran I 51ff. s. v. Ābādān; Kaywānī in: GIE I 20ff.; Ṣāliḥ al-ʿAlī, Khiṭaṭ al-Baṣra 220ff.; Krawulsky, Iran 460. The island is not surrounded by sea any more nowadays, but situated ca. 50 km from the coast of the Persian Gulf; the delta of the

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there, presumably to protect Basra from pirates.10 Some of the warriors guarding the place were probably volunteers; here, as in Syria, asceticism was linked to the prospect – albeit comparatively remote – of jihad. Abū l-ʿAtāhiya calls one who stayed in ʿAbbādān a murābiṭ.11 At least the place offered the opportunity of preaching Islam, as there were unbelieving Indians living on the island.12 These may have been Zuṭṭ who had lived there for a long time,13 but it is also possible that Indian merchants stopped over on the island before taking their wares into Basra. The Zanj appear to have destroyed the settlement in 260/873. The place name tells us something about its origins. It is one of the “false dual forms” which were found frequently around Basra in names of latifundia:14 ʿAbbādān was named after ʿAbbād b. Ḥusayn al-Ḥabaṭī into whose ownership it had passed during Ḥajjāj’s time.15 According to a piece of information by Hishām al-Kalbī, quoted by Balādhurī,16 ʿAbbād b. Ḥusayn was in fact the first person to “patrol the border” (rābaṭa) there. His initiative was followed by a certain

Shatt al-Arab has shifted further out (cf. Lockhart in: EI2 I 5a). Modern Basra is different from Old Basra (= al-Zubayr), too; cf. Hansman’s map in: Iranica Antiqua 7/1967/35. 10  Ṣāliḥ al-ʿAlī 220; Labib in: Der Islam 58/1981/1958. 11   Dīwān 313, apu.; also Jāḥiẓ, Bukhalāʾ 209, pu. Further records in EIran I 52b and in Ṣāliḥ al-ʿAlī 221. 12  This is documented in hadiths (Mustawfī, Nuzhat al-qulūb 39). 13  Thus Pellat, Milieu basrien 37f.; cf. also the information in Crone, Meccan Trade 47. Regarding the identity of the Zuṭṭ cf. EI2 II 488f. s. v. D̲ j̲āt; Henninger, Arabica Varia 262f. 14  Regarding the phenomenon cf. Nājī Maʿrūf in: Maj. Kull. al-Ādāb Baghdād 5/1962, Arabic section, p. 5ff.; also Pellat, Milieu 12, n. 4, and Fück, Arabiya 8. It is delightful to observe the thoughts of a visitor to the town such as Muqaddasī when he tried to explain these forms (Aḥsan al-taqāsīm 412, ult. ff.). 15  Cf. briefly Balādhurī, Futūḥ 453 no. 913; more detailed in Yāqūt, Buldān s. v. ʿAbbādān. ʿAbbād b. Ḥusayn had distinguished himself as commander of the shurṭa under Muṣʿab b. al-Zubayr against Mukhtār, but he also supported Ḥajjāj against Ibn al-Ashʿath (Ṭabarī, Index s. n.). The estate of Sulaymānān furnishes a parallel; it was named after an ascetic called Sulaymān b. Jābir, who had retired to the border post there (Yāqūt, Muʿjam alBuldān I 435b, –4ff.). For other, less probable derivations cf. EIran and GIE, loc. cit. 16   Futūḥ 453, 12f.

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Abū Ḥafṣ Rabīʿ b. Ṣabīḥ (?)17 al-Saʿdī in the first half of the second century. He was a mawlā of the Banū Saʿd of the Tamīm18 and collected money from the inhabitants of Basra in order to be able to fortify the settlement (or the island?), and manned the post himself (rābaṭa fīhā). He had always had connections to India and may have travelled there several times as a warrior for the faith (ghāzī).19 When the caliph al-Mahdī sent an expedition across the sea to India in 159/776, Rabīʿ joined it, together with many more volunteers (muṭṭawwiʿa) from Basra. On the return journey he fell ill with a fever and died in 160/777; he was buried on an island along the way.20 But he was not merely a fire-eater. He was said to have been the first one in Basra to arrange his hadiths into chapters according to the subject matter and to compose a muṣannaf;21 and whatever the truth may be regarding the claim that he was the first,22 there is no doubting his collector’s zeal. He transmitted from Ḥasan al-Baṣrī as well as from Yazīd al-Raqāshī. Much of this material was preserved by Abū Nuʿaym.23 Finding the word dhikr among these traditions makes us listen more carefully;24 while it may not have referred to an institutionalised practice yet, it does fit in with the report that Rabīʿ was said to have 17  The correct reading of the name is not determined. Balādhurī (loc. cit.) and Khalīfa (Ta‌ʾrīkh 670, 9) have Ṣubḥ, but Ṣ-b-y-ḥ is most frequently documented: in Ibn Saʿd (VII2 36, 1), Wakīʿ (Akhbār al-quḍāt II 117, pu.), Ibn Ḥanbal (ʿIlal 135, 3, and 222 no. 1398), Ṭabarī (see below), Kaʿbī (Maq. 93, 12; which includes the kunya), Abū Nuʿaym (Ḥilya VI 304f.), Fasawī (Maʿrifa II 135, 6), Ibn Abī Ḥātim (Jarḥ I2 464 no. 2084), Ibn Ḥibbān (Majrūḥīn I 292, 2), ʿUqaylī (Ḍuʿafāʾ II 52 no. 483), and Dhahabī (Mīzān no. 2741). This could of course read Ṣubayḥ as well, and because of an ambiguous gloss in the MS this is how Guyard vocalises it in the section of Ṭabarī edited by him (cf. III 460, n. h.), also F. Sezgin in Buhârîʾnin kaynakları (p. 41 and 45). Ṣabīḥ, however, was the more common form, and Dhahabī does not list our Rabīʿ among the exceptions in his Mushtabih (409, 6ff.). – The printed version of Bukhārī’s Ta‌ʾrīkh al-kabīr has the incorrect Ṣabīʿ (II1 278 no. 952). 18   I S, loc. cit. 19  Balādhurī, ibid., presumably following IS VII2 36, 1ff. in part; also Mīzān no. 2741 after Shāfiʿī. Cf. A. Noth, Heiliger Krieg 81 (using the form Rabīʿ b. Ṣubḥ) and D. N. Maclean, Religion and Society in Arab Sind 101. 20  Ṭabarī III 460, 6ff. and 476, 16f.; regarding the date of his death see also Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 670, 9. Regarding the expedition cf. Kennedy, Early Abbasid Caliphate 106. 21   Mīzān no. 2741; cf. also Sezgin, Buhârîʾnin kaynakları 41 and 45, and Azmi, Studies 159. 22  For divergent awāʾil traditions on this point cf. Rāmhurmuzī in Ibn Rajab, Sharḥ ʿilal al-Tirmidhī 68, 3ff., evaluated by Juynboll in Muslim Tradition 22f., cf. also p. 72f. above. 23   Ḥilya VI 307, apu. ff.; in the main copied from Sufyān al-Thawrī. 24  Ibid. 309, 3.

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performed spiritual exercises at night (tahajjud).25 Another prophetic dictum stating that pious women just like men would certainly enter paradise26 was probably also typical of the ascetic environment.27 Rabīʿ was interested in legal issues as well, following Ḥasan al-Baṣrī’s example in this.28 He conveyed bidʿa traditions to the Egyptian Asad b. Mūsā, who may have been born in Basra.29 It is not possible to determine with certainty whether he merely maintained close relations with the Qadarites30 or whether he was a Qadarite himself;31 his reputation was a matter of controversy from the first.32 Qadarites like Saʿīd b. Abī ʿArūba and Mubārak b. Faḍāla were close to him,33 but the wider opinion of him depended on how far the aṣḥāb al-ḥadīth were willing to give in to the ascetic trend.34 ʿAbd al-Wāḥid b. Zayd was a contemporary of this man. He may have supported him, but there is no evidence that there was a time when he inherited the influential traveller’s initiative. Kahmas b. al-Ḥasan was presumably also a member of the inner circle; he had taken part in a campaign to Sind in his youth in 93/711.35 ʿAbbādān was not entirely unattractive by that time; Muqātil b. Sulaymān probably died there,36 but those who made it their home did not stand in the limelight,37 as that wold have been contrary to their interest. Only one of them attracted the attention of hadith experts:

25  Ibn Ḥibbān, Majrūḥīn I 292, 2ff. 26   Ḥilya VI 308, 15ff. 27  Cf. also 308, 10ff.: children who died in a state of innocence will be servants of the blessed in paradise (concerning the subject cf. Text IV 64, VIII 9, 10, and XXII 254, 5). The hadiths Rabīʿ had heard from Yazīd al-Raqāshī were in part considered to be “well-known” (mashhūr), and in part gharīb (ibid., 310, 12f.). 28  Ṭaḥāwī, K. al-shurūṭ al-kabīr in Wakin, Function of Documents I 1.7. Regarding ascetic traditions from Ḥasan cf. Ḥilya VI 304, –6ff.; according to Abū Nuʿaym, they were all isolated (mafrūd; 310, 12f.). 29  Ibn Waḍḍāḥ, Bidaʿ II 2, 18, 19 etc.; regarding Asad b. Mūsā see p. 813f. below and EI2, Suppl. 87b. 30  Thus according to Ibn Baṭṭa, Al-ibāna al-kubrā 453, 2ff. 31  Thus according to the Muʿtazilite sources (Kaʿbī 93, 12f. > Faḍl 342, 6 > IM 137, 16). 32  Already in IS VII2 36, 4f. 33   I AH and Mīzān, loc. cit.; Ḥilya VI 305, 12ff.; ʿUqaylī II 52, 14ff. 34  Ibn Ḥanbal respected him (ʿIlal 135, 3f.; also Fasawī II 135, 3ff.). 35  Regarding these events, Khalīfa b. Khayyāṭ refers to his son who reported information from his father (Ta‌ʾrīkh 405, 8ff.; cf. also MacLean, Religion and Society 100). Regarding him see p. 117f. above. 36   Faẓāʾil-i Balkh 89, pu. f. (where the date of his death is given as 158/775). Cf. p. 582 below. 37  Cf. the information in Ibn al-Jawzī, Ṣifa III 40ff.

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Abū ʿĀṣim ʿAbdallāh b. ʿUbaydallāh al-Murrī al-Baṣrī al-ʿAbbādānī. Dhahabī called him a Qadarite,38 but this may be an error, as it is not mentioned elsewhere,39 and ʿUqaylī says this only of his teacher Faḍl al-Raqāshī.40 He was the only one to transmit a number of ascetic hadiths from the latter, which Abū Nuʿaym preserved. Interestingly one of these mentions the vision of God in paradise.41 2.2.2.2.3 Theological and Juristic Divergent Opinions within the Circle of Basran Ascetics Some ascetics, who were closer to ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd than others, occupied a special position among Ḥasan al-Baṣrī’s followers. They have suffered the usual damnatio memoriae, but are remembered for a few customs and opinions which were not shared by the majority. Apart from wearing woollen garments1 this was especially their affectation of putting on or keeping on their sandals when praying. This was in fact an old custom; Wahb b. Munabbih had prayed in his sandals,2 and Ḥasan al-Baṣrī was said to have worn them even in bed.3 The reason given was that the Jews – according to Ex. 3:5 – followed the opposite practice; it was said that Thawr b. Yazīd from Ḥimṣ had already urged the Muslims not to have anything in common with them.4 Many hadiths supported the custom;5 after all, it has something to recommend it in an open mosque where the ground was covered in pebbles. But it never became obligatory; the Qadarite Ayyūb b. Khūṭ6 held against it that the prophet said that keeping one’s sandals on in the mosque was as if one were still on horseback.7 Finally the opponents he was addressing did not insist that one should wear 38   Mīzān no. 4437. 39  Bukhārī III1 139f. no. 419; IAH II2 100f. no. 465. 40   Ḍuʿafāʾ II 274, –6. Regarding him see p. 192ff. below. 41   Ḥilya VI 208, pu. ff. = Suyūṭī, La‌ʾālī II 461, 15ff.; cf. also ibid. 208, 9ff.; 209, –5ff. and 210, 2ff.; also the remark 210, apu. ff.. They all share the same isnād: Abū ʿĀṣim < Jābir b. ʿAbdallāh (al-Khazrajī, d. 78/697; probably following his Ṣaḥīfa, cf. GAS 1/85). 1  Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 366, 2. 2  Rāzī, Ta‌ʾrīkh Ṣanʿāʾ 378, ult. 3  IS VII1 116, 21; Jāḥiẓ, Bayān III 110, 6f. 4  Mīzān I 375, 11ff.; cf. Goldziher, Ges. Schr. II 89, and more recently Kister in: JSAI 12/1989/336ff. The Jews did not adhere to one uniform usage, either. 5  Ibn Abī Shayba, Muṣannaf II 415ff.; Suyūṭī, La‌ʾālī II 17, –4ff. 6  Regarding him see p. 81 above. 7  Ibn Qutayba, Ta‌ʾwīl 90, 1f. = 75, 4./transl. Lecomte 84 § 98.

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one’s sandals at all times, but that one should put them back on when praying; while they were sitting they had the sandals on the ground in front of their feet.8 One of them was a Sufi named Kilāb b. Jarī who was also known as a mutakallim.9 We know rather more about Hāshim (b.) al-Awqaṣ,10 in particular about his theological views. Like ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd he found it impossible to imagine that Quranic verses which contain judgments on the prospects salvation of specific persons, such as Abū Lahab, were already contained in the heavenly original.11 While this is a topos, and was also reported about the Qadarite ʿUthmān b. Miqsam,12 Hāshim was certainly no determinist. He, too, was considered to be a mutakallim,13 but he allowed tradition more scope than e.g. Wāṣil b. ʿAṭāʾ did. This was why he, reluctantly but unlike the latter, admitted that both sides in the battle of the camel would go to paradise: ʿAlī as well as Ṭalḥa and Zubayr had fought on Muḥammad’s side in the battle of Badr. Consequently the concept widely documented in tradition applied to them: that God had looked down onto the fighters at Badr and said: “Do what you will; I have (already) forgiven you.” Hāshim knew that Ḥasan al-Baṣrī had already described the three future enemies as “freed by God from the fires of hell”. He was not happy about this, as “the followers perished while the leaders were saved”.14 Thus his qualms were fundamentally the same as Wāṣil’s; the civil war had clearly been a sin. Being a Basran he was not very favourably inclined towards ʿAlī in any case; like ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd he thought it possible that he falsified prophetic dicta.15 Still, he failed to make his mark as a muḥaddith. Like other ascetics, he used his hadith to call for greater scrupulousness: “If someone buys a garment for 10 dirham, and pays for (even) 1 dirham with something prohibited, his prayer – which means, the prayer that is his duty (i.e. the obligatory prayer, not 8  Jāḥiẓ, Bayān III 110, 8. 9  Ibid. III 110, 10, and I 366, 1f.; regarding him cf. also Ibn al-Jawzī, Ṣifa III 289f. 10  The form without ibn is found in Ibn ʿAdī (d. 365/976); Jāḥiẓ, too, knew only this version. With ibn cf. Mufīd, Al-fuṣūl al-mukhtāra II 35, 6/185, 4. Dhahabī lists both versions (Mīzān no. 9180 and 9194). Awqaṣ is someone with a short neck, whose head is directly attached to his torso (cf. Lisān s. v.). Cf. also Lisān al-Mīzān VI 185 no. 660. 11  Text VI 1; regarding the issue see also Gimaret, Livre des Religions 218, n. 83. 12  See p. 82 above. 13  Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 366, 1f.; Ibn Qutayba, Ta‌ʾwīl 17, 5 = 14, ult. f./ transl. 16 § 24. 14  Text VI 15. 15  Text X 14 and p. 349 below.

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merely an occasional petitionary prayer) – will not be heard”.16 This may have been more than just a reminder not to engage in unlawful business; being a Sufi, Hāshim may have had a negative view of commerce in general. The force of the criticism that he met may be gauged by his having Ibn ʿUmar, the alleged source of the hadith, emphasise with an impressive gesture that the prophet said this not once only, but repeated it immediately. – A certain Ḥawshab shared his opinions on the wearing of sandals and on the fighters of the battle of the camel.17 This was probably not the Qadarite Ḥawshab b. ʿAqīl al-Jarmī,18 but rather Abū Bishr Ḥawshab b. Muslim al-Thaqafī, a mawlā of the Thaqīf and a Sufi,19 who was acquainted with ʿAbd al-Wāḥid b. Zayd but died much earlier than he from the “pestilence”, presumably in 131.20 He was not impressed with the people of his time21 and called the predestinarian Ayyūb al-Sakhtiyānī (who died in the same year as he,22 and besides was an opponent of ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd’s) “a wild beast”.23 2.2.2.2.3.1

The Bakriyya

Besides these two, a third one is deserving of separate and more detailed discussion: Bakr b. ukht ʿAbd al-Wāḥid b. Zayd, i.e. the mystic’s nephew and consequently certainly younger than the other two. It was not transmitted whether he devoted any thought to the wearing of sandals. On the other hand, he was a much more systematic thinker; he gathered a school around him. The form of his name is unusual and proves the extent to which ʿAbd al-Wāḥid b. Zayd was his point of reference. Only 16   Mīzān no. 8720. I have clarified the translation slightly. 17  Jāḥiẓ, Bayān III 110, 9; Text VI 15. 18  Regarding him see p. 67f. above. 19  Fasawī II 240. The text once again says only Ḥawshab, but the editor is probably correct in his identification (cf. TT III 66 no. 125). 20   Ḥilya VI 199, 6f. 21  Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 155 no. 970, which has only Ḥawshab. 22  See p. 391 below. 23  Fasawī II 240, 10ff.; Ḥawshab in conversation with ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd cf. ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ III 283, 14f.

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one passage tells us Bakr’s real name: Bakr b. ʿAbdrabbih.1 This is probably also how he was remembered by the hadith experts: a traditionist of this name transmitted from one of Makḥūl’s pupils.2 Ibn Qutayba called him Bakr alʿAmmī once;3 this would mean that he was a member of the Banū l-ʿAmm of the Tamīm.4 Still, this may be merely the result of a mistake. He must in any case be distinguished from Bakr b. Muḥammad al-ʿAmmī, a Ḥanafite who studied under Muḥammad b. Samāʿa (regarding him IAH I 173 no. 382). Ibn Samāʿa died as late as 233/847 (GAS 1/435); this would take us too far into the third century. – Nyberg’s identifying him with Bakr b. Ziyād al-Bāhilī is also incorrect. The latter transmitted from ʿAbdallāh b. al-Mubārak (d. 181/797) and consequently would have died around 200/815. This identification is simply the result of Nyberg’s reading ʿAbd al-Wāḥid b. Ziyād rather than ʿAbd al-Wāḥid b. Zayd (Khayyāṭ, Intiṣār 218; Aʿsam, Faḍīḥat al-Muʿtazila 295, n. 221, also contradicts this). In the context of the wearing of sandals Jāḥiẓ mentioned a certain Bakr b. ʿAbdallāh; but this probably referred to Bakr b. ʿAbdallāh al-Muzanī, as suggested by the editor, who died as early as 106/724 (Bayān III 110, 8). He is also the person referred to as the fatā Baṣra named Bakr, who was mentioned together with the shaykh Baṣra Ḥasan al-Baṣrī (cf. Bayān I 101, 2 and earlier). His heyday was most probably during the second half of the second century. His uncle’s dates seem to presuppose this; in addition, Bishr b. al-Muʿtamir (d. 210/ 825) debated with him.5 There is no biography of him. Baghdādī was entirely in the dark about him; he thought that Bakr, as well as Jahm b. Ṣafwān and Ḍirār b. ʿAmr (!), was active during the time of Wāṣil.6 His teachings were influential well into the third century. Hishām al-Fuwaṭī (d. before 230/845?) polemicised against them.7 Jāḥiẓ remarked that the Muʿtazila had nothing but contempt for them;8 like Hishām al-Fuwaṭī, Jāḥiẓ was still firmly rooted in Basra.9 1  Abū l-Muʿīn al-Nasafī, Tabṣirat al-adilla, fol. 323b, 16. 2  Mīzān no. 1288. Regarding his teacher ʿAlī b. Abī Sāra cf. ibid. no. 5846, and TT VII 324f. no. 545. 3  Ta‌ʾwīl 17, 5 = 15, 1/transl. § 24. 4  Regarding them see p. 251 below. 5  Text VI 13, also 12. 6  Farq 16, 7f./22, 4. 7  Catalogue of Works XXIV, no. 7. 8  Khalq al-Qurʾān, in: Rasāʾil III 300, 2. 9  See ch. C. 4.1.1 and 4.2.4.1 below.

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Interestingly, his teachings were studied in the Maghreb as well: Muḥammad b. Saḥnūn (202/817–256/870) wrote a K. al-radd ʿalā l-Bakriyya, as did his Mālikite colleague Ibn Abī Zayd al-Qayrawānī (d. 386/996), more than a century later.10 Ashʿarī listed the Bakriyya as an independent group11 as did Mufīd (d. 413/1022) in his Awāʾil al-maqālāt.12 Afterwards people soon lost sight of it. Baghdādī reported on the Bakriyya only second hand,13 Shahrastānī was not aware of it at all. Ashʿarī is our main source; he seems to have had much information from Zurqān,14 but also knew the movement from Basran tradition.15 The accounts we have of Bakr do not automatically form a coherent image; we must decide how to arrange them. It may be advisable to start with the environment we were discussing earlier. While Jāḥiẓ did not count him among his uncle’s pupils as he was not a mystic, like his uncle he did believe that in paradise one would see God in human form. This, he thought, was necessary, as during the Last Judgment, God would talk to humans;16 where else would his speech come from? But he will assume this form only at that moment; creating it for himself like a mask, as it were.17 There was a time during the first decades of the third century when certain Iranian Sufis believed that Jesus would be this visible God;18 maybe this belief was beginning to take shape here. It might also recall the Sālimiyya which, in Basra at the turn of the fourth century, followed the doctrine that God would appear in the form of Muḥammad, which was the same as Adam’s.19 At the same time this did, of course, affirm that it was not possible to behold God on earth, as due to his essence he is everywhere.20 Still, some scope was left for mystical experiences, as when the spirit left the body during a dream or a vision, it could experience paradise and its inhabitants. Bakr interestingly claimed that the spirit (rūḥ) was the true human, at a time – a generation 10  Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ, Tartīb al-madārik III 106, 11; M. Manūnī in: Maj. Kull. al-Ādāb Ribāṭ 3–4/1978/94. However, we do not know what exactly “Bakriyya” refers to here (see p. 135f. below). 11  Cf. Maq. 5,5 and the deliberations 286f. 12  P. 35, 3/transl. Sourdel 251. 13  Cf. the commentary on Text VI 3–4, 6, 8, 14–15, 17 and 19. 14  Text 2 and 7, b–d. 15  Text 7, e. 16  This is made clear in sura 2:174; see p. 306 below regarding Wāṣil b. ʿAṭāʾ; also ch. D. 1.2.3 and 4.2.1. 17  Text 17. 18  See ch. C 3.2.2.2.7.3 below. 19   Ṣūra Ādamiyya Muḥammadiyya; cf. Abū Yaʿlā, Muʿtamad 217, ult., transl. in Böwering, Mystical Vision of Existence 94. 20  Text 16.

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before Naẓẓām – when most theologians still got along very well without this idea. Bakr felt that this further substrate was needed in order to explain why a human lives, knows and acts: without a spirit, he would be a lifeless body. This also means that the spirit is nothing specifically human; other living beings only become what they are through the spirit.21 While knowledge and the faculty of action depend on the spirit, they are not necessarily permanent. Like most of his contemporaries Bakr was thinking of individual acts of knowledge and gradual actions of which humans might be able. And it is significant that to Bakr the ability was presentbefore the action took place,22 as it shows that he, too, thought in a Qadarite manner but used the theoretical framework already customary at the time.23 He did agree with his uncle in that genuine piety (ikhlāṣ) was not merely due to human will, as God can “seal” someone’s heart so he will have the wrong faith in the end. Ascetics at the time probably felt so close to monks in their demeanour that they could not help asking why the latter had not become Muslims. It had led ʿAbd al-Wāḥid b. Zayd to conclude that sincerity in the sense of genuine worship of the true God (ikhlāṣ) could not be a universal commandment; he rejected taklīf mā lā yuṭāq.24 Bakr contradicted him: faith was a commandment applicable to all, even though God might have “sealed the hearts” of some.25 This made him the more rigorous of the two, in fact; although in allowing the possibility of taklīf mā lā yuṭāq he was very near to breaking out of the Qadarite consensus. This was probably not his intention, for he regarded “sealing” as being the individual’s fault, as presumed by the Qadarites. Thus it could be punishment for a Muslim, too.26 He would demonstrate it by persisting in sin. Sin does not make him an unbeliever; he retains his status of muʾmīn, but he is called something else: “hypocrite” (munāfiq). Everyone who commits a mortal sin or lives in mortal sin is a “hypocrite”; he is denying God and serving Satan with his actions.27 The terminology originated with Ḥasan al-Baṣrī; the ascetics 21  Text 3. 22  Text 2. 23  Cf. e.g. vol. I 480 regarding the Ibāḍite ʿAbdallāh b. Yazīd. Ibn Qutayba linked Bakr closely to the Muʿtazilites. 24  See p. 112 above. 25  Text 7 with commentary. Cf. also Simnānī, Bayān ʿan uṣūl al-īmān, fol. 66b, –7ff. 26  The supporting Quranic passage was apparently sura 7:100 (cf. Ṭūsī, Tibyān IV 515, 1f. with Jubbāʾī’s subsequent objection). Elsewhere the phrase usually referred to the heathen (e.g. in sura 4:155 and 7:101). 27  Text 8, a–b and d.

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adopted and extended it. Sura 19:44 stated that a sinner “serves Satan” and worships him rather than God; there, Abraham said it to his father who was an unbeliever. Beyond Basra there was resistance against the idea that this phrase might apply to Muslims as well; the K. al-ʿālim wal-mutaʿallim rejected it firmly in Abū Ḥanīfa’s name.28 Just as sin perverts faith into nifāq, so does faith in its most perfect manifestation soar to the level of ikhlāṣ; this, too, a thought originating with Basran zuhd that may have been given its first systematic framework by Bakr. The state of nifāq may be reversed through repentance (tawba) in which the sinner shows that he is aware of his sin and ashamed of it.29 Repenting before death is thus essential for human salvation, for those who do not repent will die in the state of obduracy, and to remain obdurate will result in eternal punishment, even for a person who has formally remained a believer.30 And it makes no difference how great the sin actually was;31 even someone who, one might exaggerate, only stole a mustard seed,32 is doomed to this fate unless he repents in time. Some would later be reminded of the Khārijites and group Bakr with them,33 but this was incorrect in one essential point. While the Ibāḍites did often call sinners munāfiq, and believed that they were doomed to eternal punishment in hell, they regarded sinners as unbelievers, using the phrase kufr nifāq.34 Whichever terminology was used, the result was rigorism every time. Even if one’s stomach rumbled, one had to perform the minor ablution (wuḍūʾ) – just as if the flatus ventris had already made its way outside and caused ritual impurity. Above all, Bakr explicitly forbade eating garlic or onions, as one could not even go near a mosque after eating them.35 This was the kind of waraʿ that delighted the ascetics. The unpleasant smell caused by garlic or onions had been obnoxious to others as well. Qatāda had been asked for an expert legal opinion 28  P. 122, pu. ff.; cf. also Schacht in: Oriens 17/1964/113 § 35. 29  Text 13, b–c. 30  Text 8, b. Cf. also Jāḥiẓ in Text IX 7, a. 31  Text 8, e. 32  Thus Ibn Qutayba or Ibn Ḥazm (cf. Text 9). 33  Ibn Ḥazm in the abovementioned passage (Fiṣal IV 191, –6ff.) and following him Saksakī, Burhān 15, pu. ff.; Abū Yaʿlā in his Muʿtamad (122, 14ff.) and his son Ibn Abī Yaʿlā in his Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila (I 34, 6). 34  See p. 262 below. The definition of faith which Ibn al-Murtaḍā, Al-baḥr al-zakhkhār I 86, 6, connects with the Bakriyya (and the Fuḍayliyya, see p. 205f. below) does not go into all these differentiations. 35  Text 19.

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in the matter,36 and there were hadiths recommending that one should keep away from the mosque in this situation and not turn the communal prayer into a torment for others.37 Reference was made to antique texts which contained the analogous instruction that someone who had eaten garlic should not enter a temple.38 Bakr, however, provided the only instance of these recommendations becoming an outright prohibition. And of course it was never enforced. A Muslim who obdurately persists in sinning does so in full awareness of the punishment.39 Even if he does repent afterwards, God is not inclined to heed him – like a father who, after constant disobedience from his son, finally does not accept his excuses anymore.40 There even is one sin which is excluded from repentance: murder.41 Parallel passages show that this refers to the murder of a Muslim. Ḥasan al-Baṣrī had been of the same opinion,42 and we read the same thing of Sufyān al-Thawrī later.43 Both based their conviction on sura 4:93: “And whoso slays a believer wilfully, his recompense is Gehenna, therein to dwell forever”. This idea appears to go back deep into the first century; it was linked to Ibn ʿAbbās; ʿAbdallāh b. Masʿūd, Zayd b. Thābit, and Ḍaḥḥāk b. Muzāḥim (d. 105/723) were also mentioned.44 It probably reflected an ancient Muslim sense of belonging together; in fact it was due to an unprejudiced understanding of the text. Consequently it is not surprising that we find it in hadith as well: “God may forgive every sin, except when someone dies an unbeliever, or wilfully kills a believer”.45 Murder was on a par with apostasy or idolatry; Ibn ʿAbbās was believed to have called shirk and murder the “two unclear things” (al-mubhamatān).46

36   Aqwāl Qatāda 74, –5f.; regarding the text see p. 165ff. below. 37  Cf. e.g. Bukhārī, Adhān 160 with several traditions; also Al-iʿtiṣām bil-sunna 24 and Aṭʿima 49; Muslim, Masājid 17; generally ending with an instruction: fal-yaʿtazilnā or fal-yaʿtazil masjidanā (also: fa-lā yaqrabanna masjidanā). Further instances in Wensinck, Conc. I 314b and Handbook 155b. Regarding the Shīʿa cf. Majlisī, Biḥār LXVI 246ff. 38  Material may be found in Th. Wächter, Reinheitsvorschriften im griechischen Kult 105. 39  Thus Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār’s definition in Mughnī XIV 375, 3f., in a passage that is based on the doctrine of the Bakriyya, as 374, 13f. suggests. 40  Ibid. 375, 9ff. 41  Text 11. 42  Abū Yaʿlā, Muʿtamad 201, ult. ff.; cf. also Sharīf al-Raḍī, Ḥaqāʾiq al-ta‌ʾwīl 363, 4ff.: according to Ḥasan, a murderer faces eternal punishment in hell. 43  Cf. his Tafsīr 54, pu. ff.; also vol. I 259 and 261 above. 44  Ṭūsī, Tibyān III 285, 9ff. 45   Conc. II 186b. 46  Ṭabarī, Tafsīr 3IX 67, apu.

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The latter also hints at the uncertainty people felt concerning this opinion from the earliest time. In his commentary Ṭabarī transmitted several qualifications with which to circumvent the radical message of sura 4:93: the murderer will suffer eternal punishment in hell if he does not repent (nadima),47 or when he believes the murder to be permitted,48 or if God punishes at all, i.e. presumably: if he leaves Muslims in hell for eternity.49 Even Sufyān al-Thawrī was thought to have added “if he does not beg God for forgiveness” to his statement.50 Members of the circle around the fiercely devout Abū ʿAmr Ibn al-ʿAlāʾ disagreed, too.51 Muqātil b. Sulaymān considered only the murder of a prophet inexpiable.52 Mufīd linked Bakr’s teachings to only “a very few members of the Ḥashwiyya and the common people (ʿāmma)”.53 Sufyān al-Thawrī pointed out that the verse was not abrogated,54 which indicates that this was another way in which people tried to circumvent it.55 However, this clearly lead into a dead end: when the verses that might have abrogated the statement were put in chronological order, it was found that they had been revealed earlier: sura 19:60 one year earlier,56 and sura 25:70 all of eight years earlier.57 This was a point at which the Muʿtazila directed criticism. While it had grown from the same root, its understanding of sin was different. Instead of nifāq, 47  Ibid. 62, 6ff. no. 10187: Mujāhid amending a more rigorous dictum of Ibn ʿAbbās’. Cf. also Ṭūsī, Tibyān III 295, 9f. 48  Ibid. 61, 11ff., with reference to a unique occurrence. 49  Ibid. 61, 5ff. no. 10184f.: after the Basran authorities Sulaymān al-Taymī and Shuʿba. 50  Ibid. 67, 10ff. no. 10201. 51  See p. 426f. below. 52   Tafsīr khamsmiʾat āya 152, 8ff. 53   Awāʾil al-maqālāt 63, 14/transl. Sourdel § 69. ʿāmma refers to the Sunnis. 54   Tafsīr 54, pu. ff. 55  This is documented elsewhere as well, e.g. in a tradition of Ibn ʿAbbās (Ṭabarī IX 63, 8ff. no. 10188ff. in several variants, the clearest being no. 10195) and in one tradition in Abū Dāwūd, Fitan (Bāb taʿẓīm qatl al-muʾminīn). 56  “ . . . save him who repents, and believes, and does a righteous deed; those – they shall enter Paradise”. 57  “. . . save him who repents, and believes, and does righteous work – those, God will change their evil deeds into good deeds (at the reckoning), for God is ever All-forgiving, All-compassionate”. Just before this passage, verse 68 explicitly lists murder among those transgressions to which the recommended “repentance” refers. Cf. Ṭabarī 66, pu. ff. no. 10198ff. and 10206.

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Muʿtazilites used the term fisq.58 To them, a murderer had no special status; Wāṣil apparently only concluded from sura 4:93 that someone who had committed a mortal sin would suffer eternal punishment in hell,59 and there were no later amendments, either.60 Even someone who was “sealed” would be able to be penitent, and God’s inclination would be to forgive every sin.61 In his discussion with Bakr Bishr b. al-Muʿtamir tried to refute the former’s doctrine of obduracy by referring to the hoopoe in the legend of Solomon. Solomon was gathering his “armies of ghosts, humans, and birds” around him, and found that the hoopoe was missing. He meant to punish him for being absent without permission unless “he can show good justification”. The hoopoe claimed to have been to Sheba and seen the queen worshipping the sun with her people, and he advised Solomon to convert her and her subjects to the true faith (sura 27:21, quoted in Text 12, h; cf. Speyer, Biblische Erzählungen im Qoran 389ff.). The decisive factor for Bishr b. al-Muʿtamir was probably that the hoopoe had not “done penance”. He had been fully aware of the situation – i.e. responsible for his own actions – when he disobeyed Solomon’s instruction not to leave his place (Text 12, a–b). The fact that his action turned out to have been a sensible one could not atone for the disobedience (c–d). Thus, in Bakr’s terminology, he became and remained a munāfiq. Bakr, sharing as he did Bishr’s interpretation of the Quranic pericope (e–f), ought to admit this consequence, too. All the same, Solomon who was, after all, a prophet, did not kill the hoopoe to punish him (i): he clearly did not believe in his servant’s “obduracy”. Consequently Bakr’s theory could not be correct. We do not know how Bishr himself resolved the question. He, too, took for granted that the hoopoe had “transgressed” (c), and did not seem to assume that the good intention justified the unauthorised disobedience (d). It is probable that he simply did not believe that a venial sin which one did not repent would automatically become a mortal sin; maybe he did not believe that one must do penance for every individual sin, either. In one of his didactic poems Bishr referred to this argumentation again, mentioning the “hoopoe whom Bakr considered to be an unbeliever”.62 These 58  See p. 298ff. below. 59  See p. 348 below. 60  Ṭūsī, Tibyān III 295, 1f. and 9f.; also Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Mutashābih al-Qurʾān 201, 9ff. 61   Tibyān I 170, 5ff. 62  Text XVII 1, verse 25.

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words do not do justice to Bakr: not even a murderer was an unbeliever in his opinion. Bishr made the same mistake once again; clearly he wished to link Bakr to the Khārijites.63 However, in the second instance the argument is used in a different context, for Bakr, in order to rein in his rigorism, had clearly emphasised the principle of responsibility: while God does punish even nondescript transgressions he does so only in the case of people who are aware of them.64 Bishr responded that in that case even a scorpion was deserving of punishment, as it shows clearly by its demeanour in the moment of stinging that it is afraid of being killed in retribution. Clearly, it must be aware of its transgression, and consequently has to be called an unbeliever.65 While this example is rather scurrilous, the question remains of whether Bakr could not simply have agreed? The Muʿtazilite text which is our source does not transmit his reply, but he really was in a slightly unenviable position, as he had assumed that children did not deserve punishment in any way and that consequently should never be hurt; extending this view onto animals seemed to suggest itself. He had hesitated to take this step: animals, he believed, are allowed to feel pain so they can be led to the benefit of humans.66 Thus domesticated animals, at least, are an exception: while they are “innocent”,67 pain does not have the primary function of punishment in their case. This was too subtle to survive transmission unscathed every time,68 and one of his pupils appears clearly to have treated children and animals the same “because God cannot treat anyone unjustly”.69 This explanation shows what was at the heart of the matter. Pain is ultimately created by God, in and of itself “out of nothing” and by no means caused by the preceding blow or sting. Bakr also differed from Bishr b. al-Muʿtamir in that he did not accept the latter’s tawallud theory.70 A blow is thus not necessarily followed by pain, and in the case of children, Bakr continued, this is indeed not the case. One should rather assume that they feel pleasure at being hit, otherwise they would be punished by God, not by their parents.71 So why do they cry? Obviously in order for the parents, whom this hurts, to be punished 63  Text 13, e; thus also Ibn Ḥazm in Text 10. Jāḥiẓ generalised in a similar way (Text IX 7, a). 64  Text 13, 1. 65  Ibid., b–f. 66  Text 5. 67  Text 13, a. 68  Ibid., g; also commentary on Text 4. 69  Ibn Ḥazm, Fiṣal IV 191, apu. ff.; cf. p. 137 below. 70  Text 6l regarding tawallud in Bishr’s theories see ch. C 1.4.3.1.1.1 below. 71  Text 4.

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in their turn, presumably for older sins, or maybe by making them feel remorse for having hurt them unjustly.72 For it is God who makes the children scream; as they have no responsibility themselves they are automata, so to speak, and led by God. We cannot fathom what they feel in this case;73 important is only what emotions are triggered in us, the parents. Of course, the parents must not see through the game; if they knew as much as Bakr, they would not need to feel worried or punished. This was the weakness of the construct; nowhere else in Islam the question of theodicy was resolved in such radical – and naïve – terms. However, when talking about pain Bakr may not have had those pains in mind that parents might inflict on their children as educational measures. While the text does speak of “blows”, it also mentions infants, “children in the cradle”.74 Pain being caused by a blow was a topos at the time. Furthermore he does not say that the blow came from the parents; “dismembering” and “shredding” are also mentioned. In any case, pain comes from God; illness should be listed here as well.75 Beating as educational measure would seem to be a more Western concept in any case; a stick is used only once children start school.76 Bakr retracted his rigorism in two cases. We already know the first one: the opponents in the battle of the camel. If we look at the behaviour of ʿAlī, Ṭalḥa and Zubayr, they are in fact munāfiqān.77 Nothing is said of penance, and as the death of many Muslims is on their conscience, their crime is near to murder. But God himself absolved them, and the hadith stating this had irrevocable authority for Bakr, as it had already had for Ḥasan al-Baṣrī.78 He would probably have felt it a sacrilege if the fighters of the battle of Badr – and possibly the companions of the prophet in general – had been condemned to hell. This is remarked upon in particular with reference to ʿAlī. For Bakr was a fierce opponent of the “Rāfiḍites”,79 which is clearly illustrated by the second exception: he considered drinking date wine (nabīdh) to be in accordance with 72  Text 5, b–c. 73  Thus also Baghdādī, Farq 201, 5ff./213, 11ff. 74  Text 4, a–b. 75  Cf. Ibn Ḥazm, Fiṣal IV 191, ult. 76  Regarding Ibn Saḥnūn cf. Lecomte in: REI 21/1953/86ff.; regarding Qābisī cf. A. F. al-Ahwānī, Al-tarbiya fī l-Islām 313f. Concerning the question in general see Aḥmad Khālid, Al-ʿuqūba ʿinda l-murabbīn al-Tūnisiyyīn fī l-qurūn al-wusṭā, in: Shahṣiyyāt wa-tayyārāt 46ff. 77  Text 14, a. 78  Text 14, b and 15. It is noticeable that not even he refers to the tradition of the ʿashara almubashshara which would have served the same purpose (cf. vol. I 26f. above; also 542 below). 79  Khayyāṭ, Intiṣār 105, 6f.

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the Sunna. This was linked to two further exceptions: he permitted masḥ ʿalā l-khuffayn and the consumption of eel or catfish.80 The latter was indeed prohibited among the Rāfiḍites only:81 in Kufa their hostility towards the Murjiʾa and Abū Ḥanīfa had convinced them also to prohibit the drinking of date wine.82 That Bakr, who was concerned about stomach rumbles, should be so lenient in this instance, is indeed quite something. The combination of the three things is part of the heresiographers’ compendium of formulaic expression (cf. Text III 4, b). This explains that Sufyān al-Thawrī’s attitude was described in the same words (Ḥilya VII 32, 4f., including the same error, writing jady instead of jirrī); but it cannot prove a special link with the Bakriyya. – Bakr’s requirement that the nabīdh should be fermented in a leather wineskin (siqāʾ) is probably an expression of particular scrupulousness. The alternative would have been fermentation in the hollowed-out trunk (naqīr) of a palm-tree; a method apparently forbidden by the prophet because of the high alcohol content resulting (Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, K. al-īmān no. 26; in general Conc. VI 533b). For Shīʿite hadiths on the subject cf. Kulīnī, Kāfī VI 416f. no. 4ff., and 418f. no. 1–3. In general cf. Goldziher, Vorlesungen 65f. – Incidentally, wine was prepared in the same way in Central America. As the trunk of a palm-tree is soft inside, it could be hollowed out above the root to make a container for the tree sap to collect (cf. Esquemelin, Die amerikanischen Seeräuber 84f.). Bakr’s anti-Shīʿite attitude gave rise to a misunderstanding that would spread over time. Later literature often regards as “Bakriyya” certain theologians who defended Abū Bakr’s claim against ʿAlī’s.83 According to Ibn Abī l-Ḥadīd they even falsified hadiths in favour of Abū Bakr, and attacked ʿAlī with hadiths.84 Consequently they also put ʿĀʾisha above Fāṭima.85 Masʿūdī claimed that besides the aṣḥāb al-ḥadīth, the Bayhasiyya and others, the Bakriyya – “the followers of Bakr b. ukht ʿAbd al-Wāḥid” – also believed that Abū Bakr’s caliphate 80  Text 18. 81  See vol. I 276 above. 82  Cf. Majlisī, Biḥār LXXIX 166ff.; EI2 IV 996a s. v. K̲ h̲amr. 83  Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Mughnī XX1 130, 17, in comparison with 129, apu., and 130, 5; probably also Mānkdīm, ShUKh 754, 4 and 761, 12; Ḥajūrī, Rawḍat al-akhbār, fol. 98b, 13ff. with reference to Dāwūd al-Iṣfahānī and his school (see ch. C 6.3.2 below). 84  ShNB XI 49, 4ff.; examples also in Ibn al-Dāʿī, Tabṣira 226, 9ff. 85  Baghdādī, Uṣūl al-dīn 306, 11.

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was based on an explicit appointment (naṣṣ).86 It is true that ʿAbd al-Wāḥid b. Zayd transmitted hadiths from Abū Bakr.87 As these are found hardly anywhere else it is possible that there was a tendency linked to them, but we are probably just looking at an optical illusion here. Neither Jāḥiẓ’ K. al-ʿUthmāniyya nor Ashʿarī’s Maqālāt have any knowledge of this doctrine. Bakr does not appear in the hadiths favouring Abū Bakr that were preserved in Mawḍūʿāt texts, either.88 The reinterpretation of the name was probably of Shīʿite origin. Ashʿarī seems to have known it,89 but he distinguished clearly between the two meanings. Masʿūdī, on the other hand, effected the contamination. Later it became barely noticeable; in Ibn al-Murtaḍā’s view the Bakriyya was distinguished by two tenets: that children do not feel pain, and that Abū Bakr became caliph by naṣṣ.90 Ibn al-Murtaḍā even claimed that Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, too, had embraced such a theory (Baḥr 94, 6); he had found this in Muʿtazilite tradition (cf. Gimaret, loc. cit.). Strothmann, Staatsrecht der Zaiditen 29, n. 2, is critical of this construct. As regards the Maghreb it is important that the term Bakriyya was also used to denote the followers of Sufi al-Bakrī al-Ṣiqillī (d. 386/996) who was attacked because of his views on miracles of the saints (H. R. Idris in: Mélanges Massignon II 334). We may safely disregard later uses of the term, e.g. to denote the dervish order of the same name or the Egyptian Bakrī family of the nineteenth century (EI2 I 966a). – The Bakriyya mentioned in Abū Makḥūl al-Nasafī, Al-radd ʿalā l-bidaʿ 104, 4ff., is a copyist’s error for Fikriyya, made clear from the description of its doctrine (cf. tafakkur in l. 6) and confirmed by the parallel in Tadhkirat almadhāhib (ed. Fijlālī in: IIED 2/1975/130, 5ff.). Membership of the Bakriyya sadly never became a criterion for the experts of jarḥ wal-taʿdīl; consequently there is barely any hope of identifying later followers of this school. Using the word munāfiq as a technical term is not sufficient to set them aside; it is part of Ḥasan al-Baṣrī’s legacy.91 Only two of Bakr’s pupils are named; one of them appears to have received his nisba from his teacher: 86   Tanbīh 337, 7f.; adopted by Gimaret, Ashʿarī 555. 87  See p. 113 n. 35 above. 88  E.g. Suyūṭī, La‌ʾālī I 286ff. 89  Cf. Ibn Fūrak, Mujarrad 189, 3ff. 90   Al-baḥr al-zakhkhār I 42, –7f.; only slightly expanded in the commentary Al-munya walamal 111, 6f. Similarly already al-Manṣūr billāh, Shāfī I 133, 1f.; possibly based on al-Ḥākim al-Jushamī. 91  Thus when the ascetic Yūsuf b. Asbāṭ (d. 199/814–5) speaks of the munāfiqū hādhihī lumma (Ibn al-Jawzī, Ṣifa IV 237, pu. f.).

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ʿAbdallāh b. ʿĪsā al-Bakrī. According to Ibn Ḥazm he was the one who considered not only children and animals but also mentally ill people to be equally innocent.92 Nothing more can be discovered concerning his identity.92a The same is true of the second pupil, Abū ʿUbayd Muḥammad b. Sharīk (?) al-Mismaʿī, whom Abū Yaʿlā mentioned together with ʿAbdallāh b. ʿĪsā. In another strand of transmission that goes back to Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār he is called Muḥammad b. Sahl and has the nisba al-Baṣrī.93 This is not surprising as the Mismaʿī family was based in Basra.94 He maintained that a murderer’s repentance would not be accepted; consequently the qāḍī believed him to be the head of a separate sect. 2.2.2.2.4 Asceticism and Rationality The Muʿtazila became known for the regard in which it held reason. However, it seems that there was little theorising on the matter; it was able to rely on a broad consensus. This emerged especially in Basra, within the Qadariyya1 as well as among the ascetics. Reason was not a universal principle, and did not mainly convey intellectual insights, either, but provided help in everyday life and answered the question of what God’s will might be in a particular situation. It could thus not be separated from ʿilm, the knowledge that, set down in the Quran or in hadith, was an authority in itself and that reason could approach through exegesis only. Reason did not create its own foundations.2 It can hardly astonish that the roots of this concept were in fact spread more widely. The Kufan Shīʿa, too, praised the ʿaql; but their traditions often exhibited a more strongly gnostic tone.3 Above all, philosophical literature exerted 92   Fiṣal IV 191, apu. ff. > Saksakī, Burhān 14, –9f.; regarding him cf. also Abū Yaʿlā, Muʿtamad 202, 2f. 92a  Unless he was the same as ʿAbdallāh b. ʿĪsā al-Khazzāz who transmitted hadith from Yūnus b. ʿUbayd (see p. 401 below). 93  Ḥākim al-Jushamī, Sharḥ ʿuyūn al-masāʾil I, fol. 47b > Ibn al-Murtaḍā, Al-munya wal-amal, 121, 2f. 94  Samʿānī, Ansāb XII 263ff. no. 3783; cf. ch. C 4.2.4.3 below. 1  See p. 59 above; also p. 69 and 73. 2  As emphasised by e.g. Arkoun in: Annuaire de l’Afrique du Nord 18/1979/305ff. 3  See vol. I 416 above; summarised in Majlisī, Biḥār I 82ff. For general information see Rushdī ʿAlyān, Al-ʿaql ʿinda l-Shīʿa al-Imāmiyya (Baghdad 1973); however, the book is structured without concern for chronology.

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an influence. Hishām’s kātib Sālim Abū l-ʿAlāʾ produced an early translation of a Hermetic logion calling reason the only possible way of approaching closer to God.4 The introduction to Burzōye’s Kalīla wa-dimna included a praise of reason;5 Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ embraced this, speaking in his Risāla fī l-ṣaḥāba of the relation between ʿaql and dīn.6 Sahl b. Hārūn illustrated the interaction between ʿaql and ʿilm for his readers in K. al-nimr wal-thaʿlab,7 explaining that intellect is not a mere attribute but created to be innate in human nature.8 Ṣāliḥ b. Janāḥ al-Lakhmī9 examined the relation between ʿaql and adab; it is similar to that between nature and nurture.10 In Abū l-ʿAtāhiya’s view, everything good resulted from intelligence, and everything bad from ignorance,11 a statement already found in the Dēnkart;12 but it is probably too universally valid to be only an Iranian legacy. What distinguished Basra, on the other hand, was the attempt at basing this ideal on a foundation of hadith. While the material was by no means exclusively Basran, the collections were composed here. The attempt failed, as the authors found no mercy before the emerging jarḥ wal-taʿdīl; probably because they began their task too late. By this time, propaganda for the ʿaql was misunderstood as propaganda for the Muʿtazila. Yaḥyā b. Maʿīn said of the most important man, Abū Sulaymān Dāwūd b. al-Muḥabbar b. Qahdham b. Sulaymān alBakrāwī al-Ṭāʾī, a Basran who died in Baghdad on 8 Jumādā I 206/9 Oct. 82113 and whom he probably knew personally, that he had “kept company with a few Muʿtazilites” who had “corrupted” him.14 Ibn Ḥanbal was said to have dismissed his traditions with an ironic laugh.15 He had composed a K. al-ʿaql which Ibn Abī l-Dunyā

4  BEO 19/1965–66/75, 8; cf. also 77, 10f. 5  P. 99, 6ff. 6   § 18f. Pellat. 7  P. 129, 3ff./transl. 73f. 8  Ibid. 132, 11ff./transl. 72; cf. also 134, 6ff./70. 9  Regarding him see p. 21f. above. 10   Al-adab wal-muruwwa 165, 11ff. 11  Cf. his Urjūza in: Dīwān 451 v. 59. 12  Transl. de Menasce 288 § 292 . 13   T B VIII 362, 1f. 14   T B VIII 360, 6ff. > Mīzān no. 2646 and TT III 199, pu. 15   ʿIlal 125 no. 750 > TB VIII 360, ult. ff. (where several original texts are quoted).

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(d. 281/894),16 Jaʿfar al-Khuldī (d. 384/959)17 and Abū Nuʿaym18 quoted among others. This shows the esteem in which the ascetics held him; after all, he transmitted from Rabīʿ b. Ṣabīḥ19 and ʿAbd al-Wāḥid b. Zayd.20 Not even Yaḥyā b. Maʿīn regarded him as a malicious falsifier. Rather, he said, he studied in Basra and then fell into the hands of the Sufis in ʿAbbādān where, with all the weaving of rushes and palm leaves, he forgot his hadith. When he came to Baghdad, people wanted to hear Basran traditions from him, and he repeated them incorrectly.21 The number of authorities to whom he referred is indeed impressive;22 comprising Qadarites as well as people like Muqātil b. Sulaymān23 and Muḥammad b. ʿUrwa, a great-grandson of ʿUrwa b. al-Zubayr’s, who was a companion of al-Mahdī and of Hārūn al-Rashīd.24 Hadith had been transmitted in his family for generations.25 The nisba al-Bakrāwī suggests that the forefather was a client of the Basran prophet’s companion Abū Bakra al-Thaqafī.26 Dāwūd himself was probably not a Qadarite. One of his hadiths supported the istithnāʾ;27 maybe he had been influenced by Sufyān al-Thawrī.28 Also typical of him is the prophetic dictum that someone who understands the spirit of the Quran must not complain of poverty (Suyūṭī I 246, 7ff.). Regarding asceticism cf. also Tanūkhī, Faraj I 117, 3f. – Suyūṭī also preserved some ʿaql hadiths from him (La‌ʾālī I 127, 3ff.; 127, –7ff.; 127, –4ff.; 128, 10ff.); he transmitted the well-known tradition naming ʿaql as God’s best-loved creation (see p. 196 below) in a particularly detailed 16   K. al-ʿaql wal-faḍlih 11, 10ff.; 13, pu. ff.; 27, 6ff. and 10ff. 17   T B VIII 359, ult. ff. 18   Ḥilya IV 26, 11ff., and 40, 18ff., in the section concerning Wahb b. Munabbih. 19  Regarding the border post in Qazwīn (Suyūṭī, La‌ʾālī I 463, apu. ff.). Regarding Rabīʿ see p. 121f. above. 20  Ṭabarī, Tafsīr 3XV 250f. no. 17979; Ḥilya VI 164, 6. 21  ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ II 35 no. 458. ʿAbbādān was well known for the rush mats manufactured there (Dietrich, Dioscurides triumphans 558). 22  Listed TB VIII 359, 15ff. 23  Regarding him see p. 581ff. below. 24   T B III 137, 5. 25  Regarding his father cf. ʿUqaylī IV 259f. no. 1860, and Mīzān no. 7080. ʿUqaylī also has a Mahdī hadith going back via his father to his grandfather; it seems to be directed at alNafs al-zakiyya. Regarding his great-grandfather Sulaymān b. Dhakwān al-Qahdhamī cf. ʿUqaylī II 129 no. 613 and Mīzān no. 3458; he transmits from Anas b. Mālik. 26  Found only in ʿUqaylī. 27  Samʿānī, Ansāb II 294ff. 28  Suyūṭī, La‌ʾālī I 42, –8ff.; regarding istithnāʾ see vol. I 259 above.

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version (ibid. 130, 3ff.). Concerning the same subject cf. also al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī, TB VIII 359, ult. ff., and Al-faqīh wal-mutafaqqih II 20, 13ff. Traditions with different subject matter cf. Suyūṭī I 407, pu. ff., and II 414, ult. ff. Among Dāwūd’s authorities was Maysara b. ʿAbdrabbih al-Tarrās al-Dawraqī, a widely travelled Persian, a shield maker by profession, who circulated hadiths praising the city of Qazwīn but also transmitted from Mālik b. Anas and Awzāʿī. His gluttony earned him the nickname al-Akkāl.29 He went so far as to have the prophet say that someone gifted with natural intellect could not be harmed by his sins, as he would be intelligent enough to repent afterwards. People claimed to have heard him admit to inventing hadiths purely because of their paraenetic use.30 Consequently it may not have been entirely unfounded that Dāraquṭnī claimed that everyone who quoted one of his ʿaql hadiths – which had also been collected into a “book” – added different isnāds.31 Besides Dāwūd al-Muḥabbar, two other muḥaddithūn were said to proceed in the same way: Sulaymān b. ʿĪsā b. Najīḥ al-Sijzī, a pupil of ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAwn’s (d. 151/768), who composed a K. tafḍīl al-ʿaql in two booklets,32 and Mālik b. Anas’ pupil ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Abī Rajāʾ.33 We can see that Maysara’s material was popular; the fact that he was still too close to ancient quṣṣāṣ tradition did not become a problem until later. He had a partiality for rhapsodic narrative; an account of Muḥammad’s journey to heaven that he traced back to Ḍaḥḥāk b. Muzāḥim comprised 20 sheets,34 and his version of the prophet’s last sermon described the punishment for various sins in Dantean detail in order to give greater urgency to the call to repentance.35 He probably thought that the intellect should look to these things as examples.

29  Regarding him Bukhārī II1 244 no. 838; IAH IV1 254 no. 1157; TB XIII 222ff. no. 8193; Samʿānī, Ansāb V 391, 5ff.; ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ IV 263f. no. 1868; Mīzān no. 8958. 30  ʿUqaylī > Mīzān. 31   T B VIII 360, 17ff., and Suyūṭī, La‌ʾālī I 128, 15ff.; transl. Goldziher in: ZA 22/1907/341 = Ges. Schr. V 131. In his K. al-Ḍuʿafāʾ wal-matrūkīn Dāraquṭnī consequently called Maysara the true author of Ibn al-Muḥabbar’s K. al-ʿaql (373 no. 510). 32   Mīzān no. 3496. 33   Mīzān no. 5100 with a relevant hadith; also Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ, Tartīb al-madārik I 270, 2f. 34  Preserved in its entirety in Suyūṭī, La‌ʾālī I 63, 9ff.; cf. also Ibn Ḥibbān, Majrūḥīn III 11, –5ff. Cf. p. 573 below. 35  Suyūṭī II 361, –5ff.; quoted by Dāwūd b. al-Muḥabbar.

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2.2.3 The Jurists The development of legal practice and jurisprudence in Basra lies outside our topic. However, it is relevant for several reasons. Basran theologians, especially those of the Ibāḍiyya and the Muʿtazila, were jurists at the same time; within a locally defined legal tradition of which we know barely anything.1 This is due to Kufan influence which spread as early as the first half of the second century; Abū Ḥanīfa was corresponding with the Basran ʿUthmān al-Battī, introducing Murjiʿite thought in the city, which settled on top of the Qadarite substrate, leading to a theological mixture that requires separate discussion.2 Jurists did not form a theologically uniform group, but that was hardly to be expected. All the same, we cannot simply assign them to the different schools, as one of them, ʿUbaydallāh al-ʿAnbarī, raised this very lack of direction to the level of a separate doctrine that would be influential for a long time to come. It is also interesting for us to see to which social class the jurists belonged. After the death of the great ʿAbdallāhs – Ibn ʿUmar, Ibn ʿAbbās, Ibn al-Zubayr and Ibn ʿAmr b. al-ʿĀṣ – the fiqh, it was said, ended up in the hands of the mawālī.3 Clients, however, were prohibited from becoming judges, for while a qāḍī was appointed by the governor,4 he also required the support of the tribes. Clients could pronounce fatwās, but essentially they remained “devout experts”,5 with little influence on official legal practice.6 Similarly, someone who did not share the religious convictions of the majority could hardly become qāḍī as the public had to be able to rely on his employing his authority to exclude someone from bearing witness in a just fashion.7 Which makes it all the more remarkable that the first mawlā to be appointed judge in Basra was a Qadarite: Ḥasan al-Baṣrī. The fact seems certain, but remained unique for a long time.8 As we have seen, in Basra membership of the Qadariyya was not a flaw, but only ʿUmar II’s reign seems to have fulfilled all the conditions necessary to defy social boundaries. The second qāḍī in office in Basra during ʿUmar’s caliphate was probably not entirely “orthodox” in the sense it would be understood later, either; he appears to have been close to the Ibāḍiyya. But at least he was a free Arab: ʿIyās b. Muʿāwiya al-Muzanī. 1  Schacht, Origins of Muḥammadan Jurisprudence 229; Index s. v. Basrians. 2  See p. 191ff. below. 3  Shīrāzī, Ṭab. 58, 9ff.; also ʿIqd III 415, pu. ff. Cf. vol. I 47 above. 4  The caliph did not usually do this during the Umayyad era (cf. R. G. Khoury in: Festschrift Spuler 197ff.). 5  This phrase was used by Schacht, Introduction to Islamic Law 27. 6  Unless they were present as advisors during the hearing (see p. 154 below). 7  In his K. al-umm Shāfiʿī discussed the question of when sectarians would be permitted as witnesses (VI 210f.). 8  As emphasised by Fasawī II 244, 8.

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Regarding the authenticity of Ḥasan’s appointment as judge see p. 48 above; cf. also p. 146f. below. If ʿUmar II had appointed him, this raises the question in retrospect of why he did not proceed in the same way with Makḥūl in Syria who after all enjoyed a similarly good reputation. The explanation offered was that Makḥūl rejected the caliph’s offer, referring to a prophetic dictum according to which only “a man of the nobility (dhū sharaf) should judge humans” (Ibn ʿAbdrabbih, ʿIqd I 22, 6ff.). The classic case bearing on the issue had been decades earlier: it was said that when Ḥajjāj became governor in Kufa he intended to appoint Saʿīd b. Jubayr, a freedman (mawlā al-ʿitāqa), to the office of judge, as he could rely on him more than on a member of his tribe. He failed because of the objection of the ashrāf (Mubarrad, Kāmil 439, 7ff. = Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif 446, 3ff.; also Sayed, Ibn al-Ašʿaṯ 352f.). In Mosul the first client to become qāḍī was not documented until AH 140 (Azdī, Ta‌ʾrīkh al-Mawṣil 173, 8); his successor was also a mawlā (ibid. 181, 6f.). On the issue in general cf. Juda, Soziale und wirtschaftliche Aspekte der Mawālī 183f. It was claimed later that Ḥasan al-Baṣrī had already been appointed army judge by Ibn al-Ashʿath (Wakīʿ, Akhbār I 307, –4f.). Experts, however, doubted this (ibid. 308, 2) – and that probably with justification: it is likely that Ḥasan did not take part in the uprising at all (see p. 47 above). The first Qadarite to become a judge in Basra after him was ʿAbbād b. Manṣūr at the time of Yazīd III (regarding him see p. 177f. and 381ff. below). – Ṣāliḥ al-ʿAlī collated Basran qāḍī lists in Al-tanẓīmāt al-ijtimāʿiyya 296ff. (for the first century), as does Ch. Pellat, Milieu basrien 288ff. (for the time up to 250/864), and D. Sourdel in: Arabica 2/1955/111 (after Wakīʿ). Regarding the origins of the office of qāḍī and the practice of early quḍāt cf. Schacht, Introduction 25f.; Coulson, History of Islamic Law 28ff. and 120 ff.; P. G. Dannhauer, Untersuchungen zur frühen Geschichte des Qāḍī-Amtes (PhD thesis, Bonn 1975); Gaudefroy-Demombynes in: Festschrift Dussaud 823ff.; Morony, Iraq 437ff.; Ẓāfir al-Qāsimī, Al-qaḍāʾ qabla l-Islām wa-baʿdahū, in: Waqāʾiʿ wa-muḥāḍarāt al-muʿtamar al-ʿālamī 403ff. A primary source to be adduced now, too, is Abū Hilāl al-ʿAskarī, Awāʾil II 111ff., which lists the men who were the first qāḍīs in the cities discussed. Regarding Spain cf. Ridha Hadi Abbas, Los cadies y el cadiazgo en al-Andalus desde la conquista hasta el reino nazarí (92–635/711–1237), PhD thesis, Granada 1980, and M. J. Viguera in: al-Qanṭara 5/1984/123ff. Regarding the duties of a judge in general see Falaturi/May in: Beiträge zu islamischem Rechtsdenken 47ff. and I. Schneider, Das Bild des Richters in der ‘Adab al-qāḍī’-Literatur, Frankfurt 1990.

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2.2.3.1 The Case of Iyās b. Muʿāwiya If the qāḍī was not selected from among the “pious experts”, this also meant that the categories of his administration of justice did not necessarily correspond to theirs. During the sixties of the first century a settled Bedouin (aʿrābī madarī) was a – successful, we are told – judge in Egypt, although he was unable to write and had not mastered the Quran.1 Even in the second half of the second century, during the time of the caliph al-Mahdī, the qāḍī Khālid b. Ṭalīq was accused of being ignorant in his own field: he did not even know the name of Muḥammad’s mother.2 He was, however, an educated man – but a genealogist and historian (akhbārī), not a jurist.3 Half a century earlier, he would probably not have shocked anyone. The tribes in which these men had gathered their experience followed a different legal tradition. Differences would have been settled by the ʿarīf, on the basis of ʿurf.4 The qāḍī would have been approached only in exceptional cases, and if he was consulted, his function would have been like that of the ḥakam, the arbitrator who would have been the expert in pre-Islamic times.5 The institution of the ḥakam had by no means vanished among the settled tribes; after all, the office of qāḍī evolved out of it.6 When we occasionally read of a tribal qāḍī,7 this is probably exactly what the author meant. Not even members of religious groups who ought to have been committed to the new ideal always turned to the superior public authority. The Ibāḍites had their own authorities,8 and Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq appears to have been put out when two

1  Kindī, Quḍāt Miṣr 312, 9ff. 2  Wakīʿ, Akhbār II 127, 12, and 130, 12f. 3  Ibn al-Nadīm, FIhrist 107, 9ff. 4  Cf. EI2 I 629f. s. v. ʿArīf, and Serjeant in: JSS 29/1984/73. 5  Thus e.g. Ḥasan al-Baṣrī (cf. Wakīʿ I 309. 8ff.) or a generation later Sawwār b. ʿAbdallāh al-ʿAnbarī (Fasawī II 247, 1; regarding him see p. 178 below). 6  As Kindī puts it, ʿAmr b. al-ʿĀṣ was said to have appointed a former ḥakam qāḍī in Egypt (Quḍāt Miṣr 305, 2ff.). Concerning the ḥakam in general cf. E. Tyan in EI2 III 72 s. v.; also G. Jacob, Beduinenleben 217f.; Schacht, Introduction 8; Muh. Ibrahim el-Shoush, The Nature of Authority in Arabia at the Advent of Islam (PhD thesis, London 1959), p. 214ff.; W. Reiner, Das Recht in der altarabischen Poesie (PhD thesis Cologne 1963), p. 42ff.; Dannhauer, Qāḍī-Amt 12ff.; Ph. Rancillac in: MIDEO 13/1977/147ff.; Morony, Iraq 440; Chelhod in: SI 64/1986/22ff. and 31f.; also my own thoughts in: La notion de liberté au Moyen Age 25ff. Concerning the continued existence of the ḥakam in present-day Yemen cf. Chelhod, L’Arabie du Sud III 149ff. 7  Thus said of a “qāḍī of the Tamīm” in Abū Nuʿaym, Ḥilya III 110, 12. 8  See p. 529 below.

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Shīʿites brought their quarrel before the qāḍī, who was not a Shīʿite.9 A good example of the type of judge who came from the older background was Abū Wāthila Iyās b. Muʿāwiya b. Qurra al-Muzanī, d. 122/740 at the age of 76.10 His talent as a judge was beyond doubt, but there is no evidence that he relied in any great degree on the Quran, let alone prophetic tradition.11 He had no time for people who devoted themselves to tafsīr or hadith.12 He relied entirely on his common sense and on his knowledge of human nature. And he was inspired; he became the ideal exponent of the firāsa, a kind of Solomon, as Ch. Pellat put it,13 and was remembered in the proverbial phrase azkan min Iyās “of greater perspicacity than Iyās”. Cf. Ḥamza al-Iṣfahānī, Al-durra al-fākhira 215f. no. 294 > Maydānī, Amthāl I 325 no. 1754; also Freytag, Proverbia I 593. Wakīʿ I 328, 4ff. and 361ff. has some anecdotes on the subject; TTD III 178ff.; Thaʿālibī, Thimār al-qulūb 92ff. no. 134; Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, Al-ṭuruq al-ḥikmiyya fī l-siyāsa al-sharʿiyya (Cairo 1317), p. 25 and 31ff. The ultimate source is probably mainly Madāʾinī, K. akhbār Iyās b. Muʿāwiya (Ibn al-Nadīm, Fihrist 117, 5) or K. zakan Iyās (Ḥamza, Durra 215, ult. > Maydānī I 326a, 12ff.); it is also the source of the MS Azhar, majmūʿ 1182 (fol. 93a–99a) mentioned in GAS 3/357. Similar stories have been told about some Bedouin judges until the present day (cf. Gräf, Das Rechtswesen der heutigen Beduinen 102ff.). As his talent of observation and deduction frequently proved successful around animals as well, Jāḥiẓ included some of this material in K. al-Ḥayawān.14 However, he also noted Iyās’ mistakes;15 the methodological carelessness came at a price. Jāḥiẓ thought his vanity led him to jump to conclusions; he also

9  Kulīnī, Kāfī I 67, 11ff. Even in the most recent past it was taboo among the Tahtacı in Turkey to consult a secular court; differences were arbitrated by a dede (Kehl, Die Tahtacı 48). Concerning arbitration as a characteristic of legal systems in societies predating high civilisation cf. in general K. Eder, Die Entstehung staatlich organisierter Gesellschaften 159f. 10  Wakīʿ I 373, apu. ff.; 121/739 as claimed by Ṣafadī, Wāfī IX 465, 4, is probably an error. 11  An isolated opinion on a problem of exegesis (sura 13:2) has been preserved in Ṭūsī, Ṭibyān VI 213, 8f. 12  Wakīʿ I 371, 6ff. 13   E I2 IV 291. Cf. also F. Malti-Douglas in: Arabica 35/1988/68f. 14  Cf. e.g. II 75, apu. ff. and VI 481, 2ff.; also VI 19, 1ff. 15  Ibid. I 149, 3ff. = VI 18, 6ff.; V 368, ult. ff.

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talked too much.16 This was an old accusation; it was said that he had countered it himself with a witty remark. Later, even this would be interpreted in his favour, as if he had realised his complacency – reason enough for Abū Nuʿaym to include him in Ḥilya.17 His intuitive approach to legal practice contradicted later norms in many ways, and was believed to be due to the fact that while he considered Ḥasan al-Baṣrī and Ibn Sīrīn to be the best scholars of the law in Basra, he never went to any of their lectures.18 There is no proof that he really thought so highly of those two. In two instances he recommended someone as the best person to consult for legal advice, and in both of these the men named were other fuqahāʾ, true Arabs who had been qāḍī themselves: ʿAbdallāh b. Yaʿlā, who became judge under Ibn Hubayra in 103,19 and ʿAbbād b. Manṣūr, who did not achieve this honour until much later.20 At the time when he was learning from others, Ḥasan and Ibn Sīrīn were not yet influential; the only jurisconsult (muftī) in Basra at the time was, he said, Jābir b. Zayd al-Azdī.21 He was an Ibāḍite;22 Iyās himself was also named as one, but only in Ibāḍite sources.23 This may have led to a degree of detachment, which people could not understand later: Ibn Qutayba reported that he named Ḥasan al-Baṣrī not only as his own but also his father’s (!) teacher.24 The latter had himself been qāḍī in Basra.25 He came from an old-established family in the city; the grandfather Qurra b. Iyās, who traced his genealogy back to ʿAmr b. Udd, the forefather of the Muzayna, had seen the prophet and settled in Basra, presumably shortly after its foundation. The Muzayna were among the ahl al-ʿĀliya, the central Arabian tribes whose houses were situated close to the chief mosque.26 Qurra was murdered by Nāfiʿ b. al-Azraq and his rebels when they invaded the city in 65/685; his son was among the 16  Ibid. I 150, 7ff.; also Bayān I 98, 14ff. 17   I II 123, 9ff.; also IS VII2 5, 8ff. The entire material collected by Abū Nuʿaym is tenuous; it is impossible to make an ascetic out of Iyās. There was no tradition of this, anyway; Abū Nuʿaym’s opinion is derived and based on purely literary considerations. Ibn al-Jawzī’s biography in Ṣifat al-ṣafwa III 187f. is based entirely on that found in Ḥilya. 18  Ibn ʿAbdrabbih, ʿIqd I 19, 8ff. 19  Wakīʿ II 17, 3f., and 19, 17f. 20  Ibid. II 44, 14f.; regarding him see p. 381 below. 21  Ibid. I 360, 9f. 22  See p. 219f. below. 23  Darjīnī, Ṭab. 236f.; Shammākhī, Siyar 81, –4ff.; based on him Lewicki in: RO 11/1935/158. 24   ʿUyūn al-akhbār I 62, 11. 25  Maybe only within his tribe (Balādhurī, Ansāb V 254, 10; Ṭabarī II 723, 13 for the year 67/687, but as a general remark). 26  Ṣāliḥ al-ʿAlī, Khiṭaṭ al-Baṣra 82.

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defenders outside the gates.27 Even so, Iyās would later be arrested by al-Ḥakam b. Ayyūb al-Thaqafī, governor of the city in Ḥajjāj’s service since 75/695,28 accused of Khārijite subversion.29 None of which would be surprising in the case of an Ibāḍite. His mother came from Khorasan,30 which probably explains why he knew Persian31 and had some knowledge of Persian heroic poetry.32 However, he was born in the Yamāma and grew up in the market town of Uḍākh.33 He was said to have gone to school in Syria, interestingly with a Christian teacher.34 People remembered that he was short of stature.35 He had sat in judgment in the market square in Basra.36 He had been appointed to his office in a decree written by ʿUmar II after he came to power in 99/717.37 However that may have been, it is certain that tradition did not assume that the caliph would have preferred a mawlā like Ḥasan al-Baṣrī in his stead.38 If the latter did become qāḍī after Iyās this was because it was the governor ʿAdī b. Arṭāt’s wish; as we have seen, Ḥasan assisted him later during a mission to the Muhallabids.39 The position had fallen vacant because Iyās had incurred the governor’s displeasure: he had to flee the city after an awkward legal ruling – a divorce case in which relatives of the Muhallabids were once again involved on both sides.40

27  Ṭabarī II 580, ult. ff.; IS VII1 20, pu. ff.; Khalīfa, Ṭab. 85 no. 240, and 415 no. 1366; Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, Istīʿāb 1280 no. 2110; Ibn Ḥazm, Jamhara 203, 4ff.; also EI2 I 810 s. v. Azāriḳa. 28  Regarding him cf. the details in: MUSJ 50/1984/734; he lost his position under Walīd (who became caliph in 86/705). 29  Ibn Qutayba, ʿUyūn I 202, 1ff. = Tawḥidī, Baṣāʾir III 541, 1ff./2III 90 no. 292; also Wakīʿ I 359, apu. ff. 30  Khalīfa, Ṭab. 508 no. 1747; also Wakīʿ I 344, 3ff. 31  Wakīʿ I 328, 3. 32  Ibid. I 352, 1, and Ibn Qutayba, ʿUyūn I 18, 8. 33  Wakīʿ I 374, 8ff. 34   T TD III 177, 5ff., and Wakīʿ I 373, 6f.: maktab rajul min ahl al-dhimma. 35  Jāḥiẓ, Tarbīʿ 17, 2, and 16, –5f. 36  Wakīʿ I 339, –4f.; also Chalmeta, Señor del zoco 342. Cf. also Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 292, 1f. Later theorists recommended that a judge should not be seen in the market to avoid suspicion that he himself was engaged in trade (Ibn Abī l-Dam, Adab al-qāḍī 68, 10). 37  I cannot find any record of the date 95/713 which Sourdel states in Arabica 2/1955/112. 38  According to Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 100, 12ff., he wished for a qāḍī from the Muzayna. Differently, and more legendary, in Wakīʿ I 312, 4ff.; Ibn ʿAbdrabbih, ʿIqd I 19, 8ff.; Murtaḍā, Amālī I 285, 11ff.; Darjīnī, Ṭab. 236, 10ff. (after Tanūkhī). 39  See p. 49 above. 40  Wakīʿ I 313, apu. ff.; Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 468, 3f.; TTD III 175, 9f. and 176, 3ff.

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He retired to the Wāsiṭ region where he had a country estate (ḍayʿa).41 By that time the storm clouds were gathering around Yazīd b. al-Muhallab. The Muhallabids were linked to the Ibāḍites;42 consequently it may have been wise to distance oneself and thus avoid suspicion. This may be why Iyās could be found in Damascus soon afterwards;43 ʿUmar II held him in great esteem.44 According to Wakīʿ’s version, Ḥasan was merely the candidate with whom ʿAdī tried to make the new appointments look appealing to the caliph; ʿUmar accepted the decision without ever openly identifying with it. This corresponds to the tenor of one of the letters he was said to have sent to ʿAdī b. Arṭāt, where he calls the appointment of a free Arab to the office of judge “desirable” (Wakīʿ I 77, apu. ff.). He also considered intermarriages between free Arabs and mawālī as an inevitable ill (Juda, Aspekte 180). Apparently Iyās b. Muʿāwiya advised ʿAdī b. Arṭāt to look no further than the great old-established families (buyūtāt) when toying with the idea of appointing qurrāʾ to offices (Ibn ʿAbdrabbih, ʿIqd I 20, 4ff.). It would seem that Ḥasan’s appointment was controversial. It was idealised later; showing a connection between the most eminent exponent of Basran piety and the ideal ruler suggested itself. The edifying letters Ḥasan was said to have addressed to the caliph bear witness to this (cf. the collection in ʿAbbās, Ḥasan al-Baṣrī 51; also GAS 1/593 no. 11). Other elements of legend were added, too. Thus Ḥasan was said not to have accepted the salary the governor paid him (Wakīʿ II 8, 14ff., and 11, 8ff.); Iyās on the other hand received 100 dirham a month (TTD III 176, 14f.). The fact as such is independent of these added elements. If it is true, as Wakīʿ (II 9, 3ff.) claims, that Ḥasan was qāḍī twice, it would be more convincing that he was indeed the governor’s candidate. ʿAdī would have appointed him directly after assuming office – maybe to keep the influence of the tribes at bay – and then revoked the decision once the caliph’s contrary decree arrived. But it is possible that this report is only a later inference. The reports according to which Ḥasan succeeded Iyās as 41  Wakīʿ 315, 5. We cannot rule out that Iyās acquired it only later. Regarding the country estate TTD III 185, 9f.; it was called ʿAbdasī and situated in the Kaskar district (Ibn Durayd, Ishtiqāq 181, pu.; Yāqūt, Muʿjam al-buldān s. n.). Concerning the meaning of ḍayʿa cf. Morony’s discussion in: The Islamic Middle East, ed. Udovitch p. 147f.; it usually referred to a village with the surrounding arable land. Morony translates “estate”. 42  See p. 220f. below. 43   T TD III 175, 9f. 44  Wakīʿ I 315, 9ff.

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qāḍī (e.g. Wakīʿ II 8, 7f.) contradict others stating that he preceded him (thus ibid. 307, apu.; also Ṭabarī II 1347, 1ff., and Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 142, 14f.). There were also voices claiming that he was in fact appointed by Yazīd b. al-Muhallab or his brother Marwān (Wakīʿ II 307, ult f.). Iyās does not seem to have returned to Basra. In the long run he became overseer of the market (wālī al-sūq)45 in Wāsiṭ under ʿUmar b. Hubayra, governor of Iraq since 102/720.46 He received an earnest of 2,000 dirham from the governor; later he was said not to have accepted such “gifts” anymore.47 His duties were extensive; he was responsible for all trade as well as having to oversee dam building.48 This was not something a nobleman would normally do; people criticised him for stooping to the level of the “lower orders”.49 In fact he got on well with merchants;50 in his opinion, commercial experience would have stood any lawyer in good stead.51 This would suit an Ibāḍite, but there was something more. It seems that as far as legal matters were concerned, Wāsiṭ was entirely under the influence of ʿAbdallāh b. Shubruma, the qāḍī of Kufa, at the time,52 while Iyās was seen as a representative of Basran jurisprudence.53 Ibn Hubayra was a member of the Qaysite–North Arabian party and could not get along with the Yaman who had their base in Kufa. Consequently Iyās did not have good relations with Khālid al-Qasrī, under whom the political climate changed once more in 105/724;54 it may be that he was dismissed from office at the time. Ibn Hubayra’s son Yūsuf who succeeded Khālid al-Qasrī in

45  Baḥshal, Ta‌ʾrīkh Wāsiṭ 93, 3f.; Ibn Hubayra had appointed someone else first (Wakīʿ I 353, 8f.). 46   E I2 III 802 s. n. Ibn Hubayra. 47  Wakīʿ I 352, 5 and 11ff.; of course he had his salary (the amount of which is unknown) and his ʿaṭāʾ (354, 2). He was, however, quoted as saying that he had not had a fortune until he received the 2,000 dirham. 48  Baḥshal, Ta‌ʾrīkh Wāsiṭ 140, –5f. Regarding the overseer of the market in the Islamic world cf. P. Chalmeta, El ‘señor del zoco’ en España; also P. Crone, Roman, provincial and Islamic law 107f. 49  Wakīʿ I 316, apu. f. 50  Ibid. 351, 1ff. 51  Ibid. 350, 12ff. When he lectured in the Umayyad mosque in Damascus he had been noticeable due to his simple attire (thiyāb al-sūqa; TTD III 176, 8f.); cf. also Ābī, Nathr al-durr V 154, ult. 52  Regarding him cf. Wakīʿ III 36ff. and p. 326 below. 53   I S VII2 5, 12ff., and Wakīʿ I 358, apu. ff.; also TTD III 176, –5ff. 54  Wakīʿ I 364, 2f.

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120/71855 certainly tried later to persuade him to take up his old position again. Iyās declined; after all, he was well over seventy by that time. The governor condemned him to 56 lashes.56 Reports of his legal practice are often stylised. He was regarded as one of those highly intelligent men of whom there is only one every hundred years.57 His ability to see through people and situations is documented with topoi; widely known concepts, such as the comparison of the Arab ecumene – or the world in general – to a bird are traced back to him.58 Still, it is possible to say where he deviated from later practice: in the fields of testimony and of conclusion by analogy. It was well-known that he did not think much of testimony; there were three categories of persons he would not admit at all: seafarers, because their faith might have been corrupted in India – the usual destination of Basran trade ships – and also because they were looking for profit and consequently open to bribery; merchants who controlled the overland trade to Iran, as the Zoroastrians might have given them a taste for taking interest; and finally the Iraqi notables (ashrāf), because their sense of tribal solidarity meant that would testify in favour of anyone.59 He clearly disliked being put under pressure by influential people; after all, testimony did not concern the facts of the case to be investigated but only the reliability of a defendant or an opponent. This is illustrated by an anecdote according to which he stopped someone whom he esteemed personally from testifying to someone’s character where he could not have rejected it, giving the reason that only clients and non-Arabs – according to another version: freedmen, merchants, and plebs – testify on behalf of others.60 It is interesting that the story presumes that the person thus addressed believed him. The inference is that testimony among Arabs was a recent phenomenon that had become relevant only in the anonymity of the city; within a tribe, everyone would have known everybody else. It would be wrong to conclude that Iyās accepted the testimony of

55  Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 519, 2f. 56  Wakīʿ I 352, –6ff., and 353, 9ff.; also IS VII2 5, 22f. Cf. also Chalmeta 345. 57  Fasawī II 93, pu. ff. 58  Wakīʿ I 355, 13ff.; Marzubānī, Nūr al-qabas 171, 17f. Regarding the continued existence of the motif cf. Gruber, Verdienst und Rang 75f., and Miquel, Géographie humaine II 29 and Index 616 s. v. oiseau-carte; a witty version is quoted in Norris, The Berbers in Arabic Literature xxiv, after K. mafākhir al-Barbar. 59  Wakīʿ I 359, 6ff. 60  Mubarrad, Kāmil 389, –5ff.; Livre des Ruses, transl. Khawam, p. 384. When Farazdaq appeared before him as a witness, he was said to have employed a ruse to avoid him testifying (Wakīʿ I 333, pu. ff.; Agh. XXI 399. 8ff.).

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common people; nor did he admit that of slaves.61 Later, people would be astounded how he could have acted so clearly contrary to Quranic rules: sura 2:282 positively stipulated testimony. However, they thought they remembered him pointing out the wording, as the passage refers to men and women “that you approve of”. Wakīʿ I 337, 10ff.; Mubarrad, Kāmil 390, 3ff.; Ibn ʿAbdrabbih, ʿIqd I 89, 13ff. = III 11, 15ff.; Khaṣṣāf, Adab al-qāḍī 289 § 327. The same passage records Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, on the other hand, as having admitted every Muslim as a witness on the basis of a prophetic dictum. Regarding the law of testimony and the qāḍī’s right to refuse a witness cf. Tyan, Organisation judiciaire I 350ff.; regarding Iraqi usage of the time (which Iyās adhered to), with the oath and one witness being sufficient, cf. Dannhauer 47ff. Iyās did not yet accept the conclusion by analogy, either.62 His reason appears to be expressed in the following saying: “If you took a piece of wood (ʿūd) and compared it to another (qāsa) until there finally was no difference between the two (anymore), then compared the second one to a third one, the third one to a fourth one and so one up to a tenth one, if you then compared the tenth one to the first one, you would find a clear difference between (these) two”.63 What he meant was presumably that an analogy, even if carried out carefully, always concentrates on certain partial aspects, neglecting differences in other areas; in the long run, however, these differences add up to a more extensive discrepancy which will make the conclusion by analogy impossible. A remark he apparently addressed to Rabīʿa b. Abī ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, i.e. Rabīʿat al-ra‌ʾy (d. 136/753), Abū Ḥanīfa’s teacher, was probably also made in this context: “No building that was erected on a crooked foundation can stand straight”.64 We can assume that all the stories about him concerning theological subjects are of a paradigmatic nature. He was said to have refuted his Christian teacher while still at school; the latter had mocked the idea that in the Muslim view, the blessed take nourishment in paradise, as they would have to excrete it subsequently. Iyās countered this by pointing out that even the earthly body uses part of the nourishment; in paradise it would use all of it.65 This was an 61  Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif 471, 16f. 62  Zubaydī, Ṭabaqāt al-naḥwiyyīn 45, 5, after Aṣmaʿī. 63  Wakīʿ I 351, 12ff., after Khalīl. 64  Ibid. 356, 5ff.; slightly different AZ 427 no. 1028 > al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī, Al-Faqīh walmutafaqqih II 184, 3f.; Ibn Manẓūr, Mukhtaṣar TD VIII 289, 11f. 65  Wakīʿ I 373, 4ff.; TTD III 177, 5ff.; Majālis Thaʿlab 10, –5ff.

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old bone of contention. The Baḥīrā apocalypse showed already that it was a starting point for Christian polemic; Muslim reactions are found in hadith and the relevant prophetic dicta can be traced back to Hammām b. Munabbih’s ṣaḥīfa and possibly even to Jābir b. ʿAbdallāh’s (d. 78/697).66 A fictitious debate between the Umayyad prince Khālid b. al-Yazīd and a monk picked up on the question as well;67 it lent itself to illustrating Iyās’ precocious cleverness. When he went to visit ʿUmar II in Damascus, he debated with Ghaylān there. The three conversations transmitted by Ibn ʿAsākir – one of them in the presence of the caliph – are remarkable because Iyās is always the one asking the questions and consequently guiding the course of the debate. The arguments he used are documented elsewhere, too; Ghaylān was unable to counter them from the first.68 It looks as though Iyās had been pitted against the “Syrian” Ghaylān by the Basran side; similar intellectual competition appears to have been at the back of another, theologically “harmless” anecdote transmitted by Jāḥiẓ.69 He was thought to have studied hadith under Ayyūb b. Sakhtiyānī;70 this takes us close to the circles where falsifications might have originated. The Qadariyya defended itself with contrary traditions, which would subsequently reappeared in Muʿtazilite sources, but these can be easily distinguished as secondary.71 The starting point of the development may have been the news that in a conversation with ʿUmar II Iyās quoted a hadith which stated that “reason belongs to faith”; he had heard it via his father from his grandfather, and the caliph was said to have liked it so much that he made a note of it.72 This may sound Qadarite, but it could be interpreted differently as well. Some people believed that Iyās argued with Qadarites – whom he mainly found among the asāwira – in Basra, too. He was said to have respected their intelligence, but he did not agree with them.73 If he was indeed an Ibadite, this is not surprising.74

66  Cf. in detail, with more material, J. Aguadé in: WO 10/1979/61ff. 67  Ibn Manẓūr, Mukhtaṣar TD VIII 34, 7ff.; also Abyaḍ, Tarbiya 105. 68   T TD III 177, 13ff.; 177, ult. ff., and 178, 7ff. In the first story the argument put in Iyās’ mouth is one that is also found in the context of Awzāʿī and others (Anfänge 211); regarding 177, ult. ff. cf. Anfänge 201; regarding 178, 7ff. cf. Anfänge 52. 69   Ḥayawān II 75, apu. ff. This is one of the best-known firāsa stories. 70  Fasawī II 94, –7ff. 71   Anfänge 202f.; as a source of Ibn al-Murtaḍā who was quoted there, cf. Faḍl 341, 15ff. 72  Fasawī I 311, 2ff., and Ḥilya III 125, 11ff.; the version in Ibn ʿAsākir (TTD III 175, 10ff.) shows that ʿaql would soon be replaced with ʿamal. 73  Wakīʿ I 345, 6ff. and 2f.; similarly Ibn Qutayba, ʿUyūn II 143, 1ff. Cf. also the parallels I cited Anfänge 202. 74  See p. 232ff. below.

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2.2.3.2 Early Theoretical Texts There are two apocryphal texts, in the form of a caliph’s official letter, which throw some light on issues of legal practice discussed in the first half of the second century in Basra. The first one is the well-known letter from ʿUmar to Abū Mūsā al-Ashʿarī. Much has been written about it ever since D. Margoliouth published it in 1910,1 but it was a study by R. Serjeant2 that clarified the circumstances of the transmission. Two versions of the text are extant of which only the longer one was known until recently. The shorter one is older; it was transmitted not only as a letter addressed to Abū Mūsā in Basra but also to Muʿāwiya in Syria.3 The second, and much more widely known, version was based on this one, with many additions and corrections. It may have been circulated by Bilāl b. Abī Burda, Abū Mūsā al-Ashʿarī’s grandson; he was qāḍī of Basra between 110/728 and 120/738 with extensive powers.4 The first literary record of this text is in Jāḥiẓ’ K. al-Bayān;5 the two isnāds via which Jāḥiẓ heard it are Basran. The first one begins with Qatāda who was in close contact with Bilāl b. Abī Burda.6 There are, however, other filiations as well. Abū Mūsā and his son Abū Burda, Bilāl’s father, had lived in Kufa; Abū Burda had been one of the first quḍāt there (EI2 I 693f.). A brother of Bilāl’s, named Saʿīd, is the starting point of the isnād via which Wakīʿ received the text (Akhbār I 70, apu. ff.). Ibn Qutayba, ʿUyūn al-akhbār I 66, 6ff., relies on Syrian authorities: Jaʿfar b. Burqān (d. 154/771), qāḍī in Raqqa > Kuthaiyir b. Hishām (d. 207/822–23 in Fam al-Silḥ in Iraq). In the end the isnād was omitted entirely; Mubarrad did this in Kāmil (14, 4ff.), also Ibn ʿAbdrabbih (ʿIqd I 86, 7ff.), Ibn al-Ukhuwwa (Maʿālim al-qurba 202, 5ff.) etc. – Margoliouth as well as Serjeant have an English translation of the text; a French one may be found in Tyan, Organisation judiciaire I 23, 1  In: JRAS 1910, p. 307ff. 2  In: JSS 29/1984/85ff. 3  Wakīʿ I 74, 1ff.; while the letter to Abū Mūsā has a longer preamble (Serjeant 68ff.). 4  Pellat, Milieu 289; Sourdel in: Arabica 2/1955/112. 5  I I 48, 6ff. 6  See p. 158 below. The second one begins with Abū l-Malīḥ Usāma al-Hudhalī (Basran according to TT XII 246, 2ff.) and ends with Yaʿqūb b. Ibrāhīm al-Madanī (d. 208/823–4 in Iraq; cf. TB XIV 268f.). The Qatāda isnād ends with Sufyān b. ʿUyayna, who is also the source for Ibn ʿAbdrabbih’s version of the text (ʿIqd I 86, 7ff.). Cf. Pellat, Milieu 283f.

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n. 3. For older literature cf. Tyan, Organisation 106ff.; Schacht, Origins 104; Hamidullah in: Journal of Pakistan History 19/1971/1ff., Majmūʿat al-wathāʾiq 316ff., and Maʿdin al-jawāhir (Islamabad 1973), p. 96ff.; Dannhauer, Qāḍī-Amt 23ff.; also Serjeant in: CHAL I 147f. As far as the subject matter is concerned we shall concentrate on the points we have already emphasised in the case of Iyās b. Muʿāwiya. Regarding the law of testimony the later of the two versions stated: “(All) Muslims are of blameless reputation (ʿudūl, and as such competent to testify) in each other’s eyes, with the exception of someone who has been flogged for ḥadd punishment, who has been proven to have given false testimony, or who is suspected to be in a relation of kinship or clientship (with one of the parties in the case)”.7 Regarding the conclusion by analogy it explains: “Keep a clear head when something stirs in your heart (ṣadr) that is not known to you from the Quran or the prophet’s Sunna. Familiarise yourself with similar and identical cases (al-amthāl wal-ashbāh) and deal with things by analogy [. . .]”8 Both these instances are far removed from the practice transmitted from Iyās; these are postulates pointing to the future. The demand that all Muslims of blameless reputation should be allowed to testify was formulated among clients; interestingly, it was said to originate with Ḥasan al-Baṣrī.9 The word ʿudūl used by the text in this context would later become the term for professional witnesses.10 However, the analogy recommended here was the same that Iyās had rejected in his example of the pieces of wood. It did not have any fixed rules but was simply based on “parallels” (amthāl wa-ashbāh) that had to be “put side by side”, similar to Talmudic hiqqīsh. The comparison should then result in determining that option which “is closest to justice within the given circumstances” (ashbāh al-amrayn bilʿadl), as Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ’s Risāla fi l-ṣaḥāba says in one place.11

7  Jāḥiẓ, Bayān II 49, 12f. 8  Ibid. 49, 7ff.; cf. also Serjeant 67. 9  See p. 150 above. 10  According to Dannhauer the development that would lead to professional witnesses being required began around the middle of the second century; the first documented record of ʿudūl meaning shuhūd he found was in a libellous verse composed between 174/790 and 177/793 (p. 26). 11  P. 45, 7, Pellat.

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The two passages were already linked by Wansbrough, Quranic Studies 166f. The connection with Talmudic hiqqīsh was first pointed out by Margoliouth, op. cit. 320; Arabic qāsa/qiyās is a secondary derivation from this term, with a change of radicals (cf. also Schacht, Origins 99, and J. R. Wegner in: The American Journal of Legal History 26/1982/46). The collocation ashbāh wa-amthāl is also found in the works of the Ibāḍite jurist Abū l-Muʾarrij al-Sadūsī (Ṭālibī in: Abū ʿAmmār, Mūjaz II 213, n. 6; regarding him see p. 240 below) around the middle of the second century. Cf. also, in this case using the new lexical root, the phrase al-naẓāʾir wal-maqāyīs in a verse by the Kufan qāḍī Ibn Shubruma (Wakīʿ III 97, 13). Later, such cases were described as qiyās al-shabah; native scholarship also recognised it as a looser pre-form of the strict conclusion by analogy following ratio legis (Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Mughnī XVII 330, 16ff. and 353ff.; Ghazzālī, Mustaṣfā II 81, –13ff. etc.); cf. also Schacht, Origins 106ff.; Ahmad Hasan, The Early Development of Islamic Jurisprudence 136ff.; Erkenntnislehre 386f. Chain analogies like the one described by Iyās would continue to be rejected later (Ghazzālī, Mustaṣfā II 87, 18ff.). The second text we shall consult shows how controversial analogy still was at the time. This is one of the numerous letters ʿUmar II was said to have addressed to ʿAdī b. Arṭāt. The addressee leads us to assume a Basran origin for this text as well: The cornerstones of the office of judge are to adhere to what is set down in scripture. Thereafter (i.e. if nothing is found there) one must judge according to the prophet’s Sunna, then the verdicts of the guiding caliphs (the caliphs guiding us to true faith? al-a‌ʾimma al-hudāt), then the advice of experts (thumma istishārat dhawī l-ra‌ʾy wal-ʿilm). (It is also important) that you show no preference for one over another, and that you administer the law among humans knowing on what basis you administer the law. Do not search for analogies! For he who seeks analogies without being in possession of the (requisite) knowledge is like a blind man walking on a path in the night without seeing (and getting lost). If he does find the right way, he does so without knowing it; if he misses it, this is due to him (fa-nazala bi-manzilihī dhāka ḥīna) trying to do something of which he has no knowledge. In this way he will perish, and (at the same time) doom all those who are with him. Whenever you have to judge among

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However, qiyās is rejected here due to reasons different from Iyās b. Muʿāwiya’s. The basis of finding justice is not discrimination and common sense here, but the Quran and “the prophet’s Sunna”. The text probably originated among the ahl al-ḥadīth. “Beware of qiyās! Those who apply it are enemies of the traditions”, Ibāḍite tradition quotes Ibn ʿAbbās as saying.12 In Kufa as well as in Basra people said, citing Ḥasan al-Baṣrī and Ibn Sīrīn as authorities, that Satan was the first one to draw a conclusion by analogy.13 And where the prophetic tradition is not enough, it is the caliph according to this text who must decide the case. This is archaic; a view that was hardly held anymore after Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ’s Risāla fī l-ṣaḥāba. The caliph already has the experts (dhawū l-ra‌ʾy wal-ʿilm) by his side, whom the judge should consult. Examples were found in the ideal past: historians reported that ʿUmar discussed important matters with the leaders of the companions of the prophet and the aʿlām al-ʿArab; the latter were described as ahl al-ra‌ʾy.14 In Kufa, Muḥārib b. Dithār appears to have surrounded himself with a consilium,15 and it was reported that Iyās b. Muʿāwiya and Ḥasan al-Baṣrī proceeded to do the same in Basra,16 although it is reliably documented only for ʿAbdallāh b. Sawwār al-ʿAnbarī who was appointed as judge in Basra by Hārūn al-Rashīd in 192/808.17 2.2.3.3 Experts and Jurisconsults We probably must imagine the advisers of this kind to have been the “pious experts” who had long since been giving legal opinions, fatāwā, as they were called, privately; similar to the responsa (teshūḇōt) with which Jewish gaonim 12  Cuperly, Introduction 172, n. 22. 13  Ṭabarī, Tafsīr 3XII 328 no. 14355f.; regarding Kufa see vol. I 218, n. 38 above. In general: Erkenntnislehre 389. 14  Ṭabarī I 2213, 7ff. 15  See vol. I 192f. above. 16  Ḥalīmī, Al-minhāj fī shuʿab al-īmān III 204, 10ff. 17  Wakīʿ II 155, 11ff.; regarding the consilium in Muslim Spain cf. Marín in: SI 62/1985/31ff. General information in Tyan, Organisation I 339ff.

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answered the inquiries (sheʾelōt) of their fellow believers.1 The population trusted them, which is part of the explanation of why so many of them were mawālī. The first one to be discussed here, however, did not entirely conform to the rule; he was a free Arab and would, under ordinary circumstances, have become qāḍī. But he was blind from birth, and thus not suitable for that position: Abū l-Khaṭṭāb Qatāda b. Diʿāma al-Sadūsī.2 He had studied under Ḥasan al-Baṣrī for twelve years, three of which he spent in close contact with his teacher as a guest in his house. After his death he continued the study circle;3 but died himself only seven years later from the “pestilence” during a stay in Wāsiṭ. He was in his prime then, between 55 and 57 years old. This is probably the most reliable information we have (IAH III2 133, 6, and 135, 5). The date of his death is not always the same: 116/734 according to Hārūn b. Ḥātim al-Tamīmī’s Ta‌ʾrīkh (in: RAAD 53/1978/138, 9); 117 according to the majority of the sources (e.g. Ibn al-Madīnī, ʿIlal 40, 4f.; Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 514, 15, and Ṭab. 511 no. 1784); 118 according to Abū Zurʿa (Ta‌ʾrīkh 301, 7). Ibn Saʿd leaves open whether he died in 117 or 118 (VII2 2, 27ff.). According to Qifṭī, Inbāh II 108, 3f., Qatāda died on the same day as the grammarian ʿAbdallāh b. Abī Isḥāq al-Ḥaḍramī in 117. The year of his birth is given as AH 61 (TT VIII 355, 6), but it is probably only counted backwards, as there was another report according to which Qatāda was only seven or eight years older than Hishām al-Dastuwāʾī, who died around 153/770 at the age of 78 (see p. 69 above). Consequently he would have been born after AH 65, and lived to be only around 50. – Regarding the “pestilence” mentioned cf. Conrad in: SI 54/1981/71ff. with reference to p. 67 and 69.

1  Cf. N. Stillman, Jews in Arab Lands 32; H. Krüger, Fetwa und Siyar 66 (also 67, concerning the parallel with the responsa prudentium in Roman law). 2  Concerning his genealogy cf. Ibn Ḥazm, Jamhara 318 12ff.; regarding his blindness Yāqūt, Irshād VI 202, 5; Ṣafadī, Nakt al-himyān 230, 15ff. Darjīnī’s claim, Ṭab. 209, –8f., that Qatāda “had already gone blind” at the time of Jābir b. Zayd’s death, belongs in a mythical context. Stories that presuppose his blindness: Fasawī 278, 2ff. and pu. ff. For general information on him see G. Vitestam in: Akten V. Kongreß UEAI Brüssel, p. 489ff.; GAS 1/31f.; Pellat in EI2 IV 748. 3  I S VII2 1, 12f. > Fasawī, Maʿrifa II 279, –4ff.

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There is documentary evidence for two sons of Qatāda’s: Khaṭṭāb b. Qatāda, probably the firstborn, as the father took his kunya from him (s. n. 20 below), and Abū l-Khaṭṭāb Yazīd b. Qatāda, to whom Jāḥiẓ referred in one passage in his Risālat manāqib al-Turk (Rasāʾil I 57, –4f.). He compensated for his disability with his unusually – even for the time – trained memory. “What you memorise in your youth is as if engraved in stone” he was reported to have said;4 he was thought to remember everything the first time.5 Detractors did, however, point out his absent-mindedness.6 Despite his disability he travelled widely. He had heard much material from Saʿīd b. al-Musayyab (d. 94/713),7 but also from Sulaymān b. Yasār (d. between 104/722 and 107/726),8 in Mecca apparently also from ʿAṭāʾ b. Abī Rabāḥ (d. 114/732 or 115/733).9 This had probably been during a pilgrimage; his stay in Mecca is documented during the time when Khālid al-Qasrī was governor there, i.e. before 96/715.10 He visited Kufa twice; during first visit Abū Ḥanīfa – who would, however, have been very young at the time – appears to have annoyed him with his questions.11 He himself profited at the time from the Syrian scholar Rajāʿ b. Ḥaywa’s presence in the city, requesting to hear hadiths from him.12 The followers of the Shīʿite extremist Abū l-Khaṭṭāb claimed that when Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq cursed their master, he was in fact referring to Qatāda; they both bore the same kunya.13 In his youth he had written to Ibrāhīm al-Nakhaʿī (d. 96/715) asking for juristic information.14

4  IS VII2­1, 5. 5  Abū Nuʿaym, Ḥilya II 334, 3; TH 123, 2f. 6  Ibn ʿAbdrabbih, ʿIqd II 218, 12f. and 219, 6f. 7  IS 2, 9ff.; TT VIII 352, –6ff.; cf. also his juristic traditions collected in Wakīʿ II 259, 11ff., also Ibn Qutayba, Ta‌ʾwīl 298, 3ff. = 235, 6ff./transl. 260 § 262c. 8  Shīrāzī, Ṭabaqāt 61, 1f.; apparently mainly concerning marital law. 9  Ibid. 69, 7f., concerning pilgrims’ rites (manāsik). Regarding him see p. 718f. below. 10  Kulīnī, Kāfī VIII 111, 1ff.; regarding the dates of governorship cf. EI2 IV 926. 11  Kardarī, Manāqib Abī Ḥanīfa I 158, 1ff. and –4; cf. Tawḥīdī, Baṣāʾir 2VI 81 no. 272. 12  Fasawī II 368, apu. ff.; his stay in Kufa is mentioned elsewhere as well (AZ 300, 3ff.). 13  Qummī, Maq. 55, 3ff. If we read subsequently that Qatāda was acquainted with Muḥammad al-Bāqir and Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq this is an anachronism in the case of the latter, and, considering the date of Qatāda’s journey, probably fiction in the case of the former, too (cf. Kulīnī VIII 311, 1ff.; Biḥār XLVI 349f. no. 2). 14  Wakīʿ, Akhbār II 204, 1ff.

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It was emphasised that he spoke pure Arabic.15 His father had lived in the desert; his mother had grown up as a slave only among Arabs (muwallada).16 He set great store by class distinctions, and when ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAwn, himself a mawlā and probably considerably younger, had married a woman from the Sadūs tribe of which Qatāda was also a member, Qatāda appealed to Bilāl b. Abī Burda and insisted that Ibn ʿAwn was flogged and forced him to divorce the woman.17 The affair caused quite a sensation, and was probably aggravated because both opponents were adherents of different theological views. ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAwn was an opponent of the Qadarites.18 Maybe Qatāda was a difficult man in any case. Yaḥyā b. Abī Kathīr (d. 129/746?), whose home was in Basra, left the city because he could not get along with him.19 He even complained about Bilāl b. Abī Burda to Khālid al-Qasrī in Wāsiṭ regarding an irrelevant private matter; the governor wrote back ensuring that Bilāl conceded the case.20 As regards qadar he did not go beyond Ḥasan al-Baṣrī: everything is predestined, except sin.21 From sura 19:83 he concluded that devils incite the unbelievers to be obdurate.22 Satan cuts every newborn child’s side with a spear, instilling in it a certain predisposition to sin.23 Consequently Qatāda may be found in the isnād of hadiths with which the predestinarians proved their point,24 and it is not surprising that even Awzāʿī referred to him as an authority;25 the Qadarites Hishām al-Dastuwāʾī and Saʿīd b. Abī ʿArūba were among his Basran pupils as well as the “orthodox” Shuʿba b. al-Ḥajjāj.26 Later a 15   I S VII2 2, 20f. 16  Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif 462, 13ff.; also Yāqūt, Irshād VI 202, 5. 17  Wakīʿ II 28, 6ff.; cf. also Fasawī II 63, 11ff., and p. 414 below. 18  See p. 415 below. 19  Fasawī II 466, 5f.; regarding him see p. 751f. below. 20  Wakīʿ II 39, 9ff.; the issue was that an Arab had slapped Qatāda’s son Khaṭṭāb. 21  Thus explicitly Lālakāʾī, Sharḥ uṣūl iʿtiqād ahl al-sunna 699, no. 1296. The correspondence with Ḥasan al-Baṣrī was noted by Dhahabī (Ta‌ʾrīkh IV 106, 1f., and 296, –5f. > Ṣafadī, Nakt 231, 3f.); cf. IS 1, 4: kāna yaqūlu bi-shayʾinmin al-qadar. Also Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif 625, 9; Mīzān no. 6864; TT VIII 353, 9ff.; Hady al-sārī II 157, apu. 22   A Z 400, 4ff.; Ṣanʿānī, Muṣannaf XI 120 no. 20088. Sura 28:15 and 7:16 could also be adduced to this exegesis (cf. M. Schwarz in: Oriens 20/1967/19). This idea is also found in a nontheological context, and earlier, e.g. with regard to a rebellion in ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd b. Yaḥyā, Rasāʾil 210, 1ff. 23  Andrae, Islamische Mystiker 22. 24  Thus Ṣanʿānī, Muṣannaf XI 118 no. 20082; cf. also HT 81. 25   A Z 721, 9f. 26  Fasawī II 140, ult. ff.; regarding Shuʿba specifically, ibid. II 277, 9f. = II 647, 5f. = III 30, –4ff.; also Dāwūdī, Ṭabaqāt al-mufassirīn II 44, 3f. Shuʿba, however, considered the Meccan ʿAmr b. Dīnār (d. 126/743) to be even more reliable (Fasawī II 20, 7f., and 21, 9f.).

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remark by a certain ʿAbdallāh b. Shawdhab from Balkh, who had visited Basra for a while,27 was quoted frequently, to the effect that Qatāda did not rest until he had “trumpeted” his Qadarite convictions in the mosque in Basra,28 but nobody ever called him dāʿiya. He was said to have criticised ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd.29 The conservative Abū ʿAmr Ibn al-ʿAlāʾ respected him, although he did not like his Qadarite inclination.30 Maʿmar b. Rāshid transmitted his Tafsīr and met criticism only outside Basra, from Mālik b. Anas.31 Beyond the city limits things looked different anyway: Shaʿbī (d. 103/721) in Kufa32 and Ṭāwūs b. Kaysān (d. 106/725) in Yemen33 had, as was reported, kept their distance. Later, positions became more rigid everywhere: Yaḥyā b. Saʿīd al-Qaṭṭān (d. 198/813) was said to have rejected everything transmitted by Saʿīd b. Abī ʿArūba from Qatāda with the latter’s personal Qadarite slant;34 Ibn al-Madīnī (d. 234/849) belittled him compared to his contemporaries.35 Nobody was shocked by Qatāda’s Qadarite opinions during his lifetime, as is clearly shown by his good relations with the authorities. Like Ḥasan al-Baṣrī he was an ʿUthmānite; Jāḥiẓ emphasised that he was a reliable, i.e. not a Shīʿite, transmitter of historical information.36 It is doubtful whether he really conducted a debate with Zuhrī at the invitation of the caliph Sulaymān (r. 96/715– 99/717) as Jāḥiẓ claimed; he would have been quite young at the time. But if he emerged victorious, it was not, as Jāḥiẓ’ Basran source sneered, because he was such a great jurist, but because he was an unquestioning supporter of the Quraysh.37 When Yazīd b. al-Muhallab rose against ʿUmar II, Qatāda was firmly on the side of the authorities. The Muhallabids deported him to Ahwāz 27  Regarding him see vol. I. 135f. above; much quoted by Fasawī (cf. Index s. n., with the same isnād every time). 28  Fasawī II 280, apu. f., and 281, 13f.; Dhahabī, Ta‌ʾrīkh III 296, –4. 29   Ḥilya II 335, 3ff.; also Trad. Polemik 18. Cf. p. 385 and 339 below. 30  IKh IV 85, 7ff.; regarding Abū ʿAmr see p. 421 below. 31  Fasawī II 280, 6f.; also Dhahabī, Ta‌ʾrīkh VI 396, 6f. 32  Cf., very drastic, Ibn ʿAbdrabbih, ʿIqd II 377, 12f.; also Fasawī II 277, apu. ff. (using a phrase which Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif 443, 4ff., has Aṣmaʿī say). 33   ʿIqd II 231, 10f. and 337, 10f.; the story presumes that a meeting between the two would have been possible, and is consequently possibly apocryphal. 34  Fasawī II 144, pu. f. 35  Ibid. III 17, 5ff. 36   K. al-Bighāl in: Rasāʾil II 226, 6 and earlier. Regarding Ḥasan al-Baṣrī’s opinions cf. ʿAbbās 158f. 37   Bayān I 243, 1ff. The tradition itself may well be merely a more concrete representation of the argument over which of the two was the better scholar in his time (cf. Jāḥiẓ, Ḥayawān VII 7, ult.; also Fasawī II 165, 1f.). Cf. also Eisener, Zwischen Faktum und Fiktion 189.

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and imprisoned him there.38 Unlike most Iraqi intellectuals he did not regard the Syrians as loathed oppressors, but as champions of the faith.39 We know that he supported Abū Bakr’s claim against the Shīʿites.40 He awarded the share of the loot of the dhū l-qurbā, the allocation of which had been contested between the dynasty and the prophet’s family ever since the beginning of the Umayyad era, to those who ruled after the prophet, i.e. the Umayyads.41 He was valuable to them also as an expert in genealogy and other historical facts;42 it was thought that he had studied under the well-known genealogist Daghfal.43 Members of the ruling family are said to have sought his advice frequently; there were times when a mounted messenger visited his house every day.44 He did not die in Basra but in Wāsiṭ where the governor had his residence. He was not much liked there; people found him a nuisance and would have liked to send him home.45 In his Ta‌ʾrīkh Wāsiṭ Baḥshal preserved some hadiths transmitted from him in the city,46 but did not say anything about his stay there.47 In Ibn al-Madīnī’s eyes, Qatāda and his rival Yaḥyā b. Abī Kathīr – who probably disagreed with him fundamentally as he was an opponent of the Umayyads48 – were the source of all hadith scholarship in Basra.49 Besides Zuhrī, Qatāda said with professorial modesty, there was only one “other” who

38   Al-ʿuyūn wal-ḥadāʾiq 66, 6ff. The rather unclear reports in Abū l-ʿArab, Miḥan 392, 1, and 462, 5, probably refer to this as well (in which case the first passage would have to be read in the passive voice; Ḥajjāj’s also banishing Qatāda is quite unlikely, not least because of the chronology). 39  Cf. his exegesis of sura 37:173 in Fasawī III 366, 3f. 40  Jāḥiẓ, ʿUthmāniyya 106, 10ff., and 227, pu. ff. 41  Ṭabarī, Tafsīr 3XIII 555 no. 16118 regarding sura 8:41; concerning the issue in general cf. Anfänge 8f. 42  Yāqūt, Irshād VI 202, 10ff.; Jāḥiẓ also calls him ṣāḥib al-akhbār in his Risāla fī l-ḥakamayn (Mashriq 52/1958/475, ult.). Statistical information on ʿUthmān and his caliphate may be found in e.g. Shīrāzī, Ṭab. 40, 11f. 43  IKh IV 85, 11ff. This is improbable; Daghfal lost his life in Persia as early as 65/685 (GAS 1/263f.). Furthermore, he was a member of a neighbouring tribe (Ibn Ḥazm, Jamhara 319, 3f.). – Qatāda the expert in nasab is also referred to in Jāḥiẓ, Ḥayawān III 210, 5, and Bayān I 356, ult.; similar Suyūṭī, Muzhir II 334, 5ff. 44  Jāḥiẓ, Bayān III 27, 1ff.; Yāqūt, Irshād, loc. cit. 45  Fasawī II 277, ult. f.; the account is not quite clear and cannot be dated with any certainty. 46  P.  128ff. 47  Cf. only 261, 13f. 48  See p. 750 below. 49   ʿIlal 40, 3ff. and earlier; after him Fasawī I 621, 7ff.

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had real insight into the subject – and Zuhrī was a long way away.50 Saʿīd b. Abī ʿArūba in particular collected and transmitted his traditions.51 He seems to have started to manage Qatāda’s “archive” during the latter’s lifetime, as Qatāda himself was of course unable to look things up if his memory failed him.52 It was only due to his blindness that he did not write things down; he was definitely in favour of putting prophetic traditions in writing, giving as his reason that according to sura 20:51f. God himself had set down the “knowledge” of the “first generations” in a “scripture”.53 He appears to have known Sulaymān al-Yashkurī’s ṣaḥīfa, and had had the traditions of Jābir b. ʿAbdallāh read to him from a written source.54 He did not yet set great store by precise isnāds; his followers believed him to be a sufficiently reliable authority.55 We have examples to prove this.56 He transmitted from Mujāhid and Saʿīd b. Jubayr without ever having met them in person.57 However, people would later believe that when Ḥammād b. Abī Sulaymān from Kufa introduced the isnād to Basra, Qatāda adopted the custom, too.58 It was said that it was possible to distinguish whether he had heard something himself or not by the transmission formulae used; in the former case he would use ḥaddathanā, and in the latter qāla.59 It is worth noting that he included material from a woman,60 Muʿādha bt. ʿAbdallāh alʿAdawiyya, a Basran ascetic.61 He did not think much, however, of the material transmitted by Yazīd al-Raqāshī.62 50  Fasawī I 640, 12ff., and 642, 1ff. 51  Ibn al-Madīnī 41, 4ff.; Jāḥiẓ, Burṣān 136, 1f. Cf. p. 164f. below, and in particular the numerous traditions in ʿUmāra b. Wathīma (see n. 76 below), also the poem by Abū Nuwās quoted in Wagner, Abū Nuwās 35. Different Fasawī II 285, 3ff. Regarding the presumably apocryphal conversation between Qatāda and Ibn Abī ʿArūba in ʿIqd II 380, 15ff. see p. 73, n. 56 above. 52  Fasawī II 89, 9ff. 53  Al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī, Taqyīd al-ʿilm 103, 11ff. 54   Ḥilya II 334, –4, and TT VIII 355, 1f.; also Goldziher, Muh. Stud. II 10, n. 9 after Tirmidhī; also GAS 1/85 and Azmi, Studies 52f. and 71. 55   I S VII2 2, 3ff. > Fasawī II 278, 8ff. 56  Jāḥiẓ, Ḥayawān IV 293, pu. f., and 294, 1f., where he transmits directly from the prophet or from ʿĀʾisha; also p. 165f. below. 57   T H 123, 13f. 58   I S VII2 2, 21ff. > Fasawī II 282, 4ff.; regarding Ḥammād’s visit to Basra see vol. I 211 above. 59   A Z 456 no. 1157 = Fasawī III 209, 10ff. In his surviving writings this nicety cannot be documented (see p. 165 below). 60  These traditions are considered not particularly reliable (Fasawī III 612, ult. f.). 61  D. 83/702. Regarding her see p. 118 above. 62  Fasawī II 474, 1f.

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Qatāda studied the Quran in great detail. His exegesis was influential far beyond Basra. Maʿmar b. Rāshid introduced the text to Yemen; it can still be detected in ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Ṣanʿānī’s recension.63 It also became known in Syria through Saʿīd b. Bashīr (d. between 168/785 and 170/787).64 Both these transmitters were Qadarites. Thaʿlabī knew of an additional, Kufan, strand of transmission via Shaybān b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Tamīmī (d. 164/781) who came from Basra and later became tutor to the princes in Baghdad.65 Saʿīd b. Abī ʿArūba had also recorded the text for a Kufan, another Tamīmī named Abū Maʿshar Ziyād b. Kulayb,66 who died in the prime of his life in 120/738.67 It was even more momentous that the jurist Khārija b. Muṣʿab al-Sarakhsī (d. 168/785) received the text from him: in this way the work became known in eastern Iran.68 Through Saʿīd b. Bashīr the material reached Ṭabarī who would use the isnād over 3000 times.69 The individual redactions differed;70 they were probably based on lecture notes. Quotations illustrate that Qatāda, like other exegetes of his time, paid more attention to the content than to the linguistic form. The Quran had left no room for doubt that the Jews had disregarded the teachings of their scripture; the Muslims had to take care that they did not lapse into unbelief in the same way.71 However, the boundary marking extra-Quranic material had not yet been drawn clearly at the time. Deliberations on geographical ideas in the Quran72 were linked to speculation regarding the extent of the world in general;73 historical explanations74 were based on knowledge of the prophet’s biography;75 63  Ibn al-Nadīm 36, pu. f.; cf. also Stauth, Muǧāhid 135, and p. 794 below. 64  Cf. vol. I 137 above. 65   Al-kashf wal-bayān, intro., ed. Goldfeld 35, 6ff.; regarding Shaybān cf. TB IX 271ff. no. 4835, and Qifṭī, Inbāh II 72f. 66   I S VII2 33, 12f. > Fasawī II 285, 3ff. 67   Mīzān no. 2959. 68  He added ca. 1000 hadiths (Thaʿlabī 34, 5ff.). Regarding him cf. ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ II 25f. no. 446; further sources see p. 623 below. 69  Cf. Horst in: ZDMG 103/1953/301. 70   T B XIII 486, 9f. 71  Cf. the exegesis of sura 5:44 in Wakīʿ, Akhbār I 43, 11ff. 72  Jāḥiẓ, K. al-Awṭān wal-buldān, in: Rasāʾil III 131, 6ff., and 134, 10f. 73   ʿIqd VI 247, 17ff. 74  Abū l-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī, Muʿtamad 596, 10ff. regarding sura 49:6, after ʿUmar b. Shabba’s (d. 264/877, cf. GAS 1/345f.) K. Kūfa. 75   A Z 151, 2ff. regarding the prophet’s age; Maqdisī, Badʾ II 154, 10ff., and 212, ult. ff.; IV, 139, 5ff.; V 10, 7f. regarding the chronology, the number of the prophet’s children etc.; Fasawī III 255, 8ff., and 265, 11ff.

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the exegesis of these events gave way to qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ.76 Later generations would indeed regard him as a qāṣṣ.77 He himself is unlikely to have perceived the difference between Midrash and history yet; before the horizon of salvation history the two would have seemed to merge. Apocryphal quotations from the Torah were attributed to him as well.78 Such was the style of the ascetics of his time; it does not surprise us to find that pietistic–ascetic interpretations were attributed to him as well.79 From sura 33:7 he inferred Muḥammad’s preexistence;80 regarding sura 53:13 he thought that during his journey to heaven the prophet had beheld God as a great light.81 Later this mixture would not be to everyone’s taste.82 It is noticeable that he did not transmit Ḥasan al-Baṣrī’s Tafsīr. There is no doubt that he studied under Ḥasan, but he did not keep the material separate. While this wealth of material, is as yet difficult to survey,83 a short text on the problem of abrogation has recently been excerpted and edited.84 Later versions were usually quoted after Saʿīd b. Abī ʿArūba or Maʿmar b. Rāshid’s versions, but this one is based on a recension by the Basran Hammām b. Yaḥyā al-ʿAwdhī (d. 164/781),85 who incorporated remarks by Kalbī, i.e. Kufan material.86 Its exegetic origin is obvious as there is a complete absence of the76  Cf. e.g. Tawḥīdī, Baṣāʾir II 332, 2f./2VIII 35 no. 101 (concerning sura 11:46) or Suyūṭī, Muzhir I 29, 11ff. (concerning sura 2:31); also the wealth of material ʿUmāra b. Wathīma preserved from him not only via Saʿīd b. Abī ʿArūba but also via Saʿīd b. Bashīr (Khoury, Légendes prophétiques, Index s. n.), or the story of David, also transmitted via Saʿīd b. Bashīr in Papyrus PSR Heid Arab 23 (ed. Khoury, Wahb b. Munabbih I 34ff.; I consider Khoury’s attempt p. 185 at tracing all of this back to Wahb b. Munabbih to have failed). Ṭabarī quoted Qatāda very frequently in the first volumes of his Ta‌ʾrīkh (cf. Index s. n.); also Maqdisī, Badʾ III 57, 9ff. 77  Ibn al-Jawzī, Quṣṣāṣ 71f. § 140–42; also Fasawī II 633, pu. ff. 78  Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 104, 8f. 79  Abū Nuʿaym, Ḥilya II 340, –4ff. On the occasion of his funeral not only the fuqahāʾ but also the nussāk are said to have joined the procession (Qifṭī, Inbāh II 108, 3f.). 80  Cf. Rubin in: IOS 5/1975/69f. 81  Ibn Khuzayma, Tawḥīd 135, 15f., and 244, 12: with qualification in Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, Īmān 291f. 82  Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 169 no. 1044. 83  Cf. in general ʿAbdallāh Abū l-Suʿūd Badr, Tafsīr Qatāda. Dirāsa lil-mufassir wa-minhāj tafsīrihī (Cairo 1399/1979). 84   K. al-nāsikh wal-mansūkh, ed. Ḥātim Ṣāliḥ al-Ḍāmin in: Mawrid 9/1980, issue 4/478ff.; separately also Beirut 1984. 85  He was a Qadarite (see p. 81f. above). 86  This led Qaḥṭān ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Dūrī to conclude that this was Hammām’s work (Mawrid 11/1982, issue 2/185ff.). This is only partially correct: there were probably several

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ory; the text simply lists relevant Quranic verses (on the change of the qibla, on martial law, on the prohibition of wine). However, any decision in these matters presupposed a chronology of suras. A list of the Medinan suras taught by Qatāda in his lectures has come down to us, once again in two versions: through Maʿmar b. Rāshid and through Saʿīd b. Abī ʿArūba.87 The latter is slightly more detailed, also distinguishing Medinan sections within Meccan suras. It is noticeable that the suras do not always have their own names; sometimes they are marked solely by their initial sentence.88 The same collection of individual studies also survives from Zuhrī: a K. al-nāsikh wal-mansūkh89 and a K. tanzīl al-Qurʾān which distinguishes between Meccan and Medinan suras in a bare list.90 Jābir b. Zayd al-Azdī was said to have taken first steps in the latter discipline in Basra.91 Another text transmitted from Qatāda is a list of the ʿawāshir, those groups of ten verses into which the Quran was divided to facilitate learning it by heart. This method was still controversial at the time; Qatāda’s Syrian contemporary Maymūn b. Mihrān (d. 117/735)92 disapproved of it.93 Qatāda was rather an expert in Quran readings, following the lead of Ḥasan al-Baṣrī and Ibn Sīrīn.94 However, in the science of the readings (ḥurūf) he would be overshadowed in Basra one generation later by Abū ʿAmr Ibn al-ʿAlāʾ.95 Too little attention has so far been paid to Qatāda’s significance as a jurist. Among the Kufan Shīʿites he was regarded as faqīh ahl al-Baṣra.96 While the meaning of the word was wider then than it would become later, there is no doubt that when it came to the law, Qatāda did not limit himself to Quran different lectures on the same subject. However, as C. Gilliot has shown, the individual versions do not exactly correspond (Aspects de l’imaginaire islamique commun dans le Commentaire de Ṭabarī, PhD thesis, Paris 1987, p. 421ff.). 87  Preserved in Muḥāsibī, Fahm al-Qurʾān 395, 1ff. Saʿīd refers to Saʿīd b. Abī ʿArūba here, rather than Saʿīd b. Bashīr, as he is followed in the isnād by a Basran: ʿAbdallāh b. Bakr alBāhilī, d. 208/823. Cf. also Ṭūsī, Tibyān VI 211, 2f. 88  This was also sometimes the case later. The name of one sura was apparently already named in the K. al-irjāʾ (Text II 1, d; cf. the commentary). For more information see Paret, Kommentar 545ff. 89  See vol. I 40, n. 16 above. 90  Ed. Munajjid in: Rasāʾil wa-nuṣūṣ 3 (Beirut 1963). 91  See p. 220 below. 92  Regarding him see vol. I. 25, n. 4 above. 93  Qushayrī, Ta‌ʾrīkh Raqqa 33, 5f. 94  Yāqūt, Irshād VI 202, 9. 95  Ibn al-Jazarī, Ṭab. II 25f. no. 2611; Pellat, Milieu 76ff. 96   Biḥār XLVI 349f. no. 2; cf. also ʿIqd II 231, 10f. = 377, 10f.

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and hadith. It was known that he continued to apply conclusions by analogy building on everything he had learnt in Medina from Saʿīd b. al-Musayyab.97 Wakīʿ’s Akhbār al-quḍāt show that he was well-informed regarding juristic tradition and relevant precedents.98 He transmitted ʿUmar’s alleged letter to Abū Mūsā al-Ashʿarī.99 He was of course at odds with Kufan practice, claiming that he had never reached a decision based on mere ra‌ʾy.100 We know that his decision differed in some cases from that of his Kufan contemporary Ibn Shubruma.101 Although he visited Kufa twice, his teachings were not transmitted directly from him there, but only through intermediaries.102 His text on the pilgrims’ rites (K. al-manāsik) is part of his juristic writings; once again the text survives in Saʿīd b. Abī ʿArūba’s recension. It consists in its entirety of hadiths introduced without isnāds, simply with the words dhukira lanā anna nabī Allāh. . . . Saʿīd occasionally incorporated traditions after Ayyūb al-Sakhtiyānī as well.103 Among his contemporaries Qatāda was well known above all because of his expert opinions. They are occasionally quoted in later sources as well,104 but they survive as a collection – and apparently comparatively complete – in the so-called Aqwāl Qatāda which have been preserved in Ibāḍite tradition. I know of two manuscripts of these, both in private ownership on the island of Djerba, one in the Maktaba al-Bārūniyya (the only one accessible to me), the other in the library of the shaykh Sālim b. Yaʿqūb (cf. ZDMG 126/1976/31). A third one is in Cairo (cf. Ennami, Studies in Ibāḍism 159ff.). They do not all contain the same recension. I gave an account of this on the occasion of a conference in Djerba in 1982, cf. now my Kleine Schriften, vol. II 809–817. The text is being edited by Abdulrahman al-Salimi. Qatāda himself was obviously not an Ibāḍite; later Ibāḍite Ṭabaqāt works counted neither him nor Ḥasan al-Baṣrī among their number, but they were not hostile to him, either. They were certain that he had had great respect for 97   I S VII2 2, 18f. 98  On the quḍāt among the prophet’s companions (I 105, 1ff.); on his contemporary Iyās b. Muʿāwiya (I 330, 12ff.); on Shurayḥ (I 298, 6ff.; II 331m 11ff.; 383, 12ff.; 388, 5ff. etc.); further precedents (I 279, 9ff.; 280, 8ff.; 290, pu. ff.). 99  See p. 152 above. 100   I S VII2 1, 6ff. > Fasawī II 280, 5ff. 101  Wakīʿ III 128, 3ff., and 129, 6ff. 102   A Z 300, 3ff. 103  Cf. the Ẓāhiriyya MS mentioned in GAS 1/32: Majm. 41/12 (c. fol. 163b, 12ff., or 165a, 2f.). 104  Thus e.g. a fatwā regarding ritual slaughter in Ibn al-Madīnī, ʿIlal 56, 3ff.

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Jābir b. Zayd.105 This is quite probable, as Jābir enjoyed a good reputation in Basra.106 There were several Khārijites among Qatāda’s pupils.107 However, a later and not always reliable source claimed that he called the Ibāḍites the “Zoroastrians of this community”;108 he interpreted sura 11:108 as meaning that God allows some sinners to exchange hell for paradise, thus distancing himself from Khārijite rigorism.109 He transmitted from ʿIkrima (who was loosely associated with the Khārijites),110 but was said to have advised to consult him only regarding the Quran and not with reference to his other religious opinions.111 After the Ibāḍites had left Basra, they probably saw in him a symbol of their lost past. Rabīʿ b. Ḥabīb studied under him112 and was probably substantially involved in the creation of the Aqwāl. The extant versions, however, are of rather more complex appearance. The copy in the Maktaba al-Bārūniyya occasionally mentions Rabīʿ as an authority (e.g. fol. 7, –4, and 9, 10: ḥaddathanā l-Rabīʿ); but the redactor was clearly one of his pupils, possibly Bishr b. Ghānim al-Khurāsānī, which is what shaykh Sālim b. Yaʿqūb’s MS claims (ZDMG 126/1976/31). The text comprises seven ajzāʾ of which only the first four appear to have survived uncorrupted; the copyist of the Bārūniyya MS laments that from juzʾ 5 onwards the text was barely legible in passages, and it is true that we find interpolations there that have nothing to do with Qatāda: expert opinions on marital law by Jābir b. Zayd al-Azdī etc. It is said that Jābir’s K. al-ṣalāt was added at the end of most of the original versions. The text discusses the entire field of Islamic law in a rather loose and not always systematic arrangement. If Qatāda appears, it is always as part of an isnād; which means that what was transmitted from him was not so much his expert opinion but rather precedents handed down in the form of prophetic hadith, or of a khabar from a later authority. In some instances the isnāds are as brief as those in the K. al-manāsik. If other persons are mentioned, they are

105  Darjīnī, Ṭab. 209, –8ff.; Bishr b. Ghānim, Al-mudawwana al-kubrā II 310, 7ff. 106  See p. 219 below. 107  See p. 249f. below. 108  Abū Muṭīʿ al-Nasafī, Radd 70, 17; regarding the expression see p. 60 above. 109  Ṭūsī, Tibyān VI 68, 7ff. 110  Cf. p. 734 below. 111  Fasawī II 12, 2f. 112  Pellat, Milieu 214; cf. p. 228 below.

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linked by ʿan only; sometimes a generation is left out.113 Among the authorities quoted by Qatāda we find not only Basrans but also Meccans like Saʿīd b. alMusayyab or, with an intermediary in every case, ʿIkrima and Ibn ʿAbbās, and even Kufans like Ibrāhīm al-Nakhāʾī or ʿAlqama. Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, on the other hand, appears only rarely; from a Basran background we also find Ibn Sīrīn and even the ascetic Farqad al-Sabakhī,114 and above all, more frequently than the others, Jābir b. Zayd. The quality of the contents varies; like all collections of fatwās the Aqwāl Qatāda are a source of supreme value as a contribution to cultural history. They are not arranged as clearly as we are accustomed to in later texts; opinions regarding the prohibition of wine, slavery, marital law and limited partnership (muḍāraba) are listed next to each other.115 Once again the question of who is entitled to the dhū l-qurbā share in the booty is discussed,116 but also who would be entitled to a dihqān’s lands after he had converted to Islam.117 A random selection produces: the amount of blood money in the case of incidental medical malpractice or of abortion by means of drugs;118 the punishment for pederasty,119 and the minimum of goods stolen for the ḥadd punishment to be applied;120 the prohibition of images,121 and an assessment of games – in general, not only games of chance;122 the ritual permissibility of horse meat or garlic and onions, about which Bakr b. ukht ʿAbd al-Wāḥid b. Zayd had also expressed an opinion.123 The material is awaiting more in-depth examination. It also shows that there were large areas where qāḍī and muftī did not interfere with one another. Many issues were beyond the qāḍī’s authority; in other cases, people were only looking for a private expert opinion. People had always striven to suit their actions to tradition, but while a man like Jābir b. Zayd in the 113  Cf. 14, –5f.: ʿan Qatāda ʿan al-Ḥasan anna rasūl Allāh qāla; also 15, 12. 114  Regarding him see p. 108f. above. 115  Thus e.g. p. 46 in the Maktaba Bārūniyya MS. 116  Ibid. 27, –10ff.; cf. p. 160 above. 117  P. 32, 20f. 118  P. 63 in the chapter on diya (p. 58ff.). 119  P. 65, pu. f.; regarding the issue see ch. C 2.3 below (Thumāma). 120  P. 71, 15f.: a third of a dirham. Regarding the issue cf. Schacht, Origins 107, and ch. C 1.4.3.1.1.3 and 3.2.1.3.5 below. 121  P. 73, –7ff. 122  Qatāda even loathed games played with pebbles (p. 42, –8). 123  P. 74, –6ff.; cf. p. 129 above. Regarding the permissibility of horse meat cf. Damīrī, Ḥayāt al-ḥayawān II 217, 24ff. s. v. faras. For this reason Ḥasan al-Baṣrī emphasised that he had eaten horsemeat at the time when he was a soldier in eastern Iran (Bayhaqī, Sunan IX 327, pu.).

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first century decided purely according to “his knowledge and his conscience”,124 Qatāda now always referred to the prophet and the religious tradition. In this way he turned the function of adviser into a science; consequently the muftī’s importance increased steadily until the Ottoman era.125 In 307/919 the prefect of Baghdad decreed that the police would in future have to comply with the fatwās pronounced by the fuqahāʾ of the respective quarters.126 Law was never codified in a unified form; it would forever remain the reflection of a segmented society. One generation after Qatāda there were at least two competing muftīs in Basra, whose religious views probably differed as well: one Qadarite, Ismāʿīl b. Muslim al-Makkī, about whose juristic views we know hardly anything – for that reason?127 – and the one with whom Abū Ḥanīfa entered into correspondence: Abū ʿAmr ʿUthmān b. Sulaymān b. Jurmūz al-Battī, d. 143/760.128 There is some confusion regarding the names of his father and grandfather. The oldest sources confirm the above form: Ibn Saʿd,129 Khalīfa b. Khayyāṭ,130 Ibn Qutayba131 and Shīrāzī.132 Later, however, we find ʿUthmān b. Muslim b. Hurmuz;133 Dhahabī claimed to have seen him referred to as Aslam as well as Muslim.134 However, he appears to have mistaken him for a certain ʿUthmān b. Muslim b. Hurmuz al-Makkī, whom Ibn Ḥajar mentioned shortly before.135 Al-Battī was not a native of Basra; he had had a business in Kufa, but 124  See p. 220 below. 125  For general information see G. Makdisi, The Rise of Colleges 197ff., and in: La notion de liberté 79ff.; H. Krüger, Fetwa und Siyar 42ff.; L. Schatkowski-Schilcher, Families in Politics 118. 126  Sabari, Mouvements populaires 10. 127  Regarding him see p. 75f. above. 128  Regarding the date cf. Shīrāzī, Ṭabaqāt 91, 1f.; also GAS 1/410. Khalīfa b. Khayyāṭ has: “before 148/765” (Ta‌ʾrīkh 654, 14). 129   V II2 21, 14ff. 130   Ṭab. 526, 1. 131   Maʿārif 596, 16. 132   Ṭabaqāt al-fuqahāʾ 91, 1f. (without the grandfather’s name). The kunya is noted explicitly in Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 55, 1. 133  Ibn Mākūlā, Ikmāl I 378, 2 > Samʿānī, Ansāb II 82, 7; Ibn Ḥajar, Lisān al-Mīzān VI 303 no. 4022. 134   Mīzān no. 5580; Siyar VI 148, ult. 135   Lisān no. 4014; also Mīzān no. 5561, but without the nisba. Another mistake happened in Masʿūdī, Tanbīh 342, 11, where ʿUthmān b. ʿAmr al-Battī should be read, following one of

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decided to move.136 However, he seems to have studied in Basra; he was thought to have met Anas b. Mālik, the last of the prophet’s Basran companions, who probably died between 91/709 and 93/711, in person.137 He dealt in garments made from rough wool (batt); hence his nisba.138 He had joined the Banū Zuhra as a client, in particular the family of Akhnas b. Sharīq al-Thaqafī. During the battle of Badr the latter and his retinue had deserted the heathen Quraysh, but he had never become a Muslim himself.139 As muftī he was one of the dignitaries. When the Muhallabid Sufyān b. Muʿāwiya declared himself for the Abbasids in 132/750, and put pressure on Salm b. Qutayba, who was governing the city on behalf of Yūsuf b. ʿUmar b. Hubayra, al-Battī and Ismāʿīl b. Muslim were among those mediating between the two.140 Ḥajjāj b. Arṭāt, the first qāḍī appointed by the Abbasids in Basra who was, in fact, a man from Kufa,141 attended his lectures.142 When his successor ʿUmar b. ʿĀmir al-Sulamī died in 139/756–57,143 it was al-Battī to whom the Abbasid governor Sulaymān b. ʿAlī came for advice.144 Wakīʿ transmitted some of his expert opinions, in which he distanced himself from ʿAbdallāh b. Shubruma, who was qāḍī in Kufa at the time.145 He was a grammarian and considered to possess great eloquence;146 due to his perfect Arabic he was the MSS, as ʿUthmān b. ʿUmar al-Taymī (d. c. 145/762; cf. Ziriklī, Aʿlām IV 374). Thus also Tanbīh 328, 15f. 136   I S VII2 21, 16f.; Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif 596, 16f. > Mīzān no. 4480. 137  Ibn Mākūlā, Ikmāl I 478, 2 etc. 138   Ṭaylasāns were sometimes made from this material; later, Sufis in particular liked to wear it (IS VII2 21, 18; Maʿārif 596, 17f.; Suyūṭī, Aḥādīth al-ḥisān 67, 9ff.; cf. also Dozy, Vêtements 54). – Ṣamʿānī tried, with some reluctance, to explain the nisba in connection with a town near Basra called Batt (Ansāb II 81f. no. 378). But ʿUthmān came from Kufa; Yāqūt located the town in the vicinity of Baghdad, and also thought the verses that Samʿānī quoted in support referred to Baghdad (Muʿjam al-buldān s. v.). 139   I S VII2 21, 17; Maʿārif 596, 17, and 153, 11 (and earlier). 140  Balādhurī, Ansāb (Beirut) III 174, 12ff.; shorter Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 610, 9ff. 141  See p. 177 below. 142  Wakīʿ II 50, 9. 143  See p. 179 and 191 below. 144  Wakīʿ II 56, 6. 145   Akhbār III 85, 8ff., and 84, 1ff. (which has ʿUthmān al-Mutanabbī rather than ʿUthmān alBattī!). Regarding the influence of Ibn Shubruma see also p. 148 above and p. 326 below. 146  Jāḥiẓ, Bayān II 18, 11f. after Yūnus b. Ḥabīb > Jumaḥī. However, Jāḥiẓ misread the name al-Battī and wrote al-nabī instead, which he then replaced with rasūl Allāh. Ibn Durayd noticed the mistake (Ḥamza al-Iṣfahānī, Taṣḥīf 91, apu. ff.), as did a reader of the MS of Bayān (cf. the gloss in Bayān IV 393; cf. Pellat in: Arabica 27/1980/2, n. 7). The same mistake was made elsewhere, too (cf. TB II 80, 6ff.).

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given the nickname ʿUthmān al-ʿArabī.147 He is the source for some historical information, too.148 His positive assessment of Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ is particularly noticeable;149 clearly he did not consider him to be a heretic. It may be that his Kufan connections earned him the Abbasids’ trust. It seems that he did indeed position himself between local traditions. In Kufa he would later be regarded as an exponent of Basran thought. Aʿmash was reported to have named him in the same breath as Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, Ibn Sīrīn and Qatāda.150 Masʿūdī, too, saw him as a typical representative of the Basran school.151 He was thought to have had great respect for Ḥasan,152 although when it came to the judicial practice, he preferred Ibn Sīrīn despite the fact that, unlike Ḥasan, he had never been qāḍī.153 In Basra, on the other hand, he gave offence because he was too familiar with Kufan methods. Ayyūb alSakhtiyānī thought as little of him as of Abū Ḥanīfa and of Rabīʿat al-ra‌ʾy;154 when at the suggestion of Yaḥyā b. Saʿīd al-Madanī155 he went to Medina to study under Rabīʿa he found that the latter’s approach was known to him already as he had encountered it when studying with ʿUthmān al-Battī in Basra.156 Sufyān b. ʿUyayna (d. 196/812) would later claim that ʿUthmān was the first in Basra to employ the principle of ra‌ʾy; his explanation of this unsuitable innovation was that al-Battī, Rabīʿat al-ra‌ʾy and Abū Ḥanīfa had all been “descendants of female slaves captured during the war”.157 He was rumoured to have praised the Kufan “school”,158 and traditions survive which he had heard from Ibn Sīrīn 147  Thus in Abū Aḥmad al-ʿAskarī’s K. al-Taṣḥīf, p. 53 (quoted in Ḥamza, Taṣḥīf 92, n. 1); adopted by Qifṭī, Inbāh II 344, 6ff. Aṣmaʿī had met him (cf. Tawḥīdī, Baṣāʾir 2III 42 no. 103). 148  Ṭabarī II 437, 15ff.: on a canvasser for ʿAbdallāh b. al-Zubayr’s cause visiting Basra. 149  Balādhurī, Ansāb III 220, ult. Dūrī. 150  Muwaffaq b. Aḥmad, Manāqib Abī Ḥanīfa II 101, 2ff. As he is named as a pupil of Ibn Sīrīn and a certain Ḥusayn al-Muʿtazili in a parallel text (Kardarī, Manāqib Abī Ḥanīfa II 83, pu. ff.), we may assume that the latter may in fact have been Ḥasan al-Baṣrī; but cf. p. 359f. below. 151   Tanbīh 356, 12 f. 152  Kaʿbī, Maqālāt 87, 7f.; also Fasawī II 42, ult. f. 153  Samʿānī, Ansāb II 82, 10f. 154  Fasawī III 20, 7f. 155  D. 143/760 in Basra; cf. GAS 1/407. 156  Fasawī III 20, 12f.; Ibn ʿAbd al-barr, Jāmiʿ II 44, 10f., tells us that Ayyūb had consulted al-Battī. 157  Ibid. III 21, 2f.; AZ 508, 3ff.; also Kister in: IOS 2/1072/232, and my thoughts in MUSJ 50/1984/739. The same idea was expressed in a letter allegedly from ʿUthmān (Ṭabarī I 2803, 16f.). 158  Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 292, no. 1898.

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and which follow Kufan ra‌ʾy.159 He was believed to have said that Ḥammād b. Abī Sulaymān, Abū Ḥanīfa’s teacher, always found the right solution when he relied on his own ra‌ʾy, but went wrong when he referred to his teacher Ibrāhīm al-Nakha‌ʿī.160 Mālik b. Anas apparently called him a “comparatist”.161 However, from faraway Medina he would not have been able to discern what was happening in any case. But what had actually happened? After all, Jābir b. Zayd had followed his ra‌ʾy, too, but there is no straight line leading from him to al-Battī. In Qatāda’s case it had looked rather as if the entirety of the law were covered by prophetic tradition. This development was now interrupted by Kufan influence. The conclusion by analogy began to establish itself, and that not only in the form of qiyās al-shabah; al-Battī was quoted as saying that a qiyās was possible only if an ʿilla could be derived from the basic norm (aṣl) given.162 When it came to legal subject matter he followed the Basran tradition very closely. Like Iyās b. Muʿāwiya he considered an oath of repudiation to be invalid if it was tied to a condition that was not mentioned explicitly.163 Furthermore, it was impossible, he found, to divorce a woman unless the marriage had been consummated.164 Even if both spouses had cursed one another, the marriage still held165 – a paradigm with which Muʿtazilite theology had wrestled since Wāṣil’s time.166 In other matters he agreed with Sawwār b. ʿAbdallāh alʿAnbarī who had held the office of judge in Basra during the last years of his life (137/754–144/761), disagreeing with Abū Ḥanīfa, Zufar and Abū Yūsuf, who were of a different opinion.167 As regards the law of testimony he followed the idealising tendency of the letter to Abū Mūsā al-Ashʿarī: a slave, too, can possess the quality of ʿadāla, as long as he is a Muslim.168 He did not allow, on the

159  Ibid. 219, 10f. 160  Fasawī II 793, 3f. 161  Ibn Abī Ḥātim, Ādāb al-Shāfiʿī 211, 2. 162  Ghazzālī, Shifāʾ al-ghalīl 639, ult. ff.; Rāzī, Maḥṣūl II2 493, 6f. His opposition to the qiyās al-shabah can probably be deduced from the remark in Shīrāzī, Sharḥ al-Lumaʿ 1050, 2ff. 163  I.e.: “ . . . she will be divorced if . . .” (Wakīʿ I 323, 5f.). 164  This was also Abū Ḥanīfa’s view (Kautharī, Ta‌ʾnīb 208). 165   E I1 III 27a = EI2 V 731a. 166  See p. 311 and 350, also ch. C 1.3.1.6 below . 167  Ṭaḥāwī, Al-shurūṭ al-kabīr in Wakin, Function of Documents I 2.214ff., and 6.19; Al-shurūṭ al-ṣaghīr I 60, 24ff. 168  Ṭūsī, Tibyān II 373, 5, regarding sura 2:282. After al-Battī this exegesis was supported by Shurayḥ (maybe Shurayḥ b. Yūnus, d. 235/849; cf. GAS 1/521) and Abū Thawr (d. 240/854; cf. GAS 1/491), both of whom were a century younger than he; unlike Mujāhid (d. 104/722).

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other hand, that someone should testify for his father, believing a person in this position to be biased.169 The passage quoted above also tells us that he respected ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAwn, while entertaining more distant relations with the latter’s arch-nemesis ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd; when he heard that he had received 50 quaestiones regarding divorce law from Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, he expressed doubt that these were really from Ḥasan. However, he seems to have believed it in the end; the source reporting this is Muʿtazilite.170 The Muʿtazilites made no effort to claim him as their own, but he shared some of their views which were considered good form in Basra. We can see this when we compare the letter he received from Abū Ḥanīfa, a response to al-Battī’s letter consulting him regarding his “desire to do good and give sound advice”, and asking why he called a sinful Muslim a believer who had merely erred.171 To him, this was clearly a contradiction in terms: belief is inseparable from fulfilling commandments, and “erring” leads to unbelief.172 While he did not, like the Muʿtazilites, refer to sinners as fāsiq,173 Abū Ḥanīfa could not resist pointing to the Muʿtazilites as hair-splitting innovators.174 In a second epistle, the authenticity of which is not certain, the latter informed him of the correct attitude towards qadar,175 but al-Battī clearly was no Qadarite. Cf. the story in IS VII2 2 142, 15ff. Further biographical notes about him, which do not, however, contain anything new, are found in Qifṭī, Inbāh II 343f. no. 513; Dhahabī, Ta‌ʾrīkh V 276, apu. ff., and Siyar VI 148f. no. 60; TT VII 153f. It was an honour to have studied under him, so much so that it was said even about Yaḥyā b. Aktham (d. Dhū l-Ḥijja 242/April 857), even though this is chronologically impossible.176 The latter was qāḍī but a stranger in the city and presumably in need of support.177 However, significant changes took place after al-Battī’s death. In the fifties a pupil of Abū Ḥanīfa’s, Zufar b. al-Hudhayl (d. 158/775) succeeded in infiltrating his circle and attracting some people who 169   I S VII2 27, 20f. = Ḥilya III 38, pu. f. 170  Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Faḍl 242, 4ff. 171  Text II 5, b–c; cf. vol. I 221ff. above. 172  Ibid., m, and p. 196. 173  See p. 298 below. 174  See vol. I 226 above. 175  Text II 8; cf. vol. I 234ff. 176  Masʿūdī, Murūj VII 48, ult. ff./IV 319, 7f. 177  Cf. ch. C 3.3.5 below.

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had studied under him. There were probably practical reasons for this; Zufar was a member of the Banū l-ʿAnbar who were holding firmly on to the office of judge in the city.178 We hear of two renegades, a certain ʿUbaydallāh b. ʿAbd al-Majīd179 and Muḥammad b. ʿAbdallāh al-Anṣārī, a descendant of Anas b. Mālik.180 We do not know much about the former,181 but the latter became qāḍī in the city under Hārūn al-Rashīd.182 At first this had no negative effect on al-Battī’s reputation; Muḥammad b. ʿAbdallāh continued to refer to him, and even Ṭaḥāwī preserved some of his teachings in his Ikhtilāf al-fuqahāʾ.183 Still, Basran tradition was weakened. Once Abū Yūsuf had become chief qāḍī under Hārūn al-Rashīd, the Ḥanafites were able to exert political influence beyond Kufa. The situation is put into sharp relief in the example of Abū Khālid Yūsuf b. Khālid b. ʿUmayr al-Samtī al-Laythī, d. Rajab 189/June 805 at the age of 69.184 His grandfather ʿUmayr had been freed185 by the prophet’s companion Sahl b. Ṣakhr b. Wāqid Ibn Layth;186 he had moved to Basra and built a house by the Dār al-Iṣbahānī gate.187 The grandson was born in the same city in 120/738; he, too, was a mawlā of the same family and lived in their neighbourhood (dār).188 He was given the name Yūsuf after the governor at the time, Yūsuf b. ʿUmar al-Thaqafī, who had taken office 178  See vol. I 246 above and p. 177ff. below; also Ṣaymarī, Akhbār Abī Ḥanīfa 104, –5ff. 179  Ṣaymarī 157, 14f. 180  Ibid. 157, 13, and TB V 408, 18f. 181  Regarding him see IAW I 338 no. 926; ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ III 123 no. 1105; Mīzān no. 5381; Shīrāzī, Ṭab. 139, 7 (which has ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd instead of ʿAbd al-Majīd). 182  Regarding him Wakīʿ II 154f. and 157ff.; TB V 408ff. no. 2920; Pellat, Milieu 290. He was not the first Ḥanafite qāḍī in the city, but his predecessor only lasted four months in office (Wakīʿ II 142, 1f.). 183  Cf. the index of Maʿṣūmī’s edition (Islamabad 1391/1971). 184   I S VII2 47, 11f. > Samʿānī, Ansāb VII 132, –4; TT XI 412, 5 (where the age, a common error, is given as 67 rather than 69). Khalīfa b. Khayyāṭ has the rather approximate date of 190/805–6 (possibly due to looking at dates by decades?) (Ta‌ʾrīkh 737, 9, and Ṭab. 543, 9f. no. 1914 > TT XI 412, 6f.). 185   I S VII2 47, 2ff., from where I adopt the reading ʿUmayr (also in TT XI 411, 8); Samʿānī, Ansāb and Ibn Abī l-Wafāʾ (II 227, 12) have ʿUmar instead, but this is probably merely a simplifying secondary error. 186   I S VII1 45, 4ff.; Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, Istīʿāb 665 no. 1091. He was apparently best known from al-Samtī’s traditions. 187  Khalīfa, Ṭab. 67, 1f.; regarding the location cf. Ṣāliḥ al-ʿAlī, Khiṭaṭ al-Baṣra 56 and 93. 188   I S VII2 47, 4f. and 10f.

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that very year.189 He was given the nisba al-Samtī thanks to his composure and his gravitas (samt); in later years he wore a beard.190 During his youth he had studied under ʿUthmān al-Battī,191 but then joined Abū Ḥanīfa,192 who died when Yūsuf was not yet thirty, but this had been sufficient time to influence him significantly. In his two Shurūṭ books Ṭaḥāwī frequently noted his views besides those of Abū Ḥanīfa and Abū Yūsuf;193 in fact, the first book of this genre was said to be by him.194 Another surviving text is a Waṣiyya allegedly addressed to him by Abū Ḥanīfa.195 He hoped that with this first-class education he would be able to cut a dash in his home town. Kufa felt superior to the Basrans when it came to the law. When he began his studies there, Aʿmash196 had told him quite frankly that in his view there were only quṣṣāṣ and interpreters of dreams in Basra.197 This was aimed at Ḥasan al-Baṣrī and Ibn Sīrīn; they should not, he meant to say, be role models for a progressive young man. Abū Ḥanīfa, on the other hand, was said to have warned him against using his name too openly after his return.198 This was reported retrospectively, for when Yūsuf returned to the environment from which he came, he was not exactly received with open arms. ʿUthmān al-Battī had been dead for several years, and people may have felt that the “Kufan” was an intruder. He was beaten up and chased out of the mosque.199 Some time later, the atmosphere improved; possibly due to Zufar b. Hudhayl’s influence, or maybe because al-Samtī did, after all, come from an old-established family. In 167/783 he, as well as the 189  Ibid. 47, 5; also p. 9 above. 190  Ibid. 47, 10; also Samʿānī VII 132, 14 etc. Another Samtī is known from Baghdad (cf. Samʿānī 133, 11ff., which has the date of death as the impossible 128). 191  Ṣaymarī 54, –7ff. 192  Shīrāzī, Ṭab. 136, 11; Kardarī, Manāqib Abī Ḥanīfa II 14, 7; IAW II 277f. no. 711. 193   K. al-shurūṭ al-ṣaghīr, Index 1196f. s. n.; K. al-shurūṭ al-kabīr in J. Wakin, The Function of Documents, Ar. text, passim. P. 17 of the Introduction has general information on the person (with a few mistakes). 194   T T XI 412, 11; also the reference in Jāḥiẓ, Ḥayawān I 92, 10. The K. al-rahn which J. Wakin attributes to him is due to a misunderstanding; it is in fact attributed to Abū Ḥanīfa (IAW II 227, 13ff.). 195  Cf. GAS 1/417. Whether it is genuine remains to be examined. It seems surprising that Abū Ḥanīfa should have addressed such a text to someone who was presumably with him until his death, and whom he might have admonished orally. Circumstances are different in the case of the Risāla to ʿUthmān al-Battī. 196  Regarding him see vol. I 272 above. 197  Kardarī, Manāqib II 83, pu. ff. 198  Ṣaymarī 104, 8ff. 199  Ibid. 150, apu. f.; Muwaffaq b. Aḥmad, Manāqib II 101, 2ff.

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Muʿtazilite ʿĪsā b. Ḥāḍir,200 was among the Basran notables who embarked on a journey from Basra to Baghdad with the objective of making a complaint about the qāḍī Khālid b. Ṭalīq al-Khuzāʿī to al-Mahdī.201 But when he suggested the abovementioned Muḥammad b. ʿAbdallāh al-Anṣārī as the dismissed Khālid b. Ṭalīq’s successor, he met with resistance: his ideas, people believed, were influenced by Abū Ḥanīfa, and if he administered the law on the basis of this, there would be a bad outcome “and our possessions would be lost”.202 Only when Abū Yūsuf visited the city of Basra together with the caliph did his reputation among the people improve again;203 the august visitors probably honoured him in some special way. But this was only a brief time before his death; it can have been only during Abū Yūsuf’s first visit to Basra in 186/802.204 Yūsuf is believed to have spent the remaining years in solitary devotion.205 The traditionists were at the root of the resistance against his Kufan education; consequently he could not find anyone interested in his hadith – because of his ra‌ʾy, as Ibn Saʿd emphasised.206 It made no difference that he had also studied under some “orthodox” experts who would later be widely respected, such as ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAwn or Yūnus b. ʿUbayd.207 ʿUthmān al-Battī was considered reliable; he was not.208 It was even rumoured that he circulated hadith from people under whom he might have studied, but from whom he had not heard the relevant hadiths.209 Thus he seems to have taken a “book” from Mūsā b. ʿUqba (d. 141/758 in Medina), presumably without ever having received the ijāza.210 Consequently people looked particularly critically at his theological views, too. He was quite outspoken about them, being an enthusiastic dialectician and debating with Jews and Christians;211 after winning such an argument he apparently offered to his opponents that they could now take his position and

200  Regarding him see p. 361 below. 201  Wakīʿ II 128, 7ff.; a courtier described the group as ʿuyūn ahl miṣrikum (ibid. 131, 5). Cf. p. 142 above. 202  Ibid. 131, 8ff. 203  Ṣaymarī 150, pu. ff. 204  Schacht in EI2 I 164a. 205  Ṣaymarī, ibid. 206   I S VII2 47, 9; Fasawī II 655, ult. f.; ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ IV 453 no. 2082. 207   I S VII2 47, 6; regarding the two authorities see p. 404ff. and 400ff. below. 208   Mīzān no. 9863. 209  Samʿānī, Ansāb VII 132, apu. f. 210  Fasawī III 32, 8ff. 211  Wakīʿ II 130, 6f.

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defend it against him.212 But he could not please the Basrans. While one would think the determinism he had learnt from Abū Ḥanīfa met the predestinarians halfway, they complained that he denied “the scales and the resurrection”. Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī (d. 277/890) still claimed to have seen a book by al-Samtī stating this; he called it “Jahmite”.213 In actual fact the combination was probably Kufan; “denying the resurrection” may have meant that he did not believe in the perpetuity of paradise.214 Ibn al-Madīnī (d. 234/849), who apparently met him once in Mecca215 or maybe knew him from Basra, called him an “enemy of God” and a “heretic” (zindīq).216 The Qadarites, on the other hand, took umbrage at his tenet that “if God knows of an unbeliever that he will never believe, if the latter were able to believe after all, he could act against (even) divine predestination (qaḍāʾ Allāh wa-qadaruhū)”. In al-Samtī’s view, God’s prescience implied predestination. The Qadarites turned the tables on him: al-Samtī, too, had to admit that humans were obliged to believe; an unbeliever would thus have a duty that he was unable to perform. This contradicts the principle of ultra posse nemo obligatur. What was attacked was probably once again Abū Ḥanīfa’s doctrine; the source, however, sneers that al-Samtī learned this in Wāsiṭ from a zindīq and dualist named Ḍarīr.217 This marked him as a heretic in the Qadarites’ eyes as well.218 Where fiqh was concerned they did not follow him anyway. ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd was said to have explained to him that he had to learn to speak Arabic properly before he could consult him concerning points of law.219 He was probably one of those who prepared the ground for Najjār’s theology.220 212   T T 412, 13ff. I do not know what is meant by Wakīʿ’s remark in this context that Yūsuf “sold (or bought?) churches and synagogues” (loc. cit.). Regarding Yūsuf’s moustache fashion, mentioned there as well, see p. 439 below. 213   I AH IV2 222, 2f. > TT XI 411, –4ff., and 412, –4. 214  See ch. C 1.3.1.5.1 and D 3 below; regarding the Jahmiyya p. 568 below. Basran Qadarites did not necessarily believe in the scales, either (see p. 82 above). 215  Samʿānī, Ansāb VII 133, –5f. 216   T T XI 411, 13ff. 217  Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Faḍl 148, 8ff.; also Mughnī VIII 4, 8; similarly Ḥajūrī, Rawḍat al-akhbār, fol. 146a, 12ff. The source they shared was probably Kaʿbī. 218  During a visit to Kufa when he was a young man, the Medinan Muḥammad b. ʿAjlān (regarding him see p. 761ff. below) was said to have foretold him that he would be suspected of being a heretic before he died (Mīzān III 645, apu. ff.). 219  Jāḥiẓ, Bayān II 212, 5ff. with two further traditions of this kind. Cf. the positive comments on the language employed by ʿUthmān al-Battī (p. 169 above). 220  Thus Sharīf al-Murtaḍā, Inqādh al-bashar (in: Rasāʾil al-ʿadl wal-tawḥīd, ed. ʿImāra, I) 259, 8ff.

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One of his pupils was his son Abū l-Rabīʿ Khālid b. Yūsuf al-Samtī (d. 249/ 863), who is also considered a Basran Ḥanafite. Regarding him cf. Samʿānī, Ansāb VII 133, 7; IAW I 230 no. 581; Mīzān no. 2488. According to Ṣaymarī, Akhbār Abī Ḥanīfa 151, 3ff. Hilāl al-ra‌ʾy (d. 245/859 in Basra; GAS 1/435f.) was in contact with him. 2.2.3.4 Kullu mujtahid muṣīb Even before Abū Ḥanīfa became known beyond Kufa, a Kufan had been qāḍī in Basra for a short time: al-Ḥajjāj b. Arṭāt al-Nakhaʿī. The Abbasids had appointed him immediately after seizing power; they probably would not have trusted a Basran.1 He possessed a healthy self-confidence: when, dressed all in black, he visited ʿUthmān al-Battī’s teaching circle for the first time and the latter offered him the seat of honour, he said that wherever he sat would be the seat of honour.2 He could boast of having pronounced his first fatwā at the age of 16.3 He did not stay in Basra long; after only a month Sulaymān b. ʿAlī, who took over the administration of the city from his brother al-Saffāḥ, seems to have removed him from office.4 He had not dared to take part in the Friday prayer;5 when he rode out he was preceded by kāfirkūbāt, the dreaded club-bearers who were also Abū Muslim’s entourage.6 The population did not like him and it was said that he had been the first to take bribes.7 And in the end the governor appointed a man from before the revolution: ʿAbbād b. Manṣūr al-Nājī, a Qadarite who had been appointed to the position during the time of Yazīd III.8 He was one of the old guard of anti-Umayyads, with Ḥajjāj b. Arṭāt being another one; he had been prefect of police in Kufa under Yazīd III, or rather his governor ʿAbdallāh b. ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz.9 However, loyalties were distributed differently in the case of a Basran: in 145 ʿAbbād b. Manṣūr 1  Wakīʿ II 50, 8ff.; regarding his Kufan origins ibid. 50, pu., and 51, 7f. General information regarding him IS VI 250, 10ff.; Mīzān no. 1726 etc. 2  Wakīʿ II 50, 9f. 3  Ibid. 50, 15f. 4  Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 634, 3ff. 5  Wakīʿ II 52, 15 and n. 6  Ibid. 51, pu.; regarding the kāfirkūbāt cf. EI2 IV 411 s. v. 7  Ibid. 51, –5f.; regarding the phenomenon as such cf. F. Rosenthal, Gifts and Bribes in: Proc. Amer. Philos. Soc. 108/1964/135ff., and Tyan, Organisation judiciaire I 425ff. 8  Sourdel in: Arabica 2/1955/113. Regarding him see p. 381 below. 9  Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 559, 4, and 578, 6; Wakīʿ II 54, 4f.

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had Ibrāhīm b. ʿAbdallāh appoint him qāḍī, proving that he felt closer to the Qadarites than to the Abbasids.10 The failure of the uprising was the last reason why a man who had already been a judge in Basra for some years earlier reached the pinnacle of his power; a Basran like ʿAbbād b. Manṣūr, but without ties to any religious groups: Sawwār b. ʿAbdallāh b. Qudāma al-ʿAnbarī. Manṣūr had appointed him in 138/755–6.11 He was the first qāḍī to have been chosen by the caliph himself,12 but also the “first Tamīmite to preach from a Basran pulpit”.13 He had to preach because he took charge of, first temporarily and after 145 permanently, “the prayer” besides the office of judge; in practice this meant that he was the governor at the same time.14 He was the “first Tamīmite” because he was one of the Banū l-ʿAnbar; his family would soon be so powerful in Basra that he made a point of being a member of the Quraysh, and for this reason rearranged their genealogy, or had it rearranged.15 Afterwards the clan would not relinquish their hold on the office of judge for some centuries.16 Sawwār himself had earlier, since 137/754–5, shared the post with another; a strange and apparently never-repeated arrangement. They presided over trials together, but he only listened.17 This may have been due to him being the younger one, but there may have been a different reason: his colleague, ʿUmar b. ʿĀmir al-Sulamī, was believed to be a Murjiʾite,18 while Sawwār considered Abū Ḥanīfa, and consequently Murjiʾites in general, to be heterodox.19 Later, 10  See p. 381 below. 11  Wakīʿ II 80, 11ff. after Abū ʿUbayda; less precise ibid. 56, pu. ff. Regarding him also Sourdel in: Arabica 2/1955/113. 12  Ibid. 57, –7. 13  Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 294, 8f. 14  Wakīʿ II 80, 11ff., and 91, 15f.; Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 665, 3; Ṭabarī 378, ult. f.; Balādhurī, Ansāb III 257, 13ff. Dūrī. 15  Baghdādī, Uṣūl al-dīn 276, pu. ff., where other Basran scholars are named who did the same thing; nearly all of them, however, younger. 16  Regarding Sawwār’s genealogy cf. Ibn Ḥazm, Jamhara 209, 1ff. Regarding his son ʿAbdallāh b. Sawwār see p. 155 above and p. 447 below. 17  Wakīʿ II 55, 2ff.; Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 634, 7f. Shortly after the turn of the century there had been two qāḍīs in Kufa (see vol. I 193, n. 37 above), but they did not work together. In the anecdote TB X 307, 14ff. > Ibn al-Jawzī, Adhkiyāʾ 69, apu. ff. this fact has been transferred onto his successor ʿUbaydallāh b. al-Ḥasan al-ʿAnbarī by mistake. 18  Regarding him see p. 191 below. 19  Wakīʿ II 65, –7ff.

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when he was his own master, he once rejected Sayyid al-Ḥimyarī’s testimony, because the latter believed in the rajʿa; as a result he was made the butt of some polemic poetry.20 When he died at the end of Dhū l-Ḥijja II 156/Nov. 773,21 ʿUbaydallāh22 b. al-Ḥasan b. al-Ḥusayn b. Abī l-Ḥurr al-ʿAnbarī became his successor. He was a member of the same tribe, but from a different family.23 His grandfather al-Ḥusayn b. Abī l-Ḥurr had taken part in the conquest, although he was not mentioned among the companions of the prophet. Khālid b. al-Walīd had granted him a share in the sawād of Ubulla;24 in 29/649 ʿUthmān had awarded him the sawād of Basra.25 He was a tax official under Ziyād;26 according to Ibn Ḥazm he governed Mesene for 40 years.27 His grandson, born 105/724 or 106/72528 was certainly not without possessions and influence. He was so influential, in fact, that he inherited his predecessor’s combination of offices unchanged; he was directly responsible to the caliph.29 According to Aṣmaʿī he took office at the end of 156, according to Abū ʿUbayda this was not until Muḥarram 157/Nov.–Dec. 723; it is certain that the transition was seamless.30 The precise wording of the letter of appointment Manṣūr sent him survives.31 His assumption of office was such a significant event that 20  Ibid. 70, 13ff., and 75, 3ff.; Agh. VII 254, 6ff.; also Akhbār Yamūt b. Muzarriʿ in: RAAD 54/1979/683, 3f. He did not accept the testimony of an elementary school teacher because he was paid for his work (Ibn Abī ʿAwn, Al-ajwiba al-muskita 92 no. 545). 21  Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 665, 4. 22  The sources frequently write incorrectly ʿAbdallāh rather than ʿUbaydallāh. 23  Regarding the genealogy IS VII2 42, 1ff.; Ibn Ḥazm, Jamhara 209, 3ff. (with a mistake in Abū l-Ḥurr); TB X 307, 2f. (also corrupt). 24  Ṭabarī I 2057, ult. f. 25  Ibid. I 2829, 5; cf. also 2549, 1f. for the year 17/638 (sojourn in Iraq) and 2923, 12f. for the year 33. He was one of those who had had a bathhouse built in Basra at their own expense (Balādhurī, Futūḥ al-buldān 434, 13f.). 26   Agh. XII 207, 6ff.: he had treated Abū l-Aswad al-Duʾalī badly and was attacked by him. 27   Jamhara 209, 5. Among his clients was a noble Persian named Pērōz who was called Fayrūz Ḥusayn after him (Mubarrad, Kāmil 1104, –6ff.). 28   T T VII 7, 4ff.; cf. also TB X 306, 21, which, however, has “105” rather than “100”, presumably due to a confusion of numerals. 29  Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 666, 6. According to Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 294, 10f., there were four quḍāt ʿumarāʾ in all in Basra; cf. Pellat, Milieu 117. 30  Wakīʿ II 91, 4ff.; the date 157, which is more realistic in any case, is also found in Ṭabarī III 380, 3f., and TB X 301, 6f. 31  Wakīʿ II 91, 15ff.

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it was celebrated in poems.32 Like his predecessor he received a salary of 200 dirhams,33 a handsome amount considering that a construction worker at the time was paid between one and two dirhams a month, and even the privileged Khorasanian soldiers, as far as they were included in the dīwān, only 80 dirhams.34 While he was said to have fled from those who wanted to appoint him qāḍī,35 we can be fairly certain that this belongs in the realm of pious legend; the stereotypical character of this behaviour would have been well known. Cf. the story reported by Wakīʿ II 140, 11ff., esp. 15ff. A. J. Wensinck examined the topos in: Festschrift E. G. Browne 491ff., and Goitein in Studies 205ff.; cf. also the examples in Munir-ud-Din Ahmad, Muslim Education and the Scholars’ Social Status 227ff. – Concerning judges’ salaries cf. Moukdad, Richteramt 56ff., and Ṣāliḥ al-ʿAlī, Baghdād I1 218. Iyās b. Muʿāwiya had received only 100 dirhams (see p. 148 above); Shurayḥ on the other hand, who died as early as 78/697, allegedly 500 dirhams a month (IS VI 95, 16f.). Of course one must always regard such figures with caution; the information does not refer to the same period, either. However, it does seem that ministry officials were overall more highly paid than judges (Ṣāliḥ al-ʿAlī, op. cit. 212f.). For general information cf. Ashtor, Prix et salaires 65ff., and Sabari, Mouvements populaires 36 and 39f. The obligation of preaching the khuṭba on Fridays presupposed a certain rhetorical skill, which was not required of a qāḍī otherwise. ʿAnbarī possessed this to a high degree. We are told that during the Festival of the Sacrifice he recited paraenetic poetry from the pulpit, attempting to stir up his listeners with the Ubi sunt qui ante nos motif;36 his sophisticated, sometimes even mannered style gave rise to a number of anecdotes.37 A special occasion to unfurl his art occurred when he appeared at court in Baghdad as the envoy of his city at al-Mahdī’s accession to the throne in 158/775. He had to express his condolences to the young caliph on the death of his father, and at the same time 32  Ibid. II 121, 6ff. 33  Ibid. II 121, ult., and 86, apu. 34  Kennedy, Abbasid Caliphate 78. 35   T B X 307, 7ff. 36  Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 120, 1ff. (after Madāʾinī; for identification cf. I 295, 1) = Wakīʿ II 112, 4ff. = Ibn ʿAbdrabbih, ʿIqd III 202, 17ff. K. al-Aghānī offers further confirmation that he had some knowledge of poetry (cf. Index s. n., esp. IX 289, 1ff.; XII 307, 15ff. and earlier; XIV 167, 4ff.) Regarding the Ubi sunt qui ante nos motif cf. C. H. Becker’s essay in: Islamstudien I 501ff. 37  Wakīʿ II 109, 1ff.: a physician, maybe not a Muslim, does not understand him and answers in his own jargon. II 108, 11 confirms that he employed iʿrāb.

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congratulate him on his accession; in Abū ʿUbaydallāh al-Kātib’s view – and being al-Mahdī’s secretary he would know – he combined the subtlety of Ḥasan al-Baṣrī’s exhortations and Ghaylān al-Dimashqī’s letters in his oratory.38 Clearly he was a master of paraenesis – and showed that at the very least Ghaylān’s style could still be used as inspiration.39 The deputy he left behind was, in fact, a grandson of Ḥasan al-Baṣrī’s.40 All the same, he was not able to forge a good relationship with al-Mahdī in the long term. Maybe it was his own fault: his demeanour was most superior. In Ṣafar 159/Oct. 775 he addressed a long letter to the caliph the exact wording of which survives; (a copy of?) it was preserved by the family, and later recited by his son in Samarra, apparently before a circle of friends.41 ʿUbaydallāh permitted himself, after a goodly portion of rhetoric, concrete admonition: the caliph should be just, look after the border regions (thughūr)42 and make sure tax policy was administered properly, especially in fayʾ lands.43 He made use of the chiliastic spirit of change that dominated the early days of al-Mahdī’s caliphate;44 he quoted hadiths according to which the end of time was near.45 This reminded the caliph of his responsibilities even more. Whether ʿUbaydallāh did indeed, as people said, reject letters from al-Mahdī’s chancellery with the comment that they were composed in bad Arabic,46 cannot be said for sure. But we do know he was removed from both his positions in 159.47 He did not remain out of favour with the caliph for long; one year later he was qāḍī once more,48 although he did not become governor again; in 160/777

38  Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 295, 1ff. after Madāʾinī; Wakīʿ II 108, 5ff.; TB X 308, 21ff. after Jumaḥī; Zubayr b. Bakkār, Muwaffaqiyyāt 207f. no. 124. Linking the two intentions named was also a requirement of the taʿziya poems (Wagner, Grundzüge der klass. arab. Dichtung 131). 39  Cf. vol. I 153f. above. 40  Wakīʿ II 108, 1f. 41  Ibid. II 97, 4ff.; regarding the date cf. 107, apu. 42  Ibid. 100, –5ff. Does this refer to the jihad against Byzantium, in which Hārūn al-Rashīd in particular was involved? Or maybe to the border regions in central Asia, where Basran interests were also involved? It is even possible that it simply refers to ʿAbbādān. 43  Ibid. 102, 4ff: with concrete complaints and details. 44  More detail ch. C 1.2.1 and 1.2.2 below. 45  Wakīʿ II 106, 1ff. 46   T B X 308, 14ff. 47  Ṭabarī III 466, 3f. 48  Ibid. III 484, 9. When ibid. 470, 2f. names him as qāḍī in the year 159, this is presumably based on a different source than 466, namely the list of offices of the respective year; the previous note is in the context of the actual report.

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Muḥammad b. Sulaymān b. ʿAlī was appointed to this office and retained it until 165/782.49 It was not until 166/783, when al-Mahdī visited the city of Basra, that ʿAnbarī lost the office of qāḍī for good,50 as more cause for conflict had accumulated in the meantime. The caliph had instructed him to take care of the compensation for old injustice (maẓālim), whereupon he took on a case of landed property that had been simmering in the city for an entire generation.51 Saffāḥ had given a piece of land in tenure (iqṭāʿ) to a certain Sulaymān b. ʿUbaydallāh, grandson of ʿAbdallāh b. al-Ḥārith b. Nawfal, known as Babba (d. 83/702 or 84/703).52 This was a piece of land the Umayyad caliph Sulaymān b. ʿAbd al-Malik had taken from Ḥajjāj’s family, and when Ḥajjāj’s descendants filed a claim for it, al-ʿAnbarī decided to return it to them. He had corresponded with the caliph beforehand and been granted the authority to proceed in this manner, unless Sulaymān b. ʿUbaydallāh’s son, who had inherited the estate from his father, should be able to produce a document in legitimation. It was later claimed that ʿAnbarī suppressed this clause in the hearing before the Basran dignitaries, but that the accused had heard about it and refuted him publicly, in addition producing al-Saffāḥ’s original document of transfer. When ʿAnbarī insisted on his decision the current owner complained to the caliph, succeeding in capturing his attention during the hajj. Al-Mahdī considered ʿAnbarī’s proceeding a personal insult: the qāḍī had described crown property (ṣawāfī) as unlawful possession (maẓālim). ʿAnbarī had to retract his verdict.53 It is difficult to determine the true facts of the case. One has the impression that Muḥammad b. Sulaymān, the Abbasid governor of the city, had a hand in it; he appears to have arranged the meeting with the caliph in Mecca. Of course the beneficiary of the scandal was related to the Abbasids; Sulaymān b. ʿUbaydallāh traced his genealogy back to ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib; furthermore he was related by marriage to al-Saffāḥ – through of his great-aunts, Umm al-Ḥakam, the daughter of ʿAbdallāh b. al-Ḥārith b. Nawfal.54 And finally the account on 49  Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 671, 2f., and 689, 7; also 695, 8ff. Cf. also Kennedy, Abbasid Caliphate, Index s. n. Muḥammad b. Sulaymān b. ʿAlī. 50  Wakīʿ II 91, 3ff.; Ṭabarī III 506, 7. 51  Regarding the resumption of the maẓālim practice under al-Mahdī see ch. C 1.2.2 below. It affected land rights in particular, as the authorities had their own interests here (Coulson, History of Islamic Law 128). 52  Regarding him cf. in detail Madelung in: JNES 40/1981/292f. and 297ff.; also p. 761 below. 53  Wakīʿ II 92, 8ff., esp. 92, –4, and 92, 7ff.; also 122, 5. Cf. the interpretation in Dannhauer, Qāḍī-Amt 105ff. 54  Zubayrī, Nasab Quraysh 30, 19ff., and 86, 1ff.; also Ibn Ḥazm, Jamhara 70, 6f. Regarding Umm al-Ḥakam cf. also Akhbār al-ʿAbbās 228.

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which we are basing our observations was from the pen of his grandson ʿAlī b. Muḥammad b. Sulaymān al-Nawfalī,55 the son of the owner at the time; we should not really expect an impartial record. The account is still more questionable because al-Mahdī only led the pilgrimage in person in 160/776 (Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 670, 4). Even if we were to date the events described above earlier, this would be the least suitable of all years: al-ʿAnbarī had just been reinstated in his office. Maybe we should assume 165/782 as the actual date; this would immediately precede his losing his position in 166/783, and the historians do not record the pilgrimage for that year at all. Maybe a note in Ta‌ʾrīkh Baghdād can help clarify ʿAnbarī’s motives: it states that he resisted the order from al-Mahdī to find in favour of a military leader (qāʾid) against a merchant in court, and was dismissed because of this.56 This case also concerned landed property, and there is reason to assume that it was in fact the same case, which would imply that Ḥajjāj’s descendants were Basran merchants, and ʿAnbarī championed their interests against the enrichment policy adopted by the powerful families. However, the hypothesis suffers slightly because none of Sulaymān b. ʿUbaydallāh’s descendants made a name for himself in the sources as a military leader, but it is possible that qāʾid simply referred to an influential man at court, which his son Muḥammad b. Sulaymān undoubtedly was.57 In Jāḥiẓ’ K. al-bukhalāʾ we find a remark confirming that ʿAnbarī looked after the interests of his city, in the famous passage on the problems of home owners, which goes back to a certain al-Kindī, possibly the philosopher; ʿUbaydallāh says that the true source of wealth is in agriculture and animal husbandry rather than renting out houses, or owning palm groves.58 The qāḍī appears to have understood that the powerful classes’ speculation in real estate was taking its toll, with agriculture suffering as a consequence. He saw himself as the 55  Wakīʿ 93, 7; see also p. 535 below. 56   T B X 309, 8ff. 57  Cf. Ṭabarī, Index s. n. Muḥammad b. Sulaymān al-Nawfalī. Accounts cover the time of alManṣūr and al-Mahdī (II 534, 1ff. reports a maẓālim judgment of al-Mahdī’s at which he was present). They were collected by his abovementioned son ʿAlī, who was well-known as a historian (cf. GAS 1/312). 58   Bukhalāʾ 87, 13f./transl. Pellat 124; copied by Ibn Qutayba, ʿUyūn I 252, 14f.; Ibn ʿAbdrabbih, ʿIqd III 32, 10f. Also translated by Gabrieli in: Rendiconti Lincei, ser. 8, VI 203ff.; cf. Brunschvig in: SI 52/1980/5f.

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advocate of the population; he had been governor for a reason. But his person in particular illustrates the change. As the qāḍī was appointed and paid directly by the caliph, he was dependent on Baghdad; if he wished to pursue his own policies, he would be removed from office. Later generations would remember ʿAnbarī for trying to maintain the independence of his office: when he had to judge in a case involving the caliph, he was said to have remained seated when the caliph entered the room, and merely lowered his gaze. Only once the case had been heard did he pay his respects.59 Further biographical notes, which do not add anything to the above: Shīrāzī, Ṭab. 91, 4f.; Samʿānī, Ansāb IX 383, 6f., and 384, 10ff.; Ibn Kathīr, Bidāya X 151, 5ff.; TT VII 7f. no. 12; Marṣafī, Raghbat al-āmil min K. alkāmil IV 165. Praise of beautiful handwriting is found in Tawḥīdī, Fī ʿilm al-kitāba in: Ars Islamica 13–14/1948/19 and 27, no. 93. – A son named Aḥmad is noted in Wakīʿ II 97, 4f.; a nephew named al-Ḥasan b. ʿAbdallāh b. al-Ḥasan al-ʿAnbarī was qāḍī in Basra during Muʿtaṣim’s time between 221/835 and 223/838 (Wakīʿ II 172ff.). An uncle who bore the same kunya as the ancestor Abū l-Ḥurr was an Ibāḍite (see p. 736f. below). We might expect such a man to be mainly practically oriented. And indeed, concerning furūʿ we are told above all how he decided in individual cases. He did not, for instance, punish the consumption of nabīdh.60 He only accepted Bakr b. Bakkār (d. 206/821), a traditionist who transmitted Mujāhid’s Tafsīr among other works,61 as a witness once he had assured him, that the public accusation of homosexuality against him was untrue.62 He did not admit the philologist Abū ʿUbayda, apparently because of the same suspicion.63 He did not accept ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAwn because he had scolded his nephew using a phrase that was obviously considered blasphemous.64 It seems that his value judgments had a moral rather than a social basis. He did not accept the testimony 59  Māwardī, Adab al-qāḍī I 248, 5ff.; Ibn Abī l-Dam, Adab al-qāḍī 85, 9ff. – Regarding his relationship with al-Mahdī cf. also Wakīʿ II 117, 3ff., and 96, apu. ff. In the anecdote Agh. XVIII 199, 1ff. his removal from office is dated to early; cf. Wakīʿ II 126, 11ff. 60  Wakīʿ II 116, 3f. 61   Agh. XVIII 187, 1f.; regarding him GAS 1/98. 62  Ibid. 185, 5ff. (where al-ʿAnbarī is the correct reading, rather than al-ʿAnazī) and Wakīʿ II 114, –4ff. 63  Qifṭī, Inbāh III 282, 11f. and 1. 64  Ibn Qutayba, ʿUyūn II 200, 11ff. Elsewhere, however, we find that he esteemed him greatly and set only the fighters of the battle of Badr above him (Wakīʿ II 118, –4f.).

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of a stupid man, even though he was quite devout.65 As opposed to later custom he still attached some importance to written information; he judged on the basis of a letter sent to him by the judge of Ubulla and Ahwāz, without demanding an additional oral testimony,66 although he did consider it necessary that he should recognise the author’s handwriting and that the letter had to be sealed. His reasoning was that the prophet, too, had proceeded in the same way, and that in similar cases witnesses were difficult to come by.67 This was Basran tradition to a degree; Ḥasan al-Baṣrī was said to have taken the same decision,68 also Sawwār b. ʿAbdallāh and, later, Abū Yūsuf and others; Abū Ḥanīfa and Shāfiʿī, on the other hand, considered two witnesses necessary.69 In the later tradition, however, all this would be overshadowed by a maxim that leads us entirely into the realm of legal theory: kullu mujtahid muṣīb, “he who administers the law is right”. It goes far beyond this area, in fact, for ʿAnbarī was not thinking of judgments only but of rational decisions of all kinds, even if they related to matters of faith. Consequently a more exact translation would be “wherever someone makes an independent judgment, he will hit on something that is right”. This is clear in the account by Ibn Qutayba, which puts theological examples first.70 For instance, the Quran does not say clearly whether humans determine their own actions, or whether they are determined by God. There is documentary evidence for both positions; consequently the determinists and the Qadarites are both right. It only depends on the perspective: “The ones emphasise God’s sublime nature, the others wish to keep God untouched (by any responsibility for evil)”. How to classify a hardened sinner is also a “private matter”; scripture has a basis for Muʿtazilites as well as Murjiʾites and all others. This does not mean that scripture contradicts itself; the problem, in fact, lies with the exegesis, as one and the same verse may sometimes be interpreted differently.71 There is no method of reaching a clear conclusion based on a given text every time. ʿAnbarī also applied the maxim to legal usage (sunan). It is the exegesis that is controversial, with the result that it is not always possible to reach a 65  Ibn Qutayba, ʿUyūn I 71, 4ff. 66  Wakīʿ II 119, 13f. 67  Was he thinking of material witnesses? Presumably not; he probably only meant that nobody could be found who could testify to the authorship and authenticity of the letter, i.e. a professional witness. 68  Wakīʿ II 11, –7ff., where Ḥasan did not even ask for proof of authenticity. 69  Regarding the entire subject cf. Māwardī, Adab al-qāḍī II 96, 3ff.; in general also Sarakhsī, Mabsūṭ XVI 95ff. Other material in Māwardī, ibid., n. 2. Cf. also Dannhauer, Qāḍī-Amt 57ff. 70  Text VII 1. Regarding the classification cf. Schacht in EI2 IV 1101 s. v. K̲ h̲aṭa‌ʾ. 71  Text VII 1, b.

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unanimous decision. The jurist has to depend on himself, and there will be something to be said for each alternative he might choose.72 ʿAnbarī was probably not – or not exclusively – thinking of unclear or contradictory hadiths, but of cases in which customary law had not resulted in a uniform course of action.73 What is essential is that he was not aware of the concept of leading decisions, and neither does ijmāʿ seem to have played a part in his decisions. Interestingly he left it to the individual whether to perform ritual cleansing of the feet or whether to perform an alternative rub-down (masḥ ʿalā l-khuffayn). This was a legal controversy that also divided the denominations; he did not want it to become a shibboleth.74 After all, the same principle must apply in cases decided not on the basis of exegesis but purely speculatively. We cannot know whether a murderer is condemned to hell, for we do not know the future. Consequently it makes no difference whether we say he is in hell or in paradise or whether, like the Murjiʾites, we reserve judgment until the Day of Judgment, for in any case we are expressing that it is God who will dispose. We must allow that the past is similar: we lack the criteria necessary for us to take the side of ʿAlī, or Ṭalḥa and Zubayr in the battle of the camel. Both sides were right; consequently what they did, was correct (“work of obedience”) and by no means a sin.75 Consequently one cannot impose on anyone to side with either; it seems logical that the view that even in matters of dogma unreflected adoption of a given doctrine – in fact, all doctrines as long as they have a basis in the Quran – was permitted, should have been attributed to ʿAnbarī.76 It is due to these examples that ʿAnbarī, however much he may have been a jurist, deserves a place in this history of theology as well. We might have presumed that a maxim like “he who administers the law is right” supported the qāḍī’s authority, rejecting attempts at introducing unified legislation. There cannot be much doubt that the dictum was conceived out of ancient legal tradition. The “Iraqis” did not consider a verdict invalid even if it was regarded 72  Ibid., k–n. 73  While Lecomte referred to the relevant hadiths in the context of the examples mentioned (Ta‌ʾwīl 51, n. 3–5), the text does not name these explicitly – contrary to the impression given by the translation. They reflect the problem, but there is no reason to assume that ʿAnbarī based his decisions on them. 74  Abū l-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī, Muʿtamad 856, 2f., where this is traced back to Ḥasan al-Baṣrī. 75  Text VII 1, o–s. We do not know whether the text is deliberately limited to this case, and whether ʿAnbarī would have assessed the situation differently in the case of Ṣiffīn, but it does not really seem probable. 76  Text VII 2.

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to be unjust.77 This is reflected in hadith in the debate on whether a judge who makes a wrong ruling will be called to account for it in the afterlife at least; the majority rejected this, confirming that he would merely receive a lesser reward.78 ʿAnbarī had studied under Iyās b. Muʿāwiya;79 he appears to have practised a rather cavalier approach to the conclusion by analogy.80 But his objective went beyond this juristic approach. It was irenic, and at the same time slightly sceptical; he saw how adherents of different dogmas fought one another using Quranic arguments, and had to realise that neither exegesis nor tradition allowed of a decision in favour of one of the two. Basically, his categories were his attempt at a compromise, like the Murjiʾa and the Muʿtazila before him, even though he was an adherent of neither of these. If he had been a Muʿtazilite, he would have expressed different views on the battle of the camel or on the manzila bayna l-manzilatayn.81 He did not want to practise ἐποχή like the Murjiʾites; not because he thought it was impossible to reach a verdict, but because it was impossible to reach one verdict, and because consequently everyone was right and it was possible to follow everybody’s opinions. The Murjiʾite solution, too, was only one among many in his view.82 He was probably simply a free spirit and did not want to constrain anyone to follow a particular opinion. Ibn Qutayba’s counting him among the ahl al-kalām is fundamentally correct,83 but we have no evidence of him ever engaging in dialectical discussions or having close contact with theologians. A delightful exchange between him and Khalīl b. Aḥmad, who was around the same age, was recorded, on whether human speech was created or uncreated (Wakīʿ II 111, 11ff.). Here, however, it was Khalīl who applied theological thought (regarding the issue see also Jāḥiẓ, Burṣān 198, 12f.; regarding Khalīl see p. 253ff. below). – His relationship with the ahl al-ḥadīth also remains indistinct. It was known that he had transmitted hadith, and he was even considered reliable (TB X 306, 18ff.; Mīzān 77  Shāfiʿī, Ikhtilāf al-ḥadīth, in the margin of K. al-umm VII 54, 12ff.; quoted by Schacht, Origins 103. 78  For general information see my essay in: La notion de liberté au Moyen Age 25ff. (Arabic version in: Dirāsāt islāmiyya, ed. F. Jadʿān 123ff). 79  Wakīʿ I 350, 12. 80  Jāḥiẓ, Ḥayawān I 345, apu. ff. Like Iyās he was considered to be very intelligent (Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 275, 10f.). 81  Text VII 1, s and e. 82  Ibid., d and q. 83   Ta’wīl mukhtalif al-ḥadīth 57, 5f. = 46, 7f./transl. Lecomte 50.

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no. 5353). But Wakīʿ found that these were only very few traditions (II 88, 13ff.; with examples). Ibn Saʿd noted that he was an expert on the rijāl (VII2 42, 1ff.). – He probably did not have any contact with ascetics, although one of his female slaves, whom he freed because of her piety, was listed among the unknown ʿābidāt of Basra by Ibn al-Jawzī (Ṣifat al-ṣafwa IV 31, 5ff.). Later, when there was greater understanding of logic and of epistemology, it was barely possible to imagine such a viewpoint. Not that it was rejected outright – after all, in individual problems of Islamic law, competing schools of thought remained permitted, and the Shīʿa in particular never put a stop to the mujtahidūn’s independence. Where there were “eternal truths” at stake, however, namely in theology, ʿAnbarī’s maxim was seen as too subjectivist. Consequently the systematists attempted to reinterpret it,84 and Ibn Ḥajar expressed his astonishment at Ibn Qutayba’s account quite freely.85 These very corrections, however, confirmed the fundamental correctness of Ibn Qutayba’s account: something had to be removed, and by distinguishing between uṣūl and furūʿ, one could clearly state what that was.86 At the beginning, the development was moving in the opposite direction – more evidence that Ibn Qutayba was right. ʿAnbarī’s maxim appealed especially to those outside jurisprudence, in political theory and wherever people hoped to arbitrate between opposing factions,87 or to offer an option to more than one competitor.88 Fiqh experts rejected them to begin with, first Aṣamm, then Ibn ʿUlayya.89 The discussion of the Basran law school ought to continue with Aṣamm; however, being a Muʿtazilite he will be presented elsewhere.90 Following the same local tradition, Jāḥiẓ would later modify ʿAnbarī’s principle.91

84  Cf. the commentary on Text VII 1. 85   T T VII 7, 8f. In his Taqrīb he mentions explicitly takāfuʾ al-adilla (I 531 no. 1434). 86  Cf. also Turki, Polémiques 184f. 87  Thus e.g. Walīd al-Karābīsī (see p. 497 below); maybe also Shīrāzī, Ishāra ilā madhhab ahl al-ḥaqq 42, –4f., where the maxim even appears as a hadith. 88  Thus e.g. in Zaydite imamate doctrine, e.g. in Sulaymān b. Jarīr (see p. 540 below). 89  See p. 470 below. Also Bernand in: Arabica 37/1990/158f. 90  See p. 450 below. 91  Ghazzālī, Mustaṣfā II 106, 18f.; Rāzī, Maḥṣūl II3 41, 5f.

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The first to accept the principle were not Basrans, but rather the Ḥanafites92 and Shāfiʿī;93 probably in effect implementing ancient Iraqi tradition.94 The Ḥanafites would soon attribute the maxim to Abū Ḥanīfa himself. Maybe it also shows that outside Basra people had less faith in the power of human intelligence. Dāwūd al-Iṣfahānī would later be said to have applied the principle to theological issues. Bāqillānī, a jurist, who said this of him (in Ibn al-Ahdhal, Kashf al-ghiṭāʾ 243, 3ff.), adhered to it as well (Gimaret, Livre des Religions 578, n. 76). Māturīdī debated the subject with ʿAlī b. Saʿīd al-Rustughfanī from Samarqand (IAW I 362, pu. ff. = II 310, 12f.). Regarding the individual positions in this argument cf. Shahrastānī 155, –4ff./455, 1ff.; Bājī, Iḥkām al-fuṣūl 707ff.; Shīrāzī, Sharḥ al-Lumaʿ 1043ff. etc.; also Gimaret, Ashʿarī 545f. 2.2.4 Murjiʾites in Basra. The “Ghaylāniyya” Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq was reported to have cast aspersions on the Basrans: they were all unbelievers, to wit, Murjiʾites, Qadarites and Khārijites.1 Of course, this was the Kufan view of things: the Shīʿites there regarded the Murjiʾa as the arch­ enemy, which is why they named it first. If we look at the jarḥ wal-taʿdīl works, on the other hand, the impression we get is that in fact there were barely any Murjiʾites in the city. Basrans who moved to Kufa would of course adapt, e.g. Ṭalq b. Ḥabīb2 or Bashīr b. al-Muhājir al-Ghanawī, a mawlā who had probably studied under Ḥasan al-Baṣrī and later lived in Kufa among the Banū Ghanī.3 In Basra itself, the names of only three Azdites have been transmitted, who appear to have been tolerated by their fellow tribesmen the majority of

92  Khaṣṣāf, Adab al-qāḍī 35, 7f.; IAW I 363, 1f.; cf. Bernand in: JAOS 105/1985/627. 93  Cf. the translation of the relevant passage from Shāfiʿī’s Risāla in Calder in: SI 58/1983/64ff. Calder, in his habitual scepticism, dates the origin of the maxim far too late (p. 67). Later people were less like to attribute it to Shāfiʿī (cf. Bernand in: Arabica 37/1990/153f.). 94  See p. 186 above. 1  Kulīnī, Kāfī II 387, 11f. 2  Regarding him see vol. I 181f. above. 3  Murjiʾite according to ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ I 144, 1 > TT I 486f. no. 867. Regarding him also IS VI 251, 4f.; Bukhārī I2 101f. no. 1839; IAH I1 378 no. 1472; Mīzān no. 1243. Regarding a pupil of Ḥasan’s who remained a Qadarite even in Kufa see vol. I 264f. above.

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whom were Ibāḍites, Ibāḍites and Murjiʾites having cooperated during Yazīd b. al-Muhallab’s uprising.4 The first one among them, Abū Shuʿayb Ṣalt b. Dīnār al-Hunāʾī al-Azdī al-Majnūn, had even attended Iyās b. Muʿāwiya’s5 lectures, but had been conspicuous mainly because he was continually speaking out of turn.6 He later studied under Ḥammād b. Abī Sulaymān, probably at a time when he had come from Kufa to give a guest lecture.7 He railed so much against ʿAlī and the ahl al-bayt that even the Basrans who, after all, were mostly of an ʿUthmānite inclination, found it excessive.8 – The second one, Abū l-Mughīra al-Qāsim b. al-Faḍl b. Maʿdān al-Ḥuddānī, d. 167/784, had become known mainly by transmitting a controversial prophetic miracle.9 He had settled with the Ḥuddān in Basra, although he actually belonged to a different branch of the Azd.10 The third one, ʿUthmān b. Ghiyāth al-Rāsibī al-Zahrānī, transmitted that the angels on both sides of the bridge of hell would intercede on behalf of the faithful.11 Like Ḥuddān, the Zahrān were part of the Azd.12 His Khārijite connections may explain why he had got his hands on a “book” by ʿIkrima who had not authorised it for Basran listeners.13 They all lived during 4  See vol. I 188f. above. 5  Regarding him see p. 143ff. above. 6  Fasawī II 94, –7ff. 7  See vol. I 211 above. 8  ʿUqaylī II 209, 11ff.; Ibn Ḥibbān, Majrūḥīn I 375, –5ff. > Samʿānī, Ansāb XIII 430, ult. ff. Fasawī III 63, ult., and TT IV 434f. no. 752 mention him as a Murjiʾite. Cf. also IS VII2 37, 12f.; Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 348 no. 2291; Bukhārī II2 304 no. 2917; IAH II1 437f. no. 1919; Mīzān no. 3906. 9  ʿUqaylī III 477f. no. 1535. Murjiʾite according to Mīzān no. 6931 and TT VIII 329f. no. 594. Nothing in IS VII2 40, 4ff.; Bukhārī IV1 169 no. 760 and IAH III2 116f. no. 668. 10  Samʿānī, Ansāb IV 84, 4ff. 11  ʿUqaylī III 214, 1ff. 12  Ṣāliḥ al-ʿAlī, Khiṭaṭ al-Baṣra 98. 13  ʿUqaylī 213, pu. f.; Azmi, Studies 66. He was a Murjiʾite according to a verdict by Ibn Ḥanbal (ʿIlal 288 no. 1863 > IAH III1 164 no. 898; Kaʿbī, Qabūl 216, 12f.; Mīzān no. 5561; TT VII 146f. no. 293).

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the first half of the second century; afterwards the information from this group of sources dried up. Still, we do know that Abū Ḥanīfa’s doctrine was able to gain a foothold in Basra through Zufar b. al-Hudhayl. The influence of Kufan jurisprudence was, in fact, of a rather older date. While Ḥajjāj b Arṭāt, whom the Abbasids appointed as the first qāḍī, was unlikely to have received much of a welcome,14 one of his early successors in office, Abū Ḥafṣ ʿUmar b. ʿĀmir al-Sulamī, who shared the office with Sawwār15 and was a member of a respected Basran tribe,16 was considered to be not only a Qadarite17 but also a Murjiʾite.18 This combination was found in Basra as well as in Kufa,19 and at the time it was already characteristic of a theological school of thought which adopted Ḥasan al-Baṣrī’s legacy independently, to stand beside the Muʿtazila and the Bakriyya, which survived until at least the end of the second century. It seems that the members of this school referred to Ghaylān al-Dimashqī for their innovations, especially the Murjiʾite element in their doctrine. Heresiographers frequently name them in the same breath as Ghaylān;20 however, this seems to have been mainly projection. Ghaylān’s followers who had escaped to Basra21 spread an idealised image of their master there, which was a very suitable vehicle for new ideas.22 Being a Qadarite Ghaylān enjoyed respect in Basra; ideas that would never have been accepted if they had been introduced as Kufan appeared in a much more favourable light. After all, nothing precise was known about him, unlike Maʿbad al-Juhanī, which probably explains why no positive Maʿbad legend ever became established. Those who idealised Maʿbad criticised Ḥasan 14  See p. 176f. above. 15  See p. 178 above. 16  The Sulaym were part of the ahl al-ʿĀliya (Ṣāliḥ al-ʿAlī, Khiṭaṭ al-Baṣra 82; also Index s. n.). Ṭabarī lists him as qāḍī in the year 137/754–55 (III 121, 9); Sulaymān b. ʿAlī was said to have appointed him at the time (Wakīʿ II 55, 3f.). On the other hand there is information that he died as early as 136, during Saffāḥ’s caliphate (Khalīfa, Ṭab. 526 bi, 1830; Ta‌ʾrīkh 628, 12f.). In any case he did not practise for long. 17  Thus according to Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Shāfiʿī (Kaʿbī 99, 10ff. > Faḍl 343, 9 > IM 138, 15). 18  Thus according to Ibn Ḥanbal’s verdict (ʿUqaylī III 183, ult., and TT VII 467, –5f.). Nothing in IS VII2 32, 15; Bukhārī III2 181 no. 2104; IAH III1 126f. no. 689; Mīzān no. 6152. 19  Regarding Kufa see vol. I 184f. above. 20  Cf. Text II 12, g; II 14 with commentary; II 15, d. 21  Regarding them vol. I 122f. and 119f. 22  Regarding the Iraqi Ghaylān legend see vol. I 153f. above.

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al-Baṣrī at the same time, because he did not join in Ibn al-Ashʿath’s uprising. Maʿbad was discovered later by anti-Qadarite circles who intended to enlist Ḥasan al-Baṣrī for their own objectives.23 2.2.4.1 Faḍl al-Raqāshī The heresiographers did not see through the projection; consequently we find ourselves in the realm of hypothesis when it comes to the actual origins of the neo-Ghaylāniyya. It had been possible to prove quite early on1 in the context of political theory that those theologians went beyond Ghaylān in typically Iraqi fashion. They appear to have been the first to have refined his theory to the effect that the caliph might also be from a non-Arab, i.e. presumably: Persian, dynasty. While this idea had originally been Syrian, it was now meant to contradict Kufan ideas; Abū Ḥanīfa’s school presumed that only the Quraysh could govern.2 In Kufa this was based on the well-known hadiths which later acquired canonical validity; these very hadiths were reinterpreted by the Ghaylāniyya in Basra, or contrasted with others which justified a rebellion against the Quraysh, at least if the latter were to abuse their power. This issue demonstrates Basran self-assurance referring to Syrian tradition in a debate with Kufa. Circumstances are less clear in other parts of the system. For the time being we can only state that we are looking at an Iraqi phenomenon; otherwise Abū l-Hudhayl would hardly have made the effort of refuting the Ghaylāniyya.3 We will have to look at each theologoumenon separately; however, the best place to start is the person who was the first head of the school, Abū ʿĪsā al-Faḍl ʿĪsā b. Abān al-Raqāshī. He was a nephew of Yazīd b. Abān al-Raqāshī, who is assumed to have died between 110/729 and 120/738.4 He himself was probably of the same generation 23  See vol. I 83. Cf., however, Faḍl 334, 12ff. 1  Vol. I 149ff. 2  See vol. I 242 above. 3  Cf. Catalogue of works XXI, no. 28. In Mafātīḥ 20, pu. f. Khwārizmī traces the Murjiʾite Ghaylāniyya back to a certain Ghaylān b. Kharasha al-Ḍabbī. He probably perceived the difficulty arising in the case of Ghaylān al-Dimashqī. However, his suggestion is not a solution, Ghaylān b. Kharasha was active during the first half of the first century and is consequently far too early (cf. Anfänge 245). 4  More precisely: the son of one of his sisters (Ibn Ḥibbān, Majrūḥīn II 210, ult.). Regarding the date see p. 103 above.

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as Wāṣil and ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd. He was with Wāṣil when the latter made his appearance before ʿAbdallāh b. ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz;5 Wāṣil’s pupil ʿĪsā b. Ḥāḍir appears to have been more closely acquainted with him.6 ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd as well as two other ascetic pupils of Ḥasan al-Baṣrī’s attended his lectures;7 all these may have been slightly younger than he. One of them, Hishām b. Ḥassān al-Qardūsī, died at the beginning of Ṣafar 148/April 765,8 ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd died 144/761; consequently it seems reasonable to assume that Faḍl died before 140/757. His daughter Sawāda was married to Sulaymān b. Ṭarkhān al-Taymī (d. 143/760); Faḍl as well as his son-in-law were still living at the time of her death.9 He had no high opinion of Salm, Qutayba b. Muslim’s son, who was briefly governor of Basra twice, once in 132 as deputy of ʿUmar b. Hubayra,10 and for two months in 140 under Manṣūr.11 The derogatory remark he made about him12 was probably uttered during the first term of government and may have been recalled during the second one when he himself was already dead. He had two well-known grandchildren: by his daughter, the traditionist Muʿtamir b. Sulaymān (d. 187/833),13 and by his son ʿAbd al-Ṣamad the poet Faḍl b. ʿAbd al-Ṣamad al-Raqāshī who wrote poems in praise of Hārūn al-Rashīd14 and is easily confused with his grandfather. When some verses of Kisāʾī’s (c. 119/737–189/805) console a certain Raqāshī because his followers were just as mad and muddy as Kisāʾī’s own, this may refer to the grandson, but certainly not to Faḍl b. ʿĪsā. Ibn ʿAbdrabbih, ʿIqd II 299, 14ff. Previously, he quotes the two verses which, as we have seen on p. 105 above, also attack Faḍl b. ʿAbd al-Ṣamad, and according to which he had a majlis, presumably a circle of pupils, as well. Abū Nuwās, who seems to have been their author, ridiculed him more generally elsewhere (cf. the Dīwān in Ṣūlī’s riwāya 680, 4ff.). – Some confusion also found its way into the biographical note in Ritter, Geheimnisse 19, n. 1: the passage in Marzubānī’s Muwashshaḥ 456f. refers 5  See p. 278 below. 6  Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 307, 3 and 11. Regarding ʿĪsā b. Ḥāḍir see p. 361 below. 7  Ibid. I 290, ult. f. = 306, 10f. 8  Mīzān no. 9220; regarding him see p. 110 above. 9  Bayān I 306, ult. f.; Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif 476, 1f. Cf. also p. 418 below. 10  Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 610, 11, and 615, 9f. 11  Ibid. 652, 15, and 175, 2. Sulaymān b. ʿAlī (d. 142/759), on the other hand, attended his lectures (Balādhurī, Ansāb III 111, 8). 12  Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 307, 9f. = Ḥayawān VII 204, 10f. 13  Cf. also IAH III2 64 no. 367. 14  Regarding him GAS 2/516.

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to the grandson (although it might be that the first anecdote listed there was attributed wrongly, in which case it could indeed refer to the grandfather). The kinship ties are muddled slightly differently in Goldziher, Muh. Stud. I 198. All of Faḍl’s brothers were poets as well (Ibn al-Nadīm, Fihrist 186b, –7ff.; Ṣafadī, Wāfī VII 66 no. 3002). He was a qāṣṣ. Like his son ʿAbd al-Ṣamad after him he was most accomplished in handling the form of rhyming prose; posterity would remember a teleological proof of God’s existence which he wove into his qiṣaṣ in this form.15 The Fihrist lists him among the bulaghāʾ, the language virtuosos, as distinct from the khuṭabāʾ, the preachers.16 There is no firm evidence, however, as to whether he, like his uncle Yazīd b. Abān, was an ascetic. While it was noted that he rode only on donkeys, the fact that he rode at all shows that he did not necessarily embrace poverty, and his reason for it was entirely worldly, too.17 Of course he was compared to Jesus, Balaam and ʿUzayr, and he himself saw it as a sign of ta‌ʾalluh, moving closer to God.18 Still, it is impossible to determine whether Abū Nuʿaym was right to include him in the Ḥilya even with reference to the material he himself adduced.19 He may have had links to Kufan Murjiʾites; there is an anecdote that connects him with ʿUmar b. Dharr, but this time in Mecca.20 He had studied under Ḥasan al-Baṣrī. Consequently he was usually counted among the Qadarites;21 15   Bayān I 308, 4f. = Ḥayawān I 35, 1f. = Jurjānī, Asrār al-balāgha 12, 6ff. (transl. Ritter, Geheimnisse 19). Regarding his use of sajʿ cf. also Bayān I 290, ult.; also the letter in Ḥilya VI 206, 16ff. 16  139, 17, where al-Raqāshī probably refers to him. 17   Bayān I 307, 3ff. 18  Ibid. 307, pu. ff. The strange term ta‌ʾalluh, which was later generally avoided, deserves more in-depth examination. Is it related to ὁμοίωσις θεῳ̃ as mentioned by Plato (Theaetet 176 B) and later adopted by the Church Fathers (cf. H. Merki, Ὁμοίωσις θεῳ̃. Von der platonischen Angleichung an Gott zur Gottesähnlichkeit bei Gregor von Nyssa)? Or to θέωσις, man becoming God, in a process which, according to Clement of Alexandria, is a consequence of the knowledge of salvation (Pelikan, Christian Tradition I 155; cf. also ibid. II 10 concerning the concept of deificatio according to Maximus Confessor)? 19   Ḥilya VI 206ff.; this consists nearly exclusively of hadiths transmitted from him by Abū ʿĀṣim al-ʿAbbādānī (see p. 123f. above). 20   Ḥilya 113, 7ff. He is listed among the Murjiʾites by Nawbakhtī, Firaq al-Shīʿa 9, 14f.; Maqdisī, Badʾ V 144, 8, and Shahrastānī 106, 1/267, 3 (cf. also ibid. 103, 7/253, ult., and also Gimaret, Livre des Religions 416, n. 17). 21  Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif 625, 8f.; Bukhārī IV1 118 no. 528; IAH III2 64 no. 367; Ibn Ḥibbān, Majrūḥīn II 211, 2; ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ III 442f. no. 1490 > Mīzān no. 6740; Kaʿbī 96, 8ff. > ? > IM 128, 4f., and 138, 6.

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some sources even regarded him as a Muʿtazilite.22 In actual fact he went his own way. He was a mutakallim23 and had followers who were usually called Faḍliyya24 or, in one instance, Raqāshiyya.25 He adopted Ḥasan’s belief that humans have the freedom of doing evil, and he was the first to attempt to frame the consequences for divine will in the form of a theory. Only a single heresiographical account survives, and it is anything but clear.26 We are most likely to understand it if we presume that, like the Kufan Shīʿites, Faḍl – or rather, his school – understood the act of divine volition as being contemporaneous with the event, with the consequence that God does not will anything in advance, not even that which is good (d). In the actual moment when things happen circumstances are, however, different: if a human does good, it will be said that God willed it; but if he does evil, it will be said that God did not will it (b). This is probably just sanctioning language usage common among the Qadarites: one must not ascribe anything evil to God, although after the event it is permitted to say that God willed the actions of humans in general (a); after all, he is the master of all things. He is indeed, but under a different aspect. If his works are the focus, it is clear that what he does not will, cannot happen (e); but if the focus is on the freedom of human actions, it is perfectly possible to say that things happen which he did not will (c).27 Still, they do happen as a result of his works; consequently it is possible to say that he effects thing that he did not will (f).28 If this is a correct reconstruction of Faḍl’s theory, it was paving the way for synergism as proposed by Ḍirār b. ʿAmr – he, too, a theologian on the border between Basra and Kufa – and later adopted by Najjār, a Basran Murjiʾite like Faḍl.29 There was not, at that time, a doctrine of attributes in the background; this theory was not related to the Muʿtazilite belief that divine volition was an attribute of act evolved in time, despite partial factual agreement. Even when Ashʿarī said in conclusion that “there were similar reports about Ghaylān”, he was probably only creating a phantom. At best, Ghaylān provided some starting 22  Fasawī III 139, 4f. > TT VIII 284, 6; Ashʿarī, Maq. 514, 8; also Ibn Ḥazm, Naqṭ al-ʿarūs 246, 22. 23  Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 307, 9. 24  Ibid. I 307, 11, and Khalq al-Qurʾān in: Rasāʾil III 300, 2; also Ashʿarī, Maq. 513, 5, and 514, 8. 25  Maqdisī, Badʾ V145, 2. 26  Text II 12 with commentary. 27  If this sentence was transmitted correctly; cf. the commentary. 28  In an earlier interpretation of this passage (Anfänge 242ff.) I assumed that it referred to effects outside human actions, afflictions such as illness etc. However, this is not explicit in the text, and it is possible to work without this hypothesis. Cf. also the cautious hint by Watt, Free Will 41f. 29  See ch. C 1.3.1.3 and 5.2.1 below.

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points for Faḍl. He was probably emphasising the part played by reason, on which the human faculty of decision is based.30 Interestingly Faḍl passed on the well-known hadith according to which God named ʿaql as his best-loved creation, regarding it with pleasure from the front and the back.31 We come up against the issue of divine will in the case where a “follower of Ghaylān’s” raised the question of how God could will unbelief, as that would fulfil the will of Satan rather than that of the prophet.32 However, he was said to have pressed Abū Ḥanīfa hard with this question; which means that the tradition originated in Iraq. It was probably a recent development that Faḍl al-Raqāshī was able to trace the ʿaql hadith via the Basran Abū ʿUthmān al-Nahdī (d. c. 100/720; cf. TH 65f. no. 56) to Abū Hurayra; in another place it is referred to (probably more realistically) as a saying by Kurayb (d. 98/716–7), a mawlā of Ibn ʿAbbās (Ibn Abī Dunyā, Al-ʿaql wa-faḍluh 12, –4ff.; regarding Kurayb cf. TT VIII 433 no. 793). The Shīʿites traced it back to Muḥammad al-Bāqir or Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq (Kulīnī, Kāfī I 10, 2ff., and 20, ult. ff.). – In one instance (Text XVII 47) Ashʿarī attributed the doctrine that the faculty of action consisted in physical capability (and was thus permanent) to Ghaylān as well as Thumāma and Bishr b. al-Muʿtamir; in the case of Ghaylān, this was probably projection. It was not even said of Faḍl. In Faḍl’s view the human faculty of decision implied that believers and unbelievers had nothing in common. Faith was indivisible; no heathen, however much he recognised God as ḥanīf, could be called a believer.33 This had two consequences. The first one, once again Kufan and Murjiʾite, was that every Muslim will go to paradise. We do not know precisely how Faḍl imagined this in detail. Maqdisī presented it as if a Muslim would not be punished by God at all.34 This would be the position allegedly maintained by ʿUbayd al-Muktib in Kufa around this time,35 but presumably Maqdisī merely gave in to his 30   T H 147, 3f.; generally Anfänge 56ff. 31  Suyūṭī, La‌ʾālī I 129, 1ff.; abridged also Mīzān no. 6740. Cf. vol. I 416 and p. 139 above. There is no indication that he understood ʿaql to mean λόγος here (cf. Goldziher in: ZA 22/1907/318f. = Ges. Schr. V 108f.); we would not find neo-Platonic implications until at least a century later, in Text XXIII27, h (cf. ch. C 3.2.2.2.7.3). 32  Pazdawī, Uṣūl al-dīn 48, 6ff. 33  Thus said of the “Ghaylāniyya” and its Basran successors in text II 15, i–k. 34  Text II 13. 35  See vol. I 243 above.

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Muʿtazilite outrage in this case. It would have been difficult for this kind of doctrine to gain a foothold in Basra, where people believed they were continuing Ghaylān al-Dimashqī’s tradition. He, too, was thought not to have come to a conclusion regarding how God would deal with a hardened sinner: he might punish him, or he might pardon him, he only had to be consistent.36 Here, the idea of divine justice was added to the debate, entirely in the Basran sense. It did not contradict the doctrine of divine volition.37 The second consequence is quite idiosyncratic. As there were undeniably heathens who recognised God, it was necessary to separate knowledge of God from faith. While of course there is no faith without knowledge of God, knowledge of God may exist even if it is not based on the revelation. The one is a priori, the other, however, is “acquired”.38 One of the doxographers, himself a Basran “Murjiʾite”,39 explained the essence of a priori knowledge of God: understanding that things develop within time and that they follow a reasonable plan, in other words, experiencing the contingency and the order of the world which lead to the need for a higher being, to create and rule (e).40 This is far too vague to be faith (c and m). Only the prophet, and this apparently refers exclusively to Muḥammad and not also to Moses or Jesus, furnishes scripture containing what must be believed. The only remaining difficulty is its exegesis: of the Quran one must believe that which it states according to the consensus of all Muslims (g). This includes God’s oneness and uniqueness, but also that he must be loved that humility must be shown to him.41 The profession of faith is just as important: the shahāda and other declarations which affirm certain points of faith to be correct (taṣdīq). Simply assuming things to be correct (taṣdīq) in one’s own heart is not enough.42 The doxographer once again sees this as merely the doctrine of the Ghaylāniyya, but another source informs us that Faḍl al-Raqāshī adhered to it as well;43 it is obviously not of Syrian origin. The idea of a natural revelation was hinted at in the second Risāla Abū Ḥanīfa appears to have addressed 36  Text II 14 with commentary. 37  Consequently it seems to me to be unnecessary to postulate two different men named Faḍl al-Raqāshī as F. Meier does (Abū Saʿīd 169). 38  Text II 15. 39  Regarding Muḥammad b. Shabīb in 15, d, see ch. C 5.1.1 below. 40  Baghdādī interpreted this as experiencing creaturehood (Text II 16). 41  Text 15, a, and 16, b. 42  Ibid., l–m with commentary. Cf. Pessagno in JAOS 95/1975/387f., which corrects the mistaken accent suggested by Izutsu, Concept of Belief 107. 43  Abū Yaʿlā, Muʿtamad 30, 2ff. (= Text XXIII 15); slightly different: Ibn al-Murtaḍā, Al-munya wal-amal , MS Berlin 4908, fol. 35b, 10ff.

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to ʿUthmān al-Battī.44 Independently of whether this is genuine, it provides a source locating it in the Murjiʾa’s environment. It was also a consequence of the approach supported by Abū Ḥanīfa,45 but it did not give rise to a discussion within the Kufan Murjiʾa. We do know, on the other hand, that the Basran and the Kufan Ibāḍiyya considered it;46 the fiṭra debate within the Qadariyya also pointed in this direction.47 Ḥammād b. Salama (d. 167/783–4 in Basra) appears to have applied the same distinction in the last-named point; the fiṭra before the revelation was not yet Islam.48 Unlike Abū Ḥanīfa he thus expands the range of the faith; love and humility are added to the knowledge of God. This indicates an ascetic environment; as Madelung has already pointed out49 the word khuḍūʿ used here to denote humility only occurred in the Quran with negative meaning and was reinterpreted by the ascetics. This would fit in with Basra. Still, we are once again unable to prove that Faḍl already used the word khuḍūʿ in this context; after all, the Ghaylāniyya, to whom it is attributed, continued to exist. It is also remarkable that love is emphasised so strongly (cf. Gimaret, Livre des Religions 421, n. 22); this would not have happened later. However, I do not share Madelung’s hypothesis of Christian influence (Qāsim 239); it was advanced based on the assumption that the Ghaylāniyya was located in Syria. M. Seale may be closer to the truth when he regards the doctrine of dual knowledge of God as a reflex of Origenist thought (Muslim Theology 18ff.; cf. also my remarks in: Islam and the Medieval West, ed. Semaan, 66f.). These expansions of the concept of faith were not entirely uncommon at the time, as hadith illustrates. Ḥammād b. Salama transmitted from an authority whose name he did not – maybe did not want to? – give, that faith was only perfect if it comprised five elements: trust in God, entrusting one’s affairs to God, submission to God’s orders, acceptance of God’s resolution, and patience when he visited one suffering an affliction (Suyūṭī, La‌ʾālī I 43, 5ff.). Parallels in Murjiʾite circles can also be found for the subsequent 44  See vol. I 234f. above. 45  See vol. I 224 and 232 above. 46  See vol. I 483f. above and p. 264 below. 47  Cf. HT 101ff. 48  See p. 428f. below. Cf. also the distinction between a first and a second “covenant” (mīthāq) with God that was traced back to Ḍaḥḥāk b. Muzāḥim (HT 113). Cf. also the hadith in Muslim’s Ṣaḥīḥ, Janna 63; also Ibn Qaiyim al-Jawziyya, Aḥkām ahl al-dhimma 536, 4ff. 49   Qāsim 239.

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classification of these elements under love and hate “for God’s sake” (cf. Mīzān no. 1311 concerning the Khorasanian Murjiʾite Bukayr b. Maʿrūf; regarding him see p. 679 below). Faḍl al-Raqāshī’s definition of faith must in any case be distinguished from that of a certain Faḍliyya which regarded faith as the sum of one’s acts of faith (Abū ʿUbayd, Īmān 102, 5ff.). The latter were Khārijite followers of a certain Faḍl b. ʿAbdallāh (Khwārizmī, Mafātīḥ al-ʿulūm 19, 13) who are usually regarded as part of the Ṣufriyya (cf. the reports in Nashwān al-Ḥimyarī, Ḥūr 177, 13ff., probably following Kaʿbī > differently abbreviated in Ashʿarī, Maq. 118, 11ff. [= Ibn Ḥazm, Fiṣal IV 190, apu. ff. = Nashwān 274, pu. ff.] and Malaṭī, Tanbīh 136, 20ff./179, 11ff.; also Nashwān 273, pu. ff.). Ibn Ḥazm, loc. cit., and Nashwān 274, pu., have Fuḍayliyya instead of Faḍliyya; thus also in the title listed in the Catalogue of Works XV, no. 32. Cf. also Madelung in: SI 32/1970/252ff. – I do not know who were the “Sunni” Faḍliyyūn who, according to Muqaddasī’s account, fought with the Shīʿites in Ahwāz. Over time they drifted apart from the Muʿtazila altogether; Jāḥiẓ emphasised that in his circle people looked down on the Faḍliyya with contempt.50 At first, however, resistance had come from another quarter: the predestinarian Ayyūb al-Sakhtiyānī avoided Faḍl because of his Qadarite inclination,51 and his fellow-believer Dāwūd b. Abī Hind52 also took exception to this, accusing Faḍl of interpreting the Quran according to his own ideas.53 Even Faḍl’s son-in-law Sulaymān al-Taymī did not want to walk with him in the funeral cortege for his wife;54 like Ayyūb al-Sakhtiyānī he was an opponent of ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd.55 If Faḍl’s son ʿAbd al-Ṣamad, or even his grandson Faḍl, shared his views – which we 50   Khalq al-Qurʾān in: Rasāʾil III 300, 2f. 51   I AH III2 64, 16f.; regarding him see p. 391ff. below. 52  Regarding him cf. HT 158 and Anfänge 202. 53   Bayān I 291, 1ff.; cf. also Pellat, Milieu 113, where the reference has been interpreted along the same lines. I am not quite sure that Jāḥiẓ, as Pellat suggests, explained Dāwūd b. Abī Hind’s reservation differently, referring to Faḍl’s penchant for eschatological verse, i.e. his qāṣṣ style. Jāḥiẓ only insinuated this; what he actually said was that by emphasising death and judgment Faḍl illuminated the dimension of Quranic commandments and prohibitions. 54   Bayān I 307, 1f. Or does “he let him walk ahead” express the respect he felt for him despite all their disagreements? 55  See p. 389f. below. Cf. also the remark by Sallām b. Abī Muṭīʿ, a pupil of Qatāda’s, quoted by Bukhārī, K. al-Ḍuʿafāʾ al-ṣaghīr 475 no. 296 > Dhahabī, Mīzān III 356, 4f.; Sallām did not have much time for ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd, either (ibid. II 181, 15f.).

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do not know – Kisāʾī’s remark quoted above might refer to one of them in this context. Being a Kufan, and Hārūn al-Rashīd’s tutor, Kisāʾī did not have much time for Qadarite theology, and in his last verse he pointed out that however much they agreed in their contempt of hangers-on, his own point of view was “beyond reproach” whereas al-Raqāshī’s was an “affliction”. All we hear about ʿAbd al-Ṣamad is that he was even more accomplished in the khaṭīb’s art than his father (Bayān I 308, 6); this probably means that his use of sajʿ was even more perfect (ibid. I 287, 5ff.). All jurists of the city were said to have attended his sermons (ibid. I 291, 5f.). His spending three lectures exclusively on the creation of the gnat (ibid. I 308, 7f.) could be an indication that he thought about theodicy and the purpose of “vermin” (see p. 59f. above). – It seems improbable that his son Faḍl, who was regarded to be shāʿir mājin khalīʿ, was greatly interested in theology. However, as we have seen above (p. 193), he apparently gave lectures. 2.2.4.2 Abū Shamir and His School Jāḥiẓ’ derogatory remark proves that the Faḍliyya was still to be found in Basra at his time, i.e. around the turn of the third century. Within the Ghaylāniyya, however, another theologian, who differed from Faḍl al-Raqāshī in many ways, had assumed the leadership: Abū Shamir Sālim b. Shamir al-Ḥanafī. Many sources confirm that he was an adherent of the neo-Ghaylānite tradition,1 occupying the same political position.2 An account from an unnamed source quoted by Ashʿarī,3 which described the definition of faith which he embraced, is similar in points to what he subsequently reported of the Ghaylānites.4 Abū Shamir agreed with them that humility and love were constituent parts of

1  Cf. the commentary on Text II 14. Also Baghdādī, Farq 190, 5f./202, 5, and 193, 7f./205, 9; Pazdawī, Uṣūl 252, 17ff. 2  Nawbakhtī, Firaq 9, 14ff. 3  Text II 17, a–g. 4  Text II 15. He did not – certainly not always – use the same source in the two sections, as 15, d–h was based on Ibn Shabīb, while the latter was deliberately not quoted in 17, a–g (cf. the commentary on the passage).

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faith;5 and he, too, taught that faith was indivisible.6 One always possesses faith in its entirety, and consequently someone who does not believe is wholly an unbeliever; one cannot believe just a little bit.7 Abū Shamir compared this – and this seems to be his one original contribution to the topic – to the markings of a horse: one calls it piebald only if it is white as well as black in places; similarly faith is faith only when all its constituents are realised by a human.8 Abū Shamir expanded the list of these constituents beyond what the Ghaylāniyya had thought essential. He added the profession of God’s oneness in the sense of a rejection of anthropomorphism, and divine justice in the sense of a profession of liberum arbitrium.9 This opened the door to Muʿtazilite axioms; they superseded the emotional component Abū Shamir had inherited from the neo-Ghaylāniyya’s ascetic tradition, ultimately leading to a shift in the existing dichotomy between first and second knowledge of God. The axioms mentioned were rational and, in Abū Shamir’s view, on the same level as the proof of God’s existence; on the other hand they were so specifically Islamic that it would not have been possible to exclude them from the act of faith. Consequently Abū Shamir rejected the doctrine that assumed a knowledge of God that was not yet faith;10 instead, he distinguished between faith before the prophets, and since their time. Everything that could be comprehended rationally did not actually require revelation; the prophet brought only additions, especially the law.11 Once he appeared it was one’s duty to acknowledge him (iqrār) and agree with him (taṣdīq); faith without him would not be possible 5  Cf. 15, a, with 17, a. It is noticeable that the parallel text 17, i, does not use these terms. We have to ask ourselves whether this is a case of contamination; 15, a, and 17, a, could originate in the same source. Text 22 proves that pupils of Yūnus’, mentioned in 17, a, together with Abū Shamir, supported the same definition; thus it may have been characteristic of the former rather than the latter. 6  Cf. 15, d and k with 17, g. 7  Text 15, i, and 17, d and f. 8  Text 17, e. The comparison with a piebald would be used later, in different contexts, by Ḥanafite jurists (cf. e.g. Sarakhsī, Mabsūṭ XXIV 5, 2ff.). 9  Text 17, a and i; cf. Nashwān, Ḥūr 203, ult. Justice being mentioned in i only may be due to the fact that the parallel text a mentions not only Abū Shamir but also Yūnus (b. ʿAwn); the latter, however, was no Qadarite (cf. my commentary on the passage). Abū Shamir was a Qadarite, as explicitly stated in Maq. 477, 9; regarding Yūnus see p. 210f. below. 10  At least the heresiographical accounts do not mention it. It would theoretically be possible that he prefaced it to his two-grade system and that the heresiographers, namely the two accounts quoted by Ashʿarī, presume this. It is not, however, probable. 11  That “which came from God”; cf. commentary on Text 15, a, and 17, c.

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afterwards.12 In both instances the acknowledgment requires a profession of faith; knowledge by itself would not yet be faith.13 Until then the Ghaylāniyya had concluded that only in the “second knowledge of God” would recognition and profession of faith come together to result in faith. Abū Shamir made a different distinction: knowledge of the law, at which one arrives through the prophet, is not part of faith. We are not told why he thought this, but the reason that suggests itself is that law cannot be grasped through reason; one can only profess allegiance.14 Instead of “not yet” he sees “not any more”. Abū Shamir regarded those who doubted tawḥīd and ʿadl as unbelievers; he even condemned those who believed this to be too harsh.15 This shows how close he was to the Muʿtazila; later we hear similar reports of Murdār.16 Kaʿbī thought he diverged from the Muʿtazila only when it came to waʿīd and manzila bayna l-manzilatayn.17 These, in fact, were the two issues which were problematic to a Murjiʾite. Should a Muslim die in the state of mortal sin, it must be left to God to decide how to treat him: he could condemn him for eternity, or punish him for a limited time in purgatory, but he could even pardon him immediately.18 Abū Shamir certainly expected, like the other Ghaylānites, that God would be just and apply the rule, once determined, to everyone.19 Regarding the “intermediate state” he only adopted the term introduced by the Muʿtazilites in this context: he who commits mortal sin is a fāsiq; however, only with regard to the respective case, not his salvational status in general. The “state of faith” is not abolished; mortal sin is merely added to it as an attribute.20 Abū Shamir had grown up with Muʿtazilites. Like Muʿammar and Aṣamm he had been one of the “assistants” of the Basran natural philosopher Abū l-Ashʿath21 and had met the historian Madāʾinī in the same way. From Abū l-Ashʿath he learnt that one must not eat beans, and developed a new reasoning to back up this ancient taboo,22 in accordance with his personal rationalistic approach: one can observe that flies crawl out of beans; as flies are 12  Text 17, a–b. 13  Text 17, m. 14  Text 17, c with commentary. It may be that Shahrastānī 104, 9f./ 260, 6ff., could be interpreted as an explanation of this, albeit with reference to the Yūnusiyya in this context. 15  Text 17, 1. 16  See ch. C 1.4.3.2.1 below, after text XVIII 4, g–h. 17   Maq. 74, apu. f..; cf. also Intiṣār 93, 6f., and Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Faḍl 268, 5. 18  Text 18 (where the third possibility is not named, merely implied). 19  See p. 196f. above. 20  Text 17, h. 21  Regarding him see p. 42f. above. 22  Cf. p. 42f. above.

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disgusting, beans must be disgusting, too. For if one thing generates another, it will be of the same kind. Consequently it is not surprising that beans thicken the blood and cause melancholy (sawdāʾ); they are a harmful substance, rotten and corrupt by nature.23 Characteristically they grow head-down; therefore they harm people’s intelligence – that is, they harm the nerves, and through them the intelligence.24 This had long been confirmed by experience: sesame is not grown together with beans, as the latter are suspected of attacking the nose, the ear canal, and ultimately the brain; someone who spends 40 days in a bean field will contract a chronic disease.25 Some of these ideas also applied to other agricultural crops. Not only beans but also aubergines grow head-down; consequently they are bad for people’s intelligence, as, indeed, are onions. The Malacca bean (balādhur), on the other hand, is good for one’s nerves and thus strengthens the memory.26 Abū Shamir was thus not only a theologian, he was also a man with some practical sense, albeit maybe a little eccentric. He may have had some knowledge of pharmacology, which would not have been unusual in the circles in which he moved. He certainly captured the interest of high society. It was said that he had been Ayyūb b. Jaʿfar b. Sulaymān’s teacher,27 an Abbasid whose family was very influential in Basra.28 If he met with scholars,29 Abū Shamir would join the company, even after Ayyūb had become governor. He was a man who inspired respect, as Jāḥiẓ would later confirm: taciturn, serious, and clearly very knowledgeable.30 He would remain entirely calm in discussions, neither gesticulating nor shrugging his shoulders, rolling his eyes or moving his head. This was clearly unusual; “his speech was as if it came out of a crevice among rocks”, Jāḥiẓ said. Abū Shamir even had an explanation: “Lucid remarks

23  Text 19, a–d, k–l. Abū Shamir believed in abiogenesis; regarding this idea in Islamic theology see p. 517f. below. 24  Ibid., e and i. 25  Ibid., f–h. Regarding favism see p. 43, n. 14 above. 26  Ibid., e and i. Cf. EI2 I 971 b s. v. Balādhurī, and Siggel, Wörterbuch der Stoffe s. v. balāḏur. 27  Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Faḍl 268, 7f. > IM 57, 10ff., where there is a mistake in the name. The correct reading becomes clear in the parallel in Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 91, 10ff. > Bāqillānī, Nukat al-intiṣār 255, 1ff. (regarding the issue cf. my Der Ṭailasān des Ibn Ḥarb 15, n. 67). 28  His grandfather Sulaymān b. ʿAlī, an uncle of the first two Abbasid caliphs, had been governor of Basra, as had his father Jaʿfar and his brother Qutham (cf. my account in: Festschrift Hourani 15f.). Regarding Ayyūb cf. also Ibn Ḥazm, Jamhara 34, –7. 29  Jāḥiẓ, Ḥayawān VI 78, 1, shows that he had nudamāʾ. 30   Bayān I 92, 2f.

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require no support”, which he had learnt from Abū l-Ashʿath as well.31 However, the context must be taken into consideration, as Jāḥiẓ provides all this information as the foil for an anecdote according to which Naẓẓām, who would have been quite young at the time, succeeded in pressing Abū Shamir so hard during a debate that the latter abandoned his calm, “loosened the loop of cloth” (ḥalla ḥubwatahū)32 and took hold of his hands. This was why Ayyūb b. Jaʿfar changed sides and went over to Naẓẓām; here the Muʿtazila emerged victorious over Abū Shamir’s school. This is purely tendentious, and furthermore a topos. It was well-known that Ayyūb himself was powerfully eloquent,33 which makes it all the more easily imaginable how taken aback he must have been when his teacher behaved so out of character. The question is how sceptical one ought to be. There is some doubt as to whether Ayyūb was ever governor of Basra at all. He was awarded this title (al-amīr) in ʿAbd al-Jabbār’s version only; Jāḥiẓ did not mention it. The historians only noted that he once governed Yemen and later died during the journey to India where he was supposed to take the same office – at some point not too long before the end of Hārūn al-Rashīd’s caliphate in 193/809.34 Furthermore, only the later version recorded that Abū Shamir was his teacher.35 On the other hand, Naẓẓām was said to have been friendly with Abū Shamir in Baghdad.36 If the Muʿtazilites narrated the story of how he defeated him here, this was probably also due to their urgent need of such a success, for Abū Shamir – whose approach was continued by others37 – remained a threat for a long time. Abū 31  Ibid. 91, 8ff. Thumāma also stated that gesticulation during speech was not necessarily desirable, although possibly inevitable (Abū Hilāl al-ʿAskarī, K. al-Ṣināʿatayn 21, 1f.). 32  This should probably be interpreted metaphorically (regarding the usage cf. Seidensticker, Shamardal 125 ad 12/21). A ḥubwa is a loop of cloth to sling around one’s knees and back, when sitting on the ground with knees pulled up, to prevent feeling tired too soon. The “block statue” of Ancient Egyptian art provides the best illustration of the position. The parallel in Faḍl, however, presumes that Abū Shamir did indeed use such a ḥubwa (yajlisu fī majlis al-amīr muḥtabiyan); but it is secondary in any case. 33   Bayān I 115, 7, in the view of Muways b. ʿImrān, a fellow-believer of Abū Shamir’s (regarding him see ch. C 2.5.1 below); also 333, 9f. Cf. Nagel, Untersuchungen 28f. 34  Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 742, 17, and 746, 18f. In the past I concluded erroneously from the latter passage (Ṭaylasān, loc. cit.) that he died in 193. 35  And not even quite clearly. It would be just about possible to read into the passage that Naẓẓām was Abū Shamir’s teacher. Maybe this is the origin of reports such as in Shahrastānī 18, 13/30, 13, and 41, –4f./86, 9f., according to which Abū Shamir was a follower of Naẓẓām. 36   T B VI 98, 7ff. 37  Regarding them see p. 208ff. below.

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l-Hudhayl and Bishr b. al-Muʿtamir wrote refutations;38 the former was said to have debated with him before Ma‌ʾmūn.39 Jāḥiẓ noted that he had numerous followers who were entirely devoted to him.40 This was proposed as an explanation of why Naẓẓām’s attack came as such a surprise, but it also proves that the Muʿtazila had to continue to watch out for him. While the interaction grew less frequent, and the theological substance may have decreased as well,41 even beyond the turn of the third century a certain Yazīd b. Hāshim was able to play the Shamiriyya off against the Muʿtazila.42 There is no doubt regarding Abū Shamir’s acquaintance with Ayyūb, even if the latter may have been only a distinguished citizen of Basra. It is possible that Abū Shamir met Khalīl b. Aḥmad in his company, as Ayyūb owned his K. al-tawḥīd, the only quotation from which survives in this context.43 If, however, we are to believe Naẓẓām, Ayyūb really only read it for the laughs. Abū Shamir also complained of the pretentious and obscure style of the book. The two of them clearly had entirely divergent concepts of science: Abū Shamir advocated functionality and clarity, while Khalīl was of the opinion that the language and objective of science did not need to follow everyday usage. This resulted in the argument of whether, as Khalīl thought, one ought to learn unimportant grammatical minutiae in order to understand the essence of things. Abū Shamir considered this to be absurd: why should something one does not need suddenly be required after all?44 Khalīl was an Ibāḍite, and it seems that Abū Shamir debated with Ibāḍites on other occasions, too; it was not unusual in Basra. The Ibāḍites had raised a noteworthy issue (there?). How should one judge a situation where someone walks into someone else’s plantation or seed plot (zarʿ) without the owner’s permission, trampling some of the plants? There can be no doubt that he is 38  Catalogue of Works XXI, no. 29, and XVII, no. 34. 39  Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Faḍl 256, 12, and 257, 1. The context, however, is fictitious in both instances. 40   Bayān I 91, 16ff. 41  Thus Jāḥiẓ in: Rasāʾil III 300, 2ff. 42  Is this what Jāḥiẓ meant with yuʿayyinu in Bukhalāʾ 210, 3f.? Or did he have them spy on the Muʿtazila? Unfortunately we do not know who this Yazīd b. Hāshim was. In his translation (Avares 301f.) Pellat erroneously reads Hishām instead of Hāshim and consequently adduces the wrong sources. The person referred to is not, of course, Yazīd b. Hāshim b. Harmala al-Murrī who is mentioned in Agh. XII 274, 8f., as Shabīb b. al-Barṣāʾ, who asked for his daughter in marriage, lived during the Umayyad era (cf. GAS 2/386f.). 43  See p. 256 below. 44  Ḥamza al-Iṣfahānī, Taṣḥīf 121, 3ff. Regarding the latter cf. also Jāḥiẓ, Ḥayawān I 38, 1f.; Ibn ʿAbdrabbih, ʿIqd III 23, 17ff., Ibn Abī ʿAwn, Al-ajwiba al-muskita 151 no. 906.

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guilty of wrongdoing; however, if he then leaves the plot, he will cause even more damage; consequently he ought to leave the plot but also stay where he is. He must and at the same time must not leave, illustrating how one and the same situation can be assessed differently.45 This was very nearly proof of the Muʿtazilite manzila bayna l-manzilatayn – or rather its complementary opposite: an action can be good as well as bad. Abū Shamir viewed the problem differently: there are situations in which every action is wrong. Thus, with reference to this particular case: one’s duty is not at the same time to stay and to leave, but one is forbidden to stop as well as to move forward or back, i.e. even if one regrets entering the plot, one will sin again and afterwards be justly regarded as a wrongdoer.46 In this way he resolved the ambiguity in the concept of sin, but it is not surprising that “someone else” simply said that one ought to repent and later pay damages for everything one destroyed,47 presumably expressing the practical point of view of all those who did not feel impelled to theological musings by the example. Abū Shamir, on the other hand, responded ad hoc. We may wonder whether he did so because of masochistic inclinations similar to those of the Ibāḍites, although it does not seem very likely considering what we have heard about him so far. On the other hand he did, unlike the majority of Muslims,48 believe that if one performed a prayer on illegally acquired ground, one would have to repeat it. Everything one does there, even just staying there, is sin and cannot be compensated by prayer.49 Only ascetics were similarly rigorous, paying close attention to whether someone who dedicated a mosque had possibly taken possession of the land illegally.50 There were also prayer rooms in private houses, and the state above all was known not to be too particular in matters of ownership. Still, as we have seen Abū Shamir did have some dealings with the authorities. If he was an ascetic all the same, it would explain why despite his rationalism his definition of faith did not suppress the emotional components (love and humility). It would also encourage us to identify him as the very Abū Shamir of whom Abū Dulaf said in 45  Text VIII 6. 46  Text II 20. 47  Ashʿarī, Maq. 255, ult. 48  Ibid. 450, 10. 49  Text II 21; also XXII 258, c, where the opposite opinion is supported by Naẓẓām. The problem was revived by Abū Hāshim (Nagel, Festung des Glaubens 218). 50  Regarding the concept of illegal seizure of land or usurpation (ghaṣb) cf. EI2 II 1020 s. v.; also Johansen, The Islamic Law on Land Tax and Rent, passim.

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his Qaṣīda Sāsāniyya that he was the first person to go begging on the pretext of wanting to go on jihad.51 Taking all this into account it becomes easier to narrow Abū Shamir’s dates. He may have lived into the third century; if he really debated with Abū l-­Hudhayl before Ma‌ʾmūn, this is likely to have taken place after the latter entered Baghdad in 204/819. However, this conclusion rests on an insecure basis as the anecdotes on which it relies are on the whole paradigmatic. There can be no real doubt that his main activity was before 190/806: if he and Khalīl debated before Ayyūb b. Jaʿfar, it would have to have been earlier than 175/791, the latest possible date of Khalīl’s death.52 He probably did not live as long as his fellow student Muʿammar who did not die until 215/830. If he does appear to agree with Naẓẓām in a few points of the theory of motion,53 he was Naẓẓām’s predecessor rather than his pupil. Only Khwārizmī gives his name as Sālim b. Shamir.54 Shamir was a Southern Arab name,55 which leads us to assume that he did not bear the nisba al-Ḥanafī because he belonged to the school of Abū Ḥanīfa but rather because he was a member of the Banū Ḥanīfa, or associated with them as mawlā. Only his definition of faith linked him to Abū Ḥanīfa; we do not know anything about his juristic interests. Regarding the reading of the name cf. Ibn Ḥajar, Tabṣīr al-muntabih 788, 5ff.: it was usually pronounced Shimr, but among the Southern Arabs Shamir was also current. Fīrūzābādī’s explanation in his Qāmūs distinguishes between shimr, which could be an adjective (meaning “agile, clever, reacting quickly”) as well as a proper name, while Shamir was only used as a proper name. Samʿānī read the nisba as Shimrī (Ansāb VII 384).

51  Cf. Bosworth, Underworld II 194 and 225, where the person is not identified. – This would even show the ḥubwa in a different light. When absorbed in contemplation or in mourning, ascetics were accustomed to rest their “head upon the knees” (cf. R. Mach and J. H. Marks, The Head upon the Knees, in: Studies in honor of Ph. Hitti 68ff.). On the other hand there is no reason to assume that they used a ḥubwa in these cases, and, after all, in the earlier version by Jāḥiẓ the phrase was presumably used metaphorically. 52  See p. 253f. below. 53  Cf. Text XXII 24 and the use of the word iʿtimād in Text II 21, c. 54   Mafātīḥ 21, 3. 55  Cf. Y. Abdallah, Die Personennamen in al-Hamdānī’s al-Iklīl 70; also Lisān al-ʿArab IV 428a, apu. ff., and 429a, 16ff. (after Ibn Sīda).

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After Abū Shamir’s death, Abū ʿAmr Kulthūm b. Ḥabīb b. Unayf al-Mara‌ʾī al-Baṣrī succeeded him as head of the school. He was a member of the Banū Imra‌ʾalqays b. Tamīm, hence his nisba.56 We would not know anything else about him if he had not limped and consequently found his way into Jāḥiẓ’ K. al-burṣān walʿurjān.57 His grandfather Unayf had been a canvasser for the Abbasids, but is not mentioned in any other sources, either. He himself had a connection with Yaḥyā b. Khālid, the Barmakid vizier;58 maybe he was employed in the administration. This could explain why Amīn chose him and a certain Saʿīd b. Jubayr al-Ḥimyarī as negotiators between him and his brother Ma‌ʾmūn. It would not be a surprise to find that he was not in favour with the latter any more after that; there are no references of him appearing at court in Baghdad, unlike his teacher, even though he would have been in the capital during the civil war. On the other hand there are more reliable references to him debating with Abū l-Hudhayl. He probably retired to Basra, where he led the life of a rich citizen, receiving and entertaining visitors until late at night. Khayyāṭ mentioned him as well as Abū Shamir among those who disagreed with the Muʿtazila on the concept of sin.59 He was not the only one to abbreviate the name to Kulthūm which, however, led to confusion. Abū l-Ḥusayn Kulthūm b. Ḥabīb al-Muhallabī, listed by Shahrastānī together with him, was probably only a doublet.60 The poet Kulthūm b. ʿAmr al-ʿAttābī also entered the picture. Kulthūm b. Ḥabīb bore the kunya Abū ʿAmr; if it was postposed, the name could easily be read as Kulthūm b. ʿAmr, which might explain why, in a context similar to that in Khayyāṭ’s text, Kaʿbī had a list of names beginning with Abū Shamir and ending with al-ʿAttābī.61 Sezgin concluded similarly prematurely when he said in GAS 2/541 that Abū l-Hudhayl and Bishr b. alMuʿtamir composed refutations of the poet. Bishr did polemicise against a certain Kulthūm “and his school”,62 probably referring to our Kulthūm b. Ḥabīb,

56  It is occasionally written with alif bearing hamza (cf. Dhahabī, Mushtabih 586, 5ff.; also Shahrastānī 103, 10/254, 4f.). 57  Cf. ibid. 246, 1ff. 58  Ṭabarī III 145, 9f. 59   Intiṣār 93, 6. 60  103, 4/253, 5f.; cf. also Gimaret, Livre des Religions 416f., n. 17 and 21. 61   Maq. 74, ult. 62  Catalogue of Works XVII, no. 18.

