Ahl al-kitāb

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Ahl al-kitāb ( Arabic أهل الكتاب , People of the book, People of the Book, the book owner ') is a term that in the Koran , the Hadith and Islamic law , the Jews and Christians are called. The statements on the Ahl al-kitāb in the Koran are ambivalent . While in some places the religious similarities between Ahl al-kitāb and Muslims are emphasized ( Sura 3 : 64, Sura 29 : 46), in many other places a distinction is made between the few good and the mostly bad Ahl al-kitāb, with the latter be assigned to the unbelievers . In Sura 9 : 29 is called to fight against these infidels until the jizyah paid. There are many traditions in the hadith which deal with Muhammad's departure from the customs of the Ahl al-kitāb.

Islamic law regulates the Kitābī , i.e. H. the members of the Ahl al-kitāb, also as unbelievers, but places him higher than the co- seller . Muslims are allowed to marry women from the Ahl al-kitāb, but not from the co-sellers. And unlike the co-sellers, the Ahl al-kitāb can enter into a protective relationship with the Islamic State through dhimma contracts if they pay the jizya. There were long discussions among Islamic scholars about the question of whether and under what conditions Muslims are allowed to eat the meat of animals slaughtered by Ahl al-kitāb. The question of extending the Ahl-al-kitāb concept to other religions has also been discussed again and again.

Koranic statements

In the Koran the term Ahl al-kitāb only appears at the beginning of the Medinian period . In total, the Ahl al-kitāb are mentioned in 35 verses. As an alternative to ahl al-kitāb , expressions such as “those to whom the book was given” ( allaḏīna ūtū l-kitāba ; e.g. Sura 2 : 144; 5 : 5) or “those to whom we brought the book before him (ie the Koran) ”( allaḏīna atainā-hum al-kitāba min qabli-hī ; e.g. 28:52).

The Ahl al-kitāb as Jews and Christians

Although there is no place in the Qur'an where the religious group meant by the expression ahl al-kitāb is clearly identified, there are several places from which it can be seen that the "book" ( kitāb ) means the Bible and thus the Expression means "followers of the Bible", ie Jews and Christians. Thus it says in sura 2: 113: “The Jews say: 'The Christians do not rely on anything.' - The Christians say: 'The Jews do not rely on anything'. Both of them read the book. ”The term also relates to the Bible from Sura 5:68, where the Ahl al-kitāb are asked to adhere to the Torah and Gospel . The reference to Judaism and Christianity also becomes clear in Sura 3 : 65-67. Here the Ahl al-kitāb are exhorted not to argue about Abraham : Abraham is neither a Jew nor a Christian, but a true believer and Hanīf .

Sura 4 contains two passages in which the term Ahl al-kitāb is clearly related to only one of the two groups. The first passage is verses 153-160, where the term refers to the Jews. First of all, it is said that the Ahl al-kitāb asked Mohammed to let a book come down on them from heaven. This behavior is related to their Israelite forefathers, who required Moses to show them God. Even though they were caught in a clap of thunder and the "evidence" ( baiyināt ) came to them, they made a golden calf (Sura 4: 153). Thereupon God lifted Mount Sinai above them, revoked the Sabbath commandment and received a firm covenant from them (Sura 4: 154). Because they broke their covenant, denied God's signs and killed the prophets for no reason, as well as slandering Mary and claiming that Jesus had killed him, God forbade them what was once allowed to do good (Sura 4: 155-160). On the day of the resurrection, Jesus will witness against those Ahl al-kitāb who did not believe in him (Sura 4: 159).

The second passage is sura 4: 171, where the term clearly refers to Christians. The Ahl al-kitāb are here warned not to go too far in their religion. They should not worship Jesus Christ as the Son of God , but only as his messenger , "his word that he addressed to Mary," and as his spirit. The verse also rejects the Christian doctrine of the Trinity : “So believe in God and his messengers and do not say: 'Three'! - Stop it, it would be better for you. For behold, God is a God. "

The search for common ground

In Sura 5:15 it is announced to the Ahl al-kitāb that God's Messenger has come to them to make clear to them much of what they have hidden from the book and to (at the same time) be indulgent towards many things. Light and a “clear book” ( kitāb mubīn ) have come to them. Again in direct address the Ahl al-kitāb is proclaimed in Sura 5:19 that God's Messenger has come to them, to give them clarity during a pause among the messengers. For them God's Messenger is a messenger of goodness ( bašīr ) and a warner ( naḏīr ). In Sura 5:65 the Ahl al-kitāb is promised that if they believe and are God-fearing , God will forgive them for their wrongdoings and allow them to enter the Paradise Garden .

A verse in sura 3 clearly shows the will to find a common ground between Muslims and Ahl al-kitāb: “Say: 'Your Ahl al-kitāb! Come to a word that is equal between us and you ( kalimat sawā' baina-nā wa-baina-kum )! That we do not serve anyone but God, that we do not associate anything with him and that we do not take each other as masters in God's stead. ' And when they turn away, say: 'Testify that we are devotees ( muslimūn )' ”(Sura 3:64). According to a tradition narrated by Ibn Ishāq , Muhammad addressed these words to the Jews of Medina, but there is also the tradition that this verse was revealed in the context of his dispute with the Christians from Najrān who came to Medina after 630 . The Egyptian reformist Muhammad ʿAbduh called this verse the " Daʿwa verse" ( āyat ad-daʿwa ) because of its fundamental importance for the Islamic missionary movement . Mohammed is said to have used this verse in his missionary letter to the Byzantine emperor Herakleios .

