Sonderdrucke aus der Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg

ULRICH HAARMANN

Islamic duties in history

Originalbeitrag erschienen in: The Muslim world 68 (1978), S. 1 - 24

ISLAMIC DUTIES IN HISTORY

Both the Islamic umma and the individual Muslim are governed by the divine law as revealed in the Qur'an.' Natural and positive law, religion of the individual and political legislation of the community of believers, merge indissolubly in the sharic a, the religious law of Islam. The sharra affords the positive answer to the believer who searches for righteous conduct before God and before fellow man. This dualism is reflected in the doctrine of the religious duties (farei' id, tibeidät) of Islam. The commandments of the ritual prayer, of alms-giving, of fasting in the sacred month of Ramadan, of the pilgrimage to Mecca, and, to a limited degree, also of the jihcid against the unbelievers—all of them are personal and communal actions alike. Together with the creed (shaheida), the all-encompassing religious principle, the former four became known as "pillars of the religion," arkein al-din. It is incumbent upon each Muslim to fulfill them; they are the epitome of the revealed law. There has never been any dissension in Islam about the absolute liability of the believer to fulfill the religious duties, although the Qur'an does not cite them explicitly as the 'pillars of the faith.' The Holy Book, however, gives in the so-called 'legal verses' (al-eiyeit al-sharliyya) clear injunctions regarding the individual obligations, sometimes in a summary statement (as in the case of the pilgrimage), sometimes with relatively detailed ordinances (as in the case of the alms-tax). The sunna, the legal precedent of the prophet MOammad and second material source of Islamic law, supplements and in some instances supplants the pertinent Qur'anic statutes. One important example for the abrogation of a Qur'anic direction by the sunna

1 Some of the arguments of this article appeared originally in : "Die Pflichten des Muslims—Dogma und geschichtliche Wirklichkeit," Saeculum, XXVI (1975), 95-110. Ignaz Goldziher, in his article, "Muhammedanisches Recht in Theorie und Wirklichkeit,"

Zeit8chrift film vergleichende Recht8wi88enschaft, VIII (1889), 406 - 23, gives an outline of the growing tension between the law "that the pious jurists taught and developed on the basis of the sunna of the prophet" (ibid., 409) and actual practice; he pays no specific attention to the ritual duties as the supreme norms of Muslim religious law.

1 2 THE MUSLIM WORLD

of the prophet is the increase of the number of the daily saldt from three to five. In the ritual obligations God approaches his servants directly, demanding obedience. In the Qur'an, his supreme manifestation, God informs man in detail about these duties and enhances them through clarity (baydn). This high status places the duties beyond discussion. He who denies the legal obligations commits apostasy and renders himself an unbeliever, subject to all the legal corollaries in this and in the other world. Kufr is crystallized not only in the rejection of God's word as revealed in the Qur'an, but also in the ignorance of the pillars of Islam.2 The scholar who takes it upon himself to give a rational justification to the ritual duties and to their individual regulations—as he does with the other revealed prescriptions—associates them with the highest ethical values : so the salat, the ritual prayer, epitomizes man's surrender to God, i.e., Islam as such. It serves to glorify God's majesty and lends man a means to express his gratitude for the gift of life. 3 The integration of the duties on this supreme level is mirrored in the tendency, in 4actith, to. portray one duty through another. Fasting is described as the zakdt of the body ; 4 he who engages in jihad is like him who fasts.5 The legists who framed the structure of the sharra between the rise of the `Abbasids in the eighth century and the completion of Hanbali legal thought in the eleventh century, corroborated and anchored the dogma of the unchangeable ritual in obligations demanding unconditional fulfillment. Not in the least was it their intention to set bounds to the worldly ruler, the caliph, by freezing the canon of absolute religious laws, in this way underscoring their own responsibility for the welfare (maslaha) of God's community. All through Muslim history, in all madhdhib, by Sunnites and Shrites

2 Cf., e.g., al-Shirbini's seventeenth-century diatribe against the Egyptian rural dervishes "who do not observe fasting nor prayer and neglect the pilgrimage and the zakeit." See Gabriel Baer, "Fellah and Townsman in Ottoman Egypt," Asian and African Studies, VIII (1972), 243. 3 See Erwin Grid, "Vom Geiste islamischen Rechts," Festschrift für Ernst Kling- mfiller, ed. Fritz Hauss and Reimer Schmidt (Karlsruhe : Verlag Versicherungswirtschaft, 1974), p. 127 (quoting al-Fanäri), and idem., "Recht und Sprache im Islam," Zeitschrift ‚Ur vergleichende Rechtswissenschaft, LXXIV (1974), 70. .4 According to Ibn Maja "there is zakät applicable to everything, and the zakät of the body is fasting" ; cf. Mishkat al-Masabih, English translation with explanatory notes by James Robson, 3rd edition (Lahore : Muhammad Ashraf, 1972), II (parts 6-10), 438. 6 Ibid., 806. ISLAMIC DUTIES IN HISTORY 3 alike, from al-Ghazz5,11 to Ibn Taymiyya, it was unanimously held that duties are constant and do not allow for varying interpretations depending on spatial and temporal circumstances. Duties are the timeless buttresses of God's final message to mankind. This quality separates them clearly from the general ethical norms (akhleig) and the conventions of human relations (muceimaleit) about which the Qur'an also speaks. It should be added that the supreme and supra- natural status of the ritual duties in Islamic dogma is particularly clear and elaborate in Muslim legal theory, the will alliqh. In the context of this article it may suffice to mention al-Shalici, the first ustri, who qualified the ritual duties as the first and foremost category of bayan,6 "clear indication," denoting the distinctive excellence of the Qur'an both in a linguistic and a material sense.

Until now we have only spoken of the theory of the ritual duties, yet not of historical reality. Is it possible to discern, in opposition to the dogma of absolute unchangeability, modifications and develop- ments during the fourteen centuries of Islamic history even in this particularly sacred field of religious life ? Let us note how other ordinances that rank high in the sharra and which were regulated in minute detail were during the course of time neglected and even trespassed and superseded, e.g., the lei/add-penalties such as mutilation or stoning for severe offences. When the Ottoman sultans decided to abrogate these penalties in their Vinfin -nämes and substitute for them the ta`zir, fines, and flogging, they certainly had no intention. to undermine the sharra, but intended to supplement it in a reli- giously neutral way in order to meet the demands of the time. As far as the ritual duties are concerned, we are still far from able to give an exhaustive assessment of their separate developments in historical practice. With the exception of several studies on the jihad, there is hardly any Muslim or Western research available which deals with historical facts, and not only with legal and normative data which tell us little about their application (or rather : non-application) through the course of time. Only a few scattered observations on the historical development—that is, on the actual practice of the five duties over the centuries—can be indicated in the following pages. On this narrow base I shall then venture to formulate a few general conclusions.

