Islam

ISLAM. - Religion founded by Muhammad (v.) in Arabia in the 7th century A.D. The name i. means in Arabic "dedication" to God. From it derives Islamism, while from the participle muslim "he who professes i." derives, through the Persian plural muslimân and the Turkish müslimân, Muslim.

The diffusion of Muhammad's religion was a consequence of the military expansion of the state he founded. Therefore i. is a phenomenon not only religious, but also political and juridical. It regulates under divine law every aspect of the believer's life, unlike Christianity, which distinguishes between spiritual power and temporal power. On the other hand, the political events that led i. to great expansion beyond the borders of Arabia gave it a supranational character that historically differentiates it from Judaism.

As a religion, i. appears to be an adaptation to the Arab people of Jewish and Christian monotheism. An adaptation with partial alterations, both because of the ways through which the monotheistic heritage reached Muhammad, and because of contact with pre-Islamic Arab cults

(v. ARABIA). In its development, moreover, non-Arab religious and cultural elements intervened, albeit to a limited extent, assimilated through conquest.

In its history, the religion of i. presents an elaborative phase lasting about three centuries, subsequently giving rise to a progressive crystallization of theory. The elaboration proceeds in parallel in three directions: legal theology (fiqh), dogmatic theology (ha-lām), spiritual theology (tāpawawuf). The ample, ancient development of religious law confers on i. a certain formalistic character. The demands of the inner life find rather peripheral positions.

I. THE HISTORICAL EXPANSION.

I. LIMITS AND CHARACTERS OF MUSLIM HISTORY

The military and political history of Islam includes a priori the vicissitudes of all Muslim peoples and all Muslim states. Part of it, therefore, are both the peoples who were the bearers of Muhammad's religion (the Arabs) and those who adopted it or had it imposed upon them (Persians, Turks, Indians, Berbers, etc.), from the moment and until the moment that such adoption lasted. Geographically, the historical radius of action of Islam extends from France and Spain, across Africa and Asia, as far as China and the Malay archipelago; it touches southern Russia and the Balkans to the north, and eastern Africa to the south.

On the other hand, the effective unity of the Muslim world took concrete form only in the first phase of the caliphate, until about the 9th century. There follows a period of fragmentation which, though fundamentally altered by the establishment of great states of Turkish or Mongol origin, never again resolved itself into a general unification. It will therefore be legitimate, on the basis of ethnic and political criteria, to refer for the details of Muslim history to the treatment of the individual peoples and regions. Here it will be appropriate to dwell in particular on the vicissitudes of the unitary caliphate, which comprise approximately the period corresponding to that in which Islam formed and structurally defined itself as a religious phenomenon. We shall thus have the synthesis of the great lines of the long historical travail through which the peoples of the Muslim faith have arrived at the present political and geographical situation in the world.

II. THE ORTHODOX CALIPHS (632-61)

The death of Muhammad left Arabia almost completely unified under the new state. A union, however, that was notably precarious, since, outside the zone pivoting on the cities of Mecca and Medina, it was founded on agreements between the prophet and the Arab tribes; the latter, for the most part, considered such agreements dissolved after Muhammad's death. On the other hand, the absence of testamentary dispositions left open a dynastic question which, at first dormant, was later to resurface and be a determining element of crisis throughout the whole course of Islamic history.

Elected successor of the prophet, his son-in-law Abū Bakr (632-34) quelled the revolts of the tribes in a bloody war and, having thus given the state the indispensable solidity, carried out the first thrusts toward the north, which under his successor ʿUmar (634-44) were to be transformed into permanent conquest. His decade was the period of the great conquests: having crossed the borders of the decadent Byzantine and Persian empires, the Arabs occupied Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia and Egypt with an overwhelming invasion, pushing as far as Tripoli. The new religion, traditionally considered the driving element of the conquest, was rather the factor of unity that permitted the realization of more complex economic motives, traditional to the arid land of Arabia in the face of the more fertile neighboring regions.

It was ʿUmar's merit to give the conquest its first administrative organization: the Muslims settled in the subjected regions in military nuclei governed by governors, receiving as combatants a fixed stipend and a share of the booty, one fifth of which went to the state. The unbelievers were subjected to a tribute, collected for the most part through their own administration and compensated by the protection of the conquerors. This system obtained a twofold positive effect: it initially preserved the Arabs from assimilation, keeping their military energies unaltered, and it contented the new subjects, making them tolerate the domination willingly.

The caliphate of ʿUthmān (644-56) marks the progress of the conquest, which extends to Persia and advances in North Africa, while a fleet is being equipped for the struggle against Byzantium; but the caliph's nepotism toward the members of his family (the Umayyads, belonging to the Meccan aristocracy of the tribe of Quraysh) arouses the discontent of the prophet's old companions. When ʿUthmān is killed at Medina, they elect as his successor Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law ʿAlī (656-61).

Around the figure of ʿAlī pivot events decisive for the political and religious history of Islam. Having quelled a revolt led by ʿĀʾishah, the prophet's wife, he finds himself faced with the Umayyad Muʿāwiyah, governor of Syria. They come to battle at Ṣiffīn, on the Euphrates (657), with an uncertain outcome. Muʿāwiyah proposes and obtains an arbitration. At this point, a part of ʿAlī's army breaks away from him, refusing to accept this decision, and forms the dissident group of the Khārijites, who, though bloodily defeated by ʿAlī at Nahrawān (658), survive and develop. The arbitration comes to nothing. Meanwhile Muʿāwiyah secures control not only of Syria but also of Egypt and Arabia. In the meantime ʿAlī falls under the dagger of a Khārijite. Thus the Umayyad dynasty comes to power with Muʿāwiyah, while the principal political-religious currents take shape within Islam: the orthodox, the Shīʿites, the Khārijites.

III. THE UMAYYADS (661-750)

The Umayyad caliphate marks the establishment in Islamic history of certain facts of essential importance. In the first place, power passes to a family not bound by close blood relationship or by community of struggle with the prophet. Moreover, the elective principle in the caliphate is replaced by the dynastic principle: two branches of the same family, first the Sufyānid and then (after the fourth caliph Marwān) the Marwānid, hold power without interruption. The capital, and with it the center of gravity of the empire, moves to Damascus, in Syria, the base of the troops loyal to the new dynasty.

These very facts open grave problems, which follow and determine the course of events: the legitimism of the prophet's family is reconstituted and strengthened, coupled with religious rigorism in judging the Umayyads temporal usurpers; the succession crisis is periodically repeated, in the play of ambitions within the family.

Other problems, no less grave, the Umayyad caliphate inherits from the preceding historical situation. The Bedouin tribes, the determining element of the conquest, had indeed found in Islam the force of propulsion, but had not for that reason been durably amalgamated; their rivalry, especially acute between the northern and the southern group, resurfaced at intervals despite the conciliatory policy of the caliphs, undermining the military solidity of the empire from within. On the other hand, the problem of relations between the Arab conquerors and the subjected peoples arose again after the establishment of ʿUmar's system: the ever more frequent conversions deprived the Muslims of sources of tribute, through the exhaustion of the remaining communities, while the process of Islamization of the non-Arab subjects was set in motion, a process that was to converge in the composite ʿAbbāsid civilization.

