ENCYCLOPEDIA MEDIEVAL ISLAMIC PART 20

MUHAMMAD AL-BAQIR (D. CA. AH 117/735 CE)

  Abu Ja’far Muhammad b. ’Azli was one of the most learned Muslims of his age. He played a pivotal role in the history of early Islam as an authority on the exegesis of the Qur’an, the Traditions of the Prophet, and on all matters relating to the rites, rituals, and practices of the faith. Born in 57/677 in Medina, alBaqir had an especially prestigious genealogy as the maternal and paternal grandchild of al-Hasan ra and al-Husayn ra, the Prophet’s grandsons. He was popularly known as al-Baqir,which is short for baqir al-‘ilm, meaning ‘‘one who splits knowledge open’’; this signifies his erudition in bringing knowledge to light, a function that he did indeed perform. There are considerable variations regarding his death, and estimates range from 114/732 to 126/744. However, the dates given by al-Waqidi (117/735) and Ibn alKhayyat (118/736) appear to be more realistic, considering reports about his death in al-Tabari during the rising of his half-brother, Zayd b. Ali.

  Sunni and Shi‘i sources describe al-Baqir as an eminent scholar. He is well known among the early fuqaha ( jurists). His traditions appear in major works of tradition, and he is an authority for al-Tabari’s historical and exegetical works. In Sufi circles, too, al-Baqir’s sayings are quoted. In Shi‘i tradition (both Ithna’ashari and Ismaili), al-Baqir is seen as the inaugurator of the legal and religious teachings that were further developed under his son and successor, Ja’far al-Sadiq. Zaydi tradition, too, relied heavily on al-Baqir through his disciple, Abu’l Jarrud.

  Al-Baqir lived at a time in history when religious doctrine was at the center of both the intellectual and political life of the community. The late first and early second centuries of Islam were crucial times for the foundation of the studies connected with the Qur’an; this involved interpretation of the Qur’an that relied, in turn, on the recollected actions and sayings of the Prophet Muhammad s.a.w. Medina, where al-Baqir resided, continued to be the center of religious learning after the time of the Prophet, and it was in this cusp of history that al-Baqir played a remarkably significant role.

  Only a few decades before the birth of al-Baqir, his grandfather al-Husayn b. Ali ra, together with his entourage, were afflicted by the tragedy of Karbala. However, by the end of his lifetime, al-Baqir had given his Shi’is not only a distinct identity with a coherent theory of imamate, but he had also founded a separate legal school, the madhhab ahl al-bayt, that had well-defined views on several aspects of fiqh (jurisprudence). This was the time when the early discussions and differences in the community surrounded the question of who has the right to rule. There were serious theological discussions about aspects of leadership and the imamate, such as imam, Islam, ’ilm, ‘amal, and qada wa qadar; many had political undertones. The religious–philosophical movements and communities of the Khawarij, the Murji’a, thez Qadariyya, the Kaysaniyya, and the Zaydiyya sought their own answers to problematic questions. The Shi’is, under al-Baqir, did not shy away from these issues but rather proposed their own solutions. They not only entered the arena with confidence but also had their solutions accepted by others.

  Contending with several competing groups, alBaqir put forward a coherent theory of the imamate based on the Qur’an and hadith (tradition). His emphasis on hereditary imamate proved to be timely, because many regarded the imamate as an exclusive political matter that was based either on the ijma (consensus) of the people or on the rising of the imam. A stronger argument in favor of al-Baqir’s school was its conviction that the Prophet had expressly designated and appointed ’Ali as his successor by nass al-jali (explicit designation); this meant that the Imam’s authority did not depend on either human electors or the allegiance (bay’a) of the people. The hereditary character of the nass was thus the crucial point in al-Baqir’s doctrine; it served as a restriction for many who considered claiming the nass a license to leadership.

  In addition, in al-Baqir’s view, the imam was endowed with the hereditary ’ilm as a result of the nass bestowed on him. Therefore, true knowledge was ultimately confined only to the imam in the Prophet’s family and not to every member of the Prophet’s family and certainly not to the whole community. The whole tradition of the community was thus not valid as a proper source for law; only traditions of the Imams or those of the Prophet confirmed by the Imams were allowed. This approach of al-Baqir’s school toward the majority of the Prophet’s companions changed the legal pattern of the Shi’is, and, in so doing, laid the foundation of a distinct school of  jurisprudence: the madhhab ahl al-bayt. The basis of Shi‘i law and theology emerged and developed itself within the circle of al-Baqir’s adherents. A distinctive ruling, for example, that goes back to him is that of wiping one’s footwear (al-mash ’ala’l khuffayn) before praying as being unacceptable as a substitute for washing the feet. In addition to transmitting this formal kind of knowledge, al-Baqir also played the role of a spiritual guide initiating his followers in experiential knowledge. This is represented in the concept of light in his theory of the imamate, embodying the numinous aspect of the imam’s knowledge that sets the inner wisdom in motion.

  Therefore, strictly in terms of the scholarly literature that expresses Shi‘i doctrines, al-Baqir assumed a dignified position for his century. From the prominence of his traditions and the profound contributions they represent, a truly remarkable personality is perceived one that deserves recognition as an outstanding figure in the history of the Shi’is and a major force of Islamic thought in general.

Further Reading

Al-Amı´n, Muhsin b. ’Abd al-Karı´m.A‘yan al-Shı´’a. Damascus, 1935–1961.

Al-Kulaynı´, Muhammad b. Ya’qu ´b.Al-Usul min al-Kafı´. Teheran, 1388/1968.

Abu Nu’aym, Ahmad al-Isfahani.Hilyat al-Awliya’, vol. 3. Cairo, 1932–1938.

Amir-Moezzi, M.A.The Divine Guide in Early Shi‘ism, transl. David Streight. Albany, NY, 1994.

van Arendonk, C. Les De´buts de L’Imamat Zaidite au Ye´men. Leiden, 1960.

Al-Ya‘qu´bı´, Ahmad b. Ibn Wadih. Tarı´kh, vol. 2. Beirut. Hodgson, M.G.S. ‘‘How Did the Early Shi’a become  Sectarian?’’JAOS75 (1955): 1–13.

Ibn Hajar al-‘Asqalani, Ahmad b.Tahdhib al-Tahdhib, vol.9. Hyderabad, 1325–1327/1907–1909.

Ibn Sa‘d, Muhammad.Kitab al-Tabaqat, eds. E. Sachau et al. Leiden, 1905–1940.

Jafri, S., and M. Husain.Origins and Early Development of Shı´‘a Islam. Beirut, 1979.

Kohlberg, Etan.Belief and Law in Imami Shi‘ism. GreatBritain, 1991.

———. ‘‘Muhammad b. Ali’’ InEI2, 397–400. Lalani, Arzina R.Early Shi‘i Thought: The Teachings of Imam Muhammad al-Baqir. London, 2000.

Madelung, Wilferd.Der Imam al-Qasim ibn Ibrahim und die Glaubenslehre der Zaiditen. Berlin, 1965.

———. ‘‘al-Baqer, Abı¨Ja‘far Mohammad.’’EIR3: 725–6. al-Muradi. Amali Ahmad b. ‘Isa. Arabo-Biblioteca, Ambrosiana, Milan, H. 135.

al-Qadi al-Nu‘man, Abu Hanı´fa.Da‘a‘im al-Islam, 2 vols., ed. A.A.A. Fyzee. Cairo, 1950 and 1960. (See also Ismail K. Poonawala’s revised translation,The Pillars of Islam. Oxford, UK, 2002.)

———.Shahr al-Akhbar fı´ Fada’il al-a’Imma al-Athar,3 vols., ed. Muhammad al-Husaynı´ al-Jalali. Qumm, 1409–1412/1988–1992.

al-Qummı´, ‘Alı ´ b. Ibrahı´m.al-Tafsı´r, 2 vols. Najaf, 1386/

1966.

al-Tabarı´, Abu Ja’far Muhammad b. Jarı ´r.Ta’rı´kh al-Rusu´l wa al-Muluk. Annales, ed. M.J. de Goeje. Leiden, 1879–1901.

———.Jami’ al-Bayan ‘an Ta‘wı´l ay al-Qur’an.

