D – Hybrid Learning

DURRANI DYNASTY

Batoota — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 13:51:45 +0000

DURRANI DYNASTY. The origin of the Durrani (also known as Abdali) Dynasty coincided with the violent death of the Iranian monarch Nadir Shah Afshar (1747) and the establishment of an independent political entity in a part of Khurasan that by the mid-1800s was known as Afghanistan. The founder of the dynasty was Ahmad Khan Abdali. (1747-1772), Nadir Shah’s youthful treasury official and a trusted commander of an Afghan (Pashtun) cavalry force.

Ahmad Shah Durrani

Upon the murder of Nadir Shah by his courtiers, Ahmad Khan escaped with his 4,000-man Afghan cavalry and much of the Shah’s portable treasury to Kandahar, his native tribal territory. In a jirgah (council) that lasted nine days, the elders of the Abdali Pashtun tribe selected Ahmad Khan as their paramount chief, and he became Ahmad Shah (king) Abdali. Supported by his comrades in the Persian army, Uzbek officers, and most Pashtun tribes in the area, Ahmad Shah threw off the yoke of foreign domination and launched an ambitious and successful military campaign, ultimately dominating most of the territories of the former Mughal, Safavid, and Shaybanid empires.
Following a dream, Ahmad Shah changed his title to Ahmad Shah Durr-i Durran or Durr-i Dowran (Pearl of Pearls or Pearl of the Age), hence the dynastic and tribal name Durrani. He was a charismatic leader, a warrior, a poet, a skilled diplomat, and a pious Muslim with strong Sufi ties. The king made Kandahar his capital, built a new city, and organized his court and imperial government following the Persian model he knew best. He also confirmed the land holdings of the Abdali (now Durrani) tribe and awarded special privileges to members of his own Sadozai clan. In accordance with the practice of Muslim rulers, Ahmad Shah issued coins for circulation in his own name and had his name mentioned as sovereign in the Friday and `Eid khutbahs (sermons).
At Ahmad Shah’s death (1772) the Durrani) empire stretched from Khurasan to Kashmir and Punjab, and from the Oxus to the Indian Ocean. His principal strategy for empire building was to wage foreign wars of conquest directed essentially toward India. Ahmad Shah’s repeated successes in military ventures in India increased his reputation and brought him considerable loot with which to maintain a small regular army and keep the continued allegiance of local khans through favors and reward. Ahmad Shah’s Islamic zeal may have also played an important role in his wars of conquest in India.
Ahmad Shah’s son Timur Shah (1772-1793) lost the confidence of local Pashtuns in Kandahar, and so he shifted his capital to Kabul (1775-1776) and barely managed to hold onto his patrimony. The death of Timur Shah (1793) marked the beginning of the long-term disintegration of the Durrani) empire through internal disorder and European colonial invasions and pressures. Timur Shah’s twenty-three sons from his many wives engaged in bloody fraternal feuds over the royal succession. Eventually the country was plunged into a period of intensified civil war (1818-1826) that ultimately resulted in the shift of dynastic power from the Sadozai clan to the chiefs of the Barakzai (or Muhammadzai) clan of the Durrani Pashtuns (1818-1929).
Between 1818 and 188o, the major revenue-producing parts of the Durrani empire such as Punjab, Kashmir, and Sind were lost to the Sikhs, and Baluchistan to the local independent khans. The rising Qajar Dynasty in Iran had claimed most of Khurasan and repeatedly attacked Herat. Local chieftains held sway in many other areas. Under conditions of multiple power centers and rulers, old feuds were rekindled within the Durrani) tribe as well as between them and the Ghilzai Pashtun. Sectarian and ethnic differences were politicized as various warlords pursued possibilities for furthering personal ambitions to gain the Kabul throne.
Dost Muhammad, the youngest son of the Sardar Payinda Khan Barakzai, succeeded in his struggle for control of Kabul in 1826. He faced a growing Sikh threat from the east, but it was not until 1834, during a direct Sikh attack on Peshawar, that Dost Muhammad rose to defend Islam in a jihad. Upon his declaring his intentions, the Kabul `ulama’ conferred on him the title of amir al-mu’minin (Commander of the Faithful). This event not only established the potency of the concept of jihad against foreign threats but also formally marked the foundation of the dynastic shift to the Barakzai clan when Dost Muhammad became the Amir (not Shah) of Afghanistan (1834-1838).
During the first Anglo-Afghan war (1839-1842) the British installed Shah Shuja’, a former Sadozai monarch (1803-18o9), in Kabul. However, upon Britain’s military defeat, Amir Dost Muhammad resumed the Kabul throne (1842-1863) and received much financial and military aid from Britain. Between 1863 and 1879 Dost Muhammad’s three brothers fought each other over the succession. The intensification of the British and Russian “Great Game” in Central Asia led to the British invasion of Afghanistan. At the end of the Second Anglo-Afghan War (1878-1880), Afghanistan emerged as a buffer state with its present boundaries, demarcated entirely by Britain and Russia. Britain controlled Afghanistan’s foreign affairs.
With Britain’s assistance, Amir Dost Muhammad’s grandson Amir `Abd al-Rahman (1880-1901), the so-called “Iron Amir,” consolidated direct rule across the country. By brutally suppressing tribal and rural leaders and appealing to the Sunni ‘ulama’, he created the modern Afghan state. His son Amir Habib Allah (1901-1919) relaxed some of his harsher measures and in 1903 established the first modern school, Habibiyah, and later the first significant newspaper, Siraj al-akhbdr. When Habib Allah was assassinated, his son Amanullah took the title of king (1919-1929) and declared Afghanistan’s independence from Britain, which was granted after a brief war in 1919. King Amanullah, impressed by Ataturk’s secular experiments, launched a series of liberal constitutional reforms and modernization programs; resistance to these led to a popular jihdd that forced his abdication and the end of rule by his branch of the Barakzai clan.
Shortly thereafter Muhammad Nadir Shah (r. 19291933), a member of the Musahiban family (a different branch of the Barakzai clan of the Durrani), mounted the throne. Following Nadir Shah’s assassination his nineteen-year-old son Muhammad Zahir Shah (r. 19331973) became king. From 1933 to 1963 Zahir Shah reigned while two of his uncles and a cousin ruled as prime ministers. Concerned primarily with preserving their family’s rule, the Musahiban adopted a cautious modernization program based on autocratic domestic and xenophobic foreign policies until 1955 Prince Muhammad Da’ud, prime minister from 1953 to 1963, began a series of five-year plans aimed at expanding education and communications infrastructures, receiving aid from both the USSR and the West. Da’ud resigned in 1963 owing to the disfavor of his policies opposing Pakistan and favoring greater dependence on the USSR.
Between 1963 and 1973 the king experimented with democracy, an effort that failed because he did not legalize political parties and allowed interference in politics by his family and friends. The Communist Party and Islamist opposition movements formed during this period and agitated against both the government and each other. In a military coup (1973) assisted by the pro-Soviet Parcham wing of the Communist Party, Muhammad Da’ud overthrew the Durrani monarchy and declared himself president of the Republic of Afghanistan (1973-1978) Da’ud relied heavily on his old royal networks and began to distance himself from the pro-Soviet Communists whom he had earlier protected and nurtured. In an environment of growing discontent, in April 1978, a Communist coup ousted and killed Da’ud, thus ending the Durrani dynasty in Afghanistan. [See also Afghanistan.]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
`Abd al-Rahman Khan. The Life of Abdur Rahman, Amir of Afghanistan (1900). 2 vols. Edited by Sultan Mahomed Khan. Oxford and New York, 1980. Alleged autobiography of the amir, very informative about his views on Afghan society and politics.
Dupree, Louis. Afghanistan. Princeton, 1980. Valuable reference on the general history and ethnography of the country.
Elphinstone, Mountstuart. An Account of the Kingdom of Caubul (1815). 2 vols. London and New York, 1972. Excellent source on the rise of the Durrani empire and ethnography of the Pashtun tribes, during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Gregorian, Vartan. The Emergence of Modern Afghanistan: Politics of Reform and Modernization, 1880-1946. Stanford, Calif., 1969. Superb analysis of state formation in Afghanistan.
Kakar, M. Hasan. Government and Society in Afghanistan: The Reign of Amir `Abd al-Rahman Khan. Austin and London, 1979. Excellent documentation of the amir’s policies and practices, based on vernacular and Western sources.
Mohan, Lal. Life of the Amir Dost Mohammed Khan of Kabul (1846). 2 vols. Oxford and New York, 1978. Valuable account of the wars of succession and Britain’s involvement through the First AngloAfghan War.
Poullada, Leon B. Reform and Rebellion in Afghanistan, 1919-1929: King Amanullah’s Failure to Modernize Tribal Society. Ithaca, N.Y., and London, 1973. Useful but conventional interpretation of King Amanullah’s disastrous attempt at political reform.
Singh, Ganda. Ahmad Shah Durrani: Father of Modern Afghanistan. London, 1959. Rich biographical history of a remarkable, but little known Afghan king.
M. NAZIF SHAHRANI

DRUZE

Batoota — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 12:45:27 +0000

DRUZE. The Druze faith, or tawhid, grew out of the extremist Isma’ili Shi’i theology that prevailed in early Fatimid Cairo. This system had promised a radical political change within Islam which failed to materialize once the Isma’iliyah gained political power in North Africa, especially in Egypt in 969. People still looked for messianic rule and many came to believe that the caliph al-Hakim ibn `Amr Allah (r. 996-1021) was the expected deliverer.