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for he, too, wrote “proper books”,63 but in the text by Abū l-Hudhayl the opponent’s name cannot be deciphered reliably; Dodge’s English translation is the only one to suggest al-ʿAttābī.64 Bishr and Abū l-Hudhayl might have disapproved of the fact that Kulthūm was moving closer to Ḍirār,65 but the poet, too, was a prominent ascetic and theologian.66 – Another pupil of Abū Shamir’s was the philologist Abū l-Ḥasan Saʿīd b. Masʿada al-Ahkfash, the “middle” Akhfash, who died between 210/825 and 221/835.67 According to Abū ʿUthmān al-Māzinī (d. 233/848) he was well-versed in kalām and a skilful dialectician.68 He saw himself as a grammarian above all, never making a secret of the fact that Naẓẓām’s and other theologians’ writings went over his head.69 His K. maʿānī al-Qurʾān was edited recently,70 and it is indeed limited to straightforward philological explanation, avoiding exegesis on the whole. He did, however, make some statements in passing: that the speech with which God addressed Moses was created;71 that God sitting on the throne must be understood figuratively, and that even on the Day of Judgment when according to sura 75:23 the blessed will “gaze upon their Lord”, they will perceive only his mercy;72 and that “to create” (khalaqa) meant no more than “to make” (ṣanaʿa) and consequently applied to humans as well.73 He had written the book for Kisāʾī. According to Qiftī it became the model for Farrāʾ’s work of the same

63   kutub jiyād; thus Jāḥiẓ, Burṣān 246, 3f. 64  P. 389. Regarding the issue cf. Catalogue of Works XXI, no. 49. Furthermore it really is a “response” (jawāb) rather than a “refutation”. 65  Ibn Ḥazm, Fiṣal IV 192, 5f. 66  Regarding him see ch. C 1.4.2 below. 67  Marzubānī even described him as Abū Shamir’s ghulām (Nūr al-qabas 87, 16; following him also Ṣafadī, Wāfī XV 259, 1, and Suyūṭī, Muzhir II 405, 17ff.). Cf. Qifṭī, Inbāh II 38, 4f. = Zubaydī, Ṭab. 76, 4ff. Regarding him cf. EI2 I 321 b, and GAS 8/80. 68  Marzubānī 97, 15f. = Qifṭī II 39, 10f. 69  Jāḥiẓ, Ḥayawān I 92, 7ff. 70  Twice, in fact: Kuwait 1400/1979 (ed. Fāʾiz Fāris, 1–2) and Beirut 1405/1985. I am quoting from the former, as the latter edition was not available to me. 71  P. 248, pu. f. 72  P. 55, pu. ff., and 406, ult. f.; p. 518, 4ff. 73  P. 417, 4; linking it with sura 23:14 as ʿAbbād b. Sulaymān did later, who was of the opposing view (see ch. C 4.1.2.1.1.5 below).

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name, but it is impossible to detect any direct influence.74 – Another, rather mysterious person who belonged in the same circle was Yūnus, whom Ashʿarī quoted besides Abū Shamir on the definition of faith.75 Shortly before,76 he was mentioned with the nisba al-S-m-rī, which should most likely be read as al-Shamirī, as Ibn al-Dāʿī77 and Ṣamʿānī78 did. Shahrastānī on the other hand changed it to al-Numayrī,79 and ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jīlānī to al-Barrī.80 Baghdādī extended the name to read Yūnus b. ʿAwn,81 while Maqrīzī had Yūnus b. ʿAmr,82 but it is not worthwhile to continue speculating; it is not possible to identify the person more clearly either way. The school of this Yūnus had tested the definition of faith against the case of Satan: Satan had true knowledge of God, but he did not have the humility that is also part of faith; his pride caused him to become an unbeliever. This is what the Quran says, in sura 2:34: Satan “refused, and waxed proud, and so he became one of the unbelievers”.83 In this case the consequence was that his unbelief was due to his realising only one of its components, pride, while faith only exists when all of its components come together.84 Actually this followed the ancient definition of faith, as long as one did not presume a manzila bayna l-manzilatayn. Maybe it was, in fact, the reason why humility had been included in the definition, but it seems that only at this late date was it expressed explicitly. One wonders whether 74  Cf. Inbāh II 37, 12ff., and 38, 6 > Ṣafadī, Wāfī XV 259, 15ff. Farrāʾ himself died as early as 207/822, but did not write his K. maʿānī al-Qurʾān until shortly before his death, around 204/819 (cf. Blachère in EI2 II 807 b). The book was edited by Aḥmad Najātī, Muḥammad ʿAlī al-Najjār and ʿAbd al-Fattāḥ Ismāʿīl Shalabī (1–3, Cairo 1374/1955–1972). See also p. 100 above. 75  134, 1; cf. Text II 17 and commentary. 76  133, 9 = Text II 22, d. 77   Tabṣirat ul-ʿawāmm 59, 4. 78   Ansāb 603 b, 11 Margoliouth. 79   Milal 104, 7/260, 1; quoted by Āmidī and Ījī (cf. Gimaret, Livre 421, n. 20). The new Samʿānī edition has disimproved Shamirī to Numayrī accordingly (XIII 537, ult.). 80   Ghunya 91, 5. We must also be careful not to confuse him with al-Shimmazī (thus Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 16, 15; see p. 366, n. 2 below). 81   Farq 191, 3/202, ult. > Isfarāʾīnī, Tabṣīr 90, 12/97, ult. 82   Khiṭaṭ II 350, 3. 83  Shahrastānī pointed out the connection (104, 11f./260, 9f.). 84  Text 22, c–e.

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Yūnus’ followers may have been ascetics who already regarded Satan as the true muwaḥḥid, perfect as far as knowledge is concerned. It has generally been assumed that this idea was raised only by Ḥallāj.85 Furthermore the first parallel was found with another “Murjiʾite”, Muḥammad b. Shabīb who lived during the first third of the third century;86 he was as close to the Muʿtazila as Abū Shamir had been.87 He, and other theologians who were the latter’s successors, will be discussed below. See ch. C 5.1.1–3 below. Another Basran Murjiʾite whose ideas were close to those of Abū Shamir, Abū Muʿādh al-Tūmanī, may have had contacts in Egypt (see p. 823ff. below). There does not seem to be more documentary evidence for two further theologians, who also appear to come from this background, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Abī Ruʾba and Abū l-Mughīra al-Baṣrī (according to Gimaret in: JA 173/1985/243 mentioned by Ashʿarī; regarding the former cf. also vol. I 189, n. 38 above). Qudayd b. Jaʿfar, a pupil of Abū Ḥanīfa’s against whom Bishr b. al Muʿtamir seems to have written a treatise (Catalogue of Works XVII, no. 7) was probably based in Baghdad. There is no further documentary evidence for al-Ṣabbāḥ b. al-Walīd al-Murjiʾī except Masʿūdī, Murūj VI 374, 9/IV 240 apu. > Ibn alʿArabī, ʿAwāṣim 83, 4ff., according to which he took part in the majālis of the Barmakids. 2.2.4.3 “Jahmites” There were also some Murjiʾites who were not Qadarites. Once again we have to make the effort to disentangle the heresiographers’ terminology. Some predestinarians, such as the philologist Abū ʿAmr Ibn al-ʿAlāʾ, were only secondarily labelled as “Murjiʾites”,1 while other Murjiʾites are listed, here as elsewhere,2 as Jahmites, especially if they objected to anthropomorphism, as Abū Shamir did. An entirely Murjiʾite doctrine was that of e.g. a Jahmite named

85  Cf. P. J. Awn, Satan’s Tragedy and Redemption. Iblīs in Sufi psychology (Leiden 1983). 86  Text XXXI 21, c–d. 87  He, too, used the term fāsiq (ibid., i). He was also the doxographer who is the source for some accounts of the neo-Ghaylānite school (cf. Text II 15, d, and 17, i). 1  See p. 426 below. 2  See vol. I 160f. above.

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Ibn al-Ṭaḥḥān al-Ḍarīr al-Baṣrī, which Abū Ḥayyān al-Tawḥīdī described as follows: “On the day of resurrection God will replace believers’ wrongdoings with good deeds. They will feel remorse because of the delights and lustful experiences they (as they assume) are missing; they had expected punishment. Then they will achieve reward (instead). When the conversation came to this subject, he would always recite sura 25:70: ‘God will change their evil deeds into good deeds’.”3 Ibn al-Ṭaḥḥān was apparently blind (ḍarīr), but that is all we know about him. He does not seem to be linked to the dualist Ḍarīr from Wāsiṭ from whom Yūsuf al-Samtī learned his “Jahmite” views.4 – Another person who was noticed due to his anti-anthropomorphist views was Abū ʿAmr al-Ḥaddād al-Jadalī. When the governor Muhallab b. al-Mughīra, a descendant of Muhallab b. Abī Ṣufra, was looking after the business of ʿĪsā b. Jaʿfar, one of Manṣūr’s grandsons, al-Ḥaddād replied to his question rather too candidly that he considered God’s name to be created; he was flogged for this and died from his injuries. Once again this account is found in one source only, and that a late one,5 and once again it is impossible to find out anything more about the person.6 But we do know that ʿĪsā b. Jaʿfar was governor of the city twice under Hārūn with Muhallab as his deputy.7 He became governor of Khorasan in 180/796,8 and died in Iran in 192/808.9 The episode described would thus have taken place during the seventies. – Another mutakallim about whom we know just as little, mourned al-Ḥaddād in an elegy:

3  Imtāʾ III 196, 13ff. 4  See p. 176 above. 5  Ṣafadī, Wāfī X 149, ult. ff.; the kunya is found at 150, 8. 6  He is not the same as the jurist Ḥasan b. Aḥmad al-Ḥaddād al-Baṣrī whom Shīrāzī mentioned (Ṭabaqāt al-fuqahāʾ 120, 1f.); for the jurist’s K. adab al-qaḍāʾ discusses the generation following Ibn Ḥanbal (cf. Subkī, Ṭabaqāt III 255, 10ff.). 7  Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 743m 7ff. and 20f. Ṣafadī names Muhallab’s son Saʿīd instead of the father, but the son does not seem to have held this office at all. Regarding both cf. Ibn Ḥazm, Jamhara 369, pu. ff. 8  Ṭabarī III 644, 17. 9  Ibid. III 733, 1 = Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 739, 12.

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Bishr b. Shabīb al-Baṣrī. He made use of strong words in his poem: “The breasts of all men are nowadays open to unbelief, with the exception of only very few. They worship what they can shape (with their hands) and do not distinguish between a symbol (dalīl) and that which it represents”,10 i.e. they imagine God to be like the things they see on earth, when they should only deduce his existence from them. Al-Ḥaddād, he continued, died for tawḥīd; he defended a non-anthropomorphic image of God and thus stood up for the true faith.11 Interestingly there is another poem by Bishr b. Shabīb in which he attacked the qāḍī Muʿādh b. Muʿādh for his incompetence in office;12 the latter was an anthropomorphist.13 Neither of the two mutakallimūn are linked to a particular group, but it is unlikely that they were Muʿtazilites; otherwise we might expect that at least the martyr Ḥaddād would have found his way into their Ṭabaqāt works. It is interesting that the old Ibāḍite ʿaqīda, which ʿUmar b. Jumayʿ translated into Arabic, spoke out vehemently against the doctrine of the createdness of God’s names,14 as did the Egypt-based Ibāḍite theologian ʿĪsā b. ʿAlqama who was probably a contemporary of these events;15 it was always possible that a Muhallabid had links with the Ibāḍiyya.16 The theologoumenon was not given much notice elsewhere, although it would be regarded as typically Jahmite later.17 In the later view this also put a stop to the argument that the Quran, which includes the names of God, must be as eternal as the names themselves. – A Basran traditionist who was suspected of being a Jahmite was

10   Wāfī X 150, 6f. 11   qatīl al-tawḥīd or thāʾir al-dīn in 150, 8 and 10. 12  Wakīʿ, Akhbār II 148, –7ff. 13  Regarding him see p. 432f. below. 14   Muqaddimat al-tawḥīd 111, 1f.; Cuperly, Introduction 65. 15  See p. 808 below. 16  See p. 220f. below. Ibn Ḥazm (Jamhara, loc. cit.) describes Muhallab as a fanatic opponent of the Muʿtazila. It is, however, unlikely that Ibn Ḥazm would have distinguished entirely sharply between Muʿtazilites and “Jahmites”, especially in the context of Basra. 17  Cf. Text XX 1. In general also ch. D 1.3.

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Abū ʿAmr Bishr al-Sarī b. Muslim18 al-Afwah, d. 195/811 or 196/812 at the age of 63.19 He seems to have acquired his reputation in Mecca where he preached repentance. He was a member of Sufyān b. ʿUyayna’s circle20 and was said to have incurred the latter’s wrath for joining a certain Qaddāḥ who apparently believed that it was possible to be a devout Muslim without knowing whether the Kaʿba was in Mecca or in Medina.21 This was exactly the sort of thing theologians’ gossip expected of a Murjiʾite.22 He had already “spoken about the Quran”, which probably means that he considered it to have been created like everything else. He met the hadith al-nuzūl with a critical question, and dismissed out of hand another prophetic dictum that was to become chief witness for the visio beatifica.23 The latter episode was said to have been reported by Ibn Ḥanbal who, however, commented positively on him elsewhere.24 Thus Bishr’s reputation was hardly threatened in Iraq. He is an authority in all four canonical collections. – Some sources also considered Jaʿfar b. ʿĪsā al-Ḥasanī, a great-grandson of Ḥasan al-Baṣrī’s, to be a “Jahmite”. By his time what had been marginal for Bishr al-Sarī had become essential: in 218, when al-Ma‌ʾmūn opened the miḥna, he was qāḍī in Baghdad and became one of the first to profess the new dogma.25 Thus his being a Jahmite may not have had anything to do with Basra; he had been qāḍī in Rayy before.26

18  The grandfather’s name according to Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 546, 8ff. 19  ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ I 143, no. 175; Mīzān no. 1195; TH 355f. no. 345; TT I 450f. no. 825; Suyūṭī, Tadrīb al-rāwī I 329, 8f. Cf. also Bukhārī I2 75 no. 1741; IAH I1 358 no. 1363; Ṣafadī, Wāfī X 149 no. 4608. 20  Fasawī I 718, –4ff.; II 691, 9ff.; as a Meccan also IS V 367, 1. 21  Fasawī I 724, pu. ff. 22  See vol. I 233 above. 23  ʿUqaylī and Mīzān, loc. cit. 24   ʿIlal 102 no. 610. 25  Ṭabarī III 1120, 9ff. Regarding him TB VI 160ff. no. 3608, and Mīzān no. 1515. 26   T B 161, 4; also ch. C 3.3.1, end, below.

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2.2.5 The Ibāḍiyya The Ibāḍite community in Basra has only recently emerged from the obscurity of history. For a long time Tadeusz Lewicki was the only one to advance this development;1 in recent decades English, French and German dissertations have been added.2 The marginal existence into which the Ibāḍites were pushed over the centuries had led to original sources being hardly ever accessible; manuscripts were kept in remote places and the lithographs of the Bārūniyya Press in Cairo and of Algerian publishing houses were difficult to find. If this state of affairs is slowly changing due to new editions, and to Ibāḍite scholars being included in international research, we must not forget in our delight at the accessibility of a new body of sources that these offer only a one-sided image, especially as regards Basra. Ibāḍite historians composed their works in the Maghreb or in Oman; Basra was barely more than an ideal past. Consequently what information there was has only been repeated through the centuries; there were no new traditions, and for ideological reasons non-Ibāḍite works of history as well as heresiography would not have been adduced. The result was the fiction of a straightforward, “orthodox” development, which only took limited notice of what happened around it. 2.2.5.1 The Case of ʿAbdallāh b. Ibāḍ Tradition did not follow this concept entirely. Some reports that were not brought into line have survived, and lacunae that were already extant in ancient material could not be camouflaged later, either. This is particularly noticeable in the case of the sect’s heros eponymos, ʿAbdallāh b. Ibāḍ. Ibāḍite historiography knows barely anything about him; according to Ibn Ḥazm he was completely unknown among his Spanish followers (Nukkār?).1 This problem went back a long way, for what Ṭabarī reported about him in the context of the events of the year 64 with reference to Abū Mikhnaf’s K. al-Azāriqa was, 1  Cf. in summary his article Ibāḍiyya in EI2 III 648ff., and his essay The Ibāḍites in Arabia and Africa in: Cahiers d’Histoire Mondiale 13/1971/51ff. A bibliography of his works may be found in FO 11/1969/7ff. 2  The indispensable study is A. Kh. Ennami (al-Nāmī), Studies in Ibadism, PhD Cambridge 1971. Other important studies are by Cuperly, Rebstock and Schwartz, also ʿIwaḍ Khulayfāt (A. M. Khleifat), Nashʾat al-ḥaraka al-Ibāḍiyya (Amman 1978). See below for more details. 1  Fiṣal IV 191, 10ff.

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being contrived interaction between the three founders of sects ʿAbdallāh b. Ibāḍ, ʿAbdallāh b. Ṣaffār and Nāfiʿ b. al-Azraq, barely more than mythology.2 Within the school, juristic doctrine and hadiths were only ever traced back to or via Jābir b. Zayd al-Azdī, who belonged to the subsequent generation. This fact has been emphasised several times in recent years and has not been denied even by Ibāḍite authors such as Ennami. J. C. Wilkinson was the one to draw the clearest conclusions,3 stating that until the second century one cannot yet speak of a coherent Ibāḍiyya; the movement that seemed, to later perspective from exile, to have already delimited itself at the time was in fact still open to kindred ideas in its surroundings. Even within the Khārijite sphere of influence the lines were not drawn as definitively as later heresiographers would have us believe. Ibāḍiyya and Ṣufriyya were well-nigh impossible to separate, and their contemporaries do not seem to have made a clear distinction, either.4 It is really only possible to distinguish between secessionists who were looking for salvation in a new hijra and others who hoped to preserve the unity of the dār al-Islām and were looking to effect a reform from the inside out. The only documents that were believed to help illuminate the past were two letters said to have sent by ʿAbdallāh b. Ibāḍ to ʿAbd al-Malik. However, M. Cook’s research has cast their authenticity into considerable doubt.5 One of them is documented only very late, and it is possible that Barrādī (second half of the eighth/fourteenth century) believed it to be a letter from Jābir b. Zayd to a Shīʿite; Cook, who rejects this attribution as well, presumes the middle of the second century as the terminus ante quem. The second one, which had been believed genuine so far,6 was in fact, and as suspected by Cook, penned by Jābir b. Zayd and addressed not to ʿAbd al-Malik but to ʿAbd alMalik b. al-Muhallab. This, however, affects the chronological considerations rather less than Cook assumed, as ʿAbd al-Malik b. al-Muhallab was ṣāḥib 2  Cf. II 517, 13ff.; regarding the source U. Sezgin, Abū Miḫnaf 100. A certain Ḥanẓala b. Bayhas is also mentioned, probably with the intention of presenting him as the founder of the Bayhasiyya (see p. 666, n. 7 below). Abū Mikhnaf/ Ṭabarī were probably also the source of the information found in genealogical works by Ibn al-Kalbī (cf. Caskel, Ǧamhara II 113a), Ibn Ḥazm, Jamharat al-nasab 218, 2) or Ibn Durayd (Ishtiqāq 249, apu.). 3  Cf. his essay in: Studies in the First Century of Islamic Society, ed. Juynboll, p. 125ff.; esp. p. 131ff. 4  In one place Jāḥiẓ describes Abū ʿUbayda al-Tamīmī as Ibāḍī min ʿulamāʾ al-Ṣufriyya (Bayān I 347, 6f.; cf. also Ḥayawān III 402, 6). 5  Dogma 53ff. 6  Cf. the overview of research in Cook, 57f.

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al-shurṭa in Basra between 75 and 86 and frequently took the governor’s place; he would probably have received the letter during that time.7 But it means that the last detail that could have illuminated Ibn Ibāḍ’s personality has now become invalid. It is not possible to pursue the matter further here, but it is unlikely that anything would be gained if we were to go so far as to doubt Ibn Ibāḍ’s very existence as a consequence;8 this would only result in new difficulties. It is worthwhile, on the other hand, to research where the name Ibāḍiyya occurred for the first time. It does not appear as an autonym until late; Ennami locates the first recorded instance in the Uṣūl al-daynūna al-ṣāfiya by the Berber ʿAmrūs b. Fatḥ (d. 283/896).9 This is not surprising as the Ibāḍites referred to themselves simply as muslimūn,10 even though they were aware that the name Ibāḍiyya was in use outside their own circle. As early as the end of the second/eighth century the historian Abū Sufyān11 has the caliph al-Manṣūr using it.12 Al-Nafs al-zakiyya was also said to have used it.13 Ashʿarī used the term like all heresiographers; his sources date back to at least the first half of the third/ninth century.14 In Oman it was used even by the Ibāḍites themselves in isolated

7  Thus Crone/Hinds, God’s Caliph 61, n. 21. The letter had always been dated to the year 76 or shortly afterwards. 8  Thus Cook 64f. Both Wilkinson and Cook toyed with the idea that the name might be part of the range of colours from Ibn al-Azraq/Azraqiyya to Ibn al-Aṣfar/Ṣufriyya, but Cook himself retracted this as ibāḍ is not linked to the root of abyaḍ (cf. p. 182, n. 96, with reference to Lane, Lexicon 6 s. v.). According to Ṭabarī the founder of the Ṣufriyya was not called Ibn al-Aṣfar anyway, but Ibn al-Ṣaffār, which would make him the son of a coppersmith. For general information on Ibn Ibāḍ cf. also Khulayfāt, Nashʾa 75ff., and Fārūq ʿUmar, Al-khalīj al-ʿarabī 84ff., which presents the material with greater faith in the sources. How little was actually known about him is illustrated by the story told in Marzubānī’s Akhbār al-Sayyid al-Ḥimyarī as quoted in ʿAbd al-Ḥusayn Aḥmad al-Amīnī, Al-ghadīr fī l-kitāb wal-sunna wal-adab II 228, ult. ff., which dates him to the time of Manṣūr. Nouiouat, reviewing this in REI 48/1980/82, promptly goes on to confuse him with the theologian ʿAbdallāh b. Yazīd (vol. I 477ff. above). 9  Studies in Ibadism 5, quoted in Cook 64. Regarding Amrūs see p. 676 below. 10  Cf. Schwartz, Anfänge der Ibāḍiten 22f. 11  Regarding him see p. 232f. below. 12  Cook, Dogma 182, n. 104, with a further source. 13  In his K. al-siyar, if the extant version of this text is indeed genuine (cf. R. al-Sayyid’s edition in: Maj. Kull. al-Ādāb Ṣanʿāʾ 11/1990, p. 120, –8). 14  Malaṭī’s deriving the name from one Ibāḍ b. ʿAmr (Tanbīh 42, 5/52, 10) was probably merely an error.

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instances.15 The impression conveyed is that at the beginning it referred to one particular group only, the followers of a certain Ḥārith b. Mazyad who might have been a contemporary of Abū Sufyān’s.16 He is frequently named simply as Ḥārith al-Ibāḍī,17 and Maqdisī even changed his name to Ḥārith b. Ibāḍ in order to explain why his followers were called Ibāḍiyya rather than Ḥārithiyya.18 The true reason was that after the first muḥakkima they worshipped only Ibn Ibāḍ as their imam.19 It does seem that they did this because they were Qadarites.20 Consequently we must ask whether this could not have been true of Ibn Ibāḍ as well, which might be a reason why he was mentioned so little by his predestinarian successors. It cannot be proven, but there is at least one indication that this might have been the case, for Ibn Ḥazm preserved the report that Ibn Ibāḍ changed sides and went over to the Thaʿāliba, a sub-group of the ʿAjradiyya.21 Kaʿbī presented it, entirely anachronistically, as though he converted to the Muʿtazila; he also claims that this was the reason why his reputation was rather negligible among his fellow members.22 The Thaʿāliba, followers of a certain Thaʿlaba who would later be living near Nishapur, did not believe in the predestination of human action.23 The question remains of how Ibn Ibāḍ would have arrived in Iran, and for the time being it is impossible to answer. 2.2.5.2 The Development of the Basran Community When referring to themselves the Ibāḍite majority in the Maghreb used the term Wahbiyya, recalling ʿAbdallāh b. Wahb al-Rāsibī, an early Iraqi Khārijite who had been much respected due to his piousness and died in the battle of

15   Al-siyar wal-jawābāt I 209, –7ff., together with an honourable mention of Ibn Ibāḍ. 16  Regarding him see p. 235 below. 17  Thus Ashʿarī, Maq. 104, 6; Shahrastānī 101, –4/247, 10. 18   Badʾ V 138, pu. f.; cf. also Samʿānī, Ansāb I 87, 1ff. 19  Baghdādī, Farq 84, 12ff./105, 8ff. Cf. also ʿUmar, Khalīj 81f. 20  See p. 235 below. 21   Fiṣal IV 191, 10. 22  Quoted by Nashwān al-Ḥimyarī, Ḥūr 173, 7ff., and Ibn al-Murtaḍā, Al-baḫr al-zakhkhār I 49, 14f. 23  See p. 648 below.

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Nahrawān.1 This had no basis in history either. The person around whom the community tradition took on a more concrete form was not older than Ibn Ibāḍ but a generation younger: Abū l-Shaʿthāʾ Jābir b. Zayd al-Azdī al-Jawfī,2 a member – or mawlā3 – of the Banū Yaḥmad, i.e. the Azd Shanūʾa. Born near Nazwā in Oman4 he probably settled in the city5 around the year 60/679, when the Azd migrated to Basra in large numbers.6 He died there in 93/712; it was not until later that the date of his death was gradually moved forward an entire decade. This was the result of idealising his biography, probably instigated by the Ibāḍite historian Abū Sufyān and surviving in Shammākhī’s K. al-siyar.7 He was not yet a “pure” Ibāḍite; non-Ibāḍite historians, too, regarded him as an uncontested authority;8 possible reservations were stifled by having him refuse to be called an Ibāḍite.9 This may have been behind accounts of him agreeing with the K. al-irjāʾ, too,10 as the spirit of this text was not really compatible with consistently Ibāḍite views. It was known that he had enjoyed great esteem in the city earlier than Ḥasan al-Baṣrī due to his expert legal opinions;11 in fact, Ḥasan referred to his opinions from time to time.12 Later it was said that Ḥasan’s fame 1  Regarding him EI2 I 54 s. n. Ibn Ḥawqal’s giving his birthplace, as well as that of ʿAbdallāh b. Ibāḍ, as Jabal Nafūsa (Ṣūrat al-arḍ 37, 9f.) is probably a reflection of local tradition. 2  This nisba is found only in non-Ibāḍite sources (TT II 38f. no. 61). 3  Thus according to Masʿūdī, Murūj V 462, 1f./IV 39, 2f. 4  Wilkinson, The Imamite Tradition of Oman 149; cf. also Khamīs b. Saʿīd al-Shaqaṣī, Manhaj al-ṭālibīn I 615, –6ff. 5  Did he get his nisba from the Darb al-Jawf in Basra? It was more likely the other way around; the Jawf was a region in Oman (cf. Samʿānī, Ansāb III 416, 1ff.). 6  See p. 2 above. 7  Cf. p. 70, 10ff.; also Wilkinson in: Studies 133ff. The earlier date of his death was confirmed not only by old sources such as Khalīfa, Ṭab. 502f. no. 1729, or AZ 241 no. 276, but also by indirect dates in Fasawī II 54, 4ff. 8  Cf. the biographies in IS VII1 130ff.; Fasawī II 12ff.; Abū Nuʿaym III 85ff. etc.; further references in GAS 1/586. For general information on Jābir cf. Khulayfāt 86ff., and Rubinacci in EI2 359. 9  IS VII1 132, 5f. 10  Fasawī II 13, 3ff.; also Arabica 21/1974/40f., and Cook 74f. 11  See p. 144f. above; also Fasawī II 48, 7ff. 12   Aqwāl Qatāda 79, 6f.

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surpassed his,13 but it had to be admitted that Jābir had been able to express himself more freely during the last years before his death. Ḥasan had been silenced under Ḥajjāj from 83/702 onwards,14 while Jābir prayed behind the governor every Friday like a good citizen.15 His influence continued beyond his own and Ḥasan’s death and in non-Ibāḍite circles, too, as illustrated by the Aqwāl Qatāda which draw on him much more regularly than on Ḥasan.16 Like Qatāda, Ayyūb al-Sakhtiyānī, another of Ḥasan’s pupils,17 had nothing but praise for him.18 One of his works that was preserved was one of the oldest attempts to determine the chronological order of the suras.19 Jābir’s approach to points of law comes alive in his “letters”, in reality written expert opinions; they survived in a manuscript that has yet to be edited and appear to be genuine.20 He relied mainly on his common sense (ra‌ʾy); occasionally he referred to Ibn ʿAbbās under whom he had studied. He did not quote hadith or the Quran, in the case of the latter probably only because it would not have helped in the issues under discussion. This tells us implicitly that it did not occur to him to use analogy to expand the propositions of scripture. It is interesting that several items among the correspondence were addressed to Muhallabids, including women of the family; proof of the shared origin of the Azd ʿUmān. There were also enquiries from Oman itself: such as whether someone wass guilty of wrongdoing for not going to Friday prayers because he had not heard the call.21 He also wrote a Risālat al-rajūf; unfortunately we do

13  Kaʿbī, Maq. 86, –5f., and Fasawī II 48, 7ff. Regarding an Ibāḍite view cf. Wilkinson 243f., n. 23. 14  See p. 48 above. 15  Not even Ibāḍite sources denied this (cf. Maḥbūb b. al-Raḥīl, Sīra ilā ahl Ḥaḍramawt in: al-Siyar wal-jawābāt I 291, –5f.); for general information see Wilkinson 136. According to Darjīnī, Ṭab. 207, 7ff., Ḥasan was in hiding when Jābir died. 16  See p. 166 above. His rapport with Qatāda was still presumed in Ḥilya III 86, 17f. 17  Regarding him see p. 291ff. below. 18  Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 242 no. 1529, and 387 no. 2584 = Fasawī II 12, 5ff. – Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, too, continued to be respected by the Ibāḍites (cf. the biography in the late Ṣaḥīfa Qaḥṭāniyya, MS Rhodes House, Afr. S 3, fol. 240a). Rabīʿ b. Ṣabīḥ quoted him. 19  Suyūṭī, Itqān I 25, 8ff., cf. p. 164 above. 20  Cf. Ennami inL JSS 15/1871/61f., and the detailed analysis of the subject matter in his dissertation, p. 75ff.; also ZDMG 126/1976/27ff., and 127/1977/226f. Not even Cook has any doubts concerning their authenticity (Dogma 63 and 66). 21  Maḥbūb b. al-Raḥīl, Sīra 309, 10ff.

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not know anything about its contents.22 It seems that his Dīwān, presumably a collection of fatwās, was still in use in Baghdad in the third/ninth century.23 Soon after Jābir’s death those who had joined the Muhallabid cause because of their tribal affiliation or their religious conviction would have to make sacrifices. When Yazīd b. Muhallab’s uprising failed, his followers in Basra, including the Ibāḍites, were persecuted by the authorities.24 – The most important of the scholars of the time whose memory survived in later Ibāḍite tradition was probably Ḍumām25 b. al-Sāʾib al-ʿAbdī who had studied under Jābir, and whose riwāya of his traditions survives to the present day.26 Like Jābir he came from Oman, from a Bedouin family, but was born in Basra. – Abū Nūḥ Ṣāliḥ b. Ibrāhīm al-Bāhilī al-Dahhān came from another tribal federation. He was an oil merchant, and may not have had any links to Oman at all. Consequently Ibāḍite tradition paid him less attention, referring to him as Abū Nūḥ Ṣāliḥ al-Dahhān;27 Wisyānī wrote his name incorrectly as Ṣāliḥ b. Nūḥ.28 Sunni sources, on the other hand, were 22  Ibid. 315, pu. 23  Abū Zakariyāʾ, Siyar al-a‌ʾimma 94, apu. ff./transl. Le Tourneau in: Revue Africaine 104/1960/326ff., and Darjīnī, Ṭab. 80, 11f., although the context is fictitious. Cf. ZDMG 126/1976/52, n. 51, and Wilkinson in: Der Islam 62/1985/245f. Jābir’s statements concerning juristic doctrine, insofar as they were quoted in later texts, have been collected in a commendable fashion by Yaḥyā Muḥammad Bakkūsh, Fiqh al-imām Jābir b. Zayd, 1–2, 2(Algiers?) 1988. 24  See p. 146f. and 190 above. In general on the importance of the family cf. Nāfiʿ Tawfīq ʿAbbūd, Āl Muhallab b. Abī Ṣufra wa-dawruhum fī l-ta‌ʾrīkh ḥattā muntaṣif al-qarn al-rābiʿ al-hijrī (Baghdād 1979), and P. Crone in EI2 VII 358ff. s. v. Muhallabids. 25  I vocalise thus in agreement with Wilkinson who probably bases his decision on the current pronunciation in Oman. Ḍimām is another possibility (cf. Lane 1801c). Lewicki (REI 8/1934/71) reads Ḍummām but without giving an explanation why. 26  Ennami in: JSS 15/1970/68 no. 3–1; Wilkinson in: Studies 135 and 138; Khulayfāt 103. Cf. also Darjīnī, Ṭab. 246ff.; Shammākhī, Siyar 86, –4ff.; Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 231, pu. f. 27  Darjīnī, Ṭab. 254, apu. ff.; Shammākhī, Siyar 88, –6ff. 28   Siyar, MS Smogorzewski 277, I 37, 2ff.; following him Rebstock 178, n. 6, and probably also Schwartz 42. [The second half of Wisyānī’s work was edited by Ismāʿīl al-ʿArabī in Algiers in 1985; the first half, where our quotation originates, does not seem to survive in the libraries of the Mzab.].

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rather better informed regarding him. Kaʿbī used the form of the name chosen here and also preserved the – albeit vague – tradition that he was an Ibāḍite.29 For the rest, a degree of chaos reigns. Besides the kunya Abū Nūḥ, Kaʿbī also mentions Abū l-Azhar. Bukhārī names the father as Dirham rather than Ibrāhīm (II2 278 no. 2801 > TT IV 388f. no. 651). Ibn Abī Ḥātim turned the information into two people – this being the customary way out for rijāl experts (II2 393 no. 1722, and 400 no. 1755); according to Ibn Ḥibbān Abū l-Azhar Ṣāliḥ b. Dirham was from Medina while Abū Nūḥ was a Basran (Bukhārī, loc. cit., n. 1). But according to Ibn Abī Ḥātim this very Ṣāliḥ b. Dirham had a son named Ibrāhīm (regarding him ibid. I1 106 no. 302; TT I 128 no. 228), and the Basran Shuʿba transmits from Abū l-Azhar Ṣāliḥ b. Dirham, the putative Medinan (Fasawī II 112, 5). Presumably Dirham and Ibrāhīm (written incorrectly) were mistaken for one another. – Regarding Abū Nūḥ and Ḍumām b. al-Sāʾib see also Ennami, Studies 114f. Ṣāliḥ met Jābir b. Zayd in person and transmitted from him;30 he was also active as a jurist in the community.31 However, his public activities were overshadowed by a pupil of Ḍumām’s who may have been slightly younger: Abū ʿUbayda Muslim b. Abī Karīma al-Tamīmī, who guided the fortunes of the community until the time of al-Manṣūr, and especially during the troubles towards the end of the Umayyad era.32 This was the time when the community developed its own character; Abū Mikhnaf who, as we have seen, defined Ibn Ibāḍ’s role through his description of Ibn al-Azraq, also died during al-Manṣūr’s caliphate, in 157/775. It is noticeable that Abū ʿUbayda, like Ḍumām b. al-Sāʾib and unlike Jābir, disappeared entirely from the non-Ibāḍite sources. The Ibāḍites themselves claimed that he had taught only in secret in Basra.33 Of course, his was a dif-

29   Qabūl al-akhbār 214, –6f.; cf. also Ibn Ḥajar, Lisān al-Mīzān III 178 no. 820. 30  Darjīnī, loc. cit.; Fasawī II 15, 9ff.; Dawlābī, Kunā II 141, 17. 31   Kitāb Ibn Sallām 114, 1; Ibn Khalfūn, Ajwiba 35, 8f., and 63, 1. 32  For general information regarding him see Lewicki in EI2, loc. cit.; Khulayfāt 103ff.; Sālim b. Ḥammūd al-Sayyābī, Izālat al-waʿthāʾ 33ff. 33  Abū Zakariyāʾ, Siyar al-a‌ʾimma 36, 5ff./transl. Revue Africaine 104/1960/110.

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ferent social environment: he was a mawlā34 trading in baskets and basket coracles.35 Attempts to build on the works of genuine Arabs like Ibn Ibāḍ and maybe also Jābir b. Zayd was not successful with his generation; people were too well-informed. In his younger days under Ḥajjāj he had been in prison, but over time he rose to become the most powerful man within the movement. Ibāḍite texts regarded him as the head of the jamāʿat al-muslimīn, the “community of Muslims”, which they interpreted as a senate of their more influential members, a council of presbyters, as it were.36 The static image they present may have to be modified slightly. Abū ʿUbayda certainly did not play that part from the beginning; it is more probable that he grew into it in the course of the noticeable radicalisation that took hold of Basran circles far beyond the Ibāḍiyya during the 220s AH. At first he had proposed views that would later be felt to be “unorthodox”,37 while the public face at the time was a certain Abū Muḥammad al-Nahdī, a pulpit orator (khaṭīb) who had been converted to the cause of the Ibāḍiyya. The qāḍī Bilāl b. Abī Burda, who was running the administration of the city at the time,38 condoned his verbal attacks on the governor Khālid al-Qasrī in Wāsiṭ.39 The development linked to Abū ʿUbayda’s name, on the other hand, concerns the Ibāḍite mission. It has already been shown that this phenomenon was not limited to the Ibāḍiyya.40 The name ḥamalat al-ʿilm “bearer of knowledge” to describe the envoys can also be found in non-Ibāḍite literature;41 even more so the term ahl

34  Jāḥiẓ described him as a client of ʿUrwa b. Udayya’s, presumably the poet of this name (Bayān III 265, 6f., and GAS 2/425). This does not fit in with Shammākhī’s information, Siyar 83, 7f., that he was a mawlā of the Tamīm, because ʿUrwa was a member of the ʿAbdmanāt b. Kināna (Ibn Ḥazm, Jamhara 181, apu. f.). Of course Shammākhī based his account on the fact that Abū ʿUbayda’s nisba was al-Tamīmī. – Jāḥiẓ also mentioned him, as a rāwī of the Khārijites, in his Risāla fī l-ḥakamayn (Mashriq 52/1958/476, 12). 35   qaffāf (cf. Wilkinson 137 and Schwartz 113). Quffa means “basket”, but in Basra specifically refers to a round basket-woven vessel waterproofed with bitumen, used to cross the Shatt al-Arab (Dozy, Suppl. s. v., and Kindermann, Schiff im Arabischen 83f.; also Ritter in: Der Islam 9/1919/139f. with plates 23–27). 36  The term may, of course, also refer to the Ibāḍite community per se. 37  Schwartz 102ff. 38  Regarding him see p. 152 above. 39  Darjīnī, Ṭab. 257f. = Shammākhī 97, 1ff. He was a Southern Arab (cf. Lewicki in: FO 1/1959/15), like Bilāl b. Abī Burda; this may explain their agreement and his aggression. 40  Vol. I 51f. above. 41  In the sense of “experts, experienced people” (Azdī, Ta‌ʾrīkh al-Mawṣil 42, 5).

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al-daʿwa that was used in the same context.42 There is no reason to assume that Abū ʿUbayda deliberately planned the development.43 He was asked for advice because Basra was the centre of Ibāḍite scholarship at the time, but he did not necessarily dispatch the ḥamalat al-ʿilm himself. Nor was he the only one to nourish similar thoughts; this was probably the time when Hishām alDastuwāʾī distributed garments among the Bedouin on behalf of his Ibāḍite patrons in order to convert them to a more devout lifestyle and at the same time to the ideas of the Ibāḍiyya.44 And finally we do not know exactly what the Basran headquarters hoped to achieve in the long run. While Abū ʿUbayda charged some of the “bearers of knowledge” – but not all of them! – to pronounce fatwās, and thus pledged them to a cultural mission,45 circumstances show that political unrest must have been discussed as well. What is noticeable is the range of the enterprise. The envoys went not only, like Hishām al-Dastuwāʾī, to the pastures of the Kalb between Iraq and Syria, or to traditionally Arab areas like the Hijaz, South Arabia and Bahrain, but also to Ghadames, the region of the Sadrāta and Nafzāwa Berbers, and elsewhere in North Africa, to Egypt, Khorāsān, Khwārizm and even India.46 This does of course presuppose a certain basis of operations on which they could rely and which allowed these journeys and gave them a purpose. T. Lewicki in particular has brought this infrastructure to light: the Ibāḍites were merchants on a grand scale, controlling the overseas trade all the way to India and China.47 Consequently the jamāʿat al-muslimīn is likely to have been more than the centre of a trade network. It recalls the kind of circumstances that would centuries later obtain in the merchant state of Timbuctoo.48 Still, we must not overlook that the social status of merchants in Basra was still quite precarious at the time. Furthermore the Azd were late arrivals and difficult to integrate due to their South Arabian affiliation.49 There is a lot to be said for Wilkinson’s suggestion that there were people even among the early Khārijites who, despite being Arabs, never succeeded in escaping the low social status imposed on

42  Thus e.g. Shammākhī 123, ult. f.; also Lewicki in SI 9/1958/73. 43  As emphasised in particular by Schwartz (cf. e.g. Anfänge 97f., 114f., 118, and 266ff.). Cf. also Rebstock, Ibāḍiten 15ff. 44  See p. 70 above. 45  Schwartz 116f. 46  Cf. Wilkinson in: Studies 138f. 47  Cf. e.g. his essay Les premiers commerçants arabes en Chine, in: RO 9/1935/173ff. 48  There was a jamāʿa of scholars here, too (Saad, Social History 120ff.). 49  See p. 2 above.

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them under the Sasanids.50 When Muhallab went to war against the Azraqites he had spies report from their camp that they comprised fullers, dyers and smiths, a rabble with whom nobody else would want to be connected.51 The tribe of which Ibn Ibāḍ as well as Ibn Ṣaffār were members, according to Abū Mikhnaf, was not much respected, either. This explains, more than any other reason, why the Khārijites were such dedicated defenders of equality. This is probably also linked to the fact that women had relatively high influence among the early Ibāḍites (see p. 220 above and 233 below; cf. F. ʿUmar, Al-khalīj al-ʿarabī 112f.). This has been observed among other Khārijite groups as well (cf. Jāḥiẓ’ list in Bayān I 365, 2). Shabīb b. Yazīd al-Shaybānī even allowed his mother (or his wife) to preach in Kufa (see p. 521 below). This very commitment on behalf of those who were badly treated was in fact the main message in the propaganda of the ḥamalat al-ʿilm. They preached barāʾa, rejection of those who did not keep the commandments, and walāya, friendship and solidarity with all those who lived their lives according to the spirit of Islam.52 Those who did not keep the commandments were, of course, government representatives, their governors and tax farmers; but God is the friend of the believers and the god-fearing,53 and those whose friend he is form a great community where there are no differences any more. Here, leadership is not due to precedence of bloodlines but that of piousness and virtue (faḍl).54 Madāʾinī’s account of Ṭālib al-ḥaqq’s visit to Ṣanʿāʾ in 129 tells us how others saw them;55 he called people to the Quran and the Sunna of the prophet,56 “to profess the oneness of the Lord and the certainty of (God’s) threats and 50  In: Studies 128ff. using Khirrīt b. Rāshid’s revolt of AH 38 as an example; also The Imamite Tradition of Oman 95f. Similarly, though with a slightly different emphasis, E. Ashtor, Social History 31f., who pointed out that Nāfiʿ b. al-Azraq was the son of a smith who was a freedman of Greek descent, i.e. a “proletarian”. We have reason to believe that many Khārijites were not accepted into the army dīwān or received only a minimal ʿaṭāʾ (Sayed, Ibn al-Ašʿaṯ 33). 51  Mubarrad, Kāmil 629, 4 Wright/1062, apu. f. Mubārak; transl. in Rescher, Khāridschiten 138. 52  Cf. in more detail p. 258ff. below. 53  Cf. sura 3:68 and 45:19. 54  Cf. Wilkinson in: Studies 136f. after manuscript sources. This attitude in turn contributed to blurring social differences; Jāḥiẓ already noted this (Manāqib al-Turk, in: Rasāʾil I 51, 6ff.; quoted in Mottahedeh, Loyalty and Leadership 162). 55   Agh. XXIII 224ff.; regarding the event see p. 736 and 796 below. 56  Ibid. 226, 11ff.

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promises, to obey the commandments and to command what is right and reject what is nefarious, to friendship with those who have God as a friend, and to enmity towards those who have God as an enemy”.57 He called adulterers, thieves and wine drinkers infidels,58 and his followers spread terror with their Yemeni hatred of the Quraysh.59 They did, however, take great care that the outrage did not become indiscriminate slaughter as with the Azāriqa; Ṭālib alḥaqq did indeed spare many a political opponent quite ostentatiously.60 The Ibāḍites were known for never pursuing a Muslim who had turned and fled,61 for to them even non-conforming Muslims were members of the ahl al-qibla; they did not leave the Muslim community behind, as the Azraqites had done with their hijra ideal, but attempted to reform it. They were puritans, but they always preserved a certain liberalism. But we anticipate: the revolts had yet to take place. For the time being the organisation devoured money that had to be procured somehow by the community. To this end a fund was set up into which wealthy merchants, but also people of small income, could pay.62 It was administered by Abū Mawdūd Ḥājib al-Ṭāʾī al-Azdī, a merchant of Omani descent who was born in Basra, and who stands beside Abū ʿUbayda as a further person of significance.63 He, too, was not merely a political agitator but also a scrupulously devout man and expert in theology. His house was the scene of religious discussion and meditation sessions,64 and people recalled that he, surpassing Abū ʿUbayda’s conscientiousness, repeated his prayer on the occasion when on their travels the two of them had prayed behind a non-Ibāḍite imam who had inserted words (qunūt) after the

57  Ibid. 227, 1f. 58  Ibid. 226, 15f. 59  Ibid. 230, 10f. 60  Ibid. 226, 6ff.; also 227, 7f. Cf. Lewicki in: FO 1/1959/7. 61  Ashʿarī, Maq. 109, 10f.; cf. also Schwartz, Anfänge der Ibāḍiten 209. 62  Cf. Lewicki in: Cahiers 73f., and Wilkinson in: Studies 139 with further details. The first Rustamid imam, who lived in most primitive circumstances in Tāhart, received financial support from Basra (Ibn Ṣaghīr, Chronik 10, 14ff.). 63  Regarding him see Darjīnī 248ff.; Shammākhī 90, –4ff.; ʿUmar, Khalīj 109ff. He seems to have had a son named Ḥayyān (Darjīnī 275, 9); regarding a grandson called Ḥabīb b. Ḥafṣ cf. Khamīs b. Saʿīd, Manhaj I 619, –4. 64  Darjīnī 248, pu. ff. = Shammākhī, ibid.; also Shammākhī 84, pu. ff.; 111, 5; 118, 7f.

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second rakʿa.65 Even the orthodox sources named him as a muḥaddith, albeit with every indication of disapproval; it was known that he had transmitted from Ḥasan al-Baṣrī as well as Jābir b. Zayd. At his death he left heavy debts; he probably overstretched himself in the service of the movement. Shammākhī 106, 11ff. Regarding him cf. Bukhārī II1 79 no. 284; Ibn Ḥibbān, Majrūḥīn I 269, apu. ff. > Mīzān no. 1605. Ibn Ḥibbān wrote his name as Ḥājib b. Abī l-Shaʿthāʾ, but it is most unlikely that he could have been a son of Jābir b. Zayd, who bore this kunya. Surely the Ibāḍite sources would not have overlooked this. It should probably read, as in Bukhārī, K. al-ḍuʿafāʾ al-ṣaghīr 426 no. 92, and Mīzān, loc. cit., Ḥājib ʿan Abī l-Shaʿthāʾ (similarly in ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ I 298 no. 371: Ḥājib ʿan Jābir b. Zayd). – Ibn Ḥajar’s quoting Sājī (d. 208/920–1) in TT II 133 no. 222 to the effect that a certain Ḥājib b. ʿUmar al-Thaqafī (d. 158/775) was an Ibāḍite, may also be due to a misunderstanding. This refers to Abū Khushayna b. Ḥājib, a brother of the grammarian ʿĪsā b. ʿUmar al-Thaqafī (regarding him see p. 100 above). As Ḥājib al-Ṭāʾī is occasionally referred to by his ism only, Ibn Ḥajar probably confused the two. The various outposts of the Ibāḍite community will engage our attention elsewhere.66 Revolts during the late Umayyad era from 122/739–40 onwards took place only there: in the Maghreb, Yemen, and Oman.67 Developments were different in Basra; even during times of the greatest troubles surveillance was far too close. At its centre the Ibāḍite movement never left the stage of “secrecy” (kitmān). Once the Abbasids held the reins firmly in their hands, it was once again women who provided the link with the new regime and who may have used their influence to support the community. We know of two such cases in al-Manṣūr’s time; the Azd and in particular the Muhallabids were still good for a political marriage.68 It is remarkable that al-Manṣūr had an Ibāḍite of all people as a Quran reciter at his court.69 We do not hear much more about 65  Ibid. 91, apu. ff.; cf. EI2 V 395 s. v. Ḳunūt and my K. an-Nakth des Naẓẓām 69, also WattWelsh, Islam I 288f. 66  Regarding the Hijaz see p. 735ff. and 746ff. below; Oman and Ḥaḍramawt: p. 796ff.; Mosul: p. 527ff.; Khorasan: p. 674ff.; Egypt: p. 806ff.; Kufa: vol. I 475ff. Only the Maghreb will not be discussed separately; cf. Rebstock’s and Schwartz’s works, also M. Talbī, Etudes d’histoire ifrīqiyenne 13ff. 67  It is once again difficult to distinguish between Ṣufrite and Ibāḍite movements. 68  Cf. Lewicki in: Cahiers 78f. 69  See p. 251 below.

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Abū ʿUbayda; towards the end of his life he suffered from apoplexy70 and died during al-Manṣūr’s caliphate.71 If the sources sometimes dated his death to a later time this was because, due to the general ignorance of circumstances in the east that prevailed in the Maghreb, Abū ʿUbayda was linked to later events as well. Thus a delegation from Oman visiting the imam ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Rustam (160/777–168/784) in Tāhart was believed to have set out during his lifetime (Abū Zakariyyāʾ, Siyar 54, 5f./transl. Revue Afr. 104/1860/131). A letter from his hand addressed to the latter’s son ʿAbd al-Wahhāb b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān (168/784–108/823) was also believed to exist. The latter case is probably due to him being mistaken for Rabīʿ b. Ḥabīb (cf. Wilkinson in: Arab. Studies 4/1978/193). The authenticity of a long missive on the subject of zakāt practices addressed by Abū ʿUbayda to a community in the diaspora remains to be established. He comments on questions such as who had to pay the tithe (ʿushr) and among which needy persons it should be distributed. The text contains no indications to help with our chronological problem as it is not dated. Khulayfāt regarded the community in Tripoli as the addressee and dated the text to the time of Abū l-Khaṭṭāb al-Maʿāfirī, i.e. between 140 and 144 (Nashʾa 149). This assumption appears on the title page of the recent printed version: Risālat [Ibn] Abī Karīma fī l-zakāt lil-imām Abī l-Khaṭṭāb al-Maʿāfirī (Oman 1982). It seems that the Ibāḍiyya did not get involved in Ibrāhīm b. ʿAbdallāh’s uprising, maybe with good reason, as someone had leaked the most important names of the organisation to al-Manṣūr.72 However, it would probably not have been interested in cooperating with an ʿAlid. Consequently Abū ʿAmr al-Rabīʿ b. Ḥabīb b. ʿAmr al-Farāhīdī was probably able to succeed Abū ʿUbayda peacefully. As the nisba shows he came from Oman, where he seems to have been active in his younger days on Abū ʿUbayda’s instruction.73 His father Ḥabīb b. ʿAmr had been a pupil of Jābir b. Zayd’s,74 and would have had some connection with Basra. He himself 70  Darjīnī, Ṭab. 276, 6. 71  Shammākhī 91, 13ff. 72  Shammākhī 108, apu. ff. 73  Wilkinson in: Studies 142. Regarding the Farāhīd see p. 253 below. 74  Sālim b. Ḥamad al-Ḥārithī, Al-ʿuqūd al-fiḍḍiyya fī uṣūl al-Ibāḍiyya (Beirut 1974), p. 149ff.

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studied under Qatāda and, at the request of Abū ʿUbayda, had taken over his pupils.75 He lived in the Khurayba quarter in northwest Basra, where the Battle of the Camel had taken place more than a century earlier.76 We do not hear much about mission during his time; the Ibāḍiyya had become firmly established in Oman and in Tāhart. Interestingly he was believed to have considered the contemporaneous existence of two imams to be possible, as long as their spheres of influence did not touch.77 In the end it was a political issue in the context of which he, by that time approaching old age, stepped into the limelight. The first of the Rustamids, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Rustam had died in Tāhart in 168/784. His succession was difficult; there were two candidates, of whom ʿAbd al-Raḥmān’s son ʿAbd al-Wahhāb had less support. He was only successful because he granted the tribes a voice, and because he promised that in case they were dissatisfied he would resign in favour of a better candidate (afḍal). Once he had assumed power, however, he had no intention of abiding by the two conditions and called on the community elders, who were in Mecca at the time (presumably for the hajj) for a decision. The majority of them supported him: once elected an imam has unlimited authority, being responsible only to God. Rabīʿ b. Ḥabīb was among those who composed the fatwā. This led to a division in the Maghreb. Opponents rallied around Yazīd b. Fandīn of the Banū Ifrān, a Berber who had been a member of the electorate. They suffered defeat, but where the Rustamid power did not reach, the Nukkār – the “challengers” – would remain in the majority even later.78 Rabīʿ’s partisanship had financial rewards as the imam bought merchandise for Tāhart through him.79 Later he was said to have called on him for an expert opinion,80 at the time when ʿAbd al-Wahhāb was staying in Jabal Nafūsa preparing the siege of Tripoli; this takes us to the years around 190.81 Consequently it would not be possible to date Rabīʿ’s death to around 170/786,

75   Kitāb Ibn Sallām 110, 6ff. Further teachers are listed in Bishr b. Ghānim, Al-mudawwana al-kubrā 307, 11ff. 76  F. ʿUmar, Al-khalīj al-ʿarabī 115 after ʿAwtabī; also Darjīnī 276, ult., but misspelt here. Regarding Khurayba cf. Ṣāliḥ al-ʿAlī, Khiṭaṭ al-Baṣra 122ff. 77  Maḥmūd Ismāʿīl, Al-Khawārij fī l-maghrib al-Islāmī (Beirut 1976), p. 122, n. 395. 78  In detail Rebstock 163ff., citing the relevant sources; also Lewicki in EI1, Suppl. s. v. Nukkār. For Spain cf. Ibn Ḥazm’s remark, Fiṣal IV 191, 8f. It is worth noting that in the Quran the root n-k-r has negative connotations in form I as well; cf. nakirahum “he found them suspicious” in sura 11:70, and shayʾ nuk(u)r “something atrocious” in sura 18:74 and 54:6. 79   Kitāb Ibn Sallām 110, 10ff. 80  Abū Zakariyāʾ 76, 14ff./transl. 156; Darjīnī 66, 9ff. 81  Rebstock 222ff.

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as Brockelmann82 and more recently Wilkinson have done;83 but we would have to allow him a long life. What is certain is that he had passed away by the end of the century when Khalaf b. al-Samḥ and his followers had seceded from the Rustamids.84 Before his death he had returned to his home in Oman.85 A certain Abū l-Mundhir al-Nazwānī was already circulating his traditions at the time, and at his request.86 These traditions have kept his name alive in the Ibāḍiyya to this day. He collected them in a Musnad which unfortunately survives only in a later and entirely reorganised redaction, Abū Yaʿqūb Yūsuf b. Ibrāhīm al-Warglānī’s (d. 570/1174) Tartīb. But the decision in favour of traditionalism had been made; unlike the Muʿtazila, the Ibāḍiyya did not reject hadith. At the same time it becomes clear to what extent it retired into itself, like the Shīʿa. Rabīʿ quoted several authorities in the first generation: ʿĀʾisha, Anas b. Mālik, Abū Hurayra, Abū Saʿīd al-Khuḍrī and above all Ibn ʿAbbās; originally his Musnad had been arranged according to their names. Subsequently, however, everything would be transmitted through Jābir b. Zayd, and often also Abū ʿUbayda, and, more significantly: hardly anything was added after Rabīʿ. The Ibāḍiyya did not play a part in the development of hadith science, then in its earliest stages. This also explains the large number of incomplete isnāds. I examined the work in more detail in ZDMG 126/1976/34ff.; Wilkinson provided further valuable information in a more recent essay.87 Consequently I can limit myself to the most relevant information here. The first two books, comprising a total of 742 hadiths, contain the traditions Rabīʿ traced back to Jābir via Abū ʿUbayda; according to Rabīʿ’s commentary they are a selection from

82   G AL S 2/823, following Masqueray. 83  In: Studies 142; also in: Der Islam 62/1985/233f. 84  Abū Zakariyāʾ 81, 1ff./transl. 162. Regarding the Khalafiyya cf. Lewicki in SI 9/1958/79f., and EI2 III 659b: Rebstock 239ff. It survived on Djerba (cf. Abū Zakariyāʾ, transl. Revue Afr. 105/1961/141). 85  Wilkinson, ibid. Regarding the problem of dates cf. also Cook, Dogma 56f. 86  Cf. ZDMG 126.1976/33, n. 21. In general also Lewicki in: Cahiers 79 and EI2 III 651a. 87  In: Der Islam 62/1985/231ff.; cf. also Studies 245f., n. 30. Also the remarks by Talbi, Etudes d’histoire ifrīqiyenne 36ff. It should be added to the bibliographical information that the Damascene reprint of the two-volume edition with the gloss of Sālimī I mentioned on p. 34, n. 23 a, was edited by ʿIzzaddīn al-Tanūkhī; it is divided into three volumes but does not contain more text than the original, two-volume edition. All four parts are extant not only in the printed version (Cairo 1349/1930) but also in a Jerusalem edition of 1381/1961–2 and a Damascene edition of 1388/1968 which was reprinted in 1985 in Masqat.

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ca. 4000 dicta of the prophet and his companions. Book 3 (hadiths no. 743– 882) mainly contains material Rabīʿ collected from other sources; the hadiths are mostly arranged according to theological considerations, thus e.g. in a Bāb al-Qadar wal-ḥidhr wal-taṭayyur that reflects the contemporary discussion of this issue.88 Book 4 (no. 883–1005) was added by Warglānī. It added Jābir traditions with incomplete isnāds (maqṭūʿ), as well as some traditions by Abū Sufyān Maḥbūb b. al-Raḥīl, Rabīʿ’s successor; also an additional section (ziyād) by the Rustamid imam Aflaḥ b. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb (208/823–258/872), with a commentary on juristic hadiths from a book (the Mudawwana?) by Bishr b. Ghānim al-Khurāsānī.89 A manuscript on Djerba furthermore preserves the so-called Āthār al-Rabīʿ. They are not linked to the Musnad at all, being juristic material connected in some way or another with Rabīʿ himself: expert opinions he had given himself, and others that he collected from Jābir b. Zayd via Ḍumām b. al-Sāʾib. Together with the Aqwāl Qatāda and other writings, some once again traced back to Jābir b. Zayd, these were part of a greater corpus known under the name Aldīwān al-maʿrūḍ ʿalā ʿulamāʾ al-Ibāḍiyya, possibly an edited version of the Dīwān Jābir.90 In Oman it was known as the K. Abī Ṣufra after Abū Ṣufra ʿAbd al-Malik b. Ṣufra who seems to have edited it around 235/850, and who was the final point of the line of Basran ʿulamāʾ.91 Heresiographical reports confirm that the Ibāḍiyya did not die out in Iraq immediately after Rabīʿ’s return home. However, the theologians of whom we have accounts over the following decades, until the miḥna, were based in Baghdad rather than in Basra; they did not object to being in touch with the Abbasid court.92As for Basra, most scholars seem to have emigrated by the end of the seventies, around the same time as Rabīʿ.93 His successor

88  No. 796–820; transl. Cuperly, Introduction 286ff. 89  This work also includes references to later authorities such as Bishr al-Marīsī (d. 218/833), which I have discussed in ZDMG 126/1976/35f. They do not necessarily raise chronological problems. Bishr al-Ghānim quoted Bishr al-Marīsī elsewhere, too (see p. 676 below). 90  See p. 220 above. 91  In detail cf. Wilkinson in: Der Islam 62/1985/241ff. 92  For more information see ch. C 5.3 below. 93  Cf. Lewicki in: Cahiers 79 and EI2 III 651a.

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Abū Sufyān Maḥbūb b. al-Raḥīl b. Sayf (?) b. Hubayra al-ʿAbdī al-Makhzūmī apparently already had a “second home” in Oman,94 but when a dogma-related controversy was causing unrest in the communities in Oman and Ḥaḍramawt, he still intervened with missives presumably sent from Basra.95 He was a Quraysh96 and appears to have been related to Rabīʿ.97 He would become important especially to historians as he – presumably realising that Basra was irrevocably lost to the community – wrote the history of the Basran shuyūkh on which all later accounts, by Darjīnī, Shammākhī and others would be based.98 The work spread an image of history that found favour especially in the Maghreb; less so in Oman at first.99 The author, however, was so little known in the Maghreb that it was possible, against all chronological probabilities, to attribute a letter to him that he was said to have written to Ṭālib al-ḥaqq, who had been active in Yemen in AH 129.100 Sunni historiography did not take note of the Ibāḍite exodus; one generation after the foundation of Baghdad, Basra had become irrelevant altogether. Rabīʿ’s Musnad did not leave any traces, either; to this day no-one in Damascus knows that the book has been reprinted there. The experts of jarḥ wal-taʿdīl were unable to classify Rabīʿ’s name; the sources teem with mistakes and false hypotheses.101 The move underground and the subsequent separation of Ibāḍite and “Sunni” sources that had first begun to take shape during the 220s had now been concluded. Shammākhī, in fact, did not know anything about names such as Qatāda or Sallām b. Miskīn, from whom Rabīʿ had transmitted.102 Otherwise he would probably have suppressed them as they were both Qadarites and did not conform to the Ibāḍite line any more at all.103 94  Wilkinson 244, n. 25; in more detail Lewicki in EI2 V 1230. To this day families in Ṣuḥār trace their genealogies back to him (cf. Khamīs b. Saʿīd, Manhaj I 122, n. 1). His genealogy has not been established with complete certainty (cf. divergent information in Lewicki, in Khamīs b. Saʿīd 619, pu., and in ʿUbaydilī, Kashf al-ghumma 299, n. 3). 95  For more information see p. 244 and 797 below. References in Wilkinson (Arabian Studies 4/1978/193 and 196). 96   Al-siyar wal-jawābāt, ed. Kāshif, 276, n. 1. 97  Thus at least if Shammākhī’s slightly surprising remark is correct: that his mother (later?) married Rabīʿ (Siyar 118, apu. f.). He was indeed regarded as the latter’s foster son (Khamīs b. Saʿīd, loc. cit.). 98  Cf. Lewicki in: FO 3/1961/19, and Schwartz 31. 99  Cf. in detail Wilkinson in: Der Islam 62/1985/250 and 252f. 100  Darjīnī, Ṭab. 279, 13ff.; in part translated in Cuperly, Introduction 29f. Regarding the chronological problem cf. Rebstock 242, n. 2; regarding the subject matter see p. 258 below. 101  Cf. ZDMG 126/1976/33f. 102  Cf. Siyar 121, 11 and 14f. 103  Regarding Sallām b. Miskīn see p. 78 above.

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2.2.5.3 The Question of qadar The culture of secret societies and seclusion led to rigorous discipline almost as a matter of course. Abū ʿUbayda excommunicated members,1 and seems to have been generally very autocratic where they were concerned.2 He could rely on widespread approval; the only argument concerned whether those excommunicated should afterwards be readmitted or not.3 The Qadarites were the first to feel his rage. Originally, Qadarite teachings had not been considered offensive among the Ibāḍites. They had collaborated with Hishām al-Dastuwāʾī and transmitted Qatāda’s expert opinions; according to a Sunni record4 Abū Nūḥ Ṣāliḥ al-Dahhān had been a Qadarite. So, too, had Ḥājib al-Ṭāʾī; he had approved of the maxim that good came from God, evil on the other hand came from humans, thus standing in the tradition of Ḥasan al-Baṣrī. It was not until later that he retracted this out of solidarity with Abū ʿUbayda; the Qadarites accused him of inconsistency.5 The “Ṣufriyya”, too, remained Qadarite.6 Unfortunately, Ibāḍite sources do not contain information on the dissidents’ views, but we do learn some details about their personalities. Firstly there was Ḥamza al-Kūfī, who was probably not very well received in Basra because he came from the neighbouring city, which makes his Qadarite involvement even more astonishing, as this was not very widely practised in Kufa. He had influential patrons: Saʿīda, the wife of Manṣūr’s brother-in-law ʿAbdallāh b. al-Rabīʿ al-Ḥārithī invited him to stay in her house after the altercation with Abū ʿUbayda.7 She was herself a member of the community; she probably was the daughter of Ḥalbiyya, a Muhallabid who had supported Ibāḍite circles during the Umayyad era.8 She had to have the boycott pointed out to her; she clearly did not consider Qadarite teachings dangerous, and the practice of excluding people from the community was probably unknown to her, too. After she finally banned 1  Cf. Shammākhī 113, –6f.; also Text VII 1, i. 2  Ibid. 110, 11f.; he determined whether someone was permitted to go on pilgrimage. Maybe the community financed their members’ hajj. 3  Abū Nūḥ Ṣāliḥ al-Dahhān’s answer was negative; Abū ʿUbayda himself was more generous (Wisyānī, Siyar I 37, 2ff.; also vol. I 483 above). 4  Ibn ʿAdī in Ibn Ḥajar, Lisān al-Mīzān III 178 no. 820. 5  Cf. the instructive account in Darjīnī 243, –4ff. = Shammākhī 84, pu. ff. (where the affiliation of people is not quite so clear); transl. in Cuperly, Introduction 28, n. 66. Quoted in parts in an anonymous text from Oman, Al-siyar al-jawābāt I 384, –6ff. 6  See p. 252 below. Regarding Medina cf. p. 746f. below. 7  Shammākhī 120, 8ff. 8  Cf. Lewicki in: Cahiers 78f. and 71; also EI2 III 649b.

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Ḥamza from her house he went to Mosul trying to settle in the community there;9 once again he seems to have made sure to acquire the support of an influential woman, a certain Umm Shihāb. Someone was sent after him from Basra in order to “warn people” there, i.e. spread counter-propaganda.10 This took place in the forties at the earliest, for we know that Ḥamza was in contact with the qāḍī Sawwār b. ʿAbdallāh al-ʿAnbarī11 in Basra after AH 140. ʿAbd al-Malik al-Ṭawīl, another Basran Ibāḍite of this time,12 had incurred Abū ʿUbayda’s displeasure at the time, because he testified to the dissenter’s good character before the judge.13 Maybe we should move forward as far as the beginning of the second half of the century, as even Shuʿayb b. Maʿrūf and ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, both of whom were members of Rabīʿ b. Ḥabīb’s generation, claimed to have debated with him.14 At that time, towards the end of his life, Abū ʿUbayda probably enjoyed the respect required for him to see the power struggle through. Like others, this account frequently mentions a second Qadarite besides Ḥamza, who may have come from the Jazīra: ʿAṭiyya. He had a son named Abraha who came to Basra during the next generation, from the Jazīra, or “Syria”, as he said, in order to study under Rabīʿ b. Ḥabīb. Rabīʿ did not know him, and he himself did everything he could in order not to show his Qadarite views. When a visitor exposed him, younger members of the community insisted that Rabīʿ should exclude him. He was accused of having “ruined” the community in Najrān, like his father before him.15 This shows that there were still Ibāḍites with Qadarite convictions in the Mosul region; they even proselytised in other communities. The father probably spent time in Basra with Ḥamza16 and later offered him sanctuary in his home region. He probably was a southern Arab; his son’s name indicates this, as did the 9  Among the “weaker Muslims”, 120, 14 tells us; similar to 85, 10f. with reference to the Basrans: “among the women and the weak” (which may have had people like Saʿīda in mind). 10  Shammākhī 112, 6ff.; cf. p. 529 below. 11  Regarding him see p. 178 above. 12  Shammākhī 107, –6ff. 13  Ibid. 120, 6f. 14  Ibid. 120, 3ff. and earlier. Regarding them see p. 239ff. below. 15  Darjīnī 276, pu. ff.; Shammākhī 104, 9ff. (which has Khurāsān instead of Najrān). 16  Shammākhī 85, 13, and 120, 8.

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successes in Najrān.17 – The third man in this group, who is mentioned in only one passage,18 was al-Ḥārith b. Mazyad, who has already been discussed above under the name of Ḥārith al-Ibāḍī.19 He may have been younger than the other two and drew clearer consequences from the division, for his followers represented “Muʿtazilite doctrine in the qadar . . . claiming that the faculty of action existed previously to the action”. This reveals a more theoretical approach; they also “contradicted the other Ibāḍites” in this.20 Their break with community tradition led to their going back to ʿAbdallāh b. Ibāḍ.21 The case of a certain Ghaylān, whom Shammākhī links to the others (105,6, and 120, 1f.), poses a problem. In all probability we are looking at a straightforward misunderstanding, as these are not original accounts but retrospective summaries. They are probably based on the passage (which we have already consulted) by Abū Sufyān, of Ḥamza al-Kūfī defending his views against Abū ʿUbayda, and later Ḥājib al-Ṭāʾī. No information survived regarding the course of the discussion, but it was said that at the end Abū ʿUbayda countered Ḥamza’s arguments with the words: “With this view you have seceded from Ghaylān” (Darjīnī 244, 2; Shammākhī 85, 1); i.e. Abū ʿUbayda had caught him out in an inconsistency and decided the debate in his own favour. It is not said that this Ghaylān was an Ibāḍite; he probably referred to Ghaylān al-Dimashqī. We cannot decide whether Abū ʿUbayda meant that Ḥamza went even further than Ghaylān.

17  It is probably not advisable to link him to Hilāl b. ʿAṭiyya al-Khurāsānī (see p. 673 below), even if Najrān may have been an error for Khurāsān (see above). The latter was a respected man who had no ties with the Jazīra. 18  Shammākhī 120, 8. 19  P. 218. Only Baghdādī notes the complete name (Farq 84, 8 > Isfarāʾīnī, Tabṣīr 57, 9/59, 9). ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd misread Mazyad for Yazīd in his edition (105, 3), which Gimaret, Livre des Religions 410, no. 32, quotes. 20  Ashʿarī, Maq. 104, 6ff. 21  For further doctrines occasionally associated with Ḥārith, see p. 260 and 266, n. 2, below.

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The Qadarite groups were probably absorbed by the Muʿtazila at some point. Whenever Muʿtazilites refer to the Ibāḍiyya, it is always to the predestinarian majority. Jāḥiẓ was amused at a rather naïve member of the sect who believed that the faculty of action was present only at the moment of the action (alistiṭāʿa maʿa l-fiʿl), quoting poetical sources that contributed nothing.22 The Kufan Ibāḍite ʿAbdallāh b. Yazīd also adhered to this conviction.23 At the beginning, however, istiṭāʿa was not the point under discussion. Abū ʿUbayda’s starting point clearly was the divine prescience: “Those who admit that God knows of things before they exist, also accept predestination”, was a dictum transmitted from him.24 This thought seems to go back to his teacher Ṣuḥār alʿAbdī from whom a similar dictum was transmitted – but nothing else.25 Abū ʿUbayda did not want this interpreted to the effect that with this prescience God exerts some kind of compulsion (jabr); rather, humans are impelled to evil by their “ego” or by Satan, and then commit acts that God had already foreseen.26 Good deeds come into being through God’s help (tawfīq); and thus even an unbeliever can find the faith.27 Ḍumām b. al-Sāʾib had said something similar already.28 Thus the Ibāḍites were not determinists in the strict sense of the word; jabriyya to them was a term of abuse meaning the “tyranny” of unlawful rulers.29

22   Ḥayawān III 9, –4ff.; he was also said to have given as his reason for loathing the Shīʿa that so many words that begin with sh have a negative meaning (ibid. 22, 2ff.). – Inversely, later texts saying “Qadarites” always mean Muʿtazilites (cf. e.g. the summary of their doctrine by Abū Sahl Yaḥyā b. Ibrāhīm al-Warglānī, second half of the fifth/eleventh century, in Cuperly, Professions de foi ibāḍites II 191). 23  See vol. I 480f. above. 24  Darjīnī 233, 15f. 25  Cf. in more detail Anfänge 20f.; also Darjīnī 233, 17f., where it emerges that Abū Sufyān linked the two statements. Reservations regarding the date in Cook, Dogma 142. 26  Darjīnī 241, 8ff. = Shammākhī 86, 8ff.; Anfänge 131. 27  Darjīnī 241, –4ff. = Shammākhī 85, apu. ff. 28  Shammākhī 86, pu. ff.; Anfänge 55. 29  Thus e.g. in the first of the letters allegedly by Ibn Ibāḍ to ʿAbd al-Malik (cf. HT 183); also in Mukhtār b. ʿAwf’s khuṭba (Jāḥiẓ, Bayān II 124, 4; cf. p. 736 below). The word was used elsewhere in anti-Umayyad propaganda as well; Abū Hāshim, Ibn al-Ḥanafiyya’s son, being one who was claimed to have said it (Akhbār al-ʿAbbās 177, apu. ff., and 178, 9; in general also Studies on the First Century 114f.).

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The problem was clearly not central to Rabīʿ b. Ḥabīb’s view. While the majority of hadiths in his Musnad that touch on the subject are predestinarian in tone, there are others which are more supportive of a Qadarite position,30 and in one instance he interprets the term Qadariyya like Qadarites and Muʿtazilites did, meaning “predestinarian”.31 However, even during Abū ʿUbayda’s day there were “young people” who inclined to stricter determinism; Ḥamza complained that Abū ʿUbayda did not excommunicate them.32 Maybe they were Shuʿayb b. Maʿrūf and his friends who had debated with Ḥamza.33 It was also claimed that Ḥasan al-Baṣrī had been “corrupted” by Wāṣil b. ʿAṭāʾ;34 Qadarism and Muʿtazila had become viewed as one. The Muʿtazila began its mission in Oman; Wāʾil b. Ayyūb, one of Rabīʿ’s pupils, debated there with one of their people named Kahlān.35 There is an extant record of the debate; one of the subjects discussed was the istiṭāʿa.36 Around the same time Maḥbūb b. al-Raḥīl wrote a brief introduction to successfully debating “with our enemy, the Qadarites”, his arguments based firmly on Abū ʿUbayda’s.37 Shortly afterwards, around 210/825 or slightly later, a notable from Ṣuḥār complained to the imam ʿAbd al-Malik b. Ḥumayd (r. 207/822 or 208/823 to 226/841) that the “Qadarites” – like the Murjiʾites – attracted so many members, and asked him for help.38 2.2.5.4 The Quarrel over the Anthropomorphisms Abū ʿUbayda anathematised not only the Qadarites but also, as we saw earlier, “young people” who had wondered – and asked him – whether someone who had not had the opportunity to know the true faith should be called an unbeliever after all. They may have taken their cue from Qadarite ideas, but they 30  Cf. no. 8 and 9 in Cuperly’s translation p. 287. Of course it was Warglānī in Tartīb who classified them into the Bāb al-qadar; Rabīʿ may not have been interested in their implications at all. 31  Ibid. no. 10. 32  Shammākhī 85, –6ff. 33  See p. 233 above. 34  Darjīnī 258, 5ff. = Shammākhī 97, 15ff., as having been said by Abū Muḥammad al-Nahdī. 35  Shammākhī 105, 12f. This was probably a Southern Arab; the name was already recorded in Sabian inscriptions (Y. Abdallah, Personennamen 85). 36  Cf. the translation in Cuperly, Professions de foi ibāḍites I 425, n. 28. 37  Khamīs b. Saʿīd, Manhaj I 434, 9ff. 38  ʿAbdallāh b. Ḥumayd al-Sālimī, Tuḥfat al-aʿyān bi-sīrat ahl ʿUmān (2Cairo 1350) I 113f.; cf. Cuperly, Introduction 159 and Wilkinson in Ar. Stud. 4/1978/204. Should the combination of Qadarites and Murjiʾites lead us to conclude that the Muʿtazilites found in Oman were in fact Basran Ghaylānites?

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were clearly referring to the state of salvation. And this was an issue where Abū ʿUbayda, for all his severity, was very cautious.1 He was also said to have dismissed some of his pupils who called non-Ibāḍite Muslims (ahl al-qibla) polytheists (mushrikūn) because “they had wrong ideas concerning passages (in the Quran) that sound anthropomorphic”.2 It was the rash judgment that he took exception to, as he probably agreed with the hotheads he criticised that the ahl al-qibla were wrong factually. The wording indicates this: anthropomorphisms only sound like that; if one really interprets Quranic passages along those lines, one has misunderstood them. The source refers to this false exegesis – in this instance literal instead of metaphoric interpretation – as ta‌ʾwīl. Fiqh absaṭ uses the term in this sense as well, and with the same conclusion: ta‌ʾwīl leads to sin, but not to unbelief.3 Fundamental rejection of all tashbīh moved the Ibāḍiyya closer to the Muʿtazila. Unlike the latter it even provides earlier sources on the subject. ʿAbdallāh b. Yazīd wrote his K. al-tawḥīd one generation after Abū ʿUbayda.4 While Abū ʿUbayda was still trying to prevent the issue from being talked about, by that time the Ibāḍite views had been clear for some time. People referred to Jābir b. Zayd and via him to Ibn ʿAbbās. Ennami collected the relevant material from Rabīʿ’s Musnad: if God holds something in his hand (qabaḍa; cf. sura 2:245 or 39:67), this refers to his authority; his “hand” is his power or his reward, his “eye” his knowledge and protection. His “calf” (sāq) which he will bare on the Day of Judgment (68:42) means his firm determination to act, and his “person” (nafs, cf. sura 5:116) his knowledge.5 This strand of traditions should not necessarily be regarded as fictitious, as Mujāhid, another of Ibn ʿAbbās’ pupils, also interpreted the anthropomorphisms metaphorically.6 Tawḥīd was already used as a political–religious slogan and a symbol of Ibāḍite identity 1  He did not consider the person under discussion to be muʾmin, but muslim (see vol. I 483 above). Cf. also p. 233 n. 3 above. 2  al-muta‌ʾawwilīn fī lladhī warada mā yūhimu l-tashbīh (Shammākhī 105, 1f.). The wording is rather convoluted. Regarding the context cf. Cuperly, Introduction 27, n. 63. 3  P. 41, ult. ff. (where tafsīr is used besides ta‌ʾwīl); even more extreme 45, 12ff. Regarding this meaning of ta‌ʾwīl cf. also Text IV 62, d, with commentary, and p. 244 below, also vol. I 304 above. On assessing the situation among the Ibāḍites cf. also Cuperly, Introduction 169f.; later Zaydite law knows the term kufr al-ta‌ʾwīl (cf. Kruse in: WI 23–24/1984/432ff.). 4  See vol. I 478 above. 5  Ennami 205ff.; cf. the texts in Musnad (ed. Damascus 1388), p. 220ff., or in Warglānī, Tartīb, MS Rhodes House, Afr. S. 3, fol. 229a ff. Further source in Cuperly, Introduction 188. Cf. also Cook in: JSAI 9/1987/171f. 6  Madelung, Qāsim 59; cf. p. 720 below.

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in Ṭālib al-ḥaqq’s speech.7 The Ibn ʿAbbās tradition continues its existence in Abū Ammār’s K. al-mūjaz,8 which, however, quotes other witnesses as well, among them even Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, presumably on the basis of his Tafṣīr.9 The Ibāḍites applied the same rationalist probe to certain details of eschatology; Ibn Ḥanbal had remarked in his ʿaqīda that the “Khārijites” did not believe in the cistern (ḥawḍ), the punishment of the grave etc.10 This was occasionally transmitted from other Basran Qadarites, too.11 Later the emphasis shifted overall towards the problem of the vision of God (ruʾya), another subject on which Rabīʿ had collected material from tradition.12 It was not until later that the issue became a controversy, at least in the Maghreb: we know that Abū Nūḥ Saʿīd b. Zangīl studied it around the middle of the fourth/tenth century.13 As in the case of qadar, we can give events a more concrete background by adding a few names, for those whose strict attitude towards anthropomorphisms had angered Abū ʿUbayda resurfaced once more under Rabīʿ b. Ḥabīb. By this time they had become respected gentlemen, and it seems that as long this was the only issue, Rabīʿ had no objections.14 There was, for instance, Abū Saʿīd ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, a jurist who played an independent part beside Rabīʿ and remained well-known later mainly because he freely employed qiyās.15 He frequently maintained his own opinion against Jābir b. Zaid as well as Abū ʿUbayda which brought him criticism, but was also the reason why Bishr b. Ghānim included him as

7  See p. 227 above. 8  Cf. his refutation of the mushabbiha in Mūjaz I 351ff., e.g. 372, 6ff. (istawā ʿalā ʿarshihī = istawlā), or 376, 2f. (jāʾa rabbuka = jāʾa amru rabbika). 9  Ibid. I 386, 9f. (yad = amr), and 399, 4f. (God’s laugh = pleasure); also 376, 3ff. It is unlikely that he was aware of working from ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd’s redaction. Cf. also the material in Khamīs b. Saʿīd, Manhaj I 392ff. and 503ff. 10  Ibn Abī Yaʿlā, Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila I 34, 3f.; transl. in Laoust, Ibn Baṭṭa 55, n. 1. Sources quoting Ibn ʿAbbās on this issue in Khamīs b. Saʿīd I 499, 6f. (al-ṣirāṭ = dīn al-Islām) and 506, 4ff. (al-kursī = ʿilm Allāh). 11  See p. 82 above. 12  Cf. Cuperly 237, n. 11, after Muḥammad Aṭfiyyash’s Tartīb al-tartīb. 13  Cuperly 236, although he dates Abū Nūḥ too early; regarding his dates see vol. I 484 above. 14  Shammākhī 105, 4f. 15  Cf. ZDMG 126/1976/39 and 41; Ṭālibī in Mūjaz II 213, n. 5. Maybe these were early signs of Aḥmad b. al-Ḥusayn al-Aṭrābulusī’s doctrine (see vol. I 487 above).

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an authority in his Mudawwana.16 His K. nikāḥ al-shighār survives to this day.17 We have already come across him as a predestinarian opponent of Ḥamza al-Kūfī.18 – Another one mentioned is Abū l-Muʾarrij ʿAmr (?) b. Muḥammad al-Sadūsī, one of Qatāda’s fellow-tribesmen. He, too, was remarkable mainly as a jurist.19 After the altercation with Abū ʿUbayda he seems to have moved to Persia.20 It is worthwhile to consider whether we may be looking at the father of the philologist Muʾarrij b. ʿAmr al-Sadūsī who played a part at the caliph’s court in Baghdad under al-Ma‌ʾmūn. Ṭālibī considered the relation but rejected it rather rashly,21 as we do find a few surprising points of contact. The name Muʾarrij is not frequent; it attracted attention in Iraq.22 The philologist went to Marv with al-Ma‌ʾmūn,23 and also visited Nishapur and possibly Jurjān.24 Furthermore he was believed to have been one of Khalīl’s assistants (ghilmān),25 and Khalīl, too, came from an Ibāḍite or Ṣufrite background.26 The latter piece of information might originally have applied to the father, as it was noted very close to another remark that leaves hardly any doubt that the two were being confused here, namely the date of his death. It is often emphasised that the philologist came to Baghdad

16   Kitāb Ibn Sallām 114, 3ff.; Schwartz 48f. and 59f.; Rebstock 181. Regarding Bishr b. Ghānim see p. 675ff. below. 17  One manuscript is preserved in the Maktaba al-Bārūniyya on Djerba (Schwartz 300, no. 1). Regarding the exact title cf. Ennami in: Ibn Khalfūn, Ajwiba 108, where he referred to Abū ʿUbayda and Abū Nūḥ Ṣāliḥ al-Dahhān. Regarding nikāḥ al-shighār cf. EI2 VI 475b. 18  See p. 233 above. 19  Cf. esp. Schwartz 60f.; also Index s. n., ZDMG 126/1976/38ff., and Ṭālibī in Mūjaz II 213, n. 6. 20  This probably also explains that he is the authority most frequently named in Bishr b. Ghānim’s Mudawwana al-kubrā. 21  This because, among other things, he was not thinking of the father but presupposing an absolute identity (loc. cit.). 22  Marzubānī, Nūr al-qabas 104, 5ff.; TB XIII 258, 19ff.; Qifṭī, Inbāh III 328, 4ff. Maybe one should read ʿarabiyyan instead of gharīban? 23   T B XIII 258, 13; also 258, 7f. 24  Qifṭī 330, 10; Marzubānī 104, 13. 25   T B XIII 259, 4f. 26  See p. 253 below.

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with al-Ma‌ʾmūn (TB 258, 7, Qifṭī III 327, 12). This would have been in 204/819. Indeed, Marzubānī tells us that he went a different way from the caliph, to visit Basra where he later died (Nūr al-qabas 104, 13f.; also IKh V 307, 2ff. after Muʾarrij’s pupil Ismāʿīl b. Yaḥyā al-Yazīdī; also Sellheim, Sprichwörtersammlungen 50f. and 54). Elsewhere the date of his death is usually given as 195/810 (e.g. in Zubaydī, Ṭabaqāt al-naḥwiyyīn 78, 8; further sources in Ziriklī VIII 266 and Kaḥḥāla XIII 33f.). This, however, applied in fact to the father, as confirmed by a note by Ibn al-Muʿtazz and preserved by Ibn al-Nadhīm; the same was true of the cooperation with Khalīl (Qifṭī 330, 3f.; altered in the extant redaction of Fihrist, p. 54, 2f.). Which would mean that our Ibāḍite died in 195/810, which is an entirely acceptable date. Two facts argue against equating the two. Firstly, the name of the Ibāḍite is not transmitted as ʿAmr b. Muḥammad only, but as ʿUmar b. Muḥammad as well.27 Secondly, the genealogy usually cited for Muʾarrij b. ʿAmr goes back via a certain Ḥārith b. Thawr . . . rather than a Muḥammad,28 although it is not conclusive. In order to establish a connection with the genealogical chain we would have to assume that Muʾarrij was only a sobriquet and his real name was Marthad b. al-Ḥārith . . . al-Sadūsī.29 Is it possible that he adopted the genealogy later? It meant a lot to him to have his origins in the desert – understandable in a philologist; it also meant he had an excuse for not being an expert in the scholarly method.30 – The separation from Rabīʿ became obvious only with

27   ʿAmr according to Lewicki (in EI1 S 187a) and Rebstock (p. 179); ʿUmar according to Wilkinson (in: Arab. Stud. 4/1978/205 and Der Islam 62/1985/249) and Schwartz (p. 60f.). Ḥātim b. Manṣūr, as found in Cuperly 315, is a misunderstanding; this was the name of another of Bishr b. Ghānim’s authorities (cf. ADMG 126/1976/41). Schwartz reads Abū l-Muʾrij instead of Abū l-Muʾarrij, while Cuperly has Abū l-Mawrij. 28  Not yet in Marzubānī, but in TB XIII 258, 3ff.; Qifṭī III 327, 8ff. etc. 29  Cf. Ibn Ḥazm Jamhara 318, 2ff. with n.; Fihrist 54, 1 = Qifṭī 330, 2f. (which reads Yazīd instead of Marthad). 30   T B 258, 15f.; Qifṭī 328, 1ff.

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Abū l-Maʿrūf Shuʿayb b. al-Maʿrūf.31 In Oman he was regarded as the head of the movement, which was called the Shuʿaybiyya there.32 However, he had been one of Rabīʿ’s close advisers,33 and they had fallen out over a specific incident: he had intervened in the dispute surrounding the election of the Rustamid ʿAbd al-Wahhāb. Like Rabīʿ he had been asked for an expert opinion by the imam’s messengers, and that before they met Rabīʿ and his colleagues in Mecca. He was in Egypt at the time; it is possible that he came from there. And Egypt was on the way for the envoys who were, after all, travelling from the Maghreb to the Hijaz. His response was negative; we may assume that this was, in fact, the reason why the delegation from Tāhart – whose orders were probably to try for a positive answer – continued their journey. He must have realised that he had not won their favour, which was why he set out for the Maghreb, “without asking the relevant community authorities’ advice”, as Darjīnī put it, and when a conversation with ʿAbd al-Wahhāb did not improve the situation, joined Ibn Fandīn. When things went wrong, he finally fled to Tripolitania.34 The violent clashes had widened the chasm even further. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb had damaged his own reputation not only with his autocratic claim, but also by spilling the blood of “Muslims”, i.e. members of his own community. Shuʿayb, on the other hand, appears only to have defended ancient principles, as the problem was not confined to the Berbers’ demanding a say; ʿAbd al-Wahhāb had not been the most theologically competent of the possible candidates, either. This was the very issue concerning which Rabīʿ had made allowances, pointing out that Abū Bakr had been the rightful caliph even though there had been other people more versed in religion than he, Zayd b. Thābit for instance,

31  Shammākhī 119, ult.; the name must be corrected in accordance with Darjīnī 274, 16. The reading Muʿarrif instead of Maʿrūf, which is found in e.g. Shammākhī, and has also found its way into secondary sources (cf. Le Tourneau in Revue Afr. 104/1960/136 or Schwartz 48), is less probable, as the kunya presumably refers back to the father’s name. – The Shuʿayb mentioned by Ashʿarī, Maq. 94, 6ff., belonged to a different group of Khārijites and is not identical with the person discussed here. 32  Wilkinson in: Arab. Stud. 4/1978/205. The term Shaʿbiyya is also used, for the Nukkār in general (cf. Lewicki in EI1 S 186b). Abū Zakariyyāʾ was the first to read Shaghbiyya instead, and also provided a suitable etymology (60, 17/transl. Revue. Afr. 139 > Darjīnī, Ṭab. 51, 12). 33  Darjīnī 274, 10ff. 34  Cf. the report in Abū Zakariyyāʾ 58, apu. ff./ trans. 136ff. > Darjīnī 49, 9ff. Quite different and unaware of the doctrinal discord: Ibn Ṣaghīr 17, 11ff./transl. 74ff. Rebstock has a summary 168ff.

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or ʿAlī and Muʿādh b. Jabal.35 Support for the imāmat al-mafḍūl sounded strange coming from a Khārijite, as his “realpolitik” view of things was entirely new.36 Thus we are not surprised to hear that Rabīʿ met with opposition elsewhere, too; it seems that he was entirely isolated when he returned to Basra.37 He was ordered to explain why he had excluded Shuʿayb even though the latter had never introduced any “innovation”.38 Maybe it was not until he went back to Oman that people agreed with him; after all, at the time there was no interest in intervening in events in the Maghreb. Ultimately the three abovementioned scholars, as well as ʿAbdallāh b. Yazīd al-Fazārī, became key witnesses for the Nukkār.39 This was probably a later development. Originally the Nukkār had been a political party, and that only in the Maghreb, where someone like ʿAbdallāh b. Yazīd had never set foot. Only once the reason for the “challenge” had become a thing of the past, and rejection of the Rustamid imamate had grown insignificant compared to the issue of the self-image of small communities that continued to exist, namely after Tāhart had been destroyed by the Fatimids in 296/909, would the separate theological views have been collected into a coherent body. An external observer like the historian Ibn Ṣaghīr found it difficult to distinguish differences between the doctrines even after he had lived for some time among the two hostile sects.40 The positions branded as heretical by the Wahbiyya had probably been situated within the range of the theological and juristic possibilities of Ibāḍite communities of the second century. Consequently we cannot rule out that the Wahbite sources, when they quote Abū ʿUbayda on the issue, are employing projection. The names of those he disciplined were nor, after all, given; the text only hints that they were the same theologians who would later come to prominence under Rabīʿ. But the problem grew more immediate only two generations later, and then not in Basra but in Oman. A certain

35  Cf. the fatwā mentioned in Abū Zakariyyāʾ 59, 11ff./transl. 137, and Darjīnī 50, 7ff. Cf. p. 229 above. 36  According to Pseudo-Nāshiʾ, Uṣūl al-niḥal 68, 17, all Khārijites supported the imāmat alfāḍil. Cf. also Strothmann in: Der Islam 17/1928/265. 37  Shammākhī 153, 3ff. and 11ff. 38  Abū Zakariyyāʾ 64, 11ff./transl. 143; cf. also Rebstock 186f. 39  Ennami 261; also vol. I 482 above. Cf. Shammākhī 119, –7ff., where a certain Sahl b. Ṣāliḥ appears by his side (regarding him see Text VII, 1). However, events are linked, probably erroneously, to ʿAbd al-Wahhāb’s successor Aflaḥ. 40  P. 16, –5f. Motylinski.

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Hārūn b. al-Yamān who remained entirely unknown to authors from the Maghreb,41 appeared there in support of the “Nukkārite” view, defending it in a letter to the prince alMuhannā b. Jayfar (r. 226/841–238/853) with the explanation that all he did was follow the teachings of the ancients,42 but from his later writings it becomes clear that this was not touching on the nerve of the matter. While the “ancients” had been agreed that no member of the community who professed God’s oneness should be regarded as a polytheist, he was the only one to propose that an anthropomorphist trespassed against this profession by imagining God to be composed of many parts.43 His antagonist, Maḥbūb b. al-Raḥīl, wrote two epistles from Basra to the communities in Oman and Ḥaḍramawt,44 attempting to control the heresy; he considered anthropomorphism to be a grave sin, not polytheism.45 After all, we do not know precisely what the essence of God is, otherwise it would have been unthinkable that some early Ibāḍite authorities, or respected non-Ibāḍites like Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, should have used anthropomorphic expressions from time to time. As for statements regarding the prophet, these are different: his time on earth was spent in the light of history, and anyone who has wrong ideas about him (al-muta‌ʾawwil fīhi) is malicious and must consequently be regarded as mushrik.46 As we have seen above, al-muta‌ʾawwil fīhi is the exact expression the same Maḥbūb b. al-Raḥīl employed in his history in the context of Abū ʿUbayda, from where Shammākhī adopted it. All the more noticeable, then, that in his epistles he did not refer to the event described in the history.47

41  Wilkinson believes him to have been a Basran who was active in the Maghreb (Imamate Tradition of Oman 164), but this is rather improbable. In fact, in another passage (ibid. 151) he appears to presume him to have been a Yemeni. 42  Cf. Sayyida Ismāʿīl Kāshif’s edition in: Al-siyar wal-jawābāt I 325ff., esp. 327, –4f. 43  Ibid. 328, 8ff., and 329, 6ff. 44  Ibid. 276ff. and 308ff. 45  Ibid. 328, 12ff (after Hārūn b. al-Yamān); also Khamīs b. Saʿīd, Manhaj I 393, –6f. 46  Ibid. 300, –5ff.; 302, apu. ff., and 316, 7ff.; also 331, 7ff. (after Hārūn b. al-Yamān). 47  P. 281, 6ff. gets closest, but the context is much more general. Overall, in Oman the discussion had much greater scope (see p. 796f. below). Furthermore, the way in which the subject is dealt with is long-winded and comparatively imprecise.

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2.2.5.5 Further Controversial Issues Similar uncertainty surrounds another controversial issue because of which ʿAbdallāh b. Yazīd, Abū l-Muʾarrij and ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz1 and, according to another source, Shuʿayb b. Maʿrūf, too,2 were criticised. They were apparently not willing to exclude a woman from the community for tolerating anal intercourse, and to declare her a grievous sinner (kāfirat niʿma). The Wahbites would later find this not sufficiently rigorous, regarding it as typical of the Nukkār.3 If, however, we interpret a remark by Hārūn al-Yamān correctly,4 then Maḥbūb was lenient in this matter, too: this kind of intercourse does not demand the ḥadd punishment for fornication; but a person who is not punishable according to ḥadd should not be excommunicated, either. Once again the later attribution of roles is less important than the question of how this dissension came about. It must be of old standing, and goes beyond the Ibāḍiyya with parallels in the Hijaz: anal intercourse was customary in Mecca but taboo in Medina.5 The Medinans’ stricter attitude might be explained with Jewish influence,6 while the prophet, so people thought they knew, favoured the Meccan view.7 Ibāḍite communities in the Hijaz may have been divided on the issue from the first, as was hadith. The stricter view appears to have been more widely held in Iraq; at least, Abū ʿAmmār claimed that Muʿtazilites and Zaydites adhered to it as well,8 which may well have been due at least in part to the scrupulousness (waraʿ) concerning religious law that spread in Basra in particular. The Wahbites would later regard it as a pillar of

1  Thus according to the exhaustive review by Abū ʿAmmār, Mūjaz II 213, 6ff. and previously. 2  Thus according to a brief reference in Shammākhī 104, ult. f., which has Shuʿayb take ʿAbdallāh b. Yazīd’s place. 3  Cf. e.g. Cuperly, Professions de foi II 192 regarding Abū Sahl Yaḥyā al-Warglānī’s catechism (sixth/twelfth century), and Introduction 333 regarding Shammākhī’s (d. 792/1389–90) Uṣūl al-diyānāt. Regarding Oman cf. Ibn Khalfūn, Ajwiba 52, –5ff., and Sachau in: MSOS, 2nd series, 2/1898/66. 4  Al-siyar wal-jawābāt I 328, 4f. 5  Cf. Dārimī, Sunan I 204ff., esp. no. 1124 (= Ibn Ḥanbal, Musnad VI 305, 3ff.); in general Conc. II 109b, and Ṭabarī, Tafsīr 3IV 398ff. regarding sura 2:223. 6  Dārimī I 205 no. 1130; also al-Ḥurr al-ʿĀmilī, Wasīlat al-Shīʿa XIV 100f., according to which, however, it was Medina where attitudes were particularly relaxed. 7  Cf. F. Mernissi, Le harem politique 184ff., based mainly on Ṭabarī’s Tafsīr. 8  Mūjaz II 206, 3; also the Ḥanafites according to Faḍl b. Shādhān, Īḍāḥ 296, 9f. In the Hijaz, ʿIkrima had already supported it (Dārimī I 205 no. 1129, and 207 no. 1143).

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religion of similar importance to knowledge, action, and intentio.9 Of course, the Nukkār were prudes as well. The other question that comes to mind is why only the woman would be condemned.10 One might once again look for the answer in a general tendency: to the present day the Ibāḍiyya has had the reputation of being particularly misogynistic. However, another point seems to be more important: this was not about sexual behaviour within marriage, but about prostitution.11 It was unlikely that a judge should hear about the forms of intercourse between a husband and wife, unless it became grounds for divorce. In extra-marital relations, however, it was much more important that anal intercourse was a means of contraception; hetaerae in Antiquity had insisted on the practice in order to prevent pregnancy.12 Looked at under this aspect the community’s lack of forbearance and its one-sided condemnation become more comprehensible: compassion for prostitutes would not be found until the romanticising literature of the nineteenth century. Nobody denied that the man, too, was a fornicator, but he was merely a sinner while the woman was an “unbeliever”. The Nukkār dissenters, on the other hand, insisted on theological equality: the woman, too, was merely a “sinner”.13 We must turn to a final subject that has always been debated: Friday prayers. It is not surprising that the Ibāḍites in particular devoted some thought to it, as the khuṭba was one of the official sovereign acts of the authorities. In Basra they had learnt to conform early on, which is why tradition emphasised Jābir b. Zayd praying behind Ḥajjāj.14 Abū Sufyān supported this attitude against Hārūn b. al-Yamān, but used Jābir’s pupil Ḍumām as an illustration for the people of Oman rather than the teacher: Ḍumām had visited the mosque even during the greatest heat during Ramadan.15 Performing the prayer led by an imam, a prayer leader, who was not a member of the Ibāḍiyya was, of course, terrible, but people consoled themselves with the thought that being an “unbeliever” he would not be able to benefit from his prayer.16 9  Thus in Jannāwunī’s ʿaqīda (BEO 32–33/1980–81/49, 8). 10  Abū Sahl Yaḥyā al-Warglānī includes the man in the verdict. 11  Abū ʿAmmār, Mūjaz II 211, 6ff.; Shammākhī in Cuperly, Introduction 333. 12  K. Dover, Homosexuality 101. 13   Mūjaz 213, 6f. Regarding prostitution in early Islam in general cf. Nabih Akel, Studies in the Social History of the Umayyad Period as Revealed in the Kitāb al-Aghānī (PhD London 1960), esp. p. 205ff. 14  See p. 220 above. 15  Cf. Wilkinson in: Der Islam 62/1985/252; also The Imamate Tradition of Oman 165. 16  Schwartz 71f.

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Under different circumstances people would, of course, make different decisions. A source from the first half of the sixth/twelfth century noted that the Nukkār declared prayer led by an unjust ruler to be invalid;17 they kept to themselves in any case. Naffāth, a separatist who was active at the beginning of the third/ninth century in the Jarīd in Tunisia in the lands of the Nafzāwī tribe and who dissociated himself from the Rustamid imam Aflaḥ b. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb (r. 208/823–258/872), believed the khuṭba to be an innovation altogether.18 The Wahbites dropped the khuṭba when after the fall of the Rustamids they had no imam any more, but as they had set great store by it during their previous political independence, they formulated the theory that the sermon was not obligatory.19 Questions of ritual detail were less relevant in comparison. There had been disagreement since time immemorial regarding whether the preacher was allowed to sit between the two parts of his sermon or not.20 During the prayer people did not perform rafʿ al-yadayn; they held their arms by their side.21 This was another old shibboleth;22 it is possible that people had already observed it in Basra. In general, however, one has to be cautious with such deductions; many of the points ʿUthmān b. Khalīfa al-Sūfī noted in connection with the Nukkār clearly had no parallel during the early years. The Sunnis around them barely noticed all this; in their view, the Ibāḍites were simply different. Around the middle of the nineteenth century people in Tunis were saying that those from the Mzāb who were known as the Wahbiyya removed their trousers during prayers.23

17  ʿUthmān b. Khalīfa al-Sūfī, Risāla fī bayān firaq al-Ibāḍiyya al-sitta wa-ghairihā (regarding the work cf. ZDMG 126/1976/55); following him ʿAlī Yaḥyā Muʿammar, Al-Ibāḍiyya bayna l-firaq al-islāmiyya 302. 18  Lewicki in: SI 9/1958/79; Rebstock 248ff. Regarding the Naffāthiyya cf. also Muʿammar, loc. cit. 304ff., and Khulayfāt, Al-nuẓum al-ijtimāʿiyya wal-tarbawiyya ʿinda l-Ibāḍiyya 114f. 19  Jannāwunī, ʿAqīda in: BEO 32–33/1980–81/51, 11; Abū Sahl Yaḥyā al-Warglānī in Cuperly, Introduction 118. Regarding Ibāḍite custom in Zanzibar see ibid. 154. 20  Cuperly, Professions de foi II 82, n. 194. The early Khārijite Ḍaḥḥāk b. Qays had preached sitting down (Dhahabī, Ta‌ʾrīkh VI 22, 4ff.; regarding him see p. 526f. below). On the issue in general cf. F. Meier in: Festschrift Spuler 226. 21  Schwartz 72; regarding modern times cf. Delheure, Faits et dires du Mzab 63. 22  See p. 597ff. below. 23  H. von Maltzan, Reise in die Regentschaften Tunis und Tripolis I 108. Even for this there is a parallel in Iran (see p. 699 below regarding the Kūziyya).

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2.2.5.6 The Environment Despite their seclusion the Ibāḍites attracted attention in non-Ibāḍite biographical and bibliographical sources. The Fihrist names some of their theologians in its chapter on the Khārijites,1 and they are also occasionally mentioned in the rijāl works. However, we are in a grey area here: Sunni authors did not distinguish clearly enough; to them Khārijites were often simply Khārijites. Ibāḍite biographers, on the other hand, obviously missed out some scholars from their community, and we cannot always be sure whether they deliberately concealed a name, or whether the omission was due to the fact that they did not look beyond Basra (and the Maghreb). Ibn al-Nadīm included at least one Ibāḍite from Mosul;2 describing him simply as a Khārijite. We are entirely unable to get a grasp on other theologians he mentions, such as Ibrāhīm b. Isḥāq al-Ibāḍī or al-Haytham b. al-Haytham al-Nājī. Regarding Ṣāliḥ al-Nājī we do at least find out that he was a Qadarite,3 which would explain why the Ibāḍite authors ignored him. Ibn Ḥibbān believed that he was the same as the Basran ascetic and qāṣṣ Ṣāliḥ b. Bashīr alMurrī who died around 175/791, but this is probably pure speculation.4 There are a few Ibāḍites5 among the Khārijite jurists whom Ibn al-Nadīm lists in the 5th fann of the 6th maqāla,6 but most of them are too young to be relevant within the time discussed here. ʿAmmār Ṭālibī believed Ibrāhīm b. Isḥāq to be the same as the Ibrāhīm about whom Ashʿarī wrote (Maq. 110, 1ff.) that he quarrelled with a colleague over the sale of a female slave (Mūjaz I 191). Ṭālibī interpreted the text as an argument on legal principles and regarded the two opponents as scholars who supported the same positions in theory as in this practical case. However, a slightly more detailed parallel in Nashwān al-Ḥimyarī (Ḥūr 175, 11f.) shows that this was not necessarily the case. Ibrāhīm, a Medinan of changeable mind in religious affairs, had sent a female slave to the market; when she did not return in good time he decided to sell her to the Bedouins. As the latter, of course, were not Ibāḍites and consequently “unbelievers”, his neighbour criticised him, which led to a series of mutual excommunications. The story was repeated because of these convolutions rather than 1  Fihrist 234, 5ff. and earlier. 2  Ḥafṣ b. Ashyam; see p. 529 below. 3  Kaʿbī, Maq. 106, 2 after Dāwūd al-Iṣfahānī. 4  He, too, was believed to be a Qadarite (see p. 79f. above). 5  Regarding Jubayr b. Ghālib see p. 529 below. 6  P.  295.

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because of the persons involved (cf. also Watt in: Der Islam 36/1961/225). Furthermore, Abū Bayhas had already commented on the case (see p. 667 below), but he was executed in 94/713. This would date Ibrāhīm to ʿAbd alMalik’s reign, which would be rather too early for the theologian. Ṣāliḥ al-Nājī might be identical with Ṣāliḥ b. Kathīr, whom Shammākhī mentioned as a mutakallim (83, apu. f.; also Lewicki in SI 9/1958/77), and who may have been the father of the Sahl b. Ṣāliḥ mentioned above (p. 243, n. 39), as it was said of both of them that they supported certain innovations. Whether there is any link between him and the Medinan traditionist of the same name, as I considered in Anfänge 23f., is more than doubtful, and he must be clearly distinguished from the Ṣāliḥ b. Abī Ṣāliḥ mentioned by Ashʿarī, Maq. 122, 12ff. (see p. 520, n. 1 below). Ibrāhīm b. Isḥāq is the only one of whom we can be certain that Ibn al-Nadīm regarded him as an Ibāḍite; in the case of the others this is only suggested by the context. Of the four Khārijite theologians listed by Masʿūdī, Murūj V 442, 5ff./IV 28, 2ff., only ʿAbdallāh b. Yazīd was an Ibāḍite with any certainty (regarding him see vol. I 477ff. above). Abū Mālik alḤaḍramī belongs in a different context altogether; he was a Shīʿite (see vol. I 408f. above), which may have been true of the third one, too, a certain Qaʿnab who might be identical with the brother of Zurāra b. Aʿyan (see vol. I, 376ff. with n. 9 above). Pellat, on the other hand, believes him to be identical with the Khārijite of the same name mentioned by Caskel, Jamhara II 465 (Index VII 582). Regarding the fourth one, Yamān b. Riʾāb, see p. 671f. below. Regarding some later Ibāḍite theologians living in Baghdad, see ch. C 5.3 below. Remarkably, the Basran Khārijites listed in rijāl works are grouped around Qatāda; Rabīʿ b. Ḥabīb had studied under him, too. It is surprising all the same, as Qatāda had a good relationship with the Umayyads, as we have seen.7 The first one we must mention was in fact an Azraqite, but came from the same tribe as Qatāda (and Hishām al-Dastuwāʾī): Jurayy b. Kulayb al-Sadūsī. Qatāda had studied under him; interestingly, he transmitted from ʿAlī.8 – Then we have a relative by marriage (khatan) of Qatāda’s, who was one of the qurrāʾ of Basra: 7  See p. 159f. above. 8  Mīzān no. 1475; TT II 78 no. 120.

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Shubayl b. ʿAzra b. ʿUmayr al-Ḍubaʿī. He was an Arab of the old school: poet, historian (rāwiya) and khaṭīb, an expert on gharīb words which he displayed most skilfully in a qaṣīda.9 Only Jāḥiẓ mentioned that he was a Ṣufrite, or rather: became one, after he had been a member of the extreme Shīʿa “for seventy years”,10 probably towards the end of the Umayyad era when Ḍaḥḥāk b. Qays claimed the caliphate.11 Shubayl accompanied the events in verse.12 He died at the beginning of the Abbasid era.13 – Where Qatāda did not accept a Khārijite’s hadith, this was noted clearly, as in the case of Abū Ḥasan al-Aʿraj, who died in 130/749 during the yawm al-Ḥarūriyya,14 presumably having accompanied the Basran expeditionary force that stood with the Ibāḍite Abū Ḥamza during his raid on Medina.15 – One of Qatāda’s pupils who was also regarded as a Khārijite, Abū l-ʿAwwām ʿImrān b. Dāwar al-Qaṭṭān, d. after 150/767,16 pronounced a fatwā permitting Ibrāhīm b. ʿAbdallāh’s troops to shed blood.17 It was probably no coincidence that he also transmitted a hadith against unjust judges.18 He was a Qadarite.19 We need not be deterred by the confusion surrounding his name. Some sources read Dāwūd instead of Dāwar (e.g. Bukhārī III2 425 no. 2868, and IAH III1 287f. no. 1649). Ibn Ḥibbān tried to distinguish between ʿImrān 9  Fihrist 51, 1ff. > Qifṭī, Inbāh II 76 no. 296 (with better readings). Cf. also the story in Zubaydī, Ṭabaqāt al-naḥwiyyīn 48, ult. ff. = Ibn Durayd, Ishtiqāq 119, 12ff. 10   Bayān I 343, 6ff.; TT IV 310f. no. 530. 11  See p. 525 below. 12  Ṭabarī II 1913, 8ff. 13  Ibn Durayd, Ishtiqāq 318, 10f. 14   T T XII 72 no. 287. 15  Ṭabarī II 2007, 17ff.; for more information see p. 736f. and 746 below. 16  Khalīfa, Ṭab. 532 no. 1852; IS VII2 41, 7f.; ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ III 300f. no. 1309; TT VIII 130ff. no. 225. 17  Dhahabī, Mīzān no. 6383 and Ta‌ʾrīkh VI 359, 3ff.; similarly Fasawī before him (II 258, 3ff.). 18  Wakīʿ, Akhbār I 34, –4ff. 19  Kaʿbī, Maq. 107, 7 after Jāḥiẓ.

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al-Qaṭṭān and one ʿImrān al-ʿAmmī (Majrūḥīn II 123, 2ff.), while Dhahabī linked the nisba al-ʿAmmī to Ibrāhīm al-Qaṭṭān himself, in which case he would have been a member of the Banū l-ʿAmm, another one of whom is known to us as a participant in the uprising (see p. 379 below). They were not a genuine tribe but rather mawālī who had moved to Basra from Ahwāz during ʿUmar’s time, and were treated “like cousins” by the Tamīm among whom they lived (cf. Agh. III 257, 2ff. and 17). According to Massignon they were weavers who had earlier followed Christianity (Opera minora III 69). Cf. also p. 125 above. There is only one case in these surroundings where we may claim to have met a previously unknown Ibāḍite, and there, too, only under specific premises. We are, it must be said, looking at an extremely interesting man, as he succeeded at court and excelled in a science of which the Khārijites with their scripturalist inclination must have been especially fond, Quran recitation: (Abū Yazīd) Abān (b. Yazīd al-ʿAṭṭār al-Naḥwī), d. between 160/776 and 170/787 (?). Manṣūr invited him to recite the Quran.20 He probably was an apothecary from Basra; Ṭabarī mentioned that he was an Ibāḍite,21 and Ibn Qutayba called him simply al-Ibāḍī.22 Sunni sources know him mainly as a traditionist,23 their main criticism being that he succumbed to Qadarite leanings.24 It is not possible to prove entirely consistently that the traditionist and the Ibāḍite Quran virtuoso were one and the same,25 but Ibn Ḥanbal did compare him favourably to the abovementioned ʿImrān al-Qaṭṭān, who was also a Qadarite.26 We do not know whether he, with a name like al-Naḥwī, was interested in grammar; although it was only a short step from Quran recitation, the relevant biographical works ignore him completely. It 20  Ṭabarī III 426, 3: as Abān al-Qāriʾ. 21   I II 597, 13. 22   Maʿārif 533, 5. 23  Cf. IS VII2 41, 1f. (among the Basrans); Khalīfa, Ṭab. 538 no. 1886; Bukhārī I1 454 no. 1452; IAH I1 299 no. 1098; Fasawī III 62, apu. ff.; Mīzān no. 20; TT I 101f. no. 175; Ṣafadī, Wāfī V 301 no. 2362; Azmi, Studies 167f. no. 3. 24   T T I 101; TH 202, 4; above all also the Muʿtazilite sources: Kaʿbī 95, 3ff., and 107, 6 (after Jāḥiẓ) > Faḍl 342, –6 > IM 138, 3; Kaʿbī, Qabūl 213, 16f. 25  Ibn al-Jazārī, Ṭab. I 4 no. 2, has the complete name but, like the other biographical sources, no information concerning his being a member of the Ibāḍiyya; while Ṭabarī, who emphasised this detail, had the name as only Abān. 26   ʿIlal 248 no. 1598 = 352 no. 2320.

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may be that he was simply a client of the Banū Naḥw, a subtribe of the Azd,27 who produced a large number of Ibāḍites. His Quranic recitation followed a particular style based on that of the Basran ʿUbaydallāh b. Abī Bakra28 which he had learnt from the latter’s grandson ʿUbaydallāh b. ʿUmar. He recited the text in an elegiac modulation, making it sound like a solemn chant which was known under the name qirāʾa bil-alḥān, while ʿUbaydallāh b. ʿUmar’s style was called qirāʾat Ibn ʿUmar,29 but it did not catch on. Ibn al-Jazārī entirely ignored ʿUbaydallāh, who left hardly any traces elsewhere either, although his family, the Bakrāwī, produced many scholars.30 Ṭurṭūshī pointed out that “scholars tended to shun” the entire school.31 Abān had two Ibāḍite followers, Saʿīd alʿAllāf and his brother, whose name we do not know.32 The former sang himself

27  Cf. Samʿānī, Ansāb XIII 52, 6ff. 28  His brother ʿAbd al-Raḥmān was the first child to have been born in Basra (Khalīfa, Ṭab. 483, ult. ff.); he himself was appointed governor of the province of Sijistān by Ziyād in 51/671, and remained in the post until 53/673; later he became a military leader in Afghanistan. Regarding him cf. Khalīfa, Ṭab. 484 no. 1643; IS VII1 138, 8ff.; Bosworth, Sīstān, Index s. n.; M. A. Fikrat in: GIE II 629ff. 29  Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif 533, 2ff.; regarding Abān cf. also Ṭurṭūshī, Al-ḥawādith wal-bidaʿ 77, 5. Ibn Qutayba, as we have already mentioned, called the latter simply al-Ibāḍī; his identity can be confirmed through the comparison with Ṭabarī. However, shortly afterwards we read that he, like other Quran reciters including, it seems, the Kufan Shīʿite Ḥumrān b. Aʿyan (regarding him see vol. I 374f. above), “included (everyday) songs, camel driver melodies and psalmody (rahbāniyya)” (533, 9f.). ʿUbaydallāh b. Abī Bakra did not do this; he used only sad melodies (533, 3). This does recall the style of the Kufan ʿAwn b. ʿAbdallāh who had the Quran recited by a female slave who was a singer (see vol. I 187f. above). The contradiction may be due to Abān being mentioned in connection with others; or the Kufan Quran reciter Abān b. Taghlib may have been referred to (regarding him see vol. I 392 above). Cf. also the information in WKAS II 389a, 9ff. 30  Cf. Samʿānī, Ansāb II 294ff. 31   Ḥawādith 77, 5f. with much further detail; discussed by Talbi in: Arabica 5/1958/181ff. This statement argues against his being identical with the Qadarite as the latter, as well as Abān b. Taghlib, was included by Ibn al-Jazārī. But maybe he was too much respected in his home town to have been omitted entirely later; the verdict on the qirāʾa bil-alḥān is obviously of a younger date. While Talbi assumes that the qirāʾa bil-alḥān was limited to the court, I think this is improbable; we may safely assume that, like so many other intellectual fashions, it was imported from Basra and Kufa. The phenomenon awaits further study, not least because of its possible influence on the samāʿ of the Sufis. 32   Maʿārif 533, 5; cf. also Ṭabarī III 597, 6f. Lisān al-ʿArab describes Saʿīd al-ʿAllāf as ʿUbaydallāh b. ʿUmar’s pupil in an abridged version (XV 137a, 3f.).

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into Hārūn al-Rashīd’s good graces, just like Abān impressed Manṣūr;33 we will meet him later in his guise as a theologian.34 As much as Qadarite views estranged an Ibāḍite from his community in the long run, they might well have fitted in with his criticism of the authorities. Among the contemporary Ṣufriyya we also find Qadarites, e.g. Layth b. Anas b. Zunaym al-Laythī, who had studied under Ibn Sīrīn.35 This Khārijite group, however, is particularly difficult to define. Some little light is thrown onto it due to the well-known philologist Abū ʿUbayda (120/738–207/822?) having been a member; thus we know it continued to exist in the following generation. He spent nearly his entire life in Basra, criticising the Muhallabids, which he might not have done if he had been an Ibāḍite.36 What appeared to be differing Khārijite “denominations” were probably also linked to different tribal ties. This is the reason why the case of the last person we shall discuss in this context is so very complex: Khalīl b. Aḥmad al-Farāhīdī al-Yaḥmadī, the well-known lexicographer and founder of Arab metrics. He was a member of the same clan as Rabīʿ b. Ḥabīb; the Farāhīd belonged to the Azd.37 Even so, he was reported to have said about himself that he was a Ṣufrite when he came to Basra from Oman.38 Aṣmaʿī, on the other hand, claimed that his sympathies were with the Ibāḍiyya.39 In any case it was assumed that it was Ayyūb alSakhtiyānī (d. 131/748) who had helped him shed all his harebrained heretical ideas. He cannot have been very old at that time; he died between 160/776 and

33   Maʿārif 533, 7f. When Abān appears in an anecdote told by Masʿūdī, Murūj VIII 244, 8ff., as a guest at Hārūn al-Rashīd’s table, he may have been confused with Saʿīd. 34  See ch. C 5.3 (end) below. – It is possible that the Ibāḍite theologian ʿĪsā b. ʿUmayr from Kufa was also a Quran reciter (see vol. I 486 above). 35  Regarding him see Bukhārī IV1 247 no. 1055; IAH III2 180 no. 1017; ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ IV 17f. no. 1570; Mīzān no. 6993. 36   E I2 I 158; regarding him cf. also GAS 8/67ff., and 9/65f. Ashʿarī tells us that he was a Ṣufrite (Maq. 120, 5f.). Ibn Qutayba lists him among the ahl al-Yaman (Risāla fī l-khaṭṭ wal-qalam in: Mawrid 19/1990, issue 1/163, pu.); maybe his sympathies originated there? 37   Fihrist 48, 5; Ibn Ḥazm, Jamhara 380, 13ff.; Wilkinson, Imamate Tradition of Oman 77. 38  Marzubānī, Nūr al-qabas 56, 20ff.; quoted by Sellheim in: EI2 IV 962a. 39  Zubaydī, Ṭab. 45, 1ff.; also ʿIqd II 217, 15, and TT III 163, 11. Aṣmaʿī had been Khalīl’s pupil.

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175/791 at the age of 74.40 However, we must consider the possibility that his “conversion” was only an attempt by later admirers to whitewash him; Ayyūb al-Sakhtiyānī would in due course become the guardian of Basran “orthodoxy”.41 The unusual divergence in the information on the date of Khalīl’s death illustrates how little was really known about him. It is furthermore difficult to understand what he would have learnt from Ayyūb, as he was not prominent on the field of either hadith or fiqh.42 If the two were linked this was because Khalīl was regarded as particularly pious; he was said to have alternately gone on the pilgrimage one year and to war against the unbelievers the next.43 Some extant verses by him praise frugality – but some also survive in which he lamented his lack of funds.44 In his opinion a scholar had to set an example as “a scholar’s wrongdoing beats the drum”,45 scholars, being awliyāʾ, were very close to God;46 he described them as rabbāniyyūn, “men of God”.47 He even met Iyās b. Muʿāwiya and transmitted his criticism of the conclusion by analogy.48 Aṣmaʿī’s suggestion that is was the latter’s influence that led him to distrust qiyās himself,49 may well be tendentious once again, as he was the one to establish analogy as a tool of language analysis.50 Sometime later he tried to be get a position as a tutor with Sulaymān b. Ḥabīb al-Muhallab, who was governing the provinces of Fārs and Ahwāz on behalf of ʿAbdallāh b. 40  Cf. EI2, loc. cit.; Yāqūt, Irshād IV 183, 5. 41  See p. 391 below. 42  But cf. the definition of naskh Ṭūsī, Tibyān I 393, 2ff., quoted after K. al-ʿayn. 43  Marzubānī 56, 10f. > Yāqūt, Irshād IV 182, 5. Naḍr b. Shumayl, himself “orthodox”, was said to have compared his zuhd to ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAwn’s – who is always mentioned together with Ayyūb al-Sakhtiyānī (Irshād IV 182, 1f.; regarding him see p. 404 below). 44  Marzubānī 70, 14ff., and 70, 2f. Ibn al-Nadīm also emphasised his zuhd (Fihrist 48, 6f.). 45  Zubaydī, Ṭab. 44, 16. The “scholar’s wrongdoing” (zallat al-ʿālim) probably played on an association; the phrase is found in a story concerning ʿAbdallāh b. Masʿūd, which is repeated several times (cf. e.g. Fiqh absaṭ 45, ult., and 46, 6; Ibn Abī Shayba, Īmān 34, 15; Conc. II 341b. 46  Qifṭī, Inbāh I 344, 1f.; also Yāqūt, Irshād IV 182, 6. 47  Zubaydī, Ṭab. 44, 8. The word is also used in hadith (cf. Conc. II 210a, and Ibn al-Athīr, Nihāya II 181, 7ff.). 48  See p. 150 above. 49  Zubaydī, Ṭab. 45, 4f. 50  Ibn al-Nadīm, Fihrist 48, 5f. and passim, qiyās usually meaning “rule” here (Versteegh in: ZAL 4/1980/23f.; also 14). He is thus one of the line of anonymous “grammarians” (naḥwiyyūn) mentioned by Sībawayh as opposing the “Arabs” (cf. Rundgren in: Acta Societatis Linguisticae Uppsaliensis II 5/1976/132). Regarding Khalīl’s grammatical terminology cf. W. Fischer in: ZAL 15/1985/97ff.; regarding his achievements as a grammarian and lexicographer GAS 8/51ff. and 9/44ff., and Schoeler in: Der Islam 66/1989/52ff.

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ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz. Based on a few verses, later accounts would emphasise that he did not accept any payment from Sulaymān.51 What is more significant for us, however, is that the Muhallabids had close ties to the Azd. Khalīl claimed to have seen Farazdaq (d. 112/730) as a child, when the latter visited the Muhallabids (in Oman?).52 In another place Sulaymān b. Ḥabīb is described as his friend.53 Someone wanting to be a tutor would probably not get very far with “Arab” scholarship such as grammar and lexicography, especially not in Western Iran, where he may have been at the time.54 It was probably no accident that he had the idea of adding a further piece, a camel, to the game of chess,55 proof that, for all his piousness, he did not have any religious reservations of the kind that Marwān II had had his secretary ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd b. Yaḥyā express56 concerning this pastime. He had his own ideas on the value or otherwise of the sciences of Antiquity. Aṣmaʿī reported that he had a simple classification: dialectics (jadal) had neither a methodological basis (aṣl) nor a practical application (farʿ); astronomy had methodology but no application; medicine, conversely, practical application but no theoretical basis; while mathematics had both.57 Mathematics had practical application to merchants as well as lawyers, to

51  Qālī, Amālī II 269, –9ff.; Zubaydī, Ṭab. 43, 9ff.; Ibn al-Muʿtazz, Ṭabaqāt al-shuʿarāʾ 99, 2ff.; Qifṭī, Inbāh I 344, 6ff.; Yāqūt, Irshād IV 182, 15ff.; Anbārī, Nuzha 47, 5ff.; Mufaḍḍal b. Muḥammad al-Tanūkhī, Ta‌ʾrīkh al- ʿulamāʾ al-naḥwiyyīn 127, 4ff.; IKh II 245, pu. ff. Marzubānī, Nūr 67, 2ff., is closer to reality – and uses different verses. The governor’s name soon lost its relevance, changing frequently: Sulaymān b. Qabīṣa b. Yazīd b. al-Muhallab according to Ibn al-Muʿtazz; Sulaymān b. ʿAlī according to Qālī, Zubaydī, Anbārī and Yāqūt. Tawḥīdī, Mathālib al-wazīrayn 220, 3ff., presents a long-winded account pretending to be autobiographical in which Sulaymān b. ʿAlī is the governor of Basra. Marzubānī, Qifṭī, Tanūkhī and Ibn Khallikān all report the correct version. Cf. also Balādhurī, Ansāb III 183, 12ff., which dates Sulaymān around the year 127/744. ʿAbdallāh b. ʿUmar remained governor of Iraq for some time after (see p. 277f. below). 52  Marzubānī 69, 2ff. 53  Ibid. 67, 14ff. 54  See p. 29 and 46 above. 55  Ḥamza al-Iṣfahānī, Tanbīh 121, 1f. Regarding lions or camels in chess cf. R. Wieber, Das Schachspiel in der arabischen Literatur 245. 56  Cf. his Risāla on the game of chess in Kurd ʿAlī, Rasāʾil al-bulaghāʾ 211ff. = Ṣafwat, Jamharat rasāʾil al-ʿArab 540ff. = Rasāʾil, ed. ʿAbbās 265ff. Religious judgments on the game cf. Wieber 48ff. and 152ff. Chess was frequently played for money (cf. Rosenthal, Gambling 89f.). 57  Qifṭī, Inbāh I 346, 9ff.

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inheritance law, and to politicians for calculating taxation.58 The practical side of astronomy, which did, of course, exist in the form of horoscopes, was suspicious in Khalīl’s eyes.59 Even where lexicography was concerned – and he created the foundations for it with his K. al-ʿayn – he was not entirely “Arab”; his approach of classifying the dictionary entries according to the basis of articulation of the sounds as well as certain details of his linguistic theory appear to go back to Indian influence.60 It is surprising that dialectics fared so poorly in his classification when it should have been dear to him; after all, he practised kalām, although he did not win any laurels in this field. The Muʿtazilites, who would become the dominant force later, did not think much of him. Naẓẓām called him a vain professor who prided himself on the circles he had devised to structure the rules of metrics. Consequently he had thought himself an expert in other fields as well, but not even his compendium of rules amounted to much (in Naẓẓām’s opinion).61 Jāḥiẓ adopted this verdict: Khalīl fancied himself an expert in kalām, but it only proved his stupidity.62 The same, he said, was true of musical theory (ta‌ʾlīf al-luḥūn); he wrote a book on each of these subjects, but no scholar worth his salt ever consulted either.63 The Muʿtazilites disliked him because he – in accordance with Ibāḍite principles – did not believe in free will.64 However, as he wrote a book “on the professing God’s oneness” (fī l-tawḥīd, i.e. about the image of God), we may assume that someone must have been interested in it, and maybe even paid him for it. And it engages our attention when we hear that Ayyūb b. Jaʿfar b. Sulaymān, an influential and educated Abbasid whom we have already met in another

58  Cf. the anecdote that Khalīl was able to read a letter written in Greek by the basileus by applying a combinatory method. This is said to have been the basis of his K. al-Muʿammā (Zubaydī, Ṭab. 47, 12). 59  Marzubānī 65, 8ff. = Mubarrad, Kāmil 360, 4ff. = Zubaydī, Ṭab. 43, ult. ff. = Tanūkhī, Ṭabaqāt al-ʿulamāʾ 125, 1ff.; even, later, Ibn Marzūq al-Tilimsānī, Musnad 440, 14ff., always following some verses attributed to him. 60  Pines, Atomenlehre 119; Wild, Das K. al-ʿAin und die arab. Lexikographie 37ff.; more generally Danecki in: RO 44/1985, issue 1/127ff. It is of course entirely possible that he had already learnt about Indian ideas in Oman. 61  Jāḥiẓ, Ḥayawān VII 165, apu. ff. 62   K. al-muʿallimīn in: Rasāʾil III 44, 11ff. 63   Ḥayawān I 150, 9ff. Another instance of his vanity might be found in the anecdote narrated by Marzubānī 67, 19ff., although this is probably meant to express respect for one’s elders. 64  Cf. Marzubānī 65, 14ff., with an entirely philological refutation of the Qadarites.

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context,65 was the owner of this text. It is true that the text goes on to say that he only read from it to amuse his guests, but then the narrator is once again alNaẓẓām.66 He had barely known Khalīl; while it was claimed that he had been presented to him as a child, this is mere legend.67 Khalīl’s actual opponent was Abū Shamir al-Ḥanafī, who had no liking for his determinism, either.68 He particularly disliked his nebulous style; this is how the only fragment of Khalīl’s kalām text survived. It is unusual indeed: “O you who come asking, wishing to understand the Eternal One! If you say “Where is he?”, you have already located him, and if you say “What is he like?”, you have already qualified him. As regards his essence, he is +A, +A; (but also) –A, –A; or +A, –A, and –A, +A.” Thus Tanbīh 122, 5ff. The last sentence poses problems. In Arabic it reads huwa shayʾ shayʾ wa-lā-shayʾ lā-shayʾ wa-shayʾ lā-shayʾ wa-lā-shayʾ shayʾ. I am following Massignon’s translation in: Opera Minora II 245, but it would also be possible to assume genitive constructions, resulting in something along the lines “He is the being of a being, and the non-being of a non-being, the being of a non-being, and the non-being of a being.” However, it seems that the reference is to a kind of mathematical or logical table of values; after all, two generations later Khwārizmī would use the word shayʾ to mean the unknown in linear equations similar to our x (cf. EI2 II 361a; Vernet, Cultura hispanoárabe 125/German translation 140). This is definitely expressed in a most hermetic fashion; Massignon calls it “hyperdialectics”. Still, at the same time it was an uncompromising expression of the divine transcendence recalling the neo-Platonic ἐπέκεινα τη̃ ς οὐσίας. Abū Shamir thought this went too far, presumably because in his as in the Muʿtazilites’ view, God could not be lā-shayʾ, “–A”. It is not easy to confirm whether the Ibāḍites went along with him. While, as we have seen, Muʾarrij al-Sadūsī chose Khalīl as his teacher,69 we do not know for certain whether he 65  See p. 203f. above. 66  Ḥamza al-Iṣfahānī, Tanbīh 120, 10ff. 67  See ch. C 3.2.2 below. 68  Regarding him see p. 200ff. above. – One might consider linking Marzubānī’s anecdote mentioned in n. 64 to Abū Shamir’s comment on an Ibāḍite theory we discussed on p. 205f. above. Like Khalīl, the Ibāḍites presume that one and the same circumstance may be viewed under two different aspects, or can integrate two different “moments”. However, it seems more probable that this anecdote was intended to refute Ḍirār b. ʿAmr’s position (see ch. C 1.3.1.3 below). 69  See p. 240 above.

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was an Ibāḍite; but we do know that he did not wish to study theology under him but grammar and lexicography. I do not know what Khalīl’s doctrine of wahm qadīm entailed (Jāḥiẓ, Tarbīʿ 78, –4). We must consider that the term wahm still had positive connotations at that time, meaning simply “imagination” rather than “conceit” (thus frequently in Shīʿite texts; cf. Ibn Bābōya, Tawḥīd 38, apu. f.; 42, –8 etc.). Interestingly the closest parallels with Khalīl’s abovementioned description of transcendence are found in the same Shīʿite environment; they, too, undoubtedly of quite an early date (see ch. D 1.3, beginning, below). 2.2.5.7 The Relation between Sin and Faith One central point of Ibāḍite doctrine has so far been mentioned only in passing: the concept of sin. Here, the heresiographers become more relevant, as this concept was always regarded as distinctive by the non-Ibāḍite surroundings, while it was not controversial within the community. It was pure chance that preserved an old document on the subject among Darjīnī’s writings, a missive briefly mentioned above, from Abū Sufyān Maḥbūb b. al-Raḥīl to, probably, the community in Yemen during the second half of the second century.1 His main concern was to protect the community he addressed from the Khārijites’ ancient error of alienating followers through excessive rigour. He called for leniency towards sinners and advocated accepting their penitence rather than speculating on their hidden intentions. Whoever wishes to deceive God will have to deal with God alone.2 A venial sin becomes a mortal sin only through obduracy on the part of the sinner, in which case it is necessary to cease supporting him (walāya).3 Islam is not damaged every time a work of obedience is neglected, and not every infringement of a prohibition leads to unbelief. While there are certain fundamental principles that are indispensable to a Muslim, such as those listed in the “piety verse” of the Quran (sura 2:177): belief in God, in the Day of Judgment, in the angels, the scripture, and the prophets, as well as some practical points such as fasting in Ramadan, the pilgrimage, abiding by contracts, returning entrusted property etc.,4 there

1  See p. 232, n. 100 above; also regarding dating difficulties. 2  After sura 2:9. Cf. Darjīnī 281, 12ff.; transl. in Cuperly, Professions de foi II 135f. (cf. also Introduction 29f.). 3  Ibid. 281, 5ff. = Cuperly 134. 4  In more detail in ch. D 0 below.

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are also the opera supererogationis, to which one is not obliged. And of course there are mortal sins such as murder, incest, fornication, slander of honourable women (which might result in their being stoned), or misappropriation of an orphan’s property. Many other things, however, are merely lamam, a small misdemeanour.5 These issues played a most significant part in community life. As we have seen, withdrawal of the walāya could lead to excommunication; in any case it meant a certain loss of honour by damaging one’s good reputation and the capacity to testify and cancelling the poor relief from the zakāt etc.6 On the other hand, someone who wished to join the community had to request acceptance formally, promising to renounce his previous false beliefs.7 Besides the walāya, which was due only to community members of blameless reputation, and the ultimate termination of membership, the “revocation” (barāʾa), another possible practice was wuqūf, ἐποχή, presumably mainly in cases where the heads of the community had not yet spoken. There have been later attempts at defining these precisely,8 but it is not necessary to look at the development in detail here. What is essential is that the problem from the very first also included a historical dimension; people wished to know not only to whom among the contemporaries living with them they should show “friendship” but also who among the people of the past were deserving of solidarity. Later, the Quran would be the main confirmation: all prophets, but also Eve and Sarah are granted walāya, while pharaoh, Haman, and Lot’s wife were renounced.9 In the beginning, however, the issue was regarded under a more immediate aspect, and it was the image of history that was discussed. Of course, ʿUthmān was roundly rejected, but it would have been noticed if someone had reinterpreted Quranic verses, in the Shīʿite manner, to refer to him.10 In fact, he had done the same with regard to ʿAlī; once again it was the method that was new rather than the intention.11 People took a critical view even of their own past; Ḥārith b. Mazyad distanced himself from all authorities after Ibn Ibāḍ, 5  Ibid. 279, 14ff. = Cuperly 133. 6  Ennami, Studies 332ff.; Talbi, Etudes d’histoire ifrīqiyenne 18ff.; also Abū ʿAmmār, Mūjaz II 117, –4ff. Regarding the circumstances in Mzab in general cf. H. Halm in: Religion und Moral, ed. Gladigow, 196ff., and Delheure, Faits et dires du Mzab 39. 7  Khamīs b. Saʿīd, Manhaj al-ṭālibīn II 41, 2f., and 349, 11ff. 8  Thus e.g. in the ancient Berber ʿaqīda (cf. Schwartz, Anfänge der Ibāḍiten 56ff.) or in Jannāwunī’s (cf. Cuperly in: BEO 32–33/1980–1/26ff.). In detail also Khamīs b. Saʿīd II 7ff. 9  Jannāwunī, ib. 48, 1ff. 10  Text VII 4, e. 11  Ibid. f (which does, however, also include Ibn Muljam; cf. Brentjes, Imamatslehren 13). Cf. Jāḥiẓ’ anecdote mentioned p. 236, n. 22 above.

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presumably because they were not Qadarites;12 Yazīd b. Unaysa13 dismissed all Khārijite movements more recent that the first muḥakkima, probably because he did not approve of the Azraqites’ extremism.14 In general, the difference between the Azraqites and the Ibāḍites and Khārijites was that the latter did not persecute and fight dissenters individually (istiʿrāḍ);15 the demand that unjust – which probably meant: non-Ibāḍite – authorities should be removed, however, was upheld at least in theory.16 The army camp of the caliph and his assistants (ʿaskar al-sulṭān) was regarded as dār baghy, an “area of lawlessness”,17 or possibly as dār kufr, “area of unbelief”, where people were hindered when performing their religious duties, possibly even the prayer;18 while the rest of the Islamic ecumene was called dār tawḥīd, an area that was distinguished by the profession of God’s oneness. The words employed show how closely all this was linked to the definition of belief and unbelief. These two poles still represented the fundamental alternatives, but the rigorism of the early Khārijites was becoming increasingly softened by more specific distinctions. The term muslim was usually reserved for their own kind;19 if it was applied to others at all, these were persons who had not come in contact with Islam as a positive religion, and consequently had not faced the decision of accepting or rejecting it.20 Fellow-believers in general were called, at least with a neutral and polite intention, ahl al-qibla or ahl al-ṣalāt;21 Khārijites of different denominations, in particular the Azraqites of the early years, were called khawārij in Sunni sources.22 They themselves 12  See p. 218 above. 13  Regarding him see p. 688ff. below. 14  Cf. Text VIII 5, b and g, with the commentary. 15  Ibid., h; cf. Maq. 105, 1f. 16   Maq. 125, 1ff. 17  Thus Baghdādī, Farq 85, 4f./106, 1f., and Nashwān al-Ḥimyarī, Ḥūr 173, 13f., both probably after Kaʿbī. 18  Thus Ashʿarī, Maq. 104, 13f., who may also have quoted Kaʿbī and in that case simplified the term (and one can also ask whether the following yaʿnī is not simply misread for baghy). – According to Ṣāḥib Ibn ʿAbbād these were merely Ḥārith b. Mazyad’s teachings (Kashf ʿan manāhij aṣnāf al-Khawārij, in: Nashriyya-i Dānishkada-i Adabiyyāt Tabrīz 20/1347/147, 8f.). 19  See p. 218 and 223 above; also e.g. Abū Zakariyāʾ, Siyar 171, apu. f./transl. Revue Afr. 105/1961/150, and 165, –4/transl. 141. 20  Thus Abū ʿUbayda; see vol. I 483 above. 21  See p. 226 and 238 above. Baghdādī once used the phrase ahl Makka (because Mecca determines the direction of the qibla; cf. Farq 85, 4/106, 1). 22  Cf. e.g. Shammākhī, Siyar 76, –7ff.; sometimes also māriqa (thus in Abū Yaʿqūb alWarglānī’s K. al-dalīl).

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rejected this designation; this is indeed the case to this day, reinforced by the unitarian tendencies of modern Islam.23 When referring to the Islamic ecumene in general the term used was, as we have seen, not the dār al-Islām customary elsewhere, but dār al-tawḥīd. Consequently while the ahl al-ṣalāt were not muslimūn, at least they were muwaḥḥidūn. However, they were also kuffār, not primarily due to their evaluation as a group but rather to the doctrine of sin. As long as an Ibāḍite had not committed any grave sins, he was considered not only muslim but also muʾmin, “believer”; grave sin would make him a kāfir. Grave sins were not only the well-known ones Maḥbūb b. al-Raḥīl had listed in the letter quoted above, but might just as well – as he, too, had emphasised despite his moderate outlook – be due to one’s persisting in some misdeed, even one that was only lamam; as this was the way to obduracy (iṣrār).24 Consequently a sinner had to be called to repent (istatāba) as tawba would guide him back to islām.25 The sources only allow us to guess what this would look like in detail; what is clear is that while someone was in a state of sin – especially of doctrinal dissension – he was excluded from religious meetings (majālis).26 The abovementioned story of the Medinan Ibrāhīm who sold one of his female slaves to an “unbeliever”27 illustrates, maybe in a deliberate caricature, the complications that could result from mutual excommunications. A particularly disastrous case would be if someone followed his own exegetical views; it would then be permitted to kill the dissenter if he did not follow the call to repentance – even if he was not even aware of his heresy.28 Non-Ibāḍites were living in permanent obduracy; only conversion could guide the dissenter out of the status of kāfir. Nobody doubted that he would stay in hell for eternity, just like every other obdurate sinner who does not heed the call to repentance.29 The fact that he was muwaḥḥid, “professing oneness”, did not change this, either.

23  Cf. the modern Omani scholar Sālim b. Ḥammūd al-Sayyābī’s Aṣdaq al-manāhij fī tamyīz al-Ibāḍiyya min al-Khawārij, ed. Sayyida Ismāʿīl Kāshif (Cairo 1979). The early instance in Al-siyar wal-jawābāt I 56, 8, differs. 24  See p. 258 above. Cf. also Maq. 107, 10. 25  Cf. the story told by Abū Zakariyāʾ in: Revue Afr. 105/1961/366; also Abū l-Muʾaththir, K. al-aḥdāth wal-ṣifāt in: Al-siyar wal-jawābāt I 38, 9ff. 26  Cf. Text VIII 1, i. Regarding the practices customary in Mzab nowadays cf. Halm in: Religion und Moral 199ff. 27  See p. 248 above. 28  Ashʿarī, Maq. 107, 4ff. > Baghdādī, Farq 86, 10ff./107, 6f. Regarding the wording see p. 244 above. 29  Ibid. 110, 14f.; also Abū ʿAmmār, Mūjaz II 116, 12f.

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In this context we must bear in mind that to the Ibāḍites kufr did not mean “unbelief” in the strict sense; it was interpreted more as kufr niʿma, ingratitude towards a good deed received,30 following Quranic usage: “If you are thankful”, God had said, “surely I will increase (my blessings to) you, but if you are thankless (kafartum) – my chastisement is terrible”.31 The opposite of kufr in this context is not īmān “faith” or “belief”, but shukr “gratitude”, Abraham’s attitude who was “grateful for his blessings”.32 A kāfir does not deny points of faith, but refuses to recognise a claim that is self-evident;33 kufr is an inappropriate attitude towards God the ruler. The concept is deeply rooted within Arab consciousness.34 Of course a heathen who denies a point of faith is also a kāfir, as can be documented with reference to the Quran, but another factor is needed as well: shirk, “polytheism” – he is not someone who professes “oneness” (muwaḥḥid), unlike the non-Ibāḍite muslims.35 While retaining the term kufr, the distinction between kufr niʿma and kufr shirk also relied on a semantic shift of the term used in the Quran in which a historical explanation changed the ancient twofold classification into a threefold one. As we know this corresponded to a general tendency in Basran theology of the time, consequently it is not surprising that the choice of words conformed to this environment and people used the phrase kufr nifāq,36 or simply nifāq, instead of kufr niʿma.37 In this way the kāfir niʿma’s middle position is confirmed by the Quran which says of the munāfiqūn: “They waver in indecision between them (bayna dhālika), unable to (decide) for either one or the other”.38 Sura 33:73 was adduced to affirm the semantic association of muʾmin – munāfiq – mushrik.39 Shammākhī’s (d. 792/1389–90) interpreting nifāq as an “intermediate stage” (manzila bayna

30  Cf. e.g. Abū Yaʿlā, Muʿtamad 189, 7f. 31  Sura 14/7. 32  Cf. Sura 16:120. Cf. also sura 16:55, 30:34, 18:83 etc.; sura 26:19 refers to ingratitude towards a human, namely pharaoh. Regarding the development of the concept cf. Izutsu, EthicoReligious Concepts in the Qurʾān 119ff., and Björkman in EI2 IV 407ff. s. v. Kāfir. 33  Cf. also Serjeant in: CHAL I 136. 34  Cf. Mottahedeh, Loyalty and Leadership 72ff. 35   Maq. 105, 3f. and previously, also 110, 14, and 453, 1; Jannāwunī, ʿAqīda in: BEO 32–33/1980– 81/47, 9ff.; also Wilkinson, Imamate Tradition 189. 36  Thus e.g. Abū ʿAmmār, Mūjaz II 117, 3. 37  For general information see Schwartz 54ff. 38  Sura 4:143. Cf. Maq. 105, 9ff.; Abū Muṭīʿ, Radd 10, 1f.; Abū ʿAmmār II 117, 4f. 39  Abū ʿAmmār II 117, pu. ff.

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l-manzilatayn) will hardly surprise after this.40 It is unlikely that this reverence for Muʿtazilite usage would be traced back to the Basran community, which was closer to Ḥasan al-Baṣrī and did indeed refer to him.41 In this way Ibn Ḥazm may have come to believe that ʿAbd al-Wāḥid b. Zayd should be counted among the Khārijites.42 Ibn Ḥazm, however, overlooked an important point. In Ḥasan al-Baṣrī’s as well as in Bakr’s eyes a munāfiq, even though he faced eternal torment in hell, was still a muʾmin.43 Of course, they did not conform with the Muʿtazilites, either, as they had turned the munāfiq into a fāsiq, denying him the status of “unbeliever”, and at the same time removing the ambiguity of the word kāfir: kāfir to them was identical with, to put it in Ibāḍite terms, mushrik; consequently the term mushrik became less important. The debate between the two schools was only ever about the choice of words in this context. Rabīʿ b. Ḥabīb had already adduced hadiths confirming that a fāsiq had to be called kāfir as well,44 and Abū ʿAmmār wondered why the eternal torments of hell with which the Muʿtazilites threatened the fāsiq were not also linked to kufr.45 In his view kāfir and fāsiq, but also ḍāll, ẓālim, fājir, always meant the same thing, just as muʾmin, muslim, and muhtadī etc. did;46 but tradition has put kāfir in the most prominent position among the synonyms. The problem could not be swept aside so easily; there was a reason why the Muʿtazilites had ended the argument over terminology by introducing an unused designation. For the focus of the argument was not only on terms, but on their definition, too, and the sources show clearly how severely the Ibāḍites were punished for their conservatism. While we may assume that the systematising character of the doxographical sources we have used may have blurred some historical and geographical distinctions,47 the Ibāḍites did attempt to craft a system out of it all, and had to bear the consequences of its weaknesses. The dissension with their closest Khārijite brothers, the Ṣufrites, could not be resolved, as the latter insisted on the older delimitation of kufr and shirk. This 40  Between īmān and shirk, of course, not between īmān and kufr (Cuperly, Introduction 333). 41  Cf. e.g. the quotation in Abū ʿAmmār II 117, –4ff. 42  See p. 128f. above. Other Khārijite groups that did not necessarily have close ties to Basra also used the term munāfiq, e.g. the Najdiyya (cf. Watt in: Der Islam 36/1961/220). 43  See p. 128f. above. 44  Cf. Warglānī, Tartīb, MS Rhodes House, Afr. S 3, fol. 222b f. 45   Mūjaz II 123, 4ff. This is probably where the difference lies when Abū ʿUbayda al-Tamīmī, maybe altogether innocently, speaks of the grave sinner as a fāsiq (K. al-zakāt 21, ult.). 46  Ibid. 126, 4ff. 47  Cf. p. 264 below regarding tawḥīd and nifāq.

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might not have seemed very convincing in view of the practical relations with the “unbelievers” such as intermarriage with other Muslims, accepting inheritances etc.,48 but at least it did not stop halfway. In fact, there was uncertainty even within the Ibāḍiyya as whether nifāq could be imagined entirely without shirk if one did not consider the former to be a genuine intermediate position: if the munāfiqūn belonged “neither to these (the muʾminūn) nor to those (the mushrikūn), it could only mean, following this presumption, that they had something of both sides, i.e. also had a part in shirk.49 Consequently later authors would speak of shirk juzʾī “partial polytheism”.50 In addition it was not possible, some people determined, to combine nifāq and tawḥīd, belief in the one God; on the contrary, the former precluded the latter, as did shirk.51 The reasons given were exegetical and based on the historical identity of the munāfiqūn mentioned in the Quran. We are told that the opposing party, who were insisting on a strict separation of nifāq and shirk, subsequently maintained that all the munāfiqūn the prophet had met had “professed God’s oneness” and merited the designation munāfiq only because they lived in grave sin,52 a theory that could hardly bear up under historical analysis. Consequently others suggested that the term should be limited exclusively to the Quranic context.53 This was equivalent to admitting that it should be dropped as a theological term, an argument put forward by non-Ibāḍites, e.g. Murjiʾite theologians, too.54 Failing this the term would have to be charged with meanings that would not agree with Quranic usage, whether we translate it as “hypocrisy” or something else.55 Difficulties also arose surrounding the definition of shirk, once again in relation with the Quranic meaning of the word. The prophet had called the 48   Mūjaz II 116, 13ff., and 119, 5ff. 49  Tawḥīdī, Baṣāʾir IV 254, 6f./2IV 216 no. 785 after Kaʿbī; in principle also Qatāda (Ṭabarī, Tafsīr 3IX 334, 6ff. no. 10732). Ḥasan al-Baṣrī was said to have distinguished between a nifāq takdhīb li-Muḥammad and a nifāq khaṭāyā wa-dhunūb, the former being beyond forgiveness while there was still hope for the latter (Ṭabarī, Tahdhīb al-āthār, Musnad Ibn ʿAbbās 640 no. 956). 50  Cf. Cuperly, Professions de foi II 7, n., after ʿAbdallāh b. Ḥumayd al-Sālimī (d. 1332/19140. 51   Maq. 105, 11f. = Nashwān, Ḥūr 174, 1 (both presumably after Kaʿbī) > Baghdādī, Farq 95, 8f. (appears to be missing in ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd’s edition, after 106, 6). 52   Maq. 105, ult. ff. According to Ibn Ḥazm, Fiṣal IV 191, 17ff., this opinion was supported by only one of Ḥārith b. Mazyad’s followers. 53   Maq. 105, 12ff. > Farq 85, 8ff./106, 7ff. Sālim b. Dhakwān regarded this position as Azraqite (Cook, Dogma 96). 54  Cf. e.g. Abū Muṭīʿ, Radd 70, 3ff. 55  Cf. Cuperly’s remarks, Professions de foi II 9, n. 17.

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heathen polytheists mushrikūn, which lived on in the terminology in the juxtaposition of shirk and tawḥīd. Later Ibāḍite theological terminology described all non-Muslims as polytheists, including those who were in actual fact monotheists. In addition, sin was understood as “ingratitude”, i.e. as deliberate contempt of a divine blessing; on this premise a Christian who had never heard of Islam had to be called muslim, as Abū ʿUbayda had done. This resulted in, as we have seen elsewhere,56 the quarrel over the God’s “argument”. Is monotheism a given, a priori mindset, from which not even God can exempt anyone – similar to the anthropologist Wilhelm Schmidt’s idea of primitive monotheism – or dos it emerge as a consequence of “information”, i.e. revelation?57 Is every kind of denial of God ( jaḥd) equal to “polytheism”, or is it really necessary to assign a second God?58 And what about the Christians who say of themselves that they are monotheists: should one say that they are in fact polytheists in their hearts, or should one believe their protestations?59 And what about the Jews? Are they not in fact better than the anthropomorphists, whom one may kill and take prisoner because they disregard tawḥīd so brazenly?60 In this way a certain Ḥafṣ b. Abī l-Miqdām arrived at the idea of postulating a special status for those non-Muslims whose faith included a monotheistic creed as well as a prophet and the scripture revealed through him.61 It does not seem, however, that he arrived at a fourfold arrangement, as he included Muslims who “have murdered someone or who consider fornication and incest to be permitted”, i.e. who are mortal sinners, to still “profess God’s oneness”.62 He was clearly using tawḥīd instead of nifāq; indeed, he may have been the one to introduce the term in addition to kufr niʿma. His view did not prevail.63

56  Vol. I 483ff. 57   Maq. 106, 5ff. = Nashwān, Ḥūr 174, 2ff. (after Kaʿbī?) > Baghdādī, Farq 85, –4ff./106, 14f. 58  Regarding this dissension cf. Maq. 107, 8ff.; regarding jaḥada cf. sura 29:47, 41:28. Regarding the juxtaposition of kufr jaḥd – kufr niʿma cf. also Ibn ʿAqīl, Funūn § 420. 59   Maq. 106, 16f. = Nashwān 174, 12f. Cf. ʿĪsā b. ʿUmayr’s liberal doctrine (vol. I 486). 60   Maq. 109, 10ff. > Farq 86, ult. ff./107, 14ff.; abbreviated Nashwān, Ḥūr 174, pu. f. People wondered whether penitence was even possible in case of tashbīh (cf. the anecdote told by Abū Zakariyāʾ, transl. Revue Afr. 105/1961/366). 61  Text VIII 4 with commentary. 62  Ibid., b. 63  Ibid., d.

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This may have been one of the reasons why he was not mentioned at all in Ibāḍite sources. Another reason seems to have been that he was barely known in Basra. We do not know where he was active. One might consider identifying him with the theologian and jurist Ḥafṣ b. Ashyam who was a member of the Ibāḍite community in Upper Mesopotamia, in the area around Mosul (see p. 529 below), but although we know only little about him, his profile is rather different. An Ibāḍite from Iran, Yazīd b. Unaysa (regarding him see p. 688ff. below), would seem to be the closest match. The theological problem raised above would have a place in western Iran, too, where not only the Christian but also the Jewish community were rather numerous. However, unlike Ibn Abī l-Miqdām, Yazīd b. Unaysa regarded even Ibāḍites as polytheists under certain circumstances, i.e. when they were deserving of ḥadd punishment (Shahrastānī 102, 5f./249, 3f.). 2.2.5.8 Puritanism and Scrupulousness No proof is needed to confirm that all this led to most meticulous observation of the law. Every commandment was understood to be universal; nothing could be mitigated by linking it to one specific circumstance.1 Punishment alone was not enough; public penitence was required as well. In the case of a grave crime this was so important that, if the perpetrator refused to subject himself to it, some people demanded capital punishment in addition to ḥadd punishment.2 People not only steered clear of everything prohibited, but also of much that was permitted, in order to be sure not to lapse into sin.3 From the outside this was particularly noticeable when it came to purity and food laws. Ibn Ḥazm reported that the Spanish Ibāḍites did not eat the penises of he-goats, rams and bulls, and that they made someone fast afterwards if he fell asleep during the day during Ramadan and had an ejaculation while asleep.4 One of the sects in the Maghreb, the Farthiyya, bore this name because its founder Abū Sulaymān ʿUmar b. Yaʿqūb b. Muḥammad b. Aflaḥ, a

1  Maq. 106, 3f. 2  Thus certain of Ḥārith b. Mazyad’s followers according to Ibn Ḥazm, Fiṣal IV 189, 4f. Ashʿarī probably generalised too much when he applied this to all Ibāḍites (Maq. I 107, 6f.). In any case capital punishment could only be carried out by the authorities. In the Mzab the ḥadd punishment is often mitigated in favour of penitence nowadays (Halm in: Religion und Moral 199f.). 3  Regarding waraʿ see p. 227 and 245 above; Cuperly, Introduction 58f. 4  Fiṣal IV 189, 6f.

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descendant of the Rustamids, considered sheep tripe to be impure.5 To this day the Ibāḍites demand that someone who has intercourse during a night in Ramadan must perform the full ablution if the fasting on that day is to be valid.6 On the one hand, fear of everything impure led to meticulous cleanliness, which can still be observed in the Mzab to this day;7 the Rustamid imam Abū l-Yaqẓān already attracted attention by ensuring that the inhabitants of Tāhart cleared any refuse off the streets immediately.8 On the other hand it could also result in a certain fear of contact: the Spanish Ibāḍites mentioned by Ibn Ḥazm considered foods impure if they were prepared by non-Muslims.9 Abū Zakariyāʾ narrates how a pious Ibāḍite from the Maghreb did not shake hands with visitors until he had finished his prayer.10 Similar behaviour patterns held in Djerba until the most recent past, and not only among the Ibāḍite community, but also the Jewish one.11 What conclusions we might draw from this regarding community life in Basra remains to be seen. Rubinacci is probably overall correct when he says that the Ibāḍites in North Africa have preserved patterns of religious behaviour that would have been common in Basra in the second century.12 Still, the sources mainly note the divergences and peculiarities; we can deduce only a general tendency, but not the respective details. The debate around the prohibition of wine seems characteristic; it was conducted with particular intensity throughout Iraq in the second century. Significantly Iyās b. Muʿāwiya already considered all alcoholic drinks to be prohibited.13 It is interesting that this generalisation was not accepted everywhere, despite the Ibāḍiyya’s puritanism. While inebriation as well as wine were frowned upon, some people still believed that drinks which only led to inebriation when consumed in excessive quantities should be permitted.14

5  ʿUthmān b. Khalīfa, Bayān firaq al-Ibāḍiyya 60 with further, stricter regulations; cf. also Muʿammar, Ibāḍiyya 318ff., and Khulayfāt, Al-nuẓum al-ijtimāʿiyya 107. Briefly also Lewicki in EI2 III 660a, and SI 9/1958/51, where the founder’s name seems corrupted. 6  Rubinacci in: Religion in the Middle East II 310; general information id., La purità rituale secondo gli Ibāḍiti, in: AIUON 6/1957/1ff. 7  Cf. e.g. Halm 196; also Delheure, Faits et dires au Mzab 37. 8  Ibn Ṣaghīr, Chronik 41, ult. f./transl. 105. 9  Ibid. 189, 6. 10  Cf. the translation in Abū Zakariyāʾ in: Revue Afr. 105/1961/348. 11  Udovitch-Valensi, The Last Arab Jews 12. 12  In: Trudy 25. Kongressa, Moskva II 72f. 13  Wakīʿ, Akhbār al-quḍāt I 349, 8. 14   Maq. 109, 9f. = Nashwān, Ḥūr 174, apu. f.

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A similar attitude was also found among other Khārijite groups. Interest­ ing sources, especially some concerning Iran, have survived (see p. 699 below). Due to Ḥanafite influence the general prohibition of wine met with even greater resistance there (cf. e.g. the attitude of the Bayhasiyya, p. 668 below). The fear of shaking hands with strangers has also been documented for Basran Ibāḍite circles. Ḥasan al-Baṣrī was reported to have performed a partial ablution every time he had greeted ahl al-kitāb in this way (Madelung, Qāsim 90). ʿUmar b. al-Riyāḥ al-ʿAbdī supported this with a hadith: Gabriel did not take the prophet’s hand because the latter had previously shaken the hand of a Jew (ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ III 160, –7ff. > Mīzān no. 6109; quoted by Goldziher in: REJ 29/1894/76 = Ges. Schr. III 323). Shīʿites reacted in the same way (Kashshī 447 no. 840 regarding the Basran ʿAbdallāh b. Khidāsh al-Mahrī). Like the Ibāḍites they frequently also avoided touching Muslims who were not members of their own denomination (see vol. I 319 above). Ascetics wearing patched tunics shook nobody’s hand (Sahlakī, K. rūḥ al-rūḥ quoted by Vajda in: Arabica 29/1982/311). Whether this was noticeable in individual instances would of course depend on whether greeting people by shaking hands was practised regularly at all (cf. e.g. Kulīnī, Kāfī II 179 no. 1 and 180 no. 7). On the subject cf. also Kister in: JSAI 12/1989/325f. and 330f. 2.2.6 The Early Muʿtazila According to the generally accepted understanding, in Islam systematic interest in theological issues began with the Muʿtazila. Maimonides was of this opinion,1 and Hegel adopted it from him in his Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie.2 The image, however, is wrong; it dates from an era when only Ashʿarites and Muʿtazilites were still known. At the beginning the development of the Muʿtazila was anything but straightforward. Although it had already emerged towards the end of the Umayyad era, it was a marginal group until the last quarter of the second century; we have seen the degree of competition it faced from Murjiʾites, Shīʿites and Ibāḍites. It was not the only one to lay claim to Ḥasan al-Baṣrī’s legacy (Wāṣil b. ʿAṭāʾ having allegedly “defected” from his circle), either; the Qadariyya, the Bakriyya and the “Ghaylāniyya” raised the same claim. Interestingly, later Muʿtazilites did not know any more how their

1  Dalālat al-ḥāʾirīn 184, 7ff./transl. Friedländer 108. 2  I I. Teil, Erster Abschnitt, A (vol. III 25f.). Cf. also F. Niewöhner in: Archiv für Begriffsgeschichte 18/1974/24ff.

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denomination got its name;3 recollection of the past had been lost. Modern scholarship has not been able to provide clarity in this matter, either. We must not avoid the problem, but it would seem advisable, as we have done so far, to consider the biographies of the most important protagonists first. 2.2.6.1 Wāṣil b. ʿAṭāʾ The image of history mentioned above usually assigns two founders to the Muʿtazila: Wāṣil b. ʿAṭāʾ and ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd. This, however, is only true to a degree, as it is a secondary combination like “Marx and Engels” or “Goethe and Schiller”. The two were contemporaries, but ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd had heard the call to the cause later, “converted” by Wāṣil. Thus according to later Muʿtazilite narrative; but in reality, matters were probably rather more complicated.1 Not only the name of the organisation, but its entire early period is shrouded in mystery. This did not prevent biographers writing about Wāṣil, and sometimes about ʿAmr as well, again and again; after all, they were both famous men. But the information available was sparse, and the material was usually simply rearranged. Above all, tradition started far too late. The doxographers, on the other hand, were noticeably reticent; Ashʿarī mentioned Wāṣil only once in his Maqālāt, and in the context of a problem that was hardly characteristic of the Muʿtazila.2 Shahrastānī built him up as a “church father”, but his work is most scholarly and exceedingly problematic.3 Bibliographical tradition relies entirely on Ibn al-Nadīm; it, too, presents cause for concern.4 Anything else Fihrist contains in the way of biographical material is also known to us from other sources. The earliest information we have about Wāṣil is at the beginning of Jāḥiẓ’ K. al-bayān wal-tabyīn, but he is described as a khaṭīb rather than a mutakallim. It is difficult to determine whether he merely adhered to the intention of his book, or whether he really did not see Wāṣil as a Muʿtazilite in the later sense. The material he collected under this aspect was barely expanded later; Mubarrad, our next witness, did not provide anything new in this respect, but included some additional anecdotes (Kāmil 921, pu. ff.; also 891, apu. ff.). Kaʿbī’s K. al-Maqālāt was the first instance of 3  See p. 382 below. 1  See p. 292ff. below. 2  As Strothmann observed already (Der Islam 19/1931/231). 3  See p. 311f. below. 4  Cf. Catalogue of Works IX.

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doxographical literature to make an appearance, although the author in fact limited himself to biographical information which he mainly based on Jāḥiẓ (Maq. 64, –4ff.). Interestingly he discussed Wāṣil later in the book once again, including him in a list of Basran “proto-Muʿtazilites” (ibid. 90, 9ff.); he obviously presumed that Muʿtazilite doctrine had not yet evolved fully. Abū Hilāl al-ʿAskarī, on the other hand, included Wāṣil in his K. al-awāʾil (dictated 395/1005) because he believed him to have been the first author of kalām texts (II 134ff.). Like his predecessors, he mainly collected adab material, but in addition he preserved a valuable theoretical text (cf. Text IX 22). This was then included, together with many other singular accounts, in the long biography by Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār (Faḍl aliʿtizāl 234–41). The fact that the same author hardly referred to Wāṣil at all in his Mughnī illustrates how little was known about his teachings. Sharīf al-Murtaḍā was independent in a number of details, devoting a longish digression to him in his Amālī (I 163ff.). The traditions found in the Ibāḍite author Yusūf b. Ibrāhīm al-Warglānī’s (d. 570/1174) K. al-dalīl liahl al-ʿuqūl are independent as well but irrelevant from the point of view of the content (cf. Text IX 4). Later authors contribute nothing new on the whole. He appears in Samʿānī (Ansāb XIII 265, 12ff.), Nashwān al-Ḥimyarī (Ḥūr 206ff., after Kaʿbī), Yāqūt (Irshād VII 233, 3ff.), Ibn Khallikān (Wafayāt VI 7ff., after Mubarrad and Samʿānī), Dhahabī (Mīzān no. 9324; Ta‌ʾrīkh V 310, 6ff.), Ṣafadī (Wāfī XXVII s. n.), Kutubī (Fawāt II 624f. no. 478, after Ibn Khallikān), Yāfīʿī (Mirʾāt al-janān I 274, 4ff., partly after Mubarrad and Samʿānī), Maqrīzī (Khiṭaṭ II 345, –11ff., in part after Fihrist), Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī (Lisān al-Mīzān VI 214f., in part after Dhahabī, Mīzān), Ibn Taghrībirdī (Nujūm I 313, 15ff.), Ibn al-ʿImād (Shadharāt al-dhahab I 182, ult. ff.) and Khwānsārī (Rawżāt ul-jannāt 738, 1ff., entirely dependent on Shahrastānī). More recent collections to be consulted include: Ziriklī, Aʿlām IX 121f.; Kaḥḥāla, Muʿjam al-muʾallifīn XIII 159; Rayḥānat al-adab IV 232ff. s. v. Ghazzāl (!); also GAS 1/596 and Neşet Çağatay in: IA XIII 219ff. s. v. Vāṣil b. ʿAṭāʾ. The only monograph, much influenced by the viewpoint of the sources, is by Abū l-Wafāʾ al-Taftāzānī, Wāṣil b. ʿAṭāʾ. Ḥayātuhū wamuṣannafātuhū in: Dirāsāt falsafiyya muhdāt ilā Ibrāhīm Madkūr 39ff. 2.2.6.1.1 The Chronology of his Life. His Origins and Profession Wāṣil is one of the very few early Muʿtazilites the date of whose death is given precisely and without variants, which is astonishing, as for a long time the Muʿtazilites evidently had no interest in the chronology of their movement. As for the science within which this interest first developed, namely hadith, Wāṣil had nothing to do with it, which suggests the assumption that later,

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when dates were being collected, people recalled some remarkable event which allowed them to deduce the date of his death. The combination appears to be due to Khayyāṭ; certainly tradition does not go back any further in time. Sharīf al-Murtaḍā referred to him,1 while the author of Fihrist referred to his pupil Abū l-Qāsim al-Balkhī.2 Masʿūdī, who confirmed the date,3 was probably also referring to one of the two, either directly or indirectly. The year they all name is 131/748–9. The event aiding their memory was presumably the “pestilence” that raged in Basra during that year; later, it was used as a fixed point in hadith as well.4 The Abbasid revolution would be another possibility, but it is usually linked more closely to the year 132; furthermore this hypothesis would assume that Wāṣil was actively engaged for or against either the Abbasids, the Umayyads, or someone else at the time, and we have barely any evidence of that.5 He was probably in the prime of his life then. While the year 80/699, which the same sources give as the year of his birth, is probably only hypothetical, it is unlikely to be too far from reality. He shared the year of his birth with ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd (see p. 324 below); this is probably due to a desire on the part of the biographers to establish a connection between the two founders of the movement. Concerning facts that might contradict this date see p. 288 and 295 below. When Ṣafwān al-Anṣārī called ʿAmr Wāṣil’s ghulām (Text XII 1, v. 1), he was probably not saying that the former was younger, but just that he converted to Wāṣil’s teachings only later. Ibn Ṭāwūs’ (d. 664/1266) claim that Ḥajjāj wrote to Wāṣil and ʿAmr as well as their teacher Ḥasan al-Baṣrī in order to discover their opinion on qadar (Ṭarāʾif fī maʿrifat madhhab al-ṭawāʾif) was probably read into Ḥasan’s Qadarite Risāla (see p. 55 above); the tendency visible is that they all – besides those named also Shaʿbī – refer to ʿAlī in their answer. Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār points out Wāṣil’s “correct” age, 51 lunar years (Faḍl 239, pu.), but this is probably only calculated based on the dates given. 1  Amālī I 164, pu. f.; thus also IM 29, 5. 2  Fihrist 203, 5 > IKh VI 11, ult. 3  Murūj VII 234, 1f./V 22, 11f. 4  Thus Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 373, 4f. Regarding the event cf. in summary L. Conrad in: SI 54/1981/53ff. The pestilence spread far beyond Basra and is mentioned in Byzantine sources as well (ibid. 59, n. 1). 5  See p. 290 and 386 below; the Abbasid revolution is not normally adduced in biographies to provide a point of reference for someone who did not have anything to do with it. The pestilence of 131, on the other hand, was also memorable because it was the last one in a line of epidemics during the early Islamic period.

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The same witnesses claim that he was from Medina,6 which is not entirely certain;7 it could simply be deduced from the legends that link him to Abū Hāshim, Muḥammad b. al-Ḥanafiyya’s son.8 He is described as a mawlā of the Banū Ḍabba9 who were mainly resident in Basra.10 It is of course possible that he only entered into clientship with them later, once he had moved to Basra. There are some indications that he was a stranger there.11 Ibn al-Nadīm does, in fact, mention not only the Banū Ḍabba but also, after a less securely documented tradition, the Banū Makhzūm, whom we would indeed find in the Hijaz, although they were closer to Mecca than Medina.12 Kaʿbī also mentioned the Banū Hāshim, but in the context of the legend13 rather than in Wāṣil’s biography proper.14 This is indeed fiction, but the question remains to what degree it influenced other information regarding the Hijaz. Interestingly we also read of Wāṣil’s two kunyas, both of which appear to be correct: Abū Ḥudhayfa, repeatedly used by the biographers but also documented in a verse by Bashshār b. Burd,15 and Abū Jaʿd, also confirmed by a verse.16 Poetry furnishes the documentary evidence closest to Wāṣil. We learn that he had a long neck because of which Bashshār b. Burd compared him to a giraffe.17 References in poetry also indicate that his sobriquet al-ghazzāl “the yarn spinner” was not due to any secondary reasons, but that he was linked to the cloth trade that was flourishing in Basra at the time. Asbāṭ b. Wāṣil alShaybānī, a Qadarite who had already composed poems in praise of Yazīd III and died only a few years after Wāṣil, around 138/755,18 praised him in an elegy in the following words: 6  Khayyāṭ in: Murtaḍā, Amālī I 164, pu.; Kaʿbī, Maq. 64. –4 > Fihrist 203, 4f., and 202, –7 > IKh VI 11, pu. 7  Madelung, Qāsim 34f. 8  See p. 288f. below. 9  Fihrist 202, –7 > Yāqūt, Irshād VII 223, 3, and IKh VI 7, 8; IM 29, 1. 10  Caskel in EI2 II 71f.; also Kaḥḥāla, Muʿjam al-qabāʾil 661f. 11  E.g. his debate with ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd (see p. 292ff. below). 12   Fihrist ibid. Regarding the Makhzūm cf. M. Hinds in EI2 VI 137ff.; also Kaḥḥāla, Muʿjam al-qabāʾil 1058. There were other Makhzūm as well, but they were not as well known. 13   Maq. 90, apu.; later Murtaḍā, Amālī I 163, 3, and IM 29, 1. 14  Where his Medinan origins only are mentioned (Maq. 64, –4)). 15  See p. 280 below; also in Wāṣil’s alleged letter to ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd (see p. 295f. below). 16  Which is in turn directed at, and against, Bashshār b. Burd (Text XII 2, v. 23). 17  See p. 10 above; Ibn al-Nadīm referred to this (202, –6). ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd was also said to have made fun of Wāṣil’s long neck, and then begged forgiveness (cf. Text IX 2, b with commentary). 18  Regarding him see vol. I 119f.

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emphasising his asceticism and his unmoved attitude when it came to worldly possessions, but his asceticism was in the world; after all, he did cut garments. However, this would soon be interpreted differently. Abū l-Ṭurūq al-Ḍabbī, of whom not much more is known than that he was bound to the same tribe as Wāṣil and praised his oratorical skills in a verse,20 asked the following rhetorical question – obviously addressing opponents: When did a seller of yarns (bayyāʿ al-ghuzūl) ever find himself in some contest, or ever (at all) at the head of anything? / When did the light-giving East and the West ever unite for a seller of yarn, of low birth and unorthodox (māriq)?21 This is reductio ad absurdum: Wāṣil would never have been able to found such a respected religious organisation that found followers in Persia as well as in the Maghreb if he had been a lowly yarn seller. He was, in fact, more than that, a cloth merchant, as Asbāṭ b. Wāṣil’s verse describes. “Yarn seller” was the language of hostile polemic – like “low birth” and “unorthodox”; the latter term, māriq, referring to the Khārijites after a well-known prophetic dictum,22 and Wāṣil was indeed regarded as a Khārijite.23 The polemic is ancient and seems to date back to Wāṣil’s lifetime. It occurs in the same collocation in a poem by the Basran traditionist and jurist Isḥāq b. Suwayd al-ʿAdawī who died from the pestilence like Wāṣil.24 His poem expressed his “love for the prophet” and his “orthodox” attitude and stated:

19  ʿAskarī, Awāʾil II 138, 2ff.; attributing it to Asbāṭ b. Wāṣil results in certain problem regarding which cf. vol. I 120. 20  Regarding him see p. 365f. below. 21  ʿAskarī 138, –5ff. 22  Cf. my K. an-Nakṯ des Naẓẓām 84. 23  See p. 308 below. 24  In 131/748 according to IS VII2 11, 13ff. > TT I 236; in 132/749 according to Khalīfa, Ṭab. 518 no. 1793. He engaged in political activity from an early age (Ṭabarī II 452, 11ff., and 454, 6ff.; also Naqāʾiḍ 730ff., and Balādhurī, Ansāb IV B 108, 14ff.). Mubarrad, Kāmil 921, 9, and Yaʿqūbī, Ta‌ʾrīkh II 436, 6 tell us that he was a jurist. Cf. also Brentjes, Imamatslehren 30, and Pellat, Index for Masʿūdī, Murūj VII 144.

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I refute the Khārijite with whom I have nothing in common, / and the yarn spinner in their midst, and Ibn Bāb.25 The argument continued into the next generation. Bashshār b. Burd, who had revered Wāṣil in his youth, quoted the disparaging epithet,26 as did Maʿdān al-Shumayṭī in his heresiographical qaṣīda;27 Ṣafwān al-Anṣārī parried the thrust in a similar fashion to Abū l-Ṭurūq.28 Wāṣil was clearly well off; according to an anecdote preserved by Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, he inherited 20,000 dirhams from his father, but did not keep them for himself.29 The missionary movement he organised is difficult to imagine without a certain material foundation.30 His prestige was damaged not so much by his middleclass affluence as such, but rather the way in which it had been acquired: not through war or political circumstance like a true Arab, but by a craft or trade, like a mawlā. In his pamphlet for the caliph al-Manṣūr, Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ, his contemporary, spoke of someone who “spent most of his life as a craftsman, working with his hands, never having shown bravery in war besides . . .” and stresses his immoral lifestyle,31 presenting the opposite image to the catalogue of virtues he, an official of the state, and his addressee, the caliph, considered valid.32 This does still not explain everything as those who were attacking Wāṣil here were themselves mawālī,33 and probably also craftsmen.34 It is in fact the bad reputation of the weaver’s craft specifically that was intended to harm Wāṣil. It was obviously of secondary importance that he was not actually a weaver, and 25  Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 23, 4ff. and Mubarrad, Kāmil 921, 11ff., with three more verses (both probably quoted from Aṣmaʿī’s K. al-ikhtiyār) > Baghdādī, Farq 99, 4ff./119, 9ff., and Lālakāʾī, Sharḥ uṣūl iʿtiqād ahl al-sunna 1234, 1ff.; anonymous in Ibn ʿAbdrabbih, ʿIqd II 405, 13ff. Ibn Bāb is ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd. – For a few more of his verses cf. Masʿūdī, Murūj II 142, 6ff./I 280, 4ff.; he praises the Northern Arabs against the demands of the Qaḥṭān. 26  See p. 10 above. 27   Bayān I 23, ult.; regarding Maʿdān see ch. C 2.1 below. 28  Text XII 1, v. 1. 29   Faḍl 239, –5ff. 30  See p. 352f. and 356 below. 31   Risāla fī l-ṣaḥāba 52 § 47. 32  Regarding the negative opinion of merchants in Bedouin society cf. G. Müller, Ich bin Labīd 86f.; general information also vol. I 46f. above. 33  As, incidentally, was Ibn Muqaffaʿ. 34  At least if we assume that they were people who, like Isḥāq b. Suwayd, were close to the aṣḥāb al-ḥadīth.

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that weavers were usually designated with a different word, ḥāʾik; this seems to have been sweeping discrimination against the entire cloth manufacturing sector. Saying of someone that he “took a spindle in his hand” meant “he behaves like a woman, is a coward”. We come across this phrase in the works of a poet of the second century who was close to the Muʿtazila,35 but he appears to be quoting an ancient Bedouin prejudice. Of course it was possible to direct it against true Arabs: Ibn al-Ashʿath who rebelled against Ḥajjāj was mocked as ḥāʾik Kinda,36 and his grandfather Ashʿath b. Qays had been called ḥāʾik ibn ḥāʾik.37 The latter’s father Qays al-Ashajj had been one of the priests living in the Kaʿba of Najrān,38 and it is well-known that Najrān’s wealth was mainly due to the manufacture of cloth, especially brocade.39 Maybe Najrān’s economic potential aroused the nomads’ envy to such a degree that they could work it off only by despising the effeminate work that generated it. Islamic jurists adopted the prejudice and expressed concerns regarding the ʿadāla.40 Al-Sindī b. Shāhak, a close confidant of Hārūn’s in his later years, and therefore appointed to special missions on several occasions,41 considered the weavers’ oath, like that of sailors and donkey drivers, to be invalid.42 In a tendentious Kufan hadith ʿAlī was heard to say that when a weaver made claims to being knowledgeable, all one could do was run.43 The weaver he was referring to came from Basra; we are probably very close to Wāṣil here.

35   Agh. XVIII 171, 9; regarding the poet Muḥammad b. al-Munādhir see p. 444 below. 36  Ṭabarī II 1412, 2; Crone, Roman Law 131, n. 56. 37   Agh. XXI 15, 6. 38  R. Sayed, Ibn al-Ashʿath 74f. 39  Massignon, Opera minora I 558; W. Schmucker in: Studien zum Minderheitenproblem I 236ff. 40   E I2 XII 341b. 41  Regarding him cf. Justi, Namenbuch 302, and Pellat in EI2 III 990a; also Crone, Slaves on Horses 194f. no. 43, and Kennedy in: Proc. V Congress UEAI Edinburgh, p. 31. He was the one who arrested the Barmakids; as representative of the governor of Syria he had the walls of Damascus pulled down in 176/792 (Ibn Manẓūr, Mukhtaṣar TD X 210, –6f.). He died on 6 Rajab 204/27 Dec. 819 (Ṭayfūr, K. Baghdād 349, 2f./191, 12ff.). Regarding his son Ibrāhīm b. al-Sindī see ch. C 1.3.2 and 1.4.3.2.1 below. Through another son the poet Kushājim was his great-grandson (cf. GAS 2/499, and Pellat in EI2 V 525). 42  Ibn Qutayba, ʿUyūn al-akhbār I 70, 17ff. 43  Suyūṭī, La‌ʾālī I 201, 9ff.; cf. also the story in Halm, Ausbreitung der šāfiʿitischen Rechtsschule 121.

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Cf. also Jāḥiẓ, Ḥujaj al-nubuwwa in: Rasāʾil III 224, 10ff./transl. Pellat– Müller, Arabische Geisteswelt 71; cf. also Goldziher in: Globus 66/1894/ 205 = Ges. Schr. III 318, Friedländer in: JAOS 29/1908/96, and especially Brunschvig in: SI 16/1962/50ff. = Etudes d’Islamologie II 154ff. Regarding the despised trades in general see Sadan in: SI 62/1985/95, n. 148, and Gerholm, Market, Mosque and Mafraj 131f. This negative image has been well-nigh indestructible. While Shīʿite tradition would later have Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq say that if a weaver was condemned, this merely referred to someone who “wove lies”,44 in Wāṣil b. ʿAṭāʾ’s case we can observe frequent attempts at reinterpreting his sobriquet, and thus directing the odium away from him, rather than attacking the prejudice itself. Thus it was said that he went to the spinners market frequently to look for the decent women there in order to give them alms45 – obviously people assumed that whores would be found there in particular, in the company of craftsmen and merchants of ill repute. And people who thought even this too compromising could concentrate on the report that Wāṣil merely visited the lectures of a certain Abū ʿAbdallāh al-Ghazzāl, one of Qaṭan al-Hilālī’s46 clients, who was his milk brother, and then adopted his sobriquet.47 Even if it were possible to identify this Abū ʿAbdallāh – whom a later source names as simply ʿAbdallāh48 – the explanation is probably not even worth considering. 2.2.6.1.2

Wāṣil the khaṭīb. His Appearance before ʿAbdallāh b. ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿazīz While he may have been derided for being petit bourgeois, there is nothing to indicate that he had a special understanding of simple folk. On the contrary, one remark Jāḥiẓ transmits from him allows us to infer a rather distant view: “They cause trouble whenever they gather together”, he said of the common people, maybe hinting at social unrest, “and they become useful as soon as they part again” returning, as was the proper thing to do, to their respective

44  Kulīnī, Kāfī II 340, 10f. 45  Mubarrad, Kāmil 921, ult. ff.; Fihrist 202, –7f. 46  Who is this? Is he the same as Qaṭan b. Ḥarb al-Hilālī, a follower of the Umayyads who died in 131 (!) in Nihāwand? (Ṭabarī III, 7, 10). 47  Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 33, 9f.; Murtaḍā, Amālī I 163, 5. More straightforward in Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Faḍl 239, –7: Wāṣil himself is said to have lectured in the cloth market. 48  ʿAskarī, Awāʾil II 137, 9f.

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trades.1 Unlike Mukhtār before him he had no interest in inciting the disadvantaged against the ashrāf, and his organisation did not have this objective, either. He was a well-respected man, deeply learned, as Ṣafwān al-Anṣārī confirmed with a rather unusual word,2 and very well-known, especially as a khaṭīb.3 A khaṭīb in those days was not merely someone who possessed particular rhetorical skill, nor was he a mere pulpit orator, but held certain, clearly defined offices.4 Frequently he would be the judge of his tribe,5 and its representative in public matters; it is no coincidence that in the capital, the caliph himself or the governor would be preaching the khuṭba on Fridays. If a battle was imminent, he had to conduct the mufākhara with the opponent.6 There is evidence that Wāṣil carried out similar tasks. The text of a speech survives that he gave during marriage ceremonies, clearly a standard form into which the names of the couple and the amount of the bride price had to be inserted.7 Above all we know that he gave a sensational speech as member of a Basran delegation before ʿAbdallāh b. ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, the son of ʿUmar II. This was towards the end of his life, as it was not until 126/744 that Yazīd III appointed ʿAbdallāh governor of Iraq.8 He stayed in this office until

1  Jāḥiẓ, Nafy al-tashbīh, in: Rasāʾil I 283, 11ff. 2  niṭāsī (Text CII 2, v. 23). In the opinion of the Arab lexicographers the word was derived from Gr. nusṭās = γνώστης (Lisān al-ʿArab IV 232b, 3; cf. Lane, Lexicon 2810b). It is documented as early as the pre-Islamic period (thus in Aws b. Ḥajar, no. 38 Geyer = no. 44 Najm, v. 3) and used above all as an attribute of the physician (e.g. in Kumayt; cf. Lisān al-ʿArab XIV 448a, 9: al-āsī al-niṭāsī). Nusṭās also occurs as a proper name (cf. ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ I 98 no. 114 as the name of a Medinan traditionist). 3  Cf. e.g. Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Faḍl 235, 11ff.; ʿAskarī, Awāʾil II 135, 3; even as late as Ibn alDawādārī, Kanz al-durar VI 312, 13. 4  For general information cf. Goldziher in: WZKM 6/1892/97ff. = Ges. Schr. III 27ff., and the literature cited vol. I 54, n. 16 above. 5  Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 47, 3. 6  Cf. Pedersen in EI2 IV 1109b. Regarding the role played by persuasion as a means of exerting political power in non-centralised societies without established authorities cf. St. C. Caton in: IJMES 19/1987/77ff. 7  Faḍl 238, 16ff. after Ibn Yazdādh’s K. al-maṣābīḥ. The text is only a few verses long and distinguished by rhymed prose. This is not a marriage contract, which would have been more precise as to the details and arranged quite differently (cf. Ṭaḥāwī, Al-shurūṭ al-ṣaghīr 671ff.; for the later time W. Hoenerbach, Spanisch-islamische Urkunden aus der Zeit der Naṣriden und Moriscos, Bonn 1965). A similar text, making more economical use of sajʿ and slightly shorter, also survives from Ḥasan al-Baṣrī (Jāḥiẓ, Bayān II 100, 12ff.). 8  Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 559, 14ff., and 578, 3f.; Zetterstéen in EI2 I 53b.

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129/746–7, notwithstanding certain challenges;9 but this event can be dated to the early days of his time in office when the representatives of Basra greeted him officially in Wāsiṭ.10 We do not know which function Wāṣil had in the delegation: whether he was the representative of his tribe – which would have been unusual considering his status as a client – or the representative of the merchants and the bourgeoisie, or even as the leader of the Muʿtazila. A passage in Balādhurī reports that ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd declined to attend,11 which may support the assumption that it was indeed the Muʿtazila that was being represented, even though the passage may have been meant merely as explanation why it was Wāṣil rather than ʿAmr, the genuine Basran among the movement’s founders, who represented the city. The circumstances reported agree in the main, but it does appear that most of the accounts go back to a single source, a few verses by Ṣafwān al-Anṣārī, the only differences being found in the accounts by Balādhurī and maybe the philologist Yūnus b. Ḥabīb (d. 182/789) to whom Jāḥiẓ referred.12 Ṣafwān reports that other khuṭabāʾ, who also enjoyed a good reputation due to their eloquence: Shabīb b. Shayba, Khālid b. Ṣafwān and Faḍl b. ʿĪsā al-Raqāshī, spoke before Wāṣil, but he outdid them all: “He gave an original talk (abdaʿa qawlan) the like of which is not usually found with mortals” – original not as regards the subject matter (which was only an exhortation to fear God and criticism of the “world”), but the form: “The rāʾ did not take away from his skill, as he succeeded in omitting it while keeping the flow uninterrupted and coherent. ‫ ٭‬ʿAbdallāh (b. ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz) favoured Wāṣil’s speech, and when he came to hand out gifts gave him a double share. ‫ ٭‬Everyone was satisfied with the gratitude for the gifts (given) to him; (but) in his eyes asceticism attached little value to the double (amount)”. Regarding the context cf. Text XII 3 after Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 32, 9ff. Jāḥiẓ had Yūnus b. Ḥabīb recount events in prose, too; this is the version quoted by Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār (Faḍl 237, pu. ff.). ʿAskarī, Awāʾil II 136, 1ff., is based on the same account, but with numerous variants in the tradition and 9  Earlier he had been a follower of Ḍaḥḥāk b. Qays (see p. 526 below). He died in 132/749–50 of an epidemic in prison in Ḥarrān (Ṭabarī III 43, 4ff.). 10  Regarding this custom see also p. 180f. above. It is not said anywhere that the audience took place in Wāsiṭ; I am only assuming it. The tradition p. 281 below may contradict this. 11   Ansāb, MS Reisülküttab 598, fol. 90a, –9ff. Is he referring to Madāʾinī’s K. khuṭbat Wāṣil? (Cf. Catalogue of Works IX, no. 6). 12  See p. 280f. below. It is interesting that Yūnus b. Ḥabīb was one of the few Basran grammarians who were not linked to the Muʿtazila (see p. 98 above). He is one of Sībawayh’s main sources. Regarding him cf. GAS 8/57f., and 9/49ff.

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some edited detail. – Of the other speakers Faḍl al-Raqāshī was the only theologian (regarding him see p. 192ff. above). The two others, Khālid b. Ṣafwān and Shabīb b. Shayba, were respected Arabs and close kin of one another, both being members of the Banū l-Ahtam family of the Tamīm. Among them the profession of khaṭīb was popular (Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 355, 5ff.; Ibn Ḥazm, Jamhara 217, 7f.); they were both also regarded as the best arbiters (ḥakam) among the Tamīm (Bayān I 47, 3). Khālid b. Ṣafwān died in 135/752; he had still known ʿUmar II. Shabīb b. Shayba was younger and is still documented at the time of al-Mahdī (Ṭabarī III 544, 11f.). Khālid had known Ḥasan al-Baṣrī well (ʿIqd II 230, 1ff.; Tawḥīdī, Baṣāʾir II 455, 4ff./2VIII 110 no. 419); the latter had been a witness when Khālid’s father made his will (Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif 403, 17). Consequently both he and Shabīb respected ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd. Khālid was said to have offered him money (to support his organisation? Faḍl 244, 1), while Shabīb told stories of him after his death (cf. e.g. Faḍl 248, 7ff.). Shabīb was also acquainted with Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ (Balādhurī, Ansāb, MS Reisülküttab 598, fol. 492a, 1ff.); the latter, too, having worked for the Banū l-Ahtam (see p. 29 above). Khālid was an expert in speaking extempore (Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 340, 1ff.), while Shabīb was able to give speeches only with preparation (ʿIqd II 138, 9f.). Khālid’s speeches and dicta were collected and published early on, by Madāʾinī and ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Yaḥyā al-Julūdī (Ibn al-Nadīm 116, –6, and 128, 10); the material appears frequently in adab texts, e.g. in Jāḥiẓ and in Ibn ʿAbdrabbih’s ʿIqd. Regarding him cf. Pellat in: EI2 IV 927; also Blachère, Histoire 732, and Ritter, Geheimnisse der Wortkunst 18, n. 1. Among the newer sources Balādhurī, Ansāb is worth considering (MS Reisülküttab 598, fol. 484a, 11ff.); see also the passage regarding Shabīb b. Shayba shortly afterwards (491b, 19ff.). Ṣafwān al-Anṣārī had not, however, been the first to sing Wāṣil’s praises. Bashshār b. Burd had preceded him, having witnessed the event at a time when he was not yet hostile to the Muʿtazilites: They spoke in painstaking language (i.e. painstakingly prepared), while the people celebrated, ‫ ٭‬and delivered remarkably elegant orations. He, however, rose and spoke extempore (murtajilan), his spontaneous inspiration bubbling ‫ ٭‬like the blacksmith’s cauldron13 when the blaze surrounds it. 13   mirjal al-qayn. The image was probably chosen primarily for the sake of the paronomasia existing between mirjal and murtajilan. Medieval readers already criticised that a blacksmith of all people should have a cauldron; a gloss in the MS of Murtaḍā’s Amālī (I 139,

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He avoided the rāʾ, nobody noticing ‫ ٭‬unless he should examine14 and search thoroughly”.15 Here, Bashshār introduces a distinction that mattered greatly to him as a poet. Wāṣil spoke spontaneously, with natural expression, while his competitors’ speeches were “stilted”, in a forced style (takalluf),16 but it looks as though he meant to say something else as well: Wāṣil not only spoke spontaneously, but without preparation. All the more remarkable, then, that he succeeded in hiding his speech defect. No-one seems to have expected Wāṣil, who was, after all, a mawlā, to take the floor, this being the privilege of the Arabs. The governor must have unexpectedly invited him to speak, maybe because he wished to honour the Qadariyya. After all, as the representative of Yazīd III he relied on this group.17 Faḍl al-Raqāshī’s presence would confirm this theory as he, too, represented a group from among the Basran Qadariyya. Interestingly Balādhurī18 names a certain Ismāʿīl al-Makkī in his version of the story instead, probably once again the Qadarite of this name.19 Bashshār b. Burd, on the other hand, did not name the people involved in the verses quoted; after all, they are only a fragment. But he did know them, as witness two more verses of his preserved together with the others by Jāḥiẓ: Abū Ḥudhayfa,20 an admirable achievement was granted to you, in the shape of an oration delivered spontaneously and without previous planning.21

n. 2) interprets qayn as “fuller” (ṣabbāgh). While the latter would indeed have much more use for a cauldron, this is probably merely retrospective rationalising, of the kind that also occurs in the statement in national dictionaries that qayn could denote any kind of “craftsman” (ṣāniʿ). 14   qabla l-taṣaffuḥi, also: “before leafing through”; maybe an indication that people were writing the khuṭba down as it was preached, or immediately afterwards. 15  Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 24, 8ff.; Agh. III 224, 5ff.; Faḍl 65, apu. ff.; Murtaḍā’, Amālī I 139, 7ff.; Yāqūt, Irshād VII 223, 13ff. 16  Regarding the distinction cf. W. Heinrichs, Arabische Dichtung und griechische Poetik 52f.; also ch. C 1.4.3.1 below. 17  We must bear in mind that Yazīd III’s coup appears to have met with considerable resistance in Basra (see p. 1 above). 18  See n. 11 above. 19  Regarding him see p. 75 above. 20  Wāṣil’s kunya (see p. 272 above). 21   min ghayri taqdīrī.

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Indeed, an oration that pleases both Khālids together robs us of our speech and enjoins silence, however eloquently one (is able) to express oneself.22 The two Khālids are, joined by a dual form a potiori, Khālid b. Ṣafwān and Shabīb b. Shayba.23 The author does not say clearly enough that both were indeed present at the audience; it seems surprising that not only the grand old man Khālid b. Ṣafwān but also his younger rival Shabīb b. Shayba – who represented the same tribe – should have delivered a speech. It cannot be ruled out entirely that Ṣafwān al-Anṣārī, on whose account we have relied so far, was already spreading a version embroidered in the Muʿtazilite fashion. Balādhurī proved that the tradition was not uniform, not only diverging slightly as to the names of those present but also emphasising Wāṣil’s triumph slightly less and, above all, leaving out any reference to the latter’s luthgha, his inability to roll the r, and his skill in avoiding the sound in a solemn speech. Furthermore, while he did note towards the end that Wāṣil declined the governor’s gift, he did not add what Jāḥiẓ reported after Yūnus b. Ḥabīb: that instead he urged the governor “to complete this river (or canal, nahr) for the people of this city (miṣr) as soon as possible”.24 And indeed, despite all the perils of his time in office, ʿAbdallāh b. ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz found the time to construct a canal, the Nahr Ibn ʿUmar, in Basra.25 This, however, strengthens the suspicion that later Muʿtazilite propaganda was the reason to have Wāṣil support this project; not even Ṣafwān al-Anṣārī’s verses mention the matter. It is not a contradiction that Abū Hilāl al-ʿAskarī reported a different objective of the request, namely that “wells should be dug (nabsh al-qayḍ) for the people of the city (balad)” (Awāʾil II 136, 9f.), as ultimately he went back to the same source, presumably Yūnus b. Ḥabīb. The divergences may be explained with the endeavour to take Wāṣil’s luthgha into account and to use words that do not contain rāʾ: balad instead of miṣr, nabsh instead of ḥafr, qayḍ instead of nahr or biʾr. Cf. the parallel version in: Ibn al-ʿImād, Shadharāt al-dhahab I 183, 2ff.

22   Bayān I 24, 4f.; Kaʿbī, Maq. 66m 4ff.; Nashwān, Ḥūr 208, 1ff.; Yāqūt, Irshād VII 233, 10f. 23  Thus also according to a gloss in the MS of Bayān (I 24, n. 3). 24   Faḍl 238, 6f. 25  Yāqūt, Muʿjam al-buldān s. v.

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2.2.6.1.3 Wāṣil’s Speech Defect The luthgha cannot be discounted, as numerous contemporary verses make reference to it.1 Later, it would become a topos, the remark in Jāḥiẓ’ Bayān probably having contributed.2 The phenomenon was interesting in itself already; Kindī discussed it in a treatise from the physiological point of view, listing the various types of speech defect.3 In addition it tickled the storytellers’ imagination, be it to try and invent situations in which it could lead to amusing mistakes, or to compose texts in which the defect was skilfully concealed. They imagined that even in an extreme situation, at the front when the enemy overran the camp at night, Wāṣil was able – and indeed made a point of it – to give stylistically perfect orders entirely without r,4 and people believed that he rephrased unwieldy Quranic passages extempore.5 When he, in order to curse Bashshār b. Burd, resorted to complex linguistic contortions, this is probably only ben trovato. We do not actually know whether he did indeed curse Bashshār – this is clearly a reflection of the later falling-out between the poet and Wāṣil’s school6 – but if he did, the poet’s name would have presented some irritating difficulties indeed. He apostrophised him as al-mukannā bi-Abī Muʿādh, replacing muraʿʿath with mushannaf, kāfir with mulḥid, firāsh with maḍja etc. Cf. the slightly divergent versions in Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 16, 10ff. > Fihrist 202, –4f., and Mubarrad, Kāmil 924, 1ff. > IKh VI 8, 3ff.; Agh. III 146, 1ff. > Murtaḍā, Amālī I 140, 1ff., and Yāqūt, Irshād VII 224, 2ff.; ʿAskarī, Awāʾil II 136, pu. ff. Jāḥiẓ revealed that the tradition originated with ʿUmar b. Abī ʿUthmān al-Shimmazī, ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd’s pupil (regarding him cf. p. 366f. below; the name is corrupted in the edition of Bayān).

1  Besides Bashshār b. Burd’s verse mentioned above cf. also Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 21, ult. f. (after Ḍirār b. ʿAmr) > Murtaḍā, Amālī I 139, 11f. = Kaʿbī, Maq. 65, 6ff. = Mubarrad, Kāmil 923, pu. f. > IKh VI 8, 1f. = Yāqūt, Irshād VII 224, apu. f.; also Bayān I 15, pu. f. = Mubarrad 923, –4 > IKh VI 7, 8ff. = Irshād VII 223, ult. f. (regarding the problem of attribution see p. 367 below). Faḍl al-Raqāshī was also said to have expressed his admiration (ʿAskarī, Awāʾil II 135, –5ff.). 2  Cf. the material collected by Ibn Khallikān, VI 8, apu. ff. 3  Cf. the edition and translation by G. Celentano in: AIUON 39/1979, Suppl. 18, p. 47ff.; also Muḥ. Ḥassān al-Ṭayyān in: RAAD 60/1985/515ff. 4  ʿAskarī, Awāʾil II 136, –5ff.; differently Murtaḍā, Amālī I 164, 16ff.; combined with the account of his khuṭba before the governor in Ibn Zūlāq, Akhbār Sībawayh 56, –6ff. 5  Cf. Hārūn, Nawādir al-makhṭūṭāt I 126, 2ff. after Kutubī, ʿUyūn al-tawārikh s. a. 131. 6  See p. 9 above.

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In fact what we are looking at are lipograms, such as have always been though up at times and in environments that appreciated linguistic virtuosity.7 They are found in poetry8 as well as prose; the Spanish Mālikite Aḥmad b. ʿAlī b. al-Zayyāt al-Mālaqī (d. 728/1328) e.g. composed a sermon that did not contain the letter alif.9 In the second century this kind of word game was not yet very frequent.10 In any case, Wāṣil was not able altogether to escape his nature. The grammarian Quṭrub was said to have asked the Qadarite ʿUthmān b. Miqsam al-Burrī (d. 173/789–90)11 what the master did about numbers or the names of the months that contained an r; al-Burrī’s only answer was a verse praising him by Ṣafwān al-Anṣārī.12 A poem attributed to Wāṣil does not take the difficulty into account, either.13 Consequently it would be worthwhile to discover whether the texts discussed so far which lack the letter r can really be traced back to Wāṣil. We may assume it in the case of the speech he gave on the occasion of marriage ceremonies,14 as the situation was predictable and the solemnity of the occasion would have suffered if he had not been careful. But the khuṭba before the governor was a different matter. While he avoided the pitfalls in this instance, too – after all, this was what Bashshār praised so much – this does not mean that the original text was preserved. Two entirely different versions survive, neither of which can be proved with any certainty to be genuine or false. The more extensive one was preserved in Muslim b. Maḥmūd al-Shayzarī’s Jamharat al-Islām. It may have been kept in Yemen, as Shayzarī dedicated his work to the last Ayyūbid reigning in Yemen, al-Malik al-Masʿūd (r. 612/1215–626/1229),

7  Thus e.g. in Baroque literature and its offshoots; cf. Alfred Liede, Dichtung als Spiel. Studien zur Unsinnspoesie an den Grenzen der Sprache (Berlin 1963), II 90ff. There are numerous instances in particular of the omission (hence “lipo-gramm”) of the letter r (Ernst SchulzBesser, Deutsche Dichtungen ohne den Buchstaben R, in: Zeitschrift für Bücherfreunde, N. F. 1/1909–10/382ff.); one striking example is the novel Die Zwillinge by Franz Rittler (3rd ed. Vienna 1920). 8  Cf. the examples in Haft Qulzum by Qabūl Muḥammad (wr. 1230/1815), transl. in F. Rückert, Grammatik, Poetik und Rhetorik der Perser (Gotha 1874), 163ff. 9  Ibn al-Khaṭīb, Al-iḥāṭa fī ta‌ʾrīkh Gharnāṭa, ed. ʿInān, I 290, –4ff. 10  The few instances, e.g. in Ibn Harma, were collected by F. Abu-Khadra in: Arabica 33/1986/76ff. 11  Regarding him see p. 82 above. 12  Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 22, 2ff. > Yāqūt, Irshād VII 224, ult. ff. 13   Faḍl 240, 5ff.; the same is true of Marzubānī, Nūr al-qabas 118, 8f. 14  See p. 277 above.

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a son of Malik al-Kāmil.15 The other one is found in Muḥammad b. ʿAbd alGhafūr al-Kalāʿī’s K. aḥkām ṣināʿat al-kalām; the author lived in Spain during the Almoravid era, i.e. the sixth/eleventh century.16 Not long afterwards it appears on a sheet inserted in the Feyzullah MS 1580 of Jāḥiẓ’ Bayān added by the person who wrote the manuscript, Muḥammad b. Yūsuf al-Lakhmī, himself; he may have read the khuṭba with his teacher Abū Dharr al-Khushanī who wrote a commentary on K. al-Bayān and under whom he studied the text. This version was edited by ʿAbd al-Salām Muḥammad Hārūn17 who also consulted the – overall similar – version Faḍlallāh al-ʿUmarī (d. 749/1349) preserved in his Masālik al-abṣār.18 Sezgin notes several further manuscripts.19 Consequently the entirety of the transmitted texts is late, although the Fihrist records that the khuṭba was in separate circulation: Madāʾinī recorded it.20 Within the Muʿtazila it was transmitted by Ibn Yazdādh, probably in his K. al-Maṣābīḥ.21 We do not, however, know which was the version known at the time, although it is reasonably certain that it took Wāṣil’s luthgha into account, as that is common to both extant versions. In Kalāʿī’s version even religious formulae are changed due to this necessity: Bismi llāhi l-raḥmāni l-raḥīm becomes Bismi llāhi l-fattāḥi l-mannān.22 Sura 112 is the only one quoted in its entirety, as it does not contain the letter r.23 There are repeated reminiscences of the Quran, but they follow the same rule (thus e.g. always Allāhu l-samīʿu l-ʿalīm, never Allāhu samīʿun baṣīr). Wāṣil’s avoiding tongue-twisting quotations from the Quran is also presupposed in a story found in Sharīf al-Murtaḍā’s Amālī.24 15  Regarding him see GAL2 1/302 S 1/460. The text was edited with detailed comments by H. Daiber (Wāṣil b. ʿAṭāʾ als Prediger und Theologe. Ein neuer Text aus dem 8. Jahrhundert n. Chr.; Leiden 1988); cf. also his preliminary account in: Actas XI Congresso UEAI, Evora, p. 383ff. The entire text is accessible in a facsimile held by the Leiden Unicum edited by F. Sezgin (Frankfurt 1407/1986); cf. ibid. p. 174ff. 16  His grandfather was vizier under Muʿtamid of Seville (461/1069–484/1091). Cf. the edition by Muḥammad Riḍwān al-Dāya, Beirut 1966 (p. 172, ult. ff.; transl. as Text IX 1). 17   Nawādir al-makhṭūṭāt I 134ff. 18  More details about the manuscript in Kalāʿī 172, n. 1. 19   G AS 1/596. The text was printed for the first time, without giving a source, in K. Miftāḥ alafkār by the Egyptian scholar Aḥmad Miftāḥ (Cairo 1314/1896; p. 270f.); this was the source for the version in Aḥmad Zakī Ṣafwat’s Jamharat khuṭab al-ʿArab (I 482ff.). 20   Fihrist 117, 5. It is also mentioned in one of the catalogues of Wāṣil’s works preserved by Ibn al-Nadīm, but it is possible that he quoted it after Madāʾinī (203, n. 1, l. 5). 21   Faḍl 238, 16. 22  Text IX 1, k. 23  Ibid. 24   I 164, 1ff., after the Muʿtazilite Abū l-Ḥasan al-Bardhaʿī (regarding him see ch. C 7.4 below).

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Later, as we have seen,25 this would become the claim that he even rephrased them, which was probably not meant as flattery anymore; Dhahabī was led to the conclusion that Wāṣil considered the qirāʾa bil-maʿnā to be permitted.26 Regarding the contents of the khuṭba cf. Text IX 1. The prose in this version has rhythmical structure and features internal rhyme (sajʿ) in some passages, especially at the beginning and the end. Praise of God and the prophet (a–d) takes up much space compared to the main part of the text. There are no immediate trenchant theological statements, but the rhetorical tawḥīd emphasises God’s infinity and eternity (a); any similarity with creation or humans is ruled out (d). By using the term ibtidāʿ it expresses the idea of creatio ex nihilo (a). God’s omnipotence as well as his justice feature less prominently, while his mercy and grace are emphasised specially. The objective of the main part is paraenesis, the author varying the topic of the fear of God (taqwā), contrasting it with the worldliness of humans (e–f) and presenting earthly existence (al-ḥayāt al-dunyā) as a mere illusion. The well-known ubi sunt qui ante nos motif illustrates the transitoriness, and as the text is addressed to a governor, kings are used as the instance (g). Subsequently (h) the author returns to the thought that fear of God is the best “sustenance” (cf. e), and that it is best achieved through the Quran (i). In this context he quotes sura 112 which appears to be playing the part of a profession of faith. It might have been the basis for Muʿtazilite tawḥīd. – Regarding Shayzarī’s version cf. Daiber’s translation and Radtke’s detailed review in: Der Islam 67/1990/322ff. Interestingly Shayzarī included the text in his K. al-zuhd, confusing in his introductory words the addressee ʿAbdallāh b. ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz with his father, the caliph ʿUmar II. 2.2.6.1.4 Wāṣil’s Relations with the ʿAlids in Medina In the version of the khuṭba quoted here it is noticeable that the blessing on the prophet includes his family as well,1 giving rise to the question to what degree reports of Wāṣil’s pro-ʿAlid sentiments are based on fact. Much was certainly projection; after all, a part of the Muʿtazila would later support al-Nafs al-zakiyya and prevail against resistance from its own ranks which deferred 25  N. 5 above. 26   Ta‌ʾrīkh V 311, 3ff. It recalls the story according to which ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd wanted to expurgate a verse from the Quran (see p. 341 below). 1  Text IX 1, d.

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to ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd’s more cautious attitude.2 On the other hand there is evidence warning us against assigning everything to the realm of fable. Wāṣil’s doctrine on the issue of imāma does indeed show a certain preference for ʿAlī, compared to ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd’s.3 When around 130/747 the Umayyads persecuted Wāṣil’s followers in Yemen the reason was that they were believed to be Shīʿites.4 When Idrīs b. ʿAbdallāh had to flee after the disaster of Fakhkh in 169/786 he found refuge with the Banū Awraba in the Maghreb who had been won for the Muʿtazila through Wāṣil’s initiative.5 Wāṣil certainly did not spend all his time in Basra. When Manṣūr visited the city in secret before the revolution, he did not get in touch with him but rather with ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd.6 It is not even certain whether Wāṣil came from Basra at all.7 Individual reports must be interpreted in the context of the respective concept of history. Thus we hear that Wāṣil and ʿAmr were members of a Basran delegation to Suwayqa near Medina where the ʿAlids had their houses, where they went to see ʿAbdallāh b. al-Ḥasan, al-Nafs al-zakiyya’s father. ʿAbdallāh sent his son Ibrāhīm out to them who then accepted the oath of allegiance in Muḥammad’s stead.8 As far as the chronology goes this is not impossible; the propaganda for the “mahdī ” Muḥammad b. ʿAbdallāh was being prepared over a long time by his father.9 On the other hand the story conveys the impression that ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd was being committed to an allegiance to Ibrāhīm which he did not keep later.10 Indeed, the same text says earlier that in Basra Wāṣil took al-Nafs al-zakiyya’s side against ʿAmr and that ʿAmr, while agreeing that things had to change, did not want to swear an oath of allegiance11 and did not, in fact, recognise al-Nafs al-zakiyya as mahdī at all.12 Even Wāṣil may not have met the 2  See p. 373 below. 3  See p. 309 and 349 below. 4  See ch. C 7.2 below. 5  See p. 355 and ch. C 7.7.1 below. This, however, dates to the time after 145/762, when Bashīr al-Raḥḥāl’s sons, who had fought with Ibrāhīm b. ʿAbdallāh in Basra, had gone to the Maghreb (see p. 376 below). 6  See p. 333f. below. But cf. Faḍl 239, ult. ff., according to which Wāṣil complained to Manṣūr of a lack of support for his duʿāt. 7  See p. 271f. above. 8  Abū l-Faraj, Maqātil al-Ṭālibiyyīn 293, apu. ff.; cf. also Veccia-Vaglieri in EI2 III 985a. 9  See vol. I 465 above and p. 289f. below. 10  In more detail on p. 328f. below. 11   Maqātil 293, 3ff. Remarkably the two are said to have met in the house of a member of a family from the Hijaz. 12  See p. 329 below.

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latter at all, as after another account his dāʿī in the Hijaz went to find al-Nafs al-zakiyya to win him for his (Wāṣil’s) cause.13 Nota bene: win him for Wāṣil’s cause, not: pay homage to him. It seems that there was an ʿAlid view of things, and a Muʿtazilite one. Among the Muʿtazilites, too, the dāʿī would soon become Wāṣil himself, and the story went that when he was canvassing during the pilgrimage in Mecca and Medina, he converted al-Nafs al-zakiyya as well as his brother Ibrāhīm to his qawl bil-ʿadl.14 In another characteristic shift in an account by Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār15 it is not Wāṣil anymore who goes to the ʿAlids, but they accord him the honour of a visit while he was allegedly staying at Ibrāhīm b. Abī Yaḥyā’s house.16 They are also rather more numerous. Besides ʿAbdallāh b. al-Ḥasan and his brothers, Zayd b. ʿAlī and his son Yaḥyā are mentioned, as well as the traditionist and jurist Muḥammad b. ʿAjlān17 and a certain Abū ʿAbbād al-Lahabī;18 Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq also appears, asking his followers to come with him. In the course of the conversation he attacks Wāṣil and exhorts him to repent, referring to sura 8:75: “Those related by blood are closest to one another. Thus it was decreed by God”. Wāṣil replies with a khuṭba emphasising God’s justice, and implicitly rejecting any determination as expressed by the Quranic verse; he claims to be representing the faith of the prophet and the first four caliphs. Characteristically he does all this without even once uttering the letter r.19 Zayd b. ʿAlī then accuses Jaʿfar of not following Wāṣil simply because of envy towards him. This is a motif added in the spirit of the later alliance between Zaydiyya and Muʿtazila. The Imamite claim that only the prophet’s nearest blood relations (ulū l-arḥām) but not Abū Bakr and ʿUmar had a title to the position of caliph, is criticised. Wāṣil acknowledges all four “righteous” caliphs, and his preference for ʿAlī is not mentioned at all. Zayd b. ʿAlī has no objection to Wāṣil’s message about God’s justice, even though we 13   Maqātil 238, pu. f.; regarding him see p. 354 below. 14  Murtaḍā, Amālī I 169, 1f.; according to Ibn ʿInaba, too, the two ʿAlids were Muʿtazilites (ʿUmdat al-ṭālib 103, pu., and 108, –5), according to an earlier source at least al-Nafs alzakiyya was (ʿAlī b. Abī l-Ghanāʾim, Majdī 38, 2). Kaʿbī’s anecdote 169, 3ff. informs us that he certainly embraced Qadarite views. 15   Faḍl 239, 1ff. > IM 33, 3ff. 16  Ibn al-Murtaḍā writes Ibrāhīm b. Yaḥyā instead, presumably referring, however, to Ibrāhīm b. Yaḥyā al-Madanī, a Qadarite and probably a pupil of ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd’s, who enjoyed great esteem as a scholar in the city at the time (see p. 781ff. below). 17  Regarding him see p. 761ff. below. 18  Ibn al-Murtaḍā has al-Laythī instead. Is he identical with the Medinan Qadarite al-Qāsim b. al-ʿAbbās al-Lahabī (see p. 753 below)? 19  Consequently Abū Bakr becomes Abū Quḥāfa, and ʿUmar, Ibn al-Khaṭṭāb.

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know that he as well as his immediate followers were still predestinarians.20 Not having played a part before Zayd b. ʿAlī’s uprising ʿAbdallāh b. al-Ḥasan is less relevant. The chronology alone would show this tradition in a dubious light: the meeting would have to have taken place before 122/740, but Ibrāhīm b. Yaḥyā, Wāṣil’s host, did not die until 184/800.21 All the same, this train of thought would be continued; there was clearly a great need to show later connections as paradigms in the earliest period. The Imamites reported that Wāṣil, ʿAmr and Bashīr al-Raḥḥāl had gone to visit Muḥammad al-Bāqir (who had already died in 113/731!), trying to trick him with dialectic sophistry when he proposed that every “thing” had a “boundary”, i.e. could be “defined”.22 In the Zaydite camp, on the other hand, a Risāla fī l-imāma was transmitted which Zayd was believed to have addressed to Wāṣil. It survives to this day; it is a letter in which Zayd replied to Wāṣil’s questions regarding his opinion of the first four caliphs. There is nothing characteristic in the text; it does not touch Wāṣil’s own opinion at all.23 In the author’s view he probably was not, in fact, permitted one, as he was playing the part of the pupil, which tells us that in the later Zaydite view Wāṣil’s opinion on the imāma issue (to which the members of his own school frequently did not adhere) agreed with Zayd b. ʿAlī’s. As we have seen the Muʿtazilites did not deny these connections. They did, however, try to diminish their importance by emphasising ʿAlid contacts in the Hijaz going back via Zayd b. ʿAlī and Muḥammad al-Bāqir to the line of Muḥammad b. al-Ḥanafiyya. Wāṣil, they said, was brought up by Muḥammad b. al-Ḥanafiyya and went to school with his son Abū Hāshim, remaining attached to the latter for a long time even later in his life.24 This is only possible if we declare Wāṣil’s date of birth (80/700) to be incorrect; Muḥammad b. al-Ḥanafiyya died in 81/701. Murtaḍā, and later Ḥākim al-Jushamī, noted the discrepancy,25 while Ibn al-Nadīm, who already mentioned the date of 20  See vol. I 296 and 303ff. above. 21  See p. 781 below. 22  Barqī, Maḥāsin 361, –5ff. This is probably based on the idea that in that case God, too, being “something” (shayʾ), could be delimited, as the Shīʿa’s anthropomorphism presumed. The story itself does not mention anything of the sort, but the answer is made too easy for Muḥammad al-Bāqir. 23  Cf. my discussion in WO 10/1979/59f. regarding MS Vehbi 457, fol. 77b–78b. 24  Kaʿbī 64, –4ff.; also Faḍl 215, 1f., and 226, 4 > IM 17, 4f.; Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Mughnī XX2 137, 7; ʿAskarī, Awāʾil II 135, 3f. Slightly divergent Abū Hāshim’s falsified saying in Ibn alMurtaḍā 16, 4f.: “If you want to know this (sc. how great my father Muḥammad b. alḤanafiyya’s knowledge was), see the marks it left on Wāṣil!”. 25   Amālī I 162, 2; cf. also Madelung, Qāsim 34.

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birth, only said that Wāṣil “met” Abū Hāshim.26 All of which is presumably legend; older Muʿtazilite documents ignore the connection entirely.27 It was probably brought up because in this way it was possible to trace the school’s “isnād” back to the prophet and the Muʿtazila consequently was not an “innovation” any more.28 Abū l-Hudhayl even continued the line as far as the angel Gabriel.29 Choosing precisely the family of Muḥammad b. al-Ḥanafiyya may have been linked to the fact that, unlike the ʿAlids to whom the Zaydiyya and the Imāmiyya referred, it had died out and consequently did not entail undesirable obligations; in addition it provided some proximity to the Abbasids, who had after all based their claim on Abū Hāshim’s testament for some time.30 W. Madelung examined the connections in detail;31 also pointing out that it may have been a rash remark Shabīb b. Shayba made in the caliph al-Mahdī’s hearing that caused or at least encouraged them.32 Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār’s saying that Wāṣil was Abū Hāshim’s maternal uncle (Faḍl 234, 4f.: kāna khālan li-Abī Hāshim) was probably misread from kāna khalā li-Abī Hāshim or bi-Abī Hāshim in Kaʿbī, Maq. 90, 14f.; the passage was changed only in the printed version after the parallel in Qāḍī ʿAbd alJabbār’s version. Such blood kinship would be difficult to imagine due to the chronology alone. All we know of Abū Hāshim’s mother, who would have been Wāṣil’s sister in this scenario, is that she was an umm walad named Nāʾila (Zubayrī, Nasab Quraysh 75, 12f.). In the legends that grew around Wāṣil’s ties to the Hijaz we can thus discern diverse tendencies and different phases. The explanation why the legends took this as their starting point is probably that Wāṣil was not the focus by himself, but rather linked to his entire “organisation”. During the years in which the Umayyad empire disintegrated the Muʿtazila was a political force, and would become one again later during the uprising in Basra in 145/762; consequently people were interested to know which position it had occupied. If there is indeed a fundamentum in re to all this, the most likely event would be the 26   Fihrist 203, 2. 27  Cf. the examples in Madelung, Qāsim 34. 28  Kaʿbī 68, 1ff. > Faḍl 164, 16ff. > IM 7, 1ff. 29  Ibn al-Nadīm, Fihrist 202, 5ff. 30  More details in ch. C 1.2.1 below. 31  Cf. Qāsim 31ff., where Kaʿbī’s K. al-maqālāt was not yet known and consequently some of the source-critical remarks would have to be modified. 32   Qāsim 33.

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so-called Hāshimid meeting in Abwāʾ. There, by Āmina’s grave on the road from Mecca to Medina,33 representatives of the prophet’s family and, as Ṭabarī said, the “Muʿtazila”, gathered after the murder of Walīd II in order to confer on who should claim the caliphate after the end of the troubles; ʿAbdallāh b. al-Ḥasan appears to have presented his son Muḥammad as the mahdī at the time.34 A tendentious Imamite tradition claims that the “heads of the Muʿtazila”: Wāṣil, ʿAmr and Wāṣil’s pupil Ḥafṣ b. Sālim also confirmed to Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq which side they were taking.35 Ṭabarī, on the other hand, does not name names. In the case of ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd at least we may doubt that he was there;36 Wāṣil, too, actually had business elsewhere, at the audience with ʿAbdallāh b. ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz. And more importantly, he died during the critical phase, immediately before the success of the Abbasid revolution. This would have contributed to his followers’ activities being paralysed. All the same he was still regarded as the leader of the movement, as illustrated by contemporary poetry repeatedly praising or reviling him, but not ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd. 2.2.6.1.5 The Image of Wāṣil’s Personality The image people had of Wāṣil’s personality was characterised by asceticism and moderate withdrawal from the world. The verse from Asbāṭ b. Wāṣil’s marthiya indicated this,1 as did Ṣafwān al-Anṣārī’s concluding remark on Wāṣil’s demeanour after his khuṭba,2 and indeed the subject matter of the speech itself. Dicta transmitted from him have the same tenor: “If the believer is hungry, he will show patience; if he has eaten, he will thank (the creator)”,3 or “I had rather that God should say to me on the day of resurrection ‘why did you not say . . .?’ than ‘why did you say . . .?’ For if I said something, he will ask me for proof, but if I was silent, he will ask nothing”.4 Which would mean that he

33   E I2 169a. 34  Ṭabarī III 143, 15ff., and 152, 11ff./transl. Muth, Der Kalif al-Manṣūr 63 and 72. Regarding this event cf. van Arendonk, Opkomst 41ff., Veccia-Vaglieri in: A Francesco Gabrieli 324, and Nagel in: Der Islam 46/1970/258ff. 35  Ṭabrisī, Iḥtijāj II 118, 7ff. > Biḥār XLVII 213ff. no. 2. Biḥār 214, 6ff. proves that the account was faked. 36  See p. 335 below. 1  See p. 273 above. 2  See p. 278 above. The term zuhd is used directly here. 3  Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 169, 3. 4  Ibn Abī l-Ḥadīd, ShNB VII 92, 8f.; Tawḥīdī, Baṣāʾir 2VII 178 no. 555 with further parallels in the material listed.

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already indicated the dialectic between shabr and shukr that would be emphasised so frequently later,5 and the merit of keeping silent.6 The latter makes us take notice; after all, Wāṣil was a mutakallim. But kalām did not mean “speech” at all costs. Wāṣil was said to have shown forbearance when he was insulted in a discussion.7 He was also reported to have humbly copied hadith from a young man – who should have been his pupil – “in order to let him taste the sweetness of pre-eminence (riyāsa)”.8 People said his wife, Umm Yūsuf, told them he read the Quran at night and found his best arguments then.9 Much of this was undoubtedly idealised. Even the fact that he entered into a marriage at all seemed to require explanation: he only married ʿAmr’s sister because ʿAmr wished it; Wāṣil himself had no connection with women.10 Neither he nor ʿAmr were believed to have had any offspring.11 Reality was rather more prosaic: honest occupation, a preference for dialectic “speech”, presumably a degree of intellectual superiority. Knowledge and activities cannot be separated: Wāṣil warned people of a depraved scholar (ʿālim fāsiq) just as much as of an ignorant believer.12 And sometimes, keeping silent was simply prudent: two verses have him say that one should pretend to be stupid when among stupid people, and not show off one’s intelligence, as nowadays the intelligent person comes to harm by his intelligence, just in the past as the fool used to by his ignorance.13 And one should not expect too much of oneself: “Staring (at a point) for a length of time tires the eye, and the heart’s eye is weaker still”.14

5  Cf. Reinert, Tawakkul 175f.; also 112ff. and Index s. v. “Dank” and “Geduld”. 6  Cf. e.g. Gedankenwelt des Muḥāsibī 107ff. In Ḥasan’s circle, too, Wāṣil was said to have been noticeable for his taciturnity (see p. 292 and 295 below). 7  Faḍl 235, 14ff. 8  Ibid. 241, –5ff.; also ShNB XX 247, apu. ff., and Ibn Abī ʿAwn, Al-ajwiba al-muskita 58 no. 345. 9  Ibid. 236, 6 > IM 31, ult. f. 10  Ibid. 235, 9f. He appears to have invoked the example of ʿĀmir b. ʿAbdqays (IS VII1 79, 18ff., if he is the same as the Wāṣil mentioned there); regarding whom see p. 101 above. 11  Ibid. 234, 13. Indeed, we only hear of a nephew named Jaʿfar, the son of his sister (Jāḥiẓ, Ḥayawān VII 204, pu., and Bukhalāʾ 145, 2, both times as an authority quoted by Jāḥiẓ). However, as in ʿAmr’s case, a double kunya was transmitted for him as well (see p. 324 below), for which the best explanation would be that he had had children but that they died at a young age. 12  Tawḥīdī, Baṣāʾir I 299, 9ff./2II 7, 4ff. 13  Yāqūt, Irshād VII 225, 7f. 14  Jāḥiẓ, Nafy al-tashbīh, in: Rasāʾil I 290, 4f.

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The tendency of renouncing the world is more clearly expressed in the reports on ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd than in those concerning Wāṣil. Wāṣil may have preached asceticism, but he was still khaṭīb and mutakallim, both traits which were much less significant in ʿAmr’s case.15 Asceticism only became the dominant ideal once people found themselves pushed into passive resistance after Abbasid rule had taken hold. ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd was part of this process and may even have encouraged it, but Wāṣil was not. Interestingly, according to Kaʿbī, it was ʿAmr who emphasised Wāṣil’s zuhd,16 but there may, in fact, have been something else: asceticism was a particularly Basran phenomenon. Wāṣil, however, may have been a stranger in that city, and certainly among Ḥasan alBaṣrī’s circle of pupils where ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd occupied a much more dominant position. Wāṣil, people knew, found followers only once he had convinced ʿAmr of his views.17 Let us now examine how he succeeded in doing this. 2.2.6.1.6 Wāṣil’s Relationship with ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd and Ḥasan al-Baṣrī The turning point was said to have been reached during a debate in which Wāṣil emerged victorious. The sources mention it repeatedly, and we are able to reconstruct the image people had of events along general lines. Wāṣil and ʿAmr knew one another from Ḥasan’s lectures, where Wāṣil had remained persistently silent for four years; consequently he was believed to be deaf.1 He was associated with Khārijite circles at the time; ʿAmr was thought to have got in touch with him when he heard how skilfully he dealt with his opponents there.2 But there is no mention of any influence: both were very young at the time, and Wāṣil did not develop his doctrine of the manzila bayna l-manzilatayn until later. He does not even seem to have been in Basra then, and certainly not in touch with any of Ḥasan’s pupils, as it was left to third parties who had heard of his new ideas to put him in contact with ʿAmr3 who was leading Ḥasan’s former ḥalqa by that time – and probably had done since Qatāda’s death in 117/735.4 This was the occasion of the abovementioned debate. ʿAmr defended Ḥasan’s position, but was beaten and consequently converted to 15  See p. 338 and 348 below. 16   Maq. 67, –4. 17  Cf. e.g. TB XII 166, 8f. 1  Fihrist 203, 2f. > ʿAskarī, Awāʾil II 135, 4f.; also Faḍl 235, 4ff. 2  Ibid. 235, 8f. 3  Text IX 2, a. According to Malaṭī, Tanbīh 30, 16/38, 5, Wāṣil brought his doctrine with him from Medina, but it is possible that this is an interpretation of earlier reports. 4  See p. 156 above.

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Wāṣil’s point of view; he was reported to have accepted his defeat without a grudge or making excuses.5 It would be emphasised later that he was not a good debater,6 and probably had no great interest in kalām. Subsequently he would send his pupils to Wāṣil’s lectures pointing out that they were much more profitable than his own.7 The assumption appears to have been that he continued to occupy the higher position. He gave his sister to Wāṣil in marriage, and it was noticeable if Wāṣil criticised him.8 On the other hand, ʿAmr admired Wāṣil for his skills as a khaṭīb,9 and he was even said to have considered him worthy of the caliphate.10 We do not know whether this was interpreted as more than mere hyperbole, but the statement must in any case be considered before the background of the troubles towards the end of the Umayyad era. When someone later criticised ʿAmr for not having risked an uprising in Basra during the days of Yazīd III,11 his excuse was that he could have relied on one person only, on Wāṣil.12 Long after Wāṣil had died, one of his followers accused ʿAmr of being merely an epigone (dhanab) while Wāṣil, the head, had died tragically early; but ʿAmr admitted this freely: twenty – or in another version: thirty – years he had lived with Wāṣil, and never seen a single sin in him.13 We should not be taken in by this coherent image. It is probably not significant that according to Mānkdīm, the commentator of Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, ʿAmr was debating Ḥasan’s munāfiq theory with Ḥasan himself;14 this is likely to have been a later, marginal tradition. It does, however, show that he did not believe the Wāṣil story, as in that case a “conversion” would not have been 5  Ibid., l; Text 3, also Faḍl 245, 10ff. 6  See p. 348 below. 7  Faḍl 236, 13ff. 8  Murtaḍā, Amālī I 164, 1ff.; however, this is a typical luthgha story. 9  Faḍl 235, 11ff.; ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ III 282, apu. ff.; TB XII 175, 12ff., all after a report by Abū ʿAwāna (d. 176/792; regarding him see p. 82 n. 166 above). Similar also ʿUqaylī 285, 10ff. 10  ʿUqaylī III 285, 14ff. > Mīzān III 275, 9f., after Ismāʿīl b. Ibrāhīm Ibn ʿUlayya (d. 193/809; regarding him see p. 473ff. below). The context of this tradition probably led Nyberg to conclude that Ibn ʿUlayya was the author of the report of the meeting between Wāṣil and ʿAmr – which is not supported by anything else (Classicisme et déclin culturel 127). 11  Cf. p. 325f. below. 12   Faḍl 250. 15ff. (corrupted, and emended according to Jushamī; Wāṣil is only a gloss). The critic is Abū ʿAmr al-Zaʿfarānī (regarding him see p. 361f. below). Cf. the parallel ibid. 250, 6ff. 13  Kaʿbī 67, 15ff., more briefly also 90, 10ff.; abridged differently and traced back to Abū l-Hudhayl in Faḍl 243, 15ff. Regarding “head” and “tail” see vol. I 211 above. 14  Text X 7.

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necessary. A conversion brought about by a debate was first of all a literary topos anyway. This was how people imagined it, but for understandable reasons it was not at all frequent in reality.15 And ʿAmr’s reasonable attitude is noted as a particular virtue. We must be prepared to assume that here as elsewhere the account of the debate is merely an example. While the event had apparently been recorded in an early source, the K. mā jarā baynahū (sc. Wāṣil) wa-bayna ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd,16 but the surviving material describes the conversion in different ways. The least probable version is found in a late Ibāḍite work, Warglānī’s K. al-dalīl li-ahl al-ʿuqūl,17 where ʿAmr is not active at all but only impressed by Wāṣil’s philippic against the predestinarians – the very subject on which he was most likely to have always had his own clear opinion.18 Here, his conversion is merely the last confirmation that the Muʿtazilite doctrine was the “true faith” in the sense of sura 98:5. However, the two versions that survive among Muʿtazilite tradition19 are also unlikely to take us back to the original events. Their starting points have little in common – they would certainly not have had a logical interconnection in one and the same munāẓara. Ibn al-Murtaḍā’s – or one of his sources’ – attempt at linking the two must be considered to have failed.20 One of the two presents ʿAmr as embracing the thesis that a mortal sinner – a munāfiq in Ḥasan al-Baṣrī’s terminology – has no true knowledge of God;21 while the other is concerned with proving that, contrary to his view, munāfiq could not be used as the term denoting a mortal sinner, fāsiq being the correct term.22 With regard to the former it would be necessary to ask whether Ḥasan al-Baṣrī formulated such a doctrine for ʿAmr to embrace it.23 As for the latter, it is noticeable that the principle of manzila bayna l-manzilatayn that, according to the frame story, led to the debate in the first place (a) is not proven in the debate but rather presumed, the issue being merely the terminology. This may indeed have been the decisive innovation, but it is difficult to resist the impression that we are looking at an already established position with only this point remaining controversial. It seems that Wāṣil himself had nothing 15  Cf. the material in REI 44/1976/45ff. 16  Catalogue of Works IX, no. 9. 17  Text IX 4. 18  See p. 350f. below. 19  Ibn al-Murtaḍā confirmed that there were several (Ṭab. 36, 12). 20  Against Madelung, Qāsim 12, n. 20; cf. the commentary on Text 3. 21  Text 3. 22  Text 2, cited in sections in the following. 23  Cf. p. 300f. below.

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to do with Ḥasan’s intellectual legacy directly, Ḥasan’s school being one firqa among many in his view.24 Looking at the evidence and concluding that the two versions are both exemplary, we can presume that the arguments were not directed against ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd but against Ḥasan’s later followers who adhered to his terminology and fixed it in dogma, namely the Bakriyya.25 In this case both texts could be dated to the second half of the second century; the K. mā jarā baynahū wa-bayna ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd may have been written around this time, too, which would explain a few more idiosyncrasies: that the frame story uses a topos to explain the term iʿtizāl, and that the term kāfir niʿma may be being used anachronistically.26 We should not, of course, doubt that Wāṣil had at some point been Ḥasan’s pupil. Tradition preserves his respectful opinion of the latter,27 and he adopted his ideas in more than one instance.28 It is doubtful that he, like ʿAmr, transmitted Ḥasan’s Tafsīr, as some sources claim;29 it may well be merely a retrospective Muʿtazilite generalisation. Still, it is probably also exaggerated that he remained entirely silent in his teacher’s ḥalqa for four years; it is more likely to be an attempt at explaining why Ḥasan had not himself noticed Wāṣil’s dislike of the term munāfiq. After all, the report came from ʿAbd al-Wārith b. Saʿīd, a future pupil of ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd’s, who was not himself present at these events.30 Conversely, reports that Wāṣil himself renounced Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, or that Ḥasan excluded him from his circle, are most certainly anti-Muʿtazilite fabrication.31 What is not entirely clear is whether he was in touch with Ḥasan in Basra. An interesting but entirely isolated document preserved by Ibn ʿAbdrabbih presumes that Wāṣil was close to Ḥasan when the latter, filled with premonitions of his death, came to Medina to lecture in a side wing of the Prophet’s Mosque.32 The text poses some questions. It would seem that towards the end of his life, Ḥasan went on the pilgrimage for the second time and may have spent some time in Mecca. Mujāhid was said to have been among his audience, which would take us to the period before 104/722.33 He may well have visited Medina at that time as well and Wāṣil, if he did indeed have his roots in that 24  Thus said explicitly in Text 2, k. 25  See p. 129 above. 26  Cf. the commentary on Text 2. 27  Tawḥīdī, Baṣāʾir I 269, 4f./2I 222 no. 691. 28  See p. 313f. below. 29  Thus e.g. Faḍl 253, 2. 30  Ibid. 235, 4ff.; regarding him see p. 367ff. below. 31  See p. 385 below. 32  Text 5. 33   I S VII1 115, 8ff.; regarding Mujāhid see p. 718ff. below.

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city, might have joined him there. He was already sitting in the front row with only ʿAmr between him and Ḥasan.34 If the transmitted birthdates are correct, they were both very young at the time in any case. In addition it seems that Ibn ʿAbdrabbih identified the text incorrectly, describing it as a letter written by Wāṣil to ʿAmr despite the fact that Wāṣil is referred to in the third person and with his kunya – this is not how one would talk about oneself. Ṭāhā al-Ḥājirī already pointed out this fact and rejected the attribution to Wāṣil (Jāḥiẓ, Bukhalāʾ 410, –4ff.). Abū l-Wafāʾ al-Taftāzānī mentioned the text in his study of Wāṣil (in: Dirāsāt falsafiyya muhdāt ilā Ibrāhīm Madkūr, p. 74) without noting the problem, believing to be looking at K. mā jarā baynahū wa-bayna ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd. What is certain is that the letter was addressed to ʿAmr, the surprising feature being that the sender attacks him, criticising his “quarrelsome” nature (b) and his “bad doctrine” (c), which is said to have been considered unbearable in Ḥasan’s circle (c), Ḥasan himself expressing the gravest possible fears with regard to him in everyone’s hearing (g). Now – after his teacher’s death, it is implied – it did indeed turn out that he interpreted the revelation in an idiosyncratic fashion (i), his books providing additional proof (k). We are not told of which issue in particular he was writing; there are vague references to “innovations” (mā btadaʿta) or to “abridging the contexts and dividing the foundations” (tanqīṣ al-maʿānī wa-tafrīq al-mabānī) (k). This could refer to ʿAmr’s alliance with Wāṣil, in which case the remark that they were sitting next to one another the last time the author saw ʿAmr in Medina (h) could be interpreted as an allusion to Wāṣil’s bad influence.35 It is also possible that ʿAmr’s Qadarite opinions are being castigated, as his idiosyncratic interpretations covered not only scripture but also traditions (aḥādīth), giving cause for eternal reproach with regard to prophetic dicta on predestinarian matters.36 We do not know who composed the letter. It must have been an influential scholar or pious man of the time who lived outside Basra, probably in the Hijaz, and who was hostile towards the emerging Muʿtazila or Qadariyya; he had followers in Ḥasan’s circle or introduced them there (c). There are some doubts surrounding the

34  Text 5, h. 35  The expression that he “hung” his new interpretation of the scripture “around his neck” (qalladtahū ʿunuqaka) could be used to this end, too; taqlīd insinuating that he adopted it from someone else. 36  See p. 346f. below.

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text, but as yet there is no reason not to believe its genuineness. It probably dates from the time between AH 120 and 125. However much ʿAmr was attacked here, his prestige was emphasised just as much. Even in Medina in the old days he was sitting next to his teacher Ḥasan (h); now he has power (ṭawl) and people lower their eyes before him with respect (l). While this is mere “imagination and lust for glory” (l), there was no doubt that ʿAmr was able to accept Ḥasan’s legacy. After all, the letter accused him of managing it badly. A verse by Isḥāq b. Suwayd, composed while Wāṣil was still living, shows that after the schools merged ʿAmr was equal with Wāṣil, albeit maybe slightly less active.37 The story of the Basran kalām circle, other members of which included Ṣāliḥ b. ʿAbd al-Quddūs, Bashshār b. Burd and Ibn Abī l-ʿAwjāʾ,38 also presupposes this. How the relationship between the two was viewed also depended on the viewer’s attitude. By outliving Wāṣil, ʿAmr gained a degree of ascendancy. On the other hand, those Muʿtazilites who disagreed with his politics, especially towards the end of his life,39 were inclined to refer to Wāṣil once again. Ṣafwān al-Anṣārī called ʿAmr Wāṣil’s “pupil” (ghulām), which probably put too much emphasis on the dependence. Maʿdān al-Shumayṭī regarded Wāṣil as the starting point of the Muʿtazila,40 while authors whose background was among the aṣḥāb al-ḥadīth named ʿAmr but not Wāṣil; e.g. Ibn Qutayba in his K. al-Maʿārif,41 or Ibn Baṭṭa in his Ibāna al-ṣughrā. Abū l-Hudhayl seemed to prefer Wāṣil; Bishr b. al-Muʿtamir on the other hand referred to ʿAmr.42 People argued – and presumably also wrote – about which of the two was of higher rank.43 Later generations imagined them peacefully by each other’s side; a poem of praise for Hishām al-Fuwaṭī says that he “followed Wāṣil and ʿAmr”.44 But even Kaʿbī still included Ghaylān al-Dimashqī in the line of spiritual forebears.45 All of this begins to take shape only when we compare both their doctrines.

37  See p. 273f. above. 38  See p. 4f. above. 39  Cf. p. 328 below. 40  Jāḥiẓ, Bayān III 356, 11; also Oriens 16/1963/108. 41  Cf. Watt, Formative Period 109. 42  Cf. Text XVII 5, v. 3. He is said to have studied with two of Wāṣil’s pupils (see p. 361 below). 43  Jāḥiẓ, Ḥayawān VII 7, 7. Could we interpret the passage to say that Abū l-Hudhayl’s and al-Naẓẓām’s followers differed in this question? Maybe ʿAmr’s champions came up with the claim that he already debated with Ḥasan (see p. 293 above). 44   I M 61, 8. Abū l-Hudhayl was already thought to have spoken of aṣḥāb Wāṣil wa-ʿAmr (ibid. 71, 3f.). 45   Maq. 84, 10: madhhab Ghaylān wa-Wāṣil wa-ʿAmr.

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2.2.6.1.7 The Doctrine of the Intermediate State Wāṣil wrote a treatise on the manzila bayna l-manzilatayn;1 no such title has been transmitted from ʿAmr. The issue must have been truly important to him; the question, however, is where his originality lay, linked to the source-critical discussion of whether Wāṣil’s text left an impression anywhere else. This might be the case in parts of the munāẓara tradition already discussed, explaining its exemplary form further. This working hypothesis2 increases in probability as the positive half of Wāṣil’s argumentation3 is found in similar form in a review of his theory by Khayyāṭ in his K. al-intiṣār.4 On the other hand there is an older parallel in Jāḥiẓ which does not mention Wāṣil at all and replaces Ḥasan al-Baṣrī with the Bakriyya.5 The theoretical reviews were thus adapted to the respective situation early on, just like the accounts of the debate presumably were. Our best starting point would seem to be Khayyāṭ’s text. As usual he was reacting to an attack by Ibn al-Rēwandī. The latter had introduced the criterion of originality – with a negative connotation, of course, in the true spirit of the age, and employing the concepts in use at the time: in his view Wāṣil put an end to the consensus of the community with his manzila bayna l-manzilatayn. Khayyāṭ pointed out in response that in fact there was a consensus regarding the “new” term fāsiq which Wāṣil had introduced; it only needed to be raised into people’s consciousness as it was obscured by a disagreement over terms.6 This concerned the status and classification of a mortal sinner, his “denotation” (tasmiya), as it was called. The Khārijites had called him an unbeliever, the Murjiʾites a believer, Ḥasan al-Baṣrī a “hypocrite” (munāfiq); Wāṣil countered them with the word “evildoer” (fāsiq).7 The texts consulted state quite clearly8 that he did not wish to found a fourth party but rather to create a common base for all. Consequently he did not argue based on the Quran but employed existing, shared language usage attempting to change a word used casually into a term. Of course he pointed out that the word was also used in the Quran, where it was even used to refer to a mortal sinner – or rather, to one mortal 1  Catalogue of Works no. 1. 2  Regarding it cf. my article in: ZDMG 135/1985/22ff. 3  Text 2, h–k. 4  Text 6. 5  Text 7. 6  It is interesting that Khayyāṭ keeps mentioning the term fājir besides fāsiq (Text 6, f–h). In the account of the discussion as well as in the later theological literature the former term played no part at all; it may be a relic left over from the original question. 7  Thus also elsewhere; cf. e.g. Faḍl 166, –8ff. 8  Cf. Text 2, k, and 6, g–h.

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sinner, namely the slanderer (qādhif).9 In the debate mentioned earlier ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd tried to defend Ḥasan al-Baṣrī’s position using this verse10 – but this probably follows the Muʿtazilite line, i.e. that of the narrator.11 It would have been impossible to justify the term based solely on the Quran, but that was never the intention anyway. Still, merely clearing up terminological disagreement was not the point at issue either. There were also questions of evaluation, which is the point at which Khayyāṭ’s summary contains additional information for us, beyond the account of the debate.12 It discusses the matter summarised later under the term al-asmāʾ wal-aḥkām. Calling a mortal sinner a believer, heathen or munāfiq entailed certain consequences intrinsic to the terms; Wāṣil, Khayyāṭ tells us, showed that it was not possible or desirable to take all consequences into account, and that it would therefore make more sense to use a less charged term. While this was certainly one motive, we must still consider to what degree Khayyāṭ was systematising along the lines of later theology. This is easiest to prove with regard to the Khārijites; after all, Wāṣil was said to have argued with them constantly in his younger days.13 Khayyāṭ reported Wāṣil’s deliberations that nobody would seriously think of going to war against a mortal sinner who remains a Muslim and, we must add, does not renounce the community politically either, or of denying him burial in a Muslim cemetery as if he were an unbeliever. Anyone would gladly accept his inheritance, which would be forbidden in the case of a follower of a different religion.14 What Khayyāṭ does not tell us is that certain early Khārijites, e. g. the Azraqites, did indeed draw this very consequence.15 In order for Wāṣil’s argument to hold he would have had to point to the Basran Ibāḍites. However, the Ibāḍites had 9  Sura 24:4, with Text 6, h. This refers to slander with regard to fornication (cf. EI2 IV 373 s. v. Ḳad̲ h̲f). The term qadhf or qādhif does not, in fact, occur in this verse, but the punishment for the crime, namely 80 lashes, is fixed here. Jāḥiẓ, too, noted that this was the Muʿtazila’s starting point (Text 7, a). 10  Text 2, e. 11  Text 3 presupposes that Wāṣil used the example of the slanderer against ʿAmr without prompting. 12  Cf. also the related, but more briefly summarised descriptions in Jāḥiẓ (Text 6, b–d), Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār (Faḍl 235, 1ff.), and Ḥākim al-Jushamī, Al-risāla fī naṣīḥat al-ʿāmma (MS Ambrosiana C 5, fol. 58b, 8ff.); also, slightly more inflated, Pseudo-Qāsim b. Ibrāhīm, K. al-ʿadl wal-tawḥīd (in: Rasāʾil al-ʿadl wal-tawḥīd, ed. ʿImāra, I 125, 4ff.) and Baghdādī (Farq 97, 1ff./116, 4ff.). Cf. also Madelung, Qāsim 10f. 13  See p. 292 above and 307f. below. 14  Text 6, i–l. 15  Regarding individual points cf., in brief, Cook, Dogma 96f.

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their own separate position, as stated explicitly in a parallel text,16 and Wāṣil probably considered them separately. Khayyāṭ was simplifying things, and his argument would have been of no use to Wāṣil in this form. In the disagreement with the Murjiʾites, everything depended on the concept of faith; it is no coincidence that the few texts that mention the relationship between the early Muʿtazila and its Murjiʾite opponents concentrated on this point17 which Khayyāṭ did not really express. In his version Wāṣil did not begin with human behaviour, as he had done earlier in debates with the Khārijites, but with God’s attitude as expressed in the Quran: God loves the believers and promises them Paradise; he curses grave sinners and intends to punish them. How then could one call a grave sinner a believer?18 This may indeed have been Wāṣil’s approach: sura 32:18 states explicitly that a fāsiq and a muʾmin have nothing in common. Wāṣil was probably aware that using humans as the starting point would not be as dialectically effective, as the Murjiʾites themselves regarded their relationship with sinful fellow-humans, especially unjust rulers, as problematic and absolved by no means everyone.19 When it comes to criticising Ḥasan al-Baṣrī’s position20 it is noticeable that Khayyāṭ does not adduce any Quranic verses at all, which is also the case in the debate with ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd, even though this was more directly aimed at Ḥasan’s teachings: ʿAmr bases his arguments on the Quran, while Wāṣil limits himself to destroying this scriptural basis and proving ʿAmr’s method of exegesis to be invalid.21 The nerve of the argument was clearly elsewhere. Khayyāṭ pointed out that a munāfiq would be ordered to repent, once he had been identified; if he refused, he would be executed. A mortal sinner – unless he was an apostate, and as such had embraced unbelief – would not be treated like that. In Khayyāṭ’s eyes a munāfiq was a secret unbeliever at the heart of the community, not just any mortal sinner whose infringement would often be there for all to see, and punished accordingly under the law applicable to Muslims. Once again it is doubtful whether Wāṣil was of the same opinion. To Khayyāṭ, Ḥasan’s teachings were in the distant past, while Wāṣil knew them 16  Kaʿbī (see p. 303 below), and, without names, Jāḥiẓ (Text 7, a). Baghdādī’s abovementioned discussion also lists various Khārijite opinions, but in a purely academic fashion: it assumes that Wāṣil was already active under ʿAbd al-Malik when the Azraqites were terrorising Basra and the Hijaz, and it ultimately develops into an orthodox iʿtizāl legend. 17  Cf. Texts IX 11 and II 6–7, also p. 306 below. 18  Text 6, n. 19  Cf. e.g. vol. I 197f. regarding the Sīrat Sālim b. Dhakwān; regarding the Basran Ghaylāniyya ibid. 151f. 20  Text 6, m. 21  Cf. Text 2, f, with commentary.

