Kitab Sulaim ibn Qais

The Kitāb Sulaim ibn Qais ( Arabic كتاب سليم بن قيس 'Book of Sulaim ibn Qais') is a collection of reports on the early Islamic period, which is considered to be the oldest book of the Shia and is strongly venerated by the Shiites of twelve . The book, which is also known under the title Aṣl Sulaim ibn Qais or Kitāb as-Saqīfa , is available in several printed editions and manuscripts and is written to Sulaim ibn Qais, an alleged follower of the fourth caliph ʿAlī ibn Abī Tālib (d. 660), attributed. The central theme of the book is the claim of the family of the Prophet Mohammed to the leadership of the Muslims as well as their ousting from power through a plot of various prophetic companions that was forged before Mohammed's death.

Lively debates were held in the Shia about the authenticity of the book and the existence of Sulai. In modern research, the Kitāb Sulaim ibn Qais has been regarded as a pseudepigraphic work since Ignaz Goldziher . Its core collection is dated to the time shortly before the Abbasid seizure of power around the middle of the 8th century.

Sulaim and his book according to Shiite tradition

According to Shiite tradition, Abū Sādiq Sulaim ibn Qais al-Hilālī, after whom the book is named, was a member of the Banū Hilāl tribe , who joined ʿAlī ibn Abī Tālib in his youth and took part in the Battle of Siffin in 657 . At that time he was forty years old. While ʿAlī was still alive, Sulaym began to collect and record his reports on the events and dramatic conflicts that followed the Prophet's death and that dominated the history of the first caliphs. After the assassination of ʿAlī and the beginning of the repressive anti- Alidic policy of the first Umayyads , Sulaym was wanted by the cruel governor al-Hajjaj ibn Yūsuf , who wanted to kill him. He then fled Iraq with his book and found refuge in southern Iran in the village of Naubandadschan in the province of Fars . In old age he entrusted his notes to the young Fīrūz Abān ibn Abī ʿAiyāsch. A short time later he died and was buried in Naubandadschan. Al-Māmaqānī assumed that he died in the year 76 of the Hijra (= 695/696 AD).

According to Shiite tradition, Abān ibn Abī ʿAiyāsh was amazed at the content of the book that Sulayem had entrusted to him and therefore traveled to Basra , Mecca and Medina to have its contents confirmed by the local scholars and contemporary witnesses. In Medina he gave it to the fourth Imam ʿAlī ibn Husain Zain al-ʿĀbidīn to read, who is said to have exclaimed: "Everything that Sulayem said is true, God have mercy on him. All this is part of our teaching and we know about it. " Also, al-Hasan al-Basri confirmed to him the accuracy of the content. Shortly before his death in 138 (= 755-56 AD) Abān is said to have had a dream in which Sulay appeared to him and predicted his death and asked him to make his will. Abān then gave the book to the Shiite traditionarian ʿUmar ibn Udhaina (d. Approx. 785), who was a student of Jafar as-Sādiq and Mūsā al-Kāzim . According to Shiite tradition, it was this ʿUmar ibn Udhaina who made the book widely available by forwarding it to seven hadith scholars from Basra and Kufa, who each made their own copies. All current manuscripts of the work are said to be based on these first seven copies.

Text history

The Kitāb Sulaim ibn Qais is generally considered to be the oldest literary work of the Shia. However, it is not mentioned in established Arabic sources until the early 10th century. The first author to refer to Sulay as the author of a book was al-Masʿūdī (d. 957). He notes that the Twelve Shia based the teaching of the twelve imams on this book. The traditions cited in the Kitāb Sulaim ibn Qais can also be found in many other Shiite hadith works, such as al-Kāfī by al-Kulainī (d. 941) and the Kitāb al-Ḫiṣāl by Ibn Bābawaih (d. 992), and they are there also traced back to Sulaim via Abān. The content also overlaps with various reports in the Nahdj al-Balāgha collection .

