Fitra
Fitra ( Arabic فطرة, DMG Fitra , nature, disposition; Creation '), fromفطر' DMG faṭara ' create, create (by God); to be innate ', denotes an Islamic concept of the nature of man, which is laid out in such a way that every person is born according to his natureعلى الفطرةa Muslim , a - according to the Koranic usage - the only one devoted to God. For God created man to be knownمعرفة / maʿrifa has from the existence of his master.
Fitra is “a way of creating or being created”. The orientalists Theodor Nöldeke and Friedrich Schwally have referred to the borrowing of the term from Ethiopian .
Fitra in the Koran
The Koran provides the basic idea for later theological considerations . In sura 30 , verse 30 it says:
“Now turn your face to the (only true) religion! (Act like that) as a Hanif ! (That (i.e., such religious conduct) is) the natural way in which God created man. The way in which God (human beings) created cannot (or: may?) Not be changed (exchanged for something else). That is the right religion. But most people don't know. "
In the translation above, “natural kind” stands for fiṭra and “has created” for faṭara in the Koran text. In this sense, both the verb and the term “fitra” are mentioned in works by the Arabic lexicographers . Correspondingly, God is in the Qur'an several times asفاطر / fāṭir / called 'Creator': Sura 6 : 14; Sura 12 : 101; Sura 14:10 ; Sura 35 (al-Fāṭir) verse 1; Sura 39:46; Sura 42 : 11 - meaning: "(He is) the creator of heaven and earth."
In the Koran exegesis it is pointed out several times that neither the verb faṭara nor the term fāṭir - as an active participle in Arabic - should have been generally known. According to an early report, ʿAbdallāh ibn ʿAbbās , one of the earliest Koran exegetes, initially had no use for the term: “I did not know what the Creator (fāṭir) of heaven and earth meant until I came across two Bedouins who quarreled with each other over a well had met. Because one said to his rival: ' I made the well (faṭartuhā)' - that means: I started it ”.
Fitra in hadith and in theology
The theological meaning of the term is based on the prophetic saying ( hadith ), which has been handed down in several variants :
“Everyone (human) is born in the state of Fitra (ie according to the manner of creation by God). Then his parents make a Jew, a Christian or a Zoroastrian out of him. "
The hadith and its variants are old. Hammam ibn Munabbih (st. Around 719), brother of Wahb ibn Munabbih and one of the earliest collectors of traditions of the Prophet Mohammed, already recorded it in his scroll ( sahifa ), to which the later authors of the canonical collections of hadith - al- Bukhari ( Kitab al-Qadar , chap. 3) and Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj ( Kitab al-Qadar , chap. 6) - fall back; The tradition of the prophets is traced back to the Prophet's companion ( sahaba ) Abu Huraira , who supplements the prophet's statement with the above-mentioned Quranic verse.
Islamic theologians have always disagreed as to whether children of unbelievers can be saved. Mu'tazilite theologians assumed that every child is naturally born Muslim , one devoted to the only God, but is spoiled by the environment after birth. However, this view contained both legal and theological difficulties, because it goes against the unrestricted will of maschi'a /مشيئة / mašīʾa of God and his guidanceهداية / hidāya . Islamic Orthodoxy held that the child's parents were only a secondary causeسبب / can be sabotage for the further development of the newborn, because both misdirection and right guidance must come from God and be predetermined by God. The prophet's saying has been handed down precisely because of its often discussed content in the chapters on predestination ( Qadar ) of the canonical hadiths .
The old understanding of the term “fitra”, rooted in the Koran, is clearly documented in an old subject, the origins of which can be traced back to the Prophet Mohammed. At the turn of the first Islamic century, the following story was told:
“I went on four campaigns with the prophet. Then (our) people sold out on the children after they had killed the warriors (and killed them too). This came to the ears of the Prophet and it seemed harsh to him. Then he said: Why do people attack the children? Someone remarked: O Messenger of God, are they not the sons of polytheists? He replied: The best of you are children of polytheists! There is no human child who is not created in the natural way (ʿalā l-fiṭra). She stays with him until he clearly acknowledges her (ḥattā yubayyina ʿanhā lisānuhā, probably with his intellectual maturity). His parents make it a Jew or a Christian ”. - Hasan commented: "God has already said this in his book, with the words: 'And when your Lord took offspring from the loins of the children of Adam ..."
The ascetic and Koran exegete al-Hasan al-Basri supplements the above hadith, which is now being updated in a frame story at the time of the Prophet, with sura 7, verse 172; the “created kind”, the ḥanīfitic primeval monotheism, is already in the covenant that man made with God in his pre-existence.
The legal religion of a child born in the state of fitra is, however, initially the religion of his parents, although he does not adopt this religion until he is of legal age. In the event of the death of the ( polytheistic ) parents, a minor child cannot inherit in his Fitra from his parents. More important than the legal aspects of the fitra understanding were the theological considerations against the background of the above-mentioned revelation and when considering the said prophetic saying.
The term fitra also means: being created in a healthy state - with the innate disposition to believe and - at the same time - to unbelief.
The fitra concept also stands for the human image of God; Sahl ibn Harun, the director of the Bait al-Hikma under the caliph Hārūn ar-Raschīd introduces one of his scientific treatises with the following words: Praise be to God, who created people in such a way that they know Him from within ( faṭara ʾl- ʿIbād ʿalā maʿrifatihi ). Thus the knowledge that God is one - that is, pure monotheism - counts as fitra.