6 Al-Shäfil, Al-Risilla ff ufel al-figh, ed. A. M. Shäkir (Cairo : Mt4tafä al-Bäbi al-Halabi, 1358/1940), No. 56, p. 21; Nos. 73-83, pp. 26-28. English translation by Majid Khadduri, Islamic Jurisprudence, Shaft:Ts Ristila (Baltimore : The Johns Hopkins Press, 1961), pp. 68, 71-72. 4 THE MUSLIM WORLD

Examples are chosen with the view to answering two questions. First : To what degree could legal norms be adapted to the con- siderable historical changes of the first two or three centuries of Islam ? Second: When and under what circumstances did the interests of governments collide with the prescriptions of the cibädät, and how were these conflicts solved ?

We shall now briefly discuss the individual duties—ritual prayer, pilgrimage, fasting, alms-tax, and jihäd—in the given sequence. The first and foremost duty of the believer is the sakit, the ritual prayer. Its prominence among the five farald (the shahada not included) is manifoldly attested. 7 The said which is prescribed in detail in the sharra is an act of divine service. Each Muslim of age who is in command of his mental power must perform it five times a day in the state of ritual purity. As already mentioned, the Qur'an speaks of only three salat per day. According to a Itadith, the daily norm was later increased to five, possibly as a compromise with another tradition calling for forty daily prayers. The central liturgical elements (arkan) of the salät and the salient features of the bodily performance during prayer (prostration, genuflexions) are given in the Qur'an. The complex nature of the ritual, however, developed only later on the basis of the sunna of the prophet. The integrating power of the salat within the young Muslim community of Medina must have been enormous. The common prayer, led by the prophet and later by the caliphs, promoted and symbolized the exchange of the old loyalties based on kin and tribe for the new ties within the community of believers. This institution lives on in the Friday communal service in which each able Muslim is personally obliged to participate. Did the practice of the salät change or was it ever redefined in the course of Islamic history ? Certainly not. The ritual prayer, the highest utterance of devotion, resisted reinterpretation. Beyond this, the conscientious performance of this duty never collided with the shifting interests of the political authorities. If anything, the opposite is the case, for in the Friday prayer, the weekly communal service, God's blessing and grace is invoked upon the ruler. The salat thus anoints the political authorities in power and encourages submission

7 In religious writings a summary chapter on the ritual duties by no means precludes special separate treatment of the falett. See, e.g., 'Ale al-Din Mu§annifak's (803/1400-

875/1470) treatise on imiin, chapters 2 and 5; see 1.1ähi lihalifa, Kashf al - runfin, ed. and transl. G. Flügel (New York-London: Johnson Reprint Corporation, 1964; originally published : Leipzig-London, 1835-58), III, 19, 77. ISLAMIC DUTIES IN HISTORY 5 to them. Despite this, its essential nonpolitical function, the expression of the believer's humility before the Lord, is never relinquished.

Next we will turn to the fourth and last of the canonical duties, the a3j, the pilgrimage to Mecca. Once in his life the believer is supposed to perform the I? ajj. If he is unable to do so, somebody else can take his place. The pilgrimage is mentioned only in the late Medinan saras of the Qur'an. At that time Muhammad had finally given up his attempts to come to terms with the Jews of Medina. He had replaced Jerusalem with Mecca as the qibla, and had enjoined the pilgrimage to the Tia`ba, the pre-Islamic sanctuary (S. 2: 136-45). The commandment of the pilgrimage and its most important individual regulations, such as the prohibition of the tiajj to non-Muslims, are mentioned in the Qur'an explicitly. The complex details of the ritual, however, are mainly founded on the sunna of the prophet who in the year 10 of the hijra, shortly before his death, made the haijat al-wader, the farewell pilgrimage, from Medina. It should be emphasized that the individual norms of this duty, mandsik al-ha3j, which seem to stand outside of Islam in so many ways and in which so much of the ancient pagan cult lives on in a new, Islamic, garb, reflect the origins of the sharra : the pre- and non-Islamic legal traditions were in most cases not abandoned, but ascribed a new, Islamic legality. This was sometimes achieved through their merely formal assimilation to the religion and ethics of the Qur'an. While the salat, the divine service, facilitated the formation of the community of believers, the pilgrimage has always symbolized the equality and solidarity of the Muslims before one another and God. In the state of sanctification (ihreim) everyone is alike, irrespective of his social standing and origin. The annual pilgrimage vividly impresses each believer with the reality of the umma and confirms his volition to submit to its statutes, to preserve and to defend them. The memory of Mul? ammad, the founder of the umma, and of the battles for the victory of Islam is relived in the hajj. The importance of the pilgrimage as a medium and forum of learned Muslim consensus and, even more important, of the 'public opinion' of Islam all through the centuries has been stressed by modern scholarship, both Muslim and Orientalist. The returning pilgrims brought home a renewed vision of Muslim solidarity and, by virtue of this fact alone, they became politically effective. The most important reformist movements in medieval and modern Islam—the Fatimid, the Almoravid and Almohad movements, the puritanism of Shah Wali Allah of Delhi 6 THE MUSLIM WORLD and, to a certain degree, also the Wahhäbiyya in the eighteenth century—were all kindled by tjdj coming back from Mecca. Jibril, the mentor of `Uthmän dan Fodio, the master of the Fuläni jihad- kingdom of 1808, received his inspirations (possibly under Wahhäbi influence) when he twice went on pilgrimage; also, the origins of the Sanasiyya and the Padri-movement in Sumatra point to Mecca.8 Sovereignty over the holy places has always brought high prestige to a ruler, be he the Fätimid imdm-caliph, the Mamluk or the Ottoman sultan. His authority in the Hijä,z largely depended on his ability to keep the two cities in his sphere of influence. The countries through which the pilgrim caravans traveled and, in particular, the city of Mecca itself gained considerable economic profit from the hajj. Until the eighteenth century a large fair was held in Mecca every year at the time of the pilgrimage. Conflicts between Muslim rulers and the institution of the bajj were rare. Such famous examples were the embargo against the pilgrimage decreed by the Umayyads at the time of the so-called second fitna, the propaganda of orthodox tuktmd' against the bajj at the instigation of the Ottoman sultan Osman II (1618-22) during the insurrection of the Druze emir Fakhr al-Din, or the interruption of the pilgrims' flow to the klijäz by the Egyptian authorities immediately after the conquest of the holy places by the Satildi king tAbd al-lAziz in 1925. One might also point to the proscription of the pilgrimage to Mecca by the Mandi in late nineteenth-century Sudan. We hear more frequently of such actions in connection with Shrite rulers. Though mainly for political and economic reasons, Shah `Abbas the Great did everything at the beginning of the seventeenth century to divert the pilgrims from Mecca to the Shrite sanctuaries of Iraq and Khurasan that were located in his own territory. But these were exceptions. As a rule the state did not interfere with the pilgrimage. Not only did the hajj, unlike other duties on which we will speak presently, bring prosperity to the sovereigns whose lands were directly touched by the pilgrims, but there is also an intrinsic reason to this harmonious relationship. The pilgrimage unites individuals coming from all over the world without external pressure and gives them the experience of the universal community of believers. The interests of the political authorities are not affected, let alone imperiled by the pilgrimage. Many current governments restrict the free participation in the hajj ; the reason for this policy,

8 I gratefully acknowledge the advice I received on this particular point from Daniel Pipes, Cambridge, Mass. ISLAMIC DUTIES IN HISTORY 7 however, is not the character of the institution of the pilgrimage, but rather problems of currency. In Egypt, e.g., an annual lottery is held to mitigate the effects of this restriction and to afford equal chances to all who wish to make the hajj. As long as Islam is not endangered as a religion and weltanschauung, no impairment of the free exercise of this obligation, within the just mentioned limits, need be feared. The casuistic regulations of this duty do not allow for free interpretation and succeeded in preserving the ritual of the tajj into our days without any change.

