al-Qādir

Ahmad ibn Ishāq ( Arabic أحمد بن إسحاق, DMG Aḥmad ibn Isḥāq ; * 947 ; † November 29, 1031 ) with the throne name al-Qādir bi-Llāh ( Arabic القادر بالله, DMG al-Qādir bi-Llāh  'the one who is mighty through God') was the twenty-fifth caliph of the Abbasids (991-1031).

Mahmud of Ghazni receives the robe of the caliph al-Qādir

Life

Al-Qādir bi-Llāh succeeded Caliph at- Tā'iʿ (974-991). Like its predecessors since 945, it was under the control of the Persian Buyids . When the decline of the Buyids began at the beginning of the 11th century due to internal power struggles, al-Qādir, following Mahmud of Ghazni, was increasingly able to look after his own interests. In doing so, he tried above all to portray the Abbasid caliphs as the only legitimate heads of the Muslims (see also under: Caliphate - The Theory of the Caliphate). That is why the Fatimid caliphs were also opposed to propaganda. In 1010, the ancestry of the Fatimids from ʿAlī ibn Abī Tālib was officially disputed. Al-Qādir also rejected the teachings of the Mutazilites and Shiites and proclaimed the Sunnah as the only correct form of belief.

However, the relationship with the Shiites was precarious, as al-Qādir on the one hand fought the Shiite Fatimids (see: Ismailis ), but his Buyid overlords were also Shiites. During the reign of al-Qādir there were several serious unrest between Shiites and Sunnis in Baghdad , which had to be put down by the Turkish guards of the caliph (1005, 1017). He was succeeded by al-Qādir al-Qā'im (1031-1075).

The "Qādiritic Creed"

Ibn al- Jschauzī narrates among the events of the year 433 of the Hijra (which began on August 31, 1041) the text of a confessional which he calls the "Qādiritic creed" (al-iʿtiqād al-qādirī) . With reference to the son of Ibn al-Farrā ' , he reports that the caliph al-Qā'im read this text, which al-Qādir himself had already mentioned, before a gathering of ascetics (zuhhād) and scholars in the caliph's palace and from had those present sign the "Confession of Muslims" (iʿtiqād al-muslimīn) . Erika Glassen suspects that the text is identical to a document that al-Qādir had already read out publicly in June 1018 in the caliph's palace. The Hanbalites adopted this creed and understood it as a "manifesto of the traditionalist movement".

literature

• D. Sourdel: "al-Ḳādir bi'Llāh", in: Encyclopaedia of Islam . New Edition. Volume IV, pp. 378a-379a.
• Erika Glassen : The middle way. Studies on religious politics and religiosity of the later Abbasid period. Franz Steiner, Wiesbaden, 1981. pp. 9-20.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ See Ibn al-Ǧauzī: Al-Muntaẓam fī sulūk al-mulūk wa-l-umam . Ed. Muḥammad and Muṣṭafā ʿAbd al-Qādir ʿAṭā. 18 volumes. Dār al-Kutub al-ʿilmīya, Beirut, 1992. Volume XV, pp. 279–282 Digitized version and the German translation by Adam Mez : The Renaissance of Islâms. Winter, Heidelberg, 1922. pp. 198-201 digitized .
2. ↑ See Glassen: The Middle Way . 1981, p. 11f.

predecessor	Office	successor
at-Tā'iʿ	Abbasid Caliph 991-1031	al-Qa'im bi-amri 'llah