F – Hybrid Learning

Fazlur Rahman Malik

Batoota — Tue, 11 Jul 2017 13:09:53 +0000

Fazlur Rahman (September 21, 1919 – July 26, 1988), Pakistani philosopher and educator and prominent liberal reformer of Islam. Born in what is now Pakistan in 1919, Fazlur Rahman received a master’s degree in Arabic from Punjab University, Lahore, in 1942, and a doctorate in Islamic philosophy from Oxford University in 1949 He was lecturer in Persian studies and Islamic philosophy at Durham University from 195o to 1958, associate professor at McGill University’s Institute of Islamic Studies from 1958 to 1961, visiting professor at Pakistan’s Central Institute of Islamic Research from 1961 to 1962, and that Institute’s director from 1962 to 1968. He left Pakistan under criticism for his reformist views and was appointed visiting professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, in spring of 1969. That fall he went to the University of Chicago as professor of Islamic thought. In 1986 he was named Harold H. Swift Distinguished Service Professor at Chicago, a title he held until his death in July 1988.

Rahman first achieved international renown with the publication of Avicenna’s Psychology (1952), in which he demonstrated the influence of the Muslim philosopherphysician Ibn Sina (d. 1037) on the medieval Christian theologian St. Thomas Aquinas (d. 1275). An expert in medieval philosophy, Rahman wrote two more books on Ibn Sina (Prophecy in Islam, 1958, and Avicenna’s De Anima, 1959), but he was best known for his pioneering work in Islamic hermeneutics (Islamic Methodology in History, 1965) and educational reform (Islam and Modernity: Transformation of an Intellectual Tradition, 1984).
Rahman believed that contemporary Muslim conservatives, in trying to maintain the status quo in religious tradition, and fundamentalists, in interpreting the Qur’an literally, are as misguided as secularists who deny Islam’s relevance to the political and economic spheres. Both conservatives and fundamentalists have failed to distinguish the prescriptive or normative elements of revelation from the merely descriptive elements that are pertinent only to the time and place in which revelation occurred. In order to make Islam relevant to today’s specific circumstances, he believed, Muslims must go beyond a literal or traditional interpretation of the Qur’an to an understanding of its spirit. They must study the background or “occasions” of each verse in order to find the true essence of revelation. Muslims must also study in detail the specific circumstances of their own time in order to be able to apply the principles derived from revelation.
Overall, he was convinced that the disarray of the modern Muslim world was caused by inadequate understanding of Qur’anic teachings. This he attributed to stagnation in Islamic education, beginning in the early middle ages and incorporated into traditional formulations, including Islamic law. He therefore devoted himself to educational reform and the revival of Islamic interpretation (ijtihdd) through his later writings and teaching.
Rahman was greatly respected by other Islamic reformers such as `Abd Allah al-Na’im of Sudan. He was, however, criticized by those he considered fundamentalist as being overly liberal in his interpretation of the Qur’an, the sunnah, and classical Islamic law. In Pakistan his detractors referred to him as “the destroyer of hadiths” because of his insistence on judging the weight of hadith reports in light of the overall spirit of the Qur’an. However, he believed his reformist views would eventually be vindicated; he felt that contemporary Islamic fundamentalism was a defensive and temporary posture taken in response to the political and economic setbacks experienced by the Muslim world.
Works by Fazlur Rahman
Avicenna’s Psychology. Edited and translated by Fazlur Rahman. London, 1952.
Avicenna’s De Anima (Arabic text). Edited by Fazlur Rahman. London, 1959.
Islamic Methodology in History. Karachi, 1965.
Intikhab-i maktubat-i Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi (Selected Letters of Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi). Edited by Fazlur Rahman. Karachi, 1968.
Philosophy of Mulld Sadra. Albany, N.Y., 1975. Islam. 2d ed. Chicago, 1979.
Major Themes of the Qur’an. Minneapolis, 1979. Prophecy in Islam, 2d ed. Chicago, 1979.
Islam and Modernity: Transformation of an Intellectual Tradition. Chicago, 1984.
Health and Medicine in the Islamic Tradition: Change and Identity. New York, 1987.
Works on Fazlur Rahman
Sonn, Tamara. “Fazlur Rahman’s Islamic Methodology.” Muslim World 81 (July-October 1991): 212-230.

FATIMID DYNASTY

Batoota — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 11:46:49 +0000

FATIMID DYNASTY. The institutional embodiment of the Isma’iliyah, a Shi’i sects that anise from the disputed succession to Ja’far al-Sadiq (c 700-756 ), the sixth imam imam of mainstream Shiism (the Imamiyah), was called the Fatimid dynasty. Al-Sadiq’s son and designated successor, Isma’il, had predeceased him, and some Shi ‘is took Isma’il’s son, Muhammad, as the imam, rather than Isma’il’s brother,Musa al-Kazim, who was accepted by the majority, By the end of the ninth century, Muhammad ibn Isma’ils messianic role as the Mahdi was as no longer recognized by many Isma’liah, leading to an internal split. Direct spiritual leadership (and “Alid descent through Isma’il) was now claimed by a certain ‘Abd Allah (also known as ‘Ubaid Allah), who, with other members of his family, been living in Salmiyah, an Isma’ili center In Syria. His actual descent is a matter of dispute, especially as have energetically fied him and his successors.
The isma`ili movement-which held to a revolutionary messianism, claimed access to esoteric truths, and developed and elaborate Gnostic cosmology, later adding elements o Neoplatonism-was spread by a network of an off secret cells. As an offshoot of a “mission” in Yemen called Abu ‘Abd Allah al-Shi’i began a, campaign among the Kutama Berbers in Crating from the Kabyle Mountains in what is modern Algeria, and capitalizing on Berber hostility to the Aghlabid governors’ who ruled in Qayrawan and Raqqada (in what modern Tunisia) as repre sentatives of ‘Abbasid Sunnism, the new movement achieved great success, and the Isma’iliyah defeated the Aghlabids in 909.
‘Abd Allah had left Salamiyah and, after some perilous adventures, arrived to take over the active leadership of the Isma’iliyah in North Africa, adopting the messianic title of the Mahdi. Despite the subsequent execution of Abu `Abd Allah and Berber revolts, especially that of the Kharijite Abu Yazid (943-94), a Fatimid state (so named because of claimed descent from Fatimah, the Prophet’s daughter and `Alms wife) was established with loyal Berber support and element,; of the former Aghlabid army and bureaucracy. A newcapital, al-Mahdiyah, was founded in 920.
The logic of militant Isma’ili Shiism, with its claim to universal power and authority in Islam, led to attempts at eastward anti-‘Abbasid expansion. The extensive Fatirnid possessions in North Africa, however, were consigned to vassals and in due course lost. A series of expeditions against Egypt ended with its conquest iii 969 by Jawhar, the general of the Fatirnid caliph, al-Mu’izz (d. 975). A new residential and administrative complex was founded, north of previous centers, named al-Qahirah (cairo), to which al-Mu’izz moved in 973. Naval and military power, the splendor of the court, and Egypt’s artistic productions and burgeoning international trade projected the Fatimid regime as and equal of the Byzantine arid `Abbasid empires. Politically and militarily, however, its efforts to advance through Syria were checked by a resurgence of Byzantine power in the second half of the tenth century and by the new Tiirkmen and Seljuk incursions in the eleventh century.
Internally, the dogmas of Isma’iliyah made but little headway among the population at large. It was confined to the court and the state apparatus. Alexandria in particular remained a bastion of opposition as a strong cenief. Cairo, however, at reached as far as the Indus Valley and attempted to destabilize other Islamic regimes to brigs on the triumph of Isma’iliyah. The religious center this movement was the mosque of al-Azhar, founded 970.
The solidity of the Fatimid regime was tested by the eccentric reign of al-Hakim (r. 996-1021), and later, in the eleventh century, there were economic troubles exacerbated by insufficient Nile floods, famines and plagues, and growing bedouin depredations. There were also conflicts within the army. for the palace was increasingly unable to control the various contingents of Berbers, Arabs, Sudanese. Armenians, and Turks. The 1970s began a period of domination of the state by military men. The Armenian Badr al-Jamali (d. 1094) was the first of the “viziers of the sword.” The ideology of the Fatimids became increasingly irrelevant,, and when the vizier al-Afdal (d. 1121) ousted Nizar, the nated successor of al-Mustansw r, 1036-1094) ma’illvah of Iran threw w off their allegiance.
The internal weakness of Egypt encouraged the Crusaders to intervene, which led to a protracted contest for control of the country between the Kingdom of Jerusalem and Nur al-Din (r. 1144-1 174) of Aleppo and Damascus. Saladin emerged as the new power in Egypt, initially as lieutenant to- Nur al-Din, and the Fatimid caliphate was abolished in 1171.
[See: also Abbasid Caliphate; Egypt; Isma’iliyah.]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ganard, Maruis, “Fatimids.” In Encylopaedia of Islam, new ed., vol. 2, pp. 850-862. Leiden, 1960-. Good introductory study.
Kennedy, Hugh. The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphate: The Islamic Near East from the Sixth to the Eleventh Century. London and New York, 1986. See pages 315-345.
Lewis, Bernard. “Egypt and Syria to the End of the Fatimid Caliphate.” In The Cambridge History of Islam, Vol. I, The Central Islamic Londs, edited by P.M. Holt et al. pp. 184-201. Cambridge, 1970.
O’Leary, De Lacy. A Short History of the Fatimid Khalifate. London, 1923. Rather old-fashioned, but one of the rare monographs devoted to the subject.
Stern, S.M. Studies in Early Isma’ilism. Jerusalem 1983. collection of Stern’s important and wide-ranging published articles, with notes on unpublished material.