The great popularity of the Kitāb Sulaim ibn Qais in the premodern can be seen in the large number of manuscripts. Az-Zanjani, who produced a print edition, counted a total of 69 manuscripts that are scattered across libraries in Najaf , Mecca , Medina , Isfahan , Tehran and Lucknow . The individual manuscripts, however, differ considerably in length and the number of traditions that they include. The first printed edition appeared in 1942 in Najaf, after which the work was printed several times in Najaf, Beirut, Qom and Tehran. This first edition, as well as the Beirut edition from 1994 by al-ʿAlawī al-Hasanī al-Najafī, are based on a manuscript that originally belonged to the Shiite scholar al-Hurr al-ʿĀmilī (d. 1693).

The three-volume edition of Muhammad Bāqir al-Ansārī al-Zanjānī al-Chū'īnī (Qom 1995) is usually used for research today. In the first volume it contains an introduction to the alleged author, work and text transmission, in the second volume the edition of the text and in the third volume a number of indices and the assignment ( taḫrīǧ ) of the hadiths that occur. The text of this edition is divided into 98 reports, each referred to as hadith . The first 48 accounts of Traditions are found in the majority of manuscripts, Traditions 49 to 70 only in some manuscripts, and Traditions 71 to 98 are excerpts from other works in which Sulaim is quoted. In 1999 a simplified one-volume edition was published in Qom for the general public. The work has also been translated into Persian, Turkish, Urdu and English.

content

The reports contained in the Kitab Sulaim ibn Qais deal for the most part with the events before and after the death of the Prophet, although several reports are available about individual events. HauptAlī ibn Abī Tālib and his three companions, Abū Dharr al-Ghifārī , Salmān al-Fārisī and al-Miqdād ibn ʿAmr, appear as the main guarantors of these reports . In reports that Sulaim heard from one of the three companions, he has their accuracy subsequently confirmed by ʿAlī.

As one of the titles by which the book is known, one of the central themes is the gathering of the Prophet's Companions in the Saqīfa ("courtyard, pergola") of the Banū Sāʿida after the death of Muhammad, when Abū Bakr became the new leader of the Muslims was proclaimed while ʿAlī ibn Abī Tālib and the other members of the prophetic family were busy washing the corpses. The proclamation of Abū Bakr as the new ruler is described here as the result of a plot that was forged by ʿUmar ibn al-Chattāb , Abū Bakr and Abū ʿUbaida ibn al-Jarrāh even before the death of Muhammad . This was aimed at eliminating Mohammed and his family so that they could seize power and distort the character of the new religion. The reason for this plot is said to have been the designation of ʿAlī as the successor of the Prophet on Ghadīr Chumm . In order to prevent ʿAlī from gaining power, the aforementioned companions of the prophets made a pact which they wrote down on a sheet ( ṣaḥīfa ) that they deposited in the Kaaba . The conspiracy is said to have become effective for the first time when ʿUmar prevented the Prophet from writing down his will shortly before his death, arguing that his state of health did not allow this. As a result, Abū Bakr was able to withdraw the Fadak estate from the prophet's daughter Fātima after the death of Mohammed, which she was actually entitled to as an inheritance from her father. But the sudden death of Muhammad himself is also attributed to this conspiracy, because in Report 42 it is described as the result of an intentionally induced poisoning. Mohammed himself is said to have foreseen the tragic fate of his family and his descendants before his death and made prophecies in this regard.

In addition to the events after the death of the Prophet, various events from the first civil war (656–661) are also dealt with in the Kitāb Sulaim, such as the camel battle , the battle of Siffin and the Umaiyad seizure of power after the death of ʿAlī. The main intention of the book is to show the superiority of ʿAlī ibn Abī Tālib as well as the unfair treatment he had received. Among the opponents ʿAlī, besides ʿUmar, Abū Bakr and Abū ʿUbaida, also az-Zubair ibn al-ʿAuwām , ʿĀ'ischa bint Abī Bakr , ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀs and Muʿawiya ibn Abī Sufyān are mentioned, i.e. precisely those people from whom one is concerned should renounce according to the rāfidite- Shiite doctrine of the 8th century . The book also contains a letter allegedly sent by Muʿāwiya to his governor Ziyād ibn Abīhi and secretly copied by Sulaim. In this letter, Muʿāwiya appears as a ruler who pursues a decidedly discriminatory policy towards non-Arabs.