The third duty, both in our and in the canonical sequence, is Sawm, fasting, in the month of Ramadan. Fasting goes back to the period, after the hijra and in its early development reflects, like the pil- grimage, Muhammad's change of mind regarding the Jewish community in and around Medina. An original revelation had prescribed fasting on the day of 'Ashara% the tenth of the first Muslim month, from sunset to sunset. This was a faithful imitation of the fasting of the Jews on Yom Kippur. In S. 2: 179-81 this prescription was abrogated and replaced by the fast during the whole month of Ramadan from dawn to sunset. It was in this month that the prophet had received his first revelations. The detailed provisions about the execution of this duty, and in particular about the exemptions from it, that we encounter in later legal writings again usually go back to the tradition of the prophet. They pay full respect to the natural physical limits that may bar the believer from fulfilling this commandment. Under certain conditions and at certain times fasting is therefore declared to be only recommended or even reprehensible or outright forbidden. The reasons why the fasting in the month of Ramadan remained uncontested all through the centuries may be connected with the relative flexibility of the regulations of this duty that take into account the physical welfare of man. More than this, fasting seems to have evolved in our days, in a time of rapidly progressing seculariza- tion of the social life in the Muslim world, into the epitome of the religious sacrifice that even he who has long since ceased to practice the other duties feels urged to make, if only for convention's sake. Ramadan has emerged as the symbol of proper Muslim conduct. In the modern period new problems arise. Fasting and the ensuing decline in economic productivity sharply hurt the vital interests of Islamic countries. That practically all efforts to abolish the thirty- days' fasting have proven abortive says something about the religious vigor and social appeal of this institution for Muslims. The endeavors 8 THE MUSLIM WORLD

of the Tunisian government between 1959 and 1961 more or less failed: In a fatwei the duty of fasting was declared secondary to the duty of the 'Holy War (jihdd) for national development' and thus to be superseded. Through this cunning procedure the actual conflict of interests between the state and its religious citizens was fought on the only level acceptable to the pious, namely, the level of the sharra ; on this plane a decision against the statute of fasting could be issued. Nevertheless, the public, in its vast majority, refused to give up the priority of fasting and finally, though tacitly and reluctantly, the political authorities resigned. When former President Ben Bella of neighboring Algeria appealed to citizens not to kill for the Feast of Immolation to avoid wasting a precious national resource, he met a similar failure.

The canonical duty which is most important and interesting in our context is undoubtedly the zakeit, the alms-tax. The obligation of benevolence or charity was laid down as early as in the Meccan saras of the Qur'an, often in connection with the duty of the salat. He who abandons his worldly riches paves his way to salvation. The zakat serves to purify man from sin and to express his gratitude for the gift of worldly property that guarantees his survival. Above all, the zakat which man owes to God becomes the token of active solidarity with his fellow believers, with the community of God. The assistance which the pagan had lent to his fellow tribesmen is now transferred to the needy fellow-Muslim. It is in this institution

of the zakat that the dual ethics of early Islam find a very early and most significant manifestation. By dual ethics I mean the different standards of behavior incumbent upon a Muslim, depending on the religion of his partner. As an example, one may cite the handling of interest. Interest is outlawed in transactions between Muslims, yet is permissible or even mandatory in transactions with non- Muslims. In Mecca the organized distribution of pious gifts was not necessary, and, as a matter of fact, it would have proved very difficult. But soon after the Islamic umma of Medina had developed into a full polity, and particularly after some tribes outside of Medina had submitted to the prophet and had agreed to pay a fixed regular tribute, Mutiammad began organizing the administration and distri- bution of these funds. They grew more and more abundant, but their

I owe a most stimulating discourse on this phenomenon to Professor Peter von Sivers, Salt Lake City, whose seminar on the social and economic history of early Islam I attended at UCLA in the spring of 1974. ISLAMIC DUTIES IN HISTORY 9

volume and their composition was not yet regulated. There was indeed.

much need for such charities. The fellow-emigrants of Mecca (muhei - jiran) had to be supported. And also other, noncharitable expenses, such as equipping Muslim troops against Mecca, which were vital to the community had to be met. For these purposes there had to be community funds and regular state revenues. Certainly Muhammad strove to preserve the zakät as a voluntary and individual offering as much as possible, but as early as in his own lifetime certain contributions were declared to be incumbent upon everyone. It was Mubammad's successor, the first caliph, Abii Bakr, who took the momentous step. Against the will of several authoritative companions of the prophet he institutionalized the zakät as a regular tax. This decision certainly promoted the expansion of Islam by providing its armies with suitable funds. At the same time he fixed the practical aspects of the zakät-duty in the environment and under the formative impact of the seventh-century bedouin society of Central Arabia. Yet the urbanization of the Muslim state under the Umayyads and the `Abbäsids and the ensuing social and economic change hardly influenced the archaic norms of the zakät. The zakat persisted in its pristine form and, from century to century, became increasingly an anachronism. In marked contrast to other duties, the zakat was not included in the development of the sharra which took place particularly in the early 'Abbasid period. It remained, however, theoretically the only levy for Muslims ever sanctioned by religious law. The lulamäi' jealously guarded this prescription. The Muslim polity had developed beyond its original nomadic character. Yet the ruler who enjoined taxes in addition to the zakät violated the sharra, even if such supplementary revenues were indispensable for the general prosperity. However closely the fiscal interests of the state and the personal ritual duty of charity were connected, very quickly it became almost impossible to harmonize both these aspects. What were the components of Abii Bakr's tax and who were the beneficiaries ? Among those worthy of community support there are, according to the Qur'an, the poor and the needy (the jurists tended to regard themselves as belonging to the latter group !), but also the warriors of the faith who voluntarily took upon tmemselves the burden of the Holy War against the infidels and, last not least, the tax

collectors ('c-imil). The principle that zakät-revenue should exclusively serve the purpose of piety and public welfare was more or less rigidly observed well into the 'Abbasid period. In the beginning the pious Muslim retained the right of distributing his gift directly, i.e., without 10 THE MUSLIM WORLD