D.S.RICHARDS

FARD AL-KIFAYAH

Batoota — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 11:19:41 +0000

FARD AL-KIFAYAH. In Muslim legal doctrine the fard al-kifayah (lit., “duty of the sufficiency”) defines a communal responsibility. According to this doctrine, within a community of Muslims, if some religious obligation belonging to the category of fard al-kifayah is not fulfilled, the whole have collectively sinned. If a sufficient number of the community undertake the duty, however, the responsibility on the community is discharged; for example, it is necessary that at least one Muslim recite the funeral prayers. If no one does, the entire community is at fault. If, however, someone performs the service, the obligation is lifted from the entire community. If a foundling is neglected, the entire community is at fault; if someone cares for it, the penalty is not applied to the community. The remarkable feature of this doctrine is that for this set of obligations a Muslim may have his or her duty discharged by someone else; likewise, for someone’s neglect, another Muslim can be punished.
Although it is tempting to describe the fard al-kifayah as a collective duty, it is one which can in some cases be discharged by a single individual. It is more accurate to say that fard al-kifayah can be an occasion for collective transgression if it is not sufficiently discharged.
The doctrine of fard al-kifayah is an old one, though the terminology is post-Qur’anic. It is plausible to suppose that it is implicit in the Qur’anic assumption that some, but not all, will “struggle in the way of God.” In any case, by the time of al-Shafi’l (d. 820) the doctrine is taken for granted-returning a greeting, prayer for the dead, and the obligations of jihad are all assumed to be obligations of the sufficiency (Risalah, section 971). In a foreshadowing of the importance that fard alkifayah is to have, al-Shafi’i extends the scope of the doctrine to argue that there are two sorts of knowledge and hence two sorts of obligations: those incumbent on scholars and those incumbent on the generality of Muslims.
Fard al-kifayah was one of the major vehicles used by jurists to talk about society in the aggregate, as a collective entity. It is not too much to suggest that fard alkifayah/fard al-`ayn take the places in moral discourse of the concepts of public and private spheres. By the eleventh century CE, the sources’ lists of fard al-kifdyahs are a virtual compendium of the religious and moral obligations that glued Islamic society together, including: undertaking proofs and demonstrations to know what God has established and what attributes must be ascribed to him; the study of the sciences of the shar`, that is, Qur’dnic commentary, hadith, and the law; the quest for the legal position on novel cases (ijtihad); serving as judge; issuing legal opinions; competence in medicine; the ability to determine the direction of prayer; preparation of the dead; returning a greeting; bearing witness; calling to prayer; the practice of crafts and industries; buying and selling; warehousing; writing biographical dictionaries; rescuing a foundling; undertaking jihad; and commanding the good, and forbidding the reprehensible.
In recent Muslim literature, there is some evidence of a reconsideration of this doctrine as a way to discuss social responsibility. Sayyid Qutb, for example, in his Social Justice in Islam (1987) contrasts social concern (al-takafful al-ijtima’i) and public concern (takafful `amm), which “makes everyone in a locality directly responsible for those who suffer from hunger” (p. 62; 70) Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, in his Tawzih al-masd’il (1983) says that commanding the good and forbidding the reprehensible is a fard al-kifayah (wdjib kifd’i) unless accomplishing this requires the whole of those morally responsible to act (p. 573 ff.; questions 2786 ff.). In this instance, it becomes an obligation to act together. Fard al-kifdyah may prove an important concept in the restatement of values that in the 1900s is so prominent in the Muslim world.
[See also Fard al-`Ayn.]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Khomeini, Ruhollah al-Musavi. Risalah-i Tawzih al-Masd’il. Tehran, 1983. Translated by J. Borujerdi as A Clarification of Questions: An Unabridged Translation of Resaleh Towzih al-Masael. Boulder, 1984. Qutb, Sayyid. Al-`adalah al-ijtimd’iyah ft al-Islam. Cairo and Beirut, 1987. Translated into English by John B. Hardie as Social justice in Islam. Washington, D.C., 1953.
A. KEVIN REINHART

