Taqīya
Taqīya ( Arabic تقية, DMG Taqīya or Taqiyya 'fear, caution') is a principle that applies to various Shiite groups, according to which it is permitted to disregard ritual duties and to conceal one's own belief in the event of coercion or danger to body and property .
The concept is also known in Sunni Islam, but it has not found general application and has often been rejected. However, hiding one's own faith in a dangerous situation is usually considered permissible. According to Goldziher, the big difference is that Taqīya is an “indispensable duty” in Shiite Islam, while in Sunni religion it is considered a ruchsa , ie “a concession for the weaker”.
The Shiites often associated the principle of Taqīya with the principle of Taqwā , “fear of God”. Taqīya is also considered to be the “good” for Shiites, with which, according to Quran verse 28:54, one averts evil.
etymology
The term Taqīya is a secondary education to the 8th stem of the word root w-qy , ittaqā "(God) fear". The Koranic term Taqwā also belongs to this family of words.
Koranic basics
The word Taqīya does not appear in this form in the Koran; words related to Taqīya can only be found in two places. The following passages from the Koran are always interpreted with the reservation that the life of a Muslim is dangerous.
The most important Koranic basis for the Taqīya principle is Sura 3:28, which says:
“The believers should not take the unbelievers as friends instead of the believers. Whoever does this has no (longer) fellowship with God. It is different if you are really afraid of them (ie the unbelievers) ( illā an tattaqū minhum tuqāt ). "
So friendship with unbelievers should be excused if there is reason to fear them. The term Taqīya is derived from the two words tattaqū ("you are afraid") and tuqāt ("fearful") used in this verse . Also Sura 49 : 13 , which says that the person who is the most upmarket in God, "the most righteous" ( al-ATQA ) is, was interpreted as a recommendation to Taqiya.
Sura 16 : 106 serves as a further justification for the Taqīya principle , in which the word Taqīya does not appear in any form:
“Those who do not believe in God after they have believed except when one is forced (outwardly to disbelief) while his heart has found rest (finally) in faith, no, those who (freely and freely) disbelieves in himself Give space over which God's wrath (w. Wrath of God) comes and they (one day) have to expect a huge punishment. "
Hartmut Bobzin translates the verse as follows:
"Anyone who no longer believes in God after they have believed - except for those who have been forced but who continue to believe in their hearts - but whoever opens their breasts to unbelief, God's wrath comes upon them, and harsh punishment awaits them."
The exception clause in the parenthesis is said to have been revealed with regard to the companion of the prophet ʿAmmār ibn Yāsir, who had been forced to worship gods .
Also qualifies according to the Shiite scholar Hasan al-Saffar also in Surah 40 : 28 mentioned "believing man from the family of Pharaoh who hid his faith" ( raǧulun Mu'minun min Ali fir'auna yaktumu'īmānahū ), as a model for the Taqiya principle. Here, however, the Arabic word katama is used to mean "to hide".
Taqīya among the Sunnis
Narrated is the case of two Muslim prisoners of the counter- prophet Musailima , one of whom chose to be martyred, but the other saved his life by pretending to worship Musailima. Muhammad is said to have declared on the news of death:
“The slain has passed away in his righteousness and his assurance of faith and has obtained his glory; Hail him! But God has given the other a relief, no chastisement should affect him. "
For Strothmann, this tradition is proof that "steadfast martyrdom" counts more than Taqīya among the Sunnis. So the Sunni believer is not obliged to practice taqīya if the expected punishment is "bearable". Strothmann cites a prison sentence and a non-fatal hostage as examples.
Taqīya in the history of the Shia
The need for Shiite groups to hide their beliefs is explained by the persecution of Sunni rulers under whom they were. The Shiites developed their doctrine of Taqīya early on. The first Muslim to practice taqīya according to the Shiite view was ʿAlī ibn Abī Tālib . With his recognition of the first three caliphs, who, according to Shiite beliefs, wrongly withheld the office of caliph, he committed taqīya. This view was spread by the Kaisānites .
The oldest literary evidence for the notion Taqiya is found in verses of the poet Kumait (d. 743/44) that a supporter of Aliden was and the Umayyad fought. In a poem of praise to the Alides, he complains that he can only walk secretly on their path and that he has to pretend a different attitude. For this behavior of concealment he uses the term Taqīya in the same poem.
The principle then took on significant importance in the teaching of the Shiite imam Jafar as-Sādiq . He recommended the Taqīya as a means of avoiding political persecution by the Abbasids . However, he was also accused of practicing Taqīya against his own followers. This aroused criticism in particular from the Zaidite Shiites. In the later Imamitic Shia , the Taqīya acquired dogmatic rank and duty character. The eleventh Imam Hasan al-ʿAskarī is quoted as saying: "A believer who does not practice Taqīya is like a believer without a head."
Role in the Sunni-Shiite dispute
Strict Sunni theologians repeatedly stressed that it was more honorable to endure torment than to slander one's beliefs.
