ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Amawī

ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Amawī ( Arabic عبد العزيز بن عبد الغني الأموي, DMG ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn ʿAbd al-Ġanī al-Amawī born. 1838 in Brawa , d. 1896) was a Shafiite scholar of the Qādirīya order who advised the Sultans of Zanzibar at the end of the 19th century . He has written various works on Ashʿarite theology, which have not yet been published. Together with Ahmad ibn Sumait , he is considered one of the most important Sunni scholars of Zanzibar during the colonial era.

Life

ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz grew up in Brawa, Somali, but went to Zanzibar at a young age to study with the scholar Muhyī d-Dīn al-Qahtānī (1788–1869), who, like him, came from Brawa and from Sultan Said ibn Sultan had been appointed Chief Shafi'i Qadi of Zanzibar. When a Qādī was sought for Kilwa in 1854 , Muhyī d-Dīn chose him, even though he was only 16 years old at the time. Afterwards he exercised this office in Zanzibar himself. Together with his teacher Muhyī d-Dīn, who like him belonged to the Qādirīya, he wrote a pamphlet in which he advocated the use of musical instruments in the context of the Dhikr .

The two Bu Saʿīdī sultans Mādschid ibn Saʿīd (r. 1856-1870) and Barghasch ibn Saʿīd (r. 1870-1888) he also served as a political advisor and diplomatic envoy in Somalia , the Comoros and the Ruvuma region . During the reign of Barghash, al-Amawī is said to have proven himself in discussions with Christian missionaries, particularly with Bishop Edward Steere.

ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz also tried very hard to spread Sufi teachings in East Africa, especially the Tarīqa of the Qādirīya. Barghash, however, was a thorn in the side of ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz 'Sufi activities, because it led many Ibadis to apostasy from the Ibadi teachings. Chalīfa ibn Sagīd , the brother of the Sultan, is said to have been among the Ibadites who went over to the Shafiite teaching at that time . As a reaction to this conversion movement, Barghasch al-Amawī is said to have temporarily withdrawn the Qādī office and banned his followers from gathering. During the reign of Chalīfa ibn Saʿīd (r. 1888-1890) ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Amawī actually held the position of Prime Minister in Zanzibar. Under his successor ʿAlī ibn Saʿīd (r. 1890-1893) he gave up his Qādī office, and his son Burhān ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Amawī (1861-1935) took over the position.

In recent years, al-Amawī has once again occupied himself more intensively with the Dhikr. The background was that another propagator of the Qādirīya in East Africa, Sheikh Uwais ibn Muhammad al-Barawī (1847-1909), introduced a new practice of Dhikr , the special one, to his followers after a stay in Baghdad in the center of the brotherhood Breathing techniques included. Al-Amawī criticized these breathing techniques as "coughing and wheezing" (Swahili: kukohoa ), but also criticized the rhythmic movements of the body that were performed during this dhikr. In a Swahili poem that he wrote around 1890, he branded the cough dhikr ( dhikr ya kukohoa ) as bidʿa and "deformation" through supposedly "African" ritual practices and warned: "He who has the name of God in his mouth, shouldn't jump around and gasp ". The dispute with Sheikh Uwais is noteworthy in that he spread in Brawa that al-Amawī had become one of his 150 local deputies, and thus asserted a claim to spiritual leadership over him.

Works

Al-Amawī wrote various works on Islamic theology, Fiqh , Sufism , Arabic grammar, rhetoric and history and created a Swahili- Arabic dictionary, which however remained unfinished. None of his works have yet been published. Manuscripts of his works are kept in the National Archives of Zanzibar and in the Bū-Saʿīdī library in Sīb , Oman. These include a theological didactic poem entitled ʿIqd al-laʾālī , which was conceived as an Ashʿaritic counterpart to the māturīdite didactic poem Badʾ al-amālī by Sirādsch ad-Dīn ʿAlī ibn ʿUthmān al-Ūshī al-Farghānī (12th century) al-Amawī wrote his own commentary entitled Taqrīb ʿIqd al-laʾālī ilā fahm al-aṭfāli , as well as parts of his diaries, in which he described his two trips to the Ruvuma region.

The pamphlet on the Dhikr entitled Tauḍīḥ al-mubhamāt fī ḥukm ālāt al-malāhī , which al-Amawī wrote together with his teacher Muhyī d-Dīn al-Qahtānī, was printed in Damascus in 1936.

literature

• Abdallah Salih Farsy: The Shafiʿi ulama of East Africa, c. 1830-1970. A hagiographical account. Transl. and ed. Randall L. Pouwels. Madison WI 1989. pp. 44-50.
• Valerie J. Hoffman: "In his (Arab) majesty's service. A Somali scholar and diplomat in nineteenth-century Zanzibar" in Roman Loimeier and Rüdiger Seesemann (eds.): The global worlds of the Swahili. Interfaces of Islam, identity and space in 19th and 20th century East Africa . Berlin 2006. pp. 251-272.
• Valerie J. Hoffman: "ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Amawī" in Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE . Edited by: Kate Fleet, Gudrun Krämer, Denis Matringe, John Nawas, Everett Rowson. First published in 2007. Online
• Roman Loimeier: "The dhikr: On the social context of a religious ritual" in Der Islam 83 (2006) 170–186.
• M. Burhan Mkelle, "A scholar for all seasons. Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al Amani [sic] of Zanzibar" in Journal of the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs 13 (1992) 116-21.
• Randall L. Pouwels: Horn and Crescent: Cultural Change and Traditional Islam on the East African Coast, 800-1900 . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1987. pp. 119-120.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Cf. Farsy: The Shafiʿi ulama of East Africa . 1989, p. 44.
2. ↑ Cf. Farsy: The Shafiʿi ulama of East Africa . 1989, p. 2.
3. ↑ Cf. Farsy: The Shafiʿi ulama of East Africa . 1989, p. 46.
4. ↑ See Loimeier: "The dhikr: To the social context of a religious ritual". 2006, p. 180.
5. ↑ Cf. Farsy: The Shafiʿi ulama of East Africa . 1989, p. 44.
6. ↑ Cf. Farsy: The Shafiʿi ulama of East Africa . 1989, p. 44.
7. ↑ See Pouwels: Horn and Crescent . 1987, pp. 119f.
8. ↑ Cf. Farsy: The Shafiʿi ulama of East Africa . 1989, p. 48.
9. ↑ Cf. Farsy: The Shafiʿi ulama of East Africa . 1989, p. 46.
10. ↑ See Loimeier: "The dhikr: To the social context of a religious ritual". 2006, pp. 170f., 180.
11. ↑ See Loimeier: "The dhikr: To the social context of a religious ritual". 2006, p. 183.