FAMILY PLANNING

Batoota — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 13:31:32 +0000

FAMILY PLANNING. High population growth rates over the past forty years coupled with worries about economic and social development have spurred debate on the use of family planning measures by Muslims. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, populations in Muslim countries grew slowly as high birth rates were offset by high mortality rates. Following World War II and continuing today, countries with a majority of Muslim citizens are, generally speaking, characterized by high birth rates, which are falling gradually, and a mortality rate that, although still higher than average, is declining. A variety of factors have combined to decrease the total fertility rate (number of children born), including availability of medical services, widespread community health and sanitation programs, greater literacy, the education of women, migration to urban areas, and employment availability.
Although some Muslim countries have the resources to support a growing population, others with more limited resources fear the impact of population growth on their ability to provide services for their citizens. National family planning programs have been implemented in a number of countries with varying success.
Since the beginning of Islam, the Muslim community has encouraged large families to ensure a strong and vibrant Muslim population. However, religious scholars (`ulama’) assert the religious permissibility of family planning in the fiqh (jurisprudence) literature on marriage and family. The Qur’an makes no mention of family planning measures, but a few hadith texts mention `azl (coitus interruptus). The fiqh discussion centers on the question of the permissibility of `azl, and schools differ in their response. `Azl is judged to be makruh (reprehensible), but major variables in determining the permissibility of `azl is the status of the woman involved (free or slave) and whether she gives her consent to its use. As `azl is considered to be detrimental to the woman, depriving her of her right to children (some schools believe it deprives her of sexual satisfaction), it was only permissible with a free woman if she consented to its use. All but the majority of the Shafi’i school ruled that the permissibility of `azl was contingent upon her consent.
As the jurists were male and `azl was controlled by the male partner, this was the only contraceptive method discussed in the fiqh literature. Medical texts, however, document that women have utilized a variety of other means of contraception. These methods included infusions, suppositories, sexual techniques, and magic (Hines, 1970).
Contemporary `ulama’ tend to resolve the religious permissibility of family planning along the same lines of reasoning as their medieval colleagues. The twentieth century introduced a variety of contraceptive methods whose usage is primarily controlled by women. Accordingly, the majority of `ulama’ rule that use of contraceptive methods is permissible for Muslims as long as the husband and the wife agree to it. This position follows the logic of the classical texts in that, although use of contraception may be injurious to the wishes of one spouse, if both agree, then the rights of both are guaranteed.
Less well-educated religious leaders in small towns and villages often hold that family planning is prohibited by Islam. Their reasoning follows a different line, which argues on deterministic grounds. They base their premise on a hadith that states: “Marry, have children and multiply that I will be proud of you on Judgment Day.” They prohibit family planning on the basis that it opposes the supremacy of the will of God.
Some Muslim scholars, as well as economists and development experts, have challenged Islam’s pronatalist policy by questioning whether the traditional way of defining the strength of Islam as proportional to the number of its adherents still applies. Mahmud Shaltut, rector of al-Azhar University during the early part of the regime of Gamal Abdel Nasser, argued for both the permissibility of family planning and the role of the state in implementing family planning programs. Although in early Islam strength was equated with a large population, Shaltut maintained that in the twentieth century, large populations may weaken rather than strengthen communities. Factors such as poverty, malnutrition, and lessened public morality that are concomitant with large populations in developing areas all make the Muslim community vulnerable to enemies. Shaltut stated that if family planning would contribute to alleviation of these social ills, it was then permissible in Islam; he implied that the state was responsible for the facilitation of such programs.
Contemporary `ulama’ who oppose family planning generally cite reasons having as much to do with politics as religion. The terms used for contraception often indicate political stances. “Birth control” (tahdid al-nasl) carries the negative sense of limiting or eliminating progeny; “family planning” (al-takhtit al-`a’ili or tanzim al-usrah) has a more positive connotation of spacing births in the best interests of all family members. While most `ulama’ hold that any family has the option to employ privately family planning measures, at the same time they may oppose government programs that disseminate birth control measures and information. Many see state-sponsored programs as an attempt at coercion.
Some Muslims regard the Western development experts’ linkage of population control and economic development as both damaging and fallacious. They postulate that the West seeks to weaken Islam by limiting the size of the Muslim community, and they reject all family planning programs on that basis. Muslim activists or Islamists are among the most vocal opponents of family planning. Islamists in Egypt attack contraceptive use in an attempt to counter the government’s two-decade-old family planning program. In 1977 the shaykh (rector) of al-Azhar wrote an essay, “Birth Control is a Refuted Idea,” which held that family planning is both unnecessary and counter to Islamic belief. He called for greater human reliance on God for sustenance and for Muslim inventiveness and dedication in the conquest of the desert and better use of resources. Many Islamists hold that use of birth control contributes to greater immorality in the form of premarital sexual activity, adultery, and abortion. These arguments are common in Islamist circles throughout the Muslim world, and are often tied to attempts to restrict greater latitude given to women in personal status laws. All Muslim religious leaders oppose sterilization on religious grounds as it permanently alters what God has created.

Dr.Zakir Naik on Family Planing

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bowen, Donna Lee. “Islam and Family Planning in Morocco.” Maghreb Review 3.10 (1980): 20-29. Presents views of present-day Moroccan religious leaders on family planning.
Bowen, Donna Lee. “Muslim Juridical Opinions Concerning the Status of Women as Demonstrated by the Case of Azl.” journal of Near Eastern Studies 40.4 (1981): 323-328. Presentation of Muslim legal schools’ positions on contraceptive use.
Bowen, Donna Lee. “Pragmatic Morality: Islam and Family Planning in Morocco.” In Everyday Life in the Contemporary Middle East, edited by Donna Lee Bowen and E. A. Early, pp. 91-100. Bloomington, 1993 Presentation and analysis of contemporary Muslim views on family planning.
Hines, Norman E. Medical History of Contraception (1936). Boston, 1970. Chapter 6, “The Islamic World and Europe during the Middle Ages,” details contraceptive methods used in that period. Musallam, Basim F. Sex and Society in Islam: Birth Control before the Nineteenth Century. Cambridge, 1983. Excellent study of family planning in theory and practice, and the demography of Muslim nations during the medieval and early modern period.
Nazer, Isam R., ed. Islam and Family Planning. 2 vols. Beirut, 1974. Collection of articles by Muslim theologians (`ulama’) on all aspects of marriage, family, and family planning. First published in Arabic.
Omran, Abdel Rahim. Family Planning in the Legacy of Islam. London and New York, 1992. Comprehensive collection and discussion of Qur’anic, hadith, and jurisprudence references relating to marriage, the family, and family planning.
Shaltut, Mahmud. “Tanzim al-Nasl.” In Al-isldm: `Aqidah washari ah. Cairo, 1966. Controversial reading of Islamic social theory by the politically astute rector of al-Azhar.
Weeks, John R. “The Demography of Islamic Nations.” Population Bulletin (Washington, D.C.) 43.4 (1988). Handbook on demography and population issues in Islamic countries.