Similarly, in Sura 29:46, the believers are asked to quarrel with the Ahl al-kitāb only in a beautiful way , while maintaining a common belief in the one God and what has been revealed to them in the past and to Muslims in the present, to emphasize. The hope of being able to form a community with the Ahl al-kitāb is also reflected in a statement in Sura 5, which allows table fellowship and connubium with them. It reads: “Today you are allowed the good things, and the food of those to whom the book was given is allowed to you. And your food is lawful for them, and for the chaste women of the believers and of those to whom the book was given ”(Sura 5: 5).

Distinction between good and bad Ahl al-kitāb

A passage in Sura 28 shows that the Ahl al-kitāb had very positive reactions to the Koran. It reads: “Those to whom we brought the book before him believe in it. And when it is presented to them, they say: 'We believe in it. See, it is the truth from our Lord. See, we were Muslims before him . '”(Sura 28: 52f). Later exegetes explained the presupposed existence of Muslims among the pre-Islamic Ahl al-kitāb by saying that they were already familiar with the message of Islam through the Torah and the Gospel and therefore recognized Mohammed as the true prophet. In the following verses, these Ahl al-kitāb are praised for their steadfastness: they ward off evil with good and turn away from it when they hear vain talk. Therefore they should receive double wages (Sura 28: 54f). According to a tradition that is traced back to Mujāhid ibn Jabr , it was a group of Ahl al-kitāb who converted to Islam and was subsequently harassed by the Jews.

A more detailed description of the Ahl al-kitāb, in which two groups of them are distinguished, can be found in Sura 3: 110-115. The believers are therefore only a minority among the Ahl al-kitāb: "There are believers among them, but most of them are wrongdoers ( fāsiqūn )" (Sura 3: 110). The following two verses are dedicated to the description of these wrongdoers: They cannot harm the Muslims, but are themselves struck with shame and poverty because of their rebelliousness and their transgressions (Sura 3: 111f.). Thereupon the differences between the two groups are again emphasized and a more detailed description of the believing Ahl al-kitāb is given: “They are not all the same. There is an upright community among the Ahl al-kitāb ( umma qāʾima ). They bear the mark of God before, during the night, and prostrate themselves there. They believe in God and Judgment Day , command what is right, forbid what is reprehensible, and are quick to do good deeds. Those belong to the righteous ( ṣāliḥūn ) ”(Sura 3: 113f.). At the end of the passage, these righteous among the Ahl al-kitāb are offered the prospect of reward in the beyond: “For what they do of good they will not reap ingratitude. God knows those who fear God. ”- Sura 3: 115. According to Islamic tradition, the "upright community" ( umma qāʾima ) refers to a group of Jews who converted to Islam, namely ʿAbdallāh ibn Salām , Thaʿlaba ibn Saʿya and Asad ibn ʿUbaid.

The existence of the righteous among the Ahl al-kitāb is emphasized again in sura 3: 199: “Behold, among the Ahl al-kitāb there are verily some who believe in God and what has been revealed to you and to them. They are humble to God and do not sell God's mark for a small price. They are entitled to their wages from their master. ”According to Islamic tradition, this verse refers to the Negus Ashama ibn Abdjar, the Abyssinian ruler who had graciously accepted a delegation of Muhammad's followers in the previous years and showed a keen interest in their religious ideas . The reason for the revelation of this verse is said to have been the arrival of the news of the death of this ruler. When Mohammed on this occasion asked his companions to pray "for your brother who died in another country," some of his followers, referred to in the sources as Munāfiq ūn, allegedly complained that they did it for thought absurd to pray for a "Christian unbeliever" ( ʿilǧ naṣrānī ). Sura 3: 199 is said to have been the answer to this criticism. According to other understandings, the verse refers to the Jewish convert ʿAbdallāh ibn Salām or more generally to Jews and Christians who have converted to Islam.

The thought that the good are only a minority among the Ahl al-kitāb and the bad are the majority is repeated in Sura 5:66, where it says: “Among them (ie the Ahl al-kitāb) there is one Community that is measured ( umma muqtaṣida ). But there are many of them who do evil. ”According to at-Tabarīs interpretation, the“ moderate community ”( umma muqtaṣida ) means those Christians who have joined Islamic Christology , that is, regard him neither as the Son of God nor as Bastard , but as a messenger and spirit of God . Mujāhid ibn Jabr even said that only those Ahl al-kitāb were meant who had converted to Islam.

The distinction between good and bad Ahl al-kitāb can be found in various other places in the Koran. Thus, in Sura 3:75 it is emphasized that among the Ahl al-kitāb there are some who are trustworthy and others who are not trustworthy. In Sura 98: 4 explains is that those who have been given the Book, until then divided up as clear evidence ( al-baiyina ) came to them. The clear evidence, as explained earlier, is a messenger from God who gives clean sheets of paper with permanent scriptures on them (Sura 98: 2f).