In addition to the reports on events from the early Islamic period, the book also contains various questions that Sulaim is said to have asked ʿAlī, as well as ʿAlī's answers to them. For example, in the first part of Report 10, Sulaim asks ʿAlī about the differences between the Shiites and their opponents in Tafsīr and Hadith . In his answer, īAlī divides the traditionarians into four types: 1. Hypocrites ; 2. those who attribute reports to Mohammed without any special intention, 3. those who, according to tradition, confuse abrogation and abrogation , and 4. reliable traditionarians.

The Shiite debate about the authenticity of the work

Some Shiite scholars of the Middle Ages expressed doubts about the authenticity of this book. The Imamite scholar Ibn al-Ghadā'irī (d. 1020) denied the existence of Sulai completely and put forward the view that the book handed down in his name was a forgery by Abān ibn Abī ʿAiyāsh. His immediate contemporary, the theologian al-Sheikh al-Mufid (d. 1022), stated that some of the information in the book is corrupt and should not be considered genuine. The Muʿtazilite scholar Ibn Abī l-Hadīd (d. 1258), who was well versed in Shiite literature, openly questioned the existence of Sulaym and put forward the view that “this man was a pure invention of the imagination, and such an author never existed, rather the book attributed to him was the invention of a forger. "

These doubts about Sulai's existence, however, were rejected by al-ʿAllāma al-Hillī and other Shiite authors from the 14th century . Later authors based their defense of the authenticity of the work on the alleged saying of the sixth Imam Jafar as-Sādiq (d. 765): “Those of our party ( šīʿa ) and those who love us, not the book of Sulaim ibn Qais al-Hilālī has, he has not grasped our cause and knows nothing about our motives, for it is the alphabet of the Shia and one of the secrets of the family of Muhammad. ”The earliest Shiite author to whom this saying is quoted is Muhammad Bāqir al-Majlisī .

The Shiite debate about the authenticity of the Kitāb Sulaim ibn Qais continued into the 20th century. The Shiite scholar Abū l-Hasan al-Shaʿrānī (d. 1973) followed Ibn al-Ghadā'irī's view and declared the book to be a forgery. The well-known encyclopedia Āghā-Bozorg Tehrāni (d. 1969), however, who was convinced of the authenticity of the book, questioned the authenticity of the Kitāb al-riǧāl / aḍ-ḍuʿafā ' by Ibn al-Ghadā'irī because it was his He believes it contains many elements that he believes violate Shiite doctrine, and suggested that it may have been written by a Shiite opponent under his name, with the aim of bringing the Shiites in general and Sulaim and his book in particular to it discredit.

Assessment in modern research

Ignaz Goldziher counted the book as part of the pseudepigraphic literature of the Shia. For MA Amir-Moezzi, too, the pseudepigraphic character of the Kitāb Sulaim ibn Qais is clear. The fact that the text contains information on facts that were only known decades or centuries after the life of its alleged author, such as the Abbasid Revolution and the number of twelve imams , are clear indications of this.

Original milieu

H. Modarressi assumed that there was a very old, simple core text of the book that was expanded several times up to the 10th century, a process that is reflected in various successive reviews of the book. H. Modarressi regards this core text of the Kitāb Sulaim as the oldest surviving Shiite script and dates it to the last years of the rule of the Umayyad caliph Hischām ibn ʿAbd al-Malik (r. 724–743). He concludes this, among other things, from the fact that the book mentions twelve injustice rulers who have usurped the caliphate, and hisham is the last in this series. This also fits that Muhammad al-Bāqir (d. 732-737) is the last of the imams mentioned in the book. Among the descendants of ʿAbd al-Muttalib ibn Hāschim eight are singled out as "lords of paradise": Mohammed, ʿAlī ibn Abī Tālib, his brother Jaʿfar ibn Abī Tālib , her uncle Hamza ibn ʿAbd al-Muttalib , al-Hasan, al-Husain , Fātima bint Muhammad and finally the Mahdi . While from the early Abbasid period the imams from the descendants of ʿAlī are on a higher level in Shiite teaching than Jafar and Hamza, they are listed here as being on an equal footing with them. The text also expresses the hope that the Umaiyads will be overthrown by a descendant of al-Husain, an eschatological hope that was widespread among the Alides of the city of Kufa. Their situation is discussed in several places in the text. From all this, Modarressi concludes that the original text of the book was written by Shiite followers of the Husainid Aliden in Kufa during the last years of Hisham's reign. Amir-Moezzi agrees with this assumption and adds that the many contradictions in the text of the Kitab Sulaim ibn Qais that have been preserved indicate that the original core text was supplemented by additions in the transmission process, but not suppressed.