Despite all this, the Umayyad caliphate succeeded in strengthening the internal organization of the state and in extending the conquests; it resolved the elements of friction into substantial unity in a few great figures of sovereigns; it brought the Arabs to their maximum political expansion, while the elements of the religious system developed in a fruitful travail. The negative judgment of the later Muslim tradition, which reproached the Umayyads above all for having transformed the theocratic state into an empire of essentially political character and aims, must therefore be received with extreme caution. Such in effect was the Umayyad caliphate; and it was an « Arab empire », as Wellhausen defined it (das arabische Reich): but criticism has no reason to discern in this, within the broader framework of Muslim history, negative elements of judgment.

The first great personality of the Umayyad dynasty is Mu'āwiyah (661-80). The agreement with Ḥasan b. 'Alī and the skillful policy of his governors in Iraq shielded him from the 'Alids. He was thus able to continue military expansion, extending the Empire toward India and the Atlantic. He besieged Constantinople twice, albeit without success. He carried on a skillful policy of tribal conciliation, while managing to impose the dynastic principle through the recognition of his son Yazīd as successor.

Under Yazīd the 'Alid revolt broke out: the son of 'Alī, Ḥusayn, fell in 680 at Karbalā', sowing new seeds of revolt. Longer, and militarily far more dangerous, was the revolt of 'Abdallāh b. az-Zubayr at Mecca. Only the fifth caliph, 'Abd al-Malik (685-705), succeeded in quelling it (692). Once the Shī'ite insurrection of al-Mukhtār had also been put down, the Empire returned to peace and the path of conquest reopened, with a new push into North Africa; this extended under his son al-Walīd (705-15) with the landing in Spain (711) and the occupation of almost the entire peninsula, while on the opposite side the Muslim armies invaded Sind and Transoxiana.

The Umayyad Empire thus reached its greatest extent. Of the subsequent caliphs, 'Umar II (717-20) distinguished himself for his religious piety and for economic reform, based on extending the land tax to Muslims in order to remedy the crisis that had emerged. Under Ḥishām (724-43) the Muslims penetrated deep into Gaul, where they were halted by Charles Martel (battle of Poitiers, 732); but at the same time a Berber revolt endangered control over North Africa.

The following years marked the beginning of the crisis. Brief and ephemeral caliphates succeeded one another amid the raging of tribal strife. Only the last Umayyad, Marwān II (744-50), managed for a time to regain control of the situation. Meanwhile, however, the long propaganda of 'Alid legitimism was coming to maturity in the East, into which the line of the descendants of al-'Abbās had also inserted itself, asserting that it had received investiture from Abū Ḥāṣim, son of Muḥammad b. al-Ḥanafiyyah, son of 'Alī. The Iranian national energies, hostile to the Arab rulers, converged into the movement: and their internal discord gave them vigor. The revolt swept away the Umayyads. The 'Abbāsids managed to precede the 'Alids and assumed the caliphate.

IV. THE 'ABBĀSIDS (750-1258)

The beginning of the 'Abbāsid dynasty marks the return of power to the family of the prophet; not, however, to that branch, the 'Alids, which had the greater right to it by kinship and had labored most in the insurrection. Its renewed alignment with the opposition left the question of dynastic legitimism open, and so to speak unchanged in its broad outlines: the 'Alids and the Khārijites renewed in the 'Abbāsid era the periodic revolts and agitations of the previous caliphate.

The other grave problem of the Umayyad period, that of tribal dissensions, emerged greatly attenuated from the revolution. The 'Abbāsids had come to power with predominantly Persian militias: they therefore had no bonds of dependence toward the tribal chiefs; and on the contrary their policy required a supranational leveling, in which all subjects, foreign and Arab alike, found themselves on the same footing before the authority of the caliph. The founding of the new capital at Baghdad (Mesopotamia), under al-Manṣūr, marks a process of drawing closer to Iranianism, which would flow more broadly into Islamic civilization.

At the same time, the disappearance of the control exercised over the caliph by the tribal chiefs brought about an ever greater personal absolutism. Tribal militias were replaced by regular mercenary troops, in which Persian and above all Turkish elements asserted themselves more and more. It would be these praetorians, in a situation analogous to that of the Roman Empire, who would progressively strip the sovereign of his authority.

The new absolutism is reflected in the splendor of the court, typically Oriental. The Umayyad sovereign, far more democratic and bound to Bedouin tradition, was transformed into an increasingly inaccessible and remote despot. For the concrete direction of affairs of state, the figure of the vizier appeared. Certain great personages, such as those of the Barmakid family, gave this office particular prestige. The organization of the State expanded and was perfected.

The old rudimentary system of taxation evolved according to criteria of a real, not personal, tax, distinguishing clearly between individual movable and immovable properties. The road networks and the postal service increased and favored exchanges. Thus, at the beginnings of the 'Abbāsid era, we witness the greatest flourishing of Islam: within the great Empire, economic prosperity was matched by cultural cosmopolitanism. Greek and Iranian elements penetrated into Islamic civilization, of which the Arabic language remained the common denominator.

To this golden age of Islam corresponds a relative stagnation on the frontiers. The force of propulsion, with few exceptions, may be said to have been exhausted, and the periodic raids did not change the situation greatly. Moreover, the disintegrative forces, already taking shape, did not yet assume great proportions. It is the age of the highest culture and of the greatest sovereigns.

Great, among others, was the work of the second caliph al-Manṣūr (754-75). To him is owed the rigid and prudent administration that would permit the grandiose luxury of his successors. A hard and shrewd man, a true symbol of the Machiavellian prince, he rid himself of all those, enemies and friends, who could cast a shadow on his power. Thus Abū Muslim, the organizer of the 'Abbāsid insurrection, was assassinated by his order. This fact aroused a series of extreme Shi'ite revolts, repressed under him and under his successor al-Mahdī; al-Manṣūr also controlled and repressed dangerous Shi'ite insurrections at Medina and Baghdad (762-63). Under him too came the first signs of the phenomenon of the fragmentation of the Muslim Empire. The Umayyad 'Abd ar-Raḥmān, having escaped the massacre of his family, took refuge in Spain, from then on withdrawing that region from 'Abbāsid control. Al-Mahdī (775-85), more prodigal and liberal, continued his father's work, also providing for the repression of the zandaqah, a heretical movement of Iranian inspiration. But the apogee of the 'Abbāsid caliphate was reached under Hārūn ar-Rashīd (786-809), the sovereign immortalized in the Thousand and One Nights.

A struggle for succession, the canker of the 'Abbāsid caliphate no less than of the Umayyad one, broke out between the two sons of Hārūn ar-Rashīd, al-Amīn and al-Ma'mūn. The latter (813-33), victorious, inaugurated a new period of great flourishing for letters and the arts. He also attempted a reconciliation with the 'Alids, but had to renounce it. It is from his time that the greatest prestige of the Mu'tazilite theological school dates (v. further on), whose thesis of the created Quran was declared by al-Ma'mūn to be a dogma of State. Later orthodoxy would regain the upper hand under the caliph al-Mutawakkil (847-61).