Fight against the infidel Ahl al-kitāb and initiation of the jizya

Many references to the Ahl al-kitāb in the Quran are polemical in nature. Thus the unbelievers among the Ahl al-kitāb are accused of not indulging the believers, that something good is revealed to them from their Lord ( Sura 2 : 105). Many of them strove, out of envy and against their better judgment, to turn the believers into unbelievers again (Sura 2: 109). The accusation that the Ahl al-kitāb want to mislead the followers of Muhammad is also found in Sura 3 : 69: “A group of the book owners wanted to mislead you. But they only led themselves astray without realizing it. ”Those among the Ahl al-kitāb who are not trustworthy are accused of knowingly telling lies about God (Sura 3:75). Some polemical statements are also formulated as questions (e.g. Sura 3: 98f, 5:59). The Ahl al-kitāb in Sura 3: 70-71 are asked why they do not believe in the signs of God, although they see them before them, and why they confuse the truth with nothing.

Some statements about the Ahl al-kitāb refer to military events. In Sura 59 : 2 it is described that by God's work the believers are victorious over the unbelievers among the Ahl al-kitāb. He drives them out of their houses and fortresses, in which they believed they were safe and which the believers also considered impregnable. God threw horror into their hearts so that they destroyed their homes with their own hands. The verse is usually understood as a reference to the expulsion of the Jewish Banū Qainuqāʿ and is said to have been modified and expanded after the expulsion of the Jewish Banū n-Nadīr . The Ahl al-kitāb are mentioned again in Sura 59:11, which also deals with the armed conflict between the Prophet and his opponents. The verse speaks of hypocrites who promised their brethren among the disbelievers of the Ahl al-kitāb that they would go into exile with them if they were driven out and who promised help in battle but did not keep those promises. According to Islamic tradition, this statement refers to the Munāfiqūn of Medina and their promises to expel the Banū n-Nadīr.

In a verse that is placed after the trench battle and is said to refer to the Jewish tribe of the Banu Quraiza who fought against Mohammed, it is said that God those Ahl al-kitāb who helped the unbelievers come down from their fortresses and cast fear and horror into their hearts, so that the believers could partly kill them and partly take them captive ( Sura 33 : 26).

Finally, in Sura 9:29 there is a direct call to fight against the unbelievers among the Ahl al-kitāb: “Fight against those of those to whom the book was given, who do not believe in God and the Last Day, who what God and his Messenger have forbidden, not forbidding, and not belonging to the true religion until they humiliated the jizya out of hand. "The fight against this group among the Ahl al-kitāb is justified by the fact that they are" their scholars and Monks and Christ the son of Mary as masters in God's stead “although they were commanded to serve only one God (Sura 9:31). Islamic legal scholars later deduced from this verse that if the Ahl al-kitāb paid the jizya, it was no longer permissible to fight them any further.

The departure from the traditions of the Ahl al-kitāb in early Islam

Customs

According to Islamic tradition, after his arrival in Medina, Muhammad conformed to the Ahl al-kitāb in many things, such as his hairstyle. ʿAbdallāh ibn ʿAbbās is quoted as saying that he liked the agreement ( muwāfaqa ) with them even on things about which he was not commanded. After the rift with the Ahl al-kitāb, however, he is said to have ordered his followers to distance themselves from them in as many things as possible. Ibn Taimīya enumerates a number of things in which Mohammed first followed the Ahl al-kitāb but then turned away from them. This included aligning the prayer with Jerusalem, which was abrogated and replaced by aligning with the Kaaba . The turning away from Ahl al-kitāb went so far that he urged his followers to perform the prayer in shoes because the Jews took off their shoes for the prayer. After the Prophet's death, Umar ibn al-Chattāb forbade the Ahl al-kitāb to wear shoes of the type used by Muslims. A hadith traced back to rAmr ibn al-ʿĀs says that the Sahūr meal was introduced specifically to distinguish between the Muslim fasting and the fasting of the Ahl al-kitāb.

The Ismaili legal scholar Al-Qādī an-Nuʿmān (d. 974) cites a hadith according to which the Prophet gave a series of instructions to male believers regarding their body hair: they should cut the hair on their temples and the beard on their cheeks, theirs Comb your beards, shave your neck, shave your mustache briefly, but leave the ends where they are. All of this should be done so that they do not resemble the Ahl al-kitāb.

Ibn Taimīya, because of the Prophet's departure from the Ahl al-kitāb, held that it was not permissible for Muslims to adopt any of their religious teachings or practices. He justified this with the consensus of the Muslims, which goes back to the Messenger of God. And he declared: "If a man said that it is desirable for us to agree with the Ahl al-kitāb of our time, then he would have nothing to do with the religion of the Ummah ."

Textual traditions

According to a hadith that is traced back to Abū Huraira , the Ahl al-kitāb used to read the Torah in Hebrew during the time of the Prophet and interpret it in Arabic for Muslims. Among the first generations there were many people who also narrated from the Ahl al-Kitāb. One of the most trustworthy is said to have been Kaʿb al-Ahbār (d. 652). Also 'Abdallāh ibn 'Amr (d. 685) was known stories ( Qisas ) and eschatological traditions ( Ahbar al-fitan wa'l-Ahira ) to borrow from the Ahl al-kitāb. According to the Syrian hadith scholar adh-Dhahabī (d. 1348), ʿAbdallāh ibn ʿAmr was addicted to looking into the books of the Ahl al-kitāb and narrating from them. Also among the sources of teaching of Abdallāh ibn ʿAbbās are many Ahl al-kitāb.