Among others, Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb even declares the Shiites to be infidels on the basis of the Taqīya, which in his opinion is un-Islamic . The interpretation of the term atqākum in sura 49:13 as those who practice the most taqīya is inadmissible. This interpretation is forbidden by a hadith . The fact that Shiites still practice taqīya is therefore one proof of many for their disbelief.
During the al-Azhar Taqrīb initiative , in which Sunnis and Shiites became closer, the Sunni opposition accused the Shiites of supporting the initiative only because they really want to convert Sunnis to Shia and practice Taqīya.
The Saudi Shiite scholar Hasan as-Saffār, who was asked in 2006 whether his public statements should be taken seriously at all, since as a Shiite he could apply the principle of Taqīya, said that the Shiites were wrongly accused of using this principle by other Muslims . It is a Koranic concept that the Koran and Islam in general taught, and that all Islamic scholars who commented on the relevant verses of the Koran have dealt with. He also referred to the fact that in Sura 6: 119 already the legal maxim is to ensure that people in predicaments should transgress commandments.
The Danish Islamic scholar Jakob Skovgaard-Petersen is of the opinion that the meaning of Taqīya has changed in the inner-Islamic context. At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, the Shiite sects realized that they could no longer keep their texts secret. So began a process of rereading these texts. Critics of the resulting new positions inside and outside the groups then accused these new movements of practicing Taqīya. Taqīya has now been accused of a whole group or of their leaders: their intention and no longer their identity is now in doubt.
Abuse by enemies of Islam
As the example of Hasan as-Saffār made clear, Shiite minorities in the Middle East are still quickly accused of lying with reference to Taqīya. Jakob Skovgaard-Petersen therefore writes that this accusation suddenly comes back to the Sunnis in Europe : Because Islamophobes often accuse Muslims of always lying.
For Skovgaard-Petersen this constitutes a strategy with which the Islamophobic milieu places Muslims outside of the democratic dialogue and claims to be able to explain what the true intention of Muslims is. In this way, Islamophobes would stifle the voices of Muslims in a democratic society and seize power over Muslims. Because the accusation of Taqīya shows that there is absolutely no interest in hearing Muslims.
Skovgaard-Petersen emphasizes that an individual politician can have a "secret agenda" or is selective in what he says. But to apply the principle of Taqīya in this context is wrong. He therefore calls for action in the name of democracy against those who take the Muslim vote and claim that they can speak for them.
The orientalist Stefan Jakob Wimmer emphasizes that Muslims are only allowed to hide their faith in extreme emergency situations. As an example, he cites the Reconquista , during which Muslims forcibly adopted Christianity, ate pork or - if at all - performed their rituals in secret to save their lives. According to Wimmer, Taqīya is not a strategy for duping people of other faiths so that, for example, Islam can be spread. This accusation of the Islamophobic milieu is wrong.
Wimmer sees a parallel to anti-Semitism in the accusation of the Taqīya against Muslims . In the 19th century, too, anti-Semites presented themselves as "upright defenders of the Christian West" and defined lies as a Jewish trait. Islamophobes are now resorting to the same strategy: Since, in their opinion, Islam has no place in Germany, they accuse every Muslim who contradicts this or who does not practice Islam in an extremist way of practicing Taqīya. The fact that this deliberate misinterpretation of Taqīya is finding its way into the majority society alarms Wimmer. A democratic society must defend itself against the " defamation " of a religious minority just as it defends itself against fundamentalist enemies.
literature
- Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb: Risāla fī r-radd ʿalā ar-Rāfiḍa . Accessible online .
- Lynda Clarke: "The Rise and Decline of Taqiyya in Twelver Shi'ism." in Todd Lawson (Ed.): Reason and Inspiration in Islam: Theology, Philosophy and Mysticism in Muslim Thought ed. IB Tauris, London, 2005. pp. 46-63.
- Josef van Ess : Theology and Society in the 2nd and 3rd Century Hijra. A History of Religious Thought in Early Islam. Volume I. Berlin-New York 1991. pp. 312-315.
- Ignaz Goldziher : The principle of Taḳijja in Islam in the magazine of the German oriental society 59 (1906) 213–226 digitized MENAdoc
- Etan Kohlberg : Some Imāmī-Shīʿī Views on Taqiyya in Journal of the American Oriental Society 95/3 (1975) 395-402. Accessible online
- Etan Kohlberg: Taqiyya in Shi'i Theology and Religion in Hans G Kippenberg and Guy G. Stroumsa (ed.) Secrecy and Concealment: Studies in the History of Mediterranean and Near Eastern Religions . New York: EJBrill, 1995. pp. 345-60.
- Aharon Layish: Taqiyya among the Druzes in Asian and African Studies 19 (1985) 245-81.
- Egbert Meyer: “Occasion and scope of taqiyya,” in Der Islam 57/2 (1980) 246-80.
- Jakob Skovgaard-Petersen: On Taqiyya and Democracy . Accessible online .
- Diane Steigerwald: "La dissimulation ( taqiyya ) de la foi dans le shiʿisme ismaelien" in Studies in Religion / Sciences religieuses 27 (1988) 39-58.
