al-Hasan al-Basrī

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Abū Saʿīd al-Hasan ibn Abī l-Hasan al-Basrī ( Arabic ابو سعيد الحسن بن ابي الحسن البصري, DMG Abū Saʿīd al-Ḥasan ibn Abi l-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī ; * 642 in Medina ; † 728 in Basra ) or Hassan von Basra was a Muslim Koran scholar and preacher who played an important role in the canonization of the Koran text and in the Islamic discussions about predestination ( qadar ). Due to the great authority he had, a rich pseudepigraphic literature later developed around him . Both Muʿtazilites and Sunnis claimed him as a representative of their own direction. Al-Hasan al-Basri also enjoyed a high reputation early on in Sufi circles. Several orders accepted him into their Silsila .

Lineage and Life

Al-Hasan was the son of a slave who was originally called Pērōz and was captured during the Wars of Conquest in the Maisān countryside in Iraq and brought to Medina . In Medina he was soon released by his mistress and married Chaira, Hasan's mother.

According to Islamic tradition, al-Hasan grew up in the hijaz . After the Battle of Siffin , he settled in Basra, where he was widely valued for his erudition and piety. In his younger years, between 663 and 666, he participated in several campaigns of Muslim troops to conquer Iran. In 666 he entered the administration in Sistan . The governor gave him the task of building up the tax office there. He was a political opponent of the second Umayyad caliph Yazid I (680–683), during whose rule the second civil war ( Fitna ) covered all of Iraq, Syria and the Hejaz . During the reign of Abd al-Malik, he played a leading role in the project of al-Hajjaj ibn Yūsuf to canonize the text of the Koran. When al-Hajjaj moved the seat of government to Wāsit, al-Hasan criticized this decision. This led to a break with the governor. Under the caliph ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz (717–720) al-Hasan was Qādī for a short time .

Al-Hasan had numerous disciples, including Qatāda ibn Diʿāma and the two founders of the Muʿtazila Wāsil ibn ʿAtā ' and ʿAmr ibn ʿUbaid.

Tradition and pseudepigraphic literature

Al-Hasan's independent writings have not survived. His contributions to the design of jurisprudence ( Fiqh ) have been handed down in some isolated fragments in the hadith literature, the authenticity of which is, however, controversial. His sayings on piety are used in later prose writings and anthological collections, e.g. B. in al-Mubarrad, quoted. A well-known saying of his is: "Make a kind of bridge out of the world, which you cross but do not build" ( iǧʿali d-dunyā ka-l-qanṭarati taǧūzu ʿalaihā wa-lā taʿmuru-hā ).

Al-Hasan's reading variants of the Koran text are handed down in the later Qira'at works, especially in the Mufrada of Abū ʿAlī al-Hasan ibn ʿAlī al-Ahwāzī (d. 1054/55) dedicated to him . The earliest work still preserved in its original form today, in which the interpretations of al-Hasan al-Basri on the Koran have been consistently taken into account, is the Kitāb at- Tafsīr of the Egyptian scholar ʿAbdallāh ibn Wahb († 817), which was published as early as the 2nd century AD Century d. Hijra (8th century AD) was handed down in writing.

A letter attributed to al-Hasan to ʿAbd al-Malik, which was edited by Hellmut Ritter in 1933 , was initially considered to be authentic and was dated by Josef van Ess to the period between 694 and 699. The authenticity of this missive was, however, already questioned by Michael Cook in 1981 and can now be regarded as refuted. As Sulaiman Ali Mourad has shown, it is mentioned for the first time in the book "The Virtue of Muʿtazilitarianism and the Generations of the Muʿtazilites" ( Faḍl al-iʿtizāl wa-ṭabaqāt al-muʿtazila ) by ʿAbd al-Jabbār ibn Ahmad (d. 1024) quoted. Mourad, who has examined the content of the letter, comes to the conclusion that it is very close to the dogmatic position of the Zaidite- Mutazilite theologian al-Qāsim ibn Ibrāhīm ar-Rassī (d. 860), and on the basis of this suspects that it is in circles influenced by his teaching. The background for the creation of the work was that the Muʿtazilites were interested in proving al-Hasan's membership of the Qadarīya in order to be able to claim him as an authority for their doctrine of human free will.