FAMILY

Batoota — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 13:26:03 +0000

FAMILY. The basic social unit of Islamic society is the family. If Islam can be described as the soul of Islamic society, then the family might be seen metaphorically as its body. For thousands of years, the family has been the principal focus of people’s emotional, economic, and political identity. Changes in the nineteenth and particularly the twentieth centuries have placed great strains on the unit, yet the family, together with the Islamic faith, retains a central place in the lives of peoples in every social class, in both rural and urban contexts, and in every country classified as Islamic.
“Family” means different things in different societies and in different contexts. In the Western world of the twentieth century, “family” is often understood as the “nuclear family,” one or two parents and their children. The Arabic word for family, ahl or ahila, is a more comprehensive term and may include grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins on both sides of the marital connection. In its broadest sense, the family might be perceived as an even larger unit, equal to the ummah, or the group of believers in Islam, the Islamic community, or “family” itself.
As early as 3000 BCE in ancient Sumer, the site of the contemporary nation-state of Iraq, evidence is found of a social unit similar to the contemporary Islamic family. This early manifestation, recorded in tablets and on monumental steles, was also a precursor to the family structure of Judaism and Christianity, the other two great monotheistic religions of the Middle East. Proponents of Judaism and Christianity are known in Islam as “people of the book” or dhimmis, those related to Islam through holy scripture and to whom one, as a Muslim, must be tolerant.
This early form of the family was patrilineal, a form of social organization found in perhaps 8o to 9o percent of all human societies. In a patrilineal society, the name of the child and the inheritance pass through the male line; children therefore are known by the names of their fathers. Although all patrilineal families are not equally patriarchal, the linguistic emphasis placed on the male fine to an important degree reflects male dominance, both legal and informal, in social relations. The use of the term “patriarch” to refer to the prophets of Judaism and Christianity is an indication of this tendency.
The advent of Islam in the seventh century CE brought changes to the structure of the Arabian family. Although the basic outline of patrilineality was retained, some modifications are evident, particularly in the place of women. The Prophet Muhammad is often cited as having paid special attention to the plight of the less fortunate in society-women, orphans, slaves -and the revelations recorded in the Qur’an support this.
First and foremost, the Qur’an prohibited infanticide, a practice that seems to have reached scandalous proportions in pre-Islamic Arabia, particularly in the case of infant girls. The Qur’an also recognized women as having legal status as persons with rights and responsibilities. Women have the same religious duties as men, though they may be excused from fasting during Ramadan, for example, if they are pregnant or nursing. (Such latitude is clearly given to protect not only the health of the individual woman, but that of the child, either unborn or newly born, and by extension, the health of the family unit itself.) The Qur’an also gives women the right to accept or reject a marriage partner and the right to divorce in certain cases (the desertion, impotence, or insanity of the husband are most often cited).
In the past, and to a great extent today, the family provided economic and emotional support to its members. An individual, as Halim Barakat points out, “inherited” his or her religious, class, and cultural identity, which was reinforced by the customs and mores of the group. In exchange for the allegiance of its members, the family group served as an employment bureau, insurance agency, child and family counseling service, old people’s home, bank, teacher, home for the handicapped (including the mentally ill), and hostel in time of economic need. Men and women both remained members of their natal families for all of their lives, even after marriage. A divorced woman returned to her natal family, which was responsible for her support until remarriage. A divorced man returned to his natal family, and his parents cared for his children. In exchange for these services, the individual members were expected to place the group’s survival above their personal desires, especially at the time of marriage, and to uphold the reputation of the family by behaving properly and “maintaining the family honor.”
This, of course, was the ideal. In everyday life, ideals are not always realized in practice. Some members have always rebelled and refused to marry the person chosen for them by their family. Some groups did not take in divorced members, sometimes out of poverty, sometimes out of spite. Vengeful fathers did not always pass on to their sons, at the time of maturity, authority over land or shops. Maintaining the family honor sometimes resulted in tragedy. And the care of handicapped and elderly members often put an undue stress upon the younger members of the family.
Yet the institution persisted because it met real needs for people, people for whom no other institution existed. The shift that took place in the West, the assumption of economic and social responsibilities first by the religious hierarchy and then by the secular state, has not occurred in the same manner in Islamic society. Thus for most of its history the family has been an institution that did not merely reproduce itself physically, but reproduced the religious and social values of its members.
The Islamic family unit came under new pressures with the beginning of Western colonial rule in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. From Egypt to India, Morocco to Indonesia, European immigrants, soldiers, and administrators assumed political control. Local language, culture, economic and social structures were devalued and efforts were made to replace them with Western models. The family unit was not immune to these efforts, but attempted to reject Western incursion. The family unit became first a religious, cultural, and social refuge from colonial domination, and eventually the site of political resistance. This action was strengthened by Western colonial policy, which in most areas left local control intact only in religious affairs and, by inference, Islamic family law, including inheritance. This was crucial for the continuation and support of the family, which in response to the presence of strangers, turned in upon itself. Men, often ridiculed and rejected in the new colonial governmental and economic structures, found their families a sanctuary, a representation of Islamic religious values wherein they were honored. Protection of Muslim women from strangers became more important as well. For example, the all-enveloping jallabah with hood and face veil, found in Morocco today, only dates from about 1912, when the French conquered Morocco. Before that time, women as well as men in Morocco wore the ha’ik, a length of cloth wrapped about the body in various ways. The Qur’anic school increased in importance as a source of religious instruction even as colonial governments were attempting to limit its influence and elites were attending the secular schools of Christian missionaries.
After 1919, peoples of the Islamic Middle East realized that the independence promised by the Allies was not to be. Organized anti colonial resistance became more serious and militant, as was also the case in India, Indonesia, and other parts of the Islamic world subject to Western European control. The family became the focus of such resistance. Such activity was justified in rhetoric that spoke of maintaining Islamic religion and culture, especially in the family, in the face of a common enemy-Western political and economic power, with its perceived secularist or at least anti-Islamic aims.
Since independence from colonial rule (in the 1950s and 1960s), the family unit has been subject to a variety of economic and political pressures. High rates of unemployment have prompted millions of men and some women to search for work in Europe and the Gulf States. Inflation has also meant that large numbers of women, for the first time, have taken jobs outside their homes. Conflict in Lebanon, Afghanistan, and Iran, as well as Israel/Palestine, has led to family disruption through violent deaths and forced migration. The movement in almost all Islamic countries from rural to urban predominance has further challenged the customary ties of family life. Only in the oil-rich states of the Gulf is it possible for the religious model of the Islamic family to be maintained: father as provider, mother as child bearer and rearer in the home.
Thus the current debate throughout the Islamic world on the place and function of the family is a crucial debate, for it involves not only the suggestion that family responsibilities shall be passed from the family unit to the state, but the definition of basic individual rights: those of women, men, and children. The status of women is not an isolated issue but at the core of the whole debate, for the woman has always been seen as the center of the family unit, the hub around which all its economic, personal, and political activities revolved.
Discussions of shari`ah family law reflect these concerns, as Qur’anic family law defines relations between men and women through legislation of marriage, divorce, child custody, inheritance, and polygyny (the Qur’an surah that allows a man to take up to four wives if he can treat them equally). Islamic family law currently operates in most Islamic countries, with the exception of Turkey and Tunisia. But current movements are apparent in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan to stiffen the application of shad `ah family law, and other movements in Algeria and Egypt seek to amend or replace Islamic family law with more secular personal status laws. Both movements underscore the societal awareness of the importance of the family as the base of society, a force for moral and social order, and the mechanism to insure the stability of the next generation. The debate concerns not only the family, but family planning, religious and secular education, and political participation, as well as law, and arguments on both sides use the good of the family as a justification for greater or lesser legal changes. Current popular and widespread Islamic movements also see the family as the rock on which indigenous religious socialization and culture stand. They argue for greater family cohesion in what is perceived as a rapidly changing, unpredictable, and hostile world, where families are being perforce stretched, fragmented, and broken. Khurshid Ahmad, director-general of the Islamic Foundation at the University of Pakistan, says, “We are living in a period of cultural crisis . . . the very foundations of contemporary society are being threatened from within and without. The family, as a basic and most sensitive institution of culture, is being undermined by powerful and destructive forces.”
In modern Iran, since the 1979 Islamic revolution, the family has become the platform for the enunciation of the state’s goals and ideals, and the subject of government legislation by the Shi`i `ulama’ in many areas of life other than family law-education, leisure activities, literature, politics. The view in Libya, as set down in the 1970s by Colonel Mu’ammar al-Qadhdhafi in his three Green Books, is that “The social bond which binds together each human group, from the family through the tribe to the nation, is the basis for the movement of history.” At some level, the family is defined as society, and this formulation, although not stated, leads logically to the family as ummah, the community of believers in Islam.
To many observers, the Islamic family seems not to be disintegrating, but rather regrouping and reorganizing in response to contemporary needs. In places where the family unit itself has been dispersed due to war, natural disaster, or economic need, the values and the functions of the family are resurfacing in different forms. Workers abroad group together on the basis of old family ties; young men entering the workforce find jobs in the same factories or businesses as their sisters, cousins, or uncles. For men of elite political groups, family ties continue to be important as political party bases shift. Newcomers to the city make connections through family members. Men on their own in a new place may turn to Islamic religious “brotherhoods,” or groups where, as they themselves say, they “feel like one of the family.” Women whose husbands are working abroad often form kin like ties with neighbors.
Through its adaptations and evolution, the Muslim family unit has proven itself to be an interdependent and flexible social institution. For many, it remains the best way to provide for individual needs as well as group survival.
The British historian Lawrence Stone found the English family of past centuries to be a searching, acting, moving institution. The Muslim family, from its sixth century foundations to its modern expression, might be viewed in the same way, as a structure flexible enough to deal with new pressures and strong enough in its religious and social manifestations to respond to and become part of changing conditions.
[See also Family Law; Marriage and Divorce; Polygyny.]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ahmad, Kurshid, ed. Studies in Family Law of Islam. Karachi, 1968. Barakat, Halim. “The Arab Family and the Challenge of Social Transformation.” In Women and the Family in the Middle East, edited by Elizabeth Fernea, pp. 27-48. Syracuse, 1985.
Esposito, John. Women in Muslim Family Law. Syracuse, 1982. Fanon, Frantz. Studies in a Dying Colonialism. New York, 1965. Fernea, Elizabeth, ed. Women and the Family in the Middle East: New Voices of Change. Austin, 1985.
Femea, Elizabeth Warnock, and Basima Qattan Bezirgan, eds. Middle Eastern Muslim Women Speak. Austin, 1977. Includes selections from the Qur’an on the subject of women and the family, pages 7-26.
Gordon, David. Women of Algeria: An Essay on Change. Cambridge, Mass., 1968.
Levy, Reuben. The Social Structure of Islam. Cambridge, 1957. Mahdavi, Shireen. “The Position of Women in Shi’a Iran: Views of the `Ulama.” In Women and the Family in the Middle East: New Voices of Change, edited by Elizabeth Fernea, pp. 255-272. Austin, 1985.
Mawdudi, Sayyid Abu al-A’la. Purdah and the Status of Women in Islam. Lahore, 1972.
Minault, Gail, ed. The Extended Family: Women and Political Participation in India and Pakistan. Columbia, Mo., 1981.
Mueller, Eric. “Revitalizing Old Ideas: Developments in Middle Eastern Family Law.” In Women and the Family in the Middle East: New Voices of Change, edited by Elizabeth Fernea, pp. 224-228. Austin, 1985.
Rugh, Andrea. Family in Contemporary Egypt. Syracuse, 1984. Shaltut, Mahmud. Shaltut on “The Koran and Women.” Cairo, 1980. Spectorsky, Susan. Chapters on Marriage and Divorce: Responses of Ibn Hanbal and Ibn Rahwayh. Austin, 1993
Stone, Lawrence. The Family, Sex and Marriage in England (1500-1800). London, 1977.
ELIZABETH WARNOCK FERNEA

