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Violence in Islamic Thought from the Qurʾa¯N to the Mongols

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Violence in Islamic Thought from the Qurʾa¯N to the Mongols violence in islamic thought from the Qurʾa¯n to the mongols Edited by ROBERT GLEAVE and ISTVáN T. KRISTÓ-NAGY The Legitimate and Illegitimate Violence in Islamic Thought Project (www.livitproject.net) funded by the RCUK Global Uncertainties Programme, administered through the Economic and Social Research Council In memory of Thomas Sizgorich (1970–2011) © editorial matter and organisation Robert Gleave and István T. Kristó-Nagy, 2015 © the chapters their several authors, 2015 Edinburgh University Press Ltd The Tun – Holyrood Road 12 (2f) Jackson’s Entry Edinburgh EH8 8PJ www.euppublishing.com Typeset in JaghbUni by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport Cheshire, and printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 0 7486 9423 5 (hardback) ISBN 978 0 7486 9424 2 (webready PDF) ISBN 978 1 4744 0345 0 (epub) The right of the contributors to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted inaccordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and the Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003 (SI No. 2498). Contents Dates and Abbreviations viii List of Figures and Tables ix 1. INTRODUCTION 1 István T. Kristó-Nagy and Robert Gleave PART I. JIHA¯D AND CONQUEST: ATTITUDES TO VIOLENCE AGAINST THE EXTERNAL ENEMIES OF THE MUSLIM COMMUNITY 2. THE QUESTION OF DIVINE HELP IN THE JIHĀD 27 Dominique Urvoy 3. READING THE QURʾĀN ON JIHĀD: TWO EARLY EXEGETICAL TEXTS 33 Andrew Rippin 4. IBN AL-MUBĀRAK’SKITĀB AL-JIHĀD AND EARLY RENUNCIANT LITERATURE 49 Christopher Melchert 5. SHAPING MEMORY OF THE CONQUESTS: THE CASE OF TUSTAR 70 Sarah Bowen Savant vi Violence in Islamic Thought PART II. THE CHALLENGED ESTABLISHMENT: ATTITUDES TO VIOLENCE AGAINST THE STATE AND IN ITS DEFENCE WITHIN THE MUSLIM COMMUNITY 6. WHO INSTIGATED VIOLENCE: A REBELLING DEVIL OR A VENGEFUL GOD? 93 István T. Kristó-Nagy 7. ATTITUDES TO THE USE OF FIRE IN EXECUTIONS IN LATE ANTIQUITY AND EARLY ISLAM: THE BURNING OF HERETICS AND REBELS IN LATE UMAYYAD IRAQ 106 Andrew Marsham 8. ʿABBĀSID STATE VIOLENCE AND THE EXECUTION OF IBN ʿĀʾISHA 128 John A. Nawas 9. THE SULTAN AND THE DEFIANT PRINCE IN HUNTING COMPETITION: QUESTIONS OF LEGITIMACY IN HUNTING EPISODES OF ṬABARISTĀN 141 Miklós Sárközy PART III. LUST AND FLESH: ATTITUDES TO VIOLENCE AGAINST THE DEFENCELESS, INTRA-COMMUNITARIAN VIOLENCE BY NON-STATE ACTORS 10. VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN IN ANDALUSI HISTORICAL SOURCES (THIRD/NINTH–SEVENTH/THIRTEENTH CENTURIES) 155 Maribel Fierro 11. SEXUAL VIOLENCE IN VERSE: THE CASE OF JIʿTHIN, AL-FARAZDAQ’S SISTER 175 Geert Jan van Gelder 12. BANDITS 191 Michael Cooperson 13. EATING PEOPLE IS WRONG: SOME EYEWITNESS ACCOUNTS OF CANNIBALISM IN ARABIC SOURCES 200 Zoltán Szombathy Contents vii 14. ANIMALS WOULD FOLLOW SHĀFIʿISM: LEGITIMATE AND ILLEGITIMATE VIOLENCE TO ANIMALS IN MEDIEVAL ISLAMIC THOUGHT 225 Sarra Tlili Bibliography 245 Index of Qurʾānic Citations 272 General Index 273 Dates and Abbreviations All sole dates are according to the Christian (mīlādī) calendar. When in pairs, the dates are ordered hijrī/mīlādī, unless there is a specific reference ofshamsī for a hijrī shamsī date. The various editions of the Encyclopedia of Islam (published by Brill) are abbreviated to EI1, EI2 and EI3 in the notes, with full online refer- ences (with weblinks) given in the bibliography. Encyclopedia Iranica (various publishers, but available online) is abbreviated to EIr in the notes, with full online references given in the bibliography. viii Figures and Tables FIGURES 4.1 PROVENANCE OF IBN AL-MUBĀRAK’S SOURCES COMPARED 57 4.2 PROVENANCE OF IBN ḤANBAL’S SOURCES COMPARED 57 4.3 IBN AL-MUBĀRAK’S ULTIMATE SOURCES 58 TABLES 5.1 PERSIANS WHO FOUGHT THE ARABS AT TUSTAR ON THE SIDE OF AL-HURMUZĀN 75 5.2 IDENTITY OF COLLABORATOR AT TUSTAR 76 14.1 EXPANDING HUMAN PREROGATIVES: ADDITIONAL USES OF NONHUMAN ANIMALS THAT MAY BENEFIT HUMANS 235 14.2 REMOVAL OF MISAPPROPRIATED THREAD USED TO SUTURE AN ANIMAL’S WOUND WHEN ITS HEALTH IS STILL AT RISK 241 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION István T. Kristó-Nagy* and Robert Gleave** َو َل تَ ْقتُلُوا النَّ ْف َس الَّتِي َح َّر َم َّللاُ إِ َّل بِ ْال َح ِّق ]…[ And do not kill the soul which Allah has forbidden, except by right.1 The topic of Legitimate and Illegitimate Violence in Islamic Thought (LIVIT) calls for an interdisciplinary, comparative and historical approach. This has been the underlying methodological assumption within the project which bore this name. Amongst the products of that three-year project is a series of collected studies by established and emerging scholars in the field, examining how Muslim thinkers have conceptualised violence and categorised (morally and legally) acts of violence. In this opening chapter, István Kristó-Nagy first explores how violence in Islamic thought can be set against a wider consideration of violence in human history. It is this comparative perspective which contextualises not only this volume, but also the two subsequent volumes in the LIVIT series. In the second half of this chapter, Robert Gleave explains how this volume is * István T. Kristó-Nagy, University of Exeter (2010–13, Research Fellow, Legitimate and Illegitimate Violence in Islamic Thought Project, 2013–, Lecturer in Arabic and Islamic Studies). I would like to thank Drs John Cooper and William Gallois, who emended drafts of the first part of this chapter. ** Robert Gleave, University of Exeter (Professor of Arabic Studies and Director of the Legitimate and Illegitimate Violence in Islamic Thought Project). 