In another Muʿtazilite work, the Šarḥ ʿuyūn al-masāʾil by the Zaidite theologian al-Hākim al-Juschamī (d. 1101), a letter from al-Hasan to ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz is cited in which he quotes a Qadaritic position occupies.

Abū n-Nuʿaim al-Isfahānī (d. 1038) finally handed down a "letter of renunciation of the world" ( Risālat az-Zuhd ) from al-Hasan al-Basri to ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, in which al-Hasan as a representative of Sufi teachings appears. This letter also came into being later.

to teach

Political-theological teachings

Al-Hasan viewed the arbitrariness and injustice of the authorities as the expression of God's will, which one had to endure with patience and against which one should not rise up. At the same time he denied the rulers the right to justify their injustice with God's Qadar . Al-Hasan did not allow it to be said that God the Creator also brings about the evil deeds of man, but rather that the sinner is responsible for his own deeds. According to an anecdote that is passed down in the Muʿtazilite literature, al-Hasan once passed a robber who had been crucified and asked him: "What made you do this?" The robber replied, "The predestination of God and his providence" ( qaḍāʾ Allāh wa-qadaru-hū ). Al-Hasan said: "You lied. Should he have predetermined for you first that you steal and then that you should be crucified?" There are also numerous other statements passed down by al-Hasan that identify him as a representative of a doctrine of free will.

The question of whether al-Hasan belongs to the Qadarīya with these teachings is controversial . While he appears as the "leader of the Qadarīya" ( raʾīs al-Qadarīya ) by the Imamite author al-Kashschī (early 10th century) , it was important in Sunni circles to prove that he was not a Qadarit. Some scholars such as Ibn Qutaiba and at-Tūfī admitted that al-Hasan originally professed the Qadar doctrine, but assumed that he later refrained from it.

Al-Hasan as a Koran reader and exegete

As a Koran reader and exegete, Al-Hasan was a recognized authority in the field of Koran studies . In some cases al-Hasan's reading variants show deviations in the consonant structure of the individual words compared to the Uthmanic text. For example, in Sura 12: 110, al-Hasan read baʾsu-hū (بأسه) instead of baʾsu-nā (بأسنا). In other places the order of the words differs from the Uthmanic text. Such deviations can be explained by the fact that his readings are in the tradition of the local authoritative reading of Basra, which was based on the Koran code of the Abū Mūsā al-Aschʿarī .

In other cases, his reading variations concerned only the diacritical marks . It is reported that in Sura 2: 259 he nunšizu-hā (ننشزها) instead of nunširu-hā (ننشرها) read. Later, however, he moved away from this reading and joined the majority reading with rāʾ . Omar Hamdan suspects that this was done as part of the introduction of diacritical marks into the Quran text in the course of al-Hajjaj's canonization project.

In individual cases, al-Hasan's readings reveal certain dogmatic positions. So in two places ( Sura 5 : 85 and Sura 48 : 18) he decided on a reading that emphasizes the reward ( Iṯāba ) of actions. In sura 12: 110 "When the messengers finally gave up hope and said that they had been lied to ( kuḏibū ) [or been declared liars ( kuḏḏibū )], our help came to them" were the two passive readings for which al-Hasan decided it was necessary to secure the idea of ​​the infallibility ( ʿIsma ) of the prophets. An active reading of the verb kaḏabū ("they lied") would have opened the interpretation that the prophets thought of themselves that they had lied, which was not compatible with the prevailing idea of ​​prophethood at the time. In several places in the Qur'an there are two or more reading versions of al-Hasan for one word.