- Devin Stewart: Taqiyyah as Performance: the Travels of Baha 'al-Din al-`Amili in the Ottoman Empire (991-93 / 1583-85) in Princeton Papers in Near Eastern Studies 4 (1996) 1-70.
- Rudolf Strothmann : Taḳīya in EJ Brill's First Encyclopaedia of Islam 1913-1936. Vol. VIII, pp. 628-629. available online at Google Books
- Rudolf Strothmann: Taḳīya in AJ Wensick and JH Kramers (eds.): Concise dictionary of Islam . Brill, Leiden 1976, pp. 715-717.
- Rudolf Strothmann, Moktar Djebli: Art. Taḳiyya in The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition , Vol. X, pp. 134a-136a.
- Shafique N. Virani: Taqiyya and Identity in a South Asian Community in The Journal of Asian Studies 70/1 (2011) 99-139.
- Paul E. Walker: Art. Taqīyah in John L. Esposito (ed.): The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World. 6 Vols. Oxford 2009. Vol. V, pp. 327b-329a.
- Stefan Jakob Wimmer : The Taqiya Lie. Mechanisms of Exclusion of Religious Minorities in Abraham's Papers. Contributions to the interreligious dialogue, issue 10, 2010, pp. 92–110. Accessible online
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Goldziher: The principle of Taḳijja in Islam . 1906, p. 216. Available online
- ↑ Goldziher: The Principle of Taḳijja in Islam . 1906, p. 219. Available online
- ^ Van Ess: Theology and Society . 1991, Vol. I., p. 314.
- ↑ Wolfdietrich Fischer : Grammar of Classical Arabic . Otto Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1972. p. 115, § 242, note 2. Accessible online
- ↑ Wimmer: The Taqiya Lie . Accessible online
- ^ Van Ess: Theology and Society . 1991, Vol. I., p. 314.
- ↑ Walker: Taqiyah in The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World. 2009, vol. VS 328a.
- ↑ Bobzin, Hartmut: The Koran . CH Beck, Munich 2010, p. 239
- ↑ Strothmann / Djebli: Taḳiyya in EI² , Vol. X., p. 134b.
- ↑ Ḥasan aṣ-Ṣaffār: Al-Maḏhab wa-l-waṭan: Mukāšafāt wa-ḥiwārāt ṣarīḥa maʿa samāḥat aš-šaiḫ Ḥasan as-Saffār aǧrā-hā ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz Qasīz . Al-Muʾassasa al-ʿArabīya li-d-dirāsāt wa-n-našr, Beirut, 2005. p. 21. Accessible online
- ↑ Hans Wehr : Arabic dictionary for the written language of the present . 5th edition - revised and expanded with the help of Lorenz head table. Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden 1987. p. 1087. Available online
- ↑ Strothmann: Taḳīya in the concise dictionary of Islam . Brill, Leiden 1976, p. 716.
- ↑ Strothmann: Taḳīya in the concise dictionary of Islam . Brill, Leiden 1976, p. 716.
- ↑ Skovgaard-Petersen: On Taqiyya and Democracy , pp. 2-3. Accessible online
- ^ Van Ess: Theology and Society . 1991, Vol. I., p. 313.
- ↑ Goldziher: The Principle of Taḳijja in Islam . 1906, p. 219. Available online
- ↑ Walker: Taqiyah in The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World. 2009, vol. VS 328a.
- ^ Van Ess: Theology and Society . 1991, Vol. I., pp. 283, 315.
- ↑ Quotation in Goldziher: The principle of Taḳijja in Islam . 1906, p. 219. Available online
- ↑ Muḥammad Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb: Risāla fī r-radd ʿalā ar-Rāfiḍa , p. 13f. Accessible online
- ↑ Brunner, Rainer: Approach and Distance. Schia, Azhar and Islamic Ecumenism in the 20th Century . Klaus Schwarz Verlag, Berlin 1996, pp. 203-204. Accessible online
- ↑ Ḥasan aṣ-Ṣaffār: Al-Maḏhab wa-l-waṭan: Mukāšafāt wa-ḥiwārāt ṣarīḥa maʿa samāḥat aš-šaiḫ Ḥasan as-Saffār aǧrā-hā ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz Qasīz . Al-Muʾassasa al-ʿArabīya li-d-dirāsāt wa-n-našr, Beirut, 2005. p. 21. Accessible online
- ↑ Skovgaard-Petersen: On Taqiyya and Democracy , p. 3. Accessible online
- ↑ Skovgaard-Petersen: On Taqiyya and Democracy , p. 7. Accessible online
- ↑ Skovgaard-Petersen: On Taqiyya and Democracy , p. 1. Accessible online
- ↑ Skovgaard-Petersen: On Taqiyya and Democracy , pp. 8-9. Accessible online
- ↑ Skovgaard-Petersen: On Taqiyya and Democracy , p. 9. Available online
- ↑ Wimmer: The Taqiya Lie . Accessible online
- ↑ Wimmer: The Taqiya Lie . Accessible online