1. Q 17:33 (trans. ‘Saheeh International’ team). Available at: http://www.quranabc.com/ quran/#/The%20Qur’an/392; http://quran.com/17/33; http://corpus.quran.com/transla tion.jsp?chapter=17&verse=33 (accessed 1 June 2014). We wish to express our gratitude to Professor Ian Netton for the idea to use this extract as an opening quotation. 1 2 Violence in Islamic Thought structured, addressing the different approaches used by the contributors, and examines the different ways in which violence can be categorised. * * * * I: VIOLENCE, OUR INHERENT HERITAGE Before exploring our social, religious, intellectual or moral history, understand- ing our biological history is essential. Medieval philosophy, both Muslim and Christian, generally accepted an idea derived from Aristotle2 and illustrated on the ‘Porphyrian tree’:3 man is a rational animal.4 We might, indeed, prefer to think that we are primarily spiritual, rational and moral beings. Our behaviour, however, does not always correspond to such an angelic ideal. If we misappre- hend our essential nature, we can hardly control it. Understanding how we are, and reasoning about how we want to be, can get us closer to the latter. This introductory study is intended neither to offer a survey of the immense scholarly literature on violence, nor to represent a set of ideas agreed to by all the contributors to this series. It is a summary of my highly personal and by-no- means definitive thoughts. The first section is composed of two parts, in which I argue that all our violence is rooted in our common genetic heritage. The second section of this study is composed of five parts, in which, with a focus on violence, I discuss how our cultures, including religion in general and Islam in particular, developed in interaction with our biological heritage and our social and civilisational evolution. 2. S. M. Cohen, ‘Aristotle’s metaphysics’, in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2014 edn), ed. E. N. Zalta. Available at: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aris totle-metaphysics/ (accessed 1 June 2014); A. Thomasson, ‘Categories’, in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2013 edn), ed. E. N. Zalta. Available at: http://plato. stanford.edu/entries/categories/ (accessed 1 June 2014). 3. See, for instance, the entry ‘Arbor porphyriana’, in Cyclopædia: Or, An Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences (2 vols), ed. E. Chambers (d. 1740) (London, 1728), 1, p. 128. Available at: http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/HistSciTech/HistSciTech- idx?type=turn&id=HistSciTech.Cyclopaedia01&entity=HistSciTech.Cyclopaedia01. p0168 (accessed 1 June 2014). 4. See the section ‘5.2 William of Ockham (b. c. 1285, d. 1347)’, in J. Gracia and L. Newton, ‘Medieval theories of the categories’, in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2012 edn), ed. E. N. Zalta. Available at: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/medieval- categories/#WilOckBCa128D134 (accessed 1 June 2014); J. Franklin, ‘Aristotle on species variation’, Philosophy 61.236 (April 1986), pp. 251–2. Introduction 3 OUR BIOLOGICAL HERITAGE Violence in the Living World While providing an absolute definition to a concept such as violence is impos- sible, striving for a working definition can help our comprehension. For our pur- poses, it might be useful to restrict the use of the term to living beings, thus our working definition for violence can beany detrimental act performed by a living being against a living being. As non-living beings do not have feelings, violence is probably not the right term to apply to their harm or destruction, except when living beings are also touched. When a stone is shattered by another stone, it is just movement and change. The distinction between what belongs to the realm of living or non-living beings can, however, be uneasy: for instance, one is inclined to term as vio- lence the mutilation of dead bodies, demolition of monuments or oppression of thoughts. All beings, including living ones, are systems, which are composed of smaller systems and constitute bigger ones. In fact, the borders of an individual living being are as impossible to define as the borders of any other physical body. A living being can do violence to itself, parts of it can do violence against the whole and against each other, while the whole can do violence against its parts as well; suffice to mention the complex intra-individual struggles in cases of auto- immune diseases or cancer.
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