MULLA SADRA (d. 1641 CE)

  Sadr al-Din Muhammad ibn Ibrahim Shirazi, also known as Mulla Sadra, is the most significant Islamic philosopher after Avicenna. Born into a courtly family in Shiraz in 1571, his interest in intellectual pursuits was indulged by his father. He moved first to Qazvin and then to Isfahan, the successive capitals of the Safavids, to pursue his studies with the two preeminent teachers of his age, Mir Damad (d. 1621) and Shaykh Baha al-Din al-’Amili (d. 1621), who was Shaykh al-Islam in Isfahan during the reign of Shah ’Abbas I. After completing his training, Mulla Sadra returned to Shiraz to work and teach, but, failing to find an adequate patron, he retreated to Kahak near Qum to meditate and initiate the composition of his works. He acquired the patronage of  Imamquli Khan (d. 1612), a notable Georgian ghulam who was in charge of the Safavid military administration and the governor of Sadra’s home province of  Fars, and he moved to Shiraz, where he taught at the Madrasa-yi Khan, which was founded by Imamquli. There, he trained a generation of philosophers; the most significant were Muhsin Fayd Kashani (d. 1680) and ’Abd al-Razzaq Lahiji (d. 1661), both of whom became his sons-in-law. After an illustrious and prolific career, he died in Basra on the return from his seventh pilgrimage to Mecca in 1641.

  Mulla Sadra’s magnum opus is a large compendium of philosophy and theology that maps intellectual inquiry upon a mystical metaphor of the soul’s journey in this world. Hence, it is popularly known as the Four Journeys (al-Asfar al-Arba’a). The first journey from this world to God provides the seeker with the intellectual principles for understanding philosophy, such as the basic definition of philosophy and the significance of the question of being. In this journey, the seeker moves away from multiplicity and phenomenal deception toward unity and an awareness of the underlying nature of reality. The second journey in God with God is a discourse on the nature of God and the divine attributes, and it significantly includes Mulla Sadra’s famous proof for the existence of God. It is the stage of the mystic’s absorption in the divine essence and his effacement of the self. The third journey from God to this world explains the God world relationship, nature, time, creation, and ontological categories in this world. For the mystic, this is the return to sobriety and a realization of the duties of moral agency in this world. The final journey in this world with God is a description of human psychology that focuses on soteriology and eschatology and reveals most clearly the significance of Twelver Shi‘ism to his thought. This is the final stage of the mystic’s journey, a recognition that everything as a unified whole reflects the ontological unity of the divine.

  Mulla Sadra is often described as a metaphysical revolutionary because of his doctrine of existence. Any attempt to conceptualize existence falsifies it through reification. A reified, fixed concept cannot capture the nature of existence, which is dynamic and in flux. One can discern three distinct doctrines of existence that draw upon Mulla Sadra’s intellectual influences, which include Avicennan philosophy, the intuitive philosophy of Suhrawardi, and the Sufi metaphysics of Ibn ‘Arabi. The first doctrine is the ontological primacy of existence (asalat al-wujud). Essences are not entities waiting for a divine agent

to actualize and individuate them through the bestowal of existence, an essentialist doctrine that posits a rather paradoxical existence of an essence before it comes to exist. Rather, the divine agent produces existences in this world that take on the garb of some particular essence. Existence must be ontologically prior not only because of the absurdity of an existence before existence but also because God is devoid of essence, and his causal link to the world can only be existential if one wishes to avoid the problem of a composite god.

  The second doctrine is the modulation of existence (tashkik al-wujud). Existence is a singular reality, of which the phenomenal experience as multiple is illusory. Different existences in this world are different intense degrees of a single whole. The particular degrees of existence are not stable substances in the Aristotelian sense and rather are structures of events in flux. This leads to the third doctrine that all individuals in existence undergo motion and flux (haraka jawhariyya). An existing entity is not a stable substance constant in time to which change occurs as an accident, such as a young Zayd becoming old and graying; rather, it is a structure of unfolding, dynamic events of existence.

  Mulla Sadra becamethephilosopher of the Islamic East. His commentary onal-Hidaya (The Guidance) of Athir al-Din al-Abhari was the cornerstone of the raztionalist curriculum of the Indian madrasa (Islamic school) from the eighteenth century. In Iran, his philosophical school has dominated since the nineteenth century.

Further Reading

Chittick, William, transl.The Elixir of the Gnostics. Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 2003.

Corbin, Henry.En Islam Iranien, vol. IV, 54–122. Paris: Gallimard, 1972.

Jambet, C.L’Acte d’Eˆ tre. Paris: Fayard, 2002.

Kh~maneh, M.Zindag~n,-yi ˆadr al-Muta\allihn. Tehran: Siprin, 2000

Morris, James, transl.The Wisdom of the Throne. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981.

Rahman, F.The Philosophy of Mulla Sadra. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1975.

Rizvi, S.Mulla Sadra: Philosopher of Mystics. Cambridge, UK: The Islamic Texts Society, 2005.

MUSLIM IBN AL-HAJJAJ

  Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj al-Qushayri was the author of Sahih Muslim.After al-Bukhari’sal-Jami‘ al-Sahih, Muslim’sal-Jami‘ al-Sahihis the most respected collection of the hadith (the accounts of the words, deeds, and opinions of the Prophet Muhammad) in Islam.

  In many ways, Muslim’s Sahih resembles that of alBukhari, which has led to comparisons through the ages. Both are roughly the same size; the traditional figures given are that Muslim’s work contains twelve thousand hadith with repetitions and three thousand thirty three individual hadith without. Like alBukhari, Muslim grouped his hadith according to the legal, theological, or historical issue that they address. In some quarters, his classification and presentation have been regarded as preferable to al-Bukhari’s.

  Both men were contemporaries and indeed shared many of the same teachers. For reasons that are by no means clear, it is unanimously asserted that alBukhari’s collection predates that of  Muslim. This may well be based on nothing more than a general impression created by the fact that Muslim took some hadith from al-Bukhari, whereas there is no evidence that the reverse ever occurred. Al-Bukhari’s collection is also commonly regarded as superior to Muslim’s as a repository of authentic hadith, although the highly regarded Abu ‘Ali al-Hafiz al-Nisaburi (AH 277/890 CE–349/960) and at least some scholars in North Africa held the opposite opinion.

  Muslim’s introduction to his collection is a very perplexing document. Among other things (including what was later interpreted as an attack against alBukhari), Muslim states that he included hadith from transmitters of varying degrees of reliability in hisSahih.For later scholars, reason seemed to necessitate that there exclusively be transmitters of the highest standard of reliability in a collection of authentic hadith. It has been argued Muslim meant to extend his work to cover less-authentic hadith but never had a chance to do so. Others felt that the less-reliable transmitters were only found in the isnads of certain non-core hadith, which were included merely to clarify the authentic hadith. Still others have argued that, although Muslim does include hadith from unreliable transmitters, he also knew the same texts from unimpeachable transmitters and chose to include the former because they happened to have shorter lines of transmission.

  Muslim also left behind a number of monographs about subjects that were associated with the study of hadith. Of these, his Kitab al-Tamyiz, an account of the actual methods the early authorities used to authenticate hadith, is by far the most significant. There can be no doubt that, when this book receives adequate attention, a number of questions about the great hadith collections will be answered.

  Very little is known about Muslim’s life. He was born in Nishapur shortly after 200/816. As was the custom of the day, he traveled extensively throughout the Islamic world to collect his hadith, and it is claimed that he knew three hundred thousand. He died in 261/875 in Nasrabadh, outside of  Nishapur, pehaps from eating too many dried dates at one sitting.

Primary Sources

al-Baghdadi, Al-Khatib.Ta’rikh Baghdad, 14 vols., vol. 13, 100–4. Cairo: Maktabat al-Khanji, 1349/1931.

Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj al-Qushayri.Sahih Muslim, transl. A. H. Siddiqui, 4 vols. Lahore, 1971.

———.Kitab al-Tamyiz, ed. M.M. Azami. Riyadh.

Further Reading

Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., vol. 6, 691–2. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1953

Juynboll, G.H.A., transl. ‘‘Muslim’s Introduction to his Sahih.’’Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam5 (1984): 263–311.

Sezgin, Fuat.Geschichte des Arabischen Schrifttums, vol. 1, 136–43. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1967.

MUSLIM–BYZANTINE RELATIONS

  Byzantium was the prime target of Muslim attack by virtue of its geographical position on the northwestern edge of the caliphate. More important, though, was the ideological challenge it presented. Not only was Byzantium a political rival that remembered its imperial past and believed in an imperial future (if only on the eve of the End of Time), but it continued to ascribe to itself a central role in God’s providential scheme as the sole authorized managing agent in earthly affairs. Worse still, it clung tenaciously to a version of the true faith over-intellectualized, it could be argued, and with a polytheistic encrustation—that had been superseded by the Prophet’s revelation.

  There was much more to relations between Byzantium and the Muslim world than open warfare. Religious polemic could be temporarily set aside. Diplomatic and other conventions grew up that mitigated conflict. After the caliphate dissolved into a number of regional powers, Byzantium could set its Muslim neighbors against each other. There was much commercial and cultural exchange. ‘Abbasid magnates sponsored translations of Greek philosophical and scientific texts. The Byzantine court responded by sending intellectuals as ambassadors to Baghdad. Muslim fashions in dress and Muslim decorative motifs were picked up in Byzantium. Monarchical power in Islam as well as Byzantium manifested itself in sumptuously decorated palaces and carefully choreographed ceremonies in which automata as well as living beings played their part. Luxury artifacts with intricate workmanship moved in both directions in the course of diplomatic exchanges. Nonetheless, war was the norm. Byzantium may be characterized above all as a highly militarized society in which the collective life was dominated by war against Islam. That war had six distinct phases.