Druz Star

The leading apologist for al-Hakim and his divinity was Hamzah ibn `Ali ibn Ahmad al-Zuzani, a Persian Isma’ili theologian. In 1017, a year after Hamzah’s arrival in Cairo, al-Hakim issued a proclamation (sijill) in which he revealed himself to be the manifestation of the deity. Hamzah pursued the da’wah (“divine call”) of the new faith throughout the empire and even beyond, to Damascus and Aleppo, aided in his missionary endeavors by two disciples in particular, Baha’ al-Din alSamuki and Muhammad al-Darazi, the latter being generally regarded as having given converts the name by which they became commonly known, Druze.
Even in its earliest stages Druzism was not merely a sect of Islam but a new religion that aimed to establish a millennial world order. Within a year of al-Hakim’s proclamation, however, a disagreement between Hamzah and Darazi arose over who was to exercise the imamate and how converts were to be brought to the faith. Hamzah publicly rebuked Darazi, and in 1019 the latter was assassinated and then anathematized by the Druze faith as a heretic. Less than two years later al-Hakim disappeared suddenly under mysterious circumstances. His successor, al-Zahir (r. 1021-1035) denied his predecessor’s divinity and worked for the destruction of those who believed in the Druze message. Despite persecution, Baha’ al-Din continued pursuing the missionary da’wah, gaining new converts and nurturing those who had survived the imperial reprisals, particularly in the remoter regions of Mount Lebanon. During this time he codified the religious teaching of Druzism into six books known as Al-hikmah al-sharifah (The Noble Knowledge; the so-called Druze canon) containing III epistles and sijill composed by al-Hakim, Hamzah, and himself. In 1043 the da’wah was formally ended, and after this no new adherents were admitted to the faith.
Although known to the world as Druze, they are known to themselves as al-Muwahhidun, or strict Unitarians, believers in absolute monotheism. The tenets of the tawhid have been held in secret since the closing of the da’wah and shared only by a small number within the community in each succeeding generation initiated into the ranks of the ‘uqqal (the enlightened), which from the earliest days included women. The remainder, known as the juhhal (the ignorant or uninitiated), protected the secrecy and sanctity of their religion through loyalty to one another.
The beliefs and characteristics that set the Druze apart from Muslims are many. Their faith is exclusive and secret rather than universal. They adhere to a belief in the transmigration of souls (tanasukh) which they share in part with the `Alawiyah and Yazidis. Male circumcision, universal among Muslims, is not ritually practiced among the Druze. Polygamy, while permitted to Muslims, is forbidden to Druze, along with concubinage and temporary marriage (mut`ah). Divorce is not the easy matter it is for a Muslim, and a Druze woman can initiate the proceedings. The so-called five pillars of Islam are not ritually observed or even acknowledged. Toward non-Druze, strict secrecy is required, and to protect oneself and one’s family in times of mortal danger a Druze is permitted outwardly to deny the faiththe Shi’i practice of dissimulation (taqiyah). Unlike the Shi`is, however, the Druze place no virtue on martyrdom, and the Islamic concept of predestination does not figure in their theology. Druzism separates itself from Islam irrevocably by declaring that the revelations of al-Hakim contain the ultimate truth, not those of the prophet Muhammad.
After a century of political prominence in Mount Lebanon during the seventeenth century under the Ma’nid dynasty, the Druze split over the succession of the rival Shihab clan and many fled in the early eighteenth century to the region of southern Syria known thereafter as the Jabal al-Duruz. When the Shihabs converted to Maronite Christianity in the mid-eighteenth century, Druze leadership passed to the Jumblatt (Junblat) family, who were relatively recent arrivals from Aleppo, reputedly of Kurdish stock. Rivalry between the Druze and Maronites flared into open fighting on several occasions in the nineteenth century, particularly in 1860, and subsequent French involvement on behalf of the Maronites resulted in the creation of an autonomous Christian governate (mutasarrifiyah) which became the basis of an enlarged Lebanon, first under a French mandate in 1920 and then as an independent republic in 1943 in which the Druze counted for only 6.7 percent of the population. The leading Druze political figure from independence until his assassination during the Civil War in 1976 was Kamal Jumblatt. He was succeeded by his son Walid, who still presides with unquestioned authority over the political interests of the Druze in Lebanon. The political leadership of the Druze in Syria has traditionally been exercised by the al-Atrash family. Traditional Druze leadership in Israel has come from the Tarif clan of Julis in Galilee. Since independence, the Druze, alone among the Arabs of the former Palestine mandate, have served in the Israeli military and occasionally been given minor posts in the government and diplomatic service.
Still largely a rural-based community, the Druze are rarely found in communities of their own exceeding 10,000, the exceptions being al-Suwayda’ in Syria and Ba’qlin in Lebanon. They number between 350,000 and 400,000 out of a population of close to 4 million in Lebanon, and in Syria between 400,000 and 450,000 out of a population of over 12 million. A smaller community of 60,000 to 70,000 lives in Israel proper augmented since 1967 by another 15,000 in the occupied Golan Heights. In addition there are some 15,000 to 20,000
Druze in Jordan and perhaps as many as 1oo,ooo living outside the Middle East in the Americas, Australia, and West Africa, giving a total Druze population of slightly over I million worldwide. The Druze of Lebanon are found primarily in small towns and villages in the Shuf district on the western slope of Mount Lebanon from the Beirut-Damascus highway south to the Jazzin escarpment. A second concentration is located in the southeast of the country in the Wadi al-Taym district in the western foothills of Mount Hermon around the towns of Hasbayya and Rashayya. A third center is Beirut itself where a small number have permanent residence. In Syria, 8o percent of the Druze are found in the district of al-Suwayda’ (Jabal al-Duruz) south of the Damascus on the Jordanian frontier. A second concentration is located on the eastern slope of Mount Hermon in Damascus province and in the city itself. A third and very historic center is the Jabal al-A’la region west of Aleppo near the Turkish frontier where some 30,000 to 40,000 Druze live in a dozen villages dotted with ruined Byzantine churches (e.g., Qalb Lawzah). The Druze of Israel live primarily in sixteen towns and villages in Galilee (nine of them exclusively Druze) and two major settlements on Mount Carmel southeast of Haifa.
[See also Lebanon and the biography of jumblatt.]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Abu Izzeddin, Nejla M. The Druzes: A New Study of Their History, Faith, and Society. Leiden, 1984.
Betts, Robert B. The Druze. New Haven, 1988.
Bouron, Narcisse. Les Druzes: Histoire du Liban et de la montagne haouranaise. Paris, 1930.
Chasseaud, George Washington. The Druses of the Lebanon: Their Manners, Customs, and History; with a Translation of Their Religious Code. London, 1855.
Firro, Kais M. A History of the Druzes. Leiden, 1992.
Joumblatt, Kamal. I Speak for Lebanon. Translated from French by Michael Pallis. London, 1982.
Layish, Aharon. Marriage, Divorce, and Succession in the Druze Family. Leiden, 1982.
Makarem, Sami N. The Druze Faith. Delmar, N.Y., 1974.
Najjar, Abdallah. The Druze: Millennium Scrolls Revealed. Translated by Fred Massey. [Atlanta,] 1973. Translation of Madhhab al-Duruz wa-al-tawhid (Cairo, 1965).
Silvestre de Sacy, Antoine I. Expose de la religion des Druzes: Tire des livres religieux de cette secte. 2 vols. Paris, 1838.
ROBERT BRENTON BETTS

DRESS

Batoota — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 12:42:58 +0000

DRESS. In the Muslim world, dress expresses identity, taste, income, regional patterns of trade, and the religiosity of its wearers. Dress and its use vary with regard to gender, age, marriage status, geographical origin, occupation, and even political sentiment. While the term Islamic dress has taken on new meanings in the contemporary period, the dress of Muslims, or the significance of dress in Muslim life extends beyond the indicators of an Islamist or non-Islamist orientation.
Regional variations of dress are significant for its wearers and those from any particular region are better able to recognize nuances of dress than outsiders. For example, Egyptians can readily identify a Sudanese woman in her wrapped diaphanous thawb, or a Kuwaiti man in his white tailored thawb and distinctive head covering. They may not correctly interpret other markers contained in the length, colors, or patterns of the woman’s dress, or in the cut, design, and quality of the male garment specifying town or district of origin, or status. Many young urbanizes know little about the variations in rural dress of their own countries, garments that date back more than a generation, or even the antecedents of their own clothing.
Dress may convey Islamic mores, but then again, many Muslims no longer wear traditional clothing, and hold varying views of the modern forms of Islamic dress. Even to those who generally wear Western-style clothing, dress serves as costume on formal occasions, holidays, and at weddings, and fulfills certain requirements during prayer, or on pilgrimage. Dress may also serve as a disguise, intentionally or unintentionally when clothing is displaced through migration, marriage, or trade.
Traditional dress conformed to climactic conditions and to a division between public and private space in the Muslim world. Long and flowing garments have been worn for centuries, not only for reasons of modesty, allowing the wearer to stoop, sit and ride, but also because they are more comfortable in hot and arid climates than tightly fitted garments. Covering protects the skin from sunburn and allows perspiration to remain on the skin, keeping the body moist. Head coverings shield from other elements, for instance, the wind and sand. Berber tribal dress, on the other hand, includes warm woolen garments necessary for the mountains, as in the capes and skirts of the Ait Mgild, Zaian, and Ait Izdeg women, and the knit leggings of the Ounergi men.

