Abd al-Aziz ibn Baz

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ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Bāz (عبد العزيز بن عبد الله بن باز, DMG ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz bin ʿAbd Allāh bin Bāz ; also: Abdul-Aziz bin Baz ; born in 1912 (usually November 21, 1910 is mentioned) in Riyadh , Saudi Arabia ; died May 13, 1999 ) was a Saudi Qādī and scholar of Wahhabi - Salafist orientation. From 1992 until his death in 1999 he worked as the Grand Mufti of his home country. Bin Bāz was one of the few scholars who had good relations with many Islamist movements, for example the Muslim Brotherhood , the followers of the Sahwa , the Ahl-i Hadīth or the Tablighi Jamaat . His doctrines are therefore also influential in these currents.

The Ibn Baz Mosque in Yanbu

Life

When Bin Bāz was three years old, his father died. This forced him and his brother to sell clothes in the market. He went out at the same time continue to study out why he, when he became sexually mature (al-bulūġ) , the Koran had memorized . He then began to study sciences and Arabic with a variety of scholars in Riyadh Sharʿīa . When he was 16 years old, his eyesight deteriorated until he became completely blind at the age of 20. He studied with Muhammad bin Ibrāhīm Āl al-Sheikh , a grandson of Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb and the most important teacher in the Najd . Muhammad bin Ibrāhīm Āl al-Sheikh was also bin Bāz's predecessor in the office of the Saudi Arabian Grand Mufti, a position that was vacant between Muhammad bin Ibrāhīm Āl al-Sheikh's death in 1969 and Bin Bāz's appointment in 1992.

From 1938 to 1951 he was Qādī in al-Khardj , until he was appointed teacher at the Riyadh Institute of Science (Dār al-Rāya) in the same year . In order to curb Arab nationalism, King Saʿūd ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz founded a new university in Medina, the Islamic University of Medina, in 1961 . Muhammad bin Ibrāhīm Āl al-Sheikh was appointed President and Bin Bāz was appointed Vice President. He held his position there until 1992, when he became the Saudi Arabian Grand Mufti, Chairman of the Council of Supreme Religious Scholars (Hayʾat Kibār al-ʿUlamāʾ) and President of the Standing Committee on Legal Affairs (Idārat al-Buḥūth al-ʿIlmiyya wa-l-Iftāʾ) was appointed. These positions were not filled until after his death in 1999. During his time as Grand Mufti, he hosted a radio program entitled "Light on the Path" (Nūr ʿalā d-darb) to discuss new developments and issue fatwas . The latter are available in transcription on his Arabic homepage.

Political positions

The American Islamic scholar Natana J. DeLong-Bas writes in an entry in the Encyclopaedia of Islam that ibn Baz “celebrated his political debut” in the early 1940s. In a fatwa, he concluded from the ban on entry for unbelievers ( kāfir ) in Mecca and Medina that this should be extended to the entire Arabian Peninsula . Only those who do work for which no Muslim is qualified are allowed to come to the peninsula temporarily. Unbelievers who are on the peninsula would have to be deported. With this view, Bin Bāz attacked his country's politics, which resulted in his first imprisonment - the duration and location are unknown. His reasoning was based on a hadeeth which said that Jews and Christians should be expelled from the Arabian Peninsula until only Muslims remained there. Other scholars such as Yūsuf al-Qaradāwī, however, interpreted the hadeeth differently and limited its effectiveness only to Mecca and Medina.

After King ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz Saʿūd Bin Bāz was able to convince during a conversation that public criticism was damaging the stability of the Islamic state, Bin Bāz was released. But his name was now well known in conservative circles. In public, Bin Bāz remained a critic of the speed of modernization in Saudi Arabia, but he formulated his criticism more moderately and at the same time tried to legitimize Saudi Arabian politics with fatwas. So he condemned the occupation of the Great Mosque in 1979 , since this action provokes Fitna . However, Bin Bāz resisted declaring the attackers as apostates . The French scholar of Islam, Gilles Kepel, sees the reason for this stance in the fact that many of bin Bāz's students were among the attackers. DeLong-Bas also mentions his fatwa from 1990 in which he endorsed the presence of US troops in Saudi Arabia in the course of the Gulf War against Saddam Hussein , his 1993 support for the Oslo peace process , his rejection of the 1995 attack in Riyadh and his criticism to Usāma bin Lādin .