Warfare, 634–969 CE

(1) 634–718

  After the conquest of Iran (642–652 CE), the prime foreign policy aim of the caliphate was the destruction of Byzantium. Hence, there were three concerted attempts to take Constantinople, in 654, the 670s, and 717–718. Apart from a fleeting failure of nerve in 654, when the whole population of Anatolia (the inhabitants of the plateau, the mountains, and the coasts) formally submitted, Byzantium fought back, trading blow for blow, building a powerful fleet, and investing in fixed defenses by land. However, the cost was high; there was serious damage to the urban infrastructure of Asia Minor during the course of forty years of fighting before and after the second fitna.

(2) 718–ca. 840

  Byzantium finally acknowledged its de facto loss of imperial status (its self-image was now that of a latterday Chosen People, belabored from without but guaranteed survival from above), and it abandoned conventional warfare in favor of guerrilla methods. These can be documented from 779, but they were probably developed during preceding decades. They involved the evacuation of civilians and livestock to designated fortresses and refuge zones, the systematic harassing of raiding forays and foraging parties, and the concentration of effort on ambushing the Muslims as they withdrew through the frontier passes. Such tactics succeeded in preserving Byzantium’s diminished resource base over several generations. The caliphate still directed major attacks against Byzantium, but there were now longer intervals of relative calm. The aim was now either incremental conquest or the harvesting of booty and prestige, as in 781, when a huge army, numbering just under ninety-six thousand men and under the nominal command of the young Harun al-Rashid, overran Asia Minor and entered Bithynia, where only a resort to hostage-taking secured the army’s escape from a Byzantine trap. A system of forward bases (thughur)that were well fortified and permanently garrisoned was elaborated along the frontier from Tarsus in Cilicia to Malatya (Melitene) on the Euphrates, flanked to the north by Kalikala (Theodosiopolis) in western Armenia. Twice the Arabs came tantalizingly close to establishing a permanent presence inside Anatolia’s mountain rim: in 806, when Harun al-Rashid briefly gained control of the whole length of the Cilician Gates, and in 833, when al-Ma’mun secured a fortified bridgehead at Tyana.

(3) ca. 840–969

  During this phase, the task of prosecuting the war against Byzantium increasingly devolved upon the thughur and the volunteers who gathered there, especially in the well-endowed charitable foundations of Tarsus, a system that aroused Byzantine admiration and envy. The war stabilized into one of Muslim raid, by sea as well as land, and Byzantine counterraid. Conventions were established to facilitate the exchange and ransoming of prisoners. A cross-cultural sense of affinity and a shared heroic ethos grew up in the borderlands, which, on occasion, led borderers to frustrate the policies of the central authorities by surreptitiously resupplying beleaguered enemy towns. The Digenes Akrites,a hybrid epic romance rooted in ninth- and tenth-century reality (although only written down around 1100), captures the attitudes of the frontier milieux. The balance of power and initiative shifted steadily in Byzantium’s favor, but this change was attributable more to Arab divisions than Byzantine strength. A first orthodox counteroffensive (871– 883) ended in defeat outside Tarsus. After an interlude during which Byzantium was preoccupied with Bulgaria and Armenia (the latter a vital buffer against Islam), a second offensive of unconventional character was launched in the 920s. Precision diplomacy and carefully targeted military action were directed into the thughur. A succession of strategic cities capitulated as each in turn was isolated and suffered a steady erosion of its resources, both physical and moral, through constant raiding. Malatya was the first to be annexed in 934; Tarsus (evacuated by jihad fighters carrying their small arms) and Antioch were the last, in 965 and 969, respectively. These successes, together with the reconquest of Crete (961) and the extrusion of Muslims from joint rule of Cyprus (965), reestablished Byzantium as a great Near Eastern power.

Warfare, 969–1453 CE

(4) 969–1081

  The Fatimid conquest of Egypt and much of Syria transformed the geopolitical situation. Whereas Egypt under the Ikhshidids had been neutralized from 937, its massive resources were now in the hands of a hostile, ideologically active power. Byzantium responded first with shows of force in the Jazira and Syria (972–975) and then pursued a cautious policy of expansion in Transcaucasia, mainly through diplomacy; it succeeded in annexing a large swath of land (western Iberia, the kingdoms of Ani and Vaspurakan) between 1000 and 1045. Access was thus secured to a large supplementary reservoir of Christian manpower. Byzantium’s eastern advance was abruptly halted and reversed upon encountering the swifter-moving drive to the west of the Turks, the third great power of the eleventh-century Near East. First Armenia and then Anatolia came under attack from Seljukid armies and Turkoman bands. The decisive victory of the Sultan Alp Arslan at Manzikert in 1071 opened Anatolia to unrestricted raiding and settlement over the following decade.

(5) 1081–1204

  Pressing problems in the Balkans and involvements further afield in Italy and Hungary may often have distracted Komnenian emperors, but they did not abandon hope of recovering Anatolia. Circumstantial evidence suggests that the conception of launching a Christian jihad (holy war) targeted at Jerusalem and of using the Pope as its principal propagandist originated in Byzantium. Latin Christendom formed much of the largest reservoir of Christian manpower on which Byzantium would have to draw if it were to confront the Turks on equal terms. Byzantine hopes of recovering Anatolia while their western allies secured the Holy Land found retrospective expression in the Treaty of Devol (1108). The gains in Anatolia were limited to the coastlands, and Byzantium had to rely on its own diplomatic and military resources to contain, subvert, and confront Turkish power. The defeat of a full expeditionary army at Myriokephalon in 1176 marked the end of this policy. Byzantium itself, weakened by political intrigue and civil war, soon fell prey to its erstwhile Western allies.

(6) 1204–1453

  Both rump Byzantine states in Anatolia, the ‘‘empires’’ of  Nikaia and Trebizond, had to maneuver for advantage in a Turkish-dominated world. The Nikaian rulers proved to be more successful, and they reconstituted a simulacrum of the Komnenian state, which was first the plaything and then the prey of the Ghazi-driven Ottoman Sultanate. While Byzantines increasingly stressed their Hellenism, the Ottomans laid claim to Rome’s Trojan ancestry and finally absorbed Constantinople, the New Rome, in 1453.

Further Reading

Ahrweiler, He´le `ne.Byzance et la Mer: La Marine de Guerre, la Politique et les Institutions Maritimes de Byzance aux VIIe–XVe Sie`cles. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1966.

Beaton, Roderick, and David Ricks, eds.Digenes Akrites: New Approaches to Byzantine Heroic Poetry. Aldershot: Variorum, 1993

Bonner, Michael.Aristocratic Violence and Holy War: Studies in Jihad and the Arab-Byzantine Frontier. New Haven,

Conn: American Oriental Society, 1996.

Bryer, Anthony, and Michael Ursinus, eds.Manzikert to Lepanto: The Byzantine World and the Turks, 1071–1571. Amsterdam: Hakkert, 1991.

Dagron, Gilbert. ‘‘Byzance et le Mode`le Islamique au XeSie`cle: A `Propos des Constitutions Tactiques de

L’Empereur Le´on VI.’’Comptes Rendus de l’Acade´mie les Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres(1983): 219–42.

Dagron, Gilbert, and Haralambie Miha˘escu.Le Traite´ sur la Gue ´rilla (De Velitatione) de L’Empereur Nice´phore Phocas (963–969). Paris: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1986.

Eastmond, Antony, ed.Eastern Approaches to Byzantium. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001.

El Cheikh, Nadia M.Byzantium Viewed by the Arabs. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2004.

Grabar, Oleg. ‘‘The Shared Culture of Objects.’’ InByzantine Court Culture from 829 to 1204, ed. Henry Maguire, 115–29. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 1997.

Gutas, Dimitri.Greek Thought, Arabic Culture: The Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement in Baghdad and Early Abbasid Society (2nd–4th/8th–10th Centuries).

London and New York: Routledge, 1998.

Imber, Colin. The Ottoman Empire, 1300–1481. Istanbul: Isis Press, 1990.

Lilie, Ralph-Johannes.Die Byzantinische Reaktion auf die Ausbreitung der Araber: Studien zur Strukturwandlung des Byzantinischen Staates im 7. und 8. Jhd. Munich: Institut fu ¨r Byzantinistik und Neugriechische Philologie der Universita¨t, 1976.

———.Byzantium and the Crusader States, 1096–1204.

Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1993.

McGeer, Eric.Sowing the Dragon’s Teeth: Byzantine Warfare in the Tenth Century. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 1995.