Thawb

The shapes of traditional clothing also reflect the limitations of the loom. Outer wraps were made of one or more rectangular pieces, as were constructed robes (thawb, jallabiyah, fustan, quftan, dishdashah). Little fabric was wasted, and garments could be fitted through the use of gussets, insets, and a neck slit. Dress styles were modified-widened, narrowed, or otherwise refined when machine sewing was introduced. The use of color and decoration were regionally specific. In Palestine, merchants knew precisely which color thread women needed based on their native village or town. Color indicated marital status in bedouin embroidery, red or orange representing a married woman, while the addition or dominance of blue showed that the wearer was not married. Color preferences and stitch names and styles changed over time, which has complicated the identification of garments. Older, hand-sewn and embroidered garments are now recognized and valued as items of cultural and national identity.
Traditional Standards. Both male and female forms of traditional and contemporary Islamic dress conform to a general understanding of modesty based upon the hadith, popular tradition, and traditional forms of costume construction (shape). The body is covered in various degrees depending on whether one is alone, or with a spouse, among friends or relatives of the same sex, or in a mixed setting. Specific areas of the body are regarded as virtue to be protected, or as sexual in nature. Men cover their bodies from their waists to their knees, cover their heads, and wear appropriate outer wear in public. Women cover their bodies from the neckline to the ankle, and their arms to the wrists. The intent of covering the body is to make clear the virtuous character of a woman who otherwise might attract male attention. Thus, a historical aim of Muslim dress has been to delineate acceptable degrees of modesty. Men were considered to lack self-control and were easily stimulated visually, so impeding their view of women’s bodies could possibly discourage illicit advances toward women. At the same time, of course, it was understood that men and women should be attracted to one another, and the choosing and wearing of dress within the parameters of modesty might be a part of courtship.
Traditional clothing and modern Islamic dress require that women cover both their hair and neck. Traditional dress forms include an outer concealing layer which may cover the face, as in the chadur of Iran, or a specific face mask (burqu) worn by bedouin women in Egypt, and by rural and urban women in the Gulf. Historically, the outer wrap was supported on religious grounds by reference to the Qur’an (4.33). The face veil was more questionable religiously, in fact, women who otherwise covered their face, uncovered it during prayer. As the practice of female seclusion and the harem system ended in certain countries, urban upper- and middle-class women began to appear without the face veil and outer wrap wearing Western-style coats and hats in public instead. Eventually, they went outside without that nod to the past, unless the weather required it. Muslim women who now wear modern fashions based on styles originating in Europe or elsewhere may be quite religious. If wearing pants, or a short skirt, women don long outer skirts over their regular clothing, and wrap fabric around the head and neck in order to modestly assume the positions of prayer.
Transitions in Dress. Dress cannot be categorized merely as traditional or Western, meaning, modern. It is true that except in the rural areas, hand-woven, embroidered “folk-dress” is passing into the category of ceremonial and symbolic dress. Trade and migration affected traditional dress in terms of materials, techniques, prices, and styles. Machine embroidery for the fancy-wear ladies’ thawb of the Gulf and other garments are now made in India. Notions of modesty varied from area to area along with dress so that in some cases people adopted new garments in spite of their origins or implications.
The transition to “modern” dress was encouraged in some ways by the state itself, which required certain westernized forms of dress for its civil servants and pupils in public schools and universities (pants and jackets in place of men’s robes, or hats in place of traditional headgarb). Modern dress, then, became a marker of urbanity and, to some degree, social class affiliation. But this trend was reversed by the adoption of contemporary Islamic dress described below, or in certain cases (as in Libya) where people were paid stipends to don, or readopt traditional dress. In other areas the shift from modern to Islamic dress was never mandated, or at least not totally approved, hence, in the Gulf, men wear their own dress, and may or may not wear Western business or leisure clothing abroad. Other Muslims dress in both styles, wearing “oriental” dress at home or for special occasions, but modern clothing for work or school. In a number of areas, brides may, as in the Gulf area, wear an heirloom traditional wedding dress on one night of the wedding festivities and a Western-style bridal gown on another night.
Non-traditional garments reflect the cultural and economic impact of the West. Many Muslim women will not wear clothing with low necklines or backs. However, when the miniskirt and bell bottoms were popular, they were worn in the Muslim world as well, even though they did not accord with notions of modesty. Some women avoid wearing shorts or tight pants. Western-style shoes and stockings have replaced sandals or slippers, except in village settings. Sleeveless garments are worn, but women not wearing Islamic dress, or traditional dress-styles are often harassed by men or young boys in the street. Of course, this behavior is common outside the Muslim world and reveals sexual tensions and notions of female intrusion into public space in many cultures.
Men’s clothing also mirrors Western styles in urban areas. Some men wear a modified suit introduced in the 1950s and consisting of a lightweight jacket, fitted, belted, or elasticized at the waist, with short sleeves and a Nehru collar, worn with pants of the same color. Others wear currently fashionable Western suits. In rural areas, men continue to wear traditional dress, or to mix dress styles (jackets worn over dishdashah, or sirwal and to carry weapons and ammunition in public.
Modern Islamic Dress. A particular style of dress for men and women has developed in the Muslim world in the twentieth century, distinct in important ways from both traditional or modern dress. It has been adopted by some members of Muslim communities all over the world.
The female costume, referred to as Islamic dress, shar`i, or improperly, fundamentalist dress, has become far more popular than the male version. It resembles the costume worn by members of the Association of Muslim Women and the women’s wing of the Muslim Brotherhood (the Muslim Sisters) from the 1930s onward, consisting of a long skirt and a long-sleeved top, or a long robe, unfitted at the waist (jilbab, thawb) and a head covering draped over the neck and sometimes covering the shoulders (khimar). Some women also wear a face veil of plain color (niqab), gloves, and sunglasses. Diaphanous and brightly colored materials are avoided by the more pious who choose plain material and somber colors (black, dark blue, gray, beige, white). Although this costume has been confused with traditional forms of dress, and is claimed by its proponents to be the costume of the Mothers of Believers (the wives of the Prophet), it is distinctly modern. Women sew their own garments, have them made, or buy them ready-made. Some women have adopted the costume at the request of, or in order to please, spouses or relatives, and female covering has been required by the Islamic Republic of Iran. But most Muslim women have voluntarily chosen the hijab, as Islamic dress is also called. The numbers of women wearing the hijab have increased enormously since the 1970s. Its appearance has provoked dismay and debate, prompting regulations against it (in Turkey, Tunisia, or schools in France, for example) and tolerance for it (in Egyptian, Jordanian, and Syrian universities). In fact, Egyptian university officials have had to intervene to prevent students from requiring that their peers wear the hijab. In areas of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, women have been pelted with eggs or worse for not wearing at least a headscarf.
The male costume incorporates elements of traditional dress, as it includes a long-sleeved tunic and sirwal (baggy pants) or a jallabiyah (robe). These garments should be plain in color and weave, cotton being acceptable while silk, as a luxury, is not. The head is often covered, with a prayer cap or another form of traditional head wrapping. A beard is worn, sometimes untrimmed, more often neatly trimmed but covering a portion of the cheeks, unlike the “secular” beard style of other younger men. While the wearer of such a costume would undoubtedly hold Islamist sentiments and profess marked piety, many Islamist men do not in fact wear this sort of dress. Men may have been more reluctant to adopt this dress in areas where the male robe and sirwal are strongly associated with the lower classes.
In addition, the costume and the beard made men vulnerable to identification and arrest at specific points in time. Women, on the other hand, were not identified as activists on the basis of their dress alone, and several regimes decided it would be an ill-thought tactic to pinpoint the hi jab.
Islamic dress has been regarded with some suspicion both in the West and the Muslim world. Although women involved with the Ikhwan al-Muslimun (Muslim Brotherhood) wore similar clothing the costume was not at all common during the years that group was suppressed in Egypt. New variants began to be seen during the 1970s, just as small groups of activist and radical Islamists began to emerge. With the Iranian Revolution women’s Islamic dress, at first a symbol of opposition, then became a regime policy. It was difficult for some observers in other states to believe that women would willingly adopt Islamic dress, and many thought that stipends were paid to women to wear it to work or school. Various observers, rightly or wrongly, identified the growing use of Islamic dress with the potential for Islamic revolution inspired by the Iranian example. In fact Islamic dress could reflect diverse agendas, ranging from a generalized desire to gradually islamize society, to deep commitment to replace the secular system with an Islamic one as soon as possible.
Women who wear Islamic dress believe themselves to be better Muslims than they were before they adopted the costume. But they may or may not be more pious than other women, or politically active in any way. They also may subscribe to an ideology of gender and gender relations that is more conservative than that of unveiled women, especially in regard to the role of women in the workplace. Nevertheless, they tend to uphold women’s rights to education, and to political and social roles. Some women believe their marriage prospects will improve with the adoption of hijab, and most claim that the shari’ah requires them to wear it.
Traditional and Ceremonial Dress. While Islamic dress is quite similar from region to region, the traditional dress of Muslim women varies greatly, as does its quality and accompanying jewelry. Many styles are belted or fitted at the waist, like the southern Arabian quftan, traditional Moroccan Muslim (and Jewish) urban dresses, bedouin dresses from the northern Sinai and Palestinian dress styles. Others like those from the Egyptian Delta, have a decorated and fitted bodice from which full and unfitted materials flow. The eastern Arabian thawb is not fitted at all, though elaborately decorated on filmy chiffon. Sleeve styles vary from long and loose, to short or pointed, and may be tied behind the back to facilitate housework.
In many areas women wore loose, gussetted pants (sirwdl) under their clothing. These served as underwear, and in some areas the legs were fitted, embroidered, and meant to be seen. In rural Turkey, the sirwal are patterned and worn with shorter tunics or blouses, while in Pakistan they show under a tunic worn with a neck scarf. Previously, shifts or thin blouses were worn as undergarments and later replaced with knitted, and then sewn, cotton and synthetic underwear.
Traditional garments worn at weddings illustrate family origin, history, and status. The bridal dresses and decoration (including henna applications) of Fez, Sale, or Mecca were so elaborate and heavy they required months of preparation, and the bride could hardly move.
New garments were worn at the `Id al-Fitr and at the `Id al-Adha. Women also wear special clothing for the pilgrimage (hajj), travel garments that include the `abdyah (the outer cover) and the tarhah (headscarf). Bahraini women, for example would bring seven pairs of sirwal, dresses and overdresses and wear a black tulle head scarf trimmed with blue beads (ghaswah). Upon completion of the pilgrimage to Mecca, women cut a small section of their hair.
Men making the pilgrimage wear two seamless lengths of white cloth and a waistband (bugshah). This dress symbolizes the equality of all believers. Men do not cover their heads during prayer while on hajj but cut their hair or shave their heads, and trim their nails upon completing their pilgrimage.
Men’s traditional dress was affected by the introduction of new sorts of jackets worn atop the male robe. The qunbaz was adopted in the Fertile Crescent but later gave way to a Western-style jacket worn atop the thawb or dishdashah. Sirwal were also worn by men under the robe in some areas and a shorter, less full version to the knees can be seen at construction sites around the region. In Lebanon, sirwal were decorated and worn with a shirt and sash, as they were in parts of the Maghrib, where a shorter form made in Tunis was introduced by the Ottomans and worn by members of sea men’s guilds along with a decorated jacket. Fishermen of the Alexandrian area also wore sirwal.
Men wearing traditional dress are often assumed to be older, more conservative, or of rural origin, depending on the context in which they appear. However, the wearing of a thawb, jacket, and head cloth in Syria or Jordan, for example, may not rule out property ownership, education, or sophistication.
National or Political Symbolism. Some garments have faded from contemporary use but still hold historic and national value, such as the Moroccan bridal headdresses, abruq or sharbiyah, the mother-of-pearl inlaid, high qabqab (or clogs), the Ottoman face veil, the Palestinian taqsirah (embroidered jacket) worn over female dress, and the Lebanese tantur, a tall silver cylinder worn by Druze women on the head, from which a veil fell. Certain items became politically volatile due to historical circumstances. The fez (tarbush) a red brimless hat worn by men, symbolized the Ottoman Empire as well as the status of being an effendi, a gentleman, or a white-collar worker, distinguishing one from a peasant. Kemal Ataturk attacked the fez and required Turkish men to adopt a brimmed hat in order to stress Turkey’s European and modern outlook, although brimmed hats interfered with prayer. Elsewhere, the fez became associated with the ancien regime and disappeared about mid-century. Various political parties adopted uniforms for their youth leagues in the 1930s, including the green shirts of Misr Fatat and blue shirts of the Wafdists, and gray for the Chemises de Fer in Syria. Militarist or nationalist uniforms were adopted by combatants in the Lebanese civil war as well.
Another powerful symbol was the male head cloth, the kaffiyah, rooted in tradition, and now expressing antipathy to Zionist policy as well as its more prosaic functions. The Nablus women’s association wore the checkered kaffiyah in their fund-raising drives in the 1920s. It was worn by the fighters of the 1930s and during the general strike of 1936-1937, and is now worn by antiZionist Israelis and fashionable Westerners of both sexes around the neck, as well as Palestinians. In this case, political symbolism crosses religious and national boundaries.
The Israeli state forbade the wearing of the colors of the Palestinian flag, thus promoting the production of items in red, black, green, and white. Traditional Palestinian dresses and embroidery techniques were also worn and made both for income-generating projects and to promote national feeling.
Islamic dress may express opposition to a particular regime, or reflect membership in an Islamist association. It may be an ethnic symbol as well as a political one, as in Malaysia, where Islamic dress clearly designates Malays from Chinese or Indian Malaysians. But the meaning of Islamic dress depends on the context. In France, the headscarf was prohibited in public schools. The Turkish state made the wearing of the headscarf in the public sector illegal, specifically labeling it a political symbol. Women demonstrated in response and have continued to wear the headscarf. Islamic dress was required of female citizens in Iran and thus it represents acquiescence to or fear of the regime. Before the arrests of the FIS (Islamic Salvation Front) in Algeria, some women feared that the party would legally impose the hijdb, once they achieved a majority, along with other portions of shari’ah. [See also Hijab.]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Besancenot, Jean. Costumes of Morocco. Translated by Caroline Stone. London, 1990. Elaborate handpainted illustrations of dress worn circa 1934, showing rural/urban, Berber/Arab, and Muslim/Jewish contrasts. Text overemphasizes the biblical past, and neglects PanArab, Pan-Islamic, and pan-nomadic features of dress.
Bukhari, Muhammad ibn Isma’il al-. Sahih al-Bukhdri. Vols. 1, 2, and 7. Translated by M. M. Khan. Chicago, 1977. Hadith collection containing information about dress during prayer, pilgrimage, and shrouding. See “The Book of Dress” in volume 7.
El Guindi, Fadwa. “Veiling Infitah with Muslim Ethic.” Social Problems 28.4 (1981): 465-485. Links the spread of Islamic dress with a reaction to Sadat’s Open Door Policy and a quest for a newly relevant Muslim morality in Egypt.
Fenerci Mehmed. Osmanlt kiyafetleri, edited by Ilhami Turan. Istanbul, 1986. Text in Turkish accompanies color plates of Ottoman costume dating back to the eighteenth century and representing various occupations, ranks, and regional origins. Source is helpful in investigation of Ottoman features of dress that continue into later periods.
France. Commission des Sciences et Arts d’Egypte. Descriptions de l’Egypte, ou, Recueils d’observations et des recherches qui ant ete faites en Egypte pendant l’expedition de l’armee francaise, publiee par les ordres de Sa Majeste l’empereur Napoleon le Grand. Paris 1809-1828. 23 vols. Several folio-sized illustrated volumes are bound separately from text and include detailed drawings made by Napoleon’s team, of architectural sites, people, implements and dress at the time of the French invasion of Egypt.
Graham-Brown, Sarah. Images of Women: The Portrayal of Women in Photography of the Middle East, 1860-1950. New York, 1988. Important photographic documentation. Includes sections on women and nationalism, entertainment, in families, politics, and as objects of the European gaze.
Lane, Edward W. Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians (1895). The Hague, 1978. Contains information about Muslim clothing in the nineteenth century and detailed semi-mechanical drawings.
Macleod, Arlene Elowe. Accommodating Protest: Working Women, the New Veiling and Change in Cairo. New York, 1991. Study of lower iddle-class working women in Cairo and the social and economic reasons for their adoption of the hijab.
Olson, Emelie A. “Muslim Identity and Secularism in Contemporary Turkey: `The Headscarf Dispute.’ ” Anthropological Quarterly 58.4 (October 1985): 161-1’71.
Ross, Heather Colyer. The Art of Saudi Arabian Costume. Fribourg, 1981. The most complete illustrated source on Arabian dress, including text, pattern information, photographs, and drawings.
Rugh, Andrea. Reveal and Conceal: Dress in Contemporary Egypt. Syracuse, N.Y., 1986. Identifies many dress styles from a wide geographic and social range, with important commentary regarding the significance of dress features.
Scarce, Jennifer. Women’s Costume of the Near and Middle East. London, 1987. Wide coverage of dress, chronologically and regionally, with an emphasis on the medieval period. Contains photographic reproductions and examples of garments in art.
Stillman, Yedida, and Nancy Micklewright. “Costume in the Middle East.” Middle East Studies Association Bulletin 26.1 (July 1992). Bibliographic essay on costume studies of the Middle East, many of which focus on premodern periods, while others are concerned with the dress of ahl al-kitab (lit., “peoples of the book”).
Weir, Shelagh. Palestinian Costume. Austin, 1989. Covers construction, historical origin, social significance, textile and embroidery techniques, and includes photographic illustrations.
Zuhur, Sherifa. Revealing Reveiling: Islamist Gender Ideology in Contemporary Egypt. Albany, N.Y., 1992. Historical and current debates over gender issues, and the meaning of Islamic dress according to Islamist theorists, students, working women, and housewives.
SHERIFA ZUHUR

DJIBOUTI

Batoota — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 10:42:14 +0000

DJIBOUTI. For many centuries the Horn of Africa, in which the Republic of Djibouti forms a small coastal enclave, has provided access for the transmittal of goods and ideas between the Middle East and the African continent. Since the ninth century CE Djibouti has been the point of departure for Islamic missionary activity and for material support of Muslim proselytization and reform in Africa.