With the successors of al-Ma'mūn the process of decline of the 'Abbāsid caliphate begins. The Turkish praetorians acquire ever greater importance and soon become arbiters of the fate of the caliphs. Their commanders-in-chief (amīr al-umarā) dominate the government. Meanwhile, the various provinces progressively detach themselves from the central authority under local dynasties; only a formal homage, when the states are not Shi'ite, binds them to the sovereign. In 945 the Būyids absorb the last territory remaining to the caliphs, that of Baghdad. The caliphs nevertheless maintain their court and their nominal authority; after the wave of the Seljūq Turks they even recover a little territory. But the Mongols overwhelm them: in 1258 the last 'Abbāsid caliph is killed in Baghdad. Some descendants of the family, it is said, moved to Egypt to the Mamelukes, legitimizing with their title the government of the latter. Finally, in 1517, even that branch came to an end, with the occupation of Egypt by the Ottomans; the last caliph was deported by Selim I to Constantinople.

For many centuries now, the 'Abbāsids had ceased their direct action in historical events. These must be taken up again for examination, from the end of the 8th century, with the story of the autonomous states, into which Islamic unity fragments and to which only the Turkish dynasties will bring periodic unifying impulses.

V. THE AUTONOMOUS STATES UP TO OTTOMAN HEGEMONY

The formation of the autonomous states, which began after the middle of the 8th century, developed rapidly until it eliminated, with the Buwajhid occupation of Baghdad in 945, every remnant of direct 'Abbāsid domination. Thus the great Empire of the caliphs was shattered, with the progressive weakening of the central authority, to which corresponded from the periphery the rise of local differences and particularisms. Not the least reason for the phenomenon must have been the same 'Abbāsid supranationalism, which had determined the decline of Arab hegemony over the Empire, by introducing elements of different nationalities into the ruling class. The religious bond, the only one remaining alongside that of the Arabic language, could not hold back the centrifugal forces that were undermining the State.

The phenomenon of fragmentation did not, for the most part, unfold in a rapid or violent form. Rather, it was the governors of the individual provinces who slowly detached themselves from the central authority, in order to establish their own dynasties, which continued to pay formal homage to the caliph of Baghdad. The 'Alid dynasties are of course an exception, of which the greatest, that of the Fāṭimids in Egypt, assumed the caliphal title for itself. A different situation arose in Spain; not even there was the authority of Baghdad recognized, and the Umayyads in turn named themselves caliphs (929).

The crisis of the caliphate was also and above all a crisis of Arabism. The ethnically Arab dynasties, which formed in various regions, had no propulsive effectiveness. Great and periodic impulses toward unity came instead from the new converts: on the one hand the Berbers, creators of strong dynasties in North Africa; on the other, above all the Turks, who, once Islamized, left their mark on the history of this period, from the predominance of the Seljūqids to that of the Ottomans. It would be the latter, in the 16th century, who would rebuild under their hegemony the unity of a great part of the Islamic world.

Since, therefore, the epoch in question cannot be treated from an overall point of view, the events must be gathered by regions, or groups of regions, that present at least at intervals a certain historical unity.

1. Spain

Occupied in 755 by the Umayyad 'Abd ar-Raḥmān, Muslim Spain reached great splendor under his dynasty. The greatest sovereign was 'Abd ar-Raḥmān III, who in 929 assumed the title of caliph. At the beginning of the 11th century the caliphate of Spain declined and fragmented into small dynasties, which were succeeded by the dominion of the great Berber kingdoms of North Africa, the Almoravids from 1090 and then the Almohads from 1145. On these see further below. The decline of Almohad dominion in the 13th century gave rise to local dynasties, which fell progressively under the Christian reconquest. The last to fall were the Nasrids of Granada (1492).

2. North Africa

Before the formation of the Almoravid and Almohad kingdoms, in the North African zone from the Atlantic to Egypt various local dynasties arose. In Morocco the Idrāsids dominated from 788 to 922, followed by Berber tribes. Algeria and Tunisia made themselves autonomous under the Aghlabids (800-909), who also conquered Sicily, which remained in Muslim hands until the Nor-

Norman era; they then passed under the Fāṭimids, an 'Alid dynasty that was to establish itself in Egypt, and from 972 to 1148 under the Zīrids. During this last period Algeria passed to the Hammādids (1007-52).

For some time, however, the Berber dynasty of the Almoravids (1056-1147) had already established itself in Morocco, extending its dominion from Spain to part of Algeria. Even broader was the conquest of the Almohads (1130-1269), also Berbers, who also occupied Tunisia, reaching Tripoli and thus unifying the whole region from Spain to Egypt under their dominion.

After the Almohads, North Africa fragmented once again into local dynasties: the Marīnids and Waṭṭāsids (1195-1350) in Morocco and then also in Algeria; the Zaḥānids (1235-1303) in Algeria; the Ḥafṣids (1228-1334) in Tunisia.

To the south of these states, from the 10th century the conversion to Islam of the majority of the rulers of central Africa unfolded. The movement developed in the following centuries along two routes: from North Africa toward the interior and from the Arabian coast toward the opposite shore of the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, reaching as its extreme southern point the island of Madagascar. To this second type belongs the Islamic penetration into Ethiopia, which had already taken concrete form in the 14th century with the formation of a Muslim state in Ifāt.

3. Egypt and Syria

For a great part of Muslim history these two regions had connected fortunes. Having attained independence with the Turkish dynasty of the Ṭūlūnids (868-905), they returned briefly to the 'Abbāsids and then passed to the Ḥāṣidids (935-69). These gave way to the great Shī'ite dynasty of the Fāṭimids, already long dominant in neighboring North Africa. This dynasty lasted overall from 909 to 1171, though it lost North Africa in 972, while with the beginning of the following century Syria too became a center of independent dynasties. It was reunited with Egypt by Ṣalāḥ ad-dīn (Saladin), the founder of the Ayyūbid dynasty (1171-1250); the two provinces remained together under the Mamelukes (1250-1517), until the Ottoman conquest.

4. Arabia

This region too suffered the dismemberment consequent upon the ruin of the caliphate. Local dynasties succeeded one another in Yemen from the 9th century until the occupation of the Ayyūbids (1173-1228), who came from Egypt. They were succeeded by the Rasūlids (1229-1454) and the Ṭāhirids (1446-1517). In the last period of the latter, the Mamelukes temporarily occupied the region, subsequently giving way to the Ottomans. Further north, in Bahrein, the Qarmatian movement (extreme Shī'ites, on whom see further below) was notable, and it came to dominate almost all of Arabia in the 10th-11th centuries.

5. Mesopotamia, Persia, Transoxiana

The history of these regions is cut in half by the invasion of the Seljūqid Turks, who occupied them completely. Before that there were separate dynasties. Mesopotamia passed from the Ḥamdānids (929-1003) to the Buwajhids of Persia, and then fragmented into small Arab dynasties. In Persia the first to make themselves autonomous were the Ṭāhirids (820-73) in Ḥurāsān, then the Ṣaffārids (867-903) and the Sāmānids, who, starting from Transoxiana, annexed the whole region (874-999). Their power was divided among dynasties, among which the Buwajhids (932-1055) prevailed in the west and the Ghaznavids (962-1183) in the east, who under the great sovereign Maḥmūd carried out the conquest of Hindustan.