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in great detail. He would hardly have ignored the fact that Ḥasan had arrived at the word munāfiq through Quranic meditation. Ḥasan had internalised the meaning, regarding as a “hypocrite” someone who outwardly professed Islam but without taking it seriously.22 While this was the same definition as found in Khayyāṭ, its meaning was different; not taking Islam seriously meant not “living” it, not carrying it out existentially. The ascetics close to the early Muʿtazila would have seen it like that, too. For Ḥasan the important thing was that a munāfiq would be punished with eternal hellfire, besides which it was irrelevant whether he would be treated as a believer or an unbeliever on earth. Wāṣil and the later Muʿtazila did not differ from him in this; a fāsiq, too, remains in hell forever. They went their different ways in other matters: to Ḥasan and the Bakriyya a certain mortal sin, namely the murder of a Muslim, did not allow of repentance (tawba) before God,23 while a fāsiq could always turn back before God. This may be the reason why Khayyāṭ emphasised that a munāfiq would be ordered to repent; it was based on hidden – and possibly no longer understood – polemic. In the case of the Bakriyya another factor was24 that it believed every sin should be repented individually25 while the Muʿtazila thought that good deeds could be offset against evil ones.26 Wāṣil wrote a K. fī l-tawba27 in which he might already have referred to the issue. Compared to the Bakriyya the Muʿtazila seems milder and more generous; after all, it was not only, and possibly not even mainly, an ascetic movement. Jāḥiẓ explains that for the Bakriyya the munāfiq must be punished more severely than an unbeliever.28 Wāṣil was working towards a compromise and the unification of the community by introducing a new term and delimiting the existing terms more precisely. The new word was properly Quranic; Jāḥiẓ would later emphasise that it had not been used in pre-Islamic times.29 However, it entailed, precisely because of the compromise, a new definition of the possibility of a grave sinner’s salvation. Earlier, this definition had distinguished between “designation” (ism) and juristic “definition” (ḥukm), i.e. between the 22  Cf. Ritter in: Der Islam 21/1933/44ff.; cf. p. 50 above. 23  See p. 130 above. 24  This may be a reference to Ḥasan as well, but we cannot document it. 25  See p. 129 above. 26  See ch. C 4.2.1.2 below regarding Jaʿfar b. Mubashshir. 27  Catalogue of Works no. 5. 28  Text 6, a; similarly also Baghdādī later, Farq 97, apu. ff./118, 6f. cf. p. 131 above. 29   Ḥayawān V 280, 9f.; regarding the semantic range in the Quran cf. Izutsu, Ethico-Religious Concepts in the Qurʾān 156ff.

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term itself and the rules and messages of salvation tied to it in the Quran and, to some degree, the Sunna; it can be observed in Abū Ḥanīfa’s work.30 Since the uṣūl al-khamsa had been established, it was more common to speak of the Bāb fī l-asmāʾ wal-aḥkām than of the manzila bayna l-manzilatayn, but we cannot determine whether Wāṣil already linked the two. The criterion of asmāʾ wal-aḥkām clearly does not do justice to the original situation and does not occur in the account of the discussion with ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd, nor in other Muʿtazilite texts that provide information on this period, such as the debates with Murjiʾites.31 How, then, did Wāṣil fit the concept of manzila bayna l-manzilatayn, which after all he discussed in one of his treatises, into his framework of ideas? First of all we must point out that the term does not seem to be in line with the issue we have discussed so far, as the fāsiq is not in between a dual salvational status of “believer” and “unbeliever”, but between three manāzil, reinforcing the impression that the approach is based on a later stage of the problem.32 At the same time we must ask the question of whether Wāṣil was not in fact employing a term already in existence. There are isolated cases in hadith where manzila is used to mean salvational status.33 Above all, these allow us to observe how this meaning originated: at first, it did not refer to “believer” and “unbeliever” but to paradise and hell, i.e. the places where the believers and unbelievers will “settle”. Man kāna llāhu khalaqahū li-wāḥidatin min al-manzilatayn yuhayyiʾuhū li-ʿamalihā “if God has created someone for one of the two dwellings, he will make him inclined to act accordingly”, Ibn Ḥanbal’s Musnad tells us.34 Yazīd alRaqāshī was also thought to have used the term with this meaning: laysa bayna l-janna wal-nār manzila;35 and of course there is the corresponding verb: ayna tunzilu l-kuffār fī l-ākhira? “where in the otherworld do you settle the unbelievers?”, Nāfiʿ b. al-Azraq was said to have asked. This was transmitted among the Murjiʾites,36 where – in the K. al-ʿālim wal-mutaʿallim37 – we also find an interesting parallel to the Muʿtazilite manzila bayna l-manzilatayn: “The third 30  See vol. I 223 above. Regarding the translation of ḥukm see also Gimaret, Ashʿarī 487 n. 1. 31  Text 11 and II 6–7. 32  The dual should not be overestimated; the emphasis is not on “two” but on “between”. Abū l-Muʿīn al-Nasafī characteristically writes of the masʾalat (al-)bayn al-bayn instead (Baḥr al-kalām 75, –4, and 77, 2). 33  Muttaqī al-Hindī, Kanz al-ʿummāl I 28 no. 519. 34   I V 438, –7. Regarding hadith overall cf. HT 47ff. 35  In conversation with ʿUmar II (Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam, Sīrat ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿazīz 90, 9). 36  After an account by Abū Ḥanīfa in a codicil on the Risāla to ʿUthmān al-Battī (38, n.; cf. also vol. I 228 with nn. 35 and 38 above). 37  20, 4ff.; also Oriens 17/1964/111.

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status: those who profess the oneness (muwaḥḥidūn) in whose case we exercise ἐποχή. We neither affirm that they are tied to the fires of hell, nor that they belong to paradise; but we hope and fear for them”. These are ordinary Muslims; those who are tied to the fires of hell are the unbelievers (called mushrikūn here), while the ahl al-janna are the prophets and the other few to whom the prophets promised paradise. Even so Abū Ḥanīfa considered those who described a Muslim as neither believer nor unbeliever to be hair-splitting innovators,38 for a valid reason: as in his view those who profess God’s oneness remained believers; he regarded a sinner as muʾmin ḍāll.39 This does not take the discussion of the origins any further, as all the Murjiʾite texts mentioned were composed after Wāṣil’s death, but there may have been some progress in Kaʿbī when, in a passage preserved by Ibn al-Nadīm,40 he added a fourth group to the ones discussed so far: the Zaydites and Ibāḍites who believed that mortal sinners were “ungrateful (kuffār niʿma), neither polytheists nor believers”. “Polytheists” (mushrikūn) was the Ibāḍite term for the heathen, and indeed the Ibāḍites were most likely to grant mortal sinners – i.e. mainly: non-Ibāḍite Muslims – an intermediate status.41 Shammākhī made this quite clear in his Uṣūl al-diyānāt.42 Certain early Ṣufrites whose identity is unfortunately not known to us, agreed completely with this view.43 Sālim b. Dhakwān already used manzila in the figurative sense.44 The Zaydites Kaʿbī mentioned together with the Ibāḍites are difficult to grasp. While they embraced similar ideas,45 they could only have influenced Wāṣil during the last phase of his life. Madelung considered the hypothesis that the term kufr niʿma “was also used by those Shīʿite circles out of which the Zaydiyya emerged”.46 ʿAbdallāh b. Abī Yaʿfūr, an Iraqi Imamite who had ties to the Zaydiyya, assumed intermediate status for those who did not know the imam, i.e. were not members of the

38  Text II 5, o; see vol. I 226 above. 39  See vol. I 222 above. 40   Fihrist 201, 9ff. 41  See p. 260ff. above. 42  Cuperly, Introduction 333. Abū ʿAmmār opposed Muʿtazilite doctrine but admitted that in this point the Muʿtazila was closer to the Ibāḍiyya than the Murjiʾa (Mūjaz II 123, 1ff. and apu. ff.). 43  Ashʿarī, Maq. 116, 5f. 44  Cook, Dogma 94; also Text II 2, r–s. 45  Madelung, Qāsim 60f. 46  Ibid. 13 with reference to Text IX 2, k, where the Zaydiyya (or Shīʿa) is named on its own, without the Ibāḍiyya. Another correspondence between the Muʿtazila and the early Zaydiyya is the idea that a mortal sinner would be condemned for eternity (Maq. 74, 3f.).

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Shīʿa.47 Or did Wāṣil adopt the idea from the Medinan Shīʿa? Mānkdīm claims he did, but then loses our trust by naming Abū Hāshim as the originator.48 It is unlikely that we will ever stand on firm ground in this matter, but we may say that with his model Wāṣil not so much distanced himself from what had gone before, but rather completed existing tendencies. Ḥasan al-Baṣrī’s term munāfiq had made the first step towards a tripartite scheme.49 Thus in a sense Wāṣil only exchanged a term: “He was of the opinion that the fāsiq was a munāfiq according to Ḥasan’s doctrine”, as Abū Hilāl al-ʿAskarī put it.50 He did this because he considered the term munāfiq to have been over-interpreted; the Ibāḍites, too, would find at some point that exegesis and theology got in each other’s way here.51 Wāṣil attempted from the very first to keep Quranic exegesis separate when employing the term fāsiq, which is why his choice of vocabulary did not leave any traces in the tafsīr literature.52 Fundamentally he, rather like Ḥasan, was searching for tools refined enough to bridge the by then existing differences between Murjiʾites and (radical) Khārijites; he had a reason for speaking of manzilatayn.53 This was probably why he found it easy to win ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd for his cause. If we are to believe the accounts of his discussion with ʿAmr, the fact that he was the first to determinedly presume an intermediate status for a grave sinner was at first not acknowledged much at all. There was a general tendency in this direction, with Ḥasan, the Ibāḍites, and apparently the Zaydites as well. Only once his compromise evolved into yet another new school, and people were forced to delimit themselves accordingly did they shy away from the consequence. In the subsequent debates it was the Bakriyya that occupied 47  See vol. I 370f. above. 48  ShUKh 137, ult. ff. 49  Cf. esp. the text from Abū Nuʿaym in: Der Islam 21/1933/44. 50   Awāʾil II 135, 10. 51  See p. 264f. above. 52  According to Muqātil b. Sulaymān the meaning of the word as used in the Quran ranged from unbelief (as practised by the munāfiqūn against the prophets) and “polytheism” to mere misdeeds (ithm) and wickedness (sayyiʾāt) that did not touch upon the faith status; eternal pains of hell are not mentioned as the consequence (Al-wujūh wal-naẓāʾir 328, –4ff.). Abū ʿUbayda discussed fisq in the context of sura 18:50 (Majāz al-Qurʾān I 406, 2), as did Farrāʾ in his Maʿānī l-Qurʾān (II 147, 6ff.: fāsiq = al-khārij ʿan ṭāʿati rabbih). They both ignore the Muʿtazila’s key witness, the slander verse 24:4, in this context. Ibn Qutayba quoted Farrāʾ in his Gharīb al-ḥadīth (I 249, 1ff.). However, even for munāfiq, this provides only a philological explanation (ibid. 249, 9ff.). 53  Sometimes even later texts present it in this way (cf. e.g. Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Faḍl 161, 11ff.), although this is probably retrospective simplification.

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the central position. It contested the Muʿtazilites’ claim to be Ḥasan’s heirs, forcing them not only to distance themselves from the ancient extremes, the manzilatayn, which did not really have many followers in Basra, but also to explicitly refute the munāfiq solution. Consequences of this could be felt in the accounts of an alleged debate between Wāṣil and ʿAmr, or in the doxographical texts which now listed, and then rejected, three, sometimes even four, divergent positions. By that time scholars had grown accustomed to ascribing the individual asmāʾ to the respective aḥkām, a method that had probably evolved during the discussion concerning the concept of faith,54 but now also applied to the new issue by the Muʿtazilites.55 In this way the question had become entirely independent. 2.2.6.1.7.1

Sin and Penitence

E. Gräf pointed out a parallel with this intermediate status in Christian penitential practice: someone who was not allowed to partake of the Eucharist was regarded neither as Christian nor as non-Christian.1 This is worth deliberating: in early Islam the problem of salvational status is also linked with that of tawba; the quarrel over terms is in reality a debate on the degrees of penitence – “psychologically explicable among puritans”, as Strothmann put it.2 But we do not yet know whether the Muslims in Iraq could have known of this Christian distinction. For the time being it would be better to consult the sources regarding Wāṣil’s own attitude to sin and penitence. Unfortunately the traditions on the subject do not form a coherent image. Mānkdīm said3 that Wāṣil spoke against the idea that penitence was valid even when it related to some of the sins committed; tawba to him would have meant a radical turning-back. He might have learnt this from Ḥasan, but he was in the company of other, later Muʿtazilites,4 and furthermore involved only as a witness in an argument conducted by Jubbāʾī and Abū Hāshim. Consequently we must be cautious. Of course, we also hear that he regarded even the 54  See vol. I 222f. above regarding Abū Ḥanīfa. 55  A corresponding train of thought is found in one text that refers to Wāṣil (14, b–c); but this, too, appears to have been edited (see p. 309f. below). 1  OLZ 55/1960/397 after Karl Holl, Enthusiasmus und Bußgewalt beim griechischen Mönchtum (Leipzig 1898), p. 239; Gerhard Rauschen, Eucharistie und Bußsakrament in den ersten sechs Jahrhunderten der Kirche (2Freiburg 1910), p. 196f. 2  Der Islam 19/1931/215. 3  Cf. ShUKh 797, 3ff., and 794, apu. ff. and 796, 10ff.; also Ibn al-Murtaḍā, Al-baḥr al-zakhkhār I 149, –5f. (where Wāṣil is not mentioned). 4  Namely Bishr b. al-Muʿtamir (cf. ch. C 1.4.3.1.1.3) and Jaʿfar b. Mubashshir (cf. ch. C 4.2.1.2).

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intention to commit a mortal sin as a misdeed deserving of the eternal fires of hell; again, quite a severe and pietistic view. However, it is linked not only with him but also with Abū l-Hudhayl and Jubbāʾī – and sometimes only with them – which once again leads us to suspect projection.5 Furthermore, Ibn al-Rēwandī claims the opposite, and we are not able to determine any more whether Khayyāṭ was correct to protest against it.6 Wāṣil only considered those responsible whose actions were carried out during adulthood; God does not hold children accountable, and they go to paradise. This sounds reliable; he agreed in this with Ḥasan al-Baṣrī and the pietistic circles of the time. In addition the doctrine was phrased in the way in which it had been seen as a problem at first, with respect to the children of those unbelievers fought in wars and often killed together with their offspring.7 – With reference to sura 2:174 Wāṣil, like Ḥasan before him, emphasised that on the Day of Judgment God does not speak to the damned but only addresses good people.8 2.2.6.1.7.2

Wāṣil’s Relationship with Khārijites and Murjiʾites

These fragmentary accounts do not allow conclusions regarding Wāṣil’s doctrine of the intermediate status. Results are similarly scant when we examine what the sources have to say regarding his relationship with Khārijites and Murjiʾites. He already distinguished several varieties (aṣnāf) of Murjiʾites;1 even so we do not even know whether he considered Faḍl al-Raqāshī, who may have been with him when he spoke before ʿAbdallāh b. ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, to be one of them. We do, however, have the text of a guideline for debating he was believed to have given to his pupil Ḥafṣ b. Sālim when he challenged Jahm b. Ṣafwān in Tirmidh.2 We might wonder whether it was from a textbook used by the pupils, possibly the K. al-sabīl ilā maʿrifat al-ḥaqq or the K. fī l-daʿwa.3 The exemplary style, on the other hand, makes us doubt the genuineness of the text; it recalls the discussion said to have taken place between ʿUmar al-Shimmazī, a pupil of ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd’s, and Abū Ḥanīfa.4 The Murjiʾa’s minimalist concept 5  Text 9, also Text XXI 156. 6  Text 8. 7  Text 10, presumably after Kaʿbī; regarding the question see vol. I 24 above. 8  Ṭūsī, Tibyān II 89, 13ff.; differently Ṭabarī, Tafsīr 3III 330, 1ff., who assumes a ḥadhf in this case: God does not address the evil persons with friendly words. 1  Cf. the title at Catalogue of Works no. 4. 2  Text 11. 3  Catalogue of works no. 10 and 11. 4  Text II, b–e and 7; cf. vol. I 232, and p. 366f. below.

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of faith is branded in both: faith cannot consist only in the knowledge of God, but it also has to manifest itself in actions.5 Correspondingly, Wāṣil and ʿAmr were thought to have understood sura 2:143 to mean that prayer is part of faith; it states in the context of changing the direction of prayer that “God could by no means allow” Muslims (so far, while they prayed facing Jerusalem) “to have believed in vain”.6 But Qatāda had also interpreted the passage in this way;7 it was not typically Muʿtazilite. Only the issue of whether someone who commits bad deeds is still a believer would make that connection.8 Legend imagined the connection to Jahm b. Ṣafwān further. It was impossible to deny that the two never met, but one could imagine that they corresponded. Jahm, it was said, was at a loss during a debate with followers of other faiths and asked Wāṣil for advice; when the others heard of this they travelled to Wāṣil in Basra and converted there. Like the preceding tradition this narrative was recorded in the K. al-mashāyikh by Abū l-Ḥasan Ibn Farzōya, a pupil of Jubbāʾī’s (regarding him cf. Madelung in GAP II 330), from where Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār adopted it. There were several other, non-Muʿtazilite versions, some of which appear more original. Cf. p. 566f. below for more detail. When it comes to the Khārijites, we are even less likely to be satisfied. Serious polemical texts are almost non-existent. The much-repeated anecdote according to which Wāṣil’s dialectical skill was once able to stop a group of dangerous Khārijites, probably Azraqites, from killing him and his companions is pure adab, its only objective to emphasise his wit and presence of mind.9 Ibn Ḥawqal tells the same anecdote, but about some of his pupils rather than Wāṣil himself; this version was also recounted in the Maghreb where there

5  According to the late Zaydite al-Muwaffaq al-Jurjānī, a pupil of Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār’s, Wāṣil saw faith as the performance of the acts of obedience and the avoidance of mortal sin; he was said to have used the terms īmān, islām and dīn equivalently (Iḥāṭa, MS Leiden Or. 8409, fol. 213a, –4ff.). However, in this passage Wāṣil probably stands for the exponent of the Muʿtazila par excellence. 6  Ṭūsī, Tibyān II 12, 5ff. 7  Ibid. 8  Ṭabarī also interprets īmān as ṣalāt (Tafsīr 3III 167, 2, and the following traditions). 9  Cf. the versions in Mubarrad, Kāmil 891, apu. ff. > Murtaḍā, Amālī I 168, 14ff.; Ibn Qutayba, ʿUyūn I 196, 9ff. after Madāʾinī; Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Faḍl 235, apu. ff.; Tanūkhī, Nishwār almuḥāḍara II 205f.; Ibn al-Jawzī, Adhkiyāʾ 126, 8ff. after Ibn Buhlūl (d. 318/930); Rāghib alIṣfahānī, Muḥāḍarāt al-udabāʾ II 83.

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was a Wāṣiliyya for a long time to come.10 The story spread by Ibāḍite sources, in which Wāṣil was defeated by his contemporary Abū ʿUbayda al-Tamīmī,11 is also pure legend; furthermore it focusses on the question of qadar.12 There are no relevant titles of books, either,13 which is surprising as the Muʿtazilite sources claim that in Wāṣil’s youth when he was Ḥasan’s pupil he debated with Khārijites in the teak merchants’ mosque in Basra.14 But maybe this was only a protective claim. Contemporary poems show that he – as well as ʿAmr – was linked to the Khārijites with polemic intention;15 Baghdādī tells us that the early Muʿtazilites were called makhānīth al-khawārij “the ‘soft-hearted’ among the Khārijites”, because they spoke of eternal torments of hell for a mortal sinner, but refused to call him an unbeliever or surrender him to be executed.16 Like the parallel existence of both groups in the Maghreb the duʿāt system allows us to conclude a degree of kinship.17 There does not seem to have been a confrontation at the time. Could the Khārijite Wāṣil (Wāṣil al-shārī), of whom Sufyān al-Thawrī reports that he came to Kufa to ask Abū Ḥanīfa to repent and then was chased out by Manṣūr’s followers, be identical with Wāṣil? (Kawtharī, Ta‌ʾnīb alkhaṭīb 97, –7ff.; the “followers of Manṣūr” were probably Abbasid sympathisers.) Ḥanafite heresiographical tradition subsumes the Muʿtazila under the Khārijites, e.g. in Abū Muṭīʿ al-Nasafī’s Radd 77, 11ff. (where he calls it Muʿtaziliyya) and in the late Tadhkirat al-madhāhib (in: IIED 2/1975/127, 6ff.). Abū Muṭīʿ emphasised their political doctrine, which Ibn al-Jawzī adopted from him (Talbīs Iblīs 19, apu. f.). The Tadhkira, on the other hand, has an entire summary of Muʿtazilite dogmatics. We should play with the idea that the Muʿtazila was, as it were, the left wing of the Ibāḍiyya, comprising (or offering a home to) all the Qadarites whom the Ibāḍites excluded gradually. Later developments in the second century 10   Ṣūrat al-arḍ 103, 2ff. Kramers. 11  Regarding him see p. 222ff. above. 12  Darjīnī, Ṭab. 246, 9ff.; Khamīs b. Saʿīd, Manhaj I 430, –5ff. 13  Of course it would be said later that Wāṣil refuted Murjiʾites, Khārijites and Jahm b. Ṣafwān (Faḍl 163, –6f.), but that is only a sweeping generalisation. 14   Faḍl 235, 6ff.; also 235, 14ff. Abū ʿUmar al-Bāhilī’s (d. 300/913) claim that Wāṣil had completed refuting all his opponents at the age of 30 – i.e. around 110, at the time of Ḥasan’s death – probably belongs in this context as well (Faḍl 241, 16f.). 15  See p. 273f. above for Isḥāq b. Suwayd al-ʿAdawī and Abū l-Ṭurūq al-Ḍabbī’s verses. 16   Farq 99, 1ff./119, 5ff. Unfortunately we do not know Baghdādī’s source. It might be a phrase by Ashʿarī (cf. Gimaret, Ashʿarī 485, n. 21 after Simnānī). 17  See p. 387f. below and ch. C 7.7.1.

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provide some evidence of this, but not more than would allow a working hypothesis at most. Regarding the problem cf. also W. M. Watt, Was Wāṣil a Khārijite? in: Festschrift Meier 306ff. 2.2.6.1.8 Wāṣil’s Political Views Based on Baghdādī (who in turn may have drawn on Ibn al-Rēwandī), later sources would link Wāṣil’s doctrine of the intermediate status to his opinion on the first civil wars, or the companions of the prophet involved in them. This is certainly wrong,1 but it is not easy to shed light on his true position. Later Muʿtazilites liked to refer to him, but as his school never achieved complete unity in fundamental political issues, his image in history is not uniform. Not even ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd was always of the same opinion as he. ʿAmr stood in Ḥasan al-Baṣrī’s tradition; himself a Basran and ʿUthmānite like Ḥasan. Wāṣil, on the other hand, preferred ʿAlī;2 after all, he was in touch with the ʿAlids in Medina. In order not to cause offence in Basra, he did not condemn ʿUthmān’s caliphate either, with the consequence that according to his view the best man would not necessary – or not immediately – become the ruler, a view later systematists called imāmat al-mafḍūl “(legitimate) rule of the less excellent candidate”. According to this doctrine the election was the determining criterion; while the man elected to be caliph was not allowed to have a bad reputation and had to possess a certain basic religious knowledge, he did not have to excel over all others. People strove to prove this by means of the prophet’s own actions,3 e.g. the Muʿtazila’s Baghdad school;4 it is not very likely that Wāṣil himself already adorned his pro-Alid attitude with these considerations. There is no theoretical text on this subject among the list of titles, and emphasis on the election did not mean anything at the time when Wāṣil was active, i.e. during the troubles before the Abbasid revolution. Another difficulty is posed by a passage from Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār’s Mughnī, according to which Wāṣil was already collecting arguments for Abū Bakr’s high rank.5 The Qāḍī regarded this as a reaction to Shīʿite, presumably Rāfiḍite polemic, but in Wāṣil’s time, this was in its earliest beginnings at best. The arguments might have been collected by the Bakriyya which, as we have seen, may

1  Cf. Text 17 with commentary. 2  Text 13, c–d: after Jubbāʾī. 3  Text 12. 4  See ch. C 4.2.1.1 below. 5  Text 14.

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have supported Abū Bakr;6 certainly there is no reason why they should not have originated in Basra where there was not much affection for the Shīʿa. In one place the text does seem archaic: Wāṣil is said to have supported an interpretation of the term ahl al-bayt in sura 33:33 that harked back to the depths of Medinan exegesis, but did not retain its influence later. The slightly clumsy argumentum e contrario he evolved from it is also isolated.7 In any case, the argument does not follow Shīʿite lines – which is surprising given his preference for ʿAlī. However, the argument was meant to demonstrate something else altogether: that prophet’s companions must never be called mushrik or munāfiq. Many more Quranic verses were adduced in support.8 One cause of this may have been the recollection that Wāṣil did indeed wish to protect the ṣaḥāba’s honour, impelled by his theology of compromise; he was, in fact, repeating the early Murjiʾa’s experiment at a later stage. Like them, he took the civil war as his starting point, touching the very nerve of his political thought. Instead of irjāʾ he recommended wuqūf, but he meant the same thing. While it could be presumed that in the battle of the camel, where companions of the prophet were fighting on both sides, one of the two parties was right, we do not know any more, which one.9 Khayyāṭ did not hesitate to use the term arja‌ʾa in this context: it is impossible to reconstruct events, consequently an evaluation must be “deferred” to someone “who is an expert in the matter”.10 In the eyes of the early Murjiʾa this meant someone who was actually present at the event.11 Now, two to three generations later, it could only mean God; Wāṣil – or Khayyāṭ – was expressing wa-llāhu aʿlam. Humans can only draw the consequence of “practising loyalty” (tawallā), i.e. regarding the actions of the respective ṣaḥāba as correct and authoritative.12 There must be no doubt that ʿAlī became caliph legally;13 ʿUthmān, too, does not become ambivalent until the last six years of his caliphate.14 There is, however, an important reservation: if the 6  See p. 135f. above. In favour of this hypothesis would be that the comparison between Abū Bakr and Abraham, at whom k hints, is documented in Aḥmad al-Hujaymī, who was one of the Basran ascetics and close to the Bakriyya (see p. 110 and 113f. above; also Mīzān no. 468). 7  Cf. Text 14, b–c with commentary. Wāṣil might just have met ʿIkrima to whom the interpretation can be traced back. 8  Text 14, a. 9  Text 15, g. 10  Ibid., c. 11  See vol. I 195f. and 199f. above. 12  Text 15, h. 13  Text 16, b. 14  Text 15, a–c.

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opposing parties appear together and “bear witness” to something, they must not be believed, as clearly one of them has gone astray; but in other cases their ʿadāla is not in danger.15 Wāṣil was thought to have compared this to liʿān, where in a trial concerning a child’s paternity both the man and the woman affirm their testimony by pronouncing a curse against one another. This is another case when it is not possible to determine which of the two speaks the truth; a certain taint will remain. Afterwards they would be accepted once more as full members of the community, their testimony accepted unless they appear together once again.16 What does this testimony refer to? The opponents in the battle of the camel were long dead. Is it just a figure of speech without practical consequences? Surely not. Wāṣil was not thinking of the protagonists only but also of their parties. If Shīʿites and non-Shīʿites were accusing one another, this pulled the ground from under their quarrel – as in a trial where there is not enough evidence to arrive at a verdict. The question is whether he thought that they should not be trusted if they were testifying together concerning something else or a third party. In that case this consideration would also apply to the judgment on ʿUthmān against whom ʿAlī as well as Ṭalḥa and Zubayr declared themselves; this would then be as irrelevant as the quarrel among them. It would also apply to legal decisions and hadiths on one and the same subject that go back to ʿAlī as well as Ṭalḥa or Zubayr. After all, pseudo-Nāshiʾ, i.e. presumably Jaʿfar b. Ḥarb, adduces an example to the contrary, in which the testimonies do not cancel each other out, namely “ʿAlī and Abū Hurayra”;17 which sounds very much like hadith. On the other hand Wāṣil did allow a judgment of ʿUthmān, disapproving as he did of his last six years as caliph. This was the point where ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd distanced himself from him.18 Madelung is probably right to apply the advice of the sources to the testimony against one another, not to joint testimony.19 Surprisingly there was criticism by two grammarians, ʿAbdallāh b. Abī Isḥāq al-Ḥaḍramī (d. 117/735) and ʿĪsā b. ʿUmar al-Thaqafī (d. 149/766), but they did not like Wāṣil as a Qadarite, either.20 None of this had anything to do with the theory of the manzila bayna l-manzilatayn. Of course one of the parties had done wrong and thus become 15  Text 15, d and g–h; also 16, g, and 17, h. 16  Text 16, f., and the parallels listed in the commentary. Regarding liʿān itself cf. the Quranic verses 24:6–9 quoted there; on the later juristic development HW 724f. s. v. Ṭalāḳ > EI2 V 730ff. s. v. Liʿān. 17  Text 16, g. 18  See p. 350 below. 19   Qāsim 26. 20  See p. 100 above.

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fāsiq, but this was not what Wāṣil was driving at; in fact, he wanted to remove this odium as far away from them as possible. For a fāsiq would go to the fires of hell for eternity, and this was not a fate Wāṣil could countenance in the case of a companion of the prophet. Madelung made this quite clear, contradicting Nyberg.21 Still, everything depended on how the category of ṣaḥāba was defined at the time. In Iraq – and possibly in the Hijaz as well – Muʿāwiya was not counted among them. Consequently Wāṣil did not speak of Ṣiffīn, as ʿAlī was justified in fighting Muʿāwiya.22 Here, too, Wāṣil stood in the Murjiʾite tradition.23 What is interesting is that the “Muʿtazila”, which the Ḥanafite heresiographers counted among the Khārijites (see p. 308 above), abstained from giving a verdict on the quarrel between ʿAlī and Muʿāwiya (Abū Muṭīʿ, Radd 77, 12ff., with some illegible text; according to the parallel in Ibn al-Jawzī, Talbīs Iblīs 19, apu. f., yatawallā and yatabarra‌ʾuhum should be corrected to natawallā and natabarra‌ʾuhum). 2.2.6.1.9 Further Points of Doctrine As we know, Shahrastānī formulated an overview of Wāṣil’s teachings in which all five Muʿtazilite uṣūl were already mentioned;1 Madelung2 and Daiber3 adopted this view. Gimaret on the other hand raised doubts4 – and probably with justification: early sources contain no information on the subject at all. We do not know what Wāṣil’s K. al-tawḥīd was about;5 it does not seem as if God’s attributes were an issue for him. God’s relationship with the world, the question of the creation, held no interest for him, either. When Ibn Mattōya claims to know that Wāṣil spoke of the “mood” (kawn) of substance,6 we can leave it at that, as it presupposes a systematic connection that had not been made in

21   Qāsim 24f.; cf. also the commentary on Text 17. For Nyberg’s view see his article Muʿtazila in EI1 III 851 and his thoughts in: Classicisme et déclin culturel 127. 22  Ibn Ḥazm, Fiṣal IV 153, 9f. 23  See vol. I 197f. above. 1  Milal 31, –5ff./64, 9ff. 2  Qāsim 7ff. 3  In: Actas Congresso UEAI, p. 386ff. 4  Livre des Religions 184ff., n. 6ff. 5  Catalogue of Works no. 3. 6  Tadhkira 450, apu.

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Wāṣil’s time.7 The account in Warglānī is pure myth,8 as is an anecdote on the subject by Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār.9 There is nothing to show that Wāṣil was anything more than a Qadarite. The only question that leads us into more detail is that of the relation between prophecy and free will. Wāṣil is said to have emphasised that prophets, too, are not merely chosen by God but also choose themselves to accept the gift (amāna) of the divine message entrusted to them and to preserve it. God knows in advance that they will do this, but he does not force them.10 This attitude was often found in the later Muʿtazila, too;11 it may simply have been projected onto Wāṣil. However, the same question was discussed in the Quaestiones under the name of Ḥasan b. Muḥammad b. alḤanafiyya, and resolved in a similar way by the Qadarites attacked there.12 We also learn a few things from tafsīr works showing Muʿtazilite influence, but usually on matters that would later move to the fringes of theological interest. One subject to which some consideration was given at the time was the nature of Adam’s paradise; we know this from other accounts as well.13 Like Ḥasan al-Baṣrī before them Wāṣil and ʿAmr were of the opinion that Adam lived in the same paradise into which the blessed would enter one day, a conclusion based on the fact that in sura 2:35 janna occurs with the article, thus describing the well-known paradise jannat al-khuld.14 This implied that the paradise promised to humans existed from the beginning of time; Ḍirār’s seeing them as one and the same thus became a problem.15 Ḥasan had already interpreted sura 2:169 to mean that the martyrs live on in paradise; consequently it must be their home before the Day of Judgment. Wāṣil and ʿAmr did not contradict him.16 Criticism of their theory was probably based on different considerations. People asked how Satan could have entered Adam’s paradise if it was created as reward for good deeds, and stated that if Adam had been in the 7  It is not until Abū l-Hudhayl that the term occurs (see ch. C 3.2.3.1.1.4 below). Ibn Mattōya discusses whether at the moment of coming into being, substance should be seen as possessing “mood” or rest or motion; he quotes Wāṣil as well as one of the “two Jaʿfars”; maybe the latter was referring to Wāṣil. 8  Text 4; see p. 293f. above. 9  Faḍl 240, 9ff. > IM 35, 8ff. 10  Text 20. 11  Ibid., c. 12   Anfänge 35ff. § 2. Whether the use of the word amāna points to its being based on an exegesis of sura 33:72 remains to be examined. 13  Cf. my essay in: Festschrift Abel 109ff. 14  Ṭabrisī, Majmaʿ I 85, 13ff.; briefer also Ṭūsī, Tibyān I 156, 8ff. 15  See ch. C 1.3.1.5.1 below. 16  Ṭūsī, Tibyān III 46, 7ff.; cf. also ibid. II 34, –8ff. regarding sura 2:154.

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jannat al-khuld, the paradise of eternal duration, he could not have forfeited it again. The answers have been transmitted: Satan may have approached Eve from outside, and Adam’s paradise is transient and will become eternal only once it is the reward for good deeds on earth. These may well be later speculations, especially as Jubbāʾī and other even later Muʿtazilites adopted Ḥasan’s and Wāṣil’s position.17 But the second answer sounds as if paradise had once ceased to exist, in the time after Adam’s fall. Not even Ḍirār would have said this of the jannat al-khuld; instead, he spoke of two different paradises. Maybe Wāṣil did not interpret khuld to mean “eternity” but merely “long duration”.18 Another consideration, once again shared by Wāṣil and Ḥasan, refers to sura 2:25, which says of those who dwell in paradise: “Whenever they are provided with fruits they shall say, ‘This is what we have been given to eat before’. They shall be given fruits that resemble one another (closely).” He interpreted: fruit we have been given before in paradise, not in our earthly lives, paradise remaining a unique place. However, to prevent the food being too monotonous the blessed would be able to recognise that fruits “that resemble one another (closely)” are in fact different.19 It is not quite clear where this information came from in the first place. It is possible that it was found in Wāṣil’s K. maʿānī al-Qurʾān (Catalogue of Works no. 7), but as Wāṣil was usually mentioned together with ʿAmr, it might also have been transferred onto him from the latter’s edition of Ḥasan’s Tafsīr. On the other hand, as Wāṣil did sometimes feature together with Ḥasan and without ʿAmr (e.g. concerning the last-named point), we might see this as evidence that he himself transmitted parts of Ḥasan’s Tafsīr. Agreement also covers juristic issues. Like Ḥasan, Wāṣil and ʿAmr considered the ʿumra to be as mandatory as the hajj, while the “Iraqis”, Ibrāhīm al-Nakhaʿī and his Kufan friends, thought it was merely a praiseworthy custom (masnūna; Ṭūsī, Tibyān II 155, 2ff. with reference to sura 2:196). On the question in general cf. HW 766b s. v. ʿUmra. – Regarding Wāṣil’s view of the punishment of the grave and other eschatological details see p. 348 below.

17  Cf. the passages referred to; also Ṭūsī, Tibyān IV 398, 5f. regarding sura 7:19. 18  Regarding khulūd in pre-Islamic poetry cf. G. Müller, Labīd 100f.; in those days, wealth might still be regarded as khulūd, i.e. something that conveys duration. For more information on the question cf. ch. D 3. 19  Ṭabrisī, Majmaʿ I 65, 15f.; also Ṭabarī, Tafsīr 3I 385ff.

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Epistemological Issues

The very few pieces of information on epistemological issues occupy a special place. While not all of them are definitely authentic, they touch the very nerve of Muʿtazilite thought. The missionary movement guided by Wāṣil appealed to people’s rational understanding rather than, as some later Sufi movements with similar intentions would, to their emotions. It rings true when he was later described as believing that understanding had to come before action, and that doctrine evolved out of the two. He was said to have derived this from the Quran: Moses was called in this way, God first revealing himself on Mount Sinai, then commanding him to remove his sandals, and finally commanding him to proclaim his message (sura 20:12). But of normal people it was said, too: those who did not wish to come to harm must “believe” and “do what is right”, and finally “enjoin upon one another to keep to the truth and be patient” (sura 103:1–3).1 The last-named exegesis was conclusive only because “believe” here meant “recognise God”,2 while the missionary “enjoin upon one another” referred to truth, which is part of knowledge, and to patience, i.e. practical implementation. It is no coincidence that Abū Hilāl al-ʿAskarī’s K. al-awāʾil remembers Wāṣil as the first one to polemicise against those of different faiths, building a foundation that would remain valid later as well.3 He presented these writings in the form of quaestiones (masāʾil);4 they were apparently used in this form by his duʿāt. After his death his Iraqi pupils sent a compilation of these to their “brothers in the Maghreb”;5 his wife, Umm Yūsuf, who seems to have outlived him by many years, was said to have given two containers (qimaṭr) containing his kalām to Abū l-Hudhayl.6 Even though he held forth on the subject of juristic differences of opinion (al-ikhtilāf fī l-futyā) – in which he

1  Text 19. 2  When Sharīf al-Murtaḍā adopted the account he noticed the difficulty, explaining “to believe” as “to consider to be true”, thus adding an intellectual note. However, the equation is also found in Abū Ḥanīfa (cf. Text II 5, f–g) with reference to the abovementioned Quranic collocation. 3  Awāʾil II 134, 2ff. after Jāḥiẓ, translated in Pines, Atomenlehre 126; also quoted by Bernand in: SI 36/1972/26. 4  Faḍl 165, 11. If Ḥasan b. Muḥammad b. al-Ḥanafiyya’s refutation of the Qadarites is genuine, the form as such would not have been original to him as he might have come across it in the Hijaz (see p. 745 below). 5  The so-called K. al-Mashriqiyyīn min aṣḥāb Abī Ḥudhayfa ilā ikhwānihim bil-Maghrib which contained several separate works (cf. the introduction to Catalogue of works IX). 6  Faḍl 241, 18f.; also p. 291 above.

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was believed to be proficient – he claimed to do this purely in order to encourage awareness of religious questions.7 If tradition is to be trusted he elucidated the “principles” in a few core sentences preserved in only slightly divergent form by both the Qāḍī ʿAbd alJabbār and Abū Hilāl al-ʿAskarī.8 One of these9 lists the instrument of establishing religious truth, namely the subjects that would later be discussed in uṣūl al-fiqh, which is indeed how this text was interpreted subsequently, when it would be emended to make up the classic number of four uṣūl.10 However, this stage had not been reached during Wāṣil’s lifetime. The consensus was not apparently considered as a separate criterion, and qiyās had not taken on a more definite form among the more general ijtihād,11 occurring simply as “rational conclusion” or “intellectual argument”. The distinction between law and theology was not yet being made in any case, as is also illustrated by the two criteria to which Wāṣil devoted the greatest attention, namely the Quran and khabar. According to the same sentence, only Quranic verses that do not allow divergent interpretations can be used as evidence, another instance of Wāṣil’s abiding by his inclination to neutralise all quarrels between parties. However, he was thwarted by the distinction between muḥkamāt and mutashābihāt hinted at in sura 3:7 and brought to public notice by ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd b. Yaḥyā, the secretary of the last Umayyads.12 In his view the muḥkamāt, the “clearly defined” verses were not simply all those passages of scripture that contained a clear statement, but especially those which indicate that a certain crime will result in eternal torments of hell, i.e. which tell us when a sinner is fāsiq. One of these passages is sura 4:93, which speaks of premeditated murder and adds “. . . hell will be his reward, and he will remain there forever”; this is not applicable to lying or a lustful glance, which are consequently merely venial sins. One must be cautious when judging the latter, as God did not “state clearly that he will punish them”.13 7  Faḍl 236, 9ff. after Abū ʿAmr al-Zaʿfarānī and Abū ʿUmar Ḥafṣ b. al-ʿAwwām (to be read thus!), who were both members of the circle of pupils (see p. 361f. and 371 below). The phrase has a slightly apologetic tone, as if the study of al-ikhtilāf fī l-futyā had not been very popular later. 8  Text 21. 9  Ibid., f. 10  Cf. the commentary on this sentence. Riḍwān al-Sayyid directly presumed that Shāfiʿī reacted to this text in his Risāla (Al-umma wal-jamāʿa wal-sulṭa 148f.). 11  Text 12. 12  See vol. I 44 above; also Schöning, Sendschreiben 21. 13  Text 22.

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Muqātil b. Sulaymān, a younger contemporary of Wāṣil’s, also illustrated the word muḥkam using the catalogue of prohibitions in sura 6:151–53 (Wansbrough, Quranic Studies 177). It can only be concluded e contrario that a “lustful glance” is reprehensible, as sura 24:30 and 49:3 recommend to lower one’s glance demurely. There are innumerable verses that show lying in a negative light, without, however, delimiting a concrete punishment. Thus while sura 2:10 says that the munāfiqūn “must expect painful punishment” for their falseness, a painful punishment does not necessarily last forever. The second concept that went against him was abrogation. Once again there appears to have been an ongoing discussion for some time,14 but it may indeed be that he, as Abū Hilāl al-ʿAskarī said, was the first one to formulate the theory to the effect that abrogation was possible only in the case of verses with content relating to the law, not those with historical information.15 Treatises by Zuhrī or Qatāda16 adhere to this principle, but do not state it explicitly. It has also been linked to Khalīl;17 later it became common property among the Sunnites. Ṭabarī, Tafsīr 3II 472, 1ff.; Abū Muqātil al-Samarqandī, Al-ʿālim walmutaʿallim 44, ult. ff.; regarding Farrāʾ cf. Wansbrough, Quranic Studies 197. Even Christians referred to this. Elias of Nisibis used it to refute the vizier al-Ḥusayn b. ʿAlī al-Maghribī when on the occasion of a conference in 417/1026 the latter pointed out to him that sura 2:59, in which the Christians were promised a reward from God, had been abrogated by sura 3:79 (Mashriq 20/1922/118, apu. ff.; regarding the wider context cf. Kh. Samir in: Islamochristiana 3/1977/262). Verses with juristic relevance could be distinguished by their linguistic form, the words “commandment” and “prohibition” being used.18 Soon the naskh theory would be linked to the distinction between assertive and imperative sentences, khabar and amr.19 This general premise was presumably also known to Wāṣil, but he was said to have been “the first” to point out that there were statements 14  See vol. I 39ff. above. 15  Text 21, e. 16  Cf. p. 254, n. 42 above. 17  Ṭūsī, Tibyān I 393, 2ff. 18  Text 21, e. 19  Ibid., b.

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(akhbār) of specific and others of generic import on which their respective probative force depends.20 The phrasing is worth a little consideration. Later uṣūl al-fiqh, in which the last-named distinction played a major part,21 would apply it equally to assertive and to imperative sentences,22 as was unavoidable in juristic hermeneutics. Wāṣil, on the other hand, sounds as if he was thinking of assertive sentences only, as he speaks of their probative force and not their scope of application. He was probably thinking in dogmatic rather than juristic categories. Later, the Muʿtazila would repeatedly accuse the Murjiʾites of applying Quranic statements that threaten all mortal sinners, such as all murderers, with eternal torments of hell, to non-Muslims only.23 While Wāṣil, too, had this in mind primarily,24 he would have proceeded in the same way as with his definition of muḥkam and mutashābih. “Statements” were of interest for him, not merely within the Quran where they were backed by divine authority, but also elsewhere where their credibility required further proof. It was necessary, in his view, that those who made the statement were not working hand in glove (tawāṭuʾ) or – if they were not living in the same place – corresponding or communicating via messengers in order to ensure their opinions carried more weight, nor must they have agreed to name something as false.25 Basically these are different aspects of one and the same criterion: statements must be made independently of others. It is noticeable that their rigour on the logical and the substantive level is not even being considered: what is being said is not important, only that several persons agree on it. Or, as we read elsewhere: a sentence becomes an argument only by consensus; i.e. it becomes proof only once several have spoken it or believe it.26 The approach is not dissimilar to the one that would be called tawātur in hadith science later,26a but Wāṣil did not use that term or say anywhere that he was thinking of hadith only. It is more likely that he was looking at considerations that were applied when ascertaining the truth of traditions in Antiquity: 20  Ibid., b–d. 21  Cf. e.g., one among many, Abū l-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī, Muʿtamad 201ff.; Shīrāzī, Tabṣira 105ff.; Goldziher, Ẓâhiriten 120ff.; Turki, Polémiques 84ff. etc. Also the PhD thesis by Abd al-Rafiʿi Oyewumi Omotosho, The Problem of al-amr in uṣūl al-fiqh (Edinburgh 1984). 22  Cf. e.g. Shīrāzī, Ṭabṣira 105, 6f., and 110, 3ff.; Turki, Polémiques 86. 23  See ch. C 2.5.1, 3.2.1.3.3.1, and 5.1.1 below. 24  According to Ṭūsī, Tibyān II 588, pu., we would go back as far as Ḥasan al-Baṣrī in this context. 25  Text 21, a; cf. my examination of the passage in: La notion d’ autorité au Moyen Age, ed. G. Makdisi and J. et D. Sourdel, 213f. Regarding Aṣamm’s understanding see Text XIII 35. 26  Text 23, a. 26a  Cf. e.g. the expression used by Jāḥiẓ in ʿUthmāniyya 116, 4f.

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how can one be sure that there is a city named Alexandria if one has never been there?27 Hadith was subsumed, but had not yet been perceived to be a special case. Testimony was seen horizontally, within one single generation, where contemporaries might be transmitting the same tradition in the same place or exchange traditions over a greater distance, such as between Kufa and Basra. The relevance of vertical testimony for hadith, through several generations into the past and documented by an isnād, had not yet entered people’s field of vision. Wāṣil was still too close to the generation of the companions of the prophet, which is probably why the idea that tawātur could automatically confer truth, so to speak, was alien to him: the persons reporting might have come to an agreement among themselves. In theory the community might reach a consensus on error and lies; which would be a catastrophe indeed.28 It is obvious that sayings later called āḥād, isolated attested prophetic dicta, did not provide sufficient proof to him. He probably did not yet think that they need not be collected, and there is no hint of a confrontation with the supporters of hadith. Wāṣil himself was said to have transmitted hadith from Ḥasan al-Baṣrī and others.29 He was even believed to have had pupils in this field.30 In all probability there were not very many prophetic dicta at the time that met his criteria and were transmitted along several lines in the same version; much less serious attempts at arranging these parallels carefully. There is no small irony in the fact that Wāṣil’s fame would later be corroborated by a poorly attested and clearly apocryphal hadith: “There will be a man named Wāṣil in my community, who will distinguish between true and false”.31 2.2.6.2 ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd The sources are just as deceptive in the case of the second “church father” ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd as for Wāṣil b. ʿAṭāʾ. He became a part of general historical knowledge, and was consequently mentioned everywhere, frequently complete with his own biography, but the extant material is hardly substantial. We must distinguish between Muʿtazilite and non-Muʿtazilite tradition, although as with Wāṣil the latter adopted much of the former through Jāḥiẓ.

27  Cf. van den Bergh’s remarks in: Averroes’ Tahafut al-Tahafut II 16 ad p. 16.5. 28  Text 23, b. 29   Mīzān IV 329, 13; also Faḍl 241, –5ff. 30   Faḍl 90, 13; also p. 364 below. 31   Faḍl 234, 1ff. > IM 29, 9ff.: after Ibn Yazdādh’s K. al-maṣābīḥ with an isnād passing through ʿAlī. For another hadith of this kind cf. Faḍl 241, pu. f. (the text appears to be corrupted).

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In his Bayān Jāḥiẓ listed a number of ʿAmr’s zuhd dicta which he preserved because of the beautiful language in which they were composed; he saw ʿAmr mainly as an ascetic with a remarkable rhetorical gift. In the Muʿtazila, biographical tradition began with Kaʿbī’s K. al-maqālāt, which looks at ʿAmr – as well as Wāṣil – twice: among the true Muʿtazilites (p. 68, 7ff.) and then among the Basrans, together with many “sympathisers” of the movement (p. 90, pu. ff.). He relied on diverse groups of sources; the second passage being the result of pro-Muʿtazilite sifting of early jarḥ wal-taʿdīl texts, in particular the Qadarite lists. He included no theological material to speak of. This is also true of Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār (Faḍl 242, 1ff.) where ʿAmr is described as an ascetic above all. This may be the reason why Ibn al-Murtaḍā, against his usual practice, adopted hardly anything from ʿAbd al-Jabbār (Ṭab. 35, 13ff.). Besides much corresponding material Sharīf al-Murtaḍā also included some independent texts which may have been adopted from Khayyāṭ (Amālī I 165ff.). Masʿūdī, too, stood in the Muʿtazilite tradition (Murūj VI 208ff./IV 156 § 2418ff.). He also discussed ʿAmr in his K. al-maqālāt fī uṣūl al-diyānāt (ibid. VI 212, 7f./IV 158, –4; regarding his works cf. Khalidi, Islamic Historiography 157). Among the non-Muʿtazilite literature the heresiographers must be treated as a separate group. Some of them, e.g. Malaṭī or Pazdawī, do not mention ʿAmr as a Muʿtazilite at all. The first one to study him in any detail under this aspect was Baghdādī, who distinguished a separate school, the ʿAmriyya (Farq 100, ult. ff./120ff.), while Shahrastānī subsumed ʿAmr into the Wāṣiliyya (Milal 33, –4f./69, 1f.; cf. also Gimaret, Livre 189, n. 33). He also emphasised that ʿAmr was mainly a traditionist and became known as an ascetic (34, 7f./70, 5). As asceticism was a positive trait, non-Muʿtazilite sources often ignored it or only mentioned it in passing. The main emphasis was on ʿAmr the traditionist, but he was described as a Qadarite who bore the consequences of his conviction, ultimately being boycotted by the orthodox aṣḥāb al-ḥadīth from Ḥasan al-Baṣrī’s school. The relevant material was collected, among others, by Fasawī (d. 277/890), Maʿrifa II 259ff.; by ʿAbdallāh b. Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal (d. 290/ 903), K. al-sunna 131ff.; ʿUqaylī (d. 322/934), Ḍuʿafāʾ III 277ff.; Dāraquṭnī (d. 385/995), Akhbār ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd; Lālakāʾī (d. 418/1071), Sharḥ uṣūl iʿtiqād ahl al-sunna 737ff.; al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī (d. 463/1071), TB XII 166ff.; later especially by Dhahabī (Mīzān no. 6404; cf. also Ta‌ʾrīkh alIslām VI 107ff. and Siyar VI 104ff.) and Shāṭibī (Iʿtiṣām I 185, 6ff.). I have discussed the majority of these reports in Traditionistische Polemik gegen ʿAmr b. ʿUbaid (Beirut 1967) following Dāraquṭnī’s text; here they will be considered mainly in chs. 2.2.6.2.5–6 and 2.2.7. Some of them have also

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been reviewed in Nagel, Rechtleitung und Kalifat 321ff. Interestingly, the earliest Ṭabaqāt works were not aware of this material. Ibn Saʿd included one brief, critical note (Ṭab. VII2 33, 1ff.); Khalīfa b. Khayyāṭ, although living in Basra, did not give ʿAmr even an entry in his Ṭabaqāt. – One biography which is comparatively independent of these polemical notes is Ibn Khallikān’s, Wafayāt III 460ff. no. 503. 2.2.6.2.1 Biographical Data Hardly anything would later be remembered of ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd’s biography, which makes it all the more remarkable that a few detailed records of his origins are extant. As they refer to his status as a mawlā and his foreign ancestry, there is some suspicion that they were only used as evidence supporting the theory that all heresy in Islam came from non-Arabs.1 This does not mean automatically that the information is unsound, but it would provide a reason why it was preserved and why this subject was of particular interest. However, they are in competition with other reports which are not really compatible with these, reports which were listed directly under the name of ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd’s father and were usually not linked to the information about ʿAmr himself. I have discussed the interrelations elsewhere2 and am thus able to limit myself to the main points here. According to the first strand of tradition ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd’s father ʿUbayd b. Bāb was a weaver who joined the municipal military police force in Basra, where he rose to the position of doorkeeper for the governor al-Ḥakam b. Ayyūb b. al-Ḥakam al-Thaqafī during Ḥajjāj’s term in office. The grandfather Bāb was believed to have been one of the prisoners of war brought to Sīstān and finally to Basra by ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Samūra from his campaigns in the region of Kabul in the mid-forties. Consequently he would originally have been a slave, but he was presented as a donkey driver who had a shop (dukkān) in the city in his own name, attested by a verse addressed by Farazdaq to a donkey driver called Bāb. Bāb was said to have been a mawlā of the āl ʿArāda3 who were part of the Balʿadawiyya, the latter being the descendants of an ʿAdawite woman who had had three sons with a certain Mālik b. Ḥanẓala of the Tamīm, and consequently part of the Tamīm as well. As reference point for clientships we thus have, depending on the source, besides the āl ʿArāda, the Banū l-ʿAdawiyya, the Tamīm or, named after the son of the ʿAdawite woman from whom the āl ʿArāda were descended, the Yarbūʿ b. Mālik. 1  Festschrift Meier 61 and 66f.; also Jāḥiẓ, Radd ʿalā l-Naṣārā in: Rasāʾil III 315, ult. f. 2  In: MUSJ 50/1984/733ff. 3  More probably thus than ʿArrāda; ʿarāda means “locust”.

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While this is a comparatively coherent image that only fragmented in later tradition, there are some problematic issues, namely: (1) there is no proof that the person named Bāb in Farazdaq’s verse was ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd’s grandfather; the brief scholion Ibn al-ʿArabī interpolated does not mention this, but this verse is the only source for the claim that Bāb was a donkey driver. (2) Donkey drivers not only had low social standing, but they were not taken seriously when it came to their moral and religious integrity, their ʿadāla. As late as the second half of the second century, i.e. after ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd’s death, it was possible for a state official to deny them, together with the weavers (!), the right to testify as witnesses.4 ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd’s father and grandfather would thus be antisocial elements. (3) This connection to the authorities was considered unsavoury, especially as ʿUbayd helped support Ḥajjāj’s unjust regime. The status of pariah already evident from his profession as a weaver was aggravated in this way: he was a mere doorkeeper, but in addition a minion of the dictatorship. (4) The belief mentioned above, that heresy and “innovation” were due to foreign influence, takes on the more concrete form that in particular the descendants of prisoners of war or of female slaves taken as spoils of war were the ones causing disorder in the community. This was already the case among the Israelites, as Sufyān b. ʿUyayna transmitted from ʿUrwa b. al-Zubayr (d. 94/713); he himself (d. 196/811) gave this as the explanation of the ra‌ʾy practice in the jurisprudence of his time.5 The most important texts in this first strand of transmission are: Sharīf al-Murtaḍā, Amālī I 169, 7ff.; Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif 482, 15ff.; TB XII 188, 6ff. It is interesting that Murtaḍā, who is part of the Muʿtazilite tradition, adopted parts of his material from Jāḥiẓ and Kaʿbī, which suggests that even among Muʿtazilites knowledge of the actual events had been lost early on, and the derogatory intention of these reports in particular was not understood anymore. Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār’s biography of ʿAmr (in Faḍl 242, 1ff.) mentioned none of all this. The second strand of transmission ran within the jarḥ wal-taʿdīl literature. According to these texts, ʿUbayd b. Bāb was a client of Abū Hurayra’s, transmitting hadith from the latter as well. Some of it he handed down to ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAwn (d. 151/768), a contemporary of ʿAmr’s and his fellow-student under Ḥasan al-Baṣrī. This tradition contains no information on Bāb. ʿUbayd would have had to establish his connection with Abū Hurayra before 58/678, which 4  See p. 275f. above. 5  See p. 170 above.

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is the most probable date of the latter’s death. He might have been a slave originally; his name ʿUbayd (not ʿUbaydallāh!) could indicate this. He would have had to be quite young at the time; the succession of generations between him and his son ʿAmr as well as to ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAwn is not too long to render it impossible. The information was probably gathered from isnāds and the connection with ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd interpreted retrospectively. Bukhārī (d. 256/870)6 and by Ibn Abī Ḥātim al-Rāzī (d. 327/938) assumed it,7 but Fasawī (d. 277/890)8 and Ibn Mākūlā (d. 475/1095) rejected it with reference to a judgment by Yaḥyā b. Maʿīn (d. 233/847);9 Dhahabī, however, still maintained it.10 It is not surprising that it was controversial: anyone who was aware of the first strand of traditions could not accept it. Furthermore the next generation regarded ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAwn as one of ʿAmr’s main opponents in the qadar debate,11 believing that he boycotted ʿAmr, and would consequently have found it difficult to admit that he could have transmitted hadith from his father. How uncertain everything was is also illustrated by the different sequences of names found for ʿAmr: ʿAmr b. Kaysān b. Bāb12 or ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd b. Kaysān b. Bāb.13 If the former was not a mistake in the tradition, then not even the “canonical” form of the name ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd would be beyond doubt. Further notes on kinship ties do not offer any help here. Makḥūl al-Nasafī’s (d. 318/930) Luʾluʾiyyāt mention a brother of ʿAmr’s named Yaʿlā b. ʿUbayd14 who also seems to have been found elsewhere.15 In Hārūn b. Ḥātim’s Ta‌ʾrīkh we read that a certain Yaʿlā b. ʿUbayd was born in 117 in the laylat ʿArafa, the night before 9 Dhū l-Ḥijja (= 30 Dec. 735)16 which would make ʿAmr considerably older than his brother. Still, the person referred to here may be the traditionist Abū Yūsuf Yaʿlā b. ʿUbayd al-Ṭanāfisī from Kufa, d. 209/824–25.17 We also read about his 6  Ta‌ʾrīkh III1 443 no. 1442. 7  Al-jarḥ wal-taʿdīl III1 402 no. 1863. 8  Maʿrifa II 126, 5f. 9  Ikmāl I 161, ult. f. 10   Mushtabih 37, 7, and Mīzān no. 5414. 11  See p. 415f. below. 12  Bukhārī III2 353, 4 . 13   I AH III1 246, 12f. 14   M S Aya Sofya 4801 (cf. GAS 1/601f.). Unfortunately I did not make a note of the folio number. 15   Faḍl 250, 12 = Text X 4; also Ibn Abī ʿAwn, Al-ajwiba al-muskita 13 no. 60, but without giving a name. 16   R AAD 53/1978/139, 5f. 17  Khalīfa, Ṭab. 401 no. 1312, and Mīzān no. 9838. He should also be considered for traditions in Malaṭī, Tanbīh 85, 19/111, –7, and Qaysī, Adab al-qāḍī 23, 7. Regarding his brother Muḥammad cf. Mīzān no. 7917.

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nephew (ibn akh) Faḍāla who was said to have fomented opposition against ʿAmr in the latter’s own lectures;18 he might have been a son of the abovementioned brother. Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār mentioned a brother-in-law (ʿadīl) named ʿAbd al-Salām b. Muhājir al-Anṣārī,19 but no further information is known about him, either. ʿAmr was also brother-in-law to Wāṣil b. ʿAṭāʾ who had married one of his sisters.20 The kunyas Abū ʿUthmān (frequent references) and Abū Marwān21 lead us to conclude that he may have had sons of these names. Muʿtazilite biographical tradition presumed that he was born in the same year as Wāṣil, 80/699.22 Maybe he did not come from Basra at all; he was reported to have said that he grew up in Sīrāf and was an “assistant” (ghulām) there.23 The date of his death is usually given as either 143 or 144, 143 being found in Bukhārī24 and Zakariyyāʾ b. Yaḥyā al-Sājī (d. 308/920–21),25 while Ibn Saʿd,26 Khalīfa b. Khayyāṭ,27 Azdī,28 Ibn al-Nadīm,29 Masʿūdī,30 Murtaḍā,31 and various authorities32 cited in Ta‌ʾrīkh Baghdād favoured 144. The explanation for this discrepancy is probably that ʿAmr died on the way home from the hajj.33 Consequently he would have left Basra before Dhū l-Ḥijja 143, and never returned. As he was buried in Marrān, four days’ journey from Mecca,34 it is probable that his death took place early in 144. This would agree with Kaʿbī’s remark that al-Nafs al-zakiyya’s brother Ibrāhīm attempted his uprising in Basra one year after ʿAmr’s death.35 There is no doubt that ʿAmr was not alive 18   T B XII 177, 16f. 19   Faḍl 248, –6; the same anecdote but without the name in Jāḥiẓ, Bayān III 142, 9. 20  See p. 293 above. 21  Kulīnī, Kāfī I 170, –7. 22  Cf. Murtaḍā, Amālī I 169, 15 after Khayyāṭ; Fihrist 203, 10f. after Kaʿbī; TB XII 187, 11. Cf. p. 271 above. 23   Faḍl 243, 6f., albeit in the context of a legend. Regarding the Muʿtazilite community in Sīrāf see ch. C 7.5 below. 24   Ta‌ʾrīkh III2 353, 2. 25   T B XII 186, 10ff., probably after his K. al-ḍuʿafāʾ (cf. ʿUmarī, Mawārid al-khaṭīb 324ff.). 26   V II2 33, 1ff. 27   Ta‌ʾrīkh 647, 11. 28   Ta‌ʾrīkh al-Mawṣil 181, 3. 29   Fihrist 203, 13. 30   Murūj VI 212, 1/IV 158, 11, and VII 234, 9/V 22, –7. 31   Amālī I 169, 16 after Khayyāṭ. 32   T B XII 187, 1ff. after a “book” by the philologist Abū ʿUbayd; 187, 5f. after Wāqidī; 186, 19ff. after Haytham b. ʿAdī; 186, 17f. after Abū Nuʿaym etc. 33   Fihrist 203, 13. 34   T B XII 187, 10; Yāqūt s. v. Marrān; Ḥarbī, Manāsik 601, 4ff. 35   Maq. 119, –4f.

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anymore during this uprising,36 and the date of 145/762 for his death given by Masʿūdī, Murūj VI 212, 2/IV 158, 12, is definitely too late, as is, obviously, 148/765, quoted after Ibn Ḥanbal in TB XII 187, 17f. 142/759, as Bukhārī37 and TB XII 186, 5f. and 8f. note, is probably too early because of the meeting with Manṣūr.38 The report that it was Sulaymān b. ʿAlī b. ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAbbās who spoke the prayer for the dead over ʿAmr39 is certainly wrong, as Sulaymān died in Jumādā II 142/October 759 in Basra.40 ʿAmr is reported to have been a weaver (nassāj) by profession, but the report is late41 and may just have been transferred onto him as this was his father’s profession.42 If true, this would provide a further link to Wāṣil. We also read that he owned a house which he rented to palm leaf braiders, asking for only one dinar in rent out of scrupulousness.43 Ibn al-Nadīm furthermore recorded the information that he was of medium height.44 2.2.6.2.2 Political Decisions On two occasions ʿAmr’s life came in contact with political events; during Yazīd III’s caliphate and in the time of Manṣūr, when the sources pay him more indepth attention. He appears to have taken Yazīd’s side quite openly; Shahrastānī described him as the caliph’s dāʿī.1 In retrospect he would defend this decision, reacting to the increasing glorification of ʿUmar II, the only Umayyad caliph to have retained his reputation even in the Abbasid period, to an extent that he threatened to obscure Yazīd III’s memory: Yazīd practised justice, starting with himself; he killed his cousin (i.e. Walīd II) obeying God’s commandment; he cut his fellow clan members’ (i.e. the Umayyads’) ʿaṭāʾ as much as they had previously cut that of their subjects, and he accepted a certain condition in his government declaration (ʿahd), namely that he would resign if it should be asked of him. In summary, he spoke like Ḥasan al-Baṣrī (who had been dead for one and a half decades by that time).2 The Umayyads are seen as “the 36  Ibid. 119, 10f.; also p. 327 below. 37  See n. 24 above. 38  See p. 327ff. below. 39  Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif 483, 12. 40  Ṭabarī III 141, 3. 41   Mīzān III 279, 12 after Fasawī, but not in the extant part of his K. al-maʿrifa wal-ta‌ʾrīkh. 42  See p. 321 above. 43   Faḍl 248, 13ff., and Ibn Abī l-Ḥadīd, ShNB III 156, 1f. 44   Fihrist 209, 11. 1  Milal 17, 15/29, 5. 2  Kaʿbī 117, 7ff. > IM 120, 12ff. (abridged).

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powerful” here, the tyrants (al-jabābira); ʿAmr was thought to have called the Syrians in general fāsiqūn.3 He criticised Nāfiʿ, ʿAbdallāh b. ʿUmar’s mawlā, who had an excellent reputation in the Hijaz as a traditionist and whom he probably met in person,4 for his opinion that everything the caliph said in the pulpit was irrevocable commandment (farīḍa).5 From Ḥasan al-Baṣrī he transmitted the hadith “If you see Muʿāwiya in the pulpit then kill him!” During the last years of Umayyad rule, this could only be understood as legitimation of Yazīd’s coup. Tellingly, Ayyūb al-Sakhtiyānī, Basran contemporary and opponent who disapproved of Walīd II’s murder,6 believed it to be falsified.7 It remains unclear how ʿAmr acted in individual cases. It was known – and viewed with surprise – that he did not appear before ʿAbdallāh b. ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, Yazīd III’s governor, together with Wāṣil.8 The Qadarite interlude was soon over, with barely any time for activity.9 Later he would be accused of not having seized the moment, of having been a “coward”,10 but he had probably realised that it was necessary to broaden the base beyond Basra. He started corresponding with Ibn Shubruma, the influential jurist from Kufa (72/691– 144/761);11 ʿAmr called him to jihād based on the commandment of amr bilmaʿrūf wal-nahy ʿan al-munkar, but Ibn Shubruma declined – interestingly, in verse: amr bil-maʿrūf being only an opus supererogationis from which those who were not able to perform it were excused. Certainly it must not be enforced with the sword.

3  ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ III 283, 10ff. 4  He died in 117/735; but ʿAmr probably visited the Hijaz together with Ḥasan al-Baṣrī (see p. 295 above). 5  Kaʿbī, Qabūl al-akhbār 63, 15ff. 6  Agh. VII 82, 10f. 7  Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 132, apu. ff. no. 818; TB XII 181, 16ff.; Dhahabī, Siyar VI 105, 4f.; Suyūṭī, La‌ʾālī I 425, 5ff. Suyūṭī also included other isnāds previously (424, –4ff.). The Meccan Qadarite ʿAbbād b. Kathīr transmitted a similar saying (Dhahabī, Ta‌ʾrīkh VI 108, –8f.; regarding him see p. 731ff. below). Instead of fa-qtulūhu “then kill him”, he opposing side tried to read fa-qbalūhu “accept it gladly”. 8  Balādhurī, Ansāb 90 a, –9ff.; abridged IKh III 460, –4ff. Regarding the event see p. 277 above. 9  See vol. I 100f. above. 10  See p. 293f. above. 11  Regarding him see EI2 III 938 s. n.; Shīrāzī, Ṭabaqāt 84, 4ff.

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Wakīʿ, Akhbār al-quḍāt III 91, apu. ff.; slightly different also ibid. 123, –6ff. Historical context is rather vague in all these accounts. One might even consider the time before al-Nafs al-zakiyya’s uprising, but ʿAmr was standing back at the time (see below), and neither of the two lived to see the actual uprising. – When ʿAmr spoke of the duty of amr bil-maʿrūf, he probably supported it with sura 3:21 which speaks of the “call to justice” (amr bil-qisṭ) (cf. Faḍl 242, pu. f., with Ṭūsī, Tibyān II 422, –4f.). When some mountain-dwellers complained to him of all the injustices the authorities were committing, he is said to have advised them to rebel, saying “Die honourably!” (ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ III 283, 3ff. > Mīzān III 278, 1ff.). 2.2.6.2.2.1

The Relationship with Manṣūr

After the Abbasid victory ʿAmr continued to stay quiet, coming in contact with them only towards the end of his life, in the time of Manṣūr. This was connected to the prelude to al-Nafs al-zakiyya and his brother Ibrāhīm’s uprising. Tradition greatly exaggerated the importance of the meeting between ʿAmr and the caliph, and Islamic scholarship believed this view for a long time, H. S. Nyberg seeing ʿAmr as “Manṣūr’s trusted friend” who became the caliph’s “spiritual father in a way”,1 and W. M. Watt being sure that due to his reputation as an ascetic ʿAmr was “known at al-Manṣūr’s court, apparently speaking fearlessly to the caliph on religious and moral issues, declining all payment”.2 Originally, however, it had not been about Manṣūr respecting ʿAmr and asking his advice; on the contrary, he suspected him of conspiracy and his followers of subversive activities. It is well-nigh impossible to reconstruct the circumstances; after all, the uprising failed, and it could only be in the Muʿtazila’s interest to present itself as entirely loyal to the state, all the more since it had supported the rebellion after ʿAmr’s death. Individual accounts reflect attempts at justifying or criticising this decision rather than the actual situation. Of course ʿAmr’s not being alive during the uprising itself presupposes that the date of his death is actually correct. Still, Kaʿbī states explicitly that until ʿAmr’s death the Muʿtazila “did not rebel” (mā kharajat; cf. Maq. 110, ult. > Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Faḍl 228, 12). This was precisely why the prophecy that Muḥammad b. ʿAbdallāh was the “innocent blood” to lose his life by the oil stones could later be ascribed to him – a vaticinatio ex eventu which acquired meaning only once he himself was not there to 1  E I1 III 852a, s. v. Muʿtazila. 2  E I2 I 454a s. n. ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd.

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support it any more (Faḍl 226, 15ff. after his pupil ʿUthmān b. al-Ḥakam al-Thaqafī; regarding him see p. 370 below). Later (?) the saying would circulate as hadith (Ibn ʿInaba, ʿUmdat al-ṭālib 105, 8f.). When Manṣūr visited the Hijaz during his pilgrimage in 140, he imprisoned ʿAbdallāh b. al-Ḥasan who had been the head of the ʿAlids for a long time; it seems that a spy had informed him of the latter’s agreement to his sons’ Muḥammad and Ibrāhīm’s planned overthrow.3 And indeed, some time later the former – namely al-Nafs al-zakiyya – appeared in Basra to sound out the prospects of such a venture. He was said to have stayed for six days only, then the city became too hot for him, for Manṣūr reacted quickly, appearing in the city – with impressive escort, one would assume – and setting up camp by the great bridge (al-jisr al-akbar).4 This was the sign for the Muʿtazila, or so Abū l-Hudhayl heard from Zaʿfarānī, Wāṣil’s pupil,5 to persuade ʿAmr to visit the caliph and profess his loyalty.6 ʿAmr is said to have agreed only reluctantly, but this is probably the interpretation of a generation whose main concern was to show that his not very heroic realism was not only – and maybe not primarily – his own idea. For there were many who shook their heads at this decision. Pro-ʿAlid circles pointed out that ʿAmr had a considerable following: “If he took his sandal off,7 30,000 took their sandals off”. These same circles also reported that he had already prevaricated with al-Nafs al-zakiyya;8 that his caution was not only due to the need of retreating before the caliph’s show of force. Among the Muʿtazilites themselves it would later be said that at that time as well as Yazīd’s, the loyalty of the 30,000 did not really amount to much. A certain Ayyūb alQazzāz, maybe one of ʿAmr’s own followers, accused him of looking on and doing nothing while his dīn, the ideal of religious order he was committed to,9 3  Cf. EI2 456 s. n. ʿAbdallāh b. al-Ḥasan and III 983ff. s. n. Ibrāhīm b. ʿAbdallāh. A more literary description of al-Manṣūr’s ruse may be found in the Livre des Ruses translated by R. Khawam (p. 201ff.). 4  As opposed to the “smaller bridge” (al-jisr al-aṣghar); it crossed the Tigris. Cf. Ṣāliḥ al-ʿAlī, Khiṭaṭ al-Baṣra 158. 5  Regarding him see p. 361f. below; identified incorrectly in Muth, Der Kalif al-Manṣūr 315f., n. 963. 6  Ṭabarī III 148, 17ff. 7  A gesture of outrage; taking off one’s shoe meant revoking one’s oath of loyalty (Goldziher, Abhandlungen I 47f.). 8  Abū l-Faraj al-Iṣfahānī, Maqātil al-Ṭālibiyyīn 209, 3ff. 9  Regarding the concept of dīn cf. Nagel, Staat und Glaubensgemeinschaft I 14ff.; also p. 294 above, and ch. D 4 below).

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was dwindling, when 30,000 would have risen up at his command, whereupon ʿAmr replied resignedly that only three were still serious about it.10 Both these accounts are probably dependent on one another. What is interesting is that they feature large numbers, which would presume that the Muʿtazila was not only a religious community but also a political combat organisation made up out of militant groups of the type of the later aḥdāth.11 Manṣūr had good reason to appear slightly nervous before the uprising.12 A Muʿtazilite report has him express the concern that in case ʿAmr should take the side of the ʿAlids, not only would Basra be lost, but with it also Mecca, Medina, Bahrain, the Yamāma, Yemen, Ahwāz, Fārs and Khorāsān – perhaps a reference to the network of Muʿtazilite communities and its concomitant ability of deploying armed groups with the same orders in a variety of places.13 Manṣūr’s show of force in Basra took place in the year 142,14 consequently Balādhurī is correct to date his conversation with ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd to the same year, too.15 After his brother’s brief visit, Ibrāhīm b. ʿAbdallāh probably began his active canvassing in Basra only in 143.16 Consequently it is not surprising that ʿAmr was not mentioned among those who met him and offered him refuge. He was not believed to have regarded Muḥammad b. ʿAbdallāh as the mahdī,17 which was no surprise in Basra, but it was probably of only minor importance in the context of his political decision. In numerous later accounts, especially non-Muʿtazilite sources, this core event has been covered up beyond recognition. The political background is 10  Ṭabarī III 149, 7ff.; cf. p. 293f. above. His followers’ dissatisfaction is also obvious in Abū l-Faraj’s account, Maqātil 246, –7ff. (where Abū l-Hudhayl is included in the isnād under his ism). 11  Of course this is a topos, too, as illustrated by the parallel mentioned. When his 10,000 followers were pointed out to ʿĪsā b. Zayd, Zayd b. ʿAlī’s son, he, too, was reported to have said that he would be glad if as many as 300 actually followed him in an emergency (Maqātil 418, 7ff.). Tradition had Ḥasan al-Baṣrī refer to ʿAmr as the sayyid shabāb ahl al-Baṣra (TB XII 170, 10f. and passim), but this was in a slightly different context. 12  Cf. Lassner in: SI 50/1979/25ff. and Shaping of ʿAbbāsid Rule 81ff.; also Kennedy, Abbasid Caliphate 67ff. 13   Faḍl 246, 1ff.; Ibn al-Murtaḍā’s report (40, 6ff.) that al-Manṣūr himself recognised the weakness of the Muʿtazilite cadres is of late origin and presumes excessive regard for ʿAmr on the caliph’s part. 14  Dīnawarī, Akhbār ṭiwāl 384, 2. 15   Ansāb III 231, 6f. Dūrī; cf. also IKh III 461, pu. ff. 16  This tradition is not entirely assured (cf. T. Nagel in: Der Islam 46/1970/241 after the K. Muḥammad wa-Ibrāhīm ibnay ʿAbdallāh b. al-Ḥasan by ʿUmar b. Shabba, 175/791–262/876). 17   Faḍl 226, 15f.

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barely visible, while ʿAmr is given plenty of opportunity for paraenesis. This corresponds to a popular cliché: an ascetic – which ʿAmr, of course, was – was expected to appeal to a ruler’s conscience.18 The discrepancy goes so far as to make us wonder whether, once the caliph did not have to fear the Muʿtazila as a political factor, there was a second encounter in which he was rather more forthcoming. Balādhurī did indeed presume this when he followed his report of the conversation in 142 with an account from a different authority which reported an audience during the hajj of 144.19 But besides the fact that, if our deliberations on the date of ʿAmr’s death are correct, this would be too late,20 there are other observations which also make this a questionable repetition, such as that the scene is not always the same in the different versions: instead of a meeting during the hajj one mentions an encounter in Kufa, i.e. the Hāshimiyya palace at the time that Manṣūr had his subjects swear loyalty to his son al-Mahdī,21 another one even in Baghdad but on the same occasion,22 or indeed – and this is quite frequent – locates the second encounter by the great bridge in Basra as well.23 In this last case we are clearly looking at a more elaborate version of the meeting in 142, but none of these accounts contain definitive dates. Furthermore, there are some irritating anachronisms: it was not until 147 that Manṣūr replaced ʿĪsā b. Mūsā, the successor appointed by his predecessor, with his son al-Mahdī;24 consequently he could not have demanded loyalty to the latter during ʿAmr’s lifetime. And Baghdad, named among other places in this version, had not even been built at the time.25 The story was not told to supplement the traditions discussed above, but in order to supersede them, as revealed clearly in the version located by the great bridge. Manṣūr, having humiliated ʿAmr in political matters, must now at least show humility himself in religious and moral matters; we are looking at, as with so many things in this context, a process of compensation. We also recognise this because the political context is never left out entirely, with repeated reference to a letter from Muḥammad b. ʿAbdallāh or even his 18  A series of reports of a meeting between Manṣūr and Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq grew up in Shīʿite tradition, which recall those described here in some points. 19   Ansāb III 231, 14ff. 20  The account claims that ʿAmr died at the end of 144 after he had completed the pilgrimage. 21   Ansāb III 231, –7ff. 22  Ibid. and TB XII 166, 16ff.; also 166, 10f., and 170, 4ff., as well as Azdī, Ta‌ʾrīkh al-Mawṣil 201, 8ff. 23   Ansāb III 232, ult. ff.; TB XII 169, 12ff.; Faḍl 246, 3ff. 24  Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 654, 2. Cf. also Kennedy, Abbasid Caliphate 91ff. and ch. C 1.2.1 below. 25  The city would be founded in 147/762 (see ch. C 1 below). It is only due to this anachronism that ʿAmr made it into the Ta‌ʾrīkh Baghdād at all.

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father to ʿAmr because of which Manṣūr took him to task even in the more factual versions,26 and also in accounts which are part of the collection of not primarily paraenetic traditions discussed above.27 It is controversial whether the letter was genuine, or whether it might in fact have originated in the caliph’s chancellery;28 ʿAmr distanced himself from it but refused to swear loyalty, and declined a gift.29 All of which may be purely literary; Manṣūr was said to have already used the ruse of a falsified letter with ʿAbdallāh b. Ḥasan, too.30 But we may be permitted to assume that all further embroidery started at this point and was thus ultimately based on a recollection of the political situation, which would allow us to arrange the extant versions into those which discuss the letter and the subsequent hearing briefly and in the style of a historian;31 others which, in adab style, display the conversation in epic detail while considering the letter mainly as paraenesis;32 still others in which ʿAmr’s position as a preacher is so important that the letter is not mentioned at all;33 and finally those that select passages, once again mainly of a paraenetic nature, from this composition, denuding the event of every vestige of history.34 The accounts try to achieve particular credibility by quoting eyewitnesses, thus effectively proving themselves to be false, as different witnesses claim to have observed the identical events in different places. Rabīʿ b. Yūnus, alManṣūr’s chamberlain (ḥājib), was drafted as having been present at the 26  Cf. e.g. Ansāb III 231, 8ff. 27   Faḍl 246, 1ff. – Cf. also Text X 2, k. 28  Cf. e.g. TB XII 168, ult. ff., and Ansāb III 233, 16ff., as well as Ibn Qutayba, ʿUyūn I 209, 1ff. (similar Faḍl 246, 10ff., and ʿIqd V 85, 11ff.). 29  Text X 2, o. 30   E I2 45b s. n. ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Ḥasan. 31  Cf. n. 26 above. 32   Faḍl 246, –5ff., and TB XII 167, 6ff. = Text X 2 (after Marzubānī, who was probably Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār’s source as well); dependent on this Sharīshī, Sharḥ maqāmāt al-Ḥarīrī I 371, 19ff. 33  Thus e.g. in variants of the version mentioned previously (collected by Murtaḍā, Amālī I 173, 8ff.). According to other authorities, e.g. Balādhurī III 231, –7ff.; 232, –6ff.; 232, ult. ff., and 233, –4ff.; Marzubānī, Nūr al-qabas 44, 13ff.; Masʿūdī, Murūj VI 208ff./IV 156f. no. 2418; Dīnawarī, Akhbār ṭiwāl 384, 6ff.; TB XII 169, 17ff. (after Ibn Abī l-Dunyā); Faḍl 249, 5ff.; Zubayr b. Bakkār, Muwaffaqiyyāt 141ff. no. 68; ʿIqd III 164, 17ff.; Ḥuṣrī, Zahr al-ādāb I 112, 1ff.; Ibn Abī l-Ḥadīd, ShNB II 96, 5ff. 34  Cf. e.g. TB XII 166, 13ff.; Faḍl 242, 7ff.; ʿIqd II 274, 4f., and IV 222, 6ff.; Jāḥiẓ, Bayān II 198, pu. f.; Ibn Qutayba, ʿUyūn II 337, 7ff.; Ābī, Nathr al-durr in Boughanmi, Studien über al-Ābī, Arab. section 64 no. 19, and 76 no. 125. It might be sensible to also refer to the text Muwaffaqiyyāt 392ff. no. 266 in which Ma‌ʾmūn is reprimanded thoroughly by an unknown man thought to be Khaḍir during the pilgrimage.

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audience,35 cited by Isḥāq b. Faḍl al-Hāshimī, an old ʿAlid retainer of the Abbasids,36 who watched with the secretary ʿUmāra b. Ḥamza37 as the visitor arrived riding a donkey,38 and who later asked Rabīʿ for an account of events.39 Besides him, however, the grammarian Abū Bakr al-Hudhalī was also quoted as describing his own observation of events,40 and there is even an alleged account by ʿAmr himself.41 After so many contradictions there can be hardly any doubt as to these reports being false. Consequently it will be necessary to look at the details presented in them under the aspect of what they were meant to convey.42 In some versions the successor to the throne al-Mahdī is, as indicated briefly above, present at the audience. This is a secondary trait, as proven by an earlier stage of the tradition which has Shabīb b. Shayba – an old acquaintance of ʿAmr’s, as we have seen43 – recount the meeting between ʿAmr and the caliph to alMahdī himself,44 who is described as an arrogant young man who unlike his father shows no respect for ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd.45 ʿAmr does not know him, and remains hostile even after Manṣūr introduces him, emphasising the difference in age by addressing al-Mahdī as yā bn akhī,46 and pointing out to al-Manṣūr that his son’s regnal name was an unsuitable choice.47 All of which of course 35  Regarding him Sourdel, Vizirat 87ff., and vol. I 525 above; he was an influential man and was occasionally described as al-Manṣūr’s “vizier”. 36  Regarding him cf. e.g. Ṭabarī III 61, 2. 37  Regarding him see vol. I 524 above. 38  Not mounted on a horse, as was customary at court. The story is telling us that the two noble courtiers did not recognise ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd’s importance and were thoroughly astonished at the caliph’s appreciation of ʿAmr. 39  Cf. the sources mentioned in n. 32 and at the beginning of n. 33, also Text X 2, a–d with commentary. Two earlier traditions with similar content, which did not yet pretend to be eyewitness accounts, go back to Rabīʿ via his son, the vizier Faḍl b. Rabīʿ (Balādhurī III 232, –6ff., and 233, –4ff.). 40  Regarding him cf. Marzubānī, Nūr al-qabas 40ff. (where 44, 13ff., the story itself is also found); in this version Abū Ḥanīfa is present as well as ʿAmr. It is noticeable that the version recounted by Rabīʿ b. Yūnus (= Text X 2) is also traced back to Marzubānī by al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī. 41  Jāḥiẓ, Bayān IV 64, 12ff.; similar in Jahshiyārī, Wuzarāʾ 116, 17ff. (with a different partner in the conversation). 42  In order to understand the following better, Text 2 should be considered in more detail. 43  Regarding him see p. 279 above. 44   Faḍl 248, 7ff.; cf. also Madelung, Qāsim 33. 45  Cf. e.g. Balādhurī III 232, 5f., and 233, 3; Text 2, p–r. 46  Text 2, r. He himself is addressed with the kunya by Manṣūr (ibid., f; cf. also Balādhurī III 233, 7ff., who had heard this from one of al-Ma‌ʾmūn’s sons). 47  Text 2, q; cf. also Masʿūdī, Murūj VI 209, apu./IV 157, 7.

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reveals that the story was composed at a time by which people had no illusions concerning al-Mahdī’s style of government anymore, and regarded his claim that he was going “to fill the earth with justice” as the mahdī with nothing but irony. Furthermore the name had been regarded as a provocation from the outset by those who had believed in the other mahdī, namely al-Nafs al-zakiyya,48 against whom he was probably pitted deliberately.49 The text not only anticipates criticism of the future caliph but also of bureaucracy. In al-Manṣūr’s presence ʿAmr attacks Sulaymān b. Mujāhid,50 the financial director51 whom the caliph entrusted with the administration of one of the four quarters of Baghdad after the city’s foundation;52 Rabīʿ b. Yūnus was another of the administrators. Clearly it was easier to admonish al-Manṣūr when one could point to the greedy officials as the true culprits. On the other hand this might allow the conclusion that the caliph himself was incapable of putting them in their place.53 Consequently the caliph is then made to suggest that they should be replaced with ʿAmr’s followers, i.e. Muʿtazilites, which gives ʿAmr the opportunity to emphasise that his men would never get involved with the state.54 ʿAmr himself declines the offer of money from Manṣūr;55 he even refuses to hand the caliph his inkwell, as with one stroke of the pen he might condemn a Muslim to ruin.56 This would remain the Muʿtazila’s characteristic position until Ma‌ʾmūn’s time; the controversy was about whether the experience of social injustice should lead them to militant consequences like al-Nafs al-zakiyya’s followers,57 or to withdraw into themselves.

48  It was thought that ʿAbdallāh b. Ḥasan, too, called the caliph’s attention to his son’s lack of education, such as his insufficient command of language (Ṭabarī III 152, 17f.). 49  For more detailed information see ch. C 1.2.1 and 1.2.2 below. 50  Cf. e.g. Zubayr b. Bakkār, Muwaffaqiyyāt 142, 11ff.; Marzubānī, Nūr al-qabas 45, 10ff.; TB XII 168, 19ff. (i.e. versions quoting different eyewitnesses). Cf. Text 2, h. 51  Regarding him cf. Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 683, 13; he died during Manṣūr’s caliphate and was replaced by his nephew Ibrāhīm b. Ṣāliḥ b. Mujālid. 52  Jahshiyārī, Wuzarāʾ 100, 15ff.; also Sourdel, Vizirat 77, n. 5. Awzāʿī wrote to him asking him to intercede with the caliph to secure the freedom of the inhabitants of Qalīqalā/Erzurum (GAS 1/517). 53   Faḍl 249, 5ff. = Murtaḍā, Amālī I 174, 18ff. 54   Faḍl 249, 12ff.; Balādhurī III 234, 7ff.; Text 2, i. Regarding the motif cf. also ch. C 4.1.3 below. 55  Thus already Balādhurī III 231, 7; embroidered e.g. in TB XII 169, 5ff.; Text 2, o. 56  Cf. e.g. Balādhurī III 232, 4ff.; Zubayr b. Bakkār, Muwaffaqiyyāt 143, –4ff.; isolated, as a report from Sufyān b. ʿUyayna, in Faḍl 242, 7ff. The same story was told of a certain Ibn Ṭāwūs (= ʿAbdallāh b. Ṭāwūs b. Kaysān who, however, died before Manṣūr’s caliphate?) in Ibn ʿAbdrabbih, ʿIqd I 55, 12ff. 57  See p. 375 below.

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The attitude encouraged by ʿAmr, which would ultimately prove to be the wiser one, namely quietism or, to speak with Ibn Shubruma,58 al-amr bilmaʿrūf only bil-lisān but not bil-sayf, in the form of individual criticism rather than collective resistance – this attitude is sometimes presented as the traditional one in the stories discussed. ʿAmr reassures the caliph, who asks about Muḥammad b. ʿAbdallāh’s letter, with the words: “You know my view on the ‘sword’ from the days when you associated with us: I do not believe in it”.59 In another version Manṣūr asks directly: “Do you stand by your earlier attitude (still), Abū ʿUthmān?”, and ʿAmr confirms this.60 In both cases the narrators clearly presumed that ʿAmr and the caliph knew one another from the past, apparently from a situation in which the latter was already interested in ʿAmr’s view on armed rebellion. We may link this to those accounts according to which Manṣūr spent some time in Basra during the last years of the Umayyad era, campaigning for the anonymous candidate of choice of the prophet’s family.61 Manṣūr was said to have been in touch with ʿAmr at the time, learning analogical argumentation from him, without, however, being able to persuade him to actively support the Abbasids. It is certainly not mentioned anywhere, and the tradition on which the present deliberations are based denies it explicitly. In Balādhurī III 183, 8ff., it goes back to Saʿīd b. Salm who commanded a contingent against al-Nafs al-zakiyya in 145 (cf. Ashʿarī, Maq. 79, 13). Manṣūr had been governor of Īdhāj in Ahwāz in 127 under ʿAbdallāh b. Muʿāwiya (Balādhurī III 183, 12ff.), where his son Muḥammad, later al-Mahdī, was born (Ṭabarī III 257, 2f.), but had been driven out by Sulaymān b. Ḥabīb b. al-Muhallab. He came to Basra as a supplicant, another story emphasising his poverty. ʿAmr called him a zawwār; Manṣūr was, in modern terms, conducting a very hands-on election campaign, going from door to door (Balādhurī 234, 11ff. [where this tradition ends l. 18]; also Tanūkhī, Faraj baʿd al-shidda III 224, 4ff.). Further information in van Vloten in: ZDMG 52/1898/213ff.

58  See p. 326 above. 59   T B XII 169, 2f. = Text 2, m. 60   Faḍl 249, 9f.: once again it is worth noting that the caliph uses the kunya and thus emphasises his respect for ʿAmr. – Similar, but without the reference to an earlier encounter, in Balādhurī III 235, 1. 61   Al-riḍā min āl Muḥammad; regarding the phrase see vol. I 288 above. Of course Manṣūr had an Abbasid in mind, at the time Ibrāhīm al-Imām (cf. EI2 III 988 s. v. Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad).

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The question remains whether ʿAmr did not benefit the Abbasids by not joining Muḥammad b. ʿAbdallāh at that time, just as later in 142; in that case Manṣūr’s referring to his “earlier attitude” in retrospect would be completely justified. ʿAmr was clearly not among the Muʿtazilites who attended the Hāshimid meeting in Abwāʾ.62 The story of his appearing in Suwaiqa near Medina with a Basran delegation in order to see al-Nafs al-zakiyya, and then paying homage to his brother Ibrāhīm instead is probably made up.63 Not even Zaydite sources conceal the fact that there was doubt of ʿAmr’s bayʿa.64 But it was important to the Shīʿites to show that the Muʿtazilites, when they finally did embrace al-Nafs al-zakiyya’s cause, really only followed an old oath of allegiance, and the Muʿtazilites themselves probably agreed with this view as well.65 It is well known that there were claims that al-Manṣūr and other Abbasids were at Abwāʾ, too, although there was no agreement on whether he had taken the bayʿa or not.66 It may be safe to assume that while the “Muʿtazila” insofar as it was ranged around ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd was a powerful factor in the troubles following Walīd II’s murder, it refrained from taking clear sides even then. Of course in the last interpretation Manṣūr’s remark makes sense only if he, too, remained neutral in Abwāʾ or, indeed, did not attend at all (or if the narrator assumed this). The reader’s attitude would depend on the correspondence that sprang up between the caliph and al-Nafs al-zakiyya during the latter’s revolt. If al-Manṣūr had indeed taken the bayʿa, one would assume that al-Nafs al-zakiyya would refer to it but, as van Vloten already noted, this is not the case. One might then consider the correspondence a falsification, as van Vloten did (in: ZDMG 52/1898/213ff.) or, conversely, that Manṣūr never swore an oath of allegiance, or one might choose the compromise and advance the hypothesis that the correspondence was purged by Abbasid hands before historians gained access to 62  See p. 289f. above. 63  See p. 286 above. 64  Cf. the quotation in van Vloten in: ZDMG 52/1898/215, n. 2. 65  In a similar account, collected by the Zaydite imam al-Nāṭiq bil-ḥaqq in his K. al-ifāda, the trend is developed through to the uprising (cf. MS Leiden 8404, fol. 18b, ult. ff.). Regarding the sources in general see also Nagel in: Der Islam 46/1970/258ff. 66  Cf. Ṭabarī III 143, 14f., and 152, 11f. (where Mecca probably refers to Abwāʾ); cf. Nagel 261f. After being arrested some prominent members of the uprising accused al-Manṣūr of breaking his oath of allegiance (Ṭabarī III 262, 15f., and 264, 1f./transl. Muth, Der Kalif alManṣūr 195 and 197). Cf. also the pro-Shīʿite tendentious tradition in Abū l-Faraj, Maqātil 239, 1ff. (after Madāʾinī): Manṣūr was said to have paid homage to al-Nafs al-zakiyya and to have recognised him as the mahdī.

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it, as assumed by R. Traini (in: AIUON 14/1964/773ff.) and F. ʿUmar (in: Al-ʿAbbāsiyyūn al-awāʾil 181ff.). The same question arises with regard to a passage extant in the version consulted: the discussion of ʿAbbās’ succession versus Fāṭima’s (see ch. C 1.2.1.1 below). D. Sourdel raised doubts regarding this issue (in: Prédication et propagande 121f.). Originally Nagel considered the text doubtful in parts (in: Der Islam 46/1970/255f.), but expressed himself more positively later (Rechtleitung 298). In Islamic Revolution and Historical Memory 7ff. Lassner does not go into the question, promising, however, to do so in the future. However one decides regarding the genuineness of the source will make no difference for the evaluation of ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd. 2.2.6.2.3 The Image of ʿAmr’s Personality Even more than in the case of Wāṣil, the characteristic that posterity remembered of ʿAmr’s way of life was asceticism,1 legend doing its bit embellishing it. His long hours of prayer and his dedication to the pilgrimage were stressed,2 as were his patience3 and his piety.4 He was aware of the presence of death,5 and consequently did not think much of pomp and possessions. Several traditions have him push aside a rug as too luxurious;6 he also declined money in order to avoid becoming dependent on it.7 He distrusted the state, saying on the occasion of a thief’s hand being cut off: “The secret thief is cutting the well-known thief’s hand off”.8 Those who allowed themselves to be drafted into 1  Cf. in general TB XII 166, 9f.; also 186, 13, after a hostile source. Similar in a qaṣīda by Abū l-Qāsim al-Zaʿfarānī, a poet from Ṣāḥib Ibn ʿAbbād’s circle, quoted by Thaʿālibī in his Yatīmat al-dahr (Damascus III 55, ult./ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd III 219, 12). 2  Kaʿbī 68, 10f., similar Faḍl 243, 1ff. > IM 36, 7ff., after Jāḥiẓ; also Fihrist 203, 11: he was wearing the signs of prosternation between his eyes. 3  When someone “made him hear ugly speech” (shouting? obscenities?), he placed the edge of his outer garment (ridāʾ) on the ground without replying, then shook out the edge (Faḍl 243, 9ff.). Cf. also p. 400 below. 4  He visited his mother every day in order to ask what her wishes were (Faḍl 250, 10ff.). 5  Faḍl 248, –5ff.; also Jāḥiẓ, Bayān III 142, 8ff., after Madāʾinī; slightly abridged Murtaḍā, Amālī I 178, 1ff. 6  Cf. e.g. Faḍl 343, 2; also during his visit to al-Manṣūr (Text 2, a). He also declined the caliph’s offer of a new ṭaylasān (Balādhurī, Ansāb III 232, –5ff.). 7  Faḍl 244, 1f.; Murtaḍā, Amālī I 170, 12ff. He was also said never to have accepted an invitation to a feast (Jāḥiẓ, Bukhalāʾ 213, 10f.). 8  Ibn Qutayba, ʿUyūn I 56, 13f. = ʿIqd II 268, 15f. This was probably intended to say that the state enriches itself unlawfully through taxes. Cf. also his outrage at the execution of a mentally deranged man in Jāḥiẓ, Ḥayawān I 24, 6ff./transl. Souami 178.

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government office forfeited his affection,9 but he was always ready to help the poor and weak,10 and supported his followers, sometimes even with his own clothes.11 He was always so serious as if he had come from his parents’ funeral.12 He disapproved of singing: sura 50:17f. says that the words a human speaks are recorded by two angels to his right and to his left; who should then record singing?13 The picture painted in the sources alternates between individual pious renunciation of the world similar to that reported of Ḥasan al-Baṣrī,14 and traits of a futuwwa ideal presumably cherished among those Muʿtazilites who would later take part in al-Nafs al-zakiyya’s uprising. Shīʿite accounts even say that ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd wore a woollen shamla like a mantle (izār),15 presenting himself like the “Sufis” we sometimes encounter in his proximity.16 The opponents of the Muʿtazila did not dispute his asceticism, but they did suspect him of posing as pious in public only, i.e. performing eye-service.17 The conflation of related, but not necessarily similar, ideals can also be read in the dicta attributed to him. These are aphorisms of various kinds,18 psychological observations of the type expected of ascetics,19 but also individual

9  Thus e.g. Shabīb b. Shayba (Fasawī, Maʿrīfa II 261, 10ff. > TB XII 174, 16ff.; regarding him p. 278f. above). When he became governor of Ahwāz, presumably under Manṣūr, ʿAmr stopped speaking to him and did not even say “bless you” (raḥimaka llāh) when he sneezed (Faḍl 250, –4ff.). 10  He is said to have usually accomplished the hajj on foot because he allowed poor and weak people to sit on his camel (Kaʿbī 68, 10f.). 11  Ibn Abī l-Dunyā, Makārim al-akhlāq § 308. 12   I M 36, 2ff. after ʿAmr’s pupil Ibn al-Sammāk; said using similar phrasing of Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, too (ibid., n., after Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif). 13   ʿIqd VI 11, 4ff. 14  Cf. also Ziyād b. Abīh’s waṣiyya which ʿAmr transmitted; ʿAbd al-Malik was said to have had it recorded for people to learn by heart. It contained paraenesis which emphasises the vanity of the world at the same time as the important part played by the intellect (Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 387, 16ff.; Tawḥīdī, Baṣāʾir 2II 205f. no. 646 with further sources). 15  Kashshī 272, 5f. = Ṭabrisī, Iḥtijāj II 126, 3ff., but in the context of a legend. 16  See p. 124f. above regarding Hāshim al-Awqaṣ, and p. 374f. below regarding Bashīr al-Raḥḥāl. 17   Mīzān III 278, 12ff. 18  Jāḥiẓ, Ḥayawān VI 36, 5f., and Rasāʾil I 162, pu. f.; Tawḥīdī, Akhlāq al-wazīrayn 260, 1ff.; Murtaḍā, Amālī I 173, 2ff. 19  Tawḥīdī, Baṣāʾir II 229, 3ff./2V 185, no. 640; also Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 261, 8f.: “If one thinks of God’s wrath, one will be prevented from wrath oneself” (also Jāḥiẓ, Al-jadd wal-hazl, transl. Vial, Quatre Essais 129).

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prayers in ornately crafted language.20 Furthermore we find fundamental commandments for good relations between humans: one must not covet other people’s possessions; one should wish the same for others as for oneself; and one should listen to one’s neighbour if something distresses him, in order to help him take his mind off his worries.21 He spoke of muruwwa and of generosity,22 which moved him closer to futuwwa ethics. Rhetoric was not unimportant to him; together with other pupils of Ḥasan al-Baṣrī’s he had visited Faḍl al-Raqāshī’s lectures who spoke in rhymed prose in the style of the quṣṣāṣ.23 However, he valued rhetoric only if it served religious truth, as it did in his own dicta, otherwise he regarded silence as preferable.24 He was no khaṭīb like Wāṣil, and had no time for the poets.25 He rarely spoke, and only ever briefly, abhorring stilted speech (takalluf),26 but greatly valuing politeness and reticence. He criticised Wāṣil’s pupil Ḥafṣ b. Sālim for saying “no” all the time, pointing out that the prophet had said “God will sort it out”,27 and he did not like guests at the door answering merely “it is I”, when asked “who is it”.28 2.2.6.2.4 His Relationship with Ḥasan al-Baṣrī ʿAmr’s reputation clearly extended much further than the circle of his immediate followers, the “Muʿtazila”, as proven by his detractors sparing no effort to dispute his connection with Ḥasan al-Baṣrī and to prove that there was antagonism between him and his famous teacher, who still dominated Basran 20  Cf. Jāḥiẓ, Bayān III 271, 5f. = Ibn Qutayba, ʿUyūn II 290, 10 = Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Faḍl 245, pu. f. > IM 37, 4 (only the first half): “O God, make me rich in my desire for you, and do not make me poor through renouncing you!” It is not entirely possible to imitate the chiliastic structure in the translation. 21  Text X, 3. 22  Sulamī, Muqaddima fī l-taṣawwuf 40, 1ff., and 44, 5f. 23  Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 306, 9ff., and similar 290, ult. ff. 24  Ibid. I 1ff. > Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Faḍl 244, 3ff.; also Ibn Qutayba, ʿUyūn II 170, 11ff.; ʿIqd II 260, 2ff.; Ibn Abī l-Ḥadīd, ShNB VII 89, 10ff.; Nuwayrī, Nihāya VII 7, 4ff.; much abridged Tawḥīdī, Baṣāʾir II 699, –4f./2IX 94 no. 293. 25  The poet al-Aḥwaṣ (who was, however, believed to have died after 105/724 already; cf. GAS 2/421) apparently attended his lectures, but they soon quarrelled (Jāḥiẓ, Burṣān 127, 1ff.). If he is occasionally quoted in verse, this is probably only literary motif; furthermore, they are not his (TB XII 166, 20ff. = Masʿūdī, Murūj VI 211, 3ff./ IV 158, 4ff.; also Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Tathbīt 621, 7ff.). 26  Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 114, ult. ff. after ʿAmr’s pupil Shimmazī. 27  Ibid. II 190, 8ff. = III 155, 1ff. = Ibn Qutayba, ʿUyūn III 137, 3f. 28  Jāḥiẓ, Ḥayawān I 337, –5ff.; more briefly also Ibn Abī ʿAwn, Al-ajwiba al-muskita 93 no. 547; Tawḥīdī, Baṣāʾir III 680, 8f./2III 183 no. 659 (with further instances in the bibliography), and Ibn Qutayba, ʿUyūn I 91, 6f. (where the name in the text has been changed).

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tradition. It is well-nigh impossible to say what the relationship between the two really was, as all statements are biased.1 There is no reason to assume that ʿAmr was Ḥasan’s favourite pupil; it is indeed possible that the latter viewed his development with concern.2 But a true polarisation only came later. Qatāda seems to have carried greater weight in Ḥasan’s circle; he also appears to have been older than ʿAmr. People believed that Ḥasan regarded him as the one among his pupils with the widest range of religious knowledge,3 and that only the Muʿtazilites ranked ʿAmr above him.4 They had both been Qadarites, but Qatāda appears to have been more positively disposed towards the Umayyad authorities than ʿAmr.5 Muʿtazilite sources speak surprisingly little of Qatāda, even assuming that ʿAmr did not get on with him, and offering the explanation that after Ḥasan’s death they were both head of the school together, which had led to an estrangement between them.6 This does not sound very probable; presumably Muʿtazilite self-consciousness found it difficult to come to terms with the fact that their revered ancestor, whose reputation never suffered among his followers,7 did not immediately succeed his similarly great teacher.8 Wāṣil never appears in this context; he probably was not even in Basra at the time of Ḥasan’s death. 2.2.6.2.4.1

ʿAmr as an Exegete

ʿAmr’s connection to Ḥasan al-Baṣrī could not be overlooked by posterity for the simple reason that he transmitted Ḥasan’s Quranic commentary. While the work was transmitted also by other, “orthodox”, pupils, ʿAmr’s redaction appears

1  A positive assessment e.g. Faḍl 245, 1ff.; negative TB XII 181, 13ff. (after Yaḥyā al-Bakkāʾ, d. 130/748; cf. Mīzān no. 9631): Ḥasan did not even look at ʿAmr’s Masāʾil, when he came across them. 2  See p. 295f. above. 3  T B XII 170, 17. 4  Ibid. 178, 19; also ibid. 16ff. (after Abū ʿAwāna, d. 176/793). 5  See p. 160f. above. We must, however, bear in mind that accounts of him date from the time before 117, i.e. Hishām’s caliphate; resistance was not advisable at that time. The sources only concern themselves with ʿAmr’s political views in the context of Yazīd II’s accession to power. 6  Murtaḍā, Amālī I 167, 5ff.; there is nothing similar in either Kaʿbī or Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār’s works. Muʿtazilite tradition mentions the estrangement in the story of ʿĀṣim al-Aḥwal’s dream (see p. 341 below). 7  Cf. e.g. Naẓẓām’s verdict (Jāḥiẓ, Bayān III 157, 4f.), and especially Jāḥiẓ’ own (ʿUthmāniyya 265, 10). 8  The late date of origin of this tradition is also suggested by its objective of explaining the term iʿtizāl. An “orthodox” variant may be found in IKh IV 85, 11ff. (after Abū ʿAmr Ibn al-ʿAlāʾ).

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to have found the widest acclaim.1 Not only authors such as Muḥammad alṬūsī or Ṭabrisī, who stood firmly within the Muʿtazilite exegetic tradition, relied on it, but Thaʿlabī2 referred to it, and even Ṭabarī did, albeit not in his Tafsīr but in his Ta‌ʾrīkh, and there via Ibn Isḥāq whose work he probably used directly and without whom it would not have been possible. Ibn Isḥāq had been a Qadarite like ʿAmr and had had no reason to avoid him.3 Sufyān alThawrī appears to have used the work, too, quoting Ḥasan in his Tafsīr after an anonymous source who may well have been ʿAmr.4 Above all, the work came to Spain, where it was transmitted in the third century by Khalīl b. ʿAbd al-Malik b. Kulayb, known as Khalīl al-Ghafla, who “openly supported the (doctrine of) the faculty of action”.5 This description tells us that like Ḥasan he did not hold God responsible for evil; he also interpreted the scales and the ṣirāṭ bridge figuratively.6 While his books were burnt after his death, the Tafsīr survived for at least one more generation; it was transmitted by Yaḥyā b. Yaḥyā Ibn alSamīna, who died in Cordoba in 315/927.7 This does presume that the passage in Ibn al-Faraḍī (I 165, 4) should be read as ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd, rather than ʿAmr b. Fāʾid as in the printed version. Otherwise this would refer to ʿAmr b. Fāʾid al-Uswārī who had studied under him and also composed a Tafsīr (see p. 94 above). However, no trace of this work survives, and Iraqi tradition has no knowledge of a redaction of Ḥasan’s Tafsīr by ʿAmr b. Fāʾid. Fierro, Heterodoxía 91, adheres to the traditional reading, but does not discuss the matter. It is noticeable that Qatāda is never linked to Ḥasan’s Tafsīr, but is considered rather as the author of a well-documented Tafsīr of his own,8 which might lead to the conclusion that Ḥasan al-Baṣrī’s Tafsīr was not available as an 1  Cf. p. 50ff. above. Massignon, Essai2 177, n. 7, claims that there is a manuscript of this work in the British Museum; this is an error. 2   Cf. the introduction to his Kashf wal-bayān, ed. Goldfeld, p. 34, 3 (note the clearly nonMuʿtazilite riwāya). 3   Cf. the material in the commentary on Catalogue of Works X, no. 3. Regarding Ibn Isḥāq see p. 755ff. below. 4  P. 163, 4f. 5   Ibn al-Faraḍī, Ta‌ʾrīkh al-ʿulamāʾ bil-Andalus I 165, 4f.; regarding him also G. Hourani in: SI 32/1970/146. 6   Ibid. 165, 11ff. (when questioned by Baqī b. Makhlad); cf. also Makki, Ensayo sobre las aportaciones 218f. 7  Ibid. II 185, pu. ff.; regarding him Fierro, Heterodoxía 111f. 8  See p. 162 above.

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independent text, taking shape only in ʿAmr’s collection and probably only after Qatāda’s death. This does, however, require more in-depth examination, as does the connection between ʿAmr’s redaction and Qatāda’s work, the latter of which might also be based on recollections of Ḥasan’s lectures. Within the Muʿtazila ʿAmr’s redaction was transmitted further by his pupil al-Shimmazī,9 and people recalled that ʿAbdallāh b. Abī Najīḥ (d. 131/748), a Medinan Qadarite who edited Mujāhid’s commentary,10 had great respect for ʿAmr’s scholarship.11 ʿAbbād b. Manṣūr, on the other hand, another Qadarite but, being a Basran himself, familiar with Ḥasan’s original,12 noticed that the text was not the same anymore; ʿAmr even admitted interpolating passages for his “followers’” edification.13 This tradition, however, was Ḥammād b. Zayd’s who claimed to have heard it from Ayyūb al-Sakhtiyānī, in whose environment ʿAmr was not much liked in any case.14 They also recounted a dream in which ʿAmr was seen scratching out a verse in the Quran and then being unable to restore it. The recipient of this dream is usually ʿĀṣim b. Sulaymān al-Aḥwal, a contemporary of ʿAmr’s who became qāḍī in Madāʾin (see ch. C 1.1 below); thus ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ III 280, –4ff., Dāraquṭnī, Akhbār ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd § 4–5, TB XII 178, 21ff., and Mīzān III 273, –6ff. Sometimes the older and more respected Thābit al-Bunānī, a Basran ascetic (d. 127/745) was chosen, presumably a secondary choice; e.g. in ʿAbdallāh b. Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, K. al-sunna 131, 7f., TB XII 179, 7ff., and Mīzān III 273, –8f. The former tradition consists of two parts; the first one, in which the dream is not mentioned, is also found in Abū Nuʿaym, Ḥilya II 335, 3ff. Regarding further details see my Trad. Polemik 18ff. – In a similar tradition ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd presumably was, once again, a secondary choice, exchanged for Jahm b. Ṣafwān (e.g. Dhahabī, ʿUluww 192, 10ff.; Yāfiʿī, Marham al-ʿilal > Tritton, Muslim Theology 62f.). Similar stories were told of Thumāma (ʿAbdallāh b. Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, K. al-sunna 30, 8ff.). This dream vision does not refer to his activity as Ḥasan al-Baṣrī’s transmitter, but to his own exegetic ideas. There is no need to explain their existence. In the Qadarite interpretation of some verses he appears to have gone beyond 9  See p. 366f. below. 10  Regarding him see GAS 1/29, and p. 721ff. below. 11   I M 36, 6f. 12  See p. 381f. below. 13  Wakīʿ, Akhbār al-quḍāt II 44, –7ff. 14  See p. 391ff. below.

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Ḥasan,15 but whether he, in order to circumvent certain predestinarian consequences, assumed that there must be an immediate difference between the ideal Quran on the “preserved tablet” and the text as it was revealed, is doubtful, although it was claimed in an anecdote transmitted in several versions. This, however, was opposition polemic.16 Contrary to the tenor of this tradition he sometimes even defended the wording of the Quran: when some – regrettably unnamed – mutakallimūn17 expressed doubt that epilepsy and mental illness were caused by Satan or evil spirits, he countered their rationalism with evidence from scripture.18 His independent study of the Quran bore another fruit in his work on dividing the Quran into 360 parts (ajzāʾ thalāthmiʾa wa-sittūn) which survives to this day,19 although scholarship has so far ignored it entirely. 2.2.6.2.5 ʿAmr as a Legal Scholar In legal matters ʿAmr used the Quran in an independent fashion too;1 and once again with clear reference to his teacher. While there were apparently doubts as to whether he truly preserved Ḥasan’s legacy in this field in such great breadth, they could be allayed with a quotation from ʿUthmān al-Battī.2 A number of the opinions he embraced may simply have corresponded to Basran legal practice of the time, which was much influenced by Ḥasan. Like Ḥasan, he did not think much of taʿzīr and defended this opinion against the Kufan usage represented by Ibn Shubruma at his time.3 While adding a qunūt to every morning prayer4 allegedly corresponded to ʿAlī’s practice,5 Abū Ḥanīfa and his entire school were against it,6 and ʿAmr relied on a hadith he

15  Cf. Texts 10–11 regarding sura 15:92f. and 39:56. In both instances the attribution is subject to some doubt. 16  See p. 82 and 124, as well as Text VI 1 with commentary. 17  This does not necessarily refer to theologians; considering the theory they support this may have been physicians in the tradition of the medicine of Antiquity. 18  Text X 1. 19   M S Chester Beatty 3165, fol. 31–40; cf. GAS 1/597. 1  Cf. Catalogue of works no. 3 regarding sura 4:6 and 4:129. Yaʿqūbī lists him among the fuqahāʾ, interestingly in Saffāḥ’s time (Ta‌ʾrīkh II 436, 7). 2  Faḍl 242, 4ff.: with reference to 50 masāʾil regarding divorce law. 3  Ibn Shubruma based his position on sura 4:34 (Wakīʿ, Akhbār III 123, 12ff.). 4  Faḍl 248, 11f.; for general information cf. EI2 V 395 s. v. Ḳunūt. 5  Cf. my K. an-Nakt des Naẓẓām 69. 6  Ibn Rushd, Bidāyat al-mujtahid I 132, 1f.

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had heard from Ḥasan.7 In declaring date wine to be permitted8 he was in agreement with the Kufans, but also had a tradition from Ḥasan on his side.9 It was noted that like his teacher he never prayed without his shoes.10 In Basra a controversial habit of his was to proceed to the slaughter during the feast of the sacrifice before the prayer leader had recited the ṣalāt al-ʿīd;11 Ḍirār would later follow the same custom in Kufa.12 He presumably decided directly against Ḥasan in the question of whether silent intervals were permissible during public prayers.13 If a longer tradition transmitted by Abū Ḥayyān al-Tawḥīdī, for which so far no parallel has been found,14 is correctly linked to him, it would prove that he also had his own thoughts on the field of uṣūl – and quite different ones from Wāṣil’s. It concerns the criteria of permitted and prohibited. Like later Muʿtazilites, e.g. Naẓẓām,15 it states that some transgressions can be rationally perceived as such, and are consequently prohibited by natural law. Revelation supplements and modifies, creating a second category of prohibitions, but at times also restricting the first one, e.g. in the case of the prohibition on killing which is broken by sacrifices and by slaughtering. There is a particular reason (ʿilla) for both of these, which becomes clear in scripture. This ʿilla must be clearly discernible and must not be concealed by unknown further reasons.16 As all this was based on prohibitions the result was a surprisingly liberal approach: only those things are forbidden of which it has been said clearly, or can be deduced following strict methodology. The law does not regulate everything; it merely has a restricting function. This is how he came to consider nabīdh to be permitted (cf. the commentary on Text 6). He was not alone in this argumentation (Ibn Qutayba, Ashriba 53, 9ff.; Muḥāsibī, Masāʾil fī aʿmāl al-qulūb 103, 10f.); this was probably adopted by the Ḥanafites (cf. Baghdādī, Uṣūl al-dīn 25, 14). Jāḥiẓ 7  Ṭaḥāwī, Maʿānī al-āthār I 247, 15f.; Mīzān III 275, apu. ff. (also p. 346, n. 14 below). Regarding the Muʿtazilite view cf. Jāḥiẓ, Risāla fī l-ḥakamayn, in: Mashriq 52/1958/422. 8  Text 5. 9  See p. 346, n. 14 below. This tradition was later declared a falsification, proving that despite his roots in asceticism ʿAmr was less strict in this matter than the following generations. 10  Jāḥiẓ, Bayān III 110, 8ff.; cf. p. 123 above. 11   Faḍl 245, 4f.; for general information cf. EI2 III 1007f. s. v. ʿĪd al-Aḍḥā. 12  Ibid. 245, 6ff.; also ch. C 1.3.1 below. 13  See p. 347 below. 14  Text 5–6. 15  See ch. C 3.2.2.2.5 below. 16  Said similarly by ʿUthmān al-Battī (see p. 171 above).

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reported that the consumption of lizard meat was justified in the same fashion (Ḥayawān VI 84, 9ff.). ʿAmr’s permitting churches and synagogues to be pulled down unless their owners could prove ancient claims was along the same lines, although in this matter it was more relevant to him that the buildings might give offence, be munkar, in a Muslim country, and would continue to do so as long as they did not conform to accepted custom (Tawḥīdī, Baṣāʾir 2VII 63 no. 193). The last-named example already hints that the principle could be inverted as well. This was the position of the influential jurist ʿĪsā b. Abān (d. early 221/836; regarding him see ch. C 1.3.1.7 below): everything that is not permitted is prohibited (Baghdādī, Uṣūl 25, 12ff.). The dichotomy of “permitted : prohibited” would in the long run be differentiated into the well-known five-grade scale of the aḥkām al-khamsa (cf. I. Schneider in: Vorträge XXIV. DOT 1988, p. 214ff.). However, the older principle would also remain valid later (e.g. Jubbāʾī according to Tanūkhī’s testimony in: IC 5/1931/575f.). The term ibāḥa aṣliyya was coined for it (cf. Schacht in EI2 III 661 s. v. Ibāḥa; Hattox, Coffee and Coffeehouses 61f.); the Shīʿites also used the term barāʾa (cf. Kohlberg in: EIran I 717 b). The starting point, as the examples show, was the discussion of the dietary laws; presumably in an attempt to distinguish Islam from Judaism. In ʿAmr’s case, of course, the attitude seems to conflict with his asceticism. This, as well as the theoretical sophistication of the text advise caution when attributing it to him. There is a similar passage in Jāḥiẓ (Text XXII 201, a–c), where the doctrine is anonymous. The related question of whether everything was permitted before the law was revealed was answered in the affirmative by later Basran Muʿtazilites (Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Maḥṣūl I1 209ff.; cf. also Baghdādī, Uṣūl 203, 8ff.). Cf. also Text 4. 2.2.6.2.6 ʿAmr as a Traditionist When it came to hadith ʿAmr’s connection to Ḥasan was very close as well. Nobody doubted that he had adopted a lot of material from him;1 any controversy concerned how far one should go in following him. This was not only due to ʿAmr himself, but because Ḥasan’s tradition practice became increasingly suspect. Where legal matters were concerned, much was still in a state of flux; accepted customs of ʿAmr’s time might be seen as innovations later although it was not necessarily his Muʿtazilite or Qadarite views that were regarded in this way. The accounts reflect the various standpoints people could occupy in this situation. 1  Cf. e.g. Fasawī II 261, pu. ff.

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The Muʿtazilites recorded the names of those who transmitted from ʿAmr.2 They were already making an apologetic argument, as illustrated by the fact that they listed especially those muḥaddithūn who were also highly respected by the opposing side.3 In the long run ʿAmr’s traditions would be boycotted and almost obliterated in the sources, even Muʿtazilite ones. But this took time; first he had to be seen as the forefather of the Muʿtazila, and only then would he be singled out from the other Qadarites whose traditions continued to be transmitted, and branded a “propagandist” (dāʿiya).4 This was said to have been ʿAbdallāh b. al-Mubārak’s (d. 181/797) approach; he had avoided ʿAmr’s circle, but attended lectures with his pupil ʿAbd al-Wārith b. Saʿīd, to whom he was much closer in age.5 Maʿmar b. Rāshid (d. 154/770) did allegedly not think much of ʿAmr;6 Yaḥyā b. Maʿīn (d. 233/847) would later employ all his authority to ensure that those of Ḥasan al-Baṣrī’s traditions that were transmitted by ʿAmr should not be written down any more.7 At first this was probably due to individual dislikes rather than a definitive system. Ḥammād b. Salama (d. 167/783) understood through a dream that he had to discard ʿAmr’s hadith because the latter embraced “innovations”;8 Yaḥyā b. Saʿīd al-Qaṭṭān (d. 198/813) thought that there were others worse than he.9 ʿAlī b. ʿĀṣim al-Ṣiddīqī (d. 201/816) quoted him in the presence of the young Muʿtaṣim.10 Qadarite muḥaddithūn, of whom there were still many during the second half of the second century, usually disregarded this polemic entirely.11 This is why al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī as well as Kaʿbī preserved a list of ʿAmr’s hadith students, in part containing the same names.12 It was known that 2  Kaʿbī, Maq. 69, 4ff., and 90, ult. ff. 3   Among them Sufyān al-Thawrī and Sufyān b. ʿUyayna, as well as Abū Yūsuf and Abū Muṭīʿ al-Balkhī among Abū Ḥanīfa’s pupils. The two Sufyāns were adopted with justification, as shown by passages such as Fasawī II 259, 11ff. and pu. f.; cf. also Faḍl 243, 12ff., and Kaʿbī 69, 4f. > Faḍl 242, 2f. 4  TB XII 184, 15f.; Ibn Qutayba, Ta‌ʾwīl 11, 5 = 10, 6/transl. Lecomte 9 § 17. 5  TB XII 183, 8f.; abridged in Dhahabī, Siyar, VI 104, –4. 6   Fasawī II 261, 2f. > TB XII 179, ult.; in Dāraquṭnī § 13/transl. 13f. probably disfigured due to contamination and linked to Ayyūb al-Sakhtiyānī. 7  TB XII 185, 11 and 8f.; similar 5f. 8  Ibid. 183, 10ff.; a similar narrative 187, 18ff. There were no rational arguments to draw on at the time. 9  Ibid. 185, 4f., although the “worse one”, Abū Hilāl Muḥammad b. Sulaym al-Rāsibī, would be viewed much more positively later (regarding him see p. 78 above). 10  al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī, Kifāya 134, 10ff.; cf. p. 364f. below. 11  One exception might be ʿAwf al-Aʿrābī (see p. 63 above). 12   T B XII 184, 1f.; cf. also Mīzān III 273, 9ff., and 275, 4.

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occasionally it was not the material traced back to him that was eliminated but only his name in the isnād;13 in rare cases, especially in works not accessible to the influence of Sunni jarḥ wal-taʿdīl, even the name still survives. Thus e.g. in Faḍl b. Shādhān, Īḍāḥ 373, 1. Maybe the traditions found in Fasawī II 9, 1ff, and 10, 4ff. are part of these as well, as Sufyān b. ʿUyayna is transmitting from a certain ʿAmr? After all Sufyān had attended ʿAmr’s lectures (see n. 3 above and p. 743 below) and preserved a great amount of notes of them (ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ III 280, – 6f., the correct reading being kitāban kabīran instead of kitāban kathīran). ʿAmr b. Dīnār, whom the editor believes to be intended here, does not fit the context any better (regarding his teachers and pupils cf. TT VII 30f. and Mīzān no. 6366). In that case ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd would have attended lectures by Jābir b. Zayd al-Azdī, the forefather of the Ibāḍiyya, and also by ʿIkrima when the latter visited Baghdad. Sometimes traditions ʿAmr had heard from Ḥasan were simply declared false,14 while it was pointed out elsewhere that the reason why Ḥasan had answered ʿAmr’s leading questions in the way he did was because he was already advanced in years at the time.15 This was about expurgating hadiths because of their content, but the form, too, seems to have been deemed insufficient by later generations. Even Qadarites criticised ʿAmr’s circulating Ḥasan’s own dicta that he had intended to be interpreted in the sense of the prophet, as actual hadith.16 When critical questions were asked, others claimed to have heard ʿAmr evade them by saying “Someone said” (qāla baʿḍ).17 Undoubtedly the content was more important to him, although he did not evaluate it from a rationalist’s point of view any more than he did with regard to the Quran; indeed, Muʿtazilite circles noted with some astonishment that he held on to hadiths even if he was unable to explain them: “This is how it has come down to us, 13  Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal I 384, 4f. no. 2555; TB XII 184, 19ff.; Kaʿbī 69, 7ff. = 91, 3ff. Regarding a possible documented instance in Sufyān al-Thawrī’s Tafsīr see p. 340 above. 14  Thus the hadith against Muʿāwiya mentioned p. 326 above; cf. also TB XII 180, 9ff. and ult. ff. regarding qunūt or how nabīdh was assessed (see p. 342f. above; also Fasawī II 260, 4ff.), i.e. juristic issues in which ʿAmr decided as this hadith stated. Similar in TB 181, 4f. and 8ff. More general ibid. 182, 1f. 15  Fasawī II 263, –5ff. > TB XII 180, 17ff., after Ḥumayd al-Ṭawīl, d. 142/759. 16  See p. 64 above. It is probable that the passage in Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, Muqaddima I 22, apu. ff., refers to the same circumstances (cf. the translation by Juynboll in: JSAI 5/1984/286). 17  Fasawī II 262, 3, after a certain ʿAbd al-Razzāq, i.e. maybe ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Ṣanʿānī (126/744–211/827) who would, however, have been quite young at the time.

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and I do not know why (the prophet) said it”.18 There were, however, limits: in matters of dogma where predestination was stated too explicitly,19 and in legal issues where he considered accepted practice, or indeed the one he favoured, under threat.20 In these cases he himself apparently simply dismissed texts; later generations working with more sophisticated methodology, and possibly regarding the legal issues differently as well, preserved the examples as a deterrent. Quite how much everything was still evolving becomes clear when we consider that direct prophetic dicta are listed indiscriminately next to verdicts by companions of the prophet which would only later be traced back to the prophet. Cf. Dāraquṭnī § 14 and 17/transl. 29f. and 33 = ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ III 280, 6ff. = TB XII 176, 14ff. regarding ʿUthmān’s decree to grant ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. ʿAwf’s wife her inheritance even after the period of waiting. However, it never became binding; ʿAmr’s rejection was justified. Critics consequently focussed on the way in which he had rejected it: he said ʿUthmān was not an authority in his view. – The development can also be observed in the case in Dāraquṭnī § 19/transl 34f. = ʿUqaylī III 280, 3ff. = TB 176, 5ff., where ʿAmr dismissed Samura b. Jundab’s, the governor of Basra under Ziyād b. Abīh, practice of interpolating silences (sakta) two (or three) times in the public prayer. This would later take the form of a hadith (cf. Conc. s. v. sakta; cf. also Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, Istīʿāb II 653, 13ff.), but, it seems, only after ʿAmr’s time. It is interesting that the transmission went via Ḥasan, ʿAmr contradicting his teacher in this case. Abū Ḥanīfa, too, thought little of Samura (Goldziher, Ẓâhiriten 79).

18  Tawḥīdī, Baṣāʾir II 774, 7ff./2IX 154 no. 504: concerning the dog. 19   T B XII 172, 1ff. regarding the well-known hadith of predestination from the womb onwards; also Dhahabī, Ta‌ʾrīkh VI 107, pu. ff. = 109, -7ff. (after Abū Nuʿaym) and Yāfīʿī, Marham 110, 1ff. Cf. Schreiner in: Actes VIII. Congrès II1 94, and my HT 217. – Cf. also the story at TB XII 176, 19ff. concerning the problem of the eternal pains of hell; the hadith cited there as well as the preceding one are found in all the canonical collections (Conc. VI 174b). However, the anecdote probably intends to show that ʿAmr saw no way out in this matter, as he accepted the prophetic tradition as authority. 20  Thus in the case of one hadith according to which a thief could be granted pardon at the request of the person from whom he had stolen; cf. Dāraquṭnī § 6/transl. 21f. with commentary; also Fasawī II 261, 4ff. > TH XII 177, 18ff., and 178, 3ff. The hadith would always remain controversial, this practice contradicting the principle that the ḥadd punishments are God’s right (ḥaqq Allāh) and consequently cannot be influenced by humans.

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2.2.6.2.7 Theology and Politics The material analysed so far conveys the impression that ʿAmr more than anyone else transmitted Ḥasan’s legacy.1 While there were contemporaries who tried to dispute this claim, especially for reasons of dogma,2 they would only be successful much later. ʿAmr’s ideas were as little revolutionary as his politics, which is confirmed in a way by his failure to develop his profile in the field of theology where, being a “Muʿtazilite”, he should have distanced himself most clearly from Ḥasan. He seems to have adopted some material directly from his teacher’s exegesis. Like Ḥasan he used sura 4:93 as proof that a murderer, even if he was a Muslim, would be punished in hell for eternity. Even when he followed Wāṣil a step further and extended this verdict to include every grave sinner, the fāsiq in general, he may still have believed himself to be in agreement with Ḥasan; it was only the Bakriyya that viewed the murderer as a special case, believing in eternal punishment in hell, too.3 Both ʿAmr and Wāṣil followed Ḥasan in deciding in favour of the innocence of minor children4 and against the separation of past and future paradise.5 There was at least one issue in which ʿAmr sided with Ḥasan against Wāṣil, as he had learnt from Ḥasan that the phrase “we will punish them twice” in sura 9:101 provided an argument in favour of the punishment of the grave.6 He was also said to have endorsed other popular elements of the eschatology in the company of his followers, such as the cistern (ḥawḍ) near which the believers would gather on the Day of Judgment, the scales of judgment and even the prophet’s intercession,7 while Wāṣil did not believe these to be real. Shimmazī who reported this information was himself a pupil of ʿAmr’s8 and knew what he was talking about. By adding that Wāṣil himself denied this Shimmazī was probably simply trying not to damage the harmony between the two “church fathers”.9 ʿAmr composed hardly any works of his own; it seems that he was neither a great orator nor a great author. He did not have noticeable skill in kalām; and in debates – the few that are transmitted concerning him – he frequently appears 1  This is also true of other, less central areas; cf. e.g. Ḥasan’s remark on the pre-Islamic tribes in Agh. IV 307, 1ff. transmitted by ʿAmr. He was the one people asked if they wanted to find out more about Ḥasan (Baḥshal, Ta‌ʾrīkh Wāsiṭ 285, apu. ff.). 2  See p. 390ff. below. 3  Text 9; cf. also p. 301 above. 4  See p. 306 above. 5  See p. 313f. above. 6  Muwaffaq, Iḥāṭa 221b, 13ff. 7  At least according to Kashshī 394, –6ff. 8  See p. 366f. below. 9  Faḍl 237, 1ff.

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as the loser, and that not only in discussion with his fellow Muʿtazilite Wāṣil b. ʿAṭāʾ.10 The Fihrist names only two independent titles besides the tafsīr: a K. al-ʿadl wal-tawḥīd and a K. al-radd ʿalā l-Qadariyya.11 We do not know what he wrote in these books, although the phrasing of the titles is interesting, if indeed it was already used in the original. There is no earlier instance of the combination of tawḥīd and ʿadl (which probably refers to God); and from the Qadarite point of view the term “Qadariyya” refers to the predestinarians here.12 Letters (rasāʾil) and sermons are also mentioned,13 but we do not know any details about these, either. This is surprising as one would have expected the Muʿtazila, which would later repeatedly refer back to ʿAmr, to have preserved a clearer memory. But even here tradition is merely anecdotal, with anecdotes frequently adopted from opponents. There is no clear picture. It was transmitted that Wāṣil persuaded him of his view, but he is also said to have himself refuted Ḥasan, in the same question and using the same arguments.14 There are sporadic reports linking him to the same Hijaz environment from which Wāṣil came. ʿAmr was said to have been a pupil of Abū Hāshim’s as well.15 The Shīʿites imagined him asking Muḥammad al-Bāqir16 or Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq17 for advice, but all this is fiction. Muḥammad al-Bāqir had died in 113/731, and deep down the Muʿtazila knew that its Abū Hāshim tradition had feet of clay.18 Naming ʿAmr and Wāṣil together presumes a Muʿtazilite community that was not necessarily reality in the first generation. We should not put much faith in the report of a debate between ʿAmr and Abū Ḥanīfa (Text 12). ʿAmr probably took on the part of his pupil Shimmazī, who is usually the hero of similar stories; the subject being the same every time, namely the concept of faith (cf. Text II 6–7 with commentary). The variant mentioned is interesting only in that despite 10  Text 12 as well as p. 349 and 351f. below; regarding Wāṣil see p. 292ff. above. When Mūsā al-Uswārī attacked him during a discussion (with Murjiʾite arguments) he is reported to have said (maybe deliberately taking as his starting point a Murjiʾite principle): “God will judge between us” (Faḍl 243, –7ff.). 11  Catalogue of works no. 1–2. 12  Cf. EI2 IV 368b s. v. Ḳadariyya; also HT 125. 13  Masʿūdī VI 212, 6/IV 158, –5, probably > IKh III 462, 5. 14  Text 7; cf. also p. 294 above. 15   Faḍl 164, 17f. 16  Kulīnī, Kāfī I 110, 5ff.; Mufīd, Irshād 265, 18ff./transl. 399f.; Ibn Bābōya, Tawḥīd 119, 11ff. 17  Ṭabrisī, Majmaʿ al-bayān II 39, 2ff.; Biḥār XLVII 216f. no. 4, and LXXIX 6ff. no. 7. 18   I M 16, 5ff. after Ḥākim al-Jushamī; cf. Madelung, Qāsim 33.

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its Muʿtazilite tendency it admits ʿAmr’s lack of dialectic skills: he is unable to find his way out of an argument of Abū Ḥanīfa’s and has to rely on one of his pupils – once again Shimmazī? – to find a suitable muʿāraḍa. Regarding the content cf. also the commentary. The area where ʿAmr preserved an independent individual position beside Wāṣil most clearly was political theory, supporting the imāmat al-fāḍil,19 i.e. he considered Abū Bakr to be the best candidate at the time he was elected. He was thus not pro-ʿAlid, like Wāṣil.20 He had once again adopted this from Ḥasan; Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār elucidates that like the latter, ʿAmr considered the succession of the khulafāʾ al-rāshidūn to be religiously and historically justified.21 He criticised ʿAlī; disapproving of his claiming to have heard special revelations from the prophet.22 After the Abbasids had seized power this made him suspect for a moment; the new governor had him make a statement regarding those of his teacher’s dicta in which ʿAlī and, much worse, his relationship with ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAbbās, was shown in a bad light.23 While he did not think much of Muʿāwiya, either,24 his opinion of ʿUthmān differed – positively – from Wāṣil’s, following not only his teacher but the general trend in Basra, too. This led to him modifying Wāṣil’s assessment of the battle of the camel. While he, too, did not wish to brand the prophet’s companions involved as grave sinners but rather to preserve equal loyalty to all of them, he did not conclude that their testimony was valid under all circumstances as long as they were not testifying against one another. They all rebelled against ʿUthmān and were consequently under suspicion of having played a part in his murder, a suspicion sufficient to ruin their ʿadāla. Independently of the circumstances in which they were testifying, together or individually, agreeing with or against one another, their testimony could not be accepted. Independently, consequently, too, of how Wāṣil interpreted this testimony,25 ʿAmr was stricter than he due to his insight into history, for ʿAlī’s good character could now be doubted, while it would have been a sacrilege in the case of ʿUthmān and

19  Text XV 41. 20  Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Mughnī XX2 114, 8f. after Jubbāʾī. 21   Mughnī XX2 114, 7; also Ḥajūrī, Rawḍat al-akhbār 98a, 8. 22  Text X 14. 23  Text X 13. 24  See p. 326 above. 25  See p. 311 above.

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his two predecessors.26 While the Shīʿites thought that in the instance of the battle of the camel ʿAmr had granted ʿAlī a certain advantage compared to his opponents,27 and there were voices among the Muʿtazilites who tried to play down the difference,28 this was probably wishful thinking. After all, ʿUthmān’s reputation was not called into doubt in the battle of the camel. Other accounts of correspondences or differences in the opinions of the two thinkers do not go beyond details. In debating technique Wāṣil was said to have accorded the answering party higher importance, and ʿAmr the party asking the questions, as the latter started the conversation and determined its course (Tawḥīdī, Baṣāʾir 2VII 63 no. 194). Everyone capable of thought had a duty to religious speculation – not because God explicitly commanded it, but because he forbade avoiding it (Text 4). In legal matters, too, his starting point were prohibitions (see p. 343f. above). ʿAmr’s true objective was the human freedom of decision and the rejection of predestination. In this area he was more dedicated than Wāṣil, but it did not necessarily make him a Muʿtazilite. He appears in the aṣḥāb al-ḥadīth’s lists of Qadarites together with some of his pupils,29 while Wāṣil was never included, and neither were any other Muʿtazilites. Some texts implied that it had not been his Qadarite attitude that discouraged the moderates, but rather his gradual radicalisation; Sufyān b. ʿUyayna, who thought highly of him,30 claimed to have heard hadith from him before he brought “new ideas” into the world (aḥdatha).31 But what could have been the gist of these new ideas? It was assumed that he based his Qadarite ideas on the Quran,32 but so had Ḥasan alBaṣrī, and it is impossible to determine whether ʿAmr found new evidence to support his cause.33 He seems to have dismissed predestinarian hadiths,34 but this was not unusual at the time at all. Ibn Ḥanbal would later accuse him

26  Text X 15, a–i. For general information cf. also ibn al-Murtaḍā, Al-baḥr al-zakhkhār I 180, 17f. 27  Text 18. 28  Text 15, k–l with commentary. Madelung linked the two (Qāsim 26). Regarding later shifts of perspective cf. also Text 16–17. 29  Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif 625, 8 > Ibn Rusta, Aʿlāq 220, 7. 30  See p. 346 above. 31  Fasawī II 259, pu. f. 32  Text 10. 33  Cf. also Text VI 1. 34  See p. 346f. above.

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of denying divine prescience,35 but this is probably only polemic distortion of the fact that he did not ascribe any predetermining force to it.36 How, indeed, could he propose new ideas if tradition everywhere else claims that he was avoided because he campaigned for something that was not new but usually tolerated unchallenged? Maybe the “new ideas” Sufyān mentioned referred to a different field, such as his adopting the concept of fisq. If radicalisation could be noticed in his very own field, Ḥasan al-Baṣrī’s legacy, it was most likely in two aspects. Firstly in abolishing the “asymmetry” in Ḥasan’s theory of free will to the effect that God not only does not determine evil, but neither does he determine good.37 Or, secondly, by extending the level of argument beyond Quran and hadith. While this should not lead us to think of purely rational kalām, two anecdotes describing him in debate with Abū ʿAmr Ibn al-ʿAlāʾ38 also contain considerations introducing a new emphasis. While they are still rooted in the Quran, the exegesis is now supported by lexical analysis. The fact that they work in ʿAmr’s favour once and once against him shows that they had not become routine. At the same time this philological approach suggests that the anecdotes reflect the grammarian Ibn al-ʿAlāʾ’s way of thinking rather than that of the moralist and traditionist ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd. In all probability we are looking at a paradigmatic juxtaposition: the development may have taken place during ʿAmr’s lifetime, but it probably did not start with him. For more information see p. 423ff. below. – A third anecdote, clearly apocryphal, contains a conceptual argument of this kind. ʿAmr’s opponent in this case is Ḥārith b. Miskīn, an Egyptian jurist and predestinarian who died at the age of 90 in 250/864, and had consequently not even been born at the time of ʿAmr’s death (ʿIqd II 383, 14ff.; regarding Ḥārith b. Miskīn see ch. C 3.3.4 below). In another instance the argument is proposed by Abū l-Hudhayl rather than ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd (Faḍl 258, 13ff.). 2.2.6.3 The Pupil Generation The followers gathering round Wāṣil and those around ʿAmr can be distinguished comparatively clearly – providing further proof that the two founding fathers did not work as one from the very first. Wāṣil pupils were mainly legal scholars, ʿAmr’s traditionists. Wāṣil sent his pupils into the world 35  Khallāl, Musnad 141, pu. f. 36  See p. 342, n. 16 above in the context of the Abū Lahab issue. 37  See p. 54 above. 38  Text 11 and XI 1.

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as missionaries, while ʿAmr was active as a teacher in Basra. Tradition is sparse in both cases. 2.2.6.3.1 The Circle around Wāṣil The only ones among Wāṣil’s pupils about whom we can find out slightly more are his duʿāt. Ṣafwān al-Anṣārī praised them in a poem, revealing some names in the process.1 A marginally more recent account by Abū l-Hudhayl was preserved by ʿAbd al-Jabbār.2 Kaʿbī, too, seems to have relied on this,3 going into more detail in some places and adding a further name.4 Nashwān al-Ḥimyarī quoted from him directly in his K. al-ḥūr al-ʿīn.5 Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār repeated the material from Abū l-Hudhayl in the fifth ṭabaqa of his work, where he used a different list of names which also included other pupils; its origins are not known.6 It was copied by the Zaydite imam al-Manṣūr billāh who had it from Ḥākim al-Jushamī.7 Non-Muʿtazilite sources only rarely contain relevant material. 2.2.6.3.1.1 The duʿāt

Ṣafwān al-Anṣārī described the practice of the missionaries or canvassers dispatched by Wāṣil. They would join caravans,1 some of them conducting business at the same time.2 Upon reaching their destination they did not reveal their intentions immediately but first established an atmosphere of mutual trust, frequently by providing legal advice.3 We hear nothing of political propaganda, the objective apparently being religious debate.4 They were trained for this in Basra; it seems that Wāṣil also gave them written instructions and templates for discussion.5 Their appearance was that of khaṭībs, with turban

1  Cf. p. 436 below. 2  Faḍl 237, 5ff. 3  Maq. 66, ult. ff. 4  Sulaymān b. Arqam (see p. 357f. below). 5  P. 208, 6ff. 6  Faḍl 251, 2ff. 7  Shāfī I 137, 11ff. (with significant errors). 1  Text XII 1, v. 23. 2  See p. 356 below regarding ʿUthmān al-Ṭawīl. 3  Text XII, v. 8; also p. 356 below. 4  Ibid., vv. 14f. Regarding the dialectical skill of the duʿāt cf. v. 2. 5  See p. 306 above.

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and staff.6 When they entered into a rhetorical duel they trusted that on the same day their teacher would be praying with his pupils in Basra.7 They were probably in their prime, Wāṣil himself not yet being fifty at the time.8 Consequently they were not yet at the forefront of scholarship in Basra; later, after their master’s death and the great political changes, circumstances were not favourable to them anymore, which explains why they did not step into the limelight of religious tradition. In the case of Ayyūb b. al-Awthar (?), Wāṣil’s messenger to the Arabian Peninsula (jazīra)9 or, as Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār added, to the Arabian Peninsula, Medina and Bahrain,10 the name alone poses a problem. Kaʿbī has Awthar, but Nashwān al-Ḥimyarī writes Awtar11 and ʿAbd al-Jabbār Awtan, while Abū l-Hudhayl’s account only has Ayyūb.12 The only non-Muʿtazilite source mentioning him, Abū l-Faraj in Maqātil al-Ṭālibiyyīn, calls him Abū Ayyūb b. al-Adbar instead, claiming in addition that he successfully invited al-Nafs al-zakiyya to follow Wāṣil’s teachings.13 Al-Qāsim b. al-Ṣaʿdī, was Wāṣil’s messenger to Yemen.14 His father’s name is found as al-Saʿdī in Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār and the texts based on his work,15 which is probably a later correction, the Banū Saʿd (of whom there were several) being more well-known to scholars than the northern Yemeni city of Ṣaʿda. If Qāsim’s father came from there it could explain why Wāṣil chose the son as dāʿī for this very region. Qudāma b. Jaʿfar (d. 337/948) would note later that most of the merchants in

6  Text XII 1, vv. 9–12m 16, 24f.; also p. 436f. below. 7  This is how people imagined it (Faḍl 67, 11ff.). It is rewarding to compare this to the behaviour of the later Ismāʿīlite duʿāt (cf. Halm in: Festschrift Spuler 123ff.). 8  See p. 271 above. 9  Thus Kaʿbī 67, 3 > Nashwān, Ḥūr 208, 10. 10   Faḍl 251, 10 > al-Manṣūr billāh, Shāfī I 137, 14. 11  As Nashwān is directly dependent on Kaʿbī, one of the forms is a copyist’s error. 12   Faḍl 237, 9 > IM 32, 8. [Should he be identified with Ayyūb al-Qazzāz (p. 288)?]. 13  P. 238, pu. f.; cf. p. 287 above. This account also runs through Abū l-Hudhayl, but he is cited not with his kunya but with his ism Muḥammad b. al-Hudhayl al-ʿAbdī. 14  Kaʿbī 67, 3 > Nashwān 208, 9. 15   Faḍl 237, 9 (after Abū l-Hudhayl) > IM 32, 8; also Faḍl 251, 8f. > al-Manṣūr billāh, Shāfī I 137, 13.

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Ṣaʿda came from Basra;16 it is possible that this special relationship started early on. The Zaydite imam al-Hādī ilā l-ḥaqq (d. 298/891), whose teachings were strongly influenced by the Muʿtazila, also settled in Ṣaʿda first. The connections between Ṣaʿda and the Basran Tamīm are still visible in the name of a Yemeni author from the tenth/sixteenth century (cf. GAL S 2/557 and Löfgren/Traini, Arabic Manuscripts in the Bibliotheca Ambrosiana II 49 no. 95 VI). ʿAbdallāh b. al-Ḥārith was Wāṣil’s messenger to the Maghreb.17 Like many of the other duʿāt there is no evidence of him outside of Muʿtazilite literature, but his case is different as the combination of names is extraordinarily frequent and consequently, while he might be identical with others of his name, it is impossible to be certain.18 He clearly had a great following: even later the Muʿtazila in this area was still known as Wāṣiliyya.19 There was certainly more scope for missionary activity than in Medina or in Yemen. What is important is the information that ʿAbdallāh b. al-Ḥārith had been given Wāṣil’s “books” on the way;20 these may have been instructions on missionary practice of the kind that survives to this day among Ibāḍite circles in the region.21 It is noticeable that he is the only one of the duʿāt whom the Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār does not mention again in the fifth ṭabaqa. Could the explanation be that he did not return from the Maghreb? Ḥafṣ b. Sālim was Wāṣil’s messenger to Khorasan. His basis of operations appears to have been the city of Tirmidh, maybe because it was where Jahm b. Ṣafwān was active whose influence had to be stopped. He is said to have debated with 16   K. al-Kharāj 189, 11. 17  Abū l-Hudhayl in Faḍl 237, 5; Kaʿbī 66, ult. f. 18  We might consider the schoolteacher (muʿallim) of this name mentioned in Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif 547, 7f., who was noticeable for not accepting any money for his activity. He is mentioned in close proximity to Ḥusayn al-Muʿallim, a traditionist who may have been a member of the Muʿtazila as well (see p. 359 below), but information such as that in Fasawī II 798, 4ff., render this equation improbable. 19  See ch. C 7.7 below. 20   Faḍl 227, 9. 21  Cf. ZDMG 126/1976/43ff. regarding the K. al-Jahālāt.

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him at Wāṣil’s orders,22 but he bided his time, simply visiting the mosque in Tirmidh until he was asked to take part in a scholarly discussion (kalām).23 It is surely merely Muʿtazilite wishful thinking to say that Jahm converted afterwards, unmasked not least because it had to be admitted that he lapsed again later.24 Ḥafṣ later returned to Basra where he kept in touch with ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd after Wāṣil’s death. He transmitted ʿAmr’s definition of rhetoric (balāgha);25 he probably noticed that ʿAmr did not continue to employ Wāṣil’s khaṭīb style. ʿAmr was so forbearing with him26 that in one of his qaṣīdas Ṣafwān al-Anṣārī gave him the epithet al-qarm “the lord, the important man”.27 His two sons ʿAmr and al-Ḥusayn became followers of ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd.28 He is entirely distinct from Abū Muqātil Ḥafṣ b. Salm/Sālim al-Samarqandī who transmitted Abū Ḥanīfa’s K. al-ʿālim wal-mutaʿallim. This one was a Murjiʾite (see p. 629ff. below); but the debate with Jahm b. Ṣafwān was on the subject of the Murjiʾite concept of faith. Chronologically, too, this would hardly have been possible; Abū Muqātil died in 208/823, 80 years after Jahm’s death. Abū ʿAmr ʿUthmān b. Abī ʿUthmān Khālid al-Ṭawīl, Wāṣil’s messenger to Armenia, was already mentioned by Ṣafwān al-Anṣārī as well.29 He was a mawlā of the Sulaym30 and seems to have been rather wealthy; he was a cloth merchant (bazzāz)31 and as such in the same business as Wāṣil himself. When Wāṣil sent him out he is said to have offered half his fortune so he would not have to go, but in the end he earned 100,000 dirham during a single transaction, people said, and converted most of the inhabitants of Armenia.32 He probably settled in Bardhaʿa/Partev, where even later

22  Kaʿbī 67, 4 > Nashwān 208, 11; in more detail Faḍl 241, 1ff. > IM 32, 5ff., also Faḍl 251, 6f. > IM 42, 4f., and al-Manṣūr billāh, Shāfī I 137, 12. 23  Abū l-Hudhayl in Faḍl 237, 5ff.; Text IX 11. 24   Faḍl 237, 7f. 25  Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 114, 1ff. (with identification 114, 17) > Faḍl 244, 3ff.; cf. p. 338 above. 26   Bayān I 114, 16f.; see also p. 338 above. 27  Text XII 1, v. 2. 28  Regarding them see p. 369 below. 29  Text XII 1, v. 2; cf. Faḍl 251, 3ff. > al-Manṣūr billāh, Shāfī I 137, 11f. 30  Kaʿbī 67, 7. 31   Faḍl 237, 13 after Abū l-Hudhayl. 32  Kaʿbī 67, 7ff. > Nashwān, Ḥūr 208, 13ff.; Abū l-Hudhayl in Faḍl 237, 11ff. > IM 32, 9ff.

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there would be numerous Muʿtazilites;33 at the time the city was the bridgehead of Muslim rule in Armenia.34 Despite his economic interests he was not as successful among the locals as a merchant as as a lawyer; he had studied religious law under Ḥasan al-Baṣrī and, on Wāṣil’s advice, worked as a legal adviser in Armenia for a year first.35 When he returned to Basra later he took up the cause of Ibrāhīm b. ʿAbdallāh, al-Nafs al-zakiyya’s brother, but did not want to be reminded of this after the uprising.36 At that time Abū l-Hudhayl attended his lectures; he would later frequently be called the latter’s teacher,37 and probably did not die until after 150/767. But Abū l-Hudhayl’s main objective seems to have been to establish a link to Wāṣil b. ʿAṭāʾ via ʿUthmān, who did not write anything himself38 and appears to have merely administered his teacher’s legacy. Abū l-Hudhayl heard stories from him about Wāṣil’s luthgha39 as well as the tradition of the discussion between ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd and Abū ʿAmr Ibn al-ʿAlāʾ.40 He was of no interest to the doxographers, and is not mentioned in the K. al-intiṣār, either; consequently nothing was known of his teachings. Abū Muʿādh Sulaymān b. Arqam al-Baṣrī was one of Wāṣil’s two messengers in Kufa.41 He was a mawlā of the Qurayẓa or al-Naḍīr,42 i.e. one of the originally Jewish tribes of Medina, and appears to have been a respected traditionist in his time. He had been acquainted with ʿUmar II and transmitted stories of his conscientiousness as caliph;43 according to an autobiographical account he delivered a letter from Ḥasan al-Baṣrī to him in which he wrote of the vanity of earthly things.44 He possessed written notes of Ḥasan al-Baṣrī’s lectures from which he quoted.45 He also met

33  Kaʿbī 111, 4f. > Ḥūr 212, 3; cf. ch. C 7.4 below. 34   E I2 I 1040f. s. n.; Barthold, An Historical Geography of Iran 227f., and Bosworth in EIran III 779f. 35  Kaʿbī 67, 12. 36  van Arendonk, Opkomst 289. 37   Faḍl 164, 16ff., and 251, 4 > IM 42, 2. 38   Fihrist 203, –4. 39   Faḍl 237, –4f. 40  Cf. Text X 11 with commentary. 41  Kaʿbī 67, 4f. > Ḥūr 208, 12; Faḍl 252, 10. 42  ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ II 121m 2; TB IX 13, 12f. 43  Fasawī, Maʿrifa I 578, –5ff. 44   Agh. VII 271, 1ff. 45  Fasawī II 153, 5f.

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Zuhrī (d. 124/742); they apparently transmitted from one another.46 However, he outlived both of them by many years and would have the opportunity to export his hadith into newly-founded Baghdad.47 At an unknown time he was also in touch with Sayyid al-Ḥimyarī.48 Ṭabarī mentioned him as a rāwī for historical information.49 While the negative verdicts did not begin until later, once they did begin, they were unanimous.50 Muḥammad b. ʿAbdallāh alAnṣārī (118/736–215/830), who became qāḍī of Baghdad during Hārūn’s time,51 reported that even during his youth, i.e. at the beginning of the Abbasid era, young people were kept away from him and his lectures boycotted.52 He had probably made himself unpopular already at that time with his connections to the Muʿtazila, which were reinforced by his ascetic inclinations. Dhahabī preserved the following hadith from him: “He who enjoys experiencing the sweetness of faith should dress in wool and rein in his tongue”,53 and a tradition recorded by Fasawī54 aimed at honing the awareness of sin that Ḥasan al-Baṣrī aspired to. There was a controversy on whether he had been confused with Sulaymān b. Dāwūd al-Khawlānī, the brother of a Syrian Qadarite (regarding him see vol. I 124 above). However, this only referred to the isnād of a single hadith; the two persons were by no means identical (cf. Ibn Muhannā, Ta‌ʾrīkh Dārayyā 81, 2ff.; AZ 455 no. 1151 and previously, Mīzān II 201, –5ff.). (Abū Salama) al-Ḥasan b. Dhakwān al-Baṣrī was the second of Wāṣil’s duʿāt in Kufa.55 The connection between him and Sulaymān b. Arqam is not quite clear. Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār’s account could lead 46  Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 236, no. 1488; TT IV 168, 11ff.; cf. also the confusion in the isnād cited by Fasawī III 4, 4ff. 47   T B IX 13f. no. 4612. He was in Wāsiṭ as well (Baḥshal, Ta‌ʾrīkh Wāsiṭ 88, apu., and 131, 3). 48   Agh. VII 271, 1ff. 49   Ta‌ʾrīkh II 22, 10, and 27, 4. 50  Cf. esp. TB, loc. cit.; also Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 398, no. 2664; ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ II 121f. no. 599; Fasawī III 35, 1, and 57, 4f.; Mīzān no. 3427; TT IV 168f. 51   T B V 408ff.; regarding him cf. also p. 173 above. 52  Ibid. IX 14, 15f.; ʿUqaylī II 121, –5f. 53   Mīzān no. 3427; Ibn ʿAdī was said to have recorded more than twenty hadiths of his in his Kāmil (cf. GAS 1/198f.). 54   Maʿrifa II 152, ult. 55  Kaʿbī 67, 4f. > Ḥūr 208, 12; Abū l-Hudhayl in Faḍl 237, 10 > IM 32, 8f.

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to the conclusion that his part in the mission was greater;56 Abū l-Hudhayl’s version, which otherwise agrees essentially with Kaʿbī, does not include Sulaymān b. Arqam at all.57 Muʿtazilite sources tell us nothing further regarding his identity; all we learn is that he was a follower of Ḥasan al-Baṣrī’s.58 They did, however, find a further Ḥasan b. Dhakwān in the lists of Qadarites available to them, from whom ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd’s pupil ʿAbd al-Wārith b. Saʿīd59 heard hadith,60 as confirmed by non-Muʿtazilite texts.61 Ṭabarī I 161, 17f. reveals that this Ḥasan b. Dhakwān transmitted from Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, too. His moral ideas were very strict: “Do not sit with the sons of the rich, for they behave like women and are a worse temptation than virgins,” was transmitted from him.62 These two persons are probably identical. After all, the Muʿtazilites did not exploit the Qadarite lists until later63 and this was by no means the only doublet that resulted.64 Ḥasan b. Dhakwān’s Muʿtazilite activities were not mentioned in jarḥ wal-taʿdīl works, probably due to the fact that the rijāl experts gathered their information mainly from isnāds and the tendency of the respective hadiths. We are tempted to take a step further. There is a Basran traditionist named Ḥusayn b. Dhakwān al-ʿAwdī of whom Ibn Abī Ḥātim also said that his hadiths were preserved most completely by ʿAbd al-Wārith b. Saʿīd (III1 75, –5f.). He was a schoolteacher (Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 251, 4 and earlier; Bukhārī I2 378 no. 2869), which is why he is often named simply Ḥusayn al-Muʿallim. Consequently we might suspect that his father’s name was emended by the scholars through a contamination with the abovementioned Ḥasan b. Dhakwān, but this does not seem to be the case: the complete form of the name was documented in the earliest sources (IS VII2 31, 10f.; Bukhārī, loc. cit.; IAH I2 52 no. 233; ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ I 350, no. 299). Ibn Qutayba adds the father’s name in a gloss (Maʿārif 547, 14). This Ḥusayn b. Dhakwān 56   Faḍl 252, 8ff.; al-Manṣūr billāh even interpreted this to mean that he had won Sulaymān over to become his follower (Shāfī I 137, 15f.). 57  Ibid. 237, 5ff. 58  Kaʿbī 67, 5. 59  See p. 367ff. below. 60  Kaʿbī 92, 5ff.; Faḍl 342, 1. 61  ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ I 223f. no. 272; Mīzān no. 1844; TT II 277, 2 and 6; Hady al-sārī II 122, –9ff.; Suyūṭī, Tadrīb I 328, pu. He bears the short kunya Abū Salama. 62  Ibn Abī l-Dunyā, Dhamm al-malāhī, quoted in Bellamy, Society and the Sexes 37; unfortunately I have been unable to compare the original wording. 63  See vol. I 71 above. 64  Cf. e.g. p. 60 and 329, n. 22; also p. 169, n. 21.

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died in 145, at the exact time when the Muʿtazila supported Ibrāhīm b. ʿAbdallāh’s uprising, suffering great losses (see p. 372ff. below). Should we presume therefore that he was identical with Ḥasan b. Dhakwān, Wāṣil’s former dāʿī in Kufa? Kardarī’s Manāqib Abī Ḥanīfa mention a certain Ḥusayn al-Muʿtazilī who was ʿUthmān al-Battī’s teacher in Basra (II 83, pu. ff.). This could be our Ḥusayn b. Dhakwān as he, too, appears to have been knowledgeable in legal matters (if indeed Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 251, 2ff., can be interpreted in this way). Ḥasan/Ḥusayn b. Dhakwān, schoolteacher by trade and accomplished in legal matters, would in that case have been sent to Kufa by Wāṣil in the twenties; we have already seen that legal training was particularly important there. However, it would not have paid off as handsomely as in Armenia or in Tirmidh where a flourishing juristic tradition was already established. Ḥasan b. Dhakwān would have died only around 20 years later – ample time for him to transmit hadith and thus secure himself a place in the isnāds. There is no contradiction in his bearing the nisba al-Baṣrī while Ḥusayn al-Muʿallim was called alʿAwdī as “ʿAwd” in this instance probably refers to a sub-tribe of the Azd who were living in Basra (Samʿānī, Ansāb IX 401, 1ff., esp. 9ff.). The special relationship with ʿAbd al-Wārith b. Saʿīd that the Qadarite Ḥasan b. Dhakwān as well as Ḥusayn b. Dhakwān were said to have enjoyed might be explained by his being not only a pupil but also a nephew of the traditionist hiding behind the two names – after all, he was called ʿAbd alWārith b. Saʿīd b. Dhakwān (see p. 366f. below). However, this construction may be putting rather too much pressure on the sources, as it would imply that neither the rijāl experts nor the Muʿtazilites were able to make sense of the material with which they were working. To the Muʿtazilites Ḥusayn al-Muʿallim was a Qadarite (Kaʿbī 95, 6ff. > Faḍl 342, 16 > IM 138, 4), to the “orthodox” sources not even that; they only noted that there was some “confusion” in his hadith (fīhi ḍṭirāb; ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ I 250, –5; cf. Mīzān no. 2000; TT II 338f. no. 599). Nowhere do we read that he died during the uprising of 145, but Kardarī discusses Ḥusayn al-Muʿtazilī next to Ibn Sīrīn, which is why we assumed on p. 169 above that he might be identical with Ḥasan al-Baṣrī. The question will have to remain unanswered. 2.2.6.3.1.2

Wāṣil’s Other Pupils

Wāṣil’s other pupils have also been forgotten, and it is noticeable that not even Muʿtazilite ṭabaqāt works recorded all of them. Thus Ṣafwān al-Anṣārī named

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ʿĪsā b. Ḥāḍir as Wāṣil’s assistant (ghulām),1 but Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār knew only his name.2 Kaʿbī did not even list him, mentioning him only incidentally in one place as the transmitter of a conversation with ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd.3 A report by Jāḥiẓ confirms that they were acquainted and that ʿĪsā probably survived ʿAmr, although Jāḥiẓ did not meet him himself.4 He was also in contact with Faḍl al-Raqāshī.5 The strange combination of names leads us to assume that he is identical with that ʿĪsā b. Ḥāḍir al-Bāhilī who, together with some like-minded men such as Yūsuf al-Samtī, conspired in Basra against the unpopular qāḍī Khālid b. Ṭalīq al-Ḥārithī.6 He would have still been alive in the second half of the sixties, enjoying great respect in his city, as he was a member of the delegation of dignitaries who brought a complaint against Khālid b. Ṭalīq before alMahdī in Baghdad which resulted in the qāḍī’s being removed from office. The Muʿtazilite poet Ibn Munādhir7 mentioned him in a poem composed on the occasion praising the delegation – and informing the Basran population.8 His position might explain why Ṣafwān al-Anṣārī named him in the same breath as ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd and at the very beginning of his poem. Malaṭī mentioned9 two Basran pupils of Wāṣil’s from whom Bishr b. alMuʿtamir was said to have adopted the fundamental doctrines of the school. Firstly, Abū ʿUthmān al-Zaʿfarānī. He may have been named by Ṭabarī once as an authority for Abū l-Hudhayl in a report on ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd’s attitude in the uprising of 145;10 this passage, 1  Text XII 1, v. 1. 2  Faḍl 251, pu. > al-Manṣūr billāh, Shāfī I 137, 15 (as ʿĪsā b. ʿĀṣim), and IM 42, 6 (as Qays b. ʿĀṣim!). 3  Maq. 117, 7. 4  Ḥayawān I 337, –5ff. Two pupils of Abū Ḥafṣ al-Shimmazī’s, who was himself a follower of ʿAmr’s, were the most likely intermediaries (regarding them see p. 478 below; however, in that case Abū ʿAlī would have to be corrected to read Abū ʿĀmir). 5  Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 307, pu. ff.; regarding him see p. 192ff. above. 6  See p. 174 above. 7  Regarding him see p. 444ff. below. 8  Wakīʿ II 129, 1ff.; 130, 15ff.; 132, 11ff. 9  Tanbīh 30, 18ff./38, 7ff. 31, 6ff. tells us that Abū l-Hudhayl also studied under both of them. 10   Ta‌ʾrīkh III 148, 17ff.; see p. 328 above.

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however, mentions the nisba only, which is also found, but with a different kunya, in Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār where a certain Abū ʿAmr al-Zaʿfarānī speaks of Wāṣil.11 We may toy with the idea of changing this to Ibn ʿAmr in order to remove the discrepancy, as he is named as Ibn al-Zaʿfarānī elsewhere;12 addressed, however, as Abū ʿAmr in that very passage, and the written form of the accusative is, after all, unambiguous.13 The form Ibn al-Zaʿfarānī made us think of linking him with Maymūn al-Zaʿfarānī, a mawlā of the Tamīm who had a son named Ghuṣn who had been trained in the law by Abū Ḥanīfa (Wakīʿ, Akhbār III 167, –6ff.); in that case Abū ʿUthmān or Abū ʿAmr’s name would have been Ghuṣn b. Maymūn. He, however, would take us to Kufa, and Bishr al- Muʿtamir met Abū ʿUthmān in Basra. We will have to leave it as non liquet. The nisba is too frequent (cf. Samʿānī VI 298ff.). The second of Wāṣil’s pupils mentioned was Bishr b. Saʿīd. He may have been the same as that Bishr b. Saʿīd whom Jāḥiẓ has narrate a story from Basra (he may have heard it himself).14 He was not mentioned by Kaʿbī or Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Kaʿbī noting instead a certain Bishr b. Khālid in a list of school leaders preserved by Ibn al-Nadīm.15 He was thought to have shared Wāṣil’s view of the imāmat al-mafḍūl and was thus probably pro-ʿAlid.16 Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, on the other hand, seems to count him among ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd’s followers.17 His dates pose certain problems. Jāḥiẓ heard him and Naẓẓām report how they both debated with the Imamite theologian Shayṭān al-Ṭāq,18 consequently he is unlikely to have died before 170/786 or 180/796. 11   Faḍl 236, 9. 12  Ibid. 250, 15. 13  250, 16: yā Abā ʿAmr. 14   Ḥayawān II 231, 9ff. 15   Fihrist 220, n., l. 5. 16  Pseudo-Nāshiʾ, Uṣūl al-niḥal 52, 2; cf. p. 308f. above. 17   Faḍl 252, pu. > IM 42, 11, and al-Manṣūr billāh, Shāfī I 137, 19. 18  Ibn Ḥazm, Fiṣal IV 181, –6ff. > Ibn Ḥajar, Lisān al-Mīzān V 108, apu. ff.

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The claim that Naẓẓām met Shayṭān al-Ṭāq is not entirely unproblematic as regards the chronology (see vol. I 394 above and ch. C 3.2.2 below). Of course we do not know whether this was the same Bishr b. Khālid. Another mysterious figure was Hayyāj b. al-ʿAlāʾ al-Sulamī under whom Ibn Abī Duwād studied in Syria. He was said to have met Wāṣil personally, but is not mentioned in any of the early sources.19 It is clear that he was known only through Ibn Abī Duwād’s biography, but in the case of a Syrian who presumably did not even live in Damascus but among the Kalb in the desert,20 this is not too surprising. The chronological distance, however, is very great; at the earliest Hayyāj could have died around 175/791. Maybe Ibn Abī Duwād foreshortened the correlations slightly when reporting of him. – Great difficulties also arise in the context of those people who are mentioned in some Muʿtazilite source or other. Thus we know nothing precise concerning ʿAmr b. Ḥawshab whom Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār named as one of Wāṣil’s pupils,21 while Kaʿbī knew nothing of him. Could he have been a son of Ḥawshab b. Muslim al-Thaqafī’s, who transmitted from Ḥasan al-Baṣrī and had connections to the Muʿtazila?22 It is unlikely that he was the same Ibn Ḥawshab to whom Ṣafwān al-Anṣārī addressed his apology of Wāṣil,23 as a pupil of Wāṣil’s would hardly have needed it. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Barra was also mentioned by Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār but not recorded anywhere else.24 We know rather more about his son

19  Not until Subkī, Ṭabaqāt al-Shāfiʿiyya II 37, –4ff., and Ibn Kathīr, Bidāya X 319, 19; not quite as clear in IKh I 81, 10f. 20  Cf. ch. C 3.3.5 below. 21   Faḍl 251, pu. > al-Manṣūr billāh, Shāfī I 137, 14f., and IM 42, 6. 22  Regarding him see p. 124f. above. 23  Text XII 1, v. 1. 24   Faḍl 251, pu. > IM 42, 6f. (which has incorrect Murra or Qurra instead of Barra).

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(al-)Rabīʿ b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Barra25 al-Sulamī, who is listed immediately afterwards. He had attended Ḥasan al-Baṣrī’s lectures and was considered to be a Qadarite.26 He does appear to have been an ascetic above all and recognised as such even by “orthodox” sources.27 Qāḍī ʿAbd alJabbār also presents him in this way, quoting two paraenetic speeches which employ the medium of sajʿ freely, although he does seem to be relying on nonMuʿtazilite tradition.28 Among his pupils we find the predestinarian Muʿādh b. Muʿādh, whose opposition to ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd would later be emphasised,29 as well as the grammarian Abū Zayd al-Anṣārī, who was probably a Qadarite and transmitted hadith from ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd.30 Muʿādh b. Muʿādh would later dissociate himself from him, but the story recording this may well be mere propaganda.31 It is not, in fact, impossible that he, as it claims, disapproved of a certain prayer formula because it seemed to imply a restriction of human freedom of decision (namely Allāhumma ʿṣimnī “O God, make me free from sin”), as a similar accusation was levelled against the ascetic ʿAmr b. Fāʾid al-ʿUswārī.32 His maternal brother was Abū Ḥurra Wāṣil b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Raqāshī (d. 152/769 or 153/770), who was one of the first to internalise asceticism in Basra (Ibn Nuqṭa, loc. cit.; regarding him see p. 111f. above). Another brother named Juwayriya is found in Fasawī (Maʿrifa III 208, 4). Abū l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. ʿĀṣim b. Ṣuhayb al-Ṣiddīqī al-Wāsiṭī transmitted hadith from Wāṣil.33 He must have met him as a young man as he was born between 105/723–24 and 109/727 and died in Wāsiṭ in Jumādā I 201/Dec. 816.34 He also referred to ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd, even in the presence of 25   The father’s name is sometimes left out and the grandfather’s name read Bazza, resulting in al-Rabīʿ b. Bazza (e.g. Ibn Qutayba, ʿUyūn II 311, 11, or Ibn al-Jawzī, Ṣifat al-ṣafwa III 266, 10, where his identity is affirmed in 267, 12). The reading Barra is confirmed in Ibn Mākūlā, Ikmāl I 254, 1f., and Dhahabī, Mushtabih 56, 4. 26  ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ II 53, 12 > Mīzān no. 2731. 27  Ibn al-Jawzī, Ṣifa III 266ff. 28   Faḍl 252, 1ff. agrees with Ṣifat al-ṣafwa III 267, –5ff. 29  Ibn Mākūlā 254, 2; regarding him see p. 432f. below. 30  Cf. Ibn Nuqṭa quoted in Ibn Mākūlā 254, n. 1; regarding him p. 99 above. 31   H T 84f.; cf. also ʿUqaylī II 53, apu. ff. 32  See p. 96 above. 33  Kaʿbī 90, 13. 34  Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif 516, 1ff.; TT VII 344ff.

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the young Muʿtaṣim whose favourite teacher he seems to have been.35 His traditions would be viewed with reservation later, but his piety was beyond doubt.36 He was a wealthy man and appears to have engaged in the business of hadith with unwonted efficiency; immeasurable crowds came to hear him when, standing on his roof, he spread his traditions with the assistance of three mustamlīs.37 He played an important part in Wāsiṭ in particular, and consequently became one of the pillars of hadith science there.38 However, Yazīd b. Hārūn, who would later watch over the orthodoxy of Wāsiṭ,39 had a low opinion of him.40 Some folios containing his hadith are preserved in Damascus.41 Ṭabarī mentions him as a rāwī in a long story about Solomon42 and another on about the Ṭāq Kisrā in Ctesiphon.43 It seems more than doubtful that he had any connections to the Muʿtazila in the narrower sense of the word. – We meet two poets in Wāṣil’s circle, the Syrian Asbāṭ b. Wāṣil al-Shaybānī who wrote an elegy on him,44 and a certain Abū l-Ṭurūq al-Ḍabbī. Marzubānī named him in his Muʿjam al-shuʿarāʾ,45 telling us nothing more than that he was known by his kunya. Jāḥiẓ preserved a few verses.46 He praised Wāṣil’s skill in hiding his speech defect47 and defended him against the ridicule of his opponents.48 His nisba shows that he was linked to the same tribe as Wāṣil,49 but it is not certain that he met him. 35  See p. 345 above. He was a client of a Quraysh family who were the descendants of one of Abū Bakr’s granddaughters; hence his nisba. 36  Cf. also IS VII2 61, 20ff.; ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ III 245rr. no. 1244; IAH III1 198f. no. 1092; Bukhārī III2 290 no. 2435; Ibn Ḥibbān, Majrūḥīn II 113, 2ff. Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 16 no. 66, TB XI 446ff.; Mīzān no. 5873. 37   T B XI 447, 12ff., and 454, 5f. 38  Baḥshal, Ta‌ʾrīkh Wāsiṭ 161, 8ff.; also 146ff. and index s. n. 39  See p. 487 below. 40  ʿUqaylī III 246, 1f. 41  Cf. GAS 1/97. 42   Ta‌ʾrīkh I 576, 14ff.: after ʿAṭāʾ b. Sāʾib < Mujāhid < Ibn ʿAbbās. 43  Ibid. I 1014, 11ff. 44  Regarding him see p. 272 and vol. I 119f. above. 45  P. 511, 8. 46   Bayān III 322, 6ff., and Ḥayawān VI 92, 4ff. 47  Cf. Bayān I 15, ult.; Mubarrad, Kāmil 923, –4 > IKh VI 7, 8ff.; Yāqūt, Irshād VII 223, ult. f. 48  See p. 272f. above. 49  See p. 271 above.

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Going by its immediate context the verse Bayān I 15, ult., might be referring to the “Murjiʾite” theologian Muḥammad b. Shabīb, who is mentioned in the preceding sentence, instead. As he was active in the early third century (see ch. C 5.1.1 below) we might assume that Abū l-Ṭurūq was still living at that time. This is contradicted by Mubarrad’s statement that the verse referred to Wāṣil b. ʿAṭāʾ. On the other hand, Mubarrad did not name the poet, referring only to shāʾir min al-Muʿtazila. Ibn Khallikān, who quoted after him, identified the poet, as did Yāqūt, both, presumably, relying directly or indirectly on Jāḥiẓ. They were probably correct; the person praised is lauded as a khaṭīb, and we have no reason to believe that this was as true of Muḥammad b. Shabīb as it was of Wāṣil. In that case Jāḥiẓ was returning to Wāṣil after a lengthy digression, discussing him in detail subsequently having discussed him earlier as well. Ritter (in: Jurjānī, Asrār al-balāgha 318, v. 418 with n./transl. Geheimnisse der Wortkunst 370 with n.) did not come to a definite conclusion. 2.2.6.3.2 The Circle around ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd The quarrel over taking part in al-Nafs al-zakiyya’s uprising split ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd’s followers. Activists were facing moderates, the former probably with less of an interest in scholarship; certainly their names were recorded only by historians such as Ṭabarī. However, many of the others did not leave more than a trace either; being younger they were more affected by the boycott than their teacher. 2.2.6.3.2.1

Jurists and Traditionists

A jurist who could rightly be called ʿAmr’s successor was Abū Ḥafṣ ʿUmar b. Abī ʿUthmān Ḥābis (?)1 al-Shimmazī.2 He had met Wāṣil b. ʿAṭāʾ, but not Ḥasan al-Baṣrī. He was a rāwiya of Wāṣil’s and was believed to have transmitted Ḥasan’s Tafsīr from him as well

1   Thus after his brother’s name in Ibn Baṭṭa, Al-ibāna al-kubrā, ms. Istanbul, Köprülü 231, fol. 129a, but the reading is not entirely certain. All other sources have only ʿUmar b. Abī ʿUthmān. 2  Regarding the reading Shimmazī cf. Samʿānī VII 385, 4f.; Ibn Mākūlā, Ikmāl IV 531, 1f. > Dhahabī, Mushtabih 371, 2. The edition of Jāḥiẓ’ Bayān has incorrect al-Shammarī throughout (cf. I 16, 15, and 114, 1). Elsewhere, too, the nisba is occasionally transmitted incorrectly (cf. e.g. S-m-rī in Fihrist 203, apu.).

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as from ʿAmr.3 He may also have attended Aṣmaʿī’s (d. 213/828) lectures.4 He was said to have debated with Abū Ḥanīfa on the latter’s concept of faith, but tradition is not entirely consistent.5 Jāḥiẓ thought highly of him.6 He was versed in hadith, his pupil ʿAbd al-Karīm b. Rawḥ claiming that al-Shimmazī knew more traditions than he himself, although he knew around 10,000 by heart.7 Even so, al-Shimmazī was not a muḥaddith in the true sense of the word. Later jarḥ wal-taʿdīl works did not take any notice of him. According to Ibn Mākūlā8 a certain Ismāʿīl b. Ibrāhīm al-ʿIjlī transmitted from him, but we do not know anything about him, either.9 ʿAbd al-Karīm b. Rawḥ and Abū ʿĀmir al-Anṣārī were his pupils in religious law;10 assistants of Maʿmar Abū l-Ashʿath, they were both contemporaries of Muʿammar’s.11 ʿAbd al-Karīm remembered him with great respect, but in later texts Shimmazī left no trace on this field, either; less even than ʿUthmān al-Battī whose tradition he may have continued. His father’s kunya tells us that he had a – presumably elder – brother named ʿUthmān, who appears to have been a follower of ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd’s as well, as he appears in an anecdote about ʿAmr (Fasawī, Maʿrifa II 262, 4ff. etc. where, however, the nisba is misspelt throughout; cf. Text VI 1 with commentary. The identification I proposed in Trad. Polemik 17 is wrong). In hadith, this part was played by Abū ʿUbayda ʿAbd al-Wārith b. Saʿīd b. Dhakwān al-Tamīmī al-Tannūrī (102/720–1 – Muḥarram 180/March–April 796), a client of the Banū l-ʿAnbar, who probably earnt his living as a stove maker. He was ʿAmr’s pupil and 3  Thus at least according to Muʿtazilite tradition (Faḍl 253, 1f.), which may be a bit generous in this case. Ibn al-Nadīm’s parallel does not mention Wāṣil (Fihrist 203, apu.). Further recollections of his two teachers cf. p. 282 (regarding Wāṣil’s luthgha) and p. 338 (regarding ʿAmr’s taciturnity) above. 4  Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 9, 6f., where only the kunya Abū Ḥafṣ is noted (which might refer to someone different). 5  See vol. I 232f. above. 6  Faḍl 253, 8f. 7  Ibid. 253, 8f. 8  Ikmāl IV 532, 2 > Samʿānī, Ansāb VII 385, 5. 9  Unless we read Ismāʿīl b. Ibrāhīm (b. Muhājir) al-Bajalī (cf. Mīzān no. 827 etc.), but he was a Kufan. Or is he the same as the “Jahmite” Ismāʿīl b. Ibrāhīm al-Wāsiṭī (see p. 489 below). 10   Faḍl 253, 17ff. after Ibn Farzōya. 11  See p. 478f. below.

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rāwiya12 and seems to have been closely acquainted with him as well as Wāṣil. His reports of Wāṣil’s behaviour during Ḥasan al-Baṣrī’s lectures,13 i.e. on events that took place before 110/729, must have been based on hearsay. We are told that he transmitted not only from ʿAmr but also from Ḥasan b. Dhakwān, possibly a pupil of Wāṣil’s.14 There is no doubt that he was a Qadarite,15 which is expressed in his extant hadith, too.16 Some of his contemporaries resented this, Ḥammād b. Zayd (98/716–7 – 179/795) and Yazīd b. Zurayʿ forbidding their pupils to attend his lectures,17 while Abū Dāwūd refused to transmit from him because he had openly declared that he thought more highly of ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd than his “orthodox” opponents Ayyūb al-Sakhtiyānī, Yūnus b. ʿUbayd and ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAwn.18 Others are said to have taken care not to pray behind him, such as Hammām b. Yaḥyā al-ʿAwdhī (d. 164/781)19 or al-Ḥasan b. al-Rabīʿ al-Būrānī (d. 221/836), a Kufan who followed Ibn al-Mubārak.20 Still, it was impossible to deny that Ibn al-Mubārak as well as al-Ḥasan b. alRabīʿ transmitted from ʿAbd al-Wārith; al-Ḥasan presumably having come all the way from Kufa. Claiming that he preserved a deliberate distance during the prayer sounds like evasive defence under the circumstances. This was indeed the dilemma: ʿAbd al-Wārith was a muḥaddith who could not very well be ignored as he possessed important records, e.g. of Muḥammad b. Juḥāda al-Kūfī (70/689–131/749),21 of ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Ṣuḥayb (d. 130/748),22 and even of Ayyūb al-Sakhtiyānī (d. 131/749).23 Clearly he had not limited himself to authorities 12   Faḍl 252, pu. > IM 42, 11; also Faḍl 343, 7f. 13  Ibid. 235, 4ff. 14  Kaʿbī 92, 8. He might have been his nephew (see p. 359 above). 15  Cf. e.g. Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif 512, 8ff., and 625m 13f.; al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī, Kifāya 125, 12; also Mīzān no. 5307; Suyūṭī, Tadrīb I 329, n., 3f. 16  Kaʿbī 98, 2. 17   Mīzān, loc. cit. 18  ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ III 99, 3ff. When rijāl works name Abū Dāwūd they usually mean the author of the Sunan. However, he was too young to have met ʿAbd al-Wārith, as he was not born until 202/817. Consequently we must ask whether this could be Abū Dāwūd alṬayālisī, the author of Musnad, who lived from 133/750–203/818, and in Basra at that (cf. GAS 1/97f.). 19  Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 145, 6f., but he seems to have been a Qadarite. 20  Fasawī, Maʿrifa II 263, 6f. = III 365, 8f. > TB XII 183, 7f.; regarding him cf. TH 458f. no. 467. AlḤasan b. al-Rabīʿ is the narrator speaking in the plural, thus including his fellow-students. 21  He nearly held a monopoly here (Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 248, 7, and 144, –5ff. no. 193); also Azmi, Studies 154). 22  Azmi 118. 23  He was, however, said to have recorded Ayyūb’s traditions after his death, i.e. from memory (Fasawī II 131, 10f.; Azmi 81). Cf. also Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 145, 3ff.

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presenting a Qadarite doctrine; after all, he had studied Quran recitation under the highly orthodox Abū ʿAmr Ibn al-ʿAlāʾ.24 Ibn Hishām used material of his to add to Ibn Isḥāq’s Sīra.25 Consequently many had a positive opinion of him, above all Ibn Saʿd.26 It was emphasised that unlike ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd he did not spread his own Qadarite “propaganda”,27 and he was quoted as saying that he only transmitted pro-Qadarite hadith in order to refute it later,28 or distancing himself clearly from iʿtizāl.29 He may have undergone a transformation some time during his life. ʿAlī Ibn al-Madīnī (d. 234/849), who met him in his old age, recorded that he did not observe a trace of all the objectionable tendencies of which he was usually accused;30 he was entirely focussed on Ayyūb alSakhtiyānī and Yūnus b. ʿUbayd and clearly led a frugal life.31 He had connections to Kufan jurists. Ibn Abī l-Wafāʾ listed him among the Ḥanafites,32 but he seems to have received traditions mainly from Ibn Shubruma.33 In hadith his son ʿAbd al-Ṣamad (d. 207/822–3) continued his tradition (regarding him TH 344 no. 328). Muḥammad b. ʿAmr al-Tannūrī, his grandson by his daughter who may have inherited the business, adopted his nisba al-Tannūrī (Samʿānī III 97, 14ff.). These two scholars were not the only ones to transfer their bond with Wāṣil onto ʿAmr; two sons of the dāʿī Ḥafṣ b. Sālim named Ḥusayn and ʿAmr, of whom we know nothing beyond the names, did the same.34 They appear in a list compiled by Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār35 which we follow throughout this chapter.

24  Ibn al-Jazarī, Ṭabaqāt al-qurrāʾ no. 1989. 25  Khoury in: La vie du Prophète 19. 26   V II2 44, 15; also Bukhārī III2 118 no. 1891; IAH III1 75 no. 386; TT VI 441ff. no. 923. 27  Fasawī II 263, 8f.; similar TT VI 443, 2. 28  Kaʿbī 98, 2. 29   T T 443, –4 and 11f. 30  Fasawī II 243, 12f. 31  Ibid. 242, ult. ff. The account sounds as if he had maintained a great household previously (cf. 243, 5ff.), which would be surprising in the case of a stove maker (if the nisba does indeed refer to him). 32   I AW I 334, no. 911. 33  Cf. the traditions in Wakīʿ III 46, 4f.; 48, 3f.; 49, 9f.; 71, 8f.; 125, 10f. 34   Faḍl 252, 10 > IM 42, 10 (which has Ḥasan instead of Ḥusayn). Regarding his father see p. 355f. above. 35   Faḍl 252, 10ff. > IM 42, 9ff.

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Ṣāliḥ b. ʿAmr b. Zayd may be identical with the Ṣāliḥ b. ʿAmr al-Uswārī of whom pseudo-Nāshiʾ says that like ʿAmr he supported the imāmat al-fāḍil.36 He is listed between ʿAmr and Abū l-Hudhayl together with whom he appears in an anecdote by Ibn Murtaḍā.37 However, if our assumption is true he would have been rather older than the latter.37a ʿUthmān b. al-Ḥakam al-Thaqafī was apparently an influential citizen of Basra with access to Hārūn al-Rashīd when the latter visited the city.38 He probably was a true Arab; after all, the governor of the city had been one of the Thaqīf at times.39 It is possible that he was included in the list only because he passed on information about ʿAmr.40 – Sufyān b. Ḥabīb al-Baṣrī (d. 182/789 at the age of 58) also came from a middle-class background. A cloth merchant (bazzāz) with Qadarite leanings41 he was the best authority for Saʿīd b. Abī ʿArūba’s traditions. He did not think much of the quṣṣāṣ originally.42 His links to the Qadariyya would later be forgotten, but it was remembered that he had transmitted “reprehensible hadiths”.43 – Two other persons, a certain Abū Ghassān, who may have played a part in the circle around Zayd b. ʿAlī,44 and

36   Uṣūl al-niḥal 51, 8 (Text XV 41, d). 37   Ṭab. 77, 14. 37a  In this case he could not have been ʿAmr b. Fāʾid al-Uswārī’s son, as assumed on p. 98 above. 38   Agh. X 48, 8ff., and XVIII 184, 13ff. 39  See p. 173 and 321 above. 40   Faḍl 226, 15ff. Regarding him also Jāḥiẓ, Bayān II 235, 1f., and Ḥayawān I 104, –6ff. 41  Kaʿbī 97, apu.; Faḍl 252, pu. f. > IM 42, 12. 42  Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 369, 8ff. 43   T T IV 107 no. 189; Ibn Saʿd mentions him without a comment (VII2 45, 20). 44  Thus at least if Strothmann’s assumption in: Der Islam 13/1923/5 is correct. In that case his nisba would have been al-Azdī, which is missing in Muʿtazilite sources. For the rest, we will have to decide between the readings Abū Ghassān (IM 42, 11) and Ibn Ghassān (Faḍl 252, apu.). None of the Basran traditionist bearing this kunya appear to be identical with him (cf. Dawlābī, Kunā II 76f.; TT XII 198 no. 914 and 917). Contrary to Strothmann’s claim it is not possible to document him as a pupil of Wāṣil’s.

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Abū ʿUmar Ḥafṣ b. al-ʿAwwām, also remain shadowy.45 It is not even certain whether they, like the others, were Basrans; Zayd b. ʿAlī found more followers in Kufa, but ʿAmr had pupils even from there, such as Abū l-ʿAbbās Muḥammad b. Ṣabīḥ, known as Ibn al-Sammāk (d. 183/799).46 As a client of the ʿIjl he came into contact with Kufan Shīʿites; he narrated of how in his youth he conveyed a request from Zurāra b. Aʿyān47 to Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq in Medina and learnt that the latter distanced himself from the former’s extreme expectations regarding his omniscience.48 He later went to Baghdad and seems to have had some connections to the Barmakids;49 Hārūn al-Rashīd is also said to have received him.50 This influence was clearly due to his fame preaching repentance; he held a majlis “for the people”,51 and Tawḥīdī gave him the sobriquet al-wāʿiẓ.52 As a consequence he also found his way into Abū Nuʿaym’s Ḥilya53 and Ibn al-Jawzī’s Ṣifat al-ṣafwa,54 where no Qadarite leanings are mentioned. Even Ibn Ḥanbal adopted his traditions;55 transmitter criticism presents an inconsistent verdict.56 It is noticeable that being a Kufan he had a high opinion of ʿUmar.57 Asceticism was probably his firmest link to ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd,58 and he composed a description of ʿAmr’s character.59 We are told that he went to battle with the Christians in the borderlands with Byzantium,60 but it is unlikely that he took part in the uprising against Manṣūr. 45   Faḍl 252, 11 > IM 42, 9f. (which has al-Qawwām instead of al-ʿAwwām); ibid. 242, 14ff. 46   Faḍl 252, apu. > IM 42, 11; in general TB V 368ff. no. 2895. 47  Regarding him see vol. I 373ff. above. 48  Fasawī II 671, ult. ff. 49   T B V 371, 15ff.; also 372, 7. Cf. also Abū Nuʿaym, Ḥilya VIII 209, 7ff. 50  Ibid. 372, 5ff.; also Ḥilya VIII 209, 7ff., and 211, 1ff. 51  Ibid. 373, 7. 52   Imtāʿ II 120, 10f.; instances of waʿẓ cf. Ḥilya VIII 205, 9ff. (in the sajʿ), and 206, 13ff. (a letter). 53  Cf. ibid. VIII 203ff. 54   I II 105ff. 55   I AH III2 290 no. 1573; TB V 369, 5. 56  Cf. Mīzān no. 7696. Abū Nuʿaym collected a number of his gharīb hadiths (e.g. concerning the rafʿ al-yadayn; see p. 599ff. below) each of which was transmitted by one authority only (VIII 213, –7ff.). 57   Ḥilya VIII 211, 11ff. 58  Cf. e.g. TB V 370, 3f.; also Ḥilya VIII 204, 15ff. and the hadith against wealth ibid. 212, –7ff. 59  See p. 337 above. 60  Cf. his account in Ḥilya VIII 207, 17.

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Ṭalḥa b. Zayd, the last man on the Qāḍī’s list, probably came from the Jazira. He may be identical with Ṭalḥa b. Zayd al-Qurashī, a Damascene who settled in the village of Wāsiṭ near Raqqa,61 who is found with the nisba al-Raqqī elsewhere.62 His Syrian origins and his connection with the Quraysh (whose mawlā he probably was) explain that he spread “ʿUthmānite” hadith.63 This would have found favour in ʿUthmānite Basra, too, especially as there were already other Syrians living there, such as the “Ghaylānite” Muḥammad b. Rāshid al-Khuzāʿī who had fled from Marwān.64 But we do not know if Ṭalḥa ever went to Basra. His hadith was disliked, but the experts give no reasons.65 It is certain that he was not afraid to include Qadarites in his isnāds, transmitting from al-Waḍīn b. ʿAṭāʾ,66 from Thawr b. Yazīd and, via Awzāʿī, from Yaḥyā b. Abī Kathīr and Ḥassān b. ʿAṭiyya.67 Might he be the same as the Ṭalḥa b. Yazīd whom Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār mentions in a different context68 as a Syrian Qadarite? 2.2.6.3.2.2 The “Muʿtazilites” of the Uprising of AH 145

Al-Nafs al-zakiyya was well-liked among the scholars of both urban centres in Iraq; different denominations were irrelevant. Abū Ḥanīfa and Aʿmash in Kufa displayed a more or less active interest,1 as did the predestinarian Shuʿba in Basra from whom ʿAbd al-Wārith b. Saʿīd reported having heard words of encouragement.2 When Ibrāhīm b. ʿAbdallāh was preparing the uprising in Iraq at his brother’s request, he acquired a significant sum of money in Basra with 61  Regarding this place cf. Yāqūt, Muʿjam al-buldān V 352 s. n. It certainly does not refer to the well-known Wāsiṭ; Ṭalḥa is not even mentioned in Baḥshal’s Ta‌ʾrīkh Wāsiṭ. 62  Cf. Abū ʿAlī al-Qushayrī, Ta‌ʾrīkh Raqqa 110, –6ff., and TTD VII 65, 1ff. (with the kunya Abū Miskīn); IAH II1 479 no. 2102 (with the kunya Abū Muḥammad); Ibn Ḥibbān, Majrūḥīn I 383f.; Mīzān no. 4000 (after him). 63  Ibn Ḥibbān I 383, –4ff. 64  See vol. I 122f. above. 65  Cf. also ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ II 225f. no. 770; Bukhārī II2 351 no. 3105; Nasāʾī, Ḍuʿafāʾ 2137f. no. 316; TT V 15f. no. 28. 66  Dāraquṭnī, Ḍuʿafāʾ 331 no. 304. 67  Bukhārī, loc.  cit.; Ta‌ʾrīkh Raqqa, loc. cit. Regarding those mentioned cf. vol. I 92f., 102f. and 131ff. above, and 750f. below. 68   Faḍl 339, 15 > IM 136, 6. 1  See vol. I 214f. and 273 above. 2  ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ III 100. 1ff.; cf. the list of “sympathisers” in Azdī, Ta‌ʾrīkh al-Mawṣil 188, 12ff., and van Arendonk, Opkomst 287ff.

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which he was able to recruit soldiers.3 However, most of them were paramilitaries4 whose enthusiasm outweighed their experience, dooming the enterprise from the start.5 Most of the Muʿtazilites who joined him were also not professional soldiers. Their leader, Bashīr al-Raḥḥāl, wore a woollen cuirass6 of the kind that would later be the uniform of citizens’ militias.7 It was also a sign of asceticism, which may be why it was also reported of Ibrāhīm b. ʿAbdallāh,8 as the political agenda of the group – little though we know of it – was leaning towards social criticism rather than embracing the needs of the ʿAlids; after all ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd had been an ʿUthmānite. Nowhere do we find an indication that Muḥammad b. ʿAbdallāh was recognised as the mahdī, let alone that people thought in eschatological terms.9 In all probability the objective was to help the ideal caliph – who furthermore took precedence over al-Manṣūr where the pledge of allegiance was concerned – to the throne. It is interesting that ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAwn, who had no liking for ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd’s Qadarite ideas at all,10 was accused by some Muʿtazilites of having opposed Ibrāhīm b. ʿAbdallāh’s propaganda.11 He probably saw the revolt as a renewed flare-up of that same Qadarite extremism to which Walīd II had already fallen victim. If we can believe Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār the “elite of the Muʿtazila” (wujūh alMuʿtazila) joined Ibrāhīm;12 they were the core of his force and “fell before his very eyes”.13 This would mean that after ʿAmr’s death the mood changed in the leading ranks, but we do not know whether this was indeed the case. However, it seems that participating in the uprising had touched on the Muʿtazilia’s self-image, as many of the active fighters, at least those who are mentioned by name, were given the sobriquet al-Muʿtazil(ī) conveying the impression that the term had found its true meaning just there. When denoting the theological

3  Lassner, Shaping 85, and 267, n. 83. 4  rijāl ʿurāt; Ṭabarī III 312, 12. 5  Regarding the course of the uprising cf. Lassner, ibid. 81ff.; Kennedy, Abbasid Caliphate 67ff. The events leading up to the uprising according to Ṭabarī’s account may now be read comfortably in F.-Chr. Muth, Der Kalif al-Manṣūr. 6  Kaʿbī 117, 12ff. 7  See ch. C 2.4 below regarding Baghdad during the time following Amīn’s death; cf. also Taeschner, Zünfte und Bruderschaften 46. 8  Ṭabarī III 286, 9. 9  Cf. also Madelung, Qāsim 37 and 72. 10  See p. 416 below. 11   I S VII2 27, 4ff. 12   Faḍl 226, 19. 13  Ashʿarī, Maq. 79, 13f.

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standpoint, on the other hand, the term “Qadarites” or the phrase qāla bil-ʿadl might be used.14 The names discussed in the following were collected by Kaʿbī. Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār did not include them, which is why Ibn al-Murtaḍā did not preserve them, either. They had probably lost interest for later generations, as there were no theologians among them, and in the case of most it is not even possible to determine whether they were Muʿtazilites in a theological sense. The majority, if not all, are noble Arabs; it seems that the persons listed were mainly those who had come to prominence as military leaders, which makes us wonder whether Kaʿbī did not simply copy a list of Basran rebels. However, where the latter are mentioned by historians such as Ṭabarī, or in the Maqātil al-Ṭālibiyyīn, they appear in the company of others who do not feature on Kaʿbī’s list, which leads us to assume that they were distinguished by some particular characteristic, i.e. their connection with the “Muʿtazila”. In which case they would be an interesting instance of how far the Muʿtazila had succeeded in establishing itself among the tribes based in Basra. We do not have as much information on the mawālī who took part in the uprising as Muʿtazilites. However, the uncontested head of the group, Abū Muḥammad15 Bashīr al-Raḥḥāl, seems to have been one, like ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd before him. At the time of the uprising he was apparently no longer young; one report describes him as shaykh.16 He probably met Ḥasan al-Baṣrī,17 and was believed to have been present during the legendary visit Wāṣil and ʿAmr paid Muḥammad al-Bāqir according to Ibāḍite tradition.18 It was perhaps due to his age rather than his bravery that he became the leader of the militant Muʿtazila after ʿAmr’s death. He was said to have sworn to take revenge on Manṣūr after the latter had led him into the room where ʿAbdallāh b. al-Ḥasan, who had been imprisoned in Iraq since 141/758, lay dead.19 This may just be an explanation of why the movement abandoned the quietism espoused by ʿAmr, but it does confirm that Bashīr was seen as the 14  Cf. IM 127, 9ff., where Bashīr al-Raḥḥāl is listed among the zuhhād who qālū bil-ʿadl. 15  The kunya is found in Ṭabarī III 311, 8. 16  Abū l-Faraj, Maqātil 340, 12; he had a long beard. 17  Muwaffaq b. Aḥmad, Manāqib Abī Ḥanīfa II 103, pu. f. 18  Barqī, Maḥāsin 361, –5ff.; cf. also id., Rijāl 13, 8. See p. 288 above. 19  Ṭabarī III 185, 15ff.; Maqātil 227, 10ff. = Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Faḍl 226, 10ff. > IM 41, 10ff.; transl. in Nagel in: Der Islam 46/1970/239. The event should be dated to the year 144/762.

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man to take the initiative. He remained faithful to Ibrāhīm b. ʿAbdallāh to the end and was said to have held the head of the dead Ibrāhīm in his lap when he himself was killed.20 When it came to theology he, like ʿAmr, was still very much in the tradition of Ḥasan al-Baṣrī. He fasted excessively,21 he bore the sobriquet al-raḥḥāl because every year he would either go on the pilgrimage or join the border forces.22 His wearing a woollen cuirass and a sword with nine baldrics (ḥamāʾil) was said to be in imitation of ʿAmmār b. Yāsir,23 but he had probably always been a militant Sufi. He followed the code of honour of a lone fighter: he considered night-time attacks not to be soldierly; only thieves acted that way.24 He was originally opposed to fighting against fellow believers as the prophet, whose jihad he tried to emulate, had only fought mushrikūn.25 The situation under Manṣūr’s government made him forget this principle; his criticism of the rulers was so harsh that people were afraid of being arrested in his company.26 The caliph had not, in Bashīr’s view, brought justice;27 clearly Bashīr interpreted ʿadl mainly as a social and political postulate in this world rather than as a divine quality that determined the salvation of humans in the after­life. When there were prayers for rain during a draught, he thought this insufficient; after all, the famine had been caused by goods being distributed 20   Maqātil 347, 4; also Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 650, 10. 21  Cf. van Arendonk, Opkomst 288 after al-Nāṭiq bil-ḥaqq, Ifāda. Regarding his biography in further Zaydite works cf. R. Traini, Sources biographiques des Zaidites 59 no. 253. 22   Faḍl 227, 6f. > IM 41, 8f. Ibn al-Murtaḍā even names him a second time, as a “protoMuʿtazilite” among the ascetics (127, 11). 23  Kaʿbī 117, 12ff. > Nashwān 209, apu. ff. (the passage in Kaʿbī is in part anticipated ibid. 110, 5ff). 24   Maqātil 344, 7ff. Bedouins and Khārijites might also think this way (Jacob, Beduinenleben 130; p. 654 below); but it was certainly not the rule. Marwān II had already advised his son to dig a ditch around the camp in order to prevent night-time attacks (ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd b. Yaḥyā, Risāla ilā walī al-ʿahd 257, 3f. ʿAbbās/transl. Schönig 64f.). Cf. Jāḥiẓ’ deliberations in his K. al-ʿAsā where the story is treated as a Shuʿūbite topos (Bayān III 17, 7, and 19, 9ff.; also Norris in: CHAL II 40). 25  Ṭabarī III 311, 7ff. 26   Maqātil 340, –6ff. 27  Ibid. 341, 6ff., allegedly expressed in Muḥammad b. Sulaymān’s presence, a cousin of alManṣūr’s whose openness to paraenetic homilies had been noted. But it was he who, together with his brother Jaʿfar, began the resistance against Ibrāhīm b. ʿAbdallāh (Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 649, 11ff.). In a parallel in Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Faḍl 226, 6ff., Bashīr was given the opportunity of expressing his criticism to the caliph’s face.

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unfairly and the state not taking any steps to stop price rigging.28 This set a new priority. Usually, people knew, the quṣṣās merely talked and prayed, while Bashīr actually criticised how bad things had become.29 We learn here that he was regarded as a qāṣṣ, which agrees with his asceticism as well as the proserhyme style he sometimes employed.30 There were people who mocked him for moralising; he despaired of the tepidity of his contemporaries.31 But after the revolt had failed, a legend grew up around him: having been taken prisoner he was led before Manṣūr, and made a defiant comment before his execution. The same comment was also attributed to Ghaylān al-Dimashqī and – in Mosul – the martyr Maʿrūf b. Abī Maʿrūf. Azdī, Ta‌ʾrīkh al-Mawṣil 190, 6ff.; cf. 190, 10f., and ibid. 147, 10f., as well as Text I 1, u. If he had indeed been executed, he could of course not have been killed in the preceding battle, as other sources claim (see above). – Among the Zaydites he was considered a secret Shīʿite (cf. Musallam al-Lahjī, Sīrat al-Nāṣir li-dīn Allāh 5, pu. Madelung). Najāshī does name a later descendant of his (Rijāl 64, 13f.) who may have lived in Isfahan. F. Jadʿān presents a “portrait” of him (Al-miḥna 59ff.). His followers lost their lives or were dispersed. Some of them, several of his sons among them, were able to flee to the Maghreb and settle there, joining the Muʿtazilite communities that had existed there since the days of ʿAbdallāh b. al-Ḥārith.32 Iraqi tradition did not know any more details: the “Maghreb” was one large blank area. Ibrāhīm b. Numayla al-ʿAbshamī was thought to have been Ibrāhīm’s deputy (khalīfa) during the uprising and was given the title al-Kāmil due to his excellent qualities,33 but everything becomes rather less clear by adducing other sources. According to Ṭabarī III 301, 5, the Shīʿite pretender left his father Numayla b. Murra34 of the Abshams b.

28   Faḍl 226, pu. ff. 29  Cf. the parallel story Maqātil 340, 3ff. 30  Ibid. 339, –5f. 31  Ibid. 340, –8ff. 32   Faḍl 227, 8ff.; cf. p. 355 above. 33  Kaʿbī 118, 5f., in part after Jāḥiẓ. 34  Thus, not Ḥurra as F. Sayyid states (Faḍl 118, n. 355).

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Saʿd35 in Basra as his deputy,36 according to III 304, 12, together with another son named Ḥasan. Numayla was said to have been among the first to pay homage to Ibrāhīm b. ʿAbdallāh;37 he was the commander of his police force (shurṭa). However, later he would be said to have been one of Manṣūr’s confidants (ṣaḥāba),38 which makes it less surprising that Kaʿbī does not mention him. But then according to Kaʿbī the commander of Ibrāhīm’s police force in Basra was Muʿāwiya b. Ḥarb b. Qaṭan, not Numayla b. Murra. He was also believed to be versed in religious debate (kalām),39 but this is an isolated piece of information, and no other record of Muʿāwiya b. Ḥarb has been found. However, his younger brother (?) Muḥammad b. Ḥarb was also a prominent theologian; if our assumptions are correct he was an Ibāḍite, although he cooperated with the Abbasids, occupying the position of prefect of police on their behalf several times into the third century.40 Maybe Kaʿbī simply made a mistake. ʿAmr b. Shaddād took possession of the province of Fārs on Ibrāhīm’s behalf,41 presumably having been his follower since ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd’s day; he had hidden Ibrāhīm from the uprising in Madāʾin and was flogged for it.42 The force with which he conquered Fars was diminutive, allegedly numbering only 30 men. There cannot have been much resistance. Abū l-Faraj reported of his flight back to Basra after the uprising had failed;43 he was executed and crucified there in 156/773.44 There was a Kufan Shīʿite named Abū l-Ḥasan ʿUmar/ʿAmr b. Shaddād alAzdī (Ardabīlī, Jāmiʿ I 622f. and 635), but he is probably a different person.

35  Regarding the genealogy cf. Ibn Ḥazm, Jamhara 215, ult. Ṭabarī III 261, 9f. counts Numayla among the Banū Saʿd because of this; in Jāḥiẓ’ Bukhalāʾ 151, 12 he has the nisba al-Saʿdī. 36  Cf. also Fasawī, Maʿrifa I 126, ult. f. 37   Maqātil 318, –5. 38  Ibn Ḥazm, Jamhara 216, 1f.; Caskel, Jamharat al-nasab II 450. 39   Maq. 118, 8f. 40  In more detail ch. C 5.3 below. 41  Kaʿbī 119, 8; Ṭabarī III 301, 7ff. with further details. 42  Ṭabarī III 287, 4ff. 43   Maqātil 330, 6ff. 44  Ṭabarī III 377, 15ff.

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Al-Maḍāʾ b. al-Qāsim al-Taghlibī al-Jazarī was Ibrāhīm’s general and at the same time khaṭīb; he commanded the vanguard of his forces.45 He was the one calling for a night-time attack who was then stopped by Bashīr al-Raḥḥāl or, in another version, by Ibrāhīm himself.46 ʿAbdallāh b. Khālid b. ʿUbaydallāh al-Jadalī was Ibrāhīm’s standard-bearer.47 His nisba al-Jadalī probably does not refer to dialectical skills but to membership of the Banū Jadīla.48 ʿĀṣim b. ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb al-ʿAnbarī was a member of Ibrāhīm’s cavalry.49 The editor of the Kaʿbī text would like to change the name to ʿĀṣim b. ʿUbaydallāh b. ʿĀṣim b. ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb al-ʿAdawī, as the name listed by Kaʿbī does not occur anywhere else. But ʿĀṣim b. ʿUbaydallāh, ʿUmar’s grandson, had already died at the beginning of the Abbasid era.50 There was also a great-grandson, named ʿĀṣim b. ʿUmar b. Ḥafṣ b. ʿĀṣim b. al-Khaṭṭāb, who would fit better. He was a traditionist, but not a very respected one;51 furthermore, we do not know if he ever left the Hijaz where the family continued to live.52 The nisba given in the text, al-ʿAnbarī, would also have to be changed, the form al-ʿAdawī being one possible option, but it does not seem to have been used for ʿĀṣim b. ʿUmar at all. Ardabīlī calls him al-Madanī.53

45  Kaʿbī 118, 6f. 46   Maqātil 344, 7, and Ṭabarī 312, 10ff.; more instances cf. Maqātil 319, 5; 323, 8f.; 324, 1ff.; Ṭabarī III 290, 11f.; 300, 8. 47  Kaʿbī 118, pu. 48  Cf. Samʿānī, Ansāb III 217f. s. n. 49  Kaʿbī 119, 2. 50  ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ III 334, 8. 51  Regarding him Ibn Ḥazm, Jamhara 155, 9; ʿUqaylī III 335f. no. 1537. 52  Cf. Zubayrī, Nasab Quraysh 362, 7ff. 53   Jāmiʿ I 426b.

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Mughīra b. al-Fazʿ al-ʿAbshamī al-Saʿdī famous for his strength and courage,54 was one of the Arab fityān who swore loyalty to Ibrāhīm.55 Ibrāhīm sent him to Ahwāz to seize power there.56 When he was caught after the uprising, Asad b. Marzubān al-Fāryābī, a high-ranking Iranian who commanded Manṣūr’s army, had him executed and crucified in Basra. Ibn al-Ḥabīb, Muḥabbar 487, 6f.; also Dhahabī, Mushtabih 508, 7 (after Ibn Mākūlā). I am following Dhahabī’s form of the name; it is the same as in the edition of Ṭabarī (III 290, 5). The majority of records has alFizr, while Kaʿbī and the Ṭabarī MSS reads al-Faraʿ (118, ult.), Ibn al-Ḥabīb al-Qaraʿ. In the case of al-Fizr we must bear in mind that this was a sobriquet of the Saʿd b. Zaydmanāt, a tribal group of which the ʿAbshams were also members (Ibn Durayd, Ishtiqāq 245, 2ff. and pu.; also Caskel, Jamhara II 497). ʿAwn b. Mālik b. Mismaʿ al-Mismaʿī was a true Arab as well.57 The governor Muḥammad b. Sulaymān had his house in Basra destroyed and his palm trees made unfruitful in 146/763.58 – In the case of al-Haytham al-Ṭuhawī the reading of the nisba is not quite clear; the edition has al-Ṣ-h-wī.59 The correction is based on the fact that in Khalīfa b. Khayyāṭ’s text a certain Ibrāhīm alṬuhawī is named as a follower of Ibrāhīm b. ʿAbdallāh and militant opponent

54  Regarding his heroic deeds cf. Jāḥiẓ, Burṣān 244, 9ff. (which has him cleaving an enemy in two); also Maqātil 327, 8ff. In his K. fakhr al-sūdān ʿalā l-bīḍān Jāḥiẓ mentions a black man named Kaʿbōya from the Yāsir clan who was his servant and also a man of exemplary courage (Rasāʾil I 193, 4). 55  Ṭabarī III 290, 5; also Maqātil 318, pu. 56   Maqātil 324, –4ff., and Ṭabarī III 301, 1ff. (following the same source). 57  Ibn Ḥazm, Jamhara 321, 1f.; Kaʿbī 119, 6. 58  Cf. Ṭabarī III 327, 5 and 14. He treated the house of Hārūn b. Saʿd al-ʿIjlī in the same fashion (Maqātil 360, 11); regarding him see vol. I 292 above. Regarding the Mismaʿī family see ch. C 4.2.4.3 below. 59  Kaʿbī 119, 4f.

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of the Abbasids,60 probably the same Ṭuhawī found in his company several times in Ṭabarī’s version.61 His clan was descended from Ṭuhayya, the daughter of ʿAbshams b. Saʿd;62 consequently he was a distant connection of the two ʿAbshamī mentioned above. Burd b. Labīd al-Yashkurī commanded the left wing of Ibrāhīm’s army.63 The Banū l-Mustawrid b. ʿAmr b. ʿAbbād apparently were an entire clan; Burd b. Labīd as well as ʿAmr b. ʿAbbād were members of the Yashkur.64 They were deployed as archers.65 Sufyān b. Ḥayyān b. Mūsā al-ʿAmmī, a member of the Banū l-ʿAmm,66 had Manṣūr kit him out for the fight against Ibrāhīm, and then defected to the latter.67 In Kaʿbī’s version his name is incomplete.68 ʿAbd al-Wāḥid b. Ziyād al-ʿAtakī appears in Kaʿbī 119, 5f., under the name ʿAbd al-Raḥmān. The correction is due to Ibn Ḥazm.69 ʿAbd al-Wāḥid b. Ziyād, a grandson of Muhallab’s and through the latter a member of the ʿAtīk b. al-Azd, took part in the uprising together with his son ʿAtīk and died during it. His house was destroyed.70 He had been among the first to pay homage to Ibrāhīm,71 although a decade and a half ear-

60   Ta‌ʾrīkh 650, 1. 61   I II 290, 12, and 291, 2; according to 302, 13 he came from Basra. 62  Ibn Ḥazm, Jamhara 209, 9f. 63   Maqātil 343, 11; named in Kaʿbī 119, 4, and Ṭabarī III 290, 11. 64  Ibn Ḥazm, Jamhara 209, 9f. 65  Kaʿbī 119, 7f. 66  Regarding them see p. 251 above. 67  Ṭabarī III 285, 12ff. 68   Maq. 119, 3. 69   Jamhara 370, 2ff. 70  Ṭabarī III 327, 14. 71  Ibid. III 290, 3; also Maqātil 318, –4.

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lier he had supported the Abbasids in their revolution.72 He is probably distinct from the traditionist ʿAbd al-Wāḥid b. Ziyād al-Thaqafī who died only in 177/793.73 al-Ḥawārī b. Ziyād b. ʿAmr al-ʿAtakī74 does not appear to have been a brother of the preceding one, but they were related.75 He had fallen out with Yazīd b. al-Muhallab and played a part in his murder in 102/721.76 Hadith was transmitted from him, too.77 – About ʿAbd al-Aʿlā b. Abī Ḥāḍir we really only know that his son Bakr was familiar with ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd’s circle.78 If he was ʿĪsā b. Ḥāḍir’s uncle,79 he was probably a member of the Basran bourgeoisie. Zāʾida b. al-Murqil, Ḥamal b. ʿUbaydallāh al-Sadūsī and Muḥammad b. Ribāṭ al-ʿAqīmī remain mere names to us.80 – Furthermore there were Qadarites supporting Ibrāhīm’s cause who were not necessarily Muʿtazilites. This may be true of al-Azraq b. Tamma al-Ṣarīmī, whom Abū l-Faraj names as a pupil of ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd’s,81 and whom Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār does not mention. It is even clearer in the case of Abū Salama ʿAbbād b. Manṣūr al-Nājī, whom Ibrāhīm appointed qāḍī. He was not only a Qadarite82 but, in the eyes of some people, a dāʿiya.83 He originated the report that Ubayy b. Kaʿb had convinced ʿAbdallāh b. Masʿūd to distance himself from the well-known hadith according to which a condemned person is condemned already in his mother’s 72  Balādhurī, Ansāb III 175, apu. Dūrī. 73  Regarding him IS VII2 44, 11ff.; Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif 513, 12ff.; TT VI 434 no. 912 etc.; also p. 113, n. 27 above. Van Arendonk believed them to be the same person. 74  Kaʿbī 119, 5. 75  Cf. Ibn Ḥazm, Jamhara 371, 1, with the variant in the notes. 76  Ṭabarī II 1387, 17ff., and 1405, ult. ff. 77   Mīzān no. 2377. 78  Kaʿbī 119, 7, and Faḍl 252, apu. > IM 42, 10. 79  Regarding him see p. 361 above. 80  Kaʿbī 119, 6f. and 1. Kaʿbī explains that the latter’s nisba was because he was a eunuch. 81   Maqātil 381, 7f. 82  Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif 625, 13; ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ III 134ff. no. 1119; Mīzān no. 4141. 83   T T V 105, 2.

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womb.84 All the same, the Muʿtazila never claimed him as their own; Kaʿbī, who does mention him, does not do it, either.85 Like Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār and Ibn al-Murtaḍā he only named him among the “proto-Muʿtazilites”, most of whom were Qadarites.86 ʿAbbād probably had no need to join the movement. He was a true Arab,87 possessed of great prestige. Yazīd III had appointed him qāḍī, and he had retained this office in the difficult times before as well as in the first years after the revolution, with a few interruptions.88 In the last days of Umayyad rule he and ʿUthmān al-Battī had represented the city in negotiations with the warring parties.89 He was side-lined under Manṣūr, which explains why Ibrāhīm b. ʿAbdallāh appointed him as qāḍī again. Kaʿbī presents the event in such a way as if the population of Basra had elected him,90 but elsewhere we read that Ibrāhīm called on him only after another candidate had fallen ill.91 After the failure of the uprising he went into hiding until Manṣūr promised him amnesty.92 He died in 152/769.93 2.2.6.4 The Origin of the Name Muʿtazila We have stated above that the sobriquet given by the sources to the Muʿtazilite participants in the uprising was simply al-muʿtazil in some cases, rather than al-Muʿtazilī. This tells us that they were not merely followers of a movement called Muʿtazila since the previous generation, but became Muʿtazilites through their activity or their views. This observation alone would detract from the credibility of the well-known foundation legend according to which Wāṣil “separated himself” (iʿtazala) from Ḥasan al-Baṣrī’s ḥalqa, or Ḥasan 84  Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 310, no. 2019; ʿUqaylī III 134, ult. ff.; garbled TT V 104, –5ff. 85  P. 118, –5ff. 86  Kaʿbī 92, 13ff. > Faḍl 342, 2 > IM 137, 15. 87   Ibn Ḥazm, Jamhara 174, 1ff., which also confirms the reading of the nisba as al-Nājī; also Kaʿbī 92, 13, and indirectly Ibn Ḥajar, Tabṣīr al-muntabih 117, –4ff., which emphasises the connection with the Banū Nājiya in Basra. TT V 103, –4 reads al-Bājī, while another passage in Kaʿbī has, presumably just as unjustified, al-Shāmī. 88   Wakīʿ, Akhbār al-quḍāt II 43, –8ff. after an account by Abū ʿUbayda. Ṭabarī documents him as qāḍī of Basra for the years 130, 131, 133, 134, 134, 136 and 145 (II 2017, 19f.; III 11, 16; 75, 6; 81, 10; 84, 4; 91, 17; 319, 3). Cf. also Balādhurī III 91, 4ff.; also D. Sourdel in: Arabica 2/1955/112f. 89  Balādhurī III 174, –5f. 90  118, 10f. 91   Maqātil 372, 3ff. 92  Ibid. 93  Cf. also van Arendonk, Opkomst 289. – Regarding the Qadarite ʿImrān b. Dāwar al-Qaṭṭān, who supported Ibrāhīm b. ʿAbdallāh with a fatwā, see p. 250 above.

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reported that he did so. It was recorded by Shahrastānī,1 which is why it became widely quoted in the older secondary sources. Islamic literature cites it to this day; after all, even a Muʿtazilite like Ibn al-Murtaḍā adopted it.2 Once we go back beyond Shahrastānī, tradition becomes confused. He probably relied on Baghdādī3 who, however seems to imply that iʿtizāl had been explained in a different way in the past, namely with reference to the doctrine of the manzila bayna l-mazilatayn.4 This was the Muʿtazilite interpretation. Kaʿbī was the first to state it explicitly: the Muʿtazila “separated itself” from the extremes developed among Khārijites and Murjiʾites,5 an interpretation based on the way in which Kaʿbī’s teacher Khayyāṭ explained the intermediate status,6 albeit simplified in characteristic fashion: Ḥasan’s munāfiq theory, which Khayyāṭ presented as a third variant, was mentioned only afterwards, as there was no real intention to “separate” from Ḥasan. In fact Khayyāṭ’s tripartite model had been used by Ibn al-Rēwandī before him7 and is consequently certainly more original. It is noticeable that he did not take the opportunity of attacking the name Muʿtazila, mentioning only that the Muʿtazila “revoked the consensus”, which leads us to conclude that Kaʿbī’s explanation was not yet the prevailing one. Khayyāṭ does not seem to have known it, either. Ibn al-Rēwandī and Khayyāṭ were writing in Baghdad, where Muʿtazilites may still have known that the name had a different story. Writing his K. al-maqālāt in Balkh Kaʿbī had much more freedom, although it is worth noting that only one generation after Kaʿbī, Ashʿarī was embracing his interpretation in Basra.8 It took hold everywhere in the Muʿtazila and was quoted by Ibn al-Nadīm after Kaʿbī directly;9 also by Muṭahhar b. Ṭāhir al-Maqdisī,10 and by Masʿūdī.11

1  Milal 33, 7ff./68, 3ff. 2  Ṭab. 3, 4ff. Later literature sometimes claims, more radically, that Ḥasan “drove Wāṣil out” of his circle (Yāqūt, Irshād VII 224, 12ff. > IKh VI 8, 11f. etc.). 3  Farq 98, 9ff./118, –5ff. 4  Thus in the parallel passage Farq 15, 6ff./20, 5ff. 5  Maq. 115, 1ff.; cf. also Abū Hilāl al-ʿAskarī, Awāʾil II 134, apu. ff. 6  See p. 298f. above. 7  Text IX 6, a–e. 8  Lumaʿ § 184/transl. McCarthy 105, with the nuance characteristic of him that Wāṣil “separated himself” from the entire community with his doctrine. 9  And not Khayyāṭ or another early author (Fihrist 201, 9ff.). 10   Badʾ V 142, 6ff. 11   Murūj VI 22, 6ff./IV 59, § 2256; also VII 234, 3f./v 22,13f.

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In another place, however, Kaʿbī stated that his explanation did not match the self-image of his own generation: “Iʿtizāl is the doctrine of the intermediate status. Nowadays, however, it (sc.: the name “Muʿtazilite”) is the hallmark of those who embrace the profession of unity and (God’s) justice, and do not believe in any of the doctrines that revoke loyalty and commit people to hostility. (The name “Muʿtazilite”) has left those who deny the profession of unity and (God’s) justice, even though they teach the intermediate status. It is well-known that Ḍirār and his followers do just that . . .” (Maq. 75, 1ff.). Mufīd rejected this restriction;12 a Shīʿite who believed in the manzila he was himself in danger of being excluded by the Muʿtazilites. But the dilemma was clear: Ḍirār was considered to be a heretic, although he had written about the intermediate status and thus was more Muʿtazilite that most later theologians who had become increasingly indifferent to the subject.13 In Qāḍī ʿAbd alJabbār’s view, Kaʿbī’s interpretation was consequently one among several, and he did not take up arms on its behalf.14 In Ibn Yazdādh’s K. al-maṣābīḥ he found something he liked better: the Muʿtazila “separated itself” from every kind of excess and neglect: they were the “people of the middle” par excellence.15 Ibn Yazdādh also stated that iʿtazala is found in the Quran, with a positive meaning as in “to keep oneself separate from evil”.16 The same meaning occurs in hadith, and by that time the Muʿtazila had nothing against hadith any more.17 It was noted in particular that in a variant of the well-known saying of the 72 sects the Muʿtazila was named as the one “winning salvation” (al-firqa al-nājiya). When Sufyān al-Thawrī transmitted the saying he was said to have wished to claim the name for himself, but then found out that ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd had already laid claim to it; this was believed to have been the reason why he always omitted the word from the saying and – we can add – why an expurgated version became the accepted one among traditionists.18 ʿUthmān al-Ṭawīl had been said

12   Awāʾil al-maqālāt 37, 1ff./transl. Sourdel 252. 13  See ch. C 1.3.1 below. 14   Faḍl 166, –8ff.: wa-qad qīla. 15   Faḍl 165, apu.; in the same sense already in Jāḥiẓ’ Risāla fī l-ḥakamayn (cf. the transl. in Nagel, Rechtleitung 381f.). 16  Ibid. 165, –7ff. > Ḥākim al-Jushamī, Sharḥ ʿUyūn al-masāʾil, MS Leiden, Or. 2584a, fol. 48b, –7ff. > IM 2, 6ff.: after sura 19:48 and 18:16. 17  Ibid. 166, 1f. 18  Ibid. 166, 3ff. > IM 2, 10ff.; also Ibn Mattōya, Muḥīṭ I 422, apu. ff. ʿAzmī/443, 17ff. Houben.

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to have quoted this hadith when Qatāda accused him of having defected to “those Muʿtazilites there”.19 These are presumably apocryphal stories; Sufyān al-Thawrī lived too late to have been quite so uninformed, and in Qatāda’s day, i.e. before 117/735, ʿUthmān al-Ṭawīl is unlikely to have already had a voice. But the hadith on which both the stories focus takes us back to an era when neither Kaʿbī’s explanation nor Shahrastānī’s legend had been formulated, and we shall also meet Qatāda again in this context. For while Shahrastānī’s legend is a late invention, the best proof being that Ashʿarī relied on Kaʿbī’s interpretation, we do know its earlier versions. Ibn Qutayba, half a century before Ashʿarī, linked it to ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd rather than Wāṣil, and to the doctrine of free will rather than the intermediate state; ʿAmr the Qadarite was said to have “separated himself” from Ḥasan.20 In the end, Ḥasan, too, turns out to have been a secondary motif in the story. The Muʿtazilite Abū Bakr Ibn al-Ikhshīd, a contemporary of Kaʿbī’s,21 had pointed this out already. He did not believe, he said, that the name Muʿtazila had already been linked to his school during Ḥasan’s lifetime, but rather that ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd “separated himself” from Qatāda when he became Ḥasan’s successor.22 Sharīf al-Murtaḍā knew this story, too: ʿAmr and Qatāda did not get on very well,23 Qatāda asking ironically afterwards “What are the loners (al-muʿtazila) up to?”24 The Ḥasan tradition was thus an invention of the Muʿtazila’s opponents. Its original objective was to show that Ḥasan was no Qadarite and excluded ʿAmr for that reason. Over time the Qadarites would become Muʿtazilites in the tradition, and as a consequence ʿAmr became Wāṣil b. ʿAṭāʾ, and with Wāṣil the doctrine of the intermediate status was added to the story as well. This development relied on a Muʿtazilite explanation of the word iʿtizāl evolved by Kaʿbī. In the legend, too, the doctrine of the intermediate status was still the cause of Wāṣil’s iʿtizāl, but not the iʿtizāl itself. Instead of describing a doctrine leading to a consequence, “separating oneself” now described a concrete situation that was itself the consequence. Muʿtazilite tradition also reported a concrete situation, but with reference to Qatāda rather than Ḥasan al-Basri.25 And as the 19  Ibid. 166, 9ff. > IM 4, 13ff.; Ḥākim al-Jushamī 49 a, 7ff. 20   Maʿārif 483, 4f.; thus also Ḥuṣrī, Zahr al-ādāb I 111, ult. 21  Regarding him EI2 III 807 s. n. 22  Quoted in Ibn al-Nadīm, Fihrist 201, –8ff. 23  Cf. p. 339 above. 24   Amālī I 167, 5ff., as anonymous tradition; cf. similar in Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 101, no. 607. 25  A conflated version is found in Ibn Mattōya, Muḥīṭ I 442, –6f. ʿAzmī/443, 14ff. Houben (to be corrected in accordance with ʿAzmī). Later this did not require Qatāda any more, either, and traced ʿAmr’s iʿtizāl back to his discussion with Wāṣil (Text IX 2, 1).

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narrators of the story were now Muʿtazilites, the story took on a positive tone; even coming from Qatāda, “loners” cannot really have been meant derogatory. According to Abū Hilāl al-ʿAskarī the Muʿtazilites were the only ones who were happy with their nickname.26 Could this perhaps be linked to the fact that the name muʿtazila was not actually Qatāda’s invention but originated in the hadith that ʿUthmān al-Ṭawīl allegedly quoted at him? But then what did the word mean there? The answer would be easy if we could assume that the Muʿtazila simply invented this hadith together with the associated stories, but this is not very probable. The stories presume that the hadith was already in existence, and the Muʿtazilites were not among those who simply concocted hadiths for their own ends; they only used them in the dialectical counter-move, the muʿāraḍa. Most importantly, there had been muʿtazilūn long before Wāṣil and ʿAmr at the time of the first civil war, when the differences between warring factions were reflected in apocryphal prophetic dicta in an entirely straightforward fashion. Nallino was the first to collect all the relevant documents27 relating to those who were neutral at the time and “separated themselves” from all their fellowbelievers who raised arms against one another. These are the muʿtazila of the hadith;28 lower-case muʿtazila as it was not yet a party or a school but simply a second plural form of muʿtazil, besides muʿtazilūn. Wāṣil and his followers referred to them. However, much time had passed since the first civil war. Some early sources still point to the connection,29 but simplify the historical development too much. We need to define more clearly how Wāṣil and his followers understood iʿtizāl: certainly not only as a theoretical position in accordance with the doctrine of intermediate status. The muʿtazila of the first civil war had not been theoreticians, and the muʿtazila of 145 even less. Wāṣil’s Muʿtazila was active in the years of anarchy before the Abbasid revolution, taking not only a theological but also a historical decision, although it did not necessarily share the political activism of the people around Bashīr al-Raḥḥāl. By 145 the name had become a fixed predicate that did not necessarily describe one’s personal views 26   Awāʾil II 135, 1f. 27  In: RSO 7/1916/429ff. = Raccolta II 146ff. Further material in my K. an-Nakṯ 121f.; Nuʿmān al-Qāḍī, Al-firaq al-islāmiyya 296ff. and 535ff.; Bāqir ʿAbd al-Ghanī, Shiʿr al-iʿtizāl al-siyāsī fī l-ʿaṣr al-umawī, in: Maj. Kulliyyat al-Ādāb Baghdād 9/1967/56ff.; Sayed, Ibn al-Ashʿath 305ff.; Morony, Iraq 478ff. 28  Cf. also HT 135f. 29  Thus Pseudo-Nāshiʾ, i.e. presumably Jaʿfar b. Ḥarb (Uṣūl al-niḥal 17, 4ff.), and Malaṭī (Tanbīh 28, 20ff./36, 4ff.).

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any more. After 126, as in the first civil war, iʿtizāl referred to iʿtizāl al-fitan, political neutrality in a world of competing claims to power. As is well known, Nyberg believed that in reality the Muʿtazilites’ political neutrality played into the hands of the Abbasids,30 but this theory, which exerted considerable influence for some time, has been rejected nearly unanimously over recent decades.31 And it does indeed culminate in a contradiction in terms: the Muʿtazila “separated itself” from every political party; Manṣūr was said to have reminded ʿAmr of this later.32 Of course this decision affected those in power first: the Umayyads; but it was also true of the Abbasids and of ʿAbdallāh b. al-Ḥasan and his two sons. A hadith circulating in Syria called to iʿtizāl against the Quraysh in general as they were ruining the commonwealth (umma).33 This pessimism may have been expressed occasionally during Hishām’s time, when Ghaylān al-Dimashqī was executed, but it flared up only after Yazīd III’s death; after all, ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd had still spoken up for him. Distance from the authorities also moved the muʿtazila closer to moderate Khārijites. Among the Ibāḍites iʿtazala would later mean “to withdraw one’s allegiance from the imam”,34 the original meaning being presumably “to keep away, leave the community”.35 This, in fact, had always been the meaning: not to take part in a call to blood feud,36 and later, not to go to the mosque, not to take part in Friday prayers.37 This probably gave Wāṣil the idea of copying the Ibāḍite model of ḥamalat al-ʿilm; it would also explain the attempts by some contemporaries as well as later heresiographers to link him with the 30   E I1 III 851 s.v. Muʿtazila; adopted in HW 557. 31  Cf. Cahen in: Revue historique 230/1963/322f.; Watt, Islamic Philosophy and Theology 61, subsequently also in Festschrift Meier 306 and in Formative Period 214f.; Madelung, Qāsim 23ff.; Farūq ʿUmar, Buḥūth fī l-ta‌ʾrīkh al-ʿabbāsī 72ff.; Pellat in: Festschrift Wickens 25. The oldest critical approach was by Fück in a lecture given before the Sächsische Akademie der Wissenschaften in 1953, but not published until 1981 (Arab. Kultur und Islam im Mittelalter 243ff.). 32  See p. 334f. above. 33  Qushayrī, Ta‌ʾrīkh Raqqa 74, 4ff. 34  Thus Abū l-Muʾaththir al-Ṣalt b. Khamīs, an Omani author of the third century (regarding him see p. 798 below); cf. Al-siyar wal-jawābāt I 81, –5ff. and 84, 4 and apu. ff. 35  The transitive meaning “to withdraw allegiance” was also expressed by form I (ʿazala = “to separate”; ibid.). 36  Cf. Agh. V 46, 3f., and 48, 4f. regarding the Basūs war; Masʿūdī, Tanbīh 207, 16f. In more detail in Tabrīzī’s Ḥamāsa commentary 251, 12ff., where we learn that the muʿtazil would render his weapons unusable and not leave his house. Cf. Sayed, Ibn al-Ashʿath 317. 37  Thus in hadith (Conc. IV 207b) or Ibn Saʿd (Ṭab. VI 191, 2ff.); see vol. I 117f. above regarding the Syrian Qadarite ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Thābit b. Thawbān, or 474 regarding the Khārijite Ismāʿīl b. Sumayʿ al-Ḥanafī.

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Khārijites.38 But as far as we know Wāṣil’s duʿāt did not preach rebellion, as that would have been contradictory to their principles; ʿAmr’s youth group was a purely civil self-help organisation. Only when clear public order returned under the Abbasids did all this become a problem. ʿAmr sat tight until the end of his life; if his Muʿtazilites kept separate from the community this was due only to the fact that they, like the Ibāḍites, had their own mosque in Basra.39 However, they had also from the first combined distance from the authorities with the call for social and political justice. In Basra this was exemplified by Ghaylān al-Dimashqī. ʿAmr did not stand aside; he interpreted ʿadl as qisṭ; but Bashīr al-Raḥḥāl drew revolutionary consequences, turning the asceticism to which the Muʿtazila had always felt a connection, militant. Thus far, but thus far only, we can follow Goldziher who described the Muʿtazilites as “withdrawing from the world, ascetics” in a late publication (in: Der Islam 8/1918/208f. = Ges. Schr. V 411f.). Schreiner had preceded him in his Studien über Jeshuʿa ben Jehuda in 1900 (p. 17f. = Ges. Schr. 516f.). Massignon took this much further, regarding iʿtizāl as a “solitude volontaire” of the heart (Passion2 III 189/Engl. transl. III 177). Goldziher’s theory was revived by S. Stroumsa in: JSAI 13/1990/265ff. Cf. also the examples in Morony, Iraq 449f. – Incidentally, the Pharisees are named almuʿtazila (cf. Acta Apostolorum 5. 34, Arab. transl., ed. H. Staal in: CSCO, vol. 462, p. 10, ult.; also Pines in: JSAI 9/1987/ 256 after the Arabic and the Persian diatessaron); perūshīm is sometimes interpreted as “those who keep themselves separate” in the Talmud (Pines in: JSAI 6/1985/158). Regarding hip̄ rīsh “to secede, to separate” as used by ʿAnan ben David and the Karaites cf. N. Wieder, Judaean Scrolls 161ff.; ʿAnan demanded the social and territorial separation of his community from those of different faiths (ibid. 153ff.). If, however, the name Muʿtazila should be interpreted mainly in the political sense there is no need to assume that Wāṣil and ʿAmr followed the same theological path from the first. People remembered that they had discovered common ground over time. They were both Qadarites, but Qadarites could work together in political commitment just as much as in theological conviction. Wāṣil’s speaking before ʿAbdallāh b. ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb may have been due to the governor’s wish, being the representative of a Qadarite caliph, to win the 38  See p. 308 above. The early Ibāḍites only ever called the Muʿtazilites Qadariyya; even ʿAbdallāh b. Yazīd (see vol. I 478ff. above). 39  See p. 444 below.

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Basran Qadariyya over to his cause. ʿAmr had let Wāṣil speak in his circle,40 and clearly the latter then spoke for this circle, although it seems that originally he did not belong there. The doctrine of the intermediate status was developed by him alone, aiming far beyond Basra. It is tempting to derive it from an earlier theology representing a compromise between ʿAlid and Medinan ideas. ʿAbdallāh b. Ḥasan had to mediate for the sake of his political aims, as Ḥasan b. Muḥammad b. al-Ḥanafiyya might have done in different circumstances: the mahdī had to bring not only justice, but unity as well. Still, it is not possible to prove this, even if there might have been a connection here. The political principle of iʿtizāl is another story. Wāṣil was no agent of al-Nafs al-zakiyya’s; otherwise he would not have needed to send a dāʿī to Medina. The Muʿtazila probably existed before Abwāʾ; otherwise Wāṣil would probably not have been present at the audience with ʿAbdallāh b. ʿUmar in 126. It was merely a convergence of interests that linked him to the Hijaz. When exactly the Muʿtazila itself came into being will have to remain unanswered. If it did happen during Qatāda’s lifetime, i.e. before 117/735, the name would mainly be due to ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd, as his youth organisation might already have been in existence at the time, although he had probably not been persuaded to follow Wāṣil’s theology. Indeed, the youth group may have been the cause of Qatāda’s displeasure. It is by no means certain that Wāṣil made use of this organisation, as his main interest was the mission outside Basra for which a few well-trained and motivated men were sufficient. These missionary activities were entirely associated with his person; the followers he recruited in the Maghreb were known as Wāṣiliyya rather than Muʿtazila. We do not know when he established his network of agents. While Ṭabarī reported that as early as Hishām’s day Iraqi duʿāt appeared in the Maghreb,41 these were probably not yet Muʿtazilites but Ṣufrites and Ibāḍites.42 In any case, ʿAmr’s Muʿtazila was fundamentally independent of this. In its case, if indeed it did bear this name, we would need a motive for political iʿtizāl only. Should we assume that ʿAmr’s circle was already “separating itself” from the Quraysh before 117/735, influenced by Ghaylān’s execution which, as we have seen,43 most probably took place around 114/732? We will probably never be able to go beyond hypotheses at this point.

40  ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ III 282, apu. ff., and 285, 10ff. 41  Ṭabarī I 2815, 10f. 42  They staged their first rebellion during Hishām’s reign (see ch. C 7.7 below). 43  See vol. I 86 above.

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The Traditionist Reaction

2.2.7.1 Opposition against ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd In retrospect it seemed incomprehensible that the Qadariyya was able to maintain such a strong position in Basra for such a long time, and that ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd in particular had not met with more resistance. Consequently particular weight was given to those people who were pupils of Ḥasan’s as well, but had instead taken a firmly anti-Qadarite stance. Ibn Saʿd already discussed them in great detail. It was thought that they would have administered Ḥasan’s legacy better, while ʿAmr must have falsified it. Consequently people noted meticulously whenever they voiced criticism of ʿAmr, although it does not appear to have been very frequent. In all probability not only the selection of anecdotes but also their subject matter are reflections of a later generation’s thinking. The reports were collated by authors from among the aṣḥāb al-ḥadīth several times from the middle of the third century onwards;1 but the material probably became increasingly interesting after the miḥna and actually dates back to Basran circles in the second half of the second century.2 Four or five persons are mentioned again and again: Ayyūb al-Sakhtiyānī, Yūnus b. ʿUbayd, ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAwn, frequently also Sulaymān al-Taymī and, in one anecdote only, Abū ʿAmr Ibn al-ʿAlāʾ. The first three or four were obviously regarded as a group; some statements refer to them all. ʿAmr was said to have called all of them, extremely rudely, “dirty, unclean fellows”,3 and when they were all sitting together, they allegedly did not greet him.4 Similarities in their appearance were also noted: none of them was a straightforward ascetic.5 There were occasional attempts to distinguish between them: Sulaymān al-Taymī was said to have been the most pious of them, Ayyūb al-Sakhtiyānī the most skilful jurist, Yūnus b. ʿUbayd the most conscientious one in financial matters, and Ibn ʿAwn the one who was most successful at curbing his tongue,6 but all of this

1  See p. 320 above. 2  Cf. my Traditionistische Polemik 39ff. 3   Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif 483, 8ff., and Ta‌ʾwīl 101, 5ff. = 84, 14ff./transl. Lecomte 94 § 121; ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ III 284, 12ff. > Mīzān III 274, 13ff.; slightly divergent Dāraquṭnī 30f. no. 15 (with additional commentary). Slightly distorted also Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Faḍl 340, 7ff. 4  T B XII 174, 2ff.; Ibn Baṭṭa, Ibāna 40, 1ff.; ʿAbdallāh b. Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, K. al-sunna 131, 8ff. 5   Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 395, 1ff.; cf. p. 393f., 401f., and 412f. below. Joint mention (including Sulaymān al-Taymī) also Fasawī II 132, 1; Ḥilya III 4, 8; Ibn ʿAbdrabbih, ʿIqd II 236, 16f.; TD (Leningrad) 338, 6ff.; 339, 7ff.; 360, 6ff. Without Sulaymān al-Taymī: Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif 456, 5f.; AZ 475, 1ff.; TD 344, 8ff. 6  Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif 473, 12f.

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only serves to emphasise their fellowship even more. Abū Nuʿaym, too, named all of them one after the other at the very beginning of the third volume.7 2.2.7.1.1 Ayyūb al-Sakhtiyānī We have comparatively good information on Abū Bakr Ayyūb b. Abī Tamīma Kaysān al-Sakhtiyānī.1 Still, his very fame, coupled with the desire of knowing as much as possible about him, has led to inconsistencies, starting with the actual dates of his life. Several sources are in agreement that he was a victim of the “pestilence” in 131.2 This claim is supported by Ibn Ḥanbal narrowing it to the month of Ramadan (= April/May 749);3 at that time the “pestilence” was at its peak, as Aṣmaʿī and Madāʾinī recorded in their well-known catalogues of epidemics.4 It is consequently self-evident that Ayyūb died in Basra, as emphasised by Ibn Qutayba.5 Even so, ʿUmar b. Shabba, himself a Basran by birth, claimed that he was buried in the Yamāma, in the same place as the poet Jarīr and the Basran ascetic Mālik b. Dīnār.6 The report might have originated in ʿUmar b. Shabba’s Ta‌ʾrīkh al-Baṣra in which case it would carry considerably more weight, not least due to the author’s own early date. Abū l-Faraj al-Iṣfahānī, however, who quoted it (Agh. XXI 387, 14f.), had reason to doubt it in a certain point, albeit not the one relevant to us. Muqaddasī would later note that Ayyūb’s as well as Mālik b. Dīnār’s grave were worshipped in Basra (Aḥsan al-taqāsīm 130, 6f.). Dating his death to 132 rather than 131, reported rather isolated in Khalīfa b. Khayyāṭ (Ṭab. 552, 12f.; later also Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr in his Tamhīd, cf. Conrad 66), was probably merely an oversight, especially as the pestilence is mentioned in the context. Abū Zurʿa’s note of “141, of the pestilence” is, of course, also an error (475, apu. f.). – We should probably not 7  Cf. also Massignon, Essai2 168. 1  Regarding his full name cf. e.g. Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif 471, 5ff., or Fasawī III 71, 7. Abū Nuʿaym (Ḥilya III 8, 4) mentions his son Bakr, to whom his kunya referred, he also bore the name Abū Yaḥyā. 2  Ibn al-Madīnī, ʿIlal 79, 2; Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 603, 14; IS VIII2 17, 21; Hārūn b. Ḥātim al-Tamīmī, Ta‌ʾrīkh, in: RAAD 53, 1978/129, pu. f.; also many secondary sources. 3  ʿIlal 88 no. 513. 4  Cf. Aṣmaʿī in Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif 602, 1f., and Madāʾinī in Mubarrad, Taʿāzī 209, 6ff.; regarding both see Conrad in: SI 54/1981/55ff. and 61ff. Aṣmaʿī even mentions Ayyūb’s death in this context without, however, stating the month definitively. 5  Maʿārif 471, 13. 6  Regarding him see p. 106ff. above.

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identify Ayyūb al-Sakhtiyānī, who was often cited simply as Ayyūb as he was very well known, with a certain Ayyūb ṣāḥib al-Baṣrī who appears once in Wākiʿ (II 440, 12f.) and was known in particular because of his son Sulaymān (ibid. 23, 3f.; 339, –5f.; II 363, 12; 364, apu. etc.). The latter did not, in fact, die until 235/849–50 in Baghdad (TB IX 48f. no. 4628). The confusion arises because Sulaymān b. Ayyūb ṣāḥib al-Baṣrī frequently referred to a certain Ayyūb via Ḥammād b. Zayd, and in this case it is Ayyūb al-Sakhtiyānī. Indeed, it may be that in the first passage cited the son is indicated instead of the father. Ibn Saʿd tells us that Ayyūb was born in the year before the “torrent pestilence”,7 although, confusingly, he gives the date of the epidemic as the year 87, but then states that Ayyūb lived to 63 years.8 87 will probably have to be changed to 67; some authors dated the ṭāʿūn al-jārif, the date of which could not be fixed with certainty, to this year, and Nawawī, trying to tidy up the chronological muddle in his Sharḥ Muslim, cited a note by Kalabādhī according to which Ayyūb was born in 66.9 In this case his age would have been 63 solar years, although Aṣmaʿī dated the elusive epidemic to the year 69.10 However, we can assume that his age was calculated in retrospect, and that the two pestilences were recorded as the relevant dates. Ayyūb was a mawlā, descended from prisoners of war, as he said himself,11 but the dependencies were rather complicated. The man taking the prisoners, a certain ʿAmmār b. Shaddād of whom nothing else is known – and nothing is known regarding the place and time of the capture, either – had himself been a mawlā. Consequently Ayyūb, like his father Kaysān, was – in Ibn Qutayba’s words – a client’s client and mawlā of the ʿAnaza through ʿAmmār.12 The Banū ʿAmmār would later join the Banū Ṭuhayya13 who were in their turn confederates (aḥlāf) of the Banū l-Ḥarīsh, and Ayyūb’s house stood in their district.14 While one of our sources describes him as a tanner (dabbāgh),15 his nisba 7  VII2 14, 5. 8  Ibid. 14, 6 and 17, 21f. 9  Conrad 66f. However, when Nawawī referred to Aṣmaʿī and Madāʾinī for the date of 67, he was wrong in both instances. Aṣmaʿī did in fact say 69 (Maʿārif 601, 8), and Madāʾinī, 79 (Taʿāzī 209, 8; Conrad relies on the variant noted there which says 69). 10   Maʿārif 601, 8. 11  Khalīfa, Ṭab. 522, 11f. 12   Maʿārif 471, 7f.; also Fasawī III 71, 7. 13  Khalīfa 522, 11; regarding them see also p. 380 above. 14  Bukhārī I1 410, 8. 15  Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 69, ult., and 377, 15.