Place Mahamoud-Harbi and the Great Mosque in Djibouti city, Djibouti.
Credit: A. Picou/De Wys Inc.

In 825 CE missionaries from Arabia introduced Islam into the Horn, which was then ruled by Christian Abyssinia. By the twelfth century merchants and clerics from the Arabian Peninsula were proselytizing extensively along the coast, where local clans established small Muslim emirates. From the thirteenth to the seventeenth century these small Muslim states struggled for independence from the Christian Abyssinian rulers and eventually coalesced into three sultanates-Tadjoura, Rahayto, and Bobaad-which survive with symbolic powers in Djiboutitoday.
Situated on one of the two southern gateways to the Red Sea,Djibouti attracted European attention as early as the sixteenth century. The Portuguese were the first to move into the Red Sea, followed by British and French traders and administrators. During the partition of Africa by European colonial powers,France took possession of the region in 1888 and built up Djibouti’s port and town. First known as French Somali land and later as the French Territory of the Afars and Issas(1967),Djibouti served as a fueling station and military base until independence in 1977.France continues to maintain some four thousand military personnel in the Republic.
Virtually all (1991 estimates range from 94 to 1oo percent) of Djibouti’s 346,000 people are Sunni Muslim. Both city dwellers and nomadic pastoralists living in Djibouti’s barren countryside share a mystical Muslim tradition. Most follow the Shafi’i school of law, and many belong to the Qadiriyah Sufi brotherhood that was well established in the region by the nineteenth century. The Ahmadiyah and Salihiyah also had created a presence in Djiboutiby the end of the nineteenth century. The tombs of saintly and learned Muslims in the republic are visited annually by Djiboutian and Somali pilgrims. The highest authority in the Muslim community is the Qadi of Djibouti, who is usually of Arab origin. The Qadi celebrates marriages, registers divorces and wills, administers properties, and presides over the shari`ah court. The Islamic holy days are legal holidays, and the government observes Ramadan with shortened workdays.
Islam, along with a shared language and cultural tradition, has contributed to a strong sense of common identity. Nevertheless, Djiboutians are deeply divided by clan loyalties. The largest kin group is the Somali Issa clan (4o percent of the population), which is concentrated around the capital. Somali Afars (35 percent) living in the countryside are essentially nomadic and ethnically linked to Ethiopian groups. Somali Gadaboursis, Warsangeli, Dulbahante, and Yemeni Arabs make up the balance of the Muslim community. Powersharing by Issas-who have dominated the highest ranks of government-and Afars, who fill the lower ranks, has been a divisive issue since before independence. Inter-ethnic tensions erupted into violent clashes in 1991, exacerbated by fighting between related groups spilling over from neighboring Somalia and Ethiopia. Since 1991 a simmering insurgency over Afar demands for greater democratization has undermined the government’s authority in the north of the country. In June 1992 President Hassan Gouled Aptidon announced a calendar for transition to democracy following a popular referendum on a new constitution that created a multiparty state and an elected legislature.
Despite political frontiers separating it from Somalia and Ethiopia,Djibouti differentiated neither culturally, ethnically, nor geographically from its neighbors. Djiboutians maintain close contact with Muslim activists in Ethiopia and Somalia along the Dire-DawaDjibouti corridor and through their clan ties in northern Somalia.
Djiboutians regularly provide sanctuary to refugees and support for Muslim causes across their borders. Furthermore, contacts with the Middle East and North Africa over the past ten years have helped to energize movements for Islamic renewal and political reform within Djibouti itself, particularly among young people, 70 percent of whom are unemployed. Djiboutians study abroad at centers of Islamic learning. Several Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, have provided economic assistance to the Muslim community and support Islamic and Arabic-language education. According to the 1992 Annual Report of Imam Muhammad University in Riyadh, the university has established an Arab-Islamic Institute in Djibouti. The Muslim resurgence is increasingly evident in the proliferation of mosques, Qur’dnic schools, and study centers. Groups of reformists with names such as the Islamic Struggle of Djibouti Youth are calling for the establishment of a fully Islamic state in Djibouti and reduction of the European presence in the country.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Fisher, Humphrey J. “The Western and Central Sudan and East Africa.” In The Cambridge History of Islam, vol. 2, The Further Islamic Lands, Islamic Society, and Civilization, edited by P. M. Holt, Ann K. S. Lambton, and Bernard Lewis, pp. 345-405.Cambridge,
1970. Useful introduction to the Islamic background of the region. Lewis, I. M. Peoples of the Horn of Africa: Somali, Afar, and Saho.London, 1955. Introduction to the ethnography of the region. Lewis,I.M. The Modern History of Somali land.London, 1965. Introduction to the political and social history of the region. Briefly treats the place of religion in Somali society, the Muslim Brotherhoods, and Muslim resistance to colonial domination.
Lewis,I.M. “Conformity and Contrast in Somali Islam.” In Islam in Tropical Africa, edited by I. M. Lewis, pp. 253-267.London, 1966. Thought-provoking insights into the structure of Islamic communities in the Horn.
Thompson,Virginia, and Richard Adloff.Djibouti and the Horn of Africa.Stanford,Calif., 1968. Overview of Djibouti’s history, with an extensive bibliography.
Trimingham, J. Spencer. Islam in East Africa.Oxford, 1964.
CHARLOTTE A. QUINN

DIVINATION

Batoota — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 10:09:41 +0000

DIVINATION. The comprehensive term for divination in the Islamic tradition is Kihanah, a term derived from Semitic antiquity. It is connected to all aspects, practical and theoretical, of the art of knowing that which cannot spontaneously be known. Ironic as it may seem, divination remained a subject worthy of the attention of many a serious Islamic thinker despite the fact that a frequently quoted hadith had declared that “there is no kihanah after the Prophetic Mission.”
Ibn Khaldun (d. 1406) places divination at the lowest rung of prophetic attributes, a divine gift to God’s chosen individuals. And while the Qur’an condemned practices connected with pagan cults, and the institution of the diviners was officially abrogated in Islam, divination continued in various forms and disguises. Many sober sages spoke of “illuminated souls” who were blessed by the knowledge of the occult (ghayb); among them were prophets, saints (wall), physiognomists, and soothsayers. The knowledge of the unseen or of the future was sometimes revealed in dreams, and the art of the interpretation of dreams (ta’bir al-ru’ya) was elevated to a rank above that of divination, being considered part of prophecy.
Like much in Islamic culture, divination arose out of an innovative blending of Greek, Sanskrit, Pahlavi, and local sources, incorporating under kihanah methods pertaining to astrology and magic. Generally divided into the three categories of firasah (physiognomancy), sihr (magic), and ahkam al-nujum (judicial astrology), divination receives detailed classificatory treatment in the writings of many Muslim encyclopedists, biographers, bibliographers, and historians. Thus under the first category one finds `ilm qiyafat al-athar/al-bashar (divination by the observation of footprints/ by morphoscopic and genealogical lines), `ilm al-asarir (chiromancy), `ilm alaktaf (omoplatoscopy or divination by the observation of shoulder blades), and so on; under the second, `ilm da’wat al-kawakib (invocation of celestial bodies), `ilm al-khafa’ (making oneself invisible), `ilm al-`azaim (incantations), `ilm al-asma’ al-husna (science of the beautiful divine names), `ilm al-da’awa (science of Islamic personal prayers), and `ilm al-sa’badhah (conjury); and under the third, `ilm al-ikhtiyardt (catarchic astrology), `ilm al-raml (geomancy), and `ilm al -fa’l (omens). Here it is interesting to note not only the blending of so many disciplines, but also the imaginative grafting of characteristically Islamic elements onto an eclectic foreign base.
Indeed, a characteristic feature of divination in Islamic culture is its progressive divorce from the primitive oracular traditions, becoming over time a systematic art referred to as one of the sciences, ulum (sg., `ilm). This places it on an equal footing with mathematics, astronomy, or medicine, all of which were also called `ilm.
[See also Astrology, Geomancy; Magic and Sorcery; Numerology.]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
A comprehensive account of prophecy in Islam is found in Toufic Fahd, La divination arabe: Etudes religieuses, sociologiques et folkloriques sur le milieu natif de l’Islam (Leiden, 1966), based on primary sources. See as well Fahd’s article “Kihana,” in the Encyclopaedia of Islam, new ed., vol. 5, pp. 99-101 (Leiden, 1960-). Alfred Guillaume’s Prophecy and Divination among the Hebrews and Other Semites (London, 1938) is a dated but still useful text. Other relevant entries in the new edition of the Encyclopaedia of Islam include Charles Pellat’s “Anwa”‘ (vol. 1, PP. 523-524); “Djafr” (vol. 2, pp. 375-377), “Ikhtiyarat” 3, pp. 1063-1064), “Kiyafa” (vol. 5, pp. 234-235), “Malhama” (vol. 6, p. 247), “Nirandi” (vol. 8, PP. 51-52), and “Nudjum” (vol. 8, pp. 105-108), all by Toufic Fahd. A comprehensive treatment, invaluable for the serious reader, is D. B. Macdonald’s “Sihr,” in E. J. Brill’s First Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. 7, pp. 409417 (Leiden, 1987).
S. NOMANUL HAQ

DIPLOMATIC MISSIONS

Batoota — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 10:06:42 +0000

DIPLOMATIC MISSIONS. An official delegation from one country to another, a diplomatic mission cal. be either temporary or permanent. The members of a diplomatic mission have diplomatic status, the most important element of which is diplomatic immunity. Although Muslim and non-Muslim diplomatic missions are virtually identical, they evolved quite separately.
The concept of a diplomatic mission representing one independent ruler to another independent ruler is not entirely compatible with Islamic political theory. The universalist nature of Islam assumes a single ummah (community of the faithful) under one law and administered by one government. Theoretically, therefore, no diplomatic missions were needed within the Islamic world, for all were presumably under a single ruler. As for non-Muslim states, the necessity of diplomatic missions was considered to be only temporary, until the whole world came under the dominion of Islam; non-Muslim states were not considered to be moral or political equals of the Islamic state.
In practice, Islamic diplomatic missions, both to other Muslim states and to non-Muslim states, have existed since the time of the Prophet. Muhammad himself used them to propagate the faith. As the Arab-Islamic empire grew in size and power, the necessity for diplomatic missions grew apace. The caliphs in Damascus and later in Baghdad were in virtually continuous diplomatic communication with neighboring states, particularly with their enemies, the Byzantines and the Franks. The `Abbasid caliph Harm al-Rashid developed extraordinary diplomatic ties with the Holy Roman emperor, Charlemagne, and the two regularly exchanged gifts and dispatched diplomatic missions. In periods of Islamic political decline, diplomatic missions between Muslim rulers also increased.
The basic functions of Islamic diplomatic missions have changed very little over the centuries: negotiating treaties, arbitrating disputes, attending state ceremonies, and also collecting intelligence. Mufawwadah means “negotiation” in Arabic, and a mufawwadiyah is a legation, an old form of diplomatic mission. The chief of mission was a mufawwad (minister). Another term used for a chief of a diplomatic mission was rasul (messenger).
Historically, the most important role of an Islamic diplomatic mission was probably arbitration. The Arabic for the more contemporary term, “embassy,” is sifarah, and the chief of mission is a safer (ambassador). Both terms have the connotation of “mediation” or “arbitration,” reflecting the greater emphasis in Islamic law on arbitration rather than establishing guilt.
Arbitration was practiced in the Middle East long before the advent of Islam and was simply absorbed into the new religion. The prophet Muhammad saw himself (and by extension, his successors) as an arbitrator, and the Qur’an admonishes the faithful, “If you differ, bring it before Allah and the apostle.” (surah 4.59). The same principle was applied to arbitrating between nations.
In the early days of Islam, diplomatic missions were exchanged for the purpose of negotiating or arbitrating a particular issue. Although some missions stayed months or even years in a foreign capital, few were permanent in the contemporary sense. Maintaining permanent diplomatic missions was basically a European practice that developed around the sixteenth century. By the end of the sixteenth century, resident European envoys were accredited to the Ottoman sultan in Constantinople, and by the eighteenth century, Ottoman envoys were resident in Europe.
With increasing European commercial and political penetration in the Muslim world, starting in the eighteenth century, diplomatic relations increased, but not necessarily through the medium of diplomatic missions. With the political decline of the Ottoman Empire, European states established independent ties to the emerging, although not yet technically independent Arab states. Farther east, commercial firms played the role of diplomatic missions. British diplomatic relations with the Safavid Empire in Persia and the Mughals in India, for example, were initially carried out through the British East India Company rather than the Foreign Office. Even after the British Government established more extensive government-to-government relations in the nineteenth century, they were mainly handled by the Colonial Office rather than the Foreign Office.
By the nineteenth century, European colonialism had so permeated the Muslim world that the utility of diplomatic missions had declined measurably. Of particular importance was the capitulations. These were agreements granting special judicial privileges to resident Western nationals engaged in commerce in Muslim countries nominally under the Ottoman Empire. These rights, however, were administered by Western consuls, not through diplomatic missions.
Following World War I, when most Muslim countries had regained at least token independence, resident diplomatic missions again spread throughout the Muslim world. But the war also ended the Ottoman caliphate, and the universalist nature of Islamic political theory no longer represented political reality. Western rules of diplomacy, based on sovereign nation-states, became universally accepted throughout the Muslim world.
Even these practices have not been static, however. After World War II, the previously sharp distinction between diplomatic functions and consular functions virtually disappeared. Today, consular functions, which include granting visas to foreigners wishing to visit one’s country, seeking the welfare and protection of one’s citizens abroad, and promoting commercial relations, are performed in diplomatic missions, just as traditional diplomatic functions, such as political and economic reporting, are performed in consulates. Depending on the country, consular officials are now regularly granted diplomatic immunity, which was not a traditional practice in the West.
The raising of diplomatic missions to the status of embassies is also virtually universal. Traditionally, missions to less important countries were legations, and the chiefs of mission held the title of minister, whereas the major missions were embassies and the chiefs of mission held the title of ambassador. After World War II, however, because of the sensitivities of the smaller,Third Worldcountries, virtually all countries are now represented by ambassadors, and their missions are designated as embassies.
[See also Capitulations; Diplomatic Immunity; International Law; International Relations and Diplomacy.]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Hitti, Philip K. History of the Arabs: From the Earliest Times to the Present. 9th ed.London, 1967. Classic account of Arab history, with many references to diplomatic relations with the West. Khadduri, Majid, and Herbert J. Liebesny, eds. Law in the Middle East.Washington,D.C., 1955. See, in particular, Khadduri’s chapter on international law.
Lewis, Bernard. The Emergence of ModernTurkey.New York, 1961. Another classic, which includes discussions of Ottoman diplomatic relations.
Shaybani, Muhammad ibn al-Hasan. The Islamic Law of Nations: Shaybani’s Siyar. Translated by Majid Khadduri.Baltimore, 1966.
DAVID E. LONG

