Mujaddid

As a mujaddid ( Arabic مجدد, DMG muǧaddid  'Renewer') is a person who renews the religion of Islam at the beginning of every Muslim century , according to an alleged prophetic saying . Over the centuries there has been heated debate among authoritative experts as to who should be recognized as the innovator of Islam. Rulers, lawyers, philosophers and theologians are named among others.

In the early modern period, the innovators of earlier centuries were put together in lists several times. For example, Muhammad Qāsim al-Qassār, the most important religious scholar at the court of the Moroccan ruler Ahmad al-Mansur (1578-1603), named the following personalities as innovators in a poem: ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz (end of the 1st century) , asch-Shāfiʿī (2nd century), Abū l-Hasan al-Aschʿarī (3rd century), al-Bāqillānī and al-Isfarāyinī (4th century), al-Ghazali (5th century), Fachr ad-Din ar-Razi (6th century), Ibn Daqīq al-ʿĪd (7th century), al-Bulqīnī and Abū l-Fadl al-ʿIrāqī (8th century), as-Suyūtī (9th century) .).

As to who was the innovator of the religion at the end of the 10th Islamic century (the year 1000 of the hijra corresponds to the year 1591/92 C.E.), there were very different ideas in the Islamic world. While al-Qassār presented his own ruler Ahmad al-Mansūr as the innovator of his time in another poem, emphasizing his prophetic origin, it was believed in Sufi circles in Morocco that Abū l-Mahāsin al-Fāsī (d. 1604), the Founder of the well-known Zawiya of the Fāsīyūn in Fez , "the innovator at the end of the millennium" ( al-mudschaddid ʿalā raʾs al-alf ). In Mecca , the prolific Hanafi scholar ʿAlī al-Qārī claimed the mujaddid rank for himself, and in Indian Naqshbandi circles around the middle of the 17th century it was believed that this rank was reserved for the scholar Ahmad as-Sirhindī (d . 1624) fees. The expression mujaddid-i alf-i thānī ("renewer of the second millennium") became a fixed title as-Sirhindī.

Said Nursî , the founder of the Nurculuk movement , was one of those who were seen as innovators in the spirit of the mujaddid tradition in the 20th century .

literature

Arabic sources

• ʿAbdallāh ibn Muḥammad al-Fāsī: al-Iʿlām bi-man ġabara min ahl al-qarn al-ḥādī ʿašar . Ed. Fāṭima Nāfiʿ. Beirut 2008.

Secondary literature

• Hamid Algar: "The Centennial Renewer: Bediuzzaman Said Nursi and the Tradition of Tajdid" in Journal of Islamic Studies 12 (2001) 291-311.
• E. van Donzel: "Mu dj addid" in The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition Vol. VII, p. 290.
• Ignaz Goldziher: On the characteristics of Gelal ud-Din us-Suyuti and his literary activity. In: J.Desomogyi (Ed.): Collected writings. Vol. I. 52ff. G.Olms, Hildesheim 1967
• Ella Landau-Tasseron: "The 'Cyclical Reform': A Study of the mujaddid Tradition" in Studia Islamica 70 (1989) 79-117.
• H. Lazarus-Yafeh: "" Tajdid al-din ": a reconsideration of its meaning, root and influence in Islam" in W. Brinner and S.Ricks (eds): Studies in Islamic and Judaic Tradition . Institute of Judaic and Islamic Studies. Denver University Scholars Press. Atlanta 1986. pp. 99-108.

supporting documents

1. ↑ Abū Dāwūd : Sunan, Kitāb al-Malāḥim, Bāb mā yuḏkar fī qarn al-mīʾa , No. 4291
2. ↑ The poem is quoted in al-Fāsī: al-Iʿlām bi-man ġabara . 2008, p. 48.
3. ↑ Cf. al-Fāsī: al-Iʿlām bi-man ġabara . 2008, p. 49.
4. ↑ See Ch. Pellat: Art. "Al-Fāsī" in The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition Vol. XII, pp. 302-303.
5. ↑ Cf. al-Fāsī: al-Iʿlām bi-man ġabara . 2008, p. 61.
6. ↑ Cf. Patrick Franke: "Cross-reference as self-testimony - individuality and intertextuality in the writings of the Meccan scholar Mulla 'Ali al-Qari (d. 1014/1606)" in St. Reichmuth u. Fl. Schwarz (ed.): Between everyday life and written culture: horizons of the individual in Arabic literature of the 17th and 18th centuries. Beirut-Würzburg 2008. pp. 131-163. P. 158.
7. ↑ See Yohanan Friedmann: Shaykh Aḥmad Sirhindī. An outline of his thought and a study of his image in the eyes of posterity. Montreal-London 1971. pp. 13-21.