FAKHREDDIN, RIZAEDDIN

Batoota — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 12:59:25 +0000

FAKHREDDIN, RIZAEDDIN (17 January 1859-11 April 1936), Volga-Ural Muslim religious scholar and reformist. One of the most prominent Muslims of the Volga-Ural region of the Russian empire, Fakhreddin was born on 17 January 1859 in Kichu Chati village in Samara guberniya, the son of Sayfetdin, the village mullah, and Ma-huba, the daughter of Ramkol Maksud, imam of Iske Ishtirak village. It is remarkable that Fakhreddin, an outstanding Islamic scholar, educator, writer, and journalist, was a product of Tatar village madrasahs and never attended school in Kazan or Bukhara. He studied first at his father’s madrasah but at the age of seven went to study at neighboring villages, ultimately spending ten years at Tuban Chirshili studying Islamic theology, jurisprudence, Arabic, Farsi, and Turkish, while also learning Russian on his own. He was an avid reader in all these languages and never missed an opportunity to buy books from the itinerant book merchants who frequented Tatar villages. The library he began to accumulate was further enriched by, copies of books he copied by hand.
Upon graduating from the madrasah in 1889, Fakhreddin was appointed imam in the village of Ilbak where, in addition to providing religious guidance to the community, he also taught at the madrasah. By the time of this appointment, however, Fakhreddin had already attracted the attention of leading scholars such as Shakhabaddin Merjani by publishing works including an Arabic grammar (Kitaba-at-tasrif; Kazan, 1887), a text on methodology (At-tokhfat al Anisiya; Kazan, 1887), a book of jurisprudence (Kitaba mokaddima; Kazan, 1889), and one on social issues (Kitaba ig’tiraf; Kazan, 1889).
In 1891 Fakhreddin left Ilbak and moved to Ufa, having been elected a kazi (Ar., qadi; judge) and member of the Religious Board of the Muslims (Muftiat). This move launched the “first Ufa period” (1891-19o6) of his life, characterized by impressive productivity and breadth in his writings. When Fakhreddin assumed the duties of a kazi, the Muftiat had been in existence for more than a hundred years. Its rich archives, however, had never been organized, and he began compiling a systematic catalog of its holdings. He also made copies of those archival materials that interested him most for his personal library. Energized by the wealth of information that surrounded him in the Muftiat archives and by the ongoing discourse concerning the reasons for the backwardness of Muslims of the Russian empire, Fakhreddin entered a most productive period of his life, marked by the publication of literary works and studies on religion, social issues, and pedagogy, as well as contributions to major Muslim newspapers such as Terjuman, Vaqt, and Sharkiy Rus.
In 1906 Fakhreddin resigned from the Muftiat and moved to Orenburg to become editor of the newspaper Vaqt, a leading forum of Muslim reform-ism, to which he also contributed under the pseudonym Murat. In January 19o8 he became the chief editor of the bimonthly journal Shura, retaining that position until the end of 1917, when the last of the journal’s 240 issues appeared. Fakhreddin chose the name of the journal, meaning “council, forum,” and he acknowledged his intention of opening its pages to all those “interested in bringing science and education to their people.” Fakhreddin’s own contribution to Shura amounted to some seven hundred pieces ranging from articles on the history of the Turkic peoples, to essays on the social, cultural, political life of the Tatars, to profiles of famous Western and Muslim thinkers.
Fakhreddin welcomed with hope the February 1917 revolution with its promises of liberty for all but watched with anxiety the coming to power of the Bolsheviks in October 1917. When the first post revolutionary All-Russian Muslim Congress met in May 1917, Fakhreddin was elected kazi in absentia and in January 1918 moved to Ufa to begin his work at the Muftiat. This new assignment inaugurated his “second Ufa period” (1918-1936). In 1922 he was elected mufti and as the head of the Religious Board of the Muslims embarked upon the most difficult period of his life, marked by the twin tragedies of personal poverty and imprisonment and the oppression of Muslim communities under the anti religious policies of the Soviet government. He died in Ufa on 11 April 1936, at the age of seventy seven, leaving a rich legacy as a religious scholar, writer, journalist, and foremost spokesman for the movement of Muslim reform-ism.
Fakhreddin published some sixty books and seven hundred articles; he left many unpublished works comprising some forty volumes of manuscript on scraps of paper, since during the last years of his life he lived in such poverty that he was forced to sell some of his books in order to buy bread. Many of Fakhreddin’s works were so widely read that they were published in ten or twelve editions. Fakhreddin’s books fall into the following categories: Islamic history and the history of the Turkic peoples; biographies of famous Muslims; Muslim reformism, education, and curricular reform; enlightenment, women, and the Muslim family; theology, jurisprudence, the Qur’an and the hadiths; and social and political issues among Russian Muslims.
Fakhreddin’s thought developed under three equally important influences-Shaykh Merjani, Isma’il Gasprali (Gasprinskii), and Jamal al-Afghani. Like Merjani, he valued the importance of education, science, and the Russian language. Fakhreddin accepted only what was scientifically sound and ethically moral, but he always extended tolerance and respect to other people’s ideas. From Gasprali he acquired the idea of the racial and cultural unity of the Turkic peoples, but he rejected political Pan-Turkism while advocating “social unity” for the Turkic peoples. Al-Afghani’s emphasis on the need to reconcile Islam and modernity in order to defend the Islamic world against the encroachments of the West appealed to Fakhreddin, who as a Volga-Ural Muslim had experienced at first hand the meaning of Russian encroachment. [See the biographies of Gasprinskii and Afghani.]
The importance of Fakhreddin’s religious writings rests in his emphasis on the integrative capacity of Islam, his restatement of the shari`ah as an all-inclusive concept that integrates the legal and the spiritual into one religious whole, and his advocacy of the codification of Muslim legal practices in Russia. He advocated reform of the Muslim religious administration to enhance the position of the Religious Board and placing the mufti under its control. Moreover, he emphasized the importance of having the mufti elected by the community on the basis of his competence in religious and secular sciences rather than accepting the nominee of the Russian government. Fakhreddin also considered it necessary that the Muftiat supervise Muslim schools and devise a centralized curriculum for them. His emphasis on ijtihad (creative interpretation of dogma) and on education as a weapon against economic backwardness and political encroachment were perhaps Fakhreddin’s most enduring legacies to the Muslims of the Russian empire.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Akkhmer, Sh. Matbaghachiliq tarikhi. Kazan, 1909.
Fatkhiev, A. S. Tatar adiplare hdm galimnareneng kul’yazmalari: N. I. Lobachevskii isemenddge Fdnni Kitapkhand kul yazmalarining tasvirlamasi. Kazan, 1960.
Gosmanov, M. Utkdnndn Kilachdkka. Kazan, 1990.
Karimi, F. “Rizaitdin Khazrat kitu.” Ydnga Vaqt 2.13 (19i8). Khalikova, Raisa Kh. “125 let so dnia rozhdeniia Rizy Fakhretdinova.” Sovetskaia Tiurkologiia, no. 2 (1984).
Kharisov, A. I. “Kollektsiia rukopisei Rizaitdina Fakhretdinova v
nauchnom arkhive Bashkirskogo filiala ANSSSR.” In Iuzhnoural’skii arkheograficheskii” sbornik. Ufa, 1973-.
AZADE-AYE RORLICH