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shows that he traded in morocco leather or “saffian” (sa/ikhtiyān) and was in fact a merchant.16 He had connections with Egypt,17 and it was stressed that he did not engage in business during the pilgrimage.18 He recommended not to let one’s income suffer through piety19 and transmitted a hadith praising the honest merchant.20 Sufyān al-Thawrī pointed out jeeringly that he would even haggle over his sandals.21 “Wealth gives you security” (al-ghinā min al-ʿāfiya), he was claimed to have said – security given by God that also covered one’s family.22 He only engaged in scholarship in his free time, once he had provided for his family.23 He founded a mosque where one of his closest associates became imam.24 In his case, unlike some of his Qadarite contemporaries, all this was tied to his rejection of any outward expression of asceticism. He was not ashamed to show his wealth: he wore a grand overshirt (qamīṣ) made from Herat material,25 not gathered up like the ascetics did but falling to the ground or even dragging behind him,26 with long, full sleeves of the kind that had always been a sign of particular grandeur.27 People also said they had seen him wear a Kurdish ṭaylasān or a tall Iranian hat (qalansuwa).28 It was also noticeable that when he wore an izār he let his navel show; ascetics probably thought this too exhibitionist.29 He wore his hair in the traditional fashion and, unlike the early Muʿtazilites, sported a luxuriant moustache.30 He let his hair grow, visiting 16   Maʿārif 577, 2; Samʿānī, Ansāb VII 53, 12ff. Even during the Ottoman era morocco was still regarded as the highest-quality leather for shoes (Farokhi, Towns and Townsmen 161 and 165ff.). Regarding the derivation of the word “saffian” from sakhtiyān cf. Lokotzsch, Etymologisches Wörterbuch no. 1769. 17  Fasawī II 232, apu. ff.; rather vaguer IS VII2 16, 10ff. 18  Fasawī II 235, 3f. 19  Ibid. II 233, 9f. 20  Qushayrī, Ta‌ʾrīkh Raqqa 119, 3f. 21  Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 389, 2f. 22  Abū Nuʿaym, Ḥilya III 10, 7ff. 23  Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 132, 9 = Fasawī II 233, 5f., and 236, 6ff.; also Ḥilya III 9, 1ff. 24  Cf. TT II 131 no. 218 s. n. Ḥātim b. Wardān al-Saʿdī; also Ṣāliḥ al-ʿAlī, Khiṭaṭ al-Baṣra 254. 25  Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif 471, 10. 26   I S VII2 15, 15ff.; ʿIqd II 372, 5ff. = VI 224, 7ff. 27  Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 101, 3f.; see also p. 438 below. 28   Maʿārif 471, 11 > Ḥilya III 9, 17ff.; also Fasawī II 235, 6f. Regarding the different kinds of ṭaylasān cf. A. Arazi in: Arabica 23/1976/132ff. 29   I S VII2 17, 17; the same was said of Ibn ʿAwn (ibid. 29, 11). Regarding the izār cf. Dozy, Dictionnaire des vêtements 24ff., esp. 37. 30   Maʿārif, ibid.; cf. p. 437f. below.

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the barber once a year only.31 In his old age he, like his friends ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAwn and Yūnus b. ʿUbayd, dyed his hair and beard with henna.32 His serenity and amiability were noted,33 presumably because of the contrast they presented to the self-tormenting pietists. In his view, piety had its own time; on the occasion of the ʿīd al-fiṭr he would send wooden bowls with foods and drinks to his neighbours before daybreak.34 And self-castigation had its limits: “I am not aware that scruffiness (qadhar) is part of faith” was transmitted from him.35 He made not only friends in this way. Criticism came from the “woolwearers” (mutaṣawwifa); Ḥawshab’s36 followers believed his house to be an uncanny place.37 His rejecting Farqad al-Sabakhī and avoiding Faḍl al-Raqāshī will have to be seen in this light, too.38 Circumstances are obscured slightly by the fact that asceticism, in his time a recent and controversial phenomenon, was gradually becoming the ideal, and that consequently it would later become impossible to imagine that he might have enjoyed worldly pleasures in an entirely uncomplicated fashion. Ibn Saʿd had him say that he deliberately abstained from the fashionable attitudes of the zuhhād in order to avoid the shuhra, the “show”;39 an attitude (which probably belongs to a later degree of reflection; it was systematised by Muḥāsibī in the first half of the third century40) often linked to him elsewhere as well.41 In the end Ibn al-Nadīm counted him among the ascetics after all,42 which made it all the more surprising that he did not clash with the quṣṣāṣ who were, from the later point of view, the most typical representatives of the shuhra, naïve superficiality. While

31   I S 15, 6ff. Pellat reads shiʿr instead of shaʿar and consequently believes Ayyūb to have been a poet (Milieu 100). 32  Ibid. 17, 18f.; also Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 395, 1f. 33  Ibid. 16, 5f. 34  Ibid. 16, 20f. 35  Ibn Qutayba, Ashriba 84, 7f. Was this an allusion to the – non-canonical – hadith alnaẓāfa min al-īmān? (Cf. Conc. VI 483a). 36  Regarding him see p. 125f. above. 37  Fasawī II 240, 10ff., and p. 126 above. 38  See p. 108f. and 199 above. A comment of Ayyūb’s against ṣūf: Ibn al-Jawzī, Ṣifa III 217, 2ff. 39   V II2 15, 17f. 40  Cf. his remarks on “hypocrisy” by attire (ziyy) in Riʿāya 100, 16ff (transl. Gedankenwelt 40f.). In more detail ch. C 6.2 below. 41   I S 16, 8: Ibn Qutayba, Ashriba 83, –5f.; Fasawī II 231, 7ff.; similar Ibn al-Jawzī, Quṣṣāṣ § 151. He was said to always chose paths along which he was unknown (IS 16, 10ff., and 15, 12ff.; also Fasawī II 232, apu. ff.). 42   Fihrist 235, 17.

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Abū Nuʿaym noted one derogatory comment Ayyūb made about them,43 it was entirely isolated; we find more emphasis on Ayyūb’s keeping his own counsel with regard to the quṣṣāṣ merely because he was afraid that they might vilify him.44 He may not have had anything against them; after all quṣṣāṣ, too, often dressed sumptuously. Abū Nuʿaym and Ibn al-Jawzī carefully added a lot of detail to the later, amended image, both of them dedicating a long chapter to Ayyūb45 without, however, being able to add new, essential information. This is also due to the attempt at presenting Ayyūb as a genuine pupil of and emulating Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, another area where some doubt is indicated. It is true that there are many reports of Ḥasan calling him the first among the young people (sayyid al-fityān),46 but occasionally we learn that he said this of ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd as well.47 Ayyūb had no qualms reporting a rather arrogant remark the Meccan ʿIkrima had made about Ḥasan during his visit to Basra.48 And of course there was the vexed matter of qadar. Ayyūb was quoted as having said that he argued several times with his teacher about the latter’s Qadarite views, claiming that he even threatened him with the authorities, whereupon Ḥasan promised to renounce this error in the future.49 If the Qadarites still relied on Ḥasan, it could only be maliciously and with the sole intention of spreading their own doctrine among the people.50 The Muʿtazilites presented things differently: Ayyūb spent four years in Ḥasan’s company, never daring to ask anything,51 which ruled out a fortiori that he could have criticised his beliefs. Leaving these claims aside – as they were blown out of proportion by later emphasis – we come to the conclusion that in fact Ayyūb was a member of Ibn Sīrīn’s circle of pupils; he may even have become his successor.52 A major part of Ibn Sīrīn’s law traditions were transmitted via him, and Ibn Sīrīn

43   Ḥilya III 11, apu. f. 44  Fasawī II 236, 1f. It was noted that Mūsā al-Uswārī, although he was closely linked to the quṣṣāṣ, prayed behind Ayyūb. 45   Ḥilya III 3ff.; Ṣifat al-ṣafwa III 212ff. 46  Is 14, 9 > Fasawī II 232, 1; also Ḥilya III 3, 6ff. with variants. 47  Fasawī II 260, 1ff. > TB XII 170, 9ff. 48  Ibid. II 5, apu. f.: AZ 680, 3f. Regarding ʿIkrima’s visit to Basra see p. 734 below. 49   I S VII1 122, 2f. > Fasawī II 34, 4ff.; AZ 683 no. 2086; also Kaʿbī 229, 1ff., softened immediately with the comment that he had nothing else to reproach Ḥasan with (VII1 122, 4f. > Fasawī II 34, ult.). 50  Fasawī II 34, 5ff. 51  Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Faḍl 340, 6f. 52  Thus TH 131, 4f. after Ibn ʿAwn; cf. also Ibn al-Madīnī, ʿIlal 68, 8ff., and p. 400 below the report of Salm b. Qutayba.

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had distinguished himself as Ḥasan’s opposite by his very cosmopolitan and serene attitude. Ayyūb especially transmitted many of the precedents that Ibn Sīrīn transmitted from the qāḍī Shurayḥ (regarding him GAS 1/402f.) and that Wakīʿ recorded painstakingly (Akhbār al-quḍāt II 331ff.). The latter had heard them from two sources he wrote down one after the other: the Mālikite Ismāʿīl b. Isḥāq al-Jahḍamī al-Azdī (d. 282/895; cf. GAS 1/475f.) and Aḥmad b. Manṣūr al-Ramādī (d. 265/879; cf. TH 564 no. 589). In the case of Ismāʿīl b. Isḥāq he was occasionally able to rely on explicitly authorised traditions (ibid. 341, –7ff., albeit sometimes without naming Ayyūb, simply ʿan Muḥammad [b. Sīrīn]), occasionally also on a book that had come into his possession without ijāza (341, 12f.). Other traditions Ayyūb transmitted from Ibn Sīrīn may be found ibid. I 83, 9; 270, 9; 278, 7 (with Ibn ʿAwn); 303, 10 etc.; also in my K. an-Nakth 24. – Regarding Ibn Sīrīn’s serenity cf. e.g. IS VII1 142, 2f. and 15ff. (misquoted by T. Fahd in EI2 III 948a) or Dhahabī, Siyar IV 608, 1, and 613, apu. Ibn Sīrīn’s biography was drawn in similar lines to Ayyūb’s elsewhere, too. Like the latter he was said to have avoided shuhra (IS 145, 6ff.). Unlike the pietists who wished to send every sinner to hell, he felt hope for all Muslims (ibid. 144, 4f.; regarding Ayyūb cf. VII2 16, 4; regarding ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAwn see p. 416 below). This did not stop him thinking about precise compliance with commandments (waraʿ, ibid. 142, 21f.); he was said to have omitted even harmless things in order to ensure he did not sully himself (Muḥāsibī, Makāsib 206, 1f., and 205, 5f.), where Ayyūb, Ibn ʿAwn, and Yūnus b. ʿUbayd are named beside him). – The Muʿtazilite Abū l-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī presented Ayyūb as a Murjiʾite (Ibn Abī l-Ḥadīd, ShNB III 236, –4), probably because he “felt hope”, but elsewhere we are told that especially regarding the concept of faith, Ayyūb, Ibn ʿAwn, and Yūnus b. ʿUbayd disagreed with the Murjiʾites (Mīzān II 629, 8ff.). There are several instances confirming that Ayyūb was a good lawyer.53 The same was said of his fellow-believers Yūnus b. ʿUbayd, ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAwn, and Sulaymān al-Taymī;54 the elder Ibn ʿUlayya (b. 110/729) referred to them – presumably more to the latter two, as he can only have met Ayyūb in his youth.55 53  Fasawī II 109, –5 = 197, pu. ff.; also Ḥilya III 4, 4ff. 54   A Z 475, 1ff. after Sufyān al-Thawrī. 55  Fasawī II 132, 1, and previously; cf. also Wakīʿ I 331, 5f. etc. Regarding Ibn ʿUlayya see p. 473ff. below.

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Even Mālik b. Anas (d. 179/795) deferred to him when he was in the Hijaz, although Mālikite sources emphasise that he first inquired into Ayyūb’s piousness.56 It was emphasised that he was most conscientious and did not talk according to his own discretion (ra‌ʾy),57 preferring to admit his ignorance.58 Those who pronounced fatwās with the greatest boldness were, in his view, the ones with the least understanding of ikhtilāf al-ʿulamāʾ.59 This was directed at Kufa, among others, and when Ḥammād b. Abī Sulaymān came to Basra to lecture, Ayyūb did not attend.60 He was also said to have made derogatory remarks about Abū Ḥanīfa.61 While it was understood that he could not have seen him during his heyday, people thought that they had once been together in Mecca during the hajj, where Abū Ḥanīfa found respect for him.62 To later generations Ayyūb represented the Basran style of jurisprudence, with much more emphasis on hadith than in Kufa. In fact, most reports focus on Ayyūb as a muḥaddith, and there is even an extant text, a collection of his traditions collated by the same Ismāʿīl b. Isḥāq who also preserved his Shurayḥ tradition.63 As is only to be expected his hadith practice did not conform to the rules established later. He did not recollect isnāds64 and did not write his traditions down but learned them by heart.65 He also disapproved of his pupils writing them down, insisting on seeing the notes afterwards.66 Ḥammād b. Zayd al-Azdī (d. 179/795), a Basran himself, but already member of a different generation, consequently had concerns regarding Ayyūb in this matter;67 Shuʿba b. al-Ḥajjāj (d. 160/778), one of the first systematisers of Basran hadith,68 could only be stopped from “talking” about him by expostulations and threats.69 Soon, 56  Ibn ʿIyāḍ, Tartīb al-madārik I 124, apu. ff.; also Shīrāzī, Ṭab. 89, –4ff. 57  Fasawī II 236, –5ff. 58   I S VII2 14, 15. 59  Ibn al-Mubārak, Zuhd, Appendix 125, 11ff. 60  Fasawī II 791, –5ff.; cf. vol. I 211 above. 61  Ibid. II 785, 1ff., and 791, 1ff.; also AZ 507 no. 1334, and TB XIII 397, 10ff. 62  Ibid. II 787, 5ff.; ʿIqd III 169, 12ff. 63  From a Mālikite, that is (see p. 395 above). The MS, which is kept in the Ẓāhiriyya, dates from 640 (cf. GAS 1/88, and Muranyi in: ZDMG 138/1988/131ff.); two generations later, when in Damascus with Ibn Taymiyya, the Spaniard Tujībī read a juzʾ containing Ayyūb’s hadiths (Barnāmaj 213, –5ff.). 64  Fasawī II 239, 9ff. 65  Ibid. II 232, 5f. 66  Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 24 no. 115. 67   I S 14, ult. f. = Fasawī II 284, 10f. 68  Regarding him GAS 1/92. 69  Fasawī II 99, apu. ff.

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however, this would be presented in a positive light: he was so conscientious that he corrected his pupils’ notes;70 he considered Khilās b. ʿAmr (d. before 100/719) who, like Ayyūb himself, transmitted information about Shurayḥ,71 to be a “booklet scholar” (ṣuḥufī) because he used ṣaḥīfas without actually having heard their contents himself.72 His point of view was clearly rather complex. He was not directly opposed to “books”; when his teacher Abū Qilāba left him his collection, he had had it transported from Syria to Basra at his own expense.73 He was also said to have possessed notes from Zuhrī, whom he esteemed greatly,74 ʿIkrima, ʿAmr b. Dīnār, and Nāfiʿ, ʿAbdallāh b. ʿUmar’s mawlā75 – all of them, with the exception of ʿIkrima, authorities whom he could have interviewed during his travels. But “books” were really only worth anything if they were based on personal contact, and he clearly considered it the due of his craft that one should know by heart what was noted in the books.76 There were scripts of his own hadith as well: by Sufyān b. ʿUyayna and ʿAbd al-Ṣamad b. ʿAbd al-Wārith,77 the latter possibly quoting from his father ʿAbd al-Wārith b. Saʿīd who had written down his notes from memory after Ayyūb’s death.78 This is probably how the material reached Ismāʿīl b. Isḥāq. As for Ayyūb’s relationship with ʿIkrima, it was said explicitly that he did not “suspect” him,79 ʿIkrima of course being a Khārijite. Interestingly he also considered Jābir b. Zayd to be most intelligent.80 Khalīl, on the other hand, was believed to have been converted from his Ibāḍite inclinations by Ayyūb, but it 70  Ibid. II 238, pu. 71  Wakīʿ II 383f.; ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ II 28f. no. 449. Cf. Mīzān 2532. 72  Fasawī II 273, 8ff. 73   A Z 473 no. 1233; Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī, Taqyīd al-ʿilm 62, 16ff.; cf. Azmi, Studies 63, for details. Among other things they hey contained letters from the prophet and the early caliphs (see ch. C 4.1.4 below; also Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 295 no. 1915). 74   A Z 411, 19f.; Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 22 no. 103. 75  Azmi 88; 66; 79; 97. 76  It was actually known that he had only heard a part of Abū Qilāba’s hadiths (Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 77 no. 452). The systematic remarks transmitted by Fasawī later (II 826, 3f., and 828, apu. f.), that he recognised the methods of kitāba and ʿarḍ, were based on this information. Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī, on the other hand, writes that the “Basrans” (which includes Ayyūb, but also Ibn ʿUlayya) did not “write anything down” (Taqyīd al-ʿilm 79, 6f.); cf. Schoeler in: Der Islam 66/1989/219. 77  Azmi 169 and 81; general information also AZ 467, 2. 78  See p. 369 above. 79  Fasawī II 8, 10f.; his appreciation is emphasised ibid. 7, 5ff. Cf. also Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 19 no. 85f. 80  Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 242, no. 1529; also Fasawī II 12, 5f.

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may be that the transmitter, al-Aṣmaʿī, read too much into the story.81 Ayyūb believed grammar to be important,82 which is at odds with stories that have him make mistakes when speaking in Qatāda’s presence,83 but the objective here may have been that unlike the latter, he was a mawlā. After all it was also transmitted from him that no-one should boast of his pre-Islamic ancestors.84 He does not seem to have minded that Qatāda was a Qadarite as well. Kaʿbī tells us that Ayyūb was very much affected by Qatāda’s death.85 Reports of disagreements tend to refer to ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd who died a generation after Qatāda.86 These accounts are not very informative, either: Ayyūb is said to have called ʿAmr “odious” (maqīt).87 He did not believe that the latter would convert, referring to ʿAlī’s well-known dictum (and the hadith developed out of it) that “there will be people coming from Islam who will pierce the faith (yamruqūna, also: apostatise), just like an arrow pierces the game”, after all, the arrow would not return to its starting point, either.88 This was originally directed at the Khārijites,89 it seems that he included ʿAmr in that description. ʿAmr suggested that he and Ayyūb should have a discussion to do away with these accusations, but when they met in a mosque Ayyūb, after the rather mysterious intervention of a third man (who warned or enlightened him?), left ʿAmr standing there.90 Sometimes ʿAmr appears in an unmistakeably more positive light, advising people to feel sorry for Ayyūb after he once again attacked him. ʿIqd II 275, pu. f. = II 336, 6f.; Jāḥiẓ, Bayān II 96, 8f. without naming Ayyūb; Ibn Qutayba, ʿUyūn II 19, 14f.; TB VIII 450, 18ff.; Murtaḍā, Amālī I 170, 9ff. (after Aṣmaʿī). Tawḥīdī, Baṣāʾir IV 71, ult. ff./2IV 61 no. 157 narrates a similar story with (ʿAmr b. Fāʾid) al-Uswārī taking Ayyūb’s place. Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār’s report Faḍl 243, apu. ff., which has ʿAmr replying to Ayyūb rather maliciously is in a different vein and clearly Muʿtazilite counter-propaganda. 81  See p. 253f. above. 82  Jāḥiẓ, Bayān II 219, 11f. 83  Bukhārī I1 409, ult. f.; Ḥilya III 11, –6f. 84   Ḥilya III 13, 17ff. 85   Maq. 88, –5f. 86  For a general instance of Ayyūb’s anti-Qadarite attitude cf. IS 16, 7f. = Fasawī II 240, apu.; Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 183 no. 1183. 87  ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ III 279, 14ff., and TB XII 174, 11ff.; the text is contaminated in Dāraquṭnī § 13 (cf. the commentary p. 28f.). 88  Ibid. 174, 5ff. = Fasawī III 390, apu. ff. 89  Regarding the context cf. K. an-Nakṯ 83f. 90  Fasawī II 260, apu. ff.

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Other anecdotes have a specific motive. When Ayyūb and ʿAmr once came to Mecca together, Ayyūb circled the Kaʿba all night, while ʿAmr debated all the time;91 this is denouncing Muʿtazilite intellectualism. A similar instance tells us that people visited ʿAmr expecting to hear profound thoughts (shayʾ ghāmiḍ), while Ayyūb had no interest in profoundness.92 In other cases the issue is hadith: “How can one trust traditions transmitted by someone whose worship practice (dīn) does not inspire confidence?”93 While this sounds as though Ayyūb was not criticising the hadith material itself, soon the positions had become polarised so far that he was claimed to have accused ʿAmr of having spread false traditions from Ḥasan.94 The opposite side also distanced itself, ʿAbd al-Wārith b. Saʿīd stating clearly that he thought more highly of ʿAmr than of Ayyūb and his fellow-believers.95 It was emphasised explicitly that Saʿīd b. Abī ʿArūba did not consider it beneath him to transmit hadith to Ayyūb’s pupils,96 but that he was not quite so meticulous about the isnād in their presence.97 Interestingly, Ayyūb’s view on Yazīd III was transmitted as well: he got on so well with him that Yazīd was believed to have heard hadith from him in Mecca in the very year in which he assumed office.98 But then Ayyūb ended their connection,99 disapproving of Walīd II’s murder as he feared civil war.100 He was a law-abiding man and disliked that the zakāt should be kept from the rightful government.101 Salm b. Qutayba b. Muslim, who became governor in Basra shortly before the Abbasids came to power and who had known Ibn Sīrīn, also heard hadith from him.102 At some point during the troubles Ayyūb got into difficulty with the authorities after all and like ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAwn

91   T B XII 174, 19ff. 92   Ibid. 175, 2ff.; ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ III 287, 9ff. A related story has gharāʾib (ʿUqaylī 287, 13ff. > Mīzān III 276, 9ff.; Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, Muqaddima I 23, 1ff. > Mīzān III 276, 11). 93  Muslim, Muqaddima I 23, 9ff.; TB 174, 14f. 94   T B 180, 9ff. (regarding the issue of qunūt); 180, ult. ff. = Muslim I 23, 6ff. = Fasawī II 260, 4ff. (flogging for being drunk with nabīdh); also 181, 4ff. and 16ff. Regarding ʿAmr’s respective juristic opinions see p. 342f. above. 95  See p. 368 above. 96  Regarding him see p. 71ff. above. 97  Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 373, 8ff. Regarding Sufyān al-Thawrī’s position see p. 340 above. 98   Al-ʿuyūn wal-ḥadāʾiq III 149, 7f. de Jong. 99   Ḥilya III 6, 5ff.; TH 131, 13f. (after Ḥammād b. Zayd). 100   Agh. VII 82, 10f.; also Al-ʿuyūn wal-ḥadāʾiq III 144, ult. ff. 101  Fasawī III 21, pu. f. 102  Balādhurī, Ansāb III 172, 7f. Dūrī.

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was seen bound in the streets of Basra.103 For the rest, he followed the Basran “line”: he had no high opinion of ʿAlī,104 but transmitted a hadith in favour of Abū Bakr. 105 2.2.7.1.2 Yūnus b. ʿUbayd Abū ʿAbdallāh Yūnus b. ʿUbayd b. Dīnār al-ʿAbdī al-Qaʿnabī, mawlā of the ʿAbd al-Qays,1 was born in Kufa in 64/684,2 but lived most of his life in Basra3 to his death, probably in 139/756.4 He was a silk merchant: he bought silk (ibrīsam) mixed silk–cotton fabrics in Basra and had them sold through an agent (wakīl) in Susa, a centre of Iranian silk manufacture, who sent him mixed silk–wool fabrics (khazz) in return.5 He had a partner in this wholesale business, a certain Abū Khalaf ʿAbdallāh b. ʿĪsā al-Khazzāz, who also transmitted hadith from him.6 There was much praise of the honesty of his business methods; he did not allow himself to cheat anyone.7 He was no ascetic, not believing himself to be very pious;8 he dyed his hair and beard with henna like Ayyūb al-Sakhtiyānī9 and was not remarkable for excessive praying or fasting, but he took great care of “what is due to God”, i.e. he obeyed every commandment

103  See p. 415 below regarding Ibn ʿAwn. By referring to him it is possible to delimit the date of the tradition more precisely. 104   A Z 658 no. 1971. 105   Ḥilya III 13, 14ff., but cf. the tradition in Tawḥīdī, Baṣāʾir 2VII 102 no. 368, according to which he esteemed all of the first four caliphs. 1  IS VII2 23, 17. 2  Shīrāzī, Ṭab. 90, 2. 3  He was said to be glad not to have grown up in Kufa (Fasawī II 32, 13f.). 4  This date in IS VII2 23, 20; Ibn al-Madīnī, ʿIlal 79, 3; Fasawī I 122, 3f.; Ibn al-Jazarī, Ṭabaqāt al-qurrāʾ II 407 no. 3951. Abū Zurʿa says “139 or 138” (475, –6f.), Shīrāzī “139 or 140” (Ṭab. 90, 2), Hārūn b. Ḥātim al-Tamīmī’s (d. 249/863) Ta‌ʾrīkh, isolated, says “134” (RAAD 53/1978/131, –4f.), Ibn al-Jawzī, presumably referring to this, “139 or 140” (Ṣifat al-ṣafwa III 228, 8f.). He lived longer than Ayyūb, but not as long as Ibn ʿAwn (Bukhārī IV2 402 no. 3488), he was probably around 70 when he died. 5  Ḥilya III 15, –5ff. Regarding the different kinds of silk cf. EI2 s. v. Ḥarīr, and A. Miquel, Géographie humaine III 334, n. 3; also Haussig, Geschichte Zentralasiens und der Seidenstraße II 13f. Regarding Yūnus as a well-off merchant see also Jāḥiẓ, Bayān III 131, 16. 6  Ṭabarī I 2856, 13f.; also ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ II 286f. no. 856, and Mīzān no. 4496. 7  Cf. the stories in Abū Nuʿaym III 15, 5ff., and 17, 8ff.; idealising ibid. 16, 10f., and 18, 9f. (= Fasawī II 251, 7f.). 8  Ibn al-Jawzī, Ṣifat al-ṣafwa III 228, 2f. 9  Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 395, 1f.

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meticulously.10 He was on good terms with the Abbasid authorities the first years of which he lived to see; he supported the Kufan al-Ḥajjāj b. Arṭāt who had been appointed the first qāḍī after the revolution,11 and people recalled how at his funeral Sulaymān b. ʿAlī, the first Abbasid governor of the city, his brother ʿAbdallāh and his sons Jaʿfar and Muḥammad had walked beneath his bier.12 Yūnus had no qualms accepting a gift of 2000 dirhams from the governor, which may have been in recognition of political support.13 He did, however, expect the authorities to abide by the Sunna, otherwise their legitimation might be in doubt with mutual attacks being the result.14 This was probably an allusion to events during the last decade of Umayyad rule. Ayyūb al-Sakhtiyānī held him in great esteem.15 Yūnus, too, was most reluctant to write hadith down,16 but a collection of around 200 traditions does survive,17 going back to Abū Nuʿaym, who also preserved some examples in his Ḥilya.18 Ibn ʿUlayya was thought to have had as many as 900 in his possession;19 other notes have been transmitted as well.20 Ibn ʿUlayya would later be criticised for relying so much on him21 – and on Ayyūb al-Sakhtiyānī;22 the reason was probably once again the transmission practice. Yūnus had closer ties to Ḥasan al-Baṣrī than Ayyūb,23 and preferred him to Ibn Sīrīn whom he also knew.24 The material extant in the sources confirms this.25 What had impressed him about Ḥasan was his gravity26 and the fact that he was never 10   Ṣifat al-ṣafwa III 224, 3f.; also 224, 10ff. 11  Fasawī III 368, 10ff. > Dhahabī, Ta‌ʾrīkh VI 51, –6ff.; regarding him see p. 177f. above. 12   I S VII2 23, 31ff.; Balādhurī, Ansāb III 111, 4f. 13   T D (Leningrad) 355, apu. ff.; see also p. 415 below. 14  Ibn Baṭṭa, Ibāna 34, 11ff. 15  Baḥshal, Ta‌ʾrīkh Wāsiṭ 240, 12f.; Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 63 no. 369 = 172 no. 1063 indicates that Yūnus respected Ayyūb, too. 16   I S 23, 17f. = Fasawī II 237, 7f. 17  Cf. GAS 1/88. 18   I II 24, –8ff. Yūnus also transmitted from his mother (Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 265 no. 1711). 19  Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 379, 4f. 20  Azmi, Studies 179. 21  Fasawī II 132, 1. 22  See p. 396f. above. 23  Ibn al-Madīnī, ʿIlal 69, 3. 24  Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 322 no. 2097; Fasawī II 54, 7ff.; in greater detail AZ 684, 1ff. 25  Cf. Ibn al-Madīnī 56 no. 54; 61, 1; 64, 9; 93 no. 138; Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 331, no. 2163; Muḥāsibī, Riʿāya 8, 2f., and 89, 7f.; Ṭabarī I 364, 11ff., and 398, 12ff.; Ḥilya III 24, –8ff.; more general Fasawī II 165, 9f., and 50, 9ff. 26  Jāḥiẓ, Bayān III 171m 5ff.

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discomfited, not even by Qadarite doctrine.27 It seems that Yūnus himself was not easily disturbed by Qadarites, either; Mubārak b. Faḍāla attended his lectures, as did Mahdī b. Hilāl, both of whom were suspected of Qadarite leanings.28 Another Qadarite, however, enticed his listeners away from him: Ismāʿīl b. Muslim al-Makkī, with whom he shared a majlis, i.e. they probably lectured in the same mosque, and who was very popular due to his fatwās.29 People found it impossible to believe, on the other hand, that he could have met Muʿtazilites with equanimity, alleging that he even disapproved of neighbourly interaction with them,30 and transmitting a dictum listing their “innovations”: “The Muʿtazilites are a worse visitation (fitna) on this community than the Azraqites. They claim that the companions of the prophet went astray, and that their testimony is not acceptable because of the innovations they introduced. They deny (Muḥammad’s) intercession and the cistern (near which Muḥammad will meet his community on the Day of Judgment), and they reject the punishment of the grave. They are the ones whom God has cursed; he made (their ears) deaf and their eyes blind. The leader (al-imām) must call them to repent; if they agree, so be it, but otherwise he must chase them from Muslim territory!”31 We must, however, consider the possibility of projection – maybe this was how the expulsion of certain Muʿtazilites after AH 145 was justified. The situation is similar in the case of the reports which quote Yūnus’ verdicts on ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd. Like Ayyūb he was said to have accused ʿAmr of circulating falsified hadiths,32 but it also happened that traditions which ʿAmr was alleged to trace back to Ḥasan falsely were then found to go back to Ḥasan via Yūnus as well.33 He seems to have been most displeased when his son contacted ʿAmr;34 this may have been the very son on whose death ʿAmr expressed his condolences to him (later).35 The two of them once debated publicly in

27  Wakīʿ, Akhbār II 13, pu. f. 28  See p. 77 and 87 above. 29   I S VII2 34, 5ff.; also p. 76 above. 30   Ḥilya III 21, 10f. 31  Ibid. 21, 16ff.; regarding the doctrines mentioned see p. 310f. above and 405 below. 32  Muslim, Muqaddima I 22, 7ff. = Dāraquṭnī 26 § 10 = TB XII 182, 7ff.: after Shuʿba b. al-Ḥajjāj. 33  Cf. Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 132 no. 818, with 410 no. 2758. 34  Dāraquṭnī 25 § 9; TB XII 172, 13ff.; Ḥilya III 20, –5ff.; TT XI 444, 13ff.; after Khuwayl b. Wāqid al-Ṣaffār, Shuʿba’s son-in-law. Divergent TB XII 173, 6ff. 35  Murtaḍā, Amālī I 171, 3f.; Mīzān III 275, 1ff. With different reference in Jāḥiẓ, Bayān II 82, ult., and III 172, 3f. (where instead of Yūnus the person is described as a “brother” or a “man”).

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the Masjid al-ḥarām in Mecca.36 Yūnus may have been one of those who tried to tie the Qadarite “heresy” to Maʿbad al-Juhanī, bypassing Ḥasan al-Baṣrī;37 in this way the link between ʿAmr and Ḥasan would have been dissolved as well. 2.2.7.1.3 ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAwn The last-named tendency was even more pronounced in the case of the third man of the trio, Abū ʿAwn ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAwn b. Arṭabān al-Muzanī,1 d. Rajab 151/July–Aug. 7682 at the age of 85 or 86 years.3 Information on the date of his birth is inconsistent and reconstructed in any case, but the year 66/686 seems acceptable.4 He recalled that his father received the news of his mother’s confinement when he was in Hatra in Mesene5 while Muṣʿab b. al-Zubayr was preparing his campaign against Mukhtār; Ibn Qutayba, who preserved this information, added that this was during the year 66.6 His father was probably a member of the forces gathered by Muṣʿab, as Basra had already sworn allegiance to Mukhtār.7 Ibn ʿUlayya’s – who had attended Ibn ʿAwn’s lectures – suggesting the year 64/684 instead8 was probably because he knew the report by Ḥammād b. Zayd (d. Ramadan 179/Nov.–Dec. 795), a pupil of Ibn ʿAwn’s, that he was born three years before the “torrent pestilence”.9 This pestilence is, as we saw in the context of Ayyūb al-Sakhtiyānī, sometimes dated to 69, sometimes

36  Ibn Manẓūr, Mukhtaṣar TD XXIX 17, ult. ff. 37  Cf. Festschrift Meier 62, after Ibn ʿAsākir; cf. vol. I 83 above. 1  Not to be confused with the traditionist ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAwn al-Kharrāz al-Hilālī, d. 231/845 or 232/846 (GAS 1/106). 2  Thus according to the most reliable and precise report in IS VII2 30, 6; without the month also in Khalīfa, Ṭab. 528, 2f. and Ta‌ʾrīkh 659, 5; Fasawī I 137, 1f.; summarised in TD (Leningrad) 318, 8ff. AH 150 is also mentioned frequently (AZ 297 no. 521; Fasawī I 136, 1; TD 369, 5ff.). Wāqidī has both 151 and 152 (TD 324, 5ff.). 3  85 years: cf. TD 373, 7f., calculated using the difference between AH 66 and 151; 86 years: ibid. 374, 10f. When ibid. 371, 7 (maybe after Bukhārī III1 163 no. 512) it is said that he was 87 years old, the earlier date of AH 64 must have been used for the calculation (see below). 4  Khalīfa, Ṭab. 333, 5; TD 317, 10 after Aṣmaʿī. 5  This is clearly not the well-known Hatra situated further north between Samarra and Mosul. Yāqūt distinguished between the two places (Muʿjam al-buldān s. v.), and the source adds clearly fī l-Madhār, i.e. in Mesene, four days’ journey from Basra (Yāqūt s. v. al-Madhār and p. 3, n. 31 above). 6  Maʿārif 487, 13ff. after Aṣmaʿī. 7  Ṭabarī II 680, 11ff. 8  TB 317, –4f. 9  IS 25, 3f. = TD 317, 5 (with copyist’s error).

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to 67, due to a frequently occurring textual variant.10 This is probably also the explanation of the claim that Ibn ʿAwn was two years older than Ayyūb;11 the latter was said to have been born one year before the “torrent pestilence”.12 It is certainly a mistake when Khalīfa b. Khayyāṭ says that Ibn ʿAwn was ten years older than Ayyūb, and also died ten years later (Ṭab. 528, 3f.); comparing the – fairly well-documented – dates of their respective deaths furnishes corroboration. Ibn Ḥanbal mentions, quite correctly, that Ibn ʿAwn lived to be around twenty years older than Ayyūb (ʿIlal 169, ult.). He came from an old-established Iraqi family. His grandfather Arṭabān, judging by his name presumably of Persian origin,13 was a deacon (shammās) in the parish of Mesene and captured there by Muslims. He had been part of ʿAbdallāh b. Durra al-Muzanī’s spoils of war, becoming his client once he had been freed.14 Later, nothing precise would be known15 about his master who, although a companion of the prophet, had not become important in hadith science,16 which is probably why Arṭabān was then linked to another Muzanite named ʿAbdallāh: ʿAbdallāh b. Mughaffal b. ʿAbdniʿm (d. 59/679 or 60/680), the son of a tribal leader (sayyid) and a companion of the prophet in his own right, who settled near the chief mosque in Basra after ʿUmar sent him there in order to take charge of the religious education of the population.17 Arṭabān succeeded 10  See p. 391 above. 11   T D 318, 1f. after Ibn Maʿīn; also Bukhārī IV2 402 no. 3488. 12  See p. 391 above. 13  Regarding the etymology and the most important bearers of this name in the Achaemenid and Parthian eras cf. EIran II 646ff.; also Morony, Iraq 110 and 196. – Ibn ʿAwn spoke Persian himself (TD 359, 8), but at the time this was not unusual in Basra especially if, as in the passage quoted, it was in conversation with a female slave. 14  Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 114, 13ff.; also Ṭabarī I 2387, 7ff. and 14. Cf. also Morony, Iraq 196. 15  The name itself is difficult to establish. Ibn Saʿd has Durra (VII1 88, 15, and VII2 24, pu.), while Khalīfa b. Khayyāṭ has Dharra every time (Ta‌ʾrīkh, loc. cit.; Ṭab. 89, 8 and 10; 416, ult.; 454, 9); Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif 487, 6, names him as Ibn Barza. Dharr (Donner, Conquests 416 no. 14), based on Khalīfa, is probably an oversight. According to Ibn Saʿd (both passages) the grandfather’s name was Surrāq, but according to Khalīfa 86, 10ff. (who furnishes the entire genealogy), ʿĀʾid b. Ṭābikha; Ibn Ḥajar, Iṣāba II 303 no. 4660 confirms this. 16  Khalīfa, Ṭab. 86, 9f., and 417, 2. 17  Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif 487, 7; TD 323, 2, and 319, 4f. Regarding him cf. IS VII1 7, 14ff.; Khalīfa, Ṭab. 85 no. 241, and 415 no. 1367; Ibn Ḥazm, Jamhara 202, 15ff.; Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, Istīʿāb 996f. no. 1667; Pellat, Milieu 72 and 86. ʿAbdallāh b. Durra/Dharra, too, owned a house in Basra (Khalīfa, Ṭab. 86, 10, and 417, 1f.).

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in acquiring some property so soon that when he went to pay ʿUmar his first zakāt, the caliph was surprised by his zeal and blessed his possessions and his descendants.18 This was interpreted with regard to the pious grandson, and it was also reported of him; furthermore, this was probably the reason why there was an interest in the woman whom Arṭabān married after this “nearprophecy”. This grandmother of Ibn ʿAwn’s had been a prisoner of war, too, among those who fell into the hands of the Muslims in Khorasan in 32/653 or 33/654 and were presumably sold on the slave market in Basra afterwards.19 Arṭabān had been captured around twenty years earlier and would have been in his prime. He grew to feel so at home with his new faith that he transmitted hadith from ʿUmar (d. 23/643).20 It is interesting that Ḥasan al-Baṣrī’s father, too, had been captured in Mesene,21 possibly providing a starting point for the later connection. Another instance of interconnections within the aspiring religious elite is that ʿAṭāʾ b. Farrūkh, a mawlā of the Quraysh who moved from Medina to Basra where he became the teacher of, among others, Yūnus b. ʿUbayd, was the grandson of one of Arṭabān’s sisters.22 Most noticeable are once again the ties to Ibn Sīrīn. His father, too, had been captured at ʿAyn al-Tamr or in Mesene,23 Ibn ʿAwn married a granddaughter of Ibn Sīrīn’s24 and his son, curiously enough, her mother;25 furthermore one of his female servants had, when a slave, belonged to his father-in-law.26 He left a part of his possessions to his wife’s relatives, among them his brother-in-law Muḥammad, a son of ʿAbdallāh b. Muḥammad b. Sīrīn.27 Most importantly, however, the latter’s son Bakkār b. Muḥammad knew him as a child28 and became, presumably also because of the stories told him by his aunt, Ibn Saʿd’s main source of information. By that time Ibn ʿAwn 18   I S VII1 88, 16ff.; a more in-depth interpretation in Morony, Iraq 110. 19  Ṭabarī I 2906, 3ff. s. a. 32, after a shaykh of the Tamīm; Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 178, 6ff. s. a. 33; also Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif 487, 11. 20   I S VII1 88, 16; Khalīfa, Ṭab. 454, 10. 21  See p. 47 above. 22  Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif 487, 10. Regarding him cf. TT VII 210 no. 389. 23   E I2 947b, and Shīrāzī, Ṭab. 88, 6f.; regarding the conquest of ʿAyn al-Tamr cf. Donner, Conquests 184f. 24   I S VII2 36, 25f.; her name was Umm Muḥammad and she was the daughter of ʿAbdallāh b. Muḥammad b. Sīrīn (ibid. 29, 25). 25  Ibid. 26, 26. She had probably been ʿAbdallāh b. Muḥammad b. Sīrīn’s concubine. 26  Ibid. 26, 24f. 27  Ibid. 26, 3, and 30, 2. Cf. also p. 413 below. 28  Ibid. 26, 2f.; he saw for instance how Ibn ʿAwn behaved during the uprising of 145 (ibid. 27, 8f.). As he lived until 224/839 (Mīzān no. 1263) he must have been very young at the time.

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was already surrounded by the halo of fame, and Ibn Saʿd’s biography of him is one of the most colourful and extensive from the Basran community.29 It is worthwhile repeating Bakkār’s portrait of his uncle verbatim:30 I lived for a long time (dahran min al-dahr) with Ibn ʿAwn until his death; he left his fortune to my father. I never heard him utter a pious or impious oath until death parted us. – Ibn ʿAwn fasted on alternate days until his death.31 – Never did I see money in Ibn ʿAwn’s hands or see him weigh something (a coin?).32 When he performed his ablution before praying, nobody assisted him,33 and he dried his face on a napkin (mandīl) or a piece of cloth. – He did not arrive ostentatiously early for Friday prayers, but neither did he come too late; he favoured the middle course and disappearing in the crowd (al-ikhtilāṭ bil-jamāʿa). On the occasion of Friday (prayers) and the two feasts he performed the general ablution34 and put on perfume for both: this he considered sunna. He also smelled good on other days and wore soft clothing. On Fridays and for the two feasts he donned his cleanest garment. He either walked or rode to Friday prayers and did not linger after the end of the prayer. During Ramadan, too, he did not perform more than the prescribed prayers in public but retired to his house; when he was by himself he was silent, saying only “praise be to our lord God”. I never saw him enter a public bath. He had a Christian steward (wakīl) who collected the rent for the houses he owned.35 The house in which he lived was home to both Christians and Muslims, it

29  The biography in Ta‌ʾrīkh Dimashq is also unusually long (pp. 315–76), but it was compiled from older sources and above all does not contain any genuinely Syrian material. – Bakkār is frequently cited as an authority in Ibn Sīrīn’s biography as well (IS VII1 140ff.). 30   Ibid. 26, 2ff. Earlier and later news mainly go back to him as well. Regarding the translation cf. Pellat, Milieu 240. 31   From a hadith transmitted by Ibn ʿAwn himself this was known as “David’s fasting” (ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ I 151, 2ff.; Ḥilya III 42, 13ff.: once again after Bakkār b. Muḥammad). Cf. Lech, Ramaḍān-Fasten 14. 32   This probably means that while he did have money, he would always give it away (as alms) without verifying the amount when it was given to him. Cf. p. 413 below. 33   The master of the house may expect that someone assists him by handing him the water jug etc.; Bakkār may also be recalling that his uncle was advanced in years. The objective of this remark is to draw attention to Ibn ʿAwn’s modest nature. 34   It is obligatory only after sexual intercourse, but in the manner described it is recommended as a sunna (EI2 II 1104 s. v. G̲ h̲usl). 35  Read: yajbī instead of yuḥyī.

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was situated in the market district (sūq). He was wont to say “Christians should live beneath me, not Muslims,” as he lived on the top floor.36 Ibn ʿAwn performed the prayer at sunset and the evening prayer with us; he had a prayer room (masjid) in his home (dār) for this purpose, where he performed all prayers with everyone who happened to be present: friends (ikhwān), inhabitants and children.37 One of his clients named Zayd38 occupied the position of muʾadhdhin; during the adhān he spoke the prayer formula twice, for the iqāma, however, only once.39 Sometimes Ibn ʿAwn was our prayer leader; sometimes he had one of his sons step forward. There was nothing he sought (from God) that was not granted him.40 If he knew that there was garlic anywhere in his food, he did not try it.41 Before meals the servant would come to him (with water), 36   The grammatical structure of the text is unusual, and the contents seem to be incorrect, for if Ibn ʿAwn lived on the top floor and some of his tenants were Muslim, they had to be living beneath him. He did have two houses, one in the sūq of the druggists and one on Mirbad Street. He himself lived in the last-named, which was surely the more distinguished one (ibid. 30, 5f., and 27, 9; cf. Massignon, Opera minora III 66, and Ṣāliḥ al-ʿAlī, Khiṭaṭ al-Baṣra 116), which leads us to assume that his Muslim tenants lived in the house in the sūq. It might also be possible that there is a negation missing before “Muslims”, with the result which some later sources claim about him: that he did not let property to Muslims at all as he did not wish to “spread fear among them” by asking for rent (Ibn alJawzī, Ṣifa III 230, pu. ff.; Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, Aḥkām ahl al-dhimma 284, ult. ff., after Ibn Ḥanbal). 37  The room did not have a miḥrāb, as Bakkār noted (ibid. 28, 7f.). In Sāmarrā many private houses would have a mosque later (T. al-Janabi in: World Archeology 14/1983/312f.). Yazīd b. Hārūn disapproved of the miḥrāb even here (see p. 488 below), and in Medina Mālik b. Anas spoke against this kind of luxury in general (Ibn Abī Zayd al-Qayrawānī, Jāmiʿ 165, 3f.). Maybe this kind of appointment was considered too showy; after all, private chapels were known only in palaces such as Khirbat al-Mafjar. There may also have been a movement to ensure that prayer should always be performed in public. Ayyūb al-Sakhtiyānī characteristically had a separate mosque built at his expense, as wealthy merchants sometimes do to this day (see p. 393 above). 38  Jāḥiẓ, Bayān II 211, 8, mentions another mawlā named Yazīd (or maybe it is the same man?). It did not matter that Ibn ʿAwn was a mawlā himself (see p. 392 above). 39  This was interesting form a legal point of view, and controversial among the different schools of law (EI2 I 188a s. v. Ad̲ h̲ān, and III 1057a s. v. Iḳāma; cf. also Ibn Rushd, Bidāyat al-mujtahid I 105, –7ff., and 110, 11ff., and Howard in: JSS 26/1981/219ff.). 40  Or, more prosaically: “There was nothing for which he called that was not then brought to him”? 41  Maybe from politeness towards his guests, but more likely because one was not supposed to enter a mosque while smelling of garlic (see p. 129f. above). Cf. also ibid. 26, 23ff.

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409 and he washed his hands;42 then he brought a towel, and he dried his hands on it.

This is the ideal image of a pious citizen, collected in sources since Ibn Saʿd’s day under the heading of “conscientiousness” (waraʿ).43 There are more accounts that fit into this image, most of them narrated with respect, but some also with derision. He paid the zakāt twice a year, once in his own circle and once to the authorities, presumably because he doubted the latter’s will to distribute it appropriately.44 He did not shake anyone’s hand, probably so as not to compromise his ritual purity.45 He stepped into a puddle because in order to step around it he would have had to walk on a tree trunk that did not belong to him.46 His constant courteousness got on Ibrāhīm al-Nakhaʿī’s (who was a generation older) nerves to the degree that he advised Ibn ʿAwn to stop apologising all the time as it sounded dishonest.47 There are numerous stories about him conquering his anger;48 Bakkār b. Muḥammad never heard him scold anyone, not even a slave, a servant or an animal.49 He did not quarrel with anyone, but did not make jokes or recite poetry, either; he concentrated on himself, i.e. his own sinfulness.50 If he gave presents or performed other good deeds, he did so in secret.51 He recited a seventh of the Quran every night; if he did not succeed, he would catch up on it the next day.52 In his younger day he seems to have spent some time among the volunteer force on the Byzantine border, even killing an enemy on one occasion.53 When transmitting hadiths he exercised caution and reticence as well. He did not permit people to run after him because of hadith,54 and he disliked it when someone spoke to him about it in the street.55 It is quite obvious why 42  Not, as was the general custom, afterwards only. 43   I S 24, ult. 44   T D 351, 4f. 45   I S 28, 5ff.; cf. p. 268 above. 46  Ibid. 28, 8ff. 47  Jāḥiẓ, Bayān II 91, 7f.; similar II 190, 6f. Regarding his politeness also ibid. II 318, 15. 48   I S 28, 13ff. = Ḥilya III 39, 9ff.; ibid. 26, 26ff.; 25, 26ff. etc. 49   I S 25, 24f. 50  Ibid. 25, 20f. 51  Ibid. 27, 10ff. 52  Ibid. 28, 20f. 53  Ibid. 28, 14 and 18ff.; also TD 353, 5ff., with an eye-witness account by Mufaḍḍal b. Lāḥiq, a mawlā of the Raqāsh (regarding him Khalīfa, Ṭab. 533 no. 1861). 54  Ibid. 25, 18ff. 55  Ibid. 25, 12ff.

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he was so sought after: he had heard hadith from Rajāʾ b. Ḥaywa (d. 112/730) in Syria, from Qāsim b. Muḥammad (d. 107/725) in the Hijaz, apparently also from ʿIkrima (d. 105/723) and Nāfiʿ, ʿAbdallāh b. ʿUmar’s mawlā (d. 117/735);56 he had also spent some time in Kufa and met Shaʿbī there.57 The poet Muḥammad b. Munādhir, himself a Muʿtazilite sympathiser, recommended that people should hear hadith from Ibn ʿAwn and Mālik b. Anas.58 But Ibn ʿAwn only transmitted in a small circle, at home early in the morning after “contemplating God” (dhikr) which he was wont to do after the early prayer; the masses were not admitted.59 Of his pupils he asked inner focus instead of mere collectors’ zeal.60 He quoted his teachers ʿIkrima and Nāfiʿ to the effect that one must not request hadith but wait until the teacher wished to pass it on.61 The responsibility linked to this craft weighed heavily on him;62 he recalled that certain traditions had only emerged during his lifetime63 and worried that he might unwittingly add or omit something.64 Shuʿba praised him as one of the few who felt qualms about emending an isnād (tadlīs).65 He showed Ibn Sīrīn the material he had collected in his younger days in Kufa before passing it on.66 There were many tābiʿūn from whom he did not transmit at all because they indulged in their own private views (ra‌ʾy) too much.67 Even among his teachers he distinguished between those who transmitted by meaning only (Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, Shaʿbī and Ibrāhīm al-Nakhaʿī in Kufa), and others who preserved the precise wording (Ibn Sīrīn in Basra, Rajāʾ b. Ḥaywa in Syria, Qāsim b. Muḥammad in Medina).68 He himself came to the fore more noticeably only 56  Fasawī I 548, 2ff. = 368, 6ff; regarding Qāsim cf. also ibid. I 671, apu. ff., and GAS 1/279; also EI2 Suppl. 311f., VII. 57  See p. 412 below. 58   Agh. XVIII 198, 7. Further detail p. 445f. below. 59   I S 25, 14f. and 22ff. The philologists Naḍr b. Shumayl (d. 204/819–20) and Aṣmaʿī (d. 213/ 828) heard hadith from him in their youth (Marzubānī, Nūr al-qabas 99, 19; Anbārī, Nuzha 48, 5f., and 115, 1). 60   I S 25, 15ff. 61  Fasawī II 249, 1ff. and 8ff. 62   I S> 25, 11f. > Fasawī II 238, 6f.; also al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī, Sharaf aṣḥāb al-ḥadīth 118, 11f. Regarding the translation cf. IS lvi, editor’s note on the passage. 63  Fasawī II 266, 3f. 64   I S 25, 8f.; also Fasawī II 249, pu. ff. 65   T D 340, –5f. 66   I S 25, 6ff. 67  Fasawī II 250, 7ff. We should like to know more detail, but he distanced himself explicitly only from Shahr b. Ḥawshab (d. 111/730 or 112/731), and we do not know the reason why in this case, either (AZ 681 no. 2078 = Fasawī II 97, pu. ff.; regarding him Mīzān no. 3756). 68  Jāḥiẓ, Bayān II 322, 9f.; with addendum IV 394.

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after Ayyūb al-Sakhtiyānī’s death; before that time there had been only around half a dozen hadiths known through him.69 He was known to disapprove of written records: they lead humans astray.70 He pointed out that Abū Bakr and ʿUmar did not take notes,71 and Ibn Sīrīn did not like writing things down either.72 His pupil Ḥammād b. Zayd explained this attitude as concern that these books might distract people from reading the Quran,73 but this may be merely a retrospective interpretation, as the early Ibn al-Madīnī insisted that Ibn ʿAwn read a hadith of Samura b. Jundab (d. late 59 or early 60/Oct. 679) in his “book”.74 He was even said to have asked Nāfiʿ for hadith in writing.75 We must bear in mind that the written versions at the time were often in the form of aṭrāf, aides-memoire which noted only fragments of the respective hadith “with beginning and end”.76 This was the form in which Ibn Sīrīn preserved his teacher ʿAbīda al-Salmānī’s traditions77 to which Ibn ʿAwn had access as well, although he did not make use of them, probably once again due to fear of inadvertent falsification.78 Bakkār b. Muḥammad believed that neither he nor Ibn Sīrīn owned a “book” that contained even one complete hadith.79 Of course Ibn ʿAwn was not completely opposed to writing per se. Ibn ʿAsākir preserved a paraenetic letter that was traced back to him;80 and a letter from ʿUmar addressed to Christians who had apostatised after previously converting to Islam was transmitted via him as well.81 It is probable that the numerous items regarding Iraqi legal practice he had learnt from Ibn Sīrīn and from

69   T D 327, 8f.; 328, 6ff.; 329, 1ff. Some of his hadiths, in particular those that remained isolated, were preserved by Abū Nuʿaym (Ḥilya III 42, 2ff.). 70  al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī, Taqyīd al-ʿilm 21, 1 = 57, 6f. 71  Fasawī II 285, 10f. = Khaṭīb, Taqyīd 48, 15. 72   Taqyīd 48, 12. 73  Ibid. 57, 10ff.; cf. also Abbott, Arabic Literary Papyri II 7ff., and Cook in JSAI 8/1987/173. 74   ʿIlal 57, 6. 75  Azmi, Studies 75 and 97 with further information. 76  Azmi 185. The form was still cultivated later, with greater precision; cf. e.g. Mizzī’s Tuḥfat al-ashrāf bi-maʿrifat al-aṭrāf (ed. ʿAbduṣ-Ṣamad Sharafuddīn, Bombay 1965ff.). Other titles in Kattānī, Al-risāla al-mustaṭrafa 167ff. 77  Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 387 no. 2581. 78   I S 27, 17ff. (wrongly vocalised ʿUbayda). Regarding his attitude to aṭrāf cf. also AZ 675 no. 2041. 79   I S VII1 141, 22f. 80   T D 363, 1ff.: on the power of Satan. 81  Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, Aḥkām ahl al-dhimma 180, 1ff.

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Shaʿbī also existed in written form.82 Historical information was transmitted via him as well: on the murder of ʿUthmān,83 the battle of the camel,84 or paying homage to Yazīd I.85 Like Ibn Sīrīn he believed in dream visions; he had him interpret his dreams and once saw him in a dream.86 Once he even saw the prophet, but this was only a short time before his death.87 As in the case of Ayyūb al-Sakhtiyānī his conscientiousness was not expressed in his bearing, his dress or hairstyle; he was not one to despise worldly pleasures (nāsik). He considered declining invitations to feasts, as was ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd’s habit, to be wrong.88 We have seen how he got dressed up and put on perfume for Friday prayers, and Ibn Saʿd described his demeanour in some detail.89 Among other garments he owned a burnouse made from fine wool that had belonged to ʿAbdallāh b. ʿUmar and that he had acquired90 from the estate of Anas b. Sīrīn, a brother of Muḥammad b. Sīrīn.91 Anas b. Mālik, he noted, had dressed in silk as well.92 He did not gather his garments, as they fell to his feet at the back.93 His cap (qalansuwa) was exceedingly large,94 which may have been the latest fashion at that time.95 His sandals had one strap only, rather than two like the sandals worn by the ascetics, one being considered the more elegant style.96 However, he took care, Bakkār hastened to add, to avoid the very soft footwear made from specially tanned ox skin (niʿāl

82  On the first qāḍī in Basra under ʿUmar (Wakīʿ II 269, apu. ff.), on Iyās b. Muʿāwiya (ibid. I 331, apu. f., and 342, ult. f.) and most importantly on the Qāḍī Shurayḥ (ibid. II 326–30 after Ibn Sīrīn; also earlier II 215, 220 etc., frequently after Shaʿbī). Despite his close ties to Ibn Sīrīn’s family he was said not to have been quite as precise in his information as Ayyūb al-Sakhtiyānī (Ibn al-Madīnī, ʿIlal 68, –4ff.). 83  See p. 415 below. 84  Ṭabarī I 3213, 11ff., and 3216, 8ff. 85  Ibid. II 175, 17ff. – Cf. also Abū Yūsuf, Kharāj 134, ult. ff., where, however, Ibn ʿAwn’s identity is not certain. 86   I S 28, 1ff., and 27, 12ff. 87  Ibid. 29, 18ff. 88  Jāḥiẓ, Bukhalāʾ 213, 10f. 89   I S 29, 5ff. The facts are not always entirely comprehensible. 90   I S VII2 29, 11ff. 91  Regarding him IS VII1 150, 11 and 22ff.; Khalīfa, Ṭab. 513 no. 1777. 92   T D 326, 2f. 93   I S 29, 16f. 94  Ibid. 29, 4f.; see p. 393 above regarding Ayyūb al-Sakhtiyānī. 95   E I2 V 737b s. v. Libās, and Ṣāliḥ al-ʿAlī in: MMʿIʿI 13/1966/425. 96  According to the ʿahd ʿUmar the ahl al-dhimma should also be wearing sandals with double straps (cf. Noth in JSAI 9/1987/303); see also p. 438 below.

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sibtiyya),97 presumably because the prophet had spoken against it.98 He did not trim his moustache but kept it at medium length; his hair grew to the middle of his ears. “When you saw him, you would have said: ‘He is not from this class (ṭabaqa, i.e. the pious people?); he spends much time among people’.99 He wore a ring engraved with the seal of Solomon, i.e. what we call the star of David,100 and had some of his teeth set in gold.101 When Sufyān b. ʿUyayna admonished him for being overly fond of money he replied that he had found it quite useful.102 All the same, he seems to have left more than 10,000 dinars of debt on his death. No ready money was found at all, his two houses in Basra being his only assets.103 Bakkār b. Muḥammad accused Ibn ʿAwn’s sons of haggling over his shroud: his wife had to contribute a considerable amount of her own money.104 Here we seem to find some tensions: it was a most costly shroud, apparently from the warehouses of the Ibn Sīrīn family who were, as we have seen, cloth merchants,105 and enterprising ones at that. Furthermore they, and not the descendants, were the heirs – within legal limits: after the debts had been paid Ibn ʿAwn left a fifth of his property to Bakkār b. Muḥammad’s father to distribute among relatives rich and poor.106 His servant Azhar b. Saʿd al-Sammān also received a legacy.107 It is possible that all this was reported to show how closely he adhered to all the advice of the Quran; after all sura 2:180 states that someone “who is visited by death” should “make testament in favour of his parents and his kinsmen honourably” – besides the normal intestate succession, as would be interpreted later; an agreement had also been reached that this applied only once all debts had been paid.108 This rule, however, does not appear 97   I S 29, 15f.; cf. p. 608 below. 98  Cf. Conc. II 390 s. v. sibtiyya; also Lane, Lexicon 1288. 99   I S 29, 7ff. Regarding the fashion in moustaches see p. 438 below. 100  Ibid. 29, 3f. 101  Ibid. 29, 17f. 102  Ibid. 29, 1f. 103  Ibid. 30, 1f. and 4ff. 104  Ibid. 29, 21ff. 105  Cf. EI2 III 947 b s. n. Ibn Sīrīn. 106  Ibid. 30, 2f. 107  Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif 513, 5f.; regarding him cf. Mīzān no. 696. I am assuming that he is the same Azhar whom Ibn ʿAwn sent to do the shopping in his old age (IS 28, pu. f.); he is cited as an authority e.g. ibid. VII1 146, 6f. It is possible that awṣā ilā means that Ibn ʿAwn appointed him his executor, but after the preceding this is not very probable. Cf. Dozy, Suppl. s. v. w-ṣ-y II. 108  Cf. HW 797 s. v. Waṣiyya.

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to explain everything: in his old age Ibn ʿAwn complained that he was being left alone and unable to leave his house; when Anas b. Mālik was this age, he said, he had had people lead him around on a mount, even though Ibn ʿAwn was more infirm.109 This is probably a reference to the fact that he had broken his ankle on the stairs of his house, and it did not heal properly,110 making him miss his sons’ help very much. One of them was mentioned in an unexpected context by Khalīfa b. Khayyāṭ,111 a second one in passing by Ibn Saʿd,112 but it may be significant that Ibn Saʿd never cited either of them as authorities for his biography. We are never told what Ibn ʿAwn’s profession was. Letting his two houses made him some money, but it is possible that he simply married into a wealthy family. In his opinion only a few mawālī had been lucky (ḥaẓẓ) in Basra.113 It is true that he had had more troubles than Ibn Sīrīn, who had been able to marry a free Arab woman without repercussions. Ibn ʿAwn, on the other hand, when he did the same thing only a generation later, met with opposition from Qatāda and was flogged on the order of the qāḍī Bilāl b. Abī Burda.114 He had been forced to give up his wife, who was of the same tribe as Qatāda, which would have been unusually severe at that time.115 Bilāl considered himself to be superior to him; when to make matters worse Ibn ʿAwn pointed out to him that they disagreed on the weighting of the divorce formula, he made it clear that in his view Ibn ʿAwn was no more than a slave who could not teach him anything about the law.116 The event must have taken place some time between 110/729 when Ibn Abī Burda took office, and 117/735 when Qatāda died; Ibn ʿAwn would already have been around 50 years old. Still, he was no revolutionary, nor did he become one. His recollection of how he saw Ibn al-Ashʿath in his youth illustrated this: the latter sat cross-legged on

109   I S 25, 1ff. 110  Ibid. 29, 19ff. 111   Ta‌ʾrīkh 187, 15. 112  See p. 407 above. 113  Fasawī II 58, 2ff. 114  Wakīʿ, Akhbār II 28, 6ff.; Fasawī II 63, 11ff.; Abū l-ʿArab, Miḥan 326, 3ff. Cf. p. 158 above. 115  The parallel cases known to us were all earlier (cf. Juda, Die sozialen und wirtschaftlichen Aspekte der mawālī 180). 116  Wakīʿ, Akhbār II28, 11; Abū l-ʿArab 327, apu. This may of course be an attempt on the author’s part to present Ibn ʿAwn as the better lawyer, thus allowing him at least a small triumph. Because of the question of whether the batta formula entailed a reversible or an irreversible divorce there were riots in Mosul in 121 (Azdī, Ta‌ʾrīkh al-Mawṣil 41, 1ff.); regarding the issue see Schacht, Origins 195ff.

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the pulpit, making grandiose promises.117 He never mentioned his humiliation at the hands of Ibn Abī Burda later.118 Ghaylān al-Dimashqī’s critical view of the authorities was anathema to him; he claimed to have seen Ghaylān crucified outside the gate of Damascus.119 He also recalled that Shaʿbī warned him against Bayān b. Samʿān and Mughīra b. Saʿīd, who were executed on Khālid al-Qasrī’s orders in 119/737.120 He was an ʿUthmānite121 and consequently had to abhor all seditious zeal, noting with satisfaction that his Medinan teacher Qāsim b. Muḥammad (d. 107/725), a grandson of Abū Bakr’s, prayed for forgiveness for what his father had done to ʿUthmān.122 Interestingly several of the reports of the caliph’s murder in Khalīfa b. Khayyāṭ’s Ta‌ʾrīkh go via him,123 even though he also denounced Muḥammad’s b. Abū Bakr’s actions.124 At some point, certainly still during the Umayyad era, he did get into trouble with the authorities: a mawlā of the Abbasid Sulaymān b. ʿAlī claimed to have seen him as well as Ayyūb al-Sakhtiyānī (who died in 131/749) bound in the street.125 This may have happened just before the revolution,126 as Sulaymān b. ʿAlī subsequently intended to give him, as well as Yūnus b. ʿUbayd, 2000 dirhams, which Ibn ʿAwn declined as he did not want to be beholden.127 Even so he was clearly on the Abbasid side during Ibrāhīm b. ʿAbdallāh’s uprising. The “Muʿtazila” denounced him to the ʿAlid, and he left the city until the riot broke out,128 at which point he had the gates onto Mirbad Street, where he lived, locked, and let nobody enter or leave.129 When Salm b. Qutayba, who had been governor briefly in 132, just before the Abbasid coup, held the position once again for two months in

117  Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 363, 7f. 118   I S 25, 26ff.; also TD 357, 9ff. 119   T D 316, –6ff.; also Ibn Ḥanbal, Musnad II 109, 14f. 120  Fasawī II 776, apu. ff. Shaʿbī died in 103/721, at a time when those two did probably not play an important part. 121   I S 24, ult. 122  Balādhurī, Ansāb V 93, 5f. Goitein; TB IX 74, 14f. 123  182, 19ff. (adopted from Ibn ʿUlayya); 187, 13ff.; also Ṭabarī I 2989, 15ff. 124  Ibid. 189, 4ff. Considering this attitude it is not surprising that he did not think highly of Kufa, either (AZ 505 no. 1325; Fasawī II 786, 4ff.). 125   T D 367, –5ff. 126  Regarding a possible cause see p. 1 above. 127   T D 355, apu. ff. The bearer of the money was called Ḥumayd, possibly the Abbasid dāʿī Ḥumayd b. Qaḥṭaba (Akhbār al-ʿAbbās 219, pu., and 221, 2). 128   I S 27, 4ff. > Dhahabī, Ta‌ʾrīkh VI 212, 7ff. Unfortunately I have not been able to identify the town of al-Qurayẓiyya to which he fled. Might it be a Jewish settlement? 129  Ibid. 27, 8ff.; cf. also Azdī, Ta‌ʾrīkh al-Mawṣil 189, 5f.

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146/763,130 Ibn ʿAwn was able to speak quite freely before him.131 Salm’s son Saʿīd heard hadith from him.132 After his death the current governor’s police chief133 said the prayer over him.134 He was firmly opposed to Qadarite doctrine. As he lived to see the year 145 he was able to assess its consequences, and, as he grew to be older than his two fellow-believers mentioned above, his ideas had more time to evolve and to take root in Basran public opinion. He expanded the “myth” of Maʿbad alJuhanī, heard in an earlier version from Yūnus b. ʿUbayd: Maʿbad was seduced by a newly converted Muslim, apparently a scion of the asāwira.135 Ibn ʿAwn seems to have deliberately employed hadith against the Qadarites as well; we find him in the isnād of a tradition according to which God created paradise and hell in the very beginning, as well as the people who are destined for either.136 He traced this back to Ibn Sīrīn, claiming he had also heard from him that fornication was predestined – the exemplary sin that had been one of the earliest starting points of the discussion around qadar.137 As for how one should behave towards Qadarites, he recommended in accordance with sura 6:68: “If Satan should make you forget (to contemplate God?), (at least) do not sit, after the reminding, with the people of the evildoers (any longer)”.138 He abided by it, not greeting any Qadarite he passed.139 He may have been the first one to – after 145? – carry this boycott through, as he is the only one of whom it is reported so widely and without limiting it to ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd, as in the case 130  Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 652, 14, and 675, 2; regarding the first term in office ibid. 610, 11, and 615, 9f.; also 621. 4. 131   I S 27, 23ff. I am reading ʿalā instead of ʿalayya, referring the pronoun in annahū to Ibn ʿAwn; an interpretation that seems to me to be easier than the one suggested by Sachau, p. lvi. It is hypothetical to date the anecdote to the second term in office, but it would make it more comprehensible due to historical constellations in general as well as Ibn ʿAwn’s more advanced age. 132   T B IX 74, no. 4658. 133  ʿUqba b. Salm b. Nāfiʿ; not a son of Salm b. Qutayba’s. Regarding him cf. Ṭabarī III 359, 9, and 366, 19f. 134   I S 30, 7ff. 135  Ibid. 27, 1ff.; cf. also Festschrift Meier 62ff. and 76. 136   T D 315, apu. ff.; this is a variant of the hadith I discussed HT 39ff. On the wider issue see p. 313 above, and Festschrift Abel 124ff. 137  Ājurrī, K. al-Sharīʿa 219, –7ff.; also HT 95, and vol. I 23 above. He transmitted Ibn Sīrīn’s attitude to qadar elsewhere as well (cf. IS VII1 143, 24ff.). 138   Ḥilya III 41, 3ff. 139   I S 25, 3ff.

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of the two previously named.140 We do not have much information regarding his attitude towards ʿAmr. He was said to have been annoyed when ʿAmr was mentioned,141 and accused him of falsifying hadith.142 He was in favour of people discrediting ʿAmr by means of hadith.143 A number of these reports may be projections. After all, it seems that Ibn ʿAwn transmitted from ʿAmr’s father ʿUbayd b. Bāb.144 But despite all the doubt concerning the details we can be sure that the view later generations had of him was correct as far as his fundamental attitude was concerned, at least that of his later years. He, too, was described by the phrase that he “had hope for all Muslims”,145 but on the other hand he stressed that people must not rely on the number of his works as they could not know whether God accepted them.146 Projection is to be suspected most in what he was claimed to have said about Ḥasan al-Baṣrī. He was said to have come to Ḥasan’s defence against Rajāʿ b. Ḥaywa’s accusation of Qadarite leanings,147 and in fact people claimed to have heard him transmit a dictum of Ḥasan’s in which the latter refuted the doctrine most harshly.148 At the same time, however, he transmitted Ibn Sīrīn’s critical statement that the Qadarites seduced Ḥasan with beautiful words.149 Ḥasan’s “knowledge”, he thought, was not unusual in any case; it was his withdrawal from the world that was outstanding.150 He was also impressed by Ḥasan’s command of language, comparing it to that of Ruʾba.151

140   I S 25, 5. 141  ʿAbdallāh b. Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, K. al-sunna 131, 14ff.; TB XII 173, 17ff.; similar Ḥilya II 40, –5ff. 142   T B XII 181, 20ff. 143  Fasawī II 261, 4ff. = TB XII 177, 18ff. = Dāraquṭnī 21f. no. 6 (with more detailed deliberations on the legal issue under discussion). Cf. also Ibn Waḍḍāḥ, K. al-bidaʿ IX 16–17. 144  See p. 322 above. 145   I S VII2 16, 3f.; Ḥilya III 41, 8f.; p. 396 above. 146   T D 364, 4ff. 147   A Z 683 no. 2085. 148  Fasawī II 44, –4f. 149  Ibid. II 47, 7ff. 150  Ibid. II 50, 6ff.; cf. also the remark on Ḥasan’s hadith methods. Traditions concerning Ḥasan cf. e.g. ibid. II 43, 6ff. and 45, 6ff. 151  Ibid. II 51, 8ff.

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2.2.7.1.4 Sulaymān al-Taymī The youngest of the group, Abū l-Muʿtamir Sulaymān b. Ṭarkhān al-Taymī, d. Dhū l-Qaʿda 143/Feb. 761,1 possibly aged 73,2 was a mawlā of the Murra b. ʿUbād but later lived among the Taym in Basra to whom he was related on his mother’s side, hence his nisba.3 His father appears to have been a high-ranking Turk taken prisoner of war by the Muslims;4 the sequence of names is never traced back beyond him. Sulaymān was married to a daughter of Faḍl al-Raqāshī’s with whom he had a son Muʿtamir who was to play a significant part in Basran hadith;5 a second wife is also mentioned.6 We do not know what his profession was. One passage tells us that he was imam for 40 years,7 but it is doubtful that this would provide enough income to live on. He seems to have owned a house, but when it collapsed he moved into a large felt tent (fusṭāṭ, qubba), apparently for around 30 years.8 It was noticeable in Basra that he supported ʿAlī,9 as we know because he transmitted from Salmān alFārisī10 and circulated his biography.11 He was thought to have heard hadith from ʿIkrima as well when the latter visited Basra, but when he interrupted his

1  This much detail only in TH 152, 6f., elsewhere only the year (IS VII2 18, 15; Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 645, 4 etc.) Ṭab. 526, 7f. also has “144”. 2  Ibn Saʿd already said that he was younger than Ibn ʿAwn, who was probably born in 66 (VII2 24, pu. f.; cf. also AZ 298 no. 522); cf. also p. 404 above. Dhahabī’s claim (TH 151, 2) that he lived to 93 can only be reconciled with the other information if we assume it to a mistake for 73. 3  Khalīfa, Ṭab. 526 no. 1831; more briefly also IS VII2 18, 9f. > Fasawī II 130, 3; cf. also Samʿānī, Ansāb III 124, 8ff. Should this read ʿUbayd instead of ʿUbād? (Regarding the Murra b. ʿUbayd cf. e.g. Ibn Durayd, Ishtiqāq 24, 1f.). The additional nisba al-Qaysī is found only in later sources (TH 150, –5; also Mīzān no. 3481, but only as an addendum; Samʿānī, Ansāb III 124, 5 with reservations). 4  Ṭarkhān, from Turk. darqan, was a title among Transoxanian nobles (cf. Petech in: Festschrift Gabrieli 626; also Juda, Mawālī 81); they were exempt from taxes and entitled to stand to the left of the ruler’s throne (Doerfer, Türkische und mongolische Elemente im Neupersischen II 460ff. no. 879). The ruler of the Hephthalites bore this title, too (Frye in: Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 14/1951/124f.; cf. Altheim, Geschichte der Hunnen III 10). 5  See p. 193 above. He was born in 106 (IS VII2 45, 18). This also suggests that the father’s date of birth of 46/666 given in GAS 1/285 is too early. 6  Ḥilya III 29, ult. 7  Ibid. 29, 9. 8  Ibid. 30, –8ff. 9  IS 18, 13f. 10  Ṭabarī I 91, 3ff. (on the creation of Adam); I 411, 12ff.; also HT 36, n. 93. 11  Fasawī III 272, pu. ff.

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lecture in order to listen to a song, Sulaymān did not attend any longer.12 Ayyūb al-Sakhtiyānī resented his cool attitude towards ʿUthmān,13 but the accounts he transmitted of ʿUthmān’s murder show that his support of the Shīʿites soon found its limits.14 He wrote a biography of the prophet the ijāza of which was preserved by al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī.15 In Iraq it was superseded over time by Ibn Isḥāq’s work, but at a comparatively late point, during the second half of the fifth century, it made its way to Spain. Ibn Khayr, Fahrasa 231, 3ff., with an east Iranian riwāya; the text clearly survived there. MS Vienna 881, which von Kremer used for his edition of Wāqidī’s K. al-maghāzī (Bibl. Indica, Calcutta 1855), from fol. 160 onwards (= von Kremer 360, –5ff.) contains an addendum in a different hand which is a fragment of Sulaymān al-Taymī’s book, a gloss on the frontispiece tells us (Intro., 5f.; cf. M. Jones in the introduction of his edition p. vii). Its authenticity is most doubtful (in more detail cf. M. Jarrar, Die Prophetenbiographie im islamischen Spanien 78ff.). Sezgin tried to unearth fragments in Ṭabarī’s history and in Bukhārī’s Ṣaḥīḥ. But at the very least the accounts of the murder of ʿUthmān in Ṭabarī’s text (see n. 14 above) are too recent for a K. al-maghāzī; the only quotes remaining are I 1278, 12ff., and possibly I 12, 1ff. In Bukhārī’s Maghāzī chapter, Sulaymān al-Taymī does not appear more frequently than other transmitters (e.g. in Bāb 8 or 30), and it has so far been impossible to discover the origins of these passages. He also spoke of Muḥammad’s journey to heaven (Bayhaqī, Dalāʾil al-nubuwwa II 113, 5ff.). All the material available to us goes via Sulaymān’s son Muʿtamir, who is also the first transmitter of the riwāya in Ibn Khayr. Later generations remembered him not so much as a historian as because of his piousness. Like Ibn ʿAwn he practised “David’s fasting”, on alternate days.16 Together with his son Muʿtamir he walked from one mosque to the next at night, praying sometimes here, sometimes there.17 Over forty years he spent his nights without sleep and without sexual intercourse, being able to “perform the morning prayer with the ablution of the last evening prayer”; because 12  Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif 456, 5ff.; Yūnus b. ʿUbayd reacted like this, too. 13  Cf. the text in: ZDMG 136/1986/519. 14  Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 181, 7ff.; Ṭabarī I 2963, 1ff., and 3006, 1ff., but cf. the report of ʿUmar’s actions against Fāṭima in: Balādhurī, Ansāb I 586, 1ff. Ḥamīdullāh. 15   G AS 1/285. 16   Ḥilya 28, 16f. 17   I S VII2 18, 11ff.

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of this the Kufan khaṭīb Raqaba al-Maṣqala (d. 129/747) saw God blessing Sulaymān’s house in a dream.18 Abū Nuʿaym presented him as the ideal ʿabīd,19 and Ibn al-Nadīm counted him among the zuhhād.20 He never tired of giving alms,21 he visited the sick and walked along with funerals.22 He detested nabīdh of any kind, even that which Bakr b. ukht ʿAbd al-Wāḥid b. Zayd or Sufyān al-Thawrī permitted until later.23 Women seemed to him to be a great temptation.24 A well-known prophetic dictum that was a favourite of pietistic circles was traced back through him, that “in my community polytheism (shirk) is more securely hidden than the step of an ant on hard stone, and only the omission of prayer stands between the servant and unbelief”.25 Overall there were around 200 hadiths from him.26 He was suspected of emending the isnāds,27 but on the whole he was considered to be fairly thorough. He did not allow his listeners to make notes during his lectures, but he never transmitted more than five hadiths at any one time, presumably so as not to exhaust his listeners’ memory.28 When he was offered Jābir b. ʿAbdallāh’s ṣaḥīfa, he refused to accept it29 as nobody had the right to transmit it.30 On the other hand we are told that he, too, did not work entirely without written notes.31 He appears again and again in the isnāds of hadiths that could be used against the Qadarites,32 and it was rumoured that he only agreed to transmit to his pupils if they professed the doctrine according to which fornication, 18  Ashʿarī, Maq. 214, 10ff.; the story is quoted there as it allowed the conclusion that Raqaba was an anthropomorphist. Regarding him cf. Jāḥiẓ, Bayān, Index s. n.; TT III 286f. no. 541; Massignon, Essai2 170; also p. 115f. above. 19   Ḥilya III 28, 1ff. and pu. ff.; cf. Fasawī II, 1f., as well as the poem in al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī, Sharaf aṣḥāb al-ḥadīth 72, 14. Ibn al-Jawzī adopted the image (Ṣifat al-ṣafwa III 218ff.). 20   Fihrist 235, 15. 21   Ḥilya III 28, –6f. 22  Ibid. 28, 5. 23  Cf. the hadith transmitted by him in Ḥilya III 36, 9ff., also 32, 1ff. and 33, 10f.; cf. p. 135 and vol. I 257 above. 24  Cf. the hadith ibid. 35, –7; also Suhrawardī, ʿAwārif al-maʿārif, transl. Gramlich § 21, 6. 25  Ibid. III 36, –4ff.; cf. Gedankenwelt des Muḥāsibī 46. 26   T H 151, 3. Some examples Ḥilya III 33, –5ff. 27  So-called tadlīs; cf. Mīzān no. 3481. 28  Bukhārī II2 20f. no. 1828. 29   I S VII2 18, 14ff. = Fasawī III 11, 9f. 30  Cf. GAS 1/85. 31  Azmi, Studies 102. Cf. Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 218 no. 1362 (?). 32  Cf. the examples HT 43, 78, 167, maybe also 144f. Also Festschrift Meier 71.

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too, was predestined.33 Even so, he was convinced that God did not – as the Qadarites might infer from this – wrong humans.34 He transmitted a prophetic dictum according which everyone who does not assign God associates will enter into paradise, but this must not be said out loud in order for people to continue to compete in their actions.35 He was reported to have refused to pray behind a Qadarite.36 His biography confirms that he was serious: he had moved from the Banū Murra to the Taym because the Murra chased him from their city quarter when he turned against Qadarite doctrine, while the Taym appointed him their imam.37 If it is true that he was imam for around thirty years this would have been after Ḥasan alBaṣrī’s death, and possibly considerably later than that. When he married Faḍl al-Raqāshī’s daughter he was by no means quite so strict; in fact, if we are to believe Ibn Ḥazm, the two were, in fact, friends.38 The Muʿtazila claimed he had admitted that the name Qadariyya was not invented by his people but had instead originally been directed at them. Only with the support of the authorities had it been possible to turn it back on the defenders of free will; now his people were called mujbira, thus going from bad to worse.39 2.2.7.1.5 Abū ʿAmr Ibn al-ʿAlāʾ ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd’s opponents whom we have portrayed so far came from the well-to-do bourgeoisie. While they were probably wealthier than he, they were basically of the same rank: they were all clients, but their families had had the better starting conditions. Furthermore in Ibn Sīrīn they had found a teacher who had made bourgeois decorum a matter of principle. It is true that they had attended Ḥasan al-Baṣrī’s lectures, but his asceticism incorporating Qadarite features did not appeal to them. Their opposition to ʿAmr can consequently not be explained merely as difference of temperaments and differing religious ideas found among Ḥasan’s pupils; this is how it is presented by those sources 33   Ḥilya III 33, 1ff.; cf. HT 93. An anachronistic, anti-Jahmite variant ibid. 33, 8. 34  Ibid. 33, 16f. 35  Ibid. 34, 4ff.; also Khaṭīb, Sharaf 90 no. 195. This is probably why the ascetic Ghulām Khalīl counted him among the Murjiʾites (Massignon, Essai2 168; cf. also p. 396 above). 36  Ibid. 33, 13f. 37  Ibn Khayr, Fahrasa 231, 4f. 38   Naqt al-ʿarūs 246, 21ff. 39  Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Faḍl 345, 2ff., and Mughnī VIII 332, 8ff.; both passages are corrupt and must be emended against one another. Anonymous Mānkdīm, ShUKh 772, pu. f. Cf. HT 125, with an uncertain conclusion. The story is traced back to ʿUthmān al-Ṭawīl.

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that attempt to retain Ḥasan for the “orthodox cause”. We will have to go back to Ḥasan’s own time; only ʿAmr was his pupil in the true sense of the word.1 The picture changes when we turn to the philologist and Quran reciter Abū ʿAmr Ibn al-ʿAlāʾ (d. ca. 154/770). He was a free Arab, a member of the Banū Māzin in whose city quarter he lived.2 He had not much in common with Ḥasan al-Baṣrī as he read the Quran differently from him.3 Because of his origins, and probably also in his capacity as a philologist, he associated with government circles: with the judges Bilāl b. Abī Burda and Sawwār b. ʿAbdallāh,4 or with Abbasids like Sulaymān b. ʿAlī, the first Abbasid governor of Basra,5 or Yazīd, the caliph Manṣūr’s son.6 His house in Basra was situated behind that of Jaʿfar al-Sulaymān, one of Sulaymān b. ʿAlī’s sons.7 His last journey was to visit ʿAbd al-Wahhāb b. Ibrāhīm, Manṣūr’s nephew and governor of Syria;8 when he died unexpectedly in Kufa on the way to Damascus, the governor of that city, Muḥammad b. Sulaymān, another of Sulaymān b. ʿAlī’s sons, said the prayer over him.9 He died a decade after ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd, but appears to have been the older one. Marzubānī went so far as to list him among the tābiʿūn.10 His frugality was noted11 – and remarkable indeed in a man of his distinguished position – but it may only have been the result of a passing phase of renouncing the world (nusk) during which he was also said to have burnt his notes.12 It seems that his critical attitude towards ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd was emphasised mainly by his exceedingly “orthodox” pupil al-Aṣmaʿī (d. 213/828?) who may have intended to counter the Qadarite trend to which the Basran philologists had

1  This probably explains the – otherwise rather anachronistic – report that Ibn Sīrīn did not want to have anything to do with ʿAmr (Ibn Waḍḍāḥ, K. al-bidaʿ IX 15). 2  Wakīʿ, Akhbār II 84, 10f.; regarding his genealogy cf. Ibn Ḥazm, Jamhara 212, –6ff. Regarding his biography in general cf. R. Blachère’s detailed article EI2 I 105f. 3  Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥasan b. Ibrāhīm al-Ahwāzī (d. 446/1055) collected the variants; an edition of this text is being prepared by ʿUmar Yūsuf Ḥamdān. Regarding his qirāʾāt see also GAS 9/41f., and the analysis of his sources in Pellat, Milieu 76ff.; also Maḥmūd Ḥasanī in: Dirāsāt 12/1985, issue 3/85ff. 4  Wakīʿ II 35, 8, and 84, 10f.; regarding Sawwār b. ʿAbdallāh see p. 178f. above. 5  Qifṭī, Inbāh IV 127, 13f. 6  Ibn al-Nadīm, Fihrist 56, 5f. 7  Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 321, 5. 8  IKh III 469, 4f. 9  Qifṭī, Inbāh IV 130, 2f. 10   Nūr al-qabas 25, 19. 11  Ibid. 26, 1ff., and 37, 6. 12  Ibid. 25, 17f.; more precisely Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 321, 6f.

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succumbed.13 After all, he had heard hadith from ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAwn.14 Aṣmaʿī tells us that when the Basran traditionist Jarīr b. Ḥāzim (d. 170/786)15 was passing in the company of Ḥammād b. Zayd (d. 179/795),16 Abū ʿAmr showed him a piece of paper (ruqʿa) the contents of which visibly outraged Jarīr, whereupon he indicated that the note was from ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd.17 Unfortunately Aṣmaʿī did not consider it necessary to reveal why Jarīr was so exercised. The second story that goes back to him, and was circulated widely, is different;18 the theological argument is clearly expressed, albeit briefly so as to fit the anecdote. It is directed at a Muʿtazilite exegesis the Quranic basis of which, while not explicitly stated, would have been clear to every reader: in Quranic usage God “promises” punishment to the unbelievers (e.g. in sura 21:38 and 97); elsewhere it is said clearly that he keeps his promises (sura 2:80, 14:47 etc.). Consequently he has determined: he cannot forgive an unbeliever. It was not even necessary to combine different passages, as sura 13:31 has the two statements next to one another: “And still the unbelievers are smitten by catastrophe for their actions [. . .] until God’s promise comes true. God will not break his promise (lā yukhlifu mīʿād).” This passage of course refers to punishment in in the world, and to unbelievers rather than sinners in general, but it could not be denied that such statements usually refer to the Day of Judgment, and consequently this “promise” also applied to Muslim sinners (cf. e.g. sura 18:21, 30:60, 31:33). This was probably the communis opinio; the philologist’s refutation did not even refer to the Quranic evidence. Rather, Ibn al-ʿAlāʾ pointed to a lexical distinction: “Breaking one’s word (khulf) means that one promises something good and then does not carry it out”; if, on the other hand, one “promised” something bad, this is in fact a threat, and not carrying out a threat is by no means shameful and breaking one’s word, but on the contrary generosity and merit. This was certainly how the ancient Arabs saw it; ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd had fallen for a barbarism (ʿujma). After all, the story insinuated, he was himself of Persian origin, ʿajamī; Ibn al-ʿAlāʾ, on the other hand, had deeper insight into linguistic phenomena not only because he was a philologist but also because he was a true Arab. When ʿAmr asked for evidence, Ibn al-ʿAlāʾ was able to quote two verses 13  Cf. p. 99f. above. 14  See p. 410, n. 59 above. 15  Regarding him see p. 23 above. 16  Regarding him and his family cf. Pellat in EI2 Suppl. 284b; he had close ties to the “four”, and was a client of Jarīr b. Ḥāzim’s family (TH 228 no. 213). 17   T B XII 179, 14ff. 18  Text XI 1.

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in which the poet (either Ṭarafa or ʿĀmir b. al-Ṭufayl) emphasised proudly that he “broke his threat” and “fulfilled his promise”. Similarly God does not break his word when he does not carry out a threat, but rather behaves like a nobleman. This was presumably different from Muʿtazilite exegesis not only as to the result but also in the method employed; while the Qadarites elucidated the Quran by means of the Quran and used a theological approach, in this instance extra-Quranic usage – namely the language of ancient Arabic poetry – was adduced in order to interpret scripture. This anecdote made a great impression, as illustrated by Muʿtazilite attempts to moderate it by means of additions. There can be no doubt that the latter are secondary. Their only common feature is that ʿAmr was given the opportunity to respond, but what he said is different in each case. Firstly there was the muʿāraḍa on the basis of the supporting verse. The poet said that he “breaks his threatening word”, and thus he, too, used the words “breaking his word” in the case of a threat. Consequently the expression seems to be affirmed by this verse, but this is, we may add, all that can be gleaned from the supporting verse. God, after all, said by no means that he would “break his threatening word”; on the contrary. Arab high-mindedness had no place in exegesis. There can be no doubt that in the Quranic verses cited “breaking his word” refers to a threat, even if they speak of a “promise”. What the verse proves is that God might as well have said “threat” instead of “promise”. This version of the story goes back via Mubarrad to the philologist Abū ʿUthmān al-Māzinī (d. 248/862?), who cited a certain Muḥammad b. Misʿar as his authority.19 As al-Māzinī was a member of the same tribe as Abū ʿAmr Ibn al-ʿAlāʾ, it is tempting to identify his source as the very Muḥammad b. Misʿar b. al-ʿAlāʾ whom Ṭabarī has report on the uprising of Ibrāhīm b. ʿAbdallāh, who was a nephew of Abū ʿAmr’s.20 He still remains vague; the most important factor is Mubarrad’s Muʿtazilite attitude. Another isnād was not traced back even this far: the Muʿtazilite Abū Mujālid transmitted to Khayyāṭ,21 from whom Kaʿbī heard the anecdote and included it in his K. al-ghurar.22

19   Thaʿālibī, Yatīmat al-dahr (Damascus) I 464, 11ff./(Cairo 1352/1934) II 117, –7ff./ed. ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd, Cairo 1956, II 133, 12ff. 20   I II 289, 8ff.; this would correspond with the information that he was a Shīʿite (Mīzān no. 8164) as, indeed, was Māzinī (see p. 486 below). 21  Regarding him see ch. C 4.2.4 below. 22  Mufīd, Fuṣūl I 38, 15ff./40, 3ff. > Majlisī, Biḥār (quoted in Ashʿarī, Maq. 148, n. 1); together with another tradition Abū Mujālid traced back to Abū l-Hudhayl; also in al-Manṣūr billāh, Shāfī III 56, 8ff.

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Secondly there is the attempt to produce counter-evidence in poetry. This motif has clearly been added to an earlier version in which ʿAmr’s response is merely a sneer ad hominem,23 followed by a reference, sometimes clearly separate,24 to an entirely anonymous verse praising someone for never reneging on his promises or threats.25 The conclusion e contrario was that “breaking one’s word” after a threat was not in itself praiseworthy, and certainly not nobler than severity and consistency. Finally there was a response that refused to accept poetry as valid evidence, returning to theology: poets cannot be trusted; they do not always speak the truth. God on the other hand must be truthful; if he says “Truly, I will populate hell with jinn and humans” (sura 11:119 and 32:13), he must carry this out.26 This seems to imply that he cannot then pardon everyone from sheer nobility, which sounds surprising: why should this verse not refer to the true unbelievers whom nobody would wish to pardon in any case? But the exegetic question around which the whole discussion revolved was not asked at all – more evidence in favour of the response being derivative. All of this does not confirm that the original anti-Qadarite version is genuine,27 as it can be called thus only in the more general sense that it presents a genuine controversy debated by two protagonists of the opposing positions in the form of an anecdote. It seems that the Muʿtazilites did not distinguish neatly between waʿd and waʿīd at first,28 which was actually in keeping with Quranic usage. The philologists, on the other hand, if they did not themselves have ties to the Muʿtazila, felt challenged. Abū ʿAmr was said to have studied the issue in more depth. He noticed that sura 7:44 uses waʿada “to promise” with reference to paradise as well as hell, and explained that there was a distinction

23  Zubaydī, Ṭab. 34, 11f. 24  Thus in Mufaḍḍal al-Tanūkhī, Ta‌ʾrīkh al-ʿulamāʾ al-naḥwiyyīn 145, pu. ff.; with a further epilogue also Ibn Manẓūr, Mukhtaṣar TD XXIX 82, ult. ff. 25  Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Faḍl 294, 6ff. > IM 84, 1ff.; Abū l-Ṭayyib al-Lughawī, Marātib alnaḥwiyyīn 38, 5ff.; al-Manṣūr billāh, Shāfī III 56, –8ff. 26   Faḍl 294, 2ff. > IM 83, 1ff.: brought by Jubbāʾī against the Basran traditionist and man of letters Abū Khalīfa al-Faḍl b. al-Ḥubāb al-Jumaḥī (d. 305/917–8; regarding him EI2 XII 284). In Ibn al-Murtaḍā, Abū Khalīfa is misspelt as Abū Khanīfa. The reference to the Quranic verse cited was already prepared in the Basran Jahmiyya (cf. Text XX 16). 27  I take back some of the claims I made in Trad. Polemik 32f. 28  When we read later that Ḥasan al-Baṣrī already interpreted waʿd only in the positive sense (Ṭūsī, Tibyān III 642, 1ff., it is probably backdated. The uṣūl al-khamsa, which distinguish between waʿd and waʿīd, were probably only formulated by Abū l-Hudhayl (see ch. C 3.2.1.2 below).

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between waʿada and awʿada only if no object followed.29 Azharī (d. 370/980) would later make the same distinction, with reference to the exact verse cited in the anecdote.30 While it is a further step to judging “breaking one’s word” differently in the case of a promise and in the case of a threat, it may have already been suggested by Abū ʿAmr. The Muʿtazilites certainly thought him capable of it, otherwise they would hardly have produced so many versions arguing against it. They clearly considered him a worthy opponent, as illustrated by the fact that there are several instances of discussions between him and ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd in a direct attack, rather than in a secondary reaction as in earlier reports. The linguistic usage of the “Arabs”, i.e. the Bedouins, is at issue again: ʿAmr asking the philologist whether he had ever heard an Arab say in a situation where nothing could possibly be done that one “did not put in enough effort” or “was negligent” (farraṭa). When Ibn al-ʿAlāʾ, as was to be expected, answered in the negative, ʿAmr pointed to sura 39:56 where a sinner says on the day of judgment “Alas, how I regret to have neglected my duty to God!” This makes sense only if he really, as the Qadarites assumed, had the faculty of independent action (qudra).31 From a Muʿtazilite point of view Abū ʿAmr’s position appeared “Murjiʾite”:32 despite their sins, Muslims are certain to go to paradise. Ashʿarī classified it as such, too, although he left it anonymous, referring only to “a philologist” (baʿḍ al-ʿulamāʾ bil-lugha). A gloss, however, adds Abū ʿAmr’s name, undoubtedly correctly as the kinship with the anecdote is conspicuous.33 The essence of the problem is clearly presented notwithstanding the brevity of the doxographical report: the binding character of the divine revelation. If God announces that he will reward someone, he will do it; but if he says of Muslims that he will punish them, he will not abide by this, because of his magnanimousness. It is interesting that not even a temporary punishment in hell is considered, and the idea that God is free to decide what he wants and could thus punish a Muslim but does not have to, is not expressed either. The accent is on the Muslim’s certainty of salvation: God is more magnanimous than he is just. 29  Zajjājī, Majālis al-ʿulamāʾ 79, 5ff.; Qifṭī, Inbāh IV 133, 14ff. Ṭabarī does not mention the issue in the relevant passage at all (Tafsīr 3XII 446 no. 14670). 30   Tahdhīb al-lugha III 135a, 1ff. > Lisān al-ʿArab III 463b, –6ff. 31  Text X 11. Paret translates: “ . . . Gott gegenüber Missachtung (disregard) gezeigt zu haben”; the precise meaning of farraṭa is controversial among exegetes (Paret, Komm. 138 on sura 6:31). 32   Faḍl 293, 5; thus also Abū l-Ṭayyib al-Lughawī, Marātib 38, 5. 33  Text XI 2.

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It is tempting to suggest the explanation that the phrase was adopted from a Muʿtazilite heresiographical source, but a preceding passage (one very close to Abū ʿAmr’s views, and probably describing the same intellectual background) presents the position in a similarly one-dimensional fashion.34 Faith alone brings salvation; the Quran’s threatening verses only apply to non-Muslims. A passage such as 4:93, that allows the interpretation that a Muslim who murders a fellow-believer would be condemned for eternity, was restricted: it applies only to those who believe that murder is permitted. They do not only act wrong, but there is something wrong with their faith, too. We recall that the Bakriyya interpreted the verse in the exact opposite sense – maybe the passage is an attack on them even more than ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd. 2.2.7.2 The Next Generation Abū ʿAmr Ibn al-ʿAlāʾ could certainly be counted among the Murjiʾites with more justification than his four contemporaries discussed earlier. He not only felt “hope” for all Muslims, but came up with an argument that changed hope into certainty. Still, we do not know whether he thought about the concept of faith like the Ghaylāniyya; he was probably only a philologist and exegete. He also differed from the Ghaylāniyya due to the fact that he was no Qadarite. How important this was can be seen from the example of a man who was a generation younger, although Yaḥyā b. Mubārak al-Yazīdī (d. 202/817)1 placed them side by side in his qaṣīda on the Basran grammarians: Abū Salama Ḥammād b. Salama b. Dīnār al-Rabaʿī al-Baṭāʾinī, a mawlā of the Rabīʿa b. Mālik of the Tamīm who died in Dhū l-Ḥijja 167 during the feast of the sacrifice/ca. 4 July 784.2 “Faith increases and decreases”, he transmitted from the prophet’s companion ʿUmayr b. Ḥabīb al-Anṣārī,3 and a variant contains an addition explaining how this works: “If we think of a transgression and fear it, it means that (faith) is increasing, but if we are careless, forgetful and negligent, it means that it decreases”.4 Or, differently, according to Anas b. Mālik: “Faith is to profess God (i.e. his existence), to believe it to be 34  Text XI 3. 1  Regarding him GAS 2/610. 2  Khalīfa, Ṭab. 537 no. 1878, and Ta‌ʾrīkh 691, 10. Ibn al-Nadīm is the only one to give the date as “Muḥarram 165” (Fihrist 283, 14). Regarding the verse cf. Qifṭī, Inbāh I 330, 7. 3  Suyūṭī, La‌ʾālī I 37, –5ff.; regarding ʿUmayr b. Ḥabīb cf. Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, Istīʿāb 1213 no. 1979. 4  Ibid. I 38, 7ff.

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true in one’s heart, and to obey the fundamental commandments (arkān)”.5 It was probably no coincidence that he heard ʿUmayr b. Ḥabīb’s dictum from the latter’s grandson Abū Jaʿfar al-Khaṭmī who, when he settled in Basra, did all he could to denigrate Ghaylān’s memory.6 Abū Muṭīʿ al-Balkhī listed Ḥammād as an authority for hadiths expressing the opposing view as well,7 but while he may have recorded both points of view – either conscientiously or uncritically – there is no doubt where his sympathies lay. He transmitted the well-known hadith about the religious position of the adulterer, which was used to discomfit the Murjiʾites,8 and he mocked the juristic manoeuvres of the Ḥanafites.9 He was more reticent when it came to the Qadariyya. While he does appear in hadiths that played a part in the critical debate about the Qadariyya, they all advise reticence10 or are not entirely devoid of respect for the opposition.11 Like them, he believed in primitive monotheism as a corollary of the covenant God made with humans when they were still reposing in Adam’s loins. This is how the fiṭra, to which much thought was devoted at the time, should be understood, although, as Ibn Qutayba added, unlike the Qadarites, Ḥammād did not consider it to be identical with Islam, consequently there was no reward for it. Ibn Qutayba, Iṣlāḥ al-ghalaṭ, in: MUSJ 44/1968/171, 4ff. In HT 112f. I probably assumed this position to be too close to that of the Qadarites. Besides, I ought to have distinguished more clearly between the (very brief) summary of Ḥammād’s doctrine and the subsequent interpretation at the hands of Ibn Qutayba. While he was a philologist like Abū ʿAmr,12 his true domain was in fact hadith, although he considered an understanding of grammar to be indispensable in this field, too,13 probably because he was most careful to preserve exact 5  Ibid. I 34, 10ff. 6  Cf. Anfänge, Index s. n. 7  Suyūṭī I 38, 12ff. Different again ibid. 43, 5ff. 8  Ḥilya VI 256, 10ff.; cf. vol. I 234 above. 9  Jāḥiẓ, Ḥayawān III 18, 5ff. 10   H T 156f. 11  Ibid. 167; after Ḥumayd al-Ṭawīl (d. 142/759) who was his uncle on his mother’s side. 12  Cf. Marzubānī, Nūr al-qabas 47, 12ff.; Sīrāfī, Akhbār al-naḥwiyyīn al-Baṣriyyīn 42, apu. ff.; Qifṭī, Inbāh I 329f. no. 220; Yāqūt, Irshād IV 135ff.; Ibn al-Anbārī, Nuzha 40ff. etc. The substance is the same everywhere. 13  Qifṭī, Inbāh I 329, 11f.

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wording.14 He was also versed in Quranic recitation, albeit not to the expert level of Abū ʿAmr.15 Unlike the latter, he was another mawlā. His grandfather had probably been a slave; the genealogy does not go back beyond him, and his name seems to reveal that he was bought for one dinar – slightly more expensive, at least, than the ancestor of Ḥammād’s namesake and contemporary Ḥammād b. Zayd b. Dirham (d. 179/795).16 Ḥammād was a cloth merchant (bazzāz), dealing mainly in linings as witness his nisba al-Baṭāʾinī.17 He was certainly not poor, but complained that he had no more than 300 dirhams in ready money.18 The explanation offered was that he did not want to make a profit from business, as he was particularly wary of wrongful gain,19 this being part of the image of an honest merchant. He allegedly married 70 women, but had no offspring. Later generations took this to be a particular proof of abstinence and counted him among the abdāl – wa-llāhu aʿlam.20 It remains to be researched whether Dīnār and Dirham were always slaves’ names. Suyūṭī, Al-mustaẓraf min akhbār al-jawārī 28ff. no. 18, mentions a female slave named Danānīr. On the other hand, Dīnār is given as the name of a true Arab in Ibn al-Faraḍī, Ta‌ʾrīkh al-ʿulamāʾ bil-Andalus I 31, no. 51; in pre-Islamic times there were the Banū Dīnār b. Najjār (Ibn Ḥazm, Jamhara 350, 1ff.; Ibn Durayd, Ishtiqāq 454, 12; Ṭabarī, Index s. n.). A poet was named Dīnār b. Bādiya (Ishtiqāq 409, 2), another Dirham b. Yazīd al-Awsī (GAS 2/287). The radiance of a face might have been just as plausible a determining factor as the buying price of a slave; or the generic fact that someone had been bought as a slave. Cf. Sublet, Le voile du nom 58. Ḥammād started collecting early. He came to Mecca for the first time in 114/ 732, the year of ʿAṭāʾ b. Abī Rabāḥ’s death, as he noted;21 he also heard from

14   A Z 471 no. 1221; al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī, Kifāya 242, 1ff. 15  Ibn al-Jazārī, Ṭab. I 258 no. 1169. 16  Regarding him see p. 423 above. 17   T H 202f. no. 197. This is the only instance of it, and it is probably meant as a description of his occupation. Samʿānī lists him under his laqab al-Khazzāz, “the silk merchant” (Ansāb V 111, 12ff.). 18  Fasawī II 194, 3ff. 19   Mīzān no. 2251 (I 591, 12ff.); Ḥilya VI 250, –6ff. 20   T H 203, –7; regarding the abdāl see p. 104 above. Abū Nuʿaym does not report anything characteristic about his piousness, recording mainly hadiths (Ḥilya VI 249ff.). 21  Fasawī III 347, 2.

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Qatāda (d. 117/735).22 His Muṣannaf was read in Spain;23 in Basra this work, besides those of Saʿīd b. Abī ʿArūba24 and Rabīʿ b. Ṣabīḥ,25 was one of the first systematic collections of the kind. He worked from written notes,26 but people were convinced that he remembered his material so completely that when someone went and lost his “book” of Qays b. Saʿd (d. 119/737) he was able to reconstruct it entirely from memory.27 He permitted his pupils to take notes or copy down what he said; Yaḥyā b. Maʿīn would later compare 18 of these lecture notebooks in order to eliminate all mistakes.28 In the long run his fame became a burden to him. People crowded to him, and everyone wanted personal dictation;29 finally he employed a mustamlī: Sībawayh held this position for some time in his youth.30 However, due to his collector’s zeal many details insinuated themselves that would become a source of concern to later generations. Ibn Saʿd was only the first to point it out.31 Ḥammād appears to have compiled the first collection of Isrāʾīliyyāt.32 When he was still a boy, Iyās b. Muʿāwiya had once taken his hand and foreseen that he would become a qāṣṣ; probably because he had such a good memory. In the meantime this profession had become slightly less desirable, but he did admit to having been a qāṣṣ at one point.33 The anthropomorphic hadiths he transmitted caused the greatest outrage; the most

22  Ibid. II 282, 4f. 23  Ibn Khayr, Fahrasa 134, 1ff. Probably the same as the K. al-sunan mentioned by Ibn alNadīm (Fihrist 283, 14f.). 24  Cf. p. 72 above. 25  See p. 121 above. Cf. also Azmi, Studies 128. 26  E.g. by Ḥammād b. Abī Sulaymān (Azmi 82). 27  Fasawī II 153, 12f., and III 29, 10ff.; cf. also Azmi 159). 28  Azmi 129 and 231. Regarding the volume of his collections cf. also Abbott, Papyri II 67ff. 160f.; also Stauth, Mujāhid 82ff. and 102. In Iraq, a century later ʿAbdallāh b. Muḥammad Ibn al-Marzubān al-Baghawī, known as Ibn Bint Manīʿ (214/829–317/929!) collected a number of his traditions; the work survives in a MS in the Chester Beatty Library (cf. Catalogue III 12f. no. 3524.2; also Arberry in: IQ 3/1956/20f.). 29  Samʿānī, Al-imlāʾ wal-istimlāʾ 11, 12ff. 30  Ibid. 105, 13ff.; Yāqūt, Irshād IV 135, 8ff.; Qifṭī, Inbāh II 349, 14, and 350, 3; Weisweiler in: Oriens 4/1951/52. Sellheim reads Marzubānī, Nūr al-qabas 95, 7, incorrectly yastamillu instead of yastamlī. 31   I S VII2 39, 21f.; the remark is often repeated subsequently. Cf. also Fasawī II 194, 7ff. 32  Thus Kister in CHAL I 354. 33   I S VII2 39, ult. f.; cf. as an illustration the fantastical tale transmitted from him according to which the prophet was given an apple in paradise out of which stepped a houri who was destined for ʿUthmān, the martyr (!) (Suyūṭī, La‌ʾālī I 314, 6ff.).

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important ones were collected by Fück.34 Several explanations were proposed later: it was said he had heard them on a visit to ʿAbbādān.35 He did indeed transmit a prayer of the prophet’s in which he asked to be granted a sight of the divine face;36 elsewhere he said that God is an eternal light that does not know night or day.37 He believed that the increase (ziyāda) that would be granted the blessed in paradise was the visio beatifica, as did the anthropomorphists in Transoxiana at the same time.38 Still, they were not Ḥammād’s source, and ʿAbbādān is unlikely, too. After all, Ayyūb al-Sakhtiyānī was also thought to have believed it possible to see and touch God;39 Ḥammād reported of him that he accused the Muʿtazilites of believing that there was nothing in heaven.40 It is interesting that the Muʿtazila did not polemicise against Ḥammād later, trying on the contrary to claim him as one of their own. Maqdisī quotes a hadith by him according to which even Gabriel is separated from God by a curtain and thus cannot see him.41 Marzubānī called Yaḥyā b. Maʿīn to witness that Ḥammād transmitted the ruʾya hadiths only because he did not want anything to get lost if it seemed reliable to him.42 A Quran reciter who had studied under Abū ʿAmr Ibn al-ʿAlāʾ but did not pay much attention to hadith, Abū l-Mundhir Sallām b. Sulaymān al-Ṭawīl al-Qāriʾ (d. 171/787–8), a client of the Muzayna, met with derision.43 He apparently wrote attacking the Qadarites, although Ibn al-Nadīm was unable to find any titles.44 The Muʿtazilites twisted his kunya to read Abū l-Mudbir, which sounds rather like “reactionary”, and they told jokes about him like the one where he observed from the minaret how one of his servants slept with one of his female 34  In: Festschrift Kahle 95ff. = Arabische Kultur und Islam im Mittelalter 267ff., esp. p. 269ff. Cf. also ch. D 1.2.1.1 and 1.2.1.4–5 below. 35  Fück 271; Ritter, Meer der Seele 445. Ibn Ḥanbal, himself an anthropomorphist, did not include any negative opinions of Ḥammād in K. al-ʿilal. 36  Ibn Manda, Radd ʿalā l-Jahmiyya 96, 7ff. 37  Ibid. 99, 4ff.; also Ṭabarī I 59, 18ff. 38  Ibid. 95, 3ff.; cf. Fück and p. 617f. below. 39  Ibn Abī l-Ḥadīd, ShNB II 236, –4f. after Abū l-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī’s K. al-taṣaffuḥ. 40  Dhahabī, ʿUlūw 164, 8f. The idea of “increase” was also circulated in a hadith by the Basran ascetic Thābit al-Bunānī (Ibn Ḥanbal, Radd ʿalā l-Jahmiyya 63, 1ff.). 41   Badʾ I 182, 1ff. 42   Nūr al-qabas 48, 5ff.; cf. also Ibn Abī l-Ḥadīd, ShNB III 225, 9. 43  Ibn al-Jazarī, Ṭab. I 309 no. 1360. Regarding his hadith cf. ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ II 160 no. 666, and Mīzān no. 3345; he transmitted from Yūnus b. ʿUbayd among others. 44   Fihrist 230, –8ff.

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slaves, but then freed him when the servant pointed out that fornication was predestined.45 All the same, the Qadarite ʿAmr b. Fāʾid al-Uswārī walked in his funeral cortege.46 – Similarly bad press among the Muʿtazilites was accorded Abū l-Muthannā Muʿādh b. Muʿādh b. Naṣr al-ʿAnbarī, a pupil of both ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAwn and Sulaymān al-Taymī,47 who lived from late 119/late 737 to Rabīʿ II 196/Dec. 81148 and assumed the position of judge in Basra shortly after Ḥammād b. Salama’s death. He was an educated man, Quran reciter like those discussed above,49 and a true Basran in his approach to the law. He had a very low opinion of Abū Ḥanīfa;50 he permitted in shāʾa llāh to be said as part of the creed, which annoyed the Muʿtazilites greatly.51 His anthropomorphism, however, caused offence. He was said to have been persuaded to agree that God’s flesh was the same as a piece of marinated sacrificial meat. In his view, God was a male being, and those who wanted to know every detail had him confirm that God’s masculinity lacked nothing.52 These are, of course, topoi and exaggerations; the latter claim had already been made of Mughīra b. Saʿīd.53 It was clearly expected that there were tensions between Muʿādh and Ḥammād b. Salama,54 but then we do find Muʿādh in the isnād of an anthropomorphist prophetic dictum he transmitted from the latter.55 Above all: he offended the Muʿtazilites wherever he could.

45  Ibid., and Ḥākim al-Jushamī, Risālat Iblīs 59, 9ff. Further stories in Jushamī, ibid. 64, 10ff., and 79, 4ff. 46  Jāḥiẓ, Bayān II 234, 7f.; regarding him see p. 94ff. above. 47   T B XIII 131, 5f. Regarding Ibn ʿAwn cf. also Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 295 no. 1920, and 310 no. 2016; Muʿādh preserved some notes from him (Azmi, Studies). 48  Regarding the dates cf. IS VII2 47, 22ff.; Khalīfa, Ṭab. 544 no. 1917. The date of his birth may be calculated from the age he was when he died (77 according to Ibn Saʿd), but it is confirmed by a statement by Yaḥyā al-Qaṭṭān (TB XIII 131, 14f.). In his Ta‌ʾrīkh, Khalīfa listed him under 117 by mistake; 195 instead of 196 is another mistake (514, ult., and 154, 12). 49  Ibn al-Jazarī, Ṭab. II 302 no. 3622. 50  Fasawī II 786, 2f. 51  Ibn Baṭṭa, Ibāna 48, 13; cf. also vol. I 259f. 52  Ḥākim al-Jushamī, Risālat Iblīs 31, 5ff., and Ibn Abī l-Ḥadīd, ShNB III 224, ult. ff., after the same source. 53  Ashʿarī, Maq. 7, 4f.; cf. also ch. D 1.2.1.4 below. 54  Jushamī, ibid. 31, 6f. = ShNB III 225, 8f. 55  Suyūṭī, La‌ʾālī I 25, apu. ff. after Ibn Ḥanbal, Musnad.

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He did so in two ways. Firstly using oral propaganda: he transmitted Qatāda’s saying of “lone fighters” (muʿtazila),56 and circulated several of the attacks on ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd with which we are already familiar.57 His accounts reveal that he himself studied under ʿAmr and became disillusioned gradually; he also took part in the uprising of 145,58 although he would later stress that one should not transmit from ʿAmr.59 When Yaḥyā b. Saʿīd b. al-Qaṭṭān continued regardless, he is said to have criticised him publicly in the mosque of Basra.60 The version of the Ghaylān legend he circulated was directed against the heroicising version so beloved of the Muʿtazilites.61 The second wrong he did them was that he did not accept their testimony,62 even viewing someone who believed in the createdness of the Quran as a zindīq.63 This brought a new dimension to the conflict, individual criticism changing into official discrimination. Muʿādh belonged to the same tribe as the last two great governor–judges of the city, Sawwār b. ʿAbdallāh and ʿUbaydallāh b. al-Ḥasan al-ʿAnbarī.64 In his younger days he occasionally assisted the former;65 he was distantly related to the latter.66 Muḥammad b. Sulaymān b. ʿAlī, the governor of Basra, had appointed Muʿādh qāḍī around 170/786, still during alHādī’s reign,67 but removed him from office when he sent a high official from Fārs to prison because he was suspected of having murdered his son.68 In Rajab 181/Sept. 797 he was reinstated by Hārūn al-Rashīd, staying in office until Rajab 191/may 807.69 Abān al-Lāḥiqī dedicated a congratulatory poem to him that is still extant.70 The Muʿtazilites were up in arms against him, but when he was summoned to the caliph because of their complaints, he was granted full rehabilitation.71 He only had to resign after ten years; he was allegedly so much 56  Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 101 no. 607; cf. p. 385 above. 57  Text VI 1; Trad. Pol. 29 no. 14, and 33 no. 17 (cf. p. 347 above). 58  Wakīʿ II 154, 1ff. 59   T B XII 184, 10ff. 60  Cf. Text VI 1, commentary. 61   Trad. Pol. 35 no. 20; Anfänge 195f. and 220. 62  Wakīʿ II 83, 13ff. 63  Fasawī III 394, 4ff. NB the early date. 64  Regarding his genealogy cf. Wakīʿ II 137, apu. ff., and TB XIII 131, 3ff. 65  Wakīʿ II 83, 13ff. 66  Cf. his genealogy (p. 179, n. 23 above). 67  Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 708, 5. 68  Wakīʿ II 140, 4ff. 69  Ibid. II 145, –4ff., and 154, 7. 70  Ṣūlī, Awrāq (Shuʿarāʾ) 28, 6ff. 71  Wakīʿ II 149, pu. ff., and 151, 9ff.; also TB XIII 132, 5ff.

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loathed that his successor had the pebbles washed in the place where he had dispensed justice (presumably in the courtyard of the mosque).72 Muʿādh had to go into hiding and went to Baghdad.73 Even so, when he died the governor, a Muhallabid, said the prayer over his bier. 74 2.2.8 The Muʿtazila in Basra during the Second Half of the Second Century Muʿādh b. Muʿādh persecuted the Muʿtazila, but not, apparently, the Qadariyya; he transmitted hadith from Saʿīd b. Abī ʿArūba and ʿAwf al-Aʿrābī.1 Around the year 150 public consciousness regarded the separation of the two groups as complete,2 probably in part in consequence of the uprising of 145. This probably also explains why Muʿādh was able to proceed with such severity; it was known that he, although involved in the rebellion himself, asked to have this taken into consideration during the witness hearing.3 It was certainly possible for the Muʿtazilites during his term in office to show some self-confidence again; otherwise they would not have brought a complaint against him. During the first decade after the uprising circumstances had been different. ʿAmr b. Shaddād was executed as late as 156;4 until that time the rebels could not appear in public in the city. Several of al-Nafs al-zakiyya’s relatives were thrown into prison after 145 and died there;5 the fate of many collaborators who were not able to flee is likely to have been the same. As we have seen from the fate of the duʿāt, the Muʿtazilites lost their main functionaries, achieving a true renaissance only at court, where they then did their utmost to dissolve any link to the muʿtazila of the uprising.6 However, we are anticipating. In Basra the Muʿtazilites had their roots in the bourgeoisie and set great store by continuity. How they achieved it is illustrated by a document dating to around 160, the abovementioned qaṣīda by the Muʿtazilite poet Ṣafwān b. Ṣafwān al-Anṣārī. 72  Ibid. 154, 8ff. It was a comparatively frequent occurrence that a pulpit was washed to cleanse it if it was considered to have been sullied by the previous incumbent (cf. Bosworth in: Ṭabarī, History, transl. vol. XXXII, p. 101, n. 319). 73  Ibid. 154, –6f. 74   I S VII2. 1  TB XIII 131, 6. Ibn Ḥanbal is exaggerating when he says (ʿIlal no. 2504) that Muʿādh did not accept the testimony of Qadarites. 2  Cf. Kashshī, Rijāl 283, 1f. and earlier. 3  Wakīʿ II 154, 1ff. 4  See p. 377 above. 5  Cf. the list provided by Veccia-Vaglieri in: A Francesco Gabrieli 338. 6  Cf. the remark made by Naẓẓām in K. al-Nakth (p. 120 in my Fragmentensammlung).

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2.2.8.1 Ṣafwān al-Anṣārī Everything we know about him goes back to Jāḥiẓ, who mentions him a number of times under the name of Ṣafwān b. Ṣafwān;1 Yāqūt’s Ṣafwān b. Idrīs2 is certainly a mistake, and indeed only in a secondary quotation.3 Jāḥiẓ met him in person.4 He spent some time in Multān at the court of Dāwūd b. Yazīd b. Ḥātim,5 a Muhallabid6 who had briefly succeeded his father as governor of Ifrīqiya in 170/787 and, after an eventful career in the service of the Abbasids, was appointed governor of Sind by Hārūn al-Rashīd in 184/800.7 He seems to have held this office until he died in 205/820–21.8 Ṣafwān was probably not young anymore at that time, either: he is known to have quarrelled with Bashshār b. Burd before 168/784.9 However, he did return to Basra once more, where he told Jāḥiẓ of the trained elephants he had observed in India.10 He probably did not meet Wāṣil. Judging by the surviving fragments he appears like a Muʿtazilite apologist, but this is probably an optical illusion perpetuated by Jāḥiẓ who used him as a key witness for the origins of the movement and the quarrel with Bashshār in his K. al-bayān wal-tabyīn. We know that Ṣafwān wrote about other subjects as well, e.g. on the palm tree;11 while in Multān he earned his daily bread as a panegyrist, as did other poets, too, e.g. Ṣarīʿ al-ghawānī.12 The qaṣīda we are looking at here may be part of the context of the quarrel with Bashshār, which has led us to the date suggested above. 1  Ḥayawān VII 76, 4; 77, 10; 114, 2. 2  Irshād VII 225, 2f. 3  After Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 22, 6. 4  Ḥayawān VII 76, 4 (if the editor’s insertion is correct); probably also ibid. 114, 2. 5  Ḥayawān VII 114, 2; also 76, 4f., which has incorrect Mazyad instead of Yazīd (as does Agh. XX 105, 13). 6  Ibn Ḥazm, Jamhara 370, 7f. 7  Ṭabarī III 649, 15f. Ch. Pellat collated further details on the poet in: Festschrift Wickens 21ff. (esp. 22ff.); cf. also Miles, Numismatic History of Rayy 52f., and MacLean, Religion and Society in Arab Sind 106. In his youth, under al-Mahdī, he appears to have been accused of zandaqa once but was released after admitting his guilt (Ibn Ḥazm, Jamhara 370, 15f.). 8  Ṭabarī III 1044, 9. Khalīfa, on the other hand, has the date of 200/815 (Ta‌ʾrīkh 763, 15); but it is probable that a five was misread for a zero. In Ṭabarī’s account the information is more obviously linked with the context. 9  See p. 9ff. above. 10   Ḥayawān VII 114, 2ff. 11   Ḥayawān VII 78, 5f. 12  Cf. the qaṣīda in his Dīwān (ed. Dahhān) 151ff., transl. Rescher, Beiträge zur arabischen Poesie II 42ff. (cf. ibid. p. 48 v. 78); regarding him GAS 2/528f.

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The date, however, is by no means certain, as the addressee is not Bashshār but a certain Ibn Ḥawshab. Only the topic is related: it seems that Ibn Ḥawshab called Wāṣil “the yarn spinner”, just like Bashshār did (cf. Text XII 1, v. 1 and 12 with commentary; also p. 274 above). Regarding Ṣafwān’s poems attacking Bashshār see p. 9f. and 15, n. 67, above; also p. 448 below; regarding his description of Wāṣil’s appearance before ʿAbdallāh b. ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz p. 278 above. A verse praising Wāṣil’s eloquence is found in Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 22, 6 (adopted by Kaʿbī in Maq. 65, 10, and Yāqūt, Irshād VII 225, 3). Regarding a further verse probably composed by Asbāṭ b. Wāṣil al-Shaybānī cf. vol. I 120f. above. 2.2.8.1.1 The Image of the Early Muʿtazila in Ṣafwān’s qaṣīda It seems that Ṣafwān composed the qaṣīda that interests us in Basra, as he never appears to have made it to Baghdad.1 It reflects the nascent glorification of the early days of the movement. Political troubles are not touched upon, the characteristic of the community that also expressed its continuity being the outward appearance. This was, as we have seen, observed with keen eyes everywhere. The biographers’ remarks on who dyed his hair and beard in old age,2 and on who wore silk garments,3 are almost stereotypical. This was apparently not done among Muʿtazilites, although ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd’s opponents thought differently. Still, we must take care not to draw the boundaries too rigorously, as dying one’s hair was not generally practised among traditionists, either, and the Muʿtazilites presumably shed all those facets of their ascetic demeanour that could have appeared revolutionary (e.g. the woollen garments) after 145. The image each had of the opposing side was clouded by prejudice: the philologist Abū Zayd al-Anṣārī, a pupil of ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd’s, was afraid every time he lectured to the aṣḥāb al-ḥadīth that they would steal his sandals;4 clearly the hadith people were simply thieving plebeians in his eyes.

1  Ta‌ʾrīkh Baghdād has no entry for his name. K. al-aghānī and other anthologies of poets do not mention him either. 2  Thus e.g. in Ibn Saʿd or in Abū Nuʿaym’s Dhikr akhbār Iṣfahān; cf. also the list in Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 184, 14ff. Also Ḥalīmī, Shuʿab al-īmān III 85, 8ff.; Ibn al-Dawādārī, Kanz al-durar I 380, 1ff.; Mez, Renaissance 369f.; Juynboll in: Arabica 33/1986/49ff. 3  Cf. the list in Ibn Qutayba, Ashriba 82, –5ff. 4  Qifṭī, Inbāh II 33, 10ff.

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Dyeing one’s beard was a Persian custom, but we find reports of it in preIslamic Arabia as well (Morony, Iraq 259f.). The procedure was lengthy and painful, at least if one wished for a black shade; henna caused no difficulties (Morier, Reisen 289f.). Later, some mystics who disagreed with the Sufis’ taqashshuf, such as Ibn ʿAṭāʾ, Junayd’s pupil who redacted Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq’s so-called Tafsīr, would follow the example of Ayyūb alSakhtiyānī and his companions (Massignon, Passion 2I 133f./transl. I 93; cf. vol. I 351f.). Ṣafwān described the appearance of the duʿāt, naming some of them individually.5 The details he describes are only partly accessible to us as we have too little information on the facts. Firstly, the headdress. The duʿāt wore turbans “over white (i.e. undyed) hair”.6 This was not the fashion everywhere at the time; in Syria the majority would still be wearing the kūfiyya in use to this day.7 In Iraq the turban was presumably widely worn; many hadiths speak of it.8 Muʿtazilite missionaries wore it in the style “known in men’s meetings (maʿāshir)” at the time.9 This sounds as if it was worn on special occasions – perhaps only among Bedouins, as maʿāshir may also be translated as “tribal gatherings”. A turban was regarded as a “sign of dignity in a gathering (nadī)”;10 for a khaṭīb it was as essential as a staff.11 There is no doubt that this was an Arab and also Bedouin custom;12 rich mawālī, as we have seen, sometimes wore an Iranian qalansuwa.13 However, if Ṣafwān imagined that the duʿāt were assimilating to Bedouin custom in their activities, it becomes less certain that the Muʿtazilites in Basra were wearing turbans at the time. We do not know whether this headdress was worn in a particular fashion, either; Ṣafwān only said that the missionaries “wound it several times”.14

5  Text XII 1, vv. 1–2 and 4. 6  v. 20. 7  See vol. I 159 above; also EI2 V 734f. s. v. Libās. 8  Conc. IV 348f. s. v. ʿimāma, and Wensinck, Handbook 232; also Kulīnī, Kāfī VI 460f. Regarding the wearing of turbans under the Abbasids cf. Ahsan, Social Life 31f. 9  V. 17. 10  Thus Abū l-Aswad al-Duʾalī in Jāḥiẓ, Bayān III 100, 6. 11   Bayān III 92, 4f. 12  Ibn Abī Zayd al-Qayrawānī, Jāmiʿ 228, 5ff.; possibly also Agh. VII 75, 14 (cf. 75, 10). 13  See p. 393 and 412 above. 14  v. 20. We learn from other sources that the so-called taḥannuk, fastening under the chin, was not customary in cities (Badrī Muḥ. Fahd, Al-ʿimāma 16f.).

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Their sandals had two central straps;15 ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAwn, on the other hand, was clearly described as wearing sandals with one strap only.16 They cut the fringes off their long loincloths (izār);17 this had already been reported of the companions of the prophet.18 Full sleeves, as mentioned in the same verse, were generally a sign of middle-class dignity; Ayyūb al-Sakhtiyānī liked to wear them, too.19 Unfortunately we are not told whether they were short or long. Ayyūb wore his long, but the Sufis (later?) cut them to only half the length, just as they wore their outer garment only to the middle of their legs.20 The strongest symbolic significance was reserved, as it always had been, to the hair style. Wāṣil’s messengers trimmed their moustaches and apparently shaved their lower lips, too.21 This was clearly not usual. Those who did not want to look sanctimonious let their moustaches grow and wore their hair long.22 There were attempts at regulating the matter by means of hadith,23 with the result that it became even more complex. When it came to self-assured Arabs, there was a psychological factor as well: cutting someone’s beard off was a popular kind of chastisement, and nobody wanted to look like a convict.24 Among the ascetics, however, the custom took hold;25 Muḥāsibī railed against this “eye-service” with which people tried to show their particular attachment to the prophet.26 Over time the question arose of why these matters were not mentioned in the Quran; one explanation given was that they had already been introduced by Abraham, like circumcision.27 Of course it was also possible to 15  V. 21. 16  See p. 412 above; also Wensinck, Handbook 213 s. v. Shoes. 17  v. 20. 18  Bukhārī, Libās 6. Regarding the izār cf. Ahsan, Social Life 34f. 19  See p. 393 above; also Ahsan 36f. and Stillman, Jews in Arab Lands 70. 20  Muḥāsibī, Riʿāya 100, 18; Sarrāj, Lumaʿ, transl. Gramlich 288. Even in 822/1419 an edict in late Mamluk Cairo forced Christians and Jews to have their sleeves tailored close-fitting (Maqrīzī, Sulūk IV1 495, 10f.). 21  Vv. 20–21. 22  Regarding the group around Ayyūb al-Sakhtiyānī see p. 393f. and 412 above. 23  Cf. e.g. Ḥalīmī, Shuʿab al-īmān III 87, 9ff.; also Conc. III 91 s. v. shārib, and Wensinck, Handbook 35 and 156. 24  Ibn Muhannā, Ta‌ʾrīkh Dāraiyā 85, pu. ff.; cf. vol. I 124 above. 25  One of the hadiths against long moustaches was transmitted by a certain Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm al-ʿAbbādān (Suyūṭī, La‌ʾālī II 266, 6ff.). 26   Masāʾil 103, 9; cf. also Tirmidhī, Nawādir al-uṣūl 9, –10ff. 27  Abū ʿUbayd, Al-khuṭab wal-mawāʿiẓ 119f. no. 68f.; Ibn al-Dawādārī, Kanz al-durar I 376, 17f. It was still unusual to shave one’s moustache off entirely. Abū Dulaf’s Qaṣīda Sāsāniyya tells us that at the time, i.e. during the second third of the fourth century, this was the custom among the Sufis (Bosworth, Underworld 203).

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interpret hadiths this way and that; the caliph al-Mahdī who noticed that Yūsuf al-Samtī trimmed his moustache (which implies that the caliph did not do so himself) quoted his ancestor Ibn ʿAbbās with the interpretation that the iḥfāʾ mentioned in a prophetic dictum28 only meant that one shaved a little29 at the edge of the upper lip.30 Ibn al-Athīr, on the other hand, stated that iḥfāʾ meant that one had shaved too much.31 This was probably the Muʿtazilite interpretation as well – if indeed they based their decision on hadith at all. Ṣafwān felt no doubt that this external appearance was matched by genuine inner conviction: the duʿāt always spoke as they thought; they spent their nights in prayer, and their face wore a specific mark (sīmā), presumably the callus on their foreheads they had acquired by frequent prostrations.32 At the same time they did not keep aloof from the world as their mission demanded that they spent time among people. They probably prayed together; a specifically Muʿtazilite mosque is documented in Basra in the late second century.33 And there was probably more than just this. Ṣafwān seemed to presume that the Muʿtazilites looked after the orphans and the “tribe inferior in number”, i.e. people without protection, since Wāṣil’s day.34 Wāṣil himself was said to have given the 20,000 dirhams he had inherited from his father to the needy among his followers, and expected the well-off to do the same.35 ʿUthmān al-Ṭawīl emphasised that personal property was not recognised during the master’s lifetime,36 the movement assuming the character of a social care organisation. This was probably a result of its being managed mainly by mawālī with the intention that the socially less advantaged should feel at home in it. There was also an element of self-protection. During the years of anarchy following the year 126, Muʿtazilite youth militias were probably engaged in protecting the streets in which the Muʿtazilites lived and merchants stored their wares; a decade and a half later in 145, this grew into a political power factor.37 As Ṣafwān 28  Nasāʾī, Zīna 2 = Conc. III 91a. 29  Wakīʿ, Akhbār II 130, 5ff.; as part of a longer tradition. 30   uṭra, used instead of iṭār here. 31   yubālighu fī qaṣṣihā. Shortley afterwards aḥfā is explained as ista‌ʾṣala “to take away entirely” (Nihāya I 410, 8ff. s. v.). 32  Vv. 18f. 33  See p. 444 below. They were also buried together; we hear of the Qadarites who were laid to rest by the Masjid Shabba (Abū Nuʿaym, Ḥilya VI 386, 4f.). 34  V. 13. 35   Faḍl 239, –5ff. The story may well be idealising. 36   Faḍl 237, –6f., where the editor erroneously vocalised malik instead of mulk. 37  Cf. the material p. 328f. and 372f. above; later conditions in Baghdad under Sahl b. Salāma are also informative (see ch. C 2.4 below).

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put it, the duʿāt were not intimidated by “the sarcasm of the ruling class”;38 they looked out for themselves. 2.2.8.2 The Principle of amr bil-maʿrūf wal-nahy ʿan al-munkar All these activities, charitable as well as militant, as well as the missionary activity in general, were subsumed under the motto of amr bil-maʿrūf wal-nahy ʿan al-munkar; Ṣafwān did not miss the opportunity of pointing it out, either.1 The term is originally Quranic where “command what is just and prohibit what is reprehensible” has the meaning of “ensure the rule of law; help the established principles, especially the moral ones, to victory”.2 The “rule of the hypocrites” on the other hand is characterised by them “ordering what is reprehensible and prohibiting what is just”.3 Muḥammad could assume the phrase to be well-known, as the ḥilf al-fuḍūl agreed between some Quraysh tribes after the Fijār war shortly before his time was based on the same principle.4 To this day maʿrūf is the law sanctioned by custom in southwest Arabia.5 The phrase has always been quoted by Muslims, Theodore Abū Qurra considering it a crucial mark of Muḥammad’s message.6 The problem lay in how to interpret it and who from among the Islamic community should take this upon themselves. Members of the ruling class naturally insisted that this was their right alone, although it would later be assumed that they should delegate it to the muḥtasib.7 Legal scholars would consequently increasingly regard it not so much as an individual duty (farḍ ʿayn) but a collective one enjoined upon the entire community (farḍ kifāya).8 38  V. 4. 1  v. 15. For a general overview see Madelung in EIran I 992ff. s. v. 2  Cf. sura 3:104 and the numerous parallels collected in Paret, Kommentar 76; the passages are also collected in Ābī, Nathr al-durr I 86ff. 3  Sura 9:67. Cf. Izutsu, Ethico-Religious Concepts in the Qurʾān 213ff. 4  Agh. XVII 291, 4f.; cf. EI2 III 389 s. v. Regarding the semantic extent of maʿrūf and munkar in pre-Islamic poetry cf. G. Müller, Ich bin Labīd 82 and 199f. (n. 20). 5  Also called sharʿ but not the same as Quranic law (Serjeant in: BSOAS 41/1978/21). 6  Mīmar fī wujūd al-khāliq 210 § 67; cf. also Griffith in: La vie du Prophète 125. Goldziher, Livre d’Ibn Toumert 86, n. 1, points to a similar phrase in Jewish literature. 7  Cf. P. Chalmeta Gendrón, El „señor del zoco“ en España 246ff., and Index s. v. ordenar y bien y prohibir el mal. Regarding the muḥtasib cf. also Klingmüller in: Festschrift E. Seidl 88f. Regarding the authorities’ interpretation of amr bil-maʿrūf see Lambton, State and Government 310ff.; Nagel, Staat und Glaubensgemeinschaft, Index s. v. – Regarding amr wanahy in the sense of “sovereignty” cf. also Rotter, Zweiter Bürgerkrieg 147. 8  Ṭūsī, Tibyān II 549, 9f.; also Ḥalīmī, Shuʿab al-īmān III 216, –5ff.

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During periods with a weak central government, on the other hand, the idea soon took root that each individual, within the framework of an organisation – such as the aḥdāth – where necessary, had a responsibility to keep the community on the right path. Revolutionary movements in particular made this claim. During the development stage of Islam, when the state was without an established hierarchy of officials and legal issues had not been determined in a binding fashion, the motto proved to be particularly explosive. The Khārijites invoked it,9 as did, e.g., Yūsuf b. Ibrāhīm al-Barm later,10 or al-Nafs al-zakiyya’s canvassers;11 Aḥmad b. Naṣr al-Khuzāʿī cited it when he protested against the khalq al-Qurʾān,12 as did a certain Abū Ḥarb who posed as the promised Sufyānī in Jordan in 227/842.13 Towards the end of the century we find the motto in numerous passages in the writings and proclamations of the Zaydite imam alHādī ilā al-ḥaqq who established his reign in Yemen. Further examples could easily be found. It is self-evident that the interpretation met with opposition from the very first. Interestingly the first one to challenge it was ʿAbd al-Malik after ʿAmr b. Shaʿīd al-Ashdaq’s uprising in 75/695.14 Al-Ma‌ʾmūn’s behaviour after entering Baghdad in 204 was characteristic. The anarchy that had spread during the civil war and Ibrāhīm al-Mahdī’s brief rule had forced the notables to take the reins themselves. The caliph disapproved of the continued independent administration of justice in individual quarters of the city and forbade the amr bil-maʿrūf wal-nahy ʿan al-munkar.15 The theologian Faḍl b. Dukayn, who had provided theological justification of the citizens’ actions, was arrested and brought before the caliph.16 The quarrel was reflected in hadith, although the revolutionaries, as was only to be expected, were not given any support there. While there are hadiths recommending taghyīr al-munkar, actively changing what is reprehensible, 9  Ṭabarī I 3349, 15f.; regarding the Ibāḍiyya in general see Ṭālibī in: Abū ʿAmmār, Mūjaz, Intro. I 138ff., and the passages listed by Madelung in EIran I 993a. 10  Yaʿqūbī, Ta‌ʾrīkh II 478, 16f.; he led a rebellion under al-Manṣūr (cf. Daniel, Khurasan 166f.). 11  van Arendonk, Opkomst 49, n. 1, after Aḥmad b. al-Ḥusayn al-Muʾayyad’s Ifāda, together with the principle of ḥukm bil-kitāb; also ibid. 51, n. 1, and 54, n. 1. 12  Cf. Lapidus in: IJMES 6/1975/380f.; regarding another example see ibid. 372. Regarding Aḥmad b. Naṣr see ch. C 3.3.3 below. 13  Ṭabarī III 1320, 3. He had the sobriquet al-Mubarqaʿ; regarding his uprising cf. Eisenstein in: Orientalia 55/1986/454ff. 14  Abū Hilāl al-ʿAskarī, Awāʾil I 362ff. 15   T B XII 350, 2ff.; cf. ch. C 2.4 below. 16  Lapidus, loc. cit.; regarding Faḍl b. Dukayn see vol. I 271 above.

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they never added “using the sword” (bil-sayf), but less violently, “using the hands”, “using the tongue” and, if one cannot put up any resistance, “in your heart”.17 Ibn Ḥanbal defined “using the hands” as by no means using the hands to hit, but just to separate those who are fighting.18 In the eyes of later jurists, beating and maiming were the prerogative of the state.19 We must keep in mind, however, that hadith regarded amr bil-maʿrūf as a purely individual commandment; it was out of the question that an official like the muḥtasib might fulfil this function on behalf of the believers. This view led to a degree of vigilantism which, while not precisely revolutionary, did infringe the state’s sphere of control. Sufyān al-Thawrī was angered by a gang of religious fanatics who climbed over walls into houses to police people’s morals. In his view, this was a wrong interpretation of amr bil-maʿrūf, but the members of this group called themselves muḥtasibūn. They were puritans; one of them bore the sobriquet al-Ṣūfī.20 Later it was of course the Ḥanbalites who, hadith-abiding though they were, broke into houses in order to pour away the wine and break musical instruments.21 One last thing must be considered with regard to the early period: amr bilmaʿrūf is not necessarily about public or private morals yet. Just as there was disagreement concerning who was the right person to give the “command” and how far one could go, so it had not been decided what actually was maʿrūf. While Muqātil b. Sulaymān interpreted the scope of “command” as it was set out in hadith,22 he understood maʿrūf – at least in the Quran – to mean “professing God’s unity vs. polytheism”, or “following the prophet vs. denying him”,23 fundamental truths of Islam rather than legal rules. The Shīʿites thought along similar lines, but, in keeping with their style, they personalised the idea entirely, maʿrūf being ʿAlī, and munkar his opponents.24 Thus when Abū l-Hudhayl declared the amr bil-maʿrūf wal-nahy ʿan almunkar to be one of the five principles of the Muʿtazila,25 he was commenting 17  Muslim, Īmān 49 no. 78; Tirmidhī, Fitan 10; Ibn Ḥanbal, Musnad III 20, 7ff., and 49, 9ff. Similar in Al-fiqh al-absaṭ 44, 10, and 48, 2. 18   K. al-waraʿ 92, 5ff./summary in: Hespéris 39/1952/117. 19  Regarding Muḥammad al-Ṭūsī cf. e.g. Lambton, State and Government 243f. 20  Ibn Ḥanbal, Waraʿ 92, 13ff./Hespéris 117. 21  Cf. Heine, Weinstudien 48; also Glassen, Der mittlere Weg 31. The probably referred to passages such as Abū Dāwūd, Masāʾil al-Imām Aḥmad 278, 10ff., and 279, 3ff. 22  Without referring to any particular hadith (Tafsīr khamsmiʾat āya 279, apu. f.; also Alwujūh wal-naẓāʾir 114f. no. 14). 23   Al-wujūh wal-naẓāʾir 113 no. 13; Tafsīr khamsmiʾat āya 278, –5ff. 24  Majlisī, Biḥār X 208, –5ff.; Tawḥīdī, Baṣāʾir II 539, 9ff./2VIII 162 no. 561. 25  See ch. C 3.2.1.2 below.

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on the past of the movement with which he identified, but he was also leaving the door open to interpretation. He himself would have restricted the commandment as much as advisable under the watchful eye of the authorities, but he probably also took past events into consideration that did not entirely tally with this attitude. Even those who disagreed with the involvement in the uprising of 145 might regard the Muʿtazila as a mass movement that could wield some influence in Basra. ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd was believed to have driven Ibn Abī l-ʿAwjāʾ out of the city because his behaviour was a danger to young people.26 His followers were called an “army”, presumably with reference to the years preceding the revolution, and he himself a muṭāʿ, the person commanding their deepest respect.27 He was said to have called on Ibn Shubruma in Kufa to take up the holy struggle (jihād) in order to fulfil his obligation to amr bil-maʿrūf wal-nahy ʿan al-munkar.28 According to Ashʿarī, Muʿtazilite amr bil-maʿrūf wal-nahy ʿan al-munkar meant “using tongue, hands and sword, depending on what each is able to contribute”:29 “The Muʿtazila taught: If we are a closed community (jamāʿa) and the majority believes that we can defy our opponents, then we will gather round our leader, and we will rise up. Thus we will kill the ruler (al-sulṭān) and do away with him, and we will force people to abide by our doctrine. If they follow our doctrine, i.e. the dogma of the oneness of God and of free will, it is good; otherwise we will kill them”.30 When, on the other hand, Abū l-Muʿīn al-Nasafī was enumerating the uṣūl al-khamsa in his Baḥr al-kalām later, he forgot the amr bil-maʿrūf altogether.31 2.2.8.2.1 The Case of Muḥammad b. Munādhir Even though the Muʿtazila was too weak to be influential beyond its own circle after 145, it always ensured internal discipline. They denounced Muʿammar1 as well as the “heretics” Aḥmad b. Khābiṭ and Faḍl al-Ḥadathī to the authorities.2 A passage in Wakīʿ – admittedly not entirely clear and possibly corrupt – seems to imply that in the 220s Muʿtazilites lodged a complaint against the loggias (ghuraf) on the upper floor in houses in Basra where the 26  See p. 6 above. Regarding Bashshār b. Burd see p. 9 above. 27   Faḍl 250, 6ff.; also p. 328 above. 28  See p. 326 above. 29   Maq. 278, 8f.; also 466, 8f. 30   Maq. 466, 5ff.; cf. also Text XIII 31. 31  P. 75, –5f. 1  See ch. C 1.3.2 below. 2  See ch. C 3.2.2.2.7.3 below.

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women spent their time; presumably they allowed too much of an insight into the intimacies of family life.3 The greatest amount of information available to us concerns a scandal surrounding the poet Muḥammad b. Munādhir (d. 198/814)4 an account of which is found in K. al-aghānī. Ibn Munādhir came to Basra from Aden in his youth and had acquired a good reputation for being very pious. He was a Quran reciter5 and imam at a mosque in the quarter of the tribe to which he was linked as a client.6 He transmitted hadith from Shuʿba and Sufyān al-Thawrī, among others; he had studied grammar under Khalīl and Abū ʿUbayda,7 but he became the object of gossip due to his infatuation with a young man. To make matters worse the latter was the son of a respected traditionist, ʿAbd al-Wahhāb b. ʿAbd al-Majīd al-Thaqafī, who died in 194/810 at the age of 84.8 The father had no objections to the friendship. He was elderly, and he believed Munādhir to be a gentleman until he was imprudent enough to write love poems to the youth, providing proof for public opinion.9 In the mosque where he was prayer leader someone threw a slip of paper into the miḥrāb with a few verses intimating that he was not wanted anymore.10 This was the moment when the Muʿtazila intervened as well. He had been esteemed among the Muʿtazilites; indeed, he had boasted that some of them were extremely keen on him.11 Now, however, they admonished him and threatened him with trouble (makrūh); in the end he was forbidden to enter the mosque. We do not know whether this was the mosque where he had led the prayer, but it certainly was the mosque where the Muʿtazilites gathered, for he was able to take revenge on them by pouring ink into the wash basins with the result that those who came to pray before the first light blackened

3  Akhbār al-quḍāt II 175, 13f. Regarding the issue cf. Noth in: JSAI 9/1987/302; regarding the style of houses see Goitein, Mediterranean Society IV 76. Similar outrage was directed at pigeon racing, as this required people to climb onto roofs where they could observe others during their siesta (cf. Grotzfeld in: Festschrift Roemer 193ff.; also Ahsan, Social Life 250ff.). 4  Regarding him in general GAS 2/505f.; Pellat in: EI2 III 890. 5  With a few idiosyncrasies; cf. Ibn al-Jazarī, Ṭab. II 265 no. 3481. 6  Agh. XVIII 175, 7ff. 7  Ibid. 172, 15ff. 8   Mīzān no. 5321; TT VI 449f. no. 934. According to Fasawī I 177, –6, he was born in 108/726–7. 9  Agh. XVIII 175, 7ff. 10  Ibid. 172, 15ff. 11  Ibid. 171, 15.

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their faces and clothes.12 He was also believed to have set some scorpions loose there.13 When the Muʿtazilites tried to teach him a lesson, things became precarious as his master’s clan, the Banū Shubayr, was made up of only “two and a half men”.14 In the end, however, tribal solidarity prevailed: fifty shuyūkh of the Banū Riyāḥ to whom the Shubayr belonged sent the Muʿtazilites packing.15 The affair came to an end when the youth suffered an accident shortly after his marriage: he fell off a roof and broke his neck.16 Ibn Munādhir dedicated several elegies to him one of which, ending in the rhyming letter d, became famous not least because of its length.17 The puritans found this even more cause for outrage and were apparently preparing to start criminal proceedings against him, at which he left the city and went to Mecca.18 These events took place during the seventies or early eighties. In Basra Ibn Munādhir witnessed ʿUbaydallāh al-Anbārī being dismissed from office in 166, and later attacked his successor Khālid b. ʿAbdallāh b. Ṭalīq in libellous poems. The Muʿtazilites were presumably on his side when he supported Anbārī.19 After 170/186 he composed paeans to Hārūn al-Rashīd and the Barmakids. By 186/802 or 188/804 he was living in Mecca in humble circumstances.20

12  Ibid. 170, 19ff.; already discussed by Goldziher in: Der Islam 8/1918/208f. = Ges. Schr. V 411f., although Goldziher interprets muʿtazila as simple ascetics. Also Tritton, Muslim Theology 60; Fück, Arabiya 56. 13  Thus Yāqūt, Irshād VII 107, ult. ff. after Ibn Maʿīn. Later tradition moved the event to the Masjid al-ḥarām in Mecca (Ḥākim al-Naysābūrī, Maʿrifa 135, 10f.; Mīzān no. 8205). 14   Agh. 171, ult. 15  Ibid. 172, 14; the poem in which called on the entire tribal federation of the Tamīm for help is at 171, 3ff. = Yāqūt, Irshād VII 109, 6ff. They were the Riyāḥ b. Yarbūʿ after whom a quarter of Basra was named (Kaḥḥāla, Muʿjam qabāʾil al-ʿArab I 457b). 16  Ibid. 178, 9f. and 19ff. 17  This dāliyya is extant (cf. GAS 2/506). Two longer fragments in Ibn al-Muʿtazz, Ṭabaqāt al-shuʿarāʾ 122, 14ff.; followed by a shorter fragment of a second marthiya (124, pu. ff.). Cf. Agh. 178, 15f. 18  Jāḥiẓ seems to imply that he was exiled (Agh. XVIII 169, 14ff. = Irshād VII 107, 15ff.). According to other accounts he left of his own accord (Agh. 170, 3ff. after Mubarrad; Ibn Qutayba, Shiʿr 747, 3ff.). Cf. also Ibn al-Muʿtazz, Ṭab. 119, 13f., and 120, ult. ff. It seems that he made enemies in other quarters as well (cf. e.g. Agh. 196, 18ff.). 19  Jāḥiẓ, Bayān II 345, 6ff.; Wakīʿ, Akhbār II 126, 11ff. > Agh. 198, pu. ff. Regarding the date see p. 182 above; also p. 361. 20  Cf. the anecdote in Agh. 201, 1ff., which is set during a hajj undertaken by Hārūn after the fall of the Barmakids. The possible dates are the two years mentioned (cf. Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 733, 2, and 735, 2).

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He had become a follower of Sufyān b. ʿUyayna there; upon his death in 196/812 he – by that time of advanced age himself – composed a poem of mourning.21 He never denied his Basran origins, protesting against the accusation that the Arabic spoken in his home was sub-standard,22 and writing a poem attacking the Medinan Qadarite Ibn Dāb al-Laythī 23 in which he recommended ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAwn as well as Mālik b. Anas as men with whom better to study hadith. When the verses became known in Iraq Mālik was replaced with Yūnus (b. ʿUbayd).24 This did not improve his reputation; some people believed him to be a Dahrite.25 2.2.8.3 The Position of the Muʿtazila in Basra after 145 Another name emerged in the context of this story, that of a Muʿtazilite named Ibn ʿUmayr who lived next door to Ibn Munādhir and denounced him to his people. His memory survives only because the poet paid him back this trick by composing a few insulting verses. Muʿtazilite biographers know nothing of him; he was certainly not a theologian,1 but he came from a respected family, which is just as interesting for our topic. His ancestor ʿAbdallāh b. ʿUmayr alLaythī was a half-brother of ʿAbdallāh b. ʿĀmir b. Kurayz, a Quraysh and maternal cousin of ʿUthmān’s who had been governor of Basra under the latter’s and Muʿāwiya’s rule;2 they had had the same mother, a noble woman from a Sulamī family.3 He had governed the province of Sijistān on his behalf and taken part in the eastern campaigns.4 If a descendant of this man considered himself a Muʿtazilite in Hārūn’s time, this is at the very least proof that the Muʿtazila was not a movement of the lower class only.

21   Irshād VII 110, 3ff.; cf. Agh. XVIII 170, 11. 22  Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 18, pu. ff. 23  Regarding him see p. 772 below. 24   Agh. 198, 7 and 10f.; cf. p. 409 above. When swearing by ʿAmr and Zuhrī in another poem (191, 8) he was probably not referring to ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd but ʿAmr b. Dīnār (regarding him see p. 718f. below). 25   Agh. 172, 12f.; cf. Vajda in: RSO 17/1938/215. 1  It is most improbable that he is linked to the Ibāḍite ʿĪsā b. ʿUmayr, who was probably from Kufa in any case (see vol. I 486 above). 2  Regarding him cf. EI2 I 43. 3  Agh. XVIII 183, 5ff.; also Ṭabarī I 2828, 19f., and Zubayrī, Nasab Quraysh 149, 11ff. In Abū Faraj’s text the correct reading is Asmāʾ in the mother’s name, not Ismāʿīl. 4  Ṭabarī I 2829, 1f.

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Even so, all in all it was not in a very strong position under Hārūn. While the Barmakids were favourably inclined towards the controversial theologians, the persons they invited to the court came from Kufa rather than Basra.5 Muʿādh b. Muʿādh had become judge there before Hārūn acceded to power,6 and if he did not accept the Muʿtazilites’ testimony, this was certainly not without sanction from above. The governor who appointed him had the hand cut off a certain ʿĪsā al-Ṭabarī, described as an ascetic and mutakallim; Thumāma b. Ashras was said to have requested his dismissal from Hārūn when he had the caliph’s attention during the hajj one time.7 The last part is only a Basran legend, as Thumāma was far too unimportant in those days to have been a danger to an Abbasid – for he was that – and one much older than the caliph at that. Chronologically, too, the tradition is untenable: the governor died in Rajab 173/ Dec. 7898 at which time Hārūn had not been on the hajj since he had become caliph.9 Furthermore, the climate did not change significantly later on. In late 174/ early 791 ʿĪsā b. Jaʿfar, a grandson of Manṣūr’s, took the helm in Basra. He frequently had a Muhallabid fill in for him, a man who, as Ibn Ḥazm put it, was “most prejudiced against the Muʿtazila”.10 This was the same man who had Abū ʿAmr al-Ḥaddād flogged because he believed God’s names to be created,11 possibly around the same time or as late as 180 when the same power constellation returned once more.12 Abū l-Hudhayl, too, came in conflict with the authorities around this time.13 In Rajab 181/Sept. 797, Muʿādh b. Muʿādh was appointed qāḍī once more. Things changed only under his second successor ʿAbdallāh b. Sawwār al-ʿAnbarī who, although a member of the same clan, seems not to have been fond of him.14 He was the founder of the library in Basra where it was possible to study Muʿtazilite theology under an expert.15 This may have 5  See ch. C 1.3 below. 6  See p. 434 above. 7  Faḍl 274, 6ff. after Ibn Farzōya’s K. al-mashāyikh > IM 67, 5ff. 8  Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 713, 2f.; regarding him TB V 291ff. no. 2795. 9  He performed it for the first time in this very year (Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 713, 9). 10   Jamhara 369, ult. f.; regarding the date cf. Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 743, 5f. 11  See p. 212 above. 12  Khalīfa 743, 10f. 13  See ch. C 3.2.1.1 below. 14  Cf. Wakīʿ, Akhbār II 155, 6ff. 15  Muqaddasī, Aḥsan al-taqāsīm 413, 15ff.; only saying “Ibn al-Sawwār”. He also founded a second, smaller, library in Rāmhurmuz, leading us to conclude that the date may not necessarily have been during his term in office as qāḍī. The Muʿtazilite professor, too, may have been a later institution.

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been only after Hārūn’s death. Ibn Sawwār took office in 192/808 and held it until 198/814.16 During the second half of the third century, after the end of the miḥna, the Muʿtazila was persecuted again in Basra. At this time the quṣṣāṣ still led the community (Tanūkhī, Faraj II 32f.). 2.2.8.4 The Development of Theology and Law In these circumstances theology could hardly thrive; after all, it relied on public debate. We do not know what people discussed in the private houses of Basra, but Ṣafwān al-Anṣārī may have an answer, as his discussion with Bashshār b. Burd shows that like the latter he embraced a doctrine of elements, only based on different premises. He defended earth against fire, and he did this by pointing out its usefulness: all living creatures depend on it.1 Then, however, he did not list everything that grows on it, the marvels of creation, but that which is inside it: metals and minerals, showing off words that have no place in poetry: quicksilver and sal ammoniac, red ochre, lead oxide and marcasite, pitch, alum, and sulphur, bismuth and zinc bloom.2 This is the kind of vocabulary we know from the Petrology and from alchemy.3 Interestingly verse 8 evokes the “tops of the mountains behind the Muqaṭṭam”, which were not really part of the horizon of a poet whom we can assume to have lived in Iraq. In alchemy, where it is called Jabal al-Muqaṭṭab, the Muqaṭṭam was a topos.4 There are, however, no direct alchemical terms or concepts, nor cosmogonic or cosmological theories or the interaction between earth and other elements, e.g. through mixture. Even fire is only mentioned as being within the earth and consequently subordinate.5 Instead the argumentation turns to salvation 16  Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 739, 5f., and 758, 11; regarding him Wakīʿ II 155ff. and Jāḥiẓ, Ḥayawān III 343, 2ff./transl. Souami 309ff. Interestingly Ma‌ʾmūn asked him for a personal statement during the miḥna; he died around that time (see ch. C 3.3.4 below). 1  Text XII 2, vv. 5–7. 2  Vv. 8–17. 3  Thus already Fück, Arab. Kultur 279 and 246. Cf. e.g. the system of the minerals in the K. al-khawāṣṣ al-kabīr of the Corpus Ǧābirianum in Ullmann, Natur- und Geheimwissen­ schaften 140ff.; cf. also Rex, Theorie der Naturprozesse 42ff. and 108ff. 4  I am grateful to M. Ullmann for this information. He refers me to the text in his Katalog der arab. alchemist. Hss. der Chester Beatty Library I 224, 2. 5  V. 1. The Muqaṭṭam, too, could be explained differently. The Muhallabid whom Ṣafwān visited in Multān had previously been governor of Egypt; Ṣafwān might have accompanied him there as well (thus Pellat in: Festschrift Wickens 22f.). In this case the poem would

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history. Rocks, notable points in the earth made from earthen matter, remind us of the progress of revelation: of Abraham in the Kaʿba, of Khaḍir by the pond where he found the water of life, and of Ṣāliḥ’s she-camel that stepped from a rock together with its calf.6 Ultimately the author was a theologian after all; in his main attack on Bashshār b. Burd he referred to him as a Shīʿite sectarian. Pitting the elements against one another in religious argumentation is an age-old tradition. The Hebrew prophet Elchasai, whom even Mani quoted, said with reference to the baptism he introduced and in rejection of the traditional fire sacrifices: “Water is more agreeable to God than fire”.7 Still, the text mentioned stands alone within Muʿtazilite theology. What could be done with the theology of elements was illustrated by Hishām b. al-Ḥakam in Kufa, who would also later show the way for it to return to the Muʿtazila. In Basra, on the other hand – if, indeed Ṣafwān al-Anṣārī can be claimed for Basra at all – it was lost for a generation. It is possible that this was in part due to the persecution of heretics of which Bashshār was one victim. Intellectual conversation continued in citizens’ homes, and with Muʿtazilite participants, too, as Jāḥiẓ reported. People were not quite so puritanical in these surroundings, either. Abū ʿAbdallāh al-Abraṣ al-ʿAmmī drank like a bottomless pit when visiting the house of the Ziyādīs; he sparkled with ideas every time.8 Jāḥiẓ said clearly that he was a Muʿtazilite, but he recorded only his views on the strength of the buck during the rut.9 Of another mutakallim, a certain Ṣaḥṣaḥ, he remembered that he praised the advantages of naivety: taken all in all, stupidity is more useful than intelligence as it gives security and prevents many a worry. That is why dumb animals grow fat more quickly than nervy intellectuals.10 Of course this was narrated out of enjoyment of scurrilous things, but it was not entirely unrelated to Muʿtazilite thought. Ṣaḥṣaḥ may have been a physician or natural philosopher like Maʿmar Abū l-Ashʿath;11

have been written in Egypt, which would give rise to the question of why Ṣafwān was attacking Bashshār b. Burd there. 6  Vv. 18–21. Cf. also the shorter version of the same thoughts in Text XII 3, vv. 1–3, where they are presented without the link to Bashshār – yet more evidence that Ṣafwān developed them not merely from polemical intentions, but identified with them. 7  K. Rudolph, Antike Baptisten, in: SB Sächs. Ak. Wiss. Leipzig, Phil.-Hist. Kl., Vol. 121, 4, p. 22. 8  Ḥayawān II 227, 4ff.; regarding the Ziyādīs see ch. C 3.2.2 below. 9  Ibid. II 240, 10f. 10   Bukhalāʾ 4, 20ff./transl. Pellat 7. 11  Regarding him see p. 42 f. above.

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if as a Muʿtazilite12 he also believed in the power of intelligence, the tension between nature and intellect could not have escaped him. None of which was, in fact, theology. If we want to discover what theology looked like beyond all this speculation on the natural world, and maybe beyond the salons, we must leave poetry, adab and historiography aside and consult the heresiographers. 2.2.8.4.1 Al-Aṣamm Now, however, we are struggling with the fact that the biographers tell us nothing. Abū Bakr ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Kaysān, known as al-Aṣamm “the deaf one”, d. 200/816 or 201/817,1 was considered an outsider even by the Muʿtazilites themselves. Ibn al-Nadīm listed him together with Ḍirār b. ʿAmr, Hishām alFuwaṭī et al. among those who “came up with innovations”.2 The only point at which he looked in more detail was that Aṣamm did not think much of ʿAlī.3 This might have been because Aṣamm had Ibāḍite leanings, which is indicated by a passage by Tawḥīdī that mentions him in connection with the Ibāḍiyya; however, the passage is not entirely clear and may have to be read differently.4 Furthermore Aṣamm disagreed with Ibāḍite doctrine in a central matter.5 Judging from the fragment of Kaʿbī’s Maqālāt edited so far, this author ignored him entirely, but Ibāḍite Ṭabaqāt works did not pay much attention to him, either. Only in his capacity as a jurist did the latter take notice of him; the late Ibn Baraka cites him besides Mālik, Abū Ḥanīfa, Shāfiʿī and Dāwūd al-Iṣfahānī.6 However, as we shall see,7 this is not unusual, and he does not play a prominent part here.8 In Ibn Baṭṭa’s view he was a Jahmite9 as he wrote concerning the

12  Text XVI 44 seems to indicate that he was a Muʿtazilite, mentioning him together with Muʿammar and Abū l-Hudhayl. Ṭāhā al-Ḥājirī also wishes to link the remark Ḥayawān II 96, pu. f., to him (cf. Bukhalāʾ 258). 1  Thus according to Ibn al-Nadīm 214, 11. 2  P. 214, 1ff. 3  See p. 468 below. 4  Cf. Text IV 23 with commentary. 5  See p. 462 below. 6  Wilkinson in: Der Islam 62/1985/247. 7  See p. 469ff. below. 8  Maḥbūb b. al-Raḥīl’s Sīra (Al-siyar wal-jawābāt I 282, 5, and 285, 8) informs us that Muʿtazilites and Ibāḍites did not separate immediately in Oman. Interestingly the only extant anecdote from Aṣamm himself is found in an Ibāḍite source (Text XV 25). 9  Ibāna 91, 15f.; once more 92, 16, as an abhorrent opponent of the Sunna.

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names of God,10 the very subject because of which Abū ʿAmr al-Ḥaddād was punished. Yaḥyā b. Saʿīd al-Qaṭṭān regarded him as a Qadarite.11 Malaṭī, Ashʿarī, Ibn al-Nadīm and Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār listed him among the Muʿtazilites, the last-named relying on Ibn Farzōya’s K. al-mashāyikh.12 Nobody, however, made an effort to position him organically within the history of the school; unlike Abū l-Hudhayl, no teacher could be found for him in the preceding generation who might have provided a link with the early fathers. Shahrastānī, finally, jumbled the chronology so much that he ended up as a follower of the – considerably younger – Hishām al-Fuwaṭī.13 Neither he nor Baghdādī, on whom he often relied, elevated Aṣamm to the position of leader of a Muʿtazilite “sect” in the way that they tended to do with significant mutakallimūn. It seems that Aṣamm did not always live in Basra; Yaḥyā al-Qaṭṭān mentioned sojourns in Madāʾin.14 He may also have visited Wāsiṭ once, as the traditionist Yazīd b. Hārūn who lived there15 branded him as an infidel whose blood should be shed because he supported the createdness of the Quran.16 When Indian physicians came to Iraq on the initiative of the Barmakids,17 he converted one of them to Islam; he is said to have accompanied him to India at times.18 Not only his views distinguished him from the Muʿtazilites at whom we have looked so far; he was in fact an entirely distinct type. He is presented to us as an author: Ibn al-Nadīm listed 26 titles by him,19 and while there may have been a doublet or two,20 he must have made a great impression with his output. He was probably the first man in Basra who wrote so much, if we assume that 10  Catalogue of Works XIII, no. 4. 11  ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ III 5, 1 > Mīzān no. 5018. 12   Faḍl 267, 14ff. 13   Milal 19, 4/31, 9f.; cf. also Gimaret, Livre des Religions 144, n. 156. 14  ʿUqaylī III 5, 2f. > Mīzān, loc. cit. 15  Regarding him see p. 488 below. 16  Abū Dāwūd, Masāʾil al-Imām Aḥmad 270, 2f. (= Nashshār-Ṭālibī, ʿAqāʾid al-salaf 110, –4f.); Bukhārī, Khalq al-afʿāl in: ʿAqāʾid al-salaf 129, 16ff. > Yāfīʿī, Marham 186, 12f., where zindīq is added to kāfir. However, Yazīd b. Hārūn mentions not only Aṣamm but also Bishr alMarīsī, who lived in Baghdad and may never have been to Wāsiṭ; it is possible he was merely criticising the detrimental foreign influence. – Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī even gave Aṣamm the nisba al-Balkhī once (Mafātīḥ al-ghayb IX 93, 17); but we cannot be sure whether he was referring to the same person. 17  See p. 23 and 42 above. 18  Thus according to the Risāla Hārūniyya, quoted by Ṣāliḥ al-ʿAlī in: MMʿIʿI 34/1983/8. 19  Cf. the Catalogue of Works XIII. 20  Titles 5 and 6, 9 and 10 or 24 and 25 can only come from different lists.

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Ḍirār b. ʿAmr was really at home in Kufa, where theologians had begun writing treatises rather earlier. Malaṭī said he wrote on subjects on which nobody had commented on before him.21 He may even have done so at the behest of higher powers; it was believed that “the authorities” (al-sulṭān) corresponded with him.22 He did not, however, forge closer ties; he was poor, and his pupils were disappointed that while he instructed them in the law, he did not find them positions as judges.23 Among the population this scholarly modesty would have increased his reputation: 80 shuyūkh were said to have prayed behind him in his mosque in Basra.24 2.2.8.4.1.1 Aṣamm’s “Ontology”

When describing his doctrine, the doxographers were – as usual – interested only in the differences. In his systematic approach they noticed particularly what they called his “denying of the attributes”. What they meant was that he, unlike later kalām custom, did not arrange the earthly reality according to substance and attributes. He only recognised the spatial, three-dimensional body; this is what we see with our eyes and can consequently grasp with our intellect.1 We may view it differently at different times, but that is not because something became separated from it and was replaced by something else, as it would be said about an attribute; nor has anything emerged from the body that was present within it previously.2 Change does, of course, exist; but it is executed by God directly, as transformation. It might take place quite suddenly: God can transform a mustard grain into a mountain from one moment to the next.3 We note this event as our senses get an impression of a physical body twice in succession. Thus Aṣamm by no means denied that something happened to a body. He recognised events such as movement, or qualities such as colour; but they cannot be separated even by speculation from the body together with which

21   Tanbīh 31, 13/39, 7. 22   Faḍl 267, –5 > IM 57, 4. Especially treatises against those of different faiths and zanādiqa were most likely commissions (nos. 22–26 of the Catalogue of Works). 23  Ibn al-Nadīm 214, 8f. 24   Faḍl 267, pu. f. > IM 57, 4ff. 1  Text XIII 1, a; 5, b; 6, b; 9, c. 2  Text 7, dating back to Zurqān, who probably interpreted this by means of a comparison with Naẓẓām; the two were occasionally linked elsewhere as well (e.g. in Text 4). 3  Text IV 22–23. It is not stated explicitly that Aṣamm interpreted every change as a transformation of this kind.

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they occur. Later students of his “system” were not entirely sure of this and burdened the discussion with an imaginary problem.4 It is interesting that there were disagreements concerning the interpretation at all. Aṣamm, although he wrote so much, does not seem to have discussed the ontological core of his theory in any detail; none of the 26 titles attributed to him even indicates this. He did not engage with Ḍirār b. ʿAmr who represented the, so it seemed, opposite approach in Kufa at the time: that there are “attributes” only.5 This leads us to assume that Aṣamm’s approach was entirely self-evident at the time, rather than the philosophically untenable caprice as which the doxographers presented it. After all, we are looking at simple sensualism, and sensualism could be found everywhere until the second half of the second century: with the zanādiqa as well as with Hishām b. al-Ḥakam. “Plato the Copt”, whom the author of K. sirr al-khalīqa quoted, said like Aṣamm: there is no action and no movement, but there is that which acts and that which moves.6 While Aṣamm fought against the zanādiqa, as was right and proper in his day,7 he did not have to reject all their axioms out of hand. In addition he had worked as Maʿmar Abū l-Ashʿath’s assistant, like Abū Shamir;8 in his circle people presumably thought the same. The doxographers by no means overlooked this affinity which from a later point of view had to place him in the heretic corner: they grouped him together with the Sumaniyya,9 the Dahriyya,10 and with Hishām b. al-Ḥakam.11 When Aṣamm defined the physical body by means of its three dimensions, this is entirely normal for the time, and is also found in antiquity. John Philoponus is the first in whose writings this is linked to denying materia prima (cf. Sorabji, Matter, Space and Motion 24ff.); this is presumed here, too, as indeed throughout early kalām (regarding Naẓẓām cf. e.g. Text XXII 80).

4  Text XIII 1, cf. also Text IV 23, c. 5  Cf. ch. C 1.3.1.2 below. 6  Bālīnūs, Sirr al-khalīqa 28, 6ff.; regarding him see p. 801 n. 13 below. 7  Cf. the Catalogue of Works no. 24–26, also 23. 8  See p. 42 and 202 above. 9  Baghdādī, Uṣūl al-dīn 36, ult. ff. 10  Ibid. and 7, 14ff. (= Text XIII 3). 11  Text IV 22–23.

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Hishām b. al-Ḥakam, on the other hand, had been more consistent in his own way. He had extended the concept of “body” to include God.12 Aṣamm could not have agreed with this; he would have regarded it as anthropomorphism. He refuted Hishām with regard to his tashbīh, explaining his own view, which was certainly based on the Muʿtazila – and the Ibāḍiyya – in a K. al-tawḥīd.13 By keeping God outside his system he had no need to define “body” anew, but he did have to ask what God was, and of course he answered in the negative: God is neither body nor attribute.14 Jahm b. Ṣafwān had embraced a similar approach15 which, too, left open how one could know God. The doxographers did not comment on this point, but it does become clear that Aṣamm did not reject conclusions drawn from what happened to things, their “transformation” for instance, or from the consensus of humans.16 Thus it is possible that he believed that God could be known rationally; furthermore, there was always revelation that allowed him to “read” the names of God.17 He did not doubt, either, that the revelation was binding on humans, God’s “argument” that could not be defied.18 By using this term he built on discussions conducted by Ibāḍites of the previous generation.19 Still, revelation manifests itself in a physical body, namely the Quran, which is of course created.20 Aṣamm wrote on the khalq al-Qurʾān,21 and, as we have seen, his opinion was seen as an unforgivable transgression outside Basra. He probably regarded the Quran as an earthly book. After all, it is not possible for the Quran to exist as a heavenly archetype in which God wrote down all future events, as God has no foreknowledge of the future: he can know only “something”, but that which is not is not “something”; only a physical body is something.22 This once more recalls Hishām b. al-Ḥakam, and Kufan theology in general. However, in Aṣamm’s case this theologoumenon was much more closely linked to his belief in human free will. We do not know what his book on 12  See vol. I 421f. above. 13  Cf. Catalogue of Works no. 2–3. 14  Text 9, c. 15  Text XIV 15, b–c; cf. p. 561 below. 16  Cf. text 12. 17  See p. 213 above. Expanding the theory of nafy al-aʿrāḍ Shahrastānī claimed that he denied God’s qualities (ṣifāt) (Milal 53, 7/115, 3), which was probably only true insofar as he may have recognised them as “names” only in the revelation. 18  Cf. the title Catalogue of Works no. 5. 19  See vol. I 483ff. above. 20  Text 9 with commentary. 21  Catalogue of Works no. 7. 22  Text 8.

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Rasāʾil al-a‌ʾimma fī l-ʿadl was about, or who the a‌ʾimma were in this case,23 but there cannot be any doubt that he conformed to the Muʿtazila and the Basran Qadarites. He polemicised against the determinists (mujbira) quoting Quranic verses against them.24 If Bishr b. al-Muʿtamir found something to refute in his K. al-makhlūq,25 it may have been because his ontology interfered with his deliberations once again. It did indeed inform his image of humans. Humans, like everything else, are bodies perceivable to the senses – “this concrete body, nothing else”. While every human is he himself (nafs), a person, this individuality is not something that is added to him, but only refers to the same “himself”. As an individual he is a combination of body-and-soul, not possessed of a soul (rūḥ) in the sense that it could be separated from the body, let alone survive after the body’s death.26 Thus to Aṣamm it certainly was not immortal, but the breath of life that pulsates through the “unified being” or “unified substance” we call a human.27 Nor was there a separate faculty of action innate in humans, that they might employ to act or that God – as the determinists believed – created within them at the very moment of action.28 God could not create such a thing; given the ontological concepts it was unimaginable.29 Aṣamm presumably saw this as the guarantee of human freedom: the faculty of action is identical with the person, and God knows of the actions only once they are being performed. Bishr b. al-Muʿtamir may have perceived that the same model could be employed as justification of determinism. School tradition tended to regard Abū l-Hudhayl as the one who smashed Aṣamm’s position, due to the fact that he, too, came from Basra. He knew Aṣamm but did not esteem him, calling him the “donkey driver” in an allusion to his lowly origins, using a Persian word30 to render it even more stinging. Which makes it all the more surprising that in the two extant anecdotes Abū l-Hudhayl is not debating with Aṣamm himself, but with one of his followers 23  Catalogue of Works no. 8. Might this text have discussed the older authorities of the Ibāḍite community of whose about-turn to a belief in predestination he disapproved? 24  Catalogue of Works no. 10–11. 25  Ibid., no. 9 and refutations a. 26  Text 5. 27  Text 6. In this text the existence of the soul is explicitly denied – an exaggeration in the sense of Text 1, e. I do not think it is entirely certain that Aṣamm himself used the term jawhar “substance”. 28  Text 2. 29  Text 4. 30   kharbān (Malaṭī, Tanbīh 31, 14/39, 8; also Mufīd in Text 28, where the word has been corrupted to j.ryāl). Did Abū Muslim have this nickname, too? kharbān might be behind the so far unexplained incorrectly written word in Masʿūdī VI 58, pu. f./IV 77, pu. f.

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whom he met in ʿArafāt.31 Maybe he never dared approach the master. Unlike Bishr he never wrote directly against him, either, but he wrote a K. tathbīt alaʿrāḍ32 which may have been the source of those arguments. They are indeed directed against the ontological model. Abū l-Hudhayl asked his interlocutor why he was hoping for reward for prostrating himself here in ʿArafāt, as the reward was not for the face that touched the ground, nor for the dust in which he prostrated himself, and least of all for the air between the face and the ground, but only for the act of prostration itself. Which is nothing – being, as we must add, an attribute. Or: in Aṣamm’s view, flogging was nothing more than the hand of the executioner and the back of the person being flogged; it was limited to its physical components. Now fornication was punished with a hundred lashes, and slander with eighty. As the flogging, being an attribute, is nothing, this results in one nothing being twenty more than another nothing. This was directed at faithful minds who had only the barest idea of Aṣamm’s teachings; Aṣamm himself would certainly not have been impressed. He showed that “movement”, the classic instance of change, was the core of the problem in his view by composing a separate book on the subject. Hishām al-Fuwaṭī, who based some of his own ideas on Aṣamm’s,33 criticised this book in particular.34 That the two anecdotes are exemplary in character is illustrated by the second one, which was even more memorable than the first, being attributed differently in tradition. While Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār narrated it in the third person, a – presumably secondary – parallel in Sharīf al-Murtaḍā (Amālī I 180, apu. ff.) has it narrated by Abū l-Hudhayl himself, who vaguely refers to his opposite as someone “who rejected the movement”. Of course people wanted to know who this might have been, which is probably why the Zaydite imam al-Nāṣir named him as Ḥafṣ al-Fard (p. 97, 18ff.), choosing someone who was known to have in fact argued with Abū l-Hudhayl (see p. 817 below), but who had nothing to do with this context. Other texts named Aṣamm himself as the opponent (e.g. Ḥākim al-Jushamī, Al-risāla fī naṣīḥat al-ʿāmma, fol. 39a, apu. ff., and Nazwānī, Al-jawhar al-muqtaṣir 55, –6ff.). Nazwānī claimed to have found the story in one of Abū l-Hudhayl’s books. – Dāwūd al-Muqammiṣ had already pointed out that the sensation of pain is the reductio ad absurdum of denying the attributes (ʿIshrūn maqāla III 11 = p. 80 Stroumsa). 31   Faḍl 262, apu. ff. (where the correct reading is probably ṣāḥibanlil-Aṣamm rather than ṣāḥib al-Aṣamm). 32  Catalogue of Works XXI, no. 42. 33  See ch. C 4.1.1.1 below. 34  Catalogue of Works no. 18 and refutation b.

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Aṣamm’s Quranic Commentary

Of course, the issue of free will and the faculty of action always had an exegetical aspect, too, although by that time it had been raised onto a theoretical level. It was this exegetical aspect which Aṣamm discussed in his Quranic commentary, as we can infer from his comment on sura 2:8 where he, following established Qadarite tradition, understood the “sealing” of the human heart as the corollary of human unbelief, thus exculpating God. Indeed, going even further, he appears to leave God out of the argument even as the instigator of this “sealing”; if unbelief holds sway in people’s hearts, it is as if they were sealed. To him, the expression was only a metaphor.1 Aṣamm’s Tafsīr is sure to have contained a number of such theologically relevant remarks,2 but extant fragments show that the work also contained historical explanation3 and explored philological issues.4 Aṣamm was considered to be a knowledgeable linguist.5 We know that he had an understanding of poetry,6 permitting himself critical assessments of Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ7 and Muḥammad b. Jahm al-Barmakī.8 After Qatāda and ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd he and ʿAmr b. Fāʾid al-Uswārī9 were the first to devote themselves to exegesis on a larger scale. All the same, Naẓẓām grouped him together with ʿIkrima, Kalbī, Suddī, Ḍaḥḥāk, and Muqātil b. Sulaymān, clearly regarding him as the representative of an earlier age and an outdated method: like them, he interpreted scripture arbitrarily; the more colourful, the better.10 This verdict is remarkable in that Naẓẓām did not point out with even a single word that Aṣamm was the only Muʿtazilite in this line-up, showing no 1  Text 17. Cf. also Text 18, b, where Aṣamm clarifies that according to sura 2:17 God takes away the light of the munāfiqūn in the otherworld as they have already extinguished the light within them. 2   Regarding an anthropomorphist interpretation cf. e.g. Ṭabrisī, Majmaʿ I 58, 8, with reference to sura 2:19. 3   Cf. e.g. Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Mafātīḥ al-ghayb IX 87, –11ff. regarding sura 3:168, or 97, apu. ff. regarding sura 3:172. Quite interesting also Ṭabrisī IV 5, –9: the ancestors removed their shoes during ṭawāf. 4  Rāzī VII 199, 4f., and 211, –9f. regarding sura 3:11 and 14; VIII 208, 9f. regarding sura 3:117; also Text 20, b. 5  Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Faḍl 267, –6 > IM 56, 18; cf. also the aphorism in Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 80, 1f. 6  At least if the ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Kaysān quoted in Jāḥiẓ, Ḥayawān IV 203, 6ff. was the same person. In that case Jāḥiẓ met him in person. The verse quoted appears to be his own, as suggested by the context. Cf. Goldziher in: Der Islam 6/1916/174, n. 2. 7  Jāḥiẓ, Dhamm akhlāq al-kuttāb, in: Thalāth rasāʾil, ed. Finkel 44 = Rasāʾil II 195, 7ff. 8  Jāḥiẓ, Risāla fī dhamm akhlāq Muḥammad b. al-Jahm, in: Al-kātib al-Miṣrī 5/1947/58, pu. ff.; cf. also ch. C 3.1 below. 9  Regarding them see p. 162f., 339f. and 94f. above. 10  Jāḥiẓ, Ḥayawān I 343, 5ff.; transl. Goldziher, Koranauslegung 111f.

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trace of school solidarity. Jubbāʾī, too would later say that Aṣamm would have been better advised to remain silent on theological matters in his Tafsīr, limiting himself to linguistic and juristic questions. But then Aṣamm was the only authority Jubbāʾī quoted at all – presumably concerning linguistic and juristic questions in particular.11 The text survived in Iran, where Jubbāʾī composed his Tafsīr as well. Māturīdī consulted it for his Ta‌ʾwīlāt ahl al-sunna,12 Thaʿlabī (d. 427/1038) a century later for his Kashf wal-bayān,13 then the Muʿtazilite Abū Yūsuf al-Qazwīnī (d. 488/1095),14 and above all the Zaydite Ḥākim al-Jushamī (d. 484/1091). The last-named quoted him on nearly every page, usually, however, together with other authorities from Ḥasan al-Baṣrī to Jubbāʾī and Abū Muslim al-Iṣfahānī; consequently a direct reconstruction of the work would be difficult.15 The line was continued by Abū l-Futūḥ al-Rāzī (first half of the sixth/ twelfth century),16 his contemporary Ṭabrisī17 and finally by Abū l-Futūḥ’s famous compatriot Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī,18 although they did not all go back to the original. Compared to Ḥākim al-Jushamī they mention Aṣamm only sporadically. It remains to be examined whether Ṭabarī, although he did not quote Aṣamm anywhere, was in fact familiar with his work.19 It is noticeable that neither Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār’s K. mutashābih al-Qurʾān nor Muḥammad al-Ṭūsī’s Tibyān refer to him at all. 11   Faḍl 268, 1ff. > IM 57, 6f. Unfortunately the passage was badly transmitted in Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār’s text, and furthermore not entirely clear as to its content. I interpret it in the same way as Ibn al-Murtaḍā (even though he left out the illegible passage). In her dissertation on Jubbāʾī’s Tafsīr R. Gwynne interpreted it differently, that Jubbāʾī quoted Aṣamm only once, with regard to sura 4:54 (p. 37). This does not seem to be to me philologically tenable, although it is true that Jubbāʾī did not refer much to earlier exegetic works in general, which is confirmed by the extensive excerpts in Ibn Ṭāwūs, Saʿd al-suʿūd 142, pu.–183, 18 (which Gwynne does not take into account). 12  Cf. Text 19–20. 13   GAS 1/615. The riwāya cited by Thaʿlabī in the introduction to his work is Iranian but not Muʿtazilite (ed. Goldfeld 49, 4ff.) It leads from Aṣamm via his pupils (aṣḥāb) who are not named. 14  Cf. Madelung in: EIran I 399a. 15   I am basing my assessment on the MS Ambrosiana B 44 which contains the fourth volume of the work, and on the textual witnesses preserved in Ṣanʿāʾ. Jushamī quotes Aṣamm in the context of maʿnā every time, not under lugha or iʿrāb. Cf. also Zarzūr, Jushamī 131. 16  Cf. Massé, Mélanges W. Marçais 245, n. 1. Regarding him see McDermott in EIran I 292. 17  Cf. Text 17; also Ḥusayn Karīmān, Ṭabrisī va Majmaʿ ul-bayān II 117. 18  Cf. for the time being Text 21 and 23; also the list by Jomier in: MIDEO 15/1982/152f. 19   He draws the same conclusion as Aṣamm from e.g. sura 2:32 (cf. Text 19 and Ṭabarī I 494, pu. f.). The theory is contradicted by the data in Text 20 (cf. the commentary); and Ṭabarī does not consider the remarkable interpretation of sura 2:17 (in Text 18) at all.

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Ṭabarī as well as Ṭūsī recognised Aṣamm as a legal scholar (see p. 473 and 472, n. 21, below). – I have established in WO 10/1979/54f. that MS Istanbul, Kılıç Ali 53/8 does not, as Brockelmann stated (GAL S 2/984 no. 7), contain the Tafsīr of our Aṣamm, but rather a text by an author from the tenth/sixteenth century. The time is not ready for a final verdict. So far we can base our conclusions on a few fragments collected rather randomly, although we may, as long as we apply the necessary prudence, ask the question of what it was in this text that impressed later authors particularly – if they did not, as Ḥākim al-Jushamī did, analyse the entire commentary. To begin with, there was Aṣamm’s comprehensive style of exegesis, uncovering the meaning of longer self-contained passages,20 which was not at all a matter of course at the time. Aṣamm approached the Quran argumentatively, collecting the reasons that led him to a particular interpretation or a general theological conclusion. He appears to have looked to Quranic theology more firmly than other authors, as we can see e.g. in the way in which he refuted Satan’s being an angel. While he did base his arguments on Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, he went his own way with his statement that the angels – as opposed to the jinn – were created from light.21 He pursued this entire subject further. Angels can sin, and occasionally do, as we know from Hārūt and Mārūt (sura 2:102). Only as long as they have not lapsed into sin are they superordinate to the prophets.22 Like most of his contemporaries Aṣamm believed in the prophets being free from sin,23 and may have laid this down in his “Brief text on the prophets”.24 At least one extant passage of the Tafsīr belongs in this context as well. Aṣamm found corroboration of Muḥammad’s miraculous gift in the Quran, a gift of expressing things that could not be grasped rationally. Thus e.g. when he said at the beginning of the fourth sura that God created all humans out of one being: it is not possible to understand by intellect only that Adam was the ancestor of all humans as there are far too many.25 Consequently if the prophet, illiterate (ummī) and untaught 20  Thus e.g. in Text 18. 21  Cf. Text 20 with commentary. Among Kufan Shīʿites, too, the majority appear to have agreed with Ḥasan al-Baṣrī (Biḥār LXIII 262 no, 132; also 286, 1ff.). Regarding the issue cf. Ashʿarī, Maq. 441, 11ff., and ch. D 2.2.2 below. 22  Text 22. Thus he differed from Ḥasan al-Baṣrī with regard to Hārūt and Mārūt (see p. 52 above). 23  Text 23. 24  Catalogue of Works no. 6. 25  Text 21, a and e.

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as he was, proclaimed this inspired by divine enlightenment, he expressed a “hidden secret” (ghayb).26 The same train of thought was evolved at the same time, but using different examples, by the secretary Abū Rabīʿ Muḥammad b. al-Layth, when he wrote to the basileus Constantine VI at the beginning of Hārūn’s caliphate, a quarter of a century before Aṣamm’s death.27 Naẓẓām would later adopt this.28 It is also interesting that Aṣamm introduced a kalām device into his Tafsīr at this point, letting the opponents speak for themselves.29 The final memorable passages were those in which Aṣamm focussed on general questions of the structure of the text. Firstly there was the problem of abrogation. In the crucial verse 2:106 Aṣamm understood nansakh to mean “to cancel” while retaining the words – naskh al-ḥukm dūna l-tilāwa, as it would be described later –, nunsikha on the other hand as meaning a complete deletion, naskh al-ḥukm wal-tilāwa. It seemed to be understood that an abrogated verse was not necessarily replaced with another.30 In this interpretation Aṣamm did not really say anything new, following, as before, Ḥasan al-Baṣrī’s ideas.31 In Mecca, among Mujāhid’s circle, people were convinced that God had to provide a replacement every time;32 Ṭabarī, too, followed this view.33 Aṣamm was rather more original in the second controversial issue with which tradition presented him: the delimitation of muḥkamāt and mutashābihāt in sura 3:7. He did not believe in mysteries; even “ambiguous” passages in the revelation can ultimately be grasped using reason, they just require longer thought. This corresponded to his ontology, where everything can be grasped with the senses, too. Even so, his understanding of the Quran was that of a legal scholar: God argued against those of different faiths. Proof against which the opponents have no recourse is muḥkam: when God confronts the ahl al-kitāb with something from their own scripture, which they can read there, or when he speaks to the heathen by reason of existential and natural circumstances.34 26  Ibid., b–c. 27  See ch. C 1.2.3 below. 28  See ch. C 3.2.2.2.4.2.2.2 below. 29  Ibid., e. I am assuming that Text 21 goes back to Aṣamm in its entirety and was not distorted by Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī. This is not necessarily certain. 30  Rāzī, Mafātīḥ III 230, ult. ff. 31  Ṭabarī, Tafsīr 3II 472 no. 1745, and 474 no. 1754. 32  Ibid. 473 no. 1748ff. 33  Ibid. 471, pu. ff. Regarding Ṭabarī’s abrogation theory cf. C. Gilliot, Aspects de l’imaginaire islamique commun dans le commentaire de Ṭabarī (PhD Paris 1987), p. 428ff. 34  Compare Text 15, a–d, and Text 16, a–b. It seems not to have mattered to him that one of the verses he quoted on the subject contained a hapax legomenon the meaning of which must be guessed (abb in sura 80:31). After all, it did not affect the meaning of the verse as a whole.

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Mutashābih, on the other hand, are statements regarding future things: the resurrection, the Day of Judgment, and also passages that do not fit smoothly into the composition, such as the abrogated or “forgotten”, i.e. omitted verses. In these instances the heathen, to whom no scripture has spoken of these things, may evade and, as we know from the Quran, ironically request proof of the truth. Which can, indeed, be provided, but it requires more reflection and especially an open mind. The heathen are only ignorant because they are “bent on strife”, which is why they are punished.35 This rationalistic interpretation, which really only left the question of why God attached so much importance to this distinction, was embraced as late as a century later by Zajjāj (d. 311/923) in his Maʿānī al-Qurʾān.36 There is nothing directly corresponding in Ṭabarī,37 who did not cite Ḥasan al-Baṣrī in this context, either. 2.2.8.4.1.3

The Consensus of Muslims

Besides revelation and reason there was a third criterion for Aṣamm: the consensus of Muslims, of the ahl al-ṣalāt or ahl al-milla, as he seems to have said with an almost Ibāḍite dread of using the word muslimūn.1 His expectations of prophetic tradition were low: hadiths were frequently not very well documented and consequently carried too little weight.2 Even if among a hundred hadiths collected by someone only one were unreliable, his verdict would have to be suspended until he knew which one it was and could delete it.3 Which leads us to ask why Aṣamm, if he had such strict standards, put more faith in consensus as that, too, could have been at risk of individual Muslims judging under someone else’s influence, or simply telling an untruth. The difference was probably that a consensus took place among contemporaries and could thus be verified at any time. In addition, being a Muʿtazilite Aṣamm, like Ḍirār b. ʿAmr, was not well-disposed towards the aṣḥāb al-ḥadīth, and was in turn treated quite roughly by e.g. Yazīd b. Hārūn. The defining force of the consensus may have been familiar to him from the jamāʿat al muslimīn in the Ibāḍite community. He relied on consensus not only in legal decisions, but also in theological issues and in his political theory. It is due only to consensus that we know that a Muslim who is a grave sinner cannot enter paradise, as all Muslims agree that 35  Text 15, e–h, and 16, c. 36  Cf. Wansbrough, Quranic Studies 150. 37  Cf. the range of opinions Tafsīr VI 169ff.; the closest is 178, 1ff. 1  Cf. Text 12 and 10, b. 2  Text 41. 3  Text 43. Cf. Turki, Polémiques 100f.

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a grave sinner may be vilified with impunity. This is in fact only permitted in the case of an “enemy of God”, and every “enemy of God” will go to hell.4 The train of thought is noticeable, not to say remarkable. It appears very technical and accords such influence to the verdict of the community that one is once again inclined to think of an Ibāḍite legacy. The Quranic verses which were usually adduced to determine hell as a punishment for Muslims did not convince Aṣamm; he said explicitly that neither the revelation (tanzīl) nor the exegesis (ta‌ʾwīl) led to an unambiguous conclusion. Even so the impression remains that Aṣamm put the cart before the horse. Would it not have been better for him to say that people ought to stop vilifying Muslims? Things become slightly clearer when we learn that Aṣamm could not find it in himself to strip a grave sinner of his status as a believer. Consequently he could not refer to the relevant Quranic verses, as they do not refer to believers, but to kāfirūn and munāfiqūn; also they are not universally applicable as every Muslim can repent, and so go to paradise.5 Still, punishment in hell for unrepentant sinners mattered very much to him, as after all God revealed his commandments in order for humans to earn the afterlife.6 While the correlation between these thoughts is still not quite clear,7 there is no doubt at all that Aṣamm did not really fit into any of the existing categories. He disagreed with the Ibāḍites as he refused to call a Muslim sinner a kāfir; he rejected the Muʿtazilite manzila bayna l-manzilatayn; he did not even follow Ḥasan alBaṣrī’s precepts: a Muslim’s profession of God’s oneness and the good deeds he performs are so powerful that he does not deserve the designation “hypocrite” either.8 While someone who has committed a grave sin is indeed a fāsiq, a fāsiq still remains muʾmin. Ibn Ḥazm even thought that in Aṣamm’s view all Muslims, being believers, would eventually enter paradise;9 sinners, being “enemies of God” would be sent to hell, but not for eternity. Still, the statement does not sound entirely reliable as Ibn Ḥazm is generalising very much. It is noticeable that only Basran Murjiʾites like Abū Shamir linked fisq and īmān;10 on 4  Text 12. 5  Thus according to Ibn al-Murtaḍā, Al-baḥr al-zakhkhār I 80, –4f. 6  Hinted at by Ibn Mattōya (Muḥīṭ II 389, 7 and earlier) as being Aṣamm’s doctrine. 7  Did Aṣamm believe that the heathen cannot repent? This would be most unusual in a Muʿtazilite. Or did he think that the heathen can repent of their transgressions while remaining heathen? 8  Text 10–11. 9  Text II 34. 10  See p. 202 above.

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the other hand, in a different context Aṣamm is quoted as having threatened sinners – and even the companions of the prophet among them – with damnation and eternal fire.11 Things would look different if Aṣamm had believed hell to be transient, as we know some Jahmites did (see p. 568f. below). But we only learn that like his teacher (sic!) Hishām al-Fuwaṭī he believed paradise and hell not to have been created as yet, and even this is insufficiently documented, as it is reported only in Ṣafadī’s Wāfī (X 270, 15) and may have been a generalising interpretation of Shahrastānī’s ideas, on whom Ṣafadī relied throughout (cf. Shahrastānī 51, 8f./110, 6f.). 2.2.8.4.1.3.1

Consensus and Political Theory

It was on the field of political theory that the idea of consensus had the most far-reaching consequences. Aṣamm considered the ruler to have been lawfully chosen only if all Muslims recognised him.1 In that case the consensus would be binding forever and could not be revoked if people believed to have found a better man. Of course the majority should be as great as possible if it was to guarantee that the best candidate was chosen, maybe even from beyond the Quraysh, among non-Arabs and clients, if Jāḥiẓ is to be believed.2 Humans change, as do the criteria, and if a decision could be questioned every time, one would “depose a ruler every day, and appoint another one”.3 There was no room for revolution in this model. Aṣamm refuted those always ready to take up arms in a separate treatise,4 restricting even the Muʿtazilite commandment of amr bil-maʿrūf to heart and tongue. Interpreted strictly, duty only requires fulfilling the commandment with one’s heart. It is commendable to speak up with words, but use of weapons is only for the authorities.5

11  Text 28, f. 1  Text 24. 2  In his Jawābāt fī l-imāma, where he probably summarised Aṣamm’s and his followers’ doctrine (Rasāʾil IV 285, 11). The definitely attributed extant reviews do not discuss this detail. 3  Text 26, a–c. 4  Catalogue of Works no. 15. 5  Text 13–14, probably after K. al-amr bil-maʿrūf wal-nahy ʿan al-munkar (Catalogue of Works no. 12).

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Aṣamm did, however, admit that one might draw one’s sword against “violent persons” (ahl al-baghy) as long as one agreed on a “just” leader.6 He probably based this opinion on sura 49:9, where the phrase ahl al-baghy is used in a similar context, but the question remains who he thought this applied to. Presumably less a tyrannical ruler and more his unrestrained followers, maybe tax collectors, land owners, governors, but in particular anti-government elements disturbing the rule of law, i.e. rebels.6a It is unlikely that the assumption was for the ahl al-baghy to be working for the ruler; the Islamic Empire was far too vast for him to have his eyes everywhere. This last experience led Aṣamm to allowing the Muslims the right to gather under several princes. “In times like these”, he said, “it is sensible to spread over (several) rulers, as one ruler on his own cannot keep (all humans) under control, and he will not get all their votes; nor can he know all the excellent men in every country and in every town in order to invite them to his entourage and ask for their advice and assistance.”7 Aṣamm tried to rescue the ideal of the shūrā for his time, but realised that the vast distances had made it impossible. “Visitations are a heavy burden on the inhabitants of distant cities and remote provinces (the ruler wishes to consult)”;8 the journeys involved were simply too long. In this situation Aṣamm advocated decentralisation. This doctrine could easily be misunderstood; Aṣamm never put it in wri­ ting, only speaking of it in a small circle of his pupils9 and doing everything possible to mitigate it. Individual princes must “assist one another in integrity and fear of God”,10 and of course the people were always free to agree on one single ruler, as was the case in such exemplary fashion in early Islam.11 Still, decentralisation happened even in the early days, as the prophet appointed governors in the lands that had converted to Islam, who were entitled to dispose freely, and after his death it was the population who decided who looked after its affairs. Central power had not really been established at that time.12 Historically, Aṣamm was correct: Southern Arabia, on which he was likely to 6  Text 31. 6a  The latter are probably referred to in the deliberations Fiqh absaṭ contains on the subject (p. 48, 2ff., and earlier 44, 10ff., where the association is with the Khārijites); cf. also Lewis, Political Language 81f. 7  Text 34, h–i, l. 8  Ibid., k. 9  Ibid., a. 10  Ibid., c. 11  Ibid., b and f. 12  Ibid., d–e.

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have focussed, had been divided into ten administrative districts until the Ridda.13 Thus the consensus determines not only who the ruler should be, but also, up to a point, the type of government. Aṣamm went one step further in this matter, not only questioning monarchy but actually believing it to be expendable. If the Muslims “treated one another fairly and did not wrong one another” they would not need a ruler.14 They only needed to know the scripture – and abide by it, of course.15 The consensus would then automatically support the community. This aspect has been emphasised by the doxographers again and again, as it fitted so beautifully into a systematic paradigm exemplifying the extreme left – but, as we have seen, a law-abiding left. This gives rise to the question of whether Aṣamm’s “unwritten doctrine” for all its alleged esotericism did not in fact inspire the authorities. It is noticeable that it was during his lifetime that Hārūn al-Rashīd divided the realm between his sons, proving that decentralisation was more than mere theory. Aṣamm’s doctrine would not have remained secret in any case: his pupils spread it so diligently that Jāḥiẓ was able to describe it in great detail.16 Still, one would hope that if he was indeed working for the caliph, he would have composed a memorandum – but the tradition rules this out. His K. al-imāma mentioned by Ibn al-Nadīm seems to have had different subject matter,17 but it is possible that he saw the division of the empire as an instance. Still, he would have found before his death that the model had failed, in which case one might wonder why his pupils still stood by it. Goldziher, on the other hand, considered a connection with a Greek text. He believed to have found the idea that the ideal community does not need a ruler in a letter from Aristotle to Alexander concerning the art of government (Risālat Arisṭūṭālīs ilā l-Iskandar fī l-siyāsa).18 The text was probably accessible during Aṣamm’s lifetime; recently there have been more voices suggesting that the Arabic translation dates from Hishām’s era and was produced in Sālim Abū

13  Stookey, Yemen 29. One probably ought to speak of tax collectors rather than administrators or governors; regarding circumstances in general cf. Shoufany, Al-Riddah 77ff. 14  Text 33. 15  Text 32. Cf. also Laoust, Politique de Ġazālī 231. 16   Rasāʾil IV 285ff.; cf. Pellat in: SI 15/1961/38f. Despite its detail the summary is not very precise; in particular it is impossible to say where it ends. Furthermore, it is only a fragment; the context in Jāḥiẓ’ text does not survive. 17  Catalogue of Works no. 14. More information p. 467f. below. 18  Der Islam 6/1916/176f.

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l-ʿAlāʾ’s chancellery.19 Even if we believe Ibn al-Biṭrīq, who also translated the K. sirr al-asrār, which discussed similar subjects, into Arabic, to have been its translator,20 Aṣamm (although he did not live in Baghdad where the translators were active) could have known of it. The difficulty is in the subject matter: there are few similarities. Ἀλέξανδρος ἢ ὑπὲρ ἀποίκων21 merely says that a ruler is needed in times of war only; furthermore this suggestion, as one would expect in a letter addressed to Alexander, is rejected.22 Goldziher in his day used the edition by J. Lippert, Halle 1891 (with a Latin translation); another edition was produced by Cheikho in: Mashriq 10/1907/311ff. Regarding the research history cf. Bielawski–Plezia 6ff. The Greek original is not extant, but Bielawski and Plezia believe the text to be genuine. More in detail K. von Fritz in: Gnomon 44/1972/442ff., and G. A. Košelenko, Aristotel’ i Aleksandir, in: Vestnik drevnej istorii 1974, Issue 1, p. 22ff.; Grignaschi in: BEO 19/1965–6/14; Manzalaoui in: Oriens 23–24/1974/202; especially detailed P. Carlier, Etude sur la prétendue lettre d’Aristote à Alexandre transmise par plusieurs manuscrits arabes, in: Ktema 5/1980/277ff.; also R. Weil in: Festschrift Moraux 485ff. The Greeks were probably not necessary in order to relativise the necessity of the caliphate. In the case of a Basran like Aṣamm, Ibāḍite influence is more probable, as the Ibāḍiyya had always believed that the ideal community would be a community of the just who govern themselves; to them, this was not even utopian.23 They had had to practise polycentric organisation from the first, even living under two imams in the same place in Tripoli in 131, a case that because of its tragic development led to discussions in Iraq that also influenced the Muʿtazila.24 Aṣamm, too, would have heard of this, but his doctrine appears original due to its self-contained nature.

19  Thus Grignaschi in: Muséon 80/1967/223ff.; adopted by Bielawski and Plezia who undertook the definitive edition of the text: Lettre d’Aristote à Alexandre sur la politique envers les cités. Texte arabe . . . J. Bielawski, commentaire . . . M. Plezia (Breslau/Warsaw/Cracow 1970), p. 16. 20  Cf. Peters, Aristoteles Arabus 67. 21  Thus according to Plezia’s identification. Previously the relevant text was believed to be Περὶ βασιλείας. 22   § 2 Bielawski; cf. the commentary p. 82f. 23  Similar also among the Najdiyya in the Hijaz (Ashʿarī, Maq. 125, 11f. after Zurqān). 24  In more detail in ch. C 1.3.1.6 below.

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The diarchic model would later be considered by Fārābī; ʿĀmirī contradicted him in this matter. But Fārābī was thinking of the coexistence of prophetic and secular authorities in the same place (Walzer, Al-Farabi on the Perfect State 449). Regarding the subject in general cf. M. Hamidullah, Règne conjoint. La théorie et la pratique islamiques, in: RSO 28/1953/99ff. It is most significant that Aṣamm only found himself in the line of fire of criticism once he applied his theory to the past. There was much more sensitivity regarding the past than concerning possible models for the present. Aṣamm acquired the reputation of wishing ʿAlī ill. Even the Muʿtazilites thought he had gone too far, especially in the debate with Hishām b. al-Ḥakam – which may not have taken place at all.25 Ibn al-Nadīm believed that he was excluded from the ranks of the “true” Muʿtazilites because of it,26 an image probably due to Bishr al Muʿtamir who refuted Aṣamm’s K. al-imāma.27 But then Bishr himself had Shīʿite tendencies.28 Later, Imāmites like Faḍl b. Shādhān and the Shaykh al-Mufīd took the same line.29 They were only partially correct; basically, Aṣamm was simply applying his theory of the consensus. He was probably aware that consensus had been implicit rather than explicit under the first two caliphs; in their case it was clear that they each had been the best candidate for the position of ruler. An explicit consensus only emerged when ʿUmar appointed an electoral commission upon his death, immediately proving that this procedure does not always result in the best man being appointed. The most excellent candidate would have been ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. ʿAwf, who proved this by declining the office. He suggested ʿUthmān, and after him, ʿUthmān was indeed the best man. As soon as everybody had agreed on him, the rule was immediately his by right.30 In ʿAlī’s case, things had been different. The community had not agreed on him; he had not been appointed by an orderly electoral commission, and he immediately met with opposition from competitors. While he did overcome them, “leadership is not won by the sword”.31 This was particularly true of his 25  We have no more detailed information concerning it; it may have been extrapolated from his K. al-Jāmiʿ ʿalā l-Rāfiḍa (Catalogue of Works no. 20). He argued with Hishām on the question of tashbīh (ibid. no. 3). 26   Akhrajathū l-Muʿtazila min jumlat al-mukhliṣīn (Fihrist 214, 10f.). Also Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Faḍl 267, –4ff. > IM 57, 1f. 27  Catalogue of Works no. 14 and Refutations a. 28  See ch. C 1.4.3.1.1.4 below. 29  Catalogue of Works, Refutations c–d. 30  Text 26, d–g. 31  Ibid., h–k; also 25, a.

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participation in the uprising against ʿUthmān. On the other hand Aṣamm was not going to claim that his rivals Ṭalḥa and Zubayr were right, either. On the whole they appeared in a more favourable light – presumably because they did not usurp the power but only fought usurpation, maybe also because they hoped to avenge ʿUthmān, but as leadership is not won by the sword, everything depended on their intention. If their ultimate objective was to enable free elections, they were doing the right thing; if, on the other hand, they were pursuing their own interests, they deserved “condemnation and eternal pains of hell”.32 Of course we do not know their true intention as the partisan strife obscured everything; consequently we must abstain from judging. This in turn exculpated ʿAlī to a certain degree; his intention in marching against them might well have been merely to end the civil war quickly, at the same time preventing them from seizing power unjustly.33 Nawbakhtī’s conclusion was presumably correct: that after all only those who retained their neutrality in this quarrel remained unchallengend at the end; “they did not want anything to do with this war and left matters to God”, like Aṣamm himself did.34 His prejudice against ʿAlī was noticeable only where the Ibāḍites, to whom he may have been close, were most engaged: the arbitration tribunal of Ṣiffīn. This could have been interpreted as proof that ʿAlī left the decision to the community, but Aṣamm once again put the emphasis on the intention: we do not know whether ʿAlī was not trying to seize power. Abū Mūsā al-Ashʿarī was certainly in the right when he ousted him, as this was the only way in which the community was able to gather under one single ruler in accordance with its own consensus.35 Like Ṭalḥa and Zubayr, Muʿāwiya had once again more arguments in his favour. Of course he, too, would have been in the wrong if he had waged war on ʿAlī merely for selfish reasons, and we do not know whether he really turned against him only “for people to leave one another in peace and finally agree on one ruler”,36 but he had after all been appointed governor of Syria lawfully by ʿUmar, and confirmed in this office by ʿUthmān. After ʿUthmān’s murder “his duty was to hand Syria to none but a ruler on whom the people had agreed” as they had on the two predecessors, and if someone like ʿAlī, who had not carried the vote, tried to “take it from him by force, his duty was to wage war on him”.37 32  Text 28, e–f, i. 33  Ibid., a–d, g–h; 29, a–b. 34  Text 30. 35  Text 27. 36  Text 29, c–d. 37  Text 26, l–n.

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Once he became caliph everything was well once more, as the Muslims had agreed on him after ʿAlī’s death.38 While this may be a very technical train of thought, it is entirely consistent. I see no reason to call Aṣamm’s views “incongruous”, as Madelung did (Qāsim 42) – albeit before the significant unique materials in PseudoNāshiʾ became known. Aṣamm most certainly was no friend of the Shīʿites, but his views clearly follow the wake of the Basran ʿUthmāniyya. Iskāfī consequently called him an ʿUthmānite in his refutation of Jāḥiẓ’ K. al-ʿUthmāniyya (p. 305, 7). The question remains who the Muʿtazilites were who excluded him, as this is difficult to imagine in Basra. Maybe Ibn al-Nadīm was thinking of the Baghdad group around Bishr b. al Muʿtamir, who were Zaydites. Aṣamm did not simply rail randomly, as illustrated by the way in which he narrated the story of ʿAlī resting on the prophet’s bed. He did not doubt the trust that existed between the two, regarding it as proof of ʿAlī’s heroism (cf. Jāḥiẓ, ibid. 44, ult. f. and 327, 7). It can consequently not be ruled out that he is the Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. Kaysān al-Aṣamm who, according to TB XII 315, 9f., transmitted a dictum by Ḥasan b. ʿAlī. 2.2.8.4.1.4

Aṣamm the Lawyer

On the field of jurisprudence, where the concept of consensus found its home, Aṣamm thought just as independently as he did as a theologian and political theorist; and while we do not even know whether he ever used the term ijmāʿ, it does seem probable. The only summary we have avoids the term, but it seems that it is not referring to the precise concept known subsequently, but that the earlier train of thought covered a wider scope. If a sufficient number of Muslims agree, they can enact laws, it says;1 an idea presumably based on the “grassroots democracy” model we have seen: the community has legislative authority and does not require a ruler. It certainly was not intended to be as radical as it sounds, as of course the community, too, would make decisions based on the Quran; and rulers having no influence on divine commandments would of course later become a fundamental train of Islamic thought. Still, this stage of the development had not been reached and shortly after Aṣamm’s death Ma‌ʾmūn would emphasise the ruler’s prerogative most firmly. We are probably also well advised to proceed with caution in the assumption that when 38  Text 25, b. 1  Text 35.

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he said “community” Aṣamm meant the ʿulamāʾ; the latter would only come into their own once hadith became a source of law besides the Quran. What is still discernible is what M. Bravmann discovered to be the origin of ijmāʿ: the formal consensus of the tribal gathering.2 Still, juristic competence could not really be overlooked in legal matters; the early Ibāḍiyya already believed that an argument (ḥujja) would be recognised as necessary and correct by means of consensus among those competent to judge.3 Aṣamm’s definition of the sufficient number agrees with Wāṣil’s: the number must be so great that it is impossible for people to agree secretly on a lie.4 He was known to follow the Basran tradition: Masʿūdī drew a line from Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, ʿUbaydallāh al-ʿAnbarī, ʿUthmān al-Battī through him and on to Ibn Abī Duwād.5 Aṣamm, however, rejected ʿAnbarī’s hypothesis according to which every mujtahid was right,6 as he believed to hold an absolute criterion of truth that was rational insight, rather than consensus. He did not yet restrict this to the conclusion by analogy, and he did not distinguish between jurisprudence and theology. There is proof of every truth, proof so unmistakeable that one could entertain no doubt of having found the truth.7 Those who miss the proof are by no means excused, although not all fallacies are equally grave. In fundamental matters of faith, the image of God or the recognition of Muḥammad, unbelief will be the result; in less weighty matters such as the visio beatifica or the khalq al-Qurʾān it leads to grave sin, and in legal matters only to a transgression (ithm), a mistake with which one incurs guilt.8 Even in the last-named case, however, the truth is so unmistakeable that a judge’s wrong verdict must be repealed.9 It is well known that this rationalistic self-confidence did not prevail within fiqh in the long term, but, as we shall see, to begin with it found followers within the Muʿtazila as well as beyond it; Naẓẓām even expanding its scope.10

2  The Spiritual Background of Early Islam 198. 3  Abū ʿAmmār did not find any traces of this doctrine in his day (Mūjaz II 172, 3ff.). 4  Text 35; cf. p. 318f. above. Ibn Ḥazm’s vague remark probably refers to a similar approach (Iḥkām 1IV 188, –5ff.; transl. Turki, Polémiques 182f., but with a different identification of Aṣamm). 5  Tanbīh 356, 10ff. 6  See p. 185ff. above. 7  Text 36. 8  Text 37 and 38, a. 9  Text 38, b. 10  See ch. C 3.2.2.2.3.3 below.

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Shīrāzī linked it to the Shāfiʿite Abū ʿAlī Ibn Abī Hurayra (d. 345/956)11 or Abū Bakr al-Daqqāq (d. 392/1002).12 Consequently we cannot be certain whether Aṣamm had formulated the doctrine in its entirety. The titles of books on the subject we know are not definite enough: a K. ʿalā ahl al-fatwā, a K. al-Maʿrifa or Maʿrifat wujūh al-kalām.13 Later sources were not sure of the chronology at all.14 Over time the debate probably focussed on the field of law, and thus on the conclusion by analogy; Ghazzālī counted Aṣamm among the qāʾilūn bil-qiyās.15 It is important to be aware that while Aṣamm recognised the conclusion by analogy, he also had high expectations of it. It could be proved by rational means that it is a feasible and useful procedure,16 but it ought to be applied as a so-called qiyās al-shūrā, a complete analogy in which the two things compared formally correspond in every detail. He either did not yet know the qiyās alʿilla in which a partial analogy is established by means of ratio legis or, rather more probably, considering his dates, rejected it.17 In some questions of detail this led him to conclusions that would seem obvious, but contradicted the custom of the time, and would later be considered aberrant (shādhdh). He did not consider the so-called takbīr al-iḥrām, with which one introduces the prayer and enters into a state of consecration,18 to be obligatory, as the next takbīr is not obligatory either;19 also assimilating the middle jalsa, seating oneself after sujūd, to the last jalsa, once again with the result that neither was obligatory.20 In his view they were two formally similar actions to which the same rule had to apply; opponents interpreted only the hadiths it was based on without 11  Text 38, 1. Regarding him cf. Subkī, Ṭabaqāt al-Shāfiʿiyya III 256f. no. 169; Kaḥḥāla, Muʿjam III 220 (with appendix XIII 381); GIE II 689f. 12  Turki, Polémiques 341, where Aṣamm is once again identified wrongly. There were several legal scholars with the sobriquet al-Aṣamm (regarding this problem cf. Turki, Index for Bājī, Iḥkām al-fuṣūl 882), but due to the connection with Ibn ʿUlayya and Bishr al-Marīsī emphasised repeatedly in the sources (see below) there can be no doubt that he is the Muʿtazilite. The key word for the systematists, on the other hand, was ithm or ta‌ʾthīm. Thus the doctrine was rejected by Ibn Ḥazm (Turki 195). 13  Catalogue of Works no. 21 and 16–17. 14  Cf. Text 37. 15  Ibid. 16  Text 39, b–c. 17  Regarding the concept of ʿilla see p. 171 and 343 above. General information in Hallaq in: Der Islam 64/1987/42ff. (unfortunately with numerous errors). 18  Regarding the concept cf. HW 638b and 201a. 19  Regarding the problem cf. Ibn Rushd, Bidāyat al-mujtahid I 121, –4ff.; Ibn Rushd was not entirely sure of the reasons proposed by the supporters of this opinion (122, 18ff.). 20  Regarding the problem cf. Ibn Rushd I 136, 10ff. Abū l-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī, Muʿtamad 842, ult. f., reports the same thing of Ibn ʿUlayya. In general, Text 40.

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looking at the analogy. The same train of thought appears to have been at the base of his allocating the same period of waiting after divorce to a female slave as to a free woman, contrary to the practise of most other Sunni jurists.21 Abū l-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī would later regard this type of qiyās as too superficial.22 Aṣamm, on the other hand, certainly saw adherence to the rational methods he applied, here as elsewhere, as a step towards objectifying the law. As long as it was believed that every mujtahid was right, current administration of the law was largely dependent on the person of the judge, who had to be respectable and above reproach. Aṣamm did not consider this necessary; after all, truth carried its proof within itself. The presumption was, of course, always that the qāḍī had been appointed according to the rules, but in that case his verdicts were binding even if he himself was a dissolute man.23 This legalist approach is similar to that concerning the person of the ruler, although a judge could of course be replaced by the authorities. However, that, and his sins, was his own problem. The judgments he pronounced were independent of his person. Juwaynī, who transmitted Aṣamm’s view on qiyās, emphasised his disapproval with the remark that Aṣamm rejected rent and pre-emptive right, too.24 The first of these is of interest to us as it may lead us back to Aṣamm’s ontology. Under Islamic law, renting is a kind of purchase, although the hirer does not buy the item itself but only the use of it; this was the very point where Aṣamm saw a problem: purchase is a do ut des transaction (muʿāwaḍa) where a concrete item (ʿayn) is exchanged for its price, while in the case of renting only the use of something is sold, and this use does not (yet) exist at the time of concluding the contract. Thus according to the reason cited by our sources.25 Aṣamm was denying the analogy between purchase and hiring, but it seems that something else played a part as well. Sarakhsī would say later when discussing the question that the “beneficial uses” (manāfiʿ) are attributes of things

21  Ṭūsī, Tibyān II 262, 5, following sura 2:234. Ṭūsī notes that Aṣamm, probably for an entirely different reason, agreed with the Imāmites in this instance. The Ẓāhirites, too, would later think like him (Ibn Rushd, Bidāya II 96, ult. ff.). 22  Loc.  cit. 23  Text 43. 24  Text 40, g. 25  Ibn Rushd, Bidāya II 220, 8 and 15ff.; also Kāshānī, Badāʾiʿ al-ṣanāʾiʿ (Cairo 1910) IV 172, 20ff.; Ibn al-Murtaḍā, Al-baḥr al-zakhkhār V 29, 2f. (but cf. 30, 10f.); discussed without names in, among others, Shāfiʿī, Umm III 250, 13ff., and Sarakhsī, Mabsūṭ XV 74, 13ff. Regarding the question in general cf. Brunschvig in: SI 52/1980/5ff. and, briefly, Udovitch in: SI 65/1987/19; with regard to lease contracts in detail Johansen, The Islamic Law on Land Tax and Rent 27ff.

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and consequently part of them.26 The Ḥanafites shared this opinion during the classical era, 27 but Aṣamm denied the existence of attributes. Might this have been why he insisted that a business transaction had to concern something concrete? We would be more certain if we could prove that Aṣamm followed this guideline in other cases as well, but the field of furūʿ has not been studied sufficiently, and tradition is too incomplete. So far it has not been possible to discover Aṣamm’s opinion on the pre-emptive right (shufʿa).28 Further information is incidental and isolated. The Ibāḍite Qalhātī reported that he did not consider a bloodied garment to be impure no matter how large the quantity.29 Baghdādī preserved the information that in his view it was possible to perform the ablutions using vinegar.30 The fact that he commented on the catalogue of formulas used in official documents indicates that he, although he never became qāḍī, was a practising lawyer.31 2.2.8.4.2 Ibn ʿUlayya On the field of theology Aṣamm was, as Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār put it, “one of those who dominated only during their lifetime”.1 As a lawyer, on the other hand, he was still taken seriously by Ṭabarī who accorded him a place next to other great heads of schools such as Mālik and Abū Ḥanīfa in the first version of his K. ikhtilāf al-fuqahāʾ, naming him a representative of the ahl al-naẓar, the legal scholars working with rational principles; later, however, he omitted him.2 Aṣamm had at least two important pupils on the field of law who are 26  Brunschvig 11. 27  Johansen 29 and 45f., no. 26–27. Rents in cities were comparatively high at the time (Ahsan, Social Life 169ff.). 28  The reasons might have been similar to those against lease contracts. 29   Al-kashf wal-bayān, ed. Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Jalīl in: Ḥawliyyāt Tūnis 18/1980/209, –4ff. 30   Uṣūl al-dīn 195, 3f. 31  Ṭaḥāwī, Al-shurūṭ al-kabīr I 466, 6ff.; regarding the value of a formula when recognising the claim to an item or a token. Further material may be found in Qaffāl al-Shāshī’s K. ḥilyat al-ʿulamāʾ fī maʿrifat madhāhib al-fuqahāʾ (ed. Yāsīn Aḥmad Ibrāhīm Darādika; Mecca 1988), a text that has not been evaluated and only partially explored via its index; cf. e.g. I 171, 1f., and III 119, ult. 1  Faḍl 267, ult. > IM 57, 5f. 2  Yāqūt, Irshād VI 446, 5ff. The passage is unclear towards the end; cf. the diverging translations in Rosenthal, History of al-Ṭabarī, Introduction 102, and Gilliot, Exégèse, langue et théologie en Islam 42. – Regarding a later reference to Aṣamm in a similar context see p. 450 above.

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usually mentioned together with him, and who made his doctrine known beyond Basra, but without the Muʿtazilite theological aspect. The first one, Bishr al-Marīsī, will occupy us elsewhere.3 The second one, Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm b. Ismāʿīl b. Ibrāhīm b. Miqsam al-Asadī, known as Ibn ʿUlayya (162/778–218/833),4 came from a wealthy merchant family who, although originally from Kufa, had settled in Basra and in the second half of the second century founded a branch in Baghdad as well. Their rise was one of the success stories so typical of the early Islamic period. Miqsam, the grandfather, had been taken prisoner in Baluchistan5 and became the property of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Quṭba of the Asad Khuzayma in Kufa. Long since freed, his son Ibrāhīm already ran such a flourishing cloth business that he could sell his wares in Basra as well. As he did not wish to be lonely during his visits to that city, he married a client of the Shaybān named ʿUlayya bt. Ḥassān and set her up in a house in the ʿAwaqa quarter. She was a comparatively emancipated woman, receiving well-known scholars such as the Qadarite Ṣāliḥ al-Murrī.6 She used these connections to ensure her son Ismāʿīl (b. 110/728)7 received a good education, giving him into the care of ʿAbd al-Wārith b. Saʿīd, ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd’s pupil.8 For his later fame it was even more advantageous that he also attended lectures by the early fathers of “orthodox” hadith, Ayyūb al-Sakhtiyānī, Yūnus b. ʿUbayd and others.9 The very religious Ḥammād b. Salama thought that he was cut from the same cloth as the last-named.10 The result appears to have been surly pietism: Ismāʿīl b. ʿUlayya was said not to have laughed at all for twenty years.11 Of course, he did not take his eyes off the business, either,12 but in due course 3  See ch. C 2.4.1 below. 4  On the eve of the ʿArafa day according to Ibn Taghrībirdī, Nujūm II 228, 8. – Named as Aṣamm’s pupil in TB VI 21, 12; Bayhaqī, Manāqib al-Shāfiʿī I 457, 4ff. 5  Regarding this and the following IS VII2 70, 6ff. > TB VI 230, 7ff. Regarding the interpretation of the passage see also Pellat, Milieu basrien 89, n. 9. Concerning Qīqān = Baluchistan cf. EI2 V 102a. 6  Regarding him see p. 79 above. 7  Thus TB VI 230, 13 and passim; Ibn al-Nadīm’s “116” (283, 17) is an error. 8  TB VI 231, 12ff.; regarding the identification 233, 11, and p. 367ff. above. 9  Ibid. 229, 2ff.; also al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī, Taqyīd al-ʿilm 79, 6f. Regarding his hadith notes cf. also Azmi, Studies, Index s. n. 10  Ibid. 235, 2f., and 237, 10f. 11  Ibid. 235, 3ff. 12  He is mentioned as being a bazzāz ibid. 231, 1.

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he accepted one of those small official positions that rich people often took on as a side-line, collecting taxes from the merchants of Basra.13 He did not make himself any friends in this way; it seems that ʿAbdallāh b. al-Mubārak from Marv, a wholesaler14 who had put a fair amount of business in his way over the years, broke off relations.15 While Ismāʿīl was said to have been downcast at this, he did become appeal court (maẓālim) judge in the early nineties under Hārūn.16 He had bought a house in Baghdad where he lived until his death in Dhū l-Qaʿda 193/Aug. 809.17 His son Ibrāhīm on whom we will focus here grew up with him in the capital. He was a late child, born when his father was already over fifty years of age. Like his father he became known under the name Ibn ʿUlayya, which had been a source of irritation to his father,18 as to him it was a dishonour to be called after one’s mother, even if it was exclusively thanks to her that he became a scholar who was included in Ṭabaqāt works at all. He had already shown an interest in jurisprudence, composing a K. al-ṭahāra, a K. al-ṣalāt and a K. al-manāsik,19 but these were probably simply “books” in which he compiled hadiths on the subject; transmitting even fundamental legal mottoes such as kullu muskir ḥarām as prophetic dicta.20 His son employed a different style, having become a systematist under Aṣamm’s influence, and consequently leaving the circle of the muḥaddithūn. They regarded him, like his teacher, as an evil Jahmite21 who supported the khalq al-Qurʾān22 as indeed he confirmed at the beginning of the miḥna in the year of his death.23 His father had been

13  Ibid. 230, 15 < IS VII2 70, 15f.; also Fasawī II 242, apu. ff. for the year 178/794. 14  Regarding him see p. 619ff. below. 15   T B 235, 13ff. 16  Ibid. 229, 9, and 230, 15f. 17  Regarding the date IS VII270, 17f. 18   T B 230, ult, and 231, 3f. 19  Ibn al-Nadīm 283, 9f. Also a Tafsīr Ṭabarī appears to quote in his Ta‌ʾrīkh (cf. Index s. n. Ismāʿīl b. Ibrāhīm al-Asadī). 20   T B VI 229, apu. 21  Ibn Baṭṭa, Ibāna 91, 16; also 92, 16; Mīzān no. 42 > Lisān al-Mīzān I 34, –6ff. 22   T B VI 20, 16; Ājurrī, Sharīʿa 79, 5ff.; also Mīzān, loc. cit. 23  Ṭabarī III 1121, 8ff., and 1124, 6; cf. ch. C 3.3.1 below. Both passages call him Ibn ʿUlayya “the elder”. Could this be linked to his having had a brother named Muḥammad who only died in 264/878 (!)? (cf. Dhahabī, Siyar XII 294f.; TT IX 55f. no. 54). It was said that Ibn Ḥanbal as well as Shāfiʿī tried to talk him out of the khalq al-Qurʾān (Ibn Taghrībirdī, Nujūm II 228, 7; Bayhaqī, Iʿtiqād 33, pu. ff.).

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suspected – possibly with good reason – of the same heresy, but was so wellrespected that a counter-tradition was put about.24 Ibn ʿUlayya left Baghdad in 198/813. Life in the capital had become uncomfortable, the troubles of the civil war between Amīn and Ma‌ʾmūn having certainly had a detrimental effect on business. Harthama b. Aʿyan, al-Ma‌ʾmūn’s general who had taken the city at the beginning of the year was said to have driven him out.25 The khalq al-Qurʾān may have played a part here, too, as other adherents of this doctrine suffered the same fate.26 Ibn ʿUlayya went to Egypt; the family business may well have had a branch there. In Fusṭāṭ he gathered a circle of pupils around himself, lecturing by the gate of lost sheep (Bāb al-Ḍawāll).27 In the later view this was Shāfiʿī’s turf, and people would recount how he emphasised his divergent view, or refuted Ibn ʿUlayya directly.28 The main source of disagreement was the recognition of hadith. Ibn ʿUlayya was no more accepting of āḥād than Aṣamm had been, and he probably considered more dicta to be khabar al-wāḥid than Shāfiʿī did. He even – possibly while still in Iraq – wrote a book attacking him,29 but their hostility does not seem to have gone very deep all the same; Muzanī claimed to have seen them going for a walk together.30 After all, Shāfiʿī had studied under Ibn ʿUlayya’s father in Iraq.31 While the pupils amused themselves by playing the two professors off against one another,32 they still took the opportunity of attending the lectures of both.33

24   T B VI 237, 14ff., and 239, 12ff. 25   Lisān al-Mīzān II 30, –7ff. 26  Regarding Bishr al-Marīsī see ch. C 2 below; cf. also p. 819 regarding Ḥafṣ al-Fard. 27   T B VI 21, 12. 28  Bayhaqī, Manāqib al-Shāfiʿī I 409, 9ff., and 211, 5ff.; TB VI 21, 1ff. 29   T B VI 22, 4. Dāwūd al-Iṣfahānī claimed to have refuted it (ibid. 22, 7f.), possibly in his own K. khabar al-wāḥid (Fihrist 272, 12). 30  Subkī, Ṭabaqāt al-Shāfiʿiyya II 99, 11ff.; the anecdote tries to show that Ibn ʿUlayya loathed singing while Shāfiʿī did not. Cf. also Ibn Taymiyya, K. al-istiqāma I 337, 1ff.; in another place Ibn Taymiyya points out that the Medinans were most fond of music, while Kufan scholars rejected it (I 274, 2ff.). Regarding Shāfiʿī’s attitude cf. Gramlich in: Sarrāǧ, Schlaglichter über das Sufitum 403. 31  Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ, Tartīb I 132, –7f.; he quotes him with a tradition after ʿUthmān al-Battī in K. al-umm VII 162, 12. 32   T B VI 21, 7ff. 33  Der Islam 44/1968/44; however, the persons named belong in Iraq.

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The Mālikites were, of course, less than pleased at the competition, as Ibn ʿUlayya made a point of writing a book attacking their founder whose influence spread in Egypt only gradually.34 When after his death the miḥna broke out, all those concerned suffered. From 227 onwards the chief qāḍī Muḥammad b. Abī l-Layth al-Khwārizmī (226/841–235/850),35 a foreigner whom Baghdad had appointed to Egypt, favoured the Ḥanafites so clearly that a eulogistic poet was able to claim that Shāfiʿī and all his followers had been dashed to pieces, the Mālikites silenced, and Ibn ʿUlayya’s doctrine failed to take hold.36 As later developments would show, this was a slightly premature statement. Towards the end of the third century Aḥmad b. al-Ḥusayn al-Aṭrābulusī, a heretic Ibāḍite from Tripolitania, followed Ibn ʿUlayya’s doctrine.37 The Spaniard Khushanī knew that Ibn ʿUlayya considered a prayer invalid unless it included a recitation from the Quran.38 In Iraq, the Christian philosopher Qusṭā b. Lūqā, refuting Ibn al-Munajjim’s K. al-burhān in the late third century,39 named Ibn ʿUlayya together with Abū Ḥanīfa.40 In Rāmhurmuz in Khūzistān he had followers as late as the fourth century.41 Towards the end of the same century the Mālikite Muḥammad b. al-Muʾammal al-Baghdādī in Baghdad, who had studied under the famous Muḥammad b. ʿAbdallāh al-Abharī (d. 375/985)42 and was therefore known as Ghulām al-Abharī, thought it appropriate to refute the doctrine of Ibn ʿUlayya in seventy points.43 2.2.8.4.3 Further Basran Muʿtazilites In Abū l-Ashʿath’s circle Aṣamm encountered two further Muʿtazilites who would later find fame as jurists above all. They had studied under Abū ʿUthmān al-Shimmazī and consequently followed the tradition of ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd. The first of them,

34   Lisān al-Mīzān I 35, 7. 35  Kindī, Wulāt Miṣr 449, 6ff.; Ibn Taghrībirdī, Nujūm II 246, 8ff. 36  Kindī 451, 6f., and 452, 9ff.; more in ch. C 3.3.4 below. 37  Shammākhī, Siyar 262, 8ff.; regarding him see vol. I 487 above. 38   Ṭabaqāt ʿulamāʾ Ifrīqiyya 287, 11ff. 39  Cf. ch. C 8.2.2.3.6 below. 40   Burhān (in PO 40/1981) § 214. 41  Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Faḍl 316, 3. 42  Regarding him GAS 1/477; also Muranyi, Materialien 83f. 43  Ibn al-Nadīm 253, 19ff.; regarding him TB III 312f. no. 1409, and Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ, Tartīb II 764, 5ff. (where he is named as Abū Bakr rather than Abū Jaʿfar as in Ibn al-Nadīm.

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Abū Saʿīd ʿAbd al-Karīm b. Rawḥ al-ʿAffānī al-ʿAskarī,1 was occasionally adduced by Jāḥiẓ as an authority for information on ʿAmr2 or Wāṣil,3 as he transmitted not only from Shimmazī but also from Wāṣil’s pupil ʿĪsā b. Ḥāḍir.4 Like his teacher he could quote a great number of hadiths, and he also claimed to know “the two tafsīrs” by heart.5 Later tradition, however, on the whole ignored him, Dhahabī only reluctantly divulging that he even transmitted from Sufyān al-Thawrī.6 He came from a family that ought to have been dear to the pious – especially in Basra: his father Rawḥ b. ʿAnbasa b. Saʿīd b. Abī ʿAbbās was descended from a client of ʿUthmān’s while his ancestress Umm ʿAbbās had been a slave of Ruqayya’s, the prophet’s daughter and wife of ʿUthmān.7 But he sided with the wrong people. Incidentally he, too, was a cloth merchant. He died in 215/830.8 – The second one, Abū ʿĀmir Ismāʿīl b. Muḥammad al-Anṣārī, remains in the dark.9 His complete name is found in one place only, where we see that like ʿAbd al-Karīm b. Rawḥ he drew on Medinan hadith tradition via the theologian Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad b. Abī Yaḥyā, in order to refute the vision of God in the afterlife.10 He appears to have been a wealthy man, as we 1  Regarding him Faḍl 280, 4ff., and 253, –4ff.; regarding his kunya cf. Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 18, 13. 2  Bayān I 114, 1ff.; Ḥayawān I 337, –5ff. 3  Bayān I 16, 14ff. 4  Ḥayawān I 337, –5ff. He also knew the poet Ibn Munādhir (Bayān I 18, 13ff.). 5  Faḍl 253, 18f.; 280, 6. Which texts is he referring to? Ḥasan al-Baṣrī’s Tafsīr was certainly one of them, but which was the other commentary? 6  Mīzān no. 5161. 7  Baḥshal, Ta‌ʾrīkh Wāsiṭ 265, 9ff.; also Mīzān no. 2808. According to Mīzān no. 6508 the correct reading would be ʿAyyāsh rather than ʿAbbās. This note also informs us that there was no connection with the Basran Qadarite ʿAnbasa b. Saʿīd (regarding him see p. 64 above). The nisba al-ʿAffānī is explained by the affiliation with ʿUthmān. It is found in Malāḥimī, Muʿtamad 467, 4; Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Faḍl 280, 4, misread it as al-Ghifārī. 8  TT VI 372f. no. 710. Did he have a son named Muḥammad? (Cf. ch. C 5.1.2). 9  Regarding him see Faḍl 270, 5ff. > IM 60, 1. Daiber, Muʿammar 45 conflates him with ʿAbd al-Karīm b. Rawḥ, as I did in: Der Islam 44/1968/25. However, the Flügel edition of the Fihrist which we both consulted omits a wa between the two names (100, 29; cf. the Tajaddud ed. 113, 19). In this way the “six” mentioned by Ibn al-Nadīm have become seven. 10  Malāḥimī, Muʿtamad 488, 8ff.; regarding ʿAbd al-Karīm b. Rawḥ cf. ibid. 467, 4ff. The latter also used other Medinan material (ibid. 466, 1ff.; 471, ult. ff.; 488, ult. ff., and 489, 4ff., in

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are told that it was in his house in Basra that Abū Hudhayl debated with Ḥafṣ al-Fard.11 A debate between him and a determinist was also recorded.12 One of his pupils, named Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl, lived in ʿAskar Mukram where he seems to have been a much respected dignitary,13 which gives new meaning to ʿAbd al-Karīm b. Rawḥ’s second nisba. It seems that both these theologians, maybe superseded by Aṣamm’s influence, or driven out by other adverse circumstances, sought their own sphere of activity beyond Basra in the future Muʿtazilite stronghold of ʿAskar Mukram. Still, ʿAbd al-Karīm b. Rawḥ was also invited to ʿAbbādān, to debate with his namesake and fellow believer ʿAbd al-Karīm b. Hishām.14 The latter was his match as a jurist, having studied a number of local school traditions on his travels: Ibrāhīm al-Nakhaʿī’s in Kufa, Saʿīd b. al-Musayyab’s in Medina, ʿAṭāʾ’s (i.e. ʿAṭāʾ b. Abī Rabāḥ’s in Mecca), and ʿUthmān’s (i.e. presumably ʿUthmān al-Battī’s in Basra).15 2.2.9 Basran Shīʿites Life for Shīʿites was not easy in Basra. There were some, but they were always in danger of being branded extremists straightaway. Abū Hārūn ʿUmāra b. Juwayn al-ʿAbdī (d. 134/752) owned a ṣaḥīfa by ʿAlī which he was said to have

each case using an abbreviated form of the name); presumably he was the greater expert in hadith. Regarding Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad b. Abī Yaḥyā see p. 781ff. below; his name is abbreviated or misspelt in Malāḥimī every time. Ismāʿīl b. Muḥammad al-Anṣārī appears without his kunya in Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 16, 14, next to ʿAbd al-Karīm b. Rawḥ. Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, on the other hand, names him by his kunya only, without the ism, Abū ʿĀmir al-Anṣārī; this is probably the correct reading of Ḥayawān I 337, –5 (instead of Abū ʿAlī al-Anṣārī). He has no connection to the Muʿtazilite Ibrāhīm al-Anṣārī in Ḥayawān III 293, 5. According to Bayān II 43, 7f. the latter was a descendant of the philologist Abū Zayd al-Anṣārī (d. 215/830 at the age of 94 or 95; regarding him see p. 99 above) and was called Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad al-Maflūj. In another place Jāḥiẓ calls him a muḥaddith (Burṣān 282, 2f.); cf. also Mīzān no. 187. 11  Ḥākim al-Jushamī, Risālat Iblīs 69, ult. ff. 12  Ibid. 43, 3ff. 13  See ch. C 7.5 below. Might he have been his son? 14  This is probably what jumiʿa baynahū wa-bayna ʿAbd al-Karīm b. Hishām means (Faḍl 280, 6). 15   Faḍl 280, 8ff.

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called ṣaḥīfat al-waṣī,1 Ibn Ḥibbān believed him to be a Rāfiḍite because of this.2 Shuʿba had seen the booklet and refused to transmit from him since that time.3 This was rather vexing as Abū Hārūn also preserved material from the prophet’s companion Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī, the son of a connection of the Anṣār who was actually rather well-respected,4 but people said that one of the hadiths described ʿUthmān as an unbeliever.5 Ibn Ḥajar made light of this from a historian’s comfortable distance: it was no more than the usual “Shīʿising”; the Basrans were simply very precise in these matters.6 Of course they, too, made exceptions: in the case of the respected Qadarite ʿAwf al-Aʿrābī Ibn Saʿd only used the term tashayyuʿ,7 while his pupil Jaʿfar b. Sulaymān al-Ḍubaʿī (d. 178/784) was handled more roughly by the critics and called a Rāfiḍite, although he had studied under the orthodox keepers of the grail Ayyūb al-Sakhtiyānī, ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAwn, and Yūnus b. ʿUbayd. His hadith was only slightly tendentious, and he did transmit some traditions praising Abū Bakr and ʿUmar, but people had also heard him say that he hated those two from the bottom of his heart.8 There was indeed a Shīʿite community in the city at the beginning of the second century who followed the words of the imams; Muḥammad al-Bāqir wrote to them. The Risāla was linked to Jābir al-Juʿfī,9 and was thus probably not remarkably orthodox. A generation later the Basrans would be awaiting apocalyptic change to be brought about by Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq, presumably after 145 when the Ḥasanid uprising had collapsed. When Jaʿfar died a few years later, people refused to believe in his death.10 The sect was called the Nāwūsiyya 1  ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ III 314, 3ff. 2  Ibn Ḥibbān, Majrūḥīn II 177, 5. 3  ʿUqaylī 313, pu. ff. and 5ff. 4  Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, Istīʿāb 1671f. no. 2997. 5  ʿUqaylī 314, 12ff. 6  TT VII 413, –4f. Regarding Abū Hārūn cf. also IAH III1 363 no. 2005; Dhahabī, Mīzān no. 6018, and Ta‌ʾrīkh V 284, apu. ff., with essentially corresponding material. Bukhārī III2 499 no. 3107 said nothing of Abū Hārūn’s pro-Alid tendencies; the Shīʿites did not include him in their biographical tradition. Dāraquṭnī furthermore tried to turn him into a Khārijite, as he found him a dazzling personality (yatalawwanu; Dāraquṭnī, Ḍuʿafāʾ 345 no. 381). 7  IS VII2 22, 8f.; similar Fasawī III 135, 8. Regarding him see p. 63f. above. 8  Regarding him ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ I 188f. no. 235; Mīzān no. 1505; TT II 97ff. no. 145. Dhahabī called ʿAwf al-Aʿrābī a Rāfiḍite, too (Ta‌ʾrīkh al-Islām VI 112, 11ff.). 9  Najāshī 94, –6f. 10  This was based on the statement of a certain Shihāb b. ʿAbdrabbih, a Kufan money changer or banker, who transmitted from Muḥammad al-Bāqir and Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq (Kashshī 414 no. 782). Regarding him and his brothers, all of whom were clients of the Asad, cf. Kashshī 413 no. 778, and Ardabīlī, Jāmiʿ I 402f.

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after its founder;11 it is most elusive. However, one of its followers found his way into the Shīʿite rijāl books, because he transmitted from Jaʿfar and even from Mūsā al-Kāẓim, and because he was a good jurist:12 Abū ʿAbdallāh Abān b. ʿUthmān b. Yaḥyā b. Zakariyyāʾ al-Aḥmar al-Luʾluʾī al-Bajalī,13 a mawlā of the Bajīla who moved back and forth between Basra and Kufa.14 In Kufa he studied under Zurāra15 and Abān b. Taghlib,16 while his own most important pupils were in Basra: Abū ʿUbayda and al-Jumaḥī.17 Clearly he was also versed in language and poetry; Jumaḥī obtained a considerable amount of material for his Ṭabaqāt al-shuʿarāʾ from him,18 and Jāḥiẓ quoted him from time to time.19 He also composed a History from the beginning of time to the ridda, discussing in particular the prophet’s maghāzī;20 Wāqidī was said to have quoted from this.21 Kashshī tells us that he was a Nāwūsite;22 later Shīʿites 11  This man’s name is cited in different versions, ʿAjlān b. Nāwūs according to Ashʿarī (Maq. 25, ult.) or ʿAbdallāh b. Nāwūs according to Mufīd (Al-fuṣūl al-mukhtāra II 88, –4f./247, pu.); Nawbakhtī did not know of him any more (Firaq al-Shīʿa 57, 9ff. > Qummī, Maq. 79, pu. ff. § 155). His Basran origin, however, is confirmed everywhere. Ritter collected documents regarding the Nāwūsiyya in the bibliography of Maq. 25, and Muḥammad Jawād Mashkūr in the commentary on Qummī, p. 212f. 12  Kashshī 352 no. 660; cf. the material collected in Ardabīlī, Jāmiʿ I 12ff. 13  The name is found in this form only in Yāqūt, Irshād I 35f.; it is unusually long for a mawlā. It is usually shortened to Abān b. ʿUthmān; Suyūṭī has A. b. ʿU. b. Yaḥyā (Bughya I 405 no. 805), Ṣafadī, A. b. ʿU. b. Zakariyyāʾ (Wāfī V 302 no. 2364). The nisba al-Luʾluʾī is not recorded in all the sources either. If it was indeed his, he might have been a pearl merchant. 14  Ṭūsī, Fihrist 7, 12ff. 15  Ardabīlī I 12b, 14; regarding him see vol. I 373ff. above. 16  ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ I 37f. no. 21; Mīzān no. 13. Regarding him see vol. I 392. 17  Ṭūsī, loc. cit.; cf. also the summarising note in Ibn Ḥajar, Lisān al-Mīzān I 24 no. 20. 18  Cf. the edition by Maḥmūd Muḥammad Shākir, Index s. n.; also Jāḥiẓ, Ḥayawān III 11, 2; Marzubānī, Muwashshaḥ 230, –5f., and Nūr al-qabas 185, 21. 19  Cf. Ḥayawān, Index s. n. 20  Ṭūsī, loc. cit.; Najāshī 10, 6ff. It was transmitted in Kufa and in Qom after two riwāyāt. 21  Thus according to ʿUqaylī, loc. cit.; but there is no hint of it in Jones’ edition. My pupil M. Jarrar pointed out to me that there are numerous quotations referring to him, sometimes explicitly to a written original, in Majlisī’s work (cf. e.g. Biḥār XX 95, pu. ff. and XXI 55, pu. ff.). It will be necessary to examine to what degree he was confused with Abān, the caliph ʿUthmān’s son, to whom a maghāzī work was attributed as well (cf. GAS 1/277f.; cf. Faruqi, Early Muslim Historiography 217ff., and Bashshār ʿAwwād Maʿrūf in: Mizzī, Tahdhīb al-kamāl II 19, n. 1). 22   Rijāl 352 no. 660.

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could barely believe it,23 even though the sect appears to have existed for several generations more. Some also counted ʿAbdallāh b. Aḥmad b. Abī Zayd alAnbārī among its followers, a scholar from Wāsiṭ who wrote around 140 “books” on theological and legal matters and died in 355/966.24 Ṭūsī (d. 460/1067) discussed it briefly,25 but only as an instance demonstrating the unworldliness of long-departed eccentrics; by Mufīd’s time, i.e. around the turn of the fifth/ eleventh century, it did not exist anymore.26 We do not know whether the Shīʿite community in Basra had a significant number of members. Maybe it was due to its small size that, unlike Kufa,27 no one showed an interest in Jaʿfar’s succession; unlike Kufa, the hopes tied to Jaʿfar never having spent themselves in an uprising – i.e. Abū l-Khaṭṭāb’s. “Imāmite” continuity was not a self-evident model. ʿUmar b. al-Riyāḥ al-Qallāʾ, too, who had “not gone beyond” Muḥammad al-Bāqir, could have been from Basra, as could his sons.28 The Basran Shīʿa took a step further towards theology, albeit rather later than Kufa. One of Hishām b. al-Ḥakam’s sons, named Abū Muḥammad al-Ḥakam, settled in the city as a client of the Kinda, taking part in theological disputations in which he defended his father’s doctrine; it was also said that he had composed a treatise on political theory (imāma).29 Maybe he was the one with whom Aṣamm debated.30 Still, it is clear that the reputation of another Shīʿite theologian, who had distanced himself from Hishām b. alḤakam, was much greater in Basra: Abū l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Ismāʿīl b. Shuʿayb b. Mītham b. Yaḥyā al-Tammār, who was named for his ancestor, the early Kufan martyr Mītham b. Yaḥyā, a date merchant,31 sometimes al-Mīthamī, sometimes ʿAlī b. Mītham or Ibn al-

23  Ardabīlī, loc. cit.; Ḥurr al-ʿĀmilī, Wasīlat al-Shīʿa XX 117, 1ff. Regarding him cf. also Ziriklī, Aʿlām I 21; Kaḥḥāla, Muʿjam I 1f.; A. Sharīʿatī in: GIE II 342f. s. v. Abān-i Aḥmar. 24  Ṭūsī, Fihrist no. 400; Ardabīlī 466f. 25   Ghayba 218, –6ff., and 119, 3ff. 26   Al-fuṣūl al-mukhtāra II 90, –4ff./250, 6ff. 27  See vol. I 375ff. and 403 above. 28  Regarding him see vol. I 328f. above; regarding his Basran origins also GIE II 395b. 29  Najāshī 99, 5ff. > Āghā Buzurg, Dharīʿa II 325; also Kashshī 279, –4f., where his name is given, presumably as the result of confusing kunya and ism, as Muḥammad b. Hishām. 30  See p. 467 above. 31  Regarding him see vol. I 453 above.

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Tammār.32 He was born in Kufa but had lived in Basra for a long time,33 apparently trading in soap.34 “The young men of the Muʿtazila got their hands on him”, as Khayyāṭ put it;35 ʿAlī al-Uswārī in particular “knocking him flat”.36 Of course, the Shīʿites had their traditions, too; recording that Abū l-Hudhayl was not yet his equal.37 He had certainly been respected enough during the days of the Barmakids for them to bring him to Basra, where he met Ḍirār b. ʿAmr in their circle.38 This was probably how he ended up in prison with other Shīʿites around 179/795.39 After Mūsā al-Kāẓim’s death he joined ʿAlī al-Riḍā and would later be able to report in some detail on his life and circumstances.40 He had no patience with those who were awaiting Mūsā’s return; tradition was unable to decide whether he or Yūnus al-Qummī called them “rain-drenched curs”.41 His train of argument when dealing with Christians appears to have been no less drastic.42 When he met an atheist (mulḥid) in the company of Ma‌ʾmūn’s father-in-law Ḥasan b. Sahl, he treated him with condescending wit.43 It may be excessive to presume, as ʿAbbās al-Qummī did, that he lived well into Muʿtaṣim’s time, i.e. the 220s,44 but there is no doubt that he was younger than Hishām b. al-Ḥakam.