DIETARY RULES

Batoota — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 09:58:40 +0000

DIETARY RULES. Islamic prescriptions concerning food and drink keep Muslims mindful in their everyday lives of God’s will and of their membership in a global community of shared values and obligations, regardless of their social rank. As set forth in the seventh century in the Qur’an and the hadiths the rules are based on the categories of pure (their) and impure (rijs, najis) and of lawful (halal) and unlawful (haram). In general they are well known by Muslims, though not always observed. Since the ninth century, jurists have striven to reduce ambiguities in dietary rules and to elaborate on their application to foods and situations not explicitly discussed in the Qur’an. Although historically related to pre-Islamic Arabian and Jewish dietary rules, the Islamic ones are completely severed from priestly codes of purities and abominations connected with temple worship. Nor are they inherently part of a cosmological scheme of sympathies and antipathies, such as is found in Hellenistic and East Asian religious traditions. In contrast to Hindu dietary rules, Islamic rules do not express caste hierarchies, although they clearly set Muslims apart from non-Muslims.
Basic Rules. The Qur’an exhorts believers to eat the good, lawful plants and animals that God has provided for them (80.25-32, 2.168, 2.172, 16.14). This general dispensation is subject to several conditions and prohibitions. Plant foods that are especially valued include dates, the vine, olives, pomegranates, and grains (6.99, 6.141, 80.25-32). The preferred flesh is that of domestic cattle, sheep, goats, and camels (6.143-145). Muslims are expressly forbidden from consuming carrion, spurting blood, pork, and food that has been consecrated to any being other than God himself (5.3, 6.145). Date wine (khamr) was repudiated gradually after the establishment of the community in Medina; the strongest condemnation (5.90-91) was among the last revelations received by Muhammad (in 632). Each prohibited substance is declared to be extremely defiling, with wine being further distinguished as an instrument of Satan for sowing discord among the faithful.
The lawfulness of meat is largely determined by how it is obtained. Ritual slaughtering and sacrifice (a form of slaughter qualified by intentionality on sacred occasions) are required for domestic cattle, sheep, goats, and fowl. These must be killed in God’s name (6.118, 6.121) by making a fatal incision across the throat. Jurists recommend that camels be slaughtered by stabbing the upper chest. The Qur’an permits fishing and hunting wild animals as long as the quarry is lawful (5.94-96). It prohibits Muslims from eating anything that has been strangled, beaten, or gored to death, or animals that have died by falling. A creature that has been partly consumed by predatory beasts is also forbidden, unless it has actually been killed by ritual slaughtering or by a trained hunting animal (5.3-4).
Additional dietary rules, based on the Qur’an and the hadiths, apply to specific ritual occasions. Thus, during the month of Ramadan, every able Muslim is obliged to abstain completely from food and drink during the daylight hours. The same rule applies during the performance of daily and Friday prayers. Pilgrims are prohibited from slaughtering and hunting lawful animals as long as they remain in a sacral state. By contrast, during the two main feasts of the year, following Ramadan and the hajj, the faithful are obliged not to fast. Hadiths also set guidelines for daily hospitality and acceptable table manners-remembering God at mealtime, taking food and drink with the right hand, and not reclining while eating. [See Ramadan; Hajj.]
Developments in Fiqh. Muslim jurists have played a significant role in codifying and elaborating the dietary rules of the Qur’an by using hadiths, local Muslim practices, and analogy as their guides. Differences over the rules have arisen among and within their fiqh schools. For example, although all schools rejected beheading as a method of ritual slaughter, they differed over details of acceptable slaughtering techniques. Hanafis required cutting the esophagus, trachea, and most of the major blood vessels in the neck; Shafi’is called for cutting the esophagus and trachea and recommended severing the two jugular veins; Imami Shi’is required cutting the two carotids and the two jugulars; and Malikis said that severing the two jugulars is sufficient. From a legalistic point of view, if the slaughtering is not performed correctly, an otherwise lawful animal becomes carrion, that is, impure and forbidden for human consumption.
The ban on “wine” is another significant area of juristic disputation. The Maliki, Shafi’i, and Hanbali schools agreed that khamr is a general term for any intoxicating beverage made from dates, grapes, and similar substances. The Hanafis, however, ruled that only a narrow range of beverages can be classed as khamr: fermented juice of cooked or uncooked grapes, and uncooked intoxicants obtained from dates and raisins. All schools agreed, however, that consuming khamr is unlawful, and that its sale by or to Muslims is forbidden. However, they generally permit medicinal uses in cases of absolute necessity.
The social function of dietary rules in defining Islamic communities and their relation to non-Muslims is evident in the guidelines for deciding who can perform the slaughtering and from whom food can be received. The fiqh schools have allowed wide latitude in this regard: meat can be obtained from any rational Muslim, male or female, who is familiar with correct slaughtering procedures. Following guidelines in the Qur’an (5.5), Muslims usually can also accept meat and other food from Jews, Christians, and other people of the book. Indeed, in accordance with the hadith, many hold that if there is doubt about the source of meat, a person need only “mention the name of Allah over it and eat it” (al-Bukhari). On the other hand, jurists have forbidden food obtained from known heretics, apostates, idol worshipers, and atheists.
Transgression of dietary prohibitions temporarily invalidates acts of worship such as prayer, fasting, and pilgrimage. Mere physical contact with pork, carrion, or wine makes a person or object impure, but this can be remedied by simple washing or by physical removal of the offending substance. On the other hand, violating the ban on khamr and drunkenness are major crimes requiring legal standards of proof and corporal punishment of forty or eighty lashes. According to one hadith, unrepentant violators will be denied the reward of drinking wine in the afterlife.
Contemporary Implications. The dietary rules have acquired new significance in the twentieth century. Although some Muslims have attempted to demonstrate that the rules conform to modern reason and the findings of scientific research, many others have used them in the search for Islamic alternatives to western values, ideologies, and lifestyles. Such reevaluations are occurring in two milieus-among the post-colonial cultures of the traditional Islamic heartland, and among Muslim immigrant communities, especially in the West. Indeed, dietary rules often serve as focal points for islamization movements and individual affirmations of Muslim identity.
Through the centuries, the Islamic ban on intoxicants has been honored in the breach. Wine has been a favorite beverage in royal courts as well as in public taverns; it has been praised in poetry; and some Sufis, like Rumi (d. 12’73), have used it as a metaphor for transcendence. The Bektashi order, most popular among Ottoman Janissaries, used wine sacra-mentally. Jurists periodically decried such practices, but with little success. Sixteenth-century efforts to outlaw coffee as a wine-like beverage in the Hejaz and Egypt failed miserably. Consumption of non-alcoholic intoxicants such as hashish, opium, and qat has become a popular habit among peasants and town dwellers alike in many Muslim countries. Proponents argue that such substances were never explicitly banned in the Qur’an and hadiths; their opponents retort with the hadith that proclaims, “Every intoxicant is khamr, and every khamr is unlawful” (Muslim).
In the modern era some governments in Islamic nation states have taken strong official stands against alcoholic beverages and narcotics as they move to implement the shafah. Usually this means interpreting the ban broadly enough to enforce it against non-Muslims. The Wahhabi authorities ofSaudi Arabiaoutlawed intoxicants to Muslims in 1929 and have prohibited alcohol to foreign residents since 1952. Ad hoc implementations of the shari’ah in Qadhdhafi’s Libya (1971) and Nimeiri’s Sudan (1983) included official bans on alcohol and, in the case of Sudan, public dumping of millions of dollars worth of liquor as well as the punishment of non-Muslims. It was officially banned inPakistanandIranduring the early I98os, and during the early I99os in Kelantan, a Muslim-majority province in north east Malaysia.
Muslim countries with secularist regimes, such as Egypt and Turkey, have instituted strict anti-narcotics laws but permit controlled import, sale, and consumption of liquor. Consequently, opposition Islamist groups there call for the total eradication of alcohol. In Egypt, outside the political arena, segments of the middle classes have become less forbearing toward relatives and friends who drink. Unlike earlier generations, recent Muslim immigrants to Europe and the United States have made observing the Qur’anic prohibition a key marker of identity in their host country. Moreover, there are lively debates in these communities about whether Muslims should even work in places where liquor is sold, consumed, or produced-including groceries, restaurants, and vineyards. The liquor ban is also one of the tenets of the Black Muslim movement and its offshoots in the African-American community.