The Seljūqids, Islamized Turks, brought about in the 11th century a gigantic revolution in Islamic history. Under the leadership of great chiefs (Ṭugrīl Beg, Alp Arālān, Malik Sāh), they swept over Transoxiana, Persia and Mesopotamia to reach Syria and Asia Minor. The union of these regions under their dominion was one of the most decisive reasons for the sending of the Crusades (v.). The Seljūqids were supplanted, in the 12th century, by dynasties of their officials (atādeg): among them are remembered the Zangids in Mesopotamia and Syria (1127-1250). The Ḥarīzim Sāh prevailed in Persia and Transoxiana (ca. 1077-1231). In Asia Minor, on the other hand, the Seljūqids survived until 1300, then giving way to the Ottoman Turks.

In the 13th century a new great invasion advanced from the east: the Mongols, under the leadership of the famous Čingiz Ḥān, occupied the entire territory between China and Mesopotamia. The Empire was subsequently divided among the sons of the conqueror; of the western regions, Persia and Mesopotamia went to the Il Ḥān (1256-1353), whose chief, the progenitor Ḥulāgū, killed in 1258 the last caliph of Baghdad; Transoxiana to the Čaḡatāj Ḥān (1227-1358).

The decline of Mongol power gave rise in Mesopotamia and Persia to the formation of independent dynasties. Among these the most important was that of the Jalayirids (1336-1411) in Persia. In Transoxiana the Mongol Tīmūr Lang (Tamerlane) founded the dynasty of the Timurids (1369-1500), which extended by rapid conquest westward as far as Asia Minor, where it defeated the Ottomans (1402), and eastward as far as India. After the 15th century they left traces of themselves only in Afghanistan, where their descendant Bāber founded a new great Mongol dynasty.

6. Afghanistan and India

Afghanistan was permanently occupied by the Ṣaffārids of Persia. They were succeeded by the Sāmānids and then by the Ghaznavids, who extended the conquest to Hindustan. The Ghaznavids were succeeded by the Ghōrids (1148-1215) and then by the sultans of Delhi (1206-1554), by whom the Deccan was also conquered (1322). Toward the end of their dominion they began to break up into small dynasties, until the Mongols of Bāber invaded the territory (16th century). The conquest of the Deccan was accomplished later.

The Muslim conquest in the East led to the progressive penetration of Islam into the East Indies, reaching as far as the Philippines. To this period, probably, belongs also the first extensive establishment of Muslims in China (13th-14th century).

VI. THE PERIOD OF OTTOMAN HEGEMONY

The predominance of the Turks in the Islamic world reaches its culmination with the Ottoman Empire, which, reducing to unity the immense territory between Morocco and Persia, rightly assumes the political inheritance of the caliph; indeed, pushing decisively forward into the Balkan peninsula as far as the walls of Vienna, it renews and surpasses his aggressive power. Islam is thus reconstituted into unity, although with the exception of certain more peripheral provinces. But in its aggregate the constituent elements are profoundly altered: Arabism is in crisis and the center of gravity of the Empire has definitively migrated toward the seat of the new rulers, Asia Minor. Culture bends to the new condition.

On the periphery of the Ottoman Empire, meanwhile, one witnesses the formation of certain strong national States, particularly in Persia and in India. Conclusion: on the whole, the period of Ottoman hegemony marks for the history of Islam a phase more unitary than the preceding one, under the banner of dynasties and of "barbarian" peoples, who had long since succeeded the Arab conquerors in predominance.

The Ottomans arise in Bithynia around 1300 and extend progressively inland. In the 15th century, after the interlude of Tamerlane's invasion (1402), their empire already includes Asia Minor and the Balkan peninsula. This conquest is due above all to two sovereigns: Murād II and Mehmed II. The following century marks new great enterprises. Selīm I (d. 1519) annexes Syria, Egypt and Arabia. Suleiman the Magnificent (d. 1566) invades Hungary and besieges Vienna (1529); almost the entire North African coast, as far as Morocco, is also conquered. In the 17th century Murād IV also occupies Mesopotamia (1638). Toward the end of the century the Ottoman Empire had reached its greatest expansion. In 1683 the failed siege of Vienna initiates its decline.

The first stages of the crisis are the losses of Hungary, Transylvania and Podolia in 1699. In 1783 the Crimea and the surrounding territories pass to Russia. In 1829 Greece makes itself autonomous. Algeria, already for some time practically autonomous under its deys, is occupied by France (1830). With 1878 Romania, Serbia and Montenegro become autonomous; Bosnia and Herzegovina go to Austria; Bulgaria becomes an autonomous principality and shortly thereafter, in 1885, a kingdom, with the annexation of Eastern Rumelia. Meanwhile Tunisia, likewise long autonomous under its beys, had gone to France (1881). In 1882 it is the turn of Egypt, occupied by England, even though Ottoman sovereignty theoretically remains there until 1914. Italy occupies Libya in 1912. Then comes the First World War, which marks the collapse of the Ottoman Empire: Egypt is an English protectorate; Palestine, Irāq and Transjordan become States under British mandate, the first with a particular regime consequent upon the Zionist question; Syria is divided into States under French mandate. Of the ancient Empire there remains Turkey, which erects itself into a national State (1922).

Outside the Ottoman Empire, Morocco remained under dynasties of local caliphs until the French conquest, begun with slow penetration at the end of the 19th century and completed in 1912. Part of the region was ceded to Spain.

In southern Arabia, the expulsion of the Ottoman Turks (1633) brought to Ṣan'ā the capital of the Zaydi State, which had already existed for centuries. In central Arabia there was progressively established, from the beginning of the 19th century, a Wahhābite State (v. further on, the religious part), which later became the kingdom of Arabia with Ibn Sa'ūd (1932).

Persia erected itself and maintained itself as an autonomous State under various dynasties of shahs, of which the first and most prosperous was that of the Ṣafawids (1502-1736). Shī'ism became the State religion. There was no lack of an expansionist policy, which in 1738, under Nādir Shāh, reached Delhi.

Transoxiana, after the Tīmūrids, was governed by the dynasty of the Šajbānids, likewise Mongol, and by others related to it, until the Russian occupation (1868-72).

Afghānistān and India remained under the Mongol dynasty of Bāber. In the 18th century the decline began, with the passing of Afghānistān and the Deccan to autonomous dynasties; meanwhile the conquest by the English East India Company progressed, until in 1858 India passed under the British crown. Afghānistān, through long struggles with the English, remained independent.

From the point of view of peaceful penetration, Islam established itself from the 15th century onward, and especially toward the end of the 18th, in Russian Turkestan, leaving there strong Sunnite nuclei.

VII. EUROPEAN COLONIAL EXPANSION AND NATIONAL MOVEMENTS

The decline of Turkish hegemony over the Islamic world has been matched, since the last century, by the progressive assertion of European colonialism. The action of the West, by intensifying contacts and exchanges on the cultural plane, brings about a general awakening of the Muslim world, and especially of the Arab world, from what may well be called its Middle Ages. An awakening that takes concrete form on the religious plane in the phenomenon of modernism, while on the historical plane it rekindles the dormant national heritage and aspirations of Arabism against the Turkish rulers. It is indeed true that the intrusion of the infidels into Muslim land created unitary and pan-Islamic tendencies, which the Turks did not fail to exploit at the close of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th; but the national and federalist currents among the Arabs ended up prevailing.

