Education and Learning in the Early Islamic World

Claude Gilliot, Claude Gilliot

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351941594
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

Studying education and learning in the formative period of Islam is not immediately easy, since the sources for this are relatively late and frequently project backwards to the earlier period the assumptions and conditions of their own day. The studies in this volume have been selected for the critical approaches and methods of their authors, and are arranged under five headings: the pedagogical tradition; scholarship and attestation; orality and literacy; authorship and transmission; and libraries. Together with the editor's introductory essay, they present a broad picture of the beginnings and evolution of education and learning in the Islamic world.

Part I Pedagogical Tradition

1
THE ETIQUETTE OF LEARNING IN THE EARLY ISLAMIC STUDY CIRCLE

Christopher Melchert

Compendia of hadith from the ninth century, including most of the Six Books, for example, normally devote a section to adab, the etiquette of a religiously serious life. Compendia with and without separate chapters on adab consider many questions of etiquette elsewhere, such as in chapters dealing with mosques. Naturally, for books from legists, they pay disproportionate attention to how one should conduct oneself at meetings for the transmission of religious knowledge (‘ilm). In details as small as the proper way to sit, one may observe central features of Islamic religious culture. In arguments over disputed questions, one observes the very emergence of a religious culture.

A. S. Tritton and George Makdisi have already given us valuable accounts of the forms Islamic education took.¹ The account that follows is based more strictly on materials from the ninth century C.E. These often describe the seventh and eighth centuries, but one usually presumes that norms of the ninth century have been projected backward. Sunni Islam crystallized in the ninth century. In consequence, ninth-century forms continued to characterize Islamic learning for centuries to come, as becomes plain from comparison with an account by Sam ʿānī of teaching in the twelfth century. At the same time, evidence survives in ninth-century accounts of both earlier versions of the classical forms and of rejected alternatives to those forms.

Sitting in the Mosque

From as far back as the sources will take us, the site of most religious learning, whether in law or hadith, hardly distinguishable before the late ninth century, was the mosque.² The normal procedure was to sit (jalasa or, less often, qaʿada) on the ground in a circle (ḥalqah). The place where one sat was his majlis, a term referring to a particular place in the circle, but most often to the place in a mosque where a particular teacher held forth.³ Thus, “He sat with so-and-so” was equivalent to saying “He learnt from him.”⁴

The foregoing characteristics of teaching are apparent, for example, in Ibn Sa^ʾd’s biography (before 230/845) of the Medinese Follower (tābi^ʾ) Saʾīd b. al-Musayyab (d. 94/712-13). On one occasion, when the governor of Medina (later caliph) ^ʿUmar b. ^ʿAbd al-^ʿAzīz sent someone to question him, he supposedly returned with the messenger to appear before the governor himself. The governor apologized, explaining that he had meant for the messenger to ask his advice there at his majlis; that is, his place at the mosque where he normally made himself available to answer questions. An actual caliph, less worthy than ^ʿUmar b. ^ʿAbd al-^ʿAzīz, came to the mosque of Medina and saw Sa^ʿīd at his ḥalqah, but Sa^ʿīd refused to get up and come to him. Ibn ^ʿUmar referred petitioners whose questions were difficult to Sa^ʿīd, “for he has sat with the pious”; that is, learnt from them. Presumably considering the bare ground good enough, Sa^ʿīd dismissed prayer rugs as an innovation. Naturally for the early period, Sa^ʿīd^ʾs teaching was not specialized, comprising hadith reports from Companions (he was called rāwiyat ^ʿUmar for relating more than anyone else from that caliph, although by one report he denied ever meeting him), his own opinions on juridical questions (Ibn Sa^ʿd distinguishes between his ^ʿilm and ra^ʾy, authoritative opinions he quoted and his own), and even the interpretation of dreams. Additionally, his personal example was supposed to establish norms of dress, adornment, and so forth.⁵

After the mosque, the site of teaching most frequently mentioned is the teacher’s own home.⁶ Ibn Hurmuz (d. 145/762-63?) would meet at his house in Medina with various jurisprudents for fiqh and hadith.⁷ The house of Shaybānī (d. 189/805) was said to fill up when he related hadith of Mālik but not when he related that of Kufans.⁸ One Yaḥyā b. ^ʿUthmān (d. 255/868-69) had sessions at his house in Homs.⁹ Rather than going to the palace himself, Bukhārī (d. 256/870) bade the amīr of Bukhara come to hear him relate hadith in his mosque or in his house.¹⁰ In 270/883-84, the Baghdadi Shāfi^ʿi Maḥāmilā (d. 330/941-42) convened a session for jurisprudence at his house.¹¹ The house presented advantages over the mosque to the teacher who wanted to offer hospitality to his auditors, such as the Kufan Ḥafṣ b. Ghiyāth (d. 194/810?), who declared, “Whoever has not eaten of our food, we will not relate hadith to him.”¹² It likewise presented advantages to the less reputable teacher who demanded payment for his hadith, such as the Baghdadi Ibn Abī Usāmah al-Tamīmī (d. 282/896). A traditionist related finding a crowd of booksellers (warrīqīn) in his vestibule, whose names Ibn Abī Usāmah was writing down. Each was to pay him two dirhams.¹³ Finally, it was easier to withdraw from a session at one’s house, as did the Nishapuran traditionist Muḥammad b. Rāfi^ʿ (d. 245/860) when a bird soiled someone’s hand and pen and another auditor laughed out loud, spoiling the solemnity of the occasion.¹⁴ In addition to the mosque and house are also mentioned ribāṭ, khāniqāh, and, already in the third Islamic century, the madrasah.¹⁵