In contrast, T. Bayhom-Daou believes it is also possible that the work was put together much later as a compilation of such traditions, which can be traced back to Sulaim ibn Qais. It is noticeable that the Kitāb Sulaim ibn Qais is not mentioned in the sources before the early 10th century.

Dating of individual reports

Modarressi believes that later additions are easy to recognize due to the existing anachronisms , but he considers a reconstruction of the original text of the Kitāb Sulaim to be impossible because it is highly fragmented and scattered over the current text. However, various scholars have tried to date individual accounts of the text.

Patricia Crone has analyzed Report 23 on Muʿāwiya's letter to his governor Ziyād ibn Abīhi. However, due to various anachronisms in the report (e.g. black banners of the Abbasids) and the Hashimite orientation of the text , it does not come to the conclusion that it was drawn up between the Abbasid seizure of power and the uprising of Muhammad an-Nafs al-Zakīya after 780, when the last representatives of the Hajimite Shia had already disappeared.

R. Gleave has analyzed the first part of Report 10, in which Sulaim asked ʿAlī about the differences between the Shiites and their opponents in Tafsīr and Hadith . In his answer, īAlī divides the traditionarians into four types: 1. Hypocrites ; 2. those who attribute reports to Mohammed with no special intention, 3. those who, according to tradition, confuse abrogation and abrogation , and 4. reliable traditionalarians who carefully distinguish abrogation and abrogation. The representation of the abrogation in this part corresponds, according to Gleave, to the state of the discussion on this question at the time of ash-Shāfiʿī (d. 822). This and various considerations, for example that ʿAlī insists on the literal transmission of hadiths, lead him to date this part of the book to the early 9th century.

MM Dakake points out that of the two accounts of the Saqīfa, one has a pro- Abbasid tendency in that he attributes a very positive role to al-ʿAbbās ibn ʿAbd al-Muttalib and his son ʿAbdallāh ibn ʿAbbās in the events during the other report doesn't even mention the two people. Of these two reports, only the second, which agrees with the later Shiite view, found its way into later Shiite literature as a quotation, while the first pro-Abbasid report was ignored by all later Shiite authors. She suspects that this first report, with a pro-Abbasid tendency, was one of the earliest reviews of the work, while the second report was not added until the Abbasid period, when the Alids and Abbasids struggled for power.

Symbolic interpretations of the Sulayman tale

Modarressi says that Sulaim ibn Qais never really existed, but was just a pseudonym for the group of Aliden in Kufa who produced the book. Amir-Moezzi considers it possible that many elements of the reports about Sulaym and his book have a purely symbolic character: Sulaym is a cipher for the Alids of Kufa, Abān ibn Abī ʿAiyāsch and ʿUmar ibn Udhaina, both clients of the Banū ʿAbd al-Qais , symbolized the role of the Mawālī of Iranian descent in conveying the work. In the same way he interprets Sulay's flight to Iran and his accommodation in the village of Naubandadschan. A village of this name (today's pronunciation Nobandagān) still exists between the two southern Persian cities of Dārāb and Fasā , but Amir-Moezzi thinks that this name, which in Persian means "new servants (sc. God)", in The narrative does not point to an actual place, but is intended to express that the text and its teachings were threatened in Iraq, were well received by the newly converted Iranians and were later disseminated through them in Iraq and elsewhere. The seven hadith scholars who distributed the text of ʿUmar ibn Udhaina can also be interpreted symbolically. They stand as a metaphor for the seven climate zones and thus for the whole of the world.

