Chuzāʿa

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The Chuzāʿa ( Arabic خزاعة, DMG Ḫuzāʿa ) are an Arab tribe of uncertain origin who, according to Arabic tradition, ruled the area of Mecca before the Quraish . Later the Hashimit itAbd al-Muttalib ibn Hāschim concluded a protective alliance with the Chuzāʿa, to which his grandson, the Prophet Mohammed , also felt bound. Members of this tribe still live in various countries in the Middle East today.

The original question

There were different opinions within the tribe about the actual origin of the Chuzāʿa. While Ibn Ishāq heard the Chuzāʿa say: “We are the descendants of ʿAmr ibn ʿĀmir from Yemen,” said the Chuzāʿa poet Kuthaiyir ibn ʿAbd ar-Rahmān (st. 723) that his tribe was related to the North Arabian Kināna . Werner Caskel suspects that the Chuzāʿa originally only knew their ancestors up to ʿAmr and that the need to develop a genealogy going beyond this arose only in the second half of the 7th century.

The genealogist Ibn al-Kalbī also assigned the Chuzāʿa to the South Arabian tribes. According to him, however, ʿAmr 's father was not called ʿĀmir, but Rabīʿa Luhaiy and was a grandson of the Azdite ʿAmr Muzaiqiyāʾ. Other genealogists such as Ibn Hazm , however, connected the Chuzāʿa to the North Arab Mudar via Qamaʿa ibn al-Yās (Chindif). Among the Arab historians there were those who traced the Chuzāʿa to the Azd and those who traced them back to the Mudar.

The Chuzāʿa in pre-Islamic times

Rule of the Chuzāʿa over Mecca

According to the Arab tradition, which traced the Chuzāʿa back to the Azd, ʿAmr Muzaiqiyāʾ, who was in charge of the Azd at the time, emigrated with his relatives from Yemen shortly before the collapse of the Ma'rib dam and settled in the Area of ​​Mecca. After a severe fever broke out in the area, most of ʿAmr's relatives moved to other areas of the Arabian Peninsula. While the Ghassān moved to Syria, the Aus and Khazradsch to Yathrib and the Azd Shanū'a to Oman , Rabīʿa Luhaiy and his followers stayed behind in the area of ​​Mecca. This incident also explains the name of the Chuzāʿa: because the people of Luhaiys had separated from their other tribesmen ( inḫazaʿū ), they were called Ḫuzāʿa .

Luhaiy married a woman from the Jurhum tribe, who had previously been in charge of the Mecca region, and thus came into possession of the Kaaba . From his marriage with the Jurhumitin came ʿAmr ibn Luhaiy, who later became one of the most powerful Arab tribal princes and is also considered the actual "progenitor of the Chuzāʿa" ( Abū l-Ḫuzāʿa ). ʿAmr is said to have been immeasurably rich. His fortune consisted mainly of huge herds of camels. So he could afford to entertain the pilgrims with a delicacy, namely the fat from the humps of slaughtered camels. Regarding his flocks, he is said to have introduced certain customs that were later adopted by the other Arabs. So he released camels who had given birth to a female cub ten times in a row. They were then no longer allowed to be ridden or milked. If such a mare camel, called “free roaming” ( sāʾiba ), had another female cub, then this was treated in the same way as the mother and her ear was slit as a sign. Because of the ear slitting ( baḥara = "slit"), such an animal was called "slit" ( baḥīra ). With Wasīla and Hāmī, ʿAmr introduced two other animal consecration customs. However, all these customs were later forbidden by Mohammed (see sura 5: 103).

Likewise, ʿAmr ibn Luhaiy is held responsible for the introduction of idolatry in Mecca. While the cult previously practiced in Mecca, according to Arab tradition, corresponded to the monotheistic religion of Abraham , ʿAmr is said to have seduced the Arabs into idolatry. On a trade trip to the city of Hīt on the Euphrates , he became acquainted with and enjoyed idolatry. The townspeople gave him an idol named Hubal . ʿAmr took this with him, set it up in the Kaaba in Mecca and ordered the Arabs to worship him. In addition, ʿAmr is said to have called the people to worship Isāf and Nāʾila and to have placed an idol with the name Chalasa in the lower part of Mecca . Finally, ʿAmr ibn Luhaiy also ordered the worship of the deity al-ʿUzzā . Their sanctuary consisted of a group of three trees in the place an-Nachla, which was a day's journey from Mecca.

According to tradition, which regards the Chuzāʿa as a Mudarite tribe, Mecca before the Chuzāʿa was not in the hands of the Jurhum, but of the Banū Iyād. They were defeated by the Mudar in a military conflict and driven from Mecca. Before leaving Mecca, they buried the Black Stone . Later, when a woman from the Chuzāʿa who had been married to a man from the Iyād revealed the place where the stone was buried to the Mudar, the Chuzāʿa were given guardianship over the Kaaba.