FADLALLAH, MUHAMMAD HUSAYN

Batoota — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 12:46:42 +0000

FADLALLAH, MUHAMMAD HUSAYN ((November 16, 1935 – July 4, 2010), Lebanese Shi’i religious scholar and a leader, of Hizbullah (Party of God). Born in Najaf, Iraq, into a Shi’i family from `Aynata, a village in southern Lebanon close to Bint Jubayl, Fadlallah’s father was an `alim (religious scholar) in the Iraqi shrine and university city, and Fadlallah completed all of his studies there. One of his principal teachers was Abol-Qasem Kho’i (Abu al-Qasim Khu’i), whose doctrine and practice rejected direct political participation by the `ulama’ (community of religious scholars). Fadlallah cites the influence of his other teacher, Muhsin al-Hakim, and of his fellow student Muhammad Bagir al-Sadr, who was two years older. Bagir al-Sadr was politically active in the 1960s, turning the Shi’i University at Najaf into a center of political and religious opposition to the Iraqi regime, which had at first been favorably inclined toward the Communists, but was soon dominated by the Arab nationalists of the Bath party.
In 1964, the young `alim Fadlallah expressed his ideas on the function of a Muslim intellectual: “to bridge the deep divide that exists between youth and religion” because of the public status held by the `ulama’ and the distance between them and young people (1964 interview reprinted in Mantiq al-quwah, vol. 9, pp. 76-8o). When he was appointed in 1966 to the eastern suburb of Beirut, in Nab’ah, an impoverished area, Fadlallah established cultural youth clubs as well as free clinics and community centers. The motto of these clubs was “there is no such thing as a stupid or shameful ques-tion.” In his estimation, these clubs were a great success. In 1972, he also spread his message in his native region, Bint Jubayl, during severe Israeli offensives against the Palestinian bases which were “occupying” area villages, causing a Shi’l exodus toward Beirut. He finished The Logic of Force (Mantiq al-quwah) in March 1976. Also in 1976, all of Nab`ah was destroyed by bombs and emptied of its inhabitants by the extremist Maronite militia. Fadlallah recounts that he began his book on the present-day requirements of Islam (Khatawat) while the bombs were still falling. He was able to put himself “squarely in the experience of the havenots,” he said in a postscript written in August 1977.
Fadlallah was expelled with the other inhabitants and went back to the southern suburban area, which was overflowing with Shi`i refugees from southern Lebanon. From there he went to Bir al-`Abid, making trips to Ghubayri and to Shi’ah. His entire Lebanese ministry was affected by uninterrupted and ever-increasing violence on all sides, which he suffered along with the poor and defenseless citizens of Lebanon. After the 1978 disappearance of Musa al-Sadr, the charismatic head of the Harakat al-Mahrumm (Movement of the Disadvantaged) who was abducted and perhaps executed by the Libyans, and after the success of the social, religious, and political movement in Iran from 1978 to 1979, he expounded ideas of revolt inspired by those of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Fadlallah recognized Khomeini publicly in 1981 and visited him in 1984; in return, Khomeini named him marja` al-taqlid (“source of imitation”) in 1986.
In the civil-war configuration of Lebanese politics, Amal-the successor to Harakat al-Mahrumin-was pro-Syrian, anti-Palestinian, first and foremost Lebanese, not linked to Khomeini, and disposed to compromise with the Kata’ib (the Phalanges, a Maronite party) and Israel. In the summer of 1982, a coalition of uncompromising activist groups was formed, called the Orga nization of the Islamic Jihad. Fadlallah called them al-islamiyun (roughly, the “Islamists”). These groups consisted of: Amal Islam-1, formed in 1982 at Baalbek by 300 Iranian Revolutionary Guards who had arrived at the end of 1979 and which increased to 1,500 members in the Syrian-controlled area of Lebanon by the end of 1982; the Sunni Tawhild movement, based in Tripoli, which acquired Palestinian Arafatist elements beginning in 1983; and Hizbullah, in Beirut, which commanded more than 1,000. soldiers. In an open letter in February 1985, the group claimed responsibility for the “first operations of the popular Islamic resistance against Israeli occupation” in 1983. This can be understood to refer principally to the suicide bombings against the American and French barracks of the Multinational Forces in Beirut. Since 1985, Fadlallah has been the president of the Lebanese council of Hizbullah and the vicepresident of the central council in Teheran of the international Hizbullah.
In the large mosque of the area, and also at the American University in West Beirut (after the virtual Shi’i annexation of West Beirut in 1984), Fadlallah delivered sermons and lectures that were simple, clear, and reflective, yet firm and radical. These had a considerable local influence, and cassettes of them were circulated throughout the world, especially in western Europe. In the spring of 1985, with Hizbullah, Fadlallah actively defended Beirut’s Palestinian camps, which were beseiged by Amal, acting for Syria. It was thus that the first indirect armed conflict between Iran and Syria, which were nonetheless allied powers, erupted on Lebanese soil. At the end of 1985, and at the beginning of 1986, Hizbullah and its pro-Iranian allies violently rejected the inter-Lebanese agreement drawn up at Damascus in December 1985; in this rejection, Hizbullah followed the example of the Maronite Lebanese Forces and opposed Amal. The agreement was eventually renounced, just as the May 1983 Israeli-Lebanese peace agreement had been.
In the second “war of the (Palestinian) camps” waged after September 1986, Hizbullah was neutral and clashed only with Syrian troops, which were eventually deployed in West Beirut, as they had been before the summer of 1982. There were twenty-six deaths among Hizbullah forces at the end of January 1987, and the Syrian army yielded to the Islamist enclave in the south of West Beirut. At the same time, Fadlallah was taking part in two formal scholarly meetings in Tehran and Lausanne. These meetings produced the draft of the Lebanese Islamic Constitution, which was inspired by the model cast by Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr at Najaf one year before he was murdered by the Iraqi head of state in April 1980. Fadlallah had cosigned that proposed constitution. However, at the same time, he revealed in a personal article his anguish and doubts about the Islamic state and the risks of absolute personal power.
Fadlallah’s political activity and commitment thus seem to stem from his theological reflections. His political commitment seems to engender and nourish his theological reflections. Since 1985, Fadlallah has not participated directly in military and political affairs. He did not succeed Shaykh Musawi, who was assassinated by Israel in 1991, as operational head of Hizbullah. When, in 1989, Shaykh `Ubaydallah was taken hostage by Israel, Fadlallah called for the liberation of all of the Lebanese hostages, not only the Western ones. Hizbullah opposed the Ta’if accord in October 1989, which proposed constitutional readjustments, but as it was enforced in 1991-1992, Syria left Hizbullah forces free to continue resistance with their light arms against Israeli forces in the Israeli “Security Zone” in the south. Fadlallah took part in the August 1992 Lebanese legislative elections, since the new system of confessional secularism, which somewhat favored the Shi`i community, seemed acceptable to him. He pronounced the Iraqi Shi`i rebellion of March 1991 to be political and democratic and not religious and sectarian. Predictably, he shared the automatic Iranian opposition to the American-brokered Arab-Israeli negotiations in Madrid in November 1991 and in Washington in 1992, and he took part in the anti-Madrid and anti-Arafat congress in Teheran in October 1992.
Aside from Fadlallah’s brief commentaries on the Qur’an, his essays on Sunni-Shi’i Muslim ecumenism, and his collections of spiritual poetry, he has been silent about the scientific nature of Orientalism, although he has striven to clothe many of his reflections in historical or psychosociological science. There is, however, nothing new in Fadlallah’s apologetics, with its concept of a union between missionary Christianity, atheism, Zionism, nationalism, Orientalism, and colonialism. His references to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a tsarist forgery, as if it were an authentic source also reflects common practice; in a man as educated and cultivated as Fadlallah, such uncritical naivete is disappointing. Hizbullah intentionally reiterated the theme of a “final solution” for the Jews of Israel, a theme that had been expressly eliminated by the Palestine resistance ideology since 1968. The proclaimed Islamism of the Palestinian cause revived and legitimized for Fadlallah those antiSemitic, European National Socialist cliches, which formerly had been so important to Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser and his companions.