However, there have been many reservations about adopting the traditions from the Ahl al-kitāb. Mohammed himself is said to have instructed his followers not to agree with the Ahl al-kitāb, nor to accuse them of lying, but to limit themselves in faith to what God had sent down to them in the form of the Koran. Al-Hasan al-Basrī (d. 728) considered it far-fetched to refer to the Ahl al-kitāb when interpreting the Koran. In later hadith works there is a general warning against the messages of these groups. ʿAbdallāh ibn ʿAbbās, who is actually known for his borrowings from the Ahl al-kitāb, is quoted in Sahīh al-Buchārī with the statement: “O community of Muslims! How can you consult the Ahl al-kitāb about something when your book revealed to the Messenger of God is the most recent of the news about God? You read it in an unadulterated form while God has taught you that the Ahl al-kitāb have exchanged what God wrote and changed it with their own hands, then saying that it is from God. "

Legal discussions

The question of animals for slaughter

The question of whether and to what extent it is permissible to eat the animals slaughtered by Ahl al-kitāb was particularly debated among Muslim scholars. The starting point for the discussions was the verse of the Koran: “Today you are allowed good things and the food of those to whom the book was given is allowed to you. And your food is permitted to them. ”- Sura 5: 5. The term “food” ( ṭaʿām ) in this verse was used solely to refer to animals for slaughter. Several early scholars such as ʿAbdallāh ibn ʿAbbās , asch-Shaʿbī and Makhūl ibn Abī Muslim took the view that the slaughtered animals of the Ahl al-kitāb were allowed for the Muslims on the basis of Sura 5: 5, even if the Ahl al-kitāb were cut through the Throat did not pronounce the name of Allah. They explained this with the fact that the verse was a specializing narrowing ( taḫṣīṣ ) for the generally formulated norms in Sura 6: 121 (“Eat nothing about which the name of God has not been spoken”) and Sura 5: 3 (“It is forbidden to you [...] about which someone other than God was praised ”). The permission should apply even if the Jew had pronounced the name ʿUzairs at the slaughter and the Christian had pronounced the name of Jesus at the slaughter. It is true that ʿĀ'ischa bint Abī Bakr , ʿAlī ibn Abī Tālib , ʿAbdallāh ibn ʿUmar and al-Hasan al-Basrī said that if one hears the Kitābī pronouncing a name other than that of God, one should not eat of the animal , and Mālik considered the consumption of such animals for slaughter to be makrūh , but this restriction did not apply in the event that one was ignorant of it.

Ibn Ruschd (d. 1198) also established a consensus on the permissibility of the Ahl al-kitāb animals for slaughter, but linked it to certain requirements: a) the Ahl al-kitāb must not be Christians of the Banū Taghlib; b) they cannot be apostates ; c) the Ahl al-kitāb must have slaughtered the animal for themselves; d) it is known that they invoke Allah over the animal for slaughter; e) their animal for slaughter does not belong to what has been forbidden in the Torah or to what they have forbidden themselves. The tallow of the slaughtered animal was also excluded from the consensus .

In the course of time, however, the basic permission for Sura 5: 5 in Islamic norms has been relativized considerably in Islamic law. It held, for example, some of Maliki for reprehensible to eat something a Kitabi had slaughtered for themselves. Others, conversely, believed that meat that a Kitābī slaughtered for a Muslim should not be eaten. The Muslims were asked to make sure that the slaughter was called to Allaah and not to the cross or Jesus. Still others thought it reprehensible to eat meat prepared by Ahl al-kitāb for their feasts. The Imamite scholar Bahāʾ ad-dīn al-ʿĀmilī (d. 1622) even declared the consumption of animals for slaughter of the Ahl al-kitāb forbidden and wrote a separate treatise on this for Shah ʿAbbās I. In it he claimed that both Imami and Hanbali prohibit the consumption of these animals in any case, while Hanafi , Shafi'i , and Maliki they allowed under certain circumstances.

This question was not reassessed until the end of the 19th century as part of the Islamic reform movements. For example, Siddīq Hasan Chān of the Indian Ahl-i Hadīth movement judged in his Qur'anic commentary, Fat-al-bayān , that Sura 5: 5 is evidence that the entire food of the Ahl al-kitāb, including meat, is for them Muslims are said to be halāl , even if the Ahl al-kitāb did not pronounce the name of Allah when they cut their throats, and justified this with the fact that ʿAbdallāh ibn ʿAbbās, asch-Shaʿbī and Makhūl ibn Abī Muslim had already decided so.

The Egyptian reformist Muhammad ʿAbduh (1849–1905) judged this question in a similar way in his Transvaal fatwa . The reason for this fatwa was that a Muslim from the Transvaal had addressed ʿAbduh to get his opinion on three questions. The second question was about animals slaughtered by Christians. He wanted to know whether Muslims are allowed to eat cattle that are slaughtered by Christians if they kill the cattle and only then perform the throat cut, but do not speak the Basmala , and what about sheep that slaughter Christians without Basmala. The described form of slaughter violated Islamic regulations in three ways, because 1. Sura 5: 3 contains an explicit ban on the consumption of meat from slain animals; 2. According to the consensus of the Islamic legal scholars, the throat cut must be performed while the body is alive and the animal must be killed as a result; 3. The Basmala must be spoken when cutting the throat.

Muhammad ʿAbduh, on the other hand, referred to Sura 5: 5 in his answer and recommended adhering to what the Maliki scholar Abū Bakr Ibn al-ʿArabī had taught, namely that one must orient oneself according to whether the slaughtered belonged to what commonly eaten by Christian clergy and lay people. If this is the case, said ʿAbduh, then it should be eaten because it falls under the category of “food of Ahl al-kitāb” mentioned in Sura 5: 5. It is then irrelevant how the animal in question was slaughtered. The only decisive factor is whether the spiritual leaders of the Ahl al-kitāb approved the type of slaughter. The view that the permission from Sura 5: 5 only referred to those Ahl al-kitāb who had converted to Islam, ʿAbduh rejected with the argument that the restriction to this narrow group of people does not result from the Quranic verse. Rather, the verse serves to avert difficulty ( ḥaraǧ ) in dealing with the Ahl al-kitāb.

