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Link Between Joshua Bin Nun and ¨Ali Ibn Abu ™Alib

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Link Between Joshua Bin Nun and ¨Ali Ibn Abu ™Alib doi: 10.2143/ANES.47.0.2051629 ANES 47 (2010) 305-321 Link between Joshua Bin Nun and ¨Ali Ibn Abu ™alib Khalid SINDAWI Department of Multidisciplinary Studies Head of Middle Eastern Studies Unit The Max Stern Academic College of Emek Yezreel Emek Yezreel 19300 ISRAEL Fax:+ 972 4 69880667 E-mail: [email protected] Abstract This article deals with some aspects of the link between Joshua (Jeshua) Bin Nun and ¨Ali Ibn ˆAbu ™alib, the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet MuÌammad, as reflected in the canonical writings of the Shi‘a Islam, which include commentaries on the Qurˆan and the interpretations that proliferated around them, as well as Îadith literature. The Shi‘ite writers were influenced by the history of Joshua’s life and selected certain details from it for adaptation to the life of ‘Ali Ibn ˆAbu ™alib, clothing them in Shi‘ite dress with the aim of giving ‘Ali an aspect of holiness and also of showing that both ‘Ali and Joshua belonged to those chosen men of high quality, and that the tradition of inheritor to the prophet has existed since ancient times, before the appearance of Shi‘ism on the stage of history, so as to give legitimacy to the doctrine of inheritance among the Shi‘a.* M. Cook believes that it is possible to discover Jewish influences on the schools of Muslim religious law that developed in Iraq, especially on the Imamiyya Shi¨ites,1 and on this basis one can understand some of the simi- larities that the Shi¨a adapted from the qualities of Joshua as found in Jewish traditions and applied to ¨Ali. One of the ways which the Shi¨a2 employed in * This article is an expanded version of a lecture I delivered at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, at the Nehemiah Levzion Center for Islamic Research, on 26 April 2006, in the framework of the conference on ‘Sufism in Israel/Palestine, Past and Present’. 1 Cook, 1986, pp. 260–270. 2 The term Shi‘a and Shi‘ites in this article refer to the Imamiyya Shi‘a, who are also called the Twelvers (Ithna ‘Ashariyya). 993280_Anes_47_09_Sindawi.indd3280_Anes_47_09_Sindawi.indd 330505 223/08/103/08/10 116:006:00 306 K. SINDAWI order to transform the image of ¨Ali Ibn ˆAbu ™alib (661 CE) into that of a holy person was to promote the link between him and Joshua Bin Nun. The question arises as to how it was possible to find resemblances between two historical characters that seem so different from each other, between ¨Ali Ibn ˆAbu ™alib, the cousin of the Prophet MuÌammad and his son-in-law, who is the central character in Shi¨a faith, and Joshua Bin Nun, the servant and inheritor of Moses. The Shi¨ites link Joshua to ¨Ali because both of them are chosen men of high quality who are legendary characters. The Shi¨ites believe that ¨Ali is the foremost among those who continue in the line of prophecy, and they stress the continuity of prophecy in order to transfer the legacy, waÒiyya, between the prophets and after them from ’Imam to ’Imam in a continuous chain. Listed among those prophets were Noah, Hod, Abraham (Ibrahim), Moses (Musa), and others. The legacy was passed down in continuous sequence through the inheritors, ’awÒiyaˆ, of the prophets, among whom were listed Seth, Amran (Amram), Shu¨ayb (Jethro), Zakhariyya (Zecharia), Jeshua (Joshua), and ¨Ali. According to the Shi¨a, Joshua is considered the inheritor who received the legacy of Moses, just as ¨Ali received the legacy of the Prophet MuÌammad. Both ¨Ali and Joshua are therefore the inheritors of prophets who are con- sidered chosen men of high quality who are of legendary character. The Shi¨ites selected certain details of the lives of Joshua the Jew and ¨Ali the Muslim and mentioned them in their treatises, adapting them for their readers by clothing them in Shi¨ite dress, in order to stress the holy charac- ter of ¨Ali. In my opinion, an additional reason for the Shi¨ites’ choice of Joshua the inheritor of Moses as the character linked with ¨Ali, is that during the period of Joshua, God delivered the Children of Israel from Egypt. The Shi¨a were influenced by this story of deliverance, which became a source of inspiration for the future. The Shi¨ites identified with the people of Israel as a perse- cuted minority, whose history of suffering was a forecast and symbol for the future of the Shi¨ites. Just as their predecessors, the Children of Israel in Egypt, had suffered under Pharaoh and were redeemed, so did their situa- tion improve during the period of ¨Ali. ¨Ali was the