The First World War marks, as has been seen, with the success of the Allies' nationalist propaganda, the rise of national States with limited autonomy. The subsequent era is characterized by the progressive completion of that autonomy, cemented by pan-Arab organization (the constitution of the Arab League dates from 1945). Western predominance withdraws more or less slowly from political forms to privileges of a commercial character.

Thus the recent era, an era of crisis and evolution, expresses within the broader framework of Islamic history the return to the forefront of Arabism after centuries of depression and stagnation.

In North and Central Africa, the Muslim populations remain today under colonial rule. Egypt, formally recognized as independent in 1922, is progressively loosening its ties with England. In Asia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Persia (after being occupied in the last war by English and Russian troops), and Afghānistān remain independent. The British mandate in 'Irāq ceased in 1932, replaced by a treaty of alliance. In 1946 Transjordan was declared an independent kingdom and France granted independence to Syria and Lebanon. In Palestine the State of Israel was proclaimed in 1948. In British India the States of Pakistan and India were established in 1947, independent under a dominion regime. England maintains protectorates in Arabia and in Malaya. The Dutch Indies obtained independence on 27 Dec. 1949.

The number of Muslims in the world, according to the most recent approximate indications (cf. H. A. R. Gibb, Mohammedanism. An historical survey, Oxford 1949, p. 22), is today about 300 million. Of these, about 91 million are in India, 55 in Malaya and Indonesia, 15 among the Arab countries of the Near East, 17 in Egypt and the eastern Sudan, 16 in the remaining North Africa, 15 in Persia, 12 in Afghanistan, 18 in Turkey, at least 30 in the Asiatic territories of the U.S.S.R., Chinese Turkestan and China, 24 in black and eastern Africa, 3 in the Balkans and southern Russia.

II. LEGAL THEOLOGY.

I. CONCEPT AND ELEMENTS OF LEGAL THEOLOGY (fiqh)

Islamic legal theology, that is, canon law, is called fiqh. Its object is the study of the divine law (fāri'ah), that is, of God's regulation of human actions. On the basis of the concept that every action depends on God, fiqh includes not only the prescriptions relating to worship and properly religious life, but also the norms of the whole of law: personal, family, commercial, criminal, administrative, political, and military.

The divine origin of the law limits human reflection and elaboration to a wholly subordinate function: that is, one not intended to establish juridical norms ex novo and on rational bases, but rather to deduce them as far as possible from the revealed and traditional heritage. Nor does the supreme political and religious power constitute, in theory, a source of law: it has executive, not normative, action.

Of the various parts of Muslim legal theology, those concerning worship and properly religious life are of interest here.

II. FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS LAW. THE ORTHODOX SCHOOLS

Muhammad left at his death only the broad outlines of a religious legislation, as well as the specific solution of a series of cases, yet without any systematic character or completeness. It was the task of the immediately succeeding generations to integrate and order religious law, under the pressure of the problems that periodically presented themselves in the life of the community. At the beginning the political power itself exercised a juridical function, drawing its inspiration essentially from the model and the memory of the prophet, without excluding a greater or lesser degree of personal interpretation. But the secularization of the caliphate under the Umayyads, and even earlier the formation of currents hostile to 'Uthmān and to 'Alī, brought about a progressive differentiation between the political authority and the interpreters of the law, who often indeed rose up against that authority as a bulwark of tradition. The activity of these jurists was directed first of all to deriving from the Qur'an and from the custom of the prophet, which was subjected to study and collection, the norms of religious and social life; but it soon had to be exercised moreover in resolving new problems by means of individual reasoning (ra'y), whether in its more moderate form, such as the analogical approach (qiyās) to cases resolved by tradition, or by arriving at free judgment. It was evident that the dominant Islamic traditionalism had to react against the followers of ra'y: the result was a greater or lesser limitation of this criterion, which moreover inserted itself as a vital leaven in the progressive determination of the law.

The intense elaboration of juridical material issued already from the 2nd century of the hegira in the formation of various rites or schools (madhāhib), differing among themselves in the proportion and manner in which they made use of the various juridical sources. Many of these schools, which constituted themselves around the centers of richer tradition and more intense cultural life, disappeared very soon; only four survived, in orthodox Islam, and coexisted in it with mutual recognition of rights. One was founded at Medina by Mālik b. Anas (d. 795; v. MĀLIKITA, RITE), with a strongly traditionalist tendency, which nevertheless did not repudiate the criteria of the consensus of the community (ijmā'), of analogical reasoning, and even of the so-called istiṣlāḥ, that is the principle of general utility. At about the same time Abū Ḥanīfah (d. 767, v.) founded at Kūfah another school, characteristic for the broader use of analogy and in general of reasoning, not only up to the criterion of general utility, but also up to that of a more subjective preference (istiḥsān). More respectful of tradition, and with a systematic and conciliatory tendency, Shāfi'ī (d. 820; v. SĀFI'ITA, RITO) repudiated istiṣlāḥ; he was the first to formulate systematically a doctrine of the roots of fiqh: Qur'an, sunnah (tradition of the prophet), consensus, analogy. His doctrine, with some slight modification, became the official theory of orthodoxy on the foundations of the law. A fourth school was founded at Baghdad by Ibn Ḥanbal (d. 855; v. ḤANBALITA, RITO); it carried the conservative tendency to the maximum, repudiating the use of ra'y and strongly limiting qiyās.

The great elaborative effort of the law lasted, approximately, 3 centuries of the hegira. To the progressive crystallizing of forms there was joined subsequently the theory that, from that epoch, direct elaboration (ijtihād) could be said to be concluded. There remained to subsequent jurists only a limited elaboration, that is the application of the principles of the masters to unresolved questions; beyond it there was only imitation (taqlīd).

The application of this principle, joined to the very nature of the juridical discipline, has led in the succeeding centuries to a casuistic drying-up of fiqh. In the schools the direct examination of the sources has been increasingly abandoned and replaced with the reading of recent manuals; the judges limit themselves to applying the doctrine or the opinion prevailing in their school, having recourse in new cases to the muftīs, givers of responsa. Moreover, the practical authority of the traditional law has been repeatedly violated by the political power: which by another route has also provided for the anachronism of much religious legislation through the introduction of ordinances and State tribunals. This phenomenon has intensified in modern times, in relation to European influence and to the progressive emergence of new problems and needs.

III. THEORY OF THE SOURCES (uṣūl). JURIDICAL METHODOLOGY. — The cessation after some centuries of the direct employment of the sources in the elaboration of juridical material naturally reduced interest in their study. Nevertheless, after the first formulation of Shāfi'ī, many works were dedicated to the definition of the uṣūl, as well as to the rules for their employment.