After Muhammad ʿAbduh, Raschīd Ridā (1865–1935) and Yūsuf al-Qaradāwī also took this position. However, it still represents a minority position. In contemporary Islamic advisory forums such as IslamOnline , which focus on life in a non-Muslim environment as a special framework, the consumption of animals that have been slaughtered by Jews or Christians is permitted, but recommended at the same time pronounced to consume meat that has been slaughtered Islamically if possible.

The question of how to deal with the Ahl al-kitāb

The question of how to deal with the Ahl al-kitāb was also discussed again and again. In British India, for example, the Ahl-i Hadīth scholar Saiyid Imdād ul-ʿAlī Murādābādī (d. Ca.1886), who was considered a particularly loyal subject of the British Crown, published two writings in which he warned against to maintain confidential contact with Ahl al-kitāb or to eat meals with them.

Muhammad ʿAbduh took a completely different attitude. In his Transvaal fatwa of 1903, he declared not only the eating of animals slaughtered by Ahl al-kitāb to be permitted, but also the wearing of kitābī clothing, arguing that the Koran does not explicitly forbid this. This should apply in particular to those Muslims who have to live with Europeans.

The Iranian Shiite scholar Abū ʿAbdallāh az-Zanschānī (1891-1941) published an Arabic book in Baghdad in 1926 in which he tried to prove the purity of the Ahl al-kitāb. The background to the writing of his book was that he had made a pilgrimage to Mecca in 1924 and used a steamship , the crew of which consisted almost exclusively of non-Muslims. This experience made him think about the question of whether Muslims are allowed to associate with non-Muslims. Az-Zanjani discussed the question using quotations from the Koran and Shiite literature. In particular, he wants to show that Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians do not fall under the category of Muschrik ūn. As a result, he came to the conclusion that Muslims may associate with people belonging to these religious groups if they take the necessary precautions. However, the book was confiscated in Iraq .

The extension of the Ahl-al-kitāb status to other religious groups

While the Koran also uses the term ahl al-kitāb for Jews and Christians who have converted to Islam, Islamic usage in the post-Koran period reserved the term for those Jews and Christians who did not convert to Islam. Asch-Shahrastānī (d. 1153), who in his doxographic work al-Milal wa-n-niḥal divided all of the religious and philosophical teachings known to him into categories, assigns the Ahl al-Kitāb in this system to those groups that contain one have their own Sharia and their own normative provisions ( aḥkām ), punishments ( ḥudūd ) and symbols ( aʿlām ), but are “outside the Islamic community and Sharia”. According to Islamic law, in principle all Christians and Jews belonged to the Ahl al-kitāb. Only among the Arab Christians of the Banū Taghlib was membership of the Ahl al-kitāb controversial. It played a role here that the Banū Taghlib, in contrast to the other Ahl al-kitāb, did not pay jizya . Others said they were not real Christians.

Inclusion of Majus and dualists

The Ahl-al-kitāb status was extended to the so-called Majūs very early on . The basis for this was a tradition that Mālik ibn Anas cites in his Muwattā . Accordingly, one day TagesUmar ibn al-Chattāb mentioned the Majūs and expressed his perplexity about how to deal with them. Then ʿAbd ar-Rahmān ibn ʿ Auf is said to have said: "I testify that I heard the messengers of God say: Use the same Sunnah with them as with the Ahl al-kitāb". In the Ismaili legal literature it is narrated that ʿAlī ibn Abī Tālib assigned the Majūs to the Ahl al-kitāb. He is said to have said: "The Majūs are Ahl al-kitāb, only their affair has been wiped out" ( al-Maǧūs ahl al-kitāb illā anna-hū indaras amru-hum ). In addition, ʿAlī is said to have ordered that the jizya be drawn in from the Majus.

Ash-Shahrastani divided the Ahl al-kitāb into two categories: 1. Those who have a secured book ( kitāb ) such as the Torah and the Gospel and are therefore referred to in the Koran as ahl al-kitāb ; 2. Those who only have something like book ( šubhat kitāb ) because their real book has been raptured back to heaven. The first group includes al-Shahrastani the Jews and Christians with their various subgroups, the second group the Majus and the dualists . The latter, he explains, are also considered to be Ahl al-kitāb in a broader sense, so that alliances and protection treaties may be concluded with them , but it is not allowed to marry them or to eat their slaughtered animals. Ash-Shahrastani uses the term Majus for the followers of Zoroastrianism and Zurvanism and under the name of dualism he summarizes the Manichaeans , the Mazdakites , the Bardesanites and the Marcionites .

The Hanbali scholar Ibn Qaiyim al-Dschauzīya (d. 1350), on the other hand, considered it wrong to attribute the Majus to the Ahl al-kitāb. His argument was that the Koran ( Sura 6 : 156) speaks of the fact that before the Koran the book was only revealed to two groups. From this he concluded that it could only mean Jews and Christians. He also objected to equating the idolaters ( ʿabadat al-auṯān ) in the jizya with the Ahl al-kitāb, as Abū Hanīfa had propagated, because he believed that the disbelief of the companions was worse than the disbelief of the Ahl al-kitāb .