The suppression of the Chuzāʿa by Qusaiy ibn Kilāb

The rule of the Chuzāʿa over the area of ​​Mecca lasted 300 to 500 years, according to Arab tradition. They are also said to have built the first dam to protect the Meccan sanctuary from flooding. Only Qusaiy ibn Kilāb , who lived five generations before Mohammed and united the Quraish tribal association , was able to wrest control of Mecca from them. He married Hubbā, the daughter of the Chuzāʿite Hulail ibn Hubschīya, who was responsible for the cult of the Kaaba and the pilgrimage. After Hulail's death, Qusaiy took over his offices. Since the Chuzāʿa did not recognize him as Hulail's successor, Qusaiy asked the help of his half-brother Rizāh ibn Rabīʿa, who was then the leader of the Qudāʿa . He agreed and appeared on the next pilgrimage with three brothers and a number of qudāʿa. A fierce battle broke out between the two parties on the plain of Minā , in which numerous people were killed and wounded. The dispute between Qusaiy and the Chuzāʿa was finally settled by Yaʿmar ibn ʿAwf of the Bakr of the Kināna tribe. His ruling stipulated that Qusaiy should receive the guardianship of the Kaaba, but that the Chuzāʿa were allowed to stay in the Haram of Mecca.

The liberal Egyptian journalist Chalīl ʿAbd al-Karīm (1930-2002), who in his book "Quraish - From the Tribe to the Central State" (Cairo 1993) describes the political rise of the Quraish to the leading power in the Islamic world empire, denotes the disempowerment of the Chuzāʿa through Qusaiy ibn Kilāb as the historical starting point of this process.

Chuzāʿa and Quraish

After the Quraysh had ruled Mecca under Qusaiy's leadership, the Chuzāʿa remained on a religious level with them. Together with the Quraish and the Kināna they formed the association of the Hums, the inhabitants of the Meccan haram, for whom special rules applied during the pilgrimage. The Quraysh and Chuzāʿa were mainly close marriages. Two clans of the Chuzāʿa, the Mustaliq and the Hayā, were also included in the organization of the so-called Ahābīsch, a Quraish fighting force that consisted of members of different tribes.

When Hāschim ibn ʿAbd Manāf and Umaiya, the son of ʿAbd Shams ibn ʿAbd Manāf , later got into an argument, it was a priest of the Chuzāʿa who made the arbitration between them. He decided in favor of Hashim and banished Umaiya from the city for ten years. Later Hāschim's son ʿAbd al-Muttalib ibn Hāschim concluded a special protective alliance with the Chuzāʿa, about which a document was drawn up that was hung in the Kaaba. ʿAbd al-Muttalib's sons Abū Tālib and al-ʿAbbās also felt bound by this contract when they successively took over the leadership of the Banū Hāschim .

The role of the chuzāʿa in early Islam

At the time of the Prophet Mohammed , the Chuzāʿa were already divided into several clans. One of them, the Banū Aslam, sided with Mohammed very early on. When he performed the hijra in Medina in 622 , Buraida ibn al-Husaib al-Aslamī met him with a large number of members of his clan and accepted Islam. The Aslam also took part in several campaigns in the following years. When they captured Mecca in January 630, they made up a contingent of 400 fighters.

The Banū l-Mustaliq, another clan of the Chuzāʿa who participated in the Ahābīsh troop, turned against the Muslims of Medina . After their leader al-Harith ibn Abī Dirār had gathered his troops for an attack on Medina, Mohammed attacked the Mustaliq 627 in Muraisiʿ, overpowered them and had large numbers of them captured. He himself married Juwairiya , the captured daughter of al-Harith.

A third clan of the Chuzāʿa, the Kaʿb ibn ʿAmr, played a crucial role in the development of the relationship between the pagan Meccans and the Prophet. Tensions between the Kaʿb and their neighbors, the Bakr ibn ʿAbd Manāt of the Kināna, who were in alliance with the Meccans, had led the Kaʿb in 628 to side with Muhammad in the Treaty of Hudaibiya. The attack by a group of the Bakr ibn ʿAbd Manāt on the Kaʿb ibn ʿAmr in 629 was viewed by Mohammed as a unilateral breach of the agreement concluded in Hudaibiya by the Mekkans. When the Khatīb of the Kaʿb, ʿAmr ibn Sālim, appeared at the court of Mohammed in Medina, told him of the attack, conjured up the alliance with his grandfather ʿAbd al-Muttalib and urged him to avenge his allies, the Prophet promised help ( nuṣra ). According to some Koran exegetes, the attack of the Bakr ibn ʿAbd Manāt on the Kaʿb ibn ʿAmr was the occasion for the revelation of the Koranic word in sura 9: 13-15: “Do you not want to fight against people who have broken their oaths ...” The retaliation for the attack the Kaʿb ibn ʿAmr served Mohammed as a justification for the campaign against Mecca, which ultimately led to the conquest of the city. The Kaʿb ibn ʿAmr themselves took part in this action with 500 fighters.