For many immigrants in Europe and the United States during the I98os and I99os, the rules of slaughtering and the pork taboo became at least as important as the ban on alcohol. In towns where sizable Muslim communities have formed, groceries selling lawful meats have opened. Muslims also go to farms where they purchase and slaughter the animals themselves. Otherwise, they feel secure purchasing kosher foods and rely on information garnered from product labels. Yvonne Haddad and Adair Lummis report (Islamic Values in the United States: A Comparative Study, New York, 1987, pp. 113-118) that of the American Muslims they surveyed, 93 percent had not consumed pork in the previous six months, some 66 percent had not consumed alcohol, and more than 50 percent had purchased correctly slaughtered meat. In France, Gilles Kepel discovered (Les banlieues de l’Islam, Paris, 1987, pp. 3441) that more than 24 percent of the immigrants he interviewed would not dine in non-Muslim homes because of the dietary restrictions on meat, pork, and alcohol; another 55 percent said they would accept only on the condition that no pork or alcohol be served. If Islamist movements continue to make gains, it is probable that attention to dietary rules will also increase in Muslim majority and minority communities alike.
[See also Halal; Purification.]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Denny, Frederick Mathewson. An Introduction to Islam. 2d ed.New York, 1994. Nuanced treatment of normative and cultural dimensions of Islamic religion in Middle Eastern and Asian contexts, with discussion of dietary practices (pp. 283-285) and annotated bibliography.
Hattox, Ralph S. Coffee and Coffeehouses: The Origins of a Social Beverage in the Medieval Near East.Seattle, 1985. Delightful exemplar of social history, with a detailed account of Sunni legal debates about intoxicating beverages.
Khatib al-Tibrizi, Muhammad ibn `Abd Allah al-. Mishkdt almasabih. Vol. 3. Translated by James Robson.Lahore, 1965-1966. Contains selected hadiths dealing with slaughtering, hunting, food, drink, and hospitality.
Qaradaw-1, Yusuf al-. The Lawful and the Prohibited in Islam (Al-halal wa-al-haram ft al-Islam). Translated by Kamal El-Helbawi, M. Moinuddin Siddiqui, and Syed Shukry.Indianapolis, 1960. Popular figh handbook (now in its twentieth Arabic printing) sponsored byal-AzharUniversityto introduce Islamic teachings to Muslims and non-Muslims in Europe andAmerica. Dietary rules are discussed in chapter 2. Marred by neglect of ambiguity and variation in figh.
Rippin, Andrew, and Jan Knappert, eds. and trans. Textual Sources for the Study of Islam.Totowa,N.J., 1987. Useful anthology including a selection of hadiths on drink from al-Bukhari (pp. 7276), and a text dealing with dietary rule variations among the legal schools (pp. 105-108).
JUAN EDUARDO CAMPO

DEVOTIONAL POETRY

Batoota — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 09:53:24 +0000

DEVOTIONAL POETRY. The creation of religious verse seems to be a latecomer in the Islamic world. An aversion to poetry, especially religious poetry, is palpable in the first centuries of Islam, when it was feared that poetry-criticized in the Qur’an, (surah 26.226 ff.) and often negatively described in hadith might conflict with the divinely inspired words of the Qur’an, or that people might think religious verses were divinely inspired. The praise poems by the Prophet’s companion Hassan ibn Thabit (d. 659) are descriptive and panegyric rather than devotional.
In present-day India and Pakistan and perhaps to a lesser extent in Turkey, Iran, and many of the Arab countries, mystical songs in different languages are heard during religious festivals like the Prophet’s birthday or the anniversary of a saint, or in any gathering of devout people; the long, sonorous litanies recited at such occasions often approach real poetry. But only in a milieu somewhat charged with mysticism could something like devotional poetry develop. Thus it is not usually written in classical languages such as the high Arabic of the theologians but rather in the regional vernaculars spoken from West Africa to South Asia.
Sufis of the ninth century sometimes listened to music and in particular to love songs that might lead them into ecstasy. Many of the early Sufi poems composed in the tenth and eleventh centuries might be sung; they speak in sweet words of the poet’s longing for his divine beloved, using imagery of profane love poetry as well as the traditional form of a classical Arabic (or, in Iran, Persian) ghazal. Other popular literary forms developed: the Arabs used strophic poems like zajal or muwashshah in a language not exactly classical; the popular genres of billiq and mawaliyah are short verses that could be used for both profane and religious purposes. The same holds true for the du bayti, a four-line verse that corresponds roughly to the Persian ruba’i.
Praise of the Prophet, na’t, began to assume all available literary forms from the twelfth century on, from short love verses to long winded descriptions of his greatness. Na’tiyah poetry remains viable in almost all literature of the Muslim world to this day, as is apparent in a glance through a Pakistani newspaper during the month of Rabi`al-Awwal when the Prophet’s birthday is celebrated.
The first major genre entirely confined to devotional expressions was the mawlud, a poem recited on the occasion of the Prophet’s birthday on the twelfth day of the third lunar month. Mawluds were first composed in the early thirteenth century in prose, but these prose versions soon gave way to lengthy poems in the vernaculars. The most famous mawlud (Turkish, mevlut) in Turkey is one by Suleyman Celebi of Bursa(d. 1419) that is recited to this day not only on the Prophet’s birthday but also on special occasions such as the fortieth day after a death or the anniversary of one, or in fulfillment of a vow. As performed today in Turkey, it is interspersed with Qur’anic recitations and prayers; when the actual moment of the Prophet’s birth is described, with a swan touching Aminah’s back, each participant touches his or her neighbor’s back in remembrance of this event.
Muslims in other areas besides Turkey have produced a remarkably large body of mawluds. To recite such a poem opens, as it were, the gates of paradise; Muslims in Nigeria will be as touched by the story as are those in Kenyawho listen to a mawlud and feel as if they have
entered a heavenly world, purified from sin. In recent decades rationalist as well as fundamentalist Muslims have criticized the festive celebration of mawlud and the recitations of marvelous stories that are woven around the luminous appearance of the last messenger of God, when all of nature greeted him who was sent “as a mercy to the worlds” (surah 21.107); yet despite such opposition, it seems impossible for Muslims to give up these pious, poetic songs.
Suleyman Celebi’s mevlut was translated into Bosnian, and soon Muslims in the Balkans invented mawluds in their own languages, as did the Kurds, the Pathans, and most other nations. The name mawlud is applied in some languages, such as Sindhi, not only to long elaborated stories but even more to short devotional poems in which the Prophet’s miracles or his wonderful qualities are described. Generally such a short poem is introduced by an important poetic statement that is repeated by a chorus after each line to emphasize the main purpose of the poem. This technique is found in many devotional poems on the folk level.
Another form of devotional poetry seems to have developed almost parallel with the mawlud. This is a kind of narrative ballad that describes in detail the wondrous acts of the Prophet, of the first four caliphs (especially ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib), or, very often, of Sufi pirs. Although such descriptions are known from classical poetry, especially from Persian classical epic, there are many such narratives in vernaculars or varieties close to them. For example, the fife of the Prophet was an inspiring topic for many folk poets of Egyptand neighboring countries, and there is no dearth of poems in modern Arabic dialects that tell of major events in the Prophet’s life. His marriage with Khadijah, his first wife and the “mother of the faithful,” was dear to poets everywhere; it appears in Egypt and Turkeyas well as Indo-Pakistan. Perhaps the folk poets’ tendency to address Muhammad as the ideal bridegroom accounts for this type of poetry. Ballads of this kind usually have a basic text that is slightly altered according to the singer’s predilections or, as is typical of oral literature, with the passage of time: allusions to contemporary events can be easily inserted into a verse to make the poem more vivid.
One event that has probably been elaborated more in high poetry than on the folk level is the mi’rajiyah, which deals with the Prophet’s journey through heaven and hell into the immediate presence of God. Other, more human events in the Prophet’s life were also the subjects of lengthy poems, many of which use the long a or some other ending as a monorhyme to achieve the form of a rather simple qasidah. This form, called manqabah, is frequent in Sindhi and exists in Panjabi as well. The poets have favorite themes; two or three are particularly favored: the story of the hannanah, the sighing palm trunk, and the story of how the Prophet rescued a gazelle are reworked time and again. Other poems deal with an origin legend such as the reason for honey’s taste: both in Anatolia and in the Indus Valley one learns that only when the bees hum the blessings over Muhammad does the honey become sweet.
There are numerous manaqib in honor of Sufi saints, especially of `Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani, the eponym of the most widespread tariqah. In such poems the poets may use boundless exaggeration: the first known Sindhi poem in honor of this saint, from the late eighteenth century, enumerates all the countries and cities where the saint’s barakah is active, and all these names alliterate-a mnemonic device typical of popular poetry.
Similar devices are used in the si-harfi or acrostic poem, a genre well known from antiquity. It occurs frequently in the dervish poetry of Anatolia and Indo-Pakistan. The si-harfi, (“thirty-letter poem”) was mainly used for mystic and didactic purposes; the listener was able to follow the sequence of thought by simply keeping in mind the sequence of the alphabet. Among the si-harfi one has become almost proverbial-Sultan Bahu’s (d. 1692) Panjabi verse on the letter alif, “God is a jasmine bush.”
Another form still composed and sung in the Indus valley are barah-masa poems. This form is originally Indian; it tells the events and feelings in each month of the year as seen through a loving woman’s eyes. The months can be the Hindu ones, the Islamic lunar months, or, lately, even the Western months. When the Muslim months are used, the speaker remembers the tragedy of Karbala in Muharram, the Prophet’s birthday in the third month, `Abd al-Qadir’s anniversary in the fourth, and the Prophet’s heavenly journey in Rajab, and the catalog ends with the happiness of union with the Divine Beloved at the Ka’bah in Mecca or with the beloved Prophet at his mausoleum in Medina. Other interpretations are possible: in a recent Sindhi barah-masa poem in the Christian sequence of the months the pious writer even introduces Coca-cola in July instead of the time-honored spiritual wine.