32  Thus at least according to H. Ritter’s identification in: Nawbakhtī, Firaq al-Shīʿa, Index 97 s. n.; adopted by Muḥ. Jawād Mashkūr, comm. on Qummī, Maqālāt 141. It remains a little doubtful (see p. 484f. below). After all, every member of the family might have been called “Ibn al-Tammār”. 33  Najāshī 176, 13. 34  Ibn Ḥazm uses the nisba al-Ṣabūnī for him (Fiṣal IV 181, pu.). 35   Intiṣār 103, –5. 36  Thus Text XXIII 5, c; regarding him see p. 98 above. Ibn Ḥazm mentions discussions with Naẓẓām (Fiṣal IV 181, pu. ff. after Jāḥiẓ). 37   Al-fuṣūl al-mukhtāra I 5, –9ff./6, 1ff. > Biḥār X 370f. no. 1; also Biḥār 371 no. 2. According to Fuṣūl I 52, 8ff./55, 5ff. > Biḥār 374 no. 7, the two met in the house of a certain ʿAlī b. Riyāḥ. 38  For a discussion with him – not, however, located specifically – cf. Fuṣūl I 9, –4ff./10, 12ff. > Biḥār X 371f. no. 3. People believed that he took part in the “symposium” on love hosted by the Barmakids (Masʿūdī, Murūj VI 369, 2ff./ IV 237 § 2566; cf. ch. C 1.3). Tawḥīdī preserved an anecdote in which he describes one of Yaḥyā b. Khālid’s officials (Baṣāʾir II 414, 8ff./2VIII 84 no. 286). 39  Kashshī 262, pu. f.; cf. vol. I 412 above. 40  Ibn Bābōya, ʿUyūn akhbār al-Riḍā I 12 no. 2; regarding his father ibid. 14 no. 3, 16f. no. 2 etc. 41  See vol. I 457 above; also ch. C 1.4.1 below. 42   Fuṣūl I 31, 9ff./32, 15ff. > Biḥār X 372 no. 4. 43   Fuṣūl I 44, 15ff./46, 7ff. 44   Kunā III 187, 12.

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Thus already Madelung in: Isl. Phil. Theology 129, n. 3; differently EI2, Suppl. 393b. The date of his death “around 250” proposed by Bağdatlı Paşa, Hadīyat al-ʿārifīn I 669, is pure phantasy. – ʿAbbās al-Qummī would be confirmed if we could adduce a passage in Tanūkhī according to which the historian ʿUmar b. Shabba (d. 264/877) questioned ʿAlī b. Mītham concerning the qāḍī Ibn Shubruma (d. 144/761) when he was apparently already over a hundred years old (Faraj baʿd al-shidda III 150, 5ff.). According to Ṭabarī, however, ʿUmar b. Shabba’s authority was in fact called ʿAlī b. Ismāʿīl b. Ṣāliḥ b. Mītham (III 249, 13f.; 254, 16f., and 287, ult. ff.); he also bore the nisba al-Ahwāzī (ibid. III 288, 1). He was probably a distant relative; a son of Mītham’s named Ṣāliḥ is documented in Kashshī (80, 6). – The Ibn al-Tammār named in Fihrist 358, –7 does not belong in this context, as the correct reading of his name is Ibn al-Yamān (see p. 633 below). Mītham’s disagreements with Hishām related to the latter’s doctrine of the attributes. Like Abū Mālik al-Ḥaḍramī, from whom he probably transmitted, he considered divine will to be “movement” and distinct from God,45 imbuing movement with an almost hypostatic quality; Ashʿarī shrank from the idea in horror.46 It probably merely meant that ʿAlī b. Mītham did not know what to make of the compromise Hishām expressed as “neither identical nor not identical”; Abū l-Hudhayl had also greeted it by shaking his head.47 He probably conducted the argument with Hishām in person; a K. majālis Hishām b. al-Ḥakam was attributed to him.48 He was clearly shaped by his Basran environment. While he was a anthropomorphic to some degree,49 in his definition of faith he clearly distanced himself from all Kufan–Murjiʾite tendencies: faith is not only professing it, but living it; whoever does not abide by the commandments will forfeit his faith. Such a sinner may not be an unbeliever, as it is still permitted to enter into marriage with him or inherit from him, but he is fāsiq.50 45  Text IV 61. Regarding Abū Mālik see vol. I 408f. 46   Maq. 516, 4. 47  See vol. I 419f. above. But then he did apply it himself in a different context (see ch. C 3.2.1.3.4.2). 48  Catalogue of Works IV d, no. 3 with commentary. 49  People did not know for sure whether he was still linked to Hishām al-Jawālīqī or already influenced by Hishām b. al-Ḥakam (Ibn Abī l-Ḥadīd, ShNB III 224, 6). Is he the “Mithām al-Tammār” who, according to Ibn al-Dāʿī, Tabṣira 174, pu. f., believed that humans would see God with their own eyes at the time of the resurrection? Cf. also Kulīnī, Kāfī I 101, 1f. > Ibn Bābōya, Tawḥīd 69, 10ff. 50  Text IV 62.

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This is the Muʿtazilite position down to every detail; that Ashʿarī did not state this clearly and did not use the key words manzila bayna l-manzilatayn is probably due only to his counting ʿAlī b. Mītham among the Rāfiḍites, and to his source applying purely Shīʿite categories. We may safely assume that ʿAlī b. Mītham agreed with the Muʿtazilites overall on the subject of the faculty of action as well.51 It was only with regard to his image of history that he clashed with them. If Ibn al-Nadīm’s rather surprising claim that ʿAlī b. Mītham “was the first who discussed imāma”52 was not simply an error, it would appear to refer to Basra and the impression the Muʿtazilites received there. He apparently adapted here, too, as Nashwān al-Ḥimyarī counted “Ibn al-Tammār” among the Zaydites,53 and Nawbakhtī described his position in such a way that the reputation of the two first caliphs remained intact: the early community was burdened with guilt only because it did not recognise ʿAlī as the most excellent of men from the very first, not because it elected Abū Bakr and ʿUmar caliph.54 This was precisely the point of view Hishām b. al-Ḥakam denounced as a bad compromise.55 If they are indeed referring to one and the same person, Ibn Mītham was no “Rāfiḍite”, his only harsh judgments concerning ʿUthmān and ʿAlī’s later opponents in the battle of the camel and at Ṣiffīn: they were the ones “Ibn al-Tammār” regarded as pure unbelievers. Thus also Text IV 63, c. One wonders why he abandoned his habitual moderation and said kāfir instead of fāsiq. Ashʿarī, however, noted a doctrine according to which ʿAlī’s opponents had to be called kuffār rather than fussāq in case their opposition meant they rejected the prophet’s commandments (Maq. 57, 5ff.) Regarding the correspondence with Sulaymān b. Jarīr al-Raqqī’s views in this didactic passage see p. 538f. below. – It is interesting that Ibn Mithām commented on a sermon of ʿAlī’s (according to Biḥār X 128, –4, and 129, 1). Did he already have access to parts of the Nahj al-balāgha?

51  It seems that Abū ʿUbayd’s K. al-īmān contains a reference to Ibn Mithām’s position (p. 102, 10; cf. also Madelung in SI 32/1970/253). 52   Fihrist 223, 16; also Catalogue of Works IV d, no. 1–s. 53  Text IV 64. Thus also in a passage in Ibn Ḥajar (Lisān al-Mīzān III 80, 3f.; after Ibn Ḥazm?), where Ibn al-Tammār is named next to Sulaymān al-Raqqī. 54  Text IV 63, 1–b. 55  See vol. I 444 above.

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He was a legal scholar as well, his special field apparently being marriage law.56 He wrote on mutʿa among other things, and as it was Najāshī who preserved the title, we may safely assume that his point of view was the Zaydite rather than the Imamite one.57 One of his pupils was the philologist Abū ʿUthmān al-Māzinī (d. 248/862?) who, however, disagreed with him as to the concept of faith.58 The Shīʿite theologian Abū l-Aḥwaṣ Dāwūd b. Rāshid al-Baṣrī (Maq. 63, 12f.) did in fact bear the nisba al-Miṣrī; furthermore, he does not belong within the time discussed here. He was a contemporary of the author of Firaq al-Shīʿa and debated with Jubbāʾī (Ṭūsī, Fihrist 369 no. 813; Ardabīlī, Jāmiʿ II 364), which makes him one of those mutakallimūn from among the circle of the Nawbakhtī who “got involved with the Muʿtazila” (Ibn al-Murtaḍā, Munya 19, –4 = 87, –6). [It is worth noting that Ibn Taymiyya read Dāwūd b. Asad rather than Dāwūd b. Rāshid in the manuscript of the Maqālāt available to him (Minhāj al-sunna 2II 412, 1). Ritter adopted this form in his Index (p. 632), but also changed the nisba to read al-Miṣrī. Cf. also the editor’s note on the relevant passage in Ibn Taymiyya.]

56  Cf. Catalogue of Works IV d, no. 4–6. 57  Cf. EI1 III 837 s. v. Mutʿa. Regarding Ibn Mītham see also Kaḥḥāla VII 37. The ʿAlī b. Haytham mentioned in Ibn Ḥazm, Fiṣal IV 93, 12, probably refers to him as well. 58  Marzubānī, Nūr al-qabas 220, 6; cf. p. 99 above.

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2.3 Wāsiṭ Wāsiṭ was situated opposite Kashkar, an old Christian bishopric, on the eastern bank of the Tigris.1 Ḥajjāj had founded the city halfway between Kufa and Basra, ruling from there since 84/703 surrounded by his Syrian troops. His intention had been to avoid the power struggles caused by tribal differences. However, while the absence of political tensions facilitated governing, it also stifled any attempt at theological and ideological debate of the kind that characterised life in the two amṣār. Ḥajjāj had originally permitted only Arabs to migrate to the city, while no man from the surrounding area, the socalled sawād, could stay there overnight.2 Soon, though, he also brought in Turks from Basra, presumably mainly prisoners of war who had not settled there entirely.3 Of course, the foremost requirement was administration staff, and we have already seen that Iyās b. Muʿāwiya from Basra was coordinator of the economy in Wāsiṭ for a time.4 The most competent experts were frequently mawālī who used their experience of the older cultures to do the jobs the Arabs thought beneath them. Bashshār b. Burd would later describe it in his way: Tom, Dick and Harry came to the city, “every kind of shit”, Aramaeans, louts from the country (aʿlāj), people from Khuzestan.5 They were far too intelligent – and too isolated – to take to the streets for their religious convictions if, indeed, they had any, as people did in Kufa or Basra. The Syrian military, too, was not likely to have had much interest in theological intellectual exercise, and the troops were probably exchanged frequently. Consequently Aslam b. Sahl al-Razzāz, called Baḥshal, “the black man from the wilderness”,6 the author of Ta‌ʾrīkh Wāsiṭ, had more than a little trouble satisfying civic pride, introducing his book with a collection of affirmations of Wāsiṭ’s being a city (miṣr).7 Intellectually, Wāsiṭ was provincial; there was no hiding the fact that young men went elsewhere to study, and in the end, necessity was made into a virtue. Among the aṣḥāb al-ḥadīth at least, Basra appears to have been more popular than Kufa.8 It was not until the end of the second 1  Cf. EI2 IV 724f. s. v. Kaskar; Morony, Iraq 201. Regarding the topography cf. Ṣāliḥ al-ʿAlī in: Sumer 26/1970/237ff, and 27/1971/153ff. 2  Baḥshal, Ta‌ʾrīkh Wāsiṭ 46, 4ff.; Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 275, 8. 3  Cf. Streck in EI1 IV 1221ff. s. v. Wāsiṭ. 4  See p. 148 above. Baḥshal, 44, 5ff. informs us of the arrangement of the sūq. 5  Cf. the verses in Yāqūt, Muʿjam al-buldān. 6  Al-aswad al-ghalīẓ after Lisān al-ʿArab s. v. 7  Ta‌ʾrīkh Wāsiṭ 45, 3ff. 8  Cf. the chapters Man rawā ʿan Shuʿba, ʿan Qatāda etc. in Baḥshal. Pseudo-Nāshiʾ, Uṣūl al-niḥal, too, lists the traditionists from Basra and Wāsiṭ together, separate from those from Kufa.

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century that the city produced a great son of whom it could be proud and who remained faithful to it on the whole, the traditionist Abū Khālid Yazīd b. Hārūn b. Zādhī, 118/736–early Rabīʿ I 2069/early August 821, a mawlā of the Sulaym, whose grandfather had been a cook in the governor’s palace.10 He himself worked in the administration of justice from time to time, but it seems that he had barred himself from a straight official career by his support for Hārūn b. Saʿd al-ʿIjlī in 145.11 In the long run, teaching hadith probably paid enough for him to live on: when as an old man he presented his store of knowledge in Baghdad, 70,000 people were believed to have attended his lectures.12 Of course, with audiences of this size he had to employ a mustamlī.13 Ibn Ḥanbal and later opponents of the Muʿtazila such as Muḥāsibī or Ḥusayn b. ʿAlī al-Karābīsī attended his lectures.14 He had studied mainly in Basra,15 but was also said to have visited Abū Ḥanīfa shortly before the latter’s death.16 His approach to jurisprudence was eclectic; his knowledge was expounded in a book on inheritance law.17 In Wāsiṭ it was remembered above all that he had once had the miḥrāb pulled down in a private mosque while it was being built, clearly considering this to be an innovation.18 Outside of the city, however, such as in Ḥanbalite circles in Baghdad, it was emphasised that he had fulminated against the khalq alQurʾān long before the miḥna, even cursing Jahm b. Ṣafwān because of it.19 He was probably actually thinking of Aṣamm, who may well have visited Wāsiṭ.20 9  Regarding the exact date cf. TB XIV 346, 16f. 10   Ta‌ʾrīkh Wāsiṭ 159, ult. He might be the one referred to in the note that Yazīd originally came from Bukhara (TB XIV 338, 5ff.), as the name Zādhī could be interpreted as Iranian. The long paean to Yazīd (ibid. 343, 3ff.) does not, of course, discuss such obscure matters. 11  See p. 488 below. 12   T B XIV 346, 2f.; Samʿānī, Al-imlāʾ wal-istimlāʾ 16, 11ff. 13  We are told of several (cf. e.g Baḥshal 185, 5ff.; TB 340, 4; Samʿānī 86, 5f. and 90, 4f.; Ṭabarī III 1116, 14f.). 14   T B VIII 64, 4, and 211, –6; regarding them see ch. C 6.2 and 6.3 below. 15  Cf. the list of his teachers in TB XIV 337ff. no. 7761. 16   I AW II 220, 3ff. 17  Ibn al-Nadīm, Fihrist 284, 14; cf. also GAS 1/40. 18  Baḥshal 158, apu. ff.; cf. also p. 408, n. 37 above. 19  Ibid. 154, 11f.; TB 342, pu. ff.; also Abū Dāwūd, Masāʾil al-Imām Aḥmad 268, 2ff.; Khallāl, Musnad after Madelung in: Festschrift Pareja 507. 20  See p. 451 and 454 above.

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Finally it was claimed that it was because of him that al-Ma‌ʾmūn refrained from declaring the dogma openly;21 this may have been due to the recollection that in 202/817 he had incited the people of Baghdad against Bishr al-Marīsī,22 but it may also have had the objective of doing away with an embarrassment. It is certain that someone who had been Yazīd’s mustamlī in Baghdad professed the khalq al-Qurʾān at the beginning of the miḥna, an event that the conservatives would have been reproached with repeatedly later.23 One of his students in Wāsiṭ did not have a fixed opinion on this critical matter, and Ibn Ḥanbal would later call him a Jahmite for it: Abū Ibrāhīm Ismāʿīl b. Ibrāhīm b. Hūd al-Wāsiṭī al-Ḍarīr.24 He was a Quran reciter and had studied in his home city under Isḥāq b. Yūsuf al-Azraq (d. 195/810), who followed Ḥamza’s Kufan tradition.25 He does not seem to have excited much remark, despite this “divergent” style. – Someone who did cause remark was a traditionist and theologian diametrically opposed to the Jahmites: Abū Sulaymān Dāwūd b. Rāshid b. ʿAbd al-Raḥīm26 al-Jawāribī, apparently a stocking knitter by profession, and dabbling in anthropomorphism on the side. Yazīd b. Hārūn’s view of him was disdainful: “Dāwūd alJawāribī crossed the bridge in Wāsiṭ only once, and it collapsed immediately, all those who were on it drowning. (Only) a Satan emerged once more, saying: I am Dāwūd al-Jawāribī”.27 We cannot be certain whether the anthropomorphist actually cheated death in this way once, but the comment tells us what nobody else would have told us: that he lived in Wāsiṭ. His full name was recorded by Baḥshal, but not mentioned anywhere else.

21   T B 342, 5ff. (after Yaḥyā b. Aktham); adopted in TH 320, 6ff. Cf. also Jadʿān, Al-miḥna 113ff. 22  See ch. C 2.4.1 below. 23  Ṭabarī III 1116, 13ff.; cf. ch. C 3.3.1 below. 24   I AH1 157f. no. 528; Mīzān no. 837 and also 964. The kunya is mentioned in Dāraquṭnī, Ḍuʿafāʾ 282 no. 89. Cf. also p. 367 above. 25  Ibn al-Jazarī, Ṭab. no. 746; cf. no. 738. 26  Or ʿAbd al-Raḥmān; cf. Baḥshal 196, 10 and 196, 12. 27   Mīzān no. 2661.

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There was also a Dāwūd b. Saʿīd b. ʿAbdallāh al-Jawāribī both of whose grandsons Ṣāliḥ b. Khalaf and Faḍl b. Khalaf transmitted hadith in Baghdad in the third century, the former even together with his son Muḥammad (TB IX 317 no. 4855; XII 368 no. 6804; V 362 no. 2887). However, he is documented even less. Ibn Taymiyya’s claim that Dāwūd was from Basra (Bayān al-muwāfaqa, in the margin of Minhāj al-sunna IV 123, 6) is probably simply an error. Going by Samʿānī III 363ff. no. 963 the nisba appears to have been quite frequent in Wāsiṭ. Maybe such a factory was based there? Yazīd b. Hārūn was not all that far from being an anthropomorphist himself. He transmitted the hadith that those who entered paradise would see God like the full moon on a moonlit night, and he was even said to have affirmed it explicitly.28 Dāwūd al-Jawāribī, too, referred to such confirmation. The only hadith of his recorded by Baḥshal is the following, transmitted with a Kufan isnād: “Gabriel came to the prophet and said: ‘When the day of the resurrection comes, God will put the heavens here – namely his thumb, earth here – his forefinger, the mountains here – the middle finger, the creatures here – the ring finger, and the soil (al-tharā?) here – the little finger.’ Thereupon the prophet smiled and said: ‘ . . . On the day of the resurrection, he will hold the whole earth in his hand, and the heavens folded in his right hand’ (sura 39:67)”.29 That was the kind of exegesis the anthropomorphists loved.30 It furthermore seemed to presume that God will not, as the Quranic verse suggests, distribute heaven and earth among his two hands, but that he will hold everything in one hand, his right one (which could also just about be read into the verse). From Ṭabarī we know that this was precisely the problem under discussion.31 It was probably based on the idea that God could not have a left hand. Ṭabarī also recorded the abovementioned tradition, even in several versions, without, however, Dāwūd putting in an appearance in any of the isnāds.32 The difference between him and the normal muḥaddithūn was that his anthropomorphism assumed a theoretical form. 28  Thus according to Ṭabarī’s ʿaqīda, ed. Sourdel in: REI 36/1968/195, 12ff. 29   Ta‌ʾrīkh Wāsiṭ 196, 10ff. 30  Cf. Text XX 13, e, and Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Mutashābih al-Qurʾān 598, 1ff. 31   Tafsīr 2XXIV 25, 13ff. 32  Ibid. 26, 16ff. Cf. also the hadiths quoted in Graham, Divine Word 131ff. (where it is a Jew rather than Gabriel proclaiming the subsequent version [= 13b] to the prophet!). For further details cf. ch. D 1.2.1.4.

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There are two statements the heresiographers attributed to him, always in the same words, and presumably based on the same source in every case: he imagined God as “hollow from the mouth to the chest, but solid everywhere else”,33 and when asked about his appearance answered: “Do not ask about his private parts or his beard, but you may ask about everything else”, i.e.: there are instances regarding everything else in the Quran or the prophetic tradition.34 It does become clear that soon people did not know what to make of him; no-one completed his name, and his nisba was often incorrect.35 The heresiographers did not classify him historically but systematically, their decisions varying: usually he was linked with Muqātil b. Sulaymān,36 but sometimes with the Shīʿite theologians from Kufa.37 Samʿānī listed him under the nisba Hishāmī, as a pupil of Hishām al-Jawālīqī’s. While he may have been a Shīʿite – Dhahabī said so, too,38 and the Kufan isnād of the hadith quoted at least does not contradict it39 – he certainly was not a pupil of Jawālīqī’s. The latter already embraced a rather more spiritual anthropomorphism, God in his view being made up out of light rather than flesh and blood.40 Dāwūd, on the other hand, believed the latter, as Ashʿarī and

33   Maq. 153, 5 = 209, 10f.; Maqdisī, Badʿ V 140, pu. ff.; Ibn al-Jawzī, Talbīs Iblīs 84, –9f.; Ibn Abī l-Ḥadīd, ShNB III 224, –6. The source in all cases is probably Nawbakhtī’s K. al-ārāʾ wal-diyānāt. 34  This is Shahrastānī’s explanation, probably a correct one (143, 5ff./405, 3ff.). Cf. also Ibn Abī l-Ḥadīd 224, 11f.; Baghdādī, Uṣūl al-dīn 74, 10f., and Farq 216, 13f./228, 4f. > Isfarāʾīnī, Tabṣīr 107, 1f./120, pu. ff.; Samʿānī, Ansāb XIII 414, –4f. The Andalusian Ibn al-ʿArabī links the same statement to the Ḥanbalite Abū Yaʿlā (ʿAwāṣim 283, 6ff.) Cf. also p. 432 above. 35  Juwaynī, Shāmil 288, ult., even has Khwārizmī instead of Jawāribī, as presumably did Sharīf al-Murtaḍā, Shāfī 16, –11f. This directly confuses him with someone who did not die until 239/853–4 (TB VIII 367f. no. 4467). 36  Thus Khayyāṭ, Intiṣār 54, 6; Ashʿarī, Maqdisī and Ibn Abī l-Ḥadīd, loc. cit.; Ibn al-Jawzī, Talbīs Iblīs 84, 4f. 37  Thus Ibn Ḥazm, Fiṣal IV 93, 11. Shahrastānī, while discussing him in the section on Shayṭān al-Ṭāq, clearly counts him among the aṣḥāb al-ḥadīth (143, 5f./405, 2f.; cf. also 77, 6ff./175, 3ff., in the chapter on the Ṣifātiyya). 38   Mīzān, loc. cit. 39  Ardabīlī names a certain Dāwūd b. Rāshid al-Kūfī al-Abzārī, complete with the variant Dāwūd b. Saʿīd b. ʿAbdallāh (Jāmiʿ 303 b, 2f., and 304 b, 7f.). This one’s dates would correspond as he transmitted from Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq, but Ardabīlī has no further information. Furthermore, Mufīd believed Dāwūd al-Jawāribī to be a Ḥashwī, i.e. not a Shīʿite (Ifṣāḥ 107, apu., and earlier). 40  See vol. I 405 above.

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Ibn Abī l-Ḥadīd tell us; which linked him to Muqātil.41 He differed from Muqātil in the first of the formulae named: while Muqātil believed God to be entirely solid, in Dāwūd’s view, only God’s lower half was solid.42 For God required a “form” in which he could address humans,43 but this form also needed a mouth that opened, and a chest to house the heart “from which his wisdom springs forth”.44 The Quran, being God’s speech, emerged directly from inside his body,45 consequently God could not be solid, ṣamad, here; this must be assumed only from the navel downwards – not least to rule out the possibility of any vegetative functions. It is understandable that Bishr al-Marīsī took exception to this view,46 but traditionists, too, were horrified; they were even reported to have asked the governor to intervene. It seems that Dāwūd died before measures could be taken, but none of the scholars of Wāsiṭ were prepared to say the prayer for the dead over his body.47 While the account was probably toned down, the names of the people involved tell us that Dāwūd lived during the second half of the second century,48 and that consequently he was indeed younger than Muqātil. This makes it all the more remarkable that during his lifetime, or shortly before, someone who had apparently been close to Muqātil49 was qāḍī in Wāsiṭ:

41  See p. 594 below; cf. also Text XIV 21 with commentary. 42  Ever since Kulīnī and Baghdādī this has been transferred, wrongly, onto Hishām alJawālīqī, which was the cause of all the confusion (Kāfī I 101, 1f.; Ibn Bābōya, Tawḥīd 69, 12f.; Farq 216, 8ff./227, apu. ff., and 321, 1/332, pu. f.; Uṣūl al-dīn 74, 12f.; Shahrastānī 141, ult. f./399, 6f.). Kulīnī and Ibn Bābōya both employ the characteristic phrase “hollow down to his navel”. 43  Ibn al-Rēwandī with reference to Hishām al-Jawālīqī in: Intiṣār 104, pu. f. 44   Thus, once again referring to Hishām al-Jawālīqī, Baghdādī, Farq 216, 10/227, ult. The phrase was already used with reference to Mughīra b. Saʿīd al-ʿIjlī (Ashʿarī, Maq. 7, 3). It was a widely recognised idea that the chest and heart were the seat of knowledge and understanding; cf. the legend of opening up the chest, but also IV Ezra, 14:38–40. 45   Cf. Text XXXIII 47, b–c; also ʿAmr b. Dīnār’s dictum quoted by Madelung in: Festschrift Pareja 511, and ch. D 1.1 below. 46  Lālakāʾī, Sharḥ uṣūl iʿtiqād ahl al-sunna 531 no. 933 after the “Muʿtazilite” ʿAlī b. ʿĀṣim (see p. 364 above). 47  Ibid. 532 no. 935 after Wakīʿ. 48   This also becomes clear from the isnād of the hadith mentioned above. Bishr al-Marīsī was still comparatively young at the time (see ch. C 2.4.1 below). 49  The two of them are named together in TB XIII 164, 20, although the name is misspelt.

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Abū Shayba Ibrāhīm b. ʿUthmān al-ʿAbsī, d. 169/785–6, a Kufan mawlā whose reputation among traditionists was not good. His mother’s second marriage was to the Shīʿite jurist Ḥakam b. ʿUtayba50 who may have imported anthropomorphic ideas from Kufa. Yazīd b. Hārūn of all people was his secretary in his younger days.51 Baḥshal did not pay any attention to him at all.52 Shīʿites as such were numerous enough in Wāsiṭ.53 Griffini pointed out how frequently the nisba al-Wāsiṭī occurred in Shīʿite circles.54 When Hārūn b. Saʿd al-ʿIjlī governed the city on behalf of Ibrāhīm b. ʿAbdallāh in 145, he found support from those committed to the faith.55 Yazīd b. Hārūn, not yet thirty at the time, supported him, as did the Quranic exegete and legal scholar Hushaym b. Bashīr al-Sulamī (104/722–183/799). The latter was said to be particularly pugnacious; one of his sons and his brother Ḥajjāj died in battle.56 Some time before this date Abū Khālid, Zayd b. ʿAlī’s spiritual mentor, had found sanctuary in Wāsiṭ, when Kufa became too dangerous for him.57 Several Ḥasanid families were also living in the city,58 but the Ḥusaynids, too, could count on support, as can be seen from the fact that one of Mūsā al-Kāẓim’s financial administrators, a man named Ḥusayn b. Qayyāmā, was at home in Wāsiṭ. He appears to have come from the autochthonous Aramaean population and looked after the (secret) collection of the zakāt. All the more vexing that he did not recognise ʿAlī al-Riḍā; he was a Wāqifite.59 He was not alone in this: Durust b. Abī Manṣūr Muḥammad al-Wāsiṭī took the same decision – he was a serious legal scholar

50  Regarding him see vol. I 278ff. above. 51   T B VI 112, 19. 52  Regarding him cf. Wakīʿ, Akhbār III 322, 7; TB VI 111ff. no. 3144; ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ I 59f. no. 54; Mīzān no. 145. He was the grandfather of the historian and traditionist Ibn Abī Shayba (d. 235/849; cf. GAS 1/108f.). 53  Khallāl, Musnad 163, –7. 54   Corpus Iuris clxxxi, with reference to Ṭūsī’s Fihrist. It must be borne in mind, however, that the place-name occurs more than once (cf. Yāqūt, Muʿjam al-buldān s. n.). 55  See vol. I 291f. above. 56  Abū l-Faraj, Maqātil 359, 4ff.; 363, 1ff.; 377, 10ff. 57  See vol. I 291f. above. 58  Ibn Ṭabāṭabā, Muntaqilat al-Ṭālibiyya 341, apu. ff. (referring, however, to a later time). 59  Kulīnī, Kāfī I 321, 4ff.; Ardabīlī I 251a; Husain in: Hamdard Islamicus 5/1982, issue 4/26. Regarding the name cf. Syr. qayyāmā “persisting, surviving”; more information ch. C 1.4.1 below.

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a fragment of whose hadith booklet is extant to this day.60 Since 145 the aṣḥāb al-ḥadīth had kept their distance. Yazīd b. Hārūn transmitted from Ḥarīz b. ʿUthmān al-Raḥabī who had spoken out so harshly against ʿAlī in Ḥimṣ.61 He was said to have left it to his pupils whether they preferred ʿUthmān or ʿAlī,62 but hadiths praising ʿAlī would never cross his lips, as he believed one was never safe from Shīʿite partisanship with those who transmitted them.63 Hushaym b. Bashīr, who moved to Basra, appears to have embraced the theory of the four caliphs that would take hold a generation later.64 If Ibn Qutayba believed him to be a Shīʿite this may well have been due to his support for al-Nafs al-zakiyya,65 and it was probably for the same reason that Shahrastānī counted him as well as Yazīd b. Hārūn among the Zaydites.66 Together with the father of the Basran Shuʿba b. al-Ḥajjāj his grandfather had been the builder responsible for erecting Ḥajjāj’s palace in Wāsiṭ.67 Basran influence was a problem for the Shīʿites, and they complained to ʿAlī al-Riḍā that the ʿUthmānites were constantly finding fault with them.68 There is a documented case – although admittedly a slightly earlier one – which proves this. A certain al-Faḍl b. Dalham69 al-Qaṣṣār, who made a living as a bleacher in Wāsiṭ,70 returned home from Basra with an ʿUthmānite hadith.71 He traced it back to Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, having studied 60  In: Al-uṣūl al-sitta ʿashar (Tehran 1371/1951) 158ff., where he sometimes transmits after Hishām al-Jawālīqī. Regarding him cf. Kashshī 556, 1f.; Ṭūsī, Fihrist 134 no. 285; Ardabīlī I 310f., and vol. I 408, n. 118 above. 61  Regarding him see vol. I 80 above. 62  Khallāl, Musnad 163, –7ff. 63  Ibn Abī Yaʿlā, Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila I 292, 8ff.; cf. also Madelung, Qāsim 227f. 64  Pseudo-Nāshiʾ, Uṣūl al-niḥal 65, 13ff., where l. 13 should probably read Hushaym b. Bashīr rather than Hishām b. Bishr. The conjecture Hishām b. Sanbar I suggested in the notes may be graphically closer, but really one would have expected the more usual Hishām al-Dastuwāʾī. More information vol. I 271f. above and p. 497 below, also ch. C 2.4.3. 65   Maʿārif 624, 15. 66   Milal 145, 9f./415, 1f. 67   T B XIV 88, 18. Regarding him cf. also IS VII2 70, 3ff.; Baḥshal 152ff.; Ibn al-Nadīm, Fihrist 284, 10ff.; IAH IV2 115 no. 486; Mīzān no. 9250; GAS 1/38; Azmi, Studies, Index s. n.; Aguadé, Messianismus 22f. (where he is treated as a Zaydite). 68  Kulīnī, Kāfī VIII 247 no. 346. 69  Regarding dalham “the pitch-black one” cf. Lisān s. v., and Fischer, Farbbezeichnungen 282. 70   qaṣṣār (Baḥshal 119, 7ff.). Because of this account I prefer the laqab al-Qaṣṣār to the form al-Qaṣṣāb transmitted elsewhere. 71  Jāḥiẓ, ʿUthmāniyya 115, 1.

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under him and his successor Qatāda.72 He probably died around the middle of the second century. It seems that he had become infected with the spirit of his surroundings: Yazīd b. Hārūn called him a Muʿtazilite,73 although it probably was not quite as bad as all that, as the Muʿtazilites did not notice it, and neither did numerous other bibliographical sources.74 He had good memories of serving in Hishām’s army,75 which was more suitable for an ʿUthmānite than a Muʿtazilite. However, towards the end of the century someone else who had studied under Wāṣil and greatly respected ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd had a great following in the city, but Yazīd b. Hārūn did not think much of him, either.76 Murjiʾites are barely tangible in Wāsiṭ, as the Kufan influence was not very strong outside the Shīʿa. Later, however, Bishr al-Marīsī was able to exert some influence from Baghdad, which may explain why Yazīd b. Hārūn persecuted him even there. Those who followed Bishr in Wāsiṭ are barely known to us: a rug merchant named Muthannā al-Anmāṭī,77 and Shādhdh b. Yaḥyā with whom Yazīd debated once.78 Neither of them was a traditionist, and they did not have any ties to the Basran variant of the Murjiʾa. There was only one who corresponded to the original categories; however, he was considerably older: Abū Khālid Yazīd b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Abī ʿĀṣim Sābiṭ al-Dālānī,79 a mawlā of the Asad, who lived during the first half of the second century. He did not fare well in the city. He had to flee to Kufa from al-Manṣūr, where he lived until the end of his life among the Banū Dālān, a branch of the Hamdān.80 It is not known why he had to flee. His hadith was controversial.81 These few notes do not add up to a reliable image. Not only was Wāsiṭ younger than the two other cities in Iraq, it also sank back into its provincial

72  Dhahabī, Ta‌ʾrīkh VI 113, 6ff. 73  ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ III 445 no. 1494; Mīzān no. 6721; TT VIII 276, 16f. 74  Thus e.g. Ta‌ʾrīkh Wāsiṭ. Also without references: Bukhārī IV1 116f. no. 518; IAH III2 61 no. 352; Ibn Ḥibbān II 210, –6ff. 75  Ibn Manẓūr, Mukhtaṣar TD XX 275f. 76  See p. 365 above. 77  Khallāl, Musnad 430, –5ff., and 501, 3ff.; Bukhārī, Khalq al-afʿāl 126, 9ff. 78  ʿAbdallāh b. Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, K. al-sunna 11, 13ff. = TB VII 62, 17ff. 79  Listed as a Murjiʾite in Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 138 no. 850; Bukhārī IV2 346f. no. 3270 after Sharīk b. ʿAbdallāh al-Nakhaʿī (regarding him see vol. I 246 above); Karābīsī in Kaʿbī, Qabūl 216, 14; Mīzān no. 9723. 80  Baḥshal 99, 6f.; Ibn Ḥibbān, Majrūḥīn III 105, 8ff.; Samʿānī, Ansāb V 298, 3ff.; also IS VII2 59, 17f.; Khalīfa, Ṭab. 846 no. 3187. 81  Fasawī III 113, ult.

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existence rather more quickly after the foundation of Baghdad.82 The last theologian to have been born there, Walīd b. Abān al-Karābīsī, d. 214/829, found his pupils in the capital.83 He was the maternal uncle of Aḥmad b. Sinān b. Asad al-Qaṭṭān,84 a traditionist from Wāsiṭ whom Baḥshal cited a number of times.85 There is an anecdote that has him meet Bishr alMarīsī at Zābiyān,86 i.e. a canal near Nuʿmāniyya, halfway between Wāsiṭ and Baghdad.87 He probably traded in Wāsiṭ in white cotton cloth (kirbās), as his nephew al-Qaṭṭān was in the same trade; but he appears also to have lived in Basra.88 It was here that Yaḥyā b. Aktham, who became qāḍī of the city in 202/817–8,89 wanted to appoint him court witness, but Walīd did not accept the position.90 The offer appears to have been fraught with difficulty. Ibn Aktham was still very young, and a stranger to the city as well; its inhabitants did not like him.91 Thus it was understandable that he wanted to have the support of someone from outside. Fortunately Walīd was prudent enough to give general reasons for his refusal: “There are three things that humiliate a man: transmitting hadith, being prayer leader, and acting as a witness in court”. He seems to have meant that these made a man dependent; people asked him why he did not add marriage to his list. However, he conceded that marriage was inescapable, but one should never propose unless one was certain of being accepted.92 The aṣḥāb al-ḥadīth did not like the sound of this, but consequently relished all the more recounting how on his deathbed he converted to them after all, advising his pupils to steer clear of kalām and look to the aṣḥāb al-ḥadīth instead – not, however, to the celebrities (ruʾasāʾ) but to those wearing shabby

82  Massignon, Passion 2I 99ff./I 59ff., has materials on the cultural-historical development of the city in the third century; Ḥallāj lived here during his adolescence between 249/863 and 258/872. 83  Ibn Taghrībirdī, Nujūm II 210, 13f. 84   T B XIII 441, 16f. 85   Ta‌ʾrīkh Wāsiṭ 236, 1ff.; also 107, –6; 123, 11 etc. Cf. also TT I 34f. no. 62. 86   T B XIII 441, 2ff.; cf. ch. C 2.4.1 below. 87  Cf. Yāqūt, Muʿjam al-buldān s. n. Zābiyān and Nuʿmāniyya. 88  Ibn Taghrībirdī, loc. cit., calls him a Muʿtazilite from Basra. 89  IKh VI 149, –7f. 90   T B XIII 441, 9ff. 91  See ch. C 3.3.5 below. 92   T B 441, 11ff.

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clothes, who were constantly mocked by the former.93 Interestingly it was a son of Abū Dāwūd’s who circulated this story. He believed Walīd to be the greatest expert in kalām after Ḥafṣ al-Fard, who had died shortly before him and was well-known in Basra as an opponent of Abū l-Hudhayl.94 This is proof that Walīd cannot have been a Muʿtazilite, as Ibn Taghrībirdī claimed; this was probably the view of those to whom any interest in kalām seemed suspicious. His objectives, however, were different: ʿalā madhhab ahl l-ḥaqq, as al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī put it.95 At the time, a generation before Ibn Kullāb, this was not very common, and we would like to know further details. However, the sources provide them only sparingly. He does not seem to have agreed with the khalq al-Qurʾān Ma‌ʾmūn proclaimed for the first time shortly before his death.96 Ḥusayn al-Karābīsī, who would try to mediate later during the miḥna by proposing his theory of the createdness of the pronunciation of the Quran, was his pupil.97 He adopted the inclination of absolving the prophet’s companions who had been on opposing sides in the battle of the camel.98 This, as we have seen, was nothing new and might indeed have sprung from the earliest Muʿtazilite tendency; but in his case it is linked to two ideas that only emerged fully during his lifetime. The first is the theory of the four caliphs: unlike Yazīd b. Hārūn, who died only ten years before him, Walīd al-Karābīsī recognised ʿAlī as the fourth rightly-guided caliph, thus drawing a line under the quarrels of the early Islamic period. In Baghdad this was successful. The second new aspect, however, was the reasoning he employed. In the battle of the camel the prophet’s companions followed only their ijtihād, but everyone is right in ijtihād. It was irrelevant that people lost their lives; after all, this could happen any time capital punishment is meted out based on ijtihād. Karābīsī thus found himself among the followers of ʿUbaydallāh al-ʿAnbarī, a Basran, although he was closer chronologically to the Zaydite Sulaymān b. Jarīr al-Raqqī, who also expressed the idea more fullyformed.99 We do not know whether the two knew one another. 93   T B XIII 441, 14ff. = Khaṭīb, Sharaf aṣḥāb al-ḥadīth 56, 1ff. (with the correct reading yuhajjinuhū instead of y-h-j-h); without the memorable conclusion in Ibn al-Jawzī, Talbīs 82, 4ff. 94  See p. 816ff. below. 95   T B 441, 1f.; cf. also 441, 17f. Masʿūdī is said to have esteemed him greatly as a mutakallim (Ibn Taghrībirdī, loc. cit.); but his evaluation has not come down to us. 96  Ibid. 441, 8f. 97  Ibid. 441, 2 and ult.; regarding him see ch. 6.3 below. 98  Cf. Pseudo-Nāshiʾ, Uṣūl 67, 1ff. § 114 and Text XXXIII 45; also Madelung in: Der Islam 57/1980/222f. 99  See p. 540 below.

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The Jazira

Upper Mesopotamia, the so-called “peninsula” between the diverging courses of the Tigris and the Euphrates, was culturally a separate province. For centuries the border between Byzantium and the Sasanid Empire had run here, which meant that the region had been cut off from southern Iraq. Following this tradition Muʿāwiya had merged it with Syria, and Marwān II even moved his capital here; but it was administered independently at the time and remained like that until the foundation of modern Iraq. Arabs had immigrated in pre-Islamic time; the region around Nisibis was called Arvastān in Middle Persian, and Bēth ʿArabāyē in Syriac.1 More had joined them under ʿUthmān: when Muʿāwiya was governor of Syria he granted land to the Muḍar and the Bakr b. Wāʾil, especially their sub-group the Rabīʿa, in regions that had been depopulated by never-ending frontier wars. Still, the tribes were not yet entirely sedentary, which probably explains why Khārijite movements in particular took root here again and again until well into the Abbasid era. “The Jazira is rebellious (khārija)”, Jāḥiẓ said, “Ḥarūrite and renegade”.2 Even in the centuries preceding Islam, Bedouin raids had frightened the population of the cities.3 The new structure of the province also followed the immigrant tribes. The Muḍar region was to the west (Diyār Muḍar) with Raqqa as the most important city, while the Diyār Rabīʿa in the east were governed from Mosul. Where the plain did not become mountain, they were bordered to the north by the territory of the Bakr; ancient Amida, which played an important part at the time is, of course, called Diyarbakır in present-day Turkey.4 Towns that were not recently founded like Mosul, continued the traditions established in late antiquity with their mainly Christian populations: Edessa,5 Nisibis or Mabbōg/ Manbīj, known as Hierapolis under the Greeks. Some parts of the countryside

1   Trimingham, Christianity among the Arabs 150 and earlier; Shahid, Rome and the Arabs 7 and 61, n. 39; cf. also Map II on p. 172f. General information EI2 II 523f. s. v. D̲ j̲azīra. 2   Manāqib al-Turk, in: Rasāʾil III 175, 6; a similar statement also in Ibn al-Faqīh, Buldān 315, 8f. “Renegade” is a translation of Ar. māriqa here; this, too, is a frequent epithet of the Khārijites (see p. 273 and 399 above). 3  Segal, Edessa 143ff. 4  Regarding provincial borders in the early Abbasid era cf. the map provided by Forand in: JAOS 89/1969/105; general information EI2 II 343ff. s. v. Diyār Bakr, Diyār Muḍar and Diyār Rabīʿa. Regarding administrative districts during the Sasanid era cf. Morony, Iraq 129ff. 5  Cf. J. B. Segal’s monograph Edessa, “The Blessed City” (Oxford 1970), which is worth reading.

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were strewn with monasteries, especially Syriac Orthodox ones;6 the monks had worked as missionaries among the nomad Arab population.7 While in pre-Islamic times the border between the two empires had separated Monophysites and Nestorians, now the faiths lived side by side again, even the Melkites remaining. All of them produced great theologians under the new rulers. Among the Monophysites the most remarkable was Jacob of Edessa (d. 708/ AH 89), achieving a synthesis of theological and scientific education in his Hexaemeron,8 while among the Melkites we find Theodore Abū Qurra a century later (ca. 740–820), who was bishop of Ḥarrān for a time and translated some Aristotelian writings into Arabic.9 Both are of interest for Islamic theology: Jacob of Edessa composed a treatise which discussed, among other things, the question of whether God predetermined the time of man’s death, which was very important to the Qadarites.10 Theodore Abū Qurra, on the other hand, directly attacked the Muslim determinists, stating that in his view denying free will equalled Manichaeism.11 He also noted as a drawback that Muḥammad had not worked any miracles12 and expressed veiled criticism of the worldly concept of paradise in the Quran13 – both, in fact, in Arabic rather than Syriac. It is unlikely that a Christian in Kufa or Basra would have spoken quite so freely. He believed that if one had to choose between religions, reason would reveal 6  Cf. the list in W. Hage, Syrisch-jakobitische Kirche 107ff.; also Atlas zur Kirchengeschichte, Map 38B. For more detail regarding the region of Ṭūr ʿAbdīn cf. P. Krüger’s dissertation Das syrisch-monophysitische Mönchtum im Tur-Abd(h)in (Münster 1937), especially the second part published in OCP 4/1938/5ff. Regarding the region east of Mosul cf. J. M. Fiey, Assyrie chrétienne (1–2, Beirut 1965), and the city itself, id., Mossoul chrétienne (Beirut 1959). 7  Morony, Iraq 372ff. 8  Ed. and transl. Vaschalde, CSCO 92 and 97. As for geography his horizon extended as far as the Alps and the Sudeten mountains (112b, –6ff./transl. 93). 9  Cf. M. Kellermann, Ein pseudoaristotelischer Traktat über die Tugend 18ff.; Walzer, Greek into Arabic 68 and 84ff. One should note that we are looking at a Christian, and an unmarried one at that, who bears a kunya. The name Abū Qurra was typical of Ḥarrān (cf. Abel in: Elaborathin de l’Islam 70, n. 2). 10  Cook, Early Muslim Dogma 145ff.; cf. also Sākō in: Islamochristiana 10/1984/280, and ch. D 2.1.1 below. 11   Mayāmir, ed. Bāshā, p. 9ff.; transl. G. Graf, Die arabischen Schriften des Theodor Abū Qurra 223ff.; cf. also his Mīmar 35 in PG 97, col. 1503ff. 12  Ducellier, Miroir 119 after the dialogue no. XXII. Regarding the argument see ch. C 1.2.3 and D 4.2 below. 13   Mīmar fī wujūd al-khāliq 252 = XIV 25 and earlier.

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the truth, and he presented this in the form of a parable in a spirit similar to that expressed later by Ibn Ṭufayl’s Ḥayy b. Yaqẓān.14 A Nestorian, too, found fame in this region during the early Umayyad era: Isaac (“the monk”) (d. ca. 700) who became bishop of Mosul/Nineveh, and was then known as Isaac of Nineveh. He remained in the bishopric for only five months, retiring to live as an ascetic in a monastery in Khūzistān in Iran.15 Besides the Christians there were other religious groups such as Dayṣānites, Manichaeans, and possibly Markionites; Abū Qurra described all of them as heresies.16 Above all there were Jewish communities in all cities, as witnessed by Benjamin of Tudela as late as the 1160s.17 Syrian Christianity had often grown up out of local Judaism, but there are hardly any contemporary sources for the time that interests us. However, Dāwūd b. Marwān al-Muqammaṣ, the oldest Jewish mutakallim (ninth century) came from Raqqa; he had long been influenced by the Monophysite theologian Nonnus of Nisibis, a relative of Abū Rāʾiṭa18 who had in his youth, around 815, conducted a memorable debate with Abū Qurra in Armenia, and later went to prison in Samarra for some time under Mutawakkil.19 2.4.1 Ḥarrān When Marwān II made Ḥarrān his capital, one day’s journey from Edessa and two from Raqqa, he had probably been swayed by several reasons. He was familiar with the region as his father had been governor of the Jazira under ʿAbd al-Malik, and he himself had held the same office in his youth between 14   Ibid. 212ff. = VIII 9ff. For general information on Theodor Abū Qurra as a theologian cf. the dissertations of Ignace Dick, Theodor Abuqurra, évêque melkite de Harran (Leuven 1960) and S. H. Griffith, The Controversial Theology of Theodore Abū Qurrah (Cath. Univ. of America, Washington 1978); also Griffith in: JAOS 105/1985/53ff., Assfalg in LThK X 38 s. n., and the catalogue of writings in Islamochristiana 1/1975/154ff. 15  Regarding him see ER VII 288f. with further references. 16  See vol. I 499 and 506f. above; regarding the Manichaeans references in Tardieu, JA 274/1986/24, n. Cf. also the zindīq from Edessa vol. I 518f. above. 17   Cf. Travels, transl. Adler 32ff.; Rüger, Syrien und Palästina nach dem Reisebericht des Benjamin von Tudela 66. 18  Regarding him see vol. I 63 above. 19  At first Dāwūd had even converted to Christianity (cf. the text in Sirat, History of Jewish Philosophy 17). His ʿIshrūn maqāla have been edited by S. Stroumsa (Leiden 1989); cf. also ch. 5.1.1 below. Regarding Nonnus cf. A. van Roey, Nonnus de Nisibe (Leuven 1948). If Khwarizmi is to be believed (Mafātīḥ al-ʿulūm 24, 5 > Abū l-Maʿālī, Bayān ul-adyān 57, 10f.), Abū ʿĪsā al-Iṣfahānī (see p. 691ff. below), too, was born in Nisibis.

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102/720 and 105/724. While his father might still have resided in Raqqa,1 the mint had probably moved to Ḥarrān rather earlier.2 The city was situated in a strategically favourable position: it was possible to keep an eye on Syria and on Iraq at the same time and consequently put down rebellious Khārijites such as Ḍaḥḥāk b. Qays much more quickly.3 Above all, Ḥarrān was a centre of the Qays tribes, Damascus having become too dangerous since the Yaman had become Qadarites.4 Both places were equally shaped by history; it was at Carrhae that Crassus suffered his defeat against the Parthians in 53 BCE. 2.4.1.1 The Ṣābians The Arabs held the city dear because according to a well-known tradition Abraham was born there.1 On the other hand they found it an uncanny place because a part of the population followed a late Hellenistic “Chaldaean” celestial religion worshipping in strange temples which stood out because of their uncompromisingly geometrical shapes.2 Christianity had not taken root until comparatively late: there does not seem to have been a bishop of Ḥarrān before the fourth century.3 Emperor Julian had been received with great joy when he visited the city during his last campaign, and had sacrificed to the moon god Sin.4 Masʿūdī reported that the heathen of the city did not call him the Apostate like the Christians did, but rather εὐσεβής/Eusebius “the pious one”.5 In the words of the Church Fathers Ḥarrān was ἡ Ἑλλήνων πόλις, “the heathen city”.6 Local Christians, too, regarded the worshippers of celestial bodies as ḥanpē, heathen, who were furthermore remarkable for their 1  See p. 526 below. 2  For more detail cf. Rotter in: Amer. Numismatic Soc. Mus. Notes 19/1974/166ff., 178 and 198; esp. 168 n. 14. Marwān also moved the treasury from Damascus to Ḥarrān (Pseudo-Dionysius of Tellmaḥrē). 46, 11ff./transl. 41f. 3  See p. 524 below. 4  See vol. I 94f. and 125 above. 1  When passing through shortly after 380, the pilgrim Egeria had been shown his house (J. Wilkinson, Egeria’s Travels 118 = cap. 20.3). Of course, the Bible already tells us that Abraham used to live there (Gen. 11:31). 2  Cf. fundamentally D. Chwolsohn, Die Ssabier und der Ssabismus, 1–2, Petersburg 1856. 3  Cf. ibid. I 423ff. Egeria said that there were no Christians living in the city except a few clerics (Wilkinson 119 = cap. 20.8). 4  Ibid. I 426ff.; Segal, Edessa 104; Bidez, Julian der Abtrünnige 335f.; Tardieu in: IA 274/1986/1, n. 4. 5  Tanbīh 145, ult. f.; also Shboul, Al-Masʿūdī and his World 246f. 6  Thus in the Acts of the Council of Chalcedon. Cf. Chwolsohn I 303 and 438f.; also EI2 II 227 b.

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appearance which included a long-sleeved garment in the style of a tunic (qabāʾ) and flowing hair.7 Regarding pre-Islamic Ḥarrān cf. the always readable dissertation by A. Mez, Geschichte der Stadt Ḥarrān in Mesopotamien bis zum Einfall der Araber (Strasburg 1892); also F. H. Weißbach in RE X 2009ff. s. v. Κάῤῥαι, K. F. Krämer in LThK II 1023 s. v. Charan and more recently W. Cramer in RAC XIII 635ff. s. v. Ḥarrān; also S. Lloyd and W. Brice in: Anatolian Studies 1/1951/88ff. All these descriptions are based on literary reports. Archaeological research is still in its fledgling stages. Subsequently it may become necessary to distinguish between two distinct places. In the location of Islamic Ḥarrān there was only a Hellenistic city with a temple of Sin, but beneath it there are layers dating to the third millennium BCE. Archaeological finds corresponding to the temples with the geometrical plans described in the Arabic sources are not situated in Ḥarrān itself but in Sumatar (Sumatar Harabesi) forty to fifty kilometres northeast, where a supreme god named Mār Ilāhā was worshipped whom the celestial bodies may have served. It is more than sixty years since J. W. Segal undertook a survey of this location; he reported it in: Anatolian Studies 3/1953/97ff., and summarised his findings in a monograph on Edessa (p. 56ff.) as well as, particularly engagingly, in E. Bacon, Vanished Civilizations 201ff. A mosaic containing a Syriac inscription found in Urfa shows what the qabāʾ mentioned above might have looked like (AS 3/1953/117f. and Plate XII no. 1; in colour in Edessa, Plate 1; cf. also the relief found in Sumatar, ibid., Plate 41). Ṭabarī tells us (I 2424, 5ff.) that after the battle of Qādisiyya near Kufa Saʿd b. Abī Waqqāṣ visited the house in which Abraham had been held prisoner by Nimrod, and prayed to the prophets there. In Muslim ears, however, the word ḥanpē had an entirely different ring:8 ḥunafāʾ, as they knew from the Quran, were worshippers of the one true God whose representative on earth had been this very Abraham.9 It may be that the conquerors believed to have found traces of the original Abrahamic religion; to them, the Christians’ failure to understand the connection could only be confirmation. On the other hand, in the Quran Abraham had proved himself

7  Ibn al-Nadīm, Fihrist 385, 6. 8  For references cf. Segal, AS 108f. 9  Cf. EI2 III 165f. s. v. Ḥanīf. Regarding the semantic development cf. Colpe in: Int. Kirchl. Zs. 76/1986/216, and the slightly altered version in Das Siegel der Propheten 166ff.

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to be ḥanīf by turning his back on the cult of celestial bodies.10 This probably led Bīrūnī to the rather confusing claim that the Ḥarrānians were earlier “in the books” called ḥunafāʾ as well as idolaters (wathaniyya);11 form and meaning of Syriac ḥanpē had simply gradually separated in this instance.12 Certainly the heathen Ḥarrānians were the first to enter into negotiations with the Muslim conquerors, intending to surrender the city; the Christians joined them only later.13 The Muslims took away one of their temples, turning it into a mosque. By naming the new sanctuary after Abraham they showed that they intended to give new meaning to the local tradition. All the same, they did not treat the previous owners as heathen but compensated them, giving them a plot where to build another temple. Ibn Shaddād, Aʿlāq III2 42, 10ff. (transl. by Rice in: AS 2/1952/38); also Chwolsohn I 433ff. It is unlikely that anyone would have told the Muslims that there had long been an anti-Jewish and anti-Christian – and consequently anti-Islamic – Abrahamic legend in Ḥarrān according to which the patriarch, having destroyed the idols, returned penitently to worshipping celestial bodies. We do not need to go into whether the Quran referred to this legend (cf. Strohmaier in: Studien zum Menschenbild in Gnosis und Manichäismus, ed. P. Nagel, p. 223ff.; also Pedersen in: Festschrift Browne 383ff.). The Abrahamic cult in Urfa/Edessa that attracts so many pilgrims – and European tourists – today appears to be of a more recent date, presumably having been transferred there from Ḥarrān. Ibn Shaddād did not mention it, and Segal, while relating some folkloristic details, does not say anything about their age (Edessa 1f.). Benjamin of Tudela mentioned that Muslims were praying in Ḥarrān in the place where the house of Abraham, or his father, had stood (Travels, transl. 33; Rüger, Syrien und Palästina 67). In the following generations Ḥarrānians do not seem to have been oppressed by the Muslim authorities. If Ibn al-Nadīm was able to compile a list of the high priests from ʿAbd al-Malik’s time onwards complete with the dates of their time in office,14 this does not convey the impression of an underground organisation, however one may view the authenticity of the information. They 10  Cf. Speyer, Bibl. Erzählungen 124ff. 11   Al-āthār al-bāqiya 318, 18f./transl. 315, 8; also 206, 9/188, 26. 12  Cf. also Stern in: Journal of Theol. Studies 19/1968 (= History and Culture, no. III), p. 161ff. 13  Balādhurī, Futūḥ 206 no. 458. 14   Fihrist 390, 12ff.; Chwolsohn II 43f.

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manufactured astrolabes and celestial globes, retaining the monopoly for a long time.15 It seems that the K. al-iṣtamākhīs, which discussed talismans, was composed in Ḥarrān.16 The Ḥarrānians became famous as experts in the science of antiquity; it was well-known that there were still scholars among them who were fluent in Greek. When the days of the School of Antioch seemed to be numbered under Mutawakkil (r. 232/847–247/861), the library was moved to Ḥarrān and lectures continued there.17 At the same time, or shortly afterwards, a physician from Ḥarrān appeared in Spain under Muḥammad I (r. 238/852–273/886). He was a Muslim as he built a mosque in Cordoba.18 The mathematician Thābit b. Qurra (221/836–288/901)19 was from Ḥarrān, as was the astronomer al-Battānī (d. 317/929), although the latter had grown up in Raqqa.20 Both of them made a name for themselves in Baghdad, and took some 15  Ibn al-Nadīm, Fihrist 342, –6f. (cf. also the names 343, 7); Hamdānī, Ṣifat jazīrat al-ʿArab 132, 22f.; Strohmaier, Die Sterne des ʿAbdarraḥmān aṣ-Ṣūfī 10. 16  Cf. Burnett in: Pseudo-Aristotle in the Middle Ages 87f. 17  Thus according to a text found in Fārābī that was emended after Masʿūdī in the relevant passage (cf. Meyerhof, Von Alexandrien nach Baġdād 24ff.; also Endreß in GAP II 411). N. Rescher, Studies in the History of Arabic Logic 22ff., has translated the account in context, as did Strohmaier in: Festschrift Moreaux II 380ff. Strohmaier doubted its authenticity, as did Zimmermann in: Fārābī, De interpretatione ciiif. The date is indeed quite late; it really only serves as evidence that Ḥarrān was by that time the only place where classical tradition in Syriac clothing found an environment that did not force it to comply with a Christian syllabus. M. Tardieu has attempted to date the transfer back to ʿUmar’s time, assuming a (neo-)Platonic academy in Ḥarrān at the time (in: JA 274/1986/21ff. and earlier). In her introduction to the Acts of the Simplicius Colloquium Paris 1985 I. Hadot followed his lead without reservations (Simplicius. Sa vie, son oeuvre, sa survie 10ff.). She assumes that Simplicius, Damascius, Priscian and the other neo-Platonic philosophers who had been welcomed at Khosrou Anoshirwan’s court after the School of Athens had been closed, settled in Ḥarrān on their return; Simplicius is believed to have composed the majority of his works there. It is for the experts to judge this hypothesis. I would agree with Tardieu that it is not necessary to separate the presumed neo-Platonic academy quite so strictly from the native pagan religion; nor does this imply that Fārābī’s account is necessarily incorrect. Cf. also Tardieu’s article in the abovementioned collection p. 40ff., where the brief note on the different beginnings of the year found in Simplicius’ commentary on Aristoteles’ Physics is linked to the calendars in use in Ḥarrān. [Endreß has written a response in: Der Islam 68/1991/134ff.]. 18  Ibn Juljul, Ṭabaqāt al-aṭibbāʿ 94f. no. 37; cf. also Vernet, De ʿAbd al-Raḥmān I a Isabel II, p. 259. The Ṣābian named ʿImrān, with whom ʿAlī al-Riḍā was said to have debated before the vizier Faḍl b. Sahl in Marv, is probably nothing but a literary fiction together with his arguments (see ch. C 2.2 below). 19  Regarding him cf. GAS 5/264ff. 20  Regarding him ibid. 5/287f.; Ullmann, Natur- und Geheimwissenschaften 328f.; EI2 I 1104f.

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liberties there. Thābit wrote books about the teachings and customs of his ancestors in which he glorified the high culture of the ḥunafāʾ freely, making no secret of his contempt for Christianity, “the false doctrine from Nazareth” (ṭuʿyay de-Nāṣrath).21 It may not be coincidence that the name Sinān was popular among Ḥarrānians; maybe it sounded to them, in accordance with the mimicry prevalent in the Orient, rather like their lunar god Sin. However, the admiration shown them was tempered with astonishment or even revulsion, even in the case of an enlightened rationalist like Jāḥiẓ. He knew of a certain Abū l-Mubārak who was well-respected at the caliph’s court where he had gained notoriety as a womaniser, and later castrated himself. This remarkable behaviour, Jāḥiẓ noted, was by no means an isolated case;22 after all, castration had played an important part in the cult of the mother goddess in Hierapolis, not far from Ḥarrān.23 Of course the Muslims also noticed that “he had not consumed any animal foods for eighty years”.24 The historian Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm b. Hilāl al-Ṣābiʾ (313/925–386/996) did not eat beans.25 Wilder rumours abounded. The Ḥarrānians were suspected of ritual child murder,26 and above all there was the story of a severed head that was preserved in a nutrient solution of oil and borax and then used to give oracles.27 Hārūn al-Rashīd was said to have persecuted them for this,28 sending 21  Quoted in Bar Hebraeus, Chronicon 176, apu. ff./transl. 180; cf. Chwolsohn I 177ff. We may safely assume that Bar Hebraeus adopted the passage, which he quoted in Syriac, from an Arabic text, changing Ar. ḥanafiyya to Syr. ḥanpūthā “the heathen”, which outraged him. The Muslims of Baghdad saw things differently yet again, and did not resent his attacks on Christianity either, of course. 22   Ḥayawān I 125, 10ff.; cf. also Radd ʿalā l-Naṣārā in: Rasāʾil III 323, 4f. 23  One of the Christian rulers of Edessa had taken steps against this (Segal, Edessa 56). 24   Ḥayawān 127, ult. f. Due to the date, however, it is not certain that this was indeed a Ṣābian from Ḥarrān; the term is ambiguous (see below). But cf. the parallel in the text in Oriens 27–28/1981/282. 25  Thaʿālibī, Yatīmat al-dahr II 243, 11ff. ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd; regarding the bean taboo see p. 42f. above. Note the combination of names Ibrāhīm b. Hilāl; hilāl is the “new moon”. One of Abū Isḥāq’s sons was called Sinān (cf. EI2 IV 21f. s. v. aṣ-Ṣābīʾ). 26  Thus already Ibn al-Nadīm; cf. the instances in J. Hjärpe, Analyse critique des traditions arabes sur les Sabéens ḥarrāniens (Uppsala 1972), p. 101ff. 27  Ibid. 105ff. with a comparison of the individual versions; cf. Morony, Iraq 397f. According to Baghdādī, Uṣūl al-dīn 321, 9ff., similar goings-on were reported from Azerbaijan. The same accusation was levelled against the Manichaeans (Lieu, Manicheism 81). With a humoristic twist the motif even made it into Cervantes, Don Quijote II cap. 62. – Ṣābiʾ meaning “magician” or “madman” is used in TTD VII 217, 2f. 28  Thus according to Mārī b. Sulaymān’s History of the Patriarchs (75, 2f.). Pseudo-Dionysius of Tellmaḥrē, who recounted the story with tangible delight, dated it to the governorship

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Yaḥyā b. Khālid al-Barmakī to Ḥarrān “in order to kill the zanādiqa there”.29 When al-Ma‌ʾmūn stopped in Ḥarrān during his campaign against Byzantium in 215/830, he was believed to have remembered that these were “the people with the head” whom his father had taught a lesson.30 This, too, was spread by Christians; Ibn al-Nadīm was quoting a certain Abū Yūsuf Īshuʿ al-Qaṭīʿī. They had no liking for the “heathens”, but there is a core of truth to the matter, as in 228/843 the Ḥarrānians adopted the title Ṣābians in order to benefit from the protection the Muslims granted all the ahl al-dhimma mentioned in the Quran.31 Qaṭīʿī saw this change in relation to Ma‌ʾmūn’s visit; his version, dating from the third century, which narrates events in the form of a vivid anecdote, has been quoted repeatedly since Chwolsohn’s study. Chwolsohn II 14ff. and I 140f.; scepticism emerging first in Hjärpe 4ff. The oldest instance of the name Ṣābian being used for the inhabitants of Ḥarrān is found in Ḥunayn b. Isḥāq’s letter concerning the translations of Galen in the year 241/855 (cf. Strohmaier in: Berichte, Humboldt-Univ. 7/1987, Issue 10, p. 18). Qaṭīʿī was an insider, knowing the heathen families in the city and providing concrete, if snide information about them. What he did not like was that those who had converted to Christianity for reasons of prudence would reject it again after a while, while those who had converted to Islam were unable to do so. Regarding his dates cf. Chwolsohn II viif. – It had been presumed earlier that the Ṣābians were the Ḥanīf/ḥanpē who believed in Abraham; Aḥmad b. ʿAbdallāh b. Salām, a client of Hārūn al-Rashīd’s, said so in his translation of an ancient theological text which was used by Ibn al-Nadīm (Fihrist 24, 5ff.). When writing in Arabic Christian authors used the name ḥunafāʾ to denote the heathen Ḥarrānians (thus Abū Qurra in his Mīmar fī wujūd al-khāliq 200, –6ff., or the author of the Risālat al-Kindī, cf. the translation in Tartar, Dialogue 117f.; for general information cf. Griffith in: La vie du Prophète 118ff.). That the Christians believed that they had good relations with the Muslims even before the change of name may be seen from the information that it was at the “Ṣābians’” instigation that the governor had newlybuilt churches destroyed after Amīn’s death (Fiey, Chrétiens syriaques 63). of ʿAbbās b. Muḥammad b. ʿAlī, i.e. between 142/759 and 155/772 (cf. Chabot’s translation 68ff.; also Chwolsohn I 464f. and Hjärpe 120ff.; regarding ʿAbbās b. Muḥammad cf. EI2 I 12b). 29  Ibn al-Abbār, Iʿtāb al-kuttāb 84, 3f. 30  Ibn al-Nadīm 385, 9. 31  Bīrūnī, Al-āthār al-bāqiya 318, 12ff.

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It is probably no coincidence that the time during which Ḥarrānian scholars caused a stir in Baghdad coincided more or less with the change of name: it made them respectable and accepted at court in the true sense of the word. This was the beginning of a new era for them. Muslim antiquarians were interested in the temples and the ritual; al-Masʿūdī who reported on these in great detail visited the city more than once, the first time probably even before 315/928.32 The Ṣābians themselves stylised their past, and we must ask to what degree some reports were seen through their eyes.33 They were included in “comparative religious science”,34 suddenly running the risk of confusing the “disciples of Abraham” and the Brahmins, as both might be called barāhima. Brahmins were often believed to be derived from Abraham, because they did not follow a “book”;35 the same, people knew, was true of the Ḥarrānians.36 Conversely, Buddhists – and many others – were considered ṣābiʾa.37 Shahrastānī saw the Ṣābians on the one hand and the true followers of Abraham on the other as the prototypes of all true and false religion and had them conduct lengthy debates.38 All this scholarly work served to obscure reality, and once the Mongols had destroyed the city, reality could not be brought back even through inspecting the scene. Regarding the history in detail cf. Fehérvári in EI2 III 228 s. v. Ḥarrān. Worship of celestial bodies had long died out by that time; the last worshippers had been forced to convert by local aḥdāth, and the remaining lunar temple converted into a prison (Bianquis, Damas et la Syrie 489; 32   Murūj IV 62, pu. f., and 64, apu./II 392, 1f., and 393, 5; cf. also Shboul, Masʿūdī 11. He does, however, also refer to the qaṣīda by a certain Ibn ʿAyshūn (d. after 300/913), qāḍī of Ḥarrān, in which he described the teachings of Ḥarrānians. The texts of the rituals in the various temples have been analysed by Hjärpe 62ff.; cf. also Marquet in: SI 24/1966/42ff. Regarding Masʿūdī’s use of the term ṣābiʾa cf. Shboul 289 and Khalidi, Islamic Historiography 65. 33  This problem was brought to wider notice by Hjärpe in particular (cf. e.g. p. 132). This also includes scholarly reinterpretations that met Islam halfway: when for instance Hermes Trismegistos, in whom the Ḥarrānians believed, was identified as the Quranic Idrīs = Enoch (Hjärpe 167f.). This might even date back to the time before the change of name. 34  For general information on the subject see Monnot in: MIDEO 12/1974/26ff. = Islam et religions 220ff. 35  Shahrastānī 444, ult. f./1270, 3 etc.; Hjärpe 60. 36  Ṭabarī, Tafsīr 3II 147 no. 1107; critically reviewed in Hjärpe 13f. 37  Hjärpe 21; also Gimaret in: JA 1969, p. 279ff. General information by Pedersen in: Festschrift Browne 387ff., and Stern in: Journal of Theological Studies 19/1968/169f. (= History and Culture in the Medieval Muslim World, no. III). 38   Milal 26, 7/49, 5, and 180, 6ff./560, 6ff.; esp. 205ff./679ff.

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Tardieu in: JA 274/1986/11f.). Ibn Ḥazm said around the same time that there were fewer than forty Ṣābians in all the world (Fiṣal I 115, 14f.). Chwolsohn already speculated whether they lived on in the mysterious sun worshippers (shamsiyya) about whom there was talk in Mārdīn and Diyārbakr even in Carsten Niebuhr’s time (Chwolsohn I 151f. after Niebuhr’s Beschreibung von Arabien, Copenhagen 1778, II 396f.; summarised in K. Müller, Pseudoislamische Sektengebilde 73f.). It is interesting to see their literary survival in Niẓāmī’s Haft Paykar (cf. Corbin in: Eranos-Jahrbuch 19/1950/181ff.). We have moved far ahead of ourselves, but if the tradition of the change of name is correct, it has the methodological consequence that what was said before the beginning of the third century about the ṣābiʾūn from sura 2:62, 5:69 and 22:17 did not in fact refer to the Ḥarrānians. It was more than a little; not only all the material from early Quranic commentaries collected painstakingly by Chwolsohn,39 but also legal ideas such as the ikhtilāf between Abū Ḥanīfa and his pupils Abū Yūsuf and Shaybānī of whether the ṣābiʾūn were to be considered to be “people of the book”, and whether consequently one would be allowed to marry Ṣābian women.40 While Abū Ḥanīfa was more interested in his own region, there – more precisely: around Wāsiṭ – were Ṣābians there, too.41 The Muʿtazilite jurist al-Jaṣṣāṣ (d. 370/981) recognised the disciples of John in these; this was the Christians’ name for them.42 Others, especially the Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, reported them as believing in Seth and even possessing a “book” by him.43 Ibn al-Nadīm called them the “Ṣābians of the swamps” and remarked that they washed all foodstuffs before consuming them.44 They were Baptist sects; from among them the Mandaeans survive to this day. 39   I I 555ff., still without Ṭabarī’s Tafsīr; Hjärpe 141ff. and earlier 138ff.; McAuliffe in: MW 72/1982/95ff. – This is not the place to discuss the original meaning of the word in the Quran (regarding the relevant literature cf. Paret, Kommentar 20f., and especially, albeit a little vague, Hjärpe 13ff. and 49ff.; also Ch. Buck in: MW 74/1984/172ff. and Tardieu in: JA 274/1986/41ff.). 40  Chwolsohn I 190ff.; Hjärpe 8ff. It remains to be studied how it came that Kalbī already mentioned the Ṣābians’ self-castration (Chwolsohn I 187). It might be proof that this custom did not originate in Ḥarrān, on the other hand it is entirely possible that Kalbī’s Tafsīr, which was said to have contained this information, was emended over time (see vol. I 346 above). 41  Bīrūnī, Al-āthār al-bāqiya 206, 12ff./transl. 188; Shahrastānī 102, 3/248, ult. 42  Yūhannāsiyya (Aḥkām al-Qurʾān III 112, –5ff.). 43   Mughnī V 152, 15ff./transl. Monnot in: MIDEO 12/1974/35 = Islam et religions 229; cf. ibid. 30/224. 44   Fihrist 403, pu. ff.; cf. also G. P. Luttikhuizen, The Revelation of Elchasai 165ff.

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2.4.1.2 Ḥarrān and Islamic Theology After this separation of the sources we know even less of what the Muslims thought of the Ḥarrānians’ pagan religion during the first two centuries of Islam. While the phenomenon certainly excited their curiosity within the city itself, Ḥarrān was, in fact, very far away from those places where history was made, and the time during which it did make history was far too short for detailed information. Consequently we have to rely on hypotheses, and it may in fact be a good idea to start with one already expressed in the Middle Ages: Ibn Taymiyya, who came from a Ḥarrānian family himself, claimed that al-Jaʿd b. Dirham was influenced by the Ṣābians.1 While we do not have to assume that he was basing this claim on a local tradition – after all, half a millennium had passed – the case is still interesting, as al-Jaʿd was the second theologian besides Ghaylān al-Dimashqī to be executed under Hishām, albeit in Iraq rather than in Damascus. Hishām’s governor Khālid al-Qasrī appropriately planned the execution for the feast of the sacrifice, remarking in his sermon that he would slaughter the delinquent instead of the more customary sacrificial animal. This may not have been as impossible as it sounds, as a governor’s khuṭba was not necessarily devoid of political cynicism. However, it goes back to one single source, a certain al-Qāsim b. Muḥammad b. Ḥumayd al-Maʿmarī (d. 228/843), who called on an eyewitness via a multi-strand and isolated isnād. The event would have taken place between 105/724 and 120/738; this was the time when Khālid held the office in Iraq. Cf. EI2 IV s. v. Khālid b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḳasrī. The dates 124/742 and 125/743 Vajda gives in EI2 III 747f. s. v. Ibn Dirham are consequently certainly wrong; Sibṭ b. al-Jawzī, too, is mistaken when he presumes a date of 102 or 103 (Gabrieli, Califfato di Hishâm 17). Regarding Qāsim al-Maʿmarī cf. Mīzān no. 6836; concerning the other links of the isnād chain cf. ibid. no. 4950, no. 7350 and no. 1695. The tradition is reported in Bukhārī, Khalq al-afʿāl 118, 2ff.; Khallāl, Musnad 423, 1ff.; Dārimī, Radd ʿalā l-Jahmiyya 4, 11ff. and passim; TB XII 425 no. 6872; Bayhaqī, Al-asmāʾ wal-ṣifāt 325, 11ff.; Dhahabī, Al-ʿulūw lil-ʿAlī al-Ghaffār 167, 1ff.; without the isnād in Ibn al-Nadīm 401, 13. Even Balādhurī already cited it (Ansāb III 100, ult. ff.), referring directly to Maʿmarī’s authority. Ājurrī, Sharīʿa 97, –8ff. has the khuṭba only. Dhahabī suggested that apart from this one story Maʿmarī had nothing of relevance to offer; his reputation was not above criticism 1  Al-fatwā al-Ḥamawiyya 15, –4f. = ZDMG 53/1899/72.

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either (Mīzān, loc. cit.). The Shīʿites transferred the motif of the governor executing (or intending to execute) an unpopular theologian during the feast of the sacrifice onto Ḥajjāj (Biḥār XXV 243ff. no. 26); further parallels from later centuries listed by Goldziher in: Der Islam 9/1919/156f. Al-Jaʿd was a mawlā, his father’s name providing a further indication.2 He did, however, wield a certain influence at court as he appears to have been Marwān II’s tutor.3 This position took him to the Jazira, more specifically to Raqqa.4 It would also explain why he owned a house in Damascus in the capmakers’ quarter (ʿinda l-Qalānisiyyīn), as Ibn ʿAsākir specified, not far from the Bāb al-Jābiya near a church that had not been pulled down at the time.5 Originally he had no ties to Syria at all. His clientage relationship was with the Hamdān in Kufa6 or, more precisely, with Suwayd b. Ghafala al-Juʿfī,7 an alleged prophet’s companion who had fought at ʿAlī’s side at Ṣiffīn and had been rewarded with lands near Kufa.8 He died in 81/701 or 82/702, at an advanced age.9 Jaʿd was said to have come from Khorasan,10 his father probably having been a prisoner of war. Even so, there was a well in Kufa that bore his name; he had probably had it dug himself11 which means that he must have been a man of property there. This rapid rise requires an explanation, the key to which may have been provided by Ibn Nubāta’s – admittedly entirely isolated – statement that Marwān’s mother was a sister of Jaʿd’s.12 It is true that she had not 2  See p. 429 above. 3  Balādhurī, Ansāb III 159, 13ff. after Haytham b. ʿAdī. 4   Azdī, Ta‌ʾrīkh al-Mawṣil 63, 15f. The family of ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd b. Yaḥyā, Marwān II’s future secretary, also came from Raqqa (ʿAbbās, ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd b. Yaḥyā al-kātib 26 and 42). 5  Ibn Manẓūr, Mukhtaṣar TD VI 50, –4 > Ibn Kathīr, Bidāya IX 350, 8. Regarding the situation of the church cf. Elisséeff, Description de Damas 220 and 223; also Index s. v. Fabricants de bonnets. 6  Ṭabarī II 1396, 11. 7  Thus Balādhurī, Ansāb III 100, 13; also Samʿānī III 287, 12 > Ibn al-Qaysarānī, Al-ansāb almuttafiqa 31, –4; following him Mžik in: WZKM 20/1910/313. 8  Donner, Conquests 213. 9  Khalīfa, Ṭab. 333 no. 1049; IS VI 46, 14f.; Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, Istīʿāb 679f. no. 1120. As he pretended to have been born in pre-Islamic times he must have lived to a fabulously high age; his vitality was consequently much admired. It had to be admitted, however, that he never actually set eyes on the prophet. 10  Ibn Kathīr, Bidāya IX 350, 7. Or is this, too, misspelt for Ḥarrān, as in Ibn Manẓūr? (Mukhtaṣar TD VI 50, apu.; the original of the biography does not seem to be extant among the MSS of the Ta‌ʾrīkh Dimashq). Cf. also Ibn Taymiyya, Tisʿīniyya 35, pu. ff. 11  Balādhurī, Futūḥ 350, 5. 12   Sarḥ al-ʿuyūn 293, 12.

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been a free woman and indeed of Iranian origin – a “Kurd”, as people said.13 She was believed to have been a slave of Ibrāhīm b. al-Ashtar, which would take us to Kufa.14 Ibn al-Ashtar wielded great influence in Upper Mesopotamia during Mukhtārs reign, bestowing the city of Ḥarrān together with Edessa and Samosata on an Arab tribal prince.15 Dārimī’s claiming that Jaʿd came from Basra (Radd ʿalā l-Jahmiyya 4, 7) is probably an error. Kufa is confirmed in Azdī, Ta‌ʾrīkh al-Mawṣil 63, 14, and his clientage with the Hamdān in Balādhurī (Futūḥ 350, 5, where, however, the name reads only al-Jaʿd). The Banū Juʿfī of whom Suwayd b. Ghafala was a member were a Southern Arab tribal federation (Ibn Durayd, Ishtiqāq 406ff.) and were probably regarded as being part of the Hamdān in Kufa. According to Ibn Nubāta, on the other hand, al-Jaʿd was a mawlā of the Banū l-Ḥakam (Sarḥ 293, 9); they were the closest relations to the Juʿfī in the next highest federation of the Saʿd al-ʿashīra (Ibn Ḥazm, Jamhara 407, –4ff.). Of course, one might also think of Marwān’s ancestor al-Ḥakam, and indeed, Thaʿālibī names al-Jaʿd as a client of the Banū Marwān (Laṭāʾif al-maʿārif 43, ult.) Ibn al-Nadīm claimed that Jaʿd tutored not only Marwān but also the latter’s sons.16 Jaʿd was an ascetic;17 this would have been a recommendation for such a position. And there is also the isolated verse from a slanderous poem clearly directed against Marwān, accusing him of having dealings with “bald-headed men” who “help Jaʿd’s religion to victory” or “deny the promised day (i.e. of judgment)”.18 This, in fact, is already part of a character assassination campaign against Marwān started by the Abbasids. Even during the revolution the poet Ibn Harma (d. 176/792)19 called the caliph “al-Jaʿdī” in an elegy on Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad b. ʿAlī, the “imam” and spiritual leader of the movement, who died shortly before its success in 132/749 as Marwān’s prisoner in Ḥarrān.20 The name was meant as an insult as a caliph would not normally bear a nisba: al-Jaʿd

13  Ṭabarī III 51, 11 (after Ibn al-Kalbī); Maqdisī, Badʾ VI 54, apu.; further instances in ʿAsalī, Jahm b. Ṣafwān 48, n. 1. Cf. also Hawting in EI2 VI 623. 14  Balādhurī, Ansāb III 159, 12f.; Ibn ʿAsākir in Munajjid, Muʿjam Banī Umayya 161, 6. 15  Segal, Edessa 194. Regarding Ibn al-Ashtar in general cf. EI2 III 987. 16   Fihrist 401, 10. 17  Azdī 63, 16. 18  Maqdisī, Badʾ VI 55, 1f. 19  Regarding him cf. GAZ 2/444f. 20  Azdī 120, 13f.; regarding Ibrāhīm al-Imām cf. EI2 III 988 and p. 519 below.

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persuaded Marwān to heresy (zandaqa).21 The execution, of which Kufans had a very clear recollection, also served to denigrate the pupil. It is by no means clear, in fact, that the execution did take place in Kufa. Azdī says so (Ta‌ʾrīkh al-Mawṣil 63, –5), but the eyewitness account mentioned above speaks of Wāsiṭ, which also has some circumstances in its favour. Even Basra was suggested (Saksakī, Burhān 22, 5ff.; according to another source also ʿAsalī, Jahm b. Ṣafwān 50). – Regarding the origin of Marwān’s nisba cf. Samʿānī III 287, 12ff. > Ibn al-Qaysarānī, Ansāb 31, –4f.; also Dhahabī, Ta‌ʾrīkh V 298, 7 and –5ff. (after Ibn Abī l-Dunyā). Samʿānī referred to a work by the traditionist Ibn Shāhīn (d. 385/995; regarding him cf. GAS 1/209f.) for his interpretation. Sharon derives the sobriquet from jaʿd “curly-haired”, but does not provide a reference (Black Banners 14). – If the “bald-headed men” deny the Day of Judgment, this is no proof that Jaʿd did, too. Vajda translates “beardless” rather than “bald-headed” (jurd), drawing a parallel to the Manichaeans (EI2 III 747b). How did the execution come about at all? It does not seem to be connected to that of Ghaylān al-Dimashqī. While Jaʿd appears to have been a Qadarite,22 Qadarite tradition did not identify with him because of his taʿṭīl; Ghaylān was reported to have pointed this out to him in conversation.23 In another passage it was Wahb b. Munabbih who played this part – he, too, a Qadarite in the Qadarites’ eyes24 – stating that people would not speak of the hand of God if the Quran did not do it.25 Balādhurī was aware that people attempted to turn Jaʿd into a follower of Ghaylān, but rejected the idea.26 In fact, not even non-Qadarite circles insisted in this matter. The aṣḥāb al-ḥadīth believed there was more of a link to Jahm b. Ṣafwān; he, however, was a determinist.27 There were several ideas on how this might have happened. Ibn ʿAsākir wrote that after fleeing from the “Umayyads” in Damascus, Jaʿd met Jahm in Kufa.28 Other 21  Ibn al-Nadīm, Fihrist 401, 11 (also Vajda in: RSO 17/1938/180, n. 1). 22  Cf. esp. Qalqashandī, Ṣubḥ XIII 252, 6ff.; cf. p. 516f. below. Also Baghdādī, Farq 14, ult./19, 1. 23  Balādhurī, Ansāb (MS Reisülküttab 598) 241, 16f.; also Anfänge 233. Cf. also Ibn Taymiyya in his Risālat al-Furqān (in: Majmūʿat al-fatāwā XIII 177, 1ff.). 24  See p. 788f. below. 25  Dhahabī, Ta‌ʾrīkh IV 239, 3ff.; also V 15, 11f.; similar Ibn Kathīr, Bidāya IX 350, –6ff. Rāzī’s Ta‌ʾrīkh Ṣanʿāʾ, where one would hope for more detailed information, only mentions a debate between the two (p. 401). 26   Ansāb III 101, 2f. 27  See p. 559f. below. 28  Ibn Manẓūr, Mukhtaṣar TD VI 50, ult. f.; Ibn Kathīr, Bidāya IX 350, 16.

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accounts were clearer, stating that Jahm transmitted from Jaʿd.29 Someone even believed that Jahm was his son or grandson,30 the link being once again the taʿṭīl, as well as the khalq al-Qurʾān.31 Admonition did not come from Wahb b. Munabbih or from Ghaylān now, but from Maymūn b. Mihrān, whom “orthodox” tradition often presented as Ghaylān’s particular opponent;32 he was also said to have testified against Jaʿd before Hishām, thus setting the ball rolling. Jaʿd fled to Ḥarrān, but was caught and brought before Hishām, who banished him to Iraq.33 If there is one conclusion to be drawn from this story, overgrown with legends as it is, it is that Jaʿd’s theology dated back to a time when the political development in Syria had not yet turned Qadarite views into the primary cause for outrage. This also explains why Marwān, who became the Qadarites’ bitter enemy after 126, did not have anything against Jaʿd. Jaʿd was reported to have conducted a debate with the Khārijite Abū Bayhas,34 but the latter had already been executed in 94/713.35 Even if we assume that Zuhrī had the intention of excluding not only the Manichaeans but also the Qadarites and Jaʿd’s followers from the Islamic community,36 the latter’s school was recognised as a distinct group beside the Qadarites. The reason given for the execution was without doubt the one on which all the traditions agree: the taʿṭīl. The eyewitness account says it explicitly: Jaʿd was believed to have said that God did not have Abraham as his “friend”, and never spoke to Moses.37 Was this indeed the true reason? Well may we doubt it; there are no indications that there ever was a major political controversy concerning these matters, and the caliphs only became the guardians of orthodoxy in the eyes 29  Bukhārī, Khalq al-afʿāl 118, 7f.; ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ I 206, 5; Ibn Taymiyya, Istiqāma 11, 101, ult. Cf. also Pines, Atomenlehre 124, n. 3, and p. 495, end. Modern secondary sources, on the other hand, have attempted to prove that Jaʿd was a pupil of Jahm’s (Ḥusayn ʿAṭwān, Alfiraq al-islāmiyya fī bilād al-Sha‌ʾm 85). 30  Cf. Madelung in: Festschrift Pareja I 505, n. 3, after Khallāl, Musnad. 31  Cf. e.g. Dārimī, Radd ʿalā Bishr al-Marīsī 109, 4f.; Juwaynī, Shāmil 25, 13f., or Ibn Nubāta, Sarḥ al-ʿuyūn 293, 12ff. Further references in Allard, Attributs divins 154, n. 1. Regarding these accusations in general cf. Vajda in EI2 III 747. 32  See vol. I 25 above and, in more detail, Anfänge 203ff. 33  Balādhurī, Ansāb III 100, 12f. 34  ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ I 206, 7. 35  See p. 666 below. Should we assume the debate to have taken place in Medina, where the governor was well-disposed towards Abū Bayhas? 36   T TD III 84, –7f. 37  Besides the sources named p. 512 above cf. also Dhahabī, Mīzān no. 1482, and Ta‌ʾrīkh IV 239, 8; Ibn Nubāta 294, 7f.; ʿAlī al-Qāriʾ (Goldziher in: Der Islam 9/1919/156) and elsewhere.

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of later historiographers. Another reason is more likely: in 102 Jaʿd supported Yazīd b. al-Muhallab’s uprising. While he may not have been in any actual fighting, he did allow himself to get involved in a controversy with Farazdaq on behalf of Yazīd’s brother ʿAbd al-Malik, and his name survived in that context. Four verses of his survive; they extol the honour of the Bakr b. Wāʾil from Upper Mesopotamia.38 This was probably enough to make him suspect to the authorities. Soon afterwards Khālid al-Qasrī became governor of Iraq. It is possible that Jaʿd was able to elude his persecution at first and fled to Ḥarrān.39 Legend, however, mentions lengthy imprisonment. His family – or his wife – were said to have interceded on his behalf with Hishām, but the caliph only replied, “Is he indeed still alive?”40 Even in present-day circumstances it would be understandable if the execution had then been given an ideological explanation, but the way in which the pretext was expressed might give us a hint to Jaʿd’s spiritual origins. The “Ḥanīfs” from Ḥarrān believed in God’s transcendent nature and consequently described him in entirely negative terms, seeing the “wondrously beautiful names” – as Bīrūnī would later describe it from a clearly Muslim point of view – as metaphor only.41 One Ibrāhīm al-Ḥarnānī believed the only thing one could say about God was that he is.42 These are neo-Platonic ideas going back far into pre-Islamic times. The Muslims, at least those in Syria, probably found them appealing. Those who had grown used to seeing the Christians as the main enemy found arguments here against “anthropomorphism” and the worship of images; the “Ḥanīfs” were their allies against shirk,43 their religion probably appearing familiar in some of its forms: food laws, three prayers a day, fasting for an entire month.44 However, in order to borrow from them it became necessary to take leave of one’s own anthropomorphism. It would not be surprising if it had become a problem in a city like Ḥarrān, especially with regard to the Quranic idea of God’s friendship with Abraham. In that case 38  Ṭabarī II 1396, 11ff.; cf. also Nuʿmān al-Qāḍī, Firaq 522. 39  See above. 40   Fihrist 401, 11f.; cf. Balādhurī, loc. cit. 41   Āthār 205, 10f./transl. 187; similar also Sarakhsī in Ibn al-Nadīm 384, pu., and Nawbakhtī in Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Mughnī V 152, 9f./transl. Monnot, Islam et religions 228. Cf. also Hjärpe 153ff.; also ibid. 140. 42   lā yūṣafu illā bi-annihī faqaṭ (Muwaffaq, Iḥāṭa, fol. 45b., 9). 43   Does it mean anything that it was in Ḥarrān that Theodore Abū Qurra provided proof of Christian worship of images to someone? (Cf. J. Arendzen, Theodori Abu Kurra de cultu imaginum, PhD. Bonn 1877, and the edition by J. Dick, Mīmar fī ikrām al-īqūnāt, Zouk Mikhael 1986; also Graf, Arab. Schriften 58ff., and Griffith in: JAOS 105/1985/53ff.). 44  Cf. for more detail Hjärpe 146ff. At first the Muslims, too, knew of three prayers (see p. 695 below).

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Jaʿd would have agreed to the deal, and possibly Marwān, too, as Theophanes claimed that the caliph was influenced by the Ḥarrānians.45 Even in the early Abbasid period, under al-Manṣūr, a number of Muslims were executed because they had succumbed to the magic of the foreign cult.46 In Raqqa, on the other hand, a Muslim “sect” survived for some time which insisted that God did not address Moses.47 We do not know whether these were followers of Jaʿd, although there is reliable evidence that both ideas found followers later. Jāḥiẓ derived khalīl in khalīl Allāh from khalla “affliction” rather than khulla “friendship”.48 Later theologians came to the conclusion that God himself did not speak to Moses but had the burning bush speak to him instead, i.e. created speech on an object.49 Jaʿd, on the other hand, had not reached these subtleties. While we have seen how he was able to become the forefather of the khalq al-Qurʾān,50 like Jahm b. Ṣafwān he was probably more radical than those who followed.51 Theological alternatives were still facing one another directly. In Lower Iraq, certainly in Kufa, but maybe also in Wāsiṭ, the fact that Abraham was God’s “friend” and that Moses had spoken to the lord was seen as evidence that Muḥammad, too, had been able to see God on the occasion of his miʿrāj.52 Jaʿd destroyed this climax, although his main criticism would probably have been that if God wished to speak, he had to have a mouth; Dāwūd al-Jawāribī would later claim precisely this in Wāsiṭ.53 Still, the excuse for the execution had been well chosen as it made perfect sense to the Iraqi public. The sources often emphasise that Khālid al-Qasrī was not really a very religious man, but unconditionally devoted to the caliph.53a If Jaʿd’s teachings were indeed at home in the Jazira, there is no reason to believe that they died with him. Baghdādī quoted from an unknown source that as late as the second half of the third century or later a group of Muʿtazilites in ʿAskar Mukram referred to him in a kind of renaissance, albeit with a doctrine about which we hear nothing anywhere else: that “thought (al-naẓar) which of necessity produces insight, is in fact the insight itself, rather than effecting 45   P. 426, 11ff., although it is possible that Theophanes, too, was simply taken in by Abbasid propaganda. 46  Segal, Edessa 206. 47  Qushayrī, Ta‌ʾrīkh Raqqa 100, 2ff. 48  Cf. Text XXII 181, commentary. 49  See p. 570 below, also p. 209 above and ch. C 1.3.2.1.1. 50  Cf. Madelung in: Festschrift Pareja 505ff. 51  See p. 569f. below. 52  Thus e.g. in the hadith in Suyūṭī, La‌ʾālī I 75, 12ff., or 272, –4f.; cf. vol. I 405. 53  See p. 492 above. 53a   Agh. XXII 16, 6ff.

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it”.54 This idea is interestingly entangled with others, some of them of much more recent date, and one clearly attributable to ʿAbbād b. Sulaymān.55 The quoted phrase, too, uses more recent vocabulary. That “thought of necessity produces insight” was said only after the tawallud theory had been applied to it; since that time the majority of Muʿtazilites believed that thought engendered insight.56 Here, however, this is rejected with reference to Jaʿd; on the contrary, thought is identical with insight, which sounds very Greek. It gives rise to the question of whether Jaʿd, for whom human thought probably did not pose a problem, would not have been more likely to apply it to God: God the νου̃ς, the thought thinking itself. There is no proof, but what follows seems to indicate that we are not merely being led astray by a projection: They also claim that the wine is not the work of God, but that of the vintner (khammār), for God does not cause anything that might give rise to sin. Humans, so they claim, create certain kinds on animals (themselves), e.g. when they bury meat or leave it out in the sun and worms emerge, these worms are created by humans. Similarly the scorpions that emerge from the straw under the mud bricks are in their opinion created (ikhtirāʿ) by the person who put bricks and straw together (Farq 262, 5ff./279, 2ff.). Based on one of these points, but certainly much earlier, a sinister legend grew up around Jaʿd b. Dirham. He was said to have filled a bottle with soil and water, and, when worms and vermin appeared, said: “I have created this, for I am the cause of its existence.” The story has Shīʿite origins, with Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq allegedly refuting him subsequently.57 The experiment was important to the Muʿtazilites in ʿAskar Mukram because it helped prove that humans are indeed capable of creating something. This did place them in opposition to ʿAbbād b. Sulaymān whom they normally followed and who used the term khalaqa of God only,58 but earlier its usage had not been so restricted: the middle Akhfash quite innocently used the word in either context.59 Furthermore the idea really belonged in a different context, for Isfarāʾīnī – who in this instance not only transmitted from Baghdādī – emended the passage by adding a further example: “If

54   Farq 262, 3f./278, ult. f. 55  Ibid. 261, ult. ff./278, apu. f. 56  Cf. my Erkenntnislehre 290ff.; also ch. 3.2.2.2.7.2 below. 57  Murtaḍā, Amālī I 284, 16ff.; Ibn Abī ʿAwn, Al-ajwiba al-muskita 20f. no. 103; Ibn Ḥajar, Lisān al-Mīzān II 105 no. 427; Majlisī, Biḥār X 201, 6ff. 58  See ch. C 4.1.2.1.1.5 below. 59  See p. 209 above; regarding other early theologians cf. Jāḥiẓ, Ḥayawān II 383, 6f.

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someone buries truffles until they become a serpent, the serpent is his creation . . .”.60 The main issue was thus clearly the theodicy: whatever is harmful or furthers sin cannot come from God. Elsewhere, another example is that of procreation,61 which takes us firmly into the realm of the early Qadariyya, as it probably harks back to the ancient question of who is responsible for the fruits of fornication.62 There must have been a point at which the Qadariyya began to identify with Jaʿd – probably less so in Syria and rather more in Basra at the time when, under Muʿtazilite influence, Qadarite doctrine and taʿṭīl united.63 An anti-Qadarite abjuration formula transmitted by Qalqashandī includes the words: “. . . I say: humans do not acquire (their actions),64 and al-Jaʿd b. Dirham must bear the consequences. I say: Hishām b. ʿAbd al-Malik rightly called for his blood, and Marwān b. Muḥammad went astray when he followed him. I believe in the predetermination of good and evil . . .”.65 The school of theology in ʿAskar Mukram that based its teachings on him bears the name Ḥimāriyya in the works of Baghdādī and his successors, providing a further link to Marwān al-Ḥimār. The Ḥimāriyya lived on for a long time: Abū ʿAlī al-Thaqafī, a Shāfiʿite and pupil of Ibn Khuzayma’s, who died in 328/940 at the age of 89, met one of its followers named ʿĪsā al-Khabbāz in Nishapur (Ibn al-Dāʿī, Tabṣira 53, apu. ff.). The account of the meeting is, however, pure topos. Al-Khabbāz, too, was said to have claimed that worms that had hatched in a piece of rotten meat had been created by him, whereupon Thaqafī inquired of him how many there were. This corresponds exactly to the abovementioned conversation between Jaʿd b. Dirham and Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq. Regarding Abū ʿAlī al-Thaqafī cf. Halm, Ausbreitung 33 and 44 as well as Gimaret in: JA 277/1989/231f. Why, though, was Jaʿd a Qadarite if he did not focus on the political reasons, and had to be discovered by the Basrans? The above examples sound as if they originally came from a discussion on generatio spontanea.66 The process 60   Tabṣīr 123, 4/140, 2f. 61  Maqrīzī, Khiṭaṭ II 347, 26ff.; also Ibn Ḥazm, Fiṣal IV 202, –7ff., where it is reported of Jaʿd himself. 62  See vol. I 23 above and esp. HT 88ff. 63  In the passage in Ibn Ḥazm, Jaʿd is described as a Muʿtazilite as well. 64   anna l-ʿabd ghayr muktasib; iktasaba probably understood as a technical term (see ch. C 1.3.1.3 below). 65   Ṣubḥ al-aʿshā XIII 252, –5ff. after ʿUmarī’s Taʿrīf bil-muṣṭalaḥ al-sharīf. 66  For general information cf. E. Wiedemann, Zur Lehre von der generatio spontanea in: Naturwiss. Wochenschrift 15/1916/279ff. = Ges. Schr. (Ffm.) II 827ff. as well as Ullmann,

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described could, after all, be interpreted in different ways. In John of Damascus’ Διάλεξις Σαρακηνου̃ καὶ Χριστιανου̃ the Muslim’s objective appeared to be to prove that God created everything immediately, while the Christian pointed out that God created only “during the first week”, allowing nature to take its own course afterwards.67 Jacob of Edessa may have had the same thing in mind when he, just as it was reported of Jaʿd, mixed water and soil in a vial in order to demonstrate the process of creation.68 Alchemy, too, was seen as second creation, creation by man;69 the classical idea that wasps, dung beetles etc. come into being through abiogenesis had found its way into the writings of the Corpus Jābirianum.70 If this was the context of our tradition, it would be easier to understand why Marwān was interested in Jaʿd; after all, a governor could always use an alchemist.71 Similar expertise was ascribed to the heathen of Ḥarrān, as illustrated by – among other things – the legend of the talking head; and if we look at Jacob of Edessa’s Hexaemeron, it does not seem to be entirely impossible that alchemy was practised in Christian monasteries. Could the legends around Khālid b. Yazīd have grown up in this way? A limitless field for research indeed.72 While the relationship between Jaʿd and Marwān II remains in the dark, it is quite clear in the case of a contemporary of whom we know that he lived in Ḥarrān, Abū ʿAmr Sālim b. ʿAjlān al-Afṭas. He was a client of Marwān’s father Muḥammad, and had to pay for it with his life: the Abbasid ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAlī had him killed after his invasion of Syria.73 Like Makḥūl his father had been captured in the region of Kabul in 44/664,74 while Natur- und Geheimwissenschaften 54f. Regarding Jāḥiẓ cf. also Ḥayawān III 361, 4ff., and 369, 5ff./transl. Souami 212ff. 67   P G XCVI 1345 B–C = IV 436 Kotter; cf. Sahas, John of Damascus 152f. 68  Segal, Edessa 211. 69  Kraus, Jābir II 100: ṣināʿa. 70  Ibid. II 106ff. 71  Cf. the story of the monk whom the governor appointed patriarch because of his alchemical knowledge, in Pseudo-Dionysius of Tellmaḥrē 66, 13ff./transl. 58. 72  Cf. Ullmann in: EI2 IV 929ff, and in: Der Islam 55/1978/181ff. Regarding the issue in general cf. P. Lory, Alchimie et mystique en terre d’Islam 10ff. 73  Azdī, Ta‌ʾrīkh al-Mawṣil 139, 11ff.; Khalīfa, Ṭab. 823 no. 3076 and Ta‌ʾrīkh 613, 13; IS VII2 179, 20f.; Ibn Ḥibbān, Majrūḥīn I 342, 8ff. 74  Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 239, 4f. Probably not he himself, as the passage might also be interpreted, as he would then have lived to nearly a hundred.

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he himself, rather like Jaʿd, moved to the Jazira from Kufa.75 Father and son still bore typical slave names: “Nimble” and “Healthy”; the son was also remarkable for his flat nose. He was an administrator looking after Marwān’s possessions in the Jazira. He also impressed people with his exegetic knowledge,76 basing his arguments on Saʿd b. Jubayr whose lectures he had presumably attended in Kufa.77 The report of the latter’s martyrdom under Ḥajjāj goes back to him, too.78 Abū Ḥanīfa had met him.79 Most of the sources agree that he was a Murjiʾite.80 It is tempting to interpret this as an indication that he worked for the authorities – in this case, the wrong ones; in the Abbasids’ view he was the one looking after Marwān’s most high-profile prisoner, the “imam” Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad, and consequently in some way responsible for his death.81 However, the inverse conclusion is probably the correct one: being a Murjiʾite recommended him to Marwān who was at odds with the Qadarites.82 There were no Murjiʾites as yet in Syria at the time;83 consequently Sālim met with rejection among the Syrian dignitaries,84 but it allowed the caliph to bind him ever more tightly. – Another Murjiʾite living in Ḥarrān, Abū ʿAwn Khuṣayf b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Jazarī al-Ḥaḍramī, was a mawlā of the Umayyads as well, who served them as financial director85 and survived the revolution. Interestingly he later moved to Iraq where he died in 137/755 or 138/756.86 His reputation as a traditionist was not high among 75  Fasawī III 88, 10f. 76  Azdī 140, 1f. 77  Ṭabarī I 95, 15f., and 365, 13; Fasawī I 538, ult. ff.; cf. also GAS 1/28f. 78  Ṭabarī II 1265, 7ff. He believed him to be a Murjiʾite (Fasawī II 793, 8ff.). 79  See vol. I 227 above. 80   Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 299 no. 1949; ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ II 151 no. 653; IAH II2 186 no. 806; Fasawī II 793, 8ff. as well as III 230, apu., and 241, –4ff.; Ibn Ḥibbān, Majrūḥīn I 342, 5ff.; Mīzān no. 3056; TT III 441f. no. 814; Hady al-sārī II 129, 11ff. Nothing in Bukhārī II2 117 no. 2157. 81   Ibn Ḥajar, Hady al-sārī II 129, 15f. Regarding the event itself cf. Blankinship in: JAOS 108/1988/601ff. 82  Ibn Ḥajar, ibid. II 179, 17, describes Sālim as a Qadarite, too; this is probably an error. 83  See vol. I 159 above. 84  Particularly apparently from Maymūn b. Mihrān, who died in 117/735 (Ṭabarī, Tahdhīb alāthār: Musnad Ibn ʿAbbās 645 no. 963); cf. also Khallāl, Musnad 308, 7ff. 85   I S VII2 180, 17ff.; TT III 143f. no. 275. He is named as a Murjiʾite in ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ II 31f. no. 453; Dhahabī, Mīzān no. 2511 and Ta‌ʾrīkh V 240, –8; Ibn Manẓūr, Mukhtaṣar TD VIII 56, –8; TT, loc. cit. There is no information in the early sources: Ibn Saʿd; Bukhārī II2 228 no. 766; IAH I2 403 no. 1848; Ibn Ḥibbān I 287, 11ff. 86  Regarding the date cf. Mīzān loc. cit.

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the Iraqi experts,87 even though he possessed notes88 and had attended the lectures of the best teachers in Mecca, among them Mujāhid on his Tafsīr.89 His pupil Yūnus b. Rāshid al-Jazarī was also believed to be a Murjiʾite. He became qāḍī of Ḥarrān, and although it is not quite certain when, we may safely assume that it happened during the Abbasid era. He was no Ḥanafite; the time had not yet come when Abū Ḥanīfa’s pupils would become influential beyond Kufa. Thus his case furnishes proof that by this time Murjiʾites were welcomed in the city; the only resistance against them coming from Syrians. Bukhārī IV2 412 no. 3527, listed him as an active Murjiʾite; see also Mīzān no. 9904; TT XI 439 no. 849. Nothing in IAH IV2 239 no. 1003. Regarding him and other quḍāt of Ḥarrān at this time cf. Juynboll, Tradition 226. 2.4.2

Diyār Rabīʿa

2.4.2.1 The Khārijites It would not be considered remarkable in any case that Marwān found his officials among the mawālī of his own family, but an added consideration was that he could not really trust the Arab tribes who had settled in the Jazira. As we mentioned earlier, they had ties to the Khārijites, who probably favoured this region not least because it was mountainous and offered many places to retreat to during guerrilla warfare. Ṣāliḥ b. Musarriḥ1 and Shabīb b. Yazīd al-Shaybānī, who staged an uprising in 76/695 and fought against Ḥajjāj,2 came from here. Ṣāliḥ resided in Dārā in the Mārdīn region, which the Byzantines had called

87  Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 224 no. 1408; ʿUqaylī, loc. cit.; Fasawī II 175, 4ff. 88  Azmi, Studies 146 and 187. 89  Shīrāzī, Ṭab. 82, 6ff.; cf. also the quotation Ṭabarī I 95, 13f., and 132, 16ff. 1   This is the usual vocalisation, although Dhahabī appeared to prefer Musarraḥ (Mushtabih 591, ult.). Both forms frequently occur as names (cf. Fīrūzābādī, Qāmūs I 228, 10). Ashʿarī called the same person Ṣāliḥ b. Abī Ṣāliḥ as well (Maq. 122, 13f.; cf. Strothmann in: Der Islam 19/1931/219f.). 2  A brief description of events is included in Wellhausen, Oppositionsparteien 41ff., and Périer, Ḥadjdjâdj 109ff.; cf. also Zetterstéen in EI1 IV 261f. s. v. Shabīb; Shaban, Islamic History I 107f.; Laoust, Schismes 40f.; Morony, Iraq 477.

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Anastasiopolis;3 he was a member of the Imra‌ʾ al-Qays of the Tamīm4 and thus connected to the Muḍar. Shabīb’s family had originally come from Kufa,5 but he, too, began his activity in the region between Mārdīn and Nisibis – and probably not by accident: he was a member of the Shaybān b. Thaʿlaba, i.e. the Bakr b. Wāʾil.6 When Ṣāliḥ fell on 17 Jumādā I 76/3 September 695 on the border between Iraq and the Jazira, he was believed to have appointed Shabīb his successor – less because of his outstanding knowledge, as would be emphasised later, but because of his valour.7 Ṣāliḥ himself was buried in Mosul; his followers would continue to visit his grave there and shave their heads, maybe in imitation of the hajj.8 In fact, he holds more interest for us than his companion and heir. The warlike Shabīb aroused the historians’ interest – his death when crossing the Dujayl in Ahwāz9 was particularly memorable,10 and his style of playing cat and mouse with Ḥajjāj’s army, or allowing a woman who was either his mother or his wife, people were not quite sure later, to lead the prayer in Kufa,11 all prove that he was a more colourful character.12 Ṣāliḥ, however, was the author of a text, still extant, which is one of the oldest documents of Islamic pulpit oratory, a political sermon (qaṣaṣ) he appears to have delivered several times, and which was passed from the hands of a certain Qabīṣa b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Quḥāfī of the Banū Khathʿam, a Khārijite who collected all manner of

3  Regarding the location cf. Krawulsky, Iran 432f. 4  Ṭabarī II 880, 15. 5  Wellhausen 42, n. 1. 6  Cf. Levi Della Vida in EI2 IV 1075b. His genealogy may be found in Ibn Ḥazm, Jamhara 327, 5ff. His father had been married to a Greek woman who later lived as a widow in Mosul. 7   Baghdādī, Farq 89, –5f./110, 10ff.; regarding the date cf. Ṭabarī II 892, 8f. 8   Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif 410, 15f. > Ibn Durayd, Ishtiqāq 217, 8ff.; Wellhausen 48. For general information of the sacrifice of hair among the Semites cf. Henninger in: Die Wiener Schule der Völkerkunde. Festschrift zum 25jährigen Bestand 349ff. = Arabica Sacra 286ff. 9  Not of the Tigris, as I wrote Anfänge 128. 10  Even Christian sources took notice of it (cf. Chronica minora, ed. Chabot 232, pu. f./transl. 176, where he is named as a famous leader of horsemen, but the date and time are incorrect). The details of his death are reported in different versions (Wellhausen 46f.). 11  Cf. e.g. Baghdādī, Farq 90, 1f./111, 1f. Also Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 352, 4ff.; Ṭabarī II 964, pu. ff.; a summary in Djaït, Kūfa 251ff. Shabīb’s camp was on the salt-pan (sabakha) outside the city, where he had a mosque erected that would stand there for a long time to come (Wellhausen after Ṭabarī II 958, 5f.). 12  Regarding his uprising cf. Ṭabarī, Index s. n.; also Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 351, 2ff.; IKh II 454f. no. 288.

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materials from his environment,13 via an intermediary of the same tribe to Abū Mikhnaf, who included it in his K. Shabīb al-Ḥarūrī wa-Ṣāliḥ b. Musarriḥ.14 It illustrates very nicely how a qāṣṣ would proceed. The beginning, praise of God and professing the prophet is mainly a collection of Quranic phrases or quotations. The main section is introduced with the taqwā formula, a call to fear God that was in widespread use at the time;15 but with characteristic elements added to it. Further ideals listed are: withdrawal from the world (al-zuhd fī l-dunyā), and frequent contemplation of death. Religious reasons are then given for these but, as soon becomes clear, only as a prelude to the demand raised at the end, not to attach importance to life, to “sell” this life for the afterlife, as no-one can elude death in any case.16 For renouncing the world also means distinguishing oneself from the “evildoers” (fāsiqūn); indeed, they seem to be Ṣāliḥ’s target from the first when he begins with sura 6:1, following the praise of God with a description of the unbelievers who say that there are beings equal to their lord (bi-rabbihim yaʿdilūna).17 The verb ʿadala, used here in malam partem,18 is repeated at the very end, this time in the more common, positive sense. The antithesis was certainly produced deliberately: one must not “deviate” with regard to God, but act “justly” in accordance with the truth.19 This one may do through active protest, for while one is obliged to love the believers and would forfeit paradise otherwise,20 only fellow-believers are, in fact, believers. In order to show who they are Ṣāliḥ then presents a historical overview with which we are familiar from other early texts as well:21 all those who do not identify with the parties that have grown up around ʿUthmān and ʿAlī. While the first two caliphs followed the prophet’s sunna, ʿUthmān and ʿAlī went astray, each for different reasons.22 In the Khārijites’ view the “parties” are always the others, the negative sense of the word having been provided in the Quran.23 13  Cf. Ṭabarī II 515, 15ff.; the name to be corrected after Abū l-Faḍl Ibrāhīm’s edition. Also II 988, 9ff. 14  Text VIII 7, surviving in Ṭabarī II 882, 1ff.; cf. also U. Sezgin, Abū Mikhnaf 82f. and 191f. 15  See vol. I 18ff. above. 16  Cf. Text VIII 7, d–f with o–q. The tawqā alone is, interestingly, not elucidated further. 17  Ibid., g and a. 18  Regarding the issue cf. Paret, Kommentar 107f. on sura 4:135. 19  Ibid., r. 20  Ibid., d and h. 21  See vol. I 16 above. 22  Ibid., i–o. 23  Cf. EI2 III 513a s. v. Ḥizb; Paret, Kommentar 233 on sura 11:17. Regarding the usage of the word among the Khārijites cf. E. Salem, Political Theory 27.

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This is basically a political manifesto, with barely a trace of theology, less even than in the K. al-irjāʾ. We do not learn more from the correspondence between Ṣāliḥ and Shabīb which Abū Mikhnaf preserved in the same place; “justice” and “truth” are the watchwords.24 Still, it is characteristic that the Quran’s message was interpreted from an ascetic point of view, maybe also because the call to jihād is not directed outward, but against the Muslims themselves. Ṣāliḥ taught his followers the Quran – or Quranic recitation – and gave them lessons in religion (yufaqqihuhum), Abū Mikhnaf tells us; he abased himself before God and his face was pale – due to asceticism.25 Later, people would consider among which group he should be counted, some calling him a Ṣufrite like Shabīb; but what this really means is that they both treated their opponents in a chivalrous fashion and, despite emphasising differences, did not simply slaughter them like the Azraqites.26 Ashʿarī says, with a little disappointment, that Ṣāliḥ did not embrace any new ideas.27 Of course there were quarrels in his camp, too. When his men captured a stranger, possibly a spy, he had him executed when those among them who knew him refused to confirm that he was a Muslim; others criticised this harshness as the man himself had after all claimed to be a Muslim.28 This, of course, was a fundamental question: who can determine who has the right faith? It led to a rift that would have lasting effects. Shabīb tried to evade it,29 but was unable to avoid it altogether: during the actual battle against Ḥajjāj someone demanded a statement from him, and he decided against Ṣāliḥ, as the policing of people’s faith was very much the last thing on his mind at that moment. The inquirer, however, saw this as a betrayal and left him.30 His earlier hesitancy also harmed his reputation, and people called his followers the Murjiʾa among the Khārijites,31 in the original sense of the word: the Murjiʾites were those who had not been able to make up their minds to decide between ʿUthmān and ʿAlī. On the other hand, some Ibāḍites would later revere him so much that they called those who had left him unbelievers, i.e. did not recognise them as Khārijites anymore.32 Ashʿarī noted that to his day no Khārijite 24  Ṭabarī II 884, 12ff. and earlier. 25  Ibid. 881, 14f. 26  Cf. Ashʿarī, Maq. 118, 7f.; Baghdādī, Farq 89, 7f./110, 4f.; also the slightly confused account in Malaṭī, Tanbīh 41, 13ff./51, –7ff. (where Shabīb is confused with Shabīb al-Najrānī). 27   Maq. 118, 7, and 120, 12f. Levi Della Vida regards him as the first true Ṣufrite (in: EI1 IV 538f.). 28  Ibid. 121, 6ff. 29  Ibid. 122, 13ff. 30  Ṭabarī II 967, 6ff. 31   Maq. 123, 5ff. 32  Ibid. 123, 1ff.

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was prepared definitively to commit to him, although this was probably due to a different controversy; he had once distributed loot in a less bureaucratic fashion than was compatible with some of his comrades’ pedantic understanding of the law.33 And of course many were critical of his allowing a woman to speak publicly in a mosque.34 Shabīb’s son Ṣuḥārī also led an uprising, with Ṣufrites as his allies; this, however, took place in Iraq, in Jabbūl on the eastern bank of the Tigris, and only in the days of Khālid al-Qasrī in 119/737.35 In the Jazira, on the other hand, the situation had erupted once again much earlier in the person of Shawdhab al-Yashkurī, the “tall one” from the Yashkur tribe, who appeared on the stage shortly after the turn of the century.36 He advanced as far as the Sawād,37 but his main support came from the Rabīʿa of his home region.38 His own clan was part of the Bakr b. Wāʾil.39 ʿUmar II had sent him a letter to his hideout in Upper Mesopotamia with the Murjiʾite ʿAwn b. ʿAbdallāh being one of the messengers.40 This was reported because two of his men followed the caliph’s messenger to Damascus where they were received in audience by the caliph for what appears to have been an exchange of points of view, which would, indeed, have been the expected course of events. The result, however, was reported in differing versions, as is so often the case. The philologist Abū ʿUbayda (d. 209/824– 5), himself a committed Khārijite – whose father or grandfather came, in fact, from the Raqqa region41 – presented it as if ʿUmar had been persuaded by his visitors’ arguments, whereupon the alarmed Marwānids poisoned him on the

33  Ibid. 123, 8ff. 34  Baghdādī, Farq 89, apu. ff./110, apu. ff.; cf. also Ḥanafī, Firaq muftariqa 28, 7. 35  Ṭabarī II 1633, 9ff.; Ibn Ḥazm, Jamhara 327, 9f. Also Wellhausen 49; Gabrieli, Califfato di Hishâm 20; Cornelius, Ḫālid al-Qasrī 61ff. 36  Shawdhab is only a sobriquet; he was actually called Bisṭām. 37  Ṭabarī II 1348, 6ff.; also Wellhausen 48. The Jūkhā region mentioned there was the homeland of the Khārijites (Levi Della Vida in: EI2 IV 1075b; Morony, Iraq 137ff.). The Tigris had changed its course in this place during the late Sasanid period (Ṣāliḥ al-ʿAlī in: Sumer 27/1971/174ff.). Much earlier, Mani had been born there. 38  Masʿūdī, Murūj V 434, 2ff./IV 24 no. 2188; Ṭabarī II 13348, 9. 39  Ibn Durayd, Ishtiqāq 339, –5. 40  See vol. I 187 above. This might be the letter quoted in Ibn al-Jawzī, Sīrat ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz (printed in Ṣafwat, Jamharat rasāʾil al-ʿArab II 326f. no. 337) which is placed into the overall situation described here. It may have been a later invention as there is another letter from ʿUmar to certain Khārijites, the message of which is entirely different (Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam, Sīrat ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz 75, 1ff.). 41   E I2 I 158; more information p. 253 above.

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spot.42 In another version the elegantly conducted paradigmatic discussion resulted in the caliph being able to persuade the envoys’ spokesman to admit himself defeated, the fact that his victory ultimately led to nothing being explained with the visitor going back to confer with his companions in the Jazira where he then fell with them in battle.43 Both versions presume that ʿUmar, in keeping with his wider policy, was seeking reconciliation with the Khārijites,44 but both versions are also narrated with the knowledge that this initiative – if indeed it was taken – failed in the end. After ʿUmar’s death Shawdhab occupied the city of Mosul, killing the governor and remaining in residence there for about half a year. His success was due in part to Yazīd II’s army, under the command of Maslama b. ʿAbd alMalik, being kept occupied in Iraq by Yazīd b. al-Muhallab’s revolt; only once the latter had been eliminated was Shawdhab defeated as well, in 102/721.45 The Khārijites, however, remained an endemic problem in the Jazira. Once this had become clear, the reports of the peace conversation with ʿUmar must soon have sounded like stories from an ideal past: not even a caliph as pious and intent on reconciliation as ʿUmar had been able to get the better of them. Indeed, it is possible that this was the concept behind the stories from the outset, their only difference being the person declared the party responsible for the failure. If this were true, the stories might well have been composed in the time after 126 when, in the wake of Walīd II’s murder, law and order collapsed in Iraq as well as the Jazira. Those of truly Khārijite mind could only understand this event as meaning that the Umayyads’ unlawful regime had now compromised itself. There had been unrest earlier, too. For the year 117 or 118/735–6 Pseudo-Dionysius of Tellmaḥrē reported the uprising of a certain ʿAtīq in the Sinjār Mountains,46 and shortly afterwards, 119/737, Buhlūl b. Bishr al-Shaybānī, called Kuthāra, had appeared in the area around Mosul.47 However, it was not until after Walīd’s murder that things got out of hand entirely. A certain Saʿīd b. Bahdal took up residence in Mosul during Ramadan 126. Another Khārijite, 42  Thus in Ṭabarī II 1349, 3ff. 43  Masʿūdī, loc.  cit.; ʿIqd II 401, 1ff.; Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam, Sīra 103, 3ff. Cf. also the fictitious dialogue in Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam 142, 14ff., where the two address the caliph as “o man” (yā insān). 44  Thus, too, Ibn al-Jawzī, Sīrat ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz II 31, ult. The Khārijite ʿAmr b. Dhukayna al-Rabaʿī mocked the caliph’s weakness but promised that he would be a brother to him “once he followed the path of truth” (ʿAbbās, Shiʿr al-Khawārij no. 132, transl. Bellamy in: Festschrift Watt 147). 45  Cf. G. Rotter’s deliberations in: Amer. Num. Soc. Museum Notes 19/1974/175f. 46   Chronik 30, 12ff./transl. Chabot. 27f. 47  Ṭabarī II 1622ff.; cf. also Gabrieli, Califfato 19f.

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named Abū Karib, proclaimed himself amīr al-muʾminīn nearby; they soon came to an arrangement. Bisṭām al-Shaybānī competed against them, having found followers in Azerbaijan; he, too, occupied Mosul at one point in 127/745. After Saʿīd’s death early in 127/Oct.–Nov. 744, Ḍaḥḥāk b. Qays appeared on the stage. Having captured Kufa and Wāsiṭ, he had himself “invited” by the population of Mosul as well, and went on to kill the governor there in mid-128/746. Marwān II, who had in the meantime become caliph, put an end to his activities in Iraq in the same year, but another Khārijite immediately emerged in Mosul, Shaybān b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Yashkurī who, as his nisba tells us, came from the same tribe as Shawdhab before him. He barricaded himself in the city and could be driven out only when Marwān, returning from Iraq, advanced on him in a pincer movement. Ḍaḥḥāk even had coins minted in Mosul, as did a certain Zuhayr b. ʿAlqama who was governor of the city for another one of those mentioned. The Khārijites thus settled there quite comfortably.48 Let this suffice as a sample of histoire événementielle; we do not need to note every single name. The Abbasids found no rest, either. In 133/751 they already had to battle the first rebels in the Jazira, after which the sources are silent for fifteen years, only to report a total of eighteen uprisings between 148/765 and 317/929 in the area. There were again Shaybānis and Yashkuris among the leaders, and Mosul was frequently the city they chose as their base.49 What interests us is whether these people were mere opportunists, or whether they represented a particular theology, the precise aspect that the historical sources that mention the names do not cover, while the heresiographers tend to mention no names at all, ignoring the historical dimension altogether. Ṭabarī said of Saʿīd b. Bahdal and Ḍaḥḥāk b. Qays that the Ṣufriyya flocked to them.50 Shahrastānī, too, assessed Ḍaḥḥāk in this way; he was noticeable for not forbidding marriage with other Muslims as long as they were contracted outside the Khārijite heartland in the so-called dār al-taqiyya.51 This was probably an allowance he had had to make during his campaigns, when the strict rules evolved in 48  On the entire issue cf. Rotter, ibid. 191ff. with references. Regarding Ḍaḥḥāk b. Qays see also Forand in: JAOS 89/1969/91; regarding Shaybān b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz also Veccia-Vaglieri in: RSO 24/1949/31f. and 36f.; basic information in Wellhausen, Oppositionsparteien 49ff. In Chronographia 1597 Caetani interpreted the murgāyē of his Syriac source as “Murjiʾites”, but they are more likely to be māriqa – Khārijites. 49  Cf. the list provided by Veccia-Vaglieri 39f., n. 5, with a slightly different count. There was also Ḥassān b. Mujālid’s uprising (see p. 529 below), who is not listed there. Cf. also the note in Masʿūdī, Murūj V 230, pu. f./III 302, 7ff., and Ashʿarī, Maq. 128, 6. These were often small groups; ʿUmar’s letter presumes 40 people (Jamharat rasāʾil al-ʿArab II 327, 12f.). 50   I I 1900, 4f. 51   Milal 102, 13f./251, 3f.

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the seclusion of the dār al-hijra could not easily be applied. This decision was very controversial, with some people refusing to say the prayer of the dead over a woman who had married into the group from elsewhere and not converted to Khārijism.52 – Bisṭām al-Shaybānī, on the other hand, was a Bayhasite,53 but the Bayhasiyya, which spread mainly in Iran,54 is too complex for us to be able to determine what it implied in his case. Maybe it only means that he was as ruthless as the Azraqites;55 as for the question of marriage he probably decided like Ḍaḥḥāk and in keeping with the principles of Abū Bayhas.56 – A certain Yāsīn of the Tamīm who led an uprising in 168/784–5 followed “the principles of Ṣāliḥ b. Musarriḥ”,57 maybe he, too, was a Ṣufrite. 2.4.2.2 Mosul The rich citizens of Mosul were dependent on the tribes as the surrounding farmland bordered the steppe where nomads and semi-nomads had their grazing grounds.1 The city had grown up near ancient Nineveh; Hishām had owned a summer residence here, and his governor and brother-in-law al-Ḥurr b. Yūsuf had later furthered its development.2 The citizens were not enthusiastic about the Abbasids’ arrival; the population had hoisted the white flags and allied themselves to the Khārijites of the surrounding area in order to drive “the Persians” away.3 But the “Persians” returned just over a year later, bringing a 52  Nashwān, Ḥūr 176, 3ff. Parallel passages express this as two “sects” (Ashʿarī, Maq. 111, 6ff.; Baghdādī, Farq 87, –6ff./108, 3ff.). They are all based on the same source. Khwārizmī, Mafātīḥ 19, –5, confirms that this Ḍaḥḥākiyya did indeed go back to Ḍaḥḥāk b. Qays. 53  Rotter, loc. cit. 192 after Balādhurī; also Caetani, Chronographia 1597 after Michael the Syrian. 54  See p. 666ff. below. 55  See p. 687 below. 56  See p. 667 below. 57  Azdī, Ta‌ʾrīkh al-Mawṣil 251, pu. ff. > Ibn al-Athīr, Kāmil 52, 9ff./VI 78, 7ff.; cf. also Moscati in: Orientalia 14/1945/351. 1  Kennedy in: BSOAS 44/1981/27f. 2  Regarding the city’s early history cf., besides Rotter’s abovementioned article (esp. p. 178), Morony, Iraq 134ff., and Athamina in: JSAI 8/1986/191f.; also Fārūq ʿUmar, Buḥūth 148ff. and Ṣāliḥ al-ʿAlī, Imtidād al-ʿArab fī ṣadr al-Islām 101ff. I am aware that during the Umayyad era Mosul was administered separately from the Jazira in the narrower sense of the name (Rotter 167); it is only for the sake a coherent presentation that the city precedes Nisibis and Raqqa here. 3  Pseudo-Dionysius of Tellmaḥrē 51, 22ff./transl. 46. The Abbasids are called “Persians” throughout this text.

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great punishment over the city in 133/751, the most prominent victims of which were the ascetic Maʿrūf b. Abī Maʿrūf and his son.4 He was a traditionist and appears to have travelled widely, as he transmitted from Mujāhid, whom he must have visited in Mecca, and from Ḥasan al-Baṣrī.5 Kaʿbī called him a Qadarite, which is not improbable considering his teachers.6 The account of his martyrdom contains a topos that was also applied to Ghaylān al-Dimashqī.7 As in Basra, Qadarites and Khārijites seem to have been closely connected here. Further confirmation is provided by the information we have on the Ibāḍites of Mosul: with their Qadarite ideas they made themselves unpopular with Abū ʿUbayda al-Tamīmī in Basra.8 They formed a fairly numerous community as several of the extended families of the Azd had settled in Mosul, e.g. the Farāhīd from Uman, of whom Rabīʿ b. Ḥabīb was a member,9 who had a branch of their business there (mahājir).10 Yazīd b. al-Muhallab could count on their support.11 A prominent Azdite named Jābir b. Jabala took part in Mukhtār b. ʿAwf’s coup in the Hijaz with his entire clan, the Naṣr b. Zahrān Yaḥmad, as reported in detail by Abū Zakariyyāʾ al-Azdī in his Ta‌ʾrīkh al-Mawṣil which also informs us on the further fortunes of the family.12 Around the middle of the century we are even told of two theologians or jurists. The first one, 4  Azdī 147, 10f., and 148, 2f. > Ibn al-Athīr, Kāmil V 341, –9f./V 444, pu. f. Regarding the massacre cf. Forand in: JAOS 89/1969/92f., and F. ʿUmar, Buḥūth 152ff., and ʿAbbāsid Caliphate 311ff. 5  Azdī 153, 3ff. Cf. also IAH VI1 322 no. 1488, where he is named as Mawṣilī. The Balkhī of the same name mentioned in Bukhārī IV1 415 no. 1824, and Mīzān no. 8660, however, must be distinguished from him; he also transmitted from Jarīr b. ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd (d. 188/804). 6  Kaʿbī, Maq. 84, 5ff. (after Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Shāfiʿī) > Faḍl 338, 4 (where Abī must be added) > IM 135, 7f.; interestingly Kaʿbī lists him among the Meccans. 7  Cf. Text I 1, u with commentary. 8  See p. 233f. above. 9  See p. 228 above. 10  Azdī 93, 8f., and 96, 1. 11  Balādhurī in Athamina, loc. cit. 192. 12  77, apu. ff.; 111, 6ff.; 113, 5ff. One of his great-grandsons was Muʿāfā b. ʿImrān al-Azdī (d. 185/801) who made a name for himself as a traditionist as well as historian of his city and whose traditions were admired in Baghdad, especially by the ascetics (cf. TB XIII 226ff. no. 7198, and vol. I 263 above; also GAS 1/348 and 636). The section of Ta‌ʾrīkh al-Mawṣil even tells us how the families were distributed among the different streets.

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Abū Firās Jubayr b. Ghālib, was affiliated to the Ḥimyar. He composed a heresiographical work, but also works of legal scholarship, besides being a poet and khaṭīb. He seems to have corresponded with Mālik b. Anas, he certainly wrote one letter to him.13 Whether he was a genuine Southern Arab or whether he had joined the Ḥimyar as a mawlā had already been forgotten by Azdī’s time.14 – Besides him there was Ḥafṣ b. Ashyam who was a member of the Banū Jarm (probably of the Quḍāʿa).15 In his community he was mainly known as a jurist; he was the authority before whom the Ibāḍites concluded contracts. He also transmitted Jubayr b. Ghālib’s K. alFiraq.16 The latter boasted of having first met him at the age of only fifteen;17 Ḥafṣ must have been older or more respected – possibly because Jubayr was indeed only a mawlā. In 148/765, a nephew on his mother’s side, Ḥassān b. Mujālid of the Hamdān, led an uprising against Manṣūr about which Azdī reported in detail.18 He was a direct descendant of one of ʿAlī’s followers who had left him after Ṣiffīn. When he failed he fled to Sind or Makrān where he tried to win fellow-believers for his views.19 Unfortunately we do not know these Ibāḍites’ attitude towards the Qadariyya. Ḥamza al-Kūfī who, as the Basrans saw it, was up to mischief in Mosul with his Qadarite views, probably found followers mainly in rural areas; Abū Maḥfūẓ, a shaykh living in Basra, travelled there in order to ensure that the ignorant lambs would follow the right road once more. This happened during the forties at the earliest; possibly even slightly later.20 Furthermore, Ḥafṣ b. Ashyam and Ḥassān b. Mujālid and his entire clan lived in the countryside, in Bā Fakhkhāra, a village east of Mosul in the Nineveh region.21 Jubayr b. Ghālib lived in Kār, a kind of suburb of Mosul, also to the east of the city by the river.22 13  Ibn al-Nadīm, Fihrist 234, 1f., and 295, 9ff. 14   Ta‌ʾrīkh al-Mawṣil 206, 3. 15  Ibid. 205, –4ff. 16   Fihrist 234, 2. 17   Ta‌ʾrīkh al-Mawṣil 206, 5. 18  Ibid. 203, –4ff.; briefly also Ibn al-Athīr, Kāmil V 447f./V 582f. 19  MacLean, Religion and Society 118. 20  See p. 233 above. 21   Ta‌ʾrīkh al-Mawṣil 205, 4 and ult.; cf. also Yāqūt, Muʿjam al-buldān s. v. 22  Ibid. 206, 3, and Yāqūt s. v.

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It is by no means certain that these Ibāḍites always supported the Khārijites who were running riot in the area, nor that all the Azd were Ibāḍites. As always, small differences played a major part. One of Jābir b. Jabala’s fellow-tribesmen supported al-Manṣūr with a contingent of a thousand horsemen in the campaign against the Berber imamate in Tripoli, even bringing the caliph the head of the fallen Ibāḍite imam.23 In 202/816–17 the Azd of Mosul fell out with a south Arabian Khārijite of the Hamdān who had settled in Nineveh, and killed him.24 It is not possible to locate another jurist, named Abū Bakr Yaḥyā b. Zakariyyāʾ al-Mawṣilī (mentioned in Khamīs b. Saʿīd al-Shaqaṣī, Manhaj al-ṭālibīn I 620, –5f.), more closely. He became known because he moved to Oman. Regarding him and the later history of the Ibāḍites in this area cf. Lewicki in: EI2 III 651a. – Regarding the “Jahmites” who appeared there during the time of the miḥna see ch. C 6.3 below. Regarding the jurist and historian Muʿāfā b. ʿImrān al-Mawṣilī see n. 12 above. The sciences of tradition were represented in the city in the second century mostly by Abū Yaʿlā Aḥmad b. ʿAlī al-Tamīmī (210/825–307/919), who composed not only a Musnad but also a Muʿjam of his teachers (GAS 1/170f.). The extensive Musnad was edited by Ḥusayn Salīm Asad (vols. 1–13 and indices; Damascus 1404/1984–1409/1988). 2.4.2.3 Nisibis Nisibis, too, was part of the Diyār Rabīʿa, but it was situated much further west than Mosul around halfway to Raqqa, although slightly to the north. The city had been part of the Sasanid Empire and was home to a Nestorian academy which continued to exist until the early Islamic period, only less documented as time went on.1 Abū Nūḥ Ibn al-Ṣalṭ al-Anbārī, translator of Greek texts, was the Catholicos there at the beginning of the third/ninth century, having previously been secretary to the governor of Mosul.2 Scholarship was demonstrated 23  Schwartz, Anfänge der Ibāḍiten in Nordafrika 229ff. 24  Azdī 343, –5ff. > Ibn al-Athīr, Kāmil VI 247f./VI 349. 1  Cf. Vööbus, History of the School of Nisibis (Leuven 1965). In general cf. RGG IV 1499, and LThK VII 1010 a. v. Nisibis. 2   Among other things he produced a new translation of the first three books of the Organon which replaced that by Muḥammad b. ʿAbdallāh b. al-Muqaffaʿ (Al-manṭiq li-bn al-Muqaffaʿ, ed. Dānishpazhūh 93, –4; cf. p. 41 above). He also translated the Topics after a Syriac version produced by the Patriarch Timothy. Cf. GCAL II 118; Fiey, Chrétiens syriaques 36 and 38; Putman, Timothée I 85 and Index s. n.; Islamochristiana 1/1975/154;

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to the Muslims, but so was factional strife: the appointment of the bishop had always been surrounded with much quarrelling.3 It is unlikely that the Muslim population was very numerous during the first two centuries.4 Outside Iraq people had rather fairy-tale ideas of the city. The pious genies who, according to sura 46:29, had listened to Muḥammad’s recitation of the Quran in exemplary silence had come from Nisibis.5 Some of Mukhtār’s followers settled there, Ḥasan b. Muḥammad b. al-Ḥanafiyya was their leader for a short while.6 Later a great number of ʿAlids lived in the city,7 but it would be rash to conclude that there was a strong Shīʿite faction. The only local Muslim theologian whose name became known, Abū Ḥāḍir al-Naṣībī, is difficult to locate. Ḥākim al-Jushamī calls him the head of the “eternalists” (Azaliyya), because Abū Ḥāḍir believed that creation had been with God from the beginning, inasmuch he knew about it from the beginning.8 This might be a reflection of the Christian idea of κόσμος νοητός; even after people stopped believing, like the Kufan Shīʿites, that divine knowledge had emerged within time, it did not find much of an echo in Islamic theology.9 In the present case it was linked, unsurprisingly, to strict predestinarianism, due to which the Muʿtazilites had no interest in it. Hishām al-Fuwaṭī reacted with a distinction, providing us with a terminus ante quem.10 Ibn Ḥazm linked Abū Ḥāḍir with a certain Abū l-Ṣabbāḥ al-Samarqandī; however, the latter would seem to have

Haddad, La trinité divine 39; Endreß in GAP II 421; Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques I 525; also ch. C 1.2.3 below. 3  Morony, Iraq 349ff.; general information on the city also ibid. 131. 4  The scholars listed by Samʿānī, Ansāb XIII 115ff. s. v. an-Naṣībī are of the time from the third century AH onwards. 5  Ibn Isḥāq, Sīra 281, 11ff. 6  In more detail Rotter, Zweiter Bürgerkrieg 214ff. 7  Cf. the list of families in Ibn Ṭabāṭabā, Muntaqilat al-Ṭālibiyyīn 328, 3ff.; also Ibn ʿInaba, ʿUmdat al-ṭālib 250, 4ff. 8  Sharḥ ʿUyūn al-masāʾil I, fol. 47a.; adopted by al-Manṣūr billāh, Shāfī I 136, 12ff., and Ibn al-Murtaḍā, Munya 120, 2ff. 9  See ch. D 1.3.1 below. Regarding the idea itself cf. R. M. Jones in: Classical Philology 21/1926/317ff., and P. O. Kristeller, Die Ideen als Gedanken der menschlichen und göttlichen Vernunft (SB Heid. Ak. Wiss. 1989 no. 2), esp. p. 13ff. 10  Text XXIV 18, but Abū Ḥāḍir is not mentioned. Regarding Hishām al-Fuwaṭī’s teachings see ch. C 4.1.1.1 below.

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been half a continent away, although we have no further knowledge of him, either.11 – Also worth mentioning is a traditionist, ʿUthmān b. ʿAbdallāh al-Umawī, who certainly lived in Nisibis for a time, and may even have grown up there. He was a member of the Umayyad family; one of his two different genealogies made him a great-great-grandson of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. al-Ḥakam b. alʿĀṣ, while the other traced him back through ten (!) generations to the caliph ʿUthmān.12 He had a weakness for pro-Shīʿite hadith and consequently had the prophet speak of his family as a tree of which he himself was the root, ʿAlī a branch , and Ḥasan and Ḥusayn twigs; whoever should hold on to one of the twigs would go to paradise. However, he travelled too much to remain faithful to his principles. When he came to Khorasan he changed; he is said to have spread a pro-Murjiʾite tradition he had heard from Abū Muṭīʿ al-Balkhī.13 He settled in Nishapur, where he died towards the end of the second century. The hadith quoted sounds Zaydite, as the Ḥasanid twig was apparently just as strong as the Ḥusaynid one. This suited the Jazira quite well, as we shall see on the last stage of our itinerary. 2.4.3 Raqqa Raqqa, called Nikephorion and later Kallinikos during pre-Islamic times, and a bishopric at that time,1 was the main urban centre of the Diyār Muḍar in the west, and thus suffered much less under the Khārijites.2 Hārūn al-Rashīd was able to move the seat of his government there in 180/796, although he did this partly in order to get the hostilities between the Yaman and the Muḍar under control.3 There were certainly great numbers of Ibāḍites in the city; Muḥammad b. Saʿīd al-Qushayrī (d. 334/946), the author of Ta‌ʾrīkh Raqqa,

11   Fiṣal IV 226, pu. f. (which states explicitly that the nisba al-Naṣībī belongs to Nisibis). Regarding Abū l-Ṣabbāḥ see p. 631f. below. 12   T B XI 282f. no. 6053. Dhahabī already thought the second genealogy to be extremely improbable (Mīzān no. 5523). 13   Mīzān, loc. cit.; also Suyūṭī, La‌ʾālī I 38, –5ff., and 42, apu. ff. (cf. p. 605 below). 1  Regarding the history of the city in this time cf. Honigmann in EI1 III 1196f., and D. Sturm in: Hallesche Beiträge zur Orientwissenschaft 1/1979/35ff. Another translator who understood Syriac came from here (Ibn al-Nadīm 305, 5f.). 2  Regarding Arab immigration cf. Ṣāliḥ al-ʿAlī, Imtidād al-ʿArab fī ṣadr al-Islām 98f. 3  EI2 III 233a.

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cites a statement of Sufyān al-Thawrī’s (d. 161/778) in evidence.4 Unfortunately this orthodox – and also badly preserved – text does not have much information about the religious circumstances in the city otherwise. The Qadarites are included, e.g. Saʿīd b. Abī ʿArūba, whose Muṣannaf reached Raqqa from Basra through Khalīl b. Murra (d. 160/777),5 or Ṭalḥa b. Zayd al-Qurashī from Damascus who had settled near the city and probably brought his Qadarite views with him.6 Abū l-ʿAbbās al-Walīd b. al-Walīd b. Zayd al-ʿAnsī al-Qalānisī, who had studied in Damascus under the Qadarite exegete Saʿīd b. Bashīr and in Ḥimṣ under ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Thābit b. Thawbān, does not occur at all.7 All these Qadarites were fairly moderate. It is more remarkable that the Shīʿites were ignored, as there was a whole range of them, evidence of which emerges when the population opposed Muʿāwiya’s title khāl al-muʾminīn.8 Around 120/738 a canvasser for Zayd b. ʿAlī had appeared in the city, a client of the Banū Hāshim named Yazīd b. Abī Ziyād (d. 136/753–4 at the age of 90), who had studied under Ibn Abī Laylā in Kufa.9 Later, presumably back in his home city of Kufa, he prepared the way for the Abbasids – possibly unwittingly – by transmitting the so-called “banner hadith” according to which salvation for “people of the house” would come from the east under black banners.10 Raqqa probably had a Zaydite community from that time onward, but more extreme Shīʿites also settled there, and the reason why the Abbasids felt quite safe in the city is that a full 25 years before Hārūn moved his government there, Manṣūr had had his crown prince al-Mahdī build the new city al-Rāfiqa on the model of Baghdad. 2.4.3.1 Sulaymān al-Raqqī We are only able to infer the existence of a Zaydite community, as it produced a theologian who was one of the greatest minds of the second century and, although isolated within his own community, gave a number of impulses for later developments: 4  P. 63, pu. ff. 5  Ibid. 112, 1ff. (read ʿArūba instead of ʿAmrōya); also 127, ult. ff. Cf. p. 72 above; regarding Khalīl b. Murra cf. Mīzān no. 2672. 6  See p. 372 above. 7  Regarding him IAH IV2 19 no. 82; Ibn Ḥibbān, Majrūḥīn III 81, 5ff.; Ibn Muhannā, Ta‌ʾrīkh Dārayyā 122, 1. Mīzān no. 9417 calls him a Qadarite. 8  Khallāl, Musnad 190, 9ff.; cf. vol. I 27 above. 9  Abū l-Faraj, Maqātil 145, 13ff.; regarding him see also Ardabīlī, Jāmiʿ II 341. 10  ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ IV 379ff. no. 1993 > Mīzān no. 9695; Dhahabī, Ta‌ʾrīkh V 313, apu. ff.; Ibn Khaldūn, Muqaddima, transl. Rosenthal II 172ff.; also Nagel, Untersuchungen 133, 5, and Madelung in EI2 V 1233. Regarding the black banners see p. 555 below.

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Sulaymān b. Jarīr al-Raqqī al-Jazarī.1 The story of his life is entirely obscure, probably mainly due to his background, as only the Kufan Zaydites were recorded in those days. In addition, unlike them he was not active as a traditionist. Strangely, not even Zaydite sources pay any attention to him; after all, he was a successful theologian with followers of his doctrine in ʿĀnāt on the Euphrates, halfway between Raqqa and Baghdad.2 He was also said to have paid homage to Yaḥyā b. ʿAbdallāh b. al-Ḥasan who travelled around Iraq and Persia after the fiasco of Fakhkh in 169/786 and began to be active in Daylam from 175/792 onwards.3 Still, the key to understanding may be just here. Yaḥyā had agreed to an amnesty promised him by the Barmakid Faḍl b. Yaḥyā as governor of the entire east. Even so, he was finally sent to prison in Raqqa on Hārūn’s orders; Shaybānī fell out of favour at times because he refused to find legitimation for this felony in the law.4 Sulaymān b. Jarīr, on the other hand, did not go to prison, but appeared in a long story regarding a discussion he had with Hishām b. al-Ḥakam before Faḍl b. Yaḥyā’s father, the vizier Yaḥyā b. Khalīd. Sulaymān played the part of the villain, asking Hishām a trick question that discredited his Zaydite views at the same time.5 This is probably pure fiction, its objective perhaps to point out that he was not a Zaydite any more by that time. According to a report, occasionally attributed to Zayd b. ʿAlī’s learned grandson Aḥmad b. ʿĪsā and circulating among the Zaydites in particular, he was supposed to have had a hand in the murder of Yaḥyā b. ʿAbdallāh’s brother Idrīs who had been able to escape to the Maghreb and found support with “Muʿtazilite” tribes. This would have been 177/793; Idrīs I died in late Rabīʿ I 177/mid-July 793.6

1  The nisba al-Raqqī is documented in Nawbakhtī, Firaq 9, 6; Maqdisī, Badʿ V 133, 5, and Nashwān, Ḥūr 148, 9. 2   Khayyāṭ, Intiṣār 68, 6f. The sources call his followers either Sulaymāniyya (thus Isfarāʾīnī, Tabṣīr 33, 1/28, –4; Ṣafadī, Wāfī XV 360, 2 etc.) or Jarīriyya (thus Maqdisī V 133, 5; Masʿūdī V 474, apu./V 45, 13 etc.; misspelt in Nashwān 150, pu.). 3   van Arendonk, Opkomst 59ff.; cf. 73 and 291. 4   Abū l-Faraj, Maqātil 468, apu. ff.; also the reports in Ibrāhīm b. Hilāl al-Ṣābiʾ, Abū l-ʿAbbās al-Ḥasanī and Muḥallī (in: Madelung, Arabic Texts concerning the History of the Zaydi Imams 17, 2ff.; 55, 5ff. and 173ff.) as well as al-Manṣūr billāh, Shāfī I 232ff. Cf. also van Arendonk, Opkomst 62f.; Madelung, Qāsim 51, Dasūqī, Shaybānī 86ff.; cf. also ch. C 1.4.1 below. 5  Kashshī 259, 4, and 261, 9ff. Cf. also Strothmann, Staatsrecht 34; van Arendonk 73; Madelung, Qāsim 62f.; also vol. I 412 above. 6  Ibn Abī Zarʿ, Rawḍ al-qirṭās (ed. Tornberg, Annales regum Mauritaniae) 23/transl. Beaumier 21.

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Still, most of this cannot be verified. Lévi-Provencal showed that there is also an earlier date for the death of Idrīs I: the earliest source, Rāzī’s Ta‌ʾrīkh, dating it to 174 (Islam d’Occident 14). The dates of his son Idrīs II also vary, and the date of his birth in particular, which took place after his father’s death, cannot be determined. D. Eustache decided in favour of 175 (EI2 III 1031f.) in both cases, as did Huici-Miranda in his translation of Rawḍ al-Qirṭās (I 46). At that time Yaḥyā b. ʿAbdallāh would still have been in Daylam. Of course, the chronological connection between father and son does not need to be taken quite so seriously. The pregnant slave who gives birth to the successor to the throne after his father’s death is a topos found a number of times, e.g. in the context of the twelfth imam; in the present case it may have been employed to legitimise Idrīs II’s claim to the throne, or more likely that of his guardian and regent Rashīd. As for the murderer and his course of action, there is even more confusion. Aḥmad b. ʿĪsā b. Zayd is an authority quoted only in Zaydite sources. He claimed to have heard from a Berber via his uncle al-Ḥusayn b. Zayd that Sulaymān b. Jarīr – and that he was the mutakallim is emphasised explicitly – did away with the ruler by giving him a poisoned fish (van Arendonk 58, n. 5; Madelung, Qāsim 62). Abū l-Faraj attributes (Maqātil 490, 6ff.) the same version to Dāwūd b. al-Qāsim al-Jaʿfarī, a great-greatgrandson of Jaʿfar b. Abī Ṭālib’s, who was a court official deported from Baghdad to Samarra in 252/866 together with all the other Ṭālibids, where they were taken into custody (Ṭabarī III 1682, 3ff., and 1683, 16ff.). He died in Samarra in Jumādā I 261/Feb. 875. He certainly was not a contemporary of the events (TB VIII 369 no. 4471; also Ṭabarī III 1522, 17f., and 1617, 13; also Ṭūsī, Fihrist 131 no. 280; Najāshī 113, 5ff; Ardabīlī I 307). There is another, much more colourful version, according to which Sulaymān used poisoned perfume and was wounded during his flight in a duel with Rashīd; he was marked by his crippled hand henceforth. This version also tells us that in order to curry favour with the Berbers he gave lectures on Zaydite doctrine (Maqātil 489, 1ff., after which, abridged further, Ibn ʿInaba, ʿUmdat al-ṭālib 158, 2ff.). This version goes back to another court official with Shīʿite leanings, Abū l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Muḥammad b. Sulaymān al-Nawfalī, who had heard it from his father. The latter had lived through the uprising of 145 (Maqātil 338, –4ff.). The isnād is frequent in Ṭabarī, in K. al-Aghānī and in Masʿūdī (GAS 1/312; Prozorov, Istoričeskaja literatura 181; Ardabīlī 602a). In a third version the perfume (ṭīb) becomes a physician (ṭabīb) who poisons Idrīs with a tooth powder. His name is not Sulaymān b. Jarīr but al-Shammākh, and he is a mawlā of al-Mahdī’s. He was said to have been

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appointed postmaster of Egypt later in recognition of his deed (Maqātil 490, 1ff.). Abū l-Faraj heard this from ʿAlī b. Ibrāhīm al-ʿAlawī, a late descendant of Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn, who wrote a K. akhbār Yaḥyā b. ʿAbdallāh b. Ḥasan and a K. akhbār ṣāḥib Fakhkh (Najāshī 186, 4ff. > Ardabīlī I 545b). Ṭabarī included this account in a slightly divergent form and anonymously, with al-Shammākh bearing the nisba al-Yamāmī (III 561, 7ff.; after him Ibn al-Faqīh, Buldān 81, 15ff./transl. Massé 99f., Ibn Taghrībirdī, Nujūm II 59, 8ff., and Ṣafadī, Wāfī VIII, where Yamāmī is misspelt as Yamānī). According to Ibn Ḥabīb, Asmāʾ al-mughtālīn 197, 8ff., the murderer came from Medina, which would correspond to the nisba. Everything else is based on these eastern traditions (which are, of course, entirely nebulous when it comes to detail): the information in Baghdādī for instance (Farq 232, 1f./241, 10f.) and especially sources from the Maghreb (cf. Arendonk 58, n. 5; Talbī, Emirat Aġlabide 370; Ibn alKhaṭīb, Aʿmāl al-aʿlām III, transl. Castrillo 121f., which points out misspellings of the name Sulaymān b. Jarīr). Rosenthal was the first to suggest that the Abū l-Ḥasan al-Nawfalī adduced by Lévi-Provençal might be Abū l-Faraj’s very authority (Historiography 506, n. 1). In his Ḥulla al-siyarāʾ Ibn al-Abbār made this quite clear by using the nisba al-Raqqī; on the other hand when he came to Shammākh he misread al-Yamāmī as alMishmāsī (I 52, 6ff. Monés). Occasionally we find someone attempting to resolve the contradiction of the names by claiming Shammākh was Sulaymān b. Jarīr’s sobriquet, passing over the incompatibility of the nisbas in the process (thus Ibn Khaldūn, ʿIbar IV 7; adopted by Nāṣirī, K. alistiqṣāʾ, transl. Archives Marocaines 31/1925/18). Folklore added a further shift; the story went that Idrīs was murdered by a Jew named Shlomo ben Shemma (presumably = Sulaymān b. Shammākh) (D. Cazès, Essai sur l’histoire des Israélites de Tunisie, Paris 1888). However one assesses the accuracy of these stories,7 the fact that they were included in so Zaydite a source as Abū l-Faraj’s Maqātil al-Ṭālibiyyīn shows that Sulaymān b. Jarīr’s reputation in the later Zaydiyya was not great; nobody appears to have attempted to clear the man from the provinces of the accusation. And this even though we know from Ashʿarī, who actually read a book of his,8 that his intellectual achievement was impressive. Ashʿarī preserved many 7  H. L. Beck, L’image d’Idris II (Leiden 1989) is probably justified in considering them literary fiction (p. 42ff.). 8  Maq. 73, 5f. This may have been the source of the quotation 64, 5–15, in which Sulaymān discusses the “Imāmiyya” (Text III 11; cf. p. 538f. below).

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details of his “system” which appear to have become famous through Jaʿfar b. Mubashshir’s converting the people of ʿĀnāt to Muʿtazilite ideas.9 Sulaymān had attacked the Rawāfiḍ quite harshly; presumably events in Kufa looked even more scandalous and chaotic when viewed from the Jazira. His using the term Rawāfiḍ says enough:10 they were probably those who by “refusing” were responsible for the continual defeats of ʿAlid pretenders. More than that: he had no time for their imams, either; at least since Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq, which makes him more radical than the Butriyya, who had transmitted from Jaʿfar and only quarrelled with the Rawāfiḍ concerning the correct interpretation of his teachings. This was an internal Kufan discussion; in the case of Sulaymān, on the other hand, we find Shīʿite thought that was not tied to Kufa and that had no interest in the “imams of the Rāfiḍa” – especially because they did not even attempt to usurp the power. They had their party (shīʿa), but it was isolated an on the wrong track. Clearly, not even the word shīʿa had a particular ring to Sulaymān b. Jarīr. Those people within the Shīʿa whom he liked he appears to have called Imāmiyya.11 He could not, of course, ignore developments in Kufa, but to him they were intrigue, and as he did not have any contact with Medina he blamed the imams. He was aware that in Kufa, dicta would habitually be attributed to the imams without inner legitimation, and were often contradictory, but he did not regard this as the result of internal Kufan debate, believing on the contrary that the imams had agreed to every single dictum and thus precipitated the chaos. This he could understand: if someone was asked for information again and again, and at the most diverse times – presumably mainly before and after the hajj – he would not be able to be entirely consistent. What he did find outrageous were the excuses the imams offered in order not to be caught out in an untruth: they claimed that God had willed it differently (badāʾ) or that they had to be on their guard for their own or their community’s sake (taqiyya). In this way they could claim whatever they liked; there was no criterion of truth any more.12 To say it once again, the interesting thing about this argumentation is its direction. It would have been easy for Sulaymān b. Jarīr to exculpate the imams and hold their Kufan adepts responsible for the confusion, but criticism of Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq began to emerge even in Kufa; ʿUmar b. al-Riyāḥ had 9  Intiṣār, loc. cit.; cf. also ch. C 4.2.1. 10  Text III 6, a. This was not merely the heresiographers speaking, as illustrated by the fact that Nawbakhtī would never have referred to his own party as the Rawāfiḍ. 11  For more information see p. 538f. below. 12  Text III 6 a–g.

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been annoyed that the imam was said to have exercised taqiyya with regard to his own followers.13 It is true that Sulaymān b. Jarīr’s approach was new mainly because he added the “change of mind” (badāʾ) as a second excuse on top of the taqiyya. This is not entirely conclusive when Nawbakhtī expressed it as: if God has changed his mind it was because something happened differently from the way it was predicted; the chaos, however, was caused mainly by incorrect legal advice.14 There were two reasons for this contradiction. Firstly, Sulaymān was aiming less at the legal confusion than at the doctrine of the imams’ omniscience; they claimed, he said, that like the prophets God told them of past and future, and that therefore they were free to say whatever they liked.15 Secondly, Sulaymān’s protest was primarily political, as the Kufans mainly employed the theory of badāʾ to explain why Jaʿfar’s successor-designate Ismāʿīl had died too early, and why Abū l-Khaṭṭāb’s uprising had failed.16 This may have been the reason why the Butrites as well as Sulaymān b. Jarīr attracted followers.17 In Sulaymān’s case, this was not necessarily immediately after Ismāʿīl’s death. While we can assume that none of the newly-converted “Zaydites” defected to Mūsā al-Kāẓim, there would still be time for a gathering of the disappointed later. Sulaymān would certainly have been quite young: if he lived to join the Barmakids’ circle, we must allow him a further 35 to 40 years.18 This could also be deduced from the doctrines he embraced. While his ideas of the imamate were close to those of the Butriyya, there is also something not found, and not really to be expected in the first half of the second century, among the latter’s teachings: theology in the true sense of the word, a doctrine of the attributes. Thanks to Ashʿarī’s having adopted passages from Sulaymān’s works we are able occasionally to go beyond the heresiographers’ schematic ideas in both these issues. Sulaymān’s self-image within the framework of the idea of the imamate appears to become clearer in a doxographical passage in which he distinguished between two groups of “Imāmites”.19 The first one was identical 13  See vol. I 327f. above; it is possible, however, that ʿUmar b. al-Riyāḥ came from Basra (see p. 482 above). 14  Regarding “permitted or prohibited”; cf. Text III 6, d. 15  Ibid., b and f. Once again he is of the opinion that this point of view was not so much ascribed to them as in fact espoused by them. 16  Cf. vol. I 365f. above. 17  Nawbakhtī 55, 13f. and previously > Qummī 77f. no. 102. Cf. also Brentjes, Imamatslehren 15. 18  The sentence Text III 6, h, is entirely arbitrary. It sounds as though the split had already happened at the time of transition between Muḥammad al-Bāqir and Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq, but this is due only to Nawbakhtī’s thinking in generations of imams; the subsequent sentence leads directly on to the section on Jaʿfar’s succession. 19  Text II 11.

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with the Butriyya,20 while he considered himself to be part of the second one. In the latter’s opinion ʿAlī did not, as the Butriyya believed, renounce his claim to leading the community in favour of Abū Bakr and ʿUmar; on the contrary, he kept “the entire faith”, i.e. the decision in all religious issues, in his hands, thus retaining the leadership, albeit secretly. It then passed from him to his closest family, the ahl al-bayt, consequently both of them must have been blessed with protection (ʿiṣma) from sin. Being thus free from sin does not seem to have implied omniscience as the Rāfiḍites claimed for their imams. The latter are not considered at all, as in Sulaymān’s view their doctrine was a separate Kufan development. “Imāmites” to him were Shīʿites of the old school; people who followed, or wished to follow, an imam, but only an imam who did not look on like a quietist, but one who fought for his rights and who commanded respect.21 This self-designation (which may also have been used by the Butrites) is not documented elsewhere; as we know, the Rafāwiḍ would claim it for themselves later. We must, however, note that Sulaymān does not mention himself at all in the relevant passage, and that syntactically the attribution of individual opinions is not always entirely unambiguous.22 Still, other doxographical records appear to confirm our hypothesis. A chronologically close passage in PseudoNāshiʾ (i.e. presumably Jaʿfar b. Ḥarb) lists the references he employed to support the precedence of the ahl al-bayt: sura 33:33, the ordeal by curse in sura 3:61, and the hadith according to which the Quran and the holy clan are guarantors of guidance. All of these were adduced by the Kufan Jārūdiyya as well, and indeed he is quite close to them overall.22a The mubāhala guaranteed Fāṭima’s key position at the same time, which Butrites such as Ḥasan b. Ṣāliḥ took for granted by this time.23 Common sense demanded awarding the wuld Fāṭima the rule; particular respect had always been shown to them.24 Being free from sin as such is not directly discussed here, but in other passages we learn that in Sulaymān’s view, ʿAlī was above misdeeds. Still, one 20  See vol. I 275f. above. 21  Madelung, Qāsim 63 after al-Ḥajūrī, who was probably referring to Kaʿbī in his turn. According to him, Sulaymān also used the phrase muftaraḍ al-ṭāʿa which became characteristic of the Zaydite idea of the imamate (cf. vol. I 298f. above; regarding Sulaymān cf. also Kashshī 261, –5). 22  I am assuming a change in the subject towards the end (11, g–h; cf. the commentary on the passage). 22a  Text III 7, k–n. Regarding the arguments in detail see vol. I 297ff. above. 23  See vol. I 287. above. Sulaymān’s adducing an exegetic hadith of Shīʿite origin with regard to sura 33:33 (l) proves that he was referring to an already established tradition. 24  Text III 7, n.

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should not blame uneducated people, and consequently the majority of the Sunnites, if they did not believe this; it could only be understood from tradition, and special training was required to distinguish true from false in this matter. However, he continued, no report that seemed to imply wrongdoing by ʿAlī could stand up to a critical examination.25 By not electing him its leader after the prophet’s death, the community forfeited the very option that would have been conducive to its welfare (aṣlaḥ);26 paying homage to Abū Bakr and later ʿUmar was an error (khaṭa‌ʾ).27 On the other hand Sulaymān did not wish to put the ṣaḥāba in the dock; he refused to agree with the Jārūdiyya and the Rafāwiḍ declaring them grave sinners (fussāq) or unbelievers,28 as the words in which the prophet had indicated ʿAlī as his successor had not been binding, but rather a recommendation.29 In this situation humans are obliged to come to their own conclusion. And while the conclusion they reached was wrong, it does not mean that they were guilty.30 Here as in many other points of his political theory, Sulaymān’s views approach those of ʿAlī b. Mītham.31 Maybe he was inspired in Basra by ʿUbaydallāh al-ʿAnbarī’s tenet of kullu mujtahid muṣīb; after all, there was hardly a more fitting maxim for a Zaydite. On the other hand we cannot rule out that it was the author of the account who was responsible for this correspondence; elsewhere ijtihād was replaced with ta‌ʾwīl: the ṣaḥāba did not come to an entirely independent conclusion but rather interpreted certain of the prophet’s sayings wrongly.32 And finally he presented a third model: Abū Bakr was elected as the result of shūrā, informal consultation among the important representatives of the community (khiyār al-muslimīn). The consultation was, as could not be denied, rather hurried, but it is sufficient if only two people meet in these circumstances. Again, this is pure construction, and again maybe not on 25   Text III 8, i–k. As the text suggests the examination was aimed less at the contents than as the person reporting, or the isnād. 26  Text III 8, g. 27  Text III 7, c, and 8, f. 28   Regarding the Jārūdiyya cf. Text III 21, e–g; different still the Kufan Nuʿaymiyya (see vol. I 310f. above). The difference between it and the Jārūdiyya is noted in Maqrīzī, Khiṭaṭ II 352, 26ff.). 29  Text 7, e. The prophetic dictum quoted previously (b) in this context does indeed not sound very convincing, resignedly foreseeing ʿAlī’s failure . 30  Text 7, f. 31  At least if we identify him as the Ibn al-Tammār of Text IV 63 (regarding the issue see p. 482f. above). This passage mentions Sulaymān together with him. 32  Text 8, f, after Zurqān, who based his account on the source Nawbakhtī used, too (cf. the commentary on the passage).

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the part of Sulaymān but rather the heresiographers.33 All of this conveyed that Sulaymān was not aware of a binding appointment by the prophet, a naṣṣ, or that he did not believe in it.34 The hadiths adduced by the Rafāwiḍ concerning the issue, such as the account of the conversation by Ghadīr Khumm, were valid in Kufa only. It seems that Sulaymān did use the word naṣṣ, but with a much broader meaning: to denote every prophetic dictum that was unambiguous enough to be seen as binding. He apparently also subsumed Quranic commandments under this term, as the examples adduced include prayer rules and how to determine the qibla (cf. Text 8, d–e). This recalls the conceptual language of the uṣūl al-fiqh; it has no connection with the doctrine of the imamate. – If Sulaymān did not believe in the decree of appointment and considered paying homage to Abū Bakr an excusable mistake, it is probable that the view attributed to him in Abū Yaʿlā, Muʿtamad 254, 6f., was formulated on the basis of an incorrect model. While we must agree with Gimaret that this passage should read Sulaymān b. Jarīr rather than Sulaymān b. Ḥarb (cf. Doctrine d’al-Ashʿarī 550, n. 6), claiming that our Zaydite believed one had to know the imam personally and by name is probably overstating the issue. The counterpart is provided by the Jārūdiyya of whom it was said that while they did presuppose a naṣṣ, it was one without taʿyīn and tasmiya (cf. Text III 23, a; also vol. I 297.) The shūrā theory was revealed as a fiction as soon as it was applied to the election of the second caliph, as ʿUmar was appointed by Abū Bakr, and the “best among the Muslims” had no part in it, not even two of them. This was probably the reason why Sulaymān, as Kaʿbī reported, added that the ruler (imām) could appoint his successor himself, but this decision would not be binding on the community, and it would be preferable if he did not do it. In the case of ʿUmar the community’s paying him homage seems to have evened things out.35 In the case of ʿUthmān, the situation was reversed. While he was elected properly by shūrā, the transgressions he committed during the later years of his caliphate 33  The impression is reinforced in the same context by categorising Sulaymān’s views with regard to the opposition of imāmat al-fāḍil and imāmat al-mafḍūl (Text 8, a–e). Baghdādī insinuates that Sulaymān was influenced by the analogy with the marriage contract that also requires two witnesses (Uṣūl al-dīn 281, 5f.). 34  Thus already van Arendonk, Opkomst 74, n. 1; Madelung, Qāsim 63f. 35  Quoted in Madelung, Qāsim 64; cf. also Baghdādī, Uṣūl al-dīn 285, 16f.

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led him to become an unbeliever.36 Thus unlike the early Butrites, Sulaymān did not refrain from judging him (tawaqquf);37 rather his attitude recalls that of Ḥasan b. Ṣāliḥ b. Ḥayy – and also ʿAlī b. Mītham.38 His condemnation probably also served as juristic legitimation for the actions ʿAlī and others took against the caliph.39 ʿAlī’s opponents in the battle of the camel were viewed similarly: they did not recognise the true imam, who had emerged from his occultation,40 and consequently they were unbelievers.41 Of course this argument was invalidated by the fact that all those he condemned in this way, ʿUthmān as well as Ṭalḥa and Zubayr and also ʿĀʾisha, had already been promised paradise by the prophet; the first three being counted among the ʿashara al-mubashshara, and ʿĀʾisha was not easy to condemn, either.42 The account demonstrating the dilemma is isolated and its origin unknown; we do not know how it was resolved in the end.43 ʿAlī’s conduct during the arbitration also became a problem, as the result appeared to prove that his decision to allow it had been wrong. Doctrine, on the other hand, demanded that he could not have been in error. Sulaymān believed that ʿAlī had complete insight into the situation but had feared mutiny in his army and had thus ultimately allowed himself to be led by his concern for the unity of all Muslims. The prophet, too, had had to compromise, e.g. in Ḥudaybiya, when he even surrendered one of his followers to the Meccans for the greater good. If anyone erred in the arbitration it was the two arbitrators, as they did not obey ʿAlī’s order to adhere to the Quran and the Sunna.44 There can be no doubt that when one applies the criteria of the later systematists, Sulaymān must be counted among the Zaydites, but correspondences with the Basran Imāmite ʿAlī b. Mītham demonstrate that in fact we are looking at an example of how the Shīʿa evolved outside of Kufa. Anthropomorphism, 36  Text III 8, h, with the parallels listed; also Ḥākim al-Jushamī (cf. Madelung, Qāsim 63, n. 128). The phrase that Sulaymān’s followers “renounced” ʿUthmān (Text 8, g) probably means the same. 37  See vol. I 276 above. 38  See p. 484f. and vol. I 287 above; also Text III 2, g, with commentary. 39  Thus Madelung, Qāsim 63. 40  Cf. Text III 11, e. 41  Text 7, h. Nawbakhtī clearly equated ʿUthmān with ʿAlī’s opponents (Firaq 9, 9). Regarding the reasons cf. Madelung, Qāsim 63. 42  Text 9. 43  The Butriyya apparently also faced this, and the report cannot be easily classified there, either (see vol. I 276 above). 44  Text 10. A pupil of Sulaymān’s, it was reported, instead used the term taqiyya with reference to ʿAlī. Sulaymān, who disliked this term intensely, would have disapproved.

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which in Kufa included the Zaydiyya, held no interest for Sulaymān.45 His doctrine of the attributes, on the other hand, the second characteristic feature of his theology, proves that he cannot quite be defined through Basran categories, either. In fact, he was probably not yet able to refer to a Basran model. Certainly there is no doctrine of the attributes among Aṣamm’s works, and Abū l-Hudhayl was probably younger than Sulaymān. Most importantly, unlike the Muʿtazilites he believed that all the attributes had existed with God since all eternity.46 This corresponded to what Abū Ḥāḍir in Nisibis had said of divine knowledge; Khayyāṭ even listed it as typically Zaydite doctrine with reference to this attribute.47 Sulaymān now unfolded it: God’s willing and not-willing are eternal,48 as are his delight (riḍā) and his “wrath”,49 his friendship and enmity50 – his love and hatred.51 These were the points where the Muʿtazilites noticed the difference more than in the case of divine knowledge; after all, to them, these were activities that had evolved in time. Al-Hādī ilā l-ḥaqq, himself a Zaydite but strongly influenced by Muʿtazilite thought, emphasised the consequences clearly: someone can behave like a believer, but still be the object of divine wrath and hatred as God has the foreknowledge that he will lapse into unbelief at the end of his life.52 Ḥākim al-Jushamī said the same thing of Abū Ḥāḍir. Like the latter, Sulaymān was a predestinarian, teaching, as Strothmann put it, “the original and unconditional election by divine grace”.53 The same phrase is used when describing the doctrine in the Khārijite context; Madelung pointed this out (in: Isl. Philos. Theology 125f.), although those who thought like this were not at home in the Jazira but in Sijistān and Khorasan (see p. 651f. and 664 below). Consequently they may be ruled out as influences. The emphasis on the abovementioned pairs of opposites is typical of the early period (see ch. D 1.3 below). Sulaymān’s asking the question of how the eternal attributes functioned in relation to God shows us that he probably went beyond “eternalists” like Abū 45  Text III 13, a. 46  Ibid., c. 47  Text IV 41, a. 48  Text III 12, h; van Arendonk, Opkomst 82. 49  Text 12, i; also 17. 50  Text 17. 51  Text 15, b. 52  Text 16. 53   Staatsrecht der Zaiditen 34, n. 1.

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Ḥāḍir. If he reacted against Hishām b. al-Ḥakam’s concept of the temporality of the divine being, he must have known Hishām’s theology and could not overlook the question. And indeed he used the latter’s “formula”: the attributes are neither identical with God nor distinct from him.54 They are as “something” (shayʾ) to him, based on which a certain adjective (“knowing”, “powerful”, etc.) can be predicated on him;55 even so, it is not possible to say that all these are “somethings” (ashyāʾ) independently of him, as it were.56 Expressed without terminological niceties this sounded rather clumsy to educated ears, which is why Muʿtazilite sources sometimes replaced shayʾ with maʿnā, a term more directly linked to the concept that the designated entity does not have existence of itself. All the same, incorrect associations occurred here as well.57 Further problems could be found in the theory. Sulaymān had to make an exception: God’s “face” is entirely identical with God, a paraphrase of his person.58 The formula does not apply in this case, as otherwise it would have been an invitation to anthropomorphism.59 Basran Muʿtazilites soon asked the question how, under these circumstances, the attributes functioned with regard to one another; Abū l-Hudhayl adopted the formula in this context.60 It seems that Sulaymān neglected this aspect, but he did consider the special case of whether divine omnipotence and divine omniscience might sometimes collide: is it possible to say that God has the power to do something which he knows he will never perform? In his view this is mainly a matter of logical thought; one must take care not to ask absurd questions. If one knows that God will not do something – whether because he has left no doubt in his revelation, or whether reason forbids it – it would be nonsensical to ask after it once again. The case would be different when one does not know; then the question is permissible – but only due to the limitations of the human horizon. God, who knows everything, knows in any case whether he will do something or not; on his level the question would consequently always be absurd. Asking whether God knows he has the power to do something which he knows he will never perform makes sense only if it is reflected back onto the human level with 54  Text 12, a, c, e; 13, b; 15, a–b. Regarding the argumentation cf. 13, d; also vol. I 439. 55  Text 12, b and d; 13, b. This appears to be true even of non-Quranic attributes: God is existing (mawjūd) because of existence (wujūd; cf. Text III 14, commentary). 56  Text 12, f. 57  Text 14–15 with commentary. 58  Text 12, g. 59  Thus also in Zayd b. ʿAlī’s apocryphal Quran commentary, based mainly on Abū Khālid al-Wāsiṭī (cf. Madelung, Qāsim 58 and 65). We are not told of Sulaymān’s opinion of other anthropomorphisms; he probably simply ignored them. 60  See ch. C 3.2.1.3.4.2 below; in general also Oriens 18–19/1965–6/117.

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reference to an unreal case for human ignorance’ sake and with the answer: he would have the power if he knew he was going to do it, and he would know it, if he was going to do it.61 There can be no doubt that in Sulaymān’s view God does not have the power to do something contrary to his prescience, but it was not advisable to express it like that. Should one agree to a debate on the issue, the opponent’s point of view would have to be adjusted from the beginning. Some Muʿtazilites, such as Murdār, thought along the same lines.62 For them, the issue was always directly linked to the question of whether God was able to lie or to do wrong, a question Sulaymān was believed to have considered as well, and answered accordingly. Of course it is possible that the sources simply felt the need for conformity.63 Sulaymān apparently understood attributes of act as polar; however, they do not originate in God’s reacting differently to human actions but rather they are, similar to jamāl and jalāl to the later mystics,64 two sides of his essence. In truth they are a unity: God’s wrath against the unbelievers is identical with his delight in their punishment; if he wants something it implies that he does not want the opposite.65 It seems to have been pointed out to Sulaymān – or his pupils – that in this case God’s wrath against the unbelievers would also have to be identical with his delight in the believers, but Sulaymān did not allow this change of object. Presumably he saw these attributes as inseparably linked to their objects in eternity due to divine prescience.66 He does not appear to have mentioned other divine activities that would soon become problematic for the Muʿtazilites, such as the act of creating; it is possible that creating to him was part of divine will. He certainly did not speak of “attributes of act” explicitly. While Ashʿarī uses the terms ṣifāt al-nafs and ṣifāt al-dhāt in connection with him, they do not seem to have an opposite, and it is possible that they were in fact merely imposed on his theory.67 The advantage of Sulaymān’s model was that he did not have to say that God willed human sin. God only wills good; it is what he has delighted in since the beginning of time. Sin, on the other hand, he has never willed.68 While 61  Text 18, d–m; also van Arendonk 83. 62  See ch. C 1.4.3.2.1 below. 63  Text 18, a–c. Of course this, too, was about the collision of two eternal attributes, omnipotence and justice. 64  Cf. Meier, Fawāʾiḥ al-jamāl 79ff. 65  Text 12, h–i. 66  Ibid., k; also van Arendonk 82. Regarding the interpretation see also Madelung, Qāsim 65. 67  Text III 12, e, with commentary. 68  Ibid., h; also Madelung 64.

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Sulaymān was a predestinarian, he was not a determinist, as was confirmed when he looked at the same problem from the human side. Humans are capable of an action only at the moment of performing it, but the ability was not created together with the action but precedes it, being required by the actual action.69 In truth it is an inalienable part of the human while he is sound in mind and body, a component part (baʿḍ) of the body and associated (mujāwir) with it like the colour of its skin, but not on the outside but rather mixed with it, just like oils are mixed and cannot then be separated again.70 The passage in Ashʿarī, Maq. 586, 7–10, is a crux: “A doxographer reports that a traditionist taught: whatever is divine knowledge in the Quran71 we do not call created, nor do we say that it is something distinct from God. Commandments and prohibitions written in the Quran, on the other hand, are created. The man in question reported this of Sulaymān b. Jarīr. In my opinion it is wrong.” Madelung (Qāsim 65f.) and Allard (Attributs divins 148) claimed this for Sulaymān, Madelung adding the remark that it “corresponded to his teachings” in order to invalidate Ashʿarī’s concluding remark; Allard not even commenting on it. Still, in my opinion this is not the relevant aspect at all, as it seems to me that Sulaymān is not quoted here as the author of the doctrine but as a doxographer, in which case a more precise translation would be: “The man in question reported this on the authority of (ʿan) Sulaymān b. Jarīr”.72 After all, Sulaymān was anything but a traditionist, but the doctrine is said to have been formulated by one. Ashʿarī has a similar report on Ibn al-Mājashūn immediately before (586, 5f.); this passage might refer to him as well (regarding him see p. 780 below). Strothmann fell victim to another misunderstanding. In: Der Islam 11/1921/273 he refers to Griffini for a Radd ʿalā man zaʿama anna l-Qurʾān qad dhahaba baʿḍuhū that al-Hādī ilā l-ḥaqq directed against Sulaymān (Masʾalat al-radd ʿalā Ibn Jarīr), but a comparison with Majmūʿa al-fākhira

69  Text III 19, a–c. Characteristically simplified by Ibn Ḥazm, Fiṣal III 22, 11 and previously: humans possess istiṭāʿa at the time of action only. 70  Text 19, d, after a work by Sulaymān that Ashʿarī read himself; also Text 20; cf. Arendonk 84. 71  This probably refers to, as the opposition between “commandments and prohibitions” illustrates, the statements on events in the past and the future that are unknown to humans. 72  Brentjes, Imamatslehren 15, has the same translation as Madelung and Allard.

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shows that this mixes two different texts, the first one on p. 239ff. is nothing to do with Sulaymān (cf. also GAS 1/564 no. 2); while the second one is simply the abovementioned refutation of Sulaymān’s doctrine on divine delight. In legal matters Sulaymān demonstrated independence as well. We may assume that he would not have applauded Rāfiḍite idiosyncrasies such as the prohibition of masḥ ʿalā l-khuffayn or of consuming eel. Still, he, too, had his peculiarities – if we are to believe an entirely isolated account in Saksakī.73 He prohibited consuming fish altogether,74 and also hares’ meat.75 He permitted men to marry more than four women at once,76 and to borrow a female slave for the purpose of sexual intercourse; divorce, on the other hand, he considered effective only if it had been pronounced in front of two witnesses. If someone wished to deconsecrate himself early during the hajj, Sulaymān believed he had to shave the hair of his entire body in expiation, even his beard; someone sacrificing had to add some of all his hair. There was a judge in Mecca who, Saksakī asserted, put all these remarkable exegeses into practice, showing how far Sulaymān’s influence reached. If al-Hādī ilā l-ḥaqq wrote against him, this was only because there were people even in Yemen who believed Sulaymān’s teachings. Indeed, it is a Yemeni source which informs us of the only extant name of a pupil of his: ʿAmr b. al-Haytham. He was said to have been a canvasser for ʿAbdallāh b. Mūsā, a nephew of alNafs al-zakiyya who never emerged from obscurity and lived to a high old age,

73   Burhān 42, 10ff., where his name is given incorrectly as Jarīr b. Sulaymān al-Raqqī. 74   ḥūt. Or is he referring to a particular kind, as opposed to samak? 75  There is an alleged dictum by Shaʿbī which may document hare being taboo in Kufa even before Sulaymān b. Jarīr. Sunnites regarded it as related to Judaism (Ibn Taymiyya, Minhāj al-sunna 2I 20, 10, and 16, 4f.; cf. Deut. 14:7). It was widely observed among the Imāmites, too (cf. e.g. Sharīf al-Murtaḍā, Rasāʾil I 293, –5ff.; Ibn Ḥamza, Al-wasīla ilā nayl al-faḍīla 75, 4, and 77, –6; al-Ḥurr al-Āmilī, Wasāʾil al-Shīʿa XVI 319 no. 20f.; further references in Cook in: JSAI 7/1986/232ff.). It was even regarded as shibboleth (cf. the story recorded by Ibn Baṭṭūṭa II 353, 3ff. Sanguinetti/transl. Gibb II 468). Imāmite jurists, however, seem reluctant to delve into the issue, as the custom was not easy to justify. General information in K. Müller, Pseudo-islamische Sektengebilde 331ff., and J. B. Bauer in: RAC XIII 662ff. 76  Ibn Ḥazm reported that some Imāmites considered up to nine wives to be permissible, presumably with reference to the prophet’s own practice (Fiṣal IV 182, –7f.).

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possibly dying as late as 247/861.78 He believed in the Quran’s createdness, but was said to still have criticised Ibn Abī Duwād because of the miḥna.79 He could thus not have died before 220/835; consequently he is not linked to the traditionist Abū Qaṭan ʿAmr b. al-Haytham from Basra who died in 198/814; furthermore, the latter was a Qadarite.80 This confirms that Sulaymān’s place was during the second half of the second century; he was presumably slightly younger than Hishām b. al-Ḥakam.81 2.4.3.2 Extreme Shīʿites One reason why Sulaymān al-Raqqī’s political theory joined the forces of common sense against the Kufan Rāfiḍa may have been that the latter had some adherents even in Raqqa. As early as the beginning of the century there were “slayers” haunting the town who drowned their victims’ screams with dogs’ barking and other noise.1 During Sulaymān’s lifetime Abū Sulaymān Dāwūd b. Kathīr b. Abī Khālida al-Raqqī al-Kūfī taught in the mosque there.2 He was a client of the Asad of whom Imāmite sources hinted that he was one of the “pillars”, i.e. the chief authorities of the ghulāt.3 He is indeed listed in the K. al-haft wal-aẓilla as a transmitter of esoteric doctrine;4 he was not afraid of allegorical exegesis,5 and he was one of those who found references to the Imams in obligatory commandments in the Quran on the subjects of prayer, zakāt, etc.6 He claimed to have heard 78  Regarding the latter Abū l-Faraj, Maqātil, Index s. n., and Madelung, Qāsim 75 and Index s. n. 79  Ibn al-Wazīr, Tarjīḥ asālīb al-Qurʾān 28, 3ff.; cf. also Madelung in: Festschrift Löfgren 42. 80  See p. 85 above. 81  A tradition found in Murtaḍā, Amālī (I 180, 10ff.), according to which he met Abū l-­ Hudhayl in Samarra, is certainly apocryphal. Samarra was not founded until 223/838, which would be too late even for Abū l-Hudhayl (see ch. C 3.2.1.1 below). 1  Jāḥiẓ, Ḥayawān II 265, 8, and earlier. 2  Ibn Ḥazm, Jamhara 302, 5f.; cf. ch. C 1.4.2 below. 3  Najāshī 112, –7ff.; Ṭūsī, Fihrist 131ff. no. 281 (with a commentary by ʿAlam al-Hudā); Ardabīlī I 307ff. Sunnite biographers, if they are aware of him at all, simply list him as majhūl (IAH I2 423 no. 1928; TT III 199 no. 380). 4  Haft 28, 3 Tāmir/37, –5 Ghālib. 5  Biḥār XXVI 277f. no. 19. 6  Ibid. 303 no. 14; cf. also 309 no. 12.

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this from Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq whom he exalted in miracle stories and fantastic narratives.7 He also referred to him for the claim that the spirits of the imams and the prophet reach God’s throne on the eve of every Friday;8 Muḥammad, ʿAlī and the imams were the first to say “Yes” during the alast-covenant in the pre-existence.9 However, as he only visited Kufa occasionally, and soon was not considered a canonical authority any more, there was no interest in his biography; later, it would be impossible to reconstruct it. He was known to have received a letter from ʿAlī al-Riḍā in prison once,10 which resulted in the conclusion that he must have died shortly after him at the beginning of the third century. His lifespan was greatly extended by this, in particular as he was also said to have quoted from Muḥammad al-Bāqir.11 One might attempt to resolve the difficulty by dating the contact with ʿAlī al-Riḍā to before the latter’s journey to Ma‌ʾmūn in Marv. It seems that Mūsā al-Kāẓim informed Dāwūd, who was by then an old man, of his successor ʿAlī.12 However, it is probably even more complicated, as Dāwūd does not seem to have transmitted from Mūsā al-Kāẓim at all. If we are not entirely mistaken, he was a “Sevener”. He pointed out a prophecy by Muḥammad al-Bāqir to ʿAlī al-Riḍā according to which the seventh one would be the qāʾim, whereupon ʿAlī al-Riḍā explained to him that al-Bāqir had prudently added in shāʾa llāh.13 This is probably a parallel to Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq assuring his followers that Dāwūd b. Kathīr was to him as Miqdād b. Aswad to the prophet;14 Miqdād having been a close confidant of ʿAlī’s,15 which made him the guardian of the prophet’s legitimate successor. In the same way Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq, the sixth imam, presented Dāwūd as ready to serve the seventh. This was certainly not Mūsā al-Kāẓim, as outside Kufa people only converted to his ideas gradually.16 Interestingly 7  Thus in numerous passages in Biḥār al-anwār, esp. vol. XLVII (98 no. 114; 100 no. 119f.; 104 no. 129; 111ff. no. 149; 138, –6ff.; 159 no. 277); also LIX 340f. no. 7. 8  Ibid. XXVI 96f. no. 36. 9  Ibid. XV 16 no. 22. 10   Biḥār XLIX 269 no. 12. 11  Kashshī 408, 2f. 12   Biḥār XLIX 23f. no. 34. 13  Kashshī 373 no. 700. 14  Ibid. 402 no. 750f.; 407f. no. 765f. 15  Regarding him cf. Halm, Gnosis, n. 278 and Index s. n.; also Juynboll in: EI2 VII 32f. s. n. al-Miqdād b. ʿAmr. 16  Did this refer to Ismāʿīl? In a tendentious Imāmite tradition Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq has Dāwūd al-Raqqī testify to Ismāʿīl’s death as the first witness from among thirty (Nuʿmānī, Ghayba 327f. no. 8/2227, 14ff.).

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Najāshī has Dāwūd as the author of a K. al-ihlīlaja.17 The “Myrobalan” is a book frequently attributed to Mufaḍḍal al-Juʿfī, who was said to have written it to Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq’s dictation.18 The contents are quite conventional: the imam converses with an Indian physician who is pounding a myrobalan in the mortar in order to prepare a remedy and uses this as his starting point to rock the latter’s faith in the eternal existence of the world. This, however, only applies to the “orthodox” version transmitted in Imāmite tradition.19 The Druze would still use the word ihlīlaj as a watchword.20 There may well have been other versions; certainly other authors of a text of this name are suggested.21 Dāwūd’s legal notes were preserved by Ibn Abī ʿUmayr in Baghdad. He had received them from Ḥasan b. Maḥbūb, who had also been interested in ʿAlī b. Riʾāb’s,22 taking us to the era of Hārūn.23 This was the time when Dāwūd b. Kathīr was seen lecturing in the mosque of Raqqa, which indicates that he was probably older than Sulaymān al-Raqqī. As late as the second half of the fourth/tenth century Muqaddasī had the impression that the majority of the population in the city followed the Shīʿite path.24

17  112, ult.; also a K. al-Mazār. 18  Cf. Halm in: Der Islam 55/1978/222f. 19  Biḥār III 152ff. Regarding the medicinal uses of the myrobalan cf. Ullmann in WO 9/1977/108, and Rufus von Ephesos über die Gelbsucht 84. 20  Petermann, Reisen 145. 21   After Najāshī 19, –4f. e.g. Ismāʿīl b. Mihrān al-Sakūnī, a nephew of Bazanṭī (regarding him see vol. I 450 above) or Ḥamdān b. al-Muʿāfā al-Ṣabīḥī (Halm in: Der Islam 58/1981/81f.). The most likely author of the original version is Muḥammad b. al-Layth, a secretary of the Barmakids (see ch. C 1.2.3 below). 22  Ṭūsī, Fihrist 133, 1f.; cf. vol. I 448 and 451. above. 23  Ibid. 24   Aḥsan al-taqāsīm 323, 16.

CHAPTER 3

Iran 3.0

General Preliminary Remarks

When the Arabs set foot in Iran, they were on much less familiar ground than in Syria or Iraq. They had no cousins living here, and no-one spoke their language. The religions they came across were frequently positioned beyond the Quranic image of history, and for the first time they were faced with genuine heathens again, as they had been in Mecca. Many Arab immigrants owned vast country estates appropriated out of Sasanid crown land, but they still lived, not least for reasons of personal safety, in the cities.1 Only the Khārijites went to the countryside; they were frequently not welcome in the cities, and because of their egalitarian ideology they found it easier to mingle with the indigenous rural population. There were many of them in various regions; they had settled during the Umayyad era and had then been widely dispersed in the numerous government campaigns against them. Unlike in the Hijaz or in Iraq, they had not merely caused temporary unrest in Iran, but had taken root, with the result that they were less a political danger than a factor of religious life in general. Evaluating individual religious phenomena as well as the development as a whole is difficult. The available sources are much sparser than in the regions we have discussed so far. Even in the cities it is difficult to establish a coherent and balanced picture. As the Muslims were usually in the minority, local influences carried considerable weight; Iran in the early Islamic period was the classic country of syncretism.2 The large number of Khārijites, the Ḥanafite predominance in the law, and the peripheral position meant that hadith did not develop until late;3 the caliphs’ law that had superseded the Quran in Syria, allowing hadith to spread there as well as in Iraq, did not even reach Iran. Even 1  But cf. p. 572 below. 2  Cf. in particular the Iranising sectarian movements which have inspired the scholarly community to divergent interpretations ever since Gh. H. Sadighi’s dissertation (Les mouvements religieux au IIe et IIIe de l’Hégire; Paris 1938), most recently B. Scarcia-Amoretti in: CHI 481ff., and E. L. Daniel, Political and Social History of Khurasan 125ff.). The progressive assimilation of the Arab population was already described colourfully by Wellhausen (Arab. Reich 306ff.). 3  Thus determined for Khorasan by Reinert, Tawakkul 246; cf., however, the list of hadith booklets only surviving in Iran in Ḥākim al-Naysābūrī, Maʿrifat ʿulūm al-ḥadīth 164, 2ff.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi ��.��63/9789004344020_003

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so, the impulses from the centre of the empire never stopped. The governors as well as part of their armies and officials came from Iraq; local families had connections there as well. The Kufan Ḥanafites discovered Iran as a developing country for legal purposes. Later the local scholars would start travelling, too; like their Spanish colleagues, local culture was not enough to sate them. Influences were extremely diverse in the vast space between Azerbaijan and Transoxiana. We know most about the east, mainly because that was where the Abbasid rebellion started, and from then on the Khorasanians became a dominant force in Iraq. The interest Baghdad historians developed in the rebellion served to throw light on events surrounding it which would have passed unnoticed in other parts of Iran.

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3.1

Eastern Iran

The armies conquering eastern Iran came from the Basran camp, but at a time when Basra had not yet developed its own theological profile. The movement that shaped the region in general was the Murjiʾa, which had already taken root by the time Abū Ḥanīfa’s pupils arrived. As in Kufa it was not favourably inclined towards anthropomorphic tendencies, although these were not Shīʿite here, and it does not really seem as though the delimitations had been drawn very sharply. The environment in which people lived in Transoxiana alone showed that it was possible to have different ideas on images of deities. Zoroastrianism had not taken root quite so firmly here, being in competition with Buddhism whose monasteries were spread throughout the country; Nawbahār’s complex in Balkh was only one prominent example.1 There were also any number of Manichaeans and shamanists. People had grown accustomed to tolerance more than elsewhere.2 Consequently the new religion did not meet with fundamental opposition; after all, to a Buddhist the difference between Islam and Judaism or Christianity would not have appeared very significant at first. Old border lords and new occupying armies (muqātila) joined forces against the Turks.3 It seems that this led to numerous conversions in the Iranian upper class,4 but of course not every convert immediately learned Arabic, resulting in the question of whether it was permissible to recite the Quran in Persian, too. Unsurprisingly the Ḥanafite school was the only one to answer this in the affirmative.

1  Regarding Buddhist temples in central Asia in the early Islamic period cf. e.g. Belenickij, Zentralasien (transl. G. Doerfer in: Archaeologia mundi) 136ff.; regarding the monastery complex of Fundūkistān (Afghanistan) dating from the seventh/eighth century cf. Dupree in EIran I 537f.; regarding monasteries in Tirmidh cf. Staviskij, Kushanskaja Baktrija (Moscow 1977); in general EIran IV 492ff., art. Buddhism. Regarding the exemplary position occupied by Nawbahār cf. Bulliet’s theory in: Iran 14/1976/140ff.; Russell in: Iran Nameh 1/1983/678, n. 20, disagrees with this view. For more information see p. 572 below. 2  Belenickij 198. In more detail Barthold, Vorlesungen 16ff., 51ff., and 70ff.; also Emmerick in: CHI III 949ff. Only the central Asian Turks would later shit on the Buddha statues’ heads in an attempt at demonstrating their impotence (cf. Dankoff in: JAOS 95/1975/69 after Kāshgharī). 3  Thus Daniel, Khurasan 173. 4  Bulliet attempted to show by means of a graph that conversions in Iran began very early (Conversion 23; cf. the comparison with other religions in Th. Glick, Islamic and Christian Spain in the Early Middle Ages 283).

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Relevant material collected by Tibawi in: MW 52/1962/4f. and 7f.; Brunschvig in: Mélanges Massé 54ff., and Richter-Bernburg in: JAOS 94/1974/63; general information by Paret in EI2 V 429. Later, when the Shāfiʿites began to compete with the Ḥanafites in Iran, they used this as a welcome point of controversy; the Sharīf al-Murtaḍā discussed the contrast in his Masāʾil Nāṣiriyya (MS Princeton ELS 2751, fol. 176b; also Bāqillānī, Nukat al-Intiṣār 337ff. and Juwaynī’s caricature in IKh V 180, 8ff., esp. 180, ult.). A Persian translation of the Quran survives in an unusually magnificent manuscript in Shiraz (ed. ʿAlī Rawāqī, Teheran 2535/1976). The Qurʾān-i Quds, a codex from Mashhad recently edited in facsimile by the same editor (1–2, Teheran 1364 SH/1985), contains an interlinear translation which is of great interest to linguistic history (cf. already Lazard, La langue des plus anciens monuments 122). Cf. also the fragment with the text of Sūrat al-Māʾida with a Persian interlinear translation edited in facsimile by Aḥmad ʿAlī Rajāʾī after a fifth-century (?) manuscript (Teheran 1350 SH/1971). First conflicts were social and grew out of this very situation: new Muslims demanded equal rights. They found support from the Murjiʾa who had maintained the required anti-authority attitude ever since Ibn al-Ashʿath’s uprising which had, after all, found its end in eastern Iran.5 When ʿUmar II had become caliph his reformist ideas encouraged people to complain about the governor al-Jarrāḥ b. ʿAbdallāh, the same man who would later cause outrage in Armenia with his cruelty.6 Twenty thousand mawālī served in the army without their names being entered in the paylist (bilā ʿaṭāʾ wa-lā rizq), it was said, and just as many converts were forced to continue to pay the poll tax. The man pointing out these grievances was himself a mawlā; later, however, people were not sure who he had been, whether Abū l-Ṣaydāʾ Ṣāliḥ b. Ṭarīf al-Ḍabbī or a certain Saʿīd al-Naḥwī.7 A true Arab was also reported to have supported the cause: Abū Mijlaz Lāḥiq b. Ḥumayd, a Kufan of the Sadūs who had come to Khorasan with Qutayba b. Muslim and died some time after the turn of the century while Ibn

5  Regarding the following in general cf. Madelung, Religious Trends13ff.; also B. Składanek, Doktryny i ruchy społeczno-politiczyne “Wieków Milezenia” (pol. VII–pol. IX w.) 155ff. 6  See vol.  I 84f. above. 7  Ṭabarī II 1353, 15ff. The nisba al-Naḥwī is not linked to grammar in this case but refers to the Banū Naḥw, a subtribe of the Azd (Samʿānī, Ansāb XIII 52, 6ff.).

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Hubayra was governor (102/721–105/724).8 He, too, branded the unjust taxation, although his emphasis was different: the money did not benefit the province itself. ʿUmar was said to have promised to change the practice, but then died immediately afterwards.9 This is a literary topos10 which only tells us the people’s greatest concern, although it does name the correct people: a brother of Saʿīd al-Naḥwī was murdered as a “Murjiʾite” and because of his insubordinate behaviour by Abū Muslim thirty years later,11 and in 110/729 Abū l-Ṣaydāʾ achieved tax equality for his clients, apparently mainly Sogdians, for a short time. Things did not go well for long, and when he had to resort to force, Thābit Quṭna came to his aid. They were both taken to prison in Marv.12 Six years later, what they had started was resumed with even greater intensity by Ḥārith b. Surayj. He, too, was believed to be a Murjiʾite,13 but he soon became so radical that more moderate people, such as Saʿīd al-Naḥwī’s brother Khalīd, kept a prudent distance.14 He hoped “to destroy the walls of Damascus’, and he unfurled the black banners announcing the rule of justice and the restitution of the prophetic sunna.15 When ten years later two of his envoys visited the caliph Yazīd III who had himself staged a revolution and promised reforms in his accession speech,16 they apparently asked Abū Ḥanīfa in Kufa for a letter of recommendation to a prominent courtier in Damascus.17 The relevant official, whom Ḥārith b. Surayj had entrusted with proclaiming his Sīra – presumably his manifesto – shortly before the

8  Ibid. II 1354, 12ff., and 1356, 3ff. Regarding him cf. Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 488, 11ff., and Ṭab. 831 no. 3113; also 499 no. 1708, although 106 is far too late to be the correct date of his death. “During ʿUmar II’s caliphate” (IS VIII2 157, 20f.), on the other hand, is too early. 9  Ṭabarī II 1368, 1ff. 10  Cf. the parallel passage vol. I 98f. and p. 523f. above. 11  See p. 616 below. 12  Ṭabarī II 1507, 8ff.; cf. also van Vloten, Recherches 23; Wellhausen, Arab. Reich 280ff.; Gabrieli, Califfato di Hishâm 41ff.; Madelung in: Der Islam 59/1982/33.; Hawting, First Dynasty of Islam 80 and 85f.; Athamina in: Der Islam 65/1988/273ff. Regarding Thābit Quṭna see vol. I 189ff. above. 13  Ṭabarī II 1575, 10f., and 1576, 9 (in a poem by Naṣr b. Sayyār; cf. the translation in van Vloten in: ZDMG 45/1891/167f.). 14  Madelung, loc. cit. 34. 15  Ṭabarī II 1919, 2ff. 16  See vol.  I 94ff. above. 17  Ṭabarī II 1867, 9ff. Regarding Ḥārith b. Surayj cf. Kister in EI2 III 223f., and Daniel, Khurasan, Index s. n.; also Madelung, Religious Trends 17f.

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decisive battle,18 was a “Murjiʾite” who shaped the theological direction of the region like no other: Abū Muḥriz19 Jahm b. Ṣafwān. 3.1.1 Jahm b. Ṣafwān Like Ghaylān al-Dimashqī or Jaʿd b. Dirham, Jahm b. Ṣafwān was only a mawlā; he had associated himself with the Banū Rāsib.1 However, he was so emancipated as to be able to represent his master’s party against Naṣr b. Sayyār during an arbitration.2 Being able to persuade his opponent Muqātil b. Ḥayyān3 to declare Naṣr to have lost his position and to suggest restructuring the distribution of power through shūrā may not have worked in his favour with the governor. When he was captured in 128/746, not even the fact that he had sworn friendship with the son of Naṣr’s chief of police Salm b. Aḥwaz could save him from execution.4 He always, as his opponents saw it, engaged in subversive activities; even in the heat of battle Ḥārith b. Surayj’s troops – i.e. presumably specially trained functionaries – tried to win over the opposing side by means of moral and religious arguments.5 Jahm was a qāṣṣ,6 and not even Muqātil b. Sulaymān who, working in the same field, had been significantly undermined by him in Marv,7 could not help admiring his rhetorical skill. He only pointed out that Jahm had never attended a scholar’s lecture, or gone on the pilgrimage.8 18  Ṭabarī II 1918, 8ff. This document had been proclaimed publicly everywhere (ibid. 1920, 19f.). Regarding the meaning of sīra see p. 797 below. 19  Regarding his kunya cf. Ṭabarī II 1924, ult. 1  Ibid. II 1918, 8f. 2  Ibid. 1919, 15ff. Ḥārith b. Surayj himself was a pure-blooded Arab (Ibn Ḥazm, Jamhara 231, 10ff., which has incorrect Shurayḥ instead of Shurayj). 3  Regarding him see p. 573ff. below. 4  Ṭabarī II 1924, 12ff.; regarding Salm al-Aḥwaz’ function cf. ibid. 1918, 10f., and Akhbār al-ʿAbbās 244, 8. Yazīd b. Hārūn claimed that the execution took place in Isfahan (Ibn Baṭṭa, Al-ibāna al-kubrā, MS Dār al-kutub, ʿaqāʾid 181, p. 315, –5f.), but considering the great distance from the hub of the uprising this is not very likely. According to another tradition Jahm was killed in the battle of Salm and buried in Marv (Ibn Manẓūr, Mukhtaṣar TD VI 51, 3f.). Bukayr b. Maʿrūf, who would become qāḍī in Nishapur later (see p. 679 below), claimed to have seen Salm cutting his head off (in the battle) (Lālakāʾī, Sharḥ uṣūl iʿtiqād ahl al-sunna 381 no. 638). For a summary on him cf. Dhahabī, Ta‌ʾrīkh V 56ff. Cf. Khālid al-ʿAsalī’s study Jahm b. Ṣafwān wa-makānatuhū fī l-fikr al-islāmī (Baghdad 1965). 5  EI2 III 224b. 6  Ṭabarī II 1919, 17. 7  See p. 581 below. 8  TB XIII 162, 2f. Admiration of his oratorical skills (his excellent Arabic?) also from Ibrāhīm b. Ṭahmān in: Abū Dāwūd, Masāʾil Aḥmad 269, 11ff.

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This was directed at Iraqi ears. Jahm, it implied, was a provincial, and indeed, it is not certain whether he ever left Khorasan. The account of his debate with Abū Ḥanīfa in Kufa is apocryphal,9 as is, of course, the story according to which even his wife was able to disconcert the famous law teacher with her deep remarks.10 The only extant fragment of his writings shows how much he was at home in the east; it discusses the changing relations between Persians, Turks, and Byzantines.11 He apparently lived in Tirmidh for a long time spreading his teachings; they remained influential there for generations.12 Compared to this it is insignificant whether he was originally from Balkh as Samʿānī tells us.13 Ibn Ḥazm’s insisting on giving him the nisba al-Samarqandī is probably irrelevant, as Ibn Ḥazm was a Spaniard.14 The only lead worth following leads to Ḥarrān. Ibn Ḥanbal was thought to have heard from some wuld Sāsān, i.e. Persians (regarding the usage see ch. 3.3.6 below), that Jahm came from this region (Khallāl, Musnad 420, 4ff.; cf. also Cook, Dogma 151). Jahm’s being listed with the nisba al-Khazarī in one instance (Ibn Kathīr, Bidāya IX 350, 12, maybe after Ibn ʿAsākir) might have been misread from al-Jazarī. His rejection of the divine attributes recalls Jaʿd b. Dirham’s transcendentalism, but for this reason in particular it is possible that the report traced to Ibn Ḥanbal was merely one of those attempts that link Jaʿd to Jahm (cf. p. 512f. above). After all, Ibn Ḥanbal’s Radd ʿalā l-Jahmiyya states, as usual, that Jahm came from Tirmidh (29, 3ff./transl. Seale 97). The claim elsewhere that he was banished there (Ibn Kathīr, Bidāya IX 350, 13) is entirely unsubstantiated, as he appears to have been an official there, looking after the river crossing (Bayhaqī, Al-asmāʾ wal-ṣifāt 539, 1; Lālakāʾī, Sharḥ 380, ult.; Dhahabī, ʿUlūw 193, 10; Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, Ijtimāʿ al-juyūsh 107, 7f.); he probably policed border crossings and collected taxes from merchants. Ibn Baṭṭa’s anecdote (Ibāna 91, 10ff.) that has him search “in Syria” for a God to worship, is pure fiction. 9  Muwaffaq b.  Aḥmad, Manāqib Abī Ḥanīfa I 145, 5ff.; Kardarī, Manāqib I 186. Cf. n. 29 below. 10  See vol.  I 219f. above. According to a different tradition she was conversing with the wife of Makkī Ibrāhīm al-Balkhī (Dhahabī, Al-ʿulūw lil-ʿAlī al-Ghaffār 318, 5f.); he died in 215/830! (IS VII2 105, 10). – Lālakāʾī would later claim that Jahm came from Kufa (Sharḥ 380, 11). 11  Jāḥiẓ, Manāqib al-Turk in: Rasāʾil I 82, 3ff. 12  Thus Kaʿbī in ʿAskarī, Awāʾil II 126, apu., or Samʿānī, Ansāb III 437, 9; cf. also p. 626 below. 13   Ansāb, loc. cit. 14   Fiṣal II 129, apu.; IV 204, –6; V 56, 3. Also Mīzān no. 1584.

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Consequently early observers preferred to connect him to eastern Murjiʾite tradition. Nawbakhtī mentioned the “Murjiʾa of the Khorasanians”,15 drawing a parallel with the Iraqi Ghaylāniyya.16 Ḍirār b. ʿAmr, too, polemicised against the Ghaylāniyya together with the Jahmiyya in one of his writings.17 Nawbakhtī saw similarities in the theory of government while Ḍirār probably looked at the concept of faith. The eastern heresiographer Yamān b. Riʾāb18 placed Jahm in the succession of Abū l-Ṣaydāʾ, in whose school the question had been asked of whether it was possible to infer a person’s religion from his outward demeanour, as after all someone might act like a believer while he was an idolater at heart. The inverse case was also imaginable: someone following the “tyrants” must have renounced God and was thus perceivable as an idolater, but he did not deny the resurrection, paradise etc.19 The “tyrants” were probably the Umayyads and their unlawful governors; the doctrine reflecting the dilemma of a political group who, because it attributed particular power of salvation to following Islam, was particularly committed to the rights of new converts, but found itself obliged at the same time to fight against Muslims and maybe even ally itself to non-Muslims. Similar claims would then be made about Jahm.20 However, we are immediately faced with the same difficulty as in nearly all points of Jahm’s teachings: we cannot be sure whether we are looking at a back-projection. There were Jahmites in Iran until at least the end of the fourth century; at that time they were documented not only in Tirmidh but also in Nihāvand in the Jibāl province, ancient Media, where an Iranian prince would convert them to Ashʿarism with military force.21 In Iraq they gained influence, and consequently publicity, through Bishr al-Marīsī; the doctrine would be attributed to him – or to Ibn al-Rēwandī, who was dependent on him in this area.22 Furthermore the circumstances explaining the minimalist concept of faith continued to exist for a long time, with Transoxiana remaining a destination for missionaries for centuries. Naṣr b. Sayyār accused Ḥārith b. Surayj’s followers of not praying;23 and as late as the end of the 15   Firaq al-Shīʿa 6, 15f. > Qummī 6, 3f. 16  Ibid. 9, 14ff. > Qummī 8 § 28; similar Pseudo-Nāshiʾ, Uṣūl 62, § 105. Also Brentjes, Imamatslehren 49. 17  Catalogue of Works XV, no. 19. 18  Regarding him see p. 671f. below. 19  Adopted from Kaʿbī in Ḥajūrī, Rawḍat al-akhbār, fol. 145a, 1ff. 20  Text XIV 1, e; 3. 21  Baghdādī, Farq 200, 5ff./212, 9ff. 22  Cf. Text XX 29, e, with commentary; also ch. C 2.4.1 below. 23  Ṭabarī II 1576, 4, in the same poem in which he described them as Murjiʾites (transl. by van Vloten in: ZDMG 45/1891/167f.).

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fourth century Muqaddasī would meet Murjiʾites who did not possess a mosque, and did not consider the general ablution necessary after sexual intercourse,24 i.e. people who might have claimed to be believers in their hearts, even though they behaved like “idolaters”. At that time it was particularly the converted Turks who were noticeable for their superficial knowledge of Islamic technicalities.25 Jahm’s standpoint is frequently simply reduced to his not believing the creed to be constitutive, but that faith consisted in acknowledging God’s existence, and unbelief consequently in ignorance of God (al-jahl billāh).26 Both take place in the heart, with the other parts of the body not involved.27 The profession of faith, on the other hand, is expressed by the lips or, as they would say, by the tongue. It is secondary, as it presumes instruction by prophets, even though the angels had been believers long before any prophet had appeared on the scene.28 Conversely, recognising God, if it is an act of faith, cannot be innate to every one; which once again leads to the question of what it was in Jahm’s view. Everything with which the Murjiʾites usually enriched the faith was ruled out in Ashʿarī’s description on which we are relying here.29 One might imagine that the Murjiʾites in Transoxiana – and Jahm with them – did missionary work in the belief that the Turks with whom they came in contact did not know anything of God, that, being ignorant heathen, they simply did not know him at all. In these circumstances even agreeing to accept Islam would have been an act of faith; after all, people who did not speak Arabic and who might even have trouble communicating, could not be expected to utter an explicit profession of faith, not even the shahāda. Now Ashʿarī also wrote that knowledge of the prophets and what they brought, i.e. the law, was also part of faith; but this is probably expressed from a later point of view.30 There is no evidence that Jahm attached great

24  In Jibāl; cf. Aḥsan al-taqāsīm 389, 14ff. It is noticeable that the last-named point is emphasised in a well-known hadith at the beginning of Fiqh absaṭ (p. 41, 11); the addition is not found in other, non-Iranian variants (cf. e.g. Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ I 37, 8f.). 25  Ibn Faḍlān listed a few examples (cf. Togan, Reisebericht 20, 22, and 68). 26  Text XIV 2. 27  Text 1, g. Also in Abū ʿUbayd, Īmān 79, 10ff., and 80, 6ff., but without naming Jahm. Cf. the discussion of the passage in Pessagno in: JAOS 95/1975/385. 28  Text 4, which may also be later argumentation. 29  Text 1, b. In the paradigmatic debate between Jahm and Abū Ḥanīfa mentioned on p. 557 above the Iraqi definition of faith, for which the profession of faith was essential, was played off against his. Cf. also Ibn Ḥanbal in Ibn Abī Yaʿlā, Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila I 309, 7ff. 30  Ibid., a with commentary.

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importance to the law.31 The image of God was at the centre of his thinking. One does not acquire faith by acknowledging the law; rather, faith is created by God within the human.32 This is the reason, too, why recognising God is not innate. Still, not only faith but in fact all human existence is ruled by election of divine grace; it is God who determines everything that comes to pass. While he creates the illusion in humans that they themselves are acting, creates in them an act of volition giving them a momentary capacity of action and subsequent satisfaction, this is in reality no different from height or skin colour, which are well known to be due to God’s influence alone. Our language deceives us: we say “the sun is setting” when in fact it is being set by God. Cf. Text XIV 6 with commentary; also 18, no. 5. Heresiographical accounts differ concerning whether Jahm conceded human capacity of action or not (regarding the issue cf. also Gimaret, Théories de l’acte humain 64ff.). In the summary presented above I followed Ashʿarī’s version, presuming that Jahm at the very least recognised the special position of human action. Sentences such as “the sun is setting” are meant metaphorically, as confirmed by Ibn Qutayba, Ta‌ʾwīl mushkil al-Qurʾān 99, 6ff., and later ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Jurjānī (cf. Ritter, Geheimnisse der Wortkunst 414f.). A first hint at the thought is also found in the anti-Qadarite Masāʾil attributed to Ḥasan b. Muḥammad b. al-Ḥanafiyya (cf. Anfänge 108f.), although it is not expressed through the majāz/ḥaqīqa model there. It is also doubtful whether we may link the latter to Jahm; there are indications that Ashʿarī is merely presenting a heresiographical interpretation. The term majāz appears to have acquired its later meaning gradually. Abū ʿUbayda, two generations younger than Jahm, uses it to denote everything that “harms the reflectivity of language” and “goes beyond” the correspondence between language and reality (Heinrichs in: SI 59/1984/122f. and 127). However, it seems that the development towards the later pair of opposites started earlier than Heinrichs assumed (ibid. 133ff.). By Jāḥiẓ’ time it would be concluded (cf. Text XVI 15, a and m). In the passage cited he traced it back to Muʿtazilites like Muʿammar or Thumāma (regarding Thumāma cf. also Text XIX 3). It is apparently also found in the K. al-iktisāb (10, pu. f.; regarding the book see ch. C 1.4.3.2 below) attributed to Ibn Samāʿa (d. 233/847 in old age). The idea that God is the 31  One exception is the note that Jahm required the period of waiting in the case of a woman who is divorced before the marriage has been consummated (Bukhārī, Khalq al-afʿāl 121, 1ff. > Yāfīʿī, Marham 185, 3f.). 32  Text XIV 5.

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only cause and everything else beside him has only indirect effects (bilmajāz) was also recorded by Kindī (Rasāʾil I 182f.). In his discussion of the futura contingentia Fārābī appears to have chosen the examples in such a way that the reader would make the association with Jahm’s teachings (cf. Zimmermann, De interpretatione cxvi); he, too, came from the east. We are thus not looking at predestination but at universal determinism. Jahm denied, as Jāḥiẓ would later put it, that there was an “essential core” or a “nature” of things.33 The world was guided by God,34 and a human was merely a puppet in his hand. What, then, was the worth of his actions? Only later sources provide an answer to this question: they were good because this was said in the revelation (samʿan), Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār believed;35 while Ibn Mattōya elucidated that they were “signs” of one’s destiny in the afterlife. However, he immediately ruled out any thought of visible predestination: we cannot be certain of the significance of these signs, for even sickness and other visitations might be such a sign; indeed, even unbelief could in theory be a sign that one is chosen for paradise.36 This is logical: as we have seen, actions do not tell us about what is inside a person. Of course this presumes that “unbelief” is read as “actions of unbelief”; unbelief itself is not a mere sign, but a punishable transgression.37 The thought of predestination is out of the question simply because God does not have any prescience; only once something takes place does he have knowledge of it.38 He “has nothing in mind”, as would be said later.39 This belief, which we have already seen in Kufa,40 was widely held all over Iran, e.g. among the Khārijites in Sijistān.41 Under pressure from the Muʿtazilites it became an embarrassment to the Jahmites, and consequently we find not only supporting evidence42 but also suggestions for compromise: that God was, potentially at least, knowing since the beginning of time,43 or: that while 33   Ḥayawān IV 74, 4f., and V 11, 1f. (= Text XXII 50, d); cf. also Frank in: Muséon 78/1965/404f. 34  Text XIV 20, q. 35   Mughnī VIII 28, 1f. 36  Text XIV 6, f–h. 37  Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Mughnī XIV 299, 20f. 38  Text 9, a–b; 18, no. 3 and 8. 39  Dārimī, Radd ʿalā l-Marīsī 195, 13ff./550, puff. 40  See vol.  I 386 and 437f. above. 41  See p. 649ff. below. 42  Text 10, b. Evidence was probably back-projected onto Jahm by Hishām b. al-Ḥakam (see vol. I 437f. above, also Pretzl, Attributenlehre 18f.). 43  Text  11.

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knowledge was not eternal, it had existed before things through God having created it as hypostasis “not in a place” in time.44 These are later constructions, as clearly demonstrated by the heresiographical dissent,45 but also by isolated reports such as the one that according to the Jahmiyya God knows that Satan has been “stoned” only at the moment when Satan refuses to prostrate himself before him.46 Divine prescience was simply not necessary to Jahm’s determinism.47 Consequently there is no “God’s plan”; God’s actions are omnipresent, but they do not reveal anything.48 Humans are thus not merely at God’s mercy but also unable to recognise him, for God is the absolute Other, possessing none of the qualities we experience in ourselves. He is not even “something” (shayʾ), which in this context not only means: he is not a “thing or entity” – as that would have been obvious to anyone who rejected anthropomorphism – but actually that he is not a “being”.49 Opponents were quick to interpret it as “he is nothing” (lā shayʾ),50 but the opposite was intended: he is ἐπέκεινα τη̃ ς οὐσίας. Everything that has being (al-ashyāʾ) is subordinate to him and brought forth by him.51 This neo-Platonic tone recalls ideas across which we come in Kindī’s works, but Jahm may well have been part of this tradition without being aware of it. Thus F. Zimmermann in debate with Frank, who was the first to emphasise the neo-Platonic parallels in his article in Muséon 78/1965 (cf. PseudoAristotle in the Middle Ages, ed. J. Kraye, p. 135f.). We must of course ask where the ideas originated. It is less likely than would seem at first glance that they survived in Iran itself. A Greek text, a fragment of which survived 44  Text 9, c, and 10, a. Cf. also Frank in: Muséon 78/1965/408ff., who believes the theory of the hypostasis to have been one of Jahm’s original doctrines. 45  Text 9, c–e. 46  Abū ʿAmmār, Mūjaz II 203, 10. 47  Ibn Ḥanbal seems to presume that the Jahmites were not very attached to this theory any more (Radd 85/transl. 120). Cf. also Frank 408f. 48  Thus once again Ibn Ḥanbal with regard to the later Jahmiyya (Text XIV 20, f). 49  Frank translates as “being” (loc. cit. 389ff.). Cf. Text 7. Pazdawī later construed it in such a way that Jahm only accepted mawjūd “existing” as a predicate of God (Uṣūl al-dīn 22, 6f.). 50  Text 20, p and r. 51  Text 7, a–b. In a well-known verse Abū Tammām referred to wine as “Jahmite as to its characteristics”, presumably because it had been dematerialised to the extent that it could not be designated “something” (Ṣūlī, Sharḥ Dīwān Abī Tammām I 184 with n. 2; also Wagner, Grundzüge der klassischen arabischen Dichtung II 111, where the theological nuance is not entirely captured).

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in unusual circumstances in the ruins of Ay Khanum, discusses the doctrine of the first cause and of the μέθεξις in the form of a philosophical dialogue (cf. C. Rapin and P. Hadot in: Bull. Corr. Hellénique 111/1987, 1. Etudes, p. 232ff.). Of course, this was already a millennium in the past by Jahm’s time; Ay Khanum’s heyday had been during the third and second centuries BCE. If at the same time the Bactrian ruler Menander (= Milinda, d. between 150 and 145 BCE) was thought to have invited wise men to join him in intellectual debate we can only assume that here, too, the ideas of Antiquity were introduced (cf. Tarn, The Greeks in Bactria and India 414ff.). In Qandahar Aśoka had one of his inscriptions written in Greek and Aramaic (EIran II 780a). In eastern Iran the Bactrian Greek alphabet was used until the time of the Arab invasion at least on coin legends and countermarks (cf. Göbl, Dokumente zur Geschichte der iranischen Hunnen II 80ff.; 92f.; 117, 139 etc.). The most likely place where Jahm might have found specifically neo-Platonic ideas in his time might have been Ḥarrān. We do not know whether his neo-Platonism bore antiChristian traits. Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī would later adduce some arguments with which Jahm was believed to have refuted shayʾ with reference to God, but in all probability these did not originate with Jahm, either, but rather with his exegete. It was thus self-evident that God could not be known by means of rational thought;52 yet another confirmation that faith could only be a gift. The statements in the revelation cannot always be applied literally, either, for God is the absolute Other. A late, and not always reliable, source claims that in the sentence “the All-Compassionate sat himself upon the Throne” (sura 20:5) Jahm believed the “All-Compassionate” (al-Raḥmān) to be a created being, and that consequently he distinguished between Allah and al-Raḥmān.53 One cannot make statements on Allah – and the Lord (al-Rabb) – as “one cannot see him”.54 This is not documented elsewhere, but it would fit quite well. ʿUbayd alMuktib in Kufa may have made a similar distinction,55 as did, to a degree, the Bakriyya in Basra.56 And above all: al-Raḥmān was created first, even before the throne, which makes him a kind of hypostasis. This is a neo-Platonic – or maybe Arian – train of thought. 52  Text 18, no. 6. 53  Ibid., no. 1. 54  Ibid., no. 7; cf. also Text 20, e. 55  See vol.  I 244f. above. 56  See p. 127 above.

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All in all the theological approach as a whole was riddled with unanswered questions once it was analysed using later categories. As soon as a catalogue of divine attributes was applied it turned out that while the reductionist image of God ruled out attributes, determinism presumed at least God’s omnipotence. Consequently the qualities denied God were those that he shared with humans (such as knowledge, among others), while still calling him “omnipotent”, “acting”, “creator”, “sustainer” (rāziq), “originator of being” or “God”. Baghdādī claimed that this theory originated with Jahm,57 but we are probably looking at a later development, as we can see an entire range of retrospective adjustments. Some of his followers believed that only one quality could be attributed to God, namely his “Godliness”, reducing the doctrine of the attributes to a tautology.58 Others said that God was “all face”, “all light”, “all power”, but also “all knowledge, all listening, all seeing”, even though he would share the lastnamed qualities with humans.59 Finally, he was called shayʾ in some places, effectively abolishing the essence of Jahm’s teachings.60 Our main source for the dissent within the “school” is the early heresiographer Khushaysh b. Aṣram (d. 253/867). He came from Nasā and would consequently have had some experience of Jahmites.61 However, his traditionist zeal led him to distribute the differences among individual “sects”, without reporting anything of the historical development or geographical focus. We can grasp only the points at issue themselves, and the relation between transcendence and immanence received rather more attention than even the attributes. When Jahm said that God was beyond being, it did not necessarily imply that he was also beyond the world, for “beyond the world” at that time would signify that he was sitting upon his throne in heaven,62 and thus be locatable

57  Text 8 with the later parallels listed, which can probably all be traced back to Baghdādī (or his source?); probably also dependent on Baghdādī: Ibn al-Dāʿī in Text 18, no. 2. 58  Text 19, b. Cf. the poem mocking Jahm’s theology cited in Qāḍī, Firaq islāmiyya 722. This position might still have been influenced by the distinction between Allah and al-Raḥmān. 59  Text 20, i; also Dārimī, Radd ʿalā l-Jahmiyya 59, 6f. Cf. Madelung, Qāsim 19. Regarding knowing, hearing, seeing cf. Text 19, c, and 8, b. In Text 20 Ibn Ḥanbal probably summarised several positions; as he used his own words rather than quoting, errors or misrepresentations cannot be ruled out. 60  Text 19, c; also 20, o. 61  He did, however, go to Egypt later (see p. 815 below). 62  Text 19, h.

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after all. In truth he is not “in something”,63 nowhere – but at the same time everywhere.64 As “not-something” he is removed from everything that has being, but as the only agent he permeates, one might say, all things. He “intermixes” with creation,65 for being the cause he is immediately linked with every effect.66 Once points of view had become polarised it was only possible to reconcile them by means of “not like this, but not like that either”.67 Khushaysh reported this quite unmoved, growing nervous only when he noted a threat to the image of God he, as a traditionist, embraced. As can be imagined, there were numerous instances, every single one of which he refuted with a plethora of Quranic quotations and hadiths.68 They would all be refuted again and again in the numerous treatises composed against the Jahmiyya in the east from the second half of the third century onwards.69 This, too, is of course secondary; the relevance of the things “denied” by the Jahmiyya was only discovered through polemic. What is interesting to us at this stage is that when defending Jahm, his pupils used transcendence as well as immanence as arguments. Humans cannot see God because he is not “something” – or because there is no distance between him and humans at all; after all, only something that is at a suitable distance can be perceived.70 This point in particular demonstrates how deceptive the similarity with the Muʿtazila – manifest here in the result – can be. To the Muʿtazila ruʾya was impossible because one cannot perceive God with the senses. The Jahmites, on the other hand, were more radical still: reason also fails.71 Recognising God is 63  Ibid., also 20, k. 64  Ibid., k; 20, c.; also Ibn Taymiyya, Al-tisʿīniyya fī l-radd ʿalā l-ṭawāʾif al-mulḥida in: Majmūʿa (Cairo 1329/1911) II 19, 16ff. Cf. also Frank in: Muséon 78/1965/403f. 65  Ibid., f–g; also n. The expressions used in f–g were apparently used as the foundation of Jahmite doctrine a generation after Khushaysh, as prefaced by Muḥammad b. ʿUthmān b. Abī Shayba (d. 297/910) to his K. al-ʿarsh wa-mā ruwiya fīh (ed. Muḥammad b. Ḥamd al-Ḥammūd, Kuwait 1406/1986, p. 49, –5ff.). Was he merely reacting to a literary phantom? 66  Cf. Ibn Mattōya, Muḥīṭ I 50, –8 ʿAzmī/I 42, 3 Houben (probably to be corrected after ʿAzmī); also Dārimī, Radd 59, 10f.; Ibn Ḥanbal, Radd 86ff. and 93, pu. ff./transl. Seale 120f. and 125. Of course there is no tawallud in this system (Pazdawī, Uṣūl al-dīn 111, 15). 67  Ibid., l. It might recall once again Plotinus’ ἓν καὶ πα̃ν. Unfortunately it is impossible to determine whether the problems briefly mentioned by Ashʿarī, Maq. 208, 10ff., and 209, 5f., belong in this context. 68  Cf. the commentary on Text XIV 19, esp. s–z. 69  In general GAS 1/598; also p. 641, 705 and 714 below. 70  Text 18, no. 7, and 20, e, in comparison with 19, n. The latter is already an Aristotelian argument linked to the theory of medium (De an. 419a 12ff.; cf. Lindberg, Auge und Licht im Mittelalter 28f., and vol. I 429f. above). 71  Text 20, h.

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possible only through conjecture (takhmīn);72 it is impossible to imagine him.73 There is consequently no proof of God; not even his works (fiʿl) which after all characterise him entirely, allow conclusions.74 Once again people were sliding into contradictions. After all, faith consists in knowledge of God; Abū Muṭīʿ al-Nasafī claimed to have heard of a Jahmite group who thought that someone who believed and had achieved knowledge of God could not go into the fires of hell but would only be brought close to them.75 On the other hand he described certain “heretics” (zanādiqa) within the Jahmiyya who considered it simply impossible to know God, as all comprehension (idrāk) had to go via the senses, and the transcendental could not reached in this way.76 These people probably really existed, as there is a satirical anecdote which has Jahm himself discomfited by this argument. Some “heretics” were now also quoted as having said it; being Sumanites – i.e. Indians, possibly Buddhist monks – he might well have met them in eastern Iran. Regarding the Sumaniyya see p. 23ff. above; also Gimaret in JA 1969, p. 299ff., with reference to the same story. I have already pointed out the different versions of the anecdote in Erkenntnislehre 259. As is easy to imagine, it enjoyed great popularity. Khushaysh appears to have preserved the original form: the Sumanites, “a group of Persians (? ʿajam) in the Khorasan region”, confused Jahm so much that he stopped praying for 40 days, with the explanation that he could not pray to someone he did not know (Malaṭī, Tanbīh 77, 17ff./99, 8ff.; Dhahabī, Ta‌ʾrīkh V 56, 72  Text 19, b. 73  Ibid., c. 74  Thus after Ibn Ḥanbal; cf. Text 20, f. I would not regard the contrast with Jahm’s own position quite as rigidly as Madelung (Qāsim 242). 75   Radd 107, apu. ff.; also Tadhkirat al-madhāhib 133, 8f.; Ḥanafī, Firaq muftariqa 90, 12ff.; Pseudo-Abū Ḥanīfa, Maʿrifat al-madhāhib (cf. GAS 1/418 no. XIII) in ʿAsalī, Jahm 197f.; Maqrīzī, Khiṭaṭ II 348, –11ff. (where they are listed among the Muʿtazilites). This was probably based on a divergent exegesis of wāriduhā in sura 19/71. The information is problematic as the doctrine of the transience of the afterlife has been abandoned (Abū Muṭīʿ 107, ult.). 76   Radd 108, –7ff.: corrupt, and in need of correcting in accordance with Ibn al-Jawzī, Talbīs Iblīs 20, –5ff. and Ḥanafī, Firaq muftariqa 95, 11ff. (thus e.g. in l. –6 we must read rabban after nafsihī, rather than w-bā, and in l. –5 lā yathbutu must be added after lā yudraku). The name of the sect has to be corrected to read zanādiqa twice. Of course, this is an imaginary designation thought up by Abū Muṭīʿ or by the tradition to which he referred. It suggested itself because the zanādiqa, too, were defined as sensualists (see vol. I 530 above). Misunderstood, too, in Pseudo-Abū Ḥanīfa in ʿAsalī 199.

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apu. ff., and 57, pu. ff.; Sharḥ al-Ṭaḥāwiyya 448, 13ff.; briefly also Ibn Baṭṭa, Ibāna 91, 13f.). Later he would be allowed an answer: God is like the air which one cannot see, either, and just as omnipresent (Bayhaqī, Al-Asmāʾ wal-ṣifāt 538, apu. ff.; Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, Ijtimāʿ al-juyūsh 107, 8ff.); Faḍl b. Shādhān presented this as a generally Jahmite argument (Īḍāḥ 4, ult. ff.). Or maybe: humans know they have the breath of life (rūḥ) even though they cannot see it (thus ʿIqd II 413, 2ff., where Jahm is debating with a Greek). Ibn Ḥanbal turned this into a sneer: Jahm employed a Christian argument, because according to certain Christian heretics (zanādiqa) Jesus received his spirit (rūḥ) directly from God (Radd 29, 5ff./transl. Seale 97f.). Ibn Baṭṭa would later quote this word for word, together with the preliminary remarks, in his Ibāna al-kubrā, but he traced the report back to Muqātil b. Sulaymān via the usual Baghdad isnād known from his Tafsīr (MS Cairo, Taymūr IV 3, ʿaqāʾid 181, p. 313, 7ff.) The Muʿtazilites would later add a punchline: Jahm writing to Wāṣil asking for his advice. Wāṣil suggested introducing proof by means of rational thought as the sixth means of knowledge besides the five senses when debating with the Sumanites: and the Indians converted immediately (Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Faḍl 240, 13ff., and abridged 165, 12ff. > IM 34, 9ff.; transl. Gimaret 301; cf. also Pines, Atomenlehre 132f., and p. 307 above). This turns the entire event upside down; after all, the Jahmites rejected rational thought as proof of God’s existence. Shīʿite tradition has the same train of thought come from Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq who used it to refute the “heretic” Abū Shākir al-Dayṣānī (cf. Ivanow, Alleged Founder 95). Elsewhere ʿAbdallāh b. Saba‌ʾ has been substituted for Jaʿfar, as to him the doctrine of God’s omnipresence – which did not fit into the Shīʿite system – gave rise to the question why, then, one raised one’s hands in prayer (Majlisī, Biḥār X 107, 3ff.). Faḍl b. Shādhān had directed the same argument against the Jahmiyya (Īḍāḥ 5, apu.). Madelung assumed that this report could be “traced back to an account by the founder of the sect or one of his followers” (Qāsim 242), but after all the foregoing, it seems hardly likely even for the simplest version. Still, one can see where the individual motifs could be tied in. There was a debate in Buddhism as to whether there was a soul or a human “person” besides the five senses, and how it could be recognised; Menander/ Milinda was said to have asked the question most pointedly himself (MacLean, Religion and Society in Arab Sind 8f.). The idea of a sixth path to knowledge that Jahm suggested was also developed in Indian texts (cf. de la Vallée Poussin, Abhidharmakośa 32f.).When Ibn Ḥanbal pointed out the influence of Christian “heretics”, he may have thought of the

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affinity with the Arians: as the “spirit of God”, Jesus must be his first creation. And that God is as invisible as the spirit was already expressed by Philo (De Abrahamo 74ff. = Werke in deutscher Übersetzung I 112f.). Independently of this, we may ask the question of whether, instead of interpreting Jahm under a neo-Platonic aspect, one should assume Indian influence in his case. This would not necessarily have to be Buddhist: one might consider Brahman teachings as well. At Jahm’s time Buddhism was already on the retreat before Hinduism in its homeland. In this case the noticeable indecision between immanence and transcendence would have to be pointed out, as well as the radical determinism which was entirely isolated within Islam. Still, the discussion of this hypothesis must be left to the experts. I am grateful to B. Reinert, Zurich, for suggestions concerning this issue. The idea of God’s immanence had, or at least could have, a mystical colouring,77 but the Jahmites were not able to conform to the mysticism evolving in Basra or Syria. They did not believe in the “vision of God”, even less so on earth;78 someone who pretends to have seen God in a dream is mistaken.79 Even the prophet was no exception; he did not actually travel to Jerusalem overnight;80 much less to heaven. The question was also how he would have profited from it. After all, God is not in heaven but everywhere and nowhere, and in order to visit paradise and hell these would have to exist first; clearly, many Jahmites believed, like the Muʿtazilite Ḍirār b. ʿAmr, that the two had yet to be created.81 Khushaysh attributed this idea to Jahm himself, but this is probably inadmissible extrapolation.82 The origin of paradise and hell was clearly not yet a problem for Jahm; both are created – and of course created in time, like everything else. This was why it was important to him to emphasise that like everything else created, they would pass. Humans would not enjoy paradise forever; when the Quran says that “they will remain therein forever” (khālidīna fīhā; e.g. sura 3:15), this is a rhetorical phrase, a hyperbole meaning nothing more 77  Cf. the particularly instructive example of Bahāʾ-i Walad’s deliberations regarding this issue (Meier, Bahāʾ-i Walad 116ff.). 78  Text 20, e. 79  Text 19, y, with commentary. Regarding the issue see p. 115 above. 80  Ibid., x. It would be interesting to know how the Jahmiyya interpreted sura 17:1. 81  Ibid., q. According to an isolated report some Jahmites believed that Muḥammad did go on the miʿrāj, but spiritually only and not physically (Tadhkirat al-madhāhib 134, 2; Pseudo-Abū Ḥanīfa in ʿAsalī 199). This seems to be a late and atypical compromise. 82  Malaṭī, Tanbīh 104, 2/137, 2; cf. Text 19, q, and the commentary on Text 19 in general.

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than “for a long time”.83 From a philological point of view this was certainly true; the lexical meaning did not allow more, and the parallel in sura 78:23 speaks of “long times, eras” (aḥqāb).84 But Jahm based his thoughts on theological consideration. He did not determine the boundaries between time and eternity on an existential but on an ontological basis: the threshold beyond which one steps outside of time is not death and judgment – paradise and hell still belong within worldly time. Eternity means, nothing has being besides God; the Quran confirmed that he is “the first and the last” (sura 57:3).85 In this, Jahm stood not alone. Abū Ḥanīfa was said to hold the same opinion;86 obscured, however, by the fact that his Khorasanian followers – who would define the image most strongly over time – converted to the opposite view, presumably out of antagonism against the Jahmiyya and under the influence of Muqātil b. Sulaymān.87 In Iraq, on the other hand, Abū l-Hudhayl provided a new argument in its favour.88 Even orthodox minds like Ibn Taymiyya and his pupil Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya helped it to achieve a renaissance; while Subkī wrote his K. al-iʿtibār bi-baqāʾ al-janna wal-nār against it.89 In the case of hell the additional question arose of how the body could withstand fire forever. A group of Jahmites believed that it would be burnt once and then stay that way. As this contradicted sura 4:55, the texts they adduced in corroboration were sura 10:52, 32:14 etc., which emphasise the correlation between guilt incurred on earth and punishment in the afterlife, pointing out in addition that unbelievers became unbelievers only once, and then remained 83  Text 13, b, d–e. 84  Cf. Lat. saecula. Regarding the meaning of khālid see p. 314 above; for general information cf. Sweetman, Islam and Christian Theology I2 217. Further information ch. D 3 below. Sometimes aṣḥāb al-ḥadīth who did not want to subject Muslims to more than a finite punishment in hell also interpreted this as hyperbole (cf. Goldziher, Ges. Schr. III 36f.). Cf. also Text 13, f, with a further Quranic instance that was probably adduced by later Jahmites. 85  Text 13, commentary on c; 18, no. 4. 86   T B XIII 386, 14. 87   Fiqh absaṭ 56, 15ff. Interestingly, the report mentioned in the preceding note is attributed to Abū Muṭīʿ al-Balkhī. When someone asked Muqātil what was meant by the phrase “everything will perish except His face”, he was said to have concluded from the question that he must be a Jahmite (TB XIII 161, pu. ff.). Cf. also Kawtharī, Ta‌ʾnīb 107ff. 88  See ch. C 3.2.1.3.2.4 below. It seems to have permeated Ashʿarī’s account of Jahm (Text 13, a). We do not know who the Rāfiḍites were whom Ibn Ḥazm mentions besides him (Fiṣal IV 83, apu. and ult. f.). 89   G AL S 2/103 no. 26; printed in Al-rasāʾil al-Subkiyya fī l-radd ʿalā Ibn Taymiyya wa-tilmīdhihī Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (Beirut 1403/1983; p. 193ff.).

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forever.90 This makes quite clear that the Jahmites believed in the resurrection of the flesh. Everything created is physical;91 the soul played no part in this concept: it dies with the body. Consequently the idea of the punishment of the grave made no sense,92 and there was no need for an angel of death to drag the soul out of the body.93 God, thus the defenders of immanence, is “mixed” with his creations until they die, at which point he detaches himself from them.94 We are not told whether he then reunites with them in the afterlife. But he is free to create everything once again, even after paradise and hell have passed.95 This recalls the concept of an expanding and contracting universe.96 Zurqān explained Jahm’s system itself out of the category of physicality: Jahm saw movement as a physical “body”, as well as the Quran, as only God was not a physical body. This is probably too focussed on Aṣamm.97 Jahm used the term shayʾ. Of course shayʾ is not merely a “being” but also a “thing” in the physical sense,98 and of course the Quran is created. But it is created above all because God’s speech like God’s knowledge is not eternal; its being “something” or a “body” is only concluded from this fact. Only from this point of view the Jahmites also denied that God spoke to Moses; the utterance was created with the burning bush.99

90  Ḥanafī, Firaq muftariqa 92, ult. ff.; Abū Muṭīʿ, Radd 109, 7ff. (read ḥarr al-nār for ḥadd al-nār), Ibn al-Jawzī, Talbīs Iblīs 20, apu. f.; Tadhkirat al-madhāhib 133, apu.; Pseudo-Abū Ḥanīfa in ʿAsalī 198 (misunderstood). Maqrīzī, Khiṭaṭ II 245, –10 counts the same group among the Muʿtazila. 91  Text 15, b. 92  Text 19, w. A further, entirely rationalistic argument in Ḥanafī 90, apu. ff.: How can two angels, each with a four-cubit long balance beam, penetrate the earth? 93  Text 19, z. 94  Text 19, g. 95  Text 14. For Pazdawī this freedom goes so far as to enable God to exchange heaven and hell; however, this note is isolated and weakened by the fact that it presumes eternal punishment in hell (Text 12). 96  This, too, recalls Indian thought. According to the belief of Vishnupurāṇa the deity alone remains at the end of a cosmic epoch. 97  Text 15 and 16; cf. p. 452f. above. Frank puts more trust in the texts (in: Muséon 18/1965/410, n. 68). 98  Text 9, d. 99  Text 19, d–e; 20, d. Also Madelung in: Festschrift Pareja 506ff.

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The Jahmiyya’s most important Quranic evidence for khalq al-Qurʾān is listed in Bukhārī, Khalq al-afʿāl 135, 10ff. Like elsewhere (see p. 211f. above regarding Basra and p. 808 below regarding Egypt) the discussion appears at first to have focussed on the createdness of the divine names mentioned in the Quran (Abū Dāwūd, Masāʾil al-imām Aḥmad 262, apu.). Opponents tried to refute this using the example of the name “Allāh”; the difference between the name and the named were not always perceived, and not always accepted (Ibn Ḥanbal, Radd 87, apu. ff./transl. Seale 121f.; cf. ch. C 6.2 below). This is not, however, proof that this doctrine originated with Jahm himself. 3.1.1.1 The Connection between Jahm and the Jahmiyya It is not possible to shed light on the historical evolution of the school using this material. One thing only is apparent: that in Iran there was no clear distinction between Jahm on the one hand and what would some generations later be decried as the Jahmiyya, especially in traditionist literature, on the other.1 We shall use the opportunity to point out a few missing links.2 Ibn Taymiyya, who was striving to go back in time beyond the Ashʿariyya and devoted much thought to early theology in this endeavour, thought that the Jahmites comprised dialectic theologians (mutakallimūn) who worshipped nothing, and Sufis who worshipped everything.3 This is of course speculation, presumably based on the same sources we have consulted as well. A trend towards rationalistic theology could be implied in the arguments against eschatological details of which people had grown fond in the meantime, such as the recording angels, the scales, the punishment of the grave etc.4 The Sufis probably entered the picture only because Ibn Taymiyya believed he recognised currents of his own time, especially Ibn ʿArabī, in the Jahmite theology of immanence. All the same, there may be more to this than meets the eye. We hear of a Jahmite group practising 70–80 prayers a day (and in the night) and

1  Against Watt in EI2 II 388a and Formative Period 147, or Madelung, Qāsim 241f. 2  See p. 637f. below regarding Ibrāhīm b. Ṭahmān or p. 785f. below regarding Ibn al-Mājashūn. The Jewish theologian Yūsuf al-Baṣīr’s claim that he never met a Jahmite in all the countries he visited (Muḥtawī, transl. Vajda 405) is irrelevant to the present issue as he lived in the fifth/ eleventh century. 3  Cf. ʿAsalī, Jahm 193 with reference to Majmūʿat al-Rasāʾil (Cairo 1341ff.) I 70. 4  Cf. esp. Ḥanafī, e.g. 91, 9ff., or n. 92 above.

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implementing community of goods.5 According to them the prophet was a “wise man” (ḥakīm), a term that would acquire special significance among Iranian Sufis in particular.6 For a long time resistance against the Jahmiyya did not come from the common people; it was the traditionists who pushed the Jahmites into the rationalist corner. Tensions mainly arose in connection with their closest cousins within the Murjiʾa, the Ḥanafites. In order to grasp this aspect, we must look at the cities individually. 3.1.2

The Cities

3.1.2.1 Balkh Besides Marv, Balkh was the most important centre during the first centuries of Islamic rule in Transoxiana. The city had first been sacked by Aḥnaf b. Qays’ armies in 32/653, and was part of the conquerors’ sphere of influence from the forties onwards, but it did not come under Muslim rule until the time of Qutayba b. Muslim in the late eighties.1 Consequently there are barely any traces of companions of the prophet; and while Rūmān, allegedly a client of the prophet, was worshipped in the city, nobody knew anything tangible about him.2 The city had been reduced to rubble anyway; the greatest building, the Nawbahār, an immense Buddhist monastery encircled by an enclosure wall several miles long, having been destroyed in the earliest battles.3 The Arabs had erected a garrison in Barūqān, two parasangs from the city. Within this warlike environment, religious interests soon emerged, similar to Syria; one of the earliest exegetes of Islam, Ḍaḥḥāk b. Muzāḥim al-Hilālī, dying there in 105/723.4 We do not know whether voluntary warriors for the faith who committed to Islam from the very first played a part in this development, but it seems safe to assume that in the cultural and intellectual isolation in which the Arabs found themselves to begin with, the Quran was an important symbol of 5  Cf. Abū Muṭīʿ, Radd 111, 1ff.; Ibn al-Jawzī, Talbīs 20, ult. f.; Tadhkirat al-madhāhib 133, ult.; Pseudo-Abū Ḥanīfa, Maʿrifat al-madhāhib in ʿAsalī 198 (where the doctrine is given a wrong name). 6 Cf. Radtke in: ZDMG 136/1986/551ff. 1  Cf. Barthold, An Historical Geography of Iran 12ff. and 20f.; Frye in EI2 I 1001a s. v. Balk̲h̲, and Bosworth in: EIran III 588 s. v. Balk̲. 2  Fażāʾil-i Balkh 56ff.; regarding him also Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, Istīʿāb no. 803 and 1135. 3  Regarding the sanctuary cf. Fażāʾil-i Balkh 19, ult. ff. A good overview is found in MelikianChirvani in: Le Monde Iranien et l’Islam 2/1974/11ff.; also in EIran IV 496 b. Further literature see p. 553, n. 1 above. 4  Fażāʾil 62, 3f.

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their identity even for the official troops, the so-called muqātila registered in the pension lists. 3.1.2.1.1 Quranic Exegesis Ḍaḥḥāk’s Tafsīr lectures survive in later recensions, such as his pupil Juwaybir b. Saʿīd al-Balkhī’s,1 and in this way reached Ṭabarī or the anonymous Persian Tafsīr in the collection of the British Museum.2 He was a storyteller of the old school. Ṭabarī quoted a midrash of his, on the subject of Satan and the creation of Adam;3 elsewhere we find an exuberant miʿrāj tradition which, going by the isnāds, could go back to him.4 He embraced the legend of Salmān, this of great significance for Iran.5 He also devoted himself to moral education; Ibn Baṭṭa preserved an extensive catalogue of duties, presumably intended to provide standards for believers.6 Theological considerations of his survive – or are traced back to him – too.7 Surprisingly the two most important exegetes of the following generation, Muqātil b. Ḥayyān and Muqātil b. Sulaymān, did not refer to him particularly.8 Wisdom probably came from the Hijaz or from Iraq at that time; Ḍaḥḥāk, too, regularly cited Ibn ʿAbbās without, presumably, having ever met him.9 By this time the Muslims had outgrown Barūqān; Asad b. ʿAbdallāh al-Qasrī had rebuilt Balkh and moved his seat of government there from Marv in 118/736. It is probably no coincidence that the two men shared the same name. While the name Muqātil is documented elsewhere, too, a child bearing this name in this region embodied the pioneering spirit of the population.

1  Regarding him Mīzān no. 1593. 2  Tafsīr bar ʿushrī az Qurʾān-i majīd, nuskha-yi maḥfūẓ dar kitābkhāne-yi Mūze-yi Brītāniyā, ed. Jalāl Matīnī; cf. the Index s. n. Regarding Ṭabarī’s using it cf. GAS 1/29f. 3  Tafsīr 3I 455ff. no. 606/transl. Cooper I 211ff. regarding sura 2:30; after Ibn ʿAbbās. 4  Suyūṭī, La‌ʾālī I 63, 9–81, 4 (regarding the isnāds cf. also 81, 6ff.). This version presumes that Muḥammad was addressed by God and felt his touch. Cf. the differing “Jahmite” exegesis, also traced back to Ḍaḥḥāk, cited by Abū Dāwūd, Masāʾil al-Imām Aḥmad 263, 1ff. (cf. p. 680 below). 5  Massignon, Salmân Pâk, in: Opera minora I 464f. 6  Al-ibāna al-kubrā 650. 3ff. 7  H T 113. 8  But cf. p. 588 below regarding Muqātil b. Sulaymān. 9  ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ II 218 no. 758.