Bin Bāz's public support for the peace process between Israel and Palestine was sharply critical of Usāma bin Lādin. In an open letter, bin Lādin bin Bāz accused Islamic legitimacy of a peace signed by "cowardly Arab politicians". The signatories are also not Muslims, but secularists, whom Bin Bāz had already described in a fatwa as unbelievers (kuffār) . According to the Sharia , only Muslims who have been called by consensus to negotiate peace between Muslims and their enemies can , according to bin Lādin. In addition, Bin Bāz should not have published a fatwa on this issue because he had not read the treaties and did not understand the complexity of the situation. Therefore, Bin Bāz should resign as Grand Mufti and no longer comment on the subject. In addition to these accusations, bin Lādin's open letter also contains messages from Safar al-Hawālī , Salmān al-ʿAuda , ʿAbd Allah ibn Jibrīn and ten other scholars, who also warn bin Bāz of the consequences of his fatwa.

Teaching

Bin Bāz's doctrines were characterized by reading the Koran and Hadīth to the letter . Most of his publications deal with rites, especially prayer , fasting and pilgrimage. Critics complain that Bin Bāz mostly ignored social realities. For example, his demands for a ban on cigarettes , clapping or the presence of women in public spaces. But because he was bmūd as-Sawwāf in strictly conservative circles, which the Islamic scholar Werner Ende traced in an article. As-Sawwāf was the spiritual leader of the Iraqi organization The Islamic Brotherhood (al-uchuwwa al-islāmīya) , who was said to be the Iraqi arm of the Muslim Brotherhood banned in Iraq . As-Sauwāf taught Arabic and Sharia in Mecca. An open exchange of blows developed between him and Bin Bāz over the question of the extent to which the knowledge of modern astronomy necessitates a reinterpretation of Koranic statements about the earth, sun and other stars, or to what extent the Koran refers to these new insights. Bin Bāz described the idea that the earth revolves around the sun as incompatible with Koranic statements, which is why it should be regarded as unbelief (kufr) . This attitude caused quite a stir inside and outside of Saudi Arabia. A destruction of bin Bāz 'writings as a result of a royal order by King Faisal ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz Āl Saʿūd could not stop the spread.

There was hardly an Islamic scholar who kept bin Bāz's back free. The followers of the Islamic modernism founded by Muhammad ʿAbduh , whose core idea is the compatibility of science and religion, all sided with as-Sauwāf. Among others, the Abū l-Aʿlā Maudūdī , who is also respected in Saudi Arabia, wrote a letter as-Sauwāf took his side. The international reception of this discussion and the negative image it brought about Islam into the world prompted as-Sauwāf to publish his arguments in a book. One consequence of this controversy, according to the end, was that bin Bāz "is regarded as the spokesman for those stubborn old Wahhabis, with whom one can easily get the impression that they would like to wipe out the last traces of modernism in Salafiya [sic!]".

He distanced himself from an alleged statement that the earth was flat and not round. Previously, there were excerpts that were supposed to prove that this was his opinion.

Bin Bāz was also against positive law . Bin Bāz opposed the practice of his teacher Muhammad ibn Ibrāhīm, who approved royal decrees provided that they drew a clear line between believers and unbelievers. For him, the condition of the law (šarṭ al-istiḥlāl) had to be given. According to the Islamic scholar Stéphane Lacroix, the meaning of this condition is that the introduction of a law that is against God's laws is a great act of disbelief (kufr akbar) . When a Kuwaiti magazine asked Bin Bāz that he disregarded his teacher with this opinion, the latter replied that his teacher was only a scholar and not a prophet. So sometimes he could be right, sometimes wrong.

In 1991 activists of the Sahwa movement convinced Bin Bāz to sign a unilateral "letter of demands" (ḫiṭāb al-maṭālib) . In it, 400 scholars called on the Saudi Arabian King Fahd ibn ʿAbd al-Azīz, among other things, to set up a consultative council and to compare all laws and foreign policy alliances with regard to their conformity with Sharia law . After Bin Bāz signed, Muhammad ibn al-ʿUthaimīn was persuaded to put his signature on the document. The names of Bin Bāz and al-ʿUthaimīn made the demands appear legitimate to the public and prevented the "Council of Great Scholars" (Haiʾat kibār al-ʿulamāʾ) from completely rejecting the document. The Dap ist of the letter was nevertheless banned in a fatwa, as "advice to the king should be given under certain circumstances and in certain ways". It was a victory for the Sahwa movement nonetheless. One consequence was that the Consultative Assembly was convened for the first time in 1992 .