A genre of poems in honor of Medina first appears in the late thirteenth century in Egypt; it became increasingly more important and also more moving the farther the poet lived from the Arabian Peninsula; longing for Medina is reflected to this day in almost every language used by Muslims. Again, the Indo-Pakistani poets in Urdu and Sindhi seem to be the most prolific writers in this field.
The Persians as well as the Ithna`Ashari Shi’is of the Indian subcontinent poured out their love and longing for the imams and in particular for Husayn ibn`Ali, the martyr of Karbala, in elaborate forms. Allusions to Karbala are frequent in medieval poetry in all Middle Eastern languages, but after the establishment of Twelver Shiism as the state religion in Iran in 1501, the tendency to participate in the imam’s suffering by reading or listening to poetry proliferated. In Iran the devotional literature in this field evolved into the ta’ziyah, dramatic performances of the tragedy at Karbala, in which the poets bring together the most incongruous protagonists;Karbalais perceived as a cosmic event, preordained from eternity, and everyone and everything is somehow involved in it. Thus there is a ta’ziyah in which the martyr mystic al-Hallaj, Mawlana Rumi, and his friend Shams-iTabrizappear together to evoke the eternal mystical character of Husayn’s suffering. Popular songs about Karbala occur in Urdu, Sindhi, and Panjabi, and are enacted in the villages of Muslim India; they often mention not only Husayn but also his elder brother Hasan as “the two princes” who were slain in battle, although, historically speaking, Hasan predeceased his brother by more than ten years. [See Karbala; Ta`ziyah.]
The marthiyah or elegy as a special genre seems to be a product of the Indian subcontinent. The earliest known marthiyah in Dakhni Urdu was written at the Qutbshahi court of Golconda in the seventeenth century. When Urdu became the language of literature in northern India around 1700, one of the major poets of Delhi, Mirza Sauda (d. 1’781), composed more than a hundred marthiyahs in various forms. The true development, however, occurred at the Shi’i court of Lucknow, where Anis (d. 1875) and Dabir (d. 1874) competed in long, moving poems whose recitations still attract large crowds of Indians and Pakistanis not only in the subcontinent but also in the diaspora, especially in London.
The particular importance of the marthiyah lies in its form, the musaddas, a six-line stanza with four rhyming. lines and two closing lines with a different rhyme. The musaddas allowed the poet to extend the poem as much as he wished without becoming tiring, while the traditional qasidah with its monorhyme could not keep the listeners’ interest awake for more than a hundred lines. The Urdu marthiyah in musaddas was so popular that the Indian Muslims saw in musaddas the ideal form to express religious emotions and moral exhortations. Hall’s poem “The Ebb and Flood of Muslim Civilization” (1879) is simply known as “The Musaddas”; and Iqbal’s religious poems like Shikwah (Complaint) and Jawab-i Shikwah (Its Answer), again use the musaddas form.
Both the marthiyah and the ta’ziyah could and still can be used to express the identification of Muslims with the suffering Husayn and his family, and of the Western powers-Britain or America-with the armies of Yazid, intent on destroying their lives and hopes. Thus the marthiyah assumes a highly political character, even though a casual reader may not be aware of this aspect in an apparently religious poem. A simpler form of poetry connected with Karbala is the Bengali jari-namah, a name derived from zar, “complaint.”
In addition to the long devotional poems, there are numberless short, singable poems in the Sufi tradition. The Persian ruba`i was often recited in sama` (mystical dance). Short poems in honor of the Prophet appear in Sind, composed by bards called bhan.
Popular religious folk songs are attested from the Middle Ages. In the Turkish tradition, Yunus Emre (d. 132 t ) in Anatoliaseems to have been the first to sing of his love of God, his longing, his hope and fear in simple verses. Even though he sometimes used the Arabo-Persian metrical system `araz, he chose meters that resemble the Turkish popular syllable-counting meters and can be easily scanned according to stress rather than quantity. The repeated rhyme often consists of a religious formula such as al-hamdu lillah-these were also used in the dhikr of the dervishes. Yunus’s poetry influenced the entire development of Turkish popular mystical literature, and hundreds of poets followed his example. In the Bektashi order and among the Shi’i `Alawis these forms survived to the nineteenth or even twentieth century. Although Ottoman urban poets did not care much for these products of Anatolia, they remained popular and gained new weight in the Turkish Republic. Sometimes even high-ranking or learned poets turned to such simple, moving verses, among them Isma’il Hakki Erzerumlu (d. 1785), whose consoling words,
Let us see what God will do
what He does is always good,
still rise to the lips of many modern Turks.Yunus’s deepest influence was visible in the modern Turkish poet Ismail Emre, who composed thousands of verses exactly in the style of previous Bektashi and Sufi poets. An illiterate blacksmith from Adana, he was compelled to sing his verses, which are called dogus (“something that is born”) and were transcribed by his friends. Some seemingly unimportant remark or sight would inspire a poem in which he expressed his mystical feelings. Other mystically minded Turkish writers of today composed verses owing to inspiration, but none of them attained the popularity of the “Yeni (new) Yunus Emre.” Others, barely known, still sing little poems called Ramazan manderi to express their feelings during the month of fasting, or they speak of other religious events in unassuming verses.
Islamic devotional poetry to this day is permeated with the feeling of wahdat al-wujud, the unity of being, which could easily lead the poets to see that “everything is He,” that there is no difference between Pharaoh and Moses or between the martyr mystic Hallaj and the judge who condemned him. Such ideas were spread in the Muslim world by the Sufi brotherhoods, and this can explain the remarkable similarity of a Turkish Sufi song and one composed in Sindhi or in Bengali. Everywhere in the eastern Islamic world Hallaj appears as the model of the loving Sufi who wants to be killed in order to prove his love-a religious image that permeates even secular poetry in the modern world.
Another aspect of mystical devotional poetry is that it can be easily turned into paradoxes because the poet is aware that he cannot share his experience with the uninitiated, and he can tell the ineffable only by using oxymoron or paradox. During performance, lines of these poems can be changed or verses from other poems inserted, provided they fit the meter; thus the recitation of mystical poetry during dhikr is very different from the orderly recitation of classical poetry.
Devotional poetry appears to be very much alive among smaller Islamic sects, and the ginan of the Khoja Isma’ilis is a point in case. The first examples stem from the early fifteenth century, but this genre with its sub genres has remained alive through the centuries. New songs to honor the imam emerge in the community, often with a strange blend of traditional mystical expressions and very modern concepts. Here the evolution of devotional poetry can still be observed. Burushaski, a language of isolated Isma’ili Hunzas, boasts a large devotional literature that is yet to be studied.
The high literature of Islam, too, have never ceased to produce poetry that can be called devotional. Classical poems that were thought to carry a special barakah are now available on tape, and it is interesting to see the vitality of Busiri’s great poem, the Burdah. Translations of this long qasidah have been made through the centuries into Persian, Turkish, Urdu, Panjabi, and other languages. The Burda is celebrated in the Deccan by inserting Qur’anic recitation and commentary. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the poem was also enlarged by takhmis, making it into quintuplet verses (two lines from the original poems plus three lines by the later poet). By inserting their own verses into the main body of the Burdah, poets in the Arab lands, the Deccan, and West Africa hoped to partake of the barakah of this great poem in which veneration of the Prophet resounds so strongly.
Everywhere poets have expressed the same love for the Prophet in their verses, from the Arab poet `Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulusi (d. 1732) or the Indian reformer Shah Wali Allah (d. 1762) and his compatriot in the Deccan, Azad Bilgrami (d. 1785), whose powerful qasi-dahs in honor of the Prophet earned him the surname Hassan al-Hindi. The last Mughal emperor of Delhi, Bahadur Shah Zafar (d. 1862), wrote na`tiyah poetry in Urdu, and Mirza Ghalib (d. 1869), the most famous Urdu poet, devoted highly complicated Persian qasidahs to the Prophet and to `Ali. Some decades later Muhsin Kakorawi (d. 19o5) devoted his entire poetic work to the praise of the Prophet; his qasidah “From the area of Kashi (Benares) a cloud moves toward Matthura” is a masterpiece on two stylistic levels, combining Hindu imagery in pure Hindi with high flown Urdu replete with allusions to the Qur’an, hadith, and traditional eulogies of the prophets. In the poetry of Iqbal (d. 1938) one can find a number of profound Persian and Urdu poems that can be called, without exaggeration, moving devotional poetry. We may also note such modern Arab poets as Salah `Abd al-Sabur of Egypt and, finally, the impact of classical religious poetry as sung by Umm Kulthum upon Muslims through the media of audiotapes, records, and videotapes. The development of new technology is also important for the growth of religious poetry in regional languages in remote areas such as the Hindu Kush, where the radio now broadcasts modern devotional poetry in Khowar and Shina.
[See also African Languages and Literatures; Arabic Literature; Persian Literature; Turkish Literature; Urdu Literature; and Sufism, article on Sufi Thought and Practice.]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Chelkowski, Peter. Ta`ziyeh: Ritual and Drama inIran.New York, 1979.
Emre, Ismail. Yeni Yunus Emre ve Doguslari. 2 vols. in I. Istanbul, 1950.
Knappert, Jan. Swahili Islamic Poetry. 3 vols.Leiden, 1971. Littmann, Enno, ed. Ahmed il -Bedawi: Ein Lied auf den agyptischen Nationalheiligen.Wiesbaden, 1950.
Littmann, Enno. Mohammed im Volksepos.Copenhagen, 1950. Littmann, Enno. Islamisch-arabische Heiligenlieder.Wiesbaden, 1951. Schimmel, Annemarie. As through a Veil: Mystical Poetry in Islam.New York, 1982. Includes an extensive bibliography.
Schimmel, Annemarie. And Muhammad Is His Messenger.Chapel Hill,N.C., 1985.
ANNEMARIE SCHIMMEL