The created nature, as the term fitra presents itself in the Koran, is identical with the primordial monotheism of the so-called Hanifen (al-Ḥanīfiya), which is also the oldest name for Islam. ʿAbdallāh ibn Masʿūd recorded sura 3, verse 19: “The (only true) religion with God is Islam” - that is, devotion to God - in his own old copy of the Koran as: “... the Hanifiya applies to God” - instead of: “Islam ". This text variant is called an exegetical recitation ( qirāʿa tafsīrīya ) of the Koran text. The German orientalist Josef van Ess writes about this :
"One heard from it both the opposition to paganism and that to the corrupt monotheism of the Jews and Christians."
Accordingly, Islam, devotion to God, is the only religion that is originally common to all people. Every human being is born in this original natural state; only afterwards is he changed by his parents, just as Christianity and Judaism are only changed forms of this revealed primordial religion, primordial monotheism. This is why the above-mentioned addition to the prophet's saying is added by the passage from the Qur'an “The way in which God (human beings) cannot be changed”; Variation: "you may not change". This latter interpretation is documented in the monumental Koran exegesis of at-Tabari : the religion of God (i.e. Islam / verse al-Hanifiya) “may” not be changed, it is “inadmissible” ( lā yaṣluḥu ) and “must not be done “( Lā yanbaġī an yufʿala ). In a variant of the fitra tradition, recorded in the saheeh by Muslim, the prophet answers the question what happens to the underage children of polytheists if they die in the state of fitra before they are converted to a religion, as follows:
"God knows best what they would have done (in the future)."
For God can know man's free decision in advance; man is endowed with both belief and disbelief. According to the verse of the Koran mentioned at the beginning, the created innocence of the newborn means that man is made for God. According to the Islamic understanding of fitra, it is the task of the prophet to uncover what is primordial in man and to lead him to the true religion.
The philosophical novel Hayy ibn Yaqzan /حيّ بن يقظان / Ḥayy b. Yaqẓān by Ibn Tufail Mohammed ibn 'Abd al-Malik ibn Mohammed ibn Mohammed ibn Tufail al-Qaisi /محمد بن عبد الملك بن محمد بن محمد بن طفيل القيسي / Muḥammad b.ʿAbd al-Malik b. Muḥammad b. Muḥammad b. Ṭufail al-Qaisī (d. 1185 - 1186 ) demonstrates this concept very clearly, in which the hero, a “Muslim Robinson Crusoe ”, finds Islam alone on a desert island.
literature
- Geneviève Gobillot: La fiṭra. La conception originalelle, ses interprétations et fonctions chez les penseurs musulmans . Cairo 2000.
- Theodor Nöldeke : New Contributions to Semitic Linguistics . Strasbourg 1910. p. 49.
- Josef van Ess: Theology and Society in the 2nd and 3rd Century Hijra . A History of Religious Thought in Early Islam. Walter de Gruyter. Berlin. New York 1997. Vol. IV. P.361. ISBN 3-11-014835-8 .
- Josef van Ess: Between Hadith and Theology. Studies on the Origin of Predestinian Tradition. Walter de Gruyter. Berlin. New York 1975. S 101 ff. ISBN 3-11-004290-8
- Tilman Nagel : History of Islamic Theology . From Muhammad to the present, CH Beck. Munich 1994
- Fuat Sezgin : History of Arabic Literature . Leiden, Brill 1967. Vol. 1. p. 86
- Arent Jan Wensinck : The Muslim Creed . Its Genesis and Historical Development. 2nd Edition. London 1965
- The Encyclopaedia of Islam . New Edition. Vol II p 931
- Ibn Manẓūr : Lisān al-ʿarab . Beirut (undated) Vol. 5, p. 55.
- Abū ʿUbaid al-Harawī: Ġarīb al-ḥadīṯ . Haidarabad 1965. Vol. 2, pp. 21-22
- al-mausu'a al-fiqhiyya . Encyclopedia of Islamic Law. Ministry of Waqf and Religious Affairs. 1st edition. Kuwait 1995. Vol. 32, pp. 182-187.
Individual evidence
- ↑ al-mausu'a al-fiqhiyya . Encyclopedia of Islamic Law. Kuwait 1995. Vol. 32, 184-185 according to sources of Islamic theology
- ^ New articles , p. 49.
- ↑ In: Journal of the German Oriental Society (ZDMG), Vol. 53, pp. 199f.
- ↑ See the literature
- ↑ See the exegesis for sura 6 verse 14 in at-Tabari , vol. 7, p. 159 - “Well” is in the Arabic Fem. See the reference to this episode in: The Encyclopaedia of Islam . New Edition. Vol II p.931; Theodor Nöldeke: New Posts , 49
- ↑ Fuat Sezgin: History of Arabic Literature, I. 86
- ^ Translation: Josef van Ess, in: Zwischen Hadith und Theologie , p. 105 with further sources.
- ↑ See: Josef van Ess: Between Hadith and Theologie, p. 106
- ↑ See: Josef van Ess: Theology and Society in the 2nd and 3rd Century Hijra . Vol. IV. P. 361
- ↑ See: Josef van Ess: Between Hadith and Theologie , p. 103
- ↑ Tilman Nagel: History of Islamic Theology , pp. 28-29