The Development of Islamic Ritual

Gerald Hawting, Gerald Hawting

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351891677
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Historia
• Subtopic: Historia del mundo

This volume is concerned with the origins, development and character of ritual in Islam. The focus is upon the rituals associated with the five 'pillars of Islam': the credal formula, prayer, alms, fasting and pilgrimage. Since the 19th century academic scholarship has sought to investigate Muslim rituals from the point of view of history, the study of religion, and the social sciences, and a set of the most important and influential contributions to this debate, some of them translated into English for the first time, is brought together here. Participation in the ritual life of Islam is for most Muslims the predominant expression of their adherence to the faith and of their religious identity. The Development of Islamic Ritual shows some of the ways in which this important aspect of Islam developed to maturity in the first centuries of Islamic history.

PRAYER

3
THE SABBATH INSTITUTION IN ISLAM

Ignaz Goldziherar

I.

[86] THE ACCOUNT OF THE CREATION of the world as it is repeated in several passages in late Meccan Sūras is generally derived from the Biblical story of the creation, although it ignores the Biblical account in the details of the events of the creation.¹ We may assume that Muhammad gathered up the main ideas of the biblical story of the creation, but did not attach any particular importance to the details.

What he considers certain is the creation of the world in six days.² The contents and the sequence of events of the creation are described in several not quite identical passages in a way that differs from the Biblical account. The doctrine characteristic for the Biblical story, i.e. that creation ends on the sixth day with the creation of man, is also unknown to the description given in the Qur’īan,³ however much Biblical reminiscences predominate elsewhere in Muhammad’s account of the creation of man.⁴ He does, however, put particular emphasis on mentioning explicitly [87] the creation of the mountains:⁵ proof that the ideas that influenced him were not restricted to stories from the Pentateuch.⁶

In the following detail we may assume the influence of a Haggadic turn of phrase. The narrative that God “created Heaven and earth [and all that is between them]⁷ in six days” is followed in the Qur’īan in three instances⁸ by the words “and then He ‘advanced to’⁹ the [divine] throne” thumma istawīa ‘alīa l-‘arsh.¹⁰ The interpretation of this phrase was the subject of much argument in Muslim dogmatic schools. I believe that its origins can be traced back to a Jewish original, namely the passage from the Midrash

,¹¹ which is also incorporated into the Sabbath liturgy. If this assumption is correct, we could conclude from the latter passage which one of the several possible interpretations of the phrase istawīa ‘alā l-‘arsh Muḥammad himself intended.

Very cautiously and, apparently, conscious of diverging from the Jewish narrative, Muhammad avoids the expression that God rested after he had completed the creation. He does not adopt the Jewish holiday, which was instituted as everlasting memory of the completion of creation, for Islam. In his view, the Sabbath (as a day of rest) was only imposed on those “who disagree on the subject[“,¹² i.e. Jews and Christians, insofar as [88] they hold different views on the correct day of the week for the Sabbath and the arrangements for its celebration.

Including the Christians among those for whom the Sabbath is obligatory contradicts the Prophet’s opinion, to be discussed below, according to which only the Jews were obliged to rest on the Sabbath. However, in the passage quoted his intention was to emphasise the negative side of his attitude towards the Sabbath institution and to restrict its validity to previous periods of revelation. He also wanted to prove its invalidity by pointing out the uncertainty of those who uphold the Sabbath institution even for the future.

For his faithful, he moved the weekly holiday to the sixth day. Consequently, this day exchanged its older name ‘arīuba,¹³ which linked it with the Sabbath as the “eve[“, for the name yawm al-jumu‘a, “assembly day[“, which corresponded to its new purpose. It is difficult to determine whether any real significance should be attributed to any of the other names suggested for this day.¹⁴ In all probability it is only the invention of a later time that we find yawm al-mazīd [[“day of surpassing (importance, value)”] among the names of this day. The theologians maintain that this is the name of Friday in Heaven, used by God and the angels;¹⁵ this is the reason why it is used rhetorically in mystical prayers¹⁶ [89] and elsewhere.¹⁷ The name harba, which is given as a name for Friday in the Qīamus s.v. ṣhrb without any references, is completely obscure.¹⁸ Arab philologists link this name to the meaning “sword” (the day gleams like a naked sword) and “battle” (during the service, one fights one’s passions).

From the very beginning, the Friday of the Muslims is not intended to be a day of rest. In a context whose polemical sting is directed against the Jews, Muhammad states explicitly that secular business and everyday activities are not forbidden on this day and that people only need to interrupt these activities for the short duration of the service:

Believers! When the call is sounded for Friday service, hasten¹⁹ to the devout remembrance of God and cease your trading; that would be better for you if you but knew it. Once the service is over, you may disperse all over the world and search for God’s bounty,

i. e. attend to your business.²⁰ And while Muslim scholars have always recommended that one should devote the whole Friday to religious exercises²¹ and to abstain as far as possible from all secular affairs,²² there has never been a binding [90] rule that one must rest and may not work on this day.²³

And it is in the Sabbath institution that the Muslims find the most noticeable differentia specifica of Judaism.²⁴ They call the Jews “Sabbath people” (ahi or aṣḥāb al-sabt),²⁵ and about an unreasonable person they say “he does not know the difference between the religious celebration (nusk) of the jumu‘a (Friday) and that of the sabt (Sabbath).²⁶

II.

It is difficult to believe that Muḥammad’s opposition to the Biblical concept and practice of Sabbath was only motivated by his aversion to the anthropomorphic idea of God as expressed by “God rested”. This point of view is only attributed to him by later dogmatic and polemic tendencies as well as versions of ḥadīths that developed in connection with these tendencies. In fact, this point of view is contradicted by the clause added to the story of the six days of creation by Muḥammad himself (“and then He ascended the [divine] throne”). The anthropomorphic notion of God and his works is by no means a contradiction to Qur’ānic theology. After all, we know how much effort and toil religious scholars of the second century ah had to invest in order to adjust their spiritual requirements to the words of the Qur’an and the old ḥadīth.

Of course, the misgivings in this particular case concerned associating the omnipotent being with a notion that might ha...