Hārūn ibn Habīb

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Hārūn ibn Habīb ( Arabic هارون بن حبيب, DMG Hārūn ibn Ḥabīb ) was a resident of the city of Ilbīra (Elvira), later Granada , against whom a sensational blasphemy trial was conducted during the rule of the Umayyad emir ʿAbd ar-Rahmān ibn al-Hakam (r. 822-852) . The trial, which probably took place in 851, was particularly explosive because Hārūn's brother ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Habīb was the leading legal scholar in the emirate of Cordoba, who was also in a special relationship to the emir. One of the reasons why the trial is significant for the history of Islamic criminal law is that it is one of the earliest cases in which the Islamic legal maxim was applied, according to which Hadd punishments are to be averted by reference to uncertainties.

The most important sources for the trial are the collection of biographies of Andalusian jurists and traditional scholars by Ibn al-Hārith al-Chushanī (st. 971) and the Malikitic biographical collection Tartīb al-madārik wa-taqrīb al-masālik by al-Qādī ʿIyād (st . 1149).

background

Little is known about the biography of Hārūn ibn Habīb because the Arabic biographical works have not dedicated an entry to him, although it is known that he was interested in Kalām . According to al-Qādī ʿIyād, Hārūn was hot- tempered (ḍaiyiq aṣ-ṣadr), quick- tempered (kaṯīr at-tabarrum), and prejudiced and ill -spoken of the residents of the city of Ilbīra. The two sayings that led to the blasphemy charges against him were made on two separate occasions in a state of anger.

He made his first remark to a man who wanted to borrow a ladder from him to carry out repair work on a mosque. Hārūn ibn Habīb rejected him with the words: "I would only give it to you if it was used to repair a church." The man was shocked by this answer and reminded Hārūn that a mosque is superior to a church. To which Hārūn replied, “No, by God. I have seen that the one who adheres to God is abandoned, while the one who adheres to the synagogue and the wafers has a high position and is in a good situation. ”Jorge Aguadé suspects that Hārūn ibn Habīb actually wanted to hurt his neighbor's religious feelings. Maribel Fierro, on the other hand, sees this comment as an indirect criticism of the emir, because he had the taxes in the Ilbīra province collected by a Christian named Rabīʿ.

Harun's second remark came when two men visited him when he was recovering from a serious illness. When they asked about his health, he said he was feeling fine now. He added: "Everything that I suffered with this illness would not have been justified even if I had killed Abū Bakr and ʿUmar ." Since any negative comment about Abū Bakr and ʿUmar was understood as Shiite sectarianism at the time , Hārūn also put himself in danger with this comment.

The said persons reported Hārūn ibn Habīb to the Qādī of Ilbīra, ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Salām al-Maʿāfirī, because of these statements . The Qādī recorded their testimony, had Hārūn captured and chained, and sent the testimony to the Emir Abd ar-Rahman II in Cordoba. He briefed a number of leading legal scholars, including Hārūn's brother, about the case and asked them to give their opinion.

The process

Defense by the brother

ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Habīb, the brother of Hārūn, took over his defense and wrote a large number of sheets in which he ruled that no hadd or discretionary penalty (ʿuqūba) should be imposed on his brother. Regarding the first testimony, he argued that it was worthless because, according to the Koran and the Sunna of the Prophet, no criminal offense could be established without two witnesses.

He also argued that the two statements made by his brother could be interpreted in such a way that they were not offensive, and that this also represented a duty for every Muslim, based on the saying of ibUmar ibn al-Chattāb : “If a Muslim hears another Muslim say something, he should not think badly about it, but find something good in it as a way out. ”His brother's statement:“ I have seen that he who adheres to God is abandoned ”must one understands in the sense that he “is let down with you because you do not help him and do not recognize his rights.” And the statement that “he who adheres to the synagogue and the wafers has a high position and is in a good situation ”should also be understood in this sense. His brother only wanted to say that this country was like a “non-Islamic country” and alluded to the concept of the “depravity of time” (fasād az-zamān) .

