Tāghūt

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Tāghūt ( Arabic طاغوت, DMG ṭāġūt ), plural Tawāghīt (طواغيت / ṭawāġīt ), in the Qur'anic context, denotes the gods of Muhammad's enemies . Koran commentators have been using the term in relation to idolatry or partly for satans since at-Tabarī , who explains it with the Arabic word autān (idols) . The latter use referred primarily to pre-Islamic Arabia as a term for buildings that, like the Kaaba , were worshiped as shrines by deities and on which sanctuary guards were active. Offerings were offered to them and circled around them in the form of a tawaf and slaughtered sacrificial animals with them.

etymology

The orientalist Theodor Nöldeke described the term as an Ethiopian word and "most likely Jewish" in origin, because the word Götze ( ṭāʿyūtā ) does not exist in this form in Syriac .

According to Abraham Geiger, the word Tāghūt comes from Syriac and means "idol". The word ṭāʿyūtā therefore means both "to go astray" and "several or one who go astray". Since the Syrian word Ta'a "wall champion star" means, there is also the theory that "the pluralistic abstraction ṭā'ūtū , arab. Ṭāġūt , [...]" planet "is the name and the" planetary gods "means".

According to the entry in the Encyclopaedia of Islam , the original meaning of the term was idolatry, and in part the devil . Throughout history, Tāghūt - u. a. based on the Koran - used by various Islamic groups against their opponents.

Tāghūt in the Koran

The expression is documented many times in the Koran (including sura 2: 256 [ No compulsion in belief ], 4:51, 4:60, 5:60, 39:17) and is constructed there as masculine, feminine or plural, depending on the meaning . Here, however, it is used together with the term dschibt (ǧibt), a synonym of Tāghūt, and denotes the enemies of that time. Believers are encouraged to stay away from both and only serve God ( Sura 16 : 36 and 39:17). The unbelievers, on the other hand, would be friends of the Tāghūt and would fight by their side (Sura 2: 257 and 4:76). In addition, Muhammad is admonished in the Koran to take a close look at people: among them there are those who would pretend to believe in what was revealed to him - in truth, however, "at the same time, they disputed the idols ( ṭāġūt ) for a decision Matters "want to turn when they have been commanded not to believe" (Sura 4:60).

Use within Islamist and jihadist currents

Ayatollah Khomeini

Khomeini used Tāghūt in his book The Islamic State ( ḥokūmat-e eslāmī ) as the first in a modern political context. Khomeini wrote that it would take an Islamic revolution to replace the state of the Tāghūt [meaning the secular state of the Shah ] with an Islamic one. Because every non-Islamic system would have a tāghūt as ruler, which would be a system of association ( neẓāmī-ye širk ). It is the duty of believers to banish these forces from society. Only in this way can the individual believer find decency again. Khomeini defines the term Tāghūt as every aggressor and every deity that is not God himself ( har maʿbūd ġeir ḫodāwand ).

He quotes in his remarks from the Koran (Sura 4:60): “Have you not seen those who claim to believe in what (as revelation) to you and what (to the men of God) has been revealed before you while they (at the same time) want to turn to the idols ( aṭ-ṭāġūt ) for decisions (of their contentious matters) when they have been ordered not to believe in them? ”Khomeini writes that many, although they are Muslims, would turn to the tāghūt for laws ( dastūr ) - although one would have to apply kufr to them ( be ān kufr šavand ). The nullity of this plan is made clear by the fact that “the Islamic people may not turn to kings, tyrants or the judges in their service with complaints in their affairs”, since this is “a turn to Tāġut [sic.!], Ie to the illegitimate forces ”. If a Muslim “regains his indisputable right with the help of these illegitimate forces, something forbidden has happened and one cannot exercise the right”. In Khomeini the term describes the rulers who rule illegally without an Islamic basis.

Indonesian jihadism

Indonesian jihadists use the term tāghūt (in this context it means false deities) to justify suicide bombings . While Salafist and Wahhabi groups in Indonesia reject suicide bombings with reference to the Koran, in which suicide is described as a sin, the acceptance among jihadists lies in the fact that such attacks represent martyrs operations against the enemies of the one god. If one attacked the Tāghūt and their followers, a suicide bombing would no longer be a hopeless situation for an individual, but would be in the service of something higher.

Cemaleddin chaplain

The term Tāghūt also played a central role with Cemaleddin Kaplan .

The IS organization

The term Tāghūt was already used by the German terrorist organization Millatu Ibrahim , which was largely inspired by Turkī al-Binʿalī and whose leading figures are now in IS- ruled territory . With reference to 4:76 ("Those who believe fight for God's sake, those who disbelieve for the sake of idols ( aṭ-ṭāġūt ). Now fight against the friends of Satan! Satan's cunning is weak." ) They declared that "everyone who fights for a Taghut [sic.!] is actually fighting for Satan", "Because Satan [...] is the head of all other Tawaghit [sic.!]". The fight can take place on paper as well as violent. Many scholars would try to legitimize the laws of a tāghūt - anyone who wishes to rule people with man-made laws. These "scholars are not just normal kuffar , but [...] tawaghit [sic.!] [...]".