Chuzāʿa fighters later participated in large numbers in the Futūh , and Chuzāʿa groups settled in the various provinces of the Arab Empire. Many members of the Chuzāʿa still live in Saudi Arabia , Iraq , Jordan and Palestine today .

literature

  • Abū l-Walīd al-Azraqī : Aḫbār Makka wa-mā ǧāʾa fī-hā min al-āṯār . Ed. F. Desert field. Leipzig 1858. pp. 51-60. Digitized
  • Werner Caskel: Ǧamharat an-nasab: the genealogical work of Hišām Ibn Muḥammad al-Kalbī . 2 Vols. Brill, Leiden, 1966. Vol. II, pp. 39-41.
  • MJ Kister: Art. " Kh uzāʿa" in The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition Vol. V, pp. 76b-80a.
  • ʿAbd-al-Qādir Faiyāḍ Ḥarfūš: Qabīlat Ḫuzāʿa fī l-ǧāhilīya wa-l-Islām: nasab, aʿlām, šiʿr, adab. Dār al-Bašāʾir, Damascus 1996.
  • Muḥammad al-Ǧawādī: Qabīlat Ḫuzāʿa min al-ǧuḏūr ilā maṭlaʿ al-ḫilāfa al-ʿabbāsīya. Markaz an-Našr al-Ǧāmiʿī, Manūba, 2013.
  • Ferdinand Wüstenfeld : History of the city of Mecca, edited from the Arabic chronicles. Leipzig 1861. pp. 13-19. Digitized

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cf. Ibn Hischām: Kitāb Sīrat Rasūl Allāh from d. Hs. On Berlin, Leipzig, Gotha a. Leyden ed. by Ferdinand Wüstenfeld. 2 vols. Göttingen 1858-59. P. 59.
  2. ↑ Cf. Caskel: Ǧamharat an-nasab . 1966, Vol. II, pp. 39f.
  3. ↑ Cf. Caskel: Ǧamharat an-nasab . 1966, vol. I, plate 196.
  4. ↑ Cf. Kister: Art. " Kh uzāʿa" in EI² p. 77.
  5. ↑ See Wüstenfeld: History of the City of Mecca . 1861. p. 14f.
  6. ↑ Cf. al-Azraqī : Aḫbār Makka . 1858, p. 55.
  7. ↑ Cf. al-Balādhurī : Ansāb al-ašrāf. Ed. Muḥammad Ḥamīdullāh. Cairo 1959. Vol. I., p. 34.
  8. ↑ See Wüstenfeld: History of the City of Mecca . 1861. p. 16f.
  9. ↑ Cf. Ibn Hischām: Kitāb Sīrat Rasūl Allāh from d. Hs. On Berlin, Leipzig, Gotha a. Leyden ed. by Ferdinand Wüstenfeld. 2 vols. Göttingen 1858-59. P. 51. Digitized
  10. ↑ See Wüstenfeld: History of the City of Mecca . 1861. pp. 18f.
  11. ↑ See Wüstenfeld: History of the City of Mecca . 1861. p. 22f.
  12. ↑ See Wüstenfeld: History of the City of Mecca . 1861. p. 19.
  13. ↑ See Wüstenfeld: History of the City of Mecca . 1861, p. 119.
  14. ↑ Cf. FE Peters: Muhammad and the origins of Islam . Albany 1994. pp. 16-21.
  15. ↑ See Wüstenfeld: History of the City of Mecca . 1861. p. 28f.
  16. ↑ Cf. Ḫalīl ʿAbd al-Karīm: al-Quraiš: Min al-Qabīla ilā d-daula al-markazīya . Sīnā li-n-našr, Cairo, 1993. p. 23.
  17. ↑ See Kister: Art. " Kh uzāʿa", p. 78a.
  18. ↑ See Wüstenfeld: History of the City of Mecca . 1861. p. 36f.
  19. ↑ See Wüstenfeld: History of the City of Mecca . 1861. pp. 42f.
  20. ↑ See Kister: Art. " Kh uzāʿa", p. 78b.
  21. ↑ See Kister: Art. " Kh uzāʿa", p. 78b.
  22. ↑ See Kister: Art. " Kh uzāʿa", pp. 78b-79a.
  23. ↑ Cf. Kister: Art. " Kh uzāʿa", p. 79b.