literature

• Mehmet Nur Akdoğan: "Kitâbu Süleym b. Kays ve kaynaklık değeri" in Bitlis Eren Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Dergisi 3 (2014) 1–22. Digitized
• Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi : "Exégèse et théologie de l'Islam shi'ite. Trois ouvrages méconnus du shi'isme ancien" in Annuaire de l'École pratique des hautes études (EPHE), Section des sciences religieuses 116 (2009) 127 -131. Online version
• Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi: Note bibliographique sur le «Kitâb Sulaym b. Qays », le plus ancien ouvrage shi'ite existant. In: MA Amir-Moezzi, Meir M. Bar-Asher, Simon Hopkins (eds.): Le shīʿisme imāmite quarante ans après: hommage à Etan Kohlberg. Brepols, Turnhout, 2009. pp. 33-48.
• Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi: Le Coran silencieux et le Coran parlant. Sources scriptuaires de l'islam entre histoire et ferveur . CNRS, Paris, 2011. pp. 27-61.
• Tamima Bayhom-Daou: Kitāb Sulaym ibn Qays revisited. In Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 78 (2015) 105-119.
• Maria Massi Dakake: Writing and Resistance: The Transmission of Religious Knowledge in Early Shiʿism. In: Farhad Daftary: The Study of Shi'i Islam: History, Theology and Law. Tauris, London, 2014. pp. 181-203. Here pp. 187–193.
• Moktar Djebli: Art. "Sulaym b. Ḳays" in The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition Volume IX, pp. 818b-819b.
• R. Gleave: Early Shiite hermeneutics and the dating of Kitāb Sulaym ibn Qays. In: Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 78 (2015) 83-103.
• Hossein Modarressi: Tradition and survival: a bibliographic survey of early Shi'ite literature . Oneworld, Oxford, 2003. pp. 82-86.
• Fuat Sezgin : History of Arabic Literature. 1. Volume: Qur'ānwissenschaften, Hadīṯ, Geschichte, Fiqh, Dogmatik, Mystik up to approx. 430 H. Leiden 1967, p. 525f.
• Āġā Buzurg aṭ-Ṭihrānī : aḏ-Ḏarīʿa ilā taṣānīf aš-šīʿa . Reprint. Beirut 1983. Volume II, pp. 152-159.
• Muḥammad Bāqir al-Anṣārī az-Zanǧānī Ḫūʾīnī: Kitāb Sulaim ibn Qais al-Hilālī. Qom 1999 ( digitized  in the  text archive - Internet Archive ).