574 3.1.2.1.1.1

CHAPTER 3 Muqātil b. Ḥayyān

The career of Abū Bisṭām1 Muqātil b. Ḥayyān al-Kharrāz (d. 135/753)2 seems to show the social flexibility closely linked to the pioneering spirit. He appears to have been a saddler’s son – at least if we can believe Samʿānī’s claim that he was also known under the name of Muqātil b. Duwāldūz;3 the Arabic laqab al-Kharrāz would be a reflection of “leather or strap sewer” in that case.4 This saddler cannot be the same as the Ḥayyān found in the succession of names, as this was Ḥayyān al-Nabaṭī, a successful Iranian military slave indispensable to the Arabs as a canvasser and leader of local troops.5 He was a mawlā of Maṣqala b. Hubayra al-Shaybānī who had taken him prisoner in Daylam, possibly during the campaign against Ṭabaristān in 54/675,6 and then trained him.7 Qutayba b. Muslim employed him on his ventures8 as did Yazīd b. al-Muhallab. All the same, there were quarrels9 as Ḥayyān was believed to have conspired with the Persians.10 The reason for these rumours was probably that, being one of them, he was constantly compelled to play the mediator, which was noted with gratitude in Bukhara when Qutayba was surrounded outside the city.11 When the latter refused to recognise the new caliph Sulaymān 1  Thus Fażāʾil 73, ult.; also Bukhārī IV2 13 no. 1972; IAH IV2 353f. no. 1629; Mīzān no. 8739; TT X 277ff. Ibn Saʿd, entirely isolated, has Abū Muʿān. 2  Thus after Fażāʾil 74, 8. Elsewhere the dates are less precise. 3  Ansāb V 67, 10; cf. also Dhahabī, Mīzān no. 8740. Dhahabī found the name in an old copy of Ṭabarānī’s Muʿjam al-awsaṭ and recalled that he was linked with Ibn Ḥayyān, but he did not want to commit himself. In fact, shortly afterwards he linked him to Muqātil b. Sulaymān. Regarding the issue see p. 581f. below. 4  Thus TT X 278, 1. The Arabic laqab is documented several times, and the reading was confirmed explicitly by Ibn Ḥajar in his Tabṣīr al-muntabih I 330, 11. Dāwūdī, Ṭabaqāt al-mufassirīn III 329f. no. 641 has incorrect al-Khazzāz. 5  He was perfectly aware of the power he wielded, as witness Ṭabarī II 1329f. He had 700 men at his disposal. He was called al-Nabaṭī not because he was a Nabataean, but because he had trouble with the pronunciation of Arabic (ibid. II 1291, 6f.). I use the term “military slave” after Pipes, Slave Soldiers and Islam 127f. Cf. also Juda, Mawālī 81. 6  Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 266, 3ff; also Balādhurī, Futūḥ al-buldān 411, –5ff. 7  Balādhurī 413, –6; as mawlā of the Shaybān also TT 278, 13f. 8  For general information cf. Gibb, Conquests 40, 43 and 53, but without analysing the part played by Ḥayyān. Regarding the wars with the Turks since Qutayba b. Muslim see Beckwith, The Tibetan Empire 55ff. 9  Ṭabarī II 1253, 4ff.; 1290, 14ff.; 1294, 15ff. 10  Cf. e.g. ibid. II 1329, 3ff. 11  Cf. the story in Barsukhī’s (alternative reading Narshakhī) Ta‌ʾrīkh Bukhārā 57, 1ff./transl. Frye 58, according to which Ḥayyān was a mawlā of Ṭalḥa b. Hubayra al-Shaybānī who, however, is not documented, unlike his brother.

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in 96/715, Ḥayyān withdrew his allegiance, an act that ultimately contributed to Qutayba’s murder.12 We later find him in the employ of Yazīd al-Muhallab, who had come to power thanks to Sulaymān. When he travelled through Ṭabaristān, Ḥayyān was once again able to distinguish himself as a skilful negotiator.13 Still, all was not harmony: Ibn al-Muhallab imposed a fine of 200,000 dirhams on him.14 Shortly after this, in 102/720, when on the jihad against the Turks, he was poisoned by malcontent Arab army leaders.15 If Muqātil, if he really was of low origin, called this man his father, it can only be explained through adoption. There is some support of this assumption – which will, however, have to remain a hypothesis in the end. At the time of Ḥajjāj, i.e. before 95/714, Muqātil was working with Ḥayyān, who was temporary governor of Samaqand.16 It was said that he occupied the office of qāḍī in the city.17 The post was not significant as Samarqand had only just become Muslim, but Muqātil could not have been very young any more.18 Ḥayyān’s biological sons, Muqātil’s half-brothers, were not the same age;19 one of them, Muṣʿab b. Ḥayyān, transmitted historical reports from him, possibly after a Futūḥ book composed by Muqātil.20 It seems

12   E I2 V 542a; also Ta‌ʾrīkh Bukhārā, loc. cit. 13  Balādhurī, Futūḥ 413, –6ff. 14  Eisener, Zwischen Faktum und Fiktion 109. 15  Ṭabarī II 1431, 11ff. 16   Fażāʾil-i Balkh 77, –6f., in an autobiographical account by Muqātil. He was clearly very respectful of the authorities, as he claims to have tracked down Saʿīd b. Jubayr, who was in hiding in Rayy, in order to hand him over to Ḥajjāj. On the other hand this account disagrees with others (see vol. I 181 above). Ibn Jubayr was an opponent of the Murjiʾites; consequently this might be a Murjiʾite tendentious tradition. 17   Fażāʾil 78, 8f. 79, 10 shows that this is during the time before Saʿīd b. Jubayr was executed. 18  As illustrated by the story told in Ṭabarī II 1330, 1ff., which took place in 98. 19  There were three in all: Ḥasan, Yazīd and Muṣʿāb (Fażāʾil 74, 1f.; TT X 278, –6f.). Yazīd lived in Madāʾīn and made it into Ta‌ʾrīkh Baghdād (TB XIV 332f. no. 7658; cf. also TT X 159f. no. 303). 20  Thus Sezgin in GAS 1/36, supported by the fact that a) Abū Mikhnaf, too, referred to Muqātil (Ṭabarī II 65, 5; cf. U. Sezgin, Abū Mikhnaf 115) and b) the material appears to be archival, i.e. quoted after written originals, to which Muqātil, being an administrator, would have had access more probably than someone else (cf. Ṭabarī I 2888, 9ff., and 2900, 3ff.: the conditions of surrender from Marv dated AH 31; ibid. II 1364, 6ff.: a letter from ʿUmar II; II 1286, 14ff.: regarding Qutayba b. Muslim; also II 189, 10ff.). Muṣʿab added further accounts in his redaction (ibid. II 1223, ult. ff.: after his father; also II 1195, 1ff.). He appears to have been qāḍī (cf. the anecdote in Jāḥiẓ, Bayān II 250, 7ff.).

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that both father and son were mainly administrative experts;21 it is possible that Ḥayyān found Muqātil among the local population and trained him. We do not know the name of Muqātil’s biological father, the “­saddler”. Consequently it might be possible to identify him as the Muqātil b. Sulaymān al-Qurashī mentioned in Ta‌ʾrīkh Bukhārā 56, pu. ff./transl. Frye 58, who gave his name to the Masjid al-Qurashiyyīn in Bukhara. However, the nisba does not agree with this; like his father, Muqātil b. Ḥayyān is described as a mawlā of Maṣqala’s (thus Ṭabarī II 1566, 6f.) or of the Bakr b. Wāʾil to whom the Shaybān belonged (TT X 277, ult. f.). Faḍl b. Shādhān informs us that his aunt was a servant of ʿĀʾisha’s (Īḍāḥ 79, 5f.), but this does not help us to identify him, either. – P. Crone interpreted Narshakhī’s account differently. Muqātil b. Sulaymān al-Qurashī was not Ḥayyān’s client but his master (both = mawlā), the latter calling his son after the former (Slaves on Horses 243, n. 421, re p. 56; also Roman, Provincial and Islamic Law 150, n. 48). What this shows, however, is that while Crone quotes the Persian text, she in fact relied on Frye’s translation entirely, as Frye indeed translates mawlā as “master”, which is most improbable, as Ḥayyān is also described as Ṭalḥa b. Hubayra’s mawlā. This would not only mean that mawlā was used with two different meanings in a single sentence, but also that Ḥayyān was the client of two masters. And there are chronological difficulties. If, like Crone, we identify Sulaymān al-Qurashī (61, –7f./Frye 63) as Muqātil b. Sulaymān al-Qurashī, he would have intervened in the fighting during the Abbasid revolution. At that time Ḥayyān had been dead some thirty years; his “master” would consequently have been a whole generation younger. Contrary to Crone and Hinds’ assumption (God’s Caliph 65, n. 49) this Muqātil b. Sulaymān al-Qurashī has absolutely no connection with the exegete Muqātil b. Sulaymān who was a client of the Asad or the Azd (see p. 581 below). Even after his father’s death Muqātil retained his influence in the city, continuing to cooperate with the government. When a newly appointed governor was looking for a suitable qāḍī in 109/727, Muqātil was the man he asked for

21   T T X 278, –6. Thus also Morony in: Studies in the First Century 75, but citing Shaban, Abbasid Revolution 100 and 110, where this is not actually stated. Shaban believes Ḥayyān al-Nabaṭī to have been a leading character among the dihqāns of Marv, which may have been the case, but unfortunately he does not provide any evidence for this.

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advice;22 clearly, he had the greatest understanding of where the power lay in the city. Another newly arrived governor, ʿĀṣim b. ʿAbdallāh al-Hilālī, sent him to Ḥārith b. Surayj together with several dignitaries to negotiate with him in 115/733 when he began his uprising.23 Ḥārith, however, had the emissaries put in chains. By that time he had probably occupied Balkh, for when they were able to escape, they fled to Marv, where they preached against him from the pulpit.24 One year later Muqātil was once again member of a delegation25 when in 119/737 Asad b. ʿAbdallāh al-Qasrī sent him to Hishām in order to report on the situation in Khorasan;26 he took the opportunity to claim back the sum of 100,000 dirhams that Yazīd b. al-Muhallab owed his (adoptive) father.27 In 126/744 we meet him as part of a delegation who once again visited Ḥārith b. Surayj in Āmul, this time sent by Naṣr b. Sayyār.28 When an arbitration hearing between the two political opponents took place in 128/746, Muqātil represented his governor’s party; he faced Jahm b. Ṣafwān at the time. When, however, things took the same turn as in Ṣiffīn, and the commission planned to remove Naṣr from office in order to enable a shūrā, Naṣr refused to accept the verdict.29 Besides Muqātil b. Ḥayyān, Naṣr had previously consulted his namesake Muqātil b. Sulaymān, who was considerably younger.30 It was probably around the same time that the two, together with the qāḍī of Balkh Mutawakkil b. Ḥumrān, determined the position of the “new” mosque, later the chief mosque.31 However, with his verdict in the arbitration, Ibn Ḥayyān had forfeited Naṣr’s goodwill, and it is not surprising that we find him, still during the same year, in the camp of Judaiʿ b. ʿAlī al-Kirmānī, the third player in the Khorasanian power game before the appearance of the Abbasids;32 but Ibn 22  Ṭabarī II 1504, 12f. 23  Regarding the date cf. Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 509, 2ff. 24  Ṭabarī II 1566, 4ff. 25  Ibid. II 1571, 1ff. 26  Ibid. II 1615, 1ff. 27  Ibid. II 1616, 2ff.; maybe this was the abovementioned fine (which had, however, been twice as high). 28  Ibid. 1867, 6ff., and 1868, 10f. 29  Ibid. II 1919, 15ff. 30  Ibid. II 1918, 13ff. 31  Asad b. ʿAbdallāh al-Qasrī had had the old mosque erected seven years before, presumably during his term as governor between 117/735 and 120/738. 32  Regarding him cf. Gibb, Conquests 81; Daniel, Khurasan 43ff.; Sharon, Black Banners, Index s. n. He was assassinated by one of Ḥārith b. Surayj’s sons (Daniel 55). Muqātil b. Sulaymān also put in an appearance there.

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Ḥayyān found himself under arrest in a tent in the army camp after expressing doubts concerning Kirmānī’s sincerity when it came to implementing the Quranic commandments33 – he seems to have expressed some ideological criticism at the wrong time. Two years later, after Kirmānī’s death, he went into business for himself, becoming commander-in-chief of the united armies of the region, the cities of Balkh and Tirmidh as well as the princes of Tokhāristān etc., who were trying to defend themselves against Abū Muslim.34 He was unable to establish himself in the long run; he had to flee from Abū Muslim and went to Kabul where he engaged in missionary activities.35 He died in Gardez, in the depths of Afghanistan, where his grave was shown for some time afterwards.36 An interesting piece of information tells us that his books were buried with him, and his favourite slave-woman was buried in the same place as well.37 It is part of the image of this powerful man that he practised asceticism.38 When he, as a qāṣṣ, told people edifying stories, he would cry.39 Ibrāhīm b. Adham, who also grew up in Balkh, and also among the Bakr b. Wāʾil whose mawlā Muqātil was,40 transmitted from him, as did ʿAbdallāh b. al-Mubārak from Marv.41 In a city in which there were probably a number of Buddhist monks in spite of everything, asceticism would have been a common enough expression of piety, but it also demonstrated the bearing of a warrior of the faith. We do not know how much Muqātil knew about fiqh.42 Only after he had been qāḍī in Samarqand did he set out on a long journey which took him first to Bukhara and Marv, but then via Nishapur and Jurjān to Iraq,43 where he attended ʿAlqama b. Marthad’s lectures in Kufa.44 It is improbable that he would

33  Ṭabarī II 1930, 16ff. 34  Ibid. II 1998, 2ff.; cf. also Nagel, Untersuchungen 156f. The note in Fażāʾil-i Balkh 75, pu. f., that he was appointed governor by the people of Balkh once, probably refers to this as well. 35   Mīzān no. 8739; TT X 278, –5ff. 36   Fażāʾil-i Balkh 74, 7f. Regarding the place cf. EI2 II 978 s. v. Gardēz. 37  Ibid. 74, 9f. 38  Ibid. 74, 4ff.; TT X 178, 13f. 39  Ibid. 154, 8f.; also 74, ult. ff. 40  Cf. EI2 III 985b s. n., and vol. I 163 above. 41   T H 174, 7; regarding him see p. 619ff. below. 42  The tradition in Shāfiʿī, Umm IV 7, 20ff., has exegetic character. 43   Fażāʾil 78, 8ff. This journey, if indeed it was not pure legend (in the form of an autobiographical account), probably took place after 95/714; certainly not much earlier (see p. 575 above). 44   Mīzān no. 8739. Regarding ʿAlqama see vol. I 212f. above.

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then also have visited the latter’s pupil Abū Ḥanīfa;45 this was probably a later attempt at co-opting him entirely into the Ḥanafite tradition of Khorasan. In Jurjān he made the acquaintance of Shahr b. Ḥawshab and noted with surprise that he performed masḥ ʿalā l-khuffayn even though he had urinated before (and consequently his shoes were presumably unclean).46 In Wāsiṭ he witnessed Yazīd b. al-Muhallab railing against the Syrians in a sermon.47 This was probably in 101 or 102; he may have been in touch with his father at the time, as the latter also appeared in Ibn al-Muhallab’s surroundings. Ibn Ḥayyān’s Tafsīr seems to reveal the qāṣṣ rather than the qāḍī. The Shīʿite commentator Abū l-Futūḥ al-Rāzī (first half of the sixth/twelfth century) provides some information on its contents.48 Thaʿlabī, too, mentioned the work among his sources,49 but this author did not, of course, always state which information came from which precise source. Abū l-Futūḥ, on the other hand, occasionally cited Muqātil’s traditions which, due to their nonchalantly midrashic style, were probably not much liked by Iraqi rationalists. Thus we find the idea that the sun is taken to the seventh heaven every night where it is kept beneath the throne;50 just before sunrise God decides whether it must rise in the east or in the west.51 The creation of sun and moon is also the starting point of his exegesis of sura 14:33, which takes the form of a didactic conversation between the prophet and Ḥudhayfa b. al-Yamān and develops into a vast canvas of the divine creator’s intentions all the way to the Last Judgment; in the late source in which it has come down to us (Suyūṭī, La‌ʾālī al-maṣnūʿa) it fills ten pages.52 He transmits it with different isnāds;53 the authorship appears established. Elsewhere we hear that Muqātil b. Ḥayyān interpreted the verse sura 23:18 “And we sent down out of heaven water in (limited) measure and lodged it in the earth; and we are able to take it away” to mean that the 45   Fażāʾil 75, 6ff. 46  Sahmī, Ta‌ʾrīkh Jurjān 186, apu. ff. 47  Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 410, 3ff. The editor wrongly identifies the Muqātil mentioned here as Muqātil b. Sulaymān. 48  Regarding him cf. McDermott in: EIran I 292. 49   Kashf, Intro., ed. Goldfeld 38, 2ff.; also GAS 1/36. 50  Presumably Ibn Ḥayyān believed the throne to be made from light. 51  Cf. ʿAskar Ḥuqūqī, Taḥqīq dar tafsīr Abū l-Futūḥ al-Rāzī II 262f. no. 1122; further instances ibid., Indices s. n. A variant in Ṭabarī I 61, 8ff./transl. Rosenthal, History I 231ff., transmitted by ʿUmar b. Ṣubḥ al-Khurāsānī (regarding him see p. 598f. below). 52   La‌ʾālī I 45, apu. –55, –5. 53  The version quoted came via ʿUmar b. Ṣubḥ once again; while another one came via Nūḥ b. Abī Maryam (56, apu. ff., and 57, –7ff.; regarding him see p. 617 below); in yet another one Muqātil went back to Ibn ʿAbbās via ʿIkrima.

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five rivers of paradise, among them the Gihon/Jayḥūn, “the river of Balkh”, would be diverted from heaven onto earth and then, at the end of time and as an indication of apocalyptic visitation, would flow back to heaven.54 This may be the first piece of evidence that local scholars exchanged the Oxus’ original name for the Biblical one.55 God’s long admonition to Jesus to prepare his community for Muḥammad’s arrival may well belong in an exegetic context as well.56 Ibn Ḥayyān did probably not compose a complete Quranic commentary. Being a qāṣṣ he would include exegetic deliberations in his edifying lectures, where they may have been more important than other material, but there was always something not directly linked to the Quran. These are the phrases that would later reappear as hadith – as, indeed, did the exegetic fragments. If any details appeared strange (munkar) to later eyes, the blame would be put on his pupils: the arch-heretic ʿUmar b. Ṣubḥ al-Khurāsānī and the two Murjiʾites Aṣram b. Ghiyāth57 and Bukair al-Dāmghānī.58 Ibn Ḥayyān’s own theological position is difficult to determine. It was probably too early for the Murjiʾa in Balkh at the time, although he may have shared the general traits of its definition of faith, as it would go well with a hadith Bukayr transmitted from him.59 However, he probably only agreed with it to the degree that Jahm b. Ṣafwān did, too, as his political opposition to Jahm did not rule out certain theological correspondences. When he says in a prayer formula that was unambiguously traced back to him that in the end only God’s face would remain,60 he is emphasising a Quranic dictum from which Jahm concluded that paradise and hell are finite.61 Like Jahm, he was probably a determinist.62 And when people attribute to him the exegesis that God is close to humans only because he knows all about them,63 we have come full circle: Muqātil emphasised God’s transcendence more than his immanence. His younger contemporary 54  Ibn Ḥibbān, Majrūḥīn III 34, 12ff. Does this reflect an Indian concept? The Ganges was regarded as a link between heaven and earth; it comes from the moon (H. Stietencron, Gaṅgā and Yamunā 53). 55  Cf. Spuler, Der Amu Daryā, in: J. Deny Armağanı 232. More general also A. Miquel, Géographie humaine III 223ff. 56  Fasawī III 275, 3ff. A tradition on Moses: cf. Biḥār XIII 61, 9ff. 57  See p. 680 below. 58  See p. 679 below. 59  Ibid. 60   Fażāʾil-i Balkh 75, 3f. 61  See p. 569 above. 62  Cf. the sun legend mentioned above. Also HT 170ff., where, however, much needs to be modified with regard to what has been said here. 63  See p. 679 below, referring to sura 58:7.

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and namesake Muqātil b. Sulaymān who, as we have seen, was active in Balkh parallel to him from the second half of the twenties onwards, had rather different ideas. 3.1.2.1.1.2

Muqātil b. Sulaymān

Abū l-Ḥasan Muqātil b. Sulaymān b. Bishr/Bashīr al-Balkhī, a client of the Asad,1 was said to have taught at the very chief mosque in Balkh2 the location of which he had helped determine.3 His father had been qāḍī in the city.4 He himself, like many others, found himself embroiled in the turbulence of the late Umayyad era. It was he who advised Naṣr b. Sayyār to choose a pithy Quranic motto for his final battle against Ḥārith b. Surayj.5 It was noted with interest that soldiers at the time would tie wool to their lances. Muqātil was said to have worn a woollen cuirass under his shirt;6 he circulated a hadith according to which the prophet had died “in wool” and had had eleven patches (raqʿa) on his clothes some of which had come down to him from Adam.7 Muqātil certainly did not get on with Jahm b. Ṣafwān; at one point, when he was narrating edifying stories (qiṣaṣ) in the chief mosque of Marv, the argument between them was said to have reached such heat that they started publishing written polemic against each other.8 However, this is probably merely one of those anecdotes which reflect later opposition between schools back onto the parent generation. While Muqātil spent a long time in Marv, as he married the mother of the future qāḍī Nūḥ b. Abī Maryam (d. 173/789–90) there,9 this may have been some years later. He probably only left Balkh when he – possibly for the same reason as Muqātil b. Ḥayyān – found it impossible to get along with Naṣr b. Sayyār anymore. Like Ibn Ḥayyān, he now joined Kirmānī as a kind of paymaster (mudabbir) with some influence on the leader.10 Later he joined the armies of the united cities of Khorasan against Abū Muslim.11 When the campaign failed he may have 1  TB XIII 169, 1. Ibn Ḥibbān says Azd instead (Majrūḥīn III 14, –4), but this might be a variant spelling (cf. EI2 I 811 s. v. Azd). 2  Fażāʾil-i Balkh 93, 3f. 3  See p. 577 above. 4  Fażāʾil 208, pu. 5  Ḥā-Mīm. Lā yunṣarūn, not unlike “Venceremos” (cf. Ṭabarī II 1921, 6ff.). 6  TB XIII 162, 19f. 7  Suyūṭī, La‌ʾālī II 264, –6ff. 8  Thus e.g. Dhahabī, Mīzān no. 8741, and Ta‌ʾrīkh VI 303, –5ff.; TT X 280, 10ff.; all probably after ʿAbbās b. Muṣʿab, Ta‌ʾrīkh Marv (cf. Rosenthal, Historiography 477). 9  TT X 280, 9ff.; regarding him see p. 617 below. Cf. also TB XIII 163, 15f. 10  Ṭabarī II 1931, 15f., and 1933, 7. 11   Fażāʾil-i Balkh 86, 3ff.

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got off more lightly than Ibn Ḥayyān (who had, after all, been commander-inchief).12 Even so, his trail becomes difficult to discern. He seems to have joined the border fighters in Syria temporarily. Visits to Beirut13 and Jerusalem were mentioned; he appears to have lectured at the southern gate of the Dome of the Rock (or the temple square).14 He was also believed to have been to Mecca once, perhaps during the pilgrimage.15 The only comparatively reliably documented event is that he appeared in Iraq some time during Manṣūr’s caliphate; it was reported that he recited hadith to the caliph and made an impression thanks to his knowledge of zoology.16 The crown prince al-Mahdī was said to have sponsored him for a time.17 Around 150/767, when Abū Ḥanīfa died, thousands were said to have attended his lectures.18 Towards the end of his life he moved to ʿAbbādān where it appears he died as well.19 The date of his death is not certain. His pupil Hudhayl b. Ḥabīb mentioned 150/767,20 which agrees with Ibn Ḥibbān’s vague indication of “after the Hāshimiyya’s uprising” (i.e. al-Nafs al-zakiyya’s revolt in 145/762).21 The author of the history of the city of Balkh suggests 158/775.22 The time he spent in Syria would be easier to explain if he had originally come from there. This has been assumed for the muqātila in general (cf. Daniel, Khurasan 86), but we have no evidence in his case. Nor do we learn anything about his social position, much less, certainly, than in the case of Muqātil b. Ḥayyān. This would change if the designation Dūwaldūz was in fact directed at him rather than Ibn Ḥayyān, as is assumed in one passage in Fażāʾil-i Balkh (91, 8f.); Dhahabī believed it, too (Mīzān IV 174, 4ff.), as did Dāwūdī later (Ṭabaqāt al-mufassirīn II 330f. no. 642). It is, 12  An amān is mentioned (ibid. 86, 6). 13   I AH IV1 355, 1ff.; Dhahabī, Ta‌ʾrīkh VI 302, pu. ff. Without location TB XIII 163, 10ff., ʿIqd II 218, 8ff., and IKh V 255, apu. ff. Cf. Yāqūt, Buldān I 525b, 16. 14  Wāsiṭī, Faḍāʾil al-Quds 86f. no. 140; Mujīr al-Dīn, Al-uns al-jalīl I 292, 11ff. 15  The story told regarding Beirut is located in Mecca in TB XIII 166, 10ff. Cf. also ibid. 167, 16ff., where he discusses the Quran with ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd and others and passes on Ḍaḥḥāk b. Muzāḥim’s exegesis. 16   T B XIII 167, 9f.; TT X 284, apu. ff. (after a falconer’s report). Cf. also the anecdote IKh V 255, 13ff. 17  Wakīʿ, Akhbār al-quḍāt III 248, 9. 18  Ṣaymarī, Akhbār Abī Ḥanīfa 88, pu. ff. Cf. also the remark made by Sufyān al-Thawrī in Ḥilya VII 37, –8f. 19  Thus after Fażāʾil-i Balkh 89, 6f.; elsewhere only “Basra” (TB XIII 168, ult. f.). 20   T B 169, 15f. 21   Majrūḥīn III 14, apu. 22   Fażāʾil, ibid.

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however, possible that the passage quoted first is in the wrong context, as Dhahabī earlier said the opposite in the same context (cf. 174, 4ff. and 172, ult. ff.), and Dāwūdī is anything but original. The laqab al-Kharrāz that would correspond perfectly with Ibn Dūwaldūz is certainly only linked to Muqātil b. Ḥayyān (see p. 574 above). – Muqātil’s nephew Faḍl al-Balkhī is mentioned in Mīzān no. 6763. It is easier to assess his exegetical works nowadays than it was in the past. The books for which manuscripts have been found have all been edited: the “great” Tafsīr,23 the Tafsīr khamsmiʾat āya,24 and the K. wujūh al-Qurʾān.25 Goldziher’s pioneering deliberations26 have been joined by research by N. Abbott,27 P. Nwyia,28 Ismail Cerrahoğlu,29 J. Wansbrough,30 I. Goldfeld,31 and K. Versteegh.31a Some problems have been delimited even more clearly. Goldziher emphasised the Tafsīr’s “mythological” character, the preponderance of fantastic and legendary elements. This is a correct observation: like his namesake, Muqātil b. Sulaymān followed the Khorasanian qāṣṣ tradition; but it is also a reflection of the rationalist view of the Arabic secondary sources to which Goldziher referred. Naẓẓām had already listed Muqātil among the exegetes who believed in miracles.32 Jāḥiẓ reported an explanation of Abraham’s footprint in maqam Ibrāhīm by him,33 or a conversation between Moses and Khaḍir.34 Ṭabarī considered him, but not Muqātil b. Ḥayyān, to be unreliable.35 In the end this is only one aspect among several: Muqātil did not only want to tell stories but to explain the Quran as a whole (if not completely). There 23  By ʿAbdallāh Maḥmūd Shiḥāta, vol. I, Cairo 1969 (the remaining volumes Cairo 1980–87, but difficult to come by), and by M. M. al-Ṣawwāf, Beirut 1977 (which has not been accessible to me so far). 24  Twice as well: by M. M. Al-Sawwaf (al-Ṣawwāf) in his dissertation Muqātil b. Sulaymān, an early Zaydi Theologian, with special reference to his Tafsīr (PhD Oxford 1969) and by I. Goldfeld, Bar Ilan University, 1980 (who did not know Al-Sawwaf’s work). 25  Ed. ʿAbdallāh Maḥmūd Shiḥāta entitled K. al-ashbāh wal-naẓāʾir fī l-Qurʾān al-karīm (Cairo 1975). 26   Richtungen der Koranauslegung 58ff. 27  In: Arabic papyri II 95ff. 28  In: Exégèse coranique et langage mystique (Beirut 1970), 25f. 29  In: Ankara Üniv. Ilah. Fak. Dergisi 21/1976/1ff.; also Tefsir tarihi I 195ff. 30  In : Quranic Studies (Oxford 1977), esp. 122ff.; cf. also Index s. n. 31  In: Arabic and Islamic Studies, Bar Ilan University 2/1978/xiiiff. 31a  In: Der Islam 67/1990/206ff. 32  Jāḥiẓ, Ḥayawān I 343, 5ff.; cf. also Ibn Ḥazm’s verdict Uṣūl I 218, 1ff. 33  Ibid. IV 206, 2ff. 34  Ibid. VII 204, 2ff. 35  Yāqūt, Irshād VI 441, 4 and 6f.; cf. Gilliot, Exégèse, langue et théologie 233.

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was a reason why people were amused by his pride in being able to answer every question.36 The “horror of the uncertain”37 led him to add interpretations which later generations would consider untenable. At the same time the answers he gave and the method he applied often point far beyond the “mythological” style,38 with the result that he, more than Muqātil b. Ḥayyān, enabled later generations to build on his results. Consequently his works were not lost, but if they did survive, it was with additions and emendations by later redactors. It would be advisable to research this separately. a) The great Tafsīr, extant in several manuscripts,39 was transmitted in Baghdad as well as in Khorasan, as illustrated by the riwāyāt Thaʿlabī noted in the foreword to his Kashf wal-bayān.40 Two of them remain in Muqātil’s homeland: Muqātil A 1:

Abū ʿIṣma

B 1:

Isḥāq b. Ibrāhīm al-Thaʿlabī

A 2:

ʿAlī b. al-Ḥusayn b. Wāqid

B 2:

Aḥmad b. ʿAbdallāh

A 3:

Aḥmad b. Jamīl

B 3:

Abū Yāsir ʿAmmār b. ʿAbd al-Majīd

A 4:

Abū Rajāʾ Muḥammad b. Ḥamdōya

B 4:

Abū l-Qāsim ʿAbdallāh b. al-Ma‌ʾmūn

A 5:

ʿAbdallāh b. Aḥmad b. al-Ṣiddīq in Marv AB 6: Abū l-Qāsim al-Ḥabībī Thaʿlabī

36  This is the tenor of the anecdote mentioned in n. 13 and 15 above, and this was probably why it was emphasised that he had predicted the advent of the antichrist for 150 and been proved wrong (TB XIII 168, 4f., where incorrectly 105 instead of 150; cf. TT X 283, 3f. and Dhahabī, Ta‌ʾrīkh VI 303, 15f.). 37  Blachère in Nwyia, Exégèse 63. Subsequently many examples. 38  Goldfeld discusses his 32 principles of Quran exegesis in: SI 67/1988/23ff. 39  Cf. GAS 1/37. 40  Ed. Goldfeld 39, 2ff.; cf. also Goldfeld, Tafsīr khamsmiʾat āya, Intro. 7, n. 9.

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The first chain of transmitters stays in Marv for five generations, starting with Muqātil’s stepson Abū ʿIṣma Nūḥ b. Abī Maryam who was a qāḍī in the city. (A 1).41 A 2 was a qāḍī’s son; he died in 211/826 or 212/827.42 A 3, Abū Yūsuf Aḥmad b. Jamīl al-Marwazī, had attended Ibn al-Mubārak’s lectures in his youth, and later numbered Ibn Abī Dunyā among his pupils. At the time he was living in Baghdad, selling fabrics in a distinguished quarter inhabited by old-established Khorasanian families;43 he died there in 230/845.44 A 4, who bore the nisbas al-Sanjī and al-Khūraqānī, composed a Ta‌ʾrīkh Marv; he died in 306/918.45 Considering the chronological distance between them it is unlikely that he did indeed attend A 3’s lectures; maybe he simply brought the text back to Marv from Baghdad at some point. A 5 was certainly based in Marv; his full name was Abū Muḥammad ʿAbdallāh b. Aḥmad b. al-Ṣiddīq b. Muḥammad b. Dāwūd al-Marwazī, and he died, as al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī heard tell, around 370/980.46 The names of the second riwāya can barely be identified, but we can discern that it is spread more widely. B 3 kept Kalbī’s exegetic tradition alive in Khorasan;47 B 2 might be that Aḥmad b. ʿAbdallāh al-Tamīmī al-Jūybārī from Herat from whom Ibn Karrām transmitted a hadith praising Abū Ḥanīfa.48 Both strands converge in AB 6, i.e. Abū l-Qāsim al-Ḥasan b. Muḥammad Ibn Ḥabīb al-Naysābūrī (d. 406/1016), Thaʿlabī’s (d. 427/1036) teacher who was himself an esteemed exegete and transmitted Kalbī’s Tafsīr to him as well.49 Thaʿlabī’s text, which has not been edited with the exception of the introduction so far, may well, with more detailed analysis, allow further inferences regarding the character of this eastern recension, as the only other extant one was produced

41  Regarding him see p. 617f. below. 42  Regarding him see p. 624f. below. 43  In the qaṭīʿat al-Rabīʿ; cf. Ṣāliḥ al-ʿAlī, Baghdād I1, Index s. v. 44   T B IV 76f. no. 1704; Ibn Ḥajar, Lisān al-Mīzān. 45   G AS 1/351. 46   T B IX 390 no. 4984. Goldfeld reconstructed the name based on the majority of the MSS as Aḥmad b. ʿAbdallāh b. al-Ṣiddīq, which is why he was unable to identify him (40, 3f.); but cf. the parallel 54, 3f. 47  Cf. my Ungenützte Texte zur Karrāmiyya 51, no. 17 in the genealogical tree p. 44. He must be separated from the ʿAmmār b. ʿAbd al-Jabbār mentioned by Thaʿlabī (25, pu. f.), as this one died in late 211–early 212/March 827 (TB XII 254f. no. 6702). 48  Ibid. 49. The chronology is not, however, entirely without problems. 49  Cf. Goldfeld in: Der Islam 58/1981/131, n. 40, and 133. Regarding him GAS 1/47 with further references; also Dāwūdī, Ṭab. I 140f. no. 140. Altogether Thaʿlabī was in his debt for 24 books (cf. Kashf, Intro., Index 86 s. n.). Regarding him see also p. 625 below.

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in Baghdad. The Cairo printed version is based on this one which contains a riwāya the early links of which are identical with Thaʿlabī’s: Muqātil C 1: Abū Ṣāliḥ al-Hudhayl b. Ḥabīb al-Dandānī C 2: Thābit b. Yaʿqūb al-Tawwazī C 3: al-qāḍī Abū Muḥammad b. ʿAbdallāh b. Thābit b. Yaʿqūb al-Muqriʾ al-Tawwazī C 4 a: Abū ʿAmr Ibn al-Sammāk

C 4 b: Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Khāliq b. al-Ḥasan Ibn Abī Ruʾba al-Saqaṭī

C 5 a: al-qāḍī Abū ʿAbdallāh Muḥammad b.ʿAlī b. Zād.l.j (?)50 C 6 a: al-qāḍī Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. ʿAqīl b. Zayd al-Shahrazūrī

C 5 b: Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad al-Mihrajānī Thaʿlabī51

Al-Hudhayl b. Ḥabīb (C 1), a pupil of the Kufan Quran reciter Ḥamza b. Ḥabīb, transmitted the entire work (min awwalihī ilā ākhirihī) to C 2 in 190/806 in the Darb al-Sidra in Baghdad; the samāʿ note was recorded by al-Khaṭīb alBaghdādī,52 who appears to have added some of his own traditions and interpretations.53 C 2, Thābit b. Yaʿqūb b. Qays b. Ibrāhīm b. ʿAbdallāh al-Tawwazī, 50  Tafsīr, ed. Shiḥāta 3, 4ff.; Goldfeld, Tafsīr khamsmiʾat āya, Intro. 6 after MS Ahmet III 74/1–2. Another transmitted version besides Zād.l.j is Dārīj. 51  Cf. Goldfeld 7, n. 19. 52   T B XIV 78, ult. ff. with an isnād that corresponds to the above one up to no. 4. No. 5 is occupied by the Khaṭīb’s own source. It is based on a samāʿ note like the one Tafsīr, ed. Shiḥāta I 79, 6ff. Cf. also Rosenthal, Gambling 29. 53  Mostly marked outside of the text per se, in the foreword (cf. Tafsīr I 4, 7ff., and 6. 3ff.) or at the end of a sura (214, 11ff.), rarely in the text (e.g. 213, 11ff.). Cf. in more detail Versteegh in: Der Islam 67/1990/207ff.

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lived in Baghdad, too; he died at the age of 85. His son (C 3) heard the Tafsīr from him in 240/854.54 This ʿAbdallāh b. Thābit (C 3), Quran reciter and grammarian (b. late 223/autumn 838, d. 308/920),55 added much new material, hadith after Muqātil and other sources, even lexical explanation and juristic opinions (ra‌ʾy),56 presumably in the form of explanatory remarks during his lectures. The transition to the next generation seems to mark the final standardisation of the text, and this is where the strands of transmission diverge. One samāʿ note mid-text, presumably at an ancient caesura between two juzʾ, tells us that a certain Abū ʿAmr studied the text under C 3 in 284/897.57 As we learn from MS Köprülü 143, this was Abū ʿAmr ʿUthmān b. Aḥmad b. ʿAbdallāh al-Daqqāq, called Ibn al-Sammāk, who lived until 344/955;58 he must have been quite young at the time. The second transmitter, Ibn Abī Ruʾba, a notary or professional witness, was younger still; he only died on 14 Rajab 356/25 June 967.59 From him, the text was once again transmitted by two different people, the second of them (C 5b) a young man, namely the Ashʿarite theologian Abū Isḥāq al-Isfarāʾīnī (d. 418/1027), who is listed with his second nisba al-Mihrajānī above. C 6 cannot as yet be traced; he may have been the Shāfiʿite Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad b. ʿAqīl al-Shahrazūrī, who died in Damscus in 484/1091.60 In some instances, especially sura 25, the isnād branches out immediately after C 1. Al-Hudhayl b. Ḥabīb transmits to Abū l-Qāsim alḤusayn b. ʿAwn > Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad b. Hāniʾ (cf. Versteegh in: Der Islam 67/1990/208). We cannot be certain whether a further isnād with which Ibn Bābōya transmitted stories of the prophet from Muqātil (Muqātil > Bāriḥ b. Aḥmad > Sulaymān b. al-Rabīʿ . . .) also refers to the Tafsīr. The same applies to the chain in Ibn al-Qāṣṣ, Dalāʾil al-­qibla 76, 4ff. (in: ZGAIW 4/1987–88): Muqātil > Aḥmad b. Ṣāliḥ > al-ʿAbbās b. Sahl . . . Jāḥiẓ relied on one of Muqātil’s rāwīs named Abū ʿAqīl alSawwāq (Ḥayawān IV 206, 2f., and VII 204, 2). None of these names can be identified with certainty yet.

54   T B VII 143 no. 3591, once again corresponding to Tafsīr I 79, 8f. 55  Ibid. IX 426f. no. 5039; Ibn al-Jazarī, Ṭab. I 411f. no. 1750; Ibn ʿAsākir, TTD VII 312, 12ff. 56  Thus after the isnād in MS Ahmet III 74/1–2 (cf. Goldfeld 6). 57   Tafsīr 79, 9f. 58  Ibid., Intro. yā, n. 1. Regrding him cf. TB XI 302f. no. 6092; Mīzān no. 5486. 59   T B XI 124 no. 5819; Ibn al-ʿImād, Shadharāt al-dhahab III 19, 5f. 60  Asnawī, Ṭabaqāt al-Shāfiʿiyya II 94 no. 684.

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Much remains for future research. As long as we cannot compare the eastern recension, it will be difficult to penetrate to the original core.61 The information on Muqātil’s numerous sources, which appears occasionally, e.g. in Ḥājjī Khalīfa,62 must be viewed with scepticism. While they do go back as far as C 3, who noted a list of a total of 30 authorities from Basra, Kufa and Medina including 12 tābiʿūn,63 it is unlikely that he would have distinguished between the oldest names and later additions or retrospective identifications. The isnāds were probably polished later.64 One might expect that Muqātil made use of Muqātil b. Ḥayyān’s Tafsīr, and Ḥājjī Khalīfa does indeed link the two works in one note. However, this also shows that it was not possible to distinguish the two anymore. If we read that the older of the two admired his younger namesake’s knowledge65 or – most improbable – held his stirrup,66 this may indicate the recollection that his work was superseded by the younger man’s oeuvre. Muqātil certainly also knew Ḍaḥḥāk b. Muzāḥim’s exegetic tradition; while he did not personally attend his lectures, he was able to use Ḍaḥḥāk’s notes.67 It is interesting that the extant text’s grammatical terminology – which is not very developed – adhered to Kufan models. Versteegh believes Ibn ʿAbbās’ Tafsīr, i.e. one of its Kufan recensions, to have been the intermediary.68 This will need to be confirmed in detail, but a point in favour might be that the Kufan Kalbī tradition, which itself was based on Ibn ʿAbbās,69 was woven into the material transmitted from Muqātil; both strands meet as early as Muqātil’s stepson Abū ʿIṣma (A 1).70 It would be too optimistic to assume that he separated them cleanly every time. The same applies to B 3, and there is evidence for this process elsewhere, too: a certain Mūsā b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Thaqafī al-Ṣanʿānī was suspected of having collated a “book on Quranic exegesis” using Muqātil’s and Kalbī’s texts, and then tracing it back via Ibn Jurayj and ʿAṭāʾ b. Abī Rabāḥ

61  I am not quite as optimistic as Versteegh in: Der Islam 67/1990/209. 62   Kashf al-ẓunūn 459, 3ff. 63   Tafsīr, ed. Shiḥāta I 3, 7ff. 64  Interestingly another problem was that Sufyān al-Thawrī was mentioned, too, although he died only in 161/778, i.e. after Muqātil. 65   T B XIII 162, 16ff. 66   Fażāʾil-i Balkh 92, apu. ff. 67  Maqdisī, Badʾ IV 102, 8ff. = Ibn al-Qāṣṣ, Dalāʾil al-qibla (in: ZGAIW 4/1987–8/76, 4ff.). Also Ibn Ḥibbān, Majrūḥīn III 15, 1ff., and n. 15 above; further material in Abbott, Papyri II 97f. 68  Der Islam 67/1990/235ff. 69  See vol.  I 346f. above. 70  Ibn Ḥibbān, Majrūḥīn II 242, 9ff. > Mīzān no. 8891.

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to Ibn ʿAbbās.71 This would have been in the late second century, at the very time when Abū ʿIṣma and Hudhayl b. Ḥabīb were preparing their recensions. Kalbī and Muqātil would both be criticised later for the same reason: simply collecting material without ever having heard it in a proper lecture.72 b) In the only extant MS (Brit. Mus. Or. 6333) the Tafsīr khamsmiʾat āya has the same Baghdad riwāya as the great Tafsīr up to C 4. In the subsequent generation C 5a corresponds,73 while C 5b does not appear. As the text corresponds with at least one of the manuscripts of the great Tafsīr74 down to spelling details, it may be that this second exegetic work of Muqātil’s was excerpted from the basic text. Goldfeld thought ʿAbdallāh b. Thābit (C 3) was the man responsible, as he considered him to have been the “redactor” in any case. However, there was at least one further riwāya which, like the eastern recension of the great Tafsīr, has not come down to us. It passed through Abū Naṣr Manṣūr b. ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd al-Bāwardī/Abīwardī, who was Muqātil’s pupil for thirteen years.75 Bukayr b. Jaʿfar al-Sālimī, a qāḍī in Jurjān, also transmitted the work from him, or indeed from Muqātil directly,76 which makes it seem as though the structure of the text had been devised by Muqātil himself. This does not rule out that contents as well as form could have been influenced retrospectively by the respective dominant recension of the great Tafsīr. The structure is what is essential for our considerations at this point, as the 500 verses selected are ones in which the Quran pronounces on legal and ritual issues. They are arranged according to subject matter rather than Quranic sequence; the two works are to one another like a musnad and a muṣannaf, as it were. We are actually looking at a handbook for lawyers. It is probably no coincidence that C 3 and C 5a bear the title of qāḍī in the riwāya; C 4, as we have seen, was one of the shuhūd. It is no coincidence either that Muqātil decided on this selection, or that it was possible to make this selection from his work. The Tafsīr was not purely “mythological”, after all.

71  Ibn Ḥibbān, Majrūḥīn II 242, 9ff. > Mīzān no. 8891. 72   T B XIII 163, 7ff.; Abbott 104. 73  Cf. also Wansbrough, Quranic Studies 172. 74  Ahmet III 74/1–2, which is a copy of a very old manuscript from which the commentary on some verses was missing (Goldfeld 7). 75  Cf. Mīzān IV 175, 5, and TB XIII 162, 19. Regarding him cf. also Mīzān no. 8785; Lisān al-Mīzān VI 97 no. 338. Dhahabī – at least in the printed version – has incorrect Abū Nuṣayr instead of Abū Naṣr. 76  Sahmī, Ta‌ʾrīkh Jurjān  127, 5, and 128, 4f.; regarding him see also Halm, Ausbreitung 125.

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A mujtahid did not have to know the entire Quran like a ḥāfiẓ, but only the passages with legal relevance. It remains to be researched since when the, surely approximate, figure of 500 verses (e.g. Ghazzālī, Mustaṣfā II) has been the accepted one. This would provide a criterion to help determine whether Muqātil himself arranged his Tafsīr in this way during his lectures, or not. It must not be overlooked that Thaʿlabī did not know the second title. Regarding the subject matter cf. Cerrahoğlu, Tefsir tarihi 217ff., and Wansbrough 173; an example of the application of the method may be found in Wansbrough 170ff. c) A further approach, and one that looked to the future, entered the picture in the K. wujūh al-Qurʾān (al-sharīf)77 or Wujūh ḥarf al-Qurʾān.78 This text, too, goes back to Abū Naṣr al-Bāwardī, whom we met above in the context of the Tafsīr khamsmiʾat āya; he is said to have “arranged” (allafa, i.e. not just transmitted) it, as the foreword tells us.79 This, however, was not the only riwāya; Thaʿlabī has another one that goes back to C 1,80 and appears to be mainly Iraqi,81 but has no further similarities with that in the “great” Tafsīr. Thaʿlabī also tells us that a K. al-wujūh by ʿIkrima was also known;82 he links the two works closely. This may be a special case. Only one generation after l-Ḥusayn b. Wāqid (d. 159/776), qāḍī of Marv and father of A 2,83 composed a K. al-wujūh and a Tafsīr as well.84 He transmitted material from ʿIkrima,85 while his son transmitted Muqātil’s Tafsīr86 and also composed a K. al-naẓāʾir the contents of which were probably not dissimilar to the K. al-wujūh.87 Consequently we 77  Thus the original title in MS ʿUmūmī (cf. Abbott II 95). 78  Thus after MS Emanet 2050 (cf. Wansbrough 208). 79  Abbott 96f.; Wansbrough 208. 80   Kashf, Intro. 53, 6ff. 81  Cf. the footnotes in Goldfeld (where, however, the fourth link has been identified wrongly. He was not Ibn Rāhōya, but Abū Yaʿqūb Isḥāq b. Ibrāhīm b. Khalīl from Baghdad who died in early Shaʿbān 314/mid-October 926; cf. TB VI 392 no. 3425). His predecessor Muḥammad b. Hāniʾ was the father of Abū Bakr al-Athram who was close to Ibn Ḥanbal (regarding him GAS 1/509f., and p. 777 below). He also appears in the isnād on p. 587 above. 82   Kashf 52, pu. ff. 83  Regarding him Wakīʿ, Akhbār al-quḍāt III 306, –8ff.; IS VII2 104, 1f.; TT II 373f. no. 642; Juynboll, Muslim Tradition 230. 84  Ibn al-Nadīm, Fihrist 284, –5f. (incorrectly Ḥasan instead of Ḥusayn; cf. Dāwūdī, Ṭab. I 160 no. 156). 85  See p. 624 below. 86  And ʿIkrima’s as well. 87  Ibid., cf. p. 624 below.

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must expect that during the second half of the second century the Muqātil tradition was contaminated with the ʿIkrima tradition; in the understanding of the period, both of them went back to Ibn ʿAbbās anyway.88 On the other hand the genre of wujūh works has its roots only here. Muqātil’s book soon found its way into Egypt where it is documented in an early papyrus.89 Al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī acquired the rights to its transmission.90 Around the same time the Hanafite chief qāḍī Muḥammad b. ʿAlī al-Dāmghānī (d. 478/1085) incorporated it nearly completely into his K. iṣlāḥ al-wujūh walnaẓāʾir.91 In the second half of the sixth century it was translated into Persian by Abū l-Faḍl Ḥubaysh b. Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad al-Tiflīsī (d. 588/1192 in Anatolia), who is known to us mainly as a physician;92 he also added material from other sources, such as Ibn Qutayba’s K. mushkil al-Qurʾān, Thaʿlabī’s and Shūrābādī’s commentaries etc.93 Wujūh describes the “aspects” under which one and the same word can appear in the Qurʾān in different contexts. The books present them in catalogue form, indicating a philological approach to the text that, unlike the legends of the quṣṣāṣ, does not take isolated passages as its starting points but looks at the Quran as a whole, like a rudimentary concordance. It is characteristic that the method is text-immanent, comparing Quranic vocabulary with itself and not, as later grammarians would do, with pre-Islamic poetry. The lingua sacra is felt to be a mode of communication that is elevated above normality.94 It is also characteristic that it is not the lexically comprehensible meanings that are researched, but rather that which is meant in a certain passage: “afterlife” can mean: 1) resurrection, 2) paradise, 3) hell and 4) grave; and, strikingly, in different passages “one” (aḥad) means “God”, “the prophet” or “Bilāl”.95 This is by no means about homonyms, as that concept would only emerge on contact with Aristotelianism. Also, metaphorical and literal meaning are still on the same level; consequently the problem of anthropomorphism is not much 88  Thaʿlabī appears to have been of this opinion, too. 89  Abbott, Papyri II 101. The editor wished to date the papyrus during Muqātil’s own lifetime; Wansbrough 208 is more sceptical (probably with justification). Speculations on how the papyrus reached Egypt (maybe via Shāfiʿī?) in Abbott 102ff. 90   G AS 1/37 after the evidence of the Mashyakha. 91  Ed. Beirut 1970. Regarding the author cf. GAL2 1/416 S 1/637, and Rippin in: Approaches to the History of the Interpretation of the Qurʾān 169; on the edition see Gilliot in: MIDEO 19/1989/305. 92  Cf. Ullmann, Medizin im Islam 169f. 93  Ed. M. Muḥaqqiq, Teheran 1340 sh./1961. 94  Cf. Wansbrough 142 and 215. 95   Al-ashbāh wal-naẓāʾir, ed. Shiḥāta 302 no. 157, and 260f. no. 123. Further examples in Wansbrough 209 and Nwyia, Exégèse 35ff.; cf. also Abū Zayd, Al-ittijāh al-ʿaqlī 97ff.

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detected.96 The analysis does not cover the entire lexicon of the Quran but concentrates on central religious terms as well as particles (such as li, siwā, hal etc.).97 All of which consolidates into the impression that the method, new as it was, was indeed still in its infancy. Thus also Wansbrough 212. He also makes the comparison, as Goldziher did before him, with the panīm of the Tannaitic exegetes (p. 155). D. Daube believed that Jewish exegesis very early on, before Hillel, used collections of ἅπαξ λεγόμενα, δὶς λεγόμενα etc. (in: HUCA 22/1949/241, n. 7). Wansbrough’s dating the extant text to the beginning of the third/ ninth century (p. 209) is probably too late. A comparison with the philological exegesis, which did not begin until sometime after Muqātil, might be worthwhile. It seems to me that e.g. lām al-ʿāqiba, later a favourite with exegetic speculation, was not known to Muqātil (cf. Ashbāh 277, no. 137). – Regarding the literary genre in general cf. Abdus Sattar in: Islamic Studies 17/1978/137ff. At the same time there were attempts at arranging the Quranic lexicon according to the opposite criterion, searching for analogies or – to put it anachronistically – synonyms for certain terms. This was called naẓāʾir, “parallels”. This was how Muqātil’s book acquired the title K. al-wujūh wal-naẓāʾir in retrospect; Ibn al-Nadīm lists it as such.98 It is true that the word naẓāʾir does occur in the text,99 but it is not an aspect that is pursued systematically; what we do find are occasional lexical equations or references to parallel expressions.100 A Muqātil fragment of around ten pages, preserved by Malaṭī101 and brought to light by Massignon,102 shows a different approach. It collects only lexical equations, but there are no text-immanent comparisons, but instead a simple lexical meaning that applies to all passages in which the word is used in the Quran. In other words, the focus is on constants or permanent interpretations; the approach is stereotypical, employing the same formula every time: kullu 96  Cf. Ashbāh 325 no. 180 (concerning baṭsh, God’s “grasp”); 229, 4ff. (concerning ḥayy); 303ff. no. 158 (concerning nūr “light” = “Islamic faith”, “faith”, “right guidance” etc.). Cf. also Nwyia, Exégèse 67. 97  Cf. Wansbrough  210. 98  Cf. Catalogue of Works XIV b, no. 3. Numerous variants of the title have been transmitted (cf. Wansbrough 208). 99  Cf. Abbott 96. 100  Cf. Wansbrough 211f. The non-canonical hadith Muqātil quoted in the foreword to his book in support of his method mentions only wujūh (Zarkashī, Burhān I 103, 1f.). 101   Tanbīh 56, 3ff./71, 8ff. 102   Recueil 195ff.; cf. also Cerrahoğlu, Tefsir tarihi I 204ff.

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shayʾin fī-l-Qurʾān (x) yaʿnī (y) illā wāḥidan fī . . . or ghayra wāḥid fī . . .103 How far Muqātil was still from a purely lexicographical objective is illustrated by the fact that he did not trace the forms used in the Quran back to their lexical root, and thus occasionally examined closely related forms separately.104 The text does not come from the K. wujūh al-Qurʾān, and really it would be out of place there. As Malaṭī lists it under the heading mutashābih,105 we may assume that we are looking at a fragment from d) Muqātil’s K. mutashābih al-Qurʾān or his K. al-āyāt wal-mutashābihāt.106 The procedure belongs in his time; Kalbī, too, employed such “minimal explanatory units”.107 However, he is not, in fact, looking at mutashābihāt at all, but rather at the contrary, unambiguous passages (muḥkamāt), which permit the standardisation described. Malaṭī gives the impression that there was a second fragment that was part of the work he quoted, in which Muqātil was evening out those textual and substantive contradictions within the Quran which the zanādiqa were accustomed to point out.108 It is possible that the verses discussed there were the ones he considered to be mutashābihāt.109 However, the fragment raises concerns. Firstly, the reference to zanādiqa: which may be explained by Muqātil’s spending some time in al-Mahdī’s circle (albeit a long time before the latter began his persecution of the heretics). Then the fact that it discusses the verses produced for or against the visio beatifica110 – once again, not impossible as the issue of ruʾya was not raised only by the Muʿtazila but was discussed among “Jahmites” and anthropomorphists. Most importantly there is the observation that the London MS of the Tafsīr khamsmiʾat āya includes an appendix which contains a similar text with fewer examples and lacking the zanādiqa.111 Further research is necessary.112 Muqātil is believed to have commented on the question of abrogation in a separate text as well, although it is possible that this, too, was a retrospective collation of passages from his Tafsīr.113 In his Tafsīr khamsmiʾat āya he ­discussed

103  Massignon pointed out this caesura clearly (Recueil 206ff.). The editions do not note it. 104  E.g. fāliq and falaq in 61, 12/77, 2f. 105  43, 16/54, 10, and again at the end 63, ult./80, 8. 106  Cf. Catalogue of Works XIV b, no. 4–5. Thus already Massignon, loc. cit., and Abbott 96; Wansbrough 211 (without deciding). 107  Wansbrough  129ff. 108   Tanbīh 44, 4f./55, 3ff. 109  In the Tafsīr the “mysterious letters” are described as mutashābihāt (160, 2f.). 110  Malaṭī 48, 1ff./60, 6ff. 111  Wansbrough  163f. 112  See ch. C 8.2.2.3.3 below. 113  Cf. Catalogue of Works XIV b, no. 6.

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the phenomenon in the context of changing the qibla.114 It is remarkable that in verse 2:106, in which the word naskh is found, he read nansahā instead of the later customary nunsihā, but then diluted its meaning to such an extent that forgetting could not be interpreted as divine imperfection: “the verses we (i.e. God) leave as they are and do not abrogate”.115 He was aware of the theological problem, but clearly did not want to change the vocalisation because of it. Nansahā is confirmed as the original reading by Abū ʿAmr Ibn al-ʿAlāʾ changing it to nansa‌ʾhā (GdQ III 113); if it had been nunsihā this would not have been necessary. Like nansa‌ʾhā, nansahā was sometimes written with Alif as mater lectionis; thus apparently in the ancient MS Ahmet III 74 of Muqātil’s Tafsīr (where the Muslim editor relegates it to the annotations; ed. Shiḥāta 59, ult.). The same interpretation is put forward in Mujāhid’s Tafsīr (I 85, 7). Cf. Abū Zayd, Ittijāh ʿaqlī 152; for general information Burton, Collection of the Qurʾān 63f. 3.1.2.1.1.2.1

Muqātil’s Theological Views

Due to the complex nature of the sources it is rather daring to try and infer Muqātil’s theological conviction from his extant writings. We must take into account the possibility of later redactors having smoothed the texts; especially in Baghdad, objectionable Khorasanian elements would have been deleted. On the other hand they do provide the opportunity, nearly unique in the early period, of confirming the heresiographers’ claims against the actual texts. It may be that certain minor details that would not even have excited notice in Khorasan, were blown up into heresy in Iraq. Let us look at the question point by point, beginning with Muqātil’s much-cited anthropomorphism. To the heresiographers, there was no doubt: Muqātil must have imagined God just like a human, in flesh and blood and with abundant flowing locks, and solid, which probably meant: not hollow and not permeable.1 While he also said that God was different from everything earthly, we do not know what this meant – it might just have referred to his size. The words used are stereotypes;2 leading to the suspicion that they were used as a passepartout by hostile 114  Ed. Goldfeld 36ff. 115  Malaṭī 52, pu. f./66, apu. 1  Text XIV 21; cf. p. 491f. above. Muqātil as a mushabbih: Khayyāṭ, Intiṣār 54, 6; Ibn Ḥibbān, Majrūḥīn III 14, pu.; Mīzān no. 8741. Bukhārī, Ta‌ʾrīkh IV2 14 no. 1976, is dismissive but does not give any reasons. 2  Cf. the commentary on Text XIV 21–23, and vol. I 406f. above.

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Muʿtazilite heresiography. However, criticism appears to be older and originating in a different corner: with the followers of Hishām b. al-Ḥakam who themselves embraced a sublimated anthropomorphism,3 and with the Ḥanafites who were not necessarily advocating strict tanzīh, believing that Abū Ḥanīfa considered Muqātil as well as Jahm to have been extremists.4 In fact, circumstances are more complex. We have seen that Muqātil interpreted God’s “grasp” (baṭsh) metaphorically in his K. al-wujūh.5 He also regarded the hand of God as an expression of divine action or generosity;6 and the “face of God”, as he put it, simply refers to God himself.7 Even so, his stepson Abū ʿIṣma, who transmitted the Tafsīr in Marv, was certainly an anthropomorphist,8 as demonstrated by the fact that now the metaphorical interpretations of the hand of God are joined by an unselfconsciously anthropomorphic one in the context of sura 5:64: when God “spreads his two hands”, this refers to his actual hands. He furthermore created Adam with the very hand in which he holds heaven and earth.9 Tiflīsī suppressed this passage, and nothing similar is said in the “great” Tafsīr, either,10 but it appears original precisely because of the contradiction with previous passages. This contrast is crucial: the wujūh method permitted both. God is of human form, especially when one sees him in the afterlife, but he is able to speak of himself in a figurative way. Interestingly the passage is found in the one text that is extant in an eastern recension only. There is a further, even clearer, example. Tiflīsī interpreted istawā ʿalā l-ʿarsh, God’s sitting on the throne, purely metaphorically as istawlā, referring to the instance in poetry which the Muʿtazilites adduced as well.11 This is a method that would not have suited Muqātil who never consulted poetry, least of all in his K. al-wujūh. However, the list of constant interpretations preserved by Malaṭī, which seems quite original, includes the same word, but with an entirely different referent: “Wherever we read in the Quran ‘and he sat himself down’ (wa-stawā), this means: he is 32 years old and ‘settling down’ (istaqarra)”.12 The first feature is the anthropomorphist equation istawā = istaqarra; it is regarded 3  Thus Maqrīzī, Khiṭaṭ II 348, 5ff. 4  TB XIII 164, 7ff., and 166, 18ff.; Ibn Ḥibbān III 15, 5ff.; TT X 279ff. no. 501. 5  P. 592 n. 96 above. 6  Ashbāh, ed. Shiḥāta 322, 2ff.; also Tiflīsī 312, 3ff., who adds “omnipotence”. 7  Tafsīr I 63, 9; Tiflīsī 304, 8ff. [Cf., also regarding the following, Gilliot in: JA 179/1991/57ff.]. 8  See p. 618f. below. 9  Ashbāh 321, 10ff. The latter is probably a reference to sura 39:67, cited by anthropomorphists elsewhere as well (see p. 489f. above). 10   Tafsīr I 328, ult. f. regarding the same Quranic verse. 11   Wujūh 20, 1ff. 12   Tanbīh 60, 12/75, ult. Ordered incorrectly in Massignon, Recueil 203 no. 132.

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as characteristic of Muqātil elsewhere, too.13 But then there is the astounding claim that God is 32 years old. What he means is, of course, that he shows himself to humans in the ideal form of a man of this age – a young man who has crossed the threshold to adulthood.14 Muqātil’s understanding of this as the ideal age – not a youth any more, but not yet greying, either – is confirmed by his according the heavenly maidens “of the same age” (atrāb) the experience of “33 years”.15 Muqātil would have known the number from popular beliefs that informed hadith: the blessed are of the same age as Jesus.16 God’s human form is probably linked to the concrete concept of paradise that remained alive especially among the warriors of the faith.17 Muqātil believed in the visio beatifica18 – more than that, in fact: a hadith transmitted from him states that “on the Day of Judgment God’s beloved19 will walk past the rows of angels up to the throne, and God will put him upon the throne beside him, so that he touches his knee”.20 Proving Muqātil’s irjāʾ is easier. The heresiographers presume it, but the texts make no effort to deny it, either. Among the wujūh of the word īmān “faith” he lists: mere lip-service, inner agreement (taṣdīq), professing God’s oneness and faith while in the state of polytheism;21 there is no reference to actions and good deeds. He determines the substance of faith based on sura 2:177: God, Day of Judgment, angels, the Quran, the prophets.22 The word irjāʾ is not used anywhere. The heresiographers, furthermore, focussed on one particular trait 13  Zarkashī, Burhān II 80, apu. f. 14  Adult (kahl) is someone, according to the lexicographers, who has passed 30 years of age (cf. Lisān al-ʿArab XI 600 s. v.). Cf. vol. I 406 regarding Hishām al-Jawālīqī. 15   Tanbīh 60, 7f./75, –5f. 16  Soubhi El-Saleh, La vie future selon le Coran 38f. 17  One reason for this may be that the only passage where istawā refers not to God but to a person – namely Moses – uses it to express that he was “fully grown” (sura 28:14; cf. also Paret’s German translation). Muqātil did indeed have this connection in mind, as immediately before the exegesis quoted he was discussing a phrase from this very verse. 18  Sawwaf, Muqātil 244ff.; Abū Zayd, Al-ittijāh al-ʿaqlī 151. 19   ḥabīb Allāh; cf. the term mutaḥābbūn with which Syrian border fighters described themselves (vol. I 88f. and 129). 20   Mīzān IV 174, 10ff. (Having now obtained access to the remaining volumes of the edition I can now point to a further example: if according to sura 68:42 a “calf is bared” during the Day of Judgment (yukshafu ʿan sāqin), Muqātil, following ʿAbdallāh b. Masʿūd, interpreted this to mean that the light of God’s right (!) calf illuminated the earth. This is followed by a metaphorical interpretation going back to Ibn ʿAbbās (IV 409, 3ff.; cf. also Shiḥāta, ibid. V 109, and Versteegh in: Der Islam 67/1990/215). 21   Ashbāh 137f. no. 32. 22   Tafsīr khamsmiʾat āya 12, 10ff.; cf. also Tafsīr I 84, 6ff.; and the quotation in Nwyia, Exégèse coranique 47; also ch. D 0 below.

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that would allow them to present Muqātil as the head of a “sect”, but that is not obvious from the texts as yet: they claimed that he thought no believer would ever feel the fires of hell; even if he has transgressed severely, faith still outweighs this.23 He must, however, make restitution on the Day of Judgment, presumably in direct confrontation with the person wronged; afterwards he will be led to paradise.24 This, too, is probably just a reconciliation among believers, as a heathen (mushrik) does not profit even from his good deeds.25 Once again one has the impression of looking at frontier fighters’ ideology. The delights of paradise for the believer are as eternal as the torments of hell for the heathen, as explained in Ashbāh 244, 12ff. Muqātil’s view was shared by ʿUbayd al-Muktib in Kufa and Abū ʿAmr Ibn al-ʿAlāʾ in Basra (see p. 426 and vol. I 243 above), but it was also circulated in hadith form (Suyūṭī, La‌ʾālī I 43, –4ff.). It is probably a product of the early Islamic belief in having been chosen. The sin cancelled out by faith is named as fisq in Text 24, which may be a term chosen by the heresiographers, but Muqātil also thought about the wujūh of fisq (Ashbāh 328ff. no. 185). Muqātil was believed to have written a refutation of the Qadariyya.26 The name of that sect must be understood in the traditional lexical sense, as alKhaṭīb al-Baghdādī had acquired the transmission rights for this text.27 The texts confirm Muqātil’s attitude: “sealing the hearts” being explained simply as ṭabaʿa.28 Determinist statements are not, however, generalised theologically, but only ever linked to the respective situation.29 Unlike Jahm, Muqātil did not believe in the temporal origin of divine knowledge.30 Ibn al-Nadīm regarded Muqātil as a Zaydite,31 possibly based on traditions such as the one that he identified the “righteous believers” in sura 66:4, who are listed immediately after God and Gabriel as helpers to the prophet, as Abū Bakr, ʿUmar, and ʿAlī.32 The Shīʿites noticed this as well, Kashshī ­listing 23  Text 24, a critical discussion of which is found in Fiqh absaṭ, p. 46, ult. ff. 24  Text  25. 25  Text  26. 26  Cf. Catalogue of Works XIV b, no. 12. 27  Cf. GAS 1/37. 28   Tafsīr I 22, 5. 29  Cf. e.g. ibid. 144, 2ff. regarding sura 2:271. 30  Abū Zayd, Al-ittijāh al-ʿaqlī 152. 31   Fihrist 227, 13. 32  Thus excluding ʿUthmān; cf. TB XIII 160, 15f.

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him among the Butrites.33 Al-Sayyid al-Ḥimyarī referred to a pro-ʿAlid exegesis from Muqātil’s Tafsīr in one of his poems;34 this was why the work was still occasionally quoted by later Shīʿite authors35 who believed that Muqātil had his material directly from Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq.36 However, he certainly had nothing to do with the Imāmiyya; unlike Muqātil b. Ḥayyān he accepted the masḥ ʿalā l-khuffayn.37 3.1.2.1.2 ʿUmar b. Ṣubḥ and the rafʿ al-yadayn According to a well-known saying of Ibn Rāhōya (d. 238/853) from Marv,1 the third “innovator” from Khorasan besides Muqātil b. Sulaymān and Jahm b. Ṣafwān was Abū Nuʿaym ʿUmar b. Ṣubḥ b. ʿImrān al-ʿAdawī al-Balkhī al-Khurāsānī.2 However, hardly anything is known about him beyond the fact that he transmitted objectionable traditions from Muqātil b. Ḥayyān. In fact he was probably a muḥaddith rather than an exegete – maybe the first one in the region. What little material survives is not relevant from a theological point of view. Besides the exegetic fragments we have already looked at,3 there is a hadith on nocturnal ejaculation during the ghazwa, clearly a rule of conduct for warriors of the faith, or another one containing a recipe for strengthening the memory when learning the Quran by heart: to write a particular prayer into a clean pot using honey, then to wash the pot with rainwater that never touched the ground, and then to drink the mixture for three consecutive days.4 Some of the traditions are paraenetic, targeting a scholar who strives for worldly profit,5 or 33  Misreading Bajalī for Balkhī, showing that the latter name meant nothing to him (cf. 390, 8; also Ardabīlī II 261b). 34   Dīwān 447, no. 190 v. 3. 35  Thus in Ibn Shahrāshūb’s (d. 588/1192) Manāqib; cf. Biḥār VIII 67 no. 8, and 301 no. 56; also p. 587 above. 36  Thus e.g. Biḥār XI 126f. no. 57, and 225 no. 3; XXIII 57f. no. 1. 37   Tafsīr khamsmiʾat āya 22, 6ff., with reference to ʿAlī; this, too, is “Zaydite”. 1  Cf. e.g. TB XIII 164, 4ff. (naming Ibn Rāhōya with his ism Isḥāq b. Ibrāhīm al-Ḥanẓalī); TT VII 463, –7ff. Regarding him see p. 682f. below. 2  Regarding his kunya see Ṭabarī I 61, 9f. Ṣubḥ is misspelt here, as elsewhere, as Ṣābīḥ/ Ṣubayḥ (e.g. TB, loc. cit.; also Ṭabarī I 973, 13 ?). 3  See p. 579f., n. 51 and 53 above. It would have been noticed that the different variants were traced back to different prophet’s companions. 4  Suyūṭī, La‌ʾālī II 356, 5ff. 5  Ibid. I 207, 9ff.

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the poor man who wishes to be rich.6 “The houris’ bride-wealth is a handful of dates and half a loaf of bread”.7 The accusation of bidʿa may have rested on a single point. ʿUmar b. Ṣubḥ believed to have heard Muqātil b. Ḥayyān using the phrase “pray unto the lord and sacrifice” in sura 108:2 as legitimation to raise one’s hands (rafʿ al-yadayn) as well as one’s head during the takbīr; this was told in Marv, allegedly under his influence.8 The practice was probably not controversial in Transoxiana in the first century. The muqātila may have imported it from Syria9 or Basra; but in Kufa, people held different views. Ibrāhīm al-Nakhaʿī had already promoted the raising of hands at the beginning of prayer only, during the takbirat aliḥrām,10 based on a dictum by Ibn Masʿūd.11 Everything that went beyond was described as Jewish custom – at least during the official ṣalāt;12 rules were less strict when it came to the private prayer (duʿāʾ) or the qunūt.13 Abū Ḥanīfa would even be quoted as saying that someone who raised his hands during the rukūʿ and the sujūd invalidated his prayer.14 The Hanafites who spread through Transoxiana adopted this opinion and suppressed the divergent custom wherever they could. This was not easy; we know that e.g. Bukayr al-Sālimī, who transmitted the Tafsīr khamsmiʾat āya, adhered to it.15 In the long run the Shāfiʿites, too, would support local tradition, in a bid to distinguish themselves from Abū Ḥanīfa’s school. This turned the matter into a shibboleth discussed in eastern Iran – and beyond – until the eighth century. 6  Ibid. II 323, 7ff. 7  Mīzān no. 6147 and TT VII 463 no. 771; also Ibn Ḥibbān, Majrūḥīn II 88, 6ff. 8  Ibn Ḥibbān I 177, 6ff. > Mīzān no. 817 s. n. Isrāʾīl b. Ḥātim al-Marwazī and Suyūṭī, La‌ʾālī II 20, 1ff. Ṭabarī, too, transmitted this interpretation via Wakīʿ b. al-Jarrāḥ from this same traditionist in his commentary, but ʿUmar b. Ṣubḥ does not appear in the isnād (Tafsīr 2XXX 326, 6ff.). 9  Documented e.g. for Awzāʿī (Ibn Manẓūr, Mukhtaṣar TD VIII 325, –6f.). 10  Suyūṭī, La‌ʾālī II 18, pu. ff. 11  Ibn al-Faraḍī, Ta‌ʾrīkh al-ʿulamāʾ bil-Andalus I 93, 6ff.; Ibn Rushd, Bidāyat al-mujtahid I 134, 1ff.; Fierro in: SI 65/1987/76f. 12  Goldziher, Ges. Schr. II 86ff., and Vajda in: JA 229/1937/84 = Mélanges 178; cf. also Ibn Abī Shayba, Muṣannaf II 307, 11ff., and 486, 7ff. This is probably pure defamation. Goldziher, on the other hand, believed it to be based on a pagan magical gesture (in: Festschrift Nöldeke I 321ff. = Ges. Schr. V 50ff.), but we cannot be entirely sure whether he was imagining the exact gesture the texts describe. A critical view from Kister in: JSAI 12/1989/371, n. 51. 13  Thus also during a qāṣṣ’ narration (cf. Ibn Ḥajar, Rafʿ al-iṣr 253, ult.). Cf. also the collection of instances in Kister, loc. cit. 332, n. 41, and the account in vol. I 175 above. 14  Regarding Abū Ḥanīfa’s opinion cf. Fierro, loc. cit. 77, n. 44. 15  Madelung in: Actas IV Congresso UEAI (Coimbra) 125f., n. 39 with further material.

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Cf. Madelung, loc. cit.; also my Ungenützte Texte 57. Regarding the juristic dissension cf. Ibn Rushd, Bidāyat al-mujtahid I 133, 12ff.; on its basis in hadith Ibn Abī Shayba, Muṣannaf I 234ff. and 271; Ḥākim al-Naysābūrī, Shiʿār aṣḥāb al-ḥadīth 87ff.; Wensinck, Handbook 92 b; general information Wensinck in: EI1 IV 106a = HW 639 a. Bukhārī wrote a monograph on the subject (cf. GAS 1/133), as did Subkī later, referring to Bukhārī and judging the custom positively (in: Majmūʿat al-rasāʾil al-Munīriyya I 253ff.), as well as Ibn Taymiyya (Al-majmūʿa al-kubrā II, Cairo 1322, p. 346ff. = GAL S 2/125 no. 127). It is interesting that a Kufan pupil of ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd’s defended the practice using a prophetic dictum, and thus contradicted the consensus of his compatriots (see p. 371f. above). In Tāhart it was forbidden among the Ibāḍites, while other Muslims still adhered to it (Ibn Ṣaghīr, Chronik 42, 1ff./transl. 105). Regarding the development in Spain cf. Fierro’s essay cited above, in: SI 65/1987/69ff. and the summary in: Der Islam 66/1989/83f. 3.1.2.1.3 Murjiʾites and Ḥanafites Together with the Ḥanafites the Murjiʾites in Balkh flourished; some people in Kufa spoke mockingly of Murjiyābād.1 Overall, however, news begin to emerge comparatively late. The presumably oldest Murjiʾite in the city, Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm b. Sulaymān al-Zayyāt, came from Kufa. He transmitted from Sufyān al-Thawrī, and can thus be dated to the second half of the second century.2 However, as early as 142/759 someone close to Abū Ḥanīfa and the Kufan tradition had been appointed qāḍī in the city, holding that office for over twenty years:

1  Fażāʾil-i Balkh 28, pu. ff.; also Madelung in: Der Islam 59/1982/36. Regarding the spread of the Ḥanafites in Transoxiana cf. the list of names in Kardarī, Manāqib Abī Ḥanīfa I 219ff., esp. 237ff. 2  A Murjiʾite according to IS VII2 109, 2. Cf. also Samʿānī, Ansāb VI 355, ult. f.; Mīzān no. 105. Regarding his Kufan origin cf. Ibn Ḥibbān, Majrūḥīn I 196, 5f. Strangely, Fażāʾil-i Balkh does not mention him at all. Could this be linked to the fat that he emigrated from Kufa to Basra and brought the wrong prayer book from there? We do know that he attended the lectures of Bukayr al-Dāmghānī in Nēshāpūr (see p. 679 below).

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Abū ʿAlī ʿUmar b. Maymūn b. Baḥr b. Saʿd b. al-Rammāḥ, d. Ramadan 171/Feb.–Mar. 788.3 He seems to have come from Kabul,4 but as early as the Abbasid revolution he is named among those dignitaries who had to go into hiding for a time because of Balkh’s resistance to Abū Muslim.5 Previously he was said to have quarrelled with Jahm b. Ṣafwān over the visio beatifica. His argument has come down to us: if God promised humans paradise, he also promised them that they would see his face.6 This is probably projection, but it does illustrate where people placed him. It is not far to the assumption that he did not yet distinguish between God’s visibility and his physicality. It is improbable that he was personally a pupil of Abū Ḥanīfa’s,7 but it does tell us something that Abū Muṭīʿ al-Balkhī thought highly of him.8 So far, however, the Ḥanafites were not yet firmly established. ʿUmar b. Maymūn’s successor, a certain Abū Muḥammad al-Aʿmash, came from a different background.9 Abū Muʿādh Khālid b. Sulaymān al-Balkhī, who had studied under Abū Ḥanīfa,10 accused him of not regarding rukūʿ and sujūd as part of the prayer. The accusation was phrased in the style of a polemic and is thus difficult to grasp, but it may well be related to the disagreement over the rafʿ al-yadayn once again. Aʿmash knew how to get his revenge. He went to ʿAlī b. ʿĪsā b. Māhān, who had been governor of Khorasan since 180/796,11 and succeeded in having his opponent punished (presumably for slander) publicly in the chief mosque to set an example. Abū Muʿādh was exiled from Balkh. When

3  TB XI 183, 20f. 4  Fażāʾil-i Balkh 125, –4. 5  Ibid. 86, 5. He probably went to Nishapur, too (cf. Khalīfa-i Naysābūrī, Talkhīṣ 16, 11f.). 6  Ibid. 125, pu. ff. The summary uses the term naẓar instead of ruʾya, maybe recalling sura 75:23. 7  Thus Ibn Abī l-Wafāʾ I 399, 14ff.; also Madelung in: Der Islam 59/1982/36. Fażāʾil-i Balkh tells us that Abū Ḥanīfa thought highly of him (126, 8ff.). 8  Cf. e.g. 125, 6ff.; several traditions go via his son Muḥammad b. Abī Muṭīʿ (ibid. 126, –5ff., and 127, apu. ff.). 9  Fażāʾil 145, 1ff, and 208, ult. He is of course not identical with the Kufan traditionist of the same name, as the editor assumed, as the Kufan died as early as 147/764 or 148/765 (see vol. I 272f. above). 10  Regarding him cf. IAW I 229 no. 577; Fażāʾil-i Balkh 142, apu. ff. (which has incorrect Ḥārith instead of Khālid); Radtke in: ZDMG 136/1986/549f. 11  Regarding him cf. Pellat in: EIran I 852a.

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he found refuge with his school friend ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Khālid12 who was a judge in Tirmidh, Aʿmash used his influence to have the latter replaced as well and sent to the heathen in Ferghana together with Abū Muʿādh. However, he did not enjoy his triumph for long. Early in the eighties he had to flee to Marv13 and was replaced by the man who would express Ḥanafite–Murjiʾite thought most clearly in Balkh: Abū Muṭīʿ al-Ḥakam b. ʿAbdallāh b. Maslama al-Raqāshī (?)14 al-Balkhī. He held the position for sixteen years until, sometime before his death (on 12 Jumādā I 199/30 Dec. 814), he had to retire due to his failing eyesight; he lived to be 84.15 His influence in the city was great, his daughters married into the best families.16 His grave would be well-known for a long time as it was just beside the Nawbahār Gate in a cemetery that apparently covered part of the ancient Buddhist monastery district.17 In the pulpit Abū Muṭīʿ could afford to protest publicly against a letter from the caliph that quoted the Quran in an, in his view, improper manner.18 He also criticised a book by Abū Yūsuf, who was no less than the chief qāḍī in Baghdad at the time.19 Kaʿbī, who came from Balkh as well, was able to refer to one of his traditions.20

12   I AW I 318 no. 848. 13   Fażāʾil 146, 2f. 14  This nisba is listed only in Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Faḍl 104, –4 > al-Manṣūr billāh, Shāfī I 149, 16; the reading is not entirely certain. 15   T B VIII 223, 13ff.; Fażāʾil 192, 6ff. According to Fażāʾil 146, pu. f. he only lived to 74; the date of his death is also different, but corrupted, the decade being illegible (146, apu.). It might have agree to what the editor found in Muḥammad b. Ṣāliḥ al-Badakhshī’s Mazārāt-i Balkh: 174/790–1 (cf. 146, n. 5). In this case, however, there would not be time for Abū Muṭīʿ’s sixteen years as qāḍī. The report that the respected ascetic Yaʿqūb al-Qāriʾ was asked to advise on his appointment (ibid. 151, apu. ff.) also turns out to be mere legend when compared to the chronology as he died in 163/780 (ibid. 119, 1). The date of 199 is furthermore protected by ibid. 142, pu. f. Ibn Abī l-Wafāʾ’s “197” (I 266, 4), also in Ibn Quṭlūbughā, Tāj al-tarājim no. 269 (adopted by Halm, Ausbreitung 74, and Madelung in: Der Islam 59/1982/37) is a mistake in the tradition. 16   Fażāʾil 152, 7ff.; also Radtke in: ZDMG 136/1986/541. Regarding one of his sons-in-law cf. 177, –5ff. 17  Cf. Fażāʾil 146, pu. f. and 336, 2. Was it a türbe? The word turba, used repeatedly in the text, is not unambiguous enough. Regarding the Nawbahār Gate, one of the city gates of Balkh, cf. Le Strange, Eastern Caliphate 421. 18   Fażāʾil 149, 7ff.; TB VIII 224, 3ff.; Mīzān no. 2181. 19   Fażāʾil 177, pu. ff. 20   Maqālāt 93, 2f.

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This tradition informs us that in his youth Abū Muṭīʿ once travelled to Mecca, presumably visiting Abū Ḥanīfa during the same journey, as he transmitted a number of his dicta that would soon be collected under the title Alfiqh al-akbar. It was probably the first theological text based on Murjiʾite ideas to be circulated in Balkh. Abū Ḥanīfa’s letter to ʿUthmān al-Battī was not yet known at the time; Abū Muṭīʿ’s pupil Nuṣayr b. Yaḥyā (d. 268/881–2) would later bring it with him from Kufa.21 The K. al-ʿālim wal-mutaʿallim is at home in Samarqand; versions which include Abū Muṭīʿ debating with Abū Ḥanīfa are clearly secondary.22 The K. al-fiqh al-akbar was revised and expanded several times over time, changing its name in the process and becoming known as Alfiqh al-absaṭ.23 One isnād mid-text24 leads us to assume that the last redaction was the work of a certain Abū l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Aḥmad al-Fārisī who, similar to the Risāla to ʿUthmān al-Battī, appears in the riwāya after Nuṣayr b. Yaḥyā and died in Dhū l-Ḥijja 335/July 947. The text is still awaiting a detailed analysis; here, only a brief summary of its contents must suffice.25 P. 41, 7–13: Abū Ḥanīfa, “Fiqh akbar I”, art. 1–5; 41, 14–17: “art. 6”.26 41, 18–43; 4: on definition and substance of faith, based on the īmān hadith (42, 9–43, 4: discussion of to what extent incorrect exegesis of Quranic passages on the issue of qadar can result in people losing their faith). 43, 5–44, 8: on the issue of qadar. (43, 5–7: the same faculty of action may be used for good or bad actions; 43, 7–ult.: instructions for discussing with a Qadarite; 44, 2–8: the well-known hadith of predestination in the mother’s womb, after Ibn Masʿūd).27 44, 8–17: regarding al-amr bil-maʿrūf wal-nahy ʿan al-munkar. 44, 17–45, 16: on the correct attitude towards the Khārijites. One must not call them unbelievers, but one should fight them like ʿAlī and ʿUmar II did; if they agree to peace, they should not be held accountable any further as they were acting in accordance with an incorrect exegesis (bi-ta‌ʾwīl).28 45, 16–18: further question on the minimum requirements of faith. 45, 18–46, 11: on doubting the faith (istithnāʾ). 46, 11–ult.: statements in which 21  Cf. the riwāya on Text II 5. 22  See p. 631 below. 23  More details vol. I 237ff. 24  P. 44, 2. 25  After Kawtharī’s edition, Cairo 1368; I am not using the occasionally quite arbitrary chapter headings. 26  Regarding the analysis in detail cf. my deliberations in: REI 54/1986/327ff. 27  Cf. HT 1ff. 28  Regarding this expression see p. 238 above.

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someone describes himself or others as candidates for paradise or for the fires of hell are wrong. Correct is ana muʾmin ḥaqqan. 46, ult.–47, 7: debating the theory that a believer could not go to the fires of hell. The believer who sins is a muʾmin fāsiq. 47, 7–48, 1: more questions on the minimum requirements of faith. 48, 2–ult.: further remarks on the question of how rebels are to be fought (see 44, 8ff. above, but here with regard to the extreme situation that the entire community within which one is living, is misguided: in that case one must emigrate). 49, 1–52, 5: further questions concerning the minimum requirements of faith. An unbeliever is someone who does not know whether God is on earth or in heaven, or who does not recognise the punishment of the grave; if the latter, he is a member of the Jahmiyya, a “doomed” group (al-Jahmiyya al-hālika). He who believes in a Quranic verse but not in its correct interpretation is also an unbeliever (52, 5ff., as opposed to 41, ult. f., and 42, 13f. above). 52, 5–14: renewed polemicising against using the phrase ahl al-janna (see 46, 11ff. above). 52, 14–16: one may pray behind any Muslim independently of his sins, even a murderer. 52, 16–53, 5: armed robbers, non-Muslims (Jews according to the hadith adduced), and innovators will go to hell. 53, 7–54, ult.: on the relation between God’s commandment (amr), willing (mashīʾa), and delight (riḍā). 55, 1–7: on the relation between God’s willing and his acting. 55, 7–13: on the relation between God’s predetermining sin and his right to punish humans for it all the same. 55, 15–56, 2: on the state of the sinner (neither kāfir nor munāfiq, but muʾmin ẓālim). 56, 2–14: on doubting the faith (istithnāʾ). 56, 15–19: refutation of the doctrine that paradise and hell have not yet been created. 56, 19–57, 6: on bilā kayf in the case of divine attributes. The attributes have a separate existence. 57, 8–10: on the seat of faith. 57, 10–14: on God’s right (ḥaqq Allāh) vis a vis humans. 57, 14–58, pu.: on divine predetermination. An Indian manuscript contains an addition on the question of theodicy (58, n. 2). There is clearly no linear structure here; the text is full of insertions and doublets. Abū Ḥanīfa’s contribution can be determined with any degree of

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certainty at the beginning only. Discussions with the Jahmiyya concerning the punishment of the grave,29 the theory that paradise and hell do not yet exist,30 and God’s “non-locatedness”31 have their origins in Balkh. The critical examination of the view that a believer cannot go to hell32 was probably aimed at Muqātil b. Sulaymān, as his views are corrected here to the effect that believers, too, will have to do penance for their sins in hell, and afterwards be admitted to paradise because of their faith. Even the heathen will abandon their unbelief, but their conversion will be too late.33 Points of contact with the Basran Murjiʾa come as a surprise. The term muʾmin fāsiq, occurring once,34 recalls Abū Shamir;35 the istiṭāʿa definition in the refutation of the Qadarites36 is Najjār’s.37 In fact, the Muʿtazilites noted Abū Muṭīʿ’s as well as Najjār’s inconsistency of believing on the one hand that the faculty of action offered the alternatives of acting and refraining, but on the other regarding istiṭāʿa and fiʿl as simultaneous.38 One of the later versions of the text was probably emended specifically to attack the Muʿtazila; the passage on the divine attributes39 and the introduction to discussing with a Qadarite could be part of this.40 This may be how the Muʿtazilites for their parts arrived at the claim – hardly chronologically tenable – that Abū Muṭīʿ attended ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd’s lectures.41 Abū Muṭīʿ’s own views are barely discernible in the end. His pupil Nuṣayr b. Yaḥyā summarises his teachings in the dictum that God protects humans from sin in different ways.42 This, too, recalls Najjār,43 but the word ʿiṣma also occurs in Abū Ḥanīfa’s second letter (which may not, however, be genuine) to 29  P. 52, 2ff. 30  56, 15ff. Ibn Ḥanbal attributing this doctrine in particular to Abū Muṭīʿ (TB VIII 225, 6ff.; ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ I 256, –4ff. > Mīzān no. 2181 with the correct reading fa-satafnayāni instead of m.q.s.matān), or Abū Dāwūd’s calling him a Jahmite in his responses to Ājurrī (TB 225, 16ff.), this only illustrates how little was known in Iraq about Transoxiana. 31  49, 1f.; the Jahmiyya is named explicitly at 52, 2. Abū Muṭīʿ was said to have heard from Abū Ḥanīfa that God sat on the throne (Dhahabī, ʿUlūw 169, 4ff.). 32  46, ult. ff. 33  After sura 40:84f. 34  47, 6; while 55, pu. has only ẓālim. munāfiq is rejected there, too. 35  See p. 202 above. 36  43, 5ff. 37  See ch. C 5.2.1 below. 38  Kaʿbī, Maq. 105, 9ff. 39  56, 19ff. 40  43, 7ff. 41  Kaʿbī, Maq. 69, 6, and 91, 1. 42   yatafāḍalūna fī l-ʿiṣma; Kaʿbī, 104, apu. ff. 43  Regarding ʿiṣma in his works cf. ch. C 5.2.1.

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ʿUthmān al-Battī.44 The philologist Naḍr b. Shumayl from Marv45 claimed to have heard Abū Muṭīʿ say that while īmān and islām in the Quran were two different things, he himself could see no difference; Naḍr boasted of having cut him short on that occasion.46 This was a reference to Abū Muṭīʿ’s equating faith and creed. Al-Ḥākim al-Naysābūrī included a tendentious hadith of his according to which the prophet explicitly denied that faith could increase or decrease. Ibn Ḥibbān, Majrūḥīn I 250, 3f.; Suyūṭī, La‌ʾālī I 38, 11ff.; Mīzān I 575, 13ff.; cf. Kern in: ZA 26/1912/170. A similar version was transmitted by ʿUthmān b. ʿAbdallāh al-Umawī, a Syrian who had visited Khorasan and allegedly “stole” the hadith from Abū Muṭīʿ (La‌ʾālī, loc. cit.; Majrūḥīn II 103, 1ff.; see p. 532f. above). Najjār did not follow this doctrine. IS VII2 already named Abū Muṭīʿ as a Murjiʾite; also Majrūḥīn I 250, 2; TB VIII 225, 5; Mīzān no. 2181; Lisān al-Mīzān II 224ff. no. 1369. With Murjiʾite jurists entering public service, the old tradition of criticising the authorities was watered down. In fact, the new regime had removed the target of some accusations, although ʿAlī b. ʿĪsā b. Māhān, whom Hārūn had appointed governor against the advice of his Barmakid vizier, ensured by means of harsh taxation that the tide would turn once more during Abū Muṭīʿ’s lifetime. Resistance took shape in the person of Abū Muḥammad47 Salm b. Sālim al-Balkhī. He was an ascetic; slept little, fasted constantly and kept his head bowed so as not to have to look at anyone.48 He considered it a particular infringement of God’s commandments to look at “those people”, i.e. representatives of the authorities. He was believed to have thought about whether it was even permitted to speak to them,49 but he did not realise these scruples. When it came to amr bil-maʿrūf wal-nahy ʿan al-munkar he did not mince his words, and he

44  Text II, 8, f; cf. also vol. I 234f. 45  Qifṭī, Inbāh III348, 9; regarding him see ch. C 2.2 below. 46  Ibn Ḥibbān, Majrūḥīn I 250, 5ff. 47  Thus Khalīfa, Ṭab. 838 no. 3147; IS VII2 106, 5; TB IX 141, 20. The kunya Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān is also documented (TB IX 140, 10). 48   T B IX 141, 1ff. 49   Fażāʾil-i Balkh 157, –5f.

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was probably not alone; Ibn Saʿd said in this context that people in Khorasan listened to him (lahū riyāsa), meaning, presumably, that he had followers.50 ʿAlī b. ʿĪsā gave the caliph a hint in the end, calling Salm insubordinate and accusing him of not recognising his officials (ʿummāl) as witnesses, nor the signature on official government documents.51 The reason seems to have been Salm’s travelling to Baghdad where he was able to move about freely at first; he was friendly with the Murjiʾite Abū Muʿāwiya who was close to Hārūn.52 He probably transmitted hadith at the same time; he transmitted from Khorasanian Murjiʾites such as Bukayr al-Dāmghānī, Ibrāhīm b. Ṭahmān, and Nūḥ b. Abī Maryam, but also from Hijazi authorities.53 However, when he did not hold back with his opinion in the capital and said openly that the caliph deserved a beating,54 he was imprisoned around 190/806, and remained in prison for three years – in Raqqa, not in Baghdad itself.55 Abū Muʿāwiya was said to have championed his cause, but, if this is true at all, he only succeeded in ensuring him some privileges while in prison.56 As always in these cases, events are overgrown with legend. What does seem clear is that Salm was freed only after the caliph’s death; it is irrelevant whether it was on Zubayda’s or Amīn’s initiative. Ibn Saʿd believed that he visited Baghdad once again and then returned to Khorasan, where he died.57 More edifying versions have him go on the pilgrimage and die in Mecca.58 In fact, the only concrete dates for his death we do have are linked to Mecca, but they do not correspond: Dhū l-Qaʿda 194/August 81059 or 7 Dhū l-Ḥijja 194/11 September 810.60 It is also possible that they were calculated based on the accounts. When it came to an activist of this calibre, the experts of jarḥ wa-taʿdīl did not employ the reticence they would normally show in the case of Murjiʾites. 50   I S VII2 106, 5f. He stood by Abū Muṭīʿ al-Balkhī when the latter criticised the caliph’s letter (TB VIII 224, 12f. and p. 602 above). Cf. also Madelung, Religious Trends 21. 51   Fażāʾil 156, –6ff. 52   T B IX 143, 1f.; regarding Abū Muʿāwiya see vol. I 248ff. above. 53  Ibid. 140, 11f.; also TC X 259, 10. Regarding the persons listed see p. 679, 637ff. and 617f. below. 54   T B IX 142, 16f. 55   Fażāʾil 157, pu. 56   T B IX 142, 11ff., in an autobiographical account by Abū Muʿāwiya; according to 142, 7f., on the other hand, he succeeded in effecting his release. 57   I S VII2 106, 8f. > TB IX 141, 19ff. 58   Fażāʾil 157, pu. ff.; TB IX 141, 14ff. 59   T B 145, 2f. 60   Fażāʾil 156, n. 7, after Badakhshī’s Mazārāt-i Balkh. Fażāʾil has “174”, which is presumably a transmitter’s error for “194”.

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He was said to have “canvassed” for the irjāʾ;61 his hadith is rejected everywhere, usually with reference to Abū Zurʿa al-Rāzī’s (d. 264/878) opinion.62 Unfortunately we do not have any examples, nor do we know whether he buttressed his asceticism with relevant hadith. It is possible that he expressed it through his disenchantment with the authorities rather than his appearance; he is reported to have worn fine clothing and ridden a donkey in Mecca shortly before his death.63 – A man who did dress like an ascetic was Abū Saʿīd Khalaf b. Ayyūb al-ʿĀmirī, who had shared a house with Ibrāhīm b. Adham for a time.64 When Ma‌ʾmūn summoned him and two other well-respected pious men from Balkh to Marv, the doorkeeper was said not to have allowed him in because he was wearing a torn fur coat and donkey drivers’ boots.65 Like many other accounts of him, this one contains elements of legend. He was compared to Ḥasan al-Baṣrī,66 and was said never to have raised his head to the heavens for sheer humility.67 On the other hand he was a jurist, having studied with Abū Yūsuf and Shaybānī as well as Zufar b. al-Hudhayl.68 Abū Muṭīʿ would have liked him for his successor, but Khalaf left, allegedly to go to Baghdad.69 In 203/818–19 he also came to Nishapur.70 According to the most reliable date he died in early Ramadan 205/ mid-Feb. 821 at the age of 69.71 His grave and that of his son were situated to the right of the Nawbahār Gate, near which Abū Muṭīʿ had also been buried.72 His being listed among the Murjiʾites is due to Ibn Ḥibbān, whose image of 61  Ibn Ḥibbān, Majrūḥīn I 344, 6ff.; TB IX 142, 4f., and 143, 7ff. 62   I AH II1 266f. no. 1149; Mīzān no. 3371. Further reports cf. IS VII2 106, 5; Kaʿbī, Qabūl 216, 9; Ibn al-Madīnī in TB IX 144, 10f.; Abū Dāwūd to Ājurrī ibid. 144, 15f.; also ibid. 141, 1f.; Lisān al-Mīzān III 63f. no. 235. Also Brentjes, Imamatslehren 48, and Radtke in: ZDMG 136/1986/541. 63   T B 145, 1f. 64   I AW I 232, 7f. 65   Fażāʾil 162, 7ff. This took place after Abū Muṭīʿ’s death, around 200/815. 66  Ibid. 184, apu. ff. 67  Ibid. 178, 4ff. 68  Ibid. 179, ult. ff., and 180, 6ff.; IAW I 231f. no. 588. 69   Fażāʾil 192, 6ff. He is not listed in Ta‌ʾrīkh Baghdād. 70   I AW I 232, 10. 71   Fażāʾil 179, 1f. According to Ta‌ʾrīkh Naysābūr he died in 215, according to Ibn al-Jawzī’s Muntaẓam not until 220 (IAW I 232, 5f.; also TT III 147f. no. 283). 72   Fażāʾil 179, 3 and n. 3. His son Saʿīd became qāḍī in Bukhara (ibid. 185, 2; Halm, Ausbreitung 105).

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him was quite different: he noted his fanaticism (taʿaṣṣub) and his hatred of everything “Sunnite”, i.e. non-Murjiʾite.73 He may have deduced this from the hadiths in circulation with Khalaf’s name; he was said to have known 42,000 hadiths by heart.74 Abū Muṭīʿ’s successor would be someone else, a pupil of Zufar’s75 who appeared to have kept his distance from Abū Muṭīʿ:76 Abū ʿUthmān Shaddād b. Ḥakīm,77 d. late 213 or (early) 214/early 829 at the age of 89.78 Thus he cannot have been a young man when he was appointed to the position, and he did not hold it for long, “fleeing” from the city after only six months.79 It is not quite clear why; but it is entirely clear that he was incapable of coming to terms with reality. He was said to have been afraid of his office, muttered indistinctly and been unable to sleep at night.80 He only accepted the office under duress, and then did not pronounce any judgment for six months.81 Other sources heroised him more, claiming that he supported the rights of the common man against the governor.82 What these stories have in common is his dislike of the authorities; being an exceedingly scrupulous83 man he probably saw them as a hotbed of injustice.84 Like Khalaf b. Ayyūb he devoted himself to pious devotion; he was emaciated and spent many nights in prayer.85 He does not, however, seem to have dressed like a donkey driver, as he believed that piety should go

73   Mīzān no. 2534, and TT, loc. cit.; cf. also ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ II 24, 13. 74   Fażāʾil 180, –4. 75   Fażāʾil 190, pu. f., and 192, pu. ff.; also 186, n. 3. He preserved Zufar’s notes (nuskha) (Ḥākim al-Naysābūrī, Maʿrifa 164, 7; Azmi, Studies 182). 76   Fażāʾil 144, 2f. 77  Madelung reads Ḥukaym (in: Der Islam 53/1982/37, n. 22), but Ḥakīm is the more common form of the name (cf. Dhahabī, Mushtabih 243, 4ff., with additions in Ibn Ḥajar, Tabṣīr almuntabih 446, –4ff. where bearers of the name Ḥukaym are listed individually). 78  Thus according to Fażāʾil 185, ult. ff.; IAW I 256, 8, has “late 210” instead. 79   Fażāʾil 185, pu. f. 80  Ibid. 188, 3ff. 81  Ibid. 191, 5ff. 82  Ibid. 189, 3ff.; cf. also 190, –6ff. 83  Ibid. 190, 7f. 84  His brother ʿUmar described the police as the “hounds of the denizens of hell” in a hadith (Suyūṭī, La‌ʾālī II 185, –7). 85   Fażāʾil 187, 7ff. and 12ff.

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unremarked if possible.86 It is interesting that he challenged the heathen to trial by ordeal (mubāhala);87 he appears to have engaged in missionary activity. Maybe this was the basis for Ibn Ḥibbān’s accusing him of being a fanatic Murjiʾite.88 We may safely assume that being a Ḥanafite, he was indeed a Murjiʾite, all the more since by that time the Ḥanafites were at the helm in Balkh and a certain universal consensus would have been established.89 Not only was Shaddād b. Ḥakīm’s successor ʿAbdallāh, the son of the abovementioned ʿUmar b. Maymūn al-Rammāḥ, a Ḥanafite, but there were a number of jurists besides the judges in Balkh who had studied in Abū Ḥanīfa’s school,90 among them the only one whom the biographical sources call, maybe by chance, a Murjiʾite: Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm b. Yūsuf b. Maymūn b. Razīn al-Bāhilī al-Mākyānī. He belonged to a large family; his brothers ʿIṣām and Muḥammad also made a name for themselves,91 and his nephew ʿUbayd b. ʿIṣām even was governor of Balkh for a time.92 He died in Jumādā I 239/mid-Oct. 853, apparently at a very high age as he was referred to as a centenarian.93 He was very rich and spent great sums of money on supporting the poor and the ribāṭs in the border regions.94 He knew a hadith confirming the value of generosity: it is better 86  Ibid. 188, apu. ff. 87  Ibid. 185, pu. 88   Lisān al-Mīzān III 140 no. 491. It was expressed similarly by Khalaf b. Ayyūb. This is not in itself surprising, but it is possible that one of them was taken for the other, as happened elsewhere, too (cf. IAW I 256, 1ff.). – It might also be that Ibn Ḥibbān was referring to certain tendentious hadiths; Shaddād knew many hadiths by heart, but the samples we are granted only show that some of them were edifying and may not have possessed proper isnāds as yet (Fażāʾil 193, 11ff.). Ibn Abī Ḥātim described him only as ṣāḥib ra‌ʾy (II1 331f. no. 1455). 89  I do not wish to deny that in questions of legal niceties there would still have been tensions between the followers of the individual “heirs” of Abū Ḥanīfa, Abū Yūsuf and Shaybānī on the one hand and those of Zufar b. al-Hudhayl on the others. 90  Cf. Madelung in: Der Islam 59/1982/37. 91   I AW I 347f. no. 961, and II 148 no. 454; Fażāʾil 196, 2ff. 92   Fażāʾil 196, 4f.; also Radtke in: ZDMG 136/1986/543. Regarding his sons cf. IAW I 51, –5ff. 93  This was how 139 was inferred as the year of his birth (Fażāʾil 214, 6ff.). It cannot have been quite so extreme as his son Naṣr b. Ibrāhīm died as late as 303, surviving him for more than 60 years (ibid. 217, 6f.). The month is found in IAW I 52, –5. The year 241 is also reported (Ibn Ḥibbān > Samʿānī, Ansāb XII 44, 4f., and IAW I 52, –6). 94   Fażāʾil 214, pu. f., and 215, 6ff.; also Radtke 544.

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to have one’s livelihood than to swim in money.95 He had travelled much: an educational visit to Basra was mentioned;96 he also met Abū Yūsuf, presumably in Kufa rather than in Baghdad.97 When he went to visit Mālik b. Anas in Medina, a young compatriot of his had given away that he was a Murjiʾite. Mālik showed him the door immediately, Ibrāhīm being able to transmit one single hadith from him only.98 In fact, he was not as bad as all that: Ibn Ḥibbān, who was usually very quick to spot a Murjiʾite, said, he was a Sunnite in his heart;99 maybe because during the miḥna he spoke out vehemently against the khalq al-Qurʾān100 which had not been customary in his circles.101 On the other hand, he did not criticise the “Qadarite” formula that faith consisted in professing it and in one’s actions, either.102 There was still a Jahmite presence in Balkh, as illustrated by one Jahmite who came from there circulating hadith in Kabul (cf. Samʿānī, Ansāb XI 1, 6ff. s. n. Abū l-Ḥusayn Muḥammad b. al-Ḥusayn al-Kābulī, although the dates remain hypothetical). 3.1.2.1.4 The Beginnings of Eastern Iranian Mysticism As in Syria, so in eastern Iran it was the border regions that became the birthplace of mystical tendencies. They emerged out of “asceticism in the world” once it did not engage in outward protest any more, and were nourished by the exaggerated visions of paradise linked to fighting for the faith. Nwyia was able to demonstrate that Muqātil’s vocabulary carried the seed of later mystical

95  Ibid. 216, 8ff. 96  Ibid. 235, 2ff. 97  Ibid. 215, 3ff.; not listed in Ta‌ʾrīkh Baghdād. 98   I AW I 52, 2ff.; TH 454, 5ff. The guilty party, Qutayba b. Saʿīd, a mawlā of the Thaqīf, was soon made to feel his revenge. He had to leave Balkh and went to Baghdad where he became famous. The chronology becomes clearer by his arriving there in 172/788–89 at the age of 23 (TB XII 467, 10f.). 99   Mīzān no. 259; Ṣafadī, Wāfī VI 172 no. 2628; TT I 184ff. no. 335. Cf. also IAH I1 148 no. 488. 100   I AW I 52, 9ff. 101  See p. 622 and 625f. below. It sounds rather different in the parallel in Fażāʾil 215, 1f.: he only protests against the expectant position (waqf) of the “Jahmites” but does not tell us what he himself thinks. Regarding this attitude see ch. c 6.3.2 below. 102   I AW I 52, 11ff.

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thought.1 The Abbasid revolution appears to have changed circumstances to such a degree that those who aspired to this ideal sought its realisation in distant lands, in Syria – maybe even Muqātil himself, but certainly his younger contemporary Ibrāhīm b. Adham, who died in the Byzantine border area.2 He was of pure Arab descent.3 Legend, however, turned him into a prince who had his awakening when out hunting – i.e. during a pastime of the n ­ obility – and since then wore only wool.4 A detailed prayer transmitted from him tells us, whether it is genuine or not, that it would not have been uttered by a Jahmite, as it confirms the punishment of the grave, the intercession of the prophet, the cistern where he meets his faithful, and the reality of paradise and hell.5 Still, he has not yet completed the transition to taṣawwuf, at least not in spiritual terms.6 This step would be taken during the following generation in the east, by a man who was allegedly his pupil, although this was probably a retrospective fiction thought up by local tradition: Abū ʿAlī Shaqīq b. Ibrāhīm al-Azdī al-Balkhī. He died during a campaign in Khuttalān on the upper reaches of the Oxus.7 According to an account by his grandson he came from a family of rich merchants who traded with the Turks; he was said to have owned 300 villages. At some point he left the business; a conversation in an idol’s temple with a priest who had shorn his hair and beard, and wore a red garment, i.e. presumably a Buddhist, was said to have “awakened” him to the true life.8 In his civilian existence he had shown some interest in legal matters, as was the custom. He was said to have been Abū Ḥanīfa’s assistant at one time.9 It seems more likely 1  Exégèse coranique 35ff. 2  See vol.  I 163 above. 3  Radtke in: ZDMG 136/1986/539. 4  More material in Hallauer, Die Vita des Ibrahim b. Edhem 17ff., and Gramlich, Wunder der Freunde Gottes 404f.; regarding the further development of the legend in the Malay language area cf. Russell Jones, Hikayat Sultan Ibrahim ibn Adham (New York/London 1985). 5  Ghazzālī, Iḥyāʾ I 325, apu. ff./transl. Nakamura, Ghazālī on Prayer 97f. 6  Cf. the article by R. Jones in: EI2 III 985f. s. n.; also Mujtabāʾī in: GIE II 403ff. 7  Fażāʾil 129, ult. f. The date of 174 found there is probably misread. Regarding 194 cf. Kutubī, Fawāt al-Wafayāt II 105, –4; Mīzān no. 3741; IAW I 258, 8f. The year 153 preserved by Ibn Khallikān after Ibn al-Jawzī, Shudhūr al-ʿuqūd (II 476, 7f.) is certainly wrong; Shaqīq’s pupil Ḥātim al-Aṣamm did not die until 237/851. Cf. also Radtke, loc. cit. 540. 8  Abū Nuʿaym, Ḥilya VIII 59, 4ff. > Ibn al-Jawzī, Ṣifa IV 133, 5ff.; Qushayrī, Risāla 13, 13ff.; Fażāʾil 132, –5ff. The same sources also record other conversion stories. 9  Fażāʾil 131, 4; Anṣārī, Sharḥ al-risāla al-Qushayriyya I 101, 2f.

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that he studied under Abū Yūsuf together with Abū Muṭīʿ al-Balkhī, reading his K. al-ṣalāt.10 Presumably these interests came to an end after his conversion. Now he wore a blue woollen garment11 and thought about the soul’s ascent to God. As was the custom in early mysticism his thoughts were transmitted in isolated logia, as well as in a brief text, extant in two versions entitled Ādāb al-ʿibādāt.12 It concerns the “ranks” (manāzil) of the “people of truthfulness” (ahl al-ṣidq), i.e. the degrees of closeness to God the pious may achieve. Asceticism is at the very bottom; it employs the means of systematically starving oneself and is linked to the fear of God and hell.13 The desire (shawq) for paradise is more perfect; craving the delights of paradise as described in the Quran is of great spiritual worth in Shaqīq’s eyes.14 Ultimately one will achieve the serenity of heart which grows out of God’s peace and mercy; humans who have achieved this will always smile and radiate amiability, as they have entered into the love of God. This is the earliest draft of a hierarchy of maqāmāt that we know. Middle-class piety renouncing the world and warriors of the faith longing after paradise are both superseded by the serenity in God.15 Shaqīq was an innovator in another way as well, introducing the “era of tawakkul”, as B. Reinert called it. This, too, was a step beyond old-fashioned asceticism; under Shaqīq’s influence, trust in God became a central concept which attracted many postulates of zuhd.16 Shaqīq’s declaring tawakkul to be one of the believer’s duties is new; he was thought to have interpreted sura 3:159 “God loves those who trust in him” to mean that someone who did not trust in God had left his faith behind.17 He arrived at this conclusion via a new understanding of tawḥīd; there being no God but the God also means that nothing 10   Fażāʾil 138, 7f., and 131, 5ff.; IAW I 257, 3ff. 11   Fażāʾil 130, ult., and 131, 7. The Murjiʾite ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Abī Rawwād (regarding him see p. 740f. below) was said to have pointed out the meaningless nature of this “uniform” (Ḥilya 59, –8ff.). 12  Ed. P. Nwyia in: Trois oeuvres inédites de mystiques musulmans (Beirut 1973), p. 15ff. Analysed by id. in: Exégèse coranique et langage mystique 213ff. Cf. also F. Meier, Abū Saʿīd 146f. 13  Shaqīq was of course familiar with the zuhd traditions; he had received the K. al-zuhd from ʿAbbād b. Kathīr (see p. 733 below). 14  Cf. Nwyia, Exégèse 224f. 15  I have not yet been able to study the “Eight Questions” Ḥātim al-Aṣamm transmitted from his teacher (cf. GAS 1/639). 16  Reinert, Lehre vom tawakkul 85. 17  Ibid. 14. It is interesting in this context that some branches of the Murjiʾa did indeed adopt the tawakkul to become part of their definition of faith (see p. 199 above).

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except God will profit or harm anyone.18 This consequence must first and foremost be applied to one’s livelihood (rizq): it is assured, for God guarantees it.19 There had not been such a close link between rizq and tawakkul before,20 and it transformed the everyday behaviour of the pious entirely. It was said that Shaqīq would lie down to sleep amidst a heated battle:21 he who trusts in God knows no danger. While this story is probably only a myth, it shows the dynamic emanating from the new ideal. Shaqīq’s rejecting all gainful employment, and thus denying his own past, had even more consequences. He was not the first; his older contemporary ʿAbdallāh b. al-Mubārak (d. 181/797), also from Marv, had objected to this type of extremism.22 Similar trends were known in Kufa at that time;23 but it was Shaqīq who provided a new theoretical framework: trade and craft are corrupt; the morals of the present day are bad. Nowhere can one be safe from fraud, consequently all gainful employment is “doubtful” (shubha), doubtful, that is, with regard to the purity of the things with which one comes in touch. Humans are allowed to get involved only in an emergency.24 Or, indeed, more severely and possibly exaggerated: gainful employment is sin, as it is the expression of humans’ doubting God’s guarantee.25 One must thank God when he provides, and be patient when he holds back; this is the true futuwwa, nobility.26 Shaqīq was said to live with fityān;27 his theology, on the other hand, provided the justification for mendicants. Further developments would go beyond the remit of this study. We would have to discuss Shaqīq’s pupil Ḥātim al-Aṣamm, and his pupil Aḥmad b. Ḥiḍrōya, both of whose biographies are included in the Fażāʾil-i Balkh (cf. Radtke 542 and 544). – The scope of intellectual life in Balkh may also be deduced from the personality of the astrologer Abū Maʿshar alBalkhī who was born on 20 Ṣafar 171/10 August 787 in the city, according to his horoscope. However, his case is problematic in that he received his training in hadith there only, becoming devoted to astrology later when, 18  Ibid.  23f. 19  Ibid. 35 and 71. Cf. Text XIV 27, b. 20  Ibid.  40. 21  Ibid.  163f. 22  Ibid. 220 and 170f.; cf. also 178. Further criticism along these lines also in Khallāl, Al-ḥathth ʿalā l-tijāra 24, 5ff., and 28, 2ff.; see also ch. C 1.4.3.2 below. 23  See vol.  I 262f. above. 24  Text XIV 28. 25  Text XIV 27, after Muḥāsibī; cf. Reinert 172. 26  Reinert  175. 27   T TD VI 328, 1.

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aged 47, he engaged in a disputation with the philosopher al-Kindī in Baghdad. Horoscopes in his K. al-mudhākarāt show that he must have had some understanding of astrology even before this; it is possible after all that he brought some of his expertise with him from his homeland. This was probably also where he acquired the knowledge of Indian and Chinese religions which Nawbakhtī learnt from him – possibly in his K. al-milal wal-duwal (Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Mughnī V 155, 3ff./transl. Monnot, Islam et religions 232f.; cf. also ibid. 226). His productive phase definitely took place during the time he spent in Iraq. He was said to have lived to over a hundred, dying on 29 Ramadan 272/9 March 886 in Wāsiṭ. Regarding him cf. Ullmann, Natur- und Geisteswissenschaften 316ff., and D. Pingree in DSB I 32ff. and EIran I 337ff. 3.1.2.2 Marv Marv was situated to the west of Balkh, in an oasis. The city’s main income was from trade, as it controlled one of the roads to China.1 The Nestorian missionaries went this way; there had been a Nestorian metropolitan residing in Marv since the early sixth century. Bishops were reported even earlier.2 During the Islamic period Īshōedād of Marv, bishop of Ḥedattā (ca. 850), became particularly well-known.3 A Jewish community had been documented for a long time, too;4 and as in Balkh, Buddhists had settled here, too.5 When the Arabs arrived they were only an additional section of the population; local Iranian princes and landowners, who had been more or less independent under the Sasanids, retained their power even after the conquest. The new rulers lived in villages, their settlement pattern decentralised wherever possible.6 Most of them were very wealthy; they frequently financed the raids from this region onto heathen territory themselves.7 Abū Muslim found the greatest number of followers 1  For general information on the history of Marv cf. Barthold, Historical Geography 41ff., and Yakubovskii in EI2 VI 618ff. 2  Fiey, Communautés syriaques (Variorum Reprints) VI 75ff.; also Spuler, Iran in frühislamischer Zeit 213; Gaube, Arabosasanidische Numismatik 12; Bosworth in: Cahiers de Tunisie 35/1987/35f. Regarding the legend surrounding the first bishop of the city cf. EIran III 823 s. v. Baršabbā. 3  Baumstark, Geschichte der syrischen Literatur 234, LThK V 783. 4  Cf. Fischel in: Historica Judaica 7/1945/35ff.; regarding the Jews in eastern Iran in general see Zand in EIran IV 539ff. 5  Masson, Land der tausend Städte 162. 6  Lapidus in: Islamic Middle East, ed. Udovitch 200f. Regarding the style of their palaces cf. Grabar, Die Alhambra 80ff. 7  Cf. Masson in: Arabica 14/1967/191ff.; esp. 204. Regarding the Arab population in general also Massignon, Opera Minora III 79.

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in this area; why this should have been so has been the subject of much study and research, but has not been resolved conclusively.8 The chiliastic movements of pious Iranians also found open ears; around 137/754 a certain Isḥāq, who was canvassing for followers among the Transoxianian Turks, also visited Marv.9 Twenty years later the Muqannaʿ set forth from a nearby village. In his preaching – which was, however, directed at rural areas rather than the city itself – gnostic thought became virulent.10 Abū Muslim did not meet with unanimous approval. In Marv the Murjiʾites in particular made trouble for him, having themselves gathered under Ḥārith b. Surayj’s black banners. Once he had established himself more firmly he had two of them, who upheld the ideals of the past with particular force, beheaded in 131/749. The first one was Saʿīd al-Naḥwī’s11 brother Yazīd who, being a mawlā of the Quraysh, seemed even more suspicious to him;12 the second one a man named Ibrāhīm b. Maymūn al-Ṣāʾigh,13 a goldsmith perhaps, who, like Yazīd, had been employed as go-between by Naṣr b. Sayyār and Ḥārith b. Surayj, and had also occupied an administrative position for some time.14 He came from Kufa where he had been connected to Samura b. Jundab’s family as a client.15 Abū Ḥanīfa was believed to have thought highly of him.16 He referred to a letter from ʿUmar II enjoining on ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Nuʿaym, the new governor of Sīstān who had replaced the tyrannical Jarrāḥ b. ʿAbdallāh in 100/722,17 to treat his subjects honourably.18 At that time the Murjiʾites had prevailed; we recall that Yazīd al-Naḥwī’s brother Saʿīd was believed to have been the one complaining about Jarrāḥ to ʿUmar. Now, however, amr bil-maʿrūf had come to the

8  Cf. e.g. Shaban, Abbasid Revolution 20f. and 96ff.; Kennedy, Early Abbasid Caliphate 36ff.; Shacklady, with reassessment of the sources, in: Occasional Papers of the School of Abbasid Studies 1/1986/98ff. Ahmad El-Shaubari, Early Islamic History of Merv, Capital of Khorasan (PhD, Columbia University, New York) may provide some new insights. 9  Cf. Sadighi, Mouvements religieux iraniens 150ff.; Spuler, Iran 197; Daniel, Khurasan 132. 10  Sadighi 163ff.; Spuler 52 and 198f.; Daniel 137ff.; Składanek, Doktryny 197ff. 11  Regarding him see p. 616 above. 12   T T XI 332 no. 633; also Ṭabarī II 1353, ult., and Samʿānī, Ansāb XIII 53, 3ff. 13   I AW I 50f. no. 54. The date of his death is also given as 130 (e.g. Fasawī III 350, 7f., as an alternative). Cf. also IS VII2 130, 6ff.; Mīzān no. 232; Azmi, Studies 135. 14  Ṭabarī II 1919, 1; regarding Yazīd cf. ibid. II 1928, 10f. 15  Fasawī III 237, 1f. The Isfahanians also claimed him (Abū l-Shaykh, Ṭabaqāt al-muḥaddithīn bi-Iṣbahān I 449; Abū Nuʿaym, Dhikr akhbār Iṣbahān I 171, ult. ff.). 16   I AW, loc. cit. 17  Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 463, 10f. 18  Ṭabarī II 1357, 2ff.

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wrong man. Abū Muslim had Ibrāhīm b. Maymūn’s body thrown into a well.19 His severity seems to have closed the Murjiʾites’ mouths for a while, but they did retain some influence, as Muqātil b. Sulaymān’s stepson, who had studied under Abū Ḥanīfa, was appointed to the position of judge during Manṣūr’s caliphate: Abū ʿIṣma Nūḥ b. Abī Maryam Yazīd b. Jaʿwana (?), d. 173/789–90 at an advanced age. Abū Ḥanīfa was said to have sent him a paraenetic letter on his appointment,20 but there seems to be some doubt whether to call him a Ḥanafite, as he combined Abū Ḥanīfa’s tradition with Ibn Abī Laylā’s, with whom the former did not always agree.21 For this reason he was given the sobriquet al-Jāmiʿ, the “combiner”. Later Ḥanafite tradition omitted this fact,22 as the name would have been seen as a compliment on his universalism: he was an expert in Quranic exegesis according to Muqātil’s and to Kalbī’s works, and knew the prophet’s biography according to Ibn Isḥāq.23 He possessed an astounding number of written collections (nusakh) of hadith, which made him unique in Iran; many of them had not survived among the “Arabs” either.24 He was not trusted entirely; he himself was quoted as having described his traditions on the faḍāʾil al-Qurʾān as “pious falsification”.25 The praise of the Khorasanian cities, Marv above all, which he had ʿAlī proclaim, was probably taken with a pinch of salt outside of Iran.26 He must have travelled widely, in Iraq as well as in the Hijaz. In Marv he was remarkable for lecturing on four subjects: the law according to Abū Ḥanīfa,27 tradition (athar), grammar, and poetry.28 Even more remarkable is the report that his father had been a heathen, a Zoroastrian (majūsī) from the Hurmuz region29 – possibly

19   I S VII2 130, 15; for general information Madelung in: Der Islam 59/1982/35f. 20   Mīzān no. 9143. 21  Samʿānī, Ansāb III 175, 2ff. Regarding Ibn Abī Laylā see vol. I 226 above. An anti-Ḥanafite tradition was traced back to him as well (see vol. I 220, n. 5 above). 22  Thus IAW II 258, 6; dependent on this also GAL S 1/287. 23   Mīzān, loc. cit. 24  Al-Ḥākim al-Naysābūrī, Maʿrifa 164, –4ff.; after him Azmi, Studies (cf. Index s. n.). 25  Zarkashī, Al-burhān fī ʿulūm al-Qurʾān I 432, 10ff.; Gruber, Verdienst und Rang 88. 26  Suyūṭī, La‌ʾālī I 467, 3ff. 27   aqāwīl Abī Ḥanīfa; going by what we have seen so far this referred to Kufan tradition in general. 28  Samʿānī III 175, 4f. 29   Mīzān, loc. cit., and TT X 486ff. no. 876.

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only local slander, especially if one considers the grandfather’s Arab name.30 Ibn Abī Maryam had an open heart for new converts, transmitting the hadith that even someone who read the Quran without iʿrāb would be rewarded.31 Pazdawī’s claiming that based on Abū Ḥanīfa he had denied the createdness of the Quran32 loses even more probability in connection with that hadith; on the other hand we do know that he made no allowances for the Jahmites. He may have been the first to refute them with the tradition that a female slave was freed at the prophet’s request because she proved her faith by imagining God as dwelling in heaven.33 He also argued his young secretary Nuʿaym b. Ḥammād, who would later go to Egypt,34 out of his Jahmite ideas,35 doing the latter’s posthumous image no favours, as he would sometimes be listed as a hard-boiled anthropomorphist, usually together with Muqātil b. Sulaymān.36 In Nūḥ b. Abī Maryam’s view, the anthropomorphist image of God was linked to seeing God in paradise; like Ḥammād b. Sulaymān he interpreted sura 10:26 to mean that the pious can expect this as part of the “bounty” that will be the share of the righteous.37 – Ibrāhīm al-Ṣāʾigh’s pupil Muḥammad b. Maymūn, known as Abū Ḥamza al-Sukkarī, d. 167/784 or 168/785, also commanded great respect at that time.38 He probably traded in sugar39 and was so rich that the qāḍī Ḥusayn b. Wāqid treated him as his equal.40 He visited Baghdad while on the pilgrimage, and Kufa on the way back.41 He attended a number of hadith scholars’ lectures there, as 30   Jaʿwana according to Samʿānī III 176, 2, and IAW II 258, 9. Dhahabī, Mīzān, loc. cit., has ʿAbdallāh. Early sources like Khalīfa, Ṭab. 836 no. 3136 or IS VII2 104, 5f. only have Nūḥ b. Abī Maryam. Concerning the question cf. also Lisān al-Mīzān VI 172f. no. 609. 31   Mīzān, loc. cit.; parallels in Kahle in: Goldziher Memorial Volume 16, and JNES 8/1949/68. 32   Uṣūl al-dīn 155, 8ff. 33  Dhahabī, ʿUlūw 187, 2ff.; cf. Text XXXIII 23, l–n with commentary. 34  Regarding him see p. 810ff. below. 35   I AH IV1 484 no. 2210; Mīzān and TT, loc. cit.; also Aguadé, Messianismus 12ff. 36  See p. 810f. below. 37   T B IX 140, 16ff.; Ibn Manda, Radd ʿalā l-Jahmiyya 96, 1ff.; also Lālakāʾī, Sharḥ uṣūl iʿtiqād ahl al-sunna 456 no. 779 (p. 454ff. with further material concerning this exegesis). Regarding Ḥammād b. Sulaymān see p. 431 above. 38   T B III 269, 19ff. 39  While people claimed to have heard Ibn Maʿīn say that he acquired his nisba with his “sweet speech”, this is probably a retrospective reinterpretation (ibid. 269. 8). 40  Ibid. 267, 11ff.; Ḥusayn b. Wāqid, too, was only a mawlā (cf. Juynboll, Tradition 230). Regarding his exegetical works see p. 590 above. 41  Ibid. 266, 14f.

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well as Abū Ḥanīfa’s;42 he possessed a nuskha by the Kufan Raqaba b. Maṣqala al-ʿAbdī,43 and appears to have collated a K. al-ṣalāt.44 He gave some thought to how one could arrange the corpus of traditions, developing his own method: if a tradition with a valid isnād goes back to the prophet, it must be included; if it comes from a prophet’s companion, one can choose but not emend it; but one is allowed to “compete” with the tābiʿūn.45 His Murjiʾite views were rarely recorded.46 He may have based them on the hadith he transmitted in which the prophet said the prayer over an adulteress who had died in childbirth,47 thus stating clearly that he still considered her to be a believer. He transmitted from Yazīd al-Naḥwī and Ibrāhīm al-Ṣāʾigh.48 – Another of Abū Ḥanīfa’s followers was al-Naḍr b. Muḥammad al-Qurashī, a mawlā of the Banū ʿĀmir of the Quraysh, who died in 183/799.49 However, all we know about him is that he was friendly with Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ʿAbdallāh b. al-Mubārak b. Wāḍiḥ al-Ḥanẓalī (108/716–181/797),50 who found words of effusive praise for Abū Ḥanīfa as well as his Kufan contemporary Misʿar b. Kidām.51 At the same time he observed a certain distance, and viewed Abū Ḥanīfa’s traditions critically.52 He did not think much of Nūḥ b. Abī Maryam either.53 He was more traditionist than 42  Ibid. 266, 5ff.; regarding Abū Ḥanīfa IAW II 249, pu. 43  al-Ḥākim al-Naysābūrī, Maʿrifa 164, 9f.; Azmi, Studies 99. Regarding the latter see p. 419f. above. 44  al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī, Kifāya 234, 11ff.; Azmi, Studies 154. 45   I AW II 249, pu. ff. 46   T B VI 108, 18. Nothing in the biographies TB III 266ff. no. 1359; Bukhārī I1 234 no. 737; IAH IV1 81 no. 338; Ibn Rajab, Sharḥ ʿilal al-Tirmidhī 412, 1ff.; TH 230 no. 214; Mīzān no. 8245. 47   T B III 266, 19ff. 48   I AH IV1 81, 4. 49  Cf. e.g. Khalīfa, Ṭab. 836 no. 3139; IAH IV1 478 no. 2192; IAW II 200f. no. 624 (with n. 2). Different forms of the kunya were transmitted. 50   I S VII2 105, 7f. Named as a Murjiʾite in Kaʿbī, Qabūl 216, –7, and TT X 444f. no. 809. Nothing in Mīzān no. 9082. 51  Cf. the verses in RIMA 27/1983/40 no. 1, and 468 no. 18 as well as 62 no. 39; cf. also Ibn Māza, Sharḥ adab al-qāḍī I 191, ult. ff.; Kardarī, Manāqib Abī Ḥanīfa I 41f.; Ibn Abī l-Wafāʾ counts him among the Ḥanafites (I 281f. no. 748). Regarding Misʿar b. Kidām see vol. I 208f. above. 52  See vol.  I 218 above. 53  ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ IV 304f. no. 1905.

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lawyer; noticeable by his store of knowledge and his precision among the slapdash and carefree approach to hadith at the time. His vast library was a help in this; he was said to have possessed ca. 20,000 “books”, i.e. separate hadith notes bound into booklets.54 Of course this meant that he could not rely on his memory, but then he had no need to: people remembered hearing him say that he had never learnt a hadith by heart but instead looked in his books and selected one.55 Presumably hadith to him also had the function of limiting the free finding of the law (ra‌ʾy); his extant book on the subject of jihad does not contain a single independent consideration but only the words of earlier authorities and the prophet.56 It is worth noting that Ibn Ḥanbal considered his books particularly suited for the study of fiqh.57 Jihad was very close to Ibn al-Mubārak’s heart and he took part himself; not, however, in the Turkish borderlands but in Syria against the Byzantines.58 Indolent Sufis whom he met in the street in Baghdad did not impress him; he was of the opinion that an ascetic had to do something for the sake of his ideal.59 He may well have provided financial help as well, supporting other warriors for the faith.60 This was what he did, too, for needy pilgrims: he paid for their journey to Mecca and even bought presents for their wives there, while at home in Marv he had had their houses painted and decorated with the images of the subject customary to this day.61 There were many stories about his generosity,62 although there was occasional criticism at his showing it more when he was travelling than at home.63 This is proof not only of his piety, but also of his being able to afford it. He was a wealthy merchant who certainly went travelling – to Iraq and Syria as well as Egypt and even Yemen64 – because of his business interests just as much as for the sake of his ṭalab al-ʿilm.65 His 54   T B X 164, 11f. 55  Ibid., 165, 16ff.; followed by accounts attempting to blur this impression. 56  Ed. Nazīh Ḥammād, Beirut 1971. The book was also used by Ibn Ḥajar (cf. Khoury in: SI 42/1975/127ff.). 57  Ibn Abī Yaʿlā, Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila I 77, 8f.; also Ibn Ḥanbal, Waraʿ 63, apu. ff. 58   T B X 167, 6ff. Interestingly all three to whom we owe the K. al-jihād were at home in Mopsuestia (p. 16). Ibn al-Mubārak frequently visited there. 59  Cf. the poem in RIMA 27/1983/45 no. 10. 60  Cf. the story TB 157, 17ff. 61  Ibid. 158, 5ff. 62  Also ibid. 158, ult. ff., and 159, 7ff. 63  Ibid. 160, 9ff. 64   I S VII2 105, 2f. Samʿānī, Adab al-imlāʾ 22, 17ff., mentions him as visiting Raqqa. 65  Idrīsī even claimed that he even displayed a tourist’s interests (cf. Haarmann in: Zum Bild Ägyptens 37).

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father, a Turk, had allegedly been the slave of an Arab merchant in Hamadan who was a member of the Banū Ḥanẓala.66 Other sources speak of a mawlā relation,67 but in any case Ibn al-Mubārak was only 23 when he first visited Iraq in 141/758.68 He was one of the few scholars who transmitted hadith for the love of God (yuḥaddithu lillāh) and did not ask for payment. His activities were recorded in several books of which a K. al-zuhd wal-raqāʾiq is extant besides the abovementioned K. al-jihād. The former, an extensive work, survives in two recensions, a shorter one by Ḥusayn b. al-Ḥasan b. Ḥarb al-Marwazī (d. 246/860), who taught Tirmidhī and Ibn Māja and settled in Mecca; and a longer one, emended with numerous additions, by Nuʿaym b. Ḥammād.69 They probably contain the traditions Ibn al-Mubārak dictated his two pupils from his wealth of material; the work does not even include a preface. The only personal touch are the headings, and we do not know whether they were his work.70 It shows us clearly how Shaqīq al-Balkhī, his younger contemporary and neighbour, would have imagined the lowest degree of his mystical path. We read of the fear of God, of sadness and weeping, also of the kind of behaviour indicative of renunciation of the world, and of great examples who achieved it during their lives: Uways al-Qaranī, ʿĀmir b. ʿAbd al-Qays,71 ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz. Nuʿaym b. Ḥammād also included two chapters on the pleasures of paradise and the horrors of hell.72 These are the “admonitions that touch the heart” (raqāʾiq) mentioned in the title.73 The first collection of 40 hadiths that would still be known later was the work of Ibn al-Mubārak as well. It was probably intended as a handbook. As is well-known, the genre he thus established had a great future ahead of it.74

66   T B X 153, 11ff. 67  Ibn al-Jazarī, Ṭab. I 446 no. 1858. 68   T B X 168, 4f. 69  Ed. Ḥabīb al-Raḥmān al-Aʿẓamī (Maligaun 1966; reprint Beirut n. d.). The editor simply appended Nuʿaym’s additional material at the end of the book. There were probably further versions; the quotations found in Ibn Ḥajar’s Iṣāba are not all instanced in the printed version (cf. Khoury in: SI 42/1975/119ff.). Regarding the quotations in Abū Nuʿaym, Ḥilya cf. Khoury in: SI 46/1977/84ff. 70  It is interesting that they contain the phrase dhikr khafī (p. 45). 71  Regarding him see p. 101f. above. 72  Cf. the appendix of the edition, p. 66ff. 73  Regarding the meaning cf. Nwyia in EIran I 185a. The title page of the Berlin reprint makes it appear, wrongly, as though there were a separate text entitled K. al-raqāʾiq. 74  Cf. Nawawī, Arbaʿūn, ed. Pouzet 11, –6f.; also Intro. 43.

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The other texts listed by Ibn al-Nadīm75 were probably also traditionist ones: a K. al-sunan, a K. al-birr wal-ṣila. It is possible that in his Tafsīr Ibn al-Mubārak drew on traditions from ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Ṣanʿānī whose lectures on Quranic exegesis he had attended.76 The Ta‌ʾrīkh he composed presumably contained dates of the deaths of tradition scholars. He also expressed his ideas in simple verses which the sources quote occasionally, and which appear to have been quite popular.77 By using poetry in this way he positioned himself close to Muḥārib b. Dithār and Thābit Quṭna,78 but also a Muʿtazilite such as Bishr b. al-Muʿtamir.79 One short text is very characteristic of his religious convictions. In it he traces the 72 sects mentioned in the well-known prophetic dictum back to four basic heresies: Qadariyya, Murjiʾa, Shīʿa, and the Khārijites.80 By subsequently explaining briefly how it would be possible to avoid these mistaken developments, he implicitly defined his understanding of orthodoxy. Of course we do not know to what degree the text is authentic; it is particularly surprising that the Jahmiyya is not mentioned. There can be no doubt, however, that like the traditionist pupils of Ḥasan al-Baṣrī’s, some of whose lectures he attended,81 and like Sufyān al-Thawrī to whom he was close,82 he was regarded as a representative of Sunnism. The text even uses the term ṣāḥib sunna.83 He was even less likely to profess Jahmite doctrine than that of Christians or Jews; he pointed out to the Jahmiyya that God was not on earth but in heaven, on his throne.84 Still, he is not entirely suited to the role of “precursor”, as he did not wish to 75   Fihrist 284, apu. ff. Cf. also GAS 1/95. 76  Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 70, 3. Cf. also Dāwūdī, Ṭab. I 243f. no. 232. 77  Cf. the collection by Mujāhid Muṣṭafā Bahjat in: RIMA 27/1983/9ff. and 455ff., also addenda ibid. 28/1984/311ff. Whether these are genuine will have to be determined for the individual cases. 78  See vol.  I 189ff. above. 79  See ch. C 1.4.3.1 below. 80  Text XIV 29. 81  Thus Sulaymān al-Taymī (TH 275, 4), maybe also ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAwn (cf. Ibn ʿAdī, Kāmil 166, 10; where, however, the editor has emended the name differently). 82  Abū Nuʿaym, Ḥilya VII 28, 10ff.; Ibn al-Faqīh, Buldān 320, 15ff.; cf. also Raddatz, Sufyān athThawrī 41f. He also criticised him (ibid. 42, n. 1). 83  Text 29, d. The poem RIMA 27/1983/65f. no. 4 is composed in the same style. Warning of getting involved with “innovators”: cf. Lālakāʾī, Sharḥ 139f. no. 274f., and 141 no. 283f. 84  Ṭabarī III 2520, 19ff. = Dhayl al-mudhayyal 660, apu. ff. More explicitly, maybe too much so, the statements in Ibn Taymiyya, Fatwā Ḥamawiyya 34, 13ff. Cf. also the poem RIMA 27/1983/61 no. 38, where he ironically derives Jahm from Jahannam.

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speak of the Quran’s non-createdness.85 His “orthodoxy” was limited to exclusions; he had probably come across too many variations of Islam on his travels. The Murjiʾites of Marv did not suffer under him. Their line was continued by Abū Bakr Ibrāhīm b. Rustam86 al-Faqīh, although he already belonged to a later generation. He came from Kerman and had attended the lectures of numerous teachers some of whom are known to have been Murjiʾites: Abū Ḥamza al-Sukkarī and Nūḥ b. Abī Maryam in Marv, Khārija b. Muṣʿab (d. 168/785) in Sarakhs.87 When his traditions were not well received, he turned to law instead and studied with Shaybānī (d. 189/805). While Ma‌ʾmūn was residing in Marv he took Ibrāhīm into his confidence, but the latter did not abandon his acquaintance with the fullers in whose street he lived. He may well have been in the same trade, although we know that he was very wealthy: when Ma‌ʾmūn offered him the position of judge, he declined the appointment and paid a penalty of 10,000 dirhams in alms to the poor.88 We do not know why he did this, but the position was probably a hot seat; the philologist Naḍr b. Shumayl, another confidant of Ma‌ʾmūn’s, used his influence to oust the Ḥanafites as much as possible from official positions in favour of the aṣḥāb al-ḥadīth.89 When Ibrāhīm went on the pilgrimage in 210/825, his illness forced him to stop in Sarakhs, and he died on 20 Jumādā II 211/27 Sept. 826 in Nishapur. He was so well-respected that the governor himself, a Ṭāhirid, said the prayer for the dead over him.90 – His contemporary

85  Pazdawī, Uṣūl al-dīn 54, 3ff., where he is compared to Hishām b. al-Ḥakam (!); regarding whose ideas see vol. I 441 above. On the development in general ch. C 3.3 and 3.6 below. Negative verdicts on Ibn al-Mubārak may be found in Kaʿbī, Qabūl 122, –6ff. 86  Khalīfa, Ṭab. 839 no. 3157. IS VII2 108, 3f. has incorrect Rusaym. 87   T B VI 73, 3f. and 14f. Regarding Khārija b. Muṣʿab and his Murjiʾite creed cf. Fażāʾil-i Balkh 186, pu. ff.; Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif 625, 4; Mīzān no. 2397; TT III 76 no. 147 etc.; also p. 162 above. 88   T B VI 73, 15ff.; IAW I 38, 9f. According to IAH I1 99, 16ff. it was Ṭāhir b. Ḥusayn who made the offer; events are presented in a different way, too. 89  Kardarī, Manāqib Abī Ḥanīfa II 107, 5ff. 90   T B 74, 5ff. Also Khalīfa-i Naysābūrī, Talkhīṣ 15, 10f. IAH I1 99f. has him as a Murjiʾite, as does Mīzān no. 87 (after Abū Ḥātim).

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ʿAlī b. al-Ḥusayn b. Wāqid, d. 211/826 or 212/827, the son of the judge in Marv with whom Abū Ḥamza al-Sukkarī had been acquainted, was a Murjiʾite.91 He seems to have taught mainly exegesis; Thaʿlabī mentions him in the riwāya of both ʿIkrima’s and Muqātil b. Sulaymān’s works.92 He had heard Muqātil’s Tafsīr from the latter’s stepson Abū ʿIṣma; ʿIkrima’s texts he received from Yazīd al-Naḥwī. In the second instance Thaʿlabī’s isnād appears to be incomplete, as elsewhere ʿAlī’s father bridges a long chronological gap.93 As we have seen, this observation shines a particular light on his K. al-naẓāʾir which Thaʿlabī knew.94 It is possible that parts of ʿIkrima’s tradition were incorporated in this, via his father’s K. al-wujūh. We do not know what the connection was between this work and Muqātil’s K. al-wujūh. – A mere name to us is Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm b. Isḥāq b. ʿĪsā al-Ṭālaqānī al-Bunānī, a mawlā of the Bunān who died in 215/830 in Marv. As he once visited Baghdad, he does appear in Ta‌ʾrīkh Baghdād, but besides telling us that he was a Murjiʾite, the article does not contain any relevant material.95 – Bishr b. Muḥammad al-Sakhtiyānī al-Marwazī (d. 224/839) remains elusive as well.96 – We have a better picture, however, of Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ʿAlī b. al-Ḥasan b. Shaqīq al-ʿAbdī al-Shaqīqī97 (d. Shaʿbān 215/Oct. 830 in Marv).98 This is due to the fact that he enjoyed Ibn al-Mubārak’s trust and transmitted all his books; Abū Dāwūd believed he had

91   Mīzān no. 5824 and TT VII 308 no. 522. Cf. also Bukhārī III2 267 no, 2365; IAH III1 179 no. 978. 92   Kashf, Intro. 23, 2f. and 40, 6; cf. p. 584f. above. 93  Ibn Taymiyya, Sharḥ ḥadīth al-nuzūl 95, 13ff. 94   Kashf 54, 2ff. 95   T B VI 24f. no. 3056; esp. 25, 3. Also TT I 103f. no. 178. Nothing in Bukhārī I1 273 no. 878. 96  A Murjiʾite according to TT I 457 no. 841. Cf. also Bukhārī I2 84 no. 1772; IAH I1 364 no. 1402. Regarding the nisba al-Sakhtiyānī see p. 391 above. 97  This nisba in Fasawī only (III 100, apu.). For his complete name cf. TB XI 370 no. 6222. 98   T B XI 372, 12 after Ṭabarī; no month ibid. 372, 9f. and Fasawī I 199, apu. 214 was also transmitted (TB XI 371, ult. f.). Further information in TT VII 298f. no. 510.

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heard them fourteen times.99 This was why Fasawī quoted him100 – directly as well as through an intermediary – as did Ṭabarī.101 When he arrived in Baghdad he was preceded by the written warning that he was a Murjiʾite. He did not deny it, saying that he could not absolve anyone of their responsibility102 – for attending the lectures of such a dubious character, that is. However, he was found to be indispensable, and he seems to have been reticent; Ibn Ḥanbal would later claim that he renounced his views.103 He also transmitted from other Murjiʾites: Ibrāhīm b. Ṭahmān, Khārija b. Muṣʿab and Abū Ḥamza alSukkarī;104 he possessed the rights to the K. al-ṣalāt composed by the latter.105 At first he had found it amusing to argue with Jews and Christians, even copying both the Old and New Testaments for his own use.106 In his old age he grew frail and only ever dictated two or three hadiths to his visitors.107 After all, as he himself said, he had been born shortly before Abū Muslim’s murder;108 he must have been in his late seventies when he died. Until the late fifth century, all the judges in the city whose names have been transmitted were Ḥanafites.109 Muqātil’s Tafsīr, however, was not accepted by the Ḥanafites despite Nūḥ b. Abī Maryam; appealing more to anthropomorphic circles such as the Karrāmites. Abū l-Qāsim al-Ḥabībī, who concludes the riwāya, was a Karrāmite; when he settled in Nishapur he converted to the Shāfiʿites.110 We usually know him as Ibn Ḥabīb al-Naysābūrī, the author of ʿUqalāʾ al-majānīn (d. 406/1015). Even a “Jahmite” settled among the Ḥanafites of Marv, a pupil of Bishr al-Marīsī’s named Bishr b. Yaḥyā.111

99   T B XI 371, 11 and 20f.; also IS VII2 107, 4. 100  Cf. Al-maʿrifa wal-ta‌ʾrīkh, Index s. n. 101   I  19, 15ff. via an intermediary; I 1765, 16ff. via his son Muḥammad. 102   T B XI 371, 10. 103  Ibid. 371, 16f. Kaʿbī, Qabūl 216, –9, also names him as a Murjiʾite. 104  Ibid. 370, 14ff.; also Ṭabarī I 310, ult. ff. He also knew of Abū Ḥamza indirectly through his father (ibid. I 115, 1ff., and 1765, 16f.). 105  Azmi, Studies 154; cf. p. 618 above. 106   T B XI 372, 6ff.; the statement remains slightly obscure. 107  Ibid. 108  Fasawī I 199, apu.; TB XI 372, 11f. 109  Halm, Ausbreitung 83 and 88f. 110   G AS 1/47; cf. p. 585 above. 111  Khallāl, Musnad 433, 13f.; TB VII 64, 14f. Regarding him see IAW I 167f. no. 375.

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3.1.2.3 Tirmidh Tirmidh, situated on a crossing of the Oxus, was the natural centre of northern Bactria during the Kushan era and the following centuries.1 There were numerous Buddhist monuments in the surrounding area.2 Jahm b. Ṣafwān spent more than a little time here as the majority of the population were still following his doctrine by the end of the fourth century.3 While we do not have any detailed reports, it is characteristic that a Jahmite became qāḍī in the city in the first half of the third century: Ṣāliḥ b. Muḥammad al-Tirmidhī. It may be similarly characteristic that the Ḥanafite biographers pay him no notice at all; he was a Murjiʾite, but not one of the customary kind. As was only right and proper for a Jahmite he believed in the createdness of the Quran. Ibn Ḥibbān, who found even normal Ḥanafites a sore trial, had nothing good to say about him: Ṣāliḥ, he said, had taken people who followed a different definition of faith to court, and had even had one of them led through town with a rope round his neck. The qāḍī was over seventy at the time; a slanderous poem from which Ibn Ḥibbān quoted a few verses compared him to his disadvantage with his namesake Ṣāliḥ b. ʿAbdallāh al-Tirmidhī, the date of whose death (239/853) we still know.4 He also, we read on, acquired his position through bribes, and even sold wine and declared consuming it to be permitted,5 but this may be an exaggeration. Ṣāliḥ probably conformed to the Kufan tradition of legal practice and consequently turned a blind eye where nabīdh of any kind was concerned. The mystic al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī had no qualms to transmit a number of hadiths from him.6 Even Ibn Ḥibbān admitted that Ṣāliḥ’s hadith was widely accepted among the ahl al-ra‌ʾy. In his home region he also played a significant part in transmitting exegetic material from Kalbī’s commentary that was traced back to ʿAbbās;7 adding 4,000 hadiths to the original Tafsīr.8 And if he 1  Masson, Land der tausend Städte 79ff. 2  Ibid. 90f. B. Staviskij’s excavations in Kara Tepe near Tirmidh provide a representative example (Staviskij, Mittelasien – Kunst der Kuschan, Leipzig 1979, p. 141ff.; also in: From Hecataeus to al-Ḫuwārizmī, ed. Harmatta 95ff.); cf. also Fussmann in: JA 275/1987/347ff. 3  Aḥsan al-taqāsim 323, –6. 4  T B IX 316, 10f. 5  Majrūḥīn I 370, 3ff. > Mīzān no. 3825, and Lisān al-Mīzān III 176 no. 708; cf. my Ungenützte Texte zur Karrāmīya 48. Ibn Ḥibbān’s text has tisʿīn instead of sabʿīn; presumably an error. 6  Cf. B. Radtke, Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmiḏī 27 no. 142. 7  Cf. Ungenützte Texte 46ff.; also Goldfeld in: Der Islam 58/1981/134. 8  ḤKh 401, pu. f.

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is the same as the Abū Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ b. Muḥammad b. Naṣr al-Tirmidhī whom al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī listed,9 he made an excellent impression when staying in the capital while on the hajj. It is understandable that Ibn Ḥibbān wished to separate the two persons (Mīzān II 300, –4f.). Ibn Abī Ḥātim had done the same (IAN II1 412 no. 1812). The Ṣāliḥ whom al-Khaṭīb mentioned did indeed transmit from a certain al-Qāsim b. ʿAbbād al-Tirmidhī who is usually named as a pupil of the other Ṣāliḥ (cf. Ungenützte Texte 44; regarding him cf. Goldfeld in: Der Islam 58/1981/134). This does not mean it is impossible for them to have been one and the same person; the change in generations would not have been noted in Baghdad. If there was another Ṣāliḥ b. Muḥammad al-Tirmidhī, he may well have lived considerably earlier (cf. the isnād in Vajda, RSO 55/1981/21). A second teacher of Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī’s was a Murjiʾite as well: Abū Dāwūd al-Jārūd b. Muʿādh al-Sulamī al-Tirmidhī. However, we know virtually nothing about him. He died in 244/858.10 Of another Murjiʾite who lived around the same time, Abū ʿImrān Mūsā b. Ḥizām al-Tirmidhī (d. 251/865), it was said that he was one of the abdāl; he, too, may have had connections to mystic circles. He was also an expert Quran reciter in the Kufan tradition of Kisāʾī, having studied under Yaḥyā b. Ādam (d. 203/818).11 The mystic al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī falls outside the chronological boundaries of this study. Furthermore, tradition is too complex for him to be discussed in few words.12 We have already pointed out elsewhere that for the sake of his theory of khatm al-wilāya he interpreted the Quranic phrase khātam al-nabiyyīn in a peculiar way.13 In the present context it is interesting that he found arguments why it was possible to see God in a dream.14 However, when he himself 9  TB IX 330 no. 4866. 10   T T II 53 no. 80; Radtke 22 no. 60. 11  Ibn al-Jazarī, Ṭab. II 318 no. 3677; TT X 340f. no. 599. 12  For recent literature on him cf. Radtke in: ZDMG 136/1986/552f. 13  Vol.  I 35 above. 14  Radtke, Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmiḏī 67.

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dreamt of an audience with the king of heaven, all he saw was an empty tent with a curtain.15 Northeast of Tirmidh was the valley of Chaghān-Rud that only fell into Arab hands towards the end of the first century and was Islamised only gradually.16 This was the home of Abū Saʿd17 Muḥammad b. Abī Zakariyyāʾ Muyassar al-Juʿfī al-Ṣaghānī who was active during the second half of the second century. Culturally the region was part of the Balkh “catchment area”,18 but he seems to have had connections to Marv as well, as in one source he bears the nisba al-Sīnānī, after the village of Sīnān near that city.19 He travelled widely. He had attended Misʿar b. Kidām’s and Abū Ḥanīfa’s lectures in Kufa, and Ibrāhīm b. Ṭahmān’s, among others, in Khorasan.20 He was also in close contact with ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Abī Rawwād, possibly still in Nishapur and not in Mecca.21 He was not widely liked, being regarded not only as a Murjiʾite – which might have been just about acceptable22 – but also a Jahmite.23 This was probably once again based on his image of God. In an exegesis of sura 112 he appears to have interpreted ṣamad to mean “immortal”, and thus deviated from the anthropomorphic interpretation.24 3.1.2.4 Samarqand The earliest times of Muslims settling in Samarqand, the central location in Sogdiana, are shrouded in darkness. Some city histories have been lost, others

15   Budūw sha‌ʾn Abī ʿAbdallāh 17, 1ff. 16  Cf. Bosworth in: Iran 19/1981/1ff. 17   Abū Saʿīd in IS VII2 108, 18, is isolated. Cf. already Khalīfa, Ṭab. 837 no. 3142. 18  Cf. EI2 II 1f. s. v. Čag̲ h̲āniyān; also I 455a s. v. Āmū Daryā. Ṣaghānī also bears the nisba al-Balkhī in Dhahabī, Mīzān no. 8241. 19   T B III 282, 13; cf. Yāqūt, Muʿjam al-buldān s. v. Sīnān. Ṣaghānī may also be derived from a village near Marv (Yāqūt s. v. Ṣaghān), but the connection with Chaghāniyān seems sufficiently explained by Fażāʾil-i Balkh 120, 6. 20   T B III 281, 9ff., besides many other names; also Mīzān, loc. cit. 21  Ibid. 282, 4, where he is described as Ibn Abī Rawwād’s ṣāḥib. Regarding the latter see p. 740f. below. 22  Ibn Ḥanbal transmitted from him all the same (ibid. 282, 12ff.). Cf. also ibid. 282, 20f., and Kaʿbī, Qabūl 217, 1. 23  Ibid. 282, 5 and 10; ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ IV 140, pu. 24   T B III 281, 15ff.; abridged in ʿUqaylī IV 141, 3ff. > Mīzān, loc. cit.

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have not yet been edited.1 After the conquest the indigenous population staged an uprising in 93/712 with the result that the walls were razed to the ground and the greatest Sogdian temple converted into a mosque. The ancient centre, known as Afrāsiyāb, fell to ruin, the Muslims settling on the outskirts.2 In the countryside, however, several princely residences survived unscathed; Panjikent with its magnificent frescoes being around 60 km to the east of the city.3 Part of the past the Muslims adopted was a numerous Manichaean community that had settled here, at a safe distance from the Sasanid central government.4 The members called themselves Ṣābians when communicating with the Muslims;5 the author of the Ḥudūd al-ʿālam, writing in 372/982–3, still mentions a khānqāh in which they assembled.6 We have seen that Muqātil b. Sulaymān was believed to have been qāḍī in Samarqand for a time – apparently still during the first century.7 One source refers to his pupil ʿUmar b. Ṣubḥ8 with the nisba al-Samarqandī.9 One generation later we come across someone who transmitted from Muqātil, but had probably not known him personally: Abū Muqātil Ḥafṣ b. Salm10 al-Fazārī al-Samarqandī. He had his roots in the city and introduced Abū Ḥanīfa’s ideas to Samarqand. He edited conversations with Abū Ḥanīfa on the Murjiʾa’s fundamental dogmatic position, extant under the title K. al-ʿālim wal-mutaʿallim.11 The dialogue form is probably mostly literary; as Abū Muqātil died in 208/823, it is questionable whether he even met Abū Ḥanīfa.12 However, there are reports that he

1  See Weinberger in: Arabica 33/1986/369ff.; also Rosenthal, Historiography 470 and 458. 2  Cf. EIran I 576f. s. v. Afrāsīāb. 3  The complex dates to around 700; cf. G. Azarpay in: EIran II 599f. 4  See vol.  I 494 above; also Lieu, Manichaeism 186ff. 5  Bīrūnī, Āthār 209, 2/transl. 191. Was this the same mimicry as in Ḥarrān, or does this hide attempts at infiltration? 6  Transl. Minorsky 113; cf. also Meier, Abū Saʿīd 312. For general information Utas in: Festschrift Boyce 655ff. 7  See p. 575 above. 8  See p. 598f. above. 9  IAH III1 116f. no. 629. 10  Presumably not an incorrect spelling of Sālim (despite Khalīfa-i Naysābūrī, Talkhīṣ Ta‌ʾrīkh Naysābūr 15. 11  Cf. Schacht in: Oriens 17/1964/97ff.; also R. al-Sayyid in: Al-fikr al-tarbawī al-islāmī 9ff. 12  The information that he lived to a very old age may merely reflect the desire to link him to Abū Ḥanīfa. The date of his death was recorded by Tirmidhī. Cf. Ibn Ḥibbān, Majrūḥīn

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also attended ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAwn’s (d. 151/768) lectures;13 indeed, he even transmitted from ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd (d. 144/761), as well as other Qadarites such as Saʿīd b. Abī ʿArūba.14 Of course, this was not necessarily based on direct personal contact,15 but he does appear to have travelled widely in his youth. His mother died in Mecca while he, too was in that city;16 at that time he heard hadith from ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Abī Rawwād.17 A visit to Nishapur is also documented.18 If we are to believe a remark of Suyūṭī’s, he was a qāḍī;19 he certainly issued fatwās, presumably in accordance with Abū Ḥanīfa’s teachings.20 His ascetic demeanour (taqashshuf) was also noted.21 This interest in asceticism was noticeable in the K. al-ʿālim wal-mutaʿallim, too. While all Murjiʾite texts speculate widely concerning faith,22 central concepts of pietism and mysticism such as fear and hope were also examined in their relation to God and humans.23 The rejection of the expression that a sinner “obeys Satan”24 may be directed against the Bakriyya whose theology also addressed ascetics.25 Unlike the Fiqh al-absaṭ this treatise is not linked to hadith. Traditions are not used as arguments; some, in fact, are described as abrogated.26 The style is rather elementary; the aim of the text being to explain its theological standpoint by means of popular comparisons and simple psychological observations.27 It appears rather more old-fashioned than I 256, 9ff.; Ibn Rajab, Sharḥ ʿilal al-Tirmidhī 117, 10ff.; Mīzān no. 2120; Lisān al-Mīzān II 322ff. no. 1322; TT II 397ff. no. 695; very briefly also IAH I2 174 no. 748. 13   T T, loc. cit. 14  Kardarī, Manāqib Abī Ḥanīfa II 240, ult. f.; also Ibn Rajab 119, 6ff. 15  It is suspicious that he even transmitted from Ayyūb al-Sakhtiyānī (d. 131/749), whom he simply could not have met (Ibn Rajab, Sharḥ 117, 12). Muqātil b. Ḥayyān, too, died in 135 (see p. 574 above). 16  Ibn Ḥibbān I 257, 1ff. 17   Lisān al-Mīzān II 322, pu. ff.; TT II 397, ult. ff. 18   Talkhīṣ Ta‌ʾrīkh Naysābūr, loc. cit. 19   La‌ʾālī I 99, 8, in the context of a hadith concerning the screaming of toddlers and its deeper meaning. 20  Ibn Rajab 117, –6. 21  It is not very probable that Ibn Ṭahmān or, according to others, Ibn al-Mubārak spoke out in praise of his asceticism (cf. Ibn Rajab 117, apu., and Ibn Ḥibbān I 256, 11f.). After all Ibn al-Mubārak died 27 and Ibn Ṭahmān a whole 45 years before him. 22  Cf. vol.  I 232ff. 23  P. 114, apu. ff.; also Schacht in: Oriens 17/1964/113f. no. 37f. 24  112, pu. ff. = Schacht 113 no. 35. 25  See p. 128f. above. 26  44, 1ff.; also Schacht 105f. and 101. 27  Schacht  101.

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Fiqh al-absaṭ in more than one respect. There is no indication of Muʿtazilism, but the opposition to the Ibāḍiyya, previously documented by Thābit Quṭna, is tangible. The term kufr niʿma, characteristic of the Ibāḍites, is deliberately interpreted differently;28 while loyalty and renunciation, which the Khārijites always separated so cleanly, may apply to one and the same person.29 There is no reason not to attribute it to Abū Muqātil. The strange description of the Zoroastrian image of God as a trinity of father, son, and female companion is remarkable (Schacht 115 no. 41). – Abū Muṭīʿ al-Balkhī’s appearing instead of Abū Muqātil as Abū Ḥanīfa’s interlocutor in some manuscripts (cf. the Aleppo edition, p. 29, n. 3) is probably a later mistake. MS Brill 1144 no. 1, where this happens, names a certain Majd al-Dīn Ibn Abī Jarāda (from Aleppo, where the family had its home? cf. GIE I 544ff.) as the redactor. The Fiqh al-absaṭ, on the other hand, is traced back from Nuṣayr b. Yaḥyā (see p. 603 above) to Abū Ḥanīfa via Abū Muqātil instead of Abū Muṭīʿ in one Medinan manuscript, but includes two intermediate stages there! (cf. Kawtharī, Ta‌ʾnīb 109, 10ff.). This is probably the right place to add a theologian about whose personal life we know nothing: Abū l-Ṣabbāḥ b. Maʿmar al-Samarqandī. He does not appear to have been a Ḥanafite; the relevant biographical works definitely do not mention him. It is not certain whether he belonged in Samarqand, either; we are going by the nisba. Ibn Ḥazm listed him together with Abū Ḥāḍir from Nisibis, which looks, however, like a makeshift solution, as it is in the appendix with all those theologians who could not be connected to one particular sect.30 What linked the two was the belief in the eternal nature of creation, although Abū l-Ṣabbāḥ had quite a specific idea: God sees creation before him for all eternity like a dream vision.31 At that point it is not yet reality; God holds only the creator’s word, the divine imperative, like a logos. This is a counter-concept to Jahm’s idea that God was entirely isolated in the beginning; he was never “idle” (fārigh; also: free of others).32 “Friend and 28  131, 7ff. = Schacht 115f. no. 45. 29  130, 1ff. = Schacht 115 no. 44. 30   Fiṣal IV 226, pu. ff.; cf. p. 531 above. 31  Text XIV 30, b, and 21. 32  Text 30, c.

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foe” were with him “from the very beginning”. This corresponds to Abū Ḥāḍir and means, presumably, that he determined the salvation of the good and the evil from the very beginning; Abū l-Ṣabbāḥ is unanimously designated a predestinarian.33 However, it is said explicitly only with reference to Iblīs, who was by no means a being of light who willed his own downfall, but was Satan from the very first.34 Unlike Abū Ḥāḍir’s text, this one also contains legal niceties and political theory. One must not marry women of the ahl al-kitāb and not eat meat slaughtered by them.35 The combination of the two shows that this was based on a discussion of sura 5:5. The verse had always been controversial, especially with regard to the passage concerning the “fare” of the people of the book which was permitted to Muslims; after all, according to sura 6:121 the basmala must be recited during the slaughter. Abū l-Ṣabbāḥ presumably considered 5:5 to have been abrogated.36 He does not seem to have minded that mixed marriages became impossible; maybe his emphasis, like Muqātil b. Sulaymān’s, was on the choice by faith. Power, too, appears to have been due to divine choosing; consequently one must not rise up against someone who has been given dominion.37 This by no means implies that there could only ever be one person in power: ʿAlī and Muʿāwiya, or Muʿāwiya and Ḥasan ruled together.38 ʿUthmān, however, was rightly murdered, and ʿAlī, too, should not have disputed Muʿāwiya’s (co-)rule. Consequently ʿAlī’s confidant ʿAmmār b. Yāsir dying at Ṣiffīn was not, as the Shīʿites said, a crime (baghy) committed in insurgency;39 according to Abū l-Ṣabbāḥ Muʿāwiya may have acted in honest self-defence. Abū Bakr’s merely enslaving the rebels of the ridda must also be criticised, together with all those who agreed with it at the time. He should have had them executed, for apostasy, fornication and murder as these – and only these, as emphasised by a well-known hadith – are crimes punishable by death.

33  Thus Maqdisī in the heading of Text 31 (where the name is corrupted to al-Ṣabbāḥ b. al-Samarqandī), Khwārizmī (Mafātīḥ 20, 4f.) and al-Ḥākim al-Jushamī in Text 30, a. The idea is documented early on among the Khārijites in eastern Iran (see p. 651 and 664 below). 34  Text 30, c. 35  Ibid., d. 36  Regarding the problem cf. Jabrī, Al-naskh fī l-sharī ʿa ʿ al-islāmiyya 191f. Regarding the usual solution cf. Ṭabarī, Tafsīr 3IX 572, –5ff.; Ṭūsī, Tibyān II 162, 11ff.; Zayd b. ʿAlī, Musnad 141, 10ff./99, –4ff. 37  Text 30, h. 38  Text 32. Cf. also p. 462ff. above regarding Aṣamm. 39  Text 30, f–g.

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Text 30, e–f with commentary. – Like the preceding one, this interpretation is hypothetical to a degree. Ibn Ḥazm did not agree; he wrote that Abū Bakr ought not to have fought against the ahl al-ridda (qitāl instead of saby) and that those ṣaḥāba who did not follow him, acted correctly. This, however, is only Ibn Ḥazm’s own interpretation; he appears to have used the same source as Ḥākim al-Jushamī, whose account is more comprehensive. Consequently it is possible that qitāl is secondary as well. An interesting passage in Tabṣirat al-adilla by Abū Muʿīn al-Nasafī informs us of Ḥanafite theology in Samarqand,40 beginning in the middle of the third century with Abū Bakr Aḥmad b. Isḥāq b. Ṣabīḥ al-Jūzjānī, a second-generation pupil of Shaybānī’s who wrote a K. al-tawba.41 The Murjiʾa had taken root42 in the Jūzjān region between the Murghāb and the Oxus on the way to Samarqand;43 Aḥmad’s teacher Mūsā b. Sulaymān had also come from there.44 His pupil Abū Naṣr Aḥmad b. al-ʿAbbās al-ʿIyāḍī, a descendant of the prophet’s companion Saʿd b. ʿUbāda al-Anṣārī, became qāḍī of Samarqand and was executed by the Turks after he joined a campaign under the Samanid Naṣr b. Aḥmad (r. 261/874–279/892) and was taken prisoner; he had studied the doctrine of the attributes of both the Muʿtazila and the Najjāriyya.45 At the same time Muḥammad b. al-Yamān al-Samarqandī (d. 268/882) was polemicising against the emerging Karrāmiyya; he also composed some other kalām works.46 Abū Naṣr al-ʿIyāḍī’s son Naṣr b. Aḥmad, who was an important jurist as well,47 had a pupil named Abū Salama Muḥammad b. Muḥammad 40  Critical edition by Muḥammad b. Tāvīt al-Ṭanjī in: İlah. Fak. Dergisi 4/1955, issue 1/3ff. 41  Ibid. 3, 3ff.; IAW I 60 no. 77, and II 246 no. 45. 42  Khallāl, Musnad 303, –8ff. 43  Cf. EI2 II 608f. s. v. D̲ j̲ūzd̲ jā̲ n. 44  Regarding him IAW II 186f. no. 580. 45  Abū l-Muʿīn 4, 5ff.; IAW I 70f. no. 117. In the transition between 4, 10 and 5, 1 a few words appear to have been lost, going by the missing connection to the bibliography; the sentence has been changed to mean the opposite. 46  Ibid. 7, 4ff.; because of one of them he was criticised by the physician al-Rāzī (see ch. C 4.2.4.3 after Fihrist 358, –7, where the name must be corrected in accordance with the Flügel edition 301, 8; cf. Flügel’s commentary, p. 146). His K. maʿālim al-dīn (GAS 1/600), which survives in Mashhad, belongs in the field of fiqh, as I was able to determine. Cf. also EIran I 264 s. v. Abū Bakr al-Samarqandī. 47  Regarding him IAW II 192f. no. 599.

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al-Samarqandī al-Bukhārī, whose K. jumal uṣūl al-dīn is extant.48 He was a contemporary of Māturīdī’s (d. 339/944?) who built on this development; the latter was also believed to have studied under Abū Naṣr al-ʿIyāḍī.49 This takes us beyond the period we intend to present here, but there are two authors of the fourth century who must be named as they demonstrate that even with and after Māturīdī the populist Murjiʾite theology of the past by no means retreated into the shadows in Samarqand. The first one, al-Ḥakīm al-Samarqandī, (d. 342/953), had studied under Abū Naṣr al-ʿIyāḍī and composed his K. alsawād al-aʿẓam as a young man at the request of the Samanid Ismāʿīl b. Aḥmad (279/892–295/907). The book, a Ḥanafite catechism written in a popular style, survives in the original Arabic as well as a Persian translation dating to the time of Nūḥ b. Manṣūr (366/976–387/997);50 however, all the extant versions were redacted and emended subsequently. The Jahmites are still being attacked, while Māturīdī did not devote much attention to them. They are joined by a more immediate opponent, the Karrāmiyya; the Ḥakīm, although himself a mystic according to his honorific, criticises their rigorous rejection of trade and gainful employment.51 There have been attempts of turning him into a pupil of Māturīdī’s, but there are not really many similarities. He was simply a Murjiʾite; in his Risāla fī l-īmān juzʾ min al-ʿamal am lā? wa-murakkab am-lā? he affirmed against the Muʿtazilites and the Khārijites that faith has nothing to do with one’s actions and consequently cannot increase or decrease.52 This

48  Cf. GAS 1/607. Sezgin dates the author slightly too late. The relationship is confirmed by the colophon of the MS Şehit Ali 1648, fol. 16b. 49  Cf. Madelung in EI2 VI 846 s. v. al-Māturīdī. Regarding the development of his school cf. id., The Spread of Māturīdism and the Turks, in: Actas Coimbra 109ff. 50  Regarding the Arabic version cf. GAS 1/606. The Persian translation was edited by ʿAbd al-Ḥayy Ḥabībī (Teheran 1348 SH/1969), but the text is also found in Maj. Dān. Adab. Ṭahrān 6/1338 (1959)/57ff., and Yaghmā 16/1342/193ff. Cf. Tritton in JRAS 1966, p. 96ff. (identifying the author incorrectly) and the dissertation by Farouq ʿOmar ʿAbdallāh al-ʿOmar, The Doctrines of the Māturīdite School with special reference to as-Sawād al-aʿẓam (Edinburgh 1974), discussing (p. 56ff.) the text in more detail including a translation into English. 51  Cf. Madelung in EIran I 358f. with further references. Regarding the title al-Ḥakīm cf. Radtke in: AS 42/1988/156ff. Being a member of the upper classes, a ḥakīm was not the same as a ṣūfī. 52  Cf. Madelung in EIran 359a.

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corresponds to Abū Ḥanīfa’s position.53 After all, he was no mutakallim, but the aṣḥāb al-ḥadīth were not without influence in Samarqand. Around the middle of the third century al-Dārimī, the author of Sunan, had been qāḍī in the city for a brief time, although he retired immediately after his first official act.54 – Ḥakīm al-Samarqandī’s popular style was continued in the next generation by another Ḥanafite, Abū l-Layth Naṣr b. Muḥammad al-Samarqandī, (d. 373/893). His Tanbīh al-ghāfilīn, available to this day throughout the East in cheap editions, even lived on in an Aljamiado version. His ʿAqīdat al-uṣūl was very popular among Indonesian and Malay Muslims.55 It, too, spread Murjiʾite ideas: faith is not “combined” as it is active as a light in the human heart and brain, in the soul (rūḥ) and the body. It is uncreated when it is God’s guidance, but created when it is human action, in agreement (taṣdīq) and profession of faith (iqrār).56 Abū l-Layth al-Samarqandī’s Tafsīr, a most extensive work, survives in the Chester Beatty Library.57 The position of qāḍī in the city remained the domain of the Ḥanafites until the sixth century. Only once did a Shāfiʿite, the well-known Ibn Ḥibbān alBustī (d. 354/965), break through their ranks;58 in his K. maʿrifat al-majrūḥīn he showed quite plainly how much he loathed Murjiʾite–Ḥanafite thought. He probably owed his career to the Samanids; Ismāʿīl b. Aḥmad (279/892– 295/907) had paid a Shāfiʿite from Nishapur, Muḥammad b. Naṣr al-Marwazī (d. 294/906) an allowance,59 whereupon the latter composed a K. rafʿ al-yadayn60 which presumably made quite clear to his opponents that they did not even know how to pray properly. 53  See vol.  I 223 and 231 above. 54  Cf. GAS 1/114; EI2 II 159 s. n. 55  Cf. my article in EIran I 332f. 56  Cf. A. W. T. Juynboll’s edition in: Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch Indië, Ser. IV, vol. 5/1881, p. 273, pu. ff. According to ʿAbdallāh al-ʿOmar the brief responsum Hal al-īmān makhlūq aw ghayr makhlūq? included under his name in the MS British Museum, Add. 9509, fol. 162a–b, is in fact taken from the commentary on Abū l-Layth’s Muqaddima fī l-ṣalāt composed by Muṣṭafā b. Zakariyyāʾ al-Qaramānī (d. 809/1406); a translation is included in the abovementioned dissertation p. 219ff. 57  Catalogue Arberry I 3180, III 3668 and 3688. It has been edited by ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Aḥmad al-Ziqqa (1–3, Baghdad 1985). 58  Halm, Ausbreitung 108ff. 59  Ibid. 108; regarding him cf. GAS 1/494. 60  ʿAbbādī, Ṭabaqāt al-Shāfiʿiyya 49, 14f.

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Despite Ḥanafite dominance the religious landscape of Muslim Samarqand must not be imagined as too monotonous. There was at least one important Shīʿite author in the city around the turn of the fourth century: Abū l-Naḍr Muḥammad b. Masʿūd b. Muḥammad al-Sulamī al-ʿAyyāshī, Kashshī’s teacher. He was reported to be an Arab, a member of the Tamīm, and had been a Sunnite early in his life until, as Muḥammad al-Ṭūsī put it, “his eyes were opened”.61 It would be interesting to know how such a conversion could have come about. Maybe his view of history was rearranged in Kufa, Baghdad and Qom, where he seems to have travelled;62 in his Sunni period he had published material on the biographies of the first four caliphs as well as Muʿāwiya.63 His son made sure that his books were not forgotten;64 Ibn al-Nadīm had access to a long list of publications.65 He dedicated himself to legal subjects in particular. The first half of his Tafsīr is extant; Ṭabrisī consulted it,66 but it has not yet been studied.67 ʿAlī b. Yazīd al-Samarqandī, a scholar of the late third century, appears to have been another original character. Ibn Manda transmitted interesting ideas concerning the soul from him (Ibn Taymiyya, Sharḥ ḥadīth alnuzūl 92, 4ff.). However, he is not documented further. 3.1.2.5 Herat Afghanistan was not a self-contained region in the early Islamic period. While the conquering armies reached Kabul early on, this eastern part was only subjected fully under the Ṣaffārids. The west under Herat was different. It was overrun by the wave of invasion that went through Sijistān across the territory of the Sasanid empire; the city became part of the province of Khorasan. One of its inhabitants in the second quarter of the second century was 61   Fihrist 317, 4. 62  Ibid. 317, 5f. 63  Ibid. 320, 6ff.; while it is true that he wrote these books “drawing on Sunni sources” as Poonawala says in EIran III 164a, it is based on an incorrect interpretation of the source and misses the point. 64  Ibid. 320, 9f. 65   Fihrist 244, –6ff.; Ṭūsī transmitted from him (317, 8ff.). 66  Karīmān, Ṭabrisī wa Majmaʿ ul-bayān II 58f. 67   G AS 1/42. The work has been edited by Hāshim al-Rasūlī al-Maḥallātī, Qom n. d.; only the first half, sura 1–18, is extant. Regarding the author cf. Lewis in EI2 I 794f., Poonawala in EIran III 163f. and Madelung, Religious Trends 84f., as well as R. Ustādhī in: Risālat al-Qurʾān 3/1411/43ff.

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Abū Saʿīd Ibrāhīm b. Ṭahmān b. Saʿīd,1 known for the generosity with which he welcomed colleagues passing through, providing them with food and accommodation.2 His house was located in the village of Bāshān near the city: maybe he was a wealthy landowner. He had travelled much, receiving his first education in Nishapur, but probably went to Kufa early on, if we are to believe that he attended lectures by the jurist Ḥakam b. ʿUtayba, who died in 115/733 at the very latest.3 He would also have to have visited Basra quite early if he did indeed meet Qatāda (d. 117/735) in person. It is not, however, necessary to presume this, as he may well have received material from them second-hand but did not think it necessary to mention the fact in his home in Khorasan; the biographical sources would be based on the isnāds.4 It is certain that he sat at the feet of Mālik b. Anas – who was probably slightly younger – in the Hijaz, as he dictated the material he had learnt from him to Abū Ḥanīfa in Kufa on his way home.5 Later he decided to travel the same road once again in order to complete the pilgrimage, breaking his journey in Nishapur, because that was where the “Jahmites” had settled and he wanted to debate with them.6 From there he moved on to Baghdad where he delivered some lectures on hadith. This sojourn may have been between 158 and 160/774–76; at that time the caliph al-Mahdī doubled the salary Ibn Ṭahmān received (for what position?).7 He arrived in Mecca in 160/776–77. He would not leave the city again, and died there in 163/779. Ibn al-Nadīm preserved four titles of books by him.8 His collections were most valuable in Khorasan, where people were living rather at the back of 1  The last name occurs in Khalīfa-i Naysābūrī, Talkhīṣ 15, 8f. The form Shuʿba in TT I 129 no. 231 (> GAS 1/92) is probably misread from this; after all, Saʿīd is also part of the kunya. Ibn Ḥibbān, Mashāhīr al-ʿulamāʾ 199 no. 1602, on the other hand, only has entirely isolated Abū ʿAmr. 2  T B VI 106, 11ff. Regarding this and further details cf. M. Tahir Mallick’s study Life and Works of Ibrahim b. Tahman, in: Journal of the Pakistan Historical Society 24/1976/1ff. Regarding the sources cf. also GAS 1/92f. 3  Regarding him cf. vol. I 278ff. 4  Cf. the list of his “teachers”, Mallick 6ff. 5  I AH, Taqdima 3, –5ff. Regarding the hadiths he heard from Mālik cf. also Mallick 14ff.; they are not all in the Muwaṭṭa‌ʾ, and the isnāds differ. 6  T B VI 107, 15ff. (after Abū Dāwūd). He may also have married his daughter to someone in the city; she was a distant ancestress of al-Ḥākim al-Naysābūrī, who bore the nisba al-Ṭahmānī for that reason (cf. Ṣarīfīnī, Al-muntakhab min Siyāq Ta‌ʾrīkh Naisābūr 5, ult.). 7  Crone and Hinds claimed that Manṣūr “admitted [Ibn Ṭahmān] into his majlis” (God’s Caliph 84), although the sources they cite on the issue do not actually state this. It is simply quoted after Nagel, Rechtleitung 100, which does not provide a source either. 8  Fihrist 284, –6.

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beyond; no-one had collected more material there than he.9 However, all this was probably rather less amazing than it sounds, as the one extant manuscript of his collection, which is in fact one of the oldest hadith collections anywhere, in the Ẓāhiriyya library contains a total of 208 hadiths. Its title Mashyakha was added later and is probably incorrect. Mallick tried to identify it as the K. al-sunan in a most outlandish misspelling,10 while Azmi presumed that the text contained the notes of his pupil Ḥafṣ b. ʿAbdallāh b. Rāshid al-Sulamī al-Naysābūrī (d. 209/824)11 as transmitted12 by his son Aḥmad (d. 258/871).13 This is more probable as both names appear in the riwāya accompanying the Damascus MS.14 Particularly interesting to us is the fact that Ibn Ṭahmān debated with the Jahmites in Nishapur, apparently converting them to irjāʾ. His being a Murjiʾite was recorded several times;15 he even believed that Noah had been a Murjiʾite, too.16 It makes us wonder whether he found anything to convert in the Jahmites in this respect. After all, according to their own concept of faith they, too, were Murjiʾites. It is unlikely that their determinism was a problem for him, either, as he does not seem to have held a strict view in the matter. He was not afraid of transmitting from Qadarites,17 but the Damascus MS contains a number of predestinarian hadiths.18 He probably argued with them concerning the existence of the divine throne and God’s location in heaven. The manuscript contains some hadiths that demonstrate his rather realistic thoughts on these issues;19 Abū Dāwūd adopted two of them with direct reference to Ibn Ṭahmān into his collection of traditions, the Bāb fī l-Jahmiyya of the K. al-sunna.20 It 9  Azmi, Studies 138. Regarding the individual nusakh cf. ibid., Index s. n.; also Mallick 9ff. 10  Mallick 29 and earlier. He edited the text in RIMA 23/1977/241ff., using the text quoted above largely unchanged as an introduction. 11   T T II 403 no. 703. 12   Studies 138. 13   T T I 24f. no. 33. 14  Cf. RIMA 23/1977/245. I do not know on what Mallick bases his claim that Ibn Ṭahmān dictated his book in Nishapur in 158 (ibid. 242). 15  Kaʿbī, Qabūl 217, 2; ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ I 56 no. 47; Ḥākim al-Naysābūrī, Maʿrifa 136, 4ff.; TB VI 106, 21; 107, 10 and 13; 108, 8f. and 12 etc.; Mīzān no. 116; TT I 129ff. no. 231. The story in TB XIII 423, 11ff. also presumes this; when the news of Abū Ḥanīfa’s death reached Mecca, Sufyān al-Thawrī is believed to have passed it on to Ibn Ṭahmān gleefully. 16   T B VI 107, 2ff.; ʿUqaylī I 56, –6ff. 17  Thus from e.g. Hishām al-Dastuwāʾī or Saʿīd b. Abī ʿArūba (Mallick 12; cf. also 13f. and 19). 18  Mallick  28. 19  E.g. no. 18, 21, and 140 in the edition. 20   Sunan II 276, 5ff., and 277, 5ff.

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seems that Ibn Ṭahmān had indeed a rather favourable view of Jahm;21 indeed, it is possible that he met him personally. – Another inhabitant of Herat, presumably younger, Abū Bisṭām (?)22 al-Hayyāj b. Bisṭām b. al-Hayyāj b. ʿImrān al-Tamīmī al-Ḥanẓalī (d. 177/793), also spent a considerable amount of time in Nishapur and Baghdad; like with Ibn Ṭahmān, his travels provide us with some idea of his character.23 Al-Khaṭīb does not, however, mention his being a Murjiʾite; this information went from Ibn Ḥibbān to Ibn Ḥajar.24 He was a jurist25 and muḥaddith; the notebooks (nusakh) from Sufyān al-Thawrī and other “teachers of the Arabs” (mashāyikh al-ʿArab) he possessed had scarcity value.26 He had a great following in Baghdad, mainly, it was said, due to his eloquence.27 Another reason may have been that he welcomed and entertained scholars and everyone interested in hadith most generously.28 He was a man with a taste for life, sensual pleasures were important to him in this world as well as in paradise.29 He was presumably wealthy; being a member of an Arab family he probably owned land. He reported of his grandfather ʿImrān b. al-Fuḍayl that he had been a member of a delegation to the prophet and died in the latter’s presence.30 Still, we look for him in vain among the ṣaḥāba; he probably did not become a Muslim. The experts in Baghdad would later look at his hadith with some scepticism, although they do not seem to have noticed his Murjiʾite views. In Herat they do not appear to have been noteworthy at all, as Murjiʾism was a matter of course there. His views were recorded only because a notorious Murjiʾite got his hands on his material via his son Khālid, whose scholarly reputation was not of the best:31 Ṣāliḥ b. Muḥammad, the qāḍī of Tirmidh and thus an influential man.

21  Abū Dāwūd, Masāʾil Aḥmad 269, 11ff. 22  Other kunyas were transmitted as well. 23  Khalīfa-i Naysābūrī, Talkhīṣ 17, 3f.; TB XIV 80ff. no. 7435. 24   Majrūḥīn III 96, 7 > TT XI 88, 9f. 25   T B XIV 82, 16f. 26  Al-Ḥākim al-Naysābūrī, Maʿrifa 165, 5. 27   T B XIV 82, 8ff. 28  Ibid. 82, 17ff. 29  Ibid. 84, 15ff. 30  Ibid. 81, 19ff.; regarding the genealogy cf. 81, 15ff. 31  Cf. Mīzān no. 9287.

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Scandalous things (manākīr) were transmitted along this isnād.32 Sadly, no details survive. – In the case of Mālik b. Sulaymān al-Saʿdī (?) al-Harawī and his son ʿAbdallāh, who were both Murjiʾites according to Dāraquṭnī, circumstances were reversed.33 We know hardly anything about the persons, but the text of one “scandalous” hadith is extant. I have discussed it elsewhere,34 but missed the point at that time. It is in the form of a heresiographical statement: the prophet predicted that his intercession would not apply to two sects at the Last Judgment: the Qadariyya and the Murjiʾa. As his audience did not, of course, understand who these were, he had to define both more closely, describing the Murjiʾites as “people who appear at the end of time and who, when asked about faith, will reply ‘we believe, God willing’.” The point is that these Murjiʾites were not true Murjiʾites but believers in istithnāʾ like those found in Sufyān al-Thawrī’s circle,35 which means that the hadith had been reversed at some point. In the older versions it was clearly the Murjiʾa itself which was attacked – either without a definition36 or with a definition that left no doubt of its identity;37 while here the thrust was turned against the opponents.38 This could only have been done by Murjiʾites, and Mālik and his son ʿAbdallāh were Murjiʾites, as the local scholars pointed out.39 So, in fact, was the next link in the isnād, Ma‌ʾmūn b. Aḥmad al-Sulamī, a follower of Ibn Karrām, whose Murjiʾite views are recorded elsewhere, too.40 We may assume that they all enjoyed great esteem at home; it is very probable indeed in the case of Ma‌ʾmūn b. Aḥmad.41 Mālik b. Sulaymān had, after all, been a judge in

32   T B XIV 83, ult. ff. Regarding him see p. 626f. above. 33   Lisān al-Mīzān III 330 no. 1370. The nisba al-Saʿdī is always linked to the son. Ibn Ḥibbān, Majrūḥīn I 337, 9, has al-Masʿūdī. 34   H T 130f. 35  See vol.  I 259f. above. 36  Thus Suyūṭī, Al-jāmiʿ al-ṣaghīr II 46, 11f.; cf. als HT 130. 37  Thus Faḍl b. Shādhān, Īḍāḥ 45, 1ff. 38  F. Kern already noted this in: ZA 26/1912/172, n. 3. 39  Suyūṭī, La‌ʾālī I 41, 6ff.; Shawkānī, Al-fawāʾid al-majmūʿa 452 no. 3. 40  Cf. my Ungenützte Texte 48ff. Ibn Ḥibbān I 337, 9f. does not go back to Mālik via ʿAbdallāh; maybe the son was the true culprit (cf. also ibid. III 45, 10ff.). Another hadith of his is found in Suyūṭī, La‌ʾālī I 137, 11ff. 41   Ungenützte Texte, ibid.

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his home city.42 He possessed hadith notes (one nuskha) by the Basran Shuʿba b. al-Ḥajjāj (d. 160/776) to which nobody else in eastern Iran had access;43 we can consequently date him to the second half of the second century. Kināna b. Jabala b. al-Muʿallā al-Sulamī al-Harawī lived around the same time. He was a true Arab and a pupil of Ibrāhīm b. Ṭahmān’s of whom Ibn Ḥibbān tells us in passing that he was a Murjiʾite.44 He came from Pūshang near Herat.45 We learn from Ibn Abī Ḥātim that he also wrote poetry,46 but Dhahabī would find hardly any information about him later.47 These Murjiʾites did not necessarily have anything in common beyond their concept of faith. After all, Abū Saʿīd al-Dārimī, who would fight the Jahmites with such dedication, settled in Herat around the middle of the third/ninth century. He was not battling with a phantom; their “boss” (zāʾim), whom he had met in person,48 probably also lived in the city. They were possessed of a healthy self-confidence, as they made it clear to him that the Jahmite doctrine was not heresy but stayed within the boundaries of the acceptable doctrinal divergence. On the other hand they seem to have accepted his two polemic publications, Al-radd ʿalā l-Jahmiyya and Al-radd ʿalā l-Marīsī al-ʿanīd,49 without trouble, and when he had to leave the city for a time it was not the Jahmites but in fact the Karrāmites who had caused him trouble.50 They were probably more offended by the fact that he was not a Ḥanafite. He died in Dhū l-Ḥijja 280/Feb. 894 in the city.51

42   Mīzān no. 7021; Lisān al-Mīzān V 4 no. 12. Brentjes is not quite sure of the father-son relationship (Imamatslehren 49), but thanks to the isnād there cannot be any doubt. 43  Ḥākim al-Naysābūrī, Maʿrifa 165, 1. 44   Majrūḥīn II 229, 6ff. 45  Khalīfa-i Naysābūrī, Talkhīṣ 16, –6, the name entirely corrupt. 46   I AH III2 169 no. 966. 47   Mīzān no. 6979. Some additional information in Ibn Ḥajar, Lisān IV 490 no. 1559. 48   Radd ʿalā l-Jahmiyya 9, 12. 49  More information on this text in ch. C 2.4.1 and 6.3.2 below. 50  Subkī, Ṭabaqāt al-Shāfiʿiyya II 304, 2. 51  For further details cf. EIran V s. v. Dārimī, Abū Saʿīd.

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In Al-radd ʿalā l-Jahmiyya Dārimī is the first to refer to the text discussed briefly in vol. I 155f. which claims to be a letter from ʿUmar II against the Qadarites (cf. Anfänge 132, also 153f. and 159). F. Zimmermann pointed out to me that these parallels do not seem to attribute the text to ʿUmar. If indeed the text was apocryphal, it would have acquired its final form after the middle of the third century. More insights will be found in F. Zimmermann’s article on the subject. 3.1.3 Sīstān As opposed to the regions discussed so far, Sīstān, which bordered Afghanistan to the southwest, had been part of the inner Iranian empire. Zoroastrianism was firmly rooted here, and there were numerous fire temples.1 However, even before the Arabs took possession of the region, the “Iranian Huns” had invaded it.2 It was a country apart, whose settlement area had been wrested from the desert and was dependent on canals and irrigation, and had shrunk temporarily during the early Islamic period.3 Swamps had developed in many places; the contract into which the Arabs entered with the inhabitants included the condition that hedgehogs should not be hunted or killed as there were so many snakes.4 To this day there are giant reedbeds in the endorheic lakes of the Helmand-Rud and other rivers, in which fowlers and fishermen earn their living.5 Nomads were not able to spread here; landed property was limited. There were few larger towns, the main ones being Zarang which had been the governor’s residence during the Umayyad era,6 and Bust.7 3.1.3.1 The Khārijites A number of Khārijites had settled outside the administrative centres; they were divided into many small groups jealously guarding their respective idiosyncrasies. They did not live in the desert like their predecessors on the Arabian peninsula, but in small towns where they pursued their trades. The town of Kurink was entirely populated by them, and every one of them was a 1  Cf, Schippmann, Feuerheiligtümer 35ff.; regarding pre-Islamic history in general Gnoli, Ricerche storiche sul Sistan antico (Rome 1967). 2  Göbl, Dokumente II 2. 3  Rahimi-Laridjani, Entwicklung der Bewässerungslandwirtschaft in Iran 373; cf. also 350ff. 4  Jāḥiẓ, Ḥayawān IV 168, 5f. 5  Cf. the dissertation by G. Stöber, Die Ṣayād-Fischer (sic!) in Sīstān. Marburg 1981; general information in Barthold, Historical Geography 66ff. 6  See p. 47 above; general information in Gnoli, 41ff. 7  Regarding this place see K. Fischer in: EIran IV 383ff. s. v. Bost.

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weaver.1 In Farah there was a Khārijite and a Sunni quarter;2 in Juwayn their numbers were so great that there was no pulpit in the chief mosque because of them.3 They were influential in the country, too; Abū Yūsuf reports that they, departing from the practice established under the first caliphs, treated Arab and Iranian villages equally when it came to taxation.4 We should probably imagine them as having been smallholders, too. The geographers and travellers simply noticed them more in the cities. They were also recognisable by their clothing.5 Farah and Juwayn were located in present-day Afghanistan, on the road to Herat. The Khārijites did indeed advance as far as this; Ṭāhir b. Ḥusayn had to take action against them near Pūshang early during his rule at the beginning of the third century.6 At that time they had just gone through a rebellious phase under Ḥamza b. Ādharak.7 Over long periods, on the other hand, they kept quiet, and had been left alone as well. In Alabān, two days’ journey from Ghazna on the road to Kabul, they controlled long-distance traffic across the Hindu Kush; their princes bore an Arabic as well as an Indian name.8 Only fanatics like Ibn Ḥanbal called for a trade embargo.9 They had been in the country since the first century. When Abū Fudayk had murdered Najda b. ʿĀmir in the Yamāma in 70/690,10 one of the latter’s fellow tribesmen, ʿAṭiyya b. al-Aswad al-Ḥanafī,11 who had worked with him,12 had fallen out with Abū Fudayk and gone to Iran. He had a free hand there for some years; the second civil war had tied up most of the forces, and later the Azraqites under Qaṭarī b. al-Fujāʾa drew all the attention. He seems to have travelled widely; coins he had struck 1  Yāqūt, Muʿjam al-buldān IV 457b, –7. Karkōya, too, was purely Khārijite (ibid. III 190b, –9f.). 2  Muqaddasī, Aḥsan al-taqāsīm 306, 2ff. 3  Ibid.; also Spuler, Iran 169, n. 7, and Rahimi-Laridjani, Bewässerungslandwirtschaft 376f. Regarding the absence of a pulpit see p. 246f. above. 4  K. al-kharāj 172 § 81. 5  Yāqūt III 190b, –10. Cf. also Madelung, Religious Trends 69f. 6  Ṭayfūr, K. Baghdād 119, 3f./65, 7f.; also Al-ʿuyūn wal-ḥadāʾiq in: Fragmenta I 108, pu. ff. 7  Regarding him see p. 656ff. below. 8  Yāqūt I 244a, 4ff. 9  Khallāl, Musnad 34, 1ff. 10  Regarding the date cf. Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 338, 2f.; general information in Wellhausen, Oppositionsparteien 32. 11  Ṭabarī gives him the nisba al-Yashkurī instead (II 517, 10). Both tribes belonged to the federation of the Bakr b. Wāʾil. 12  Ashʿarī pointed out occasional differences (Maq. 91, 10ff.); he did not introduce a new doctrine (ibid. 92, 15ff.).

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in his name survive from Kerman.13 Ashʿarī said he went to Sijistān,14 while Shahrastānī, possibly after Yamān b. Riʾāb, located his followers in Khorasan and Qūhistan as well;15 according to Maqrīzī he was even active in Marv.16 Muhallab’s troops killed him as he fled to Sind.17 The next one to appear was ʿAbd al-Karīm b. ʿAjrad.18 It was not quite clear where he came from, but he does not seem to have been a refugee, but rather from an Arab family settled in Iraq.19 Baghdādī calls him a follower of ʿAṭiyya’s;20 this may be his interpretation of Ashʿarī’s systematic arrangement.21 However, two pages on, Ashʿarī points out that he was also linked with Abū Bayhas who was executed in Medina in 94/713. He also explains the concrete cause of the rift: Ibn ʿAjrad did not share Abū Bayhas’ view on the issue, much debated among the Khārijites, of whether it was permitted to sell a female slave to “unbelievers”, i.e. those who were not Khārijites.22 This may well merely be an etiological legend to explain some later opposition between schools of which we know nothing further as far as the ʿAjārida were concerned. There were Bayhasites in Iran.23 That the two could be linked demonstrates at least that the abovementioned similarities between ʿAṭiyya and Ibn ʿAjrad may not have gone any deeper than both being active in the same region one after the other; there may not have been any doctrinal agreement.

13  Walker, Arab–Sassanian Coins lxf. and 111f.; Gaube, Arabosasanidische Numismatik 42 and 66. 14   Maq. 93, 2. 15   Milal 92, ult. f./217, 4f.; but cf. the remark by Gimaret, Livre des Religions 385, n. 32. 16   Khiṭaṭ II 354, 26f. 17  Balādhurī, Ansāb in Ahlwardt, Anonyme Chronik 135, –5f. Cf. also Baghdādī, Farq 67, 4ff./88, 1f.; Nashwān, Ḥūr 170, apu. ff.; Ābī, Nathr al-durr V 231, 4.; Wellhausen 30f.; Bosworth, Sīstān 87f.; Składanek, Doktryny 146; Madelung, Religious Trends 57f. 18  Regarding the reading of the name cf. Gimaret, Livre 394, n. 2. 19  It was debated whether he or Maymūn – whom we will discuss below – grew up in Balkh (Nashwān, Ḥūr 171, 3f.; Ashʿarī, Maq. 95, 9f. is corrupt and should probably be corrected accordingly). 20   Farq 72, pu. f./93, ult. f.; similar Ābī, Nathr al-durr V 231, 5. 21   Maq. 93, 3. 22  Ibid. 95, 10ff.; cf. 113, 5ff., and p. 248 above. Also Shahrastānī (Text VIII 8, b), but without mentioning the point at issue. 23  See p. 666ff. below.

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We have no foundation for this in any case as the “ʿAṭawiyya” remained an unknown quantity for the heresiographers,24 while there was some information on Ibn ʿAjrad and his followers, especially in Shahrastānī, once again maybe after Yamān b. Riʾāb. They were true puritans, but not quite as fanatical as their predecessors. They did not hold it against those among their fellow-believers who refrained from actively participating in the uprising, as long as they did not criticise the religious motivation for it. They understood that someone living with non-Khārijites could not simply break with them; the exodus (hijra) is not an absolute commandment, but merely a commendable act (faḍīla). Of the earlier uncompromising attitude they retained the severity against themselves; anyone committing a mortal sin became an unbeliever. They seem to have been very prudish; it was said that they did not wish to see “love stories” such as the sura of Josef in the Quran.25 Ashʿarī was barely able to imagine that people could ever have been so strict; he emphasised that he had not checked the report.26 However, the rigorous attitudes were probably characteristic of this early time and the peripheral location; the style of the quṣṣāṣ blurred the differences between original text and exegesis. Furthermore, due to its cohesive narrative structure the sura of Josef was quite distinct from other Quranic texts. Muqātil b. Sulaymān showed how far it could be elaborated. And there were quṣṣāṣ who went even further than he: Ibn al-Jawzī noted in mesmerised outrage that one of them claimed that Josef undid his trousers in front of Potiphar’s wife.27 The inward turn, away from the exclusive self-assurance of the early days, reveals itself especially in connection with the fundamental Khārijite problem of how to classify children, and how to treat them. Until now this had been a matter for martial law; people had been murdered in large groups, and been condemned collectively.28 The ʿAjārida rethought this attitude, and, characteristically, first of all by looking at themselves, rather than at the “unbelievers”. People must profess “Islam”, i.e. Khārijism, consciously in order to be “believers”. Consequently a child cannot simply grow into the community but, on reaching majority, will have to be called to “Islam” and must then “describe” it by professing the faith. The ʿAjārida preached a kind of adult baptism, but before 24  Maqrīzī was the only one who discussed their teachings (Khiṭaṭ II 354, 27ff.); but he simply quoted what Baghdādī said of Najda b. ʿĀmir (Farq 68, 5ff./89, 4ff.). 25  Text VIII 8, f–i. 26   Maq. 96, 1f. 27   Al-quṣṣāṣ wal-mudhakkirīn 10, 13f.; thus e.g. Muqātil b. Sulaymān (cf. Gilliot in: JA 179/1991/70). In Faḍl b. Shādhān’s view, this was simply a hadith (Īḍāḥ 22, 1; cf. ibid. n. 1). 28  See vol.  I 24 above.

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this could take place, one must “renounce” the children as they are not yet Muslims, let alone believers. The problem was this “before”. It probably referred to the time between reaching intellectual capacity and professing the faith; it is possible that, as with the confirmation practised by some Christian denominations, they waited for a certain point in time, such as reaching majority. However, the heresiographers do not always make this entirely clear, frequently making it sound as though parents should renounce their children at birth. That this was unlikely is shown by a remark of Shahrastānī’s: the children of idolaters (mushrikūn) are in the fires of hell together with their parents. The collective view had not been abolished, and we may safely infer that the children of Khārijites would enter paradise with (or like) their parents – as long as they died as children. Only once they had crossed the threshold to adulthood would the “collective” cease to be sufficient justification.29 All the same: those who made salvation dependent on a conscious act, the response to a “calling”, could hardly evade the postulate of individual responsibility. Everything had been so simple under martial law. In a battle, matters were usually settled quickly; at the end, everyone was dead, children as well as parents. If survival was considered, the children were the most likely. With the view on the status of salvation shifting, the problem was reversed; now the case under consideration was that children might die while their parents lived on. The parents still had the opportunity to convert, but not so the children. What, people wondered, would happen if the parents did convert after one of their children had died? The child had been an unbeliever before it died; would it now post mortem be included into beatitude with its parents – after all, the Last Judgment was still in the future – or would it remain damned?30 This, they realised, was an extreme case that could be generalised. One did not need to presume that the child died; the problem arose as soon as someone joined the community with his family. A follower of Ibn ʿAjrad’s would have to demand of them as he demanded of himself: that the neophytes’ children must profess their “Islam” themselves. They would not “have” Islam until they were called and had accepted; otherwise they would be “unbelievers”. This view was enough for the heresiographers to postulate a separate “sect”. While we may feel inclined to put this down to their overly developed sense of tidiness, they did have a concrete reason. If children were not Muslims at any point, there would be legal consequences: one could not say the prayer for the dead over them, and they could not be married before reaching majority – or 29  Cf. Text VIII 8, c–d, with commentary on c. Ibn Ḥazm gave the correct interpretation, supported by the way in which Malaṭī formulated the Thaʿāliba’s opposing position (Text VIII 10). Regarding the following cf. also, briefly, Watt in: Der Islam 36/1961/228f. 30  Text VIII 9, b–f.

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rather, before professing the faith.31 The ʿAjārida shrank from this. While the generalisation had been prepared by Ibn ʿAjrad, the details were probably thought out later by his followers. The man who helped the “sect” mentioned above to acquire its name was presumably ʿUthmān b. Abī l-Ṣalt, as Ashʿarī and, Maqrīzī and Ābī after him, recorded. Nashwān al-Ḥimyarī and Shahrastānī also named his brother Ṣalt b. Abī l-Ṣalt as an alternative. Baghdādī uses the, probably contaminated, form Ṣalt b. ʿUthmān.32 Our decision is based on the probability that ʿUthmān was a brother of ʿUmar b. Abī l-Ṣalt b. Kannārā, who was sub-governor in Rayy after 80/700, and who after the collapse of Ibn al-Ashʿath’s uprising took command of the remnants of the fleeing army to face Qutayba b. Muslim. According to Ṭabarī he then fled to Sīstān,33 while Khalīfa b. Khayyāṭ reports that he was already killed by Qutayba in 82, together with his father Abū l-Ṣalt and his brother Ṣalt b. Abī l-Ṣalt.34 He came from the class of the dihqāns; consequently while formally a mawlā, he was presumably very powerful.35 His brother ʿUthmān was probably the only one who escaped; he would have formulated his doctrine rather later.36 – The opposing position was represented by Thaʿlaba, who may have been called Thaʿlaba b. Mushkān, as Baghdādī said,37 or Thaʿlaba b. ʿĀmir, as recorded by Shahrastānī.38 He considered it to be absurd and unnatural that parents should “renounce” their children. Malaṭī presented 31  Thus only Ḥanafī, Firaq muftariqa 27, –4ff.; but Malaṭī 136, ult./179, 14. 32  Ashʿarī, Maq. 97, 3ff.; Maqrīzī, Khiṭaṭ II 355, 12f.; Ābī, Nathr al-durr V 232, pu. f.; Ḥanafī, loc. cit.; Nashwān, Ḥūr 171, pu. ff.; Shahrastānī 96a, 1ff.; 227, 1ff.; Baghdādī, Farq 76, 11ff./97, apu. ff.; Ibn al-Dāʿī, Tabṣira 40, –5ff.; Ibn al-Murtaḍā, Munya 32, 12ff. All these are based on one and the same source. In brief also Maqdisī, Badʾ V 138, ult. f.; only Ṣalt. 33   I I 1119, 3ff.; cf. also Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 368, 5ff. 34   Ta‌ʾrīkh 374, 3ff.; Khalīfa has ʿAmr instead of ʿUmar every time. 35  Ṭabarī II 1019, ult. f. 36  If Ḥanafī (Firaq muftariqa 27, apu.) were correct in saying ʿUthmān b. al-Ṣalt b. Abī l-Ṣalt, we would be looking at a nephew; however, it is probably only another contamination. A different view: Składanek, Doktryny 139. 37   Farq 80, 4/100, 13 > Isfarāʾīnī, Tabṣīr 55, 9/57, 3; also Ḥanafī, Firaq 21, 6f. 38   Milal 98, 1/235, 3; also Maqrīzī, Khiṭaṭ II 355, 14. Madelung believes these to be one and the same person with Mushkān adopting the name ʿĀmir after his conversion (Religious Trends 59, n. 24).

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it beautifully, clad in a rhetorical question. How can one treat young lads as unbelievers if they have taken part in the communal prayer for a long time; who even attend religious debates and who may show that they have reached puberty – only because they have not officially professed Islam?39 Children are part (baʿḍ) of their parents, they are an element (rukn) of them; consequently they cannot be separated in the afterlife.40 This was the old-established point of view – with a small but significant reservation: if the adolescents openly denied the truth or agreed to an injustice, loyalty must come to an end.41 Thus in theory at least, they determined their own behaviour. The contrast would later be explained through an anecdote. A certain ʿAbd al-Jabbār asked for Thaʿlaba’s daughter’s hand in marriage, demanding a dowry of 4000 dirhams. This was no small sum, and consequently he entrusted the bride viewer – whose name was also still known – with the message that the sum was negotiable in case the girl was of age and had professed Islam, i.e.: he would be willing to pay good money for a true Khārijite. The mother was outraged: her daughter had never been anything but a true Muslim; the father tried to calm matters. At this point Ibn ʿAjrad intervened; in his view, ʿAbd al-Jabbār was, of course, right; Thaʿlaba withdrew his allegiance: “We insist on being loyal to her (i.e. having the same faith status as the daughter), even though she has not yet been called or become acquainted with Islam”.42 There were still followers of Thaʿlaba’s in the area around Nishapur in the second half of the second century.43 They did not necessarily adhere to his rather old-fashioned ideas, as the heresiographers are not entirely certain whether they should maybe attribute a different doctrine to him that followed 39  Text VIII 10. The wording presumes that reaching puberty by means of the dream of maturity does not imply being admitted into the community; this required a celebration of profession. 40  Nashwān, Ḥūr 172, 4f.; Ashʿarī, Maq. 100, 14f., both after the same source, possibly Kaʿbī. Ashʿarī appends the passage at the end, having previously defined the Thaʿlabiyya’s point of view differently (97, 7ff.; see below). Rukn, of course, also means “close relations” (cf. Lane, Lexicon 1149a), but the meaning “element, essential component” seems to be more appropriate here. It is mainly found in alchemy (see ch. C 3.2.2.2.1.3.1). 41  Baghdādī, Farq 80, –6/101, 4f.; Shahrastānī 98, 2f./235, 6f. Cf. also Ashʿarī, Maq. 116, 1f. 42  Ashʿarī, Maq. 112, 7ff.; abridged and less clear in Baghdādī, Farq 80, 7ff,/100, apu. ff. The translated sentence should in my opinion be emended in accordance with MS q: nathbutu ʿalā walāyatihā wa-in lam tudʿa wa-lam taʿrif al-islām. Ritter’s reading results in the opposite meaning and does not fit the framework. The suitor is probably the person named previously with the extended name ʿAbd al-Jabbār b. Sulaymān, in which case he, too, would have formed a party: he did not permit marrying into non-Khārijite families. 43  Baghdādī, Farq 79, 2/99, –6f.; see p. 657 and 664 below.

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the trend or was, in fact, progressive: children are fundamentally neutral, whatever their parents believe, until they themselves profess the faith.44 This may have been the view of his later followers; others merely regarded it as that of another sect of the ʿAjārida, whose founder was unknown.45 The reason why the front started moving within the Thaʿlabiyya was that it made allowances in a related issue, too: the question of predestination. God wills the actions of humans, they said, but he does not create them, or predetermine them.46 Unfortunately the sources do not provide elucidation, but we are at least able to follow the developing discussion. The more independence children were allowed, the more one wondered whether they would then shape their own fortunes vis-à-vis God. The traditional position was represented by a contemporary of Ibn ʿAjrad’s, a certain Shuʿayb b. Muḥammad, a determinist who did, however, as Shahrastānī assures us, emphasise human responsibility. God creates his servants’ actions, but they also will them. The willing of individual acts is human (irāda), but above it is God’s will (mashīʾa), without which nothing happens.47 He was contradicted by Maymūn b. Khālid,48 who may have come from Balkh and whose followers would be found in Sīstān and Khorasan for some time to come.49 He believed in free will with all the consequences this might have for the image of God: God only wills the good; 44  Thus Ashʿarī, Maq. 97, 7ff (despite 100, 14f.); Abū Muṭīʿ, Radd 70, apu.; as an alternative in Shahrastānī 98, 3ff./235, 6ff. 45  Thus Nashwān, Ḥūr 172, 2f.; Baghdādī, Farq 76, –5ff./98, 1ff.; Ibn Ḥazm, Fiṣal IV 191, 6f. Shahrastānī 96, 5ff./227, 4ff., names it as having been taught by some followers of ʿUthmān b. Abī l-Ṣalt. 46   Tahdkirat al-madhāhib 126, pu. f.; Abū Muṭīʿ, Radd 70, –4 (correspondingly, read yaqḍī rather than y.n.q.ṣ); abridged also Ibn al-Jawzī, Talbīs Iblīs 19, 7. 47  Thus Milal 97 a, 10ff./232, 7ff., which is the only source of the entire name. In less detail Ashʿarī, Maq. 94, 6ff.; Baghdādī makes a link with the Khāzimiyya which probably needs to be inverted chronologically (Farq 74, 7ff./94, 7ff.). 48  Thus according to Shahrastānī 96b, 1/228, 2; Maqrīzī has Maymūn b. ʿImrān (II 354, apu.). This Maymūn is not identical with the other one who was so excited by his colleague Ibrāhīm selling a female slave (thus explicitly Baghdādī, Farq 87, 6f./107, –4r.; cf. p. 248 above). Differently: Watt, Free Will 34 and 40. 49  Nashwān, Ḥūr 171, 3f. and 8f.; also Ashʿarī, Maq. 95, 9f.

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the mashīʾa invoked by Shuʿayb does not encompass sin. The child of an “idolater” will go to paradise if it dies before reaching its majority; it would not have been able to sin consciously.50 Tradition traced the argument back to an event reported in anecdotal relief: Shuʿayb, the determinist, owed Maymūn money. When the latter asked for it, he said he would give it to him “God willing”. In Maymūn’s ears, this sounded like an empty promise, and he pointed out that God only ever wills what he commanded and, we must add, he commanded that people must pay their debts. As they were unable to agree, they called Ibn ʿAjrad to mediate, although he was not easy to reach, having been put into prison by Khālid al-Qasrī. This gives us a date for the event: it must have taken place before 120/738.51 Ibn ʿAjrad responded in writing – and slightly evasively: “We have taught: whatever God wills, will happen, and whatever he does not will, will not happen. We do not ascribe any evil to God”. Unfortunately it was not possible to ask him to elucidate as he had died, presumably in prison, by the time the letter arrived. Both parties felt confirmed in their view.52 What this meant was probably: the polarisation was new. Ibn ʿAjrad was far from the scene of events and did not have a view of the development as a whole. His writings were not specific. It seems furthermore that – unlike the heresiographers – none of those involved thought of predestination: God’s will is not eternal but it accompanies human action. At this point Shuʿayb’s “God willing” acquires its full meaning. He defends himself with the sentence: if God had willed me to repay the money, I could not have done otherwise.53 From the lips of a predestinarian this argument would have sounded like sophistry; only if God wills actions at the moment they are initiated is it logical to say that he has not willed them in the past, as they have not taken place, but that he may will them in the future.54 Of course we cannot rule out that the whole story was 50  Shahrastānī 96b, 2ff./228, 4ff.; more generally put and presumably in reflection of Shuʿayb: Ashʿarī (cf. Text VIII 11, a–e and commentary; also Text VIII 9, i). If Tadhkirat al-madhāhib 128, 1, says that in the eyes of the Maymūniyya faith without actions was worthless, this is a consequence of the Qadarite approach, but may well be a retrospective inference. 51  If we assume that he was not taken to Iraq but imprisoned somewhere in Khorasan or maybe in Marv, we are able to delimit further: Khālid al-Qasrī ruled the province of Khorasan twice through his brother, between 105 and 108, and later just before 120 (cf. Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 537, 1ff.). The source says “Khālid b. ʿAbdallāh al-Bajalī’; Khālid al-Qasrī was a member of the Bajīla. 52  Text VIII 11, i–p. Cf. also the interpretations in Watt, Free Will 32ff., and E. Salem, Political Theory 41f.; also Madelung, Religious Trends 62f., and Składanek, Doktryny 139f. 53  Text VIII 11, l. 54  The Thaʿlabite doctrine mentioned earlier is also best understood like this.

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simply a clever fiction. – The step to the doctrine of predestination was taken by someone else, by Khāzim b. ʿAlī. God, he said, has loved his “friends” (awliyāʾ) since the beginning of time; he predestined them for the faith, even if they should spend most of their lives in unbelief. His enemies, on the other hand, he has hated from the beginning; they will ultimately lapse into unbelief, however long they were believers. God’s friendship (walāya) and his enmity are attributes of essence (ṣifāt aldhāt) and thus did not originate within time.55 The choice of these two attributes is most characteristic; they correspond to the two words in which the Khārijites comprised their relationship with their fellow-humans: walāya (or tawallī) and barāʾa. Khāzim does not presume a general doctrine of the attributes; in the wake of the shift of emphasis described he simply transferred something that had been discussed on the human level, onto God. Later theologians, e.g. Abū l-Ṣabbāḥ al-Samarqandī, took this idea further.56 At the time, however, it was original and forward-looking; by including the idea of eternity in past and future in his “system”, Khāzim proposed the best alternative to Maymūn’s extreme and rather simplistic Qadarite standpoint within the framework of the theological development overall. Consequently it is no coincidence that these two groups were the ones who lived on, and that other teachings of theirs have been transmitted to us. Baghdādī informs us that the Khāzimiyya made up the majority of the ʿAjārida in Sīstān.57 They did not express their views on ʿAlī,58 presumably for political reasons as Abū Muslim was not far, maybe also because they did not know whether ʿAlī, in spite of all his “unbelief”, had not been chosen by God after all. Political prudence (taqiyya) was not usually their strong point; they prohibited the hajj because it meant 55  Ashʿarī, Maq. 96, ff. (correction on p. 689); Baghdādī, Farq 73, 10ff./94, 12ff.; Shahrastānī 97b, 10ff./233, 9ff.; Ābī, Nathr al-durr V 232, 7f.; Samʿānī, Ansāb V 13, 1ff.; Nashwān, Ḥūr 171, 13f. (read ijbār instead of aḥbār). The complete name is once again only listed in Shahrastānī. The reading ultimately remains unconfirmed. The Cureton edition has Khārim, while Ashʿarī, Baghdādī Nashwān, Samʿānī, Ābī and Abū Muṭīʿ (Radd 71, 11f.). Maqdisī has Ḥāzim instead (Badʾ V 134, ult.), thus also Badrān in his edition of Shahrastānī, Pseudo-Nāshiʾ (Uṣūl 69, where I read Khāzimiyya three times against the MS), Maqrīzī (Khiṭaṭ II 355, 7), Ibn al-Jawzī (Talbīs 19, 8), and Tadhkirat al-madhāhib (127, 1). Khwārizmī uses the form Shuʿayb b. Khāzim, which is probably contaminated (Mafātīḥ 19, 9). 56  See p. 631 above. 57   Farq 73, 6/94, 8. 58  Shahrastānī 97b, apu. ff./234, 6ff.

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dissembling in the company of other Muslims – after all, one would be obliged to pray behind someone whom one did not recognise as a Muslim at all. Jaʿfar b. Ḥarb (?), who reported this, counted the Khāzimiyya among the Azraqites, maybe because they did not accept stoning as punishment for fornication, either;59 they followed only the Quran. As a consequence they also relaxed the rules of marriage: while it was not allowed to marry two sisters, it was allowed to marry a woman and her aunt either on the mother’s or the father’s side.60 Conveniently, aunts were not mentioned in the verse sura 4:23 on which this was based. Predestination in connection with the idea that the status of salvation may be unknowable until the end is also found in the group around a certain Abū Mukram (after Ashʿarī, Maq. 100, 7ff.; Nashwān, Ḥūr 172, ult. ff.; Baghdādī, Farq 82, 9ff./103, 1ff. > Isfarāʾīnī, Tabṣīr 56, 8/58, 6, and Ābī, Nathr al-durr V 233, pu. f.), or Mukram b. ʿAbdallāh al-ʿIjlī (thus Shahrastānī 99, 12ff./241, 2ff.), also with Shaybān b. Salama (regarding him see p. 662ff. below). The latter provides us with a terminus ante quem. More information p. 543 above and ch. C 4.1.1.1 below. The same Quranic verse also gave the Maymūniyya food for thought. They concluded that while, as it says quite clearly, one must not marry one’s daughter or niece, a granddaughter or great-niece would be permissible.61 This may be due to Iranian influence;62 after all, it was around this time – 150/767 – that Ustādhsīs appeared with his syncretistic ideas. He had originally been a Khārijite himself, and during his uprising he allied himself with the Khārijites 59  See vol.  I 42 above. Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī reported a Khārijite argument in this question (Maḥṣūl II1 482, 4ff.); as it is directed against jurists who worked with hadiths, it may well have been formulated by the Khāzimiyya. 60  Pseudo-Nāshiʾ, Uṣūl 69 § 120. After the MS l. 10, qāma must be altered here in aqāma, and l. 12 nikāḥ in inkāḥ. Cf. also Madelung, Religious Trends 63f., and Składanek, Doktryny 140f. 61  This is based on a remark by Karābīsī repeated everywhere (Nashwān, Ḥūr 171, 5ff.; Baghdādī, Farq 75, 4f./96, 7f.; Shahrastānī 96b, 7ff./228, 10ff.; Ibn Ḥazm, Fiṣal IV 190, 11ff.; presumably also Maqrīzī, Khiṭaṭ II 355, 1f. and Ḥanafī, Firaq muftariqa 24, 9f.). Ashʿarī referred it, presumably erroneously, also to the ʿAjārida (Maq. 95, 12ff.). Maqdisī provided a justification: after all, the next verse says explicitly that God permits everything not listed before (Badʾ V 138, 5ff.). However, it was possible to argue over the connection between sura 4:23 and 4:24. From the Khārijite point of view the argument was unnecessary in any case. Regarding Karābīsī see ch. C 6.3 below. 62  Thus Watt in: Der Islam 36/1961/229. Prepared by Baghdādī, Farq 264f./280f., who would like to excommunicate the Maymūniyya because of this affinity.

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again.63 However, it could be explained primarily on an inner-Islamic level. It is interesting that being faithful to scripture did not prevent the ʿAjārida from rejecting entire suras. The Maymūniyya was believed to have rejected sura 42,64 presumably because it contained too many determinist statements.65 The redefinition of their relationship with non-Khārijites may have been due to the same reason: they had to be fought, but not those who only served the authorities against their will. Only collaborators are true enemies: spies, scouts or ideologists, and critics of Khārijism.66 Becoming an enemy requires a conscious decision. On the other hand the Maymūniyya appears to have been prepared to follow the head of the entire Muslim communion under certain conditions: the caliph had to recognise Abū Bakr and reject ʿAlī. He could even be a Quraysh; the circle of eligible persons was widened by Khārijite political theory – but he had to be elected by people who enjoyed the full confidence of the Khārijites (ahl maḥabbatinā).67 And thus the suggestion was shown to be utopian. Of course there was also the realisation that it was not possible to be always waging war. The trend to moderation probably spread when the authorities grew stronger once more after the Abbasids had assumed power. The reasons given were secondary. In the view of the Khāzimiyya, too, an enemy was someone who said “No” deliberately, as all humans are “excused” as long as they have not been “called”. To them this was the corollary of a sweeping concept of faith: “religion” consists of duties (waẓāʾif) and norms (sharāʾiʿ), but these are not known in advance and have to be conveyed. Later ears heard “converting the heathen”, and the doxographers expressed it like that, too;68 but it was prob-

63  It is uncertain whether Ustādhsīs was able to make guarantees to the Zoroastrians under these conditions. Daniel regarded his movement as a peasants’ revolt with mainly worldly motives (Khurasan 133ff.; but cf. Spuler, Iran 197, and Scarcia-Amoretti in: CHI IV 497ff.). 64  After Maqdisī 138, 7f. together with the sura of Josef (cf. further information in the commentary on Text VIII 8, i). 65  E.g. verse 8 and especially verse 44ff. 66  Shahrastānī 96b, –7ff./229, 3ff. (regarding the text cf. the remarks by Gimaret, Livre 393); Nashwān, Ḥūr 171, 4f.; Baghdādī 75, 5ff./96, 8ff.; Ashʿarī cites the passage in a different context by accident (Maq. 94, 1–3). 67  Ḥanafī, Firaq muftariqa 24, 10ff.; less clear also Abū Muṭīʿ, Radd 78, 4f., and Ibn al-Jawzī, Talbīs 19, pu. f. 68  Ibn al-Jawzī, Talbīs 19, 8; Tadhkirat al-madhāhib 127, 1f. Following these, Abū Muṭīʿ, Radd 71, 12ff. can be corrected in places. In particular read waẓāʾif instead of waṣāʾif (!). Regarding waẓīfat al-dīn see p. 668 below; regarding sharāʾiʿ cf. Schacht in EI1 IV 344f. and ch. D 0 below.

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ably meant to refer to the “call” to Khārijism. After all, the Khāzimiyya had its own opinion when it came to the law. – The followers of a certain Akhnas b. Qays reached a similar conclusion. While we do not learn anything about their argumentation, we are once again told that it is only permitted to fight someone after one has ‘called him to Islam. Only someone known to be an unbeliever may be fought. This condition is not usually met when dealing with Muslims, where ἐποχή must be observed. We are looking at a group that believed itself to be an endangered minority and defined its environment as dār al-taqiyya. They avoided any kind of terrorism, assassinations as well as night-time raids. Interestingly they permitted marriage with non-Khārijite women.69 Another circle that grew up around a certain Ghālib b. Shādhak from Sīstān considered the people on the margin (aṣḥāb al-aṭrāf), presumably: people in the countryside who had not been reached by the mission, to be excused if they did not apply the law due to ignorance. This appeared to imply that there are commandments that can be understood rationally, a kind of natural law; an idea that encountered objection as it did not agree with what the Khāzimiyya taught. Ghālib’s antagonist was a certain ʿAbdallāh al-Sadīwarī who, going by the nisba, came from the Marv region.70 The controversy is late. Shahrastānī linked this group to Ḥamza b. Ādharak, taking us to the end of the second century at the earliest. The group is mentioned only by Shahrastānī (96b, ult. ff./231, 5ff.) under the name Aṭrāfiyya. The names of the two protagonists are quite illegible in the manuscripts (cf. Gimaret, Livre 399, who does not find a solution). Ghālib b. Shādhak is named as one of the eminent persons of the province in Tārīkh-i Sīstān (p. 20, 3). In any case, Shādak/Shādhak is 69  The most detailed account is in Shahrastānī 98, 7ff./236, 4ff. Cf. also Ashʿarī, Maq. 97, 11ff.; Nashwān, Ḥūr 172, 6ff.; Ābī, Nathr al-durr V 233, 3f. (with copyist’s error); Baghdādī, Farq 81, 5ff./101, 14ff. > Isfarāʾīnī, Tabṣīr 55, ult. ff./57, –6ff.; Maqrīzī, Khiṭaṭ II 355, 16ff.; Ibn al-Murtaḍā, Munya 32, –5f., all following the same source. Samʿānī, Ansāb I 138, 13ff. restricts the ἐποχή commandment to children in an illegal fashion. Maqdisī, Badʾ V 139, 1, has only the name. Night-time raids were contrary to the Bedouin code of honour (see p. 375 above). 70  Cf. Yāqūt, Muʿjam al-buldān s. v. Sadīwar.

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a suitable solution, being a diminutive of shādhmān “the small cheerful one” (cf. Nöldeke in: SB Wiener Ak. 116/1888/417; also 404 regarding Shādōya). I agree with Gimaret as to the interpretation of aṣḥāb al-aṭrāf. The aṭrāf al-sharīʿa, on the other hand, were the main tenets of the law; an interpretation that would also be possible here. Goldziher derived the name from ṭarafay al-nahār and believed them to be those who prayed only twice a day (ZDMG 53/1899/385f.; regarding this group see p. 695ff. below), but the passage in Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ (Shifāʾ II 1074, 3f.) to which he refers does not yield this interpretation. Cf. also Madelung, Religious Trends 68. Before turning to Ḥamza b. Ādharak, arguably the most famous Khārijite from Sīstān, we must look at a final controversial issue of legal rather than theological import that was probably debated in this region. The Thaʿlabiyya, it was said, took zakāt from their slaves, if they were rich, and shared it with them if they were poor. This practice was quietly done away with. A certain Maʿbad b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, however, retained it as it had not been officially abolished, and found followers because of it,71 which may sound quisquilian, but it was in fact a fundamental issue. It seems to have been a kind of pension fund for slaves to which they could contribute themselves; under Islamic law, slaves had limited legal competence. However, their master could claim the money, and that seems to be what happened; Nashwān al-Ḥimyarī remarked that Maʿbad retained the institution independently of whether the respective master (mawlā) agreed or not.72 Elsewhere it is emphasised that the master should not receive any part of his slaves’ legacy.73 The lack of interest shown by the majority would be an interesting confirmation that the dissolution of the old-fashioned communitarian standpoint and the emergence of individualism ultimately destroyed the ideal of equality of which the Khārijites had been so proud. Maʿbad appears to have been in touch with Akhnas b. Qays’ followers as well.74 They shared the opinion that every human was only able to look after his own salvation himself. Nobody can “pay good works into 71  Ashʿarī, Maq. 98, 4ff.; Farq 81, 1ff./101, 10ff. > Isfarāʾīnī, Tabṣīr 55, –4ff./57, 12ff.; Shahrastānī 98, 5f. and 13ff./236, 2f. and 237, 8ff.; Maqrīzī, Khiṭaṭ II 355, 18f.; Ābī, Nathr al-durr V 233, 5f. (with copyist’s error). Maqdisī, Badʾ V 135, 1, has only the name. 72   Ḥūr 172, 10ff. 73  Malaṭī 136, 13/179, 5. 74  Shahrastānī 98, 13f./238, 1.

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someone else’s account” by going on the pilgrimage in his stead, or praying for him etc. On Judgment Day only one’s own achievements count.75 Could this be a reason why a slave, too, had to take responsibility? 3.1.3.1.1 Ḥamza b. Ādharak’s Uprising Within a short time the emerging individualism had brought a whole bunch of new theological ideas to the surface: the freedom of human action, the perpetuity of divine determination, the difference between rational and revealed religious truths. It is not surprising that we have no clearer image of the theologians mentioned. Sīstān was located in a blind spot, and our information goes back to three sources at most, two of which are very closely linked and based on a common root.1 All of which makes it look as if there had been small conventicles that affirmed their identity with minor details. While this may have been true of some groups, it is probably not applicable to the bigger picture; Sīstān was not Kufa. It is true that the region was not densely populated, and that the Khārijites frequently lived together with other Muslims;2 but their strength and their number were sufficient to keep the Abbasids in check for thirty years at the end of the second century. This was the time of the uprising of Abū Khuzayma3 Ḥamza b. Ādharak, the son of a convert from the gentry.4 He had joined a group of Khārijites in Oq near Zarang in the very heart of Sīstān.5 It had been a holy place even in the 75  Ḥanafī, Firaq muftariqa 21, 5ff.; only as the Akhnasiyya’s doctrine in Ibn al-Jawzī (Talbīs 19, –4), Abū Muṭīʿ (Radd 76, 1ff.) and Tadhkirat al-madhāhib 128, 3f. (where the name must be corrected). However, the phrasing is unclear in the latter, and possibly deliberately skewed. 1  See p. 647 n. 34 above, and p. 672 below. 2  See p. 641f. above; also p. 654 regarding the Akhnasiyya. Maʿbad permitted Khārijites who lived in the dār al-taqiyya together with other Muslims to pay taxes with them as well (Shahrastānī 98, –5/238, 5f.). 3  Regarding his kunya cf. Jāḥiẓ, Bayān IV 25, 3f.; it was mainly used by army commanders. 4  Bosworth, Sīstān 91f.; consequently ʿAbdallāh was sometimes transmitted instead of Ādharak. The form Ādharak, already recorded by Gardēzī, was misspelt in every possible way in Arabic sources: Adrak, Awrak, Akrak, Adrad, etc. (cf. Gimaret, Livre des Religions 397, n. 30), but an Iranian etymology (ādharak = “little fire”) goes best with the rebel’s origin. For this reason Oghuz atrek “fox-red man” (cf. Togan, Ibn Faḍlān’s Reisebericht 142) seems less likely. 5  Bosworth 92 and 85; general information in Madelung, Religious Trends 66ff.

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pre-Islamic period; Scarcia expressed the assumption that a degree of crusading spirit was part of the local tradition.6 Ḥamza appears to have contributed a dash of Machiavellism, resulting in an explosive and exceedingly efficient mix. Around 180/796 he was able to put himself at the head of a revolt incited by another Khārijite, a man named Khalaf, who fought for strict determinism and still believed that the children of “idolaters” would go to hell.7 Ḥamza could not oust him altogether and therefore had to formulate the theory that there could be two or more imams at one and the same time,8 adding, however, one important clause: in times of war there should be only one supreme command – thus making his claim clear. Baghdādī collected the stages of his wide-ranging campaigns in Sīstān, Khorasan, Makrān, Qūhistān and Kerman with diligence, but without chronology. He probably found his information in Nishapur where he spent most of his life;9 its inhabitants were proud of finally having laid the most dangerous terrorist by the heels around 188/804.10 This was not true at all; Bosworth’s detailed study, which especially examines the information from Tārīkh-i Sīstān, shows that Ḥamza did not die until 25 years later in 213/28.11 Baghdādī selected the facts carefully, clearly trying to prove that during his campaigns Ḥamza not only fought the armies of the Abbasids and their governors in the east, but also cleaned up among his Khārijite friends. The first to suffer was the Bayhasiyya, then the Khāzimites in Qūhistān to the west of Pūshang, and finally the Thaʿāliba in the Nishapur region.12 The followers of Khalaf, to whom Ḥamza owed his rise, had long had enough of him. Khalaf had probably died, but a certain Masʿūd b. Qays succeeded him and made a stand against Ḥamza in Kerman. He had an accident crossing a river and drowned. His people refused to believe in his death, hoping instead that he would return 120 years after the day of his birth.13

6  In: AIUON 15/1965/304. 7  Ashʿarī, Maq. 93, 12f.; Nashwān, Ḥūr 171, 10f.; Baghdādī, Farq 75, pu. f./96, pu. f.; Shahrastānī 96a, ult. ff./230, 7ff. Tārīkh-i Sīstān also mentions Khalaf once (156, 6). 8  Nashwān, 171, 13f.; Shahrastānī 96a, –4ff./230, 5f. 9  Cf. EIran III 409. 10   Farq 76, ult. ff./98, 4ff.; 79, apu. ff./100, 7ff. 11   Sīstān 91ff., esp. 103. Sadeghi follows Baghdādī’s date in his brief description of events (Mouvements 54ff.). Regarding the chronology cf. Składanek in FO 22/1981–4/81ff., and RO 44/1985, issue 2/89ff.; in general id., Doktryny 142ff. 12  Bosworth  93. 13  Baghdādī 78, –4ff./99, 13ff.; Nashwān referred this mahdī idea to Khalaf (Ḥūr 171, 10ff.), Maqdisī quite absurdly to Ḥamza (Badʾ V 138, 10f., and VI 102, apu. ff.). Regarding the number 120 cf. ch. C 3.2.2 below.

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This motif, more common in the Shīʿa, shows the extent of people’s desperation. Khalaf’s community must have fought to the last; they were said to believe that no-one must evade jihad, not even a woman. If one of them was mortally wounded in battle he would point to the people around him – presumably his opponents – with his weapon (bi-ḥadīdihī) and spoke one last lā ḥukma illā lillāh.14 But now they thought that without an imam they could not fight any more;15 even beaten, they did not join forces with Ḥamza. Later they would still be found in Kerman and Makrān.16 Where dogma was concerned, Ḥamza had left them, too; he now believed in free will, which may have won him the support of the Maymūniyya. This change of direction was perhaps a retrospective one for political reasons, as demonstrated by his continuing to believe, like the Khalafiyya, that the children of non-Khārijites were condemned to hell.17 It probably made waging war rather easier. The image painted by Baghdādī should not be seen as too absolute. The Khārijites had always been a bogeyman; once again we now read that they cut down trees and blocked qanāts.18 Ḥamza had a particular predilection for murdering Abbasid tax collectors.19 There can be no doubt that the movement had aspects of social revolution; B. Składanek’s remarkable article made this very clear.20 Ḥamza had support in villages and market towns;21 it seems that the indigenous peasant population was with him, although the majority of his fighters were Arabs.22 Even Baghdādī pointed out that he did not subject the “quietists” to reprisals;23 like others before him he did not attack those who 14  Abū Muṭīʿ, Radd 72, 9ff. (the MS has bi-ḥadīdihī, not bi-jasadihī as the editor read); also Ibn al-Jawzī, Talbīs 19, 8f. and Tadhkirat al-madhāhib 127, 3. Regarding Khārijite women taking part in the jihad cf. Salem, Political Theory 86f. for the early period. Ḥanafī added that Khalaf’s followers excommunicated all those prophet’s companions who had held back in the Ridda wars, i.e. refused to take part in the jihad (Firaq 18, 1ff.). 15  Baghdādī 75, –4f./96, apu. f. (where one sentence appears to be missing); Nashwān 171, 11f. 16  Shahrastānī 97a, 1/230, 9. 17  Baghdādī emphasised the contradiction (Farq 77, 2ff./98, 6ff.); cf. also Ashʿarī, Maq. 93, ult. ff., and Shahrastānī 96a, 10ff./229, 10f. 18  Bosworth  94f. 19  Ibid.  95. 20  In: Przegląd Orientalistyczny 1/1960/25ff. 21  Bosworth  90f. 22   Tārīkh-i Sīstān 168, 10. Barthold considered Khārijism in Sīstān to have been a popular movement (Turkestan down to the Mongol Invasion 213); Scarcia critical in: AIUON 14/1964/625, n. 16. 23   Farq 77, 5/98, 9.

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did not show hostility towards him. He disapproved of assassinations and secret robberies; in this, he agreed with the Akhnasiyya.24 When Hārūn al-Rashīd and his great army appeared in Khorasan in 193/808, Ḥamza started a correspondence with him that is remarkable for its challenging language, despite the fact that his position had already been weakened. He referred to himself as amīr al-muʾminīn, as earlier Khārijites had done, too – but in the caliph’s ears this must have sounded rather more provocative than it may have been intended: Ḥamza’s muʾminūn were the Khārijites only. He predicted that Islam would remain flawed until Judgment Day, he himself being the only one who followed the Quran and the prophet’s sunna.25 He was lucky; Hārūn died in a village near Ṭūs before they could join battle. Ḥamza saw this as divine intervention, similar to the time when the prophet caused the Meccans to fail by digging a ditch: “God spared the believers of fighting”.26 However, he learnt from the episode to concentrate his energies on the heathen from then on. He went on campaigns to Ghūr and Sind; he is said to have (re-)founded the city of Gardez in Afghanistan.27 His heroic feats would later be praised in an epic poem which, once his name drowned in the well of things past, was transferred onto Ḥamza, the prophet’s uncle.28 Of course the Khārijites did not die out with him. Masʿūdī named Sīstān as one of their bastions at the time he wrote (ca. 332/944), together with Kerman, Azerbaijan etc.29 Muqaddasī, too, found them there half a century later,30 by which time they had become peaceful; Yaʿqūb b. Layth, himself a man of the

24  Ashʿarī, Maq. 94, 3ff., after Zurqān. Of course the latter may have confused the two sects. Might Ḥamza’s general Ḥayyōya b. Maʿbad (cf. Baghdādī 77, –7/98, –5) have been a son of Maʿbad b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān’s? 25  The text is extant in Tārīkh-i Sīstān; cf. G. Scarcia’s translation in: AIUON 14/1964/623ff.; Bosworth’s summary (p. 98) is slightly misleading. Składanek presumed (FO/22/1981– 4/87f.), and rightly, that due to patriotic motives the Tārīkh-i Sīstān presented the caliph’s intentions with a bias; Hārūn had meant to take a hand in Transoxiana where Rāfiʿ b. Layth’s revolt was still ongoing (cf. Daniel, Khurasan 172ff.). 26  Sura 33:25; cf. Bosworth 100. 27  Bosworth 102 and 104; also MacLean, Religion and Society in Arab Sind 119. Cf. also Bivar in EI2 II 978 s. v. Gardīz. 28  Cf. Meredith-Owens in: EI2 III 153f. s. v. Ḥamza b. ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib with an exhaustive bibliography; also Ṣafā in: Irānnāma 1/1982/13f. (about a version dating to the Ṣafavid era, known as Ṣāḥibqirānnāma). 29   Murūj V 231, 4ff./III 302, 10ff. 30  See p. 642 above.

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people, had robbed them of their vigour.31 Now even city-dwellers saw their positive sides. An Iraqi Muʿtazilite of the fourth century admired their absolute honesty; only foreigners were thieves, and had not only a hand cut off in punishment, but the lower arm up to the elbow.32 It was possible to leave items unattended in public places. Many houses did not have doors but only a grille against dogs and wild animals; certainly, houses were not locked.33 There was no bargaining in the markets.34 3.1.3.2 Non-Khārijite Groups In the first half of the second century those who defied the Khārijites in the city were mainly Murjiʾites. While we have few sources, light is shed on the situation the moment a third player joins in the power struggle, a Shīʿite from Kufa named Abū Muḥammad Ḥarīz b. ʿAbdallāh, a client of the Azd who was a wholesaler in fats and oil during Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq’s lifetime, and who travelled to Sijistān on business from time to time. He was a scholar and pupil of Zurāra b. Aʿyan; Ṭūsī noted several juristic works of his.1 He was used to the stricter attitudes of his home and incited the few Shīʿites in Sijistān – presumably in Zarang – to take action against the Khārijites as the latter showed no respect for ʿAlī. This resulted in terrorist activities during which some Khārijites were assassinated. At first they suspected the “Murjiʾites”, as they were the opponents whose numbers would have allowed such actions. When they finally discovered the true culprits, they locked Ḥarīz and his men up in their mosque and caused the building to collapse on top of them.2

31  As was well-known, he had been a coppersmith and had worked his way up from the Sunnite ʿayyārūn in Bust. Regarding the power struggle cf. Bosworth 113ff. and Madelung, Religious Trends 69; also Yaʿqūbī, Ta‌ʾrīkh II 605, 1ff. 32  Ibn Ḥazm, Fiṣal IV 189, 15, described this as an Azraqite custom. 33  Tanūkhī, Nishwār al-muḥāḍara III 88, 3ff.; adopted by Yāqūt, Muʿjam al-buldān IV 341b, –4ff. 34  Yāqūt III 190b, 14ff. 1  Fihrist 84, ult. ff. A fragment of one of them, maybe his K. al-ṣalāt, survives in Muḥammad b. Idrīs al-ʿIjlī, Sarāʾir 479, –4ff.; transmitted mainly after Zurāra, too. 2  Mufīd, Ikhtiṣāṣ 203, 6ff.; adopted by Majlisī, Biḥār XLVII 394f. no. 119. Regarding him also Kashshī 383ff. no. 717–19; Najāshī 105, 4ff.; Ardabīlī, Jāmiʿ I 182ff.

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We find the same man under the name Ḥarīz b. Abī Ḥarīz in a Sunni source,3 as qāḍī of Sijistān. It appears to have been possible for a merchant with contacts in the centres of scholarship – and of the administration – to have been appointed judge by the authorities. He was not unknown as his father, Abū Ḥarīz ʿAbdallāh b. al-Ḥusayn al-Azdī had already been qāḍī in Sijistān. He came from Basra, the original home of the Azd, but he, too, had been suspected of Shīʿite tendencies; he was believed to have claimed that the rajʿa was predicted in 72 Quranic verses.4 Imāmite biographers did not pay him any attention. He may have been a Kaysānite; his death must have occurred during the first third of the second century. His transmitting a hadith from ʿIkrima according to which the prophet prohibited marrying a woman after marrying her aunt5 makes us take notice; after all, the Khārijites around Ḥāzim b. ʿAlī had permitted this very union based on the Quran.6 ʿIkrima had probably been selected with care as the authority as he had been a Khārijite, too.7 Marriage customs would continue to seem rather degenerate to orthodox foreigners for a long time. When the Shāfiʿite Abū Saʿīd al-Iṣṭakhrī (d. 328/940), who had been active in Qom and Baghdad previously, was appointed qāḍī in Sīstān by al-Muqtadir (r. 295/908), he was shocked to find that most marriages had been contracted without involving a guardian, i.e. the women spoke for themselves. He is believed to have put an end to this outrage.8 In reality he probably merely attempted to abolish a procedure that would have been tolerated according to Ḥanafite law.9 The Ḥanafites, who had flourished for a long time on the ground prepared by the Murjiʾites, had already been threatened by the Shāfiʿites in their safe position under the Ṣaffārids, presumably for political reasons. Shortly before Abū Saʿīd al-Iṣṭakhrī arrived in the region, an originally marginal legal issue – concerning the offspring of a half-witted man, which made it likely that this was also a question of inheritance – had brought the 3  Ibn Ḥajar, Lisān al-Mīzān II 186f. 4  Mīzān no. 4267. Regarding him cf. also ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ II 240f. no. 793; Bukhārī III1 72 no. 187; Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 168, 13f. and 384 no. 2561; Fasawī III 73, 1, and 212, –4; Dhahabī, Ta‌ʾrīkh V 265, 1ff.; TT V 187f. no. 323. 5  Mīzān II 407, –6ff. 6  See p. 652 above. 7  See p. 734 below. 8  IKh II 75, 1ff. 9  Cf. Schacht in HW 587a s. v. Nikāḥ.

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rivalry out into the open, soon to erupt into a full-blown family or tribal war.10 In the end the Shāfiʿites do not seem to have prevailed. 3.1.4 The Western Part of the Province of Khorasan Where the development of Khārijite thought was concerned, Sijistān was only one example. We have seen that when they became stronger the movements felt by no means bound by the borders of that region; when they remained quiescent, however, they are often difficult to locate at all. The heresiographers had barely any interest in topography, while the historians only noted those names that were linked to a particular uprising. Furthermore Sijistān or Mā warāʾ al-nahr are only topographical designations; politically the entire eastern Iranian region was part of Khorasan. This explains why all we know of a peaceable group like the Ibāḍiyya is that it did have some followers in the regions, while the Khārijite rebels who stepped into the limelight of history did so mainly in Transoxiana during the day of Abū Muslim, when the lights were trained on that part of the world. Their very military activities suggest that they did not always stay there, and possibly did not come from there. The following description is once again restricted to those of whose teachings we are aware. 3.1.4.1 Khorasanian Khārijites One of the first to intervene in politics in Khorasan during the declining years of the Umayyad era was a certain Shaybān b. Salama, a member of the Sadūs1 who had fought in Ḍaḥḥāk b. Qays’ army and then went to seek his fortune under ʿAbdallāh b. Muʿāwiya in Fars.2 When the latter’s enterprise failed,3 he fled via Kerman and Sīstān to Khorasan where he settled, obviously calculating that he would have a future in the beginning 10  In more detail Halm, Ausbreitung 120f. 1  Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 587, 18f. 2  Cf. Daniel, Khurasan 78f.; also Shaban, Abbasid Revolution 159ff.; Veccia-Vaglieri in: RSO 24/1949/31, n. 4; Moscati in Rendiconti Acc. Lincei, VIII 4. ser./1949/485f.; Gimaret, Livre des Religions 403, n. 83; Madelung, Religious Trends 60. Ḥanafī links him to Shabīb b. Yazīd (Firaq muftariqa 29, 6ff.), but presumably mainly due to a heresiographical desire for order. 3  See p. 700ff. below.

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chaos. His base appears to have been in Sarakhs, where he had some support from the population;4 but he also ruled over Ṭūs and the Abarshahr region.5 He had around 30,000 warriors including contingents from Basra and from the Bakr b. Wāʾil,6 but in the end he went too far. His followers regarded him as the caliph,7 and he refused to be subordinate to anyone. He despised Naṣr b. Sayyār as a representative of the unjust authorities;8 he disliked Abū Muslim because he supported ʿAlid interests. When he finally agreed to alliances, first with the son of Judayʿ b. ʿAlī al-Kirmānī who brought him the defeated army after his father’s death in 129/747,9 and then with Abū Muslim,10 a part of his Khārijite elite troops deserted because he had not been true to his principles.11 The result was that Abū Muslim gained the ascendancy, challenging him to battle by Sarakhs in Shaʿbān 130/April 748.12 When Shaybān was defeated and fell in battle, his followers had no choice but to join Naṣr b. Sayyār’s forces.13 Those who did not leave him tried to save his honour by claiming that he repented his error before his death – unsurprisingly, as Abū Muslim was after his hide. His critics, however, did not accept this excuse, as his manoeuvres had led to Khārijites dying or being materially harmed, presumably when he took action against past followers. He ought to have made amends for these crimes in person; as he did not do this, his repentance was worthless.14 Shahrastānī mentioned a certain ʿAṭiyya al-Jūzjānī as one of his followers, but we have no further information on him.15 It was thanks to him that Shaybān’s following 4  Akhbār al-ʿAbbās wa-wuldih 298, 9f. 5  Khalīfa 587, 19ff. Nishapur was the centre of the Abarshahr region (cf. EIran I 67 s. v.). 6  Khalīfa, ibid.; Ṭabarī II 1996, 11f. The Ḥanīfa, one of whom mourned him in an elegy, were also members of the Bakr b. Wāʾil (Akhbār al-ʿAbbās 322, –5ff.). 7  Probably in the sense of a “commander of the faithful”, i.e. the true Muslims – the Khārijites (Ṭabarī II 1993, 3; cf. also Akhbār al-ʿAbbās 308, 6f.). 8  Ṭabarī II 1995, ult. f. 9  Khalīfa 587, 15ff. Regarding Kirmānī see p. 577f. above. 10  Ṭabarī II 1992, 1990ff., and 1996, 8ff. 11  Khalīfa 587, 20ff. 12   Akhbār al-ʿAbbās 310, 3f., and 322, 2ff. Regarding the date cf. Daniel 78 and 95, n. 49. 13  Ṭabarī II 2000, 13f.; regarding Naṣr’s policies vis-à-vis him cf. Akhbār al-ʿAbbās 294ff. For general information see Al-ʿuyūn wal-ḥadāʾiq in: Fragmenta 165, pu. ff. 14  Ashʿarī, Maq. 98, 9ff.; Nashwān, Ḥūr 172, 7ff.; Baghdādī, Farq 81, –7ff./102, 1ff.; Shahrastānī 99, 2ff./239, 9ff.; Samʿānī, Ansāb VII 436, apu. ff. All accounts are based on the same source. 15  It would be nice if he were identical with the ʿAṭiyya al-Thaʿlabī who played a part in Iraq during Ḍaḥḥāk al-Qays’ time (Ṭabarī II 1899, 16, and 1938, 12), and whom both Ṭabarī and Khalīfa misspelt as ʿAṭiyya al-Taghlibī (Ta‌ʾrīkh  579, 10); Shaybān b. Salama was also considered to be a member of the Thaʿlabiyya sect. But this ʿAṭiyya was on the wrong side, having

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did not disperse but may even have spread and survived for generations; they would later be found in Nasā, the ancient Parthian metropolis in Turkestan near present-day Ashkabad, in Abīvard on the road between Sarakhs and Nasā, in Pūchkān/Būzjān, later Jām, between Mashhad and Herat, and in ʿAṭiyya’s home Jūzjān.16 The leader of the critics was Abū Khālid17 Ziyād b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, who was probably Ziyād b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Qushayrī, a respected northern Arab from Iraq, whom Naṣr b. Sayyār appointed governor of Abarshahr – presumably to play him off against Shaybān.18 He had a long history as a rebel, having joined Yazīd b. al-Muhallab against Yazīd II as early as 102. When he was brought before Maslama b. ʿAbd al-Malik after the uprising, he was pardoned due to an intervention.19 He had no intention of working together with Naṣr.20 While he was opposed to Abū Muslim, he had no interest in the Umayyads either, instead focussing on regional independence by joining Muqātil b. Ḥayyān who was gathering the armies of the towns and cities.21 Although he was younger than Shaybān, there is no evidence of him living much longer; his trail goes cold after the Abbasid revolution. Behind this primarily political struggle there were also dogmatic differences. Ziyād was a legal scholar and appears to have been the authority to whom to appeal in controversial issues in the Thaʿlabiyya, of whom Shaybān was also a member.22 Ziyād believed in free will, as he taught that God only knows of events as they take place. He knows by creating knowledge for himself.23 been an ally of Marwān II’s. The man from Jūzjān is not linked to ʿAṭiyya b. al-Aswad al-Ḥanafī (see p. 643 above), either. 16  Baghdādī, Milal 74, 14f.; in Shahrastānī 99, 10/240, 10f. the names are illegible (cf. Madelung 60, n. 32). 17  Regarding the kunya cf. Shahrastānī 99, 7/240, 6. 18  Ṭabarī II 1664, 15f. It is also in favour of their being identical that Khalīfa lists the Khārijite dissident under the name of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Ziyād, mawlā of the Quraysh (Ta‌ʾrīkh 588, 2f.). While this is incorrect on several counts, Quraysh might have been misread from the nisba al-Qushayrī. 19  Ibid. II 1409, 3ff. 20  Ibid. II 1662, 14ff. 21  Ibid. II 1997, 7ff.; cf. also p. 577 above. Regarding some details cf. Daniel 86f.; also Shaban, Abbasid Revolution 162, who regards him as a man of Naṣr b. Sayyār’s “old school”. 22  Ashʿarī, Maq. 99, 9f. 23  Shahrastānī 99, 7ff./240, 6ff.