The fatwa of Rashīd Ridā

At the beginning of the 20th century, the reformist Raschīd Ridā again advocated a more generous use of the Ahl-al-kitāb concept in a fatwa. The reason for this fatwa was that a Javanese Muslim asked him if it was allowed to marry pagan women from China and to eat meat slaughtered by Chinese butchers. Rashīd Ridā said that the use of the term for Jews and Christians in the Koran does not exclude that there may be other Ahl al-kitāb in the world, especially since the Koran says that God has sent messengers to every community and as warner and messenger of goodness ( Sura 25:24). Just as the Jews and Christians would have to be judged all other groups "who have books whose origin is not known" ( man ʿinda-hum kutub lā yuʿrafu aṣlu-hā ) like the Majus and other groups of their kind. "are still owners of books which the unit commitment include," he reckoned alongside the Madschūs the Sabians and the followers of pagan religions in India, China and Japan. He said of them that their books were of heavenly origin, but had been falsified in a similar way to the books of the Jews and Christians. Therefore, Muslims are allowed to marry their wives, just as it is allowed to marry the wives of Jews and Christians.

In Southeast Asia , Rashīd Ridās fatwa is understood to mean that he also wanted to include Hindus , Buddhists and Confucians in the Ahl al-kitāb. While in Indonesia this expansion of the concept to the South and East Asian religions was advocated by Jarot Wahyudi as a good basis for interreligious dialogue , two scholars from the Science University Malaysia , MA Sabjan and N. Sh. Mata Akhir, rejected this extension as "absurd" and demanded that the term be used only for Jews and Christians who stand in the tradition of the Israelites .

literature

Arabic sources
  • Bahāʾ ad-dīn al-ʿĀmilī : Ḥurmat Ḏabāʾiḥ ahl al-kitāb . Muʾassasat al-Aʿlamī, Beirut, 1990.
  • Ibn Qaiyim al-Ǧauzīya : Aḥkām ahl aḏ-ḏimma . Ed. Yūsuf ibn Aḥmad al-Bakrī and Šākir ibn Taufīq al-ʿĀrūrī. Ramādī an-našr, ad-Dammām, 1997. Digitized
  • Ibn Taimīya : Iqtiḍāʾ aṣ-ṣirāṭ al-mustaqīm li-muḫālafat aṣḥāb al-ǧaḥīm . 2 vols. Maktabat ar-Rušd, Riyad, 1998. Digitized
  • Rašīd Riḍā : Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ḥakīm (Tafsīr al-Manār) . 12 Vol. Al-Haiʾa al-Miṣrīya al-ʿāmma li-l-kitāb, Cairo, 1990. Vol. VI, pp. 156-160. Online version
  • Rašīd Riḍā : Taʾrīḫ al-ustāḏ al-imām 2nd ed. Dār al-Faḍīla, 2006. Vol. I, pp. 672-677. Digitized
  • Muḥammad aš-Šahrastānī : al-Milal wa-n-niḥal Ed. Aḥmad Fahmī Muḥammad. Dār al-Kutub al-ʿilmīya, Beirut, 1992. pp. 227-256. Digitized - German transl. Theodor Haarbrücker. 2 vols. Halle 1850–51. Part I, pp. 244-270. Digitized
Secondary literature
  • Charles C. Adams: "Muḥammad ʿAbduh and the Transvaal Fatwa" in Macdonald Presentation Volume Princeton University Press, New York, 1933. pp. 13-29. Digitized
  • Ignaz Goldziher : About Muslim polemics against Ahl al-kitâb in the magazine of the Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft 32 (1878) 341-387. Digitized
  • Ignaz Goldziher: The directions of the Islamic Koran interpretation . Brill, Leiden, 1920.
  • Emily Benichou Gottreich: Ahl al-kitāb. In: Dan Diner (Ed.): Encyclopedia of Jewish History and Culture (EJGK). Volume 1: A-Cl. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2011, ISBN 978-3-476-02501-2 , pp. 17-20.
  • Erwin Gräf: Hunting prey and slaughter animal in Islamic law. An investigation into the development of Islamic jurisprudence . Self-published Oriental Seminar of the University of Bonn, Bonn, 1959. pp. 272–277.
  • Meir Kister: "'Do Not Assimilate Yourselves ...' Lā Tashabbahū" in Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 12 (1989) 321-353.
  • Heinz-Otto Luthe: "'Ahl al-kitab' - 'Frères devant Dieu': quelques prices de position sur les relations islamo-chrétiennes" in Heinz Otto Luthe, Marie-Thérèse Urvoy (dir.): Relations islamo-chrétiennes: bilan et perspectives. Ed. de Paris, Versailles, 2007. pp. 101-124.
  • JD McAuliffe: "Persian exegetical evaluation of the ahl al-kitāb" in Muslim World 73 (1983) 87-105.
  • Muhammad Azizan Sabjan and Noor Shakirah Mata Akhir: "The concept of the People of the Book (ahl al-Kitāb) in Islamic religious tradition" in Afkār: Journal of ʿAqīdah and Islamic Thought 6 (2005): 15-35.
  • Jens Scheiner : "Al-Ḥākim, the Šurūṭ al-ʿUmarīya and the Ahl al-Kitāb" in Hinrich Biesterfeldt and Verena Klemm (eds.): Difference and dynamics in Islam: Festschrift for Heinz Halm on his 70th birthday . Ergon, Würzburg, 2012. pp. 37-54.
  • Paula Schrode: Sunni-Islamic Discourses on Halal Diet: Constitution of Religious Practice and Social Positioning among Muslims in Germany . Ergon, Würzburg, 2010. pp. 186-189.
  • Moshe Sharon: Art. "People of the Book" in Jane Dammen McAuliffe (ed.): Encyclopaedia of the Qur'an . Volume IV. Brill, Leiden 2004. pp. 36-43.
  • G. Vajda: Art. "Ahl al-Kitāb" in The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition . Vol. I, pp. 264a-266a.
  • Jarot Wahyudi: Exegetical Analysis of the "Ahl al-kitāb" Verses of the Qur'an in Islamic Studies 37 (1998) 425-443.
  • Jarot Wahyudi: Ahl al-kitāb: a Qurʾānic invitation to inter-faith co-operation . Pilar Religia, Yogyakarta, 2005.