The sources of the law according to orthodoxy are:

1. The Qur'an (v.). — It is held to be the work of God and His word existing ab aeterno, communicated to the Arabs through Muhammad. The present redaction, which goes back to the epoch of the third caliph 'Uthmān, is arranged by length of chapters. It therefore presents a chaotic aspect, in which nevertheless criticism can re-establish an approximate chronological succession. It contains 114 chapters, comprising over 6000 verses, of which only about 500 contain juridical prescriptions. These belong for the most part to the Medinan period of the prophet.

2. Tradition (sunnah)

The determination to inspire the whole life of the Muslim community with the law and the example of its founder could not find in the Qur'an sufficient material, because Muhammad had in no way concerned himself with leaving an organic and complete code. It was therefore necessary to seek the norms of the law, beyond the sacred text, in the manner of acting (sunnah) of the prophet, as it resulted from his deeds, sayings and tacit approvals. The Qur'an itself orders the faithful to follow the example of Muhammad. The sunnah is therefore an unexpressed revelation, alongside the expressed Qur'anic revelation. Its value is not inferior to that of the sacred book; indeed it completes it and in some cases can abrogate its dispositions.

The sunnah is constituted of oral traditions (ḥadīth), which consist of two parts: the series of transmitters of the report (isnād, lit. "support") — going back to the first witness and constituting according to Muslims the essential criterion for the evaluation of the ḥadīth — and its text (matn). The whole of the traditions, transmitted orally during the first generations, was then progressively codified in some great collections, among which predominate in the 3rd century of the hegira those of al-Bukhārī (d. 870) and of Muslim (d. 875), called "the two ṣaḥīḥ", that is "the two genuine ones". The order of redaction in them is by subject (muṣannaf), while in other collections the order of the transmitters (musnad) is followed.

On the authenticity of the traditions, the Muslims themselves exercised a criticism, of which we shall speak in connection with the rules for the interpretation of the sources. It is well here to anticipate that this criticism is essentially external, founded that is predominantly on the evaluation of the isnād; European criticism on the other hand has looked to the content of the ḥadīth, noting how for the most part they are piae fraudes, that is coinages made a posteriori in defense of one or another ideology, political or religious. The formation in time of the Muslim tradition and its content crystallized in the great collections must therefore be regarded with great caution for an objective reconstruction of Islamic religious life, at the very moment when they constitute a phenomenon of notable interest for its psychological understanding.

3. Consensus (iḡmā')

Divine assistance to the Muslim community cannot allow it to fall unanimously into error. This principle, together with the Qur'anic exhortations not to depart from the way of the faithful, constitutes the foundation of the third source of legal theology, the general consensus of the community on a given question and in a given epoch. This consensus too, like the sunnah, can be verbal, practical and tacit, but the latter form is much disputed.

By consenting community is meant, as regards elementary and fundamental precepts, the whole body of believers. In more difficult and complex questions, on the other hand, the community is represented in concrete terms by its particularly competent members. These are, in the first place and in the earliest phase, the companions of the prophet; then their followers and the followers of the followers. Subsequently, according to the Mālikites, the consensus belongs to the scholars of Medina; according to the other schools, to scholars in general.

Parallel to the consensus ecclesiae, the iḡmā' constitutes in conservative and traditionalist Islam a source of controlled and limited evolution. Structurally dynamic, in the face of the static character of the Qur'an and the sunnah, it is the means through which innovations have been introduced such as the cult of the prophet, belief in his miracles, the veneration of saints, and recently innovations in practical life, such as, for example, tobacco and printing.

4. Analogy (qījās)

Different from the three preceding sources is the nature of the fourth, consisting in the application of analogical reasoning to resolve legal cases not provided for. It is therefore a source constituted not by the word or by divine inspiration, but by a human means: this explains the hostility that its use encountered and the greater or lesser limitations to which it was subjected.

The qījās can consist in assimilating by affinity an unresolved case to a resolved one; or also in resolving a new case on the basis of the principle on which a law in force is founded. This second type of qījās is naturally the most opposed.

With the qījās the series of the sources of the fiqh closes. Muslim treatises therefore examine the methodological rules of their employment. These concern in the first place the criticism of such sources, not applicable naturally to the Qur'an, but to the sunnah. Muslims apply their criticism especially to the isnād, studying the reliability of the transmitters, the possibility of contacts between them, the independent paths by which a ḥadīṯ has been transmitted. From this derives a classification of traditions into "sound", "good" (that is, acceptable), "average", "weak", "false". A second aspect of legal methodology is the hermeneutics of the sources. It tends first of all to establish the exact meaning of the law and, so to speak, its legal force: on its basis actions are classified as obligatory, recommended, permitted, disapproved, forbidden. The obligation can be individual or collective: the latter can be fulfilled only by a part of the community; such is, for example, holy war against the infidels. Furthermore, hermeneutics must resolve the contradictions that may exist within a single source or between different sources.

IV. PRESCRIPTIONS OF WORSHIP ('ibādāt)

Having established the sources of religious law, its practice centers around five fundamental prescriptions (arḥān) of worship: the profession of faith, prayer, legal almsgiving, fasting and pilgrimage.

1. The profession of faith (fahādah)

It consists in pronouncing the formula "There is no god but God and Muhammad is his envoy". The importance of this formula is indicated, among other things, by the fact that it constitutes the means of conversion of non-Muslims to Islam. The practices of aggregation consist precisely in reciting the fahādah, in assuming a Muslim name and in being circumcised; Jews must furthermore recognize Christ as a prophet, Christians must deny him as God.

2. Prayer (ṣalāh)

Ritual prayer, already established in the Qur'an, was defined in its particulars by the sunnah of the earliest times. All Muslims who are of age and of sound mind are obliged to it. The old, the sick, travelers and men in danger are exempted from it for as long as their condition of impossibility lasts.

A preliminary condition for prayer is the state of purity of the place and of the persons. This is obtained by washing. For persons it is prescribed to wet the face, the hands, the forearms, the feet, and the head. Cases of major impurity require the washing of the whole body. In case of lack of water, sand may be substituted. Another condition for prayer is a decorous covering of the body.

The ritual prayers are five daily: at dawn, at noon, in the afternoon, at sunset, at night. They may be performed in private or in public in the mosques: the latter form is naturally recommended. The announcement of prayer is given on the minarets (towers of the mosques) by the muezzin (mu'addīn). Each prayer consists of two, three or four rak'ah, a term that indicates a complex of movements (among which the standing position, the bending of the torso, the sitting position, the prostration with the forehead to the ground), accompanied by the recitation of formulas and Qur'anic passages. These acts are performed by the faithful aligned in the direction of Mecca (qiblah), indicated in the mosques by a niche called miḥrāb, under the direction of an imām ("guide"), who stands in front of the others and sets the example of the gestures.

On Friday at noon there is a particularly solemn prayer in the largest mosque of every city or quarter. This prayer is preceded by a sermon (ḥuṭbah), a moral homily accompanied by a blessing on the political authority; this has over time assumed particular importance as a recognition of the reigning sovereign.

Alongside the ritual prayers, there exist private and extraordinary ones; but the law insists, here as in the other points, on the external and formal aspect: typical in this sense is the regulation of the preliminary intention (nijjah), an interesting example of the psychology of Islamic religious law.