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Shaybān, on the other hand, believed in the choice by divine grace, convinced that God’s delight and hostility, according to which he divides humans and their state of salvation from the very beginning, are inherent to him from the very first and for all eternity.24 He probably adopted this from Khāzim b. ʿAlī, who had developed the same idea in Sīstān and was probably a little older. In the debates in Sīstān the argument is used in the appropriate context.25 He was also an anthropomorphist, which was seen as an innovation in Khārijite circles.26 Ziyād, on the other hand, probably adhered to the transcendental image of God as proposed by Jahm b. Ṣafwān. Shaybān might have acquired learning in the circle around ʿAbdallāh b. Muʿāwiya, but then there were numerous anthropomorphists in Iran, too. – One of the fatwās issued by Ziyād had led to a quarrel. Led by a certain Rushayd al-Ṭūsī, people from Ṭūs, possibly the entire Khārijite community of that city, had discovered a gap in his expertise and refused to abide by his decision. It was quite an important matter concerning taxes. In the past, only half the tithe had been paid on artificially irrigated land, and the full sum only on fields tilled with rainwater. This had been decreed by the prophet,27 and was a just decision, considering the additional capital required and the greater work involved. But the state – presumably the Khārijite commanders – needed money and Ziyād said one should not distinguish between the two anymore. However, he did not want to condemn earlier practice, either; after all, he expected more of his people than other men of law.28 This was a mistake, for now Rushayd went back to the original practice. In fact, it seems that this had already been abandoned, and that the problem was not so much the higher demand but rather

24  Ashʿarī, Maq. 99, 11f.; Ashʿarī’s applying the distinction between ṣifāt al-dhāt and ṣifāt al-fiʿl was probably not only linked to Shaybān. 25  See p. 651 above. 26  Ibid. 99, 7. The passage can also be interpreted to mean that his pupils (in Jūzjān or Turkestan) accepted this point of view first, but Baghdādī subsequently holds Shaybān responsible (Farq 81, –5f/102, 4). The passage in Ashʿarī becomes difficult as it names the Shaybāniyya twice in succession, the first time referring to the pupils, but the second time, to the sect in general. The last sentence (beginning with thumma) is probably separate from the preceding section. 27  Cf. Grohmann in EI1 IV 1137a. 28  Yaḥyā b. Ādam, K. al-kharāj 78, 18ff, and 80, 12ff. Juynboll.

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the refusal to establish clear limits and declare the old custom wrong and sinful. The heresiographers turned this into a sect as well.29 3.1.4.1.1 The Bayhasiyya We only learn in passing that besides the Thaʿlabiyya, who has been our main focus so far, there were also groups of Bayhasites in Khorasan: Ḥamza b. Ādharak descended on them after 180/796.1 They were not a purely Iranian phenomenon; there was a community in Kufa, too.2 One of its sub-groups was explicitly located in Khorasan: the so-called ʿAwfiyya,3 but we may safely assume that many of the debates which Ashʿarī and others related to the sect in general in fact took place on Iranian soil.4 It had been in existence for a long time; Ibn ʿAjrad was said to have renounced it.5 We do not know, however, how it came to be there; not least because we do not know the sphere of activity of its “founder”, Abū Bayhas al-Hayṣam b. Jābir al-Ḍubāʿī. The only information we have is a note by Madāʾinī on his death: he had fled to Medina before al-Ḥajjāj and found acceptance in the governor’s evening conversation circle, but Ḥajjāj was able to use his influence with the caliph to have him arrested, and he was executed like a common criminal in 94/713.6 Al-Ḥajjāj’s persecution of him shows that he had committed his misdeeds in his part of the country; consequently it is not impossible that he was indeed active in Iran, maybe protected by or in the wake of Ibn al-Ashʿath’s uprising.7 29  Ashʿarī, Maq. 99, ult. ff., presents circumstances most clearly. However, all accounts go back to one and the same source (possibly Yamān b. Riʾāb); cf. Baghdādī, Farq 82, 4ff./102, –4ff.; Ibn Ḥazm, Fiṣal IV 190, 15ff.; Shahrastānī 98, –4ff./238, 7ff.; Maqrīzī, Khiṭaṭ II 355, –14f.; Samʿānī, Ansāb VI 133 no. 1788; briefly Nashwān, Ḥūr 172, apu. f. (read ʿuyūn for fuyūl); Ābī, Nathr al-durr V 233, –4f. Regarding a similar disagreement in Sīstān cf. p. 655 above. 1  See p. 657 above. 2  See vol.  I 475f. above. 3  Ibn Ḥazm, Fiṣal IV 190, 18. Like Shahrastānī (94, ult./221, 10) and Ābī (Nathr al-durr V 235, –5) he has ʿAwniyya instead. The reading ʿAwfiyya is found in Ashʿarī, Baghdādī, and Nashwān al-Ḥimyarī. Nothing is known about the eponymous hero. 4  In Oman it was remembered that Abū Bayhas considered marriage with a Zoroastrian woman to be permitted (Al-siyar wal-jawābāt 209, 1f.). 5  See p. 644 above. 6  Extant in Nashwān, Ḥūr 177, 1ff.; also quoted anonymously in Shahrastānī 93, 11ff./219, 2ff. Noted briefly in Ṭabarī II 1258, 14; Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif 622, 10f.; Maqdisī, Badʿ V 138, 3ff. Also EI2 I 113, and Gimaret, Livre des Religions 387, n. 2. 7  In the same context Ṭabarī reports the extradition of further Iraqi fugitives who were undoubtedly involved in the uprising (see p. 718 below). – Abū Bayhas is not identical with

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Abū Bayhas had certainly not shown much consideration. Mubarrad notes that he regarded the enemy territory where the other Muslims lived as dār kufr. Consequently he considered istiʿrāḍ to be permitted; if children were killed, he did not care.8 Similar accusations were raised against his followers, such as the ʿAwfiyya, later;9 they had no qualms about assassinations and robbery.10 However, the climate probably changed soon. There was no agreement in the ʿAwfiyya on whether someone who left the camp and retired was still entitled to solidarity or not;11 this seems to have been a genuine question, and the hardliners were probably in the minority in the long run. Not even Abū Bayhas had been as severe as the Azraqites. He thought that enemies should be regarded like Muḥammad’s enemies in Mecca. The prophet had lived with them then; consequently one could spend time with them now, marry into their families and inherit from them.12 He also permitted that a female slave could be sold to “unbelievers”, at least if no other buyer could be found, in the dār al-taqiyya where the Khārijites were living amid strangers.13 This much-discussed issue demonstrated that he was a man with principles. Whoever did not take a stand in the matter, especially the “experts” (ahl althabat) who evaded a decision or who had not considered it important enough, was an unbeliever in his eyes. He saw this as a universal principle: as soon as a problem has been raised, one must form an opinion; ἐποχή only applies as long as the question is dormant. One must not be dependent on personalities on any account; he probably meant to imply that there had been too much political consideration in the matter.14 At the same time it betrays a degree of intellectualism; a crystal clear decision is always possible, as his attitude to faith confirmed. In the eastern heresiographical tradition he is listed among the Murjiʾites: faith, they say, was knowledge in the eyes of his school; those who could not distinguish between the Ḥanẓala b. Bayhas whom Ṭabarī mentions (II 517, 6) together with other Khārijite sect leaders; this may be an attempt at a different derivation of the name of the Bayhasiyya (thus already Wellhausen, Oppositionsparteien 28, also p. 215 above). Regarding him see also Składanek, Doktryny 136. 8  Kāmil 1041, 10f. 9  Ashʿarī, Maq. 116, 9f., and 126, 12f.; Maqdisī, Badʿ V 138, 3; regarding the ʿAwfiyya cf. Nashwān, Ḥūr 176, pu. f. 10  Nashwān 176, –4. 11  Ashʿarī 115, 3ff.; Baghdādī 88, –5ff.; Shahrastānī 94, 7ff./221, 11ff. 12  Mubarrad, Kāmil 615, 4ff./1040, 4ff.; similar Balādhurī in Ahlwardt, Anonyme Chronik 83, 10ff. This is once again heresiography dressed as anecdote. 13  Text VIII 12 a. 14  Ibid., a–b. Cf. also Watt, Free Will 36. Regarding the controversy see p. 248 above.

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true and false and prohibited and permitted, were unbelievers.15 This is secondary, and incorrect in the attribution; but it is true that the radius of faith was discussed among his followers. However, the point was not the definition, which it was for the Murjiʾites, but rather the profession of faith. Apparently everyone joining the community or born into it had to profess Islam, like the ʿAjārida. This led to the question of what the formula used on this occasion had to include. It was a matter of course that the shahāda would be part of it, but a promise to be faithful to the community and renounce all other Muslims – and, possibly, Khārijites of different groups – was also necessary; and one had to demonstrate some knowledge of the law – if not in detail, at least in summary. In this way, they said, they were “giving faith its due” (waẓīfat al-dīn).16 In the case of the last-named condition, things became critical. It seems that there had been people from the very first who saw actions as the determining factor. Consequently someone with rudimentary knowledge of the law who made a wrong decision and fell into guilt would have lapsed from the faith.17 Abū Bayhas – or more probably his school – thought this cynical. When it came to the law one should know at least everything where infringements would lead to punishment in hell, and, like all the fundamental dogmas, not simply by itself, but including the relevant exegesis. This probably referred to those Quranic verses which listed capital crimes; they would have been “tested” when people joined the community. If one is not entirely sure in a given situation later, one would have to refrain from acting altogether.18 This was certainly not a practicable solution; Shabīb al-Najrānī19 soon demanded that people should consult an expert in such a situation. This suggestion was adopted by others as well, but met with opposition in the Bayhasiyya.20

15  Abū Muṭīʿ, Radd 117, 9ff.; Ibn al-Jawzī, Talbīs 21, 8f.; Tadhkirat al-madhāhib 135, 8f. Cf. also Shahrastānī 94, 2ff./221, 1ff., where the distinctions are sharper. 16  Ashʿarī, Maq. 114, 9. Regarding waẓīfa in this context cf. also p. 653 above. 17  Ibid. 114, 9ff. 18  Text VIII 12, c–g. The expression was probably influenced by the representation of Murjiʾite doctrine (cf. e.g. Text II 6, a, especially with reference to the word jumlatan). 19  Regarding him cf. Anfänge 129. 20  Ashʿarī 115, 9ff.; Shahrastānī 94, 11ff./222, 5ff. (where the relevant passage from Ashʿarī appears to have been contaminated with the preceding one Maq. 114, 9ff.). Also Watt, Free Will 38.

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The presupposition was that humans in all these cases acted voluntarily; Shahrastānī described it using the same model as for the Maymūniyya in Sīstān.21 However, this was not the primary concern; the existential danger being the threat of lapsing into sin unwittingly at any time. There was some consolation in the thought that God would pardon those crimes over which he had not spoken a severe judgment (ḥukman mughallaẓan); after all, he could not punish without having made his intention quite clear. This restricted the sins which would result in “unbelief” or “idolatry” to those transgressions that entailed a ḥadd punishment. At the same time the question arose of the relation between punishment on earth and salvation in the afterlife. There was agreement that the two could not be separated. Someone who is punished is also an “unbeliever”; repentance at the moment of punishment is to no avail.22 On the other hand, some people believed that there should not be condemnation in advance, either; as long as someone has not been put on trial, he must not be called an “unbeliever”, even if the matter was as obvious as fornication.23 As usual, strict adherence to the words of the Quran was paramount; there was no qiyās. This led to the ruling, which was a surprise to some puritans, that inebriation due to permitted drinks – the Iraqis would have said: nabīdh – does not count, even if one omits a prayer or blasphemes as a consequence. Not even these consequences would count, as the drink was permitted.24 On the other hand even the smallest amount of wine, even mixed with water, would immediately lead to unbelief.25 The ʿAwfiyya modified this: inebriation is unbelief, but a person can only be determined as an unbeliever if he commits a transgression while inebriated, as this transgression would show for sure that he was inebriated.26 The food taboo was also by some r­ estricted only to those things that were named explicitly in the Quran: pork and carrion.27

21  94, –5ff./222, 12ff.; cf. p. 649f. above. This is probably a commonplace; Ashʿarī draws a comparison with the Muʿtazila instead (Maq. 116, 2f.). 22   Maq. 116, 11ff.; briefly also Ābī, Nathr al-durr V 235, 10f. 23  Ibid. 116, 4ff., and 119, 3ff.; also Baghdādī, Farq 88, 7ff./109, 4f.; Shahrastānī 94, apu. f./223, 4f.; Ibn Ḥazm, Fiṣal IV 190, 14f. 24   Maq. 117, 3ff.; Farq 88, 10ff./109, 6ff.; Shahrastānī 94, pu. f./223, 6f.; Nashwān 176, 9ff.; also Malaṭī, Tanbīh 137, 16f./180, 10f. 25  Ibn Ḥazm, Fiṣal IV 190, –5ff.; Malaṭī 137, 12f./180, 6f. 26   Maq. 118, 3f.; Farq 88, 12ff.; Shahrastānī 94, ult. ff./223, 8ff. 27  Shahrastānī 94, 5f./221, 7ff.

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Whether the “unbelief” determined by applying a ḥadd punishment should also lead to the sinner being executed after the initial punishment, as Ibn Ḥazm claimed of “a very few” Khārijites (Fiṣal III 240, –9f.), will have to remain unanswered. In many cases the ḥadd punishment would be execution anyway. Not much thought was devoted to theft, as it was probably extremely rare in the small and self-contained communities we are dealing with (see p. 660 above). The most important exception was probably genuinely the consumption of wine, but in this matter the exacerbation of the punishment instituted by ʿUmar had been rejected on the Arabian peninsula as being “caliph’s law” (Ashʿarī, Maq. 91, ult.). I do not believe that the Bayhasiyya considered the consumption of wine to be altogether permissible, as Gimaret assumed; nor can I agree with the divergent readings of the texts – including assuming a misunderstanding in Shahrastānī – he adduces (Livre des Religions 389, n. 15, and 391, n. 32). Thinking was still collectivistic despite this consciousness of sin and despite the tendency towards free will, as demonstrated by the ʿAwfiyya: they thought that if the imam, the leader of the community, lapsed into unbelief, the entire community would also follow.28 This was probably aimed at opponents; if the head of a competing Khārijite group supported a heresy – as he would, of course, do by virtue of his office – they would all be free game. The ʿAwfiyya probably based this on Abū Bayhas himself; he had apparently demanded of an imam in Kufa that because of his personal “unbelief” he should call all the members of his community to repent.29 This would fit in with his archaic view of children. The other groups we have looked at in the chapter on Sijistān also deliberated on the profession of faith. While this would seem to suggest itself, it may have been initiated by contacts with the other sects of Khorasan as well. The Khāzimiyya identified religion with the individual laws and consequently believed it to be impossible to recognise through rational

28   Maq. 115, 6f., and 116, 7; Farq 88, 9f. and pu. f./109, 6 and –6f.; Shahrastānī 94, 9f./222, 1f.; Nashwān 176, apu. f.; Ibn Ḥazm, Fiṣal IV 190, 17ff.; Ābī, Nathr al-durr V 235, –5. 29  Malaṭī 137, 7ff./180, 1ff. Of course, this could be applied to every caliph or governor.

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thought.30 The group around Abū Mukram (?)31 radically embraced the opposite standpoint: a grave sin is not primarily an infraction of a commandment, but an expression of a lack of knowledge of God (jahl billāh).32 The Khāzimiyya, too, would soon ask the question of how much knowledge one must have of God; and whether it was necessary to know all his “names”, i.e. attributes, or whether less might be sufficient.33 Unfortunately the sources do not tell us what “less” might have consisted in. It is tempting to assume that it was that understanding of God with which reason provides every human, the fiṭra in the usage of the time.34 In that case we would be looking at the insight that the image of God in the Quran is richer than can be grasped rationally, leading us to a piece of rather isolated information Ḥanafī reported of the followers of Ḥamza b. Ādharak: that the profession of the oneness of God was an experience (khibra) not granted to anyone automatically, and that one could only truly believe once one knew all the names of God.35 In other words: the only way to faith is through revelation; even tawḥīd cannot be grasped through rational insight. Conversely, it was in Ḥamza’s circle that the claim was made (for the first time?) that the law, too, contains items that may be perceived naturally.36 3.1.4.1.1.1

Yamān b. Riʾāb

In the Bayhasiyya we come across a man of letters for the first time, the theologian and heresiographer Yamān b. Riʾāb; proof that this was not a group made up out of small warring conventicles only. It also shows that it had not lost any of its vigour by the second half of the second century, as Yamān was the brother of the Shīʿite theologian ʿAlī b. Riʾāb who is documented at

30  See p. 653 above. 31  Regarding them see p. 652 above. 32  Cf. the sources listed loc. cit.; also Ibn Ḥazm, Fiṣal IV 191, 12ff., and Madelung, Religious Trends 62. 33  Ashʿarī, Maq. 96, 7ff.; Nashwān, Ḥūr 171, –6ff.; Baghdādī 76, 2ff./97, 2ff.; Shahrastānī 100, 5ff./242, 11ff.; Ābī, Nathr al-durr V 232, –5ff.; explained as two complementary “sects” whose determinist models allegedly differed. Only one of them is listed in Maqdisī, Badʿ V 138, apu. f., and Baghdādī, Uṣūl 269, –5ff. 34  We find it as a typically Khārijite axiom in an anti-Khārijite dream reported by Ibn Qutayba (cf. Kister in: IOS 4/1974/76). 35   Firaq muftariqa 16, 4ff. 36  Regarding the so-called Aṭrāfiyya see p. 654 above.

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this time.1 On the contrary, it still possessed a degree of attraction, as Yamān had originally been a Thaʿlabite and converted to the Bayhasiyya.2 However, this may have been due to moving to another place, as he travelled back and forth between Kufa, where his brother lived, and Khorasan. It was said that he met his brother on three days each year, and then only to argue;3 but however picturesque this may sound, they actually worked together in the family firm. Ḥusayn b. Riʾāb may also have been there, named by Barqī as a follower of Mūsā al-Kāẓim.4 In that case the doubt concerning the reading of the name would be eliminated: while the Shīʿite sources mainly have Riʾāb, Yamān himself is frequently named Rabāb.5 Yamān was detached enough to describe the Khārijite denominations in detail and apparently objectively in his K. al-maqālāt.6 Kaʿbī, himself from Khorasan, referred to him,7 and in turn became the authority for Ashʿarī,8 Nashwān al-Ḥimyarī, and Shahrastānī.9 Most of what we have described so far was probably seen through his eyes. His interest was also directed at the Murjiʾa;10 he seems to have intended to present the Khorasanian panorama in its entirety. In a separate text, however, he attacked the Murjiʾa,11 as well as Abū Ḥanīfa’s son Ḥammād (d. Dhū l-Qaʿda 176/Feb.–March 793).12 He was a determinist; he composed a K. al-makhlūq and criticised the Muʿtazilites 1  Regarding him see vol. I 448f. above. 2  Ashʿarī, Maq. 120, 8f.; Ibn al-Nadīm, Fihrist 233, 10; Shahrastānī 102, ult. f./252, 7; following him Watt, Formative Period 17; Cook, Dogma 88f.; Madelung in: Isl. Philos. Theology 127. 3  Masʿūdī, Murūj V 442, 7ff./IV 28, 3ff.; cf. also Mīzān no. 9847, and Lisān al-Mīzān VI 316 no. 1134. 4  Rijāl 51, 3f. 5  Was the Khārijite Rabāb al-Sijistānī (named by Ashʿarī, Maq. 120, 15) their father? 6  Listed together with his other works by Ibn al-Nadīm 233, 9ff. 7  Thus also in the quotations in Ḥajūrī, Rawḍat al-akhbār (cf. e.g. p. 558 n. 19 above). Also probably Pseudo-Nāshiʾ, i.e. Jaʿfar b. Ḥarb. 8  Direct quotations from Yamān b. Riʾāb are found Maq. 103, 7f. (= Text VIII 5, f). and 119, 3–120, 4. 9  Direct p. 95, 8f./224, 8f., and 104, –4ff./262, 7ff. The correspondence between Milal 95, 8f. and Maq. 123, 5 suggests that Ashʿarī is also quoting Yamān’s work in this passage. I do not believe it is imperative that Shahrastānī quoted Yamān directly as Gimaret assumes (Livre 38). A general overview by Ritter in: Der Islam 18/1929/35. Ashʿarī, Maq. 120, 8, Masʿūdī, Tanbīh 395, 15, and Shahrastānī 102, ult. f./252, 7, mention Yamān as a Khārijite mutakallim. 10  Cf. the passage concerning Abū l-Ṣaydāʾ p. 558 above, or ʿUbayd al-Muktib vol. I 244. 11   Al-radd ʿalā l-Murjiʾa (Ibn al-Nadīm 233, 12). 12  Regarding the date cf. IKh II 205, pu.

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in the qadar question. His influence was so great that even Faḍl b. Shādhān (d. 260/874) in Nishapur felt impelled to respond to his views in a refutation.13 The reason for this may have been that Yamān had composed a K. ithbāt imāmat Abī Bakr, not necessarily a Khārijite subject, and thus maybe suggested by his experiences with the Rāfiḍites in Kufa. At the same time it allows us to come to a conclusion in the matter – discussed above in the context of Yamān’s Rāfiḍite brother ʿAlī: whether certain extremist doctrines which Maqdisī linked to him with the label Yamāniyya had not better attributed to his brother.14 They include the idea that the Quranic passages which prohibit the consumption of wine and carrion are in fact condemnation of the first three caliphs – but someone who defended Abū Bakr as a legitimate caliph could not have believed that. The remaining extremist views are merely an accusation of anthropomorphism repeated by Maqdisī a few lines further along, although in that passage the name is misspelt – or misread by the editor – as Yamān b. Ziyād.15 Yamān did write a K. al-tawḥīd.16 His anthropomorphism came with a Jahmite twist: at the end of time all that will be left of God is his face – presumably because even paradise will cease to exist, and God will not be seen any more. Yamān would have shared this anthropomorphism with his Rāfiḍite brother. This may be the reason for Maqdisī’s confusion. The same sentence being found twice in his text need not surprise us; the first time it occurs in the chapter on Shīʿite sects, where only his brother would be found, and the second time in the chapter on the mushabbiha. The abovementioned “Jahmite” addition recalls Bayān b. Samʿān (see vol. I 449 above). We must thus wonder whether the confusion in Maqdisī should not be resolved differently: as Bayāniyya may have been read as Yamāniyya, with Yamān b. Riʾāb inferred retrospectively in both instances. However, the context of the other teachings appears to preclude this (cf. also p. 139, –4). Only a critical edition of the K. albadʾ wal-ta‌ʾrīkh will bring complete clarity.

13  Ṭūsī, Fihrist 254, –4. 14   Badʾ V 132, 5ff.; cf. also vol. I 449 above. This would presume that Maqdisī, or his source, derived the name Yamāniyya retrospectively. 15   Badʾ V 140, apu. f. It could of course be that this is the correct form, but no theologian or traditionist of that name is documented. 16  Ibn al-Nadīm, loc. cit.

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3.1.4.1.2 The Ibāḍiyya The Ibāḍite community in Khorasan would in due course vanish together with the other Khārijites in Iran; consequently even Ibāḍite sources know only little about it.1 One author from the Maghreb described Khwārazm as a “village in the east”, Iran clearly being terra incognita to him.2 It is only by coincidence that we hear of quarrels in Herat,3 but the earlier significance of the region still shines through. Ṣuḥār al-ʿAbdī, a contemporary of Jābir b. Zayd, came from there.4 Sālim b. Dhakwān may have composed his Sīra there,5 and there may well have been some Ibāḍites among the Azdites who followed Yazīd b. Muhallab to Iran. At the time of Abū ʿUbayda al-Tamīmī a generation later the contacts with Basra are clearly visible.6 The link was a certain Hilāl b. ʿAṭiyya alKhurāsānī, one of the ḥamalat al-ʿilm.7 The third point of reference in this network was Oman where Hilāl fell in a battle against the Abbasid general Khāzim b. Khuzayma when the latter (who also came from Khorasan) put an end to the rule of the “imam” Julandā b. Masʿūd in 134/752.8 Fragments of his Sīra were quoted in texts composed in that region.9 His brother Shabīb b. ʿAṭiyya bore the nisba al-ʿUmānī10 as he was actively involved in local politics.11 When Abū l-Muʾarrij fell out with Abū ʿUbayda during the latter’s later years, he seems to have moved to Persia.12 The same thing happened when the jurists’ quarrel intensified under Rabīʿ b. Ḥabīb; Ḥātim b. Manṣūr, one of his opponents, bore the nisba al-Khurāsānī.13 However, Rabīʿ also had followers in Khorasan: 1  Concerning the following cf. also Madelung, Religious Trends 74ff. 2  Kitāb Ibn Sallām 114, 11. 3  Apparently concerning the issue of qadar (cf. Schwartz, Anfänge der Ibāḍiten 52), but it will be necessary to establish whether this did not in fact refer to the town of Harāt in Fars (cf. Krawulsky, Iran 180). In this place, on the border with Kerman, Malaṭī located a Khārijite community apparently made up out of Ibāḍites who turned to the Muʿtazila during his lifetime, at the beginning of the second half of the fourth century (Tanbīh 43, 6ff./53, ult. ff.; transl. in Madelung 76). 4  Khamīs b. Saʿīd, Manhaj al-ṭālibīn I 627, apu. f. 5  See vol.  I 199 above. The text contains a heresiographical overview in which the Azraqites, who were well-known in Iran at the time, play an important part (Cook, Dogma 89ff.). 6  Shammākhī, Siyar 87, –5ff.; 116, 13ff. 7  Ibid. 119, 10. This does not necessarily imply that he was the first missionary in Iraq, as Lewicki states in EI2 III 653a. 8  Kashf al-ghumma, ed. ʿUbaydilī 250, 5ff. and earlier. 9  Nazwānī, Ihtidāʾ 51, –5ff. 10  Khamīs b. Saʿīd 620, 13. 11   Kashf al-ghumma 249, n. 2; cf. vol. I 476 above. 12  See p. 240 above. 13  Regarding him cf. Ibn Khalfūn, Ajwiba 111; Rebstock, Ibāḍiten im Maġrib 179 and 181.

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a certain Hāshim b. ʿAbdallāh came to Basra in order to study under him, and was consequently praised for his piousness.14 Abū Yazīd al-Khwārizmī’s name shows how far Ibāḍite scholarship had spread by that time. He, too, was a jurist, an expert in homicide (dimāʾ), and is named in the same breath as ʿAbd alRaḥmān b. Rustam, who ruled in the Maghreb between 160/777 and 168/784.15 The fact that the dynasty of Tāhart came from Persia explains why even after the death of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān’s successor ʿAbd al-Wahhāb (168/784–208/823) a certain Abū ʿĪsā Ibrāhīm b. Ismāʿīl al-Khurāsānī commanded sufficient authority to compose a letter voicing an opinion on the schism of Khalaf b. al-Samḥ and the Rustamid hegemony in Jabal Nafūsa and Tripolitania.16 At this time, after the decline of the Basran community, Khorasan was probably the intellectual centre of the Ibāḍiyya. Abū ʿĪsā maintained the connection to Oman and Abū Sufyān Maḥbūb b. al-Raḥīl.17 Other jurists such as Abū Saʿīd ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz18 or Abū Ghassān Makhlad b. al-ʿAmarrad also appear in the sources.19 Most importantly, it was in Khorasan that a collection of legal scholarship was composed in which a synthesis of the competing opinions of all these authorities was achieved, Abū Ghānim Bishr b. Ghānim al-Khurāsānī’s Mudawwana. Sadly, after this climax, the curtain closes. The work survived only because the author went travelling in the Maghreb and left his book behind there. Precisely how it was transmitted remains to be examined. The Maghrebin Ibāḍiyya had no tradition of legal scholarship of its own, which is why the work is studied there to this day. On the other hand, people had to resign themselves to the fact that there were some “dissidents” among the authorities quoted by Abū Ghānim; people who were seen as belonging among the Nukkār: Abū l-Muʾarrij for instance, or ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAbd alʿAzīz.20 Later it would be said that Abū Ghānim presented his work to the 14   Kitāb Ibn Sallām 115, 3f.; also ZDMG 126/1976/35, n. 26, and Madelung, Religious Trends 74. 15  Ibid. 114, 8ff.; Darjīnī, Ṭab. II 258, 10ff.; regarding him also Ennami in: Ibn Khalfūn, Ajwiba 112, and Schwartz, Anfänge der Ibāḍiten 169, n. 2. 16  The text is included in Kitāb Ibn Sallām (p. 135ff.); cf. also Schwartz 262, n. 2. Regarding the situation cf. Rebstock 239ff. and Schwartz 267f.; regarding Khalaf b. al-Samḥ see p. 230 above. 17   Kitāb Ibn Sallām 138, 8f.; regarding him see p. 232 above. 18  Regarding him cf. Madelung 74, n. 99, and p. 239 above. 19  Thus in Kitāb Ibn Sallām 115, 4; incorrect in Schwartz 60 and my article ZDMG 126/1976/41. Cf. also the names in Khamīs b. Saʿīd, Manhaj I 620, 13f. 20  Regarding them see p. 239ff. above.

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imam ʿAbd al-Wahhāb and that it was preserved in the library in Tāhart. This is surprising in that ʿAbd al-Wahhāb was the one who had been forced to deal with the dissidents around Ibn Fandīn.21 Furthermore our earliest source, the Kitāb Ibn Sallām, does not name the work or the author, despite quoting at length Abū ʿĪsā’s letter which arrived in Tāhart after ʿAbd al-Wahhāb’s death. It was known in any case that the extant manuscripts were not based on the archetype in Tāhart but on a copy in the possession of ʿAmrūs b. Fatḥ, a scholar from Jabal Nafūsa. The copy in the imam’s library, it was said, was destroyed by fire when Tāhart was captured by Abū ʿAbdallāh al-Shīʿī in 296/908. ʿAmrūs, however, had been permitted to copy the book when Abū Ghānim was his guest on his way to the imam. This story presents chronological difficulties as ʿAmrūs died in 283/896 at the battle of Mānū against the Aghlabids, 75 years after the imam’s death.22 It is clearly an attempt at keeping the ʿAbd al-Wahhāb tradition alive while retaining the direct ijāza to ʿAmrūs.23 In an inconspicuous place, in the commentary on Wisyānī’s Siyar,24 the web of legend was indeed torn: Abū Ghānim had not been in Jabal Nafūsa for some time when ʿAmrūs obtained the MS. Where, though, could he have found it if Abū Ghānim was indeed travelling on to visit the imam? It is more probable that Abū Ghānim did not come to the Maghreb until much later, around the middle of the third century, and met ʿAmrūs, who was qāḍī at the time and a much-respected man in Jabal Nafūsa. In that case it would not have been remarkable for him to quote the Ḥanafite jurist and Jahmite Bishr al-Marīsī, who died in 218/833, in his book. The Mudawwana is in circulation in two versions nowadays, a Mudawwana al-kubrā and a Mudawwana al-ṣughrā. Both texts were printed in Oman in 1984;25 the more extensive version being available in a manuscript facsimile as well.26 A detailed study of the subject matter and the connections between the texts is still outstanding. The Mudawwana al-kubrā was given its present form by Yūsuf Aṭfiyāsh (d. 1332/1914); it is the result of a tartīb. Even so, the arrangement of the two versions is essentially the same; their length, too, is 21  See p. 229 and 242 above. 22  Rebstock, Ibāḍiten 181. 23  Lewicki also assumes this ijāza (EI2 I 120b. s. n. Abū G̲ h̲ānim). 24   M S Smogorzewski, Cracow no. 227, p. 3. 25  At the request of the Wizārat al-turāth al-qawmī wal-thaqāfī; 1404/1984 in two volumes each. 26  Beirut  1974.

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more similar than one might expect. The Mudawwana al-ṣughrā seems more genuine; local scholars were the first to assume that it represents the material before its rearrangement by Shaykh Aṭfiyāsh.27 Later additions cannot blur the impression that Bishr b. Ghānim relied mainly on Abū l-Muʾarrij, and also seems to have interviewed Rabīʿ b. Ḥabīb in person. Additions by the redactor are marked with qāla l-murattib in the Mudawwana al-kubrā. The uneven distribution of the author’s interest in the various topics is noticeable: the chapter on prayer is very long,28 there is less information on the zakāt, and only ten lines are devoted to the hajj.29 It may be that the name of the work does not go back to Bishr at all; Wisyānī mentions a Dīwān known as Ghānimiyyāt.30 Considering its varied history, it is not necessarily the case that the text faithfully reflects Iranian circumstances of the time. We can assume that the community in Khorasan differed from its Basran and Maghrebin brothers in several ways. In Khorasan and Ḥaḍramawt the Ibāḍites considered nabīdh to be permitted, but not in Oman. Taken together with Jābir b. Zayd’s abovementioned view that inebriation alone was prohibited, we are approaching the issue as reconstructed in the context of the Bayhasiyya above.31 While Ḥanafī should not be believed when he says that the Ibāḍites permitted marrying one’s mother or one’s sister,32 we have already seen that the Khārijites devoted much thought to the Quranic verse that listed the prohibited degrees of kinship.

27  Thus the Omani scholar Muḥammad b. ʿAbdallāh al-Sālimī (cf. Schacht in: Revue Africaine 100/1956/381) as quoted in the foreword on the Beirut facsimile. Of course it is possible that not all the manuscripts of Mudawwana al-ṣughrā contain identical text; the printed version does not disclose the manuscript background. 28  In the Mudawwana al-kubrā, together with deliberations on ṭahāra pp. 7–241, the legal material being supplemented by an extensive paraenetic section (p. 217ff.). 29  Vol.  I 346. 30  P. 2, 9f. We should also consider the Berber version (cf. Schacht, loc. cit., n. 8, esp. Actes XVI. Congrès International Alger 1905, 4e section, p. 68ff.). For a more detailed overview cf. my deliberations in: ZDMG 126/1976/38ff., and Wilkinson in: Der Islam 62/1985/248ff.; also Ennami, Studies in Ibāḍism 155ff.; and GAS 1/586. 31  Cf. Wilkinson, Imamate Tradition 203. 32   Firaq muftariqa 15, 2.

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3.1.4.2 Nishapur Nishapur’s importance compared to the border cities Marv and Balkh increased only under the Ṭāhirids; it became the seat of the government. Previously, the sources simply spoke of the Abarshahr region.1 While Abū Muslim had a Friday mosque and a dār al-imāra built there, the public buildings that would continue to play a part later were built by the Ṣaffārid ʿAmr b. Layth (265/879–299/901).2 Consequently it is not surprising that we know little about intellectual circumstances in the city until the beginning of the third century. Once again the sources about the Abbasid revolution provide the oldest reports. There were numerous Shīʿites among the Tamīm who had settled in the city, having thrown their lot in with Muḥammad al-Bāqir after Abū Hāshim’s death. One of them was apparently Khidāsh who had acted in Khorasan on behalf of the Banū Hāshim since around 111/729 and thus got in the way of the Abbasid daʿwa. Political circumstances led to a temporary rapprochement, but then Abū Muslim made a clean sweep in the last few years before the revolution; he ran the leader of the Nishapur group, a certain Abū Khālid al-Jawālīqī, out of town and later, when he caught him again, boiled him to death in a cauldron.3 Of course he had not eliminated the Shīʿites per se. Those who were known as the Khālidiyya, after Abū Khālid, during his time, reappeared as the Fāṭimiyya shortly afterwards under al-Manṣūr. They still did not believe that someone who was not descended from Fāṭima, like the Abbasids, had a right to become caliph. They also continued to adhere to the rather wild ideas that had been characteristic of Muḥammad al-Bāqir’s time. They claimed that the prophet had been omniscient, and that the imams following him were granted a revelation as well. Faḍl b. Shādhān (d. 260/874) was the first to counter this with a more rationalist theology in the region.4 Now it seems as though the same people, seen from a different perspective, fitted into the general consensus once more, for the group named Khālidiyya by Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī was in fact Murjiʾite.5 They believed in what we have encountered previously as Murjiʾite ideas, described by Abū l-Ṣalt al-Harawī, ʿAlī al-Riḍā’s confidant who 1  See p. 663 above; cf. Barthold, Historical Geography 95ff. 2  Cf. Bosworth, Ghaznavids 147 and 157f.; also Lapidus in: Islamic Middle East, ed. Udovitch, p. 199f. 3  Akhbār al-ʿAbbās 204, 10ff., and 403, 8ff.; also Sharon, Black Banners 148, 158, 162f., 169ff., and 183, n. 89, as well as EI2 V 1ff. s. v. K̲ h̲idās̲h̲. 4  Kashshī 539, ult. ff.; Hishām b. al-Ḥakam’s pupil Yūnus b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, who was greatly respected in Nishapur (see vol. I 455 above), probably still agreed with them on most points. 5  Iʿtiqādāt firaq al-muslimīn 71, 2ff.

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lived in Nishapur,6 as follows: “Their (i.e. the Khorasanians’) irjā’ is not the heinous doctrine that faith is only a profession without action, and that faith will not be harmed if one does not act, but their irjā’ consists in hoping for forgiveness for grave sinners; unlike the Khārijites and others who declare humans unbelievers because of (their) sins.”7 Abū l-Ṣalt, although a Shīʿite, appears to have been a Murjiʾite in this respect.8 The ʿAlids living in the city do not seem to have excited any notice. Some of them moved to the Bayhaq district and the city of Sabzawār in due course, where the Shīʿite dynasty of the Sarbadārs would rely on them later.9 Of course the Nishapur Murjiʾites had their own views in other matters. Most of them were Ḥanafites; Faḍl b. Shādhān discussed them in great detail in his K. al-īḍāḥ. In the second century, however, it becomes difficult to draw a clear boundary between them and the Shīʿa as well as the Jahmiyya. The existence of Jahmites in Nishapur is confirmed by Ibrāhīm b. Ṭahmān debating with them there. Still, while the “heinous doctrine” mentioned by Abū l-Ṣalt would have been theirs, it was not their concept of faith that provoked Ibn Ṭahmān to contradict them, but their image of God.10 Once again we are faced with the danger of falling for a label that could be exchanged at will. Ibrāhīm b. Ṭahmān came from out of town, from Herat. It is possible that the attack was in fact directed at Abū Muʿādh Bukayr b. Maʿrūf al-Dāmghānī al-Asadī who died in 163/779, the same year as Ibrāhīm b. Ṭahmān, and whose name appears in the sources as the first qāḍī of the city. He was a Murjiʾite,11 had met Ibrāhīm al-Ṣāʾigh,12 and transmitted a hadith according to which the “strongest ties of faith” were the solidarity in God (al-walāya fī llāh), the love in God and the hatred in God (against non-Muslims?).13 He had heard this 6  Regarding him see ch. C 2.2 below. 7  TB VI 109, 3ff. 8  Regarding another case of this kind see p. 713 below. 9  Cf. Krawulsky in: Festschrift ʿAbbās 293ff. 10  See p. 638 above. 11  Thus according to Ibn Ḥibbān, Majrūḥīn I 194, 11ff. s. n. Bukayr al-Dāmghānī; also TT II 404, –5. Ibn Ḥibbān found it difficult to identify the name, suggesting Bukayr b. Mismār, but as the only one to do so (cf. Mīzān no. 1310–11). Regarding Bukayr b. Maʿrūf cf. Bukhārī I2 117 no. 1886; ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ I 152f. no. 192; Khalīfa-i Naysābūrī, Talkhīṣ 15, 15; Samʿānī, Ansāb V 291, pu. ff.; Ṣafadī, Wāfī X 272 no. 4769; Halm, Ausbreitung 67; Juynboll, Tradition 231. 12   T D X 259, 15; regarding him see p. 616 above. 13   T D X 260, 6f.; also Mīzān no. 1311.

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from Muqātil b. Ḥayyān, together with his Tafsīr,14 and as he seems to have adopted his position most faithfully, he would later become the scapegoat for his teacher’s extravagant ideas.15 His transcendentalism may have been part of this, as it was well-known that he transmitted an exegesis of sura 58:7 from Ḍaḥḥāk b. Muzāḥim via Muqātil, according to which God is only close to humans because he knows everything about them. Afterwards, however, he is described as sitting on the throne: with this, Ibn Ṭahmān would have agreed.16 We know that Bukayr did not keep the position until the end of his life as he died in Damascus, where the Murjiʾite Marwān b. Muʿāwiya al-Ṭāṭārī studied under him. Samʿānī V 291 ult.; regarding the latter see vol. I 160f. above. Regarding Bukayr’s Syrian period cf. the biography in TD X 259ff. Later authors like Dāwūdī regarding him as a Quranic commentator (Ṭab. I 120 no. 114) probably meant no more than that he passed on Muqātil’s material (including juristic exegeses like the one in Shāfiʿī, Umm VI 7, 20ff.). As the nisba suggests, he presumably came from Dāmghān, which is why Kardarī called him the imam of the Qūmis region. His son would be a judge there, too (Manāqib Abī Ḥanīfa, 2Beirut 1401/1981, p. 510, 11). The tradition of Muqātil b. Ḥayyān was also continued by Abū Ghiyāth Aṣram b. Ghiyāth al-Naysābūrī. The mosque where he taught in Nishapur was shown to visitors to the city,17 but he, too, did not stay in the city all his life, as we mainly know of him in Baghdad where he offered for sale the hadiths he had heard from Muqātil.18 There may well have been a genuine crisis, but even then the influence of Balkh continued. Towards the end of the century ʿAbdallāh b. ʿUmar b. Maymūn alRammāḥ, whose father we discussed with the Murjiʾites of Balkh,19 succeeded to the position of judge. He died in Nishapur, probably in 197/813.20 The qāḍī 14  Thaʿlabī, Kashf, Intro. 38, 6f. 15  See p. 580 above. 16  Abū Dāwūd, Masāʾil al-Imām Aḥmad 263, 1ff.; Ibn Taymiyya, Sharḥ ḥadīth al-nuzūl 122, 9ff. 17  Khalīfa-i Naysābūrī, Talkhīṣ 15, 13f. 18   T B VII 32f. no. 3496; Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 242 no. 1530; Bukhārī I2 no. 1670; ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ I 118 no. 141; Mīzān no. 1018. Ibn Ḥibbān, Majrūḥīn I 183, 9ff., called him a Murjiʾite. 19  See p. 610f. above. Regarding the son cf. Halm 67. 20   Fażāʾil-i Balkh 162, 4ff., where the date of his death must be corrected in accordance with the note. The chronology remains a problem with regard to the subsequent story (162, 7ff.).

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Abū ʿUmar21 Ḥafṣ b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. ʿUmar b. Farrūkh al-Balkhī, d. Dhū l-Qaʿda 199/June–July 815,22 appears to have been from a Balkh family as well, although his father had already been a judge in Nishapur.23 They were both Ḥanafites, the school having settled in Nishapur in the time since Bukayr b. Maʿrūf had left.24 To begin with, the links to Kufa that developed as a consequence were mainly private ones. In his youth Ḥafṣ had been Abū Ḥanīfa’s business partner (sharīk),25 which tells us that he, and probably his father before him, was a cloth merchant. After some time he retired from the position as judge and devoted himself to spiritual exercises.26 After all, Nishapur was an outpost for a qāḍī in those days. With the city’s rise under the Ṭāhirids, circumstances changed, and it went from being a mere offshoot of Balkh to becoming a much-desired and rewarding post. It was not until a few generations later, in 316/928, that a Shāfiʿite would be able to assert himself against the Ḥanafite ascendancy.27 The “Sunnite” reaction, on the other hand, which ultimately profited the Shāfiʿite emphasis on hadith, began considerably earlier. ʿAbdallāh b. Ṭāhir (r. 213/828–230/845) had taken the first steps, although the development did not procced quite as he had imagined it. He called Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥusayn al-Faḍl b. ʿUmayr b. Qāsim b. Kaysān al-Bajalī, a renowned Quranic commentator, to his court.28 He came from Kufa; ʿAbdallāh b. Ṭāhir had probably met him in Iraq. He arrived in Nishapur with his sponsor in 217/832 and died there in 282/895, allegedly at the age of 104. Despite this long, active life he left no lasting impression. Baghdādī, who was familiar with

21   I S VII2 104, 10, has Abū ʿAmr, but considering that the grandfather’s name was ʿUmar, this is probably a mistake. 22  Date found only in Ibn Ḥajar, TT II 404, 12. 23   I AW I 221 no. 553. 24  Cf. the qāḍī list in Bulliet, Patricians 256ff., and Halm, Ausbreitung 67ff. 25  See vol.  I 214 above. 26   Mīzān no. 2126. TT II 404, –4 confirms him as a Murjiʾite (after Ibn Ḥibbān); also 405, 3ff. 27  Halm, Ausbreitung 46. 28  Ibn Ḥajar, Lisān al-Mīzān II 307f. no. 1265 (in part after Ḥākim al-Naysābūrī); Baghdādī, Uṣūl al-dīn 309, 10ff.; Arazi in: Festschrift Baneth 208ff.; also Dhahabī, Siyar XIII 414ff.; Dāwūdī, Ṭabaqāt al-mufassirīn I 156 no. 152 = Suyūṭī, Ṭabaqāt al-mufassirīn 12 no. 33; Samʿānī, Ansāb II 92, 2f.; Ibn al-ʿImād, Shadharāt al-dhahab II 178, –8ff. Talkhīṣ Ta‌ʾrīkh Naysābūr only mentions the name in passing, misspelling it (151, 5f.).

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Nishapur,29 mentioned him a few times,30 but apart from this, his teachings were ignored. He was a mutakallim as well, and although he was on the side of the ahl al-ḥadīth like his contemporary Ibn Kullāb,31 he was too early to be appreciated in Khorasan. Greater success was the reward of a traditionist who, while he was most welcome at court as well, had a closer connection to the people at the same time: Abū Yūsuf Isḥāq b. Ibrāhīm al-Tamīmī al-Ḥanẓalī, known as Ibn Rāhōya, 161/778–238/853, Bukhārī’s teacher.32 He came from Marv, and was probably more popular among the people because he spoke Persian. While he was presumably an Arab like al-Bajalī, he was not imported. He had acquired his knowledge on extensive travels; in his youth he had attended the lectures of ʿAbdallāh b. al-Mubārak. His work in Nishapur was in the latter’s tradition.33 While Bajalī had not got involved in legal matters,34 Ibn Rāhōya used prophetic tradition as a weapon against the Ḥanafites.35 However, people did not believe in the ḥadīth al-nuzūl he transmitted; one of Ibn Ṭāhir’s generals could simply not imagine that God would go to the effort of stepping down to the lowest of the heavens every day, and the prince himself thought that sura 89:22, which Ibn Rāhōya adduced in support, really only referred to the Last Judgment.36 One generation later Muslim b. al-Ḥajjāj wrote his Ṣaḥīḥ in the city;37 Ibn Rāhōya had been the one to advise Bukhārī to do the same.

29  See p. 657 above. 30   Uṣūl al-dīn 166, 5f.; 249, 1; 193, 11f.; 195, 8; 306, 10f. 31  Cf. also Baghdādī, Uṣūl 254, 16ff.; Oriens 18–19/1965–66/101. He had studied under ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Kinānī who was believed to have conducted a famous debate with Bishr al-Marīsī (cf. Baghdādī, Uṣūl 309, 10f.; Mīzān no. 5139; Subkī, Ṭabaqāt al-Shāfiʿiyya II 144, 9); regarding him see ch. 3.3.6 below. 32  Regarding him cf. Schacht in EI2 III 902 s. v. Ibn Rāhwayh; GAS 1/109f. His Musnad was the subject of a Cambridge dissertation. 33  See p. 518ff. above. 34  Legal Ṭabaqāt works do not mention him at all. 35   T B VI 353, 13ff. 36  Ibn Taymiyya, Sharḥ ḥadīth al-nuzūl 42, –4ff., and 43, apu. ff. (after Ibn Baṭṭa); Dhahabī, ʿUlūw 225, 7ff.; variants in Bayhaqī, Al-asmāʾ wal-ṣifāt 567, –8ff. Regarding the wording and the distribution of the hadith cf. Graham, Divine Word 177f. 37  Regarding him see GAS 1/136ff.

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Ibn Rāhōya’s descendants worked in an office in Nishapur together with Abū Dāwūd’s son.38 The latter was rather young at the time, but had already been Muḥammad b. Aslam al-Ṭūsī’s (d. 242/856), a traditionist and ascetic who had written against the Murjiʾa,39 clerk before the age of ten.40 Polemic did not pay any attention to the distinction made quite recently by Abū l-Ṣalt alHarawī; Muḥammad b. Aslam tied Murjiʾites and Jahmites to the same yoke.41 We can tell that Ibn Rāhōya trained with Ibn al-Mubārak; the ṭalab al-ʿilm had opened his eyes, as well as those of the others mentioned earlier, to the fact that ideas that found broad approval in Khorasan could still appear provincial and sectarian when seen from the outside. The only native trend that grew within these circles was anthropomorphism. All of Ibn Rāhōya’s followers were said to have been agreed on this.42 The best confirmation is Ibn Khuzayma’s (223/838–311/924) K. al-tawḥīd wa-ithbāt ṣifāt al-Rabb, where the arguments are primarily based not on the Quran but on hadith. Ibn Khuzayma had met Ibn Rāhōya in his youth.43 The old connection between anthropomorphism and the Murjiʾite concept of faith lived on among the Sufis. Aḥmad b. Ḥarb (d. 234/848–49) was a Murjiʾite;44 he was believed to have moved to Nishapur from Marv.45 His pupil Muḥammad b. Karrām (d. 255/86946) gave a new dynamic to this idea. Draped in a garment of unsewn sheep’s leather he wandered through the rural districts of Khorasan and the regions of Ghūr and Gharchistān that had so far been only faintly touched by Islam. He was not interested in the traditionist movement that mainly relied on merchants; he preached to the common people. When he returned to Nishapur he did not take off his penitent’s robes; wearing a white qalansuwa on his head he sat in a brick stall (dukkān) on an animal skin like a Sufi, giving people spiritual advice.47 Unsurprisingly the authorities arrested

38  ʿAbdallāh b. Abī Dāwūd al-Sijistānī, d. 316/929; regarding him see GAS 1/174f. 39  Abū Nuʿaym, Ḥilya IX 245, 17ff., and 248, 10. 40  Yāqūt, Muʿjam al-buldān III 192a, 7ff. 41  Ibid. 247, ult. ff.; cf. also Dhahabī, ʿUlūw 240, pu. ff. Regarding him cf. in general the detailed biography in Dhahabī, Siyar XII 195ff., and Reinert, Tawakkul 314. 42  Ibn al-Dāʿī, Tabṣira 107, 8f. 43  Regarding him see GAS 1/601. 44   T B IV 119, 11; Mīzān no. 329. 45   T B IV 118, 9. 46  Regarding the dependency see my Ungenützte Texte 32; also Mīzān loc. cit. 47  Subkī, Ṭabaqāt al-Shāfiʿiyya II 304, –6ff. after Ḥākim al-Naysābūrī’s Ta‌ʾrīkh Naysābūr.

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him; Ibn Khuzayma is said to have visited him in prison occasionally.48 When he was freed after around eight years in 251/865, he went to Jerusalem, where he died later.49 The first Sunni refutation was composed by his younger contemporary Muḥammad b. al-Yamān from Samarqand;50 criticism in Nishapur, possibly while he was still alive, came from the Imamite Faḍl b. Shādhān.51 He imagined God as a body of light of “one essence and one substance”, sitting on the throne which is his boundary, and weighing it down with his weight.52 He probably wrote on this in his K. al-tawḥīd; unlike Ibn Khuzayma’s work of the same name, this contained not so much hadith as theology and Quranic exegesis, like the Shīʿite texts before it.53 Ibn Karrām restricted the act of faith solely to the profession of faith;54 all humans are believers by virtue of the original covenant they have made with God.55 His intention may have been to deflate the argument of the rich and learned people of Nishapur that his plebeian followers were not true Muslims. Interestingly, criticism also came from the common people among the urban population. A certain Abū l-Ḥasan Sālim b. Ḥasan al-Bārūsī disliked the Karrāmites’ ostentatious piousness and the ragged clothes and found many like-minded people among the craftsmen. They probably regarded the Sufis as mere idlers; Ibn Karrām having permitted paid employment only as an exception and in special cases (rukhṣa).56 As a result the ideal of hiding one’s piousness and pretending to be as normal as possible emerged. Bārūsī’s pupil Ḥamdūn al-Qaṣṣār (d. 271/884–5), a fuller by trade, spread it successfully, turning it into a new ascetic trend. This would later become the Malāmatiyya. 48  Ibid. II 304, –4f. This may be part of a later, harmonising legend. 49  Ibid. 304, 13ff., which tells us that according to another tradition his body was taken there from Palestine. It is difficult to suppress the association that Karaites, too, had gathered in Jerusalem in large numbers in order to repent and await the Messiah (Goitein, Mediterranean Society V 461f.). Regarding the biography cf. Bosworth in: EI2 IV 667 s. v. Karrāmiyya; also Ungenützte Texte 20f. 50  Regarding him see p. 633 above. 51   Ungenützte Texte 75. 52  Ibid. 21 and 26. The heresiographical account by Ḥākim al-Jushamī translated there is now also accessible in his Risālat Iblīs 132, 8ff. Also Zysow in: JAOS 108/1988/577ff. 53  Ibid. 12; cf. also vol. I 408f., 425 and 452 above. Ibn Taymiyya emphasised that the Karrāmites – like their opponents – used sura 112 as an argument (Tafsīr sūrat al-ikhlāṣ 56, –7ff.). 54  Ashʿarī, Maq. 141, 5ff.; Ibn Ḥazm, Fiṣal III 188, –9ff., and IV 204, 13ff. 55  Baghdādī, Farq 211, –4ff./223, 11ff.; cf. also Madelung, Religious Trends 40. Consequently actions do not require a specific intention (Zysow, loc. cit. 581). 56  Ibn Samāʿa, Iktisāb 24, ult. ff.; also Madelung 43.

Iran

Cf. the article Malāmatiyya in EI2 VI 223ff. Regarding the situation in Nishapur in general cf. Massignon, Passion 2I 214ff./I 170ff. and, for the later period, Bulliet, Patricians 29ff. Regarding the local Muʿtazila see ch. C 7.5 below. On the theological development of the Karrāmiyya see my Ungenützte Texte 30f. and 66ff. Interestingly, even a century and a half later some people believed to have spotted Karrāmites even in Tunisia among the common people; in his K. al-minād Muḥammad b. Muslim al-Māzarī (d. 530/1135) mentioned a water-carrier in Qayrawān who asked the muftī if God was in his water vessel (cf. Idris in: Cahiers de Tunisie 1/1953/155ff.; regarding the author see Pellat in: EI2 VI 943). Of course, this may simply be a scholarly identification.

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686 3.2

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Central and Southern Iran

In the east the Umayyads had replaced the Sasanids as the guardians against central Asia; while in the Iranian heartlands they took over the government only. Here, the Muslims did not do any militant missionary work: there was no reason for it with the Nestorian Christians and the Jews, many of whom lived in Khuzestan and Fars;1 and except for rare persecutions, the Zoroastrians were largely left in peace, too.2 Fars, homeland of the Achaemenids as well as the Sasanids, would have a large Zoroastrian population for a long time to come; and it was not until the mid-third century that the Zaydites began to convert the Caspian regions Daylam and Ṭabaristān to Islam.3 Cities like Isfahan and Rayy did not step into the limelight before Nishapur; even centres of scholarship like Gondēshāpūr, where the Arabs learnt much, were barely mentioned by the historians.4 The administrative centre of the region was in Iraq, where the capital had been during the Sasanid period, with independent governors only in the east or in Armenia. Southern and central Iran became a refuge for the internal Islamic opposition, a power-political vacuum attracting many of those who had failed in Iraq. The country’s mountainous topography and the great desert in the middle supported this development, resulting in the impression – surely too generalised – that until the middle of the second century one rebellious movement followed anther, and that there was no sign of a linear growth of an Islamic identity.

1  Regarding the Jews in the Parthian and Sasanid eras cf. Neusner in CHI III 909ff. (but with emphasis on Babylonia); regarding the Christians Asmussen ibid. 924ff. For the Jewish population in the Islamic era cf. EI2 IV 308ff. s. v. Judaeo-Persian. Centres were Hamadan and Isfahan; regarding local dialects cf. R. Abrahamian, Dialectes des Israélites de Hamadan et d’Ispahan et dialecte de Baba Tahir (Paris 1936). 2  Cf. EI2 V 1110ff. s. v. Mad̲ j̲ūs. 3  Cf. the collection of sources in Madelung, Arabic Texts concerning the History of the Zaydī Imāms of Ṭabaristān, Daylamān and Gīlān (Beirut 1987). 4  Regarding Gondēshāpūr cf. A Sayılı in EI2 III 1119f. s. v., and Krawulsky, Iran 340f. (including the older sources); also Schwaigert in: Vorträge XX. DOT Erlangen 185ff. Heinz Herbert Schöffler’s study Die Akademie von Gondischapur (Stuttgart 1979) is based exclusively on secondary sources and discusses the subject in a rather haphazard fashion. M. W. Dols’ sceptical approach The Origins of the Islamic Hospital, Myth and Reality in: Bull. Hist. Med. 61/1987/367ff. may provide more relevant information.

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Regarding the geopolitical situation in Iran in the pre-Islamic and Islamic periods cf. E. Ehlers, Iran 128ff. Regarding cultural and intellectual history cf. Spuler, Iran in frühislamischer Zeit 133ff.; concerning the early period also Sadighi, Mouvements religieux 16ff. and passim. The Ismailiyya was governed from Ahwāz during its early phase after the mid-third century (Madelung in ER XIII 248). 3.2.1 The Khārijites The first ones to make use of these advantages were the Khārijites. They looked for support from the indigenous population and were not scrupulous when choosing. One of the earliest muḥakkima, al-Khirrīt b. Rāshid, who appeared in Fars in 38/658, convinced local Christians – who had converted to Islam and then renounced it again during the civil war – to fight against ʿAlī.1 In the mountains around Rāmhurmuz he gathered Kurds around him, socially disadvantaged people who were already disappointed in the new government.2 Later the Azraqites followed similar lines. Qaṭarī b. al-Fujāʾa, whom they appointed their “caliph”, appears to have been called by the population to help during an attack on Rayy;3 we are told of converted Zoroastrians joining him.4 His Arab elite troops had fled to the Iranian uplands after being defeated in Iraq in 68/687; once appointed their leader he rearmed them in the inaccessible regions of Kerman and then spread fear among the Muslim settlers and the armies sent against him. His poems were admired,5 but the istiʿrāḍ, the test of faith, caused dismay; a Muslim who did not profess Khārijism would be treated like an unbeliever. The consequences affected families as well: women and children were killed or sold into slavery. This was what was reported in Iraq;6 reality was rather more complex. Qaṭarī wrote a poem assuring a former Khārijite who had got involved with Ḥajjāj that he regarded him as a sinner, and asking him to repent and re-join his forces until he was granted a martyr’s death.7 Non-Muslims were spared altogether; while Jews, Christians and 1  Ṭabarī I 3434, 7ff.; also Morony, Iraq 443, and Djaït, La grande discorde 329ff. 2  Morony  265. 3  Wellhausen, Oppositionsparteien 36, n. 2. 4  Mubarrad, Kāmil 1108, 10. General information in Morony, Iraq 474f. 5  Regarding poetry cf. Gabrieli in: REI 41/1973/40ff.; regarding the fragments cf. Gabrieli’s collection in RSO 20/1943/352ff. as well as I. ʿAbbās, Shiʿr al-Khawārij, no. 80ff. 6  Jāḥiẓ, Bayān III 264, 4f. etc.; general information in EI2 IV 269 s. v. Istiʿrāḍ. Regarding the arguments for it see vol. I 9 and 21 above. 7  Shiʿr al-Khawārij, no. 90 v. 9; cf. Gabrieli’s translation in: REI 41/1973/46f.

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Zoroastrians were, of course, unbelievers, they did not know better.8 It seems that the Iranian mawālī formed their own unit under him. When they left him around 77/696, the reason combined personal injury and religious motivation in characteristic fashion: Qaṭarī was said to have told them that until recently they had been merely unbelievers, and then refused to take back the insult, or “to repent”, as they put it.9 The schism accelerated their downfall. Two years later they were dispersed completely; Qaṭarī having fallen earlier. Regarding him cf. EI2 IV 752f. Basic information in Wellhausen, Oppositionsparteien 36ff. and earlier; concerning events leading up to these Rotter, Zweiter Bürgerkrieg 80ff. Also EI2 IV 1075b. s. v. K̲ h̲ārijites, and V 157 s. v. Kirmān; Bosworth, Sīstān, Index s. v. Azraqites; Dixon, Caliphate 176ff.; Składanek, Doktryny 130ff. The caliph’s title amīr almuʾminīn was struck onto his coins (Walker, Arabo-Sassanian Coins lxi and 112ff.). The locations which became particularly important in the Khārijite wars are listed in P. Schwarz’s work on Iran (cf. the Index s. v. Ḫāriǧiten). Military success may have been due not only to support from the population but also to the fact that the Azraqites were the first to use iron stirrups (Jāḥiẓ, Bayān III 23, 6f.); an invention that was probably an Iranian achievement (cf. Lynn White, jr., Medieval Technology and Social Change 14ff. and 142; Cahen in: V. J. Parry/M. E. Yapp, War Technology and Society in the Middle East 114). 3.2.1.1 Yazīd b. Unaysa and the uprising of Abū ʿĪsā al-Iṣfahānī The Iranian Khārijites probably understood even then that the Azraqites’ radicalism had led them to their doom. One of their number, a certain Yazīd b. Unaysa, who had lived in Basra and later settled in Gūr, the future Fīrūzābād in Fars, advised prudence. While he proposed solidarity with the early muḥakkima, he rejected “those who came after”, i.e. Nāfiʿ b. Azraq and his followers; he saw them as “innovators”. He may have supported them initially, for he believed that once the community had been dispersed one should not continue to fight individually. Consequently he was counted among the Ibāḍites later; maybe 8  Ibn Ḥazm, Fiṣal IV 189, –6f. Cf. Ṭabarī I 3423, 9f., and Mubarrad, Kāmil 946, 1ff.; also Tritton, Muslim Theology 37f.; Salem, Political Theory 66; Morony, Iraq 473. 9  Ashʿarī, Maq. 87, 12ff.; slightly different in Mubarrad, Kāmil 1150, 10ff.; cf. Bosworth, Sīstān 39.

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he grew up among the Azd in Basra. It is not likely, however, that he would have had much to do with them elsewhere; most of them regarded his teachings with scepticism and rejection.1 His name does not appear in any Ibāḍite source.2 Of course there was some cause for scepticism and rejection, as he believed that God would send a further prophet after Muḥammad, one who would appear among the Persians and reveal a new scripture, a heavenly book like the Quran which would be revealed not in pieces but as a whole, in one go. The religion to come into the world in this way would be that of the Ṣābians, of whom the Quran spoke. These Ṣābians did not yet exist; the extant text emphasises that they have nothing in common with the people usually designated by that name. The new revelation would require witnesses; two, in fact, like every controversial fact. Yazīd was one of these; but he did not seem to know whether the other one had already appeared.3 I discussed the correlations in my essay in: Festschrift Gabrieli 301ff. in more detail, giving a number of sources also covering the following chapters. The only thing I left out was the form of the name, which is not the same in all the sources. Dahkhudā (Lughatnāma s. v.), Levi Della Vida (in EI1 II 973a > EI2 IV 1076b) and Lewicki (in EI2 III 660a) read Anīsa instead of Unaysa; Levi Della Vida adding Abī as well. This addition is indeed found in Khwārizmī (Mafātīḥ al-ʿulūm 19, 12), Ibn Ḥazm (Fiṣal IV 188, –4), Nashwān al-Ḥimyarī (Ḥūr 175, 5) and Baghdādī (Farq 263, 4/279, –5). In his Uṣūl al-dīn, on the other hand, Baghdādī has Yazīd b. Unaysa, as does Ṣāḥib Ibn ʿAbbād in his Kashf ʿan manāhij aṣnāf alKhawārij (cf. Nashriyya-i Dānishkada-i Adabiyyāt Tabrīz 20/1347/147, 5f.), Ābī (Nathr al-durr V 234, 5) and Shahrastānī (101, pu./248, 4). Ashʿarī copied this form from his source on Yamān b. Riʾāb (Text VIII 5, f.); maybe we should suspect a contamination as Ibn Ḥazm warned (Fiṣal IV 188, –4) of confusing him with the well-known traditionist Abū Usāma Zayd b. Abī Unaysa al-Ruhāwī, who died in the Jazira in 124/742 or 125/743 (regarding him see Dhahabī, TH 139f. no. 131, and Mīzān no. 2990). Ibn Ḥazm had good reason, as Yazīd has been corrupted to Zayd in his version, with the result that the two names are identical. However, Saksakī adopted the warning, too, although he restored Zayd to read Yazīd (Burhān 15, 10ff.). 1  Text VIII 5, a–i and o–p with commentary. 2  The term Yazīdiyya always refers to ʿAbdallāh b. Yazīd al-Fazārī’s followers (see vol. I 477ff.). 3  Text VIII 5, k–m and q with commentary.

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The association seems to have suggested itself and may have been the reason why Abī was somehow added to the Ibāḍite’s name as well. In Ṣafadī’s text, Yazīd was even corrupted to Burayd (Wāfī X 123, 10, which also calls the sect Buraydiyya instead of Yazīdiyya); it is possible that he found it like this in his source as he arranged the names alphabetically. – The reading Anīsa instead of Unaysa might be supported by the fact that the word also exists as an ordinary lexeme, meaning “fire” (cf. Lane, Lexicon 115a). In the early Islamic period Unaysa is documented several times as a woman’s name (cf. Ibn Ḥabīb, Muḥabbar, Index 574 s. n.; but only ever in the editor’s vocalisation, e.g. 418, ult.; 419, 6 and pu.; 420, 3). The Khārijite was clearly named after his mother, an indication of his low social origin. The last instance reported above is unusual, and probably very early, as hardly anyone would have dared expect a new prophet after the end of the Umayyad era.4 By that time the unease felt at the lack of redaction in the text of the Quran had also abated. While the people of Ḥarrān still did not refer to themselves as ṣābiʾa, the exegetes and jurists knew precisely whom this term denoted.5 All of this suggests that Yazīd b. Unaysa should probably be dated to the first century, during the time after Qaṭarī b. Fujāʾa’s downfall and death, i.e. probably the eighties. This is supported by more evidence. Yazīd b. Unaysa considered all those ahl al-kitāb to be believers who recognised Muḥammad as a prophet.6 This must be read through Khārijite eyes: someone who is a believer (muʾmin) is not necessarily muslim; only the Khārijites themselves are muslimūn.7 Even so, the term was a great distinction. A Muslim who was not a Khārijite could never lay claim to it; he would always remain kāfir niʿma,8 for the reason that he deliberately denied the truth. The “people of the book” did not do this unless they had been initiated into Islam. The Khārijites had to think of conceptual distinctions early on in this field. Ḥafṣ b. Abī l-Miqdām, to whom Yazīd was

4  See vol.  I 34 and 157f. above. Abū Manṣūr al-ʿIjlī believed in the revelatio continua as late as the 220s (Ashʿarī, Maq. 9, pu. f.), as did Mughīra b. Saʿīd (cf. Ibn al-Ṣaffār, Baṣāʾir al-darajāt 517f. no. 50). 5  See p. 506 and 508 above. 6  Text VIII 5, n. 7  See p. 260 above. 8  See p. 261f. above.

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close according to the heresiographers,9 believed that the ahl al-kitāb should be like grave sinners among the Muslims; as long as they believed in a monotheistic concept of God, they were muwaḥḥidūn, “professing God’s oneness”, too.10 Yazīd b. Unaysa did not want to admit this; he also demanded that they must recognise Muḥammad. Then they would be not only muwaḥḥidūn – he does not seem to have employed the term here at all – but even muʾminūn. But how could he even expect such a thing? We can probably presume that Yazīd, if indeed he lived as early as this, regarded Muḥammad simply as the prophet who had been sent to the Arabs. This was something adherents of other revealed religions could easily admit; we do know that the Jews referred to this idea.11 They appear to be the ones referred to by Ḥafṣ b. Abī l-Miqdām as muwaḥḥidūn in this context; Christians, at least those of post-Nicene denominations, were always suspected of shirk. Consequently in the abovementioned study I proposed the hypothesis that Yazīd b. Unaysa had some kind of link with Abū ʿĪsā al-Iṣfahānī who, it seems, instigated an uprising during the first half of ʿAbd al-Malik’s caliphate, before the latter’s victory over Muṣʿab b. al-Zubayr in 72/691, in southern and central Iran. Abū ʿĪsā was probably a Judaeo-Christian, or had at least shown some interest in Christianity, otherwise it is unlikely that he would have adopted the kunya he bore together with a Hebrew name.12 Thus the Christians following him would have regarded Jesus as a prophet, but not as God; they were not “polytheists”, Abū ʿĪsā tried to impress the Muslims with the same model: Muḥammad, being a prophet, was the messenger of the Messiah who would come after him; he was one of five messengers, together with Jesus as well as Abū ʿĪsā himself, who introduced the Parousia. 9  Cf. Text VIII 5, e; regarding him see p. 265 above. Interestingly Ibn al-Dāʿī names both of them as ʿAjradites, i.e. renegade Azraqites (Tabṣira 41, 9ff.). 10  Text VIII 4, a–c and g; cf. p. 260 and 265 above. 11  See vol.  I 36 above. A group of Jews in Tustar believed accordingly that the Torah had been revealed for the Jews only (Qirqisānī, Anwār 287, 1ff.); the Yemeni philosopher Nathanael Ibn al-Fayyūmī held similar beliefs in the sixth/twelfth century (cf. Sirat, History of Jewish Philosophy 92). There were discussions among Muslims of whether the first half of the shahāda, without the profession of Muḥammad’s prophethood, could make someone a Muslim (cf. Kister in: JSAI 5/1984/41ff.). 12  Pines has pointed out the Judeo-Christian character of Abū ʿĪsā’s movement and its successors, i.e. everything Islamic heresiographers called ʿĪsāwiyya, in: JSAI 6/1985/145ff., and 148, n. 26; also ibid. 9/1987/274ff.). An important piece of evidence is found in Maqdisī who lists the Yūdghāniyya, the followers of a pupil or follower of Abū ʿĪsā’s named Yūdghān, among Christian heretics (Badʾ IV 42, 2, and 46, 7; in both instances misspelt as B.rdhaʿāniyya).

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The Muslims would always remember that the ʿĪsāwiyya believed Muḥammad was sent to the Arabs only (cf. e.g. Mutawallī, Mughnī 52, 14; Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ, Shifāʾ II 1070, 7f.). The kinship between their system and Yazīd b. Unaysa’s was emphasised by Baghdādī (Farq 263, –4f./280, 3ff.) and Ibn Ḥazm (Fiṣal IV 188, pu. f.). Regarding Abū ʿĪsā’s teachings in general cf. Pines in EI2 IV 96; also Lassner in EIran I 324f., and Avnery in EJud2 II 183, each with further reading. G. Monnot, Islam et religions 107, pointed out another source that contains some new detail (Abū l-Maʿālī, Bayān ul-adyān 57, 8ff.). The interesting information Maimonides provided in his letter to the Yemeni Jews may comfortably be read in J. Hulster, Maimonide, Epîtres 110f. A more detailed examination is expected in St. Wasserstrom’s book. Abū ʿĪsā’s uprising failed; once ʿAbd al-Malik had retaken Iran, he prevailed. Still, people were afraid: this seems to have been the time when a hadith took hold in Damascus claiming that the antichrist would come with 70,000 Jews as his followers, all from Isfahan and wearing a ṭaylasān.13 The Khārijites in Iran probably suffered the first onslaught of the rebels, as they were the only ones who had preserved their Muslim power structure intact during the second civil war. By speaking of an expected Messiah who was the prophet from among the Persians, Yazīd b. Unaysa may have been trying to provide ideological balance. Later, when he faced the caliph ʿAbd al-Malik, the idea was not entirely without risk, but it might still serve to gather Abū ʿĪsā’s dispersed followers onto the Khārijite side.14 It was not advisable any more, however, to rebel against the authorities. This was why Yazīd b. Unaysa left the Azraqites.

13  Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, Fitan 124 (= p. 2266): on Awzāʿī; Abū Nuʿaym, Ḥilya VI 77, 15f., after the Persian-born Syrian Qadarite Ḥassān b. ʿAṭiyya al-Muḥāribī. The Jews seem to have already worn the ṭaylasān in the prophet’s day (Suyūṭī, Al-aḥādīth al-ḥisān 47 no. 141, and 50ff. no. 155ff.). Maʿarrī says that the mahdī would come from among the Jews of Isfahan (Al-ṣāhil wal-shāhij 320, ult. f). There were ʿĪsawites there even in Ibn Ḥazm’s time, at the beginning of the fifth/eleventh century; he met some of them (Al-uṣūl walfurūʿ I 197, 11f.). Scholars with the nisba al-ʿĪsawī are mentioned in Nuʿmānī, Ghayba 265, 7f. (with a commentary on information provided by a Jew from Arrajān) and Samʿānī, Adab al-imlāʾ wal-istimlāʾ 79, 8. 14  Kirmānī, the opponent of Naṣr b. Sayyār and Abū Muslim, was accused of collaborating with Jews and Christians for the sake of power (Ibn al-Athīr, Kāmil V 230, 10f./V 304, 5f.).

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In my essay I considered (p. 312) that the “second witness” he referred to might have been Abū ʿĪsā, but I do not think any more that this is probable. Goldziher assumed that he preached racial equality (Muh. Stud. I 138ff.); while Lewicki thought he was emphasising the Persians’ faḍāʾil, like the Maghrebin Ibāḍites emphasised the Berbers’ faḍāʾil (in: SI 9/1958/81, and EI2 III 660a). This, too, probably reads too much into the sources. – Furthermore, the chronology I presumed is by no means assured. We have no information on Yazīd b. Unaysa beyond the heresiographers, and in the case of Abū ʿĪsā there are two widely differing chronological approaches. On the other hand it is not easy to see how the extant sources could lead us onto firmer ground. Morony expressed his support of an early date for Abū ʿĪsā (Iraq 328), while M. I. Mochiri’s study Arab-Sasanian Civil War Coinage dates Yazīd b. Unaysa to the time around 50/670: the author tries to link him to a number of coins dating from before ʿAbd al-Malik’s reforms. However, insofar as I am able to judge this complex issue, it is not probable in even one instance. The study is chasing a chimaera, seeing Yazīd b. Unaysa’s Yazīdiyya as the origin of those Yazīdīs now living in Kurdistan, and hoping to uncover Mazdaite or Mazdakite influence everywhere. Coin inscriptions and countermarks, which are difficult to interpret, are defined “subversively” by the author who presumes that Yazīd or the Yazīdiyya re-struck the coins of Umayyad governors or other Khārijite leaders. Following Dahkhudā, he regards Yazīd b. Unaysa himself as a follower of ʿAlī’s who fought at Nahrawān in 38/658. 3.2.1.2 Later Khārijites Yazīd b. Unaysa was probably a sedentary Khārijite. However, the Azraqites did not remain the permanent revolutionaries as whom the sources describe them. The Khārijites really only wanted to be among themselves; kharaja “to move out” meant only this. In the early period this may occasionally have been linked to their claim of being the sole true Muslims, but the particularism in their own ranks soon demonstrated to one and all that this was not realistic. Later, and similar to eastern Iran, no-one would be attacked as long as the Khārijites were left in peace. After ʿUrwa b. Udayya, the brother of Mirdās, had fallen in Iraq fighting against ʿUbaydallāh b. Ziyād,1 his followers fled by boat to the Persian Gulf coast and spread out gradually from there; later they would be found as landed proprietors in the region around Iṣṭakhr.2 The Azraqites, too, 1  Ṭabarī II 185, 16ff. 2  Athamina in: JSAI 8/1986/190 after Iṣṭakhrī, Masālik 142, 1ff.

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suffered only a military defeat at Muhallab’s hands and were not exterminated, although they were rather more difficult to discover in the sources afterwards. Only coincidence – together with a small amount of hypothesis – can help us. Ibn Ḥazm, for instance, mentioned a theologian whose name was probably Abū Ismāʿīl al-Biṭṭīkhī.3 He called him an Azraqite, but as he debated with Abū l-Hudhayl,4 he must have lived during the second half of the second century. He was probably the older of the two, as Muʿtazilite sources describe him as a pupil (ghulām, ṣāḥib) of Jahm b. Ṣafwān’s.5 He was probably a merchant of water melons (biṭṭīkh), by no means a small-scale business at the time. The Muslims had come across the fruit in India; then it was cultivated in Iran.6 Melons from Khwārazm were famous for their sweetness; Ma‌ʾmūn, who had grown fond of them in Marv, had them sent to Baghdād by post.7 Ibn Ḥazm, on the other hand, has the nisba al-Baṭīḥī in the passages mentioned, in which case it would be derived from the Baṭīḥa, the marshland in the delta between the Tigris and the Euphrates (cf. EI2 I 1093ff.). Samʿānī did not use this form at all. Biṭṭīkhī is found in Khwārizmī, Mafātīḥ alʿulūm 20, 2f./transl. Bosworth in: BEO 29/1977/89, and Muwaffaq, Iḥāṭa, fol. 175b, pu.; the name, however, is Ismāʿīl rather than Abū Ismāʿīl. Ḥākim al-Jushamī merely says al-Biṭṭīkhī in the passage cited, while Ashʿarī knows of a Biṭṭīkhiyya (Maq. 470, 3f.). Samʿānī, s. v., has two people named Abū Ismāʿīl, one of whom would fit chronologically; however, he was a Baghdad traditionist originally from Wāsiṭ who probably had no connection with the man we are interested in (Ansāb II 260, 13ff.; also TB V 355f., no. 2878). Saksakī, Burhān 15, 2ff., is dependent on Ibn Ḥazm; the nisba is misspelt further to read al-Maṭīḥī. The Istanbul MS of the text (Nuru Osmaniye 4919) vocalises confidently, but not convincingly, to read al-Muṭīkhī.

3  Fiṣal IV 189, 8ff., and II 112, 11. 4  Ḥākim al-Jushamī, Risālat Iblīs 69, 2ff. 5  Ibid., also Abū Rashīd, ‘Fī l-tawḥīd’ 269, 12f., and Ibn Mattōya, Muḥīṭ I 117, 2 ʿAzmī/I 109, ult. Houben. 6  Watson, Agricultural Innovation 59. 7  Ahsan, Social Life 110.

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This makes it look as though the Azraqiyya had adopted Jahmite ideas over time. Biṭṭīkhī did indeed believe, like Jahm, that paradise and hell were not of eternal duration;8 he was a determinist or at the very least predestinarian,9 although the conclusion he drew was most unusual. If, he thought, one were condemned to hell through no fault of one’s own, then it would not admissible for there to be suffering. Consequently the condemned feel like the “vinegar worms” (the caterpillars of the grape berry moth) in vinegar: they do not know any different.10 Things get even more bizarre when we look at the special legal opinions Ibn Ḥazm mentions in addition. Biṭṭīkhī believed that two prayers per day were sufficient: one rakʿa in the morning and one in the evening. He thought that one might go on the hajj every month. He prohibited the consumption of raw fish. He was against levying the poll tax on Zoroastrians, and he considered the preaching of sermons during the two most important holidays to be “unbelief”.11 These were not really “innovations” but usages of a community that had been separated from the “mother church” early on. There is no clearer demonstration of how firmly the Azraqites adhered to the Quran only. The sermon was probably introduced under Marwān,12 and in administrative centres it was frequently an instrument of political indoctrination, to which the Khārijites would of course have objected. As we have seen, Khārijite mosques lacked the minbar in Sijistān;13 the Sunnites did not have one on the muṣallā, where public worship had originally taken place during the holidays.14 As for the pilgrimage, sura 2:197 says merely that it takes place “during the well-known months”; it was not until later that a distinction would be made between hajj and ʿumra. Most idiosyncratic is the absence of five prayers. Once again one could refer to the Quran, to sura 11:114: “Perform the prayer at both ends of the day (ṭarafay al-nahār) and at the early hour of night”. This had indeed been the practice of the first community where for a long time only a morning and an evening prayer had been known, with the exception of supererogatory nocturnal spiritual exercises.15 In due course, still during the prophet’s lifetime,

8  Abū Rashīd and Ibn Mattōya, loc. cit. 9  Khwārizmī, loc. cit. 10  Muwaffaq and Ḥākim al-Jushamī, loc. cit. 11   Fiṣal IV 189, 9ff.; Ashʿarī, Maq. 470, 3f. 12  Wensinck in HW 322f.; abridged in EI2 V 75a. 13  See p. 643 above. 14  Cf. Becker, Islamstudien I 473ff.; also Mielck in: Der Islam 13/1923/109ff. 15  Cf. sura 17:79.

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these had been joined by a “middle” prayer.16 The argument over the increase took place in hadiths. Ḥudhayfa b. al-Yamān was said to have predicted hellfire for those who only prayed twice;17 on the other hand the prophet was quoted as having accepted everyone who prayed only twice, as a Muslim.18 It has not been sufficiently researched how the number five was reached in the end, but if Goldziher’s theory that the Muslims drew on Zoroastrianism in this instance is correct,19 the Khārijites around al-Biṭṭīkhī, who refused to take the poll tax from Zoroastrians, would have had even more justification for seeing themselves as preserving the true faith. We do not, however, know why this was their attitude to the Zoroastrians, but it probably did not stem from tolerance. It is more likely that they did not regard them as ahl al-dhimma, but as heathen who could not redeem themselves by means of a poll tax. – It is a different matter that people with a particular sense of mission queried the figure of five prayers in other cases as well. Bihāfrīd, who proclaimed himself prophet in Khwāf near Nishapur in 129/747, prescribed seven prayers, the gnostic ʿAbdallāh b. Ḥarb from Madāʾin even seventeen consisting of fifteen rakʿas each (cf. Wasserstrom in : Festschrift Wickens 278, where the name ʿAbdallāh b. Ḥarb has been misread and the person attributed incorrectly). This was a symbolic reorientation rather than a return to orthodoxy; as also in the case of the Berber prophet Ḥā-Mīm in the early fourth/tenth century, even though the latter went back to the number two; he composed an independent, Berber Quran (cf. EI2 III 134 s. n.). Al-Biṭṭīkhī, on the other hand, was no prophet, but a theologian and a jurist. – Regarding Bihāfrīd cf. Składanek, Doktryny 180ff., and Yusofi in: EIran IV 88ff.

16   Cf. Houtsma’s overview in: Theologisch Tijdschrift 24/1890/127ff.; Wensinck in EI1 IV 104f. s. v. Ṣalāt; Ahrens, Muhammed als Religionsstifter 117f.; Paret, Grenzen der Koranforschung 31ff. and Der Koran. Kommentar 245 on sura 11:114f. and 50f. on sura 2:238; Goitein in: Studies in Islamic History 84ff.; Katsh, Judaism in Islam 5ff. with further reading; S. Bashīr, Al-ta‌ʾrīkh al-ākhar 441ff.; Rubin in JSAI 10/1987/40ff.; Choumet in: REI 54/1986/79ff. 17  Abū ʿUbayd, Īmān 81, 4ff.; Khallāl, Musnad 361, apu. ff. and 363, 5ff.; Ājurrī, Sharīʿa 143, –9ff. 18  Kister in: JSAI 5/184/45 after Ibn Ḥanbal. 19  In: ZDMG 53/1899/386 and RHR 43/1901/15; also Ges. Schr. IV 246. Katsh on the other hand supports the theory that the five daily prayers were adopted from the Jews in Arabia (Judaism in Islam 8ff.).

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We would arrive at conclusive proof only if we were able to distinguish a Khārijite environment like the one described in al-Biṭṭīkhī’s case. It is, indeed, possible. The heresiographers noted the twofold prayer together with the other legal idiosyncrasies as characteristic of a group they called Bidʿiyya “innovators”, and whom some of them counted among the Azraqites.20 This was already mentioned by Sālim b. Dhakwān,21 and thus probably belonged in the first century. It is consequently not surprising when its leader is not named as al-Biṭṭīkhī but rather Yaḥyā b. Aṣram. We know nothing about him; not even the reading of his name is certain.22 He probably lived earlier than al-Biṭṭīkhī as he demonstrates that his scurrilous predestinarianism was rooted in a certainty of salvation with clearly early Khārijite traits. The sect believed to be certain of paradise; any doubt of their own orthodoxy appeared reprehensible.23 However, unlike the Murjiʾa it required its followers to be absolutely free from sin; even a venial sin would lead to unbelief. The prophets, too, they thought, had at times been “idolaters”, but then wisely converted. Those who do not repent and stand before God with an unforgiven sin, however minuscule, are certain of punishment in hell. They deduced this from Quranic passages such as sura 4:14 or 92:15f., ashqā 20  The most detailed account is by Ḥākim al-Jushamī, Sharḥ ʿuyūn al-masāʾil I, fol. 47 a; after him al-Manṣūr billāh, Shāfī I 136, 15ff. and Ibn al-Murtaḍā, Munya 120, 8ff. However, he mistakenly speaks of a threefold prayer; which al-Manṣūr billāh copied while Ibn al-Murtaḍā corrected it after Nashwān al-Ḥimyarī (120, 7f.). The oldest source is PseudoNāshiʾ, Uṣūl al-niḥal 69, 14ff.; where the twofold prayer and the partial fish taboo are mentioned. Pseudo-Nāshiʾ and Ashʿarī (Maq. 126, 14f.) also determined the link with the Azraqiyya, Pseudo-Nāshiʾ’s adding the Khāzimiyya as intermediary is probably only a learned construct. Ḥākim al-Jushamī listed another juristic idiosyncrasy in the rule that a woman had to fast during menstruation. Ibn al-Murtaḍā adopted this, adding that a thief’s arm would be cut off at the shoulder (see p. 660 above). Nashwān, Ḥūr 178, 4f., and Maqdisī, Badʿ V 138, 8f. only mention the prayer; cf. Salem, Political Theory 39. 21  Cook, Dogma 92. 22   Aṣram in Khwārizmī, Mafātīḥ 19, 7 > Abū l-Maʿālī, Bayān ul-adyān 48, 3 stands against Aṣdam in a Shahrastānī manuscript (Gimaret, Livre des Religions 406, n. 102); Maqrīzī has Aṣwam, presumably a further corruption (Khiṭaṭ II 355, 4). 23  Thus Shahrastānī, loc. cit.; Nashwān, Ḥūr 178, 6f. (after the same source); Khwārizmī > Abū l-Maʿālī, loc. cit.; Ābī, Nathr al-durr V 236, 4; anonymously also Ashʿarī, Maq. 119, 8ff. Mentioning istithnāʾ (cf. vol. I 259) only provides a terminus post quem for the heresiographical phrase, not for the sect itself.

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in 92:15 – “those condemned to misery” – possibly confirming them in their belief in predestination.24 We are probably looking at the doctrine of a small and isolated community; even the other Azraqites were so severe only when it came to mortal sins.25 Al-Biṭṭīkhī’s reference to the “vinegar worms” tried to find a way out of this puritanism. We are unable to locate this group. Their deliberations on the consumption of fish seems to suggest that they lived near a body of water, but this does not permit any further conclusions.26 We are in similar straits with regard to the followers of a certain ʿAbdallāh b. Shimrākh. A not very reliable source27 tells us that they called themselves Ḥubbiyya, a name found in other contexts as well. Muqaddasī reported duping a group of kindly and slightly naïve Sufis in Susa and referred to them as Ḥubbiyya.28 This does not mean that our Khārijites lived on in Susa in particular; Abū Muṭīʿ made quite clear that they were only a branch of the Ḥubbiyya.29 Ḥubbiyya is a generic term, and a vague one at that. It described people who felt so much enveloped by God’s love that external appearances lost all relevance for them.30 The most relevant characteristic in the case of the Shimrākhiyya is simply that they believed to be free to take more than four wives, and without formal marriage contract. Women, they were thought to have said, are like basil: everyone may smell them.31 This may well be slander; after all, they were not talking about promiscuity.32 Their reasoning was entirely different anyway, based once 24  Pseudo-Nāshiʾ, Uṣūl al-niḥal 69, ult. ff. Regarding the semantic development of shaqī cf. HT 25ff. 25  Ashʿarī, Maq. 87, 5ff. 26  Regarding this exclusively as a creation of the heresiographers, as considered by Madelung (Religious Trends 64), is exaggerated in my view. Nomads usually abhorred the consumption of fish, pariah tribes did not. Cf. Henninger, Arabica Varia 100 and 224; also Index s. v. Fisch). 27  Ḥanafī, Firaq muftariqa 20, 8. 28   Aḥsan al-taqāsīm 415, 4ff.; cf. also Schwartz, Iran 362 and 413, n. 5. 29   Radd 75, 7. 30  Cf. e.g. Pazdawī, Uṣūl al-dīn 253, 11ff.; also ibid. 78, 10ff. Thus also Abū Muṭīʿ 102, 6ff.; less provocatively Khwārizmī, Mafātīḥ 20, 12f., who distinguished between Ḥubbiyya and Shimrākhiyya (19, 14). 31  Abū Muṭīʿ 75, 6ff.; Ibn al-Jawzī, Talbīs 19, –5f.; Tadhkirat al-madhāhib 128, 5. 32  In that context the comparison is a topos; as such they were attributed to e.g. the dandies of Baghdad, the so-called ẓurafāʾ (Washshāʾ, Muwashshā 175, 9ff.).

Iran

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again on sura 4:24, the verse that had given rise to Khārijite idiosyncrasies in Sīstān as well. The passage mentioned, among other things, that all those who are not covered by the prohibited degrees of kinship, are permitted to be taken in marriage.33 This is mainly a juristic or exegetic conclusion; the love of God does not enter into it. It may be that these Khārijites, more than others, saw themselves as awliyāʾ Allāh and were consequently later absorbed into Sufi movements, but it is just as possible that Ḥanafī and Abū Muṭīʿ were simply free-associating.34 There are other sources that tell us that Khārijites did not require witnesses to concluding a marriage contract;35 in Sīstān, as we have seen, the women managed without a guardian.36 The other heresiographers’ information on this “sect” fits into the usual picture: they believed a prayer to be valid if it was performed behind someone unknown, as long as he turned towards the qibla – even, as Nashwān al-Ḥimyarī added, a Christian or a Jew.37 This is presumably trying to say that one did not have to inquire whether the imam was really a Khārijite. And: one must not kill one’s parents, not even if they do not follow the true doctrine. In fact, blood may only be spilled in public, not in secret assassination.38 Eastern heresiographical tradition preserved more curiosities of this kind, which were probably observed in Iran as well. However, there is no proof, and no names linked to them. There were communities which decided not to pay zakāt because it did not benefit the right people as there were no true believers deserving of it. Their solution was to bury the money underground for it to come into more deserving hands later.39 The desperate elitist consciousness expressed here found its outlet in exaggerated purity laws elsewhere. One must not touch anyone if one does not know whether he is pure or impure. One must always do penance and perform an ablution after sharing a table with 33  Abū Muṭīʿ, loc. cit.; cf. p. 652 above. 34  Ḥanafī presenting them as pure antinomians, as one would imagine in the case of the Ḥubbiyya, argues in favour of this (20, 7ff., and 69, 1ff.); sura 4:24 was, of course, not sufficient. 35  Malaṭī 137, 18f./180, 12f. However, just previously (124, 9f./163, 10f.) Khushaysh claims the exact same thing of the Rāfiḍites, and with nearly identical reasoning. 36  See p. 661 above. In general cf. Spuler, Iran 377ff. 37   Ḥūr 177, apu. f.; without the addition Ashʿarī, Maq. 126, 11. 38   Maq. 120, 1ff. after Yamān b. Riʾāb; ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jīlānī, Ghunya I 86, –9. 39  Most clearly Ḥanafī, Firaq 19, –5ff.; also Ibn al-Jawzī, Talbīs 19, 11f.; briefly Tadhkirat al-madhāhib 127, 5. The passage in Abū Muṭīʿ, Radd 74, 6ff., is corrupt (read Kanziyya and yaknizu instead of Kathriyya and yakthuru). Usually Khārijite communities followed early Islamic practice and kept the zakāt in “God’s chest” in the mosque. Iṣṭakhrī observed this in Bam in Kerman (cf. Schwartz, Iran 237; also vol. I 22 above).

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someone. The men who formed part of this strict circle wore penis sheaths in order to prevent any contact with their clothes; they did not pray while wearing trousers.40 Above all they did not dare to relieve themselves on the ground as the prophet had said that “earth was made to a place for prostration (masjid) and a means of purity (ṭahūr)” for him and consequently any place might be used for prayer. Thus they urinated into jugs (kūz) or into rivers.41 It is interesting that these Khārijites referred to a hadith,42 as this is rather rare. The issue is once again an ancient one dating from the time when people were praying in simple squares, not in mosques. The fact that the opposing side’s views were also expressed in a hadith demonstrates how little influence the Quran had on the eventual development.43 3.2.2 ʿAbdallāh b. Muʿāwiya Some of the revolutionaries who fled from Iraq into the Iranian uplands were Shīʿites, such as Yaḥyā, the son of Zayd b. ʿAlī1 and shortly afterwards, his distant cousin ʿAbdallāh b. Muʿāwiya. During the few years that separated the two the political situation had changed significantly. Under Hishām, Zayd b. ʿAlī had been faced with a strong caliphate; his son had to flee to distant Jūzjān where he was cornered by Umayyad troops. ʿAbdallāh b. Muʿāwiya, on the other hand, rebelled in 127/744 against Yazīd III’s governor, whose legitimation was doubtful;2 when the uprising in Kufa failed he was able to hold the provinces of Ahwāz, Jibāl, Fars and Kerman for two years, until an army sent by Marwān II drove him to Khorasan.3 He had sura 42:23 struck on his 40  Cf. p. 247 above. 41  Ḥanafī 18, –5ff.; Abū Muṭīʿ 73, 8ff. must be corrected in accordance with this; also Tadhkirat al-madhāhib 127, 4. Ibn al-Jawzī, Talbīs 19, 9f. presents this as the doctrine of the Mukramiyya (regarding which see p. 652 and 671 above); but Mukramiyya is probably misread out of Kūziyya, the usual name of the sect in this tradition. 42  Ibn Ḥanbal, Musnad II 222, 4ff./2XII 25f. no. 7068. 43  Ṭayālisī, Musnad no. 407. The Kūziyya may ultimately have been based on Zoroastrian ideas (cf. Jāḥiẓ, Ḥayawān III 370, 1f.). 1  Regarding him see vol. I 313 above. 2  Balādhurī, Ansāb II 63, 13ff. Maḥmūdī. Regarding him see p. 277f. above. 3  Concerning these events cf. Zetterstéen in EI2 I 48f. s. n.; W. F. Tucker in SI 51/1980/39ff.; Halm in: Der Islam 58/1981/17ff., and Gnosis 64ff.; Daniel, Khurasan 42f.; Bosworth, Sistan 76f.; Rekaya in: SI 60/1984/20ff. Regarding the person cf. the monograph by ʿAbd al-Jabbār Muṭṭalibī, Al-adīb al-mughāmir (Baghdad 1978). His poems were collected by ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd al-Rāḍī (Beirut 1976); cf. also GAS 2/349f.

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coins, which spoke of mawadda fī l-qurbā.4 While he was only distant kin to the prophet – he was descended from ʿAlī’s brother Jaʿfar – this was sufficient to provide a counterweight against the Umayyads, especially at a time when the empire was sinking ever deeper into anarchy; he was already a member of the Banū Hāshim.5 The most diverse people gathered under his banner in Iran: “Zaydites” from Kufa and gnostics from Madāʾin, but also a number of dispersed Khārijites.6 Zaydites and Khārijites had, after all, always had some similarities in their doctrine.7 It is hardly possible to say with any certainty what his own opinion was. Later, he would be regarded as a zindīq who surrounded himself with other zanādiqa8 – by the Shīʿa, too; Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq read in the muṣḥaf Fāṭima that the “heretics” would appear in 128.9 The doctrines the gnostics around him embraced and the measures they attributed to him would soon have only curiosity value. He was said to have permitted the consumption of pork, and considered ritual slaughter unnecessary; he also seems to have “abolished” circumcision.10 Both these rules would seem to be based on Iranian ideas. Loosening the laws on food and slaughter was said to have looked to the Quran: “There is no fault in those who believe and do deeds of righteousness what they may eat, if they are godfearing, and believe, and do deeds of righteousness”.11 A rational argument was provided for abolishing the circumcision: one must not damage God’s creation. Critics seem to have pointed out that after all one also cut hair and nails; but he responded that hair and nails were not live, and that one must part from what is dead. Still, the fact that circumcision is not mentioned in the Quran – indeed, in Turkish it is called sünnet to this day – may well have played a part as well. ʿUmar II appears to have decided along the same lines when Abū l-Ṣaydāʾ complained that Jarrāḥ b. ʿAbd al-Ḥakam demanded it of new converts:

4  Carl Wurtzel, The Coinage of the Revolutionaries in the Late Umayyad Period, in: Amer. Num. Soc. Mus. Notes 23/1978/169f. after a coin from Jayy. 5  Cf. Kumayt’s verse quoted in Nagel, Untersuchungen 79f.; also in general Madelung in: SI 70/1989/10ff. 6  Regarding the latter cf. Ṭabarī II 1977, 10f.; in general Daniel 42 and vol. I 289 above. 7  Thus e.g. the term kufr niʿma (see p. 303 above). Regarding possible influence on the Khārijite Shaybān b. Salama cf. p. 665 above. 8  See vol.  I 534 above. 9  Biḥār XLVII 65 no. 7; also vol. I 325f. above. 10  Qummī, Maqālāt 41, 13ff.; Nashwān, Ḥūr 161, 13f. 11  Sura 5:93. Elsewhere this verse was regarded as abrogated (Qummī 41, apu. f.).

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“God sent Muḥammad to call people (to Islam), not to perform circumcisions”.12 Even the Afshīn was suspected of not having been circumcised.13 Fanatics from Iraq defended ʿAbdallāh b. Muʿāwiya’s imamate by linking him to Abū Hāshim in accordance with their Kaysānite ideas.14 This was of course genealogically impossible, but they turned to the migration of souls: the prophet’s spirit had passed through Ibn al-Ḥanafiyya and Abū Hāshim, and finally found him.15 They believed themselves to be the reincarnation of the companions of the prophet (probably only particular ones) and even assumed their names.16 This did not end with his death, either: he dwells, some of them said, on the mountain of Isfahan and will return as the mahdī in order to help a Hāshimid to victory.17 Antinomism appears to have spread in their circle; they were alleged to have permitted promiscuity and homosexuality.18 They allotted eternal duration to humanity; the good go to heaven and the evil stay on earth where they will live like Jonah in the “belly of the fish”, who was ejected once he converted. Cf. sura 37:139ff.; this is probably what baṭn al-ḥūt in Qummī’s account (41, –7ff.) refers to. Ibn Ḥazm summarised and simplified this report (Fiṣal IV 180, 8ff., transl. Friedländer in: JAOS 28/1907/45). A brief reference also in Ashʿarī, Maq. 6, 7f.; further sources in Daniel, Khurasan 96, no. 58. In general see EI2 II 441 s. v. D̲̲ j̲anāḥiyya. 3.2.3 The Cities The information we have concerning theological and juristic trends in the cities generally refers to a later period. It clearly documents the beginnings of a move towards either Sunni or Shīʿite “orthodoxy”. We do not have a coherent picture of the early period, not even in cases where we can refer to a city history, as these texts, too, bear witness to the same trend. 12  Ṭabarī II 1354, 9ff. The passage is not without problems (cf. Hawting, First Dynasty 80 with n. 14). Regarding Abū l-Ṣaydāʾ cf. p. 554 above. 13  See ch. C 3.3.5 below. Regarding the symbolic value of circumcision in the later Umayyad era cf. the Christian text in Crone/Cook, Hagarism 12f. We must bear in mind that the BarKokhba revolt broke out because Hadrian had penalised circumcision (cf. M. Hengel in: The journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society 16–17/1984–5/172ff.). 14  Nawbakhtī 29, 3ff. > Qummī 39 § 80. 15  Qummī 42f. § 86, transl. by Halm in: Der Islam 58/1981/19. The background of the link with the Kaysāniyya is reported ibid. 40, apu. ff. (transl. in Halm, Gnosis 66f.); also Ashʿarī, Maq. 24ff., and Nashwān 160, –6ff. 16  Nawbakhtī 35, 11f. 17  Ibid. 31, 11ff. > Qummī 44 § 91. 18  Qummī 43, 1; cf. also Muṭṭalibī, Al-adīb al-mughāmir 200ff.

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3.2.3.1 Isfahan Isfahan was the place where ʿAbdallāh b. Muʿāwiya’s brothers lived with their descendants.1 They probably never got involved with the eccentrics who were awaiting his return. However, Abū Nuʿaym, the author of Dhikr akhbār Iṣfahān, did not mention them, as he was collecting traditionists, and included only little information regarding the second century.2 Shīʿites – if indeed that is what they were – did not appeal to him anyway. Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad al-Thaqafī (d. 283/896), the Imamite author of K. al-ghārāt, is dismissed in two lines,3 although he had been able to circulate another book of his, K. al-maʿrifa which embraced radical Shīʿite tendencies, freely only in Isfahan.4 So far we are unable to say whether al-Thaqafī was able to rely on a Shīʿite community. It is possible that he was protected by the authorities, as the city was part of the Dulafid sphere of influence at the time; they were pro-Shīʿite.5 Aḥmad b. al-Ḥusayn Dindān was a secretary at their court. He was claimed by the early history of the Ismailiyya6 and was said to have evolved a philosophical system that, like Rāzī’s later, was based on five fundamental principles.7 The population probably looked askance at these endeavours, for Muqaddasī reported – albeit not until the end of the fourth century – strong support for Muʿāwiya.8 He stayed overnight in Isfahan with a pious man who considered Muʿāwiya as well as the four righteous caliphs to have been prophets (mursal), and even proved this based on the Quran.9 Around the middle of the third century, during the time of the Dulafids, a characteristic incident took place. ʿAbdallāh b. Muḥammad al-Kinānī, a hadith scholar of some renown in the city and pupil of the Kufan Abū Muʿāwiya,10 had “publicly expressed agreement with the Rawāfiḍ and deplored Abū Bakr’s having become caliph”. The governor called him before an inquisition court and, when he would not recant, condemned him to forty lashes. From then on he was ruined as a scholar; people 1  Ibn Ṭabāṭabā, Muntaqilat al-Ṭālibiyyīn 29, 8ff. 2  Of the ca. 1930 biographies in his book only 35 refer to the second century. 3  Dhikr I 187, 20f.; regarding him cf. GAS 1/321, and ʿA. Rafīʿī in GIE II 453ff. 4  Cf. Kohlberg in: JSAI 5/1984/152, n. 53. 5  EI2 II 623; Massignon, Passion 2I 211/I 166. 6  Cf. B. Lewis in: EI2 II 301 s. v. Dindān; also Stern, Studies in Early Ismāʿīlism 312 and 314f., according to which he would have been the dāʿī in Jibāl and in Iraq. 7  Ibn al-Nadīm, Fihrist 239, ult. ff.; for Rāzī cf. Pines, Atomenlehre 39ff. Regarding the Shīʿite environment cf. also Miquel, Géographie Humaine I 194f., n. 7. 8  Aḥsan al-taqāsīm 389, n. a, l. 13. 9  Ibid. 399, 6ff.; cf. Pellat in: SI 6/1956/57f. Was the pro-Muʿāwiya hadith in Suyūṭī, La‌ʾālī also transmitted in Isfahan? (cf. the isnād). A further prophetic dictum of the kind is found in Ibn al-Dāʿī, Tabṣirat al-ʿawāmm 251, 4ff.; it originated in a Shāfiʿite source. 10  Regarding him see vol. I 248ff. above.

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avoided his lectures.11 The chairman of the tribunal was so anti-Shīʿite that he denied the Rāfiḍites the pre-emptive right based on one particular hadith.12 Another traditionist from a Kufan family, who had studied in his native city with Ismāʿīl b. Abān al-Ghanawī, a controversial pupil of Sufyān al-Thawrī’s, was unable to gain a foothold in Isfahan because he “exaggerated when it came to rafḍ”,13 while his brother, who was more willing to conform, met with goodwill.14 While Sufyān al-Thawrī’s madhhab had found favour in Isfahan in particular,15 the Murjiʾite counter-offensive would soon start. We learn of a dispute between a Thawrite, al-Nuʿmān b. ʿAbd al-Salām (d. 183/799),16 a pious and most class-conscious Arab whose father had settled in the city in the governor’s service,17 and a certain Abū Rāfiʿ b. ʿImrān. The latter had originally been his pupil, but then “inclined towards irjāʾ”.18 Around the turn of the third century Abū Yūsuf’s pupils ensured that the Ḥanafites also got their opportunity.19 At the same time the Muʿtazila, also having come from Kufa, gained a foothold in the person of Abū Ghayth al-Iṣfahānī, a pupil of Ḍirār b. ʿAmr’s.20 Gradually the tide began to turn. Around the middle of the third century Ṣāliḥ, the son of Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, became qāḍī in the city.21 His successor was a Ẓāhirite: Abū Bakr Aḥmad b. ʿAmr b. Abī ʿĀṣim al-Shaybānī (206/822–287/900), a grandson of the Basran traditionist and exegete Abū ʿĀṣim al-Nabīl (d. 212/828); he held the position from 269/883 to 282/895.22 Dāwūd b. ʿAlī, the founder of the Ẓāhiriyya (d. 270/884) came from a family whose home was a village near Isfahan, although he himself had been born in Kufa and made a name 11  Abū Nuʿaym, Dhikr II 49, 8ff. One of the judges died in 265/879 (ibid. II 200, 13ff.). 12  Ibid. I 320, 7ff. 13  Ibid. III 187, 20f.; regarding his teacher cf. Mīzān no. 824. 14  Ibid. II 7, 5ff.; he died in 282/895. Two years later Abū l-Faraj al-Iṣfahānī, who appears to have come from a Zaydite family, was born in the city (cf. Abu Deeb in: EIran I 282f.). 15  Schwarz, Iran 617f. 16  Regarding the date cf. IAW II 201 no. 629; Abū Nuʿaym’s “133” (Dhikr II 329, 9) is probably a transmitter’s error. Regarding the school affiliation ibid. 329, 1f. He had also attended Abū Ḥanīfa’s lectures. 17  Regarding him Abū Nuʿaym II 134, ult. ff. 18  Ibid. I 344, 5ff.; Ibn Ḥajar, Lisān al-Mīzān III 144 no. 511, mistakenly calls him Shuʿba b. Ẓāfir. 19  Halm, Ausbreitung 146. 20  See ch. C 7.5 below for further details. 21  Abū Nuʿaym I 348, 18ff.; more information GAS 1/510 and ch. C 3.3 below; also Miquel, Géographie humaine I 196f. 22  Regarding him GAS 1/522; regarding his grandfather cf. EI2 Suppl. 17f.

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705

for himself in Baghdad.23 His influence spread most widely in Fars.24 In the long run the Shāfiʿites would be more successful in Isfahan;25 Dāwūd b. ʿAlī had originally come from that school, too. Abū Bakr al-Shaybānī inclined to asceticism; he had ties with Abū Turāb alNakhshabī (d. 245/859), a pupil of Ḥātim al-Aṣamm’s and representative of the Khorasan school of tawakkul.26 A collection of hadiths survives from among his works, which deals with the praise of silence and criticism of the world; it has been published under the title K. al-zuhd.27 After his death the importance of traditionism grew significantly in the city, as illustrated by authors such as Abū l-Shaykh (274/887–369/979), the author of K. al-ʿaẓama,28 or Muḥammad b. Isḥāq Ibn Manda (310/922–395/1005) and his son ʿAbd al-Raḥmān (381/991– 470/1078) both of whom wrote a Radd ʿalā l-Jahmiyya.29 The latter had met someone who believed that unless one was a member of the Muʿtazila, one could not be a true Muslim.30 However, Ḥākim al-Jushamī, who died a generation after him and was himself a Muʿtazilite, received the impression as an outsider that it was the “determinists” who had the upper hand in Isfahan.31 Of course they were by no means always in agreement. Abū Nuʿaym (d. 430/1038) was unable to teach at the great mosque for a long time because Ibn Manda, who was a generation older, thought him a dissenter although he had studied under Abū l-Shaykh and the famous Palestinian traditionist alṬabarānī, who had settled in Isfahan and died there in 360/971.32 His opponents were Ḥanbalites, while he was closer to the Shāfiʿites and not entirely

23  Cf. Schacht in EI2 II 182f.; also ch. C 6.3.2 below. 24  Muqaddasī 439, 11f., and 441, n. a, l. 2f. 25  Cf. Halm 146ff. 26  Regarding him Qushayrī, Risāla 17, 17ff./transl. Gramlich 61f.; regarding Ḥātim al-Aṣamm see p. 612 and 614 above. 27  Ed. ʿAbd al-ʿAlī ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd; Bombay 1403/1983. Regarding the biography cf. the introduction. A K. al-awāʾil by the same author has also been published (ed. Muḥammad Nāṣir al-ʿAjamī, Kuwait, n. d.). 28  Regarding him GAS 1/200f.; also Heinen, Cosmology 37ff. 29  Regarding this family of scholars from Isfahan who traced their genealogy back to a Sasanid official cf. Rosenthal in: EI2 III 863f. 30   Mīzān no. 4583. 31   Risālat Iblīs 137, 10. 32  Regarding Ṭabarānī cf. GAS 1/195ff. Abū Nuʿaym probably adopted the idea of writing a history of the city’s scholarship from Abū l-Shaykh. The latter’s Ṭabaqāt al-muḥaddithīn bi-Iṣfahān were edited by ʿAbd al-Ghafūr ʿAbd al-Ḥaqq Ḥusayn al-Balūshī, Beirut 1407/1987; Abū Nuʿaym used this work.

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against the Ashʿarite kalām. The Ḥanbalites’ anthropomorphism was ana­thema to him.33 How closely they were all linked in the end is illustrated by the fact that his great-grandfather Muḥammad b. Yūsuf al-Bannāʾ (d. 286/899) was apparently the man who paved the way for Ibn Ḥanbal’s influence in Isfahan.34 He also displayed that reverence for taṣawwuf that would be so clearly expressed in Ḥilya. The most determined supporter of mysticism in Isfahan in Abū Nuʿaym’s day, however, belonged in Ibn Manda’s camp: Abū Manṣūr Maʿmar b. Aḥmad al-Iṣfahānī (d. 418/1027), another pupil of Abū l-Shaykh and Ṭabarānī who regarded al-Bannāʾ as well as Junayd and Kharrāz as his examples. He looked towards Baghdad rather than Khorasan. In his K. nahj al-khāṣṣ he briefly described the individual stages of the mystic path and, being a critical moralist, pointed out the specific danger of misuse for each of them.35 ʿAbdallāh al-Anṣārī, the famous Ḥanbalite Sufi from Herat, learnt much from his Manāzil al-sāʾirīn.36 Regarding the early history of Isfahan cf. also Lambton in EI2 IV 99f.; Lapidus in: Islamic Middle East 192 and 194f., and Ṣāliḥ al-ʿAlī in: MMʿIʿI 34/1983, issue 2/39f. Māfarrūkhī’s city history, extant in Ḥusayn b. Muḥammad-i Āwī’s Persian translation (ed. A. Iqbāl, Teheran 1328/ 1949), includes lists of scholars, but only for a later period (p. 115ff.).

33  Cf. Madelung in EIran I 354f.; also ch. D 1.2.4 below. The anthropomorphist fuqahāʾ of the city were mentioned by Ibn al-Dāʿī, Tabṣira 79, –7f., who regarded them as mainly Shāfiʿites. 34  Cf. F. Meier in: Oriens 20/1967/71. Was al-Bannāʾ an architect or a foreman? And does this allow us to conclude that the acceptance of Ibn Ḥanbal expressed in the appointment of his son as qāḍī of the city, started with the craftsmen? One might imagine that Ṣāliḥ b. Aḥmad presented his account of his father’s persecution (see ch. C 3.3 below) in Isfahan; however, the riwāya of the text is Khorasanian. 35  Ed. S. de. Beaurecueil in: Festschrift Ṭāhā Ḥusayn, Arab. section, p. 45ff. 36  Cf. the introduction by Beaurecueil, loc. cit.; more information in Meier 68ff. (p. 75ff. concerns a treatise which quotes Ḥallāj under an alias). A waṣiyya in which Abū Manṣūr supports the unity of ahl al-ḥadīth and ahl al-taṣawwuf, was quoted in agreement by Ibn Taymiyya (K. al-istiqāma I 168, 1ff.). N. Pūrjawādī considered the anonymous K. adab al-mulūk discussed by Meier p. 82ff. to be a work by Abū Manṣūr. He edited the section concerning samāʾ; the introduction is translated in: Spektrum Iran 3/1990, issue 2, p. 37ff, and issue 3, p. 36ff.

Iran

707

3.2.3.2 Qom Qom, halfway between Rayy and Isfahan, became a Shīʿite stronghold early on, and remains so to this day. Members of Southern Arabian tribes who had fled to Iran as followers of Ibn al-Ashʿath had settled there. A certain Mūsā b. ʿAbdallāh b. Saʿd b. Mālik al-Ashʿarī was said to have introduced the Shīʿite creed in the first half of the second century;1 his – younger? – brother ʿĪsā b. ʿAbdallāh appears to have had ties to Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq and Mūsā al-Kāẓim and later even transmitted some queries he had had ʿAlī al-Riḍā answer.2 A Kufan family, they were not entirely Shīʿite at that time; another brother, named Yaʿqūb (d. 174/790), enjoyed a degree of prestige in Sunni hadith.3 They were probably Shīʿite moderates in any case. We do know that a generation earlier Ibrāhīm, one of Muḥammad b. al-Ḥanafiyya’s sons, whose descendants would later live in Kufa, had tried to fuel anticipation of the mahdī who would come from ʿAlī’s family.4 The two brothers Mūsā and ʿĪsā may consequently merely have furthered the trend towards the Imāmiyya, providing a starting point for the later Shīʿite orthodox understanding of history. The great families were deeply attached to their independence and, for a whole fifty years during the early Abbasid period, until 188/800, did not pay any taxes. Hārūn al-Rashīd finally forced them to, but at the same time granted them independence from the administration in Isfahan.5 They rebelled once again in 210/825 under al-Ma‌ʾmūn because they found the tax load too heavy. Things went badly for them: the city walls were slighted and they had to pay the triple amount.6 A certain Jaʿfar b. Dāwūd whom Ma‌ʾmūn had exiled to Egypt made himself the leader of the uprising, but he was captured in 217/825 and executed.7 As we have seen, the city became relevant on the field of theology only in the course of the third century,8 a shift due in part to the decline of Kufa, but mainly to the fact that the sister of the eighth imam, Fāṭima alMaʿṣūma, was buried in Qom in 201/817, and the city became a pilgrimage site.

1  Cf. Schwarz, Iran 559ff.; briefly also Spuler, Iran 179, and Calmard in EI2 V 370 (referring to Tārīkh-i Qum, which mentions only other sources concerning the early period; cf. p.23ff.). 2  Najāshī 210, 11ff.; Ardabīlī, Jāmiʿ I 652f. 3  I S VII2 111, 1; Mīzān no. 9815; TT XI 390f. no. 752. Note the “prophetic” names, which were not a matter of course in an aristocratic family with a long history in Arabia. 4  Abū Nuʿaym, Dhikr I 170, 4ff., and Abū l-Shaykh, Ṭabaqāt al-muḥaddithīn 378ff.; regarding him Ibn Ḥazm, Jamhara 66, 4 and 9f. 5  Lapidus in: Islamic Middle East 193f. and 196f.; EI2 IV 99b. 6  Ṭabarī III 1092, 12ff./transl. Bosworth 166f. and Uhrig 209ff. 7  Ibid. 1102, 6f.; 1106, 8, and 1111, 9; cf. transl. Uhrig 229, n. 1099. 8  See vol.  I 455f. and 459f. above; also Halm, Die Schia 52.

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From 255/879 onwards Shīʿites with extremist views had no home in the city any more.9 Cf. also Massignon, Passion 2I 212/I 167f.; Ṣāliḥ al-ʿAlī in: MMʿIʿI 34/1983, issue 2/49; Barthold, Historical Geography 178ff.; in some detail Madelung, Religious Trends 78ff. – Nearby Kāshān was mainly Imāmite, too. The city was believed to have been founded or newly settled by Hārūn al-Rashīd’s wife Zubayda (cf. Calmard in: EI2 IV 694f. s. v. Kās̲h̲ān; also Ḥākim alJushamī, Risālat Iblīs 137, 11). 3.2.3.3 Hamadan During the Umayyad era Hamadan was mainly an administrative centre; hardly any of the conquering Arabs settled in the city. Under the early Abbasids a number of syncretistic movements found followers there: first Sinpādh, later Bābak and the Khurrāmiyya.1 The nearby town of Dargachīn/Darkazīn as well as its surroundings were inhabited by Mazdakites.2 Towards the end of the second century a Murjiʾte was qāḍī in Hamadan: Abū Hishām Aṣram b. Ḥawshab al-Kindī, a Southern Arab who was greatly taken with Muʿāwiya.3 He died after 202/817–8.4 When he transmitted hadith on a visit to Basra, he found numerous listeners at first, until people noticed that he could not be trusted; only few remained with him afterwards.5 ʿAmr b. ʿAlī al-Fallās (d. 249/863) claimed, probably in his K. taḍʿīf al-rijāl, that he was a Murjiʾite.6 We are not able to

9  Momen, Introduction to Shiʿi Islam 78. Information on the sanctuary in Qom, albeit mainly from a more recent time, may be found in Ḥusayn Mudarrisī Ṭabāṭabāʾī, Turbat-i pākān, 1–2; Qom 2535/1976–7. 1   In more detail B. Fragner, Geschichte der Stadt Hamadān 18ff. and 35ff.; regarding Sinpādh/Sunbādh also Czegledy in: X. Int. Kongreß für Rel. Gesch. (Marburg) 147f., Daniel, Khurasan 126ff., and Składanek, Doktryny 164f.; regarding Bābak see ch. C 3.3.5 below; regarding the Khurrāmiyya ch. C 3.2.2.2.7.3. 2  Yāqūt, Muʿjam al-buldān II 451 b s. v. 3  Cf. the hadith cited by Suyūṭī, La‌ʾālī I 416, 1ff. 4  People were still attending his hadith lectures in this year (TB VII 32, 7f; also Mīzān no. 1017). 5  T B VII 31, 3ff. He also visited Nishapur once (cf. Khalīfa-i Naysābūrī, Talkhīṣ 15, 13). 6  Ibid. 31, 19ff.; also Mīzān, loc. cit., and Lisān al-Mīzān I 461 no. 1424. Regarding al-Fallās and his book cf. my Trad. Polemik 49.

Iran

709

confirm this,7 but as far as we know them, during the third century the qāḍīs in the city were Ḥanafites. After the Būyids came to power in 320/932, Shāfiʿites, too, were able to gain ground.8 At the end of the fourth century Muqaddasī found the aṣḥāb al-ḥadīth in the ascendancy.9 This probably explains why Hamadan was later seen as a stronghold of the anthropomorphists;10 Shāfiʿites were counted among them, too.11 3.2.3.4 Rayy ʿAbdallāh b. Muʿāwiya had had coins struck in Rayy as early as 127 (!).1 This city appears to have been under strong Kufan influence, which took a variety of forms. When a certain Muḥammad b. Abān came to the city and began lecturing on hadith, his audience wished to hear about ra‌ʾy; he then collated a booklet of irjāʾ traditions for them.2 Unfortunately we cannot date him with complete certainty. We would assume that he was a Kufan, in which case he was probably Muḥammad b. Abān al-Qurashī who died 175/791.3 His visit to the city would then have been at the time when al-Mahdī, as crown prince, rebuilt and expanded it under the name of Muḥammadiyya.4 Dhahabī tried to separate the two namesakes;5 he considered Rāzī to have been a pupil of Hishām b. ʿUbaydallāh al-Rāzī’s (d. 221/836)6 and of another Muḥammad b. Abān, this one from Balkh, who died in 244/858.7 In that case he would have lived around two generations later. Shaybānī, Abū Ḥanīfa’s famous pupil, transmitted much hadith from the Kufan Muḥammad b. Abān al-Qurashī. He died in 189/805 in Rayy, although he did not really belong in that city, being a member of Hārūn al-Rashīd’s retinue 7  Bukhārī I2 56 no. 1671; IAH I1 336 no. 1273; nothing comparable in ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ I 118 no. 142 and Ibn Ḥibbān, Majrūḥīn I 181, 10ff. 8  Halm, Ausbreitung 140ff. Regarding the second century cf. Juynboll, Tradition 226. 9  Aḥsan al-taqāsīm 395, 7. 10  ʿAbd al-Jalīl Qazwīnī, Naqḍ 404, 3. 11  Thus also those in Isfahan and other Iranian cities (Ibn al-Dāʿī, Tabṣira 98, 11f.). 1  Miles, Numismatic History of Rayy 15f. 2  Ibn Ḥajar, Lisān al-Mīzān V 33 no. 115. 3  See vol.  I 246f. above. 4  After 141/758. Cf. the summary of a history of the city in Schwarz, Iran 745ff. (p. 752f.), and Wiet, Soieries persanes 165ff. (p. 168); also Miles, Numismatic History, passim. 5  Mīzān no. 7131 (contradicting no. 7128). 6  Mīzān no. 9230; regarding him see also p. 713 below. 7  Mīzān no. 7132; TB II 78ff. no. 458; Fażāʾil-i Balkh 244, ult. ff. The passage in Dhahabī which mentions this teacher–pupil connection (III 454. –8f.) is not transmitted entirely reliably.

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when the latter visited the city for four months.8 The office of judge appears to have been the domain of the Shīʿites at the time. We know three of them. The first, Abū ʿUthmān ʿAmr b. Jumayʿ al-Azdī, was a pupil of Aʿmash’s and apparently a moderate; as the kunya shows, he named his eldest son ʿUthmān.9 He appears to have been from Basra; Kashshī believed him to be a Butrite.10 He had also been qāḍī in Ḥulwān in the Jibāl province.11 The Imāmites listed him among the followers of Muḥammad alBāqir and Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq and preserved a nuskha of his containing traditions.12 – The two others have in common that they were both pupils of Ibn Isḥāq’s and supported their pro-ʿAlid convictions with material drawn from his works. The older of the two, Abū Mujāhid ʿAlī b. Mujāhid b. Muslim al-Rāzī, also known as Ibn al-Kābulī, d. 182/798, was not very successful: according to Sunni opinion his K. al-maghāzī teemed with falsified isnāds.13 He also wrote a K. manāqib amīr al-muʾminīn wa-mathālib al-munāfiqīn, a title that gave away his opinion: he probably included Abū Bakr and ʿUmar in the munāfiqūn.14 8  Ṭabarī III 701, 20ff.; Ṣaymarī, Akhbār Abī Ḥanīfa 120, 11f. Consequently it is misleading to list him as qāḍī of Rayy, as Halm does (Ausbreitung 131 and 136); it also remains to be confirmed that shortly before his death Hārūn appointed him “qāḍī of Khorasan” as EI1 IV 291 claims based on a late Ḥanafite source. The date of his death given in Halm (187/803) is impossible due to the constellation mentioned. Shaybānī allegedly died on the same day as Kisāʾī (Abū l-ʿAbbās al-Ḥasanī, Maṣābīḥ in Madelung, Arabic Texts 63, 9f.). Regarding Shaybānī’s biography cf. M. Khadduri, Islamic Law of Nations 26ff.; for general information cf. Muḥammad al-Dasūqī’s monograph Al-imām Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan al-Shaybānī wa-atharuhū fī l-fiqh al-islāmī (Qatar 1407/1987); also p. 534 above. 9  Regarding the teacher–pupil connection cf. TB XII 191, 16f.; regarding the office of qāḍī Najāshī 205, 4ff. 10   Rijāl 390, 7. 11  Fasawī III 39, 11; ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ III 264 no. 1270; Mīzān no. 6345. 12  Najāshī, loc. cit.; Ṭūsī, Fihrist 243 no. 529 with ʿAlam al-Hudā’s commentary. 13   T B XII 107, 11f. Fück, Muḥammad Ibn Isḥāq 44 discusses him as a pupil of Ibn Isḥāq’s; cf. also Mīzān no. 5919. General information on him in GAS 1/312. 14  Cf. Kohlberg in: JSAI 1984/152. This might be the origin of the tradition found in ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ III 252 no. 1254, that the prophet once preached a feast-day sermon sitting on his white mule, with ʿAlī sitting behind him.

711

Iran

However, we do not know how long he lived in Rayy, as he becomes more tangible in Baghdad especially.15 – The other one, Salama b. al-Faḍl al-Abrash, d. 191/807, was more successful; he is the author of the recensions of both Ibn Isḥāq’s K. al-mubtada‌ʾ and Maghāzī that are most widely used in the east.16 People were not sure what to make of him; the more the Sīra gained a foothold, the higher his reputation rose. He had probably also been a Qadarite, as he also heard Ḥasan al-Baṣrī’s Tafsīr in ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd’s recension from Ibn Isḥāq.17 – The extent to which the Shīʿites had gained ground in the city becomes clear in the hadiths of another of Aʿmash’s pupils, Dāhir b. Yaḥyā b. Dāhir al-Rāzī, who cited his teacher as the authority for this prophetic dictum: “ʿAlī is flesh of my flesh. He is to me as Aaron is to Moses, except that there will be no prophet after me”.18 He also circulated a variant of the hadith that proposes the Scripture and the holy family as guarantors of salvation,19 in the form of a saying by Ibn ʿAbbās: “There will be civil war (fitna). Those who experience it should look to two criteria ( fa-ʿalayhi bi-khaṣlatayn): the Scripture and ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib. For I heard the prophet say, taking ʿAlī’s hand: this is the first one to have believed in me, and the first one who will shake my hand on the day of the resurrection. He is the touchstone ( fārūq) of this community, who separates true from false. He is the queen bee (yaʿsūb) of this community; but money is the queen bee of tyrants. He is the greatest of the righteous (al-ṣiddīq alakbar). He is my successor after my death”.20 The critics were right in seeing Rāfiḍite ideas at work here. The honorifics of the two first caliphs, ṣiddīq and fārūq, were appropriated for ʿAlī, and their caliphate declared invalid. ʿAlī is 15   T B XII 106f. no. 6546. His qāḍī position is noted without a location, and only in TT VII 377f. no. 612 (after which Juynboll, Muslim Tradition 233). Regarding him cf. also Bukhārī III2 297 no. 2457 and IAH III2 205 no. 1123. 16   I AH II1 168ff. no. 739; ʿUqaylī II 150 no. 650; Mīzān no. 3410; TT IV 153f. no. 265. Also GAS 1/79; Fück, Ibn Isḥāq 44; Azmi, Studies 206; Khoury in: La vie du Prophète 20f.; Al-Samuk, Ibn Isḥāq, passim (esp. the table p. 154ff.); Newby, The Making of the Last Prophet 8. 17   G AS 1/30; cf. p. 339f. above. 18  Cf. vol.  I 286 above. 19  See vol.  I 340 above. 20  ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ II 46f. no. 477 > Mīzān no. 2587; also Suyūṭī, La‌ʾālī I 324, 12ff.

712

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the “king bee” (yaʿsūb) as which the ghulāt named him; indeed, he is the only member of the community suited to rule. Regarding the meaning of yaʿsūb cf. Ullmann in: WO 9/1977/111. At the time it was not known that the “king bee” is in fact a queen bee; yaʿsūb meaning “drone” is modern. The ghulāt always used the term amīr alnaḥl, e.g. the Khaṭṭābites (cf. Halm, Gnosis 207f.) and especially the Nuṣayrians (ibid. 341ff.). This is because the bees (naḥl) appear in the Quran where they are the recipients of a revelation (sura 16:68; cf. ch. C 3.2.2.2.7.3 below); they are, as it were, the prototype of the imams. One of al-Mahdī’s mawālī believed them to be the Banū Hāshim in general (Agh. III 158, 11ff.). Cf. Goldziher, Ges. Schr. V 213f. – Calling ʿAlī al-ṣiddīq al-akbar probably meant to emphasise that he rather than Abū Bakr was the first to believe in Muḥammad (thus Kister in: BSOAS 31/1969/225, n.). The same idea is expressed in the hadith quoted above. Regarding ʿAlī as fārūq al-akbar cf. the traditions in Ibn al-Ṣāffār, Baṣāʾir al-darajāt 415f. no. 3ff. Abū Sulaymān ʿAbdallāh b. Dāhir al-Aḥmarī, the son of the previous one, continued this thread. He obtained the hadīth althaqalayn in a version his father had not known.21 We also learn that the latter had had further traditions up his sleeve which he had not made quite so public. He thought that the prophets had existed as spirits before the creation,22 and in a vaticinatio ex eventu nourished the hope that the Banū Hāshim would finally come to power under a mahdī. They were persecuted until the black banners came from the east. Twice they had been offered the rule, and twice they rejected it. The mahdī, however, must be followed “even if one had to crawl (to him) across the snow”.23 It is difficult to determine when in his view the ahl al-bayt rejected the rule for the second time. Maybe when Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq kept his distance from al-Nafs al-zakiyya’s uprising; ʿAbdallāh b. Dāhir certainly had some of his notes.24 It is dubious that he could have met him in person, as his father was already transmitting from Aʿmash, who was the same age; 21  ʿUqaylī II 250. 9ff. 22   Biḥār XV 14 no. 17: after Mufaḍḍal. 23   Mīzān no. 4295; regarding the phrase cf. Madelung in EI2 V 1233a. 24  Ardabīlī, Jāmiʿ I 483b. The first time, of course, was during the revolution itself; Abū Sulaymān may have been thinking of the letter Abū Salama wrote to Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq from Kufa (see vol. I 370, n. 6 above).

Iran

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he probably lived during the last quarter of the second century.25 Later he went to Baghdad where, to Yaḥyā b. Maʿīn’s annoyance, he found a number of followers.26 While Hārūn al-Rashīd may not have interrupted this Shīʿite tradition by appointing Shaybānī, he did once appoint a Ḥanafite qāḍī in Rayy, Faḍl b. Ghānim al-Khuzāʿī (d. Jumādā II 236/Dec. 850), a man from Marv who had studied under Abū Yūsuf.27 He probably did not stay long as he went to Egypt in 198/813 in order to assume the position of judge there,28 but he had time enough to note that there were people in the city who believed the Quran to have been created. He reported this to the caliph who told him to punish them severely.29 After his time, but still during the second century, Hishām b. ʿUbaydallāh alRāzī (d. 221/836) had someone thrown into prison for tajahhum,30 which suggests that he, too, was qāḍī in the city; Shaybānī had died in his house and he had studied under him as well as Abū Yūsuf.31 Clearly the Ḥanafites in Rayy were particularly “orthodox”, at least as long as they knew the caliph was on their side. After all, another man linked to them was Shuʿayb b. Sahl b. Kathīr, named Shaʿbōya (d. 246/860), who made himself most unpopular with his intransigent support of the official dogma;32 he had studied in Rayy and became qāḍī in the Baghdad suburb of Ruṣāfa under Muʿtaṣim. The miḥna may have contributed to the old resistance to the khalq al-Qurʾān taking on a new guise in due course. From the middle of the third century onwards, highly principled traditionists appeared on the scene here as well as in Baghdad, some of whom became famous far beyond their home city: first Abū 25  This makes him too old to allow the interpretation of his nisba as meaning he was a member of Isḥāq al-Aḥmar’s circle which attracted a number of extremists during the time of the tenth and eleventh imams; Isḥāq died only in 286/899 (cf. Halm in: Der Islam 55/1078/245ff.). Regarding the nisba in general cf. Samʿānī I 124f.; he believed the Banū Aḥmar to be a sub-tribe of the Azd. 26   T B IX 453 no. 5085. 27  Regarding him IAW I 407, 1ff. no. 1130; TB XII 357ff. no. 6790. 28   T B XII 359, 10. 29  Ibn Ḥajar, Lisān al-Mīzān IV 446, 8ff.; interestingly he would become one of the miḥna’s most prominent victims when he was spending his twilight years in Baghdad (Ṭabarī III 1121, 6, and 1132, 8). Still, Ma‌ʾmūn was able to draw attention to the fact that he had acquired a bad reputation in Egypt, where he also remained as qāḍī for one year only (ibid. 1127, 15ff.; cf. TB XII 359, 12ff.). 30  Ibn Taymiyya, Fatwā Ḥamawiyya 114, 19ff.; Dhahabī, ʿUlūw 209, 8ff. 31   I AW II 205f. no. 643; further sources in GAS 1/433. The date of his death given there (201/817) is supported by Hadiyyat al-ʿārifīn II 508, 9f., only; Dhahabī, loc. cit., has “221”. 32  See ch. C 3.3.3 below with further details.

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Zurʿa al-Rāzī (d. 264/878)33 and Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī (d. 277/890),34 then the latter’s son Ibn Abī Ḥātim (d. 327/938).35 The former two had studied under Ibn Ḥanbal while the latter brought Shāfiʿī into this tradition as well. He went to meet Yūnus b. ʿAbd al-Aʿlā (d. 264/877–8) in Egypt36 and composed a K. ādāb al-Shāfiʿī wa-manāqibihī.37 Even so, the Ḥanbalites still count him as one of their own.38 It is true that his father had composed an ʿaqīda following Ibn Ḥanbal’s precepts in which he exhorted people to adhere to the madhāhib ahl al-athar,39 and that he told his son about the scholars he met on his travels far and wide, and in which points of dogma they agreed. The son interviewed Abū Zurʿa on the same subject and published his findings as a kind of fundamental consensus of the Islamic world,40 pushing both Ḥanafites and Shīʿites to the margin. Abū Ḥātim recommended that one should turn one’s back on all those who composed books not based on traditions but on their own opinion (bil-ra‌ʾy bilā āthār).41 His son acted accordingly, quoting only hadiths in his extensive Tafsīr, but no earlier Tafsīr works.42 He also wrote a Radd ʿalā l-Jahmiyya; showing us another front where the ahl al-ḥadīth took the place of the Ḥanafites. While Ibn Abī Ḥātim mentioned Faḍl b. Ghānim al-Khuzāʿī and Hishām b. ʿUbaydallāh al-Rāzī approvingly,43 the systematic context had changed. All three theologians stressed that God sat on his throne in heaven.44 Each of the three also wrote a K. al-zuhd; emphasising, like Ibn Ḥanbal, the value of moderately ascetic practical piousness, even though a Ḥanbalite mysticism of the kind seen in Isfahan did not develop in Rayy. Here, there was already mysticism, which, however, seems to have emerged from the spirit of irjāʾ, as we can see in the character of 33  Cf. GAS 1/145. 34   G AS 1/153. 35   G AS 1/178f. 36  Halm, Ausbreitung 133; regarding Yūnus b. ʿAbd al-Aʿlā, one of Shāfiʿī’s most important Egyptian pupils, ibid. 236. 37  Ed. ʿAbd al-Ghanī ʿAbd al-Khāliq, Cairo 1953; reprint Beirut, n. d. 38  Ibn Abī Yaʿlā, Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila II 55 no. 596. He also wrote Faḍāʾl Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal (ibid. 55, 12). 39  Ibid. I 286, 3ff. 40  The text was adopted by Lālakāʾī, Sharḥ uṣūl iʿtiqād ahl al-sunna 176, 7ff., and also survives in a Damascene MS; the title Aṣl al-sunna wa-ʿtiqād al-dīn (cf. GAS 1/179) noted in the latter is not found in the former and is presumably secondary. 41  Ibn Abī Yaʿlā 286 14f. 42  Cf. Aḥmad ʿAbdallāh al-ʿImārī al-Zahrānī’s edition, 1ff.; Medina 1408/1988ff. 43  In the sources mentioned these reports are always traced back to him. 44  Dhahabī, ʿUlūw 235ff.

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Yaḥyā b. Muʿādh al-Rāzī, who died 258/872 in Nishapur. He ranked faith higher than actions and God’s grace higher than his justice; his theory of hope (rajāʾ) evolved out of this, contrasting with the emphasis on fear that had been typical of the self-­tormenting early ascetics.45 In Balkh he preached the merits of wealth over poverty,46 taking the wind out of Shaqīq al-Balkhī’s sails.47 He did not get on with the Jahmites, either; God, he said, was on his throne “separate from his creation”.48 It is, however, characteristic that Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī conducted a debate on “self-assuredness” (amn) with him.49 There was no definite victor in this struggle of wills for the time being. The Sunnites could not be argued out of kalām. During the second half of the third century Abū l-ʿAbbās al-Qalānisī, often named together with Ibn Kullāb, was living in the city; he composed treatises against Naẓẓām and a K. al-maqālāt among other things.50 The Shīʿa in its turn became more traditionalist; Kulīnī (d. Shaʿbān 329/May 941) was born in a village southwest of Rayy.51 The area was fertile ground for the Ismāʿīliyya, too. The first missionary, a certain Khalaf, arrived with the instruction: “Go to Rayy, for there – in Rayy, Āba, Qom, Qāshān, and in the provinces Ṭabaristān and Māzandarān – are many Shīʿites who will heed your call.’ He made his home in Kulēn at some point during the third century.52 At the beginning of the fourth century the city was home to the Ismāʿīlī Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī53 as well as the philosopher 45  In detail Meier, Abū Saʿīd 173ff. and earlier; also p. 613 and 620 above. 46  Ibid.  178ff. 47  See p. 614 above. 48  Ibn Taymiyya, Fatwā Ḥamawiyya 33, 7f. 49   Khatm al-awliyāʾ 388, 2 and earlier; cf. also 403, 8ff. 50  Regarding him in detail see Gimaret in: JA 277/1989/227ff. 51  Cf. Madelung in EI2 V 362f. The Shīʿite mutakallim Abū l-Ṭayyib al-Rāzī mentioned in Ṭūsī’s Fihrist (376 no. 850 > Ardabīlī II 396), who is difficult to classify, was probably older; Ṭūsī calls him Abū Muḥammad al-ʿAlawī’s teacher (regarding whom see Ardabīlī II 414). He was a “Murjiʾite”, i.e. he did not believe in the eternal duration of the punishment of hell – maybe because of ʿAlī’s intercession. A contemporary of Kulīnī’s was Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad Ibn Qibba al-Rāzī (cf. Ibn al-Nadīm, Fihrist 225, 5ff.; Ṭūsī 287f. no. 648; EIran I 360a); H. Modarressi has written a monograph on him. 52  Cf. the details provided by Stern, Studies in Early Ismāʿīlism 190ff. Regarding the Shīʿite community in Rayy from the mid-third century onwards see Madelung, Religious Trends 84; it looked after the tomb of a companion of the ninth and tenth imams, ʿAbd al-ʿAẓīm al-Ḥasanī (cf. Madelung in EIran I 96f. s. n.). 53  Regarding him GAS 1/573; Stern, ibid. 195ff.

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Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. Zakariyyāʾ.54 The Ḥanafites were able to withstand the Shāfiʿites and the Ḥanbalites; between 375/985 and 380/990 Muqaddasī wrote that the majority of the inhabitants of Rayy followed Abū Ḥanīfa’s law school and Najjār’s ­theology.55 Still, the chief qāḍī of the city at the time was a Shāfiʿite, the Muʿtazilite ʿAbd al-Jabbār;56 the Ṣāḥib Ibn ʿAbbād who appointed him in 367/978 was himself a good example of how blurred the borders between Muʿtazila, ahl al-­sunna and Shīʿa had become by that time.57

54  Regarding him see, after the ground-breaking studies by P. Kraus, the articles by L. Goodman in: Philosophical Forum 4/1972/26ff. and Essays in Islamic Philosophy and Science, ed. Hourani 25ff., as well as M. Muḥaqqiq, Faylasūf-i Rayy (Teheran 1970). 55   Aḥsan al-taqāsīm 395, 1; see also ch. 5.2.2 below. 56  Regarding him see Madelung in EIran I 116ff. 57  Cf. Cahen and Pellat in EI2 III 672b.

CHAPTER 4

The Arabian Peninsula There is a great contrast between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula; the region from which Islam came was at the same time the one in which it was subject to the smallest foreign influence. Of course, Arabia was not entirely secluded from events in the “Old World”; we need only consider the frescoes and statues in Qaryat al-Fāʾw1 or the Sasanid occupation of Yemen.2 Still, it is likely that religion was able to grow undisturbed and according to its own laws there, just as society still preserves pure ancient Arabian traits to this day. Research is complicated by the fact that we possess only few indigenous and reliable sources; even Mālik b. Anas’ Muwaṭṭaʾ survives only in non-Hijazi recensions.3 The reason for this was that the Arabian Peninsula moved into a marginal political position as early as the first century; ʿAbdallāh b. al-Zubayr was the last to try to restore its importance. Our account begins at a point when the loss of importance was already established fact, when even the Khārijites who had first appeared in Arabia had found another target region. Politics was determined by governors about whose activities we know little;4 and scholarship was dominated by men whose images we find in the biographies in Iraq or the Maghreb. Thus while the contours are blurred, three regions can be distinguished as individual cultural provinces: the Hijaz with its two centres Mecca and Medina, Yemen, and Oman with Ḥaḍramawt.

1  Cf. the images in A. R. al-Ansary, Qaryat al-Fau, p. 104 and 135ff. 2  See p. 787 below. 3  Cf. Schacht in EI2 VI 264. 4   Regarding the administration of the Hijaz in the first centuries cf. Ṣ. A. al-ʿAlī in: Abhath 21/1968, issue 2–4, 3ff.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi ��.��63/9789004344020_004

718 4.1

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The Hijaz

4.1.1 Mecca Once a year, during the pilgrimage, Mecca was the meeting place of the great wide world. Ordinary people came, too, as well as those who did not have much money, such as scholars, their elation occasionally dampened by the avarice of the locals. A building boom under Muʿāwiya had limited the space available in the city; visitors had to pay for lodgings. This did not seem to the pious to be compatible with the prophet’s teachings; and a hadith debate erupted on whether it was in fact permitted at all to let houses in Mecca.1 Furthermore the crush was such that during the ṭawāf men and women were close to one another in a not very decorous fashion; the governor Khālid al-Qasrī was the first to take action and separate the sexes.2 Al-Mahdī censured the Meccans’ bad morals, namely usury and an easy-going lifestyle, in an official letter.3 People in the city were certainly no less pious than elsewhere, only more carefree and inclined to pleasure. The governor had little reason to intervene, and if he did it was usually because political turmoil elsewhere extended as far as his city. When Ḥajjāj persuaded Khālid al-Qasrī to surrender the Iraqi scholars who had taken part in Ibn al-Ashʿath’s uprising,4 some Meccans were arrested as well: the Quranic exegete Mujāhid b. Jabr (d. 103/721 or 104/722) as well as the jurists ʿAṭāʾ b. Abī Rabāḥ (d. 114/732) and ʿAmr b. Dīnār (d. 126/743).5 Later, Hishām would revoke the inhabitants’ ʿaṭāʾ for a year because they had leaned towards Zayd b. ʿAlī.6 Two of the three Meccan scholars were soon released, only Mujāhid remaining in prison for some months until Ḥajjāj’s death;7 he had in fact been present at Dayr al-Jamājim.8 We do not know why the other two had been troubled. Maybe they had only given shelter to their colleagues, or protested against their arrest; ʿAmr b. Dīnār was reported to have abused a guardsman when the latter

1  Cf. in more detail Kister in: JESHO 15/1972/86ff. (= Studies in Jāhiliyya and Early Islam, no. II). 2  Wüstenfeld, Chroniken IV 148. 3  Extant as an addition by Khuzāʿī to Azraqī’s Akhbār Makka (Wüstenfeld, Chroniken IV 164ff.). 4  Cf. vol.  I 181 above. 5  Ṭabarī II 1262, 6ff.; quoted in TT V 32, 5ff. Ibn Saʿd talks of ten prisoners in all (VI 184, 15). The event took place in 94/713, the same year in which persecution started in Medina, too (see p. 744 below). 6  Agh. VII 22, 3ff. 7  Thus according to the original text in Ṭabarī; Ibn Ḥajar quotes Ṭabarī differently. 8  Fasawī I 711, –4ff.

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arrested a “Qadarite”, afraid that the same fate might befall him.9 Searching for deeper reasons meets with difficulties. Madelung assumed that they, like the Iraqis arrested with them, were Murjiʾites,10 but the Murjiʾa was not really established in the Hijaz.11 Furthermore, two of them, Mujāhid and ʿAmr b. Dīnār, were claimed by the Ibāḍites.12 The latter was a Qadarite as well,13 and in addition was thought to have ties to the Shīʿa.14 And while Kufan jurists visited ʿAṭāʾ b. Abī Rabāḥ, it was not for his theological but his legal opinions;15 he was also quoted as having spoken out against the Basran Qadariyya.16 The only text that promises greater certainty compared to these not easily verifiable speculations is Mujāhid’s Tafsīr. It is available in a printed edition17 which, however, will require more in-depth scrutiny as it has clearly been revised and castigated.18 Even without this edition, G. Stauth reached the conclusion that “Mujāhid’s Tafsīr is impossible to reconstruct on the basis of the extant sources”. This verdict refers to the linguistic appearance; before AH 150 tradition permitted a “largely free approach to the text as long as the meaning was conveyed correctly”.19 Which gives rise to the question of whether this “free” approach might have resulted in corrections to the substance – such as omissions – as well. The question must, as we shall see, be answered in the affirmative, but a detailed analysis is yet to be undertaken. It must always 9   Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Faḍl 337, 14ff. > IM 135, 1ff., after Muḥammad b. Yazdādh’s K. al-maṣābīḥ. Cf. also Wüstenfeld, Chroniken IV 150. 10   Qāsim 233. 11  See p. 739ff. below. 12  Ashʿarī, Maq. 109, 14f. 13  Thus Yaḥyā b. Maʿīn (cf. Kaʿbī 81, 7, and 82, 7f. > Faḍl 337, 15), but maybe due simply to the anecdote mentioned above. 14  Al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī, Kifāya 125, 11. He was a friend of Muḥammad al-Bāqir’s (Fasawī I 704, 6f., where this fact is taken as proof of his distance to the Qadariyya). 15  See vol. I 228. Regarding ʿAṭāʾ b. Abī Rabāḥ as a jurist cf. Schacht, Origins 250ff., and Motzki, Die Anfänge der islamischen Jurisprudenz 157ff. and 219ff.; he was an authority on pilgrimage rites (cf. Juynboll in: JSAI 10/1987/100). 16   H T 167f.; also Index s. n. 17  Vol. 1–2, ed. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Ṭāhir Muḥammad al-Sūrtī; Islamabad (ca. 1980). 18  It is essentially Warqāʾ b. ʿUmar’s redaction after Ibn Abī Najīḥ, expanded by Ādam b. Abī Iyās al-Khurāsānī (d. 220/835; cf. GAS 1/37 and 102; also p. 77 above and p. 722 and 730 below). ʿAṭāʾ b. Abī Rabāḥ also gave exegetic lectures the contents of which came down to Ṭabarī (GAS 1/31); but they are even more in need of reconstruction (cf. Cerrahoğlu in: İlah. Fak. Dergisi 22/1978/17ff.; also id., Tefsir tarihi I 163ff.). 19   Die Überlieferung des Korankommentars Muǧāhid b. Ǧabrs (PhD Gießen 1969), p. 225 and 223; cf. also Leemhuis in: Proc. IX. Congress UEAI Amsterdam 169ff., and Approaches to the History of the Interpretation of the Qurʾān 19ff.

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be borne in mind that in the case of an early “author” like Mujāhid, as with Muqātil b. Sulaymān, later approaches to a problem do not necessarily apply and that he should not be linked to a particular camp because of one isolated remark. Goldziher pointed out the differences in his treatment of popular religious concepts. On the one hand Mujāhid modified them with metaphoric exegesis,20 on the other he interpreted the “praiseworthy rank” or “honourable place” (maqām maḥmūd), to which Muḥammad will be awakened by God according to sura 17:79, to mean quite literally that on the Latter Day God would have Muḥammad sit on the throne beside him. Other exegetes favoured the interpretation that this indicated Muḥammad’s intercession, even if they were not usually inclined to metaphorical exegesis. In the same place (Richtungen der Koranauslegung 107ff.) Goldziher also looked at the subsequent fate of the latter of Mujāhid’s exegeses. It is not found in the printed version of his commentary where it is replaced by the more common shafāʿa interpretation (I 369, 2ff.). This is not, in fact, an entirely new interpretation as the earlier one, too, presumed that the prophet would use his position sitting beside God to intercede on behalf of his community. The attendant circumstances were not mentioned in order to avoid criticism (cf. ch. D 1.2.1.5). In the third century this kind of evasive tactics led to a quarrel among the aṣḥāb al-ḥadīth in Baghdad. Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl b. Yūsuf al-Tirmidhī (d. Ramadan 280/Nov.–Dec. 893), a traditionist from eastern Iran who had studied in Kufa under Faḍl b. Dukayn among others and later enjoyed great renown in the capital (cf. TB II 42ff. no. 435), told Ibn Ḥanbal in a letter that in his view someone who did not continue to transmit Mujāhid’s view was a Jahmite (!) and dualist. This angered Ibn Ḥanbal, already an old man at the time, and he urged his pupil Abū Bakr al-Marrūdhī to refute the claim (Khallāl, Musnad  77, –6ff. and earlier; also  86, –8ff.). Ibn Baṭṭa, too, took Ibn Ḥanbal’s part (Ibāna 61, 1ff.), later also Dhahabī (ʿUlūw 156, –5ff., and 211, –4ff.). Dhahabī also included information according to which Mujāhid’s interpretation was attributed to ʿAbdallāh b. Masʿūd and Ḍaḥḥāk b. Muzāḥim (ibid. 119, 9ff., and 166, 5ff.), which tells us that it was also known in Kufa as well as Khorasan. Ṭabarī considered it scandalous, as would Wāḥidī later whom Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī quoted extensively (Mafātīḥ al-ghayb XXI 32, 9ff.). Ṭabarī met with militant opposition from the Ḥanbalites 20  Thus e.g. the statement in sura 2:65 that those who do not keep the Sabbath would be turned into apes (cf. Ṭabarī, Tafsīr 3II 172, –5ff.; cf. transl. Cooper I 372f.), and especially sura 75: 22f., the famous instance of seeing God (cf. Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Mughnī IV 212, 9ff. > Malāḥimī, Muʿtamad 465, apu. ff., after non-Muʿtazilite sources).

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and consequently expressed himself diplomatically in his Tafsīr (2XV 145, –10ff.; cf. Andrae, Person Muhammeds 270ff.); he felt compelled to publish a separate text stressing his orthodoxy (Yāqūt, Irshād VI 436, 2ff.; probably his K. ṣarīḥ al-sunna, ed. Sourdel in: REI 36/1968/177ff.). Shortly after his death in 317/929 there were riots in Baghdad fired by this issue (Goldziher, Richtungen 101f.; also Rosenthal in: The History of al-Ṭabarī I, Introduction 71ff. and 149ff., and Gilliot, Exégèse, langue et théologie en Islam 250ff.). For later opinions cf. Huitema, Voorspraak 17, n. 6). It may have been this matter that led to Mujāhid being accused of basing his teachings on the ideas of the “people of the book”. The OT has sitting on the throne together as a symbol of shared rule (Job 36:7; Ps. 110:1, quoted in Mt. 22:44); the son of man will sit on the right hand of “power” (Mt. 26:64). But the idea may just as well have come from Arab culture; we read repeatedly how a ruler or governor invites a pious man – the righteous man, in Biblical terms – to sit on the throne beside him (Balādhurī, Ansāb IV1 242, –6 ʿAbbās; Abū Nuʿaym, Ḥilya V 140, 5f.; Dhahabī, Siyar IV 461, –6f.). 4.1.1.1 The Qadarites Mujāhid imagined that when God “sealed” the hearts, he did so gradually and in the wake of human sin.1 This idea was pleasing to Qadarite ears, and in fact Mujāhid was occasionally listed among the Qadarites,2 as were several of his pupils and their pupils, the first of whom edited his exegetic lectures: Abū Yasār ʿAbdallāh b. Abī Najīḥ Yasār, d. before the great pestilence, in 131/748,3 according to other sources in 132/749.4 His father Abū Najīḥ (d. 107/727) had been a mawlā of the Thaqīf,5 while he himself moved his allegiance to the Makhzūm.6 The family possessed some wealth and could allow themselves the luxury of scholarly activity. The father transmitted traditions and was close to Ṭāwūs b. Kaysān (d. 106/725 in Mecca).7 1  Ṭabarī, Tafsīr 3I 258f. no. 300f.; Ibn al-Jawzī, Quṣṣāṣ 53f. no. 101. 2  Faḍl 338, 8 > IM 135, 9; but cf. his alleged criticism of Ghaylān al-Dimashqī (Ibn Waḍḍāḥ, Bidaʿ IX 14). 3  I S V 355, 17f.; Khalīfa, Ṭab. 707 no. 2561, and Ta‌ʾrīkh 603, 17. 4  I S 355, 18f.; Shīrāzī, Ṭab. 71, 1 after Wāqidī; Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif 469, 5. 5  I S 348, 22.f. More precisely, according to Bukhārī III1 233 no. 767, and IAH II2 203 no. 947: mawlā of Akhnas (b. Sharīq b. ʿAmr) al-Thaqafī. Regarding him cf. Ṭabarī, Index s. n., and p. 169 above. 6  Maʿārif 469, 1. 7  A Z 516 no. 1375.

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The mother’s brother, Sulaymān b. Abī Muslim al-Aḥwal, of whom we know hardly anything else, was also a traditionist.8 Ibn Abī Najīḥ’s sister Fāṭima married al-Qāsim b. (Nāfiʿ b.) Abī Bazza (d. 124/742), the only one to have heard Mujāhid’s entire Tafsīr from the author.9 He came from a humble background; his father Nāfiʿ had been sold as a slave in his youth. His son ʿAbdallāh, however, Ibn Abī Najīḥ’s nephew, married a great-great-granddaughter of Bādhān’s, the Sasanid governor in Yemen in the prophet’s day.10 Together with his brother Nāfiʿ this ʿAbdallāh b. Qāsim inherited the house Ibn Abī Najīḥ had built “on the rock”, i.e. in al-Ṣafā, the well-known hill near Mecca. Ibn Abī Najīḥ was survived by a minor daughter who died soon afterwards. The kinship ties are shown on the family tree below.11 Ibn Abī Najīḥ received the notes of Mujāhid’s lectures first hand, from his brother-in-law. On the whole the riwāyāt do not consider that the latter was the only one who could claim genuine samāʿ from the author and ought to be marked as an intermediate link. On the other hand, tradition did not forget that other authorities adduced by e.g. Ṭabarī in addition to Ibn Abī Najīḥ, such as the two Kufans Layth b. Abī Sulaym (d. after 140/757)12 and al-Ḥakam b. ʿUtayba (d. ca. 115/733),13 but also Ibn Jurayj,14 took this “fundamental text” as their starting point.15 It is doubtful whether Ibn Abī Najīḥ also wrote a commentary of his own, as Sezgin assumed.16 Sezgin himself believed that this work was based on Mujāhid’s Tafsīr, but it would seem more straightforward to assume that Ibn Abī Najīḥ added some of his own explanations in the redaction.17 In his commentary Ṭabarī copied these in full in around 700 places,18 and referred to them in his history as well.19 However, we must assume further 8  Fasawī II 22, 7f.; cf. also IS V 355, 21f., and TT IV 218 no. 368. According to Kaʿbī 84, 13ff., he, too, was a Qadarite. 9  Fasawī II 154, 5ff. (regarding the form of the name cf. Dhahabī, Mushtabih 56, 6; IS V 352, 16ff.; IAH III2 122 no. 697. The MS has here as well as at I 703, pu. ff., Burda instead of Bazza every time. 10  Regarding him cf. EI2 Suppl. 115f. s. n.; also p. 787 below. 11  Cf., also for the preceding, the passage in Fasawī I 704, 8ff. 12   Mīzān no. 6997; slightly confused TT VIII 465ff. no. 833. 13  Dāwūdī II 306, –7. Regarding him see vol. I 278ff. above. 14  Regarding him see GAS 1/91. 15  Cf. e.g. Fasawī II 154, 5ff.; for Ibn Abī Najīḥ also Bukhārī III1 233, 9f., and Mīzān II 515, 3f. – Concerning the issue cf. Abbott, Arabic Papyri II 98, and Stauth 71f. and 226f.; also 131. The term Grundwerk “fundamental text” is Stauth’s. 16   G AS 1/20. 17  References in Stauth 97ff. 18  H. Horst in: ZDMG 103/1953/296f.; in detail Stauth 105ff. 19  Cf. Ta‌ʾrīkh, Index s. n.

Qisma

ʿUthmān3

Umm Yaʿlā

⚭ Muṭahhar

ʿAlī

ʿAbdallāh

⚭

ʿAbdallāh

Qāsim

Nāfiʿ2

Nāfiʿ

⚭

Abū Bazza Bashshār1

Fāṭima

⚭

(Daughter)

ʿAbdallāh

Abū Najīḥ Yasār

(X)

Sulaymān

Abū Muslim

1  Cf. IAH III2 122, 14. Fasawī I 704, 9 to be corrected accordingly. 2  According to IS V 352 Nāfiʿ would be the same person as Abū Bazza, but Fasawī’s tradition contradicts this. According to the latter, Abū Bazza was a client of ʿAbdallāh b. al-Sāʾib al-Makhzūmī (cf. Khalīfa, Ṭab. 695 no. 2506), while his son was a client of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Surāqa of the Kināna who had bought him from ʿAbdallāh b. al-Sāʾib’s daughter Fāṭima and later freed him. 3 Also known as ʿUthmān b. al-Aswad al-Jumaḥī because of his clientage (d. 150/767; Fasawī I 704, –5, and IS V 361, 1f.). He was a traditionist as well and took Qāsim’s two sons under his wing (Fasawī I 705, 1).

Yaʿlā

al-Aswad

Mūsā

Bādhān

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intermediate stages; ʿĪsā b. Maymūn20 and Warqāʾ b. ʿUmar (d. ca. 160/776) for instance based their work on Ibn Abī Najīḥ’s text one generation after him.21 Like many other Quranic experts of the time Ibn Abī Najīḥ applied his knowledge practically as a jurist. During his last years, after ʿAmr b. Dīnār’s death (126/743), he was the leading jurisconsult (muftī) in Mecca, more highly regarded than Ibn Jurayj.22 The Kufan qāḍī Ibn Shubruma (d. 144/762), who was greatly esteemed at the time, respected him and is said to have sought his advice regarding pilgrims’ rites (manāsik).23 Ḥajjāj b. Arṭāt, whom the Abbasids appointed qāḍī in Basra immediately after the revolution, also came to see him.24 Abū Yūsuf quoted him in his K. al-kharāj,25 and Sufyān b. ʿUyayna (d. 196/812) was proud to have heard him as a child.26 Such prestige was not possible without knowing community tradition and hadith. In this area, too, he transmitted from Mujāhid among others, and to Warqāʾ b. ʿUmar.27 He was said to have claimed to always transmit text exactly as he heard it.28 Ismāʿīl b. ʿUlayya (d. 193/809) owned material from him which contained salient features (aṭrāf) of traditions.29 Despite his conservative attitude30 he does not seem to have minded Ibn Abī Najīḥ being a Qadarite, although this was known throughout Iraq31 and would soon begin to cause offence. In Mecca, criticism was said to have arisen among the family of Ibn Abī Najīḥ’s nephew, the – presumably distinguished – descendants of Bādhān;

20  Regarding him see p. 727 below. 21  Cf. GAS 1/37 and, in general, 1/29; Stauth 2ff. and 69ff. Also Azmi, Studies 206; Cerrahoğlu in: İlah. Fak. Dergisi 23/1978/40f. 22  Who was considerably younger; he died 150/767, or 151/768 (GAS 1/91). Cf. AZ 451, 1ff. = 514, 15 = 558, 1f.; Fasawī I 702, 9ff. = II 25, 11ff.; I 703, 9f. Also Kaʿbī 83, 6f. after Sufyān b. ʿUyayna. General information in Shīrāzī, Ṭab. 70, ult. ff. 23  Wakīʿ III 54, –4ff.; cf. also Fasawī I 703, 11ff. 24   A Z 557 no. 1522. Regarding him see p. 177 above. 25   Kharāj 140, 5, and 175, 3. 26  Fasawī II 158, –4f. 27  Khaṭīb, Kifāya 215, 4ff.; Azmi, Studies 69 and 203. Further authorities in Cerrahoğlu in: İlah. Fak. Dergisi 23/2978/39. 28  Wakīʿ III 55, 1 (read aqūdu for aqūlu in accordance with Fasawī I 703, 14; probably also uḥaddithuka instead of akhadhtuka). 29  Fasawī II 134, 6ff. = 242, 4ff.; regarding aṭrāf see p. 411 above. 30  See p. 474f. above. 31  Cf. IS V 355, 20; Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif 469, 2, and 625, 11, as well as Ta‌ʾwīl 11, 4ff. = 10, 5ff./ transl. 9 § 17, and 102, 6 = 85, 12f./transl. 95 § 122; Fasawī II 207, 2f. (after Abū Yūsuf); IAH II2 203, 14; Kaʿbī 83, 2ff. > Faḍl 337, apu. ff. > IM 135, 5f.; Dhahabī, Mīzān no. 4651, and Ta‌ʾrīkh V 269, 10ff.; TT VI 54 no. 101; Hady al-sārī II 140, 1f.; Suyūṭī, Tadrīb I 329, 2; also HT 65.

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ʿAmr b. Dīnār – who was a client of Bādhān’s (or rather, his descendants)32 – was resented for getting involved with Ibn Abī Najīḥ.33 Ibn Isḥāq, who was considerably younger, was subject to the same accusation.34 In Iraq it was said that Ayyūb al-Sakhtiyānī, who died in the same year as Ibn Abī Najīḥ, expressed his regret that the Qadarites had “spoiled” such an excellent man.35 Ibn al-Madīnī (d. 234/849) tried to detract from his scholarly achievement: the Kufan Manṣūr b. al-Muʿtamir al-Sulamī (d. 132/750), a confirmed predestinarian,36 he said, had had much greater insight into Mujāhid’s legacy than Ibn Abī Najīḥ.37 The same Ibn al-Madīnī also bluntly called him a Muʿtazilite.38 He based his verdict on the Basran Yaḥyā b. Saʿīd al-Qaṭṭān (d. 198/813) who had regarded Ibn Abī Najīḥ as one of the “chief propagandists”.39 The reason for this was a story Muʾammal b. Ismāʿīl (d. 206/821–22) had heard from a certain Ḥasan b. Wahb al-Jumaḥī40 and which Ibn al-Madīnī had had the latter confirm afterwards: Ibn Abī Najīḥ had invited him and at breakfast, after he had spent the night in prayer at his house, made “announcements regarding qadar” and called him to follow “Ḥasan’s teachings”, but he refused to be drawn in. Later he met him by the Kaʿba, where Ibn Abī Najīḥ asked him how he should respond to someone who said that the Abū Lahab verses were not part of the Quran.41 This was a topos,42 but in this case it may have aimed at his connection with ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd whose lectures Ibn Abī Najīḥ was believed to have attended.43 We have no tradition confirming that he went to Basra to this end, but then ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd went on the pilgrimage a number of times.44 It is not impossible that Ibn Abī Najīḥ was converted to Muʿtazilism by an envoy from Wāṣil b. ʿAṭāʾ; in any case he, like Wāṣil, died too early. 32   I S V 353, 4. 33  Fasawī I 703, pu. ff.; Umm Yaʿlā, the nephew’s wife, recalled a conversation between her parents. 34  Ibid. II 26, 4f. with a similar expression. Is it a doublet with different names? It is true that Ibn Isḥāq was close to the Qadarites (see p. 756ff. below). 35  Kaʿbī 83, 3f. = Fasawī II 154, pu. f. 36   H T 43 and 188. 37  Fasawī II 638, 11 = III 15, 3f. 38  Ibid. II 154, pu. = III 33, 11ff. After which probably Bukhārī (in ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ II 317, 4f.) and Al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī, Kifāya 125, 12. 39  Kaʿbī 83, 2f. and ʿUqaylī II 317, 15f. > Mīzān II 515, 8f. Cf. also the dictum transmitted in slightly corrupted form in Kaʿbī 83, 7f. 40  He may have been a son of the poet Abū Dahbal al-Jumaḥī (regarding him GAS 2/419). 41  ʿUqaylī II 317, –7ff.; cf. also Kaʿbī 83, 5f. 42  See p. 82, 124 and 341 above. 43  ʿUqaylī 317, 14: after Ibn Ḥanbal. 44  See p. 336f. above.

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The Qadarites who gathered around him are named in a remark by Ibrāhīm b. Yaʿqūb al-Jūzajānī (d. 256/870 or 259/873);45 Kaʿbī, too, collected the relevant names.46 We will list them briefly in the following. Abū Dāwūd Shibl b. ʿUbād (or ʿAbbād?), ca. 70/689–148/765 or later.47 So far Jūzajānī is our oldest witness of his Qadarite tendencies; around the same time Abū Dāwūd al-Sijistānī (d. 275/889) mentioned them to his pupil Abū ʿUbayd al-Ājurrī.48 Al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī joined them in the fifth century49 and later works adopted the verdict.50 It is worth noting that Kaʿbī did not include the name in his list.51 Shibl’s true achievements were on the field of Quran recitation. He was a member of the circle around Ibn Kathīr (d. 120/738);52 Makkī b. Abī Ṭālib al-Qaysī quoted him comparatively frequently in his Kashf ʿan wujūh al-qirāʾāt al-sabʿ.53 His son Dāwūd continued this tradition.54 He also transmitted Mujāhid’s Tafsīr which he had heard from Ibn Abī Najīḥ;55 al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī as well as Thaʿlabī used this edition of that work. Cf. GAS 1/35. This note conveys the impression that it was an entirely independent work, but the isnāds going back to Ibn Abī Najīḥ or even usually to Mujāhid are in the majority (cf. e.g. Ṭabarī, Ta‌ʾrīkh I 103, 4f.; 341, 3f.; 379, 14f.; Wakīʿ I 2, pu. f., and 54, 7f.; also Horst in ZDMG 103/1953/298. Only up to Ibn Abī Najīḥ e.g. Ṭabarī, Ta‌ʾrīkh I 313, ult. f.). Cf. Stauth 108ff. and 153f.; summary 134. Thaʿlabī also mentioned a Tafsīr Shibl and did not trace the riwāya back beyond him (Kashf, Intro. 44, 1f.). Shibl probably published his selection of Ibn Abī Najīḥ’s works.

45  Dhahabī, Mīzān II 515, 10f. He composed works on jarḥ wal-taʿdīl that do not survive (Kaḥḥāla, Muʿjam I 129; GAS 1/135). But see his K. Aḥwāl al-rijāl. 46   Maq. 83, 12ff. 47  Regarding the dates cf. Ibn al-Jazarī, Ṭabaqāt al-qurrāʾ no. 1414. 48   T T IV 305f. no. 522; cf. vol. I 70 above. 49   Kifāya 125, 13; TB XIII 486, 19. 50  Besides TT cf. Hady al-sārī II 133, –8f., and 179, 19f.; as well as Suyūṭī, Tadrīb II 329, 1. 51  Nothing in IAH II1 380f. 1659. 52  Regarding him cf. GAS 1/7. 53  Cf. Muḥyī al-Dīn Ramaḍān’s edition (Damascus 1394/1974), Index s. n. 54  Ibn al-Jazarī no. 1254. 55  Dāwūdī, Ṭabaqāt al-mufassirīn II 308, 10; GAS 1/29.

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Abū Sulaymān Sayf b. (Abī?)56 Sulaymān al-Makhzūmī, d. 156/773 in Basra, where he spent the last years of his life.57 He was a mawlā of the Makhzūm. He was a Qadarite according to Abū Yūsuf (cited in Fasawī II 207, 2), Ibn Maʿīn (cited in Kaʿbī 83, apu. > Faḍl 338, 3 > IM 135, 7) and Abū Dāwūd alSijistānī (cited in Ājurrī > TT VI 294, 13). Also in ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ II 173, –4f.; Khaṭīb, Kifāya 125, 13; Mīzān no. 3636; Hady al-sārī II 133, 12ff.; Tadrīb I 328, ult. Al-Faḍl b. Ghassān al-Ghalābī (d. 245/859; regarding him cf. Kaḥḥāla VII 71) apparently called him a Ghaylānite (Kaʿbī 83, pu.; cf. Anfänge 245). Abū Mūsā ʿĪsā b. Maymūn al-Jurashī al-Makkī, known as Ibn Dāya, d. between 150 and 16058 or between 160 and 170,59 yet another exegete who does not seem to have made his mark on the field of hadith. He transmitted Mujāhid’s Tafsīr in Ibn Abī Najīḥ’s recension; Ṭabarī used the entire work with this riwāya.60 He also seems to have written another “small” Tafsīr of his own in which he collated material from Mujāhid, Ibn Abī Najīḥ and Qays b. Saʿd (d. 119/737).61 Like his colleagues he followed Ibn Kathīr’s Quranic reading. It was once again Ājurrī after Abū Dāwūd who claimed that he was a Qadarite, but Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī had also been of this opinion (TT VIII 235, ult. ff.). It was then adopted by Dhahabī (Mīzān no. 6619, and Ta‌ʾrīkh VI 367, 1ff.) and Ibn Ḥajar. There are no references in Bukhārī III2 401 no. 2780, IAH III1 287f. no. 1596, and ʿUqaylī III 387f. no. 1427.

56  Thus Khalīfa, Ṭab. 710 no. 2579. Mentioned as a variant in IS V 362, 22 and in later works. 57   T T IV 294, –4f. Elsewhere we merely read that he was still living in 150/767 (IS V 362, 22f.; Fasawī I 135, 12; Kaʿbī 83, ult., after Ibn Maʿīn). 58  Thus according to Dhahabī, Ta‌ʾrīkh VI 367, 1ff. 59  Thus according to Ibn Ḥajar, Taqrīb II 102, no. 925. 60  Cf. Horst in: ZDMG 103/1953/297; after him GAS 1/20 and 29; also Stauth 107f. Cf. also Fihrist 36, 17 (where Ibn must be added before Abī Najīḥ). 61  Another Meccan. He continued ʿAṭāʾ b. Abī Rabāḥ’s circle after his death (IS V 355, 11ff.) and probably also transmitted his Quranic commentary.

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Zakariyyāʾ b. Isḥāq al-Makkī, a pupil of Ibn Abī Najīḥ’s, whose reputation rested on his having known the latter.62 He was probably considerably younger and died after 160/776. Abū Yūsuf63 and Ibn Maʿīn64 called him a Qadarite. Abū Dāwūd al-Sijistānī expressed only a suspicion to Ājurrī.65 Dhahabī used the term ṣāḥib ʿAmr, pointing in the same direction as Ibn Abī Najīḥ. An interesting piece of information, which can unfortunately not be substantiated further, came from his pupil Rawḥ b. ʿUbāda al-Qaysī (d. 205/820–1 at over eighty years of age) who had heard it from him directly, that an unnamed governor (amīr) of Mecca had a town crier announce that it was prohibited to attend Zakariyyāʾ’s lectures because of his Qadarite tendencies.66 The event may have taken place during the late Umayyad era. Rawḥ appears to have been the one who transmitted the largest amount of material from him.67 Zakariyyāʾ dictated hadith from written notes.68 When Zakariyyāʾ’s memory became unreliable, Ibn al-Mubārak (d. 181/797) requested his notes from him.69 Abū Khālid Muslim b. Khālid b. Saʿd b. Jurja al-Zanjī, mawlā of the Makhzūm, d. 179/795 or 180/196 at the age of 80.70 Later Muʿtazilite sources name him as a Ghaylānite,71 but this may simply be due to the fact that immediately after his name, Kaʿbī quoted his authority’s opinion of the entire Meccan group, that they “adhere to the teachings of Ghaylān, Wāṣil and ʿAmr”.72 It is remarkable that Muslim b. Khālid came from Syria.73 He was Ibn 62   I S V 362, 14f., and Fasawī II 26, 4ff. (to be completed after IS). 63  Fasawī II 207, 2f. 64  Kaʿbī 83, 12ff. > Faḍl 338, 1f. > IM 135, 6f. (with Ibn missing before Abī Najīḥ; pointed out by Fück in OLZ 59/1964/374); also TT III 329, 6. 65   T T III 328, apu. Cf. also Dhahabī, Mīzān no. 2870 and Ta‌ʾrīkh IV 178, –4ff.; Hady al-sārī II 127, pu. ff.; Suyūṭī, Tadrīb I 328, ult. Nothing in IS V 362, 13ff.; IAH I2 593 no. 2684. 66   T T III 329, 7f. 67  Cf. e.g. Ṭabarī I 114, 4ff.; 1246, 17f.; 1263, 3ff.: mainly after ʿAmr b. Dīnār. 68  Azmi, Studies 181. 69   I S 362, 14ff.; Fasawī II 26, 5ff. (wrongly identified). Ibn Abī Ḥātim, loc. cit. confirms that Ibn al-Mubārak transmitted from him. 70  The “round” number is found in IS V 366, 7, and Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif 511, 5. 71   Faḍl 253, 15 > IM 129, 12f., and 43, 2f.; without the designation Faḍl 338, 6, and IM 135, 8. Cf. also Anfänge 244f. 72   Maq. 84, 8ff. 73   I S V 366, 2.

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Abī Najīḥ’s pupil in Mecca.74 Orthodox sources note his Qadarite leanings only late,75 but then Ibn Ḥajar added that he even circulated pro-Qadarite hadith.76 The reason why we know a little more about him than about his fellow believers mentioned before is that he was one of Shāfiʿī’s teachers.77 He had visited Mālik during his early period in Medina “when the tābiʿūn were still attending his lectures”,78 but not even the Malikite tradition concealed the fact that he embraced his own Meccan tradition different from that of the great Medinan jurist, who, coincidentally, died in the same year as he.79 After Ibn Jurayj’s death (150/767 or 151/768) he, rather like Ibn Abī Najīḥ before him, was considered to be the leading jurisconsult (muftī) in the city.80 He was not, however, without competition; some favoured Saʿīd b. Sālim al-Qaddāḥ, another mawlā of the Makhzūm.81 When the caliph al-Mahdī led the pilgrimage in 160 he requested an expert opinion from Muslim b. Khālid according to which the oath confirming the succession of his cousin ʿĪsā b. Mūsā nearly thirty years before was invalid.82 Shāfiʿī was still a young man when he went to visit Muslim b. Khālid. Muslim b. Khālid greatly appreciated that Shāfiʿī, who came from a distinguished background (he was a Quraysh and distant relation of the prophet), studied with him, a mere mawlā, and that he should be interested in jurisprudence at all.83 Despite his sobriquet he was not black. He had been called “black one” (zanjī) as a child, because his skin was reddish-white.84 His ascetic lifestyle was wellknown; he was said to fast excessively.85 Like Shibl b. ʿUbād he studied Quran 74  Kaʿbī 84, 11. 75   Mīzān no. 8485 after Zakariyyāʾ b. Yaḥyā al-Sājī (d. 307/920), probably his K. al-ḍuʿafāʾ (GAS 1/349f.). Nothing in IS V 366, 1ff.; Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif 511, 1ff.; Bukhārī IV1 260 no. 1097; TH 255 no. 241, etc. 76   T T X 129, –5. 77  Bayhaqī, Manāqib al-Shāfiʿī I 97, –5ff. + 338, –4ff.; Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Manāqib al-Imām al-Shāfiʿī 50, 9; Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ, Tartīb al-madārik I 383, 8f., and 386, –5ff. 78  Bayhaqī I 517, 10ff. 79  Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ I 140, 14ff. 80  Shīrāzī, Ṭab. 71, 10. 81  Shāfiʿī, Jimāʿ al-ʿilm 61, 2ff. = Umm VII 257, 3; transl. Schacht, Origins 7. Regarding Saʿīd b. Sālim see p. 742 below. 82  Cf. Moscati in: Orientalia 15/1946/160. 83  Shīrāzī 72, 2ff. 84   I S V 366, 5; according to Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif 596, 3f., a designation per antiphrasin, just like Ethiopians were given the kunya Abū l-Bayḍāʾ. Or it may refer to the colour of black people’s palms or lips. A further, probably secondary explanation, in TT X 129, 6ff. 85   I S V 366, 6f.

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recitation under Ibn Kathīr.86 He had in his possession some of Ibn Abī Najīḥ’s Tafsīr notes of Mujāhid’s tradition which are still extant.87 They mainly cover legal issues, but in one instance quote ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd whom Zanjī asked for Ḥasan al-Baṣrī’s opinion on a certain passage.88 It is interesting that he transmitted ʿAbdallāh b. ʿUmar’s exegesis that sura 4:116 implied that even a murderer might expect forgiveness from God.89 This was aimed at the Bakriyya;90 clearly, he was not an adherent of excessively strict views. Even so we are surprised to find that he was also a pupil of Ḥafṣ al-Fard’s, who not only was by no means a Qadarite but also rather younger than he.91 Maybe Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, who recorded this information,92 misunderstood the tradition. A parallel list compiled by ʿUqaylī adds93 Ibrāhīm b. Nāfiʿ al-Makhzūmī, (d. before 170/787) a pupil of ʿAṭāʾ b. Abī Rabāḥ’s,94 to the others.95 He, too, was part of the exegetic tradition of Mujāhid via Ibn Abī Najīḥ.96 Wakīʿ b. al-Jarrāḥ claimed, among others, that he was a Qadarite.97 We are obviously looking at an interconnected group. They were all mawālī. While we do not know anyone’s profession, they were all linked to the Makhzūm clan and consequently close to the Quraysh nobility.98 They also have in common that they were all involved in some way with the Tafsīr of Mujāhid or Ibn Abī Najīḥ; furthermore, Mujāhid, too, was a client of the Makhzūm.99 The question is how these observations can be linked to their Qadarite views. It is improbable that they were a “Muʿtazilite” conspiracy grown up around Ibn 86  Ibn al-Jazarī, Ṭab. no. 3601. 87   G AS 1/38. The riwāya is every time: Muslim b. Khālid ʿan Ibn Abī Najīḥ ʿan Mujāhid. If this is the same text Thaʿlabī called Tafsīr Mujāhid, ṭarīq Ibn Abī Najīḥ (Kashf 27, 6ff.), this would be a good example of the word Tafsīr not necessarily referring to a complete work. 88  Fol. 123b, 1. 89   Mīzān IV 102, 4ff. 90  See p. 130f. above. 91  See p. 816ff. below. 92  Rāzī, Manāqib al-Shāfiʿī 50, 9. 93   Ḍuʿafāʾ II 173, apu. 94   Mīzān I 40, 4. 95  Ṣafadī, Wāfī VI 152 no. 2599. 96  Ṭabarī I 1165, 4, and 1793, 13. 97   T T I 174 no. 318; cf. also Faḍl 338, 5 > IM 135, 8. Regarding him also IS V 364, 2; Khalīfa, Ṭab. 718 no. 2594; Bukhārī I1 332f. no. 1047; IAH I1 140f. no. 458. 98  Regarding the Makhzūm cf. M. Hinds in: EI2 VI 137ff. s. v. Mak̲h̲zūm. 99   I S V 343, 9; also Stauth 18f.

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Abī Najīḥ during the last years of Umayyad rule, as there is no evidence of this. It does not seem likely that the entire tribe of the Makhzūm could have been Qadarites, either; none of those mentioned was a free Arab. It is much more likely that exegetic tradition was the decisive criterion. After all, the verdicts reported in the sources are not usually based on genuinely Meccan information but come from later Iraqi scholars. There is nothing to suggest that they were any better informed concerning Meccan local politics of the second century than we are. They did have Mujāhid’s Tafsīr and, as the isnāds in Ṭabarī show, were able to distinguish between the different redactions of the work. Thus the Meccan “Qadariyya” probably owed its presence in our sources to a retrospective critical assessment of the literary material. So far we have not been able to determine where exactly the doubts concerning the dogma started; Mujāhid’s Tafsīr has not been studied under that aspect. It is even possible that the relevant passages have been lost forever as Warqāʾ b. ʿUmar, who brought Ibn Abī Najīḥ’s recension to Iraq, was a Murjiʾite,100 and his contemporary Sufyān alThawrī was also said to have “corrected” Mujāhid’s Tafsīr.101 This does not mean that everything has been explained. It would have to be proven that Mujāhid deliberately interpreted the Quran in a Qadarite fashion. Ibn Abī Najīḥ, on the other hand, is a different matter, as he was lecturing at a time when people were more likely to wear their hearts on their sleeves. We should also like to know how much external influence was involved. In a city like Mecca it would have to be expected, and mawālī were often, whether by choice or through circumstances beyond their control, immigrants. We have seen that the Basran Qadarite Ismāʿīl b. Muslim, who was known as al-Makkī in his home city, had received his training in the law from Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, while he studied Quran recitation under Ibn Kathīr in Mecca.102 We know of another, similar case: ʿAbbād b. Kathīr al-Thaqafī. His path took the opposite direction: he came from Basra and settled in Mecca.103 He was highly respected there, apparently becoming qāḍī once and even being elected governor by the population after a revolt.104 Unfortunately we are unable to date this event, and have no means of determining whether it is a true 100   T B XIII 486, 19; regarding him see ch. C 1.1 below. 101   I AH II2 203, 9. Regarding Sufyān al-Thawrī’s position in the Mujāhid tradition cf. Horst 304 and Stauth 119ff. Regarding his own Tafsīr see vol. I 260f. above. 102  See p. 74f. above. 103  Fasawī III 140, 9. 104  Kaʿbī 93, 1ff.

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report.105 However, Ṭabarī tells us that in 158/775 ʿAbbād was one of the dignitaries of the city, together with Ibn Jurayj and Sufyān al-Thawrī.106 Manṣūr was leading the pilgrimage at the time and had sent the order from Medina107 to Mecca that these three persons, together with an anonymous ʿAlid, should be arrested. The governor, Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad b. ʿAlī, son of Ibrāhīm al-Imām and nephew of the caliph, had doubts afterwards and secretly released the three, angering the caliph severely.108 Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm lost his position,109 the caliph died in an accident in Mecca. ʿAbbād b. Kathīr appears to have been advanced in years by that time.110 In 145/762, during al-Nafs al-zakiyya’s uprising, he had already possessed great prestige: he had dared to request the release of a partisan of the vanquished ʿAlid, the Qadarite Muḥammad b. ʿAjlān, from the governor of Medina Jaʿfar b. Sulaymān who was al-Manṣūr’s cousin.111 This allows us to conclude that he had not compromised himself. When the Muʿtazilite sources – and only they – call him a Qadarite,112 they were clearly not referring to his political commitment. When he was arrested in 158, the other two scholars, Ibn Jurayj and Sufyān al-Thawrī, had no ties to the Qadariyya either. The fact that an ʿAlid was being persecuted as well indicates that Manṣūr thought he, as well as the two others, was sympathetic to the ahl al-bayt; apparently with good reason.113 Kaʿbī, on the other hand, based his opinion on that of Yaḥyā b. Maʿīn who, being a traditionist, probably recalled the hadiths transmitted by ʿAbbād. There were some praising the intellect,114 and he also wrote a K. al-zuhd.115 He demonstrated his ascetic conviction by wearing hair-shirts,116 105  There is no trace anywhere of ʿAbbād b. Kathīr’s term in office as qāḍī. Might he have been confused with ʿAbbād b. Manṣūr, the qāḍī of Basra in Ibrāhīm b. ʿAbdallāh’s time (regarding him see p. 380f. above)? The remark that Ayyūb al-Sakhtiyānī was acquainted with him at this time (Kaʿbī 93, 5) would also indicate Basra. The report, however, clearly mentions Mecca. 106   Min ʿuyūn al-nās (III 386, 9). 107  Ibid. 387, 11. 108  Ibid. 385, 17ff. 109  Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 673, 9. 110  The biographical sources that were unaware of this report in Ṭabarī say only that he died “after 150” (Mīzān no. 4134). 111  Ṭabarī III 259, 3ff. (autobiographical account by ʿAbbād); cf. p. 762 below. 112  Kaʿbī 93, 1ff. > Faḍl 342, 5 > IM 137, 15f. 113  Kashshī seems to count him among the Butrites (Rijāl 391, ult.; although we would have to assume that the heading in the MS is incorrect). 114  Ibn Ḥibbān, Rawḍat al-ʿuqalāʾ 4, 8; cf. also Anfänge 57. 115   Fażāʾil-i Balkh 135, ult. f. 116  Fasawī III 140, 9f.

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which led Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq to accuse him of pride.117 His dicta were paraenetic in character: those who do not quarrel with God when a daughter is born to them will be given divine blessing by an angel descending from heaven on a ladder of light. Or: the self-important Quran reciters are worse than worldly rulers.118 He also attempted to buttress liturgical usage with hadith: those who speak the formula lā ilāha illā llāh loudly and with a drawn-out voice will go to the “house of sublimeness” where they will see God face to face; those who do not believe this will be punished more than all others in the afterlife.119 It is possible that people disagreed with the substance of what he said; but it was the form that was criticised most: ʿAbbād was said to have passed on a sheet of hadith notes that had only come into his hands by chance,120 and to have advised a pupil not to try and profit from paraenetic material (fī l-raghāʾib) as the experts had refused to accept it.121 The verdict was unanimous: “people gave him a wide berth” (tarakūhu).122 Of course, this was only in Iraq, and presumably only retrospectively; in Mecca he met with barely any suspicion. He was also liked in Balkh; all the jurists of that city were said to have studied under him.123 This does not necessarily tell us that he went there himself; maybe the Transoxianans went to find him during the pilgrimage, believing him to be the most competent scholar in Mecca. Abū Muṭīʿ al-Balkhī certainly met him in that city;124 he heard him speak approvingly of Muqātil b. Sulaymān,125 and he is the one reporting that the population elected him governor. In fact ʿAbbād does not seem to have had any connection with Abū Ḥanīfa’s doctrine that was just gaining ground in Balkh due to Abū Muṭīʿ’s efforts; he was even said to have debated with Abū Ḥanīfa.126 People were impressed by his asceticism; Shaqīq al-Balkhī attended his lectures and heard his K. al-zuhd from him.127

117  Kashshī 392 no. 737 > Biḥār XLVII 361 no. 72. 118   Mīzān II 373, 12ff., in part after Ibn Ḥibbān, Majrūḥīn II 169, 11f. 119  Ibn Ḥibbān II 168, –4f. > Mīzān II 373, 1ff. 120  Fasawī II 797, 8ff. 121  Ibid. I 434, 13ff. 122  Bukhārī III2 43 no. 1642; IAH III1 84f. no. 433; ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ III 140f. no. 1124. Cf. also Muslim, transl. Juynboll in: JSAI 5/1984/280. 123  Kaʿbī 93, 8. 124  Ibid. 93, 2 . 125   Fażāʾil-i Balkh 91, 8f. 126   T B XIII 371, 21ff. This is, of course, a motif found in the context of more than one person (cf. Text II 6 with commentary). 127   Fażāʾil-i Balkh 129, 8, and 135, ult. f.; also p. 546 above. This may have been the source of the hadith in Suyūṭī, La‌ʾālī I 213, 7ff.

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4.1.1.2 The Khārijites The Khārijites, too, had their chief witness among the Meccan exegetes, the client ʿIkrima who had originally been Ibn ʿAbbās’ slave and then been freed by the latter’s son ʿAlī.1 He had travelled widely, maybe on business for his master. It has been assumed that he came across Khārijite ideas in Basra,2 but there would have been many opportunities across the Arabian peninsula, and the Khārijite ideal of equality – as long as its adherents were not radicalised – would have seemed to a slave to be the straightest path to true Islam. ʿIkrima’s convictions left their mark on his exegesis; he was accused of having spread lies about Ibn ʿAbbās.3 This, however, was a matter of opinion. ʿAlqama in Kufa reviled him as an unbeliever,4 in Mecca Mālik frowned while quoting him in his Muwaṭṭa‌ʾ all the same,5 and in Basra Qatāda believed him to be the best exegete of the older generation.6 Later, people would not know how to label him. The individual branches of the Khārijites had not yet separated. Ibn al-Madīnī thought him a Najdite at one time,7 and an Ibāḍite at another.8 There is something to be said for the former view, as Najda b. ʿĀmir corresponded with Ibn ʿAbbās concerning legal issues.9 ʿIkrima did not, however, take part in his military enterprises, which is why he appeared to be an Ibāḍite in the eyes of later generations. He barely features in Ibāḍite tradition. While Jābir b. Zayd took some notes of his material via Ibn ʿAbbās in Basra,10 in Muḥkim al-Hawwārī’s Tafsīr, which is in use among the Ibāḍites in the Maghreb to this day, Meccan exegesis is represented

1  Regarding him cf. Schacht in EI2 III 1081f. s. n. 2  Rebstock, Ibāḍiten im Maġrib 11. Juynboll regarded ʿIkrima as a Basran, but did not examine his Khārijite tendencies (Muslim Tradition 55, n. 203). 3  Kaʿbī, Qabūl 69, –4ff., and Fasawī II 5, 9f.; Ṭabarī III 2483, ult. ff. This may be a reference to traditions such as the one in Ibn Khuzayma, Tawḥīd 130, 2ff., according to which he expressed doubt in conversation with Ibn ʿAbbās as to whether the prophet could have seen God. In general Juynboll 56f. 4  Fasawī II 12, 1. 5  Mālikī, Riyāḍ al-nufūs 92, 8ff./I 145, 5ff. 6  Fasawī I 701, pu. ff.; in general also Cerrahoğlu, Tefsir tarihi 158ff. 7  Ibid. II 7, 4. 8  Ibid. II 12, 2; also Kaʿbī, Qabūl 70, 8. 9  Abū Yūsuf, Kharāj 104, 5ff. 10  He marked it with the abbreviation ʿAyn (Fasawī II 10, 4ff.).

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by Mujāhid.11 In North Africa, Ṣufrite tribes establishing a Khārijite community in the Sijilmāsa region referred to him, which is why he is frequently listed among the Ṣufrites as well. Thus in Kaʿbī, Qabūl 70, pu. f. after Ibn Maʿīn; also Ṭabarī III 2484, 10 = Dhayl al-mudhayyal 633, apu. f. The ancestor of the Midrār dynasty of Sijilmāsa was said to have attended his lectures in Qayrawān (Bakrī, Mughrib 149, 6f./transl. de Slane, Description 284). This presumes that he did visit that city. Schacht viewed this journey with scepticism (EI2 III 1081). Lewicki’s suggestion (in: Cahiers de l’histoire mondiale 13/1971/84ff., adopted by Khulayfāt, Nashʾat al-ḥaraka al-Ibāḍiyya 113f.), that he was among the scholars sent to the Maghreb by ʿUmar II, is not unproblematic. The fact that it was possible to view the place where he sat in the mosque in Qayrawān does not, of course, mean much (Abū l-ʿArab, Ṭabaqāt ʿulamāʾ Ifrīqiya 83, 1f.). There are certain indications outside literature from the Maghreb as well (e.g. Fasawī II 7, 1ff.). In the Maghreb this tradition was a serious problem for the Ibāḍites, and they published a counter-report according to which ʿIkrima travelled there with a certain Salam b. Saʿd (or Saʿīd), a Basran (!) of Ḥaḍramite origin, on the same camel – in a twoman litter – sharing the missionary work with the latter, who was a true Ibāḍite. This is probably an aetiological legend; unlike ʿIkrima, Salama is not mentioned in non-Ibāḍite sources such as Mālikī’s Riyāḍ al-nufūs. Cf. Rebstock 11f. and Schwartz, Anfänge der Ibāḍiten 96ff.; less sceptical once again Lewicki in EI2 III 653b and Cahiers 74 and 86, and Khulayfāt, loc. cit.; in detail also Talbī, Etudes d’histoire ifrīqiyenne 27ff. 4.1.1.2.1 The Ibāḍites Around the middle of the third century Mecca was home to an Ibāḍite community of around 150 “men” 25 of whom came from Oman. Every year during the pilgrimage one of the Omanis pitched tents in Minā in which he accommodated, and presumably entertained, his fellow-countrymen. “Men” should probably be counted as families, in which case their percentage of the entire

11  Cf. ZDMG 126/1976/42f. I have since discovered that there are more MSS extant besides the two mentioned by Schacht (in: Revue Afr. 100/1956/379): one in the possession of Shaykh BalḤajj in Mzāb (vols. 2–3 of the text) and another one on Djerba (vol. 4). I have not been able to view these textual witnesses; I am relying on information given me by Shaykh Sulaymān b. Dāwūd from al-ʿAṭf.

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population would be rather more considerable.1 It is difficult to say how far back its beginnings might date; this community certainly had nothing to do with ʿIkrima. What is noticeable is that Abū Ḥamza Mukhtār b. ʿAwf was able to take Mecca without a fight when he marched from Yemen on the holy cities on Ṭālib al-Ḥaqq’s orders in 129/747. This would not have been quite so easy without support from the local population; he met with much more resistance in Medina. Like his second-in-command Balj b. ʿUqba he was born in Oman.2 Both had spent some time in Basra,3 and it seems that there were numerous young men from Iraq among their troops.4 The take-over may well have been planned there, in Abū ʿUbayda al-Tamīmī’s circle. Regarding Ṭālib al-Ḥaqq’s uprising cf. Wellhausen, Oppositionsparteien 52ff.; Lewicki in FO 1/1959/5f. and EI2 III 651b; Pellat, Milieu basrien 211ff.; Laoust, Schismes 43f.; Khulayfāt, Nashʾa 117ff.; Chelhod, Arabie du Sud II 27f.; also Aḥmad ʿUbaydilī’s introduction to Kashf al-ghumma, p. 162ff. The most important sources are Madāʾinī’s account in Aghāni XXIII 224ff. and (shorter) Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 582, 10ff. and 592, 6ff.; also Ṭabarī II 1942, 13ff., and Azdī, Ta‌ʾrīkh al-Mawṣil 77, 4ff.; 101, 12ff.; 108, 4ff. Cf. also Kitāb Ibn Sallām 112, 1ff.; Shammākhī, Siyar 98, –5ff.; Darjīnī, Ṭab. 258ff. (with Lewicki in: RO 11/1935/165f.); Fāsī, Faḍāʾil Makka in: Wüstenfeld, Chroniken II 179, 6ff. The khuṭba Abū Ḥamza preached after entering the city is often transmitted separately (transl. in Pellat, Milieu 212ff.; J. Alden Williams, Islam 215ff.; Crone/Hinds, God’s Caliph 129ff.). When comparing the different versions it is important to consider that Abū Ḥamza preached such a sermon not only in Mecca but apparently in Medina as well (cf. the sources in Lewicki, FO 12/1970/205; Crone/Hinds, loc. cit.; also Werkmeister, Quellenuntersuchungen zum K. al-ʿIqd 441). When the enterprise failed, a noble Arab who had collaborated with Abū Ḥamza met his end in Mecca:

1  Kitāb Ibn Sallām 109, 6ff. This also lists some names of scholars, but we do not know who they were. Regarding the date cf. 109, ult. 2  Wilkinson in: Studies in the First Century 142f. 3  Regarding Abū Ḥamza cf. Agh. XXIII 227, 16; regarding Balj b. ʿUqba cf. Shammākhī, Siyar 91, 2, where he appears in the circle of Ḥājib al-Ṭāʾī (regarding him see p. 226f. above). 4  Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 582, 13; Agh. XXIII 238, 14 = Ṭabarī II 2010, ult. f.; Darjīnī, Ṭab.226, 5ff. Regarding an Ibāḍite free corps from Mosul see p. 528 above.

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Abū l-Ḥurr ʿAlī b. al-Ḥuṣayn b. Abī l-Ḥurr Mālik b. al-Khashkhāsh al-ʿAnbarī. He, too, was a Basran, an uncle of ʿUbaydallāh b. al-Ḥasan al-ʿAnbarī’s, who was qāḍī and governor of Basra under Manṣūr.5 As was to be expected in this family, he was very wealthy and received a regular allowance from Basra.6 When in the past the Ibāḍites had sent a delegation to ʿUmar II, he had been among them;7 presumably he was still living in his home city at that time. In Mecca he had a teaching circle,8 and we are told that he held dhikr every Monday and Thursday.9 He had been arrested once before the uprising, probably because he was believed to be a go-between.10 This may be why he in particular later advised Abū Ḥamza to be severe.11 When it was all over, he was smoked out at the house of a Quraysh to which he had fled, and afterwards fell in battle. His corpse was left hanging on the cross next to Abū Ḥamza’s for years and only taken down after the Abbasid revolution. Agh. 248, 1ff. Regarding him cf. also Fasawī II 215, 7ff.; Bukhārī III2 267f. no. 2367; Dhahabī, Mīzān no. 5828 and Ta‌ʾrīkh V 111, 7ff.; Mīzān no. 5823 probably refers to the same person. – One might wonder whether the ʿAmr b. al-Ḥuṣayn al-ʿAnbarī who lamented the death of Abū Ḥamza and his followers was his brother (cf. Agh. XXIII 250. 8ff. after Madāʾinī; ʿAbbās, Shiʿr al-Khawārij 84ff. no. 165). However, there he is described as a client of the ʿAnbar, and elsewhere his name is given as ʿAmr b. al-Ḥasan al-Kūfī.

5  See p. 179ff. above; also Darjīnī, Ṭab. 251, 2. 6  Darjīnī 269, –7ff. = Shammākhī 101, 5ff.; the passage in Shammākhī 108, 8f. probably refers to Mecca. 7  Khamīs b. Saʿīd, Manhaj al-ṭālibīn I 617, 8ff. 8  Darjīnī 271, ult.; also Shammākhī 102, 4. 9  Ibid. 270, –9 = Shammākhī 101, –5f. During the hajj he once asked Abū ʿUbayda al-Tamīmī to teach there; the latter recommended Ḍumām b. al-Sāʾib. The fact that Abū l-Ḥurr did not know him suggests that he did not have close links to Basra (Shammākhī 88, 7ff.). 10  Ibid. 262, apu. ff. = Shammākhī 100, 2ff. 11   Agh. XXIII 233, 10ff., and 247, 1ff.; Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 592, ult. ff.; Azdī, Ta‌ʾrīkh al-Mawṣil 108, pu. ff.

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ʿAlī b. al-Ḥuṣayn had had friends in the city. After his first arrest they snatched him back from the government troops. Fourteen men set out to ambush them; a certain ʿĪsā b. ʿUmar or ʿĪsā b. Abī ʿAmr told the historian Abū Sufyān about it in his old age.12 However, there is no more substance to help us get a more concrete idea of his following. The Ibāḍite sources name only one other person: Abū Bakr b. Muḥammad b. ʿAbdallāh al-Qurashī. He was a member of the Banū ʿAdī,13 but once again we do not know for certain whether he belonged to an old-established family. It may be possible that Ṣadaqa b. Yasār belonged among these people as well, as he was said to have loved Mukhtār more than his own parents.14 This may have been Mukhtār b. ʿAwf and not the Kufan Shīʿite, as Ṣadaqa was an Ibāḍite.15 Later he would break off contacts with the Khārijites;16 consequently the Ibāḍite source did not consider him worth mentioning. He came originally from the Jazira but had moved to Mecca and settled among the abnāʾ,17 presumably in Bādhān’s family circle like Mujāhid, from whom he transmitted.18 He might have been a Qadarite. 4.1.1.3 The Murjiʾites The Murjiʾites of whom we hear in Mecca were all immigrants, mujāwirūn. The oldest among them was

12  The former form of the name is found in Darjīnī (262, apu.), the latter in Shammākhī (100, 2). A certain Abū ʿAmr died during the uprising with one of his sons (Shammākhī 101, 1f.). 13   Kitāb Ibn Sallām 112, 5f.; Shammākhī 102, 12f. 14  ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ II 208 no. 740; Mīzān no. 3883. 15  Thus according to Kaʿbī, Qabūl 215, 4f.; who may be relying on Karābīsī here; the latter was a Khārijite himself (see ch. C 6.3 below). 16   I S V 357, 3ff.; AZ 526 no. 1414 = Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 153 no. 961; TT IV 419, 722. 17   I S, ibid.; Khalīfa, Ṭab. 709 no. 2572. Cf. also Bukhārī II2 293 no. 2872; IAH II1 428 no. 1884. 18   A Z 678 no. 2057. Regarding the abnāʾ in Mecca see p. 722f. above. ʿUqaylī’s regarding him as a Kufan was probably due only to the Mukhtār quote.

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Abū Umayya ʿAbd al-Karīm b. Abī l-Mukhāriq Qays al-Muʿallim, a Basran who seems to have left his home city early in the second century and became a schoolteacher in Mecca.1 He attended the lectures of ʿIkrima and Ṭāwūs b. Kaysān (d. 106/725).2 He did not agree with the Basran style and had been unable to get along with Ḥasan al-Baṣrī or Ibn Sīrīn.3 In Kufa, on the other hand, he was regarded as an authority: Abū Ḥanīfa quoted him in his letter to ʿUthmān al-Battī, and Misʿar b. Kidām referred to him as well. Both these cases concerned Murjiʾite matters: Abū Ḥanīfa quoted him in a saying by Ibn ʿAbbās according to which God alone knows everything about the diverging opinions of the companions of the prophet,4 and Misʿar heard the divergent interpretation of an anti-Murjiʾite formula in a hadith from him.5 He also transmitted from Ḥasan b. Muḥammad b. al Ḥanafiyya, characteristically via the Murjiʾite Qays b. Muslim al-Jadalī.6 Consequently it comes as no surprise that Ibn Ḥanbal had already listed him as a Murjiʾite – also, it is true, as a good jurist.7 Often, however, people focussed on criticising his hadith: he was said to have adopted it without naming the intermediaries.8 This may be linked to the fact that he wrote hadith down.9 He probably died around 140/757.10 –

1  IAH III1 59 no. 311; following which Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 130 no. 801 taraka must be corrected to nazala. Also Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 251, 4; Mīzān no. 5172. 2  ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ III 62ff. no. 1027; Fasawī II 713, 7ff. 3  ʿUqaylī II 64, 9ff. 4  Text II 5 t. 5  Cook, Dogma 78; cf. vol. I 209 above. 6  Cf. Cook 221 after Ṣanʿānī, Muṣannaf no. 8325 and 8461. Regarding Qays b. Muslim see vol. I 205f. above. 7  ʿIlal 346 no. 2278; also Kaʿbī, Qabūl 216, 9f.; ʿUqaylī, loc. cit.; Ibn Ḥibbān, Majrūḥīn II 144, pu.; Dhahabī, Ta‌ʾrīkh V 103, 12ff. and TH 140, –6ff. Regarding his juristic competence only Wakīʿ I 332, 1f. It is sometimes said that Mālik respected him greatly; this, however, mistakes him for a contemporary, Abū Saʿīd ʿAbd al-Karīm b. Mālik al-Jazarī (d. 127/745; AZ 551 no. 1500–1; also Suyūṭī, Isʿāf al-mubaṭṭa‌ʾ 27, –9ff.). Cf. also Motzki, Anfänge der islamischen Jurisprudenz 202ff. 8  ʿIlal, ibid. 9  Azmi, Studies 61 and 109. Cf. also the remark in Fasawī II 714, –6ff. 10  When Bukhārī III2 89 no. 1797 or Ibn Ḥibbān, Majrūḥīn II 144, pu., give the date as 126 or 127, this is probably due to the mistake mentioned in n. 7.

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Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Abī Rawwād,11 whose clientage of Mughīra b. al-Muhallab12 showed that he came from Khorasan, was considerably younger. Nishapur claimed him,13 but he probably spent the major part of his life in Mecca. He transmitted from Meccan authorities14 and worked as a jurisconsult;15 he also died in Mecca in 159/776 or slightly earlier. His Murjiʾite views were beyond doubt.16 He regarded everyone’s relationship with Abū Ḥanīfa as a criterion of “Sunni” belief.17 The Basran Khuwayl b. Wāqid, son-in-law of Shuʿba b. al-Ḥajjāj, claimed to have heard him say that the faith of everyone on earth was the same, but that distinctions would be made in paradise, presumably on the basis of actions.18 He disliked Basra altogether; his attitude was anti-Qadarite,19 but he did not like Ayyūb al-Sakhtiyānī and his followers, either, because they “doubted” faith.20 His response to Ḥasan’s munāfiq theory was the question whether Joseph’s brothers had been munāfiqūn as well.21 Sufyān al-Thawrī made a point of not praying over his bier as he considered him to have been heterodox.22 Still, he did not withhold his appreciation altogether as ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz was a pious man preaching trust in God and surrender to his will without expecting self-castigation or hair shirts.23 There were even people who saw his son 11  His father’s name is usually given as Maymūn, but ʿAmr b. Badr has also been transmitted (Ibn Ḥibbān, Majrūḥīn II 136, 9). 12  Khalīfa, Ṭab. 711 no. 2582, and Ta‌ʾrīkh 669, 13. 13  Khalīfa-i Naysābūrī, Talkhīṣ-i Tārīkh-i Naysābūr 16, 9. Going by his nisba his nephew ʿUthmān b. Jabala b. Abī Rawwād lived in Marv (TT VII 107f. no. 230). 14  Thus e.g. from ʿIkrima and Nāfiʿ, Ibn ʿUmar’s mawlā (d. 117/735). If the nuskha in the latter’s possession was considered a falsification (cf. Ibn Ḥibbān II 137, –5f.; Azmi, Studies 97), this was probably because of its subject matter. 15  Fasawī I 725, –7f. 16  Cf. e.g. IS V 362, 20; Maʿārif 625, 3 (read Rawwād for Dāwūd); Bukhārī III2 22 no. 1561; IAH II2 394 no. 1830; Kaʿbī, Qabūl 216, 13; ʿUqaylī III 6ff. no. 963; Ḥākim al-Naysābūrī, Maʿrifa 136, 12ff., and 139, apu.; Sulaymānī (d. 404/1014) in Mīzān no. 8470; Mīzān no. 5101; TT VI 338f. no. 650. 17  Ṣaymarī, Akhbār Abī Ḥanīfa 79, apu. f. 18  Ibn Ḥibbān II 137, 6ff. > Mīzān II 629, 8. Only Ibn Ḥibbān gives Khuwayl’s name, but he does not identify him, either; regarding him cf. my Trad. Pol. 25. 19  ʿUqaylī III 8, –10ff. 20  Ibid. 10, 8ff.; once again after Khuwayl b. Wāqid. 21  Ibid. 7, –6ff. 22  Ibid. 6, 9ff.; also Ibn Ḥibbān II 136, –4f. > Mīzān, loc. cit.; Dhahabī, Ta‌ʾrīkh VI 241, 5ff.; Madelung, Qāsim 238. 23  Gramlich, Ġazzālīs Lehre von den Stufen zur Gottesliebe 733; cf. also the long hadith in Suyūṭī, La‌ʾālī II 321, –9ff., the wording of which recalls phrases of the New Testament.

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Abū ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd24 ʿAbd al-Majīd b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Abī Rawwād, d. 206/821, as the true villain.25 It was said that he converted his father to irjāʾ.26 In Balkh people quoted a saying by Ibn ʿAbbās that he transmitted, in which he gave out marks in a heresiographical fashion: “The Qadarites are unbelievers, the Shīʿites doomed, the Ḥarūrites innovators. Truth is (preserved) only among the Murjiʾites”.27 In a parallel, irjāʾ was actually defined, in an entirely traditional way, as the attitude of “people who leave to God’s decision everything they do not understand in the world”.28 It goes on to say “ . . . and who leave their affairs in God’s hands and who know that everything that happens is decreed and determined by God”.29 Irjāʾ and determinism thus came from the same root, for “God will condemn those who claim that there is another one beside God who decrees and determines, who gives sustenance or disposes in his favour over what is good and beneficial, over death or life or resurrection. He will stop their tongues and blind their eyes; he will make their prayers and their fasts go up in smoke; he will take their every opportunity (of living) and throw them down on their faces into the fires of hell.”30 When it came to the Shīʿites, ʿAbd al-Majīd did not even tolerate the Kufan traditionists’ tashayyuʿ.31 When Wakīʿ b. al-Jarrāḥ caused a scandal in the city with his graphic description of Muḥammad’s abandoned body (the descendants of Abū Bakr and ʿUmar, whose negligence was implicitly criticised here, still lived in the Hijaz), he pleaded with Hārūn al-Rashīd, who was in Mecca for the pilgrimage, for capital punishment.32 He was very well versed in Ibn Jurayj’s (d. 150/767) hadith, but had learnt it only from his teacher’s books.33 –

24  Khalīfa, Ṭab. 720 no. 2601. 25  Fasawī I 700, 2ff.; also III 52, 6ff. 26  Ibn Ḥibbān II 161, 2 > Mīzān no. 5183; Lālakāʾī, Sharḥ uṣūl iʿtiqād ahl al-sunna 1004f. no. 1848f. 27  Ibn Ḥibbān II 161, 4ff. > Mīzān, loc. cit.; also Madelung, Qāsim 2233, n. 23. He is named as a Murjiʾite in IS V 367, 3; Maʿārif 625, 3f.; Bukhārī III2 112 no. 1875; ʿUqaylī III 96 no. 1068; TB IX 143, 8f.; Mīzān, loc. cit.; TT VI 381ff. no. 721. 28  See vol.  I 195f. and 199f. above. 29  Lālakāʾī 696 no. 1287 (read arja‌ʾu for alja‌ʾū). Maybe fī l-umūr should be corrected to read min al-umūr: “those who leave the decision to God in matters that are hidden from them”. 30  Ibid. 698 no. 1292. 31  Cf. vol.  I 270f. 32   Mīzān, loc. cit.; cf. ch. C 1.4.2 below. The event cannot be dated precisely; Hārūn led the pilgrimage a number of times, especially during the seventies. 33   Mīzān, loc. cit.; also Azmi, Studies 114. Regarding him cf. also IAH III1 64f. no. 340.

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Another one who had moved to Mecca from Khorasan or Kufa34 was Saʿīd b. Sālim b. Abī l-Hayfāʾ al-Qaddāḥ. He had assimilated enough to have entered into clientship with the Makhzūm.35 He combined Shīʿite and Murjiʾite sympathies at a time when this had already become impossible in Kufa. Shīʿite rijāl works link him to Jaʿfar alṢādiq, although he did not play a major part.36 Sunnite jarḥ wal-taʿdīl literature simply saw him as a Murjiʾite.37 He was known to have borne witness against a “Jahmite” together with a colleague, putting the “Jahmite” into an invidious position; the victim claimed that he had made his statement against his better judgment.38 He made “propaganda” for his convictions; consequently his hadith was disliked later.39 It is all the more surprising that Shāfiʿī attended his lectures;40 clearly, he was not shunned during his lifetime. As he transmitted from Ibn Jurayj,41 he probably died during the second third of the second century.42 Abū Muḥammad Khallād b. Yaḥyā b. Ṣafwān al-Sulamī, finally, came from Kufa. He died in Mecca in 212/827 or slightly later.43 His “embracing slightly Murjiʾite views”, as Ibn Ḥanbal put it, seems probable as he transmitted from Misʿar b. Kidām and ʿAbd al-Wāḥid b. Ayman, who had circulated Ḥasan b. Muḥammad b. al-Ḥanafiyya’s missive in Mecca in his youth.44 – Presumably even the “Jahmite” mentioned above was closer to the Murjiʾa than to the Qadarites, differing from the former in his image of God, not in his definition of faith. He was

34  Ibn Ḥibbān, Majrūḥīn I 320, 10; TT IV 35 no. 54. 35  Khalīfa, Ṭab. 719 no. 2600. 36  Ardabīlī, Jāmiʿ I 360a, where he is listed as a Meccan. 37  ʿUqaylī II 108 no. 579; Mīzān no. 3186; TT, loc. cit. Cf. also IAH II1 31 no. 128. 38  Fasawī III 51, ult. ff.; regarding the Jahmites see below. 39  Ibid. III 54, –5f. 40   Mīzān, loc. cit.; see also p. 729 above. 41  He possessed written notes by him (Azmi, Studies 115). 42  The date of “before 200” in TT, loc. cit., is probably inferred, too. 43   Mīzān no. 2526; TT III 174f. no. 331. Cf. also Bukhārī II1 189 no. 638; IAH I2 368 no. 1675. 44  Regarding him see Cook, Dogma 1f.; also regarding the issue of the chronological distance between the persons mentioned. Cf. also Text II 1, commentary.

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Sālim b. Muslim al-Khashshāb al-Kātib, who, like his opponent Saʿīd b. Sālim, transmitted from Ibn Jurayj. He was a mawlā of the ʿAbd al-Dār45 and, going by his laqab, an official. We do not, however, learn anything else about him.46 – The distaste many locals felt for the Murjiʾite doctrine was expressed most strongly by Sufyān b. ʿUyayna. People recalled that when asked during a lecture in 170 he had rejected the doctrine that faith could neither increase nor decrease with strong words.47 ʿAbd alMajīd Ibn Abī Rawwād counted him among the “doubters” for this reason.48 He had attended ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd’s lectures in his youth, although his father had forbidden him to go there.49 When he died in 196/812, Aṣmāʿī composed a mourning poem lamenting that no-one paid attention to hadith any more, and that the “heretics (zanādiqa) whom Jahm leads to divine wrath and the punishment of hell” were gaining ground.50 This, however, was the Iraqi view of the situation.51 After all, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Kinānī, who would become the hero of an anti-Jahmite legend, also came from Mecca.52 4.1.1.4 The Shīʿites We know very little about Shīʿites in Mecca. While the ʿAlid uprisings did spread here as well, the members of the prophet’s family lived in Medina. The Quraysh’s dislike of everything to do with ʿAlī continued for a long time. ʿAbbād b. Kathīr, who was acquainted with Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq,1 was originally from Basra. The only one for whom the Sunni sources had room was

45  Fasawī II 38, 8ff. 46  He is listed as a Jahmite in Samʿānī, Ansāb V 129, 12ff.; Mīzān no. 3547. 47  Ājurrī, Sharīʿa 103, 9ff.; interestingly the inquirer was a stranger, probably a Kufan. Cf. also ibid. 116, –4ff. 48  ʿUqaylī II 108, 6f. 49  Fasawī II 259, 11ff.; see also p. 345 above. Regarding him in general see GAS 1/96; his traditions were mainly collected by Ḥumaydī in his Musnad. 50  Ibn Qutayba, ʿUyūn II 135, 7ff. 51  Regarding Aṣmaʿī see p. 98 and 423 above. 52  In the K. al-Ḥayda; more details in ch. C 3.3.6 below. 1  See p. 733 above; also Biḥār XLVII 360 no. 70, and 368f. no. 86.

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Maʿrūf b. Kharrabūdh, who, like the Kufan Zurāra b. Aʿyan, was closely acquainted with Muḥammad al-Bāqir. In the Sunnites’ eyes he was a traditionist,2 while the Shīʿites regarded him as a jurist.3 He also transmitted the Hudhaylite Dīwān;4 Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq was not impressed with this frivolity.5 Maybe he was a Qadarite like Zurāra.6 4.1.2 Medina Medina displayed more rebellious spirit. Not only were the ʿAlids a constant opposition, the scholars were often blunt as well. Mālik b. Anas recalled that two of his teachers, Rabīʿat al-ra‌ʾy1 and Muḥammad b. al-Munkadir,2 but before them also the eminent jurist Saʿīd b. b. al-Musayyab,3 had been punished because of their amr bil-maʿrūf; their beards had been shaved or they had been forced to wear dishonourable clothing.4 Ibn al-Ashʿath found support here, and Maʿbad al-Juhanī is said to have circulated his ideas in the city.5 When the refugees from Iraq had to be handed over in both Mecca and Medina, the governor ʿUthmān b. Ḥayyān al-Murrī made himself deeply unpopular with the population. Some families had sheltered the “pious men” (ʿubbād) from Iraq; the governor had to publicly threaten sanctions. It seems that old business ties

2  ʿUqaylī IV 220f. no. 1810; Bukhārī IV1 414 no. 1816; IAH VI1 321 no. 1481; Mīzān no. 8655; TT X 230f. no. 421. 3  Kashshī 238 no. 431; cf. the biography ibid. 211f. no. 373ff., which emphasises only his piousness. Cf. also Ardabīlī, Jāmiʿ II 246f.; Biḥār VII 267 no. 31. 4  I AH, loc. cit. 5  Kashshī 211f. no. 375. 6  If indeed he was the same as the Maʿrūf b. Abī Maʿrūf whom Kaʿbī lists among the Meccan Qadarites (Maq. 84, 5ff.). This is, however, quite doubtful. Regarding a Qadarite named Maʿrūf b. Abī Maʿrūf in Mosul see p. 528 above. 1  Regarding him cf. GAS 1/406f. and Giffen in: EIran I 356f. s. n. Abū ʿOṯmān Rabīʿa; also vol. I 215 above. 2  Regarding him cf. Khalīfa, Ṭab. 670 no. 2389; TH 127f. etc.; also p. 774 below. 3  Regarding him GAS 1/276; also Hāshim Jamīl ʿAbdallāh’s remarkable collection of material, Fiqh al-Imām Saʿīd b. al-Musayyab (1–4; Baghdad 1394/1974–1395/1975). 4  Ibn Abī Zayd al-Qayrawānī, Jāmiʿ 155, pu. ff. 5  Festschrift Meier 51. The story in Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif 441, 7ff., according to which ʿAṭāʾ b. Yasār al-Hilālī, who worked in Medina as a qāṣṣ, had ties to Maʿbad al-Juhanī and expressed his outrage at the rulers freely in front of Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, probably refers to the Basran Qadarite ʿAṭāʾ b. Abī Maymūna (see p. 62f. above).

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also played a part, as we hear that he “did not suffer a single Iraqi in the city, whether he was a merchant or not”.6 ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, who had prevented this step until then, was regarded as the mahdī in the city. Originally people had hoped for a successor to ʿUmar I from the male line, but in the end they settled for the namesake, even though ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz was an Umayyad.7 One of the oldest ascetics we know was close to him, a client of the Makhzūm named Ziyād b. Abī Ziyād; he did not eat meat and wore woollen clothing.8 Mālik later recommended wearing coarse cotton: it was not as noticeable but just as cheap.8a Kalām seems to have existed in the city early on; one of Mālik’s teachers, Abū Bakr ʿAbdallāh b. Yazīd b. Hurmuz al-Aṣamm, was said to have refuted the heretics (ahl alahwāʾ).9 This assumption would become certainty if Ḥasan b. Muḥammad b. al-Ḥanafiyya’s anti-Qadarite quaestiones could be proved to be genuine; the text’s most likely home would be Medina.10 Cultural life was enhanced by wealth and leisure. Poetry blossomed;11 ʿUmar b. Abī Rabīʿa, originally from Mecca, had settled in Medina.12 A school of grammarians was founded early on.13 The abovementioned ʿAbdallāh b. Yazīd alAṣamm was one of its members, as was a Persian of the name of Bashkast who joined the Ibāḍite Abū Ḥamza and was executed after the uprising.14 There may even have been zanādiqa, but none of the reports have been examined sufficiently as yet.15 One of ʿAbdallāh b. al-Zubayr’s sons was suspected of practising “occult sciences”; ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz had him flogged and doused with cold water in 93/712 on Walīd’s orders. He died as a consequence, as he was made to 6  Cf. the account in Ṭabarī II 1258, 8ff.; a later reflection is found in Dhahabī, Ta‌ʾrīkh III 328, 1ff., which tells us that ʿUthmān b. Ḥayyān had some people flogged because of their nahy ʿan al-munkar. He had taken office in late Shawwāl 94/late July 713 (Ṭabarī II 1258, 4f., and 1254, 17f.). Regarding this event cf. also Arazi in: JSAI 5/1984/190ff. 7  Cf. Madelung in EI2 V 1231b. 8  IS V 225, 1ff.; Dhahabī, Ta‌ʾrīkh V 73, 7ff.; also Goldziher, Vorlesungen 152, and Ges. Schr. IV 173ff. He would later visit the caliph in Damascus (Fasawī I 596. 1ff.). 8a  Ibn Abī Zayd al-Qayrawānī, Jāmiʿ 225, 7ff. 9  Fasawī I 652, 4f.; Qifṭī, Inbāh II 172, pu. ff.; Zubaydī, Ṭabaqāt al-naḥwiyyīn 20, 3ff. Regarding him in general cf. Fasawī I 651ff.; Shīrāzī, Ṭab. 66, 8ff.; IAH II2 199 no. 924; Dhahabī, Ta‌ʾrīkh V 98ff. 10  Cf. Anfänge, passim; Cook, Dogma 137ff. 11  Cf. GAS 2/241ff. 12  Ibid.  415. 13  Cf. Talmon in: BSOAS 48/1985/224ff. 14  Ibid. 231f.; cf. Agh. I 290, 4ff. 15  See p. 700, above regarding ʿAbdallāh b. Muʿāwiya; also vol. I 494, and p. 772 below.

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stand by the entrance of the prophet’s mosque in wintry weather afterwards.16 As in Mecca, the authorities ensured over time that men and women could not meet as freely as before. Ḥasan b. Zayd, ʿAlī’s grandson, whom Manṣūr appointed governor of the city in 149/766,17 prohibited women from entering mosques; during Ramadan only old women were permitted to attend prayers.18 4.1.2.1 The Khārijites The Ibāḍite Abū Ḥamza was not received with rejoicing in Medina. The distinguished families saw his followers – who came from Ḥaḍramawt – as uncouth Bedouins.1 Consequently battle erupted close to the city, near Qudayd, and many Medinans died.2 The names of only very few Ibāḍite scholars survive from the following years: a certain Isḥāq b. Maʿdhīr3 or Ibn ʿAbbād al-Madanī.4 The community does not seem to have been very large, and it met with considerable hostility. Mālik b. Anas was of the opinion that Ibāḍites could be executed if they did not convert.5 Maybe he was referring to their militant phase under Abū Ḥamza. There were other Khārijites in the city as well, ʿIkrima’s pupils from whom even Mālik transmitted hadith. Interestingly, they were Qadarites, but despite this double motivation they were no rebels and did not take part in Abū Ḥamza’s uprising. Ibn Ḥibban says this explicitly of Abū Sulaymān Dāwūd b. al-Ḥuṣayn al-Umawī, d. 135/752–3; he was not a “propagandist”.6 Later, it would be impossible to avoid him in any case, as not only Mālik transmitted from him,7 but all six canonical 16  Ṭabarī II 1255, 1ff.; Dhahabī, Ta‌ʾrīkh III 363, 9ff. The causal link is not entirely certain. 17  Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 682, 8f.; also EI2 III 244f. 18  Zubayr b.  Bakkār, Muwaffaqiyyāt 337, ult. f. no. 188. Regarding the development of Medina during the Umayyad and early Abbasid eras cf. Arazi in: JSAI 5/1984/177ff.; Blachère assumed that the city was cleansed of worldly tendencies during the first quarter of the second/eighth century (EI2 II 1031a). Regarding the topography of the city cf. Ṣāliḥ al-ʿAlī in: IC 35/1961/65ff. 1  Agh. XXIII 238, 14 = Ṭabarī II 2010, ult. f. 2  Cf. the sources named on p. 736 above; also Abū l-ʿArab, Miḥan 238ff.; a list of the fallen in Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 692, 6ff. 3  Sic! Kitāb Ibn Sallām 114, ult. 4  Lewicki in: EI2 III 651a with further names. 5  Saḥnūn, Mudawwana (Cairo 1323/1905–6) II 47, –5ff.; also Ibn Qudāma, Mughnī X 59, pu. 6  Thiqāt VI 284; adopted in Mīzān no. 2600. 7  Suyūṭī, Isʿāf al-mubaṭṭa‌ʾ 12, 18ff.

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collections named him as an authority. It is true that he was not an ideal revolutionary; being a client of one of ʿUthmān’s grandsons, he had to be circumspect. After the Abbasids came to power the first governor, Dāwūd b. ʿAlī, entrusted his sons’ education to him.8 ʿIkrima sought refuge with him shortly before his death when the governor was after him because of his Khārijite sympathies; and he died in his house.9 ʿIkrima also gave him historical information about the prophet,10 and also about ʿUthmān,11 most of which had come down to him from Ibn ʿAbbās; Ibn Isḥāq would profit from this information.12 Later sources in particular claimed that he was a Qadarite,13 as do the Muʿtazilites whose earliest witness, Kaʿbī, relied on Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Shāfiʿī.14 The Medinan Qadarite Ibrāhīm b. Abī Yaḥyā15 possessed a booklet (nuskha) with hadith notes by his hand.16 The hadith he transmitted from ʿIkrima was considered unusual, namely that the dream of adolescence (ḥulm) was sent by Satan, which was why the prophet was spared this experience;17 an expression of the strong emphasis on the ritual purity and increasing idealisation of the prophet. – The same constellation applies to Thawr b. Zayd al-Dīlī (or Duʾalī), who may have died in the same year;18 Ibn Isḥāq transmitted traditions on the prophet’s biographies from him, too.19 The Muʿtazilites tell us that he was a Qadarite,20 as do some later, but relevant, sources.

8  Kaʿbī, Qabūl 70, 13ff.; cf. also Khalīfa, Ṭab. 648 no. 2274. 9  Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif 457, 1f. The governor might have been ʿAbd al-Wāḥid b. ʿAbdallāh al-Naḍrī, who took office under Yazīd II in 104. (Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 482, 5f., and Ṭabarī II 1449, 13). 10  Ṭabarī I 149, 14ff.; 1129, 18ff.; 1191, 2ff.; 1248, 10ff.; 1351, 16ff. 11  Ibid. I 3038, 9ff. 12  Cf. e.g. Ṭabarī I 149, 14f. 13  Dhahabī, Ta‌ʾrīkh V 241, 9ff.; Suyūṭī, Tadrīb I 328, pu. f.; Ibn Ḥajar, Hady al-sārī 120, 20. Nothing in Bukhārī, Ta‌ʾrīkh II1 231 no. 779, and ʿUqaylī II 35f. no. 459. TT III 182, 1 and 4, and Hady al-sārī II 127, –7ff. only point out his Khārijite tendencies. 14   Maq. 77, 6 > Faḍl 335, 6. 15  Regarding him see p. 781ff. below. 16  Azmi, Studies 126. 17   Mīzān II 6, 1ff. 18  Cf. e.g. Suyūṭī, Isʿāf al-mubaṭṭa‌ʾ 9, 11ff.; Khalīfa has 140/757 as the date of his death (Ṭab. 671f. no. 2399); this may be because it is a round number. 19  Cf. Ṭabarī I 1329, 3ff., and 1371, 6ff.; after a different authority ibid. I 1584, 13ff. 20  Kaʿbī 79, 5ff. > Faḍl 336, 4 (corrupt) > IM 134, 5 (with misspelling, see below).

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Ibn Ḥajar, TT II 31 no. 55 and Hady al-sārī II 120, 17ff.; Suyūṭī, Tadrīb I 328, apu. Nothing in Bukhārī I2 181 no. 2125, and IAH I1 468 no. 1903. It must be said that his name gave rise to a number of misidentifications and misspellings. Ibn al-Murtaḍā has Nūn b. Zayd rather than Thawr b. Zayd; Ibn Qutayba probably confused him with the Syrian Thawr b. Yazīd alKalāʿī (cf. Maʿārif 625, 13 and the correction in Ibn Rusta, Aʿlāq 221, 1). The latter was a notorious Qadarite (see vol. I 131ff. above), and Dhahabī consequently believed that this was the only reason why the Medinan had the same reputation (Mīzān no. 1404). Ibn Ḥanbal seems to make a similar distinction (ʿIlal 240 no. 1512). These assessments may be due to the fact that nothing much was known about the intellectual atmosphere in second-century Medina. We know of one Ibāḍite who left the city around this time: Abū Muḥammad al-Walīd b. Kathīr al-Makhzūmī. He had been a client of the Makhzūm, but then went to live in Wāsiṭ, where Sufyān al-Thawrī visited him and stayed in his house.21 Later he went to Kufa, where he died in 151/768.22 ʿUqaylī23 as well as Kaʿbī24 tell us that he was a Qadarite. The interest in maghāzī Ibn Abī Ḥātim ascribed to him is not mentioned in the literature.25 4.1.2.2 The Murjiʾa Mālik apparently did not allow Murjiʾites to attend his lectures.1 One of them, a certain Abū l-Juwayriya, stopped him on his way to the mosque and challenged him to a debate. He clearly was a true dāʿiya, as he believed that the loser must convert to his opponent’s view. Mālik declined, outraged; forced disputation (jidāl) had no place in religion.2 This may well be an exemplary anecdote without much claim to historicity. Dawlābī’s dictionary of kunyas identifies Abū 21  ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ IV 320, 7ff.; cf. also Mīzān no. 9397. 22   T T XI 148, 12. 23   Ḍuʿafāʾ IV 320, 5. 24   Maq. 80, 6ff. > Faḍl 336, 7 > IM 134, 7f. 25   I AH IV2 14 no. 62. Ṭabarī quoted him only once (I 2746, 7); in that passage he is transmitting from Muḥammad b. ʿAjlān (see p. 761ff. below). 1  See p. 611 above. 2  Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ, Tartīb al-madārik I 170, 5ff.; Ājurrī, Sharīʿa 56, –5ff.; also REI 44/1976/46.

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l-Juwayriya: his name was ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd b. ʿImrān and he was a Kufan living in Medina,3 which is all we know about him. We do, however, know a certain Abū l-Ḥuwayrith or Abū l-Ḥuwayritha4 whom Abū Dāwūd also listed among the “Murjiʾites of Medina” and of whom Mālik did not approve; his name was ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Muʿāwiya.5 The kunya may simply have been misread.6 It is furthermore not entirely true that no Murjiʾites at all studied under Mālik,7 but we can still say that their school did not have very many followers in Medina.8 4.1.2.3 The Qadarites The Qadariyya, on the other hand, had been established in the city for some time, and was reasonably well-respected. Ṣāliḥ b. Qaysān, who had taught ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz’ sons when he was governor, as well as supervising the construction of the prophet’s mosque, was said to have had ties to it.1 He praised Ibn al-Ashʿath’s followers for the courage they had shown at Dayr alJamājim;2 in an account of the conquest of Ḥīra he displayed the kind of egalitarian pathos expected of a client.3 When Ghaylān al-Dimashqī accompanied the caliph Hishām on the pilgrimage in 106/725, he and Rabīʿat al-ra‌ʾy were said to have had a debate in Medina.4 According to the account by Mālik, after the end of the debate Saʿd b. Ibrāhīm, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. ʿAwf’s grandson who held the office of qāḍī in the city at the time,5 obtained the notes of Ghaylān’s 3  Dawlābī I 139, 8ff. 4  Regarding the latter form cf. Fasawī II 644, 12, and Dawlābī I 161, 2 (which has Abū l-Ḥuwayriya instead). 5  T T VI 272f. no. 539; regarding him cf. also ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ II 344f. no. 945, and Mīzān no. 4979. 6  He is, however, believed to have died as early as 128/746 or 130/748 (TT, loc. cit.). 7  Cf. vol. I 159. 8  I do not know who the Murjiʾite Ibn Abī Dāwūd was of whom Sufyān b. ʿUyayna warned (ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ I 62, 3f.). 1  T T IV 399, 4f. and TH 148, pu.; Ṭabarī II 1193, 15ff. Regarding his Qadarism cf. Kaʿbī 80, 10ff. > Faḍl 336, 7 > IM 134, 8; Suyūṭī, Tadrīb I 329, 1; Mīzān no. 3823 (where the suspicion is rejected). According to Fasawī I 568, 6ff., he had already been ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz’ own tutor. For more information see TTD VI 378. 2  Ṭabarī II 1092, 1ff. 3  Ibid. I 2016, 15ff. and 2017, 9ff.; cf. also Abū Bakr’s speech transmitted by him, which he was said to have given on his deathbed (I 2139, 6ff.). 4  In more detail Anfänge 204ff. Regarding the date cf. ibid. 225; Hishām was in Medina during Muḥarram/May 725. 5  Wakīʿ I 150ff.: from 104/722 onwards with interruptions until his death in 127/745 (thus according to Wakīʿ I 164, 2f.) or 128/746 (thus after Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 577, 9).

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address (maqāla) and revised them.6 This led Ibn Qutayba to believe that he was a Qadarite,7 which was given as the reason why Mālik would not transmit from him.8 When Ghaylān’s ideas became the official line under Yazīd III, they probably found some support in Medina; certainly some people found themselves in hot water when reaction began under Marwān II. One of them was ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Isḥāq b. ʿAbdallāh al-ʿĀmirī al-Qurashī, who had settled “by the water” in Medina after Walīd’s death, and now had to flee to Basra.9 This is the only definite report. The name alone is confusing enough. Ibn Ḥanbal believed ʿAbd al-Raḥmān was also called ʿAbbād;10 according to Bukhārī, this was the form customary in the west, presumably Spain.11 Some later authors listed him twice because of this.12 Instead of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Isḥāq b. ʿAbdallāh one definitive isnād has ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Isḥāq b. alḤārith,13 which is probably an abbreviation, as we learn that ʿAbd al-Raḥmān also transmitted from his father, who apparently was Isḥāq b. ʿAbdallāh b. alḤārith al-ʿĀmirī,14 son of ʿAbdallāh b. al-Ḥārith b. Nawfal, named Babba, who had ruled in Basra in 64/684 for a year on behalf of ʿAbdallāh b. al-Zubayr. He was a Hāshimid, and connected to the Umayyads on his mother’s side; because of this noble descent he had previously already held official positions. Towards the end of his life he joined Ibn al-Ashʿath,15 which may have influenced his grandson’s Qadarite interests. It also explains why the latter fled to Basra: the

6  Kaʿbī 76, 4ff. after Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Shāfiʿī, who referred to Mālik via his own teacher Shāfiʿī > Faḍl 334, –5ff. > Ḥākim al-Jushamī > al-Manṣūr billāh, Shāfī I 151, 11ff. 7  Maʿārif 625, 12, the name to be corrected in accordance with Ibn Rusta, Aʿlāq 220, 7. 8  Kaʿbī 76, 11f. (corrupt) > Faḍl 334, pu. f. > IM 133, 9ff.; also TT III 465, 9ff. Nothing in Wakīʿ, in TTD VI 80 and Mīzān no. 3133. 9  ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ II 322, 1f. > Mīzān no. 4811 (with a better reading); TT VI 137ff. The Muʿtazilites also name him as a Qadarite (Kaʿbī I 106, 4 > Faḍl 343, 11ff. > IM 139, 3f.), as does Suyūṭī (Tadrīb I 329, 3). Regarding the “water” cf. Samhūdī, Wafāʾ al-wafāʾ II 200, 13 and –4. 10   ʿIlal 372, 17f. 11   Ta‌ʾrīkh III1 258, 7f. According to Dāraquṭnī, Ḍuʿafāʾ 338f. no. 341, on the other hand, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān was the form used in Basra. 12  Thus Dhahabī, Mīzān no. 4811 and 4109. On the other hand the same author claims in his Ta‌ʾrīkh al-Islām that ʿAbbād was ʿAbd al-Raḥmān’s brother (VI 93, 3ff.). 13  Fasawī I 454, 3. Thus also Bukhārī III1 258f. no. 834, and IAH II2 212f. no. 1000. 14   T T I 238f.; Khalīfa, Ṭab. 507 no. 1742. 15  Regarding him cf. Madelung in: JNES 40/1981/292f. and 297ff.

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family is likely to have had considerable support there.15a They also owned a house in Mecca.16 Should we assume that the unusual Maghrebin form of the name, which appears to have been a hypocoristic, could be explained with ʿAbd al-Raḥmān’s fleeing to Spain from the Abbasids because of his close ties to the Umayyads? The rijāl texts show his position as an intermediary: he was important for Medinan hadith,17 but had pupils in Basra as well.18 Ibn Abī Ḥātim notes that he was close to Ibn Isḥāq;19 the latter, too, had been a Qadarite in his youth and consequently not liked by the authorities.20 – A connection with Basra is also clearly visible in the case of Abū Naṣr21 Yaḥyā b. Abī Kathīr Yasār22 al-Ṭāʾī al-Yamāmī, a mawlā of the Ṭayyiʾ,23 who had also moved between cities, but in the opposite direction. He came from Basra and allegedly left the city because he could not get along with Qatāda,24 sometime before 117/735; from then onwards he lived in the Yamāma.25 Walīd II’s lifestyle was not to his liking; he transmitted that in 125/743 the world had lost its jewel.26 Maybe he refused to pay homage to him or his sons; he was said to have been interrogated because of this crime, and then beaten and his head shaved.27 He died towards the end of the Umayyad era, in 129/747 or 132/750.28

15a  See also p. 182 above. 16  Madelung, loc. cit. 298. 17  Ibn al-Madīnī, ʿIlal 81, 1; 87, 7; 88, 1; also 84, 5. 18  Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 372 no. 2467; also Wakīʿ, Akhbār I 46, apu. f. 19   I AH II2 213, 1f. 20  See p. 756f. below. 21  Or Abū Ayyūb (IS V 404, 9). He had several sons besides Naṣr: Kathīr (IS V 404, 7), ʿAbdallāh (AZ 448, apu., and Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif 218, 7), and ʿĀmir (Jāḥiẓ, Bayān III 212, 7). 22  Cf. Khalīfa, Ṭab. 514 no. 1780; IS V 404, 3f.; IS V 404, 15, has Dīnār instead. 23   I S V 404, 6. in Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif 218, 3f., Ṭayyiʾ is corrupted to read ʿAlī. 24  See p. 158 above. 25  Fasawī I 621, 11f. 26  Suyūṭī, La‌ʾālī II 390, 13ff.; also vol. I 96f. 27  Thus Abū l-ʿArab, Miḥan 316, 7ff.; in general Dhahabī, TH 128, 15f., and Ta‌ʾrīkh V 180, pu. f.: because of criticising the Umayyads. 28  The date of 129 is more frequent; 132 is an inference from the report that he survived Ayyūb al-Sakhtiyānī (see p. 391 above) by a year (Bukhārī IV2 301, 6f.).

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He had been well-respected in Basra. Ayyūb al-Sakhtiyānī held him in great esteem,29 and Hishām al-Dastuwāʾī transmitted much from him.30 Ibn alMadīnī would later name him the greatest traditionist of his generation besides Qatāda.31 He was also well-versed in Medinan and Hijazi hadith; only Zuhrī surpassed him.32 Ṭabarī shows him as knowledgeable concerning the prophet’s biography.33 In his view the Sunna was superior to the Quran – and maybe not exclusively because it contributed to explaining the Quran, as people would claim later.34 He insisted on being given hadith material in writing, so it would not be lost,35 and he transmitted hadith in writing as well.36 Later critics considered this important only because oral confirmation might be lacking in some cases.37 The great number of those who transmitted from him serves as proof that his method was entirely acceptable in his lifetime.38 Ibn Ḥajar testified to his great piousness.39 He may have inferred this from statements like his son ʿAbdallāh’s that he was always sad – meaning concerned for his salvation.40 Together with his political views this would make him a good Qadarite, but that is a claim we do not find anywhere. Not even Kaʿbī listed him. Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, on the other hand, tells us that ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd went to visit him, and mentions in this context that they were both Muʿtazilites.41 This does not seem to agree with those among his hadiths that could be used against the Qadarites.42 We are unable to solve the case. – Political commitment might be assumed in the case of

29   I S V 404, 10f., and Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif 218, 5f. 30   A Z 452 no. 1142. 31  Fasawī I 621, 7ff; IKh VI 140, 10ff. 32  Ibid. I 621, 10f. after Ayyūb al-Sakhtiyānī. 33  Cf. Index s. n.; he transmitted mainly from Abū Salama b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān (d. 104/722–3), in whose hand he possessed a nuskha (Azmi, Studies 63). 34  Ibn Qutayba, Ta‌ʾwīl 250, 8ff. = 199, 8ff./transl. Lecomte 222 § 216d; cf. Juynboll in: JSAI 10/1987/109f. 35  Khaṭīb, Taqyīd 110, 16ff. 36  Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 196, 3f. 37  Azmi, Studies 176. 38  Ibid.  176f. 39   T T XI 269, 5f. 40   A Z 448, apu. f. Of his other son Naṣr it was even said that he could walk on water or fly in the air (Abū Yaʿlā, Muʿtamad 164, 12ff.). 41   Faḍl 343, 1ff. > IM 138, 9 (giving the name only). 42   H T 127 and 164.

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Abū Muḥammad Ismāʿīl Muḥammad b. Saʿd b. Abī Waqqāṣ, d. 134/751–2,43 a member of the Medinan aristocracy whose father had taken part in Ibn al-Ashʿath’s uprising and was executed on Ḥajjāj’s orders after being taken prisoner near Herat in 82/701.44 The son, Kaʿbī tells us, was known for his Qadarite views in the city.45 Other sources do not confirm this, but then we know very little indeed about this grandson of the well-known general. According to Ibn Qutayba he was one of the fuqahāʾ of the Quraysh.46 He appears a number of times as Ṭabarī’s source of historical information up to ʿUthmān’s time, with precise chronological data in several instances;47 Ibn Isḥāq also quotes him once.48 – Other Medinan Qadarites of this time are less concrete. One of them was a member of an ancient family, al-Qāsim b. al-ʿAbbās b. Muḥammad al-Lahabī. He was a descendant of Abū Lahab and consequently probably rather biased;49 his great-grandfather Muʿattib had become a Muslim in the year of the conquest of Mecca.50 He himself died in the battle of Qudayd in 130/748, or was murdered by the Khārijites in Medina shortly afterwards.51 The Muʿtazilites were the only ones to note his Qadarite views.52 Abū Mawdūd ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Abī Sulaymān was a mawlā of the Hudhayl who worked as a qāṣṣ in Medina. He was believed to be an ascetic; Ibn Saʿd called him a mutakallim who preached to the

43  Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 627, 13; TT I 329f. no. 592. 44  Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 367, 12, and 368, 5ff.; also Zubayrī, Nasab Quraysh 264, 11ff., and Ibn Ḥazm, Jamhara 129, –4f. 45   Maq. 76, 13ff. > Faḍl 335, 1f. > IM 133, 13. 46   Maʿārif 244, 4. 47  Cf. Index s. n., esp. I 2726, 10ff. 48   Sīra 587, 9f. 49  His family is not mentioned either in Zubayrī or in Ibn Ḥazm’s Jamhara. 50  Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, Istīʿāb 1430 no. 2459. 51  Most sources have 131 as the year of his death; only Bukhārī has 133, after ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Shayba. This may be a copyist’s error; TT VIII 320, 2f., has 130 after the same source. 52  Kaʿbī 76, 1f. > Faḍl 335, 3 > IM 133, 11f. (incorrect al-Laythī here). Nothing in Bukhārī IV1 168 no. 748; IAH III2 114 no. 658; Mīzān no. 6810; TT VIII 319f. no. 576.

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people.53 Kaʿbī based his view of him as a Qadarite on Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Shāfiʿī.54 Abū ʿAbdallāh Ṣafwān b. Sulaym al-Zuhrī, d. 132/749–50,55 a mawlā of Ḥumayd b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. ʿAwf who later appears to have forged ties with the Banū Zuhra,56 had in his youth, during Muʿāwiya’s caliphate, trained the officials (kuttāb) in Medina, but increasingly turned to devotional exercises. He spent his nights in prayer and tried to reduce his need for sleep. He did not use a pillow and made his bed, against the usual custom, on the roof in winter, and inside the house in the summer. He slept sitting up, his head on his knees, supported by a strap (ḥubwa) tying his knees to his chest, preserving his ritual purity in this way.57 His actions were noted with great respect and considered unusual.58 There is an early report that names him as a Qadarite;59 Ibn Ḥajar quotes it,60 as do the Muʿtazilite sources.61 It did not deter Mālik b. Anas from attending his lectures.62 – According to Wāqidī, Abū l-Mughīra ʿAbdallāh b. Abī Labīd al-Thaqafī died at the beginning of Manṣūr’s caliphate, in 136/754 or shortly afterwards, according to Wāqidī.63 He may have inferred this from an anecdote of undoubtedly fictional content.64 It would be too late in any case, if it should be correct that the abovementioned Ṣafwān b. Sulaym refused to say the prayer 53   mutakallim yaʿiẓu; cf. TT VI 340 no. 653. The original passage is not extant in the printed version of Ṭabaqāt which has a few gaps in vol. V in particular. mutakallim does not necessarily mean “theologian” here (see vol. I 57f. above). 54   Maq. 80, apu. ff. > Faḍl 336, 8 (once corrected) > IM 133, 8 (corrected by Fück in OLZ 59/1964/374). 55  Thus after Khalīfa, Ṭab. 653 no. 2304, and Ta‌ʾrīkh 613, 4; also TH 134 no. 120, and TT IV 425 no. 734. According to Ibn ʿAsākir, however, already 124/742 (TTD VI 433, 13f.). 56  Khalīfa, Ṭab., and AZ 641, 7. 57   T TD VI 433, 15ff.; Ibn al-Jawzī, Ṣifa II 86ff.; cf. also the prayer AZ 429, 1. Only if one stretches out while sleeping at night does one have to perform the ablution in the morning (cf. Text XXII 257 with commentary). Regarding the ḥubwa see p. 204 above. 58  Kaʿbī 78, 1f., and in more detail Fasawī I 661, 2ff.: after Sufyān b. ʿUyayna. 59   T TD VI 434, 4; also Kaʿbī 77, ult. f. 60   T T, loc. cit. 61  Kaʿbī 77, ult. f. (after Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Shāfiʿī) > Faḍl 335, 15f. > IM 133, 16f. Nothing in IAH II1 423f. no. 1858. 62  Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ, Tartīb al-madārik I 127, –5; Suyūṭī, Isʿāf al-mubaṭṭa‌ʾ 19, 9ff. 63   T T V 372, 15. 64  Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Faḍl 335, 11ff.