Magdalino, Paul. ‘‘The Road to Baghdad in the ThoughtWorld of Ninth-Century Byzantium.’’ InByzantium in the Ninth Century: Dead or Alive?, ed. Leslie Brubaker, 195–213. Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998.

Mango, Cyril. ‘‘Discontinuity with the Classical Past in Byzantium.’’ InByzantium and the Classical Tradition, eds. Margaret Mullett and Roger Scott, 48–57. Birmingham, Ala: Centre for Byzantine Studies, 1981.

Mango, Marlia.Byzantine Trade (4th–12th Centuries): Recent Archaeological Work. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006.

Runciman, Steven.The Fall of Constantinople 1453. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1965.

Shepard, Jonathan, and Simon Franklin, eds.Byzantine Diplomacy. Aldershot: Ashgate, 1992.

Vasiliev, A.A.Byzance et les Arabes, 3 vols. Brussels: Institut de Philologie et d’Histoire Orientales/Fondation Byzantine, 1935–1968.

MUSLIM–CRUSADER RELATIONS

  Politically, Muslim–Crusader relations during the two centuries of encounter in the Near East can be divided into three principal phases. The first lasted from the Frankish capture of  Turcoman-held Antioch in AH 491/1098 CE until ‘Imad al-Din Zanki’s recovery of Edessa (modern Urfa in southern Turkey) from the Crusaders in AH 539/1144 CE. The period is characterized by frequent accommodation between the two camps. Local Muslim rulers often resorted to arms against the western invaders, whose territory reached its maximum extent during the period. However, they feared co-religionist outsiders more than they did the Franks, with whom they tended to make political and military accords.

  The second period, which lasted until the death of Saladin in AH 589/1193 CE, is marked by a rise in Muslim ideological fervor against the invaders. The success of Muslim arms under Zanki and his son Nur al-Din encouraged unity under the banner of jihad (holy war). Uncompromising opposition to the Crusaders reached its peak with the capture of Jerusalem by Saladin in AH 583/1187 CE.

  The third and final period, which ended with the capture of Frankish Acre by the Mamluks in AH 690/ 1291 CE, sees a return to thede´tenteof the first phase. After the death of Saladin, competing Ayyubid interests often meant that expediency was put before jihad, most notably when the Ayyubid ruler of Egypt, alMalik al-Kamil, gave Jerusalem to Frederick II of Sicily in AH 626/1229 CE.

  Social relations between the two cultures were marked in the beginning by mutual incomprehension and hostility. Over time, however, second and succeeding generations of Franks were born (sometimes of mixed marriages) who would live all their lives in the East. Compromises began to be made in the matter of customs and personal habit, mostly by the newcomers, and amodus vivendiwas achieved.

Further Reading

Hillenbrand, Carole.The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1999.

Ibn Munqidh, Usama.Kitab al-I‘tibar, transl. P.K. Hitti as Memoirs of an Arab-Syrian Gentleman. Beirut, 1964.

MUSLIM–MONGOL DIPLOMACY

  Almost immediately from the time that they shared a border with the Muslim lands, the Mongols employed diplomacy to further their strategy of expansion. Having conquered Muslim territory, Mongol khans and commanders continued to send out missives and envoys to Muslim rulers who had yet to submit. Even after the Mongol efforts at conquest in the Middle East were stalled, after the battle of ‘Ayn Jalut, when they were defeated by the Mamluks in 1260 CE, the Ilkhanid Mongols based in Iran continued to dispatch embassies to this enemy calling for their submission as part of the war that lasted for some sixty years. Other Mongol states, especially the Golden Horde, maintained contact with the Mamluks. Around 1320, the Ilkhanate launched a diplomatic de´marche that led to the conclusion of the war against the Mamluks and inaugurated a period of peace with them. A full discussion of  Muslim–Mongol diplomacy should be placed in a wider examination of  Mongol diplomacy vis-a`-vis other sedentary states, especially those in Europe. Such a discussion is impossible in the present context; please see the bibliography below.

  Genghis Khan initiated contacts with the Khwarazm-Shah ’Ala’ al-Din Muhammad, the ruler of the eastern Muslim countries, after the latter captured and put to death more than four hundred merchants that arrived at his frontier from Mongol territory. The Khan demanded restitution and punishment for those responsible. The Khwarazm-Shah’s answer was to execute the envoys with the exception of one, who was sent back shaven. As is well known, the Khwarazm-Shah was to rue this action; other rulers were to learn that they tampered with the safety of Mongol envoys at their own risk. Genghis Khan, of course, was unable to accept this humiliation, and he launched the campaign (1219–1223) that first brought the Mongols to the Middle East.

  As Mongol forces gradually expanded the territory under their control, they came into contact with other Muslim rulers. It appears that, on the whole, diplomatic contact was established by the local Mongol commanders working under the general auspices of the Great Khan in Mongolia. Many Muslim rulers gradually had come to recognize the power of the Mongols, and they saw no alternative to finding an accommodation with them. Thus, in the mid-1240s, contacts were already established between the Mongols and the Caliph al-Musta’sim (1242–1258), who, in 1246, sent envoys to the Great Khan, and it seems already that some type of submission was expressed. Likewise, relations were established around this time or a bit later between the Mongols and some of the princes of Syria, Anatolia, and the Jazira. Thus, in 1254 CE, when the Franciscan William of Rubruck reached the capital of the Great Khan Mo ¨ngke, he found an envoy of the Ayyubid ruler of Karak, ‘‘who wanted to become a tributary and ally of the Tatars’’ (Jackson and Morgan, 1990). The most important Ayyubid ruler in Syria on the eve of the Mongol invasion of the country, al-Nasir Yusuf (r. 1236–1260 in Aleppo and after 1250 in Damascus), had sent an envoy to the Mongol governor Arghun Aqa as early as 1243 or 1244; the subsequent year, he was paying tribute to the Mongols (and he may have been doing so as early as 1241). In 1245 or 1246, this sultan sent a relative to the Great Khan Gu ¨yu¨k (1246–1248), who returned with an order defining the sultan’s obligations to the Mongols. In 1250, yet another envoy was dispatched to the Great Khan’s court. The Ayyubid ruler of  Mayyafariqin, al-Kamil Muhammad, arrived at Mo¨ngke’s court in 1253, made his submission, and found there Muslim princes from Mosul and Mardin. It is clear, then, that years before Hu¨legu ¨’s arrival in the area the majority of Muslim princes in Iraq, Jazira, and Syria had made some type of submission to the Mongols and that at least some were paying tribute.

  This is not the place to examine why many of these rulers, including the caliph, responded belligerently to Hu¨legu ¨ upon his arrival in the area in the mid-1250s, despite their previous expression of submission. Prior to his attacks on Baghdad and Syria, the Ilkhan corresponded with the Caliph al-Musta’sim and al-Nasir Yusuf, and he called on them to submit or face the consequences of attack and destruction. It should be noted that, generally, the Mongols sent such calls for surrender before they attacked; this was in parallel with simzilar usage in Islamic law. In both cases, the Muslim rulers remained defiant and suffered Mongol attacks and conquests, and both were eventually executed.

  In the spring of 1260, Hu ¨legu ¨ sent a beautifully crafted missive in Arabic (composed by the savant Nasir al-Din Tusi and based on an earlier letter sent to al-Nasir Yusuf ) to Qutuz, the new ruler of Mamluk Egypt. The latter had the envoys cut in half, and he had their heads prominently displayed in Cairo. This was a clear message of defiance to the Mongols, to the army, and to the local population; he made it obvious that he meant business and that there was to be no compromise with the Mongols. Qutuz soon set off on the campaign that led to the victory at ‘Ayn Jalut. Qutuz’s successor, Baybars (1260–1277), exchanged several letters conveyed by envoys with Abagha Ilkhan (1265–1282). These letters were generally truculent, and it is clear that the intent was more in the realm of psychological warfare than in real attempts at diplomatic relations, let alone ending the war.