an intermediary, to the needy and thus fulfilling the original command- ment of personal alms. Under the first caliphs, however, it was seen as preferable to mandate the zakat to the tax officials in order to assure an equitable distribution. The steadily growing authority of the state and the centralization of the fiscal administration actually left no alternative. Whereas the general identity of the beneficiaries of the zakat is laid down in the Qur'an itself, the tax categories and rates of assessment are based on the precedent of the Prophet and of the first caliphs. The sharra distinguishes between five sources of taxation which clearly reflect the nonurban character of seventh-century Inner Arabia. The first two, those of crops and of fruit, are closely related. The zakat amounts, in both categories, to one-tenth (tushr) of the annual yield. According to the law, all Muslims are obliged to pay the tithe unless they belong to the ahl al-bayt, the family of the Prophet. It is levied both on private lands (mulk) and on public estates (qatei' i') granted to Muslims for the purpose of cultivation. Very soon, however, the tithe became only a part of the land-taxes owed by a Muslim. By the end of the first century A.H. recently converted Muslims were deprived of the right to pay only the zakiit, i.e., the tithe on their lands. The Umayyad government was concerned about the state revenues and forced these neophytes to continue paying the much higher 'non-Muslim' land-tax (khareij) even after their conversion to Islam, and thus virtually equated them with the unbelieving Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians, whose ranks they had just left. The dual ethics which were inveterate in early Islam— Muslims are entitled to preferential treatment in comparison to non-Muslims—and about which we spoke previously, can be observed disintegrating as early as this. The jurists vindicate this innovation with the argument that the land-tax was attached to the soil, kharaj- land, not to the cultivator of the land. The kharaj was therefore not abolished and did not revert to the tithe ipso facto on account of the conversion of the tiller to Islam. The economic interests of the rapidly expanding and changing empire proved stronger than the vested rights and religious claims of the individual believer; one pillar of religion, the zakat, can be watched eroding as early as the beginning of the second century of Islamic history. The third category of commodities subject to zakat, after crops and fruit, is livestock. This tax mirrors the original Islamic bedouin society and affected, from the eighth and ninth centuries on, only the then marginal social group of nomadic herdsmen. The zakät on livestock was due in kind, and computed under consideration of ISLAMIC DUTIES IN HISTORY 11 several factors. It proved, when compared to the tithe on crops and fruit, surprisingly durable. Two examples may suffice as documen- tation. In 1268 the Egyptian sultan Baybars forced the bedouins of Barqa and the Iiijäz to resume the regular payment of the canonical zakät on their flocks (zakeit al-ghanam, zakeit al-ibil).10 In precolonial Algeria, to move to the modern time, the zakät on animals, unlike the zakät on the harvests, remained consistently in effect until the advent of the French. The fourth and fifth taxes were levied upon precious metals and merchandise, provided these goods were stored and circulated for at least one year. Unlike the zakät on crops, fruit and cattle, the jurists qualified these latter two taxes as internal (begin); that is, the tax-inspector did not have the right to determine the due amount of taxes personally and through his own evidence. It was rather left to the pious to comply with these obligations. As one can see, here the original character of the zakät is fully preserved. However, once noncanonical taxation rose and the tax burden on the individual steadily increased, the Muslims became less and less willing to observe faithfully the rules of the sharra unilaterally, i.e., in contrast to the state. As far as one can say at this moment, with no research done on this subject, these 'internal' duties were soon paid only in part and frequently vanished altogether. Although the zakät on land and livestock enjoyed a longer lifespan, it was also soon superseded by noncanonical taxes (mukfis) such as tolls, rents, and trade-imposts. As Claude Cahen 11 has pointed out, the Islamic state—which at its inception was almost exclusively founded on booty and on revenue from landed property—was not willing to renounce for purely religious reasons these supplementary sources of income in an age of prospering crafts and commerce. In. addition, ever since the tenth century more and more original zakät- land was alienated from the state treasury through the transfer of taxation rights to the high military dignitaries in the institution of t . The first caliph to levy trade taxes (al-mai al-hiligi, i.e., charges accounted according to the lunar calendar) is said to have been the `Abbäsid Abii. Ja`far al-Mansür in 167/864, two years after the founding of Baghdad, the new metropolis and center of trade and commerce in the Islamic empire. The legal dilemma is reflected by

lo Al-Nuwayri, "Nihtlyat al-arab fi funiin al-adab," ins Paris Biblioth6que nationale arabe Nr. 1578, fol. 37a (year 666 A.H.). 11 Claude Cahen, Der Islam I. Vom Ur8prung bis zu den Anfeingen des 08manen- reiche8 (Fi8cher Weltgeachichte, XIV) (Frankfurt : Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1968), 113. 12 THE MUSLIM WORLD the fact that the ruler appointed dt and other culama' as collectors of these, in principle, unlawful taxes. As religious dignitaries and functionaries, they were expected to guarantee a maximum of equity in an inherently illicit procedure. Not at all surprisingly, this conflict of loyalties led some qäclis to disobey the sovereign's order. They refused to collect the mukiis lest they lend themselves to the spreading of oppression, zu/m, in the lands of Islam. One of the few Muslim rulers of this early period who, thanks to a highly efficient economic policy, managed to really dispense with the mukas-revenues was Ab.mad b. Talan who died in 270/884. In later centuries such efforts at returning to the zakät became more and more unrealistic. Bureau- cratic difficulties in the beginning precluded a reversal of a tax administration that became more and more solidly based on the mukas, and the fiscal needs of the Muslim states after the ninth and tenth centuries simply no longer allowed for a permanent renunciation of the noncanonical resources which could never be made up for by the enforcement of the canonical, yet obsolete zakät with its insufficient tax yield. Approximately from the eleventh century on the term 4akät began to assume a remarkable second meaning which seems to have been retained into the modern period. Zak5,t, one of the lofty pillars of Islam, became the paragon of the lost order of primordial Islam, of the divine state on earth, which worldly tyrants have destroyed and adulterated. Return to the zakät, implying the abolition of the illegal extra levies, became the watchword of radical Muslim reformers. The Almoravids reintroduced the zakät immediately after their victory in Spain in 1090. Niir al-Din, the military and ideological protagonist of Islam against the crusaders in the mid-twelfth century, took similar action in 1154 after the conquest of Damascus. After a deep religious experience, Abii Shujä` al-Radhrawäri, the chronicler and vizier of the tAbbäsid caliph al-Muqtacli from 1084 to 1091, gave away his fortunes to pay the zakät-dues which he had kept for himself through all the preceding years; the contemporary public dismissed his conduct as pure folly—so normal had the 'embezzlement' of the zakät by then become.12 For Saladin the reenforcement of the canonical laws in the lands under his direct control was an issue of highest priority. Whenever people approached him complaining about illegal taxes and imposts

12 Ibn al-Jawzi, Kitetb al-Muntawm ff, ta'rikh al-muliik waq-umam, IX (Hyderabad/ Deccan : Matbeat majlis dWirat al-malrif al-cuthmäniyya, 1358/1939), 90; Al-Subki,

Tabagra al-8häfi tiyya al-kubrei, IV (Cairo : Isii, al-Bibi a1-Ha1abi, 1385/1966), 139. ISLAMIC DUTIES IN HISTORY 13