As to politics in general and war in particular, Fadlallah, like Khomeini, adhered to the usuli (“fundamentalist”) tradition of modern Shiism that was established at the end of the eighteenth century as an alternative to the great tradition then called akhbari (textual). To be usuli is to valorize ijtihdd in modern circumstances, to give authoritative opinions, advice, and decisions to individuals facing new problems. In the fundamentalist tradition these opinions and authorities are numerous and varied, and each great leader (mar ja`) has his particular tradition (taqlid). Fadlallah saw taqiyah (dissimulation) as a rule governing concrete daily conduct without the supervision of a marja’ al-taghd. He reproached the Akhbaris with fixing and even sanctifying the gap between the immutable and ideal norms (shad `ah) of the golden age of the imams and daily life, which has no link with those norms and is guided only by the light of mysticism. [See Usuliyah; Akhbariyah.]
According to Fadlallah, the possibility of a violent revolution at an appropriate juncture is not excluded, because of the breach between the intangible ideal of shari’ah and traditional customs and new conditions. In addition Fadlallah has sought to emulate the revolutionary examples of ‘Ali and Husayn more than the quietist examples of the subsequent imams. He has even claimed to draw inspiration from the rebellion movements that were crushed by the Shi’i powers, backed by the `ulama’ in the name of taqiyah. He made such claims as early as the first year of the civil war in Lebanon, in 1976. At the same time, he reproached the Islamic extremists with indulging in impulsive and disorganized actions-“without taqiyah” he said. The time of taqiyah is the time of education, preparation, and organization in a party which is disciplined and adheres to a firm doctrine. Fadlallah describes the Marxist theory of revolution with both sympathy and suspicion, having in mind the Lebanese Communist party and especially the Organization of Lebanese Communist Action (OLCA), a breakaway group close to the Palestinians, in particular to the Popular Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine of Nayif Hawatimah. He is distrustful of these groups, preferring to speak of taghyir (change), rather than of thawrah (sudden revolution). He speaks highly of the reformist path, and even of reform by parliamentary means in the Western style. At the same time, he favors alliance with the Lebanese Communist party or the OLCA in order to effect the removal of the Lebanese regime. Here again one notes the ambiguity of Fadlallah’s thought.
This ambiguity was to some extent lessened by the success of the Iranian Revolution. In effect, Fadlallah recognized that a general Islamic revolution had begun, and that from then on, not to support it would be nifaq (hypocrisy), and no longer only legitimate taqiyah. He has stated that even terrorist actions are at least justified as “political jihad,” if not encouraged.
Nothing that Fadlallah has suggested concerning the modernization of fiqh (jurisprudence) has gone beyond the level of generalities—certainly seductive to his youthful listeners but lacking concrete revolutionary application. Following the model of Muhammad Baqir alSadr, and not Khomeini, he has particularly emphasized the entire scope of fiqh, and its social and political aspects. Thus he intends that the role of faqih (especially that of the marja` al-taglid) should go beyond simple director of the individual consciences. He affirms the existence of an Islamic economy, an Islamic social structure, and an Islamic politics, according to certain general principles, which, however, do not establish a specific type of political regime.
More specifically, in the applications of the supposedly modernized fiqh, Fadlallah rules out the restoration of the caliphate, and is wary of Khomeini’s own theory of wildyat al fagih al-qa’id (governance of the jurisprudent). It is true that he clearly stated his allegiance to Khomeini, but this allegiance was to his jihadi (“struggle movement”) rather than to the man himself. Thus, Fadlallah excluded the notion that Khomeini was the representative or the forerunner of the imam Mahdi. Rather, Khomeini’s legitimacy lay in the reality of his Islamic government, which, Fadlallah has said, was truly the first to be established after long centuries of expectation. He has implicitly denied the Islamic character of all other existing regimes in the Muslim world.
Fadlallah criticizes the theory of wildyat al-faqih, which he says can easily lead to autocratic personal power. He emphasizes as preferable the practice of marja` iyat al-taglid (authority of the source of imitation), once again following the example of Baqir al-Sadr, whose thoughts had contributed to its establishment and development. Fadlallah attempted to keep the wildyat al fagih within the framework of the encompassing marja’iyah, which by definition signifies pluralism. Yet he defines wildyat al-faqih as a function of control over governmental institutions at all levels; it is no longer only a matter of counsel, as with the marja`iyah, but at the same time it is not defined as direct governmental authority. [See Wilayat al-Faqih; Marja` al-Taqlid.]
The Lebanese Islamic Constitution, which Fadlallah helped develop, would provide for a lajnah (commission) of wildyat al fagih to exist alongside the president of the republic, elected for four years, the government, the parliament, and the head of the army (who may be the president). However, this commission would have the power to dismiss the parliament, suspend the government, and demand the president’s resignation, as well as nominate and dismiss him. It would be the commission which would put forth the candidates for president. This lajnah would be a version of the traditional all-powerful revolutionary councils of the Arab world.
Fadlallah’s democratic views and his misgivings about the totalitarian wilayat al -faqih, excluding the maija` altaqlid, are no longer apparent in this document. The legitimacy of this Lebanese lajnah was to be Khomeini, the sole faqih qa’id of all the Muslims in the world. The Lebanese president of this local lajnah would be presented simply as Khomeini’s representative, designated by him. In this regard, Fadlallah finally acknowledged a unique supreme authority (wilayah), as well as delegated, dependent local authorities. The theory of the pluralist marja’iyah thus collapsed. One should recall that Fadlallah had at this same time pondered the question, which he termed “agonizing” of the choice between a sole wilayah for the world or multiple authorities in Muslim countries; the choice was thus between an imperial Muslim state under one single authority or a federation, or better, confederation, of autonomous Islamic states which would meet periodically in a central assembly led by Khomeini. The Lebanese Islamic Constitution adopted the former solution.
Fadlallah also addressed the status of non-Muslims in a professed Islamic state. For him, secular individual freedom does not exist. Going against the great Muslim tradition existing in practice as well as theory since the eleventh century, he rejects the fundamental distinction between political and religious power. He opposed his teachers who did not wish to become involved in political activity, in particular his own mentor in Najaf, alKho’i. He praised the involvement of Baqir al-Sadr in the Da’wah party in Iraq, and explains al-Sadr’s eventual withdrawal and even his refusal to let his disciples be politically active as only a tactical decision of superior wisdom (taqiyah) in the face of the all-powerful police strength of Saddam Hussein. Fadlallah himself emphasizes the necessity for a well-organized political party in the service of Islam.
One might have expected that his experience in Lebanon, his commendation of coexistence with Christians, his desire for a substantive dialogue, and his desire for an open and humanized fiqh would have brought him to discover new solutions. This has not been the case. He has maintained that Christians must renounce political sectarianism. Yet, although he asserts that Muslims should do so as well, in fact the Christians’ situation is seen from the perspective of strict Muslim sectarianism. The desired Muslim state is not founded on the legal equality of all people, regardless of their religious and family ties, even though these ties might be taken into account, as in the present-day Lebanese constitution. The same situation applies to the rights of women and the family. Undoubtedly appealing to the new generation of young people, Fadlallah, unusual for a `slim, encourages young women and even mothers to work professionally. In this respect, he is consistent with Iranian practice since 1979. He suggests no new attitude toward mixed marriages, a particular issue in Lebanon, and a concrete element in the Islamic-Christian dialogue he claims to wane. One concession to modernity is a certain understanding of premarital sexual relations. He recommends that, within the framework of a trial, stoning for “crimes of honor” should not result in death. In effect, the hudud (Qur’anic penalties) are in general seen as being the concern of the judicial powers and not the victims themselves.