supporting documents

  1. ↑ Cf. G. Bergsträsser: Fundamentals of Islamic Law . Edited u. ed. by J. Schacht. Berlin-Leipzig 1935. pp. 44f.
  2. ↑ See Sharon: "People of the Book". 2004, p. 39b.
  3. ↑ See Sharon: "People of the Book". 2004, p. 39b.
  4. ↑ Cf. Wahyudi: Exegetical Analysis of the "Ahl al-kitāb" Verses of the Qur'an. 1998, p. 427.
  5. ↑ Cf. Wahyudi: Exegetical Analysis of the "Ahl al-kitāb" Verses of the Qur'an. 1998, p. 429f.
  6. ↑ See McAuliffe: "Persian exegetical evaluation of the ahl al-kitāb". 1983, p. 102.
  7. ↑ See McAuliffe: "Persian exegetical evaluation of the ahl al-kitāb". 1983, p. 102.
  8. ↑ Cf. Wahyudi: Exegetical Analysis of the "Ahl al-kitāb" Verses of the Qur'an. 1998, p. 434.
  9. ↑ Cf. ʿAbd ar-Raḥmān as-Suhailī: at-Taʿrīf wa-l-iʿlām fīmā ubhima min al-asmāʾ wa-l-aʿlām fī l-qurʾān al-karīm . Ed. ʿAbdā Muhannā. Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmīya, Beirut, 1987. p. 38.
  10. ↑ See McAuliffe: "Persian exegetical evaluation of the ahl al-kitāb". 1983, p. 93.
  11. ↑ See McAuliffe: "Persian exegetical evaluation of the ahl al-kitāb". 1983, p. 94.
  12. ↑ See McAuliffe: "Persian exegetical evaluation of the ahl al-kitāb". 1983, pp. 98f.
  13. ↑ See McAuliffe: "Persian exegetical evaluation of the ahl al-kitāb". 1983, p. 100.
  14. ↑ See Sharon: "People of the Book". 2004, p. 41b.
  15. ↑ See Sharon: "People of the Book". 2004, p. 42a.
  16. ↑ See Sharon: "People of the Book". 2004, p. 41b.
  17. ↑ Sura 9:29
  18. ↑ Cf. Scheiner: "Al-Ḥākim, the Šurūṭ al-ʿUmarīya and the Ahl al-Kitāb". 2012, p. 40.
  19. ↑ Cf. Ibn Taimīya: Iqtiḍāʾ aṣ-ṣirāṭ al-mustaqīm . 1998, p. 416.
  20. ↑ Cf. Kister: "'Do Not Assimilate Yourselves' ...". 1989, p. 329.
  21. ↑ Cf. Ibn Taimīya: Iqtiḍāʾ aṣ-ṣirāṭ al-mustaqīm . 1998, p. 416.
  22. ↑ Cf. Kister: "'Do Not Assimilate Yourselves' ...". 1989, p. 347.
  23. ↑ Cf. at-Tirmiḏī : al -Ǧāmiʿ al-kabīr , Ed. Baššār ʿAuwād Maʿrūf. Dār al-Ġarb al-Islāmī, Beirut, 1996. Vol. II, p. 81 ( Mā ǧāʾa fī faḍl as-saḥūr , No. 708). Digitized
  24. ↑ Cf. al-Qāḍī Nuʿmān : Daʿāʾim al-islām wa-ḏikr al-ḥalāl wa-l-qaḍāyā wa-l-aḥkām . Ed. Asaf A. Fyzee. 2 vols. Cairo 1951-1960. Vol. I, p. 124.
  25. ↑ Cf. Ibn Taimīya: Iqtiḍāʾ aṣ-ṣirāṭ al-mustaqīm . 1998, p. 421.
  26. ↑ Cf. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Buḫārī : Kitāb al-Iʿtiṣām bi-l-kitāb. Bāb Qaul an-nabī lā tasʾalū ahl al-kitāb ʿan šaiʾ No. 6927, 6928 online version ( memento of February 6, 2016 in the Internet Archive ).
  27. ↑ Cf. Goldziher: The directions of the Islamic Koran interpretation . 1920, p. 59.
  28. ↑ Cf. aḏ-Ḏahabī: Siyar aʿlām al-nubalāʾ. Ed. Shuʿaib al-Arnaʾūṭ and Ḥusain al-Asad. Mu'assasat ar-Risāla, Beirut, 1981. Vol. III, p. 81.
  29. ↑ Cf. Goldziher: The directions of the Islamic Koran interpretation . 1920, p. 68.
  30. ↑ Cf. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Buḫārī : Kitāb al-Iʿtiṣām bi-l-kitāb. Bāb Qaul an-nabī lā tasʾalū ahl al-kitāb ʿan šaiʾ No. 6927 Online version ( Memento of February 6, 2016 in the Internet Archive ).
  31. ↑ Cf. Goldziher: The directions of the Islamic Koran interpretation . 1920, p. 58.
