Muslim Distinction: Imitation and the Anxiety of Jewish, Christian, And
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Muslim Distinction: Imitation and the Anxiety of Jewish, Christian, and Other Influences Youshaa Patel Graduate Program in Religion Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Ebrahim Moosa, Supervisor ___________________________ Bruce Lawrence ___________________________ Leela Prasad ___________________________ Carl Ernst Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate Program in Religion in the Graduate School at Duke University 2012 ABSTRACT Muslim Distinction: Imitation and the Anxiety of Jewish, Christians, and Other Influences by Youshaa Patel Graduate Program in Religion Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Ebrahim Moosa, Supervisor ___________________________ Bruce Lawrence ___________________________ Leela Prasad __________________________ Carl Ernst An abstract of a dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate Program in Religion in the Graduate School at Duke University 2012 Copyright by Youshaa Patel 2012 ABSTRACT Contrary to later Muslim tradition, the first Muslims initially looked favorably upon assimilating Jewish and Christian religious and cultural practices. As Muslim collective religious identity conjoined with political power, Muslims changed their religious policy from imitation to distinction; they began to define themselves both above and against their archreligious rivals. They visibly and publicly materialized their unique brand of monotheism into a distinct religious community. This dissertation is the first attempt to map the Muslim religious discourse that expressed this deliberate turn away from Jews, Christians, and others across premodern Islamic history. First, I argue that this discourse functions as a prism through which to view the interplay of religion and politics; a key function of both empire and religion in a premodern Muslim context was to uphold hierarchical social distinctions. Next, I show that Muslims imagined these distinctions in very concrete terms. In contrast to conventional studies that emphasize the role of abstract doctrine in making Islam a distinct religion, this study highlights the aesthetic mediation of Muslim distinction through everyday quotidian practice such as dress, hairstyle, ritual, festivals, funerary rites, and bodily gestures what Sigmund Freud has called, “The Narcissism of Minor Differences.” These acts of distinction illustrate that Muslim religious identity was not shaped in a social and cultural vacuum; its construction overlapped with that of ethnicity, gender, class, and the even the human. What this study reveals, then, is how Muslims attempted to fashion more than just a distinct religion, but an ideal moral order, or social imaginary. In this robust Muslim social imaginary, human beings were mimetic iv creatures; becoming, or subjectformation, was inextricably related to belonging, being part of a community. Despite the conscious attempt of religious scholars to normalize Muslim distinction, this study contests that both elite and ordinary Muslims continued to imitate, and ultimately assimilate, foreign practices within a Near Eastern cultural landscape of sharedness. Drawing upon approaches from religious studies, history, and anthropology, this interdisciplinary study foregrounds both text and theory. It interweaves theories of difference, imitation (mimesis), power, embodiment, semiotics and aesthetics with a broad range of Arabic literary texts spanning theology, law, Quranic exegesis, prophetic traditions, ethics, mysticism, historical chronicles, and biography. More specifically, this study highlights the critical role of prophetic utterances (hadith) in shaping the Islamic discourses of Shariʿa and Sufism. It foregrounds the contributions of two premodern Damascene religious scholars in their historical contexts: the controversial Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328), and the underappreciated Najm alDīn alGhazzī (d. 1651), who authored a remarkable encyclopedia of mimesis and distinction hitherto ignored in both Euro American and Islamic scholarship. v اﻟﻤﺮء ﻣﻊ ﻣﻦ أﺣﺐ A person belongs with the one he loves To my mother vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract .............................................................................................................................. iv List of Tables ................................................................................................................... viii List of Figures .................................................................................................................... ix Acknowledgements ..............................................................................................................x Preface: “Whoever imitates a nation is one of them” ...................................................... xiv Introduction: The Mimetic Self ...........................................................................................1 Part One: Cultural and Political Landscapes ...............................................................55 Chapter 1. Empire of Distinction: The Social Order of Early Islam ..............................56 Part Two: Discursive Landscapes ................................................................................111 Chapter 2. From Imitation to Distinction: Tashabbuh and the Beginning of Islam .....112 Chapter 3. The Innovation of Imitation: Ibn Taymiyya’s Anxieties of Influence .......167 Chapter 4. “A person belongs with the one he loves”: Najm alDīn alGhazzī’s Affective Poetics of Belonging and Becoming ............................................................224 Part Three: Semiotic Landscapes .................................................................................276 Chapter 5. Embodying Distinction: Sartorial Style ......................................................281 Chapter 6. Gestures of Distinction ...............................................................................324 Chapter 7. Senses of Distinction ..................................................................................379 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................418 Appendix 1: “Whoever imitates a nation is one of them”: Transmission, Authenticity, and Classification .............................................................................................................429 Appendix 2: The Treatises Against Imitation: A Bibliographical Survey .......................463 Bibliography ....................................................................................................................474 Author biography .............................................................................................................503 vii LIST OF TABLES Table 1.1 Pact of ʿUmar .....................................................................................................93 Table 2.1 Traditions of Distinction ..................................................................................162 Table 5.1 Pact of ʿUmar: Sartorial Styles ........................................................................387 Table 7.1 Pact of ʿUmar: A Sensory Analysis .................................................................491 Table 7.2 The Sunnī Adhān .............................................................................................398 viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Imitation Hadith Transmission Network ( Isnād Map) .....................................443 Figure 2: Ibn ʿUmar Transmission Network ...................................................................444 Figure 3: Abū Hurayra Transmission Network ...............................................................445 Figure 4: Ṭāwūs Transmission Network ..........................................................................446 Figure 5: Anas b. Mālik Transmission Network ..............................................................447 Figure 6: Ḥudhayfa b. alYamān Transmission Network ................................................448 Figure 7: AlḤasan alBaṣrī Transmission Network .......................................................449 Figure 8: ʿUmar b. alKhaṭṭāb Transmission Network ....................................................450 ix ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ﺑﺴﻢ اﷲ اﻟﺮﲪﻦ اﻟﺮﺣﻴﻢ اﳊﻤﺪ ﷲ رب اﻟﻌﺎﳌﲔ و اﻟﺼﻼة و اﻟﺴﻼم ﻋﻠﻰ اﳌﺼﻄﻔﻰ و اﻷﻧﺒﻴﺎء و اﻷ وﻟﻴﺎء و ﻣﻦ ﻳﺘﺸﺒﻪ ﻢ إﱃ ﻳﻮم اﻟﺪﻳﻦ I am only a placeholder for the many wonderful people that helped bring this doctoral dissertation to completion. I want to first thank my dissertation supervisor, Ebrahim Moosa, who miraculously merges into a single person two bodies: the alim who is anchored in the Islamic discursive tradition and the imaginative academic who breathes into this tradition new life. More than anything, he dared me to think big. I would also like to thank the other members of my committee: Bruce Lawrence, whose impeccable adab , brilliance, and energy infect all who have the honor of meeting him; Leela Prasad, who taught me how to appreciate the poetics of everyday conduct; and Carl Ernst, the sober mystic across Tobacco road, who made reading texts in Arabic, Urdu, or Persian a great pleasure through his humor and insight. At Duke and UNC, I would also like thank miriam cooke, Omid Safi, David Morgan, and Engseng Ho for valuable guidance. I am extremely grateful to Rob Rozehnal who invited me