[See also Hizbullah, article on Hizbullah in Lebanon; Lebanon; Shi`i Islam, article on Modern RIM Thought; and the biography of Sadr.]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Works by Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah
Al-Islam wa-mantiq al-quwah. 2d ed. Beirut, 1981. Khatawat `ala tariq al-Islam. 3d ed. Beirut, 1982. Mafahim Isldmiyah. 12 vols. 4th ed. Beirut, 1982. Ma’a al-hikmah bi-khan al-Islam. Beirut, 1985. Collection of articles published between 1979 and 1981.
Al-muqawamah al-Islamiyah. Beirut, 1985.
“Ala tariq harakat al-quwah fi al-dawlah al-Islamiyah.” Al-tawhid (March 1986): 85-102.
Secondary Sources
Carre, Olivier. L’utopie islamique dans i’Orient arabe. Paris, 1991. See chapter 9, “Khomeinisme libanais: Orgueilleux et desherites chez Fadlallah,” and chapter to, “La revolution islamique selon Fadlallah.”
Duran, Khalid. Islam and Politischer Extremismus. Hamburg, 1985. Kramer, Martin. “Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah.” Orient, no. 2 (1985) 147-149.
OLIVIER CARRE
Translated from French by Elizabeth Keller
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Death
He had been hospitalized several times in the months before his death suffering from internal bleeding. His frailty was also a reason for his inability to deliver Friday sermons in the weeks preceding his death. Fadlallah’s Media Office announced his death at Al-Hassanein Mosque in the southern Beirut suburb of Haret Hureik on July 4, 2010 at the age of 74. His office said the funeral was scheduled for July 6 at 13:30 p.m. leaving from his house to be buried in Al-Hasanein Mosque. His family members then started to receive condolences at the Hassanein mosque.
The day was also declared by Lebanon as a day of national mourning.The cabinet’s General Secretariat said all public institutions and administrations, headquarters of municipalities, private and public schools and universities would be closed. The Lebanese flag would be lowered to half-mast in public institutions and administration, and the headquarters of municipalities. Radio and television programmes would also be “adjusted in line with the painful occasion.”
At his funeral his supporters carried his body around Shia neighbourhoods in southern Beirut. They then marched to the spot of his 1985 assassination attempt before returning to Imam Rida Mosque where he was laid to rest. Thousands of mourners gathered at the mosque for prayer services before the funeral procession. Delegations included representatives from Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Syria and Iran.Thousands of his followers also gathered outside his mosque in Haret Hreik. Al-Manar broadcast the funeral. They said that during his funeral thousands of his followers took part in his funeral, and told “his eminence for the last time their ‘own secrets’ and vowing to stay committed to his path. They told him that even if he has died, he will remain the ideal and the model for them, that even if he has died, his eminence will remain a great man in the eyes of all those who had the chance to know him, and his views will continue to circulate from one generation to another.” It also added that his followers “launched a school of beliefs and thoughts, a school that would always be committed to the main causes of Islam, from Jihad to Resistance, and face all foreign threats against the region.” It claimed that he “committed to the central cause, Palestine, calling to fight occupation through all possible means. His eminence issued different ‘fatwa’s calling to fight Israel and boycott American goods and ban normalizing of relations, and was a ‘true supporter’ of Islamic unity all over his life. In his last moments before his death, Sayyed Fadlullah was still preoccupied with the cause. He was asking about the dawn prayers and telling his nurse that he wouldn’t rest before Israel’s vanishing.”