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of the dead over him.65 They were both pietists, but Abū l-Mughīra’s Qadarite views are much better documented, e.g. by Ibn Ḥanbal66 as well as Fasawī.67 The reason for this is probably that he once travelled to Iraq, transmitting hadith in Kufa where Sufyān al-Thawrī attended his lectures.68 Abū ʿAbdallāh Sharīk b. ʿAbdallāh b. Abī Nimr al-Laythī,69 d. after 140/757–8 but before al-Nafs al-zakiyya’s uprising,70 was a true Arab. His grandfather Abū Nimr had fought with the Meccans at Badr.71 Kaʿbī, quoting Dāwūd al-Iṣfahānī,72 and a number of other sources list him as a Qadarite.73 Mālik b. Anas transmitted from him all the same.74 – Interestingly even an uncle of Mālik’s belongs in this group: Abū Suhayl Nāfiʿ b. Mālik b. Abī ʿĀmir al-Aṣbaḥī, also known as Ibn Abī Anas,75 who had joined the Taym b. Murra as a confederate (ḥalīf). His father Abū Anas Mālik b. Abī ʿĀmir died in 112/730,76 he himself during Saffāḥ’s caliphate (132/749–136/754).77 The family was of Southern Arabian origin and commanded some respect, as demonstrated by the fact that he transmitted from ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz and consequently must have been in the latter’s circle when he was governor.78 The Medinan jurist Ibn Abī Yaḥyā, quoted by Shāfiʿī, listed him 65  Cf. e.g. ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ II 292, 12ff, and Bukhārī III1 182, 5: after ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Muḥammad al-Darāwardī (d. 186/802). 66   ʿIlal 130 no. 807, and 273 no. 1761. 67   I I 697, 4f.; also Bukhārī III1 182, 4; ʿUqaylī II 292 no. 866; Mīzān no. 4529; Hady al-sārī II 139, 21ff.; Suyūṭī, Tadrīb I 329, 2; Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Faḍl 335, 7ff. > IM 133, 14. Dhahabī expresses doubts: Ta‌ʾrīkh V 267, –4ff. Nothing in IAH II2 148 no. 684. 68  Cf. also Azmi, Studies 109. 69  Regarding this nisba cf. Khalīfa, Ṭab. 665 no. 3264. 70  Khalīfa, Ṭab., loc. cit., and Ta‌ʾrīkh 642, 3; also IAH II1 363 no. 1592. 71  Bukhārī II2 236, pu. f. 72   Maq. 78, pu. ff. > Faḍl 336, 3 > IM 134, 5. 73   T T IV 337f. no. 578; Hady al-sārī II 134, 8ff.; Tadrīb I 329, 1. Nothing in IAH II1 363f. no. 1592, or in Mīzān no. 3696. Not to be confused with the Kufan Sharīk b. ʿAbdallāh al-Nakhaʿī (see vol. I 246 above). 74  Suyūṭī, Isʿāf al-mubaṭṭa‌ʾ 18, –7ff. 75  Cf. Fasawī I 406, 6ff. 76  Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ, Tartīb I 107, –7f. 77   T T X 409ff. no. 737. 78  Bukhārī IV2 86 no. 2276; also IAH IV1 453 no. 2072.

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as a Qadarite;79 while he was well-informed, he was probably also biased. He did not agree with Mālik.80 Abū Sahl Saʿd b. Saʿīd b. Abī Saʿīd al-Maqburī was slightly younger. Sufyān b. ʿUyayna had named him as a Qadarite.81 He transmitted from his brother ʿAbdallāh who, while not a Qadarite, would end up with the worse reputation of the two.82 Their father, on the other hand, Saʿīd al-Maqburī, a client of the Banū Layth, was much respected. He died around 125/743.83 – The last one worth mentioning in the context of the early Qadariyya is Muḥammad b. Isḥāq b. Yasār, the well-known author of the Sīra, d. 150/767, or shortly afterwards. He spent only the first half of his life in Medina; moving to Baghdad in the thirties, where he established contact with Manṣūr.84 His biography and his works have been studied a number of times;85 consequently I can limit myself to what is relevant to the present context. The suspicion that he was a Qadarite is clearly of Medinan origin. A certain Ḥumayd b. Ḥabīb claimed to have seen Ibn Isḥāq flogged under the governor Ibrāhīm b. Hishām because of his Qadarite involvement.86 This would have had to be during his youth; Ibrāhīm b. Hishām b. Ismāʿīl al-Makhzūmī ruled Medina from 106/725, shortly after Hishām came

79  Kaʿbī 82, 3ff. > Faḍl 336, 18ff. > IM 134, 11f. 80  See p. 783f. below. 81  ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ II 117 no. 593; Mīzān no. 3110; TT III 469f. no. 875. 82  Regarding him ʿUqaylī II 258f. no. 810; Mīzān no. 4353 etc. 83  Regarding him TH 116f. no. 101; TT IV 38ff. no. 61 etc. 84  Cf. in detail J. Fück, Muḥammad b. Isḥāq (PhD Frankfurt 1925) and, with a different interpretation, R. Sellheim in: Oriens 18–19/1965–66/33ff.; cf. also Schacht in: Arabica 16/1969/81. 85  Cf. EI2 III 810f. s. n., and GAS 1/288ff.; also the studies, composed independently of one another, by H. R. Idris, Réflexions sur Ibn Isḥāq, in: SI 17/1962/23ff., and ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz Dūrī, Dirāsa fī sīrat al-nabī wa-muʾallifihā Ibn Isḥāq (Baghdad 1385/1965), as well as Sadun Mahmud al-Samuk’s dissertation Die historischen Überlieferungen nach Ibn Isḥāq. Eine synoptische Untersuchung (Frankfurt 1978), all with further references. Also Dūrī, Rise 33ff.; Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad, Intro. xiiiff., and Newby, The Making of the Last Prophet 5ff. 86   Mīzān III 472, pu. f.

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to power,87 onwards, and lost the position in 114/732.88 The information is problematic for several reasons. We are unable to identify the source with any certainty;89 and in those days – when Ghaylān al-Dimashqī was probably still living – Qadarite views were not fraught with danger, at least not in Syria. Most importantly, another source explains the flogging as having been because of Ibn Isḥāq’s womanising. Yāqūt, Irshād VI 400, 13ff., after Wāqidī. In order for the story to make any sense at all, one would have to read Ibrāhīm b. Hishām al-Makhzūmī for Hishām al-Makhzūmī (who was governor between 82/701 and 86/705), as Horovitz already pointed out (in: IC 2/1928/169; also Idris, p. 28). Cf. also the reports in Ibn al-Nadīm, Fihrist 105, 4ff., and Abū l-ʿArab, Miḥan 378, 4ff.; neither of these gives the governor’s name. Abū l-ʿArab says that Ibn Isḥāq was exiled at the time; a parallel account (ibid. 377, 8ff.) claims that Ibn Isḥāq knew too much about genealogy and revealed some scandal about every family. Even so, the accusation might have had a concrete cause, as it is possible that Ibn Isḥāq found himself in trouble with the authorities once again, and this time because of his Qadarite leanings after all. He was surrounded by his pupils when he was arrested; a dream vision having revealed him his fate shortly before.90 However that may have been, his reputation in Medina was ruined for the rest of the century, more than a generation after his death.91 The sources hastened to add, with reference to Sufyān b. ʿUyayna, that this had nothing to do with his hadith, but was solely due to his Qadarite views.92 Whether this was indeed the case will have to remain unanswered; we do hear that he transmitted hadith “on the attribute” (fī l-ṣifa, explained as “on the attributes of God”) and caused offence – whatever the strange phrase may in fact have

87  Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 544, 7f., and Wakīʿ, Akhbār al-quḍāt I 168, 10ff. 88  Wakīʿ I 171, 3f. 89  Might he have been Ḥumayd b. Ḥabīb al-Lakhmī who would later support Yazīd III (Ṭabarī II 1792, 6). 90  Thus TB I 225, 11ff.; once again it was a later transmitter who pointed out the link to the qadar issue (regarding him cf. Samʿānī, Ansāb VI 323, 1ff.). Without this remark also Yāqūt, Irshād VI 401, 1ff. – Idris believes this to be merely a doublet of the previously mentioned tradition (loc. cit., p. 28). 91  Cf. TB I 226, 14ff., with reference to the year 193/809. Entirely negative also the synopsis in Ibn al-Nadīm (Fihrist 105, 3ff.). 92  Fasawī II 27, 9f.; Kaʿbī 81, 10ff.; ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ IV 26, 7f.; also TB I 224, 19.

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meant.93 We do know that he used Ḥasan al-Baṣrī’s Tafsīr in ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd’s redaction.94 Mālik b. Anas was said to have been ill-disposed towards him for the same reason.95 We are unable to confirm this; other reasons are given as well.96 It does seem exaggerated that Mālik b. Anas should have been able to bully him out of town, as at that time – more than forty years before his death – Mālik simply did not command the respect for such a course of action.97 Ibn al-Madīnī would later claim that Mālik did not know Ibn Isḥāq well at all.98 This is not really true, either; but there can be no doubt that they did not like each other. Ibn Isḥāq tried to attack Mālik’s social position – he was not a native Medinan but originally from Yemen – by claiming that he was not an ally (ḥalīf) of his Medinan clan, but merely a mawlā.99 He also made derisive comments about his achievements as a jurist.100 His Qadarite leanings were confirmed outside the Hijaz, too. Awzāʿī did not think much of him for that reason.101 In the east, Ibn Maʿīn (d. 233/848),102 Hārūn b. Maʿrūf (d. 231/846)103 and Sulaymān b. Dāwūd al-Shādhakūnī (d. 234/848)104 agreed with this view, later also Ibn Qutayba.105 Muʿtazilite sources adopted Ibn Maʿīn’s assessment.106 The Kufan Muḥammad b. ʿAbdallāh b. Numayr (d. 234/848), on the other hand, tried to absolve him of the accusation.107 This rehabilitation, like the other claims, would frequently be repeated by later 93  Fasawī I 137, 7ff. = III 366 apu. ff. > TB I 226, 3ff.; also Mīzān III 474, –4ff. Might these have been anti-anthropomorphic considerations of the kind the Ibāḍiyya quoted Ibn ʿAbbās as having said? 94  See p. 339f. above. Also Dūrī, Dirāsa 24. 95   A Z 538 no. 1455. 96  Cf. EI2 III 811a. 97  The tradition appears to have been extrapolated from a remark by Mālik himself that, if genuine, says more about his great self-confidence than about the actual course of events (TB I 223, 12). 98   T B I 229, 3. 99  Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ, Tartīb I 106, 3ff.; more detail in U. F. ʿAbdallāh, Mālik’s Concept of ‘ʿAmal’ in the light of Mālikī Legal Theory (PhD Chicago 1978), p. 39ff., and p. 755 above. 100  Fasawī III 32, 1ff. > TB U 223, 9ff.; ʿUqaylī IV 24, –7ff. 101   T TD III 384, 5ff. 102  Kaʿbī 81, 5ff.; ʿUqaylī IV 28, 14f. 103   T B I 225, 19f. 104  Yāqūt, Irshād VI 400, 8f. 105   Maʿārif 625, 14f. 106  Kaʿbī 81, 4ff. > Faḍl 336, 11ff. > IM 134, 9. 107   T B I 225, ult. f.; regarding his father see vol. I 271 above.

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authors.108 However, Abū Dāwūd even went so far as to suggest that Ibn Isḥāq was a “Qadarite and Muʿtazilite”.109 4.1.2.3.1 Al-Nafs al-zakiyya’s Uprising In the generation before Mālik, Qadarite involvement was no more shocking in Medina than in Basra, but the Qadarites were more widely scattered throughout society, a number of aristocrats being among them. This was probably due to there being more dissatisfaction in the noble families of Medina, or possibly more boredom. While the ʿAlid Muḥammad b. ʿAbdallāh knew to use these sentiments in favour of his uprising in 145, the Qadarite component was much less relevant than in Basra: intellectuals of all schools were gripped by revolutionary zeal. Mālik b. Anas, too, was involved in the affair, having published a fatwā that declared the oath of allegiance to Manṣūr not to have been binding, for which he would afterwards be flogged.1 Manṣūr took great care not to repeat the error of the battle on the Ḥarra, and did not create martyrs. He did, however, close the sea route to the Hijaz for many years in order to bring the wealthy Quraysh to heel.2 He also stopped the Medinans’ pensions,3 but did not occupy the city, which would have been unwise as shortly after the uprising had failed the black slaves rebelled.4 For this reason, there were fewer individual punishments than in Iraq. Among the Qadarites who took part in the uprising was

108   Mīzān no. 7197 (a very detailed article); TH 172ff. no. 167; TT IX 38ff. no. 51. Nothing in IAH III2 191ff. no. 1087 nor, surprisingly, in Kaʿbī, Qabūl 139, 7ff., where a number of other negative reports were collected. Ibn Saʿd VII2 67, 16f., has only a general observation. 109  Quoted in Mīzān, probably after Abū Dāwūd’s responses to Ājurrī’s questions (see vol. I 70 above). 1  Cf. Schacht in EI2 VI 263b; also ʿAbdallāh, Mālik’s Concept of “ʿAmal” 93f. Further instances in Muth, Der Kalif al-Manṣūr 397, n. 1737. If an oath of allegiance to Muḥammad b. ʿAbdallāh was really given during the “meeting at Abwāʾ” (see p. 335 above), this would have been a weighty event for a jurist, and presumably better known and verifiable in Medina than elsewhere. 2  Cf. Arazi in: JSAI 5/1948/205. 3  It was not until more than a decade later that al-Mahdī restored it (F. ʿUmar in: Arabica 21/1974/140; in more detail Ṣāliḥ al-ʿAlī in: MMʿIʿI 20/1970/32f.). 4  Ṭabarī III 265, 14ff. Was this revolt the result of hunger in the wake of the first blockade? Cf. Arazi, ibid. 205f., and Pipes, Slave Soldiers 133f.

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Abū Jaʿfar5 ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd b. Jaʿfar b. ʿAbdallāh b. al-Ḥakam al-ʿAnṣārī, d. 153/770;6 an ally of the Aws and descendant of Fiṭyawn, a Jewish prince in preIslamic Medina.7 His father Jaʿfar b. ʿAbdallāh b. al-Ḥakam b. Rāfiʿ b. Sinān had already transmitted hadith.8 The ḥilf association probably dated back to Rāfiʿ b. Sinān, who had converted to Islam under the prophet.9 ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd was a member of Muḥammad b. ʿAbdallāh’s intimate circle, commanding his police force10 and later, in battle, his lancers (ḥarba).11 It was said that he, together with some others, induced Muḥammad b. ʿAbdallāh to attack (prematurely);12 he himself claimed that later, when the Iraqi forces approached, he had advised him to flee to Egypt.13 Although his advice was not taken, he remained faithful;14 finding that there were about as many as had fought the heathen in the battle of Badr: a little over 300 men.15 He appears to have been left in peace after the uprising, and despite his Qadarism, his traditions continued to be valued. Sufyān al-Thawrī was the only one to resent his attitude.16 – Another man who took part in the uprising was

5  This is the only kunya to have been transmitted with certainty; it is found in a direct address in the context of a historical account (Ṭabarī III 228, 1, and Maqātil al-Ṭālibiyyīn 268, 1f.). Khalīfa b. Khayyāṭ has “Abū l-Faḍl” instead – as, indeed, do most of the later sources (Ṭab. 682 no. 2450); Bukhārī in his Ta‌ʾrīkh (III2 51 no. 1676) “Abū Ḥafṣ”. 6  Khalīfa, Ṭab., ibid., and Ta‌ʾrīkh 662, 3. 7  Khalīfa, Ṭab., loc. cit.; regarding Fiṭyawn cf. Ibn Durayd, Ishtiqāq 436, 11ff.; Ibn Ḥazm, Jamhara 373, 4ff.; Ibn Ḥabīb, Asmāʾ al-mughtālīn, in: Nawādir al-makhṭūṭāt II 136f. A Hebrew etymology of the name has not yet come to light (Horovitz, Koranische Untersuchungen 163). H. P. Rüger, Tübingen, suggested that pidyōn (“redeeming”) might be considered despite the divergent dental, as a variant of Pedāyā “Yahweh redeemed”. Regarding the use of this word as a proper name cf. Pesiqta de Rab Kahana 37b Buber; Pesiqta Rabbati 62b Friedmann; Natan ben Jehīʾēl, Arūkh s.v. zḥl etc. 8  TT II 99 no. 147. 9  Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, Istīʿāb 481 no. 730; Mizzī, Tuḥfat al-ashrāf III 162f. 10  Ṭabarī III 199, 4ff.; also van Arendonk, Opkomst 285. 11  Ṭabarī III 193, 13f. 12  Ibid. III 190, 14ff. = Abū l-Faraj, Maqātil 261, 2ff. 13  Ibid. III 227, 17ff. = Maqātil 267, pu. ff.; Lassner, Shaping of Abbasid Rule 69f. 14  Ibid. III 260, 2f. = Maqātil 286, 4. 15   Maqātil 284, 2f. 16  ʿUqaylī III 44f. no. 1000; Mīzān no. 4767; also Fasawī I 427, 4ff., and II 458, apu. f. He is listed as a Qadarite in Kaʿbī 77, 1ff. (after Yaḥyā b. Maʿīn) > Faḍl 335, 4f. > IM 133, 12; Dhahabī, Ta‌ʾrīkh VI 221, 6ff.; TT VI 111 no. 223. Nothing in IAH III1 10 no. 46.

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Abū ʿAbdallāh Muḥammad b. ʿAjlān al-Qurashī, d. 148/765, a client of Fāṭima bt. ʿUtba b. Rabīʿa,17 the daughter of a well-respected Quraysh who had fought on the Meccan side at Badr and died in the battle, and Muʿāwiya’s mother’s sister.18 According to Wāqidī, he was a respected jurist who taught at the prophet’s mosque, transmitting hadith as well as giving expert opinions.19 He had studied under Zayd b. Aslam (d. 136/753),20 and Mālik b. Anas seems to have known him well.21 It was said that his mother was pregnant with him for three years and that he had teeth when he was born. The same was said about Mālik – in both cases as evidence of their unusual precocity and intelligence. Later, people would remember that this kind of biological improbability had already been challenged by a dictum of ʿĀʾisha’s, and Mālik himself was required to confirm the truth of this story.22 Consequently he is often viewed in a positive light;23 Sufyān b. ʿUyayna (d. 196/812) in particular praising him.24 When he went to visit Kufa, he triumphed over some presumptuous young scholars, among them Yūsuf al-Samtī,25 who tried to trick him with some mixed-up isnāds.26 A child born with teeth is also able to speak immediately. In this way the idea described is linked with the topos of the talking baby applied to Jesus in the Quran (sura 19:29f.), and also found in the so-called Alphabet des Ben Sira (Steinschneider, Alphabetum Siracidis, Berlin 1858, fol. 17a; Eli Yassiv, The Tales of Ben Sira in the Middle Ages, Jerusalem 1984, p. 199). In the Islamic world it is also applied to the Egyptian saint Aḥmad alBadawī (Littmann, Aḥmed el-Bedawī 68ff. vv. 1ff.), and the Quranic 17  Khalīfa, Ṭab. 676 no. 2421, and Ta‌ʾrīkh 655, 9. 18  Zubayrī, Nasab Quraysh 152, 9ff., and Ibn Ḥazm, Jamhara 76, pu. ff. 19  Abū l-Faraj, Maqātil 289, 1ff. 20  Fasawī I 675, 2ff.; regarding Zayd b. Aslam cf. GAS 1/405f. Based on him Jāḥiẓ transmitted an opinion of Zayd’s on the question of whether it was permitted to eat eggs after young people had used them for games of chance, similar to our Easter customs (Ḥayawān II 292, 4ff.; Rosenthal, Gambling 61f.). Cf. also Ṭabarī I 2746, 7ff. 21  Fasawī I 651, 7ff., and 675, 6ff. 22  Jāḥiẓ, Ḥayawān VII 124, 10ff.; Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif 595, 1ff.; Dhahabī, Mīzān III 646, –5ff., and TH 165, –5ff.; Ṣafadī, Wāfī IV 92, 12ff. (after Yaʿqūb b. Shayba’s (d. 262/875) Musnad ʿAlī). Regarding Mālik cf. also EI2 VI 263 a. 23  Cf. e.g. Fasawī II 173, 5; also TH 165f. no. 161. 24  Fasawī I 698, 13f.; Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 213 no. 1325. 25  Regarding him see p. 173ff. above. 26   Mīzān III 645, 5ff.

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exegete Ḍaḥḥāk b. Muzāḥim, whose name is explained in this way: as he had teeth, he was able to smile as soon as he was born (Fażāʾil-i Balkh 62, 5ff.; regarding him see p. 572ff. above). For general information, cf. Mach, Zaddik 69f., and Gramlich, Wunder der Freunde Gottes 148f. Still, we know only very little about him. Shīrāzī, for instance, does not mention him at all in Ṭabaqāt al-fuqahāʾ. Ibn al-Jazarī does not tell us anything, either, although he is occasionally apostrophised as a Quran reciter,27 and apparently commented on related matters, too.28 This seems to be due mainly to the dominant position Mālik b. Anas occupied in the subsequent generation. It was said that despite the difference in their ages, the latter took the wind out of his sails in a legal question;29 he was also said to have spoken dismissively of ʿAjlān’s knowledge of hadith.30 His connection with al-Nafs al-zakiyya, on the other hand, does not seem to have hurt him. He had worked enthusiastically in al-Nafs al-zakiyya’s interest, believing him to be the mahdī predicted by tradition.31 Two Quraysh who had committed treason according to a letter by al-Manṣūr had been flogged on his orders and then claimed that while in prison they had been bound in such a way that they were unable to perform the prayer.32 ʿAjlān had even gone to battle, although he really did not know much about fighting – he was only a mawlā, after all – and people made fun of him;33 later they recollected that he had ridden a mule.34 After the uprising had failed, he was faced with punishment, but the city’s notables – and also ʿAbbād b. Kathīr from Mecca35 – spoke up for him and ensured his release.36 He had probably had ties to the Shīʿa previously as well. He appears in the – admittedly apocryphal – tradition according to which the ʿAlid dignitaries, among them Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq, went to pay their respects to Wāṣil b. ʿAṭāʾ when he

27  Cf. e.g. Ṣafadī, Wāfī IV 92, 10. 28  Cf. Makkī al-Qaysī, Kashf ʿan wujūh al-qirāʾāt al-sabʿ I 21, 2ff.: concerning the question of why sura 9 does not start with a basmala. 29  Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ, Tartīb I 225, 8ff. 30  ʿUqaylī IV 118, 10ff.; Mīzān III 644, apu. ff. 31  Abū l-Faraj, Maqātil 289, 8f. 32  Ṭabarī III 227, 2ff. 33  Ibid. III 251, 18ff. = Maqātil 281, –5f.; also 292, pu. 34   Maqātil 282, 1. 35  Regarding him see p. 731f. above. 36   Maqātil 289, 3f.; abridged in Kaʿbī 78, 13ff. ʿAbbād b. Kathīr’s part is emphasised in the autobiographical account in Ṭabarī III 259, 3ff. = Maqātil 282, 2ff. – Cf. also van Arendonk, Opkomst 285f., and Muth, Der Kalif al-Manṣūr 438, n. 2097.

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visited Medina.37 He was known as an authority reaching back to Muḥammad al-Bāqir’s time (d. 117/735),38 although he was not a Rāfiḍite, as he had great respect for ʿUmar.39 As for hadith, he cultivated the traditions of Abū Hurayra, another one who did not have a good reputation among the Shīʿites of Kufa; he had them in his possession in notes by Saʿīd al-Maqburī,40 and had also heard them from his father.41 Only Muʿtazilite sources state that he was a Qadarite, and even Kaʿbī, to whom they refer, only implied it.42 Whether this was based on more than his participation in the uprising is impossible to say. He was inclined to amr bilmaʿrūf; even after the uprising he was unable to refrain from criticising a governor during Friday worship for not adhering to the puritanical dress regulations and allowing his robe to drag on the floor.43 Interestingly he transmitted the hadith stating that Adam was created in the image of God; Mālik would later criticise this.44 – The third name we come across in this context is Abū l-Ḥārith45 Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. al-Mughīra b. al-Ḥārith Ibn Abī Dhiʾb al-ʿĀmirī al-Qaysī, b. 80/69946 or 81/700,47 d. 159/776.48 His case is the opposite of Muḥammad b. ʿAjlān’s: his Qadarism was recorded early and comparatively reliably by ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Ṣanʿānī (d. 211/827)49 and Ibn Qutayba50 as well as the Muʿtazilite 37  Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Faḍl 239, 1ff.; cf. p. 287 above. 38  Ardabīlī, Jāmiʿ al-ruwāt II 148b., 2f. 39  Fasawī I 457, 1ff., and 461, 10ff. 40  Azmi, Studies 38; regarding him see p. 756 above. 41  Jāḥiẓ, Ḥayawān IV 294, 7. Regarding the father cf. TT VII 162 no. 324. 42  Kaʿbī 78, 11ff. > Faḍl 335, –7ff. > IM 134, 3. Nothing in Bukhārī I1 196f. no. 603, or ʿUqaylī IV 118 no. 1677. 43  Abū l-ʿArab, Miḥan 413, –6ff.; also Ibn Abī Ḥātim, Ādāb al-Shāfiʿī 48, 5ff., where bayān should be corrected to thiyāb. 44   T D (ʿAbdallāh) 282, 3ff. 45  Only Ibn al-Nadīm has, possibly mistakenly, “Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān” (Fihrist 281, –7). 46  The date was calculated based on a famous flash flood (sayl) in Mecca (cf. e.g. Bukhārī I1 152f. no. 455; Fasawī I 146, 2 > TB II 297, 10ff.). 47  Thus after Wāqidī, who was acquainted with Ibn Abī Dhiʾb (Ṭabarī II 1063, 7f.; Ibn Ḥazm, Jamhara 168, 15). 48  Thus after Khalīfa, Ṭab. 684 no. 2459, and Ta‌ʾrīkh 669, 7f., and many other sources. Concerning a contrary report see n. 82 below. 49  Fasawī II 400, 1f. 50   Ta‌ʾwīl mukhtalif al-ḥadīth 11, 8 = 10, 8/transl. Lecomte 9 § 17, and 102, 6 = 85, –6/transl. 95 § 122.

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sources.51 During Muḥammad b. ʿAbdallāh’s uprising, however, he stayed in the background. He may have been among those advising the ʿAlids to attack,52 but when Muḥammad b. ʿAbdallāh took action, he stayed at home.53 According to a remark in K. al-Aghānī his opinion of the Hāshimids was low.54 He was a Quraysh himself, but from a different and apparently less prestigious branch.55 Zubayrī and Ibn Ḥazm recorded his genealogy. He bore the name Ibn Abī Dhiʾb after his great-grandfather56 Hishām b. Shuʿba b. ʿAbdallāh b. Abī Qays, also known as Abū Dhiʾb, who travelled to Byzantine territory in pre-Islamic times and was falsely accused and imprisoned there until his death.57 ʿUmar b. alKhaṭṭāb knew him, but does not seem to have esteemed him. His grandson, Ibn Abī Dhiʾb’s father, recollected the caliph’s remark;58 Ibn Abī Dhiʾb would consequently have had to be a late child. This is confirmed by his referring to his brother for this report; maybe he himself did not get to know his father. His mother, Burayha bt. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. al-Ḥārith b. Abī Dhiʾb, came from the same clan.59 He transmitted hadith from her brother Ḥārith b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān (d. 129/747).60 He was a member of the tribe of the ʿĀmir b. Luʾayy; all the information we have, proves Khalīfa b. Khayyāṭ’s claim61 that he was their mawlā to be incorrect. He developed an interest in the application of the law in Medina early on; some of his surviving recollections go back to the last decade of the first 51  Kaʿbī 78, 5ff. (after a verdict by Mālik b. Anas transmitted by Shāfiʿī, and after Yaḥyā b. Maʿīn) > Faḍl 335, 17ff. > IM 134, 1f. (misspelt as Ibn Abī Dhuʾayb). TB II 301, 9f. after an early source; nothing in IAH III2 313f. no. 1704. 52  If indeed we may emend the parallel traditions in Ṭabarī III 190, 15ff. and Abū l-Faraj, Maqātil 261, 2ff. against one another and read Ibn Abī Dhiʾb in both passages for the corrupted names. 53   T H 192, 6. Ibn Ḥasan probably refers to al-Nafs al-zakiyya. Van Arendonk (Opkomst 286) interprets this, presumably in accordance with Zaydite sources, as moral support. Madelung (Qāsim 72f.) mentions, more generally, participation in the uprising. 54   Agh. XIV 129, 6f. 55  Cf. the remark ibid. 9f. 56  Zubayrī, Nasab Quraysh 423, 7f. 57  Ibid. 422, ult. ff.; also Ibn Ḥazm, Jamhara 168, 13, and Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif 485, 12. Regarding the genealogy also IKh IV 183 no. 566; Ibn Khallikān’s claiming that the prisoner was Ibn Abī Dhiʾb’s father is a mistake. 58  Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 264 no. 1702. 59  Zubayrī 423, 10. 60  Ibid. 423, 10f.; also Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 264, 6f., and Mīzān no. 1629. 61   Ṭab., loc. cit. Kaʿbī 78, 6, calls him a “brother” (akhū) of this tribe, but this is probably misread for aḥad (thus IAH III2 313, ult.).

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century.62 The sources begin to take notice of him only during Manṣūr’s rule. He seems to have been quite well-respected in the city at the time. While he did not become qāḍī, as Ibn al-Nadīm claimed,63 the governors remunerated him or paid him a salary. Jaʿfar b. Sulaymān, who ruled between 146/763 and 149/766, once sent him 100 dinars; his successor Ḥasan b. Zayd paid him five dinars a month.64 Under Jaʿfar b. Sulaymān he spoke up for Muḥammad b. ʿAjlān, who had heckled the governor at that time.65 At one point – not, however, more closely pinpointed – he and Mālik were the only two men allowed to give expert legal opinions in the city.66 When the caliph himself appeared in Medina during one of his pilgrimages, Ibn Abī Dhiʾb was received in an audience. People believed that he did not hold back in his conversation with the caliph. As in the case of ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd,67 this spurred their imagination and accounts of the event were continually embellished. This is obvious as the date soon became problematic. Most of the versions are set during the time when Ḥasan b. Zayd was governor,68 in which case the pilgrimage would have been that of 152/769 which we know al-Manṣūr led himself.69 A parallel version, however, refers to ʿAbd al-Ṣamad b. ʿAlī who held the position from 155 onwards;70 in that case we would be looking at the hajj of 158 during which the caliph unexpectedly lost his life.71 The narrator of this version is Ḥasan b. Zayd himself, unable to hide his glee at Ibn Abī Dhiʾb’s criticism of his successor – in the other versions this was directed at himself. There is also an imaginative back story: when a noble Quraysh was imprisoned 62  Wakīʿ I 145, 1ff. The report ibid. I 132, pu. ff., goes back even beyond 87/706; he himself states that he was a child at the time. 63   Fihrist 281, –6. 64   T B II 304, 18ff. > TH 192, 6ff.; regarding the date cf. Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 682, 5ff. 65  See p. 762f. above. 66  Shīrāzī, Ṭab. 68, 4f.; cf. p. 776 below. 67  See p. 327ff. above. 68  The most detailed one is found in Azdī, Ta‌ʾrīkh al-Mawṣil 176, 1ff. (where it appears in the year 142 and Ibn Abī Dhiʾb is misprinted as Ibn Abī Dhuʾayb); Ibn Abī Ḥātim, Ādāb al-Shāfiʿī 45, 5ff. is closely related = Ḍabbī, Bughyat al-multamis 392, apu. ff., each with criticism of Abū ʿAmr Ghifārī’s clan, of the governor, and of the caliph himself; thus also TB II 298, 14ff. > TH 192, 13ff., but with a different narrator. Different again TB II 298, 21ff., criticising the caliph only, but with concrete points of complaint. Cf. also the versions in Abū l-ʿArab, Miḥan 399ff., and Ibn ʿAbdrabbih, ʿIqd I 56, 1ff. (after Aṣmaʿī). In most versions the narrator is Shāfiʿī’s uncle Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm al-Muṭṭalibī. A short note (maybe the nucleus of the whole story?) in Fasawī I 686, –6ff. 69  Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 660, 2. 70  Ibid. 682, 14. 71  Ibid. 667, 2; also Moscati in: Orientalia 15/1946/156f.

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by the governor, one of his relations complained to the caliph and demanded that Ibn Abī Dhiʾb and some other Medinan scholars should inspect the conditions in which he was kept. While all the others attempted diplomatically to get out of a clear answer, Ibn Abī Dhiʾb did not hold back with his criticism. When al-Manṣūr himself came to Medina, he is said to have referred to this criticism.72 As with the anecdotes about ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd, we could either assume that there were two audiences, or believe some, if not all, of the transmitted material to be literary fiction. The latter is more probable, not least because the accounts of the first group are difficult to reconcile as well. The second version might have been circulated in response to the first one, in order to exonerate Ḥasan b. Zayd. ʿAbd al-Ṣamad b. ʿAlī clearly did not think highly of Ibn Abī Dhiʾb;73 there is no record of him having supported him financially in the way his predecessors did. Similar to the stories around ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd, a statement on the heir to the throne al-Mahdī is woven into these stories as well.74 In addition later tradition says that Ibn Abī Dhiʾb did not rise when al-Mahdī entered the mosque of the prophet when he led the pilgrimage (presumably in 153/770),75 stating that this kind of honour (in this place) was due to God only.76 Once Mahdī had become caliph, he called Ibn Abī Dhiʾb to Baghdad, although it is not clear why. Ibn Ḥazm says absurdly that al-Mahdī appointed him his successor (istakhlafahū),77 but the correct reading is probably istaḥlafahū “he had him swear to his innocence” – namely, that he was not a Qadarite, and did not intend to criticise the state. We learn that during a prosecution some Qadarites fled to Ibn Abī Dhiʾb’s house;78 this, too, might have been at the beginning of al-Mahdī’s caliphate in 158/775 or 159/776, and thus been a reason for Ibn Abī Dhiʾb’s hearing.79 The story had a happy ending: the caliph left the old man in peace and made him a

72   T B II 299, 7ff.; in addition a further, glorifying conclusion ibid. 300, 16ff. A comparison of the two versions may be found in Werkmeister, Untersuchungen zum Kitāb al-ʿIqd 222ff. 73  Cf. the anecdote in Ibn al-Jawzī, Ṣifat al-ṣafwa II 98, –6ff. 74  Negative in Ibn Abī Ḥātim, Ādāb al-Shāfiʿī 48, 1f.; positive ʿIqd I 96, 14f. 75  Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 661, 2. 76   T B II 298, 10ff. > TH 192, apu. ff. 77   Jamhara 168, 15. 78   T B II 301, 10ff. 79  Maybe the audience with al-Manṣūr was not in fact as great an honour as the sources would have us believe. In that case the persecution of the Qadarites could have begun under ʿAbd al-Ṣamad b. ʿAlī, giving the abovementioned back story greater importance.

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gift of 1000 dinars.80 Ibn Abī Dhiʾb died on the way home in Ḥīra81 or, as most sources simplify, in Kufa.82 People remembered Ibn Abī Dhiʾb’s adherence to amr bil-maʿrūf;83 it was probably an expression of his Qadarism. A hadith against the lust for power spreading through the Muslim community had a similar tone,84 as did, on a different level, the tradition that one should not kill frogs (because they are harmless creatures not deserving of punishment).85 However, this connection was dismissed very early on. Wāqidī, who had known Ibn Abī Dhiʾb in person, reported that the latter rejected the Qadarite doctrine, but looked out for everyone who needed his help;86 Zubayrī, too, claimed that the impression was due to him protecting the Qadarites.87 These are probably the arguments Ibn Abī Dhiʾb presented in his defence in Baghdad. This interpretation, in which Ibn Abī Dhiʾb gained ʿadāla in the eyes of hadith critics, was not adopted by later sources.88 Shāfiʿī respected him greatly.89 For understandable reasons Ibn Ḥanbal, too, was a great admirer of Ibn Abī Dhiʾb’s unruliness, ranking him higher than Mālik b. Anas because, while both of them came in contact with the authorities, only Ibn Abī Dhiʾb expressed his criticism freely.90 Ibn Ḥanbal was probably thinking of the audience and its back story. Mālik was also among those who inspected the Quraysh’s prison and were later summoned by al-Manṣūr, but he was said to have wisely kept his mouth shut. Ibn Abī Dhiʾb was older than Mālik, and it is consequently not surprising that 80   T B II 304, 21f. > TH 192, 9f. 81  Ibid. II 305, 9. 82  Cf. e.g. Zubayrī 423, 8f.; Ibn Ḥazm, Jamhara 168, 15 etc. If one source says Ibn Abī Dhiʾb died in the year in which al-Mahdī became caliph (TB II 304, 10f.), and then infers the date of 158/775 (ibid. 304, 13), this must be incorrect considering other events. Still, it is probably the inference that is wrong, rather than the information itself. After all, al-Manṣūr died during the pilgrimage, at the end of 158; the year in which al-Mahdī became caliph must have referred to 159. 83  Cf. e.g. Zubayrī 423, 9. 84  Jāḥiẓ, Bayān II 25, 1ff. It was probably for a similar reason that he reported Anas b. Mālik being punished by al-Ḥajjāj (Ṭabarī II 854, ult. ff.). 85  Jāḥiẓ, Ḥayawān V 537, 7ff., and Fasawī I 285, 9ff. (with parallels in n. 2); cf. also p. 60 above, and Conc. III 514b. 86   T B II 301, 17ff. 87  Ibid. 301, 10ff.; Lālakāʾī, Sharḥ 724 no. 1336. 88  Dhahabī, Mīzān no. 7837 (after Wāqidī), and Ta‌ʾrīkh VI 282, 2ff., and 284, 1ff.; TT IX 305, 10ff.; similar Hady al-sārī II 161, ult. Cf. also the anecdote in Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ, Tartīb al-madārik I 219, 7ff. 89  Ibn Abī Ḥātim, Ādāb al-Shāfiʿī 29, 1f. 90   ʿIlal 179 no. 1113; in more detail Fasawī I 686, 8ff.

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he criticised the latter’s juristic position, at least in a certain matter.91 Later Mālikite tradition did not like to be reminded of this. While it was not possible to get rid of the tradition,92 there were attempts at neutralising it with accounts exhibiting the opposite tendency: the governor Ḥasan b. Zayd preferred Mālik’s opinions over those of his older colleague,93 as the governor did not think much of Ibn Abī Dhiʾb in any case.94 And, contradicting this: during the audience al-Manṣūr inquired after the great scholars of the city, and Mālik mentioned Ibn Abī Dhiʾb among others.95 This conveyed the idea that Ibn Abī Dhiʾb had not yet come to the caliph’s notice, and not been invited to an audience. Furthermore, al-Manṣūr was claimed to have had such high expectations of Mālik’s Muwaṭṭa‌ʾ that he asked him to compose it in such a way that it could be used as a generally binding codex.96 In reality the relationship between the two scholars was rather different. Ibn Abī Dhiʾb appears to have relied firmly on prophetic tradition, not admitting any doubts.97 In the matter in which he clashed with Mālik the latter based his argument of the consensus of the Medinan ʿulamāʾ, declaring the hadith Ibn Abī Dhiʾb considered definitive, to be isolated.98 Ibn Abī Dhiʾb composed a K. al-sunan that appears to have contained mainly hadiths arranged according to legal topics.99 If we are to believe the slightly unreliable Ḥumaydī, this work circulated in Spain under the title Muwaṭṭa‌ʾ, like Mālik’s great compilation. It was transmitted by Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl b. Abī Fudayk (d. 199/814–5), another Medinan,100 and is still documented in the fourth century with a certain Yūsuf b. Muḥammad b. Yūsuf al-Istijjī from Ecija southwest of Cordoba, who 91  Fasawī I 686, 8ff. > TB II 302, 8ff.; TB I 224, 2f. confirms that Ibn Abī Dhiʾb criticised Mālik. 92  Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ, Tartīb I 82, 6f. and earlier. 93  Ibid. I 126, pu. ff. (read Ḥasan b. Zayd for Ḥasan b. Yazīd); regarding another disagreement ibid. 128, 7ff. = 227, 10ff. 94  Ibid. I 196, 6ff. 95  Fasawī I 685, –7ff.; Shīrāzī, Ṭab. 67, 3ff. and passim. 96   Cf. e.g. Pseudo-Ibn Qutayba, Al-imāma wal-siyāsa, ed. Ṭāhā Muḥammad al-Zaynī (Cairo 1967) II 149, 10ff., including a revealing incorrect date (during the hajj in 163, i.e. when al-Mahdī was already caliph). The event was in fact linked to al-Manṣūr as well as al-Mahdī, and also al-Rashīd (cf. Schacht in EI1 III 224b, and Crone/Hinds, God’s Caliph 86f.; less critical Cottart in EI2 VI 278q). 97  Schacht, Origins 55. 98  Ibid.  64f. 99  Cf. Ibn al-Nadīm, Fihrist 281, –5f.; also Bağdatlı Paşa, Hadiyyat al-ʿārifīn II 7, –5f. 100  Regarding him cf. IS V 324, 10ff.; also Khalīfa, Ṭab. 693 no. 2501, where the name is misspelt (correct in Akram Ḍiyāʾ al-ʿUmarī’s edition, Baghdad 1387/1967, p. 276, apu.).

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was muʾadhdhin at the great mosque in Cordoba and died around 400/1010.101 Shāfiʿī frequently mentioned him in his Risāla, but always via another authority; he furthermore doubted his reliability.102 Thus we cannot doubt that Ibn Abī Dhiʾb wrote hadith down. Wāqidī’s saying that he did not have a book means simply that he did not use a book during his lectures because he knew everything by heart.103 Information concerning his method is not entirely unanimous. One source says he did not dictate but let his students memorise the material;104 another one quotes Ibn Maʿīn (d. 233/847) as an authority that he read his book to the students while they copied it down without checking the text against the original.105 Ibn Ḥanbal quotes someone who did have Ibn Abī Dhiʾb check his notes after all.106 Like Muḥammad b. ʿAjlan he looked after the Abū Hurayra tradition, but he seems to have paid more attention to the isnād, inserting a further authority between Saʿīd al-Maqburī (d. ca. 125/742) and the famous companion of the prophet who died around 58/678.107 The traditions he had heard and preserved from Zuhrī were particularly controversial. Some doubted whether he had attended his lectures at all,108 but those were merely retrospective attempts at evading the problem. There is no doubt that he did meet Zuhrī.109 What caused the controversy was the subject matter of some hadiths he had received in this way. Shuʿba b. al-Ḥajjāj was upset at certain ritual extravagances recommended;110 101  Ḥumaydī, Jadhwat al-muqtabis 344 no. 770 > Ḍabbī, Bughyat al-multamis 488 no. 1435, with complete riwāya. Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr knew this recension (Tamhīd VIII 17, 10ff.). Regarding Yūsuf cf. also Ibn Bashkuwāl, Ṣila 637 no. 1490; he was born 326/938. Also Azmi, Studies 152; and Goldziher, Muh. Stud. II 220 (with an incorrect date of death). Local tradition already noted that in those days numerous Muwaṭṭa‌ʾ texts were compiled in Medina (Muranyi, Ein altes Fragment medinensischer Jurisprudenz 35; cf. also Schacht in EI2 VI 264a). Examples by Muranyi in ZDMG 138/1988/132, n. 9; see also p. 782 below, and regarding Egypt cf. ʿAbdallāh b. Wahb’s work (GAS 1/466). 102  Schacht, Origins 256, n. 6. 103   T B II 302, 6f. 104  Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 179, 12f. 105  Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī, Kifāya 239, 5ff. 106   ʿIlal 179, 13f. The “book” of Ibn Abī Dhiʾb mentioned in another report of Ibn Ḥanbal’s is probably also a collection of pupils’ notes (ibid. 109, 5f. = 374, 6f.). 107  Cf. Ibn al-Madīnī’s examples in ʿIlal 78, 3ff.; 84, 6ff.; 84, ult. ff. 108  Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 231 no. 1452; an overview of the entire discussion is provided in TB II 303, 1ff. 109  Cf. the passages in Jāḥiẓ, Ḥayawān I 179, 1ff., and Ṭabarī I 1167, 9ff., and 1596, 10ff., where he asks Zuhrī questions. 110  Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 347 no. 2287.

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elsewhere the prophet is quoted as saying the astonishing words ‘I do not know whether Ezra was a prophet or not, whether Tubbaʿ is cursed or not, and whether a ḥadd punishment expiates the sinner (’s respective crime) (in the afterlife) or not”.111 In his old age Ibn Abī Dhiʾb regretted having developed an interest in hadith not until comparatively late, having been a genealogist in his youth.112 His piousness and scrupulousness ensured him a place in Ibn al-Jawzī’s Ṣifat al-ṣafwa.113 Like many others at that time he fasted on alternate days.114 He wore the same clothes in summer and in winter;115 he did not dye his hair in his old age. 116 In the house his family owned on the “rock” (ṣafā) in Mecca, he collected the rent himself. 117 The image is probably, as, indeed, it always is, idealised, but it goes back to one of his brothers. We know two of them by name: Mughīra (TB II 296, 17) and Ḥārith (Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 264, 6f.). Two whole centuries after his death Muḥammad b. ʿAbdallāh al-Rabaʿī (d. 379/989) wrote about him in Damascus; these Akhbār Ibn Abī Dhiʾb are preserved on three folia in a collective manuscript in the Ẓāhiriyya (GAS 1/203). Regarding him cf. also A. Yaḥyāābādī in GIE II 651f. 4.1.2.3.2 Later Developments. Resistance against the Qadariyya It was probably not only due to the tangled political situation that the mood in the city gradually turned against the Qadariyya. Unlike in Mecca there had always been active opposition against the Qadarites. The early Quranic commentator Muḥammad b. Kaʿb al-Quraẓī (d. between 108/726 and 120/738), a qāṣṣ and descendant of two formerly Jewish tribes in Medina, the Qurayẓa and the Naḍīr, appears to have embraced the predestinarian exegesis.1 In Medina, the idea that Adam’s sin had been written before creation and was consequently 111  Bukhārī I1 152f. no. 455. This is a tendentious tradition against hadiths like those collected by Ibn Māja, Tirmidhī and Dārimī under the heading of al-ḥadd kaffāra (Conc. VI 38a). Regarding the problem see p. 669 above. 112   T B II 302, 4ff. 113   Ṣifa II 98f. 114   T B II 301, 21ff.; also p. 407 above. 115  Ibid. II 302, 3f. 116   T H 192, 5f. 117  Ibid. 192, 5. He probably had no intention of offering it rent free during the pilgrimage (see p. 718 above). 1  HT 59 and 82f. Of course, Ḥasan b. Muḥammad b. al-Ḥanafiyya’s quaestiones should also be mentioned in this context because of their nearly purely exegetic content. Zayd b. ʿAlī

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predestined, was first expressed in the form of a hadith;2 One of the transmitters, the jurist and Quranic exegete Zayd b. Aslam (d. 136/753),3 was linked to anti-Qadarite arguments elsewhere as well.4 Resistance spread especially among the legal scholars. We have already mentioned Rabīʿat al-ra‌ʾy speaking out against Ghaylān. While the arguments cited as Rabīʿa’s were stereotypical, this does not mean the event itself did not take place; and even if it did not, it is certain that Rabīʿa would be remembered by posterity as an opponent of the Qadarites.5 Mālik composed a refutation of the Qadarites that Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ considered to have been “one of the best works in this field”;6 he also appears to have written to his pupil ʿAbdallāh b. Wahb7 on the subject.8 His Muwaṭṭa‌ʾ included a special chapter on the issue.9 Among his older acquaintances was a certain Muslim b. Abī Maryam, a mawlā described as a severe opponent of the Qadarites;10 he died during Manṣūr’s caliphate.11 A genuine persecution took place under al-Mahdī; Qadarites were beaten and exiled from the city.12 The command may have come from above, as the caliph had ordered his governor Jaʿfar b. Sulaymān b. ʿAlī, who resided in Medina from 160/777 to 166/783,13 to send some prominent citizens to the court in Baghdad to be investigated. Four names are mentioned: Abū l-Walīd ʿĪsā was said to have composed a refutation of the Qadarites “based on the Quran” (Baghdādī, Uṣūl al-dīn 307, 12f.). It might be worth considering whether this refers to the same text. 2  HT 165f. 3  Regarding him GAS 1/405f.; p. 761 above. 4  Anfänge 211. 5  Ibid. 205. It is not contradicted by a version preserved in Yaḥyā b. ʿAwn al-Khuzāʿī’s (d. 298/911) K. al-Ḥujja which does not mention Ghaylān’s interlocutor (cf. M. Talbī in: Revue Tunisienne de Sciences Sociales 12/1975/48 and 77f.). Regarding the versions with the Syrian theologian Maymūn b. Mihrān cf. Anfänge 203ff.; subsequently entirely restructured in Muḥammad b. Yūsuf Aṭfiyāsh, Sharḥ al-daʿāʾim (Lith. 1325) I 158, 10ff. – It was also said that during his stay in Medina Ghaylān met Muḥammad b. Kaʿb al-Quraẓī (Anfänge 225f.). 6  Tartīb al-madārik I 204, 8f. 7  Regarding him EI2 III 963, and GAS 1/466. 8  If, indeed, the two texts are not identical; Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ mentions one immediately after the other. Talbi doubts the authenticity (loc. cit., 66). In this context the remark by the Mālikite Abū Bakr al-Abharī is significant: that Mālik recognised the ambiguity of the term qadarī and the opponents’ primacy when using it (Ibn Mattōya, Muḥīṭ II 409, apu. ff.). 9  P. 898ff.; although this contains one single clearly anti-Qadarite tradition only (HT 60). 10  Ibn Qutayba, ʿUyūn II 141, ult. f. 11  Suyūṭī, Isʿāf 38, 14ff. 12   T B II 301, 10f. 13  Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 671, 4, and 694, 6f.

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b. Yazīd b. Bakr b. Dāb al-Laythī, ʿAbdallāh b. Yazīd b. Qays al-Hudhalī, known as Ibn Funṭus, ʿAbdallāh b. Abī ʿUbayda b. Muḥammad b. ʿAmmār b. Yāsir, and Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad b. Abī Bakr al-Usāmī. Nothing more is known of the motive. It seems that the mood in al-Mahdī’s entourage was not favourable to the Qadarites in general,14 but if he intervened in Medina particularly, there must have been specific reasons. The ancient affinity between the Qadarites and the ʿAlids continued to exist; Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad b. Abī Yaḥyā best represents this trend in the second half of the second century.15 Only Ṭabarī names those who were summoned to Baghdad under al-Mahdī in this context;16 the biographical sources barely register the event, at least not with regard to these persons, not even mentioning two of the four. The first one, an expert in poetry and genealogy, was considered to be harmless and was respected by al-Hādī in particular; the second one was suspected of zandaqa according to Bukhārī. This tells us that if the event was noticed in Iraq at all, then only with regard to locally relevant criteria (zandaqa!). Regarding Abū l-Walīd ʿĪsā b. Yazīd b. Bakr Ibn Dāb al-Laythī, d. 171/787, cf. Jāḥiẓ, Bayān I 51, 1ff., and 324, 1ff.; TB XI 148ff. no. 5845; Yāqūt, Irshād VI 104ff.; Ibn Ḥazm, Jamhara 181, 13ff.; Ṭabarī, Index s. n.; IAH III1 291 no. 1615; ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ III 391 no. 1430; Mīzān no. 6625; Lisān al-Mīzān IV 408ff. no. 1250; Ziriklī V 298. The involuntary sojourn in Baghdad appears to have been his springboard to success; once he had been cleared of suspicion al-Mahdī thought highly of him (Irshād VI 105, 2ff.), and his son al-Hādī even more so (cf. also Ṭabarī III 589, 1ff., and 592, 15ff.). His literary knowledge and his style were in his favour; he brought not only genealogical expertise but also ancient Arabian love stories from Medina (Fihrist 103, 7ff., and 365, 16; the focus in GAS 2/392 is too limited on Laylā and Majnun only). His father had been knowledgeable about the ancient Arabs and their poetry (Bayān I 323, 10ff.); the son would also compose a text praising ʿAlī (Nagel, Rechtleitung 390ff.; cf. also ch. C 1.4.3.1.1.4 below). The material he employed was of Hijazi origin and consequently comparatively moderate; even so he was suspected of fabricating information out of bias in favour of the Hāshimids (Irshād VI 109, 7; Suyūṭī, Muzhir II 14  T. Nagel, Rechtleitung und Kalifat 109f. 15  See p. 781f. below. The first of the four, Ibn Dāb, circulated an account according to which Manṣūr humiliated himself before al-Nafs al-zakiyya, calling him the mahdī (Abū l-Faraj, Maqātil 239, 1ff.). 16   Ta‌ʾrīkh III 534, 11ff.

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414, 1ff.; Fück, Arabiya 38f.; also Ibn Munādhir’s and Khalaf al-Aḥmar’s poems of vilification in Irshād VI 108, 5ff. and 14ff.). He probably simply knew far too much Medinan family gossip; a fragment preserved by Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī recounts quarrelling among the Quraysh (Maḥṣūl II1 487, ult. ff.). These polemics do not, however, mention an interest in Qadarism. Regarding ʿAbdallāh b. Yazīd b. Qays al-Hudhalī cf. Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 57 no. 327; Bukhārī III2 227 no. 741; IAH II2 197f. no. 919; ʿUqaylī II 316 no. 901; Mīzān no. 4694; Lisān al-Mīzān III 377f. no. 1508; as a transmitter also Ṭabarī I 3048, 1ff. He was the teacher of Ibn Abī Dhiʾb, among others. ʿAbdallāh b. Abī ʿUbayda b. Muḥammad b. ʿAmmār b. Yāsir appears a number of times as a rāwī in Ṭabarī (cf. Index s. n.) and the K. al-Aghānī; he was an expert in poetry and was familiar with Kuthayyir’s Dīwān, among others (GAS 2/409). His father was a well-known genealogist; his grandfather Muḥammad, son of the well-known “Shīʿite” companion of the prophet, was persecuted in 60/680 in Medina for being a follower of ʿAbdallāh b. al-Zubayr, and killed six years later in Kufa by Mukhtār for being “the murderer of Ḥusayn” (Ibn Ḥazm, Jamhara 406, 1f.; cf. Ṭabarī II 224, 1ff., and 667, 8ff.). His father appears as an authority of Ibn Iṣḥāq’s (cf. Ṭabarī I 1336, 5f.; and 1682, 3). It is possible that Mahdī’s animosity towards the Medinan Qadarites was stoked by a Medinan whom he had called to his court in Baghdad, and of whose polemic writings several comparatively lengthy ones are extant: Abū ʿAbdallāh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. ʿAbdallāh b. Abī Salama al-Mājashūn, d. 164/780.17 He came from a respected family of scholars whose ancestor was a man from Isfahan named Abū Salama. His actual name was not known for certain later; Maymūn and Dīnār were mentioned, as well as Yūsuf.18 Only a nickname was recalled besides the kunya: Mājashūn “rose-coloured”; Ḥusayn’s daughter Sukayna was believed to have thought of it.19 It referred to Abū 17  Regarding him cf. the summary in Ziriklī, Aʿlām IV 145f.; Kaḥḥāla, Muʿjam V 251; Muranyi, Ein altes Fragment medinensischer Jurisprudenz 30ff.; briefly id. in GAP II 312, all with more precise information on the sources. I occasionally diverge from these accounts in some details. 18  Cf. TB X 436, 1; TT XI 388, 11; Zabīdī, Tāj al-ʿarūs IV 348, 6f. Regarding his origins in Isfahan see Fasawī I 429, 11f.; Samʿānī XII 6, ult.; Abū Nuʿaym, Dhikr akhbār Iṣbahān II 124, 15ff. 19  Ibn al-Nadīm, Fihrist 252, 6f. Sukayna died in 117/735 (Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 514, 14).

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Salama’s ruddy cheeks, possibly implying that he looked as if he wore makeup.20 He had probably been a slave, maybe travelled on business;21 there certainly was no older recollection of him in Isfahan.22 He must have been manumitted quite soon, as his sons Yaʿqūb and ʿAbdallāh were already known as traditionists and legal scholars.23 Yaʿqūb was friendly with ʿUmar b. ʿAbd alʿAzīz when the latter was governor of Medina;24 he was the first of the “decent people” to have an understanding of singing.25 The speed with which the emancipation took place was probably due to the fact that the master to whom Abū Salama was tied in clientage, Munkadir b. Hudayr of the Taym Quraysh, was himself a pious man. He had three sons with an umm walad he had allegedly bought with a donation from ʿĀʾisha; all three of them made a name for themselves,26 especially Muḥammad b. alMunkadir (d. 130/748), who is ranked among the early ascetics.27 Rabīʿat al-ra‌ʾy was a mawlā of this family, too.28 The name Mājashūn, or Ibn al-Mājashūn, passed to the following generations, which could lead to confusion as the names as well as the kunya were repeated several times. A family tree will help clarify the most important kinship relations:

20  Regarding mājashūn – muwarrad cf. Samʿānī XII 5, apu.; Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ, Tartīb al-madārik I 360, 10 etc. The word was of Persian origin; it was in use in Medina as a colour term. Arab scholars disagreed regarding the etymology (cf. Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ, loc. cit.). The most like one is maygūn “wine-coloured” (thus TB X 436, ult. f.); māh-gūn “like the moon” is also suggested a number of times (thus Qāmūs II 287, 13, and IV 270, 9 > Tāj al-ʿarūs IV 348, 8, and IX 341, 17). However, the latter would only work as a metaphor of Abū Salama’s beauty – and is indeed explained as such – not as the basis of the colour term. There was also a folk etymology for the name (Fasawī I 429, 12f.; Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ, loc. cit.). 21  Maymūn and Dīnār are typical slave names. Yūsuf may have been his original name, used later by his grandson (see below). Could he have been from a Jewish or Christian family? 22  This is clear from the information Abū Nuʿaym provides. However, people pointed with pride to the lane in Medina named after the family. 23  Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif 462, 3ff. 24  IKh VI 376, 8ff. 25   T D (ʿAbdallāh) 275, 5ff. 26  Zubayrī, Nasab Quraysh 295, 6ff. 27   T H 127f. no. 114; Ziriklī VII 333 with further sources. It is surprising that the father should have been so poor considering that Abū Bakr was also a member of the Taym Quraysh. His brother Rabīʿa b. Hudayr had also been a legal scholar (Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif 461, 8). 28  Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif 462, 10f.; regarding relations between him and Abū Salama’s son Yūsuf cf. TD (ʿAbdallāh) 275, 5f.

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I: Abū Salama (d. 108/126–27?)29 IIa: Yaʿqūb (d. after 120/738)30 IIIa: Abū Salama Yūsuf (d. 183/799 or 184/800)32

IIb: ʿAbdallāh (d. 106/724–25)31 IIIb: Abū l-Asbagh (?) ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz33

IVa: Abū Marwān ʿAbd al-Malik (d. ca. 213/828)35

IIIc: ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz (d. 164/781)34 IVb: Yūsuf36

This reconstruction of a genealogy follows the usual sources, but is not above all doubt. The long gaps in the chronology between the second and third generations are particularly noticeable, but the occasional deviations appear to be mistakes rather than genuine alternatives. Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ doubles IVa’s line of ancestors behind IIIc, omitting IIb instead: ʿAbd al-Malik b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. ʿAbd al-Malik b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Abī Salama (Tartīb I 360, 5ff.). Immediately afterwards (360, –5), however, he mentions IIb as his grandfather (or ancestor: jadd). Samʿānī, Ansāb XII 5, 9, inserts a further ʿAbdallāh between IIa and I (but not in all MSS), as does Zabīdī, Tāj, loc. cit., where I has IIIa’s line of ancestors instead. According to IKh VI 377, 14f., IIa died as late as 164/780; this, however, mistakes him for IIIc. IIIb is attested only weakly; he is said to have left only three hadiths. The kunya Abū l-Asbagh is usually accorded to his namesake IIIc, but he already had one of his own.

29  The date is noted in Zabīdī, Tāj al-ʿarūs IV 348, 6f. 30  Khalīfa, Ṭab. 671 no. 2394; IAH IV2 207 no. 863; summarised in IKh VI 376f., and TT XI 388f. no. 749. 31   T T V 243 no. 421; IAH II2 70 no. 331. 32   T T XI 430f. no. 837. 33  Samʿānī XII 6, 1ff. 34  The scholar discussed here. 35  Regarding him see p. 780 below. 36  Witnessed by Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ, Tartīb I 360, apu.

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ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz Ibn al Mājashūn (IIIc) was rather well-respected as a jurist in Medina, certainly a town crier named his office together with that of Mālik b. Anas as the best in the city when the pilgrims arrived there in 148/765.37 He was not on good terms with his rival; he mocked Mālik, who did not hold back with derogatory remarks, either.38 He was able to impress al-Manṣūr and his son al-Mahdī who visited Medina during the hajj. He flattered Mahdī during an audience with a – not exactly original – paean,39 maybe in 153/770, when he led the pilgrimage.40 Later it was said that al-Manṣūr appointed him his son’s adviser in religious matters when they set out on their way home from the hajj.41 This would have had to have happened in 152/769,42 but in fact Ibn alMājashūn was summoned to Baghdad in writing, probably only after al-Mahdī inherited the throne in 158/775.43 Now Mālik was the only one in Medina, as Ibn al-Mājashūn would stay in Iraq until his death. He enjoyed great prestige there; after his death Mahdī said the prayer over him and had him buried in the cemetery of the Quraysh, whose mawlā he had remained formally all his life.44 He never felt at home among the Iraqi scholars in the few years left to him in Baghdad. It upset him that they had given his friend Rabīʿa b. Abī ʿAbd alRaḥmān the sobriquet Rabīʿat al-ra‌ʾy,45 as it was aimed at him, too; he was a jurist of the old school. If people requested hadith from him to confirm a legal opinion, he could be quite gruff: “We are the ones giving the opinion!”46 In a recently edited fragment of his K. al-ḥajj he quoted the Quran verbatim, but the prophet only according to his meaning; he did not use a complete isnād, either.47 This was normal in Medina; the report is confirmed by other fragments

37   T B X 437, 10ff. 38  Fasawī I 429, –4f., and 683, 6ff.; also 685, 7ff. In Mālikite tradition as preserved e.g. by Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ, this has been balanced out; Ibn al-Mājashūn’s respect for Mālik is emphasised (Tartīb I 140, 10ff., and 166, 8f.; further passages cf. Index s. n. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Abī Salama). 39  Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ I 284, 6ff. 40  See p. 766 above. 41   T B X 437, 14ff. 42  See p. 766 above. When al-Manṣūr led the hajj again in 158, he died in Mecca (see p. 732 above). 43  Fasawī I 685, 3f. 44   I S V 307, 3f.; TB X 438, 18ff. 45  Fasawī I 672, –6ff. 46  Ibid. I 429, apu. 47  Muranyi, Ein altes Fragment medinensischer Jurisprudenz aus Qairawān (Stuttgart 1985); cf. the summary ibid. 85.

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preserved among the ancient parchments in the chief mosque of Qayrawān.48 Some of his expert opinions remained common knowledge in the Maghreb, Ibn Ḥazm recording, for instance, that Ibn al-Mājashūn considered someone who deliberately omitted a prescribed prayer to be an apostate.49 In Iraq, on the other hand, the focus of interest was on his theological opinions. At that time it was much less common there to refer to hadith as well as the Quran in this field; his pronouncements may also have met with official support. No fewer than three of them are still extant: a fatwā on the teachings of the Jahmiyya,50 and two texts on the issue of qadar.51 They were all collected by one single author, Aḥmad b. Muḥammad al-Athram (d. 261/875) from Baghdad, a pupil of Ibn Ḥanbal’s, who included them in his K. al-sunna, from where Ibn Baṭṭa knew them in whose work we find them to this day.52 This raises the question of where they were composed: still in the Hijaz, or not until Ibn alMājashūn’s later phase in Baghdad. It is not easy to answer. On the one hand we have the riwāya, undisputed since Athram, on the other the fact that the two qadar texts ultimately go back to one Egyptian only, Abū Ṣāliḥ ʿAbdallāh b. Ṣāliḥ (137/754–223/838), the secretary of Layth b. Saʿd.53 This might argue in favour of Medina, as relations between Egypt and the Hijaz were very close, especially among jurists. On the other hand we do know that Abū Ṣāliḥ visited Baghdad together with his employer. They set out in 161/778,54 which means that they would have met Ibn al-Mājashūn at the height of his influence. Of course, this does not rule out his having brought the texts with him from Medina.55 What is certain is that the Iraqi Athram brought them back from Egypt. There is no reason to doubt that they are genuine. The fatwā against the Jahmiyya shares its wording with the first text against the Qadariyya saying that those “who are firmly rooted in knowledge” (al-rāsikhūna fī l-ʿilm) stop 48  Thus according to information provided by Dr. Muranyi. The edited fragment was transmitted by the predestinarian Abū Ḍamra Anas b. ʿIyāḍ among others (p. 20). It was probably part of an extensive Muwaṭṭaʿ work (ibid. 34f.). 49   Fiṣal III 229, pu. ff. 50  In more detail p. 785 below. 51  In more detail my short article in: WO 16/1985/131ff. 52  In his Ibāna al-kubrā; cf. the abovementioned article. Riḍā b. Naʿsān Muʿṭī’s incomplete edition (1–2, Riyadh 1409/1988) unfortunately does not include the text with the exception of a fragment on p. 533f. cf. now Riyadh 1994, II2 240ff. nr. 1852. Regarding Athram’s father Muḥammad b. Hāniʾ see p. 806 below. 53  Regarding him GAS 1/104; regarding Layth b. Saʿd see p. 806 below. 54   T B XIII 4, 8ff.; also IX 478ff. no. 5110. 55  Abū Ṣāliḥ also transmitted the K. al-ḥajj that was certainly composed in Medina (Muranyi, Fragment 14).

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where their knowledge reaches its limit.56 This characterises Ibn al-Mājashūn’s attitude. He was not a theologian; he thought it was not necessary to discuss (jadal) or delve deeply into (taʿammuq) the issue of qadar, as that would only lead us astray. It was sufficient to read the Quran, and especially those verses talking of war, such as the battle of Badr. If these events had really depended on humans, everything would have turned out quite differently. Ibn al-Mājashūn does not interpret one single passage, but interweaves a number of entirely diverse passages: sura 9:14f., 3:154, 3:140, 8:17, 8:48 etc. His conclusion is the same every time: humans are tools in God’s hand. God has no need of them even so, as he can bring punishments without them. He annihilated Sodom with stones hailing down from the sky. In other cases he used ruses (makr), leading the evildoers gradually to their doom (istidrāj). The weakest can become strong with God’s help; after all, Moses started in a wicker basket. The reference to the battle of Badr recalls an argument used in Ḥasan b. Muḥammad b. al-Ḥanafiyya’s Quaestiones which links suras 3 and 8 in this context as well.57 Where Ibn al-Mājashūn begins to use theological terms, however, we find certain similarities with the anti-Qadarite Risāla attributed to ʿUmar II.58 This is not surprising in an author whose uncle, as we have seen, was close to this very caliph; presumably the concept of the text, however genuine, had already been formulated by that time.58a Qadar, Ibn al-Mājashūn says, is God’s royal power (mulk, tamalluk);59 humans are merely “empowered” (maqdūr ʿalā): (God) grants him a good deed (razaqahū l-ḥasana) and then praises him for it, or he decrees a transgression for him (qaddara ʿalayhi l-khaṭīʾa) and criticises him for it. Because he praises and criticises him, you believe that power is granted him (annahū mumallak); but you are forgetting that God claims the decreeing for himself, because he grants power.60 (God) does not dismiss him from his royal power by praising or criticising, and he 56  Regarding this and the following cf. WO 16/1985/133ff. 57   Anfänge 64ff. 58  Cf. vol.  I 155f. above. 58a  Possibly without the attribution to ʿUmar II (see p. 641 above). 59  Cf. the use of the verbal forms malaka and mallaka/mullika in ʿUmar II’s Risāla (Anfänge 117, also 140 and 167; cf. also Cook, Dogma 149). 60   nasīta intiḥālahū l-qadar li-annahū mumallik. The pronominal reference is anything but clear; intaḥala seems at least unusual expressed by God. However, with regard to the following, it is also difficult to refer qadar to humans.

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does not excuse a transgression with the reason that he decreed it himself. He created him in such a way that he is (always) looking for his own way;61 (man) knows this and criticises himself if he ignores it. (God) gives him knowledge of the faculty of action (ʿarrafahū l-qudra), and (man) believes in this and relies on it. His desire is directed at God, to give him success, as he is aware of his royal power and has the certainty that it is in his hands. Then, however, his aims make him commit a transgression, and he retracts it by criticising himself . . . . God, we discover, has “mixed” (khalaṭa) the way humans for which humans are searching and the predestination. Consequently when doing good one hopes for God’s help and accompanies one’s actions with words such as “there is no power and no force but God”. When doing evil, which is after all decreed by God as well, one assumes responsibility and says “I have no excuse for acting contrary to God’s wishes”. When doing good, one describes oneself as weak, when doing evil, as strong. In the second text Ibn al-Mājashūn avoids these deliberations, but the basic tendency is the same. He makes quite clear from the outset that all this talk about qadar is only “innovation”. Like the ancestors, one should abide by the Sunna (luzūm al-sunna). “Delving deep” is wrong, as they avoided it, too. If one is tempted to ask “And how about the following Quranic verse?” or “And why did God say this or that?”, one must remember that they, too, recited these verses and understood them better than their descendants nowadays. They acknowledged predestination, accepting responsibility for their sins at the same time. The emphasis on the fideistic aspect in this text is probably linked to the fact that we are looking not at a fatwā but at a letter of admonition; Ibn al-Mājashūn says at the beginning that his intention is to offer advice to the addressee (innī mūṣīka). As nothing is said about the latter’s identity, this may well be literary form only. Even if all this was written in Iraq, it is very much in the Medinan spirit. The Qadarite approach retains a certain validity, at least subjectively. Maybe this was why Yaḥyā b. Maʿīn claimed that Ibn al-Mājashūn was a Qadarite originally and abandoned this belief only later.62 His legacy was not entirely lost in the Hijaz, as he had a son who achieved eminence in Medina:

61   khalaqahū ʿalā l-ṭalab bil-ḥīla. Cf. the usage of ḥīla in sura 4:98. 62   T B X 438, 6ff.; Kaʿbī, too, mentions a “Mājashūnī” who was a Qadarite (Qabūl 215, 3).

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Abū Marwān ʿAbd al-Malik b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz (Ibn) al-Mājashūn, d. ca. 213/828 at over sixty years of age, having known his father only in his youth. He may not even have accompanied him to Baghdad. In his home city he adapted to circumstances, keeping on good terms with Mālik’s school. Consequently Mālikite tradition quotes him frequently as a representative of Medinan legal thought;63 Bāqillānī occasionally agreed with him on uṣūl al-fiqh.64 He debated with Shāfiʿī, but their discussions were difficult to follow as they had both grown up in the desert.65 As for theology, the front had shifted slightly, and he wrote a “Refutation of those who believe in the createdness of the Quran and the faculty of action (istiṭāʿa, of men)”, i.e. presumably the Muʿtazilites,66 and he railed against Bishr al-Marīsī.67 On the other hand he admonished Saḥnūn (d. 240/854) in a letter to show restraint in matters concerning the image of God (tashbīh) and the Quran.68 This probably explains the doctrine Ashʿarī linked to him: that the Quran was half created, and half uncreated69 – not so much as a firm theological opinion, but as cautious reticence making allowances for both sides, similar to his father’s comments on qadar. He was, for instance, unable to imagine that the text of sura 112 was created.70 We must bear in mind that this idea was probably formulated at a time when the khalq al-Qurʾān had not been formally proclaimed; Dhahabī’s account is dated to 209/824–5. Ashʿarī’s information could have been found in slightly more detail already in a doxographical text by Sulaymān b. Jarīr al-Raqqī (see p. 546 above). Furthermore, he only says “Ibn alMājashūn”, which might just as well refer to the father, although the son is more probable. Ritter already identified the name in the index as his (p. 625f.). Regarding him cf. IS V 327, 18ff.; Ibn al-Nadīm, Fihrist 252, 6; Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ, Tartīb I 360ff. (the form of the name is probably incorrect; see p. 776 above); Shīrāzī, Ṭab. 148, 1ff.; IKh III 166f.; Mīzān no. 5226; Dhahabī, Siyar X 359f.; Ibn Farḥūn, Al-dībāj al-mudhahhab II 6, 4ff.; Ziriklī, Aʿlām IV 305; Turki in: Bājī, Iḥkām al-fuṣūl 858; also the witty anecdote in Ibn al-Jawzī, Adhkiyāʾ 194, 3ff. 63  Cf. Muranyi, Ein altes Fragment 5f., and Materialien zur mālikitischen Rechtsliteratur 26 and 87f. 64  Bājī, Iḥkām al-fuṣūl 249 no. 162, and 276 no. 214. 65  Shīrāzī, Ṭab. 148, 2ff.; but cf. Bayhaqī, Manāqib al-Shāfiʿī II 344, 1ff. 66  Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ, Tartīb I 362, pu. f. 67  Ibid. 363, 11f.; Dhahabī, ʿUlūw 210, pu. f. 68  Ibid. 363, 4ff. 69   Maq. 586, 5f. 70  Dhahabī, ʿUlūw 210, –6ff.

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The development we are able follow from father to son here is observable in a similar form on the opposing side. Among the Medinan Qadarites Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Shāfiʿī mentions a certain Abū Ibrāhīm (Abū ʿAbdallāh) Muḥammad b.  Abī Yaḥyā Samʿān al-Aslamī,71 d. ca. 145/762,72 who like his father and his two brothers Anīs and ʿAbdallāh was a client of ʿAmr b. ʿAbdnihm of the Aslam.73 The family may have come from Basra.74 His son, Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad b. Abī Yaḥyā al-Aslamī, d. 184/800, was an arrant heretic; he was named as a Qadarite, a Muʿtazilite, a Jahmite and a Shīʿite.75 Ibn Saʿd did not like him.76 He may have been the Muʿtazila’s contact in Medina; he was said to have studied under ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd.77 ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Ṣanʿānī (d. 211/827) claimed to have asked him in later years to confirm that he saw himself as a Muʿtazilite, and gave that as the reason why he did not follow him to the mosque.78 The Muʿtazilite report that Ibn Abī Yaḥyā invited Wāṣil b. ʿAṭāʾ into his house, however, is faced with chronological difficulties; it can only refer to his father, and is found in a rather apocryphal context in any case.79 It is noticeable that the same context links him to the ʿAlids of Medina, which appears to be based on a correct recollection. After all, Ibn Isḥāq, Muḥammad b. ʿAjlān and others had been close to the Shīʿa, as was ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Ṣanʿānī although he distanced himself from him elsewhere.80 In the case of Ibn Abī Yaḥyā this affinity went far enough for Ṭūsī to include him in his Fihrist; the Shīʿites approved of his great expertise in the 71  Kaʿbī, Maq. 80, 1ff. > Faḍl 336, 4. 72  144 after Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 647, 12; 145 after Khalīfa, Ṭab. 677, 8f.; 146 or 157 after TT IX 523, 2f. 73  Khalīfa, Ṭab. 677 no. 2427–9; also IAH III2 282 no. 1522. Ibn Isḥāq also transmitted from ʿAbdallāh, interestingly a tradition with a Shīʿite tendency (Naṣr b. Muzāḥim, Waqʿat Ṣiffīn 448, 8ff.; cf. also Ṭabarī II 227, 10f.). Regarding his father cf. TT IV 238 no. 405. 74  Among Mālik’s alleged pupils Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ mentions a certain Muḥammad b. Yaḥyā (rather than Abī Yaḥyā) al-Aslamī al-Baṣrī. 75  Fasawī III 55, 1ff., and 138, apu. f.; ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ I 62ff. no. 59; Ḥākim al-Naysābūrī, Maʿrifa 135, 11, and 136, 14f.; Mīzān no. 189; TT 158ff. no. 284. Baghdādī even achieved the feat of appointing him head of a group of anthropomorphists (Farq 216, –4ff./228, 6ff.). 76   I S V 314, 12. 77  Thus after Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Faḍl 253, 9f. 78  Presumably because it was attended by Muʿtazilites and he did not wish to pray behind one of them (Ibn Ḥibbān, Majrūḥīn I 106, ult. ff.). 79   Faḍl 239, 1ff. = 335, –6ff, > IM 33, 3ff; cf. p. 287f. above. 80  Cf. GAS 1/99.

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traditions of Muḥammad al-Bāqir and Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq.81 All the same, he was no Imāmite; he only – like Ibn Isḥāq believed ʿAlī outranked ʿUthmān.82 In his old age he paid homage to Yaḥyā b. ʿAbdallāh while the latter was planning his uprising in Daylam around 175/791–92.83 The accusation that he was a Jahmite might go back to Nuʿaym b. Ḥammād (d. 228/843), a committed anti-Jahmite and a not always conscientious traditionist, who claimed to have burnt several of Ibrāhīm b. Abī Yaḥyā’s books because of his Qadarite and “Jahmite” teachings.84 Maybe this combination of ʿAlid, Qadarite and “Jahmite” sympathies was exactly what people at the time imagined a Muʿtazilite to be. This negative image is cast into doubt by Shāfiʿī’s having attended his lectures as a young man and attesting him great veracity, even including some of his traditions in his own works.85 There are other casual remarks which tell us that he was not entirely without prestige: he corresponded with the caliph al-Mahdī86 and was said to have conducted a legal debate before Hārūn alRashīd with Abū Yūsuf, in which he proved to be superior to the latter.87 Ṭūsī mentioned a book divided in chapters concerning permitted and prohibited things following Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq.88 He also claimed to have learnt, from an 81  Ṭūsī, Fihrist 16, 4f.; Najāshī, Rijāl with a commentary by Muḥammad ʿAlī al-Abṭaḥī (Najaf 1389), p. 240ff.; Māmaqānī, Tanqīḥ al-maqāl I 30, 2ff. no. 169, and 33 no. 194; Ardabīlī, Jāmiʿ al-ruwāt I 30f. One example of these traditions presumably in HT 20: with a hadith in the Qadarite (!) style. Kulīnī, Mufīd and Ibn Bābōya also referred to him (cf. Abṭaḥī, Commentary 243, 4ff.). For Nasāʾī, this was the very reason why he must have had the reputation of being one of the greatest falsifiers of hadith (cf. Suyūṭī, La‌ʾālī II 473, 12f., and IKh V 256, 17ff.). 82  Yāqūt, Irshād VI 400, 6ff.; Madelung, Qāsim 132. Even the Imāmites had their doubts (Māmaqānī I 30, 12ff.). 83  van Arendonk, Opkomst 290f.; also Madelung, Qāsim 74. Regarding the uprising see p. 534f. above and ch. C 1.4.1 below. 84   Mīzān I 61, 1ff. The accusation would be more understandable if it were true that Ibrāhīm b. Abī Yaḥyā had originally been an Ibāḍite, as Kaʿbī claimed (Qabūl 215, 3f.); in the Ibāḍiyya the metaphorical explanation of anthropomorphic divine attributes, which would later become characteristic of the Jahmiyya, was widely accepted (see p. 238f. above). What is most important is that he circulated traditions against the vision of God (see p. 786 below); Nuʿaym was very sensitive regarding this point (see p. 618 above). 85   Faḍl 253, 13f.; Ibn Ḥibbān, Majrūḥīn I 105, 11; Mīzān I 58, 11ff. Also Ibn Abī Ḥātim, Ādāb al-Shāfiʿī 178, 5ff. 86  Jāḥiẓ, Bayān II 74, 2ff.; also Ṣafwat, Jamharat rasāʾil al-ʿArab III 168 no. 111. 87   Faḍl 253, 10ff. 88   Fihrist 16, 8ff.

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unnamed Sunnite source, that Wāqidī (130/747–207/823) appropriated some of Ibrāhīm b. Abī Yaḥyā’s writings and circulated them under his own name.89 The work of jurisprudence is probably identical with Ibn Abī Yaḥyā’s Muwaṭṭaʿ, said to have greatly outshone his older contemporary Mālik b. Anas’ work of the same name.90 This competition with Mālik could not have helped his posthumous fame. While the Mālikites tried to integrate him, claiming that he transmitted from Mālik,91 it was known that he had apostrophised Mālik, who was very proud of his descent from the Southern Arabian princely house of Aṣbaḥ, as their mawlā, thus incurring his enduring hostility.92 His desire to outshine Mālik explains why Shāfiʿī referred to his texts: he was pursuing the same aim. Shāfiʿī was well aware of Ibn Abī Yaḥyā’s controversial reputation;93 he omitted his name in the isnāds, replacing it with anonymous man lā attahimu (min ahl al-Madīna).94 Ibn Ḥibbān’s attempt at explaining the quotations was that Shāfiʿī, when he wrote books in Egypt towards the end of his life, did not have access to any reliable (read: Iraqi) hadith collections and therefore relied on his memory.95 However, Ibn Abī Ḥātim confirmed that he did tolerate Ibn Abī Yaḥyā’s Qadarism,96 and was probably just considering the sensibilities of his non-Medinan reading public. Scholars like the Kufan historian ʿAbbād b. Yaʿqūb al-Rawājinī (d. 250/864) continued Ibn Abī Yaḥyā’s tradition.

89  He was unable to discover this for himself (Fihrist 16, 6ff.; quoted GAS 1/254, but incorrect Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad b. Yaḥyā). 90   Mīzān I 59, –4ff. after Ibn ʿAdī; also ḤKh 1907, apu. ff., with incorrect date. Goldziher, Muh. Studien II 220, n. 2, quoted a commentary by Abū Bakr Ibn al-ʿArabī after this passage, but it actually refers to Mālik’s Muwaṭṭaʿ. 91  Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ, Tartīb I 257, pu.; cf. also the story ibid. I 244, –4ff. 92   Faḍl 253, 12f. Ibn Isḥāq made a similar claim concerning Mālik (see p. 758 above). 93  Ibn Abī Ḥātim, Ādāb al-Shāfiʿī 223, 2; he called him a Qadarite. 94   Risāla 448, 1, and 450, 1; regarding the identification Khadduri, Muslim Jurisprudence 273 after Bayhaqī, Manāqib al-Shāfiʿī. Cf. also Māwardī, Adab al-qāḍī 401, pu. ff., with 402, n. 1. 95  See n. 85 above. 96   Ādāb al-Shāfiʿī 223, 3f.

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Cf. Prozorov, Arabskaja istoričeskaja literatura 109; GAS 1/316f. with further sources. Ṭūsī called him ʿāmmī al-madhhab (Fihrist 176, 8). – Ibn Abī Yaḥyā probably died at the age of not quite 70. We can infer this from the fact that he had a brother named ʿAbdallāh, called Saḥbal, who was ten years older than he (IS V 314, 10f.) and died in 162/779 (thus according to IS V 311, 5ff.) or slightly later (according to TT VI 20 no. 26) at the age of 57; consequently he would have been born around 115/733. Cf. also Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 178 no. 1108. In Maʿrifa III 55, 1ff., Fasawī mentioned two further brothers, Muḥammad and Anīs, but presumably meant his father and his uncle. His name was often abbreviated to read Ibrāhīm b. Abī Yaḥyā (thus e.g. Jāḥiẓ, Bayān II 74, 2; AZ 307/7; Fasawī III 55, 1f.; Faḍl 253, 9f.; also Ṣafadī, Wāfī VI 165, 5ff.). Later biographers consequently do not always avoid the mistake of noting him in two different places (for instance Māmaqānī, loc. cit.). Ṭūsī’s claim that he was the client of a certain Aslam b. Afṣā is probably an error in view of the information we have concerning his father. At the time the nisba al-Aslamī was generally derived from this name (but cf., later, Samʿānī, Ansāb I 238 no. 156). Regarding him in general see also IS V 314, 10ff.; Bukhārī I1 323 no. 1013; IAH I1 125 no. 390; Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 178 no. 1108; Ibn Ḥibbān, Majrūḥīn I 105, 9ff.; Dhahabī, Siyar aʿlām al-nubalāʾ VIII 450ff., and TH 246f. no. 233; Kaʿbī 80, 4f.; Kaḥḥāla, Muʿjam I 96; GIE II 452f. We do not hear much about Qadarites of the old school any more. A certain Isḥāq b. Ḥāzim died sometime after the middle of the second century; ʿAbd alRaḥmān b. Mahdī (d. 198/813)97 transmitted from him.98 Isḥāq b. Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Musayyabī died in 206/821–22.99 He was by far the most respected Quran reciter of his time in Medina.100 In spite of his nisba he was no direct relation of Saʿīd b. al-Musayyab, but he was a member of the same clan, the Makhzūm. With him our tradition on the Medinan Qadariyya ends.

97  He was probably a Qadarite himself; see p. 89 above. 98  A Qadarite according to Mīzān no. 745 and TT I 229 no. 426; nothing in IAH I2 216 no. 740. 99  A Qadarite according to Mīzān no. 791 and TT I 249 no. 467. 100  Ibn al-Jazarī, Ṭab. I 157f. no. 734.

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4.1.2.4 The Jahmiyya There is just as little to report about the Jahmiyya in Medina as about the Murjiʾa. Still, we do have the abovementioned expert opinion by Ibn alMājashūn.1 He may have written it in Baghdad, but the case of Ibn Abī Yaḥyā shows that a generation after him, Jahmite tendencies were found in Medina, too. So far the point at issue was not the Quran but the image of God. Ibn alMājashūn comments especially on the vision of God: those who deny it deny the greatest honour God accords humans; but then Ibn al-Mājashūn also accepted those hadiths according to which God laughs or places his foot onto hell. One must not inquire into the “how” (kayfa), as this would be meaningful only with regard to changeable things.2 He is even more averse to theoretical deliberations here than in the issue of qadar, appearing to reject not only the Jahmites but also the theologising anthropomorphists. “If God claims an attribute for himself or has it named by the mouth of the prophet, we, too, call him thus, but we do not labour to find other attributes for him, not this and not that one. We neither deny the attributes he claims, nor do we labour (natakallafu) to perceive something he has not claimed as an attribute”.3 Even if he shows himself in all his beauty to the believers in the afterlife, this does not detract from his sublimity; humans are given new eyes to perceive God as He wills it.4 Especially when it came to the question of ruʾya it does indeed seem as though there had been a “Jahmite” climate in the Hijaz of the heretic nature of which people were ignorant for a long time. As we have seen, Mujāhid was believed to have interpreted wujūhun yawma‌ʾidhin nāḍira ‫ ٭‬ilā rabbihā nāẓira in sura 75:22f. metaphorically.5 Ibn ʿAbbās had already been reported to have held similar views.6 Saʿīd b. al-Musayyab seems to have believed this, too.7 Ibn Abī Dhiʾb transmitted a hadith from ʿĀʾisha which rejected emphatically that 1  It is extant in Ibn Taymiyya’s Fatwā Ḥamawiyya, who found it in Ibn Baṭṭa’s works (Cairo 1387/1967, p. 28, –5ff.; also Majmūʿ fatāwā V 42, 4ff.). Dhahabī quotes part of the text in ʿUlūw 177, 2ff., as does Lālakāʾī (Sharḥ 502f. no. 873). It was brought to light in its entirety by M. Schreiner (in: ZDMG 53/1899/74ff.). 2  Fatwā Ḥamawiyya 29, 2ff.; his view of God’s sitting on the throne is found in Ibn Taymiyya, Sharḥ ḥadīth al-nuzūl 126, –4ff. (after Ibn Abī Ḥātim). 3  Ibid. 30, 13ff.; also 29, 11f. Regarding the problem cf. Gimaret, Les noms divins en Islam 43ff. and earlier. 4  Dhahabī, ʿUlūw 119, 4ff. 5  See p. 720, n. 20 above. 6  Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Mughnī IV 213, 10ff.; Malāḥimī, Muʿtamad 466, pu. ff. 7  Malāḥimī 466, –5ff.

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it was suitable for anyone to look upon God; as the speaker was the prophet, this included him and his journey to heaven.8 Ibrāhīm b. Abī Yaḥyā passed on comparable traditions to the Basran Muʿtazilites ʿAbd al-Karīm b. Rawḥ and Abū ʿĀmir al-Anṣārī.9 The Iraqi “Jahmite” Muḥammad b. Shujāʿ al-Thaljī transmitted from Ibn Abī Dhiʾb.10

8  Ibid. 488, 4ff.; regarding an ʿĀʾisha tradition with similar content cf. Anfänge 37. 9  See p. 478f. above. 10  Regarding him see ch. C 6.3.2 below.

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4.2.1 Yemen Yemen, like Medina, was among the losers during early Islamic history. The cultural potential of the country was great, but the importance of the Yemenis came into its own in Ḥimṣ and in Kufa.1 The region emerged from the shadows for a brief period only, when Bādhān, the chief of the Persian garrison, entered into negotiations with the prophet and converted to Islam. When the Yemeni tribes rose up against the Ethiopian occupation around 570 they had asked the Sasanids for support; there had been an Iranian contingent in Ṣanʿāʾ ever since. The soldiers had married into local families; their descendants were known as abnāʾ. Their position became increasingly precarious with the decline of the Sasanid Empire during Heraclius’ campaigns; this was probably why they sought to align themselves with the new power to the north. Insofar as the ridda did affect Yemen, it started with other forces; after all, the tribes are not greatly interested in Ṣanʿāʾ politics to this day. For a time, the abnāʾ were the mainstay of Islam in the area surrounding the city.2 Under Dhū Nuwās, whose anti-Christian measures had caused the Ethiopian intervention, the Hamdān living in the area around Ṣanʿāʾ had converted to Judaism. This was the religious group with whom Islam had to come to terms above all. When an opposition movement emerged in Yemen during ʿAlī’s caliphate, the Hamdān renounced Islam; their leaders were killed and burnt as a consequence.3 Some converts became a significant influence on emerging religious ideas. Kaʿb al-aḥbār was only one example; he probably died in Ḥimṣ.4 The influence of midrashic tradition is also unmistakeable in the case of another eminent Yemeni of the first century,

1  See vol.  I 127f. and 172 above. 2  Cf. Caetani, Annali dell’Islam IV 415f.; Chelhod, Arabie du Sud II 17ff.; Shoufany, Al-Ridda 35ff.; M. Fayda, Islâmiyetin Güney Arabistanʾa Yayılışı 66ff.; ʿAbd al-Muhsin Madʾaj M. al-Madʾaj, The Yemen in early Islam 8ff.; Serjeant in: CHAL I 130; Bosworth in: EIran I 226ff. s. v. Abnāʾ. Regarding preceding events see Crone, Meccan Trade 46ff.; regarding Ṣanʿāʾ in the early Islamic period cf. G. R. Smith in: Serjeant/Lewcock, Ṣanʿāʾ 51f. 3  Ibn al-Kalbī, Aṣnām 10, pu. f.; Serjeant/Lewcock 391. 4  Regarding him EI2 IV 316f.

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Abū ʿAbdallāh Wahb b. Munabbih b. Kāmil, d. early 114/732.5 He was a member of the abnāʾ and combined Isrāʾīliyyāt with accounts of the ancient south Arabian past;6 he has been called the “Manetho of the Southern Arabs”.7 He was a Qadarite, but probably on the basis of a simple practical piety that had not learnt to see this as a problem. His views would still be known later, although orthodox tradition spared no effort to remove their every trace. I have collated and examined the relevant material elsewhere. Cf. Anfänge 221f.; also regarding relevant biographies. I regret having relied too much on later sources; the accounts I found in Dhahabī’s Ta‌ʾrīkh al-Islām are already documented in Fasawī (including a separate, albeit brief, biography at II 29f.). This might also be said of the deliberations in Khoury, Wahb ibn Munabbih I 189ff. and 270ff.; the author approaches the subject matter with not enough method. Regarding the family tree cf. Khoury 201 and Faruqi, Historiography 94; also the family tradition in Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 400 no. 2680, and the material in Aḥmad b. ʿAbdallāh alṢanʿānī al-Rāzī’s (ca. 460/1068) Ta‌ʾrīkh Ṣanʿāʾ (p. 369ff., although it has to be said that Rāzī has barely any old and independent information). To the anecdotes I mentioned which were spread in an attempt to temper Wahb’s Qadarite activity we must add Fasawī I 524, –6ff., where he reports that Ibn ʿAbbās advised a group of debating men in Mecca to steer clear of qadar (regarding Ibn ʿAbbās cf. also HT 116f., and Index s. n.). It is not, in fact, certain that Ḥasan al-Baṣrī’s companion in one of the stories I adduced Anfänge 221f. was indeed the Medinan ʿAṭāʾ b. Yasār as I simply assumed there; the sources only call him ʿAṭāʾ, without giving the full name. For the parallel passage in Fasawī II 29, 5ff., the editor suggests ʿAṭāʾ b. Abī Rabāḥ, which is more likely considering the area: the story takes place during the hajj, and Ibn Abī Rabāḥ was a Meccan (see p. 718f. above). Wahb has also been linked to ʿAṭāʾ al-Khurāsānī (see vol. I 113 above; cf. Khoury 270).

5  The date of his death is given thus precisely by Bukhārī IV2 164 no. 2565. Wahb was believed to have lived to eighty. Regarding his grave in Ṣanʿāʾ cf. Serjeant/Lewcock 311. 6  These are extant in K. al-tījān; cf. Nagel, Alexander der Große 9ff. and 40ff. Cf. also Duri, Rise of Historical Writing 30ff. and 122ff.; Faruqi, Early Muslim Historiography 92ff. 7  Cf. CHAL I 385.

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His prestige as a scholar appears to have suffered from the abnāʾ’s precarious social position. When ʿUrwa b. Muḥammad al-Saʿdī, governor of Yemen since Sulaymān’s caliphate,8 appointed him qāḍī of Ṣanʿāʾ,9 he was not wellreceived by the people. He was in a similar situation to Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, and the phrase used to express his lack of success is indeed the same: he “won no praise” (lam yuḥmad).10 Soon afterwards, in 103/721–2, he was dismissed again.11 Later generations, however, focussed on the fact that he had held the office during ʿUmar II’s time; they even had him correspond with the caliph.12 It was also reported that he had already been a qāṣṣ in an official capacity for a few years until 75/696 under ʿAbd al-Malik, while Ḥajjāj’s brother Muḥammad was governor.13 It might have been during this time that al-Mughīra b. Ḥakīm, a member of the abnāʾ,14 forbade him to take action against the Khārijites15 – presumably in 71/690–91, when the latter were invading Ṣanʿāʾ under Qudāma b. al-Mundhir.16 Towards the end of his life he appears to have been sent to prison;17 the governor at the time, Yūsuf b. ʿUmar al-Thaqafī, unlike ʿUrwa b. Muḥammad al-Saʿdī a foreigner, was said to have had him beaten to death.18 At his funeral, the thronging masses had to be pushed back with whips.19 If we are to believe Ibn Ḥanbal, Wahb’s Qadarite statements were found in his ‘K. al-ḥikma’ in which he spoke of the sins of humans and denied that God

8  Cf. Khalīfa, Ta‌ʾrīkh 428, 11; 464, 14 regarding ʿUmar II’s time; 482, 13 regarding Yazīd II’s time. In more detail Eisener, Zwischen Faktum und Fiktion 50. 9  Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 400, –4f., after an account by Wahb’s great-nephew. The event mentioned in Khoury 197 belongs in this context; Khoury, following Horovitz, assumes it much too early. 10  Ibn Ḥanbal 142 no. 881; similarly Wakīʿ III 303, pu. ff. = Fasawī II 49, 6ff.; cf. p. 49 above. We have no further information; the short passage in Ibn Samura, Ṭabaqāt fuqahāʾ alYaman 57, 1ff., depends entirely on older sources. 11   Ta‌ʾrīkh Ṣanʿāʾ 377, 2f. It is altogether improbable that he should have held his office until his death, as Yāqūt claimed (Irshād VII 232, 16). 12  Marzubānī, Nūr al-qabas 348, ult. ff.; cf. Khoury 196. 13   Ta‌ʾrīkh Ṣanʿāʾ 375, 2ff. 14  Regarding him Khalīfa, Ṭab. 732 no. 2651; IS V 396, 19f. 15   Ta‌ʾrīkh Ṣanʿāʾ 440, 2f. 16  Cf. Ibn Samura, Ṭabaqāt fuqahāʾ al-Yaman 53, 2f. with n. 17  Abū l-ʿArab, Miḥan 309, 5ff. 18  Khoury  198. 19  Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 137 no. 846 after the eyewitness account of a certain Abū Yūsuf Muḥammad b. Wahb of the abnāʾ provided when he was 91 years of age. The detail is intended to illustrate Wahb’s popularity, rather than recall troubles with sympathising Qadarites.

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was responsible for them.20 A passage quoted by Abū Muṭīʿ Makḥūl al-Nasafī tells us how this would have sounded: ‘Abraham, the friend of the compassionate one, said: O Lord, I have read a passage (ḥarf) on the “sheets” (ṣuḥuf) the meaning of which I do not know. God revealed: O Abraham, at the end of time there will be people who will say that God predestined the sins of humans in such a way that they are forced to commit them. God says: They lie. Woe to him who inquires into my secret!’21 On the other hand there are some plainly predestinarian phrases attributed to him as well, for instance in Abū ʿAmmār ʿAbd al-Kāfī’s Mūjaz.22 It is possible that the two positions merely reflect a later difference of opinion,23 but just as possible that Wahb simply did not yet perceive the contradiction; after all, the “Qadarite” passage calls the problem “God’s secret”.24 It is probably pure legend when Wahb is said to have composed a separate text on the issue of qadar entitled K. al-qadar; it may have been inferred from an (apocryphal) anecdote in which ʿAmr b. Dīnār is talking to Wahb about something the latter “wrote about qadar”.25 Regarding Wahb’s works cf. Khoury 203ff. and GAS 1/306f. with secondary sources; also Abbott in: JNES 36/1977/103ff. Wahb’s “Ḥikma” is quoted frequently, but it is difficult to grasp and presumably impossible to reconstruct (regarding the problem cf. Khoury 263ff.). Only a thorough analysis of its contents would be able to discover whether the material traced back to it differs from that in Wahb’s alleged history of the preIslamic prophets (K. al-mubtada‌ʾ) or not. – Concerning Wahb’s Tafsīr (Khoury 205 and 272f.) it is advisable to consult MS Ankara, Saib 4216, to which Ḥibshī, Maṣādir 14 refers; according to Ḥibshī the entire work was incorporated into Ṭabarī’s commentary. Concerning the K. al-mubtada‌ʾ (Khoury 222f.) Hermosilla (in: al-Qanṭara 6/1985/43ff.) refers to a diverging version in a Madrid MS. A passage on the prophet’s biography several pages long appears to be extant in Ṭabarānī’s (d. 360/971) Muʿjam al-kabīr (thus Azmi, Studies 104f.). This must be compared to the Risāla fī sīrat al-nabī which Khoury edited in: Mashriq 64/1970/591ff. Cf. also Kister in CHAL I 356f. 20  Khoury 271 after Abū Bakr al-Khallāl’s (d. 311/923) K. al-jāmiʿ lil-ʿulūm; cf. GAS 1/511f. Thus also Laoust in: Mélanges Massignon III 20. 21   Al-radd ʿalā l-bidaʿ in: Ann. Isl. 16/1980/105, 4ff. 22   I I 64, pu. ff.; once again as a ḥadīth qudsī. 23  In the Ta‌ʾrīkh Ṣanʿāʾ, for instance, all hints at Qadarite tendencies have been deleted. 24  Cf. HT 153f. 25  Fasawī II 281, 9ff.; also Khoury 271. Khoury’s remarks concerning the K. al-qadar on 270ff. and 314f. are far too amorphous; and the references in GAS 1/935 are not helpful either.

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One of Wahb’s pupils named Abū l-Ḥasan Muḥammad b. al-Hayṣam b. Muḥammad al-Baghdādī composed a K. al-mustaḍīʾ one chapter of which is extant in the MS Selimağa 587, fol. 176a–177b; it concerns ʿUzayr. Kaʿbī’s counting Wahb among the Qadarites was based on Jāḥiẓ; presumably his K. al-amṣār. Besides Wahb Jāḥiẓ also listed his brother Hammām b. Munabbih (Maq. 85, 4f. > Faḍl 338, 16ff. > IM 135, 12ff.). However, it is not possible to put this information in more concrete terms. Some of the hadiths found in his extant ṣaḥīfa would later be drawn into the qadar debate (cf. HT 57f.), but this does not mean that he himself occupied a firm standpoint. The hadiths under discussion allowed different interpretations (e.g. the examples ibid. p. 101ff., p. 163, p. 99, and even p. 90), and the fundamental question to be asked would be whether material someone transmitted always had to reflect that person’s own position. As we know, several divergent dates were transmitted for Hammām’s death (GAS 1/86). However, the records of a later date, between 131/749 and 133/751, are more probable; according to a remark by Wahb’s greatnephew Ghawth b. Jābir b. Ghaylān b. Munabbih Wahb was the eldest of four brothers, and thus not younger than Hammām, as claimed by Ibn Saʿd (cf. Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 400, –5, and IS V 396, 8ff.; also Fasawī II 30, 2f.; Marzubānī, Nūr al-qabas 351, 8ff., according to which Hammām was the last of the brothers to die). The first Abbasid governor in Ṣanʿāʾ was said to have said the prayer of the dead over him (Ta‌ʾrīkh Ṣanʿāʾ 421, 2ff.). 4.2.1.1 The Qadarites The fundamental question to be asked when Wahb is described as a Qadarite is of course whether this is indeed a judgment on his person, or whether it relies mainly on the texts and traditions attributed to him. It is more than probable that, similar to the circle around Ibn Abī Najīḥ in Mecca, it is inferred mostly from this material, and consequently depends on its authenticity which, in fact, is anything but assured. The majority of Khoury’s studies ran aground amid uncritical collector’s zeal. The counter-traditions mentioned initially may well be directed against a personality who could already be a purely literary image. In that case they might have to be dated slightly later; they are probably not authentic in any case. Even so there are reasons why we should not embark on radical scepticism. We hear that according to Muʿtazilite tradition Wāṣil’s messenger to Yemen met with interest among certain of Wahb b. Munabbih’s followers, who recruited themselves from among the abnāʾ.1 The movement appears to have collapsed even before the Abbasid revolution; thus this is unlikely to be an image of history thought up by later Yemeni Muʿtazilites. Much 1  See p. 354f. above.

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more likely is that Wahb had pupils who carried on his Qadarite convictions after his death. Their origin among the abnāʾ may indicate that they were dissatisfied with the existing social order: Qadarite vocabulary would have been a suitable means of expression in that case. Interestingly they were then drawn into Ṭālib al-ḥaqq’s uprising.2 Some confirmation comes from the biographical sources. They mention a few more Yemeni Qadarites, among them an alleged pupil of Wahb’s. This is not very much, but we must bear in mind that our information on the intellectual history of Yemen at that time is incomplete anyway. In the present case this is illustrated by the different versions of the name. In a remark preserved by Fasawī3 ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Ṣanʿānī lists three Qadarites known to him: the Syrian Makḥūl, the Meccan Ibn Abī Dhiʾb and a certain Bakkār al-Yamāmī. Now we do know that a certain Bakkār transmitted from Wahb;4 a comparison of the texts tells us that he was called Bakkār b. ʿAbdallāh,5 and Dhahabī does indeed call him Bakkār b. ʿAbdallāh al-Yamāmī.6 If the isnāds are correct, he can only have met Wahb in his youth, as the quotations in Abū Nuʿaym show us that he transmitted to Ibn al-Mubārak (d. 181/797) and even to ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Ṣanʿānī (d. 211/827). Of course the local scholars noticed this as well; Bukhārī7 as well as Ibn Abī Ḥātim8 noted it. Ibn Saʿd completed the name, speaking of Bakkār b. ʿAbdallāh b. Sahūk, a member of the abnāʾ living in Janad. Ibn Saʿd has him after Wahb in the ṭabaqa.9 However, this more precise information presents us with a further problem, for elsewhere we come across a Yemeni named

2  In more detail ch. C 7.2 below. 3  I I 400, 2. 4  I AH IV2 24 no. 110. 5  Cf. e.g. Ḥilya IV 33, 5ff.; 48, 7ff.; 51, –6ff. and pu. ff.; 52, –9ff. etc.; Ibn al-Jawzī, Ṣifa II 165, 13 and 20. 6  Mīzān no. 1259. 7  Ta‌ʾrīkh I2 121 no. 1901. 8  I AH I1 408f. no. 1608. His nisba being al-Yamāmī rather than al-Yamānī in both these sources should not present a problem; it may even be the correct form. 9  I S V 398, 6ff.

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Bakr b. (al-)Sharūd al-Ṣanʿānī, who was a Qadarite according to Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī (d. 277/890);10 Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār took note of this and added his name to Kaʿbī’s list.11 He lived around the same time, transmitting from Mujāhid’s son ʿAbd al-Wahhāb12 and from Sufyān al-Thawrī (d. 161/778), from Mālik b. Anas and from ʿAbd al-Razzāq’s teacher Maʿmar b. Rāshid.13 The reading of the name is not always consistent, with Sharwas being used instead of (al-)Sharūd occasionally.14 More important, however, is this: Ibn Abī Ḥātim emends the name to read Bakr b. ʿAbdallāh b. Sharwas or Sharūd; Rāzī’s Ta‌ʾrīkh Ṣanʿāʾ clearly has Bakr b. ʿAbdallāh b. alSharūd;15 which leads us to the question of whether we are simply looking at a doublet. In that case Bakr would have been the defective spelling of Bakkār; and the transition between Sahūk and Sharūd does not really pose any problems considering the duct of the papyri.16 It is not said anywhere that Bakr heard hadith from Wahb; we must be prepared for the possibility that the information about him was inferred from reliable isnāds and that Bakkār = Bakr was assumed to have been a pupil of Wahb’s based on an incomplete chain of transmitters. The mistake would not be so easy to explain if we had to read Sharwas instead of al-Sharūd, but it is possible that this variant only emerged because one of Wahb’s pupils was a certain Abū l-Miqdām Ismāʿīl b. Sharwas al-Ṣanʿānī (IS V 397, 10ff.; Bukhārī I1 359 no. 1138; IAH I1 177 no. 597; Mīzān no. 895). One of his traditions is preserved in Ṭabarī I 778, pu. ff. (where Sharwas is once again written incorrectly as Sadūs). Ibn al-Sharūd was a Quran reciter; he had studied under Ismāʿīl b. ʿAbdallāh b. Qusṭanṭīn (ca. 100/718–170/786) in Mecca, and probably also under Shibl 10   Mīzān no. 1286. 11   Faḍl 339, 1ff. > IM 135, 15 (incorrectly al-Sharīd instead of al-Sharūd, as also in Ḥākim al-Jushamī). 12  Wakīʿ I 54, 9ff., where we also learn that he had a son named Ḥasan and a grandson named ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz. 13  Bukhārī I2 90 no. 1794; IAH I1 388 no. 1510; Mīzān no. 1286. Cf. also Qāḍī, Bishr b. Abī Kubār al-Balawī 42. 14  Fasawī III 41, 5, and 53, apu. > Mīzān no. 1285 as well as 1286. 15  P. 303, 11, and 307, 11; thus also ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ I 149 no. 185. A brother of his named ʿAbd al-Raḥmān is presumably mentioned in Sahmī, Ta‌ʾrīkh Jurjān 377, 9f. 16  Cf. Abbott, Rise of the North-Arabic Script, plate V.

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b. ʿUbād,17 and in Medina under ʿĪsā b. Wardān (d. probably around 160/777).18 He was a recognised authority in his field in Ṣanʿāʾ; we are told of a pupil he had there.19 He might have adopted his Qadarite ideas from Shibl b. ʿUbād, but then they were presumably still so widely held at that time that there was no need to adopt them. Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan b. Ātash is mentioned as well. He transmitted from Hammām b. Munabbih among others, and was a member of the abnāʾ; his grandfather still bore a Persian name.20 Other Yemeni Qadarites were active in Syria, apparently working closely with Ghaylān. The most important one was al-Waḍīn b. ʿAṭāʾ.21 4.2.2.1 Other Trends Just how strong the Qadariyya was in Yemen, and how much remained of it by the second century is difficult to say. If we are to believe Jāḥiẓ, Maʿmar b. Rāshid al-Azdī, who died in Ṣanʿāʾ in 154/770, was a Qadarite, too.1 He had moved there from Basra six or seven years before his death and transmitted Ḥasan al-Baṣrī’s Qadarite creed among other things in his K. al-jāmiʿ.2 However, the material he collected survives only in his pupil ʿAbd al-Razzāq b. Hammām al-Ṣanʿānī’s (d. 211/827) redaction,3 which shows him in a different light. The extensive Bāb al-Qadar ʿAbd al-Razzāq included in his Muṣannaf 4 contains hadiths in support of the belief in predestination as well as others that qualify or even negate

17  Cf. Ta‌ʾrīkh Ṣanʿāʾ 303, 6ff., where Suhayl should probably be corrected to read Shibl. Regarding Shibl see p. 726 above; regarding Ismāʿīl b. ʿAbdallāh b. Qusṭanṭīn cf. Ibn al-Jazarī, Ṭabaqāt I 165f. no. 771. 18   Ta‌ʾrīkh Ṣanʿāʾ 307, 4; regarding him Ibn al-Jazarī I 616 no. 2510. 19   Ta‌ʾrīkh Ṣanʿāʾ 306, pu. ff. 20  A Qadarite according to ʿUqaylī IV 57 no. 1608; Mīzān no. 7386; Mizzī, Tahdhīb al-kamāl no. 1187; TT IX 113f. no. 155. Nothing in Bukhārī I1 68 no. 156, and IAH III2 226f. no. 1252. 21  See vol.  I 92f. above. 1  Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Faḍl 344, 1> IM 139, 8f. 2  See p. 54f. above. Regarding him Faruqi, Historiography 271ff.; Qāḍī, Balawī 48ff.; Schoeler in: Der Islam 66/1989/219; Motzki in: Der Islam 68/1991/9f. and earlier. 3  In vols. X–XI of his Muṣannaf, but elsewhere, too; cf. GAS 1/290f. and 99, as well as Ḥibshī, Maṣādir 37ff. 4  Vol.  XI 111ff.

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it.5 Presumably Qadarite doctrine was not as controversial in Yemen as it was in Iraq at the time. Consequently when it comes to ʿAbd al-Razzāq, people did not note his views in this matter, but rather that he was a Shīʿite. He was thought to have been converted by the Basran Jaʿfar b. Sulaymān al-Ḍubaʿī to this denomination;6 later, he would himself convert others.7 His brother ʿAbd al-Wahhāb had the same convictions; but as he was rather less well-known, people did not look for reasons, nor did they have qualms about calling him an “extremist”. He was also a predestinarian.8 All of this shows that the ties between Yemen and Iraq were comparatively close, closer maybe than with the Hijaz. Among the scholars who travelled to Yemen were Shāfiʿī from Medina, as well as the Iraqis Yaḥyā b. Maʿīn, ʿAlī b. alMadīnī and Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal and the Persian Isḥāq b. Rāhōya.9 Shāfiʿī’s school was unable to take root for a long time; when Muqaddasī visited Yemen towards the end of the fourth century, the Ḥanafites ruled the mosques in Ṣanʿāʾ as well as Ṣaʿda.10 A century earlier the Zaydites under al-Hādī ilā l-ḥaqq had gained a foothold in the north of the country, bringing Muʿtazilite ideas with them. We do not know whether they could build on the ancient Qadarite tradition, nor whether ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Ṣanʿānī’s Shīʿism paved the way for them, but as far as we can see, al-Hādī was not opposed because he was a Qadarite or a Shīʿite, but for political reasons and because of his merciless implementation of religious law.11 Over time, Shāfiʿites and Zaydites would become the two main influences within the world of Yemeni scholarship. 5  E.g. XI 113 no. 20070; 114 no. 20072, and especially 119 no. 10086. 6  Mīzān I 409, 8ff, and II 611, –7ff.; regarding him see p. 480 above. Regarding ʿAbd al-Razzāq’s dislike of Muʿāwiya cf. Mīzān II 610, –4f. 7  Kohlberg in: JSAI 7/1986/146f. He allegedly transmitted Qays al-Hilālī’s aṣl from Maʿmar b. Rāshid (Nuʿmānī, Ghayba 68ff. no. 8–12/245ff.; cf. GAS 1/525f.). Regarding his legal sources cf. esp. H. Motzki, Die Anfänge der islamischen Jurisprudenz, p. 56ff.; a preliminary summary in: JNES 50/1991/1ff. 8  Regarding him cf. ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ III 74f. no. 1039; Mīzān no. 5329; Lisān al-Mīzān IV 93f. no. 174. 9  Qāḍī, Balawī 45ff.; regarding Shāfiʿī cf. ead., Riḥlat al-Shāfiʿī ilā l-Yaman bayna l-usṭūra walwāqiʿ, in: Festschrift Ghul 127ff. 10   Aḥsan al-taqāsīm 96, 6; in more detail Halm, Ausbreitung 270ff. 11  Cf. D. Th. Gochenour, The Penetration of Zaidi Islam into Early Medieval Yemen (PhD Harvard 1984). The author explains the Zaydites’ success as being mainly due to their being able to transcend the traditional tribal structures. Interestingly, besides numerous coins al-Hādī ilā l-ḥaqq had minted in Ṣaʿda, there is also one from Ṣanʿāʾ; it is being kept in the Tübingen coin collection.

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4.2.2 Oman and Ḥaḍramawt The intellectual history of the regions of Oman and Ḥaḍramawt would be even more difficult to write than that of the Yemen. However, with regard to the time under discussion here, at least we now have access to texts on which we can draw.1 Initial studies have also been undertaken.2 The texts are of Ibāḍite origin; they are our only source for the information that there were at times members of other “denominations” in this corner of the Islamic world as well.3 Their focus is entirely on political theory, the question of imāma; there is not much information on theology as such. It is also noticeable that they include barely any quotations from the early Basran period; it seems that in Oman the Ibāḍiyya felt much less culturally dependent than in the Maghreb. The reason for this was that the Basran community had originally come from Oman, and later merely returned to its homeland.4 Furthermore the Southern Arabian Ibāḍiyya had achieved political independence early on under the pretender Ṭālib al-ḥaqq, a member of the Kinda, who moved against Ṣanʿāʾ from Ḥaḍramawt and finally captured the holy places in the Hijaz.5 In Yemen, there had been a split at the very beginning, when Ṭālib al-ḥaqq was reluctant to let a certain ʿAbdallāh b. Ṭarīf, who served in his army, marry his daughter, because he was only a mawlā. This was not only a personal insult, but also in clear contradiction to the officially proclaimed egalitarian principles.6 The dissension was apparently fuelled by the fact that the Ṣufrites had earlier spread through Yemen; the tribes who adhered to their doctrine would only later convert to the Ibāḍiyya.7 A Nukkārite, a certain Hārūn b. al-Yamān, also found followers

1  Al-siyar wal-jawābāt li-ʿulamāʾ wa-a‌ʾimmat ʿUmān, ed. Sayyida Ismāʿīl Kāshif, I (Cairo 1406/1986). 2   Especially J. C. Wilkinson’s studies, e.g. his book The Imamate Tradition of Oman (Cambridge 1987); cf. also W. Rotholz’ essay in: Orient 27/2986/206ff., and S. I. Kāshif’s booklet ʿUmān fī fajr al-Islām (Cairo [1399/1979]). A traditional interpretation may be found in Sālim b. Ḥammūd al-Sayyābī, Al-ḥaqīqa wal-majāz fī ta‌ʾrīkh al-Ibāḍiyya bil-Yaman wal-Ḥijāz (Oman 1980). 3  See p. 237 above. Lewicki studied the geographical distribution of the Ibāḍiyya in Southern Arabia in: FO 1/1959/12ff. 4  See p. 2 and 231f. above. 5  See p. 736f. above; also Wellhausen, Oppositionsparteien 51ff., and Madʾaj, The Yemen in early Islam 164ff. 6  Al-siyar wal-jawābāt I 209, apu. ff. Wilkinson, Imamate Tradition 342, n. 13, stood the facts on their head; in addition Wilkinson reads Ṭurayf instead of Ṭarīf for reasons unknown to me. Cf. also Lewicki, loc. cit. 15. 7  Al-Nāṣir li-dīn Allāh, Najāt 56, 2ff.; also Madelung in the introduction 5, n. 10a.

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here;8 while ʿAbdallāh b. Yazīd, who was believed to follow the same doctrine, retired in the region.9 Ibāḍites who were determinists like him ruled the region around Ḥajja until the beginning of the fourth/tenth century.10 These early interdenominational quarrels do not appear to have played a part in Oman and Ḥaḍramawt, where it was the political disagreements that were incisive; at every change of power, letters containing recriminations and justifications travelled back and forth.11 It was admitted that the theological impulses originated in Basra. The ḥamalat al-ʿilm who had swarmed forth from there at the time of Abū ʿUbayda al-Tamīmī had also gone to Oman; ʿAwtabī was still able to list their names.12 They do not tell us much; the only one with whom we are acquainted more closely is Rabīʿ b. Ḥabīb. As we have seen,13 he moved back to Oman for good at the end of his life. A close friend of his, Abū Ayyūb Wāʾil b. Ayyūb al-Ḥaḍramī, took the same step,14 “debating” with a Muʿtazilite in Oman15 and joining in the public debate with his Sīra.16 Another Sīra was composed by one of Rabīʿ’s pupils named Munīr b. al-Nayyir al-Jaʿlānī; it was a missive dealing with matters of history and political philosophy for the imam Ghassān b. ʿAbdallāh alYaḥmūdī who reigned from 192/808–207/822–23.17 The most influential man among those following Rabīʿ was Abū Sufyān Maḥbūb b. al-Raḥīl.18 He lived in Basra, and raised his voice when Hārūn b. al-Yamān and his Nukkārite views came to the fore in Southern Arabia; two letters he sent to Oman and to Ḥaḍramawt are still extant today.19 Hārūn in his turn complained about him, also in writing, to the imam al-Muhannā b. Jayfar (r. 226/840–237/851).20 Maḥbūb’s son Muḥammad (d. 260/874)21 also commented on theological 8  See p. 244 above. 9  See vol.  I 477f. above. 10  Lahjī, Sīrat al-Nāṣir li-dīn Allāh 9, 12ff. Madelung. It seems that they wrote in a particular duct (ibid. 10, –5f.). 11  Regarding the tribal organisation in Oman cf. Wilkinson, Imamate Tradition 73ff. 12  F. ʿUmar, Al-khalīj al-ʿarabī 115; cf. also ibid. 181. 13  See p. 230 above. 14  Regarding him see Darjīnī 278, 1ff., and Shammākhī 105, 7ff. 15  See p. 237 above. This designation might also refer to a Basran Murjiʾite; the ‘Ghaylāniyya’ may have taken roots in Oman (ibid. n. 38). 16  Noted by Wilkinson in: Arabian Studies 4/1978/193. 17   Al-siyar wal-jawābāt I 233ff. Regarding Munīr b. al-Nayyir cf. Sayyābī, Izālat al-waʿthāʾ 43f. 18  Regarding him see p. 232 above. 19   Siyar 276ff. and 308ff.; regarding the controversy see p. 244 above. 20  Ibid.  325ff. 21  Regarding the date cf. ibid. 268, n. 2.

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CHAPTER 4

matters with great authority; he appears to have lived in Oman all the time, where he transmitted Rabīʿ b. Ḥabīb’s Musnad from his father.22 However, when he declared in a circle of scholars that the Quran was created, he met with criticism and had to recant publicly;23 it is likely that he believed in the createdness of the names of God and drew the until then customary conclusion.24 The majority of scholars believed that it was better not to touch on this topic, as it had no basis in the Quran.25 Of his two sons Abū l-Mundhir Bashīr and Abū Muḥammad ʿAbdallāh, the former wrote a K. al-muḥāraba which was seventy “volumes” long.26 Even at the end of the fourth/tenth century Muqaddasī noted the influence of his teachings in the al-Maʿāfir area.27 In 237/851, Muḥammad b. Maḥbūb had paid homage to al-Ṣalt b. Mālik al-Kharūṣī28 who had taken over the imamate as Muhannā b. Jayfar’s successor. He lived to a high old age and lost the position only in 272/886, possibly because the duties of office became too much for him.29 This event caused uproar in the community; people had to come to terms with the question of whether an oath of allegiance, and with it the walāya, could be annulled at all.30 Abū l-Muʾaththir al-Ṣalt b. Khamīs discussed this issue in two lengthy treatises, one K. al-aḥdāth wal-ṣifāt and one K. al-bayān wal-burhān;31 a certain Abū Qaḥṭān Khālid b. Qaḥṭān argued against him.32 The latter in particular adduced numerous examples from history. Abū l-Muʾaththir also wrote on 22  Bishr b. Ghānim, Al-mudawwana al-kubrā II 306, 2. 23   Khamīs b. Saʿīd al-Shaqaṣī, Manhaj al-ṭālibīn I 204, –4ff.; cf. Wilkinson in: Ar. Stud. 4/1978/193f., and Imamate Tradition 165. 24  Regarding the view he held after his “conversion” cf. Khamīs b. Saʿīd, Manhaj 212, –5ff.; regarding his image of God in general ibid. 337, pu. ff. He denied the vision of God in the afterlife and considered the literal interpretation of anthropomorphist attributes to be shirk (ibid. 348, 1f., and 393, –4ff.). Regarding the problem within the Ibāḍiyya see p. 213 above and p. 808 below. 25   Siyar I 383, –5ff. 26   Kashf al-ghumma 293, 10f., with n. 27   Aḥsan al-taqāsīm 96, 7 (read Abī l-Mundhir for Ibn al-Mundhir). Regarding al-Maʿāfir cf. EI2 V 895. 28   Siyar 25, 4f. 29  Cf. Wilkinson, Imamate Tradition 166ff. 30  Regarding the dissent cf. Kashf al-ghumma 283ff. 31   Siyar 23ff. and 155ff. Regarding him in general Kashf al-ghumma 293, 1ff.; he was blind (Khamīs b. Saʿīd, Manhaj I 622, apu. f.). 32  Regarding him see ʿUbaydilī in Kashf al-ghumma 263, n. 1; his edited treatise: Siyar 86ff. This has the simple title Sīra; regarding criticism of Abū l-Muʾaththir cf. p. 148, –7ff.

The Arabian Peninsula

799

other legal issues.33 He appears to have witnessed the Qarāmiṭa invade Oman from Bahrain and drove the imam ʿUmar b. Muḥammad b. Muṭarrif out,34 for he published a fatwā sanctioning burning down the houses of those who had joined them.35 When it came to theology, he was a true determinist; he thought that even a human’s “acquisition” (kasb) was created by God.36 We do not have a biography of him, or of other Omani scholars of the period.37 His pupil Abū l-Ḥawārī Muḥammad b. al-Ḥawārī composed a Tafsīr khamsmiʾat āya that was printed in facsimile in Beirut in 1394/1974, but this work is structured more like a legal treatise in accordance with its objective (see p. 589f. above). It does not cite any sources. The Tafsīr by this Abū l-Ḥawārī, who came from the Nazwā region, must not be confused with that by Hūd b. Muḥkim al-Hawwārī, who lived in the Maghreb during the same time (see p. 734f. above). 33   Siyar 254ff. 34  Cf. Kashf al-ghumma 278, 3ff.; this has probably no direct connection to Ibn Ḥawshab’s daʿwa (cf. Halm in: WO 12/1981/107ff.). 35   Siyar I 360, –5ff. 36  Khamīs b. Saʿīd, Manhaj I 436, 10ff. 37  A list of names, including those of a younger date, may be found in Khamīs b. Saʿīd I 621, 1ff.

CHAPTER 5

Egypt 5.0

General Preliminary Remarks

Egypt in the early Islamic period is of course a true paradise for historians of economics and administrative matters. The numerous papyri, later the material from the Cairo Geniza, offer a foundation for research that is not equalled by any other province of the Islamic ecumene.1 When it comes to the intellectual history during the pre-Fatimid era, however, unfortunately the opposite is true. The sources are scant; there is not even any poetry worth mentioning dating to the time before the Ṭūlūnids.2 For a long time the Arabs were a minority. The Islamisation of the Copts was extraordinarily slow and not without setbacks;3 it only got into its stride once several uprisings during the second century, including the last, great one under al-Ma‌ʾmūn in 214–15/829–30, had failed.4 But even if it had been as quick as the conversion of the Iranians, it would not have had the same far-reaching consequences for the theological development of Islam, for the Coptic Church did not have much to offer intellectually. Its roots were less in the cities than with the anchorites in rural areas. This rustic foundation made it particularly resilient as the fellahin were slow to relearn,5 not least because there was no incentive, as unlike in Iran, a conversion was not the surest way to social advancement. The administration continued firmly

1  Cf. G. Frantz-Murphy’s research report in: MESA Bulletin 19/1985/34ff. 2  Cf. GAS 2/651ff.; more detailed study of the surviving material by Muḥ. Kāmil Ḥusayn, Adabunā l-ʿarabī fī ʿaṣr al-wulāt 116ff. The section in CHAL II 412ff. does not refer to the early period at all. 3  For a general overview cf. Lapidus in: IOS 2/1972/248ff., and Atiya in EI2 V 90ff. s. v. Ḳibṭ; also Anawati in: Gervers/Bikhazi, Christian Communities 237ff. with reference to Arabic secondary sources. In brief also Frantz-Murphy in: JNES 40/1981/205. Cf. the conversion curve in Bulliet, Conversion 92ff. Private documents were still written in Coptic as late as the second century (W. C. Till, Die koptischen Rechtsurkunden aus Theben; Wien 1964). 4  Regarding the revolts cf. Kosei Morimoto, The Fiscal Administration of Egypt in the Early Islamic Period 145ff. Lapidus’ claim that the Copts converted en masse after 215 is due to a textual misunderstanding (cf. Friedmann in: JSAI 3/1981–2/239f.). 5  As presented very well in Crone–Cook, Hagarism 112ff.; with further material concerning the development.

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Egypt

801

in Christian hands;6 when the Fatimid al-Ḥākim attempted to change this at the beginning of the fifth century, people immediately started talking of a pogrom.7 And a convert would not be admitted to the new religious establishment, because he was not sufficiently prepared intellectually.8 This was the domain of immigrants; not all of them Arabs,9 but also some neophytes from other provinces. Iranians appear to have played a particularly important part.10 It remains for us to ask to what degree the scholarship of Christian Alexandria impressed the Muslims. After all, ʿUmar al-Kindī included a chapter on the philosophers of Antiquity in his K. faḍāʾil Miṣr, which mentions names such as Hermes, Pythagoras and Plato, but also Aratus, Hipparchus, Heron, Archimedes and Diophantus.11 This is unusual in this literary genre, and proves that people were proud of the legacy of Antiquity. The K. al-jārūf, which was included in the Corpus Ǧābirianum, is sometimes attributed to a certain Abū Saʿīd al-Miṣrī.12 The K. sirr al-khalīqa, too, which presents a Hellenizing cosmology in an old-fashioned model in Arabic,13 has been located in Egypt, as it recalls Hermetic writings in some ways.14 However, although Antiquity was refracted by a Christian medium in Egypt, it did retain very heathen traits. 6   Regarding the administration in general cf. Morimoto’s study; also Falih Hussein, Das Steuersystem in Ägypten von der arabischen Eroberung bis zur Machtergreifung der Ṭūlūniden (Heidelberg 1982). Regarding the Abbasid period see also Kennedy in: BSOAS 44/1981/32ff. 7  Cf. my study Chiliastische Erwartungen und die Versuchung der Göttlichkeit 31; also Halm in: Der Islam 63/1986/34f. 8  Bulliet, Conversion 131f. 9  Thus Bulliet, ibid. 133. 10  Cf. R. Guest in: Festschrift Browne 163ff. Regarding the development in general see U. Haarmann in: Ägypten, ed. H. Schamp, p. 122ff. 11  P. 32ff. The author is the son of the famous historian. 12  Ibn al-Nadīm, Fihrist 423, 3; also Kraus, Jābir I, p. xx. 13  Ed. by U. Weißer, Aleppo 1979; cf. the study by the same author, Das ‘Buch über das Geheimnis der Schöpfung’ von Pseudo-Apollonios von Tyana (Berlin 1980). F. Zimmermann states that this book represents an older stage of Hellenising cosmology than e.g. the so-called Theology of Aristotle, in: Pseudo-Aristotle in the Middle Ages 135. He also states that it was not a translation from the Greek but genuinely devised in Arabic, in: Medical History 25/1981/439f., as does Biesterfeldt in: WI 23–24/1983–84/544. 14  Thus G. Strohmaier in: OLZ 77/1982/121. One sign of its Egyptian origin may be that the author quotes “philosophers” from Fayyūm and Ḥulwān, among them a certain Plato who bore the sobriquet ‘the Copt’ (p. 28, 1ff.). However, we must bear in mind that north-eastern Persia and Syria have also been suggested as its place of origin (cf. Weißer, Geheimnis 9). After all, the only other reference to Plato the Copt and his colleague is by Ibn al-Dāʿī (Tabṣira 6, 1ff.); and this is clearly based on the K. al-sirr al-khalīqa, even

802

CHAPTER 5

We need only recall that the ivory sculptures of naked deities which today adorn the chancel of the Holy Roman Emperor Heinrich II in the cathedral in Aachen are agreed to be the handiwork of Coptic artists of the seventh century.15 ʿAlī’s governor found zanādiqa in Egypt some of whom openly worshipped the sun and the moon, while others claimed to be Muslims; ʿAlī ordered him to have the latter executed, but to leave the former in peace.16 Even if one regards the well-known account of the burning of the Alexandrine library as a legend, it does show that some groups considered the knowledge collected in it to be useless.17 A further factor was that Alexandria was now situated on the border and vulnerable to any attack from the sea, whether from the Byzantines or from pirates.18 The Muslims who came to occupy the garrisons probably had no particular regard for the city’s illustrious past.19 Under ʿUmar II, at the turn of the second century, the famous school of philosophy is believed to have moved to Antioch.20

though it is not mentioned explicitly. U. Rudolph has spoken in favour of its origin within “Jahmite” theology, in: Akten XIV. Kongreß UEAI Budapest. 15  Cf. H. Stern in: Ars Orientalis 1/1954/128f. 16  Ibn Abī Shayba, Muṣannaf XII 268 no. 12787. 17  Regarding the literary form of the legend cf. Goodman in CHAL I 468f.; it is documented only later. In general Furlani in: Aegyptus 5/1924/205ff.; F. Altheim, Die Araber in der Alten Welt II 27ff.; Wendel in: RAC II 241. 18  Regarding an attack of Spanish–Arab pirates on Alexandria around the turn of the third century, which led to a 13-year occupation (199/815–212/827) cf. J. Aguadé in: Boletín Asociación Esp. de Orientalistas 12/1976/159ff.; also Christides, Conquest of Crete 83ff. These “Maghrebines” are probably the perpetrators of the burning of the Alexandrine library accused by Bar Hebraeus, not the Venetians as Altheim, loc. cit., assumes. Regarding the geopolitical significance of Egypt in the early Islamic period cf. Ayalon in: Egypt and Palestine (Jerusalem 1984), p. 17ff. 19  Regarding the murābaṭa in Alexandria during the Umayyad era cf. Kindī, Quḍāt Miṣr 326, 13. 20  Thus according to Masʿūdī and the physician ʿAlī b. Riḍwān (d. 453/1061), who thus add to Fārābī’s account mentioned on p. 504, n. 17 above.

803

Egypt

5.1

Shīʿite Tendencies

The administrative centre was in any case in newly founded Fusṭāṭ, whose inhabitants were not only Copts but also other Christians and Jews who had accompanied the conquering army from Syria. The Muslims to whom lots of land (khiṭaṭ) were allocated there were initially mainly from Southern Arab tribes.1 This explains the early spread of Shīʿite ideas; there were probably links to Kufa. Sayf b. ʿUmar claimed that the Syrians did not like ʿAbdallāh b. Saba‌ʾ’s ideas and deported him to Egypt, where he captivated people by asking why Muḥammad should not return, when, after all, Jesus was going to come back to earth.2 This report is problematic for several reasons. The doctrine presented as Ibn Saba‌ʾs is not the one usually linked to him: Muḥammad has taken ʿAlī’s place.3 Early Egyptian historical tradition is not aware of these events at all,4 and Sayf b. ʿUmar appears to narrate it only to provide a reason why the Egyptians murdered ʿUthmān in the end. There is, however, Abū Zurʿa ʿAmr b. Jābir al-Ḥaḍramī whose death the Egyptian historian Ibn Yūnus dated to after 120/738, and of whom ʿAbdallāh b. Lahīʿa (ca. 96/715–174/790) was fond of saying: “He would often sit with us, and then he observed a cloud and said: That was ʿAlī who just passed us in the clouds”.5 Ibn Lahīʿa’s interpretation was apparently that Abū Zurʿa “was not quite right in the head” (ghayr ḥaṣīf), which may be merely a way of saying that Ibn Lahīʿa observed certain boundaries, as he was in fact intellectually rather close to Abū Zurʿa. He was the latter’s pupil, and like him came from a family in Ḥaḍramawt;6 if he really made this remark, it would have been most tactless of him. It is possible that Ibn Lahīʿa started circulating apocalyptic hadiths towards the end of the Umayyad era.7 He expected a mahdī of Ḥusaynid ­descent

1  Cf. Jomier in EI2 II 958 s. v. Fusṭāṭ, and Goitein, Mediterranean Society IV 12ff.; also Nagel, Alexander in der frühislamischen Volksliteratur 77ff., and Kubiak, Al-Fusṭāṭ. Its Foundation and Early Urban Development 93ff. 2  Ṭabarī I 2942, 1ff. This is probably not a reference to the resurrection, but to Jesus’ return before the Last Judgment; the text says yarjiʿu rather than rajaʿa, thus locating the event in the future. 3  See vol.  I 330f. above. 4  Maqrīzī, Khiṭaṭ II 334, 25ff., is probably dependent on Ṭabarī. 5  T T VIII 11 no. 13; ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ III 263 no. 1269; Dhahabī, Ta‌ʾrīkh V 113, –4ff., and Mīzān no. 6341. Regarding him also Khalīfa, Ṭab. 760 no. 2788; Bukhārī III2 319 no. 2515; IAH III1 223f. no. 1240. 6  ʿUqaylī, Ḍuʿafāʾ II 293ff. no. 867. 7  Cf. the material collected by Madelung in SI 63/1986/30ff.

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CHAPTER 5

to unfurl the black banners in the east;8 he claimed to have heard similar words from Abū Zurʿa.9 This does not seem to have caused any outrage, as he was appointed qāḍī of Egypt in 155/770, on the order of al-Manṣūr from Baghdad.10 His tashayyuʿ was well-known;11 he was said to have expressed regret at never having made the pilgrimage to Ḥusayn’s grave.12 The Heidelberg papyrus scroll in which his hadith is written down without any attempt at arranging the contents according to subject matter, contains only general fitna traditions, albeit in comparatively large numbers. Cf. R. G. Khoury, ʿAbd Allāh Ibn Lahīʿa (97–174/715–790): juge et grand maître de l’école égyptienne (Wiesbaden 1986); esp. p. 50f. regarding his tashayyuʿ. Later Egyptian historians such as Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam, Kindī etc. quoted him frequently (cf. the references ibid. 72ff.). His gravestone is still preserved (cf. RCEA I 42f. no. 55). Regarding him in general see also GAS 1/94, Khoury in: Arabica 22/1975/6ff., and Boiko, Arabskaja istoričeskaja literatura v Egipte 86ff. In the 1980s the hypothesis was advanced that the caliph found him a good candidate because among his apocalyptic hadiths were some traditions expressing an Abbasid tendency,13 but it is not necessary to suspect him of quite so much inconsistency or opportunism; all Manṣūr required may have been that Ibn Lahīʿa, being a follower of the Ḥusaynids, should have no sympathy for al-Nafs al-zakiyya. One of Muḥammad b. ʿAbdallāh’s son’s had travelled to Egypt together with a dāʿī named Khālid b. Saʿīd al-Ṣadafī in order to drum up support for his cause, but the governor had quickly suppressed the troublemakers. In order to prevent a relapse, al-Manṣūr had had the head of al-Nafs al-zakiyya’s brother Ibrāhīm sent by post from Basra to Egypt, where it was displayed on the walls of the ʿAmr mosque in Fusṭāṭ.14 Even so, the support 8  Madelung in EI2 V 1234a. I believe Madelung’s chronology to be rather too late. 9  Fasawī II 497, 11ff. 10  IKh III 38, 9ff.; Ibn Ḥajar, Rafʿ al-iṣr 288, –7ff. It is not entirely true that he was the first qāḍī appointed from the outside, i.e. directly by the caliph, as both texts claim (cf. Abbott, Papyri II 123, n. 19; Khoury in: JNES 40/1981/201, n. 66). 11  Cf. Mīzān II 483, 3f. (after Ibn ʿAdī); F. Rosenthal in EI2 III 853. Cf. the hadiths given in Suyūṭī, La‌ʾālī I 375, –8ff., and 388, –6ff. 12  Shajarī, Faḍl ziyārat al-Ḥusayn 73, 7ff. 13  M. Q. Zaman in: Isl. Quarterly 32/1988/236ff. 14  Maqrīzī, Khiṭaṭ II 338, 25ff.; cf. also Muḥ. Kāmil Ḥusayn in: Isl. Res. Ass. Misc. 1/1948/78.

Egypt

805

of the population remained quite strong. Shāfiʿī paid homage to the imam Yaḥyā b. ʿAbdallāh;15 some verses from his pen praising the ahl al-bayt survive to this day.16 He was said to have been imprisoned in Iraq once because of his Shīʿite ideas; after all, he came from a Hāshimid family. When, one generation later, the preacher Qāsim b. Ibrāhīm al-Rassī travelled around the country he gained so much respect that al-Ma‌ʾmūn sent a spy to ʿAbdallāh b. Ṭāhir’s house when the latter visited Egypt in 211/826. The spy’s task was to test ʿAbdallāh by inviting him to pay homage to Qāsim.17 The Zaydite image of history also seems to have informed the works of Yaḥyā b. ʿUthmān al-Sahmī (d. 282/895), an early local historian on whom Kindī relied frequently as well as on ʿAbdallāh b. Lahīʿa.18 Traces of Shīʿite reimagining are finally found in the stories around Alexander the Great which, despite now being linked to the Quranic Dhū l-qarnayn, probably still awakened feelings of local patriotism; at the same time they acquired a clearly Southern Arabian style.19 The veneration of Sayyida Nafīsa, the daughter of Ḥasan b. Zayd and wife of Isḥāq b. Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq, who died in 208/823, should have been a clear sign of Shīʿite popular piety. The population appears to have called for her body not to be transferred to Medina (Maqrīzī, Khiṭaṭ II 441, –10ff.; after him M. K. Ḥusayn in: IRA Misc. 91). However, legend must be separated from reality first. Her tomb was not erected until the Fāṭimid era (D. Russell in: Ars Islamica 6/1939/168ff.). Regarding her cf. EI1 III 893; regarding her father Ḥasan b. Zayd see p. 746 and 765f. above.

15   H W 660a s. n. S̲h̲āfiʿī; cf. Muḥ. Kāmil Ḥusayn, Fī adab Miṣr al-Fāṭimiyya 12ff. Regarding Yaḥyā b. ʿAbdallāh see p. 534f. and ch. C 1.4.1 above. 16  Cf. Muḥ. Kāmil Ḥusayn in: IRA Misc. 1/1948/81f. 17  Ṭabarī III 1094, 8ff./transl. Bosworth 169ff.; cf. also Ṭayfūr, K. Baghdād 146, 1ff./79, 11ff. 18  Regarding him see GAS 1/356, and Boiko, Arabskaja istoričeskaja literatura 28ff. 19  Nagel, Alexander der Große 77ff. and 101ff. Information on the founding of Alexandria may be found in Masʿūdī, Ṭabarī, and other authors (cf. Shboul, Al-Masʿūdī and his World 116f. and the literature cited there).

806 5.2

CHAPTER 5

Counter-Trends. The Ibāḍiyya

There had been counter-forces from the very first. From the governorship of ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Marwān (66/685–85/704), who governed the country on behalf of his brother ʿAbd al-Malik, onwards the Umayyads had tried to keep the Southern Arabs in check by settling Qaysites in Egypt; these newcomers spread mainly in the countryside.1 Abū Sālim al-Jayshānī, a contemporary of Abū Zurʿa al-Ḥaḍramī’s and a Shīʿite, too, lamented the fact that most Egyptians were ʿUthmānites;2 he circulated a hadith in which the prophet warned that the “settlers” (ahl al-ḥaḍar) might “devour” the Copts.3 Yazīd b. Abī Ḥabīb (d. 128/745), a Nubian from Dongola, reported that he had to talk his parents, who worshipped ʿAlī, out of these beliefs,4 boasting furthermore of having converted the entire country – which had been ʿAlid in his youth – to the ʿUthmāniyya.5 He narrated a fantastic story of an apple given to the prophet in paradise from which a houri emerged claiming to be destined for the “martyr” ʿUthmān.6 Yazīd was an influential man. He was said to have been the first to introduce the study of legal traditions, the knowledge of “permitted and prohibited” in Egypt.7 He was also a historian; Ibn Isḥāq was one of his pupils.8 The jurist Layth b. Saʿd (94/713–175/791), who also studied under him, continued the ʿUthmānite campaign.9 We would, however, like to know for how long, because when he was in his late thirties the Umayyads abdicated, and ʿUthmānite slogans were not suited to win their authors any laurels, or indeed favour with the authorities. Regarding Layth b. Saʿd cf. GAS 1/520, and EI2 V 711f. with further references; also Ḥusayn, Adabunā l-ʿarabī 47ff., Makki in: RIEIM 5/1957/174ff., and Boiko 95ff. Ibn Ḥajar wrote a monograph about him (Majmūʿat al-rasāʾil al-Munīriyya III 40ff.). He was of Iranian origin. His controversy with Mālik b. Anas is of particular interest. Mālik had emphasised the Medinan claim to leadership in the field of law in a letter; Layth rejected this and stressed his own independence. The oldest source for this we have so far is Fasawī I 687ff.; Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya adopted the correspondence 1  Yūsuf Faḍl Ḥasan, The Arabs and the Sudan 33f. 2  Dhahabī, Ta‌ʾrīkh III 318, 6f. Regarding him cf. Dawlābī, Kunā I 184, ult., and Fasawī II 464, 1. 3  Dawlābī I 185, 11ff. 4  Dhahabī, Ta‌ʾrīkh V 184, apu.; TH 129, –4ff. 5  Maqrīzī, Khiṭaṭ II 334, 23ff. 6  Suyūṭī, La‌ʾālī I 312, –7ff., and 314, 10ff.; cf. also p. 430, n. 33 above. 7  Khiṭaṭ II 332, –10f.; Dhahabī, Ta‌ʾrīkh V 185, 3f. 8  Cf. GAS 1/341f.; Khoury in: La vie du Prophète 14f. 9  T B XIII 7, 12f.

Egypt

807

from him. Cf. in detail Brunschvig in: Andalus 15/1950/379ff. = Etudes d’Islamologie II 67ff., and also Khoury in: JNES 40/1981/194ff. Regarding his continued activity in Spain cf. Makki, Ensayo 124ff. and 163ff. The ʿUthmānite opposition was dealing not only with Shīʿites. Many from among those who left Egypt in order to call ʿUthmān to reason, and ultimately murder him, probably became Khārijites later; especially those Arabs who felt socially disadvantaged would later be inclined to reject the establishment altogether. When Sufyānid rule collapsed after Yazīd b. Muʿāwiya’s death, some Khārijites from Egypt – whose names were not considered worth transmitting – turned to ʿAbdallāh b. al-Zubayr and asked him to appoint a new governor.10 This core group probably found support under ʿAbd al-Malik, when Ziyād exiled numerous Azd families from Basra to the Nile in 53/673, because they were suspected of having collaborated with Iraqi rebels.11 Not quite forty years later, in 91/710, a group of malcontents gathered by the “lighthouse of Alexandria” around a certain Muhājir b. Abī l-Muthannā al-Tujībī; the governor Qurra b. Sharīk acted quickly and had around a hundred of them imprisoned.12 They are occasionally described as Ibāḍites;13 it would be a very early record, contemporaneous with Jābir b. Zayd al-Azdī’s letters in Basra. Kindī also preserved the information that a judge was arrested in 144/761 because he corresponded with Abū l-Khaṭṭāb al-Maʿāfirī who had established an Ibāḍite imamate in Tripolitania.14 Ibāḍite tradition did not start until comparatively late; an Egyptian community was recorded in the second half of the second century.15 Around 170/787 there are reports of a jurist named Muḥammad b. ʿAbbād alMiṣrī whom the Rustamid imam ʿAbd al-Wahhāb consulted;16 Bishr b. Ghānim quoted him rather frequently.17 He was believed to have studied under Abū 10   Regarding this development cf. Hinds in: IJMES 3/1972/450ff., and Rotter, Zweiter Bürgerkrieg 153f. 11  The suwayqat al-ʿIrāqiyyīn in Fusṭāṭ was named after them (Maqrīzī, Khiṭaṭ I 298, 4f.; Ibn Duqmāq, Al-intiṣār li-wāsiṭat ʿiqd al-amṣār, Būlāq 1893, IV 34, 3f.). 12  Kindī, Wulāt Miṣr 64, 9ff. > Maqrīzī, Khiṭaṭ II 338, 13ff.; cf. also Bosworth in EI2 V 500b. 13  Thus Dhahabī, Ta‌ʾrīkh IV 47, 4ff.; although he adds that they meant to murder the governor because he drank wine and listened to music on the occasion of the topping-out ceremony for the ʿAmr mosque. This does not agree with the date given by Kindī (cf. Creswell, Early Muslim Architecture I 149f.). 14   Quḍāt Miṣr 362, 5ff.; regarding Abū l-Khaṭṭāb cf. Rebstock, Ibāḍiten im Maġrib 82ff. 15  Abū Zakariyāʾ, Siyar al-a‌ʾimma 60, 3/transl. Revue Africaine 104/1960/138; also Lewicki in EI2 III 653b. 16   Kitāb Ibn Sallām 110, 8ff. 17  Cf. Al-Mudawwana al-ṣughrā II 203, –6; 221. apu.; 223, apu., etc.; Al-mudawwana al-kubrā II 22, 10; 23, 16; 130, 6 etc.

808

CHAPTER 5

ʿUbayda al-Tamīmī in Basra.18 In the first half of the third century we find a jurist named Abū Ibrāhīm Muwaffaq who lived in the Ḥaḍramite quarter in Fusṭāṭ; Ibn Sallām (d. after 273/887) heard about him from his father.19 We also learn about a theologian: ʿĪsā b. ʿAlqama al-Miṣrī, who composed a K. al-tawḥīd. He appears to have studied under Abū l-Ḥurr al-ʿAnbarī in Mecca20 and may be identical with ʿĪsā b. Abī ʿAmr who told the historian Abū Sufyān of Abū l-Ḥurr’s arrest during Mukhtār b. ʿAwf’s coup in 139/747.21 Ṭabarī mentions one ʿĪsā b. ʿAlqama who transmitted an account on the military expedition against Byzantium led by Muʿāwiya in 31/652 to Sayf b. ʿUmar (d. during Hārūn al-Rashīd’s caliphate, i.e. before 192/809).22 This, too, might be the same man; in that case he would probably have lived in Alexandria. Shammākhī devoted a very positive, but entirely derivative, entry to him.23 Abū Sufyān’s informant, we hear, was advanced in years. ʿĪsā b. ʿAlqama would consequently have lived approximately between 100/719 and 180/796. Cuperly, however, tried to date him a century later,24 prompted in particular by everything the Ibāḍite sources said about the K. al-tawḥīd: that in this work ʿĪsā b. ʿAlqama turned on those who had denied the eternal nature of God’s attributes, comparing them to the heathen Aristotelians who also presumed a materia prima originally devoid of attributes.25 Still, this would fit in rather well with the last third of the second century. The opponents are the “Jahmites”, who are documented in Basra and Medina at least at that time,26 and the reference to Aristotle’s “Dahrite” doctrine is not really surprising in the region around Alexandria. Tawḥīd was already used in Ṭālib al-ḥaqq’s address as a 18  Shammākhī, Commentary on ʿAmr b. Jumayʿ’s ʿaqīda 72, ult. f.; regarding him cf. also Ennami in: Ibn Khalfūn, Ajwiba 108f. 19   Kitāb 115, 9ff. The same section mentions a few more names; also Shammākhī, Siyar 122, 3ff. 20  Shammākhī 102, 4ff. < Darjīnī 271, 6ff. (where ʿĪsā is misspelt as ʿAlī); cf. also Shammākhī 101, 5ff. < Darjīnī 269, –7ff. 21  Thus according to an idea of Shammākhī’s (Siyar 113, 2f.). In this case the variant ʿĪsā b. ʿUmar, transmitted for the latter (see p. 738 above), would then be incorrect. 22   Ta‌ʾrīkh I 2867, 18ff. 23   SIyar 122, –6ff., entirely after Abū ʿAmmār. 24   Introduction 70. 25  Abū ʿAmmār, Mūjaz II 189, 1ff.; quoted in brief by Shammākhī 122, pu. ff. 26  See p. 211ff. and 785 above. Regarding the discussion of asmāʾ al-ḥusnā and ṣifāt Allāh in Ibāḍite theory cf. in general Khamīs b. Saʿīd al-Shaqaṣī, Manhaj al-ṭālibīn I 205, ult. ff.

Egypt

809

political–religious slogan and symbol of Ibāḍite identity; ʿĪsā b. ʿAlqama may have been acquainted with him in his youth.27 Despite the attack on the Jahmites this certainly does not refer, as it would have done among the Shīʿites in Kufa, to the adoption of anthropomorphic ideas;28 ʿAbdallāh b. Yazīd al-Fazārī, too, had polemicised against those in the same place, in a book of the same title.29 Cuperly advances a second argument: Shammākhī himself wished to distinguish the early Meccan ʿĪsā b. ʿAlqama from the Egyptian of that name (Siyar 122, ult. ff.). However, he himself came to a halt halfway, having first considered identifying ʿĪsā b. ʿAlqama and ʿĪsā b. ʿAmr; he was probably simply disconcerted by the Egyptian’s nisba. And it is true that nothing else was known about the latter (cf. also Cuperly 183, n. 20); but it is by no means improbable that he would have left the Hijaz after the coup had failed. The uprisings that erupted under the Abbasids repeatedly found the Arabian tribes in opposition to the central power.30 Their influence was broken by alMuʿtaṣim and his successors’ decision to station Turkish troops in Egypt. This put an end to the “pensions” on which the Arabs had lived, and the distinction between Shīʿites and ʿUthmānites lost its fundamentum in re. The Southern Arabs fought against these plans. We learn of incidents; as late as 256/870 an ʿAlid in Upper Egypt expressed his displeasure.31 Of course, it was all to no avail. Al-Mutawakkil had ruled in 235/849–50 that the ʿAlids living in Fusṭāṭ were to be deported to Baghdad.32 At the time the governor had mitigated the measures, but later, pressure would increase and ended in sheer discrimination: no ʿAlid was permitted to ride a horse or to own more than one slave; he could not bear witness any more: restrictions suffered only by ahl al-dhimma elsewhere.33 27   Agh. XXIII 227, 1; cf. p. 736f. above. 28  Cf. vol.  I 409 and 423f. above. 29  Ibid. 477f. While Ennami assumes tha ʿĪsā b. ʿAlqama intended to refute him in turn (Studies in Ibāḍism 286), I do not consider this particularly likely despite the fact that ʿAbdallāh b. Yazīd was a Nukkārite. 30  Regarding the following cf. Ḥasan, Arabs and the Sudan 35ff. and n. 93; also Ḥusayn in: IRA Misc. 78ff., and Morimoto, Fiscal Administration 151ff. 31  Balawī, Sīrat Aḥmad b. Ṭūlūn 62, apu. ff. 32  Kindī, Wulāt Miṣr 198, 7ff. 33   Khiṭaṭ II 339, 12ff. Ḥusayn points out that the Sudanese troops were anything but welldisposed towards the Shīʿites (IRA Misc. 80f.). Regarding this period in general cf. S. I. Gellens’ dissertation Scholars and Travellers. The Social History of Early Muslim Egypt 217– 487/832–1094 (Columbia University 1986).

810 5.3

CHAPTER 5

Implicit Theology. Hadith

There were barely any indigenous theological movements; nearly everything was imported in one form or another. This led to some issues, which were passionately fought over elsewhere, losing a large degree of their virulence. One of these was the question of qadar. While ʿUmar al-Kindī named Ghaylān in his Faḍāʾil Miṣr as a native mutakallim,1 and the governor ʿAlī b. Sulaymān once released two Qadarites, who were members of the Quraysh, from prison,2 these two reports are isolated and difficult to interpret. The population does not seem to have shown any serious commitment. The inscription on a tombstone of the year 179/795 emphasises the predestination of good and evil;3 al-Layth b. Saʿd, Shāfiʿī, and Abū Bakr al-Ḥumaydī (d. 219/834), the author of a Musnad who accompanied Shāfiʿī to Egypt and remained there until the latter’s death,4 were of the same opinion. On the other hand, ʿUmāra b. Wathīma (d. 289/902) who, like Layth, came from an Iranian family, was able to quote obviously Qadarite traditions of Basran origin in his K. badʾ al-khalq without incurring criticism, even though he was writing at a time after the miḥna had honed the sensitivity for dogmatic issues.5 The Jahmites with whom ʿĪsā b. ʿAlqama appears to have argued cannot be grasped either. The image of God was probably strongly informed by hadiths conveying popular concepts. The quṣṣāṣ lasted longest in Egypt;6 although this trend, too, was reinforced by immigrants who brought the controversies of other provinces with them. A central part was played by the traditionist Abū ʿAbdallāh Nuʿaym b. Ḥammād al-Khuzāʿī (d. 13 Jumādā I 228/17 Feb. 843). He came from eastern Iran; we have already mentioned him briefly in that context.7 He had originally been a Jahmite, but the qāḍī Abū ʿIṣma Nūḥ b. Abī Maryam, whose secretary he was in Marv, had dissuaded him from such nonsense. He did not teach anthropomorphism by any means; he was no theologian, and in Baghdad where he spent some time 1  P. 42, 7. Was this due to the fact that Ghaylān came from a Coptic family? (See vol. I 84 above). 2  Kindī, Wulāt Miṣr 131, 13ff. 3  R CEA I 43 no. 56; thus also ibid. 1 180 no. 237 regarding the year 219/834. 4  Regarding him cf. GAS 1/101. 5  Cf. E. Khoury’s edition, Wiesbaden 1978; examples see p. 71f. above. Regarding him cf. also Nagel, Qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ 157ff.; regarding the miḥna in Egypt see ch. C 3.3.4 below. 6  Cf. Pedersen in: Goldziher Memorial Volume I 233f. 7  See p. 618 and 621 above.

Egypt

811

on his way from Marv to Egypt he was noted for his thorough knowledge of inheritance law.8 The sources that list him as a mushabbih together with Muqātil b. Sulaymān or Dāwūd al-Jawāribī9 are probably generalising unduly. Still, he was altogether unrestrained when it came to hadith. Dārimī used some of this material in his Radd ʿalā l-Jahmiyya; Nuʿaym had heard the majority of the traditions from ʿAbdallāh b. al-Mubārak in Marv.10 He rejected divergent testimony: when Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad b. Abī Yaḥyā in Medina gave him a “book” that showed his “Jahmite” conviction (presumably a booklet of hadiths some of which were inferior), Nuʿaym did not use it, although he had spent a considerable sum of money on different notes by the same author in the past.11 Later, people would be greatly offended by his having spread the hadith according to which the prophet saw God in the form of a youth wearing golden sandals and sitting on the grass; they forgot that his version had at least presented it as a vision in a dream. Al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī devoted much time to the matter.12 They were probably right; after all, Nuʿaym was believed to have interpreted another hadith he transmitted to mean that God “as such”, in his essence (bi-dhātihī) descended onto his throne.13 The Egyptians, however, do not seem to have minded this. Nuʿaym met them halfway, with a K. al-fitan: they had always been fond of this genre and now, after the great Coptic uprising in the delta – at which time Nuʿaym was probably already in Egypt – these eschatological prophecies spoke even more directly to them than before.14 Nuʿaym could venture to include in his book hadiths that expressed the anticipation of an end to Abbasid rule, and thus spread them freely in his lectures. The dynasty had disappointed many a hope; it was, or so a number of these apocryphal prophetic dicta pointed out, fettered by error and unbelief.15 People had 8  TB XIII 307, 4f. 9  Ibn al-Jawzī, Talbīs Iblīs 84, 5; ShNB III 224, 7 (with Text XIV 21, commentary); Shahrastānī 143, 5/405, 2ff. 10  Cf. Dārimī, Index s. n.; also TB XIII 307, 6ff. 11  Azmi, Studies 137; cf. p. 772 and 786 above. 12   T B XIII 311, 10ff.; also Ibn al-Jawzī, Dafʿ shubhat al-tashbīh 31, –6ff.; Suyūṭī, La‌ʾālī I 28, –4ff. 13  Dhahabī, ʿUlūw 116, 2ff. after Ibn Manda; Dhahabī could hardly believe it possible. 14  Cf. J. Aguadé, Messianismus zur Zeit der frühen Abbasiden (PhD Tübingen 1979); also id., La importancia del ‘Kitab al-Fitan’ de Nuʿaym b. Ḥammād para el studio del mesianismo musulmán, in: Actas de las Jornadas de Cultura Arabe e Islámica, 1978, p. 349ff.; Nagel, Rechtleitung 253ff.; Madelung in: SI 63/1986/8ff. Ibn Ṭāwūs made good use of this book in his K. al-malāḥim wal-fitan. Nuʿaym was also the author of a K. al-ʿibāra on the interpretation of dreams, that made its way to Spain (Ibn Khayr, Fahrasa 267, 11ff.; also Aguadé in: Navicula Tubingensis, Festschrift Tovar 1ff.). 15  Aguadé 113 and 118ff.

812

CHAPTER 5

observed the civil war between Hārūn al-Rashīd’s two sons,16 and expected that someone would stand up to the distant Iraqi rulers: the Spanish Umayyads,17 a Marwānid,18 the Sufyānī.19 It was not that they had great hopes of the change; they had no illusions left. But it will have been noted with interest that it was a man from Khorasan in particular who collected this material. Consequently there is a certain consistency in Nuʿaym’s having fallen victim to the miḥna towards the end of his life, although circumstances were not as simple as they might seem. His doctrine was by no means as orthodox as one might expect: “In his view there were two Qurans. That which is on the tablet is the speech of God, but that which humans hold in hand is created”, we are told by Maslama b. al-Qāsim al-Qurṭubī (293/905–353/964), a Spanish historian who had studied in Egypt under Ṭaḥāwī and was probably well-informed.20 This was a long way from the ideas attributed to Ibn Ḥanbal; in Iraq, Ibn Kullāb and his circle came out of the miḥna reasonably well.21 Nuʿaym was simply not thinking in Iraqi categories, and to a Jahmite or Muʿtazilite it was sufficient not to believe God’s speech to be created. Nuʿaym, as we have seen, proved this e contrario: one would never, in a spontaneous prayer (istiʿādha), call upon God by his speech, if this were created; after all, one does not say “I take refuge with God by the speech of the jinn” or “of humans”.22 Also: God would not be living if he did not speak, as the living are distinguished from the dead by their actions. And as God is not created, his speech is not created – as opposed to humans, whose actions are created, because the humans themselves are created.23 We do not know whether there were further reasons for his arrest. He came from the same city as Ibn Ḥanbal’s family, from Marv, and he was a member of the same tribe as Aḥmad b. Naṣr al-Khuzāʿī who was executed under Wāthiq.24 No entanglements can be proved, and when Aḥmad b. Naṣr had himself proclaimed the leader of a coup, Nuʿaym was already dead. It is possible that he had personally angered the qāḍī who had him arrested, as the latter was a Ḥanafite, appointed by Baghdad over the heads of the Egyptians.25 Nuʿaym, 16  Ibid.  125f. 17  Ibid. 139 and 144ff. 18  Ibid.  135. 19  Ibid. 136ff. and 149ff.; cf. esp. Madelung, loc. cit. 20   T T X 462, apu. f. Regarding Maslama cf. Mīzān nor. 8528; Ziriklī, Aʿlām VIII 122. 21  See ch. C 6.1 below. 22  Bukhārī, Khalq al-afʿāl, in: ʿAqāʾid al-salaf 190, 3ff. 23  Ibid. 177, 11ff. This appears to me, at least, to be the sense of this abbreviated passage. 24  Cf. ch. C 3.3.2 and 3.3.3 below; regarding Nuʿaym’s genealogy cf. TB XIII 306, 4f. 25  In more detail ch. C 3.3.4 below.

Egypt

813

on the other hand, campaigned against Abū Ḥanīfa and his school, employing a hadith26 and some dicta by Sufyān al-Thawrī;27 this was more than unusual to anyone who came from eastern Iran. He was sent to Iraq to stand trial; he died in prison there. The chronology is not entirely free from contradictions. It was believed that Nuʿaym was arrested in 223 or 224 (TB XIII 313, 16f.). The qāḍī who arranged the arrest, on the other hand, Muḥammad b. Abī l-Layth alKhwārizmī, was not appointed until 226: the miḥna in Egypt only started with him. Furthermore Nuʿaym was said to have been imprisoned in Samarra (TB 314, 1), and Samarra, too, was founded only around 223. There are reports of people having heard hadith from him there (ibid. 306, 13). An entirely traditionist spirit, and consequently implicitly anti-Jahmite, was expressed by the K. al-zuhd composed by the “lion of the Sunna” Abū Ibrāhīm28 Asad b. Mūsā b. Ibrāhīm al-Umawī (132/749–212/827). He was the grandson of Ibrāhīm b. al-Walīd who was caliph for a brief time after Yazīd III, born in the year of the Abbasid revolution and one of the few Umayyads who escaped the massacre. He, too, was a stranger, said to have come to Egypt while fleeing the Abbasids; when he showed up in rags in Layth b. Saʿd’s lectures, the latter first of all helped him financially.29 The extant form of the book presents us with some puzzles, as it does not primarily discuss renunciation of the world (zuhd), but is a collection of traditions leading to it: descriptions of hell and of the Judgment,30 which illustrate his theological attitude. In the afterlife, humans will see God like the full moon in the night, and already during the Judgment when one faces God on one’s own.31 The scales are as real as the prophet’s intercession;32 the latter resulting in the 26   T B 307, 12ff.; also TT X 460, 11ff. Nagel, Rechtleitung 274f., attributes it differently. 27  Fasawī II 783, ult. ff., and 785, apu. ff.; also 791, 5ff. 28  Regarding the kunya cf. Ibn al-Zayyāt, Al-kawākib al-sayyāra 166, –4; also regarding his grave. 29  Cf. R. g. Khoury in: JNES 40/1981/193, and in EI2, Suppl. I 87f. His flight would later be embellished with legends; he was in fact too young to have been aware of the worst persecutions (cf. WI 18/1978/231f.). 30  New edition by R. G. Khoury, Wiesbaden 1976, p. 39ff. regarding the title and the transmission. 31  P. 72 no. 56ff.; cf. also 87 no. 96. Also p. 127 above. 32  P. 76ff. and 73ff.

814

CHAPTER 5

believers spending only a brief time in hell and then being rescued.33 However, before they can enter into paradise, they must make restitution for all their transgressions (qiṣāṣ). This even applies to the animals: a sheep that butted another one will be held accountable.34 The idea sounds Basran, and indeed two of these hadiths go back to Ḥasan al-Baṣrī via the Basran Qadarite Mubārak b. Faḍāla.35 Asad was also able to refer to Ibn Lahīʿa.35a His collection shows the degree to which even at that time hadith was imported into Egypt.36 It is all the more noticeable that he does not refer to Nuʿaym b. Ḥammād, who after all revised and emended Ibn al-Mubārak’s K. al-zuhd.37 He probably composed his work at a time when Nuʿaym had not yet arrived in Egypt. As the numerous samāʿ notes show, it was influential for centuries and widely studied among the Ḥanbalites of Damascus during the Ayyūbid era. A list of authorities and a detailed examination of the samāʿ notes may be found in Khoury, ʿAbdallāh ibn Lahīʿa 134ff. The question of how complete the text, which survives in two MSS, actually is, cannot be resolved as yet. Ibn Khayr, who refers to it in his Fahrasa, appears to be familiar with other sections as well (Khoury 40f.). Many hadiths Abū Nuʿaym quoted in his Ḥilya on Asad b. Mūsā are not found in the extant text (cf. Khoury in: SI 46/1977/95f/, and the list p. 96, n. 2). Regarding his oeuvre in general see Boiko, Arabskaja istoričeskaja literatura 123ff. Another document of significance for us is a missive Asad b. Mūsā addressed to the Mālikite jurist Asad b. al-Furāt (142/759–213/828). It shows the extent of his influence; Asad b. al-Furāt may well have been qāḍī of Qayrawān at the time.38 It also shows the line to which he adhered: he warns of “innovations”

33  P. 89 no. 100. 34  P. 88ff. no. 99–103. 35  Regarding him see p. 77 above. 35a  Cf. p. 596f. above, also regarding Muqātil b. Sulaymān. 36  Cf. Juynboll’s review in: BO 36/1979/242ff. 37  See p. 621 above. He did quote Ibn al-Mubārak himself, as is clear from Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam’s Futūḥ Miṣr (cf. Khoury, Introduction p. 41), but maybe not until later and not after his K. al-zuhd. 38  Regarding him cf. EI2 I 685, and GAS 1/467; also Khoury, Asad b. Mūsā 35f. and Muranyi, Materialien zur mālikitischen Rechtsliteratur, Index s. n. Like Nuʿaym b. Ḥammād, he came from Khorasan; he was one of the abnāʾ al-dawla (Dabbāgh, Maʿālim al-īmān II 3, pu. after Abū l-ʿArab).

Egypt

815

and recommends following the Sunna,39 striking a tone that would be frequently echoed in Egypt later. Khushaysh b. Aṣram, the author of K. al-istiqāma fī l-sunna which Malaṭī incorporated into his K. al-tanbīh wal-radd ʿalā ahl al-ahwāʾ wal-bidaʿ, died here in 253/867.40 Ismāʿīl b. Yaḥyā al-Muzanī (175/792–264/877), Shāfiʿī’s most eminent pupil, wrote a Risāla fī l-sunna in which he defended the vision of God, and described the Quran as God’s uncreated word.41 Ṭaḥāwī’s (239/853–321/933) well-known ʿaqīda continued the trend; he was a nephew of Muzanī’s and had had his earliest instruction from him.42 An intellectual history of the first Islamic centuries must mention the mystic Dhū l-Nūn (d. 245/860) in the chapter on Egypt. He, too, was a victim of the miḥna and during its later stages was sent to Iraq, where al-Mutawakkil received him in an audience in Samarra. Long before this, the Mālikite ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAbd al-Ḥakam (155/772–214/829) had criticised him for openly circulating his mysticism. All the same, we know but little about it, as he did not live in the delta but in Akhmīm in Upper Egypt, where he had his own circle. By pure coincidence some of the names are still known to us (cf. my essay in: WO 12/1981/99ff.), although we do not know what happened there, as the material that found its way into eastern sources – the only ones reporting on his teachings – has yet to be examined. Cf. Massignon, Essai 2206ff.; M. Smith in: EI2 II 242 s. n. Dhū ʼl-Nūn; A. S. Furat in: IA XIII 655f. s. n. Zünnun; Ayyad in: CHAL II 415; GAS 1/643f. His tombstone has been preserved (RCEA II 28f. no. 440). The date of his death usually given in the sources, 246/861, should be corrected in accordance with it.

39  The text is found in Ibn Waḍḍāḥ, Bidaʿ I 7 = p. 159; cf. also the introduction, p. 86 and 90. 40  Cf. Malaṭī, Intro. yāʾ; general information in GAS 1/600. 41  Copied in its entirety in Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, Ijtimāʿ al-juyūsh 72, 16ff.; not apparently noted in GAS 1/492f. We know a supporter of the khalq al-Qurʾān from that time by name, a certain Ibn al-Aṣbagh, the “leader of the Jahmiyya” in Egypt (Bayhaqī, Manāqib al-Shāfiʿī I 466, 11). 42   G AS 1/439ff.

816 5.4

CHAPTER 5

Explicit Theology. Kalām

Records of theological debates are rare; we do not even hear much about disputations with Christians.1 This may once again be due to the unsatisfactory number of available sources; we do not learn much about juristic controversies either, although Shāfiʿī began as nothing more than a dissenting Mālikite and by no means met with unanimous agreement.2 Egypt had a theological tradition; the name of ʿĪsā b. ʿAlqama stands for it, as does the fact that the Gaon Saʿadya, born in Fayyūm in 270/882, had not left Egypt by the age of 23 when he began to publish his writings.3 His theological magnum opus, the K. al-amānāt wal-iʿtiqādāt which he originally wrote in Arabic, was greatly influenced by Muʿtazilite ideas.4 It has to be admitted, on the other hand, that the number of theologians we can locate in Egypt is not large; most of those mentioned in the following are impossible to pinpoint with any certainty at all. Only one of them is documented to have spent a considerable time in the country: Ḥafṣ al-Fard. Ibn al-Nadīm seems to assume that he was Egyptian by birth,5 but the Egyptian sources do not support this. They see him as a jurist (faqīh) who immigrated – during the generation of Ibn ʿUlayya (d. 218/832), as Ibn al-Zayyāt adds in his Kawākib al-sayyāra.6 Surprisingly, they do not know anything about his name and his tribal affiliation. Ibn al-Nadīm mentions a kunya, Abū ʿAmr, but soon adds a second one, Abū Yaḥyā;7 the Egyptians do not even note this much. 1  The “amīr ʿAmr” who conducted a conversation with the Jacobite patriarch John is not in fact ʿAmr b. al-ʿĀṣ, as Nau assumed (in: JA, 11e série, 5/1915/225ff.), but a governor from Syria (cf. Graf, CGAL I 35f., and in more detail Suermann in: Zs. für Missionswissenschaft und Religions­wissenschaft  67/1983/122ff.). 2  See p. 820f. below. In general Brunschvig in: Andalus 15/1950/383ff. = Etudes d’Islamologie II 75ff. 3  Sirat, History of Jewish Philosophy 18f. 4  Cf. the information in Sirat 22f. and 416ff.; the book was composed in Iraq. What little information we have on Saʿadya’s Egyptian phase is collected in H. Malter, Saadia Gaon. His Life and Works 32ff. 5  Fihrist 229, pu. f. 6  167, 7f.; also Kindī, Faḍāʾil Miṣr 43, 1. Ibn al-Nadīm’s saying that he “was an Egyptian” (kāna min ahl Miṣr) may refer to the later years only, when Ḥafṣ did settle in Egypt. 7  Fihrist 229, pu., and 230, 1; the latter also in Ibn Ḥazm, Fiṣal III 54, 7f. In a story by Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār (Faḍl 262, 4 and 8) we even find Abū ʿUthmān.

Egypt

817

His non-Egyptian origin is supported by his studying under Abū Yūsuf:8 as an Egyptian he would not have got very far in his country with Ḥanafite law. As regards theology he fell under the influence of Ḍirār b. ʿAmr; he was his most prominent pupil and appears to have adopted large parts of his system.9 Due to the chronology it is unlikely that he was Bishr al-Marīsī’s pupil (ghulām) as well, as Suyūṭī claimed;10 Ḥafṣ may even have been the older of the two. His years of studying were probably spent in Kufa, maybe also in Baghdad, but then he came to Basra where, Ibn al-Nadīm tells us, he heard of Abū lHudhayl, met him, and debated with him. Abū l-Hudhayl emerged victorious.11 This is straightforward Muʿtazilite school tradition, stating succinctly who ruled the roost. It was not really as simple as all that. Of course Abū l-Hudhayl disapproved of everything that came from Ḍirār’s school, as it was not indeterminist enough for his liking. The debate, however, did not finish with one public discussion. Abū l-Hudhayl wrote a K. al-makhlūq ʿalā Ḥafṣ al-Fard and later a K. ʿalā Ḍirār wa-Jahm wa-Abī Ḥanīfa wa-Ḥafṣ fī-makhlūq in which he placed Ḥafṣ in a line of his spiritual forebears.12 Ḥafṣ replied – or had challenged him – with a K. al-makhlūq ʿalā Abī l-Hudhayl; he also composed Abwāb fī l-makhlūq.13 The subject was the same every time: the question of whether human actions could be created; maybe all these texts merely summarised the results of the debates in a systematic form from different points of view. Abū l-Hudhayl then went into detail concerning one particular question: he criticised Ḥafṣ because of the latter’s ideas on the past and present aspects of an action, on “he did” and “he does” (faʿala wa-yafʿalu), as he put it.14 This was probably aimed at a K. al-istiṭāʿa composed by Ḥafṣ.15 According to Muʿtazilite doctrine the faculty of action was always present in the moment before the specific action; Ḥafṣ, because of his theory of makhlūq, which was probably just as synergistic as Ḍirār’s, did not see this preparatory moment as quite so important. However, we have no information on the detail of the debate; we cannot even be entirely certain concerning the interpretation of the “grammatical” terms used in the title. 8  IAW I 223, 8. 9  Ashʿarī as well as other sources mention the two of them together a number of times (cf. Text XV 3, 19, 35, 39, 41–42, 44–45; also Khayyāṭ, Intiṣār 98, 2, and Baghdādī, Farq 202, 1f./214, pu.). 10   La‌ʾālī I 5, 4. 11   Fihrist 229, ult.; cf. p. 479 above, also 455f. 12  Cf. Catalogue of Works XXI, no. 19–20. 13  Cf. Catalogue of Works XVb, no. 3–4. Regarding the terminology see ch. C 1.3.1.3 below. 14  Catalogue of Works XXI, no. 25; cf. also Text XXI 130. 15  Catalogue of Works XVb, no. 2.

818

CHAPTER 5

We are slightly better prepared for an examination of the argument over the issue of makhlūq. While no original texts are extant in this area, either, Abū l-Hudhayl’s eight arguments were briefly noted by Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār in a passage of his Mughnī, presumably referring to one of the two books mentioned (probably the first one). The argument believed to be the most compelling one consolidated into an anecdote surviving in at least two interdependent versions.16 It is Ibn al-Nadīm’s source; his historical note is thus inferred from previously de-historicised material. The anecdote does not, of course, tell us how Ḥafṣ defended himself; he is simply playing the part of the fool. All the same, the structure of one of his opponent’s arguments seems to suggest that he tried to attack Abū l-Hudhayl’s theory that one and the same action might be good under one aspect, but evil under another;17 his own approach was similar in that human action was “created” by the human under one aspect and by God under another,18 attempting a muʿāraḍa. Another argument he may have discussed in a separate text probably belongs here, too, in some form or other: that if faith is created by humans, they appear in a more favourable light, on balance, than God, who also created pigs and monkeys (cf. Text XV 36 and Catalogue of Works XVb). We do not, however, know whether Ḥafṣ embraced this idea, which was really Ḍirār’s, unreservedly (see ch. C 1.3.1.5.1 below). Text XXI 86, r–s seems to suggest that he believed only the commandment to be created (cf. the commentary). Ḥafṣ certainly spent some time in Basra. At times he was the pupil (ghulām) of the natural philosopher Abū l-Ashʿath together with Abū Shamir, Muʿammar, and others.19 Abū l-Ashʿath probably helped him financially, too. Ḥafṣ would have been still quite young at the time. We should not date the controversy with Abū l-Hudhayl too late, either, as the latter left Basra in 204/820;20 Shāfiʿī, on the other hand, whom Ḥafṣ met in Egypt, died in that same year. As we know, he had returned to Egypt for good in 198/814.21 Consequently Ḥafṣ’ and

16  Cf. my deliberations in ZDMG 135/1984/37ff.; also Text XXI 86. Further confirmation is found in Ḥākim al-Jushamī, Risālat Iblīs 69, ult. ff. 17  Cf. ch. C 3.2.3.1.2.3 below. 18  Regarding Ḍirār see ch. C 1.3.1.3 below; in detail ZDMG, ibid. 42. 19   Fihrist 113, 18; regarding this circle see p. 42f. above. 20  See ch. C 3.2.1.1 below. 21  Regarding the chronology cf. Schacht in: Studia Orientalia J. Pedersen dicata 319.

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Abū l-Hudhayl’s scholarly argument would have taken place early in the 90s.22 This was the time when Jāḥiẓ met him, too; he quotes him in his K. al-ḥayawān, clearly without any dislike.23 When Ḥafṣ believed transforming humans into animals (maskh) possible, Jāḥiẓ recalled that his teacher al-Naẓẓām had not rejected the possibility outright, either.24 If we interpret the slightly obscure passage correctly, Ḥafṣ simply interpreted maskh as qalb, transformation; interestingly, Ashʿarī’s only text reporting an independent concept of Ḥafṣ’ deals with his theory that God even had power to transform attributes into bodies or, conversely, bodies into attributes.25 With all this in mind it is quite improbable that he “was a Muʿtazilite at first, and then embraced the createdness of actions”, as Ibn al-Nadīm has it;26 Ḥafṣ was a Ḍirārite from the first. Ibrāhīm b. Ismāʿīl b. ʿUlayya, in whose ṭabaqa Ḥafṣ arrived in Egypt, had left Iraq in 198/813–14, apparently in connection with the purge of the supporters of the khalq al-Qurʾān.27 Maybe Ḥafṣ left Basra for the same reason; maybe he left earlier in order to avoid the arguments with Abū l-Hudhayl, the local celebrity. He certainly does not seem to have played the part of the despised refugee in Egypt. Shāfiʿī received him in his house.28 His grave would be visited for centuries to come; it was near Asad b. Mūsā’s in the cemetery of the Banū Maʿāfir – a family known for their untold wealth.29 Abū Bakr al-Sijistānī (230/845–316/928), son of Abū Dāwūd and a widely travelled traditionist who had met Layth b. Saʿd’s pupils in Egypt,30 believed him to be the best ­mutakallim of his time  – he probably meant: of the non-Muʿtazilites  – honouring 22  If we assume that the encounter with Shāfiʿī took place during the latter’s first visit to Egypt between 188/804 and 195/810, we would have to push the date even further back. However, Abū l-Hudhayl was probably not yet such an important man at that time; there was also Aṣamm. Furthermore, Shāfiʿī’s first visit to Egypt is not very well documented (Schacht, ibid. 319f.). For more information see below. 23   Ḥayawān IV 25, 3ff. 24  Ibid. IV 74, 4f. and earlier; cf. Text XXII 234. 25  Text XV 49. Later this would be interpreted as meaning that human actions, which are in fact attributes, will be transformed into physical bodies at the Last Judgment in order that they may be weighed (cf. Gimaret, Ashʿarī 512 with reference to Ibn Fūrak, Mujarrad maqālāt al-Ashʿarī 172, 6ff. 26   Fihrist 229, ult. 27  See p. 476 above and ch. C 2.4 below. 28  Subkī, Ṭab. II 98, 7ff.; see below. 29  Ibn al-Zayyāt, Al-kawākib al-sayyāra 166, 17ff. Ḥafṣ’ grandson Muḥammad b. ʿAlī b. Ḥafṣ was buried there as well. 30   Mīzān no. 4368, esp. II 435, 13f. Named especially is ʿĪsā b. Ḥammūd al-Miṣrī (d. 248/862), who became an authority for Abū Bakr’s father and his Sunan (GAS 1/112f.).

820

CHAPTER 5

him above Walīd b. Abān al-Karābīsī (d. 214/829).31 Ḥafṣ probably was a success in Egypt because he had studied natural philosophy in Basra, which was the height of fashion at the time, together with Ḍirār’s atomism. We do not know if it was only now that he acquired his sobriquet al-Fard. It is more likely that he had had it from birth; it probably meant that he was the only child. Now, however, it might also be interpreted as “Ḥafṣ the unique”. Shāfiʿī seems to have been unimpressed, preferring to call him Ḥafṣ al-­Munfarid – out of awe, as only God seemed to him to deserve the description “unique”.32 Later, when Ḥafṣ’ fame had paled in comparison with Shāfiʿī’s, the remark continued to be transmitted, turning him into “Ḥafṣ the loner”. Copyists of the name – and modern editors – thought nothing of according him a further dot and preserving him for eternity as Ḥafṣ al-Qird “Ḥafṣ the monkey”.33 The anecdotes concerning his relationship with Shāfiʿī, too, always shifted the emphasis in the latter’s favour, although the narrators were not always entirely sure how best to go about it. Shāfiʿī might be presented as the better mutakallim: in the “house of Jarawī”,34 Ḥafṣ’ remark that “faith” is merely a word – i.e. the creed – “defeats” an Ibāḍite named Miṣlāq who claimed that faith could increase and decrease. Shāfiʿī, who is present, suddenly realises that he is closer to the Ibāḍite than he previously thought, takes up the thread of the debate, and overcomes Ḥafṣ in his turn.35 Or: Ḥafṣ asks ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAbd al-Ḥakam (155/772–214/829), the father of the author of Futūḥ Miṣr, and Yūsuf b. ʿAmr b. Yazīd al-Fārisī (d. 204/819 or 205/820), both Mālikites, about their views on the Quran. They evade the answer; Shāfiʿī, on the other hand, answers bluntly: the Quran is the word of God, uncreated, and Ḥafṣ is an u ­ nbeliever.36 31  See p. 496 above. 32  This interpretation is suggested by ʿAbbādī, Ṭabaqāt al-Shāfiʿiyya 55, ult. ff., who was the only one to go into the matter (cf. Der Islam 44/1968/27f.); cf. also Ibn Abī Ḥātim, Ādāb al-Shāfiʿī 194, ult. f. Regarding fard as one of God’s names cf. Gimaret, Noms divins 197ff. 33  Thus Ājurrī, Sharīʿa 81, apu.; Ibn Mattōya, Muḥīṭ in both editions (I 415, 7 ʿAzmī/I 435, 3f. Houben); Mīzān no. 2143; Subkī, Ṭabaqāt al-Shāfiʿiyya II 98, 7. 34  The Jarawī were members of a Southern Arabian clan at home, among other places, in Egypt (Samʿānī, Ansāb III 257ff. no. 882). The one in question is in all probability ʿAlī b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Jarawī, a high-ranking official whose name we know because his fortune was embezzled by the Banū ʿAbd al-Ḥakam (Kindī, Wulāt Miṣr 455, 13ff., and 462, 15ff.). Regarding this case cf. also ch. C 3.3.4 below. 35  Ibn Abī Ḥātim, Ādāb al-Shāfiʿī 192, 2ff.; Bayhaqī, Manāqib al-Shāfiʿī I 387, 5ff.; Abū Nuʿaym, Ḥilya IX 115, –9ff. 36  Ibn Abī Ḥātim 194, 4ff.; Bayhaqī I 455, 6ff.; Dhahabī, Siyar X 32, 7ff. Slightly divergent in Ājurrī, Sharīʿa 81, –5ff. A brief version in Bayhaqī I 407, 6f.; Dhahabī X 30, 12ff.; Suyūṭī, La‌ʾālī I 5, 3ff.; Lālakāʾī, Sharḥ 252f. no. 418 and 421–3.

Egypt

821

The point here is the difference between the schools, as another son of ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAbd al-Ḥakam had refuted Shāfiʿī in writing “concerning the issues on which he disagrees with the Quran and the sunna”;37 the anecdote aims to demonstrate the mediocrity of this party explicitly. Afterwards, however, the narrators remembered that kalām was not really proper, and introduced Shāfiʿī’s mother to ask the jurist Yūnus b. ʿAbd al-Aʿlā – who was considerably younger than Shāfiʿī38 – to keep her son away from Ḥafṣ.39 Shāfiʿī himself, when someone approached him concerning a theological topic, said: “Go ask Ḥafṣ al-Fard and his pupils, may God humiliate them!”40 or, still with regard to the same group: “Humans may be visited with anything God has forbidden – it is still better than kalām”.41 An intermediate version is found in an account alleged to be by Shāfiʿī’s Egyptian pupil al-Muzanī: Ḥafṣ visits Shāfiʿī, and a lively conversation ensues. Muzanī finds he does not understand anything, but Shāfiʿī tells him, it is better that way.42 The two also debated concerning legal issues,43 but above all their views of history were entirely different. Unlike Shāfiʿī, Ḥafṣ had no sympathy with ʿAlī, believing Abū Bakr to be the better man, and refusing to take sides with either party in the battle of the camel. His preference, under certain conditions, for a “Nabataean” over a Quraysh in the position of caliph was probably also disagreeable to Shāfiʿī who was a member of the latter family.44 Ḥafṣ had honed his skills in arguments with non-Muslims as well; he composed a pamphlet against the Christians (Radd ʿalā l-Naṣārā).45 There is also an account by the Zaydite al-Qāsim b. Ibrāhīm concerning a religious debate with a Copt in which Ḥafṣ played a part.46 It probably took place shortly after the turn of the century. Qāsim visited Egypt between 199/815 (or slightly earlier) and 211/826.47

37  Cf. EI2 III 674b s. n. Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam. 38   T H 527f. no. 545. 39  Bayhaqī, Manāqib al-Shāfiʿī I 204, ult. 40  Suyūṭī, Ṣawn al-manṭiq 64, 14f.; Dhahabī, Siyar X 28, ult. f. 41  Ibn Abī Ḥātim, Ādāb al-Shāfiʿī 182, 3f. and n. 2. 42  Subkī, Ṭab. II 98, 7ff. 43  ʿAbbādī, Ṭab. 28, 6ff. 44  Text XV 42; cf. also ch. C 1.3.1.6 with regard to Ḍirār. 45  Catalogue of Works XV b, no. 6. 46  Cf. the text quoted by Abrahamov in: JSAI 11/1988/32, summarised by Madelung in Qāsim 89f.; earlier referred to by Schreiner in: 18. Bericht über die Lehranstalt für die Wiss. d. Jud., p. 5, n. 3, and Strothmann in: Der Islam 19/1931/233. Interestingly, the Copt denied Christ’s godhead. Were there Judeo-Christians in Egypt? 47  Madelung  88ff.

822

CHAPTER 5

Ḥafṣ, on the other hand, probably died shortly after Shāfiʿī, as the remark by Abū Bakr al-Sijistānī quoted above confirms. Could the Egyptian tombstone listed in RCEA I 139 dated 205/820 be linked to him? In that case we would know his full name: Ḥafṣ b. Sulaymān b. Surayj al-Qurashī. He might then be identical with the Ḥafṣ b. Sulaymān named as a transmitter by Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam once (Futūḥ Miṣr 50, 12). Ḥafṣ was a Murjiʾite, as we can see from the definition of faith he maintained in conversation with the Ibāḍite Miṣlāq.48 That may have been the reason why he went to Kufa; and also why the heresiographers sometimes link him with Bishr al-Marīsī49 or with Najjār.50 In Basra he may have joined Abū Shamir and his school; his text against the Muʿtazila which Ibn al-Nadīm mentions may have been composed there.51 Like Abū Shamir he did, of course, have much in common with the Muʿtazilites. His. K. al-tawḥīd52 probably showed quite clearly that anthropomorphism was not to his liking. Even so, their relations were fundamentally disrupted. When Ibn al-Rēwandī tried to make out that he was a Muʿtazilite, he indignantly rejected the accusation, pointing out that Bishr b. al-Muʿtamir had described him as well as Ḍirār as Jahmites;53 even Jāḥiẓ, who appears to have held him in some esteem, left no doubt as to his “Jahmite” background.54 Iskāfī, too, felt the need to criticise him.55 He would seem to have had a specific reason: one of his nephews copied several of Ḥafṣ’ books.56 Clearly, they were still relevant in the second third of the third century. 5.4.1 Theologians of Uncertain Affiliation We have more than one reason to believe that Ḥafṣ was not the only Murjiʾite theologian with ties to Egypt. If we are to accept Yāqūt’s account, Bishr alMarīsī’s nisba was linked to a region of Upper Egypt; marīs being the “southern 48  See p. 820 above. 49  Ashʿarī, Maq. 515, 5ff.; cf. p. 817 above. 50  Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Mughnī VIII 273, 4f. 51  Catalogue of Works XVb, no. 5. 52  Ibid., no. 1. 53   Intiṣār 98, 2ff. 54   Ḥayawān IV 74, 4f. 55  Catalogue of Works XXIX, no. 10. 56   Fihrist 230, 1.

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district” from Coptic ma “place” and rēs “south”.1 His origins were obscured slightly by his having spent most of his time in Iraq, and by the heresiographers applying systematic rather than geographical aspects. There was, however, also a certain Abū Muʿādh al-Tūmanī to whom another sub-group of the Murjiʾa owed its existence. Ashʿarī regarded him as a Basran,2 but Samʿānī believed Tūman was a village in Egypt.3 Another group was linked to a similarly enigmatic Abū Thawbān: but the only Abū Thawbān mentioned by Dawlābī was Ḥasan b. Thawbān who was acquainted with Mufaḍḍal b. Faḍāla b. ʿUbayd alQitbānī (107/725–181/797), a pupil of the jurist Yazīd b. Abī Ḥabīb, who was qāḍī in Egypt twice for some time after 168/784–5.4 This might have been Ḥasan b. Thawbān al-Hamdānī al-Hawzanī, a Southern Arab whom Marwān II had appointed commander of the coastguard in Rosetta (thaghr Rashīd) and who died in Ramadan 145/Dec. 762.5 Abū Muʿādh al-Tūmanī and Abū Thawbān left few traces. All we know about the latter is thanks to Ashʿarī; eastern heresiographical tradition knows nothing of him, not even Kaʿbī.6 Shahrastānī’s linking a number of Iraqi Murjiʾites – and Ghaylān al-Dimashqī! – to his doctrine is simply his personal history of dogmas.7 Circumstances are similar in the case of Abū Muʿādh al-Tūmanī; once again Ashʿarī is the only one to provide independent information – more than for Abū Thawbān, in fact. Listing him among the Murjiʾites is probably copied from an earlier heresiographer; after looking at the separate families of sects, he discusses him again as the head of a separate school he cannot 1  Muʿjam al-buldān V 118a s. v. Marrīsa; also Thaʿālibī, Thimār al-qulūb 531, 9; Ibn Kathīr, Bidāya X 281,–6; IAW I 165, 9ff.; further evidence in Faḍl b. Shādhān, Īḍāḥ 309f., n. 2. Cf. also Miquel, Géographie humaine II 157f., and Munro-Hay in EI2 VI 574f. s. v. Marīs. 2  Cf. Gimaret in: JA 173/1985/243. 3  Ansāb III 111, 6; quoted by Yāqūt, Muʿjam al-buldān II 60 s. v. Samʿānī has no documentary evidence for his assumption. 4  Dawlābī, Kunā I 133, 6ff. Regarding Mufaḍḍal b. Faḍāla cf. Mīzān no. 8733; Wakīʿ, Akhbār III 237, 8ff. (regarding the date on which he took office p. 236, pu. f.); Kindī, Quḍāt Miṣr 377ff.; Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam, Futūḥ Miṣr 244, 16ff. Regarding Yazīd b. Abī Ḥabīb see p. 806 above. 5  T T II 259 no. 479; named in Kindī 13, 10f., and 307, 14; also Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ, Tartīb al-madārik I 424, 3f., with an opinion of ʿAbdallāh b. Wahb. Frequently quoted in Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam, Futūḥ Miṣr (cf. Index s. n.). 6  Regarding the interdependences cf. Text II 23, commentary. Pessagno did not see the connections in his article in: JAOS 95/1975/388ff. and consequently translates differently, arriving at a discrepancy between Ashʿarī and the later sources. In order to deal with this he then has to evolve a complicated hypothesis of the course of development. 7  P. 105, apu. ff./267, 1ff.; cf. also Gimaret, Livre des Religions 425, n. 50.

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subsume under any of the larger groups.8 In this context he links him to a certain Zuhayr al-Atharī whom he also discusses separately, and about whom we know just as little.9 Still, there appears to be more to this connection than just the necessity of classification. The two theologians had some genuine points of contact. Zuhayr, too, was a Basran in Ashʿarī’s eyes;10 Abū Muʿādh’s ideas went beyond his, but cautiously. Zuhayr was ignored by authors such as Baghdādī and Shahrastānī. While they included the two Murjiʾites in their works, they did not know what to make of him. Ibn Taymiyya mentioned him once together with Abū Muʿādh,11 as did Pazdawī.12 The latter did not have any new information, having condensed the material to fill a mere three lines. On the other hand he was not dependent on Ashʿarī as he knew that the name of Zuhayr’s father was ʿAbdallāh, and listed him and Abū Muʿādh together as Qadarites. They are probably based on a common source. In spite of some uncertainty this allows us to gather some evidence for the relative chronology. Abū Thawbān was certainly the oldest of the three; all we know of him is his definition of faith. Zuhayr appears to have been a much more comprehensive thinker; we shall see him amalgamating several trends. Abū Muʿādh reacted to him; he would have been either his pupil or a colleague debating with him. Both of them were probably only slightly younger than Ḥafṣ al-Fard, as it seems that Jaʿfar b. Mubashshir (d. 234/849) quoted their views.13 Whether Zuhayr could be located in Egypt as well cannot be determined. Abū Muʿādh might just as easily have met him somewhere in the east; Zuhayr’s teachings would fit in quite well there, and after all it was the Transoxianian Pazdawī who, besides Ashʿarī, remembered him in his work. The nisba does not help, as al-Atharī is not derived from a place but primarily tells us that its bearer attached particular importance to tradition (athar).14

8  Maq. 300, 1ff. 9  Ibid. 300, 2, and 299, 3ff. 10  Gimaret in: JA 173/1985/243. 11   Sharḥ ḥadīth al-nuzūl 154, 2f. 12   Uṣūl al-dīn 242, 4f., and 251, apu. ff. 13  In the section concerning the Quran which Ashʿarī quoted Maq. 589, 14ff. and 595, 5ff.; cf. ibid. 593, 8ff. (also Catalogue of Works XXVII, no. 12). These might, on the other hand, be insertions, as all other references in Jaʿfar are anonymous. 14  Samʿānī, Ansāb I 114, 10ff. Cf. p. 826f. and 830 below. I do not know why Daiber consistently reads Athrī (Muʿammar 177 and 239).

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Abū Thawbān (Ḥasan b. Thawbān al Hamdānī al-Hawzanī?) thought, like Faḍl al-Raqāshī, about the tension between rational knowledge and faith. He did not, however, attempt to resolve it into a chronological sequence. He did not distinguish between knowledge before the revelation and knowledge following the revelation, and he did not presuppose an a priori concept of God. He appears to have been interested in the law only. There are, he recognised, natural commandments comprehensible to the human mind. They are not part of faith; every human must observe them.15 This does not make him a believer, either; actions do not have any bearing on faith.16 Abū Muʿādh al-Tūmanī, on the other hand, regarded faith, as did Abū Shamir, as a complex structure which may be broken down into several elements (khiṣāl). His list of the elements differed slightly from Abū Shamir’s: he included ikhlāṣ, devoting oneself exclusively to God, elevated to an ideal by the mystics; it was a step further from tawḥīd which Abū Shamir valued so highly.17 Like the latter, he regarded the components mentioned as pure abstractions. It was impossible to separate them: by rejecting a single one, one would lose one’s faith. Consequently such an element must not even be called “part” of the faith.18 The act of faith is something indissoluble, “that which protects from unbelief”.19 Further correspondences abound. Like Abū Shamir Abū Muʿādh was a Qadarite,20 and was using Muʿtazilite terminology as well when he described the status of a grave sinner using the verb fasaqa. Both also tried to follow their own line that was distinct from the Muʿtazila’s: while Abū Shamir was reluctant to apply the label fāsiq to a mortal sinner in general, preferring to use it hic et nunc with reference to the respective sin,21 Abū Muʿādh wanted to use only the finite verb but not 15  Text II 23. 16  Shahrastānī 105, pu./266, 6f. 17  Thus at least according to the passage in Shahrastānī 107, 5f./271, 1ff., that has no other parallel. Gimaret points out in his translation (Livre des Religions 429) that ikhlāṣ does not occur elsewhere in Murjiʾite definitions of the faith. Regarding Abū Shamir see p. 201 above. 18  Text II 24, b–c; cf. Text II 17, d–e. 19  Text II 24, a. 20  Text II 30, k (regarding Zuhayr al-Atharī, but after what we have said above, it should apply to Abū Muʿādh). Confirmed by Pazdawī, Uṣūl al-dīn 242, 4f. 21  Text II 17, h; cf. p. 202 above.

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the participle, as the latter could too easily be understood as referring to a permanent quality. Ultimately both these positions amounted to the same thing; the believer’s status is not affected by the mortal sin. The believer remains a believer, but he has “transgressed”.22 He cannot be called “God’s friend” (walī Allāh) any more, as he is neither God’s friend nor his enemy.23 We can say that in this respect Abū Muʿādh’s view was akin to the manzila bayna l-manzilatayn. Consequently God may punish the believers for their sins, but he does observe clear guidelines. He weighs the good and the evil actions against each other, and the believers whose good deeds outweigh the evil will be rewarded with paradise, as will those whose good and evil actions are evenly balanced. In the case of those who committed too many sins God is free to decide whether he punishes them or whether he will temper justice with mercy.24 Abū Muʿādh thus committed himself more firmly than Abū Shamir,25 thinking in categories of the ethics of reward like the Muʿtazila, but the Murjiʾite influence is still present, as the punishment is eternal only for the unbelievers. Unjust actions will lead to unbelief in two sets of circumstances only: if one omits something concerning which all Muslims are agreed that the omission is evidence of unbelief,26 and if one deliberately denies rules (sharāʾiʿ). In the latter case the unbelief does not manifest itself in the actual action, which is nothing more than a simple sin, but in the consciousness of the denial which is incompatible with the act of faith. This applies even to extreme cases, if one murders or insults a prophet: the murder itself is not unbelief, but the contempt for the prophetic message it expresses.27 Someone who does not abide by a commandment merely because he thinks he does not have enough time, remains a believer; after all, he intends to fulfil his duty at some point.28 Zuhayr b. ʿAbdallāh al-Atharī had very similar views. While he did use the term fāsiq, he, too, refused to draw Muʿtazilite consequences. A grave sin will make the perpetrator fāsiq, but he

22  Text II 24, d–e. 23  Ibid., i. 24  Text II 25. 25  Regarding him cf. Text II 18. 26  He is probably referring to omitting the shahāda or the tawḥīd; cf. 24, d. 27  Text II 24, f and h. Ashʿarī later adopted this example as well as the term sharāʾiʿ (al-īmān) from him (cf. Gimaret, Ashʿarī 477); cf. ch. D 0. 28  Ibid., g.

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will remain a believer. God can punish the fāsiq, or he can forgive him,29 for while the Quran says several times that God will let certain transgressors burn in hell for eternity, he is able to “make exceptions” – and Zubayr in his Murjiʾite generosity probably assumed that he would indeed make these exceptions.30 The Quranic statements mentioned certainly do not have universal applicability, or if they do, it is impossible to verify it definitively.31 Zuhayr also developed ideas concerning the image of God. They all bear the signs of compromise. Like the Jahmites and the Muʿtazilites, he believed in God’s omnipresence, but he did not want to reject all the seemingly contradictory statements in the Quran and the prophetic tradition. God sits on his throne all the same;32 he descends to the lowest of the heavens in order to receive humans’ prayer,33 and on the latter day he “will come” in order to sit in judgment.34 Thus while he clearly moves, the place to which he moves was not devoid of God previously, either.35 It is not possible to say how this can be reconciled; Zuhayr appears to have used the bilā kayfin formula.36 It also helps in other cases, such as for instance the visio beatifica, as in the afterlife the believers will see God sitting on his throne, even though he is everywhere.37 They can see him, but do not perceive him; consequently lā tudrikuhū l-abṣār (sura 6:103) still applies.38 God is sitting on his throne, but through his dhāt he is everywhere.39 Unfortunately we do not know precisely what Zuhayr believed dhāt to be. Certainly something not as concrete as the person one sees on the throne. Even so, this person one sees but does not perceive is not a body. God cannot be delimited; he does not live in one place or touch it – not even the throne on which he sits.40 29  Text II 30, l–m. 30  Ibid., i with commentary. 31  Cf. Gimaret, Ashʿarī 524, n. 18 after Baghdādī. Abū Muʿādh was believed to share this view, but Baghdādī’s statement is rather too general. Regarding the issue see ch. C 2.5.1 and 3.2.1.3.3.1 below. 32  Ibid., a. 33  Text II 31, d; cf. the hadith al-nuzūl (p. 682 above). 34  Text II 30, e, and 31, c; cf. sura 89:22. 35  Text 31, c–d. 36  Text 30, e. 37  Text 30, b, and 31, b. 38  Cf. Gimaret, Ashʿarī 335. Abū Muʿādh agreed with this view. We must probably bear in mind that to an Arab the word adraka “to perceive” would have included the meaning of “to grasp, to get hold of”. 39  Text 30, c, and 31, a. 40  Text 30, d.

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We learn from an aside that Abū Muʿādh did not find movement offensive when postulated about God; he only insisted that it was not something affecting God from outside him, but rather subsisting within him.41 Ashʿarī’s s­ tating overall agreement between these two thinkers42 probably referred to the entire context of ideas discussed in the previous section. And it seems that this common ground went further still. What Abū Muʿādh said of movement, he applied to God’s other attributes as well: they, too, have no separate existence but inhere in God himself. He does not, however, seem to have developed a universal doctrine of the attributes, as besides God’s movement the source speaks of his words, his volition, his love, and his hatred.43 All these are activities, his ways of intervening in or relating to the world. “Love” (maḥabba) and “hatred” (bughḍ) clearly mean only that God delights in some things, such as good deeds, and abhors others, such as sin; or that he loves the ones, i.e. the believers, for their actions’ sake, and hates the others, the unbelievers; as Abū Muʿādh was not a predestinarian, these would not have been predetermined since the beginning of time. He presumes qualities that develop and change, but still inhere in God; ḥawādith, as the Karrāmites would later say.44 Zuhayr al-Atharī was once again involved in this model, which is confirmed by the fact that in the end the two of them fell out over certain details. First there was the question of how one should imagine the creation of things. They both agreed that this was an act of volition on God’s part, affirmed by him with the word of creation “be”.45 Neither the act of volition nor the word of creation are created; they both inhere in God – but the “creation” that results from them is created. How can this be reconciled? Both theologians exposed this as a conceptual misapprehension. While khalq in Quranic as well as everyday usage frequently means “that which is created”, the creation before our eyes, theologically creation must be understood to possess an infinitive aspect in the sense of “creating”; consequently it is not “created”.46 What, then, is it? Zuhayr al-Atharī thought it had been “made to happen” (muḥdath),47 something that had been inherent in God since the beginning of time and consequently not 41  Text 28, d. 42   Maq. 300, 2; thus also Pazdawī 252, 1f. 43  Text 28 and 29. 44  Cf. the deliberations in Ibn Taymiyya, Sharḥ ḥadīth al-nuzūl 153, pu. ff.; also my Ungenützte Texte zur Karrāmiyya 21 with n. 61. 45  Text 27 and 33, b. 46  Ibn Ḥazm, Fiṣal V 40, 4ff., shows that khalq is used in the Quran with either meaning; a comparison between Ashʿarī, Maq. 512, 5 and ibid. 585, 7, proves that even in theological phrases khalq may be used to mean makhlūq. 47  Text 33, c.

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created, but that enters into existence only at a particular point in time.48 Abū Muʿādh believed this term to be too precarious, presumably because the passive participle muḥdath recalled makhlūq rather too strongly, preferring to refer to the creation as an “event” (ḥadath).49 He furthermore noted that God’s volition does not end with creating things, but that there was also “willing” in the sense of “commanding” as expressed in the commandments.50 If the Quran says that God “wills” the faith, this does not mean that he creates it but rather that he commands it.51 This distinction is once again based on Qadarite reasoning. The Quran was, in fact, the second point at which the two men were not entirely of one mind, but the issue was once again the same terminological disagreement. Both had no doubt that those who had tried in the past to delimit the Quran with the conceptual pair “physical body – attribute” had chosen the wrong way. “Physical body” or “attribute” apply to created things, but the Quran, being the speech of God, cannot be created.52 It inheres in God, and when it becomes manifest it is either “made to happen”, as Zuhayr would say, or “event”, as Abū Muʿādh believed.53 The latter also examined to what degree it was possible to express this using other terms: the Quran is an “event” but not “made to happen”, and also “action” (fiʿl) but not “brought about” (mafʿūl). It was not possible, however, to say that it was “(an act of) creating” (khalq) but not “created” (makhlūq)54 – presumably because of the ambiguousness of khalq described above, but maybe also because two divine actions, speech and volition, would interfere with one another. His speech differed slightly from the other actions in any case: in the Quran, it was materially existent everywhere in the Islamic world. Consequently Zuhayr said that the Quran, while subsisting in God as God’s speech, was at the same time present in many places;55 clearly he saw a parallel with God’s omnipresence. What do we take away from all this as regards the classification of these two theologians? Besides the parallels with Abū Shamir, we also find some with Abū l-Hudhayl, most clearly in dividing the process of creation into an 48  Is this linked to his refusing to interpret the word “world” (dunyā) as meaning creation, but rather the air and the atmosphere within which things exist? (Cf. Text 32 and the context in Ashʿarī). He seems to have been on his own with this view. 49  Text 26, a. 50  Ibid., b. 51  Text 28, f. Cf. also Text XVII 52, and ch. D 4. 52  Text 29; also Maq. 593, 8. 53  Text 30, f, and 28, a; cf. Wolfson, Philosophy of the Kalam 296ff. 54  Text 28, a–b. 55  Text 30, g.

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act of volition and a speech act,56 but maybe also in the distinction between divine will as creation and as commandment. Thus it would seem that there is no way round Basra as a common point of contact; the terminus post quem being quite certainly the end of the second century. Beyond this, however, the results are sparse. There is no further evidence in favour of Egypt. In the case of Zuhayr al-Atharī, on the other hand, there is more than one indication of Iran. Ḥākim al-Jushamī names a Zuhayriyya which combined tashbīh and ʿadl, namely anthropomorphism and free will;57 they might have been followers of “our” Zuhayr, in the eastern part of the Islamic ecumene, the region Ḥākim al-Jushamī was most likely to know well. We have already mentioned points of contact with the – certainly later – Karrāmiyya;58 this also applies to the terminology. Abū Muʿādh and Zuhayr’s preferring to use the terms muḥdath or ḥadath rather than khalq and makhlūq recalls Karrāmite distinctions59 as well as the usage of Ibn Shujāʿ al-Thaljī (d. 266/880) and Dāwūd al-Iṣfahānī (d. 270/884).60 The latter name in particular points to significant clues, as according to eastern heresiographical tradition the Murjiʾa included a certain Athariyya, which appears to be the same as the Ẓāhiriyya;61 Ibn al-Jawzī would later replace it with this very name.62 Was Zuhayr al-Atharī someone, then, who not only gave in to the data (athar) transmitted in Quran and sunna when it came to the image of God, but who was in fact a true Ẓāhirite? This is at best true of his methodological approach, but he is unlikely to have been Dāwūd b. Khalaf’s pupil. In that case his dates would be so late that Abū Muʿādh al-Tūmanī, who was clearly reacting to him, would almost be Ashʿarī’s contemporary. Should we invert their relationship? Dāwūd b. Khalaf was originally a follower of Shāfiʿī: if Zuhayr al-Atharī was a member of his wider circle as well, a connection to Egypt might not be ruled out after all. The Ẓāhiriyya, too, appears to have had a base there later; otherwise its continued existence in the Maghreb, especially in Ibn Ḥazm’s works, would be hard to explain. Until further sources can be found, we shall have to leave it at non liquet. 56  See ch. C 3.2.1.3.4.4 below; also Daiber, Muʿammar 239. Unlike later Muʿtazilites Abū l-Hudhayl did not yet distinguish between attributes of act and attributes of essence (see ch. C 3.2.1.3.4.2 below). 57   Sharḥ ʿuyūn al-masāʾil I, fol. 47 b. 58  P. 828 above. 59   Ungenützte Texte 24. 60  See ch. C 6.3.2 below; also Daiber 177. 61  Abū Muṭīʿ, Radd 122, 11ff.; Tadhkirat al-madhāhib 136, 1. 62   Talbīs Iblīs 21, 11ff.

Supplementary Remarks p. 8: The owner of Bashshār b. Burd’s father, Khīra bt. Ḍamra al-Qushayriyya, was also the addressee of one of Jābir b. Zayd’s missives (no. 14); thus like many Muhallabid women she had ties to the Ibāḍiyya (cf. p. 220 and 223f. above). p. 26f.: Ibn al-Muqaffaʿs relationship with ʿĪsā b. ʿAlī and the objective of the Risāla fī l-ṣaḥāba have been studied from a new point of view by S. A. Arjomand in: Iranian Studies 27/1994/9ff.; for general information cf. also ʿAbbās Zaryāb in: GIE IV 662–80, and Urvoy, Les penseurs libres en Islam classique 29ff. p. 31f.: Concerning the autobiographical account cf. in more detail, but with the same results, F. de Blois, Burzōy’s Voyage to India and the Origin of the Book of Kalīlah wa Dimnah (London, Royal Asiatic Society 1990), p. 25ff.; regarding the trial of Dimna ibid. 14. p. 41, n. 3: The verse version of Kalīla wa-Dimna might be Bishr b. al-Muʿtamir’s (cf. vol. V 285, no. 45). It should be compared to the two fragments of Abān’s version quoted in Ṣūlī, Awrāq (Shuʿarāʾ) 46–50. p. 43: Read “ʿAbdallāh b. Maslama b. Muḥārib” instead of “Maslama b. ʿAbdallāh b. Muḥārib”; consequently the person referred to cannot be the grammarian and Quran reciter but might be his son. p. 46, n. 44: Concerning the fragment cf. also Kohlberg, Medieval Scholar 346. p. 49: Ḥasan’s expert legal opinions, or those attributed to him, have been collected by Muḥammad Rawwās Qalʿajī, Mawsūʿat fiqh al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, 1–2, Beirut 1409/1989. p. 51f.: Quotations from Ḥasan’s sermons and the paraenetic material attributed to him have been collected by Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Raḥīm Muḥammad, Al-zuhd lil-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, Cairo 1991 (especially after Ibn al-Mubārak, K. al-zuhd, and Abū Nuʿaym, Ḥilya). The same author also collected Ḥasan’s exegetic dicta, but only following Sunni sources (Tafsīr al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, 1–2, Cairo 1992). Regarding Ḥasan’s reading of the Quran see Omar Hamdan’s detailed dissertation, Die Koranlesung des Ḥasan al-Baṣrī (110/729). Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Korantextes (Tübingen 1995). – ʿAbd al-Karīm, Gilliot suggests (Arabica 40/1993/378f.), might be ʿAbd al-Karīm b. Mālik al-Jazarī who died in 127/745 (regarding him vol. I 227, n. 31 above).

832

Supplementary Remarks

p. 52: The authority’s name is probably misspelt in ʿĀnī (11, pu. f., and 12, 4f.) and should be read as Abū ʿUbayda al-Nājī al-Ḥaddād, namely Bakr b. al-Aswad al-Nājī, a Qadarite and ascetic mentioned p. 111 above. Cf., in detail, Hamdan, Koranlesung 283f., n. 5. p. 56: Interestingly, the alleged correspondence between Ḥasan al-Baṣrī and Ḥasan b. ʿAlī found its way, with some variants, into an Ibāḍite source as well; cf. Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm al-Kindī, Bayān al-sharʿ II 108f. p. 58, n. 12: Cf. the Basran ascetic Muṭarrif b. ʿAbdallāh b. al-Shikhkhīr’s polemic against “people here who claim that they would go to paradise or hell according to their own wishes” (Ḥilya II 201, 12f.). This, however, was long before the Muʿtazila, as Muṭarrif died in 95/713–14. p.  63: Regarding ʿAwf al-Aʿrabī cf. Cook in: RO  51/1994/21ff.; also Hamdan, Koranlesung 67ff. p. 66: Regarding Abū Rajāʾ al-Ḥuddānī’s Tafsīr cf. Hamdan, Koranlesung 118ff. p. 77: Besides the problematic brother al-Faraj b. Faḍāla there is another documented reliably as such, namely Abū Umayya ʿUbayd al-Raḥmān b. Faḍāla (cf. Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 2II 343 no. 2521; Muslim, Al-kunā wal-asmāʾ 83, –4; Ibn ʿAdī, Kāmil VI 2320, 15f.). p. 88f.: Like Ḥasan al-Baṣrī and ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd, Mūsā al-Uswārī read yustaʿtabūna and muʿtibīna in sura 41:24 instead of the accepted yastaʿtibūna and muʿtabīna. The resultant meaning (cf. Lane, Lexicon 1944b) emphasised the obduracy and innate sinfulness of the unbelievers and thus hinted that they are responsible for their own damnation (Ibn Jinnī, Al-muḥtasab fī tabyīn wujūh shawādhdh al-qirāʾāt, ed. ʿAlī al-Najdī Nāṣif et al., Cairo 1966–69, II 245, 9f.). p. 94f.: ʿAmr b. Fāʾid al-Uswārī read sura 7:156 as man asāʾa instead of man ashāʾu, once again in agreement with Ḥasan al-Baṣrī and ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd (Ibn Jinnī, Muḥtasab I 261, 1; regarding Ḥasan see p. 54 above). In sura 113:2 he vocalised min sharrin mā khalaq instead of min sharri mā khalaq; with the result that God did “not create” evil (Abū Ḥayyān al-Andalusī, Al-baḥr al-muḥīṭ fī tafsīr al-Qurʾān VIII 533, 9f.). p. 101, n. 30: Unlike Beck I do not believe that the Maʿānī l-Qurʾān allow the conclusion that Farrāʾ was no Qadarite (p. 189f.). Beck does not consider sufficiently whether the “determinist” passages under discussion are interpreted based on the assumption of previous human guilt.

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833

p. 108: Abū Ṭālib al-Makkī, Qūt al-qulūb, transl. Gramlich, Nahrung der Herzen III 375 (not in the printed Arabic text), mentions a K. al-zuhd by Mālik b. Dīnār; it had come down to him via Jaʿfar b. Sulaymān al-Ḍubaʿī (d. 178/784; cf. p. 480 and 795 above) and Sayyār b. Ḥātim al-ʿAnazī (d. 199/814–5 or 200/815–6; cf. TT IV 290, Mīzān no. 3628), a well-known Basran ascetic and pupil of Abū ʿĀṣim al-ʿAbbādānī’s (regarding him p. 123. above). Many quotations from this text are found in Ibn Abī Dunyā’s K. dhamm al-dunyā (ed. E. Almagor, Jerusalem 1974). While the title is not mentioned there at all, the material transmitted from Mālik b. Dīnār in these instances usually comes via Jaʿfar al-Ḍubaʿī and often also Sayyār al-ʿAnazī (cf. Index s. v. Mālik b. Dīnār). However, it does seem that Jaʿfar al-Ḍubaʿī did not meet Mālik in person; he probably received the material from his pupils. For general information cf. Gramlich, Alte Vorbilder des Sufitums I 59ff. Regarding the Māppiḷa and the Muslims in Malabar cf. A. Wink, Al-Hind. The Making of the Indo-Islamic World 70ff. p. 111: Regarding Bakr b. Aswad see supplementary remark re p. 52 above. p. 115, n. 47–48: Material concerning the ḥadīth al-ikhlāṣ may be found in Gramlich’s translation of Adab al-mulūk, p. 74f. p. 126, n. 1: Cf. the Damascus edition 1990–93, p. 757, 2f., and 887, 10f. p. 138: Most of the hadiths found in Dāwūd b. al-Muḥabbar’s K. al-ʿaql appear to have been included in the Musnad by al-Ḥārith b. Abī Usāma (d. 282/895) from Baghdad. Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī copied 30 of these to his Maṭālib al-ʿāliya bi-fawāʾid al-Masānīd al-thamāniya (ed. Ḥabīb al-Raḥmān al-Aʿẓamī, 1–4, Kuwait 1973, III 13–23); some further ones may be found in Ibn ʿArrāq al-Kinānī, Tanzīh al-sharīʿa al-marfūʿa ʿan al-akhbār al-shamīʿa al-mawḍūʿa (cf. GAL S 2/534; ed. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb ʿAbd al-Laṭīf and ʿAbdallāh Muḥammad al-Ṣiddīq, 1–2, Cairo 1378/1958) I 213ff. no. 84–117, and 225 no. 149, who agrees with Ibn Ḥajar on the whole, and quotes him. Quotations (some of them going back to ʿAbd al-Wāḥid b. Zayd via Ibn al-Muḥabbar) are also found in Ibn Bashkuwāl’s K. al-mustaghīthīn (ed. M. Marín, Madrid 1991), p. 24, 8; 97, 3; 155, 13. His works were clearly accepted among the ascetic tradition in Spain. Ibn Ḥanbal, too, approved of his K. al-ʿaql: while the isnāds were bad, the good intentions were clearly discernible (Abū Ṭālib al-Makkī, Qūt al-qulūb, transl. Gramlich III 248; not in the printed version). p. 140: 21 hadiths from Sulaymān al-Sijzī’s K. tafḍīl al-ʿaql are also found in Ibn ʿArrāq, Tanzīh al-sharīʿa I 219ff. no. 118–38.

834

Supplementary Remarks

p. 140ff.: Regarding the Basran school of law see, in brief, also Ḥumaydān b. ʿAbdallāh al-Ḥumaydān, Al-ḥaraka al-fiqhiyya fī l-Baṣra, in: al-Dāra 14/1409, issue 4/34ff; but the overview only reaches from Jābir b. Zayd to Ayyūb al-Sakhtiyānī. p. 143: Cf. also I. Bligh-Abramski’s study The Judiciary (Qāḍīs) as a GovernmentalAdministrative Tool in Early Islam, in: JESHO 35/1992/40ff., which corresponds in many respects with Dannhauer’s dissertation, although it quotes the latter once only as it focusses entirely on the primary sources. p. 185f.: Apparently the Murjiʾite Jaḥdar b. Muḥammad al-Taymī/Tamīmī was an adherent of the same doctrine (see vol. I 254 above). p. 220: There are further MSS containing Jābir b. Zayd’s rasāʾil, one of them in Masqaṭ. Based on this Aḥmad Darwīsh edited the “letter” no. 3 (Jābir b. Zayd. Ḥayāt min ajl al-ʿilm, Cairo 1991, p. 183ff.). Text 4 has been discussed in M. Naggar’s MA thesis (Tübingen 1991). Cf. also the detailed summary of the work in E. Francesca, Un contributo al problema della formazione e dello sviluppo del diritto islamico (PhD Naples 1994), p. 39ff. p. 223, n. 34: ʿUrwa b. Udayya was a brother of Mirdās b. Udayya who was indeed a Tamīm (cf. EI2 VII 123). p. 226: Ḥājib al-Ṭāʾī is mentioned as ra‌ʾs fī l-Ibāḍiyya in Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 2III 469 no. 5999; he transmitted from Jābir b. Zayd via ʿAmr b. Dīnār. Regarding this isnād cf. Cook, Early Muslim Dogma 74f., and Motzki, Anfänge 179f. p. 233f: The texts quoted by Darjīnī are corrupted and abridged in places; they will have to be collated with the parallels in Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm al-Kindī who also excerpted from Abū Sufyān Maḥbūb b. al-Raḥīl. Thus if we compare Darjīnī 243, –4ff. n. 5 with Bayān al-sharʿ II 81, 4ff., it becomes doubtful whether Ḥamza al-Kūfī really came from Kufa. The parallel version suggests the conclusion that Ḥamza was one of those who supported Ḥājib al-Ṭāʾī’s old Qadarite ideas in Basra, and that he sent to Kufa only once people in Basra stopped speaking to him (cf. 82, –6ff.). Regarding Darjīnī 276, pu. ff. in n. 15, Bayān al-sharʿ II 76, 5ff. provides the significant – and in all probability correct – variant Ḥarrān instead of Najrān; on the one hand this documents the existence of a further Ibāḍite community in the Jazīra, namely in Ḥarrān, while on the other it suggests caution when assuming a Southern Arab origin for ʿAṭiyya. p. 247: Regarding prayer “without trousers” cf. Lewinstein in: JAOS 114/1994/594, n. 99. p. 251, n. 23: Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 2II 97 no. 1682, believed him to be more reliable than ʿImrān al-Qaṭṭān, who was also a Khārijite (p. 250 above).

Supplementary Remarks

835

p. 252: Regarding a further Ibāḍite Quran reciter active at Hārūn al-Rashīd’s court see vol. IV below, end of ch. C 5.3. As late as the sixth century Silafī was battling against the qirāʾa bil-alḥān as being bidʿa (Dhahabī, Siyar XXI 25, –4ff.). p. 253: Regarding Abū ʿUbayda and the question of whether he was a Khārijite cf. Madelung in: Journal of Islamic Studies 3/1992/47ff. (a sceptical view); differently Lecker in: SI 81/1995/71ff., esp. 94ff. p. 254, n. 50: Cf. Rashed in EI2 VIII 553. – n. 60: V. Law has made the argument against Indian influence on Arabic phonetics in: Studies in the History of Arabic Grammar II 215ff.). p. 256ff.: Khalīl was a determinist, but not an anthropomorphist; when explaining the divine attribute ṣamad he quotes Ḥasan al-Baṣrī’s anti-anthropomorphic interpretations and only mentions the anthropomorphic alternative under yuqālu (cf. Mohammad-Nauman Khan, Die exegetischen Teile des Kitāb al-ʿAyn, Berlin 1994, p. 215; concerning the issue in general see vol. IV below, ch. D 1.1, n. 33). p. 259: Khārijite ʿaqāʾid are also structured according to the criteria of walāya and barāʾa. A characteristic example may be found in the supplementary remark re p. 657 below. p. 270: A further monograph on the subject is Sulaymān al-Shawāyishī, Wāṣil b. ʿAṭāʾ wa-ārāʾuhū l-kalāmiyya (Libya, Al-dār al-ʿarabiyya lil-kitāb 1993). However, it is conventional and hardly goes beyond Taftazānī’s study. p. 272: The account of the discussion between Wāṣil b. ʿAṭāʾ and Abū ʿUbayda alTamīmī to which I referred on p. 308 locates events in Mecca where Wāṣil “and his pupils” were sitting in the Masjid al-ḥarām (cf. the parallel in Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm al-Kindī, Bayān al-sharʿ II 84, –8ff.). Consequently relations with the Banū Makhzūm are less improbable. p. 273f.: Isḥāq b. Suwayd’s poem is found, including a few additional verses, in Ibn ʿAsākir, TD 46 (ʿUthmān), p. 511, 10ff. This passage also informs us that the poet tied his criticism of the heretics to praise of the first three caliphs. The transmitter, interestingly, is ʿAbd al-Wārith b. Saʿīd, who had once been ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd’s pupil (p. 367 above). p. 295: According to a tradition, albeit a problematic and tendentious one, found in al-Sharjī al-Zabīdī, Ḥasan al-Baṣrī is claimed to have been in Mecca in 100 (Ṭabaqāt alkhawāṣṣ 360, 7ff.; see also supplementary remark re p. 789f. below).

836

Supplementary Remarks

p. 308: If a Muslim account of a religious debate with Christians mentions a certain Wāṣil al-Dimashqī (cf. Griffith in: Le Muséon 103/1990/298ff.), this could only be linked to Wāṣil b. ʿAṭāʾ if the author fictitiously associated his name. p. 326f.: Regarding the correspondence between ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd and Ibn Shubruma cf. Cook in: BO 51/1994/25ff. His relations with Manṣūr are also discussed, albeit superficially, by Ṣāliḥ al-Ḥamārina in: Al-muʾarrikh al-ʿarabī 22/1982/205ff. p. 338, n. 28: Regarding this motif cf. Marzolph, Arabia ridens II 35 no. 219. It was linked not only to ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd. p. 339f.: Concerning the readings of the Quran ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd adopted from Ḥasan (which are also discussed in his Tafsīr) cf. Omar Hamdan’s dissertation (supplementary remark re p. 51f. above), p. 45ff. Hamdan also adduces further references for Sufyān b. ʿUyayna having received Ḥasan’s Tafsīr via ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd (ibid. 54f.). ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Ṣanʿānī used this riwāya. p. 342: ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd’s dividing the Quran into 360 sections followed the ḥizb practice already in widespread use at the time (cf. EI2 III 513b), although the figure is unusually high. It follows the 360 days that resulted as the mean number of solar and lunar year; in this way it was possible to recite the entire Quran in one year. Apparently ʿAmr did this in response to a request from the caliph Manṣūr who wished to learn the Quran by heart, and was also said to have instructed his son al-Mahdī in the scripture in this way. ʿAlam al-Dīn al-Sakhāwī preserved this information in his K. jamāl al-qurrāʾ, together with a precise list of the 360 points of the caesuras between the respective sections (ed. ʿAlī Ḥusayn al-Bawwāb, Mecca 1408/1987, I 163, 6ff.). It remains to be seen whether this is supported by the Chester Beatty MS. If the surrounding circumstances are correct, this sheds new light on the relationship between ʿAmr and Manṣūr (cf. p. 327ff. above). p. 347: The case of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. ʿAwf’s wife was discussed by Zuhrī as well; he makes clear where the problem lay (cf. Motzki in: Der Islam 68/1991/16). p. 363: In his Risāla ʿAdhrāʾ Ibn al-Mudabbir (or, correctly: Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad alShaybānī; cf. EI2 IX 396) transmits a definition of rhetoric from a certain Bishr b Khālid (p. 46, 5f.). p. 388: There is a text among the Qumran fragments according to which someone, presumably the “teacher of justice”, says: pārashnū mē-rōḇ ha-ʿām “we have separated from the mass of the people” (4 QMMT, l. 7).

Supplementary Remarks

837

p. 388f.: If it is true that ʿAbdallāh b. Abī Isḥāq al-Ḥaḍramī already criticised Wāṣil’s theology of compromise (regarding the fact that he accepted neither ʿAlī’s nor Ṭalḥa’s testimony, see p. 100 and 311 above), this would have had to take place before 117/735 as well, as Ibn Abī Isḥāq, like Qatāda, died in that year. However, the second grammarian named together with him, ʿĪsā b. ʿUmar al-Thaqafī, was his pupil and a generation younger. p. 393 (top of page): I overlooked the fact that miṣr has an article here. Consequently it probably does not refer to Egypt but to “the city”, i.e. Basra. O. Hamdan notes the parallel in Dhahabī, Ta‌ʾrīkh al-Islām, Ṭabaqa XIV, p. 381, 11. p. 398: Regarding ṣuḥufī cf. Azharī, Tahdhīb al-lugha I 33, –4; meaning someone who does not pay attention to oral tradition. Those who considered plural nisbas inadmissible would vocalise ṣaḥafī (cf. Lane 1655 s. v.). p. 408, n. 37: We must bear in mind that criticism was directed exclusively at the miḥrāb, not against private chapels as such. Maybe the miḥrāb had such great symbolic value that it could not be tolerated outside a public mosque. p. 456: “based some of his own ideas on Aṣamm’s” is saying rather too much. The only point of contact between the two of them was that they restricted God’s prescience (cf. p. 454 above and vol. IV below, ch. C 4.1.1.1), and we only know this thanks to a retrospective systematising remark by Shahrastānī (Text XIII 8). p. 471: Basran tradition probably also explains why Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm al-Kindī, an Ibāḍite from Oman, quotes Aṣamm as a jurist (Bayān al-sharʿ I 39, 7ff.). Here, too, the point at issue was a daring analogy: Aṣamm drew a parallel between a nosebleed and menstruation. p. 480f.: Regarding the Nāwūsiyya cf. Modarressi, Crisis and Consolidation 54ff., also n. 9 concerning Abān b. ʿUthmān al-Aḥmar. p.  487: Regarding the native Christian population (nabaṭ) of Kashkar/Wāsiṭ cf. Fiey in: MUSJ 51/1990/51ff. p. 488: Yazīd b. Hārūn had been the majordomo of Ḥasan b. Qaḥṭaba, the Abbasid general who died 181/797 (Faḍl b. Shādhān, Īḍāḥ 92, 6ff.; cf. Crone, Slaves on Horses 188). p. 494: We learn from Ibn Ḥanbal that Faḍl b. Dalham was also a poet (ʿIlal 2III 472f. no. 6017), although he is not documented as one elsewhere.

838

Supplementary Remarks

p. 497, n. 93: The account was also quoted by Dhahabī, Siyar X 548 no. 179. p. 501f.: Garth Fowden, Empire to Commonwealth (Princeton 1993), p. 62ff., writes about the Ṣābians from the point of view of the ancient historian. Briefly also G. Strohmaier in: Ibn an-Nadīm und die mittelalterliche arabische Literatur (Wiesbaden 1996), p. 51ff. Concerning the relation between ṣābiʾa and ḥunafāʾ in the Quran cf. M. Gil in: IOS 12/1992/12ff. p. 505: Pingree assumes that some of the Ṣābian rituals involving celestial bodies listed in Picatrix were recorded by the astrologer ʿUmar b. al-Farrukhān al-Ṭabarī (ca. 145/762–after 197/812), at a time when the Ḥarrānians did not yet call themselves Ṣābians (BEO 44/1992/105ff.). The name is not used by Theodore Abū Qurra either; in his Mīmar fī wujūd al-khāliq he calls them “the heathen followers of Hermes” (cf. Monnot’s translation in: RHR 128/1991/49ff., esp. p. 53). p. 511: There was also a group of Ṣābians in Ḥarrān who shaved their heads (Ibn alNadīm, Fihrist 390, 9f.). p. 518: It is worth noting that one of the bishops of Ḥarrān was named Gregory the Alchemist. He held the position from 731 to 740, i.e. during Hishām’s rule (Fiey, Pour un Oriens Christianus novus 88). p. 535: Regarding the Nawfalī family cf. Pellat in EI2 VII 1045f.; regarding ʿAlī b. Muḥammad al-Nawfalī also S. Günther, Quellenuntersuchungen zu den Maqātil alṬālibiyyīn 151f. Rosenthal’s suggestion that he was identical with another bearer of the same name is probably not tenable (Beck, L’image d’Idrīs II, p. 22f.). Regarding ʿAlī b. Ibrāhīm al-ʿAlawī cf. Günther, ibid., 141ff. Concerning events as such one may consult Aḥmad b. Sahl al-Rāzī’s (d. in the first quarter of the fourth/tenth century) Akhbār Fakhkh in M. Jarrar’s edition (Beirut 1995); cf. esp. p. 170, 9ff., and 186, 3ff. This is a Zaydite source based on a text used by Abū l-Faraj al-Iṣfahānī; consequently it regards Shammākh al-Yamāmī as the murderer. The date may be inferred as 179/795, after Harthama b. Aʿyan had become governor of the province of Ifrīqiyya (cf. the editor’s introduction p. 67f.; also his deliberations in: AS 47/1993/288ff.). p. 550: Al-Ḥusayn b. Aḥmad al-Minqarī al-Tamīmī was someone who “transmitted much from Dāwūd al-Raqqī”; Ibn Abī ʿUmayr transmitted from him in turn, and he, too, was considered “weak” (Najāshī 39, 11ff.; Ardabīlī I 233). p. 553: Material on the question of reciting the Quran in Persian may also be found in Qaffāl al-Shāshī, Ḥilyat al-ʿulamāʾ II 78, 11ff.

Supplementary Remarks

839

p. 566: Regarding Jahm’s discourse with the Sumaniyya cf. S. Pines’ detailed and much more positive study in: JSAI 17/1994/183ff. p. 574ff.: Cf. P. Crone’s response (in: Der Islam). p. 589: There is an alleged dictum by Ibn ʿAbbās on the “500 verses concerning [what is] permitted and prohibited” in Abū l-Ḥawārī, Tafsīr (see p. 799 above), fol. 1b, 6f. p. 599, n. 9: ʿAbd al-Malik practised rafʿ al-yadayn; he ordered the quṣṣāṣ to do the same, morning and evening (Maqrīzī, Khiṭaṭ II 254, 5f.). – Regarding the rejection of the practice among the Ibāḍites (p. 600) cf. also Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm al-Kindī, Bayān al-sharʿ II 151ff. p. 600ff.: Muḥammad Maḥrūs ʿAbd al-Laṭīf al-Mudarris, Mashāyikh Balkh min alḤanafiyya wa-mā nfaradū bihī min al-masāʾil al-fiqhiyya, 1–2. Baghdad 1397/1977. He also mentions the early quḍāt in the city (I 76ff.) and the ascetics (79ff.). p. 617ff.: Regarding Nūḥ b. Abī Maryam cf. Cook in: BO 51/1994/27ff. A brief ʿaqīda, which he had allegedly heard directly from Abū Ḥanīfa, is quoted in Abū Layth alSamarqandī, Bustān al-ʿārifīn 187, –9ff. p. 629: Cf. Najm al-Dīn ʿUmar al-Nasafī, Al-qand fī dhikr ʿulamāʾ Samarqand, ed. Naṣr Muḥammad al-Fāryābī; Beirut 1412/1991. p. 631ff.: Regarding Abū l-Ṣabbāḥ’s teachings cf. Abū Tammām, K. al-Shajara (ed. and trs. Madelung/Walker), p. 54ff. p. 632, n. 36: Regarding the question of whether it is permitted to eat meat slaughtered by members of the ahl al-kitāb cf. also Cook in BSOAS 47/1984/451ff. p. 633, n. 40: The passage is from E. Salamé’s edition, p. 356ff. p. 636, n. 67: Cf. Kohlberg, Medieval Scholar 347f., and M. M. Bar-Asher’s dissertation Studies in Early Imāmī-Shīʿī Qurʾān Exegesis (Jerusalem 1991). In the meantime the same edition of the book has also been printed in Beirut (1–2, 1991). The text is important because it frequently draws on old authorities such as Zurāra, Ḥumrān b. Aʿyān, Hishām al-Jawālīqī, Jamīl b. Darrāj, Salama b. Kuhayl and others. p. 642: F. Zimmermann’s article appeared in Fs. Beeston 163ff.

840

Supplementary Remarks

p. 642f.: Until the seventeenth century Farah was the Iranian customs point for trade with India (cf. St. F. Dale, Indian Merchants and Eurasian Trade, 1600–1750, Cambridge 1994, p. 38 and 52). p. 652: Cf. also vol. IV below, ch. C 4.2.1.3. p. 657f.: It is possible that it was in Ḥamza b. Ādharak’s circle or the following generation that a singular document of eastern Iranian Khārijite theology was composed which survives in Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm al-Kindī’s Bayān al-sharʿ (III 277–93), a certain Abū l-Faḍl ʿĪsā b. Furāk’s ʿaqīda. Muḥammad b. Maḥbūb b. al-Raḥīl used this text, which can be located due to the characteristic loyalty and anathema formulae that make up its second half. As it rejects the Jabriyya (p. 282, 14ff.) the author was probably an advocate of free will; he also, however, attacks the Maymūniyya, who went too far for his liking in this respect (ibid. 287, 2ff.; cf. p. 649f. above). Among the people with whom he claims to be in agreement we interestingly find a certain Shuʿayb al-Kirmānī (p. 279, –4f.), probably identical with Shuʿayb b. Muḥammad (p. 649 above) who embraced the middle course. Khalaf, Ḥamza’s predecessor, a clear determinist, is rejected (p. 293, 9; cf. p. 656f. above); whether Ḥamza himself is the Ḥamza al-Ṣādiq mentioned (p. 279, pu.) with the people with whom the author agrees, is doubtful. Also rejected are the Akhnasiyya (p. 292, –5ff.; cf. p. 654 above), the Azraqiyya (p. 284, 5ff.; cf. p. 687f. above), the Shimrākhiyya (p. 291, pu. ff.; cf. p. 698f. above); the Najdiyya (p. 285, 16ff.), the Bayhasiyya (p. 287, 11ff.; cf. 666ff. above), and the Ibāḍiyya (p. 289, 10ff.). The caliph Ma‌ʾmūn is also mentioned. The text is still awaiting a more detailed study. Cf. now my Der Eine und das Andere, Berlin 2011, vol. 1, p. 113–118. p. 664: Kindī, Bayān al-sharʿ III 423, 2ff., lists Ziyād b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān as Ziyād alAʿsam, and includes some information about his teachings. p. 684, n. 49.: The Ismaʿīlite heresiographer Abū Tammām states clearly in his K. alShajara that Ibn Karrām went to Jerusalem with more than 5,000 of his followers (ahl al-bayt, families?) as they believed to be closer to the resurrection there (cf. Walker in: Daftary [ed.], Mediaeval Ismaʿili History and Thought 169 and ed. Madelung/Walker, p. 59). p. 688: Usually Muhallab is regarded as the first person to have replaced the wooden stirrups in use until then with iron ones (cf. Viré in: EI2 IV 1145b, and Crone in: EI2 VII 357b). The passage I quoted from Jāḥiẓ is not sufficiently unambiguous. In detail on the question, with reference to circumstances in Byzantium, see I. Shahid, Byzantium and the Arabs in the Sixth Century (Washington 1995) I 572ff.

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841

p. 692: Regarding the ʿĪsawiyya cf., in brief, Lewinstein in: BSOAS 54/1991/263. Abū Tammām discusses this group, as well as the Bid(a)ʿiyya compared to it on p. 696f., in more detail but once again in different contexts (ed. Madelung/Walker 37f. and 51f.). Occasionally two prayers are referred to instead of three, which is not an error (p. 697, n. 20) but due to the fact that only daytime prayers are discussed; the night-time ṣalāt al-ʿatama was separate. p. 698f.: Regarding the Shimrākhiyya cf. Lewinstein in: JAOS 114/1994/596ff. – Ḥubbiyya generally refers to the Ṣūfīs, as confirmed by the relevant chapter in Abū Tammām (p. 66ff.). p. 699f.: Regarding the so-called Kūziyya cf. Lewinstein in: JAOS 114/1994/593ff. p. 700: Regarding the letters of ʿAbdallāh b. Muʿāwiya cf. W. al-Qāḍī in: The Byzantine and Early Islamic Near East, ed. Cameron/Conrad, I 262f. p. 706, n. 36: Regarding Abū Manṣūr al-Iṣfahānī see Pūrjawādī in several articles in: Maʿārif 5/1989–8/1991 (German summary in: Spektrum Iran 4/1991, issue 4/26ff.), as well as the addenda in Meier, Bausteine I 323. p. 711: In: SI 72/1990/67f. S. Bashear interprets fārūq as a title adopted from Judaism which was granted to ʿUmar as the anticipated Messiah. p. 714: Regarding Ibn Abī Ḥātim al-Rāzī cf. E. N. Dickinson’s dissertation The Development of Early Muslim Hadith Criticism. The Taqdima of Ibn Abī Ḥātim al-Rāzī (Yale 1992). p. 715, n. 51: H. Modarressi’s monograph has been published as Crisis and Consolidation in the Formative Period of Shīʿite Islam. Abū Jaʿfar Ibn Qiba al-Rāzī and His Contribution to Imāmite Shīʿite Thought (Princeton 1993). In accordance with native tradition Modarressi prefers the reading Ibn Qiba (rather than Ibn Qibba as in my text); he assumes an Iranian root of Qiba. Unfortunately he does not provide any details (cf. p. 117, n. 58). He has personally told me that he is considering a dialect word meaning “a cook”. p. 718: Regarding the problem of accommodation during the pilgrimage and the rents in the city cf. F. E. Peters, Jerusalem and Mecca 218 and earlier. p. 722: In vol. I 272 I said that Layth b. Abī Sulaym (d. after 140/757) died in 143/760, and vol. I 267, n. 41, that he died in 143/760 or 148/765. All three possibilities are

842

Supplementary Remarks

mentioned in TT VIII 468, 1ff., the first being the recommended one as being the most general. p. 730f.: Ibn Ḥanbal (ʿIlal 2III 260 no. 5148) tells us that all of Ibn Abī Najīḥ’s pupils were Qadarites, but not aṣḥāb kalām. The only one about whom he was not sure was Shibl b. ʿUbād. – An unreliably documented account insinuates that the Qadarite ideas were implanted from outside: when on the hajj, Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, Makḥūl and others went to meet Ṭāwūs b. Kaysān in the masjid al-khayf in Minā and debated about free will at the top of their voices; Ṭāwūs then advised them to keep quiet (Sharjī, Ṭabaqāt alkhawāṣṣ 160, 6ff.). Regarding the mosque referred to cf. Yāqūt, Muʿjam al-buldān s. v. al-Khayf. p. 732, n. 108: Thus also Ibn Bashkuwāl, K. al-Mustaghīthīn 108ff. no. 109. p. 734: Hūd b. Muḥkim’s Tafsīr has now been printed (ed. Balḥājj Ibn Saʿīd, 1–4, Beirut 1990). Concerning its contents see Gilliot in: Arabica 44/1997. p. 737: Regarding ʿAmr b. al-Ḥusayn and his poem cf. W. al-Qāḍī in: Fs. Wagner II 162ff.; 168, n. 23 also on the question of identity. p. 743, n. 46: Cf. also Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 2III 393 no. 5726. p. 756f.: Concerning the origins of the Sīra and Ibn Isḥāq’s relationship with hadith see Schoeler, Charakter und Authentie 37ff.; cf. also Muṭāʿ al-Ṭarābīshī, Ruwāt Muḥammad b. Isḥāq b. Yasār fī l-Maghāzī wal-siyar wa-sāʾir al-marwiyyāt (Damascus 1414/1994). p. 772: Regarding Ibn Dāb cf. also Pellat in EI2 III 742 s. v. Ibn Da‌ʾb, and Mujtabā/Jāmī in GIE III 475ff. p. 777, n. 48: Cf. Muranyi, ʿAbdallāh b. Wahb. Leben und Werk I 97ff. p. 782: A letter written by Ibn Abī Yaḥyā on behalf of Yaḥyā b. ʿAbdallāh has been preserved by Aḥmad b. Sahl al-Rāzī (Akhbār Fakhkh, ed. Jarrār 164, 4ff.) and by Muḥallī (cf. Madelung, Texts concerning the History of the Zaydi Imams 175, 11ff.). p. 785, n. 4: Cf. also Ibn al-Wazīr, ʿAwāṣim V 199, 12ff. p. 789f.: Of Wahb b. Munabbih it was said in Yemen, similar to Ṭāwūs b. Kaysān (see supplementary remark re p. 730f. above), that when Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, ʿIkrima and others met during the hajj and debated about qadar at that time, he cut them short (Sharjī,

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843

Ṭabaqāt al-khawāṣṣ 360, 7ff.). – The difficulties in the attribution of K. al-ḥikma are illustrated by Abū ʿUbayd’s Khuṭab wal-mawāʿiẓ (ed. R. ʿAbd al-Tawwāb, Cairo 1406/1986), which links quotations from the “wisdom” to a variety of isnāds (p. 179ff.); the same applies to the material concerning Abraham (p. 109ff.). p. 795: Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad b. Sulaymān al-Kūfī was another Shīʿite in Yemen. He was qāḍī in Ṣaʿda in the third century and composed a K. manāqib al-imām amīr almuʾminīn ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib which contains more than 1,000 hadiths. It was edited by Muḥammad Bāqir al-Maḥmūdī in Qom in 1412/1992. p. 797: An ʿaqīda by Wāʾil b. Ayyūb was included in Muḥammad b. Jaʿfar al-Azkawī’s Jāmiʿ under the title ṣifat al-Islām (I 98, pu.–115, –5). – Omani sources agree that scholarship in Oman only started when the Basran community came to an end. Among the first authorities Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm al-Kindī (late fifth/eleventh century) names Munīr b. al-Nayyir (Bayān al-sharʿ I 13, 11ff.), Abū Saʿīd al-Kudamī (late fourth/tenth century) and the slightly younger Muḥammad b. Maḥbūb b. al-Raḥīl (K. al-istiqāma I 226, –6ff.). Kindī also includes an account of Muḥammad b. Maḥbūb b. al-Raḥīl’s recanting (Bayān al-sharʿ I 154, 4ff.), which tells us that the latter thought of himself as an immigrant in Oman. He was a Wāqifite. He may previously have spent some time not only in Basra but also in Baghdad, as like Muḥammad b. Shujāʿ al-Thaljī he believed the Quran to be muḥdath but not makhlaq (see vol. IV below, ch. 6.3.2 at the end). This distinction meant nothing in Oman; consequently he was presumed to be a believer in the khalq al-Qurʾān all the same. In his book he had in fact stated clearly that in his view the Quran was neither created nor uncreated, but God’s speech and revelation (ibid. 150, 1f.). Two of his sons inquired of Abū Ṣufra b. ʿAbd al-Malik b. Ṣufra (in Basra? regarding him cf. p. 231 above) concerning the truth of the matter (ibid. 153, 10ff.); these were sons different from the two mentioned on p. 798 above. – Regarding Ibn Maḥbūb’s grandson named Saʿīd b. ʿAbdallāh cf. Kudamī, Istiqāma I 210, 8ff. Kindī, Bayān al-sharʿ I 164ff., quotes a text against the khalq al-Qurʾān by a certain ʿAzzān b. al-Ṣaqr (regarding him see also ibid. 135, –7f., and 147, 4; as the last in a line of early Ibāḍite scholars: ibid. 297, –7). p. 798: A detailed opinion by Abū l-Muʾaththir on the issue of qadar is found in Kindī, Bayān al-sharʿ I 109, 9ff. – In the case of Abū l-Ḥawārī it is noticeable that he does not quote Ibāḍite authorities; it seems that the Yemeni Ibāḍiyya did not have its own tafsīr tradition. p. 802: The Aachen ivories have been assigned an earlier date in the meantime, namely the sixth century and consequently the pre-Islamic period (E. G. Grimme, Der Dom zu Aachen. Architektur und Ausstattung, Aachen 1994, p. 114, but without further references).

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p. 805: Cf. also Y. Râgib, Al-Sayyida Nafīsa, sa légende, son culte et son cimetière in: SU 44/1976/61ff., and 45/1977/27ff. (including references to many other Shīʿite monuments and tombs). p. 810: Nuʿaym had attended Ibn Ḥanbal’s hadith lectures in Baghdad “shortly before the death of Hushaym”, probably Hushaym b. Bashīr al-Sulamī (d. 183/799; see p. 493f. above); Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿIlal 2III 437 no. 5860. Ibn Ḥanbal, who was not yet twenty at the time, regarded him as his first pupil. p. 815: Ṭaḥāwī did, however, become a Ḥanafite later.