Shirā '

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Shirā ' ( Arabic شراء, DMG širāʾ  , purchase, sale ') designates among the Kharijites and Ibadites self-sacrifice in the struggle for the cause of God . The fight is interpreted as a religious trade: the fighter sells his life to God and at the same time buys access to paradise . The idea of ​​shirāʾ, which has a Koranic basis, can already be found among the early Kharijites , who are referred to in poems as shārī (شاري / šārī  / 'buyer, seller') or plural schurāt (شرات / šurāt ). The Ibadites, whose currents arose historically from Kharijitism, took over the concept and developed it further. According to the classical Ibadi doctrine, the shirā 'is one of the four "ways of religion" ( masālik ad-dīn ).

Koranic basis

The image of the sacrifice of life in struggle as a transaction with God can already be found in two places in the Koran, both of which come from Medinian times . The first place can be found in Sura 4:

“But those who sell this worldly life for the price of the hereafter should fight for God's sake . And if someone fights for God's sake, and he is killed - or he wins - we will give him (in the hereafter) an enormous reward. "

- Sura 4:74, translation by Rudi Paret

The second place can be found in sura 9, one of the last suras of the Koran :

“God bought the believers' lives and goods for the fact that they would get the paradise garden - by fighting, killing and being killed in the way of God . A promise to which he, as truth, is bound in the Torah, the Gospel and the Koran. And who is more likely to keep his obligation than God? So rejoice in the deal you have made: this is the big win. "

- Sura 9: 111, translation by Hartmut Bobzin

The commercial trade is referred to here as an event that has already taken place and the promise of the otherworldly reward for the war on this side is shown as a legacy of the previous monotheistic religions Judaism and Christianity .

In Kharijite poetry

The Kharijites, who undertook numerous uprisings in the early Islamic period, interpreted the Quranic verses mentioned as an indication of the legitimacy of their struggle against unjust rulers. They said that they were serving God in this outing and that God had bought them. About the Kharijite fighter Abū Bilāl Mirdās ibn Hudair, who was killed in 679 while serving against the troops of the repressive Umayyad governor ʿUbaid Allāh ibn Ziyād, it was said, for example: “God bought Ibn Hudair's life and he has paradise with all its blessings obtained. "

The motif of shirāʾ, self-sacrifice, appears particularly frequently in Karijite poetry. Abū l-Wāziʿ ar-Rāsibī, a Kharijite fighter who later went out to avenge the murder of his companion Abū Bilāl Mirdās, made it clear in his verses that the aim of his self-sale should be the fight against the injustice that has occurred:

سأشري ولا أبغي سوى الله صاحبا
وأبيض كالمخراق عضب المضارب
فقد ظهر الجور المبير وأجمعت
على ذاك أقروام لي اك أقروام تيب

Sa-ašrī wa-lā abġī illā Llāhi ṣāḥiban
wa-abyaḍa ka-l-miḫrāqi ʿaḍba l-maḍārib
wa-qad ẓahara l-ǧauru l-mubīru wa-aǧmaʿat
ʿalā ḏāka aqḏwāmun-tak

I am selling myself and desiring no companion other than God
and a white, sharp-edged (sword) like the Michrāq,
for devastating oppression has occurred and
many lying groups have agreed on this.

The shirāʾ, self-sacrifice, is positively contrasted in some poems with the passive attitude of other Muslims who prefer to stay at home and give up the fight. This is how Maʿdān ibn Mālik al-Iyādī, who fell out with the Sufritic Kharijites in the second half of the 7th century because of his radical-militant attitude, wrote:

سلام على من بايع الله شاريا
وليس على الحزب المقيم سلام

Salāmun ʿalā man bāyaʿa Llāha šāriyan
wa-laisa ʿalā l-ḥizbi l-muqīmi salāmun

Salvation lies above the one who swears the oath of allegiance to God ; as a seller,
no salvation lies above the party that remains settled.

A verse by the Kharijite poet ʿAmr ibn al-Husain al-ʿAnbari, quoted by Abū l -Faraj al-Isfahānī in his "Book of Songs", shows how strongly the Shurāt's self-sacrifice was seen as a desirable goal to be found in his Life cannot be missed:

حذر المنية ان تجيء بداهة
لم اقض من تبع الشرات مآربي

Ḥaḏara l-manīyati an taǧīʾa badāhatan
lam aqḍi min tabaʿi š-šurāti maʾāribī

Fearing that my death might come suddenly,
I feel compelled to follow the Shurāt.