3. Legal almsgiving (zakāh)

Frequently recommended in the Qur'an alongside prayer, almsgiving became, already from the time of Muhammad, a legal prescription, that is, practically a tax destined to constitute a national fund. The imposition of it on the Bedouin tribes, carried out by Abū Bakr through a bloody struggle, sanctioned its stability after the death of the prophet. According to legal theory, the zakāh is levied on cereals, fruits, livestock, silver, gold and merchandise. It starts from a minimum taxable amount and consists of ca. 1/10 of the harvest, from 1/60 to 1/100 of livestock, 1/40 of silver, gold and merchandise. The Qur'an (9, 60), defines the beneficiaries of almsgiving: the poor, the needy, the collectors, persons on whom religious propaganda is exercised, slaves to be ransomed, insolvent debtors, fighters for the faith, travelers.

These dispositions have for the most part only theoretical value. In practice taxation has increasingly moved in Muslim States toward modern systems, through the extension of the fiscal obligation also to non-Muslim subjects and the generalization of taxable objects. Also as regards the beneficiaries, it is the State that absorbs the taxes, allocating them according to freer criteria.

Alongside the legal alms there exists the voluntary alms (sadaqah), to which every good Muslim is exhorted, and which generally flows toward pious foundations and charitable purposes.

4. Fasting (sawm)

A characteristic example of the evolution of Muslim preceptive law is fasting, established at first by Muhammad, at Medina, in the same form and on the same day as the Jewish hippūr ('āfūrā'). Then, with the worsening of relations with the Jews and the progressive definition of Islam as autonomous, the 'āfūrā' remained only as a supererogatory practice and was replaced as an obligation by the fast of the month of ramadān. All Muslims of sound mind and of age are bound to fast; the old, the sick, travelers, and women in particular conditions are dispensed from it. The dispensation lasts only for the duration of the impediment, after which the fast must be made up. The old and the chronically ill are bound to a substitute donation. Breaches of the fast through fault are expiated with donations varying in amount according to the gravity of the sin committed. Fasting consists in complete abstinence from food, drink, tobacco, perfumes and sexual acts from dawn to sunset, throughout the whole of ramadān. At night, however, every prohibition is removed. Alongside this fundamental fast, the law contemplates certain other extraordinary or supererogatory fasts, on the occasion of particular events or solemnities.

5. Pilgrimage (haǧǧ)

As fasting is a characteristic example of the evolution of Islam in relation to Judaism, so pilgrimage is of its relations with the ancient pagan tradition: its rites are for the most part derived from pre-Islamic paganism, but turned to a monotheistic meaning. Muhammad owed a good part of his success to this skillful policy of synthesis. The ka'bah, the cubic building of Mecca, an object of pagan worship and containing the black stone on its eastern side, was considered by Muhammad a most ancient sanctuary established by God, restored and purified by Abraham and by Ishmael. In the last three years of the prophet's life the first great pilgrimages were performed there; with the last year the infidels were excluded from it and its principal rites were defined.

All Muslims of sound mind, free, adult and possessing the means are bound to the pilgrimage, at least once in their lifetime. Some school allows one to have a substitute perform the haǧǧ.

The pilgrimage begins at Mecca on the 7th of dū 'l-ḥiǧǧah. The pilgrims arrive there by the great caravan routes or by sea and, at the boundary of the sacred territory, enter the state of sacralization (iḥrām), consisting in clothing themselves in two seamless cloths, mostly white, leaving feet, hands and head uncovered. The ka'bah too is draped in a special adornment. The state of sacralization obliges one not to shave or cut one's nails, to abstain from sexual relations and from hunting. As soon as they arrive at Mecca, the pilgrims perform seven circuits around the ka'bah, touching the black stone, and then carry out a ritual run between the hills of Safā and Marwah. After listening to a sermon in the great mosque of Mecca (day 7), they set out on the 8th for the plain of 'Arafah (four hours by camel); there they remain on the 9th; in the evening they take the road back and, in a running procession by torchlight, reach the valley of Muzdalifah; then a new procession as far as Minā, where they arrive at dawn on the 10th.

(from M. Gorce - R. Mortier, Histoire générale des religions, IVe, Paris 1917, p. 303)

ISLĀM - Muhammad proclaims 'Ali his successor - London, British Museum, Chester Beatty Collection, ms. Rawādat aṣ-Ṣafā'.

Here each pilgrim throws seven stones at a heap (a pagan rite, adapted to Islam, as the stoning of Satan) and a solemn sacrifice of animals is performed. Then the pilgrims may cut their hair and nails, but complete desacralization occurs only after a return to Mecca, with new circuits of the ka'bah and a run between Safā and Marwah. Three days of feasting at Minā follow (11-13), and then departure, after new circuits of the ka'bah for farewell. It is recommended to complete the hağğ with a visit to the tomb of the prophet and of other illustrious personages in Medina.

A reduced pilgrimage is the 'umrah, which may be performed at any time and consists in the same ceremonies as the hağğ, except however for all those relating to the suburban sanctuaries.

V. OTHER RELIGIOUS PRESCRIPTIONS

To the "five pillars" a sixth is often added, holy war (ğihād). According to Muslim doctrine, all territory that is not under the dominion of Islam is dār al-ḥarb, "zone of war." It must be conquered by war, which can have no end except with the subjection of the whole world. This theory has had to yield greatly to the reality of things, though it persists in the sphere of law and as such constitutes a phenomenon of notable interest.

The obligation of holy war is collective, not individual: in other words, it is sufficient that it be fulfilled by a part of the community.

Of the unbelievers, only the possessors of Sacred Scriptures, namely Jews, Christians, and also Zoroastrians, are permitted to live in Islamic land while preserving their religion. They are the object of a particular statute, by which they are subjected to tribute and to certain limitations in public life, receiving in compensation protection and a guarantee of free worship.

Still within the limits of religious law, other prescriptions are to be remembered. Among them circumcision, already in use in pre-Islamic Arabia; abstinence from certain foods, such as the flesh of swine and in general of animals not ritually slaughtered, and from certain drinks, that is, intoxicating ones. Men are forbidden jewelry and silk garments, as well as the use of precious vessels for ablutions. The rigorists also forbid music. Gambling, usury and interest are not permitted (however, legal artifices have been found to maintain these elements of modern commercial life). Well known is the prohibition of images, which, like those relating to foods, reflects the direct Jewish action in the formation of Muslim ritual. The imposition of the veil on women, so rigid in the past, has been gradually attenuated after the First World War, especially in Turkey, Egypt and Lebanon.

VI. FEASTS

There are two canonical feasts in Islam (v. BAJRAM): the "little feast," at the end of the fast of ramadān, lasting three days, and the "great feast," from the 10th to the 12th of dū 'l-ḥiğğah, on the occasion of the culminating ceremonies of the pilgrimage.

Custom has introduced other feasts, such as the birth of the prophet (12 rabī' al-awsal); the mi'rāğ, that is, the fantastic nocturnal ascension of Muhammad into heaven (between the 26th and 27th of rağab); the middle night of ša'bān, on which it is said that God fixes the destinies for the following year; the lajlat al-qadr, the night of the first revelation to Muhammad (between the 26th and 27th of ramadān).