The teacher in the mosque normally sat against a pillar (usṭuwānah or sāriyah). No prophetic example is cited for sitting by a pillar, presumably because traditionists did not conceive of the Prophet’s mosque in Medina as originally having had pillars. But numerous later teachers are described as sitting against pillars; for example, Abū Bakr b. Abī Shaybah (d. 235/849) quotes the Medinese jurisprudent Ma^ʿn b. ^ʿĪsā (d. 198/814) as listing one Companion and three Followers who were seen sitting against pillars.¹⁶ To sit against a pillar was so strongly identified with teaching that the Kufan traditionist Sufyān b. ^ʿUyaynah (d. 196/811) metonymically referred to the first person to ask him to relate hadith, Mis^ʿar b. Kidām (d. 155/771-72), as “the first to make me lean against the pillar.”¹⁷

Ma^ʿn b. ^ʿĪsā also named two Followers who were not seen sitting against pillars.¹⁸ It was presumably modesty that impelled at least one of the two, the famous Kufan Ibrāhim al-Nakha^ʿī (d. 96/714-15), not to sit against a pillar. Fasawī (d. 277/890) asserts that Ibrāhīm would leave the circle if it expanded in such a way as to make him sit by a pillar.¹⁹ He normally sat with just five or six auditors.²⁰ The Basran Follower Abū al-^ʿĀliyah (d. 90/709) would leave if more than three or four came to hear him.²¹

It was good form to face the qiblah; that is, the direction of the Ka^ʿbah in Mecca. Ibn Abī Shaybah cites a number of favorable reports.²² Presumably, the leader of the circle normally leant against the side of the pillar facing the qiblah while his auditors sat fanned out before him.

Although the teacher normally sat on the ground with his auditors, he might sometimes be distinguished by sitting on a pillow. By order of the governor, the jurisprudent Ibn Abī Najīḥ (d. 131/748-49?) was provided with a doubled-up pillow in the mosque at Mecca to sit on when giving opinions.²³ Ibn Abī Shaybah quotes four hadith reports, two Prophetic, in favor of offering someone a pillow as a particular honor.²⁴ There are also occasional references to teachers on benches. People put the Basran traditionist Ismā^ʿīl b. ^ʿUlayyah (d. 193/809) on a masṭabah, a bench or raised platform.²⁵ The Baghdadi Abū al-Qāsim al-Baghawī (d. 317/929) signalled that he would dictate by getting onto a dikkah or bench and sitting down.²⁶ Presumably, benches made it easier for a teacher to be seen and heard by the extraordinarily large audiences sometimes attracted to the dictation of hadith.²⁷

How Auditors Sat

Hadith collections present various rules for joining a circle. “The best sessions are the widest” (khayru ‘l-majālisi awsa^ʿuhā) is a widely-attested formula.²⁸ One story relates how three men came up to the Prophet’s circle. One of them saw a gap and sat down there, one sat behind the rest, and one turned away. The Prophet thereupon explained that God would reward the first two but turn away from the last.²⁹ It was definitely forbidden to make someone get up, and then sit in his place.³⁰ This prohibition is sometimes combined with the injunction to spread out and make room for a newcomer.³¹ Rising to salute someone was in any case discouraged. The Prophet is quoted as telling a man not to rise for another “as the a^ʿajim do,” “as Fārs and the Rūm do,” or “as the people of Fārs did to their mighty.”³² Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal stated directly that it was discouraged (makrūh) to stand for someone.³³ Some ambivalence may be indicated by contrary hadith reports, according to which the Prophet enjoined the Jews of Banū Qurayẓah to stand for their master (sayyid), the arbiter who was about to condemn them to death and slavery, and also by reports of Fāṭimah’s always standing for her father.³⁴ There are, of course, reports that various traditionists rose to honor someone or other. Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal allowed a returning pilgrim to rise for elders coming to salute him based on the example of the Prophet’s rising for Ja^ʿfar.³⁵ Abū Zur^ʿah al-Rāzī (d. 264/878) would not rise for anyone or seat anyone in his place save Ibn Wārah (d. 270/884).³⁶

Ambiva...