Web links

• English translation on the Shiite website Hubeali.com

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Amir-Moezzi: Le Coran silencieux et le Coran parlant. 2011, p. 32.
2. ↑ az-Zanǧānī: Kitāb Sulaim ibn Qais al-Hilālī . 1999, p. 69.
3. ↑ az-Zanǧānī: Kitāb Sulaim ibn Qais al-Hilālī . 1999, p. 334.
4. ↑ Amir-Moezzi: Exégèse et théologie de l'Islam shi'ite. 2009, p. 127.
5. ↑ Amir-Moezzi: Exégèse et théologie de l'Islam shi'ite. 2009, p. 128.
6. ↑ Akdoğan: Kitâbu Süleym b. Kays . 2014, pp. 2, 4.
7. ↑ Amir-Moezzi: Le Coran silencieux et le Coran parlant. 2011, p. 29.
8. ↑ Dakake: Writing and Resistance. 2014, p. 189.
9. ↑ aṭ-Ṭihrānī: aḏ-Ḏarīʿa . 1983, Volume II, p. 155.
10. ↑ Amir-Moezzi: Exégèse et théologie de l'Islam shi'ite. 2009, pp. 128, 130.
11. ↑ Ibn an-Nadīm : Kitāb al-Fihrist . With note ed. by Gustav Flügel . Vogel, Leipzig, 1871. p. 219. Digitized
12. ↑ Bayhom-Daou: Kitāb Sulaym ibn Qays revisited. 2015, p. 105.
13. ↑ his Kitāb at-Tanbīh wa-l-išrāf . French Translation by B. Carra de Vaux. Imprimerie Nationale, Paris, 1896. p. 307. Digitized  in the  text archive - Internet Archive
14. ↑ Gleave: Early Shiite hermeneutics. 2015, p. 86f.
15. ↑ Gleave: Early Shiite hermeneutics. 2015, p. 88.
16. ↑ az-Zanǧānī: Kitāb Sulaim ibn Qais al-Hilālī . 1999, pp. 92-97.
17. ↑ Bayhom-Daou: Kitāb Sulaym ibn Qays revisited. 2015, p. 106.
18. ↑ Bayhom-Daou: Kitāb Sulaym ibn Qays revisited. 2015, p. 106.
19. ↑ Gleave: Early Shiite hermeneutics. 2015, p. 84.
20. ↑ Amir-Moezzi: Le Coran silencieux et le Coran parlant. 2011, p. 36.
21. ↑ Kitāb Sulaim ibn Qais - Digitized  in the  text archive - Internet Archive (Arabic).
22. ↑ Akdoğan: Kitâbu Süleym b. Kays. 2014, p. 7.
23. ↑ Amir-Moezzi offers a complete overview of the content of the individual reports in Le Coran silencieux et le Coran parlant. 2011, pp. 54-59.
24. ↑ Dakake: Writing and Resistance. 2014, p. 189.
25. ↑ Bayhom-Daou: Kitāb Sulaym ibn Qays revisited. 2015, p. 110.
26. ↑ Amir-Moezzi: Le Coran silencieux et le Coran parlant. 2011, p. 39.
27. ↑ Amir-Moezzi: Exégèse et théologie de l'Islam shi'ite. 2009, pp. 127, 130.
28. ↑ Dakake: Writing and Resistance. 2014, p. 191f.
29. ↑ Dakake: Writing and Resistance. 2014, p. 189.
30. ↑ Amir-Moezzi: Le Coran silencieux et le Coran parlant. 2011, p. 38f.
31. ↑ Dakake: Writing and Resistance. 2014, p. 192.
32. ↑ Dakake: Writing and Resistance. 2014, p. 188.
33. ↑ Bayhom-Daou: Kitāb Sulaym ibn Qays revisited. 2015, p. 105.
34. ↑ Gleave: Early Shiite hermeneutics. 2015, p. 87.
35. ↑ Gleave: Early Shiite hermeneutics. 2015, pp. 90–92.
36. ↑ Gleave: Early Shiite hermeneutics 2015, p. 85.
37. ↑ Amir-Moezzi: Le Coran silencieux et le Coran parlant. 2011, p. 32.
38. ↑ Amir-Moezzi: Le Coran silencieux et le Coran parlant. 2011, p. 29.
39. ↑ Amir-Moezzi: Le Coran silencieux et le Coran parlant. 2011, p. 32 f.
40. ↑ Amir-Moezzi: Exégèse et théologie de l'Islam shi'ite. 2009, p. 129.
41. ^ I. Goldziher: Muhammedanische Studien . Niemeyer, Halle, 1890. Volume II, p. 10 f. Digitized  in the  text archive - Internet Archive
42. ↑ Amir-Moezzi: Exégèse et théologie de l'Islam shi'ite. 2009, p. 129.
43. ↑ Bayhom-Daou: Kitāb Sulaym ibn Qays revisited. 2015, p. 105.
44. ↑ Amir-Moezzi: Exégèse et théologie de l'Islam shi'ite. 2009, p. 129f.
45. ↑ Amir-Moezzi: Le Coran silencieux et le Coran parlant. 2011, p. 36.
46. ↑ Bayhom-Daou: Kitāb Sulaym ibn Qays revisited. 2015, p. 105.
47. ↑ Amir-Moezzi: Exégèse et théologie de l'Islam shi'ite. 2009, p. 129f.
48. ↑ Patricia Crone: Mawālī and the Prophet's family: an early Shīʿite view. In: Monique Bernards, John Nawas (eds.): Patronate and Patronage in Early and Classical Islam. Brill, Leiden, 2005. pp. 167-194. Here especially pp. 178–179.
49. ↑ Gleave: Early Shiite hermeneutics. 2015, p. 87.
50. ↑ Gleave: Early Shiite hermeneutics. 2015, pp. 90–94.
51. ↑ Gleave: Early Shiite hermeneutics. 2015, p. 93.
52. ↑ Gleave: Early Shiite hermeneutics. 2015, pp. 95, 98, 102.
53. ↑ Dakake: Writing and Resistance. 2014, p. 189.
54. ↑ Amir-Moezzi: Exégèse et théologie de l'Islam shi'ite. 2009, p. 128.
55. ↑ Amir-Moezzi: Le Coran silencieux et le Coran parlant. 2011, p. 30.
56. ↑ Amir-Moezzi: Exégèse et théologie de l'Islam shi'ite. 2009, p. 128 f.