  The Ilkhan Tegu¨der (1282–1284) initiated an exchange of letters with Sultan Qalawun (1279–1290). The first impression from these letters is that the new Ilkhan, a convert to Islam, was interested in ending the state of war between the two states. A deeper examination, however, shows that these letters are really a more subtle demand for submission to the Mongols, despite their Islamic style. The Mamluks, it would seem, understood their true tenor, and they were far from enthusiastic about the supposed calls for peace. In any event, Tegu ¨der’s short reign ended any chance of a transformation of the essence of Mamluk–Ilkhanid relations. During the reign of Arghun Ilkhan (1284–1291), there was no evidence of any diplomatic contact between the two states. Overtly belligerent letters were exchanged by the Sultan al-Ashraf   Khalil (1290–1293) and Geikhatu (1291–1295). The former, fresh from his victories at Acre and Qal’at al-Rum in eastern Anatolia, threatened to invade Iraq. His assassination, however, nipped this plan in the bud. The Ilkhan Ghazan (1295–1304) launched a series of invasions against Syria, even enjoying some success, although he was unable to hold the country after his victory in Wadi al-Khaznadar in central Syria in 1299. Interspersed with these campaigns, he exchanged letters with the young Sultan al-Nasir Muhammad (second reign, 1299–1309). Again, the Ilkhan called on the Mamluks to submit, although his claims are couched largely in Islamic terms. The Mamluks, for their part, rejected all of Ghazan’s claims out of hand, disparaging the Islam of the newly converted Mongols in the process. O¨ljeitu ¨ Ilkhan (1304–1316) sent the Mamluks a letter soon after gaining the throne, calling for peace. Here, too, the Mamluk leadership realized that these were hollow claims and responded in kind. Only several years after Abu Sa’id (1316–1335) ascended the Ilkhanid throne did the Mongols of Iran open up with a real peace offensive that recognized the status quo. Initial contacts were carried out by the international slave trader al-Majd al-Sallami, and soon official envoys were bringing letters. A treaty was ratified in 1323, and this led to a period of peaceful coexistence until the demise of the Ilkhanate in 1335.

  Under Baybars, diplomatic relations were maintained with the Mongol Golden Horde, which ruled the steppe region north of the Black and Caspian Seas. The Jochid Khans of the Golden Horde were engaged in a war with their Ilkhanid cousins, and both the Jochids and the Mamluk sultans were interested in cooperation, perhaps even in a joint offensive against their common enemy. Islam played a part in these relations, because some of the Jochid Khans were Muslims; however, even those who were pagans maintained warm relations with the Sultans. Evidently, other, more practical matters of state were behind these relations. Given the great distance between the Golden Horde and the Mamluk Sultanate, no joint campaign was ever organized, but the importance of the second front, where the Ilkhans had to fight on occasion and thus could not always devote themselves to the war against the Mamluks, was of great importance to the latter. In addition, diplomatic relations with the Golden Horde guaranteed the continual supply of young mamluks (military slaves) to the sultanate from among the Turkish and even the Mongol tribesmen of this steppe area. The importance of these relations declined somewhat with the improvement of relations between the Mamluks and the Ilkhanate. There were also occasional relations with the Mongol rulers of Central Asia, and these were often at odds with their Ilkhanid relations; however, this was of minor importance in the long run.

Further Reading

Allouche, Adel. ‘‘Tegu¨der’s Ultimatum to Qalawun.’’International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies22 (1990): 437–46.

Amitai, Reuven. ‘‘The Resolution of the Mongol-Mamluk War.’’ InMongols, Turks and Others: Eurasian Nomads and the Sedentary World, eds. Reuven Amitai and Michal Biran. Leiden: Brill, 2004.

Amitai-Preiss, Reuven. ‘‘An Exchange of Letters in Arabic between Abaga Ilkhan and Sultan Baybars (A.H. 667 / A.D. 1268-9).’’Central Asiatic Journal. 38 (1994): 11–33.

———.Mongols and Mamluks: The Mamluk-lkhanid War 1260–1281. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1995.

Boyle, John A. ‘‘The Il-Khans of Persia and the Princes of Europe.’’Central Asiatic Journal20 (1976): 25–40.

Holt, Peter M. ‘‘The I ¯lkha ¯n AIˆmad’s Embassies to Qala¯wu¯ n: Two Contemporary Accounts.’’Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies49 (1986): 128–32.

———.The Age of the Crusades: The Near East from the Eleventh Century to 1517. Chapter 18. Diplomatic and Commercial Relations of the Mamluk Sultanate. London: Longman, 1986.

Horst, Heribert. ‘‘Eine Gesandschaft des Mamlu¯ ken alMalik al-Na¯O` ir im I¨lI `a¯nhof in Persien.’’ InDer Orient in der Forschung: Festschrift fu¨r Otto Spies, ed. Wilhelm Hoenerbach. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1967.

Humphreys, R.S.From Saladin to the Mongols:The Ayyubids of Damascus 1192–1260. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1977.

Jackson, P., and D. Morgan.The Mission of Friar William of Rubruck, 184. London, 1990.

de Rachewiltz, Igor. Papal Envoys to the Great Khans. London: Faber and Faber, 1971.

Ratchnevsky, Paul.Genghis Khan: His Life and Legacy, ed. and transl. Thomas N. Haining. Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 1991

AL-MUTANABBI, ABU’L-TAYYIB AHMAD IBN AL-HUSAYN AL-JU‘FI

  Arabic poetry during the tenth century remained bound by conventions originating in pre-Islamic Arabia, with poets of the period still expected to employ the traditional qasida (ode) form. Abu’l-Tayyib Ahmad ibn al-Husayn al-Ju‘fi al-Mutanabbi, whose name for succeeding generations became synonymous with the accolade ‘‘great poet,’’ was born in the Iraqi city of Kufa in 915 CE. Despite the apparent poverty of his origins his father was a water-carrier alMutanabbi was educated at one of the best schools in Kufa (one with decidedly Shi‘i leanings). In late 924, in accordance with the custom among poets and philologists of the period who viewed the Bedouin as the true repository of pure Arabic speech and eloquence (and probably also escaping the turmoil in Kufa after the Qarmatian invasion), al-Mutanabbi went to live for a period of two years among the south Arabian Bedouin of the Samawa in the Syrian desert, a sojourn that left its mark on both his psyche and his poetry.

  During the early stages of his career, al-Mutanabbi worked in Baghdad and throughout Syria as the intermittent panegyrist of a number of rich bourgeois and Bedouin tribal chiefs. Even at this point, his masterful engaging of the Arab poetic tradition inspired the charge of plagiarism, which would plague him throughout his career. At the same time, several of the hallmarks of his style, including frequent use of antithesis, an emphasis on conciseness of expression, and careful attention to the musical quality of his verses, were already discernible in his poetry. Arrogant by nature and frustrated by the world’s indifference, al-Mutanabbi eventually turned to violence as a means to attain the power and wealth that he saw as his due. It is from the insurrection he led in the Samawa region of Syria (ca. 933) that his name alMutanabbi (‘‘the would-be prophet’’) derives. This rebellion, perhaps Qarmatian in origin, resulted in a two-year imprisonment for al-Mutanabbi. The poet himself later stated that he had never claimed to be a prophet and that his sobriquet, initiated by others, stemmed from a verse in which he likened himself to the pre-Islamic Arabian prophet, Salih, mentioned in the Qur’an.

  The various patrons that al-Mutanabbi eulogized during the early part of his career were but a prelude to his nine-year relationship (middle of 948–middle of 957) with the Hamdanid prince Abu’l-Hasan ‘Ali ibn Abi’l-Hayja’ Sayf al-Dawla, which must be considered the heyday of al-Mutanabbi’s career. Basking in the luxury of an opulent and intellectually vibrant court and indulged by a dynamic patron, alMutanabbi produced some of his most celebrated poetry. His panegyrics to Sayf al-Dawla bespeak the poet’s pleasure at singing the praises of one he deemed a true Arab leader and a champion of Islam against the Byzantines; these demonstrated a measure of real affection mixed with the conventional praise of premodern Arabic poetry. At the same time, alMutanabbi’s ability to capitalize on small details or events to diversify his odes helped minimize the monotony that the all-important panegyric form sometimes experienced at the hands of a less-talented artist. The poet’s affection for his patron also rendered more emotionally resonant the many elegies that al-Mutanabbi wrote about members of Sayf alDawla’s family. In addition, al-Mutanabbi directly participated in almost all of his patron’s military campaigns, and he recorded these events in poems such as his famous ode about the recapture of the fortress town of Hadath from the Byzantines. This poem conveys an epic quality that is reminiscent of the Amorium poem of Abu Tammam (ca. 805–845), whom al-Mutanabbi admired both for his poetry and for the Yemenite origins that they shared.

  The poetry from this period illustrates al-Mutanabbi’s ability to stretch the limitations placed on the poet by convention through manipulation and sometimes omission of the traditional amatory prelude, which he often replaced with lyrical and philosophical versifying about life and its paradoxes as well as his own feelings of pessimism and frustration. It is perhaps this irrepressible insertion in his poems of a measure of personal feeling and individual presence at a time when conventional taste least encouraged it that is al-Mutanabbi’s greatest gift to Arabic poetry, and it at least in part explains the great admiration he inspired in subsequent generations. Many of alMutanabbi’s gnomic lines have entered popular Arab culture as a result of their concision and the acoustical and semantic symmetry of their construction, which render them easy to remember.