inheritor of the Prophet MuÌammad just as Joshua was the inheritor of Moses, and both of them were gifted with the same qualities. During their lifetimes their people suffered under rulers and both of them brought redemption to their supporters in the community. In addition, it could be seen that the doctrine of the inheritor had existed since ancient times and the Shi¨a was a continuation of this legacy. The Shi¨ites went 993280_Anes_47_09_Sindawi.indd3280_Anes_47_09_Sindawi.indd 330606 223/08/103/08/10 116:006:00 LINK BETWEEN JOSHUA BIN NUN AND ¨ALI IBN ABU ™ALIB 307 back thousands of years to show that the roots of Shi¨ism were to be found in the distant past, from the times of Joshua and before Shi¨ism appeared on the stage of history, in order to prove that the Shi¨a had been in exist- ence since ancient days. All this was to give legitimacy to the doctrine and to the Shi¨a in general, so as to prove its antiquity3 and that the Shi¨a were not a new sect as people generally thought. The main principle regarding the resemblances between Joshua and ¨Ali is that a comparative examination of early Shi¨ite traditions with Midrashic literature and extracts from Talmudic lore may expose many Israelite tra- ditions that were not formerly regarded as such by researchers,4 and that found their way into Islam in the early period of its formation. It is com- monly accepted to consider the groups of Jewish converts to Islam, mainly of the generation of MuÌammad, as the channel through which these tra- ditions entered Islam.5 The Islamic sages were divided over the question of the necessity or value of keeping these traditions, but it seems that the view that began to prevail amongst them, as shown by M. I. Kister, was that there was no harm in allowing Muslim scholars to draw upon Jewish traditions.6 In any case, the compilers of Qurˆan commentaries and Îadith collections were influenced by material of this kind. Whether their Jewish origins were clearly visible or were incorporated within them, much of this kind of material was collected in treatises of the literary genre of “Tales of the Prophets” (QiÒaÒ al-ˆAnbiyaˆ), consist- ing mainly of adaptations of rabbinical Midrashim (homiletics) about the biblical prophets. It should be noted that there are traces of Midrashim and sayings from Talmudic literature not only in commentaries on the Qurˆan and in Îadith literature and “Tales of the Prophets,” but also within the text of the Qurˆan itself, a well-known fact that cannot be elaborated here. A selection of Shi¨ite traditions and sayings that have a Jewish impress upon them were collected by G. Vajda.7 He came to the conclusion that 3 This idea of the Shi’a seeing itself as an ancient religion is a central one for the Shi’ites and has even been discussed in various studies: see, for example, Kohlberg 1980, pp. 133– 160. 4 Compare Heinemann 1974, pp. 181–199 and notes on p. 243; see also Lazarus-Yafeh 1992, pp. 23, 105, and 119 n. 29. 5 On these traditions and the attitude of Islamic sages towards inheritor usage, see Goitein (1935, pp. 89–101). 6 Kister 1972, pp. 215–239. 7 For details, see Vajda 1981, pp. 45–53. 993280_Anes_47_09_Sindawi.indd3280_Anes_47_09_Sindawi.indd 330707 223/08/103/08/10 116:006:00 308 K. SINDAWI most of the sayings that he had collected from the Shi¨ite treatise “al-Khafi” by al-Kulayni (d. 941), and which had their possible sources in Talmudic literature, also have parallels in outstanding Sunni treatises. Many Jewish Midrashim have been taken into Shi¨ite sources, including numerous exegetical accounts of the story of Joshua, which echo well- known Midrashim. However, the fact that these traditions were found in Shi¨ite treatises does not imply that they were the well-known traditions that researchers dealing with Israˆiliyyat, such as A. Geiger, I. Goldziher, H. Speyer and others, were concerned with. There remains important mate- rial that is still embedded in ancient texts. In some cases this can be explained by ignorance of the texts, and in other cases the reason is that the Jewish origin is not clearly seen. In a thorough examination that I made of Shi¨ite sources, I found that the Shi¨a stress a number of common traits between Joshua and ¨Ali, appar- ently taken from Shi¨ites who were influenced by the history of Joshua’s life and chose certain details which they introduced into their treatises and adapted for their readers by clothing them in Shi¨ite dress in order to give ¨Ali the character of a holy man, the descendant of a holy family. Resemblances between Joshua and ¨Ali 1. Common name According to the fifth Twelver imam, MuÌammad al-Baqir (d.
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