(al-m,ukfis wa 1-dartrib), he hastened to order their abolition.13 Saladin's son promptly reenacted, and even increased, the former mukiis. The pious al-Malik al-Kamil (died 635/1238) canceled the trade taxes again, leaving it to his subjects whether to pay these taxes or, in consistency with the old 'internal' zakat, to give the same amount voluntarily as alms to the needy. Of course, this system of a free option soon collapsed since only few of the pious and wealthy chose to pay their tribute to state authorities. The sources are confusing on this issue, since both modes of payment, taxes and alms, were labeled and referred to as zakat. Al-Kamil's policy epitomizes a process of obfuscation which Hassanein Rabie has poignantly characterized when he says : "It is necessary to distinguish from a comparatively early time onwards between the real sharl zakat and the taxes, such as customs, duties, etc., which were referred to as zakat merely to provide them with a cover of sharti legality." 14 In Egypt this ambiguity of the term zakat led to the emergence of the term zakät al-dawlaba which denoted the taxes for local crafts- men and tradesmen. It seems to have preserved the essence of the classical zakat on merchandise and precious metals. The conquest of the Eastern lands of Islam by the Mongols in the thirteenth century and the establishment of a new, now entirely non-Islamic system of rural and urban taxation, broadened the gap between the Islamic ideal and the political and economic reality even further. The canonical zakat as a living statutory tax finally passed into history. Mongol taxes on livestock and on land, and in particular the notorious taxes on trade and commerce (the tamghd), replaced the old zakat. One can produce a rather long list of Turkish rulers over Azer- bayjan, Persia, Transoxania, and India in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries who resolved on canceling these pagan taxes and on ceremoniously returning to the zakat. They did so at the instigation of pious advisers—the best known example is Qadi

'ha of Sawa, the vizier of Ya`q -ab Aq-Qoyunlu—or of popular tribunes. Here the Naqshbandi leader Iihwadja `Ubayd Allah Arar comes to mind, the de facto ruler of Transoxania in the mid- and late fifteenth century; both the Timurid Abia Sald (ruled from 1451-69) and Babur's father 'Umar Shaykh stood under his influence. Shah Tahmasp I of Iran (ruled from 1524-76) even abolished the

13 Muhammad b. Tag' al-Din 'Umar, Mklmär al-liageiq wa-sirr al-khard'iq, ed. Hasan Habash! (Cairo : Alam al-kutub, 1968), p. 106. 14 Hassanein M. Rabie, The Financial System of Egypt A.H. 564-741/A.D. 1169-1341 (London : Oxford University Press, 1972), p. 96. 14 THE MUSLIM WORLD tamgha under the influence of a dream. The Mughal emperor Aurangzeb in 1667 abrogated the 21 percent customs-levy on Muslims as being unlawful; yet, since from this time on the goods of the Hindus, for whom this impost had remained in effect, usually passed on as belonging to Muslims, he too had to return to the old practice as early as 1682 in order to avoid bankruptcy.' 5 If and when real efforts were undertaken in reestablishing the old zakat, they soon collapsed after short practice. What was decisive, though, seems rather to have been the declaration of the intention to do so. The anachronism of all these pious reforms can be best epitomized by the ingenious idea of the bigoted yet at the same time apparently quite realistic Shah Rukh, Timar's son, namely, to leave the Mongol taxes (which as a matter of fact shared certain superficial formal characteristics with the old zakat-tax) as they were and simply to rename them with the venerable name zakat. There is some evidence suggesting that also the Uzbek `Ubayd Allah, an energetic and at the same time devout ruler, employed this stratagem at the beginning of the sixteenth century. Thus the zakat could fulfill its purpose : It was the supreme means of legitimation for a temporal Muslim ruler who was endowed with the Chinghizid, non-Islamic charisma of semi- divine kingship before his learned spiritual critics. It served to sanction, if only pro forma, the illegal but after all unchangable state of affairs in fiscal administration. Even today efforts are being undertaken to revivify the zakat as an integral element of a modern tax system; Pakistan, in 1954, and Libya, in 1971, are examples. We have seen how the zakat, a statutory, hallowed institution of Islam, was first secularized in the tension between the fiscal interests of the state and the religious norms, and then, in the late 'Abbasid period, ceased altogether to be in effect as a major source of state revenues. This development by no means impaired the continuing validity of the voluntary, private alms-duty in the Islamic world. Quite the opposite, the obligation of the individual Muslim to display charity only now left the shadow of the alms-tax and became firmly established in the pristine pre-Medinan sense of zakat. In the zaktit allitr, the alms given to the poor on the day of breaking the fast of Ramadan, this original function even became institutionalized. It should be noted that in the widespread efforts of our days of tracing socialist ideas in the sharra, the alms-duty and the collective responsibility of the Muslim community for the material welfare

15 Sri Ram Sharma, The Religious Policy of the Mughal Emperors (New York : Asia Publishing House, 1972), pp. 182-83, with detailed references to the sources. ISLAMIC DUTIES IN HISTORY 15 of its members play a decisive role. Muhammad Faraj Salim wrote in 1965: "The zakeit, as designated by Islam, protects society from destruction and extravagance. It protects it from capitalism with its absolute individualism and exploitation, and from communism which denies religion, destroys the individual and enslaves him for the welfare of the state." 6 According to tradition, Abr.' Dharr al- GhifEtri, a companion of the Prophet, valiantly defended the zakät against `Uthmän and particularly against Mulwiyya ; he saw it as a collective duty to serve the believers and not the caliph and his government. He is not only an exalted figure in Shrite hagio- graphy, but also, in an interesting manipulation of early Muslim history for current purposes, the first 'socialist' of Islam. When, in our days, conservative Egyptian theologians led by the shaykh of al-Azhar disclaimed Aba Dharr's privileged status as a companion of Muhammad, they actually were trying to stifle this disquieting discussion about the compatibility of Islam and modern socialist (and materialist) ideology. They see in danger the whole traditional view of the formative (and therefore crucial) period of Islamic thought and institutions.

More than any other duty, including the just mentioned zakät, the obligation of Plea, the so-called Holy War against the infidels, has been molded all through the history of Islam by the antagonism between personal responsibility before God and public obedience. This internal tension has, in sharp contrast to the zakät, found its expression within those norms of the sharra connected with the jihätl. These norms, which are founded on the Queän, take into account the political and social changes of the Muslim world in the decades after the death of the Prophet. The jihad holds a privileged position in Islamic ethics. Ibn Taymiyya characterizes it as the loftiest mark of belief (ahamm amr al-din) next to the saliit.17 Still, in its legal importance, it ranks well below the four canonical obligations. The term jihlid (or : mujähada), linguistically (lughatan) denotes in a noncommittal fashion 'endeavor,' 'strife' ; there are hadiths alluding to this double—technical or legal

6 See Sami Hanna, "Al- Takciful al-ijtimtri and Islamic Socialism," M. W., LIX (1969), 282. On Ibn Taymiyya's sober and at the same time elated assessment of the jihad, the essence of Islam, see W. Montgomery Watt, "The Significance of the theory of Jihikl," Akten des VII. Kongresses far Arabistik und Islamwissenschaft Göttingen 15.-22. August 1974 (Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen,