  In 957, al-Mutanabbi fled the Hamdanid court, a victim of both the plotting of enemies at court and his own insensitivity and arrogance. He made his way to the court of the Ikhshidid regent of  Egypt, Abu’lMisk Kafur, who represented, in the poet’s eyes, the antithesis of the ideal patron. The opulence and intellectual fertility of his new environment were not enough to extinguish al-Mutanabbi’s shame at having to eulogize a former slave, whom he considered inherently inferior. Al-Mutanabbi’s five years in Egypt yielded not only biting satire focusing on the race, ugliness, and slave origins of the patron he so profoundly resented but also praise poetry that barely disguised a dangerously satirical subtext. By this point in his career, al-Mutanabbi was the recognized master of a school of poetry, and he continued to be the center of enthusiastic circles of admirers and students who discussed, annotated, and preserved his work under the poet’s direct guidance. Among his most devoted students was the philologist Abu’lFath ‘Uthman Ibn Jinni (d. 1002). Eventually, even some of his archenemies including the literary theorist Abu ‘Ali ibn al-Hasan al-Hatimi (d. 998), who had excoriated al-Mutanabbi for his so-called plagiarisms and borrowings from Hellenistic philosophy came to acknowledge, albeit grudgingly, his excellence as a poet. Although panegyric was the main focus of al-Mutanabbi’s poetry, as the economics of the contemporary poetic culture demanded, he had the distinction of having produced several hunting poems and even lyrical descriptions of nature. Leaving Persia in 965, probably to return to Sayf alDawla’s court, al-Mutanabbi was attacked outside Wasit in Iraq and killed, along with his son, by a Bedouin chief who was the uncle of the Qarmatian rebel whom al-Mutanabbi had satirized a year earlier. Perhaps no other premodern Arab poet has had such a profound and sustained influence over the evolution of Arabic poetry, even into the modern era. AlMutanabbi’s poetry provided one of the primary models for the neoclassical poets of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, who were bent on revitalizing Arabic poetry by reconnecting it to its glorious poetic heritage. His influence extended across the Arab East and North Africa and even into Persia.

Primary Sources

Barquqi, ‘Abd al-Rahman.Sharh Diwan al-Mutanabbi (Explanation of the Collected Poetry of al-Mutanabbi), 2 vols., 4 parts. Beirut: Dar al-Kitab al-‘Arabi, 1980.

al-Ma‘arri, Abu’l-‘Ala’. Sharh Diwan Abi’l-Tayyib alMutanabbi: Mu‘jiz Ahmad (Explanation of the Collected Poetry of Abu’l-Tayyib al-Mutanabbi: Ahmad’s Miracle), 4 vols. Cairo: Dar al-Ma‘arif, 1988.

al-‘Ukbari, Abu’l-Baqa’. Sharh Diwan Abi’l-Tayyib alMutanabbi (Explanation of the Collected Poetry of Abu’l-Tayyib al-Mutanabbi), 2 vols., 4 parts. Beirut: Dar al-Ma‘rifa, 1978.

al-Wahidi al-Nisaburi, Abu’l-Hasan ‘Ali ibn Ahmad.Diwan al-Mutanabbi: Sharh Abi’l-Hasan ‘Ali ibn Ahmad alWahidi al-Nisaburi (The Collected Poetry of Abu’lTayyib al-Mutanabbi: Commentary by Abi’l-Hasan ‘Ali ibn Ahmad al-Wahidi al-Nisaburi). Berlin, 1821.

al-Yaziji, Nazif. al-‘Arf al-Tayyib fi Sharh Diwan Abi’lTayyib (The Sweet Fragrance in Explaining the Diwan of Abu’l-Tayyib), 2 vols. Beirut: Dar Sadir. The diwan (collected poetry) of al-Mutanabbi with commentary, listed by commentator:

Further Reading

Blache`re, Re ´gis.Un Poe`te Arabe du IV e Sie`cle de L’He´gire (X e Sie`cle de J.-C.): Abou t-Tayyib al-Motanabbi (Essai D’Histoire Litte´raire) (An Arab Poet of the Fourth Century A.H. (Tenth Century A.D.): Abu’l-Tayyib al-Mutanabbi (An Essay in Literary History). Paris: Librairie d’Ame´rique et d’Orient, Adrien-Maisonneuve, 1935.

Hamori, Andras.The Composition of Mutanabbi’s Panegyrics to Sayf al-Dawla. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1992.

Heinrichs, Wolfhart. ‘‘The Meaning ofMutanabbi.’’ In Poetry and Prophecy: The Beginnings of a Literary Tradition, ed. James L. Kugel. Ithaca, NY, 1990.

Husayn, Taha.Ma’a al-Mutanabbi (With al-Mutanabbi), 12th ed. Cairo: Dar al-Ma‘arif, 1980.

Latham, J.D. ‘‘Towards a Better Understanding of alMutanabbi’s Poem on the Battle of al-Hadath.’’Journal of Arabic LiteratureX (1979): 1–22.

Shakir, Mahmud Muhammad.al-Mutanabbi, 2 vols. Cairo: Matba‘at al-Madani, 1976.

MU‘TAZILITES

  The Mu‘tazilites were a group of Muslim theologians that first appeared during the early eighth century and dominated Muslim theology during the ninth and tenth centuries. They emerged from the earlier group of Qadarites, who engaged in the theological dispute about human free will versus divine predestination. Qadarites, who were active in Basra, argued that humans have power (qadar) over their actions and are therefore morally responsible for them. They argued against a conservative group of scholars who held that the power to act lies with God, whose omnipotence determines human actions. Later Mu‘tazilites claimed that, around the year 740 CE, the Basrian scholar Wasil ibn Ata’ (699–749) disputed with his colleague ‘Amr ibn ‘Ubayd (699–761) and convinced him that the teaching of the prominent Qadarite Hasan al-Basri (642–728), namely that the grave sinner is an ‘‘unbeliever’’, is wrong. Wasil ibn Ata’, together with ‘Amr ibn ‘Ubayd, is credited with having formed a new group that called itself ‘‘those who set themselves apart’’ (al-mufitazila). The name Mu‘tazilites,however, referred to a number of theologians and their students, and not all saw themselves as connected to Wasil and ‘Amr; what brought them together was their rationalist approach toward Muslim theology. Various positions of this group developed into a school of thought that centered around five principles: (1) God’s unity (tawhid); (2) God’s justice (fiadl); (3) God’s sincerity regarding the promised rewards and punishments for human deeds; (4) grave sinners should not be subject to legal sanctionsz as long they have committed no crime, although they should still be morally shunned (‘‘the state between the two states’’); and (5) the obligation to call for morally good deeds and forbid bad ones.

  After the ‘Abbasid revolution in 750, the Mu‘tazilites became the leading theological direction in Basra and the new capital, Baghdad. Mu‘tazilite theologians were favored by the early ‘Abbasid caliphs, particularly by al-Ma’mun (r. 813–833) and his successors during the mihna (test). Although he himself was not committed to Mu‘tazilite theology, al-Ma’mun unsuccessfully tried to force Muslim scholars to accept the Mu‘tazilite position that the Qur’an had been created in time as opposed to being eternal. During the first half of the ninth century, leading proponents of the Mu‘tazilites in Baghdad zmost prominently Abu l-Hudhayl (d. 842) and al-Nazzam (d. ca. 840) developed Mu‘tazilite theology into a system that included explanations of physical processes, God’s nature, His relationship with creation, and ethics. A second intellectual peak was reached during the turn from the tenth to the eleventh century, when a circle around the Qadi Abd al-Jabbar (d. 1025) in Rayy (modern Tehran, Iran) formulated the most comprehensive treatment of the treatment of the school’s theology  Although

Mu‘tazilites continued to be influential in regions on the edge of the Islamic world (in Yemen or in Khwarezm, modern north Uzbekistan), their influence on theological debates in the center diminished during the eleventh century. One of their last proponents was al-Zamakhshari (d. 1144), whose commentary on the Qur’an The Reconnoiterer (al-Kashshaf), had a great influence on all later books of this genre.

  Mu‘tazilite theology was part of Kalam, the rationalist technique of defending articles of faith. Although it stood under the influences of concepts in Greek philosophy, it developed quite independently thereof. The systematic character of Mu‘tazilite theology focuses on the two principles of God’s unity and God’s justice. Mu‘tazilites rejected all suggestions of anthropomorphism(tashbih) in the divine, and they taught that the relationship between God and his attributes (sifat) is totally unlike, for instance, that of humans and the attributes they have. God is believed to be the perfect mode of attributes like ‘‘knowing’’ or ‘‘just’’ that he ascribes to himself in the Qur’an. Al-Nazzam taught that ‘‘God is by himself continuously knowing, living, powerful, hearing, seeing, and eternal, not through a (separate) knowledge, power etc. (that he has).’’ God is perfect unity, and none of his attributes can be distinct from him. His attributes are not entities, like knowledge, that are inherent in Him as they are in the case of humans. The way in which God is ‘‘knowing,’’ ‘‘powerful,’’ or ‘‘just’’ is, aczcording to the Mu‘tazilites, different from what humans know as knowledge, power, and justice only through their deficiencies. Mu‘tazilites maintained that divine justice, for instance, is the perfection of the kind of justice that is innately known to humans. They had to admit that destruction through natural disasters must be just punishment for immoral acts that could have been avoided. Acting according to the morals of the one justice that is both divine and human would, in turn, force God to grant salvation. Although this point led to the heavily moralistic outlook of the Mu‘tazilite school, it also made it vulnerable to the attacks of  Sunni theologians, mostly of the Ashfiarite school, who argue that humans can have no full knowledge of divine justice, or, more generally, no full knowledge of God’s attributes as such.