Tāghūt is according to the book Course in Monotheism ( muqarrar fīṯ-tawḥīd ) of the IS organization, which has to be learned in training camps by recruits and was written by Turkī al-Binʿalī, everything that is obeyed but does not come from God. People started to worship Tāghūt instead of God. In a publication in Arabic, tāghūt is applied more precisely to politics in the words of the scholar ʿAbd Allah Abā Batīn. Tāghūt includes, among other things, the replacement of God's laws with those of the Jāhilīya . The understanding of the IS organization of Tāghūt in the contemporary is thus similar to that of Khomeini: it describes the rulers perceived as un-Islamic. To what extent or whether the IS organization was inspired by its definition at all cannot be discussed at this point. Nevertheless, the similarities are striking - even though the IS organization Khomeini calls it " Rāfidī tāghūt".

literature

  • Atallah, Wahib: "Ǧibt" et "ṭāġūt" dans le Coran in Arabica, T. 17, Fasc. 1 (Feb., 1970), pp. 69-82.
  • Fahd, T .: Ṭāghūt. 1. In pre- and early Islamic usage in The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition . Vol. X, pp. 93b-94a.
  • Emām Ḫomeinī (originally published in 1971): velāyat-e faqīh: ḥokūmat-e eslāmī . Accessible online .
  • Köbert, R .: The Koranic “ṭāġūt” in Orientalia, Nova Series, Vol. 30, No. 4, pp. 415-416 (1961).
  • Nöldeke, Theodor: New contributions to Semitic linguistics (Strasbourg: Verlag von Karl J. Trübner, 1910). Accessible online .
  • Rathjens, Carl: Tâghût against scherîʿa: Customary law and Islamic law among the Gabiles of the Yemeni highlands in the yearbook of the Linden Museum, Museum für Länder- u. Völkerkunde 1 (1951) pp. 172-187.
  • Stewart, FH: Ṭāghūt. 2. As a legal termin Yemen in The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition . Vol. X, pp. 94a-95a.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ R. Köbert: The Koranic “ṭāġūt” in Orientalia, Nova Series, Vol. 30, No. 4 (1961), p. 415.
  2. ↑ a b Hawting, Gerald R .: Idols and Images . In: McAuliffe, Jane Dammen (Ed.): Encyclopaedia of the Qur'an . tape 2 . Koninklijke Brill, Leiden 2002, p. 482 .
  3. ↑ Cf. Ibn Ishāq : Kitāb Sīrat Rasūl Allāh . Arranged by Abd el-Malik Ibn Hischâm. From d. Hs. On Berlin, Leipzig, Gotha a. Leyden ed. by Ferdinand Wüstenfeld. 2 vols. Göttingen 1858-59. P. 54. Available online here: http://archive.org/stream/p1daslebenmuhamm01ibnhuoft#page/n493/mode/2up
  4. ^ Nöldeke, Theodor: New Contributions to Semitic Linguistics (Strasbourg: Verlag von Karl J. Trübner, 1910), p. 34.
  5. ↑ Köbert, R .: The Koranic “ṭāġūt” in Orientalia, Nova Series, Vol. 30, No. 4 (1961), p. 416.
  6. ↑ T. Fahd: Day h UT . In: P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, CE Bosworth, E. van Donzel, WP Heinrichs (eds.): Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition . Brill Online, 2012.
  7. ↑ Sura 2: 256
  8. ↑ 4:51
  9. ↑ 4:60
  10. ↑ 5:60
  11. ↑ 39:17
  12. ↑ The Quranic verses linked in this article are taken from the Corpus Coranicum project of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences . All verses were last accessed from the project's homepage on May 8, 2017 .
  13. ↑ Rudi Paret: Commentary and Concordance by Rudi Paret. Stuttgart 1986, p. 97.
  14. ↑ 36
  15. ↑ 4:76
  16. ↑ Paret: Koran . 12th edition. 2014, ISBN 978-3-17-026978-1 , pp. 72 .
  17. ↑ Ḫomeinī: ḥokūmat-e eslāmī . 1971, p. 12 .
  18. ↑ Ḫomeinī: ḥokūmat-e eslāmī . 1971, p. 29 .
  19. ↑ Ḫomeinī: ḥokūmat-e eslāmī . 1971, p. 64 .
  20. ↑ Ruhollah Khomeini: The Islamic State. (Translation by Nader Hassan and Ilse Itscherenka.) Berlin 1983, p. 103.
  21. ↑ Rusli, Rusli: Indonesian Salafism on Jihād and Suicide Bombings in Journal or Indonesian Islam, Vol. 8, No. 1 (2014), p. 1.
  22. ↑ For example in: Cemaleddin Hocaoğlu (Kaplan): Tebliğ Mahiyetinde Açık Mektuplar. Cologne 1986
  23. ↑ Said, Behnam T .: Islamic State: IS militia, al-Qaeda and the German brigades . CH Beck, Munich 2014, p. 83 .
  24. ↑ 4:76
  25. ↑ Unknown: The judgment on the scholars of the Taghut. Retrieved February 9, 2016 .
  26. ↑ Al-Tamimi, Aymenn Jawad: Islamic State Training Camp Textbook: "Course in Monotheism" - Complete Text, Translation and Analysis. Retrieved February 9, 2016 .
  27. ↑ Unknown: aṭ-ṭāġūt. Maktabat al-Himma, accessed February 9, 2016 (Arabic).
  28. ↑ Dabiq 13, p. 38 , accessed on February 9, 2016 (English).