Phil. -historische Klasse, Dritte Folge Nr. 98) (Göttingen : Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1976), pp. 390-94. 16 THE MUSLIM WORLD and linguistic—meaning.19 To be sure, very soon the doctrine of the so-called "greater jihad" (al-jihticl al-akbar) evolved : The pious is to exercise self-constraint, even self-mortification, and to fight his feebleness and his mundane desires. Later on the sufis, adversaries of strict and legal obedience, were to internalize this doctrine. This development—and this is important to our approach—promoted political quietism. The type of jihad, however, that acquired palpable historical importance all through the centuries and interests us here, is the external, "lesser jihad" (al-jihad al-asghar), the military and, under certain conditions, diplomatic and political struggle to strengthen and to defend the "house of Islam" (dar al-islam) against the unbelievers. War, in itself an evil (fasdd), thus became permissible. It was vindicated by its purpose : the substitution of Islam for the greater calamity of unbelief. The crucial Qur'anic references to the jihad allowed for varying interpretations. In the Holy Book the term jihad is usually connected with the call to fight "for the cause of God" (fi, sabil Allah), but is not any more specifically defined. As early as the time of the Prophet there seems to have taken place a change in the interpretation of jihad. It adopted a more and more offensive character.19 Having entailed a mere invitation (da`wa) to the unbeliever to embrace Islam in the Meccan and early Medinan periods, in some late Medinan verses it came to mean forthright and even undeclared war against the infidels. The "house of Islam" was not only to be safeguarded but, if at all possible, to be expanded all over the world. In the first years after the hijra jihad-activities of the Muslims against their outside neighbors were limited to raids (ghazawat) involving all available fighting men. The rapid growth of the Islamic empire under the Umayyads rendered impossible this original precept of levying all qualified Muslims and deploying them at the borders of the dar al-islam. The individual obligation of fighting in jihad,

8 Muhammad sent a man who wanted to take part in jihad back to his parents with the imperative : fa-fihimii fa-jähid, "rather exert yourself on their behalf." 8 The fundamental difference between offensive and defensive jihad has been stressed and exhaustively dealt with in the interesting, yet neglected study by M. E. Bertsch, "Counter-Crusade : A Study of Twelfth century jihad in Syria and Palestine," Ph.D. dissertation, University of Michigan, 1950; see particularly pp. 168 ff. On the modern discussion of this particular topic, see Rudolph Peters, Jihad in Mediaeval and Modern Islam. The Chapter on Jihad from Averroes' Legal Handbook Bidayat al-mudjtahid and the Treatise 'Koran and Fighting' by the late Shaykh al-Azhar, Ma4mild Shalt& (Leiden : E. J. Brill, 1977), passim, and idem, "Djihad : War of Aggression or Defense," Akten des VII. Kongresses far Arabistik und Islamwissenschaft (Göttingen : Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1976), pp. 282-89. ISLAMIC DUTIES IN HISTORY 17 corresponding, for example, to the duty of the pilgrimage, was no longer feasible. Not everyone could engage in battle. On this basis— namely, the conditions of the Muslim state during and after the great conquests—the jurists elaborated the doctrine of the jihad. By consent they declared the jihad to be a collective obligation (fard 'aid 1-kifelyci): according to the sharra it suffices if a group of Muslims wage war against the infidel, namely, those whose territory borders the land of war. The ruler of such a frontier district, however (in the golden days of the empire, the caliph himself), is personally and perpetually obliged (fard al-cayn) to engage in the jihad. This is part of his office and his responsibilities. As far as the Muslim citizen is concerned, the general duty of jihad turns into the explicit individual obligation of fighting only when the infidel enemy threatens or attacks Islamic lands (dar al-islam). The scholars hold unanimously that in such a case even women and slaves are called forth to take up arms. No master may deny it to them. On this broad and flexible legal basis the jihad could develop various features in historical practice; we can even go so far to differentiate between two equally statutory variants of jihad. The first one is the institutional or, rather, public "Holy War" waged at the frontiers. These warriors fight the infidels usually in regular military units under the leadership of their sovereign (be he the caliph or an autonomous prince), and carry the communal burden (fard card '1-kifaya) of the jihad. This is warfare of the state. Only a fraction of all Muslims are involved in such campaigns. The pre- ponderant motive for fighting is the prospect of bountiful booty or the hope of winning new non-Muslim subjects. Note that the ruler has no particular interest in their conversion to Islam since the non-Muslim subjects (dhimm), unlike the Muslim, pay a heavy poll tax. Such a jihad is, to be true, strictly speaking areligious, but at the same time it is in the interest of the umma and therefore is legitimate. The second variant of jihad is, as has been pointed out," the "Holy Struggle" which the pious takes upon himself in good intention (bi 'l-niyya). He relies on the divine reward as promised to the mujähid in the Holy Writ. The gates of paradise are wide open to him who falls in battle for the true faith. Such an individual religious warrior, ghcCii, acts voluntarily, without coercion, without state remuneration and, most significantly, without state control. All this

20 Albrecht Noth, Heiliger Krieg und Heiliger Kampf in Islam und Christentum. Beiträge zur Vorgeschichte und Geschichte der Kreuzzilge (Bonner Historische Forschungen, XXVIII) (Bonn : Ludwig Röhrscheid, 1966), p. 22 and passim. 18 THE MUSLIM WORLD

is fully consistent with the views of the legists. At this point one may want to recall the Qur'anic stipulation that one-eighth of the zakät- yield of a region should be given to the religious irregulars fighting in this district. Not a single temporal sovereign but rather the whole umma is responsible for their subsistence. Again and again we come across these pious and ascetic warriors in Islamic history, both in the corps of volunteers (al-muttawwica) who, when the opportunity was afforded, loosely joined the regular armies, and in the institution of the more firmly established frontier fighters (al-murdbitan), who for the most part were stationed at certain fortified places. In the High Middle Ages their domains were mainly the Arab-Byzantine frontier, the Sahara, Morocco, and Spain; .later, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, we find them primarily in the Caucasus, in Anatolia, and in the Balkans, where Turcoman freebooters mainly of the Anatolian uj beylikleri fought against their Christian neighbors. These ghäzis were undoubtedly imbued with religious zeal. Therefore, they differ sharply from the majority of the regular jihäd-levy put in the field by the lord of a frontier march. It is fascinating to notice that at least once in the course of medieval Islamic history these two institutions, the "Holy War" on behalf of the state and the "Holy Struggle" of the pious individual, for a short time converged, just as had been the case in the years of the Prophet. I am thinking of Niir al-Din's and Saladin's Muslim `countercrusade' at the time of the Frankish occupation of Palestine and Syria in the twelfth century. A powerful movement of religious and moral revival, the causes of which are only now being clearly understood, 21 merged with a systematic and multifarious propaganda for the revived jihiid which had become a personal obligation for every Muslim in Syria since Muslim lands were occupied by unbelievers. Special jihäd-treatises were composed to kindle public awareness of this crucial religious duty,22 fadcl'il and ziydrät books began to