Further Reading

Dhanani, Alnoor.The Physical Theory of Kalam: Atoms, Space, and Void in Basrian Mufitazi Cosmology. Leiden: Brill, 1994.

van Ess, Josef. Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra. Eine Geschichte des Religio¨sen Denkens im Fru¨hen Islam, 6 vols. Berlin and New York: De Gruyter, 1991–1997.

———. ‘‘Mu‘tazilah.’’ InEncyclopedia of Religion, ed. Mircea Elieade, vol. 10, 220–9. New York: Macmillian, 1987.

Gimaret, Daniel. ‘‘Mu‘tazila.’’ InEncyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., vol. 7, 783–93. Leiden: Brill, 1993.

Hourani, George F.Islamic Rationalism: The Ethics of Abd al-Jabbar. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1971.

Martin, Richard C., Mark R. Woodward, and Dwi S.Atmaja.Defenders of Reason in Islam. Mu’tazilism from Medieval School to Modern Symbol. Oxford, UK: Oneworld, 1997.

Watt, William M.The Formative Period of Islamic Thought. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1973.

Wolfson, Harry.The Philosophy of the Kalam. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1976.

MYSTICISM, JEWISH

  Jewish mysticism, which is rooted in ancient biblical and rabbinic literature, is not exclusively limited to Qabbalah, which is the best known of its expressions. There existed pre-Qabbalistic forms of Jewish esotericism, some of which, like many of the later major developments of Qabbalah itself, flourished in an Islamic environment.

Beginnings in the East

  Chronologically, it was Jewish mysticism that initially influenced Sufism. Although they recognize Neoplatonic and Christian influence on the evolution of early Sufi practice and doctrine, scholars have neglected the considerable impact of Jewish spirituality and piety on its formative period in Baghdad, the contemporary seat of great centers of Talmudic learning. Sufi hagiography has preserved many isra’ıliyyat, edifying tales involving ‘‘the pious men from among the Children of Israel,’’ which are traceable to rabbinic sources. These were supposedly transmitted through interreligious contacts or Jewish conversions to Islam, some of which took place precisely in Sufi circles in Baghdad, where Jews would attend lectures. Some scholars have dated to the post-Islamic era of the Ge’onim (ninth century CE) the composition of the enigmatic essay of Hebrew cosmogony, known as the Sefer yezirah or Book of Creation, which became the speculative framework of numerous systems of Jewish philosophy and mysticism. L. Massignon linked its cosmic semiotics and mystical phonetics to Arabic grammar and Shi‘i gnosticism, a view that was recently defended by S. Wasserstrom. Its first recorded commentaries were composed in Judeo-Arabic between the ninth and thirteenth centuries and were of a philosophical and theological approach.

  The Golden Age of Spain

  Andalusia was a fertile terrain of intercultural exchange where Sufism flowered early during the tenth century, notably through the teachings of Ibn Masarrah (886–931), whose system involved the ‘‘science of letters.’’ These arithmological speculations, known as gematriyah, were also a central part of Jewish exegesis and esotericism since Talmudic times (third to fourth centuries). Similarities between these two approaches suggest mutual interaction, probably in Muslim Spain, where this discipline was highly developed by MuIyıal-Dın ibn Arabı (d. 1240), who reports that he discussed this subject with a Jewish rabbi. Sufi traces are perceptible in the religious poetry of the great Hispano-Hebrew bards, such as Solomon ibn Gabirol (d. ca. 1057) and Judah Halevi (1075–1141). The first Jewish medieval work to betray clear Sufi influence was, however, BaI`ya ibn Paqudah’s Fara’i al-Qulub (Duties of the Hearts),a treatise about ascetic theology that was composed in Arabic around 1080. It indicates the availability of Sufi sources in Muslim Spain, where it was the first fully fledged Sufi manual to have been composed. To revitalize Jewish ritual formalism, BaI `ya devised a spiritual itinerary that follows the stages of the Sufi Path, although it rejects the possibility of union with God and eschews extreme forms of Sufi asceticism. One of the first classics of Judaeo-Arabic literature to be translated into Hebrew, it became an important channel for the percolation of Sufi notions in Jewish spirituality, remaining popular among Qabbalists and mystics right down to the eighteenth century. Drawing on al-Qushayrı ’s Risalah (Epistle), one of Sufism’s basic textbooks, Joseph ibn ‘Aqnı ˆn’s allegoric Arabic commentary (twelfth century) about the Song of Songs resembles a Sufi treatise about divine love.

  His Tibb al-Nufus (Hygiene of the Souls) quotes al-Junayd (d. 910) and Ibn Adham, referring to them by their Sufi epithets: Shaykh at-Ta’ifah (‘‘the elder of the community’’) and al-RuI`anı al-Akmal (‘‘the perfect spirit’’).

The Jewish Pietist Movement in Egypt

  Through Ayyubid and Mamluk protectors, Sufism prospered in Egypt, attracting a host of charismatic figures, such as Abu’l-Hasan al-Shadhilı (d. 1258), Muhammad al-Badawıˆ (d. 1276), Abu’ l-Abbas al-Mursı (d. 1287), and Ibn Ata’ Allah (d. 1309). Progressively institutionalized in the form of brotherhoods and monasteries (khanqahs) in the urban centers, its infectious religious fervor had repercussions on the local Jewish populations, whose mystical receptivity had been heightened by the contemporary social and intellectual unrest. By the time of the great scholar Moses Maimonides (1135–1204), many Jews, who were referred to in contemporary documents as hasıdım(‘‘pious ones’’), had already begun to adopt the Sufi way of life. This attraction is reflected in the numerous Sufi writings discovered in the Cairo Genizah, which include pages from the principal masters copied into Hebrew letters. The same source also yielded Sufi-inspired Jewish ethical manuals, theological treatises, definitions of mystical states, and exegetical works that reinterpreted scriptural narrative in harmony with Sufi doctrine, often portraying biblical figures as masters of the Sufi path. They are not, however, simple Judaized adaptations of  Muslim texts but rather original compositions that were dexterously transposed in the biblical and rabbinic texture.

  This pietistic tendency gained momentum with the appointment in 1213 of Abraham (1186–1237), the son of Moses Maimonides, as the spiritual leader (nagıd) of  Egyptian Jewry. An ardent protagonist of Judeo-Sufi pietism, in his commentary on thePentateuch, Abraham Maimonides depicted the ancient biblical characters as pietists in the same way as Sufi literature portrays the Prophet and his companions as Sufis. His Kifayat al-Abidın (Compendium for the Servants of God), a monumental legal and ethical treatise, displays a strong propensity for mysticism of a non-Qabbalistic and manifestly Muslim type. He overtly expresses admiration for Sufis in whom he sees the heirs of ancient Israelite traditions. He wistfully acknowledges that the Sufi initiation ritual, which consists of the investiture of the master’s cloak (khirqah) and the Sufi ascetic discipline as well as the necessity of spiritual guidance under an accomplished master, were originally practiced by the prophets of Israel. Like al-Ghazalı , Abraham Maimonides emphasized the spiritual significance of the precepts and their ‘‘mysteries,’’ which were partly rediscovered in the traditions preserved by the Sufis. Calling themselves ‘‘the disciples of the prophets,’’ the pietists adopted manifestly Muslim customs, believing that they were an integral part of an original ‘‘prophetic discipline,’’ the restoration of which would hasten the promised return of prophecy. Clearly inspired by Muslim models, Abraham enacted several ritual ‘‘reforms’’ with the purpose of enhancing the decorum and purport of synagogue worship. Considered especially meritorious by Sufi authors, the ablution of hands and feet, although not strictly required by Jewish law, became a prerequisite to prayer.