DEVOTIONAL MUSIC

Batoota — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 09:48:37 +0000

DEVOTIONAL MUSIC. The most characteristic sounds of devotional expression in Muslim communities may be the call to prayer (adhan) and the recitation of the Qur’an (qira’ah al-Qur’an). Neither of these is considered by Muslims to be music; rather, they are texts that are delivered and sometimes amplified or enhanced using selected musical devices, which are always subordinate to the text.
In Middle Eastern Muslim communities, these sounds are familiar to almost everyone. The call to prayer is heard five times daily, often broadcast over loudspeakers from mosques, but also called out by a mu’adhdhin (muezzin) without amplification in such public places as airports or market districts. Qur’anic recitation permeates life. Many Muslims recite verses to themselves; reciters provide inspiration at public ceremonies, both explicitly religious and more secular; they provide comfort to the bereaved and articulate communal sadness at the deaths of leaders or other misfortunes.
Similar sounds signify Muslim community life worldwide. The Indonesian, Indian, Pakistani, European, and North African communities, for instance, all have their own favorite reciters, many of whose readings are marketed on cassette tapes and compact discs. The sounds of the Qur’anic texts are heard not only as inspirational but also as beautiful in themselves, melodiously chanted by skilled reciters.
Sufi music-exemplified by the flutes and drums of the Mevlevi dervishes in Turkey and the chanting of men at the Sufi dhikrs around the world-forms another important component of Muslim expressive culture. As a means of drawing closer to God, the Sufi dhikr or ceremony of remembrance is the quintessential vehicle. Chanting the names of God is a widespread practice with manifestations throughout North Africa and the Middle East, in Pakistan,Indonesia, North America, and Europe. Recordings and scholarship focused on these rituals have brought the attention and ears of outsiders to this repertory. [See Sufism, article on Sufi Thought and Practice; Dhikr.]
The use of music in devotional expression and to construct the rituals of Muslim holiday celebrations extends beyond Qur’anic recitation and calls to prayer and beyond the individuals who would readily identify themselves as Sufis. Its forms are as diverse as the communities themselves. Its practices include elaborate, virtuosic solo singing of supplications, the reciting and singing of religious poetry, and group singing of religious hymnsfor instance, songs of pilgrimage to Mecca or other shrines, the ilahileri of Turkish and Balkan communities, and the indang of western Sumatra.
The work of anthropologists such as Nancy and Richard Tapper reveals a large domain of expression, neither definitely orthodox nor clearly Sufi, that many participants consider to be Muslim and devotional and in which they partake in a variety of ways. Fazlur Rahman located such practices historically in the domain of popular Islam (Islam, 2d ed., Chicago, 1979, chapter 9). Tapper and Tapper argue that they are not merely peripheral but in fact constitute important religious behavior in rituals and daily lives of Muslim communities.
Conservative theologians and historians of religion sometimes claim that these genres and practices of popular devotion are not truly “Islamic”-that they are not canonical. In the strictest sense, they are right. The place of music in Islamic culture has been disputed, as has that of the voices of women in public places. The primary theological authority, the Qur’an; has yielded no single theological interpretation, and the dispute about the propriety of music is centuries old; it is linked to the larger debate about behaviors obligatory or recommended to Muslims and those that are forbidden or discouraged.
The philosophical support for musical expression proceeds largely from the writings of al-Ghazali (d. 111 ) and Jalal al-Din Rumi (d. 1273). An unimpeachable Muslim, al-Ghazali argued that music, properly engaged, actually brought one closer to God. His argument served as the theological foundation for Sufi practices and challenged the more conservative position so strongly that the role of musical performance in Muslim societies has remained contested terrain up to the present day. The propriety of musical practices and devotional practices that seem to be related to music is continually negotiated in different times and places.
Forms of devotional expression outside the domains of Qur’anic recitation and dhikr have rarely been studied, and very little is known about them beyond the boundaries of the communities of practitioners. What is known suggests that Muslim devotional expression includes a wide range of activities, extending from the home and the mosque into public celebrations. As Margaret Kartomi observed in Sumatra, the occasions for performance of Muslim devotional song range “from formal state occasions to intimate personal” ones (1986, p. 29). As such, they overlap, inform, and to some extent construct public culture in Muslim communities.
The diversity of practices is only suggested by the available literature. What is known indicates that forms of musical devotion are highly syncretic. Gamelan sekati forms part of the celebration of the Prophet’s birthday in Indonesia. Devotional indang in western Sumatra involves praise and inspirational singing with drumming and complex body movement performed from a sitting position. Qawwali melodies in Pakistan use classical Indic ragas. The ensemble of Ghulam Farld Sabri and his brother Maqbul brought qawwali tradition together with musical devices from popular local music and classical performance to create concert performances that were at once “serious and spiritual as well as entertaining” (Qureshi, 1992/93 P. 118). The texts sung by qawwali in India are narrative, didactic, and pluralistic, intended for a pluralistic Indian population. Ways of singing religious songs bear strong links, in terms of musical system and genres, to local song traditions. Local musical and dance practices are typically coupled with concepts of sama` and Islamic religious texts to create locally viable devotional expression. Supplication is a common genre, exemplified by the du’a’ of the Middle East. This is a prayer text; ideally, it is chanted clearly and emotively by men who have license to improvise melodically on interjections in the prayer such as Ya rabbi (“Oh Lord!”). Sayyid al-Naqshabandi was a famous practitioner of this art; his recordings have been broadcast before the breaking of the Ramadan fast for decades.
The singing of praise, usually of the prophet Muhammad, characterizes devotional expression in many, if not most, Muslim communities. Panegyrics are sung throughout the world and are known by a variety of names, including na’t, madih, and munajat in Arabic speaking communities, indang in Indonesia, and kusama in Kenya. In West Africa, praise singing lies close to the practices of drumming the chiefs name or the name of a potential patron. It has been the subject of contestation, and religious authorities in the Hausa and Fulani communities have variously banned the practice or attempted to direct it toward Muslim saints and Islamic holidays. Praise singing and drumming helps constitute the Damba festival in celebration of the Prophet’s birthday in Dagbon,Ghana.
In the Arabic-speaking world, panegyrics often take the form of the sophisticated qasidah, a lengthy poem characterized by mono rhyme and mono meter, or the metrically complex tawshih, both the province of accomplished singers such as ‘Ali Mahmud (1881-1946). The venues for singing this religious poetry are extensive, from small coffeehouses to the New Cairo Opera House, home to an ensemble of male religious singers who ably perform this repertory to standing ovations and cries for encores.
In more ordinary environments, maddahin are common figures. Men or sometimes women, singing in coffeehouses, at saints’ days, and by invitation, they perform a panoply of religious songs of varying complexity. Sometimes they adapt the tunes of popular stars to religious lyrics.
Similar religious songs called dahi in Turkish contribute to the repertories of classical and folk music. In Muslim communities of the Balkan peninsula recently, performances of this genre have been adapted to expression of the current political strife. They have helped construct and affirm the identities of Muslim communities.
Many occasions for devotional expression are celebratory. The saints’ days, the feasts of Islam, and the nights of Ramadan offer venues for expression. Saints’day celebrations, notably the Prophet’s birthday, include recitations of the Qur’an and singing of religious songs alongside the dhikr ceremonies of the Sufis. These celebrations often take place in public spaces. During the nineteenth century in Egypt, the Prophet’s birthday was celebrated in Azbakiyah Gardenin the nascent theater district; more recently it is celebrated in the streets surrounding the mosque of Husayn and in many neighborhoods, such as `Abdin and Bab al-Luq.
Ramadan serves as an occasion for much devotional and related expression, including the perambulations of the masahharati, a man who walks through his neighborhood after midnight calling out, usually melodically and somewhat poetically, to wake his neighbors in time to eat before the next day’s fast begins. Talking-drum orchestras mark the celebration of Ramadan among the Yoruba. Praise singing, royal drums and trumpets, and complex call-and-response singing with drum ensembles all form part of the feasts following Ramadan in Kano,Nigeria. The venues extend from village celebrations to national radio and television and commercial recording.
Group singing of pilgrimage or other religious songs while en route to Mecca, to a saint’s tomb, or to a saint’s-day celebration similarly expresses religious commitment or devotion. Saint’s-day celebrations involve spectators and listeners. The qawwali rituals that draw large audiences at the shrine of Nizamuddin Auliya in Delhi, described in detail by Qureshi (1986), exemplify these behaviors. On a more modest scale, Elizabeth Fernea’s studies of saints’ days in Morocco, focused as they are on the behavior of women, also aptly illustrate common behavior.
In Shi’i communities worldwide, music accompanies commemoration of a slightly different kind: remembering the martyrdom of Husayn occasions performances of religious song and ritual reenactments of his death and the mourning of the community, a ritual called ta`ziyah by Persian-speakers and by other names in other languages (for instance, tabut in Sumatra). [See Ta’ziyah. ]
In a general sense, all these practices are related to the Sufi theology of sama`, or engaged listening aimed at bringing the listener closer to God. This listening itself constitutes devotional behavior. Sama` lies at the heart of dhikr and forms part of its raison d’etre. Importantly, Sama` admits levels of sophistication and the possibility of learning and experience increasing one’s ability to attain closeness to God. Sama` is accessible at some level to the uninitiated and is not restricted to the learned or the committed Sufi. Thus participation extends beyond the Sufi brotherhood into the larger community of Muslims who participate in the celebration of saints’ days and religious feasts.
In the twentieth century, devotional expression has found new venues-for example, public contests in which Qur’anic recitation is judged. In Indonesia, women participate in these events and win prizes. Religious music has found its way into folk festivals such as that in Konya,Turkey. Qawwah performances are heard in films and on commercial recordings.
Not only men but also women and children participate in devotional expression. Many women competently recite the Qur’an and teach their children to do so. Some have been professional reciters, usually reciting for other women. Women and children characteristically participate in holiday celebrations at which devotional songs are sung-at celebrations welcoming home pilgrims from Mecca, at saints’-day celebrations, or during the long nights of Ramadan after the breaking of the day’s fast.
Generally the preferred medium of expression is the human voice; indeed, instrumental accompaniment has been occasionally banned. However, in some communities, musical instruments accompany the singing (even in mosques), and professional singers of religious songs have employed instrumental accompaniment for at least a century. Drums of various kinds and flutes are common in religious expression. The frame drums and hourglass drums of the Middle East, the dholak on the Indian subcontinent, and the talking drums of West Africa have all taken part in devotional expression. The Arab qanun has accompanied religious song in Egypt, the harmonium in India, and gamelan sekati in Indonesia.
Religious singing and supplication is marketed on commercial recordings. Professional singers of less weighty repertories-stars of stage and screen, for instance-have recorded topical religious songs, especially for holidays. Scaled-down qawwali have appeared in Indian films. The accomplished female Lebanese singer, Laure Daccache, became famous for her rendition of “Amint billah” (“Amantu bi-Allah”), which was possibly also her own composition; it has passed into the turath, or heritage, of Arabic religious song. Songs such as Sayyid Darwish’s “Ya `ushshaq al-Nabi” (O Lovers of the Prophet) use the language of devotion for a wedding song. This practice is very common, and the boundary of the “devotional” is not always easy to locate. Sayyid Darwish composed for musical theater and wrote many popular songs; in his personal life he was hardly a scrupulous Muslim. Yet his upbringing, in Qur’anic school and under the tutelage of Muslim family members, and his utilization of the aural components of this background, cast him among the mashayikh or learned religious people, the bearers of Muslim law and custom and Arabic literature and poetry. Throughout the twentieth century the mashayikh, popularly represented by figures such as Sayyid Darwish, have been invested as the “authentic school” of Egyptian culture. Thus Muslim devotional music moves from the circumscribed du`a’ into the larger domain of public culture and Egyptian social identity.
Muslim devotional expression has infused the musical traditions of many communities to the extent that it serves as a conservative force in the maintenance of what is perceived as authentic expressive culture. As noted above, in Egypt the mashayikh are often credited with the transmission of historically Arabic poetry and vocal aesthetics. These distinctly religious songs have passed into the turath or heritage of Arab music, and an ability to sing them, even when displayed by singers of nonreligious popular songs, marks an artist as “authentically Arab” (asil). Akin Euba (19’71) suggests that Yoruba tradition is similarly kept alive through Muslim song. In many places, as Qureshi writes of Northern India and Pakistan, Muslim devotional expressions form “part of the musical language” of the community (1986, p. 46). [See also Music; Qur’anic Recitation.]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Literature
Baily, John. “Qawwali in Bradford: Traditional Music in the Muslim Communities.” In Black Music in Britain: Essays on the Afro-Asian Contribution to Popular Music, edited by Paul Oliver, pp. 153-165.Milton Keynes,England, 1990.
Besmer, Fremont E. Kidan Daran Sdlld: Music for the Eve of the Muslim Festivals of `Id al-Fitr and `Id al-Kabir inKano,Nigeria.Bloomington, 1974.
Boyd, Alan. “Music in Islam;Lamu,Kenya, a Case Study.” In Discourse in Ethnomusicology, vol. 2, A Tribute to Alan P. Merriam, edited by Caroline Card et al., pp. 83-98.Bloomington, 1981. Chelkowski, Peter, ed. Ta’ziyeh: Ritual and Drama in Iran.New York, 1979.
Danielson,Virginia. “Cultural Authenticity in Egyptian Musical Expression: The Repertory of the `Mashayikh.’ ” Pacific Review of Ethnomusicology 5 (1989): 49-6o.
Danielson,Virginia. ” `Min al-Mashayikh’: A View of Egyptian Musical Tradition.” Asian Music 22.1 (1990-1991): 113-128.
During, Jean. Musique et extase: L’audition mystique dans la tradition soufie.Paris, 1988.
Erlmann, Veit. Music and the Islamic Reform in the Early Sokoto Empire: Sources, Ideology, Effects.Stuttgart, 1986.
Euba, Akin, “Islamic Musical Culture among the Yoruba: A Preliminary Survey.” In Essays on Music and History inAfrica, edited by Klaus P. Wachsmann, pp. 171-181.Evanston,Ill., 1971.
Faruqi, Lois Ibsen al-. “Music, Musicians, and Muslim Law.” Asian Music 17 (1985): 3-36.
Faruqi, Lois Ibsen al-. “Qur’An Reciters in Competition in Kuala Lumpur.” Ethnomusicology 31.2 (1987): 221-228.
Fernea, Elizabeth W.A Streetin Marrakech. 2d ed. Garden City, N.Y., 198o.
Kartomi, Margaret J. “Muslim Music in West Sumatran World of Music 28.3 (1986): 13-32.
Kinney, Sylvia. “Drummers in Dagbon: The Role of the Drummer in the Damba Festival.” Ethnomusicology 14 (1970): 258-265. “Musique musulmane.” In Encyclopidie des musiques sacrees, vol. I. Paris, 1968.
Neubauer, Eckhard. “Islamic Religious Music.” In New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, vol. 9, pp. 342-349.Washington,D.C., 198o.
Pacholczyk, Jozef M. “Music and Islam inIndonesia.” World of Music 28.3 (1986): 3-12.
Qureshi, Regula B. “Indo-Muslim Religious Music: An Overview.” Asian Music 3.1 (1972): 15-22.
Qureshi, Regula B. Sufi Music ofIndiaandPakistan: Sound, Context, and Meaning in Qawwali. Cambirdge, 1986.
Qureshi, Regula B. ” `Muslim Devotional’: Popular Religious Music and Muslim Identity under British, Indian, and Pakistani Hegemony.” Asian Music 24.1 (1992-1993) 111-121.
Tapper, Nancy, and Richard Tapper. “The Birth of the Prophet: Ritual and Gender in Turkish Islam.” Man 22 (1987): 69-92.
Waugh, Earle H. The Munshidin of Egypt: Their World and Their Song.Columbia,S.C., 1989.
Recording and Video
Muslim communities worldwide market and often produce sound recordings of devotional music. These are the best exemplars of current practices and may be obtained by requesting the genres and performers from specialized dealers. The following list is a sample of ethno musicological recordings that include annotated examples of a variety of traditions and are available in libraries that collect music from around the world. (Some of the LPs listed here may be reissued as compact discs.)
Sound Recordings
Ceremonial Islamic Ritual from Yugoslavia: Zikr of the Rufa’i Brotherhood. Recorded and edited by Bernard Mauguin. (UNESCO Collection/Musical Sources) Philips 6586015
Dikr and madih: islamische Gesange and Zeremonien/Sudan. Recorded and edited by Artur Simon. Museum furVolkerkunde,Berlin, MC 1o, 198o.
Egype: l’Ordre Chazili `al-Tariga al-Hamidiyya al-Chaziliyya’. Arion ARN 64211.
Islamic religious chanting fromNorth Yemen. Recorded and edited by Joachen Wenzel and Christian Poche. (Unesco Collection/Musical sources) Philips 6586 040.
Moroccan Sufi Music. Recorded and edited by Philip Schuyler. Lyrichord LLSt 7238.
Moyen-Atlas: Musique sacree & profane. Recorded and edited by Marc Loopuyt and H. Vuylsteke. (Musiques traditionelles vivantes. V. Musiques populaires) Ocora 558587.
Music of the Waswahili of Lamu,Kenya. 3 vols. Recorded and edited by Alan W. Boyd. Ethnic Folkways FE 4093-95.
Musik frdn Tunisien. Recorded and edited by Krister Maim and Salah el Mahdi, Caprice CAP 1090.
Syrie, Muezzins d’Alep: chants religieux de l’Islam. Recorded and edited by Christian Poche. Ocora 580038.
Tunisia. Recorded and edited by Alain Danielou. (Unesco Collection/ A Musical Anthology of the Orient) Barenreiter-Musicaphon BM 3o L 2008.
Turquie: Musique Soufi. (Musiques traditionelles vivantes. II. Musiques rituelles et religieuses) Ocora 558522.
Zikr: Islamic Ritural – Rifa ‘yya Brotherhood of Aleppo. Recorded by Christian Poche. (Unesco Collection/Musical Sources) Philips 6586 030.
Video Recordings
Aita. Produced by Izza Genini. Icarus/First Run. Focused on a female singer who performs religious music.
Hymns of Praise. Produced by Izza Genini. Icarus/First Run. Focused on a saint’s day celebration in Morocco.
Lessons from Gulam: Asian Music in Bradford [England]. Produced by John Baily. Distributed by Documentary Education Resources,Watertown,Mass.Focused on a male singer of gawwali.
Nusrat! Live at Meany Hall. Produced by the University of Washington Ethno musicology program and available from the University of Washington Press, 1994. A concert of qawwali by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.
Saints and Spirits. Produced by Elizabeth Fernea. Directed by Melissa Llewelyn-Davies. Icarus/First Run, 1979. Focused on a saint’s day celebration in Morocco with emphasis on the experience of women.

VIRGINIA DANIELSON

DEVIATION

Batoota — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 09:44:34 +0000

DEVIATION. See Bid’ah.