As for the second utterance, ʿAbd al-Malik said that it weighed less, but admitted that it was unworthy of a rational person and corresponded more to the talk of ignorant and incapable of judgment. However, he did point out that many people express themselves in this way when a misfortune strikes them. Whoever uttered such a thing would need to be severely reprimanded and prevented from repeating it, but corporal punishment or imprisonment was not necessary. Finally, Abd al-Malik pointed to the alleged prophecy "Applies the hadd punishments by uncertainties from my Umma off!" (Idra'ū l-Hudud bi-š-šubuhāt'an ummatī). If this rule applies to cases in which the hadd penalty is to be applied, it must apply even more to all other cases. If a sentence was necessary at all, then the six months he had already spent in dungeon would be sufficient.

The opinions of the other legal scholars

Another legal scholar, Ibrāhīm ibn Husain ibn Chālid, responded to the letter from ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Habīb with a lengthy letter of his own, in favor of the execution of Hārūn. He pointed to precedents: Umar ibn al-Chattāb, who chastised a certain Sabīgh for his tendency to argue, the actions of ʿAlī ibn Abī Tālib against those accused of heresy (zandaqa) and the killing of Mālik ibn Nuwaira through Chālid ibn al-Walīd , for having referred to Mohammed as "your husband" (ṣāhibu-kum) . In the same way, Hārūn's words should be taken literally. Since they amounted to a charge of injustice to God (taǧwīr Allaah) , it was necessary to punish him. A hidden hint should be treated like an open declaration (at-taʿrīḍ ka-t-taṣrīḥ). There is no room for applying the principle of averting Hadd punishments through uncertainty. It was true that the ruler should not be informed of the offense of an honorable man, but Harun was not to be regarded as such an honorable man. Ibn Chālid concluded his report with the recommendation to impose the death penalty on Hārūn or, if the emir refuses, to severely beat him and imprison him for life and to question the authorities in the Orient by letter about his case.

Another legal scholar, Ibrāhīm ibn Husain ibn ʿĀsim, made a similar statement to Abd al-Malik ibn Habīb and asserted that Hārūn did not disparage Abū Bakr and ʿUmar in his second statement, but on the contrary emphasized their high rank. Since there were uncertainties in the case of Hārūn, he advised against the use of the death penalty with reference to the alleged prophetic word. The Qādī of Cordoba, Saʿīd ibn Sulaimān al-Ballūtī, also shared this opinion. He stated that killing was only possible in the case of manslaughter, blasphemy against God or one of his prophets, apostasy or muhāraba , but not in the case of transgressions such as those committed by Hārūn.

Brother's second letter to the emir, release

After the other legal scholars had given their opinions, ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Habīb wrote a second long letter to the emir, in which he argued against the judgment of Ibrāhīm ibn Hussain ibn Chālid and very disparagingly towards him, the other legal scholars and the Qādī expressed. He argued that the main reason for his brother's trial was the hostility of the other legal scholars towards him, as well as the hostility of the Qādī of Elvira towards his brother. He concluded his letter by stating that if the emir accepted his opinion, he would never again consult the other legal scholars. Conversely, if he now listened to the other legal scholars, he should never again consult him, ʿAbd al-Malik.

The emir eventually agreed to ʿAbd al-Malik's view and ordered Hārūn to be released. ʿAbd al-Malik thereupon asked the emir to have his brother brought to Cordoba and imprisoned there as an “educational measure for his insolence and insubordination(adaban li-ǧurʾati-hī wa-ʿiṣyāni-hī).