  Following Muslim custom, worshippers were arranged in rows and faced Jerusalem at all times during the synagogue service. He prescribed various postures during prayer, such as standing, kneeling, frequent bowing, the spreading of the hands, and weeping in supplication. In addition to canonical prayers, nightly vigils and daily fasts were instituted, as was solitary worship (khalwah), a practice that was characteristic of Sufism and that required retirement from society for protracted periods in an isolated and dark place. Although contrary to the Jewish tradition of communal prayer, Abraham Maimonides considered it to be of Hebrew origin. The hasidim also refer to dhikr,or ‘‘spiritual recollection,’’ which is a typically Sufi ritual; so far, however, no details have been discovered describing how it was performed in Jewish circles. Because of their protracted devotions, the pietists established special prayer halls; Abraham Maimonides himself possessed his own private synagogue. Other pietist innovations included ascetic aspects. In contrast with traditional Jewish ethics, they advocated celibacy like certain Sufis, and they considered marriage and family responsibilities to be an impediment to spiritual fulfilment. The association of the Maimonides family with Sufi-type pietism endured for nearly two centuries. Abraham’s own son, Obadyah Maimonides (1228–1265), showed strong leanings toward Sufism in his al-Maqala al-hawdiyyah (The Treatise of the Pool), an ethico-mystical manual based on the typically Sufi comparison of the heart to a pool that must be cleansed before it can be filled with the vivifying waters of gnosis.

  David ben Joshua (ca. 1335–1415), last known of the Maimonideans, was also interested in Sufism. The progressive, spiritual program presented in his Judeo-Arabic work al-Murshid ila t-Tafarrud (The Guide to Detachment)embodies the most far-reaching synthesis of traditional rabbinical and Sufi ethics. For example, since the first step on the path to perfection is motivated by the quest for light, he derives the initial stage, zehırut, originally signifying in Hebrew ‘‘precaution,’’ from the root zhr (‘‘to shine’’), following the Illuminationist notion of  ishraq. Certain Judeo-Sufi personalities were associated with the Maimonidean dynasty. Rabbi Hanan’el ben Samuel al-Amshatı, not only a member of Abraham Maimonides’ rabbinical court but also his father-inlaw, authored exegetical works that resound with philosophical and Sufi notions. A committed pietist (several Genizah documents refer to him as he-I`asıd [the pietist]), he actively defended the movement, although its novel practices and doctrines had come under attack. In his mystical commentary on the Song of Songs, Abraham Abu Rabı‘a he-Iasıd (d. 1223) interpreted the book as an allegorical dialogue between the mystic intoxicated with divine love and the object of his desire, the beatific vision. Despite Abraham Maimonides’ political and religious prestige, the pietist movement, like many revivalist trends in religious history, met with virulent opposition.

  The pietists were accused of introducing ‘‘false ideas,’’ ‘‘unlawful changes,’’ and ‘‘gentile (Sufi) customs,’’ and they were even denounced to the Muslim authorities. Although Abraham excommunicated his opponents, opposition continued during the office as nagıd of Abraham’s son, David Maimonides (1222– 1300), who, after the closure of his synagogue, was compelled to leave Egypt, seeking refuge in Akko. As a result of its elitist character, together with this opposition, the movement gradually disappeared with the general decline of Oriental Jewry.

Later Influences

  Sufism continued sporadically to fascinate individual Jews. According to the biographer al-Kutubı, the thirteenth-century Sufi al-Hasan Ibn Hud would study Maimonides’Guide for the Perplexed with the jews of Damascus. The sixteenth-century Egyptian mystic al-Sha’araˆnıˆrelates in his autobiography that Jews would attend his lectures and ask him to write amulets to protect their children. Qaraite Jews, perhaps through a kinship between Sufi asceticism and their own rather austere brand of ethics, showed an interest in Sufi writings, which they were still copying during the seventeenth century. Jews also maintained contact with Sufis in other localities. Fifteenth-century Yemenite Jews freely used Sufi concepts in their writings and quoted verses from the mystical poetry of the Sufi martyr al-Hallaj. Sufi concepts percolated into Jewish literature through Hebrew translations made in Spain and Provence, especially those of the works of al-Ghazalı. There were contacts between Sufis and Qabbalists in Morocco as related by the great Moroccan sixteenth-century Qabbalist David haLevi. Hebrew transcriptions of the poetry of  Rumı and Sa’dı contributed to the diffusion of Sufi ideas among Persian Jews, foreshadowing the exquisite rub’ayyat of Sarmad (d. 1661), a Persian Jew who became a wandering dervish in India.

The Early Kabbalists

  Thirteenth-century disciples of the Qabbalist Abraham Abuˆ’l-’Afiyah (d. ca. 1291) in the Holy Land show familiarity with Sufi practices that they directly observed. Isaac of Akko (ca. 1270–1340) in particular had knowledge of Sufi techniques, including solitary meditation (khalwah; Hebrew,hitbodedut) and the visualization of letters. He is an important link in the transmission of these methods to the later Qabbalists of Safed. Abu’l-’Afiyah may himself have encountered Sufis during his brief visit to Akko (Acre) around 1260 or elsewhere during the course of his wide travels. The focal point of his meditative discipline, which led to prophetic inspiration, is the practice of hazkarah, a term that is itself strikingly reminiscent of the Arabic dhikr.

The Kabbalists of Safed

  Evliya Chelebi testifies that sixteenth-century Safed was a vibrant Sufi center. Islamic influence has insufficiently been taken into account in the study of the Safed Qabbalistic school, which flourished under Rabbi Isaac Lurya (1534–1572), himself a native of Egypt. Among the most significant Sufi models that may lie behind some of the mystical rituals initiated by the Qabbalists are saint worship and the visitation of tombs, the formation of spiritual brotherhoods (haburot) around saints, and spiritual concerts (baqashshot) consisting of the singing of paraliturgical poems (similar to the Sufi samaˆ’ ceremony). Solitary meditation resurges in the Sullam ha-‘Aliyyah (Ladder of Ascension, a title that smacks of Sufism) by Judah al-Butını (d. 1519) and the Pardes Rimmonım (Orchard of Pomegranates) by Moses Cordovero (d. 1570). In his meditative method, which is practiced in dark places, the latter advocates Sufi-like techniques such as breathing control. Other techniques, which were subsequently transmitted to East European Hasidim, include ritual purity, silence, fasting, restriction of sleep, and the ecstatic repetition of divine names.

The Shabbatians

  Significant contact between mystics took place in Turkey and its provinces during the Ottoman era. These were intensified during the messianic turmoil roused by Shabbatay Zevi (d. 1675). During his confinement in Adrianople and after his outward conversion to Islam, Zevi would attend dhikr seances in the Bektashi convent at Hizirlik, and it seems that he established contact with the khalwatı mystic Muhammad al-Niyazı (d. 1694). His apostate followers, known as the Doenme, continued to maintain close relations with the mystical brotherhoods in Turkey and in particular with the syncretistic Bektashis, from whom they borrowed certain rituals, Turkish liturgical poems, and melodies. As late as the nineteenth century, Doenme descendants such as the Mevlevi Ezzet Effendi were prominent in Sufi orders.

Further Reading

Cohen, G. ‘‘The Soteriology of Abraham Maimuni.’’Proceedings of the American Academy Jor Jewish Research 35 (1967): 75–98; 36 (1968): 33–56.

Fenton, P.B. ‘‘Some Judaeo-Arabic Fragments by Rabbi Abraham he-Hasid, the Jewish Suf ıˆ’.’’Journal of Semitic Studies26 (1981): 47–72.

———.The Treatise of the Pool, al-Maqaˆla al-I ˆawdiyya by ‘Obadyah Maimonides. London, 1981.

———. ‘‘The Literary Legacy of David II Maimuni.’’Jewish Quarterly Review 74 (1984): 1–56.

———.Deux Traite´s de Mystique Juive. Lagrasse, 1987.

———. ‘‘La Hitboˆdeduˆt Chez les Premiers Qabbalistes d’Orient et Chez les Soufis.’’ In Priere, Mystique et Judaı¨sme, ed. R. Goetschel, 133–58. Paris, 1987.

———, ed.al-Murshid ila t-Tafarrud by David Maimonides. Jerusalem, 1987.

———. ‘‘Shabbatay Sebi and the Muslim Mystic Muhammad an-Niyaˆzi.’’ Approaches to Judaism in Medieval Times3 (1988): 81–8.

Goitein, S.D. ‘‘A Jewish Addict to Sufism in the Time of Nagid David II Maimonides.’’Jewish Quarterly Review 44 (1953–1954): 37–49.

———. ‘‘A Treatise in Defence of the Pietists.’’Journal of Jewish Studies16 (1965): 105–14.

———. ‘‘Abraham Maimonides and his Pietist Circle.’’ In Jewish Medieval and Renaissance Studies, ed. A. Altmann, 145–64. Cambridge, Mass, 1967.

Goldziher, I. ‘‘Ibn Hud, the Muhammadan Mystic, and the Jews of Damascus.’’Jewish Quarterly Review6 (1893): 218–20.

del, M. Abraham Abulafia and the Mystical Experience. New York, 1988.

Rosenblatt, S., ed.The High Ways to Perfection of Abraham Maimonides. New York and Baltimore, 1927–1938