literature

  • Natana J. DeLong-Bas: Bin Bāz . In: Kate Fleet, Gudrun Krämer, Denis Matringe, John Nawas, Everett Rowson (eds.): Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE. Brill Online, 2016.
  • Werner Ende: Religion, Politics and Literature in Saudi Arabia. The intellectual background of the religious and cultural-political situation . In: Orient. German magazine for politics and economics of the Orient . Volume 23. No. 3. 1982. Available online
  • Mamoun Fandy: Saudi Arabia and the Politics of Dissent . Houndmills, et al. 1999, MacMillan Press LTD.
  • Dore Gold: Hatred's Kingdom - How Saudi Arabia Supports the New Global Terrorism . Washington, DC, 2003, Regnery Publishing, Inc. Digitized
  • Gilles Kepel: The War for Muslim Minds - Islam and the West . Cambridge, Massachusetts and London 2004, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
  • Stéphane Lacroix: Awakening Islam - The Politics of Religious Dissent in Contemporary Saudi Arabia . Cambridge and London 2011, Harvard University Press.
  • aš-Shaiḫ Muḥammad bin Mūsā al-Mūsā (narration) and Muḥammad bin Ibrāhīm al-Ḥamd (elaboration): Ǧawānib min sīrat al-Imām ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz bin Bāz . Riad 2002, Dār ibn Ḫuzaima. Accessible online
  • Nabil Mouline : The Clerics of Islam - Religious Authority and Political Power in Saudi Arabia . New Haven & London 2014, Yale University Press. Digitized
  • Unknown: The influence of Sheikh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Bāz on the Saudi and international characteristics of Wahhabism . Heimerzheim 2018, Academy for the Protection of the Constitution. Accessible online
  • Mark Watson: Prophets and princes - Saudi Arabia from Muhammad to the present . New Jersey 2008, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

student

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Stéphane Lacroix: Awakening Islam - The Politics of Religious Dissent in Contemporary Saudi Arabia. Cambridge / London 2011, Harvard University Press, p. 78.
  2. ↑ Natana J. DeLong-Bas: Bin Bāz . In: Kate Fleet, Gudrun Krämer, Denis Matringe, John Nawas, Everett Rowson (eds.): Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE. Brill Online, 2016.
  3. ↑ aš-Šaiḫ Muḥammad bin Mūsā al-Mūsā (story) and Muḥammad bin Ibrāhīm al-Ḥamd (elaboration): Ǧawānib min sīrat al-Imām ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz bin Bāz. Riad 2002, Dār ibn Ḫuzaima, p. 30. Accessible online
  4. ↑ Mamoun Fandy: Saudi Arabia and the Politics of Dissent . Houndmills, et al. 1999, MacMillan Press LTD, p. 123.
  5. ^ Dore Gold: Hatred's Kingdom - How Saudi Arabia Supports the New Global Terrorism . Washington, DC, 2003, Regnery Publishing, Inc., p. 166. Digitized
  6. ↑ Nabil Mouline: The Clerics of Islam - Religious Authority and Political Power in Saudi Arabia . New Haven & London 2014, Yale University Press, pp. 132-133. Digitized
  7. ↑ DeLong-Bas: Bin Bāz .
  8. ↑ DeLong-Bas: Bin Bāz .
  9. ^ Gille Kepel: The War for Muslim Minds - Islam and the West . Cambridge, Massachusetts and London 2004, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, p. 165.
  10. ↑ Kepel 2004, p. 166.
  11. ↑ Kepel 2004, pp. 166-167.
  12. ↑ DeLong-Bas: Bin Bāz .
  13. ↑ The Arabic version of the text can be found under Usāma bin Lādin: Risāla maftūḥa li-š-Šaiḫ ibn Bāz bi-buṭlān fatwā-hi bi-ṣ-ṣulḥ maʿa l-yuhūd . Accessible online . The political scientist Mamoun Fandy has summarized the letter in English: Fandy 1999, pp. 187-189.
  14. ↑ Ende, Werner: Religion, Politics and Literature in Saudi Arabia. The intellectual background of the religious and cultural-political situation . In: Orient. German magazine for politics and economics of the Orient . Volume 23, No. 3, 1982. pp. 380-381. Accessible online
  15. ^ End of 1982, p. 382. Accessible online
  16. ^ Mark Watson: Prophets and princes - Saudi Arabia from Muhammad to the present . New Jersey 2008, John Wiley & Sons, p. 196.
  17. ↑ End of 1982, pp. 382-384. Accessible online
  18. ↑ Ibn Baz (April 15, 1966). "Refuting and criticizing what has been published in" Al-Musawwir "magazine". "Al-Musawwir" magazine (Part No. 3; Page No. 157). The General Presidency of Scholarly Research and Ifta of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
  19. ↑ Lacroix 2011, p. 76.
  20. ↑ The English translation of the letter can be found in Lacroix 2011, pp. 179–181, the classification on pp. 181–185.
personal data
SURNAME Ibn Baz, Abd al-Aziz
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ibn Bāzʿ, Abd al-ʿAzīz; Baz, Abdul-Aziz bin; عبد العزيز بن عبد الله بن باز (Arabic)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Islamic clergyman and Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia
DATE OF BIRTH November 21, 1910
PLACE OF BIRTH Riyadh , Saudi Arabia
DATE OF DEATH May 13, 1999