Political history

As Janina Safran has shown, the trial of Hārūn ibn Habīb had a political history. At the beginning of his reign, the Emir ʿAbd ar-Rahmān II. Had filled the post of Qādī of Cordoba with a legal scholar from Ilbīra named Ibn Maʿmar. Relations between him and the other Cordoba lawyers were very tense. These tensions escalated when various leaders filed complaints with the Emir about his administration. The emir then made inquiries with the leading legal scholar of Cordoba, Yahyā ibn Yahyā ibn Abī ʿĪsā, and after his approval of the complaints, dismissed Ibn Maʿmar. A little later, the emir found that the complaints were unfounded and reinstated Ibn Maʿmar. This refused from now on any cooperation with the legal scholars of Cordoba and demanded that another legal scholar from Ilbīra be accepted into the body of legal scholars of Cordoba. This was ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Habīb. Safran suspects that the enmity between him and the other scholars, to which ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Habīb refers in his second letter, was due to this. The condemnation of ʿAbd al-Malik's brother as a blasphemer, she assumes, was aimed at discrediting him and ousting him from his position.

literature

Arabic sources
  • Ibn Ḥāriṯ al-Ḫušanī: Aḫbār al-fuqahāʾ wa-l-muḥaddiṯīn. Edited by María Luisa Ávila and Luis Molina. Madrid 1992. pp. 248-253.
  • al-Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ b. Mūsā b. ʿIyāḍ al-Yaḥṣubī : Tartīb al-madārik wa-taqrīb al-masālik li-maʿrifat aʿlām madhhab Mālik . Wizārat al-Auqāf, Rabat 1965–83. Vol. IV, pp. 133-138. Digitized
Secondary literature
  • Jorge Aguadé: El proceso contra su hermano in his edition of ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Habīb : Kitāb at-Taʾrīḫ. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Madrid, 1991. pp. 35-41.
  • Maria Isabel Fierro Bello: La Heterodoxia en Al-Andalus durante el periodo Omeya . Instituto Hispano-Arabe de Cultura, Madrid, 1987. pp. 63-70.
  • Maribel Fierro: Andalusian fatāwā on blasphemy, in Annales Islamologiques 25 (1991), pp. 103-117, digitized version (PDF).
  • Maribel Fierro: Idraʾū l-ḥudūd bi-l-shubuhāt: when lawful violence meets doubt, in Hawwa 5 (2007), pp. 208-38. Here: p. 230 f.
  • Declan Patrick O'Sullivan: Punishing Apostasy: The Case of Islam and Shari'a Law Re-considered . Ph.D. thesis, Durham University, 2003. pp. 378-398, digital copy (PDF).
  • Janina Safran: Defining Boundaries in al-Andalus: Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Islamic Iberia. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 2013. pp. 46-51.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Safran: Defining Boundaries in al-Andalus, 2013, p. 51.
  2. See al-Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ: Tartīb al-madārik, p. 133.
  3. ^ O'Sullivan: Punishing Apostasy, 2003, p. 238.
  4. ^ Fierro Bello: La Heterodoxia en Al-Andalus, 1987, p. 63.
  5. Aguadé: El proceso contra su hermano, 1991, p. 37.
  6. ^ Fierro: Andalusian fatāwā on blasphemy, 1991, p. 113.
  7. ^ O'Sullivan: Punishing Apostasy, 2003, p. 239.
  8. Aguadé: "El proceso contra su hermano". 1991, p. 38.
  9. See al-Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ: Tartīb al-madārik, p. 134.
  10. See al-Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ: Tartīb al-madārik, p. 134 f.
  11. Fierro Bello: La Heterodoxia en Al-Andalus, 1987, p. 63 f.
  12. Fierro Bello: La Heterodoxia en Al-Andalus, 1987, p. 64 f.
  13. a b See al-Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ: Tartīb al-madārik, p. 135.
  14. See al-Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ: Tartīb al-madārik, p. 136.
  15. See al-Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ: Tartīb al-madārik, pp. 136 f.
  16. a b See al-Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ: Tartīb al-madārik, p. 137.
  17. See al-Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ: Tartīb al-madārik, p. 138.
  18. Safran: Defining Boundaries in al-Andalus, 2013, p. 47 f.