21 See the profound studies by Bertsch, "Counter-Crusade," Ph.D. dissertation, Michigan, 1950, passim, and Emmanuel Sivan, "La genese de la contre-croisade : un traite Damasquin du debut du XIIe siècle," Journal Asiatique, XXLIV (1966), and idem, L'Islam et la croisade. Ideologie et propagande dans less reaction,s Musulmanes aux croisades (Paris : Librairie d'Amerique et d'Orient Adrien Maisonneuve, 1968). 22 On the kutub al-jihad see 0. Rescher, Beiträge zur Dschiluid-Literatur, 2 vols. (Stuttgart : Selbstverlag, 1920-21); Aziz S. Atiya, Crusade, Commerce and Culture (Bloomington : Indiana University Press, and London : Oxford University Press, 1962), pp. 134-45; J. J. Saunders, Aspects of the Crusades (Christchurch : University of Canterbury Press, 1968), pp. 9-28; Ruth Wechsel, Das Buch Qidwat al-öäzi:. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der öihäd-Literatur, Dias. phil. Bonn, 1970. Hadia Dajani-Shakeel's interesting contribution, "Jihad in Twelfth-century Arabic Poetry : A Moral and ISLAMIC DUTIES IN HISTORY 19

appear in which the merits of Muslim cities and sacred places were expounded, with special attention given to Holy Jerusalem, the focus of the call for the jihad in the twelfth century. Muslim resistance found its paragon in the pious sovereign, God's first warrior (mujähid). Both Nar al-Din and Saladin put their political and moral potential in the service of this great religious idea, which for a short time became reality and made possible the astounding Muslim military exploits at the close of the twelfth century. After Saladin's death this unity of religious and political authority broke up. Only the Mamluk sultans, at the end of the thirteenth century, managed to realize for a last time the united religious struggle of the ruler and the people. "Our master has returned life to the statutory precept of jihäd" (nd fafidat al-jihiid ba`d al-mawt), the chief secretary of Sultan Qalawun elatedly wrote to the king of the Yemen after Tripoli in Syria had been wrested from the Crusaders in 1289. Also the masses were instigated. The spontaneous riots against the Christians, about which early Mamluk chroniclers report, are clear evidence. After the fall of `Akkä in 1291 and the final containment of the Mongol danger in the east in 1299-1300, this alliance of state initiative and popular sentiment in the name of God gradually dissolved. The old dualism of public and individual jihad re-emerged. War between Muslims is of particular significance. It is limited to the level of the public jihad and displays once more the essential contradiction between the postulated legal norm and historical practice. According to the law, armed strife between Muslims is on principle forbidden.23 This prohibition does not include fighting the heretics and renegades. It is not only meritorious but even individually mandatory to fight them. Just as shortly before the fall of Byzantium the last imperial admiral advocated in a dispute that he would rather see the Turkish turban in the streets of Constantinople than the tiara of the Latins—as the chronicler Dukas relates—so Sunni polemics incite the believers over the centuries that it is worthier to kill one heretic than forty, seventy or even a hundred Franks, i.e., unbelievers ab origine. To give an example : Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi, one of the

Religious Force to Counter the Crusades," M. W., LXVI (1976), 96-113, needs to be corrected on one point (p. 99). It was not 'Ali b. Tähir al-Sulami (wrote 1099) but rather the Ismälli jurist and theologian al-Qädi al-Nu`män (d. 974) who was the first, or one of the first, to write a kiln al-jilaid; see Atiya, Crusade, Commerce and Culture, p. 134. See also. Salah el Beheiry, "Le d6cret de nomination de l'historien Ibn WW1 au poste de professeur de la mosquoSe al-Aqmar," Annales Islamologiques de l'IFAO, XII (1974), 86. 23 On this see, e.g., Mulxammad b. Taqi al-Din 'Umar, Midmtir alqtaqä'iq (Cairo, 1968), 64. 20 THE MUSLIM WORLD great representatives of Sunni thought in the pre-modern period, who was proudly called "the renewer of Islam in the second millenium" (mujaddid al-alf al-thein7,), successfully urged his sovereign, the emperor Awrangz6, that it was his sacred duty to prosecute and kill the Shrites ; he went so far as to qualify praying behind a Shri imam as an act of apostasy.24 The Muslim ruler who took the field against a Muslim foe always tried to justify this decision religiously. He would make an effort to secure a fatwa authorizing the use of military force. The aggressor obtained the desired legitimation, whether his opponent himself was inflicted the anathema of takfir, unbelief, or whether he was accused of connivance with a heretic third. With the latter argument the Ottomans vindicated their campaign against the fellow-Sunni Mamluks of Syria and Egypt, who were charged with conspiracy with the Safavid heretics.25 There is one historical situation that allows us actually to gauge the political component in such jihad-statements by Sunni jurists. When in the beginning of the sixteenth century the Safavids seized power in Iran, military conflict with the most immediately threatened neighbors ensued : the Uzbeks to the northeast and the Ottomans to the west of Persia. In 1510, at Marw, the Safavids won the day against the Uzbeks, but four years later, in the battle of Chaldiran, they succumbed to the Ottomans. The Uzbeks resigned and put up with the existence of the Safavid state. The Ottomans, however, schemed the complete annihilation of the enemy and the annexation of his territory. This antagonistic political attitude is reflected in the fatwas that were issued after the first bout both in Istanbul and in Bukhara and are preserved to us. Both the Ottomans and the Uzbeks were staunch Sunnites, whereas the Safavids had declared the Twelver Shra the state religion in Iran. Certainly Sunni theologians could hardly qualify the Twelver Shra as such as heresy, yet their verdict was different on the religious extremism (ghulii) of Ismaili I, the Safavid ruler, and of his immediate followers, the Qizilbash. 'small had, after all, claimed divine attributes for his own person.

24 This policy was largely instrumental in the demise of the Mughal state : the military energies were diverted and diluted in fighting against the Shici petty states of Bijäpfir and Golkonda in the Deccan at a time when the Maratha-Hindu threat undermined the Mughal position in the south of the subcontinent. 25 Selim's hesitations to attack the orthodox Mamluks who had given shelter to the 'Abbasid caliphs after the fall of Baghdad is reflected in the curious, anecdotal rendering of the Ottoman conquest of Egypt by Sidi al-Husayn b. Muhammad al- Warthiläni in his Nuzhat al-anztir fi fach 'am al-ta'rikh wa'l-akhbär, ed. MO. b. Abi Shanab, 2nd ed. (Beirut : Där al-kitäb al-larabi, 1394/1974), pp. 503 ff. ISLAMIC DUTIES IN HISTORY 21