The concept of shirāʾ was so prominent among the Kharijites that they also used the self-designation shurāt for their own group . Individuals belonging to this stream were also often assigned the attribute ash-shārī (الشاري / aš-šārī ) provided.

With the Ibadites

The Ibādites worked out the concept of Shirāʾ in particular in the context of their teaching of the four "ways of religion" ( masālik ad-dīn ). The four paths - emergence ( ẓuhūr ), defense ( difāʿ ), self- sale ( širāʾ ) and secrecy ( kitmān ) - are understood as stages within the history of one's own community, which can be repeated and for which their own rules apply. Accordingly, four different types of imamate are assigned to the four masālik ad-dīn . For example, while Jābir ibn Zaid and Abū ʿUbaida Muslim ibn Abī Karīma are said to have been imams of secrecy, al-Joulandā ibn Masʿūd, who founded the first Ibadite imamate in Oman in 750 , was, in their opinion, an imam of emergence.

As a model for the "Imamate of (self) sales" (إمامة الشراء / imāmat aš-širāʾ ) to this day the Ibadis consider the Kharijite fighter Abū Bilāl Mirdās ibn Hudair, who left the city of Basra with forty of his followers in 679 to fight against the troops of ʿUbaid Allah ibn Ziyād, and then treacherously with his fighters from an Umaiyad overwhelming force was attacked and killed while praying. ʿUbaid Allaah ibn Ziyād had previously cruelly executed a Harijite woman. The Ibadite literature reports that, before leaving Basra, Abū Bilāl Mirdās is said to have addressed his fighters with the following words: “Know that you are about to be killed and will not return to life. You will move forward and not stray from the path of righteousness until you come to God. If that is your concern, go back and do your business, pay your debts, buy yourself, say goodbye to your family, and tell them you will never come back to them. When you have done this, I accept your oath of allegiance . "

For the shirāʾ, which according to Ibadi view is the most recommended form of jihad in the absence of an “imam of emergence”, the following rules apply according to classical Ibadi doctrine:

  1. The shirāʾ is voluntary for the Ibādites as a whole; but for those who have taken it upon themselves, it becomes a duty. The doctrine of the voluntary nature of the shirāʾ is contrasted in the ibādite literature with the view of the Azraqites , who viewed the shirāʾ as a duty that is incumbent on all Muslims as a whole.
  2. A minimum of 40 men is required for the Shirāʾ. One of the men can be replaced by a woman.
  3. The Shurāt must choose a leader from among themselves, whose authority then has binding force only for them.
  4. Religious concealment, taqīya , is not appropriate for the shurāt. They must fight until they end the tyranny or until they are killed themselves. Some scholars say they cannot return until three of them are still alive.
  5. The home of the shurāt are the places where they gather to fight. When they return to their original hometowns for supplies, information or something similar, they are considered travelers and must, if they offer the prayer there, shorten it as a travel prayer accordingly.
  6. The Shurāt may only fight those who fight against them, may not pursue anyone, may not kill the injured, may not kill old men, women or children, may not take booty or confiscate property that does not belong to them.

The office of the "Imam of Self-Selling" (إمام الشراء / imām aš-širāʾ ) or the "self-selling imam" (الإمام الشاري / al-imām aš-šārī ) was institutionalized in the Middle Ages among the Ibadites of North Africa and Oman and lost its militant character over time.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See also Silvia Horsch-Al Saad: Tod im Kampf. Figurations of the Martyr in Early Sunni Scriptures . Würzburg: Ergon 2011. pp. 107–111.
  2. ↑ Quoted from Gaiser 88.
  3. ↑ Quoted from Ṣāliḥī 327.
  4. ↑ See W. Madelung: Art. “Ṣufriyya. 1. In Arabia and the Islamic East ”in The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition Vol. IX, pp. 766a-767b.
  5. ↑ Quoted from Ṣāliḥī 326.
  6. ↑ Quoted from Ṣāliḥī 325.
  7. ↑ See Izzi Dien 471a.
  8. ↑ See Smith 284 and Ennami 335–351.
  9. ↑ See Gaiser 92f.
  10. ↑ Quoted from Ennami 340 from the Kitāb as-Sīra of Munīr ibn Naiyir al-Juʿlānī.
  11. ↑ See Ennami 341–343.
  12. ↑ Cf. Gaiser 105-109.