  32. ↑ Cf. Goldziher: The directions of the Islamic Koran interpretation . 1920, p. 68.
  33. ↑ Quotation. Cf. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Buḫārī: Kitāb aš-šahādāt. Bāb Qaul an-nabī lā yusʾal ahl aš-širk ʿan aš-šahāda wa-ġairi-hā No. 2539 Online ( Memento from February 6, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) and the German translation by Goldziher: "On Muslim polemics against Ahl al- kitâb ". 1878, p. 344.
  34. ↑ See Rašīd Riḍā: Taʾrīḫ al-ustāḏ al-imām 2006. Vol. I, p. 677.
  35. ↑ Cf. Gräf: Hunting Booty and Slaughtered Animal . 1959, pp. 272f.
  36. ↑ See Rašīd Riḍā: Taʾrīḫ al-ustāḏ al-imām 2006. Vol. I, p. 677f.
  37. ↑ See Rašīd Riḍā: Taʾrīḫ al-ustāḏ al-imām 2006. Vol. I, p. 677f.
  38. ↑ Cf. Gräf: Hunting Booty and Slaughtered Animal . 1959, pp. 272f.
  39. ↑ Cf. M. Rodinson: " Gh i dh āʾ" in The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition Vol. II, pp. 1057a-1072b. Here p. 1065b.
  40. ↑ See Bahāʾ ad-dīn al-ʿĀmilī: Ḥurmat Ḏabāʾiḥ ahl al-kitāb . 1990, p. 59.
  41. ↑ See Rašīd Riḍā: Taʾrīḫ al-ustāḏ al-imām 2006. Vol. I, p. 677.
  42. ↑ See Adams: "Muḥammad ʿAbduh". 1933, p. 16.
  43. ↑ See Adams: "Muḥammad ʿAbduh". 1933, pp. 17f., 25.
  44. ↑ See Adams: "Muḥammad ʿAbduh". 1933, p. 25f.
  45. ↑ See Schrode: Sunni-Islamic discourses on halal nutrition . 2010, p. 188.
  46. ↑ See Claudia Preckel: Islamic educational networks and scholarly culture in India in the 19th century: Muḥammad Ṣiddīq Ḥasan Ḫān (d. 1890) and the emergence of the Ahl-e ḥadīṯ movement in Bhopal . Bochum, Univ., Diss., 2005. p. 279.
  47. ↑ See Rašīd Riḍā : Taʾrīḫ al-ustāḏ al-imām 2nd edition Dār al-Faḍīla, 2006. Vol. III, p. 167. Digitized
  48. ↑ Cf. FK: Review of Ṭahārat Ahl al-Kitāb by Abu 'Abd Allah az-Zinjānī in Journal of the Royal Asian Society of Great Britain and Ireland 1 (1928) 202-204.
  49. ↑ Cf. aš-Šahrastānī: al-Milal wa-n-niḥal . 1992. p. 227. - Dt. Übers. Haarbrücker. Vol. I, pp. 244f.
  50. ↑ Cf. Gräf: Hunting Booty and Slaughtered Animal . 1959, pp. 272f.
  51. ^ Cf. Mālik ibn Anas: Al-Muwatta: The first formulation of Islamic Law. Translated by Aisha Abdurrahman Bewley. Kegan Paul, London a. New York, 1989. p. 107b.
  52. ↑ Cf. al-Qāḍī Nuʿmān : Daʿāʾim al-islām wa-ḏikr al-ḥalāl wa-l-qaḍāyā wa-l-aḥkām . Ed. Asaf A. Fyzee. 2 vols. Cairo 1951-1960. Vol. I, p. 380.
  53. ↑ Cf. aš-Šahrastānī: al-Milal wa-n-niḥal . 1992. p. 227. - Dt. Übers. Haarbrücker. Vol. I, pp. 244f.
  54. ↑ Cf. aš-Šahrastānī: al-Milal wa-n-niḥal . 1992. pp. 256-287. - German Übers. Haarbrücker. Vol. I, pp. 270-299.
  55. ↑ Cf. Ibn Qaiyim al-Ǧauzīya: Aḥkām ahl aḏ-ḏimma . 1997, p. 83.
  56. ↑ Cf. Ibn Qaiyim al-Ǧauzīya: Aḥkām ahl aḏ-ḏimma . 1997, p. 95.
  57. ↑ Cf. Wahyudi: Ahl al-kitāb . 2005, p. 26.
  58. ↑ Cf. Rašīd Riḍā: Tafsīr al-manār . 1990, p. 156.
  59. ↑ Cf. Rašīd Riḍā: Tafsīr al-manār . 1990, p. 157.
  60. ↑ Cf. Rašīd Riḍā: Tafsīr al-manār . 1990, p. 160.
  61. ↑ See Sabjan / Mata Akhir: "The concept of the People of the Book . 2005, 28.
  62. ↑ Cf. Wahyudi: Ahl al-kitāb . 2005, p. 26.
  63. ↑ See Sabjan / Mata Akhir: "The concept of the People of the Book . 2005, 29-31.