Clearly the legal state of affairs was identical for both enemies of the Safavids, for Uzbeks and Ottomans. Both conceded that only the Shah and his creatures were damnable, yet not the bulk of the beguiled people. Now, was war allowed or not ? Over this question the minds of the exegetes split. The Ottoman mufti answered it in the affirmative, even at the risk of shedding the blood of innocent people. Khunji, the mouthpiece of the Uzbek ruler, denied it, even if the abominable Safavid r6gime should stay in power. We see that after the encounter with the Safavids the differing political interests and possibilities of the two Sunni parties involved determined the legal interpretation and the ensuing sentence of the judges. This case has yet another, narrower dimension. A few years earlier, shortly before the catastrophe of Marw, the very same Khunji had still fervently propagated the total jihad against the "red caps" (qizil biirk), the Safavids, as a deed far more meritorious than war against the Christians. At that time he, a refugee from Iran, still hoped (and had little reason not to hope) to return to his home. His development epitomizes the enforced change of a supposedly unbiased and independent legal opinion—enforced by the change of political fortunes. The jihad has remained alive well into the modern age and even into the most recent past. It not only outlived the secularization of Muslims, but rather adapted itself to it, unlike the canonical duties. Certainly the vague outlines of the institution of jihad and the inherent dualism of personal and political or public jihad favored adjustment to the conditions prevalent at a given time. Nevertheless, the complete change of this concept which we can observe in our days, is astonishing. The sharica provides for non-Muslims to be summoned to participate in the jihad on the side of the Muslims. This clause seems to have supplied the legal basis for a striking de-Islamization of the jihad-concept, beginning in the nineteenth century. The solidarity of the Muslim umma, which is to be defended by the believers, is replaced by the solidarity of the nation, and, to a certain degree, even of the class, though the traditional concept of jihad never lost its attraction. In 1832, when the Egyptian army under Muhammad `All's son Ibrahim conquered the major part of Syria, the Shaykh al-Islam of Sultan Mahmiid II was about to declare a jihad of the Ottoman Empire against the fellow-Sunnite, yet hostile and insurgent and, if only for this reason, 'infidel' invaders from Egypt,26 who, on their

20 See Mordechai Abir, "Local leadership and early reforms in Palestine 1800-1834," Studie8 on Palegine during the Ottoman Period, ed. Moshe Ma'oz (Jerusalem : Magnes Press, 1975), p. 304. 22 THE MUSLIM WORLD part, tried to muster the support of the Sharif of Mecca, the Holy City of Islam. In the struggle for the Persian constitution in 1900 we encounter Armenian Christians as mujähidan side by side with their Muslim compatriots. In 1914 the Shaykh ui-Islam of Istanbul even declared the Holy War against the Allies under the influence of a Christian power, imperial Germany, and its propaganda. On October 7, 1973, one day after the successful crossing of the Suez canal by Egyptian troops, the Grand Shaykh of al-Azhar, tAbd al-Halim Matimiid, proclaimed : 2 "The jiheid is incumbent upon all without distinction, Muslims and Christians alike ; it is the foremost duty for everyone under the sky of Egypt, the common fatherland" (al-jiheid ltaqq 'alit 1-jamit lit farq bayna muslim wa masilii bat hiya 1-weijib al-awwal li kull man azallatha sanur Misr watan al-jamV). The ideology of the jihad is no longer, as e.g., in Algeria, Arabia, and in the Sudan in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, specifically Islamic. It has rather become abstracted from the religious basis and has risen above the denominations, thus preserving its unique magnetism well into our days. 2 8

We have come to the end of our discourse. We have seen that the four canonical duties and also, though to a lesser degree, the jihad hold the highest ranks in Muslim religious law, together with the shahäda, the confession of God's unity and of Muhammad's prophetic mission. The unchangeability of these highest religious norms is a central tenet of Muslim belief. Historical reality, however, was different, and only few critical Muslim observers, among them 'All 'Abd al-Räziq in his famous treatise Al-Islitm wa usfil al-hukm 2 of 1925, took notice of it. Even the few and scattered examples which we produced clearly corroborate the assumption that the duties—institutions of practical religiosity— were subject to historical change and, if necessary, adapted to it. The individual duties went different ways. The later the date when they were explicitly elaborated in the sharra—that is, the more

2 Al-Mufawwar of October 12, 1973, P. 44. 28 The copious modern Muslim jihad-literature tends to minimize or neglect this universal and at the same time contradictory character of the modern jihad-concept. Cf., among numerous other works, e.g., al-Husayni Muhammad Abb. Farha, Falsafat al-balr (Cairo, 1972). The modern Twelver Shri view of jihad is presented in the recent, richly documented article by E. Kohlberg, "The Development of the Imiimi Shri Doctrine of Jihad," Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenkindischen Gesellschaft, CXXVI (1976), 64-86, particularly 82 ff. on the nineteenth-century ristila-yi jihtidina. 2 See Anouar Abdel Malek, Les Essais. Anthologie de la littircdure arabe contem- poraine, II (Paris : Editions du Seuil, 1965), 86 § 12 and pp. 82-86 passim. ISLAMIC DUTIES IN HISTORY 23 topical, younger, and realistic the statutes were in the individual case—the less forceful the pressure of historical change seems to have been. Certainly this is one reason why the institution of jihad proved relatively stable, whereas the zakat, a mirror of the pristine Islamic economic order, had so soon become an anachronism. This first, historical, criterion is, however, superseded by a more important second, sociological, one : the degree to which the con- scientious and literal fulfillment of the duty concerned coalesced or rather collided with the political and economic interests of those in power. The ritual prayer, the salat, and to a lesser degree also the fast and the pilgrimage, are in essence elements of private life; their only public impact is constructive : they serve to strengthen communal life and solidarity. Leaving aside the most recent develop- ments, these three duties in general did not clash with the interests of the state and therefore remained in effect unadulterated. The zakiit, however, a political institution par excellence, could not possibly survive in its original character. Its rigid and exclusive regulations did not allow for any concessions to the rapidly changing economic reality. It was doomed to disappear in its canonical claims, or rather shrank to the original charity of voluntary alms-giving. War, jihad, finally, a basic tool of politics, proved adaptable. In the recent past we hear of a variant of jihad that lost its specifically Islamic character and was permeated with modern nonreligious ideologies such as nationalism. A full evaluation of the complex tension between loyalty to the sharra and obedience to secular authorities is not yet possible. One would have to analyze in detail the relationships between subject and ruler across the dar al-islam all through the centuries, and then have to describe the function of the duty within this system. Certainly the high elasticity (and lack of rigidity) of most norms governing the proper execution of the duties facilitated their survival. As we have seen in the case of the pilgrimage, the sharra in general allows for the post festum fulfillment of neglected duties either by the debtor himself or by another Muslim. No excessive physical and psychological demands are imposed on the believer. The tension between legal prescriptions and human possibilities remained easily tolerable. Still, the fate of the zakat-duty reminds us of the natural conflict between the interests of the state and of the individual, between political power and personal piety. The ideal of unity between polity and community broke up. And the zakät, one of the ritual duties, the quintessence of God's eternal legislation, the refuge and bulwark 24 THE MUSLIM WORLD of absolute Islam, was affected by this development. The traditional view of the inseparable unity of state and religion in Islam becomes even more problematic in the light of this particular evidence.

Freiburg University ULRICH HAARMANN