From al-Hasan al-Basrī, doctrinal views on the abrogation of verses of the Koran have also come down to For example, he is said to have taught that the request given in Sura 2: 144 to orient oneself to the holy place of worship in Mecca during prayer canceled the permission given in Sura 2: 115 to be allowed to pray in all directions, and that the verses on the inheritance of duties (sura 4:11, 12, 176) abrogated the commandment to make a will for the benefit of parents and relatives (sura 2: 180).

literature

swell
Secondary literature
  • Gotthelf Bergsträsser : The Koran reading by Hasan of Basra . In: Islamica. Journal for the Study of the Languages ​​and Cultures of the Islamic Peoples 2 (1926) pp. 11–57
  • Josef van Ess : Theology and Society in the 2nd and 3rd Century Hijra. A History of Religious Thought in Early Islam. Volume 2. de Gruyter , Berlin 1992, pp. 41-121
  • Josef van Ess: Between Ḥadīṯ and Theology: Studies on the Origin of Predestinian Tradition . de Gruyter, Berlin 1975
  • Omar Hamdan : Studies on the canonization of the Koran text. Al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrīs contributions to the history of the Koran (Discourses of Arabic Studies; Vol. 10). Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2006, ISBN 978-3-447-05349-5
  • Gauthier H. Juynboll: Muslim Tradition. Studies on chronology, provenance and authorship of early hadīth. (Studies in Islamic Civilization). Cambridge University Press , Cambridge 1983, ISBN 0-521-25382-9 , pp. 49-55
  • Suleiman Ali Mourad: Early Islam between Myth and History. Al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī (d.110H / 728CE) and the Formation of his Legacy in Classical Islamic Scholarship. Brill, Leiden 2006
  • Hellmut Ritter : "Studies on the history of Islamic piety. 1. Hasan al-Basri" in Der Islam , 21 (1933) 1–183
  • Hellmut Ritter: Art. "Ḥasan al-Baṣrī" in The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition Vol. III, Brill, Leiden, pp. 247b-248b
  • Hans Heinrich Schaeder : Ḥasan al-Baṣrī. Studies on the early history of Islam. in Der Islam , 14 (1925) 1-75
  • Michael Schwarz: The Letter of al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, in Oriens , 20 (1967) pp. 15-30
  • Fuat Sezgin : History of Arabic Literature. Vol. 1. Brill, Leiden 1967, pp. 591-594
  • W. Montgomery Watt , Michael Marmura: Islam. Political developments and theological concepts. Vol. 2 (of 3). Series: The Religions of Mankind, 25/2. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1985, ISBN 9783170057074 , pp. 92-98.

supporting documents

  1. See Schaeder: "Ḥasan al-Baṣrī." 1925, p. 48.
  2. See Hamdan 135-139.
  3. See Schaeder: "Ḥasan al-Baṣrī." 1925, p. 59.
  4. See Van Ess: Theology and Society . Vol. II, p. 43.
  5. See Hamdan 40-47.
  6. See van Ess 1975, 31.
  7. See van Ess 1992, 48.
  8. See Mourad 178.
  9. See Mourad 218-239.
  10. See Mourad 170.
  11. See Mourad 125.
  12. See Mourad 140-160.
  13. Cf. Watt / Marmura: Der Islam II . 1985, p. 93.
  14. Cf. ʿAbd al-Ǧabbār ibn Aḥmad: Faḍl al-iʿtizāl wa-ṭabaqāt al-Muʿtazila . P. 225.
  15. cf. van Ess: Theologie und Gesellschaft . 1992, Vol. II, p. 48.
  16. See van Ess 1992, 48.
  17. See Watt / Marmura 92.
  18. Cf. Watt / Marmura 93, Mourad 188.
  19. See Hamdan 135-139.
  20. See Hamdan 202.
  21. See Hamdan 241f.
  22. See Hamdan 199f.
  23. See Hamdan 38, 261f.
  24. See Hamdan 262f.
  25. See Hamdan 290f.
  26. On the problem of Ignaz Goldziher : The directions of the Islamic interpretation of the Koran. Leiden 1920. pp. 26-28.
  27. See Hamdan 123f.
  28. Cf. Makkī Ibn-Abī-Ṭālib al-Qaisī: al-Īḍāḥ li-nāsiḫ al-Qurʾan wa-mansūḫi-hi wa-maʿrifat uṣūlihi wa-ḫtilāf an-nās fīhi. Ed. Aḥmad Ḥ. Farḥāt. Ǧidda: Dār al-Manāra 1986. pp. 131, 142.