Friday is the Muslims' day of festivity. It does not, however, entail abstention from work, and this is only recently being introduced on the example of Western countries.

III. DOGMATIC THEOLOGY.

I. THE FORMATION OF DOGMATICS (halām)

The conditions in which dogmatic reflection developed were analogous to those of law: upon certain Quranic elements the reflection of the first generations was exercised, aimed at providing a solution to the great problems of the faith that naturally arose before them. A reflection essentially autonomous and original, especially in its genesis, whereas at the defining of solutions the contact of Christian thought and of the Iranian religions, as well as that of Greek philosophy, could to some extent furnish elements of comparison and development. A reflection typically linked in its origins to the political facts of the community, according to a convergence of elements that is a doctrinal principle and a dialectical force of evolution.

The struggle between Mu'āwījah and 'Alī and the separation of the ḥāriğites following the arbitration of Şiffrī brought face to face, not even thirty years after the death of Muhammad, three different groups. Their divergence over the right to the caliphate carried with it a first theological problem: must a sovereign considered illegitimate because a sinner still be respected? In more general terms: does the sinner remain a Muslim? It is the problem of faith and works. The ḥāriğites demanded, besides faith, works as well, condemning sinful Muslims to eternal punishment like the infidels. The orthodox tendency inclined instead toward faith, deferring (whence the name murğī'iti) to God's judgment the guilt or otherwise of believers, and consequently justifying Mu'āwījah and the Umayyads.

Alongside the problem of faith and works, there emerges, already from the Umayyad era, that of free will. Its rise was probably not unconnected with contact and discussions with the Christians of Damascus. Founding themselves on opposing Quranic passages, two groups took shape: the qadarites, champions of free will, and the ğabrites, supporters of predestination. Official doctrine was to incline ever more toward the latter theory.

Other questions were meanwhile making headway: among them the problem of the divine attributes, which one naturally hesitated to interpret according to the anthropomorphism suggested by the Quran; furthermore the problem of the eternity of the Quran, which orthodoxy would fix together with its definition as "word of God," whence the arising of difficult questions in relation to the Christian doctrine of the lagas. These problems, like the preceding ones, received great impulse and decisive formulation on the dogmatic plane from the rise, toward the close of the Umayyad era, of the Mu'tazilite school, with which the halām definitively enters its phase of systematization.

The name of Mu'tazilites ("those who withdraw") derives from the neutral position on the question of the sinful Muslim mentioned above: between the two extremes they define him as fāsīq ("guilty"), an intermediate state between believer and infidel, which entails in the next life eternal punishments, only milder than those of the infidels. This solution is accompanied by a series of others, which together cover the principal problems of dogmatic theology. In the first place, the Mu'tazilites were tenacious assertors of the unity and transcendence of God. They denied the distinction of the attributes from His essence; the Quran was by them considered created. They combated all anthropomorphism through allegorical interpretation (ta'cīl). They asserted the justice of God, whence the support for the qadarite thesis of free will as a condition of just recompense. It seems established that already among them was formulated that atomistic theory — the laws of nature are the result of successive creations of God in every atom of time and therefore nothing more than habits — which subsequent dogmatics would develop extensively.

At the basis of Mu'tazilite thought there was, as can be seen, a rational exigency. For this exigency, made into a method, the school may be called the true founder of the halām. Its historical fortunes were alternating: having come to power under al-Ma'mūn, it fell definitively under al-Mutawakkil (d. 861). But its method was to flow into the decisive reform that, albeit in the name of orthodoxy and against Mu'tazilism, an ancient disciple of the school, al-Aš'arī, established in the kalām at the close of the 3rd century of the ēgira.

The reform of al-Aš'arī was accomplished by appealing to that Ibn Ḥanbal who, as he had been the head of a conservative juridical school, so was he of a parallel tendency on the dogmatic plane. Though with some tempering, due perhaps for the most part to the disciples, the traditional theses returned to honor with al-Aš'arī: existence of the eternal attributes of God, though not equal to human attributes; eternity of the Quran; repudiation of allegorical interpretation, but renouncing the comprehension of the exact nature of the anthropomorphic expressions of the Quran; predeterminism, that is, creation of human acts by God, though with the intervention of man as responsible executor. From the Mu'tazilites al-Aš'arī accepted and developed the occasionalistic hints, extending them onto the plane of a theory that applied well to divine omnipotence and to the absence of autonomy in man. He also accepted, and above all, the method, advocating the necessity of reason in the elaboration of dogmatics.

The Aš'arite formulation, to which there corresponded in parallel another analogous one, that of al-Māturīdī (d. 945), marks the crystallizing of Muslim dogmatic reflection. The two schools divide the Muslim world: the first asserts itself among the šāfi'ītes (v.) and mālikites (v.), the second among the ḥanafites (v. ABU ḤANĪFAH). Here too, for centuries, the door of iǧtihād closes and dogmatic travail exhausts itself in second-hand casuistry. There remain nevertheless to be examined, in this crystallization, two facts: the confluence of mystical experience into dogmatics through the work of al-Gazzālī (v.) and the persistence of ḥanbalism as an autonomous current.

al-Gazzālī (d. 1111) is certainly the most remarkable figure of the Islamic religion after Muhammad. Called a connoisseur of legal and dogmatic theology, he felt the aridity of both without the intervention of sentiment and the heart. He strove accordingly to bring into harmonious synthesis the elements of asceticism and mysticism within the framework of religious theory and practice, attaining forms of eclecticism in which, for the first time after Muhammad, it may be said that the great currents of Islamic religious thought reunite in a mature synthesis. Opposite was the position of the ḥanbalites, rigid traditionalists, whom the introduction of the rational method by al-Aš'arī kept far from him. Positive, not speculative, theologians, they have recently given life to the rigorist movement of the Wahhābis (v.), represented on the political plane by the kingdom of Ibn Sa'ūd in Arabia.

Wahhabism now brings us to the threshold of the contemporary era: and it is here that one identifies the ferment and phenomena of awakening in the Muslim world, generically designated under the name of modernism, which graft themselves onto the progressive intensification of relations with the West. Movements often political in character, they also have dogmatic aspects: thus the so-called neo-Mu'tazilism, founded in India by Aḥmad Ḥan Bahādūr, advocates a rationalistic interpretation of Islamic theology, in order to adapt it to the recent advances of science. The Egyptian modernism has an analogous purpose but a very different character, inspired as it is by the strictest respect for tradition (whence the name of salafījah): in the Qur'an and in the sunnah it seeks by rational method the source of the most recent discoveries. This suggestive reconciliation was given prestige by the figure of Muḥammad 'Abduh.

The long history of dogmatic theology, in its evolution from the Qur'anic stock through the natural defining of problems and the emergence of influences, thus appears hinged on an antithesis: the confrontation between the tradition embodied by the Ḥanbalites and the original rationalism of Mu'tazilism. The syntheses of al-Aš'arī and of al-Māturīdī, between the 3rd and 4th centuries, reach a basic standstill. It is primarily to these that, taking into account also the permanent Ḥanbalism, the exposition of dogmatic theology which is presented here below in summary must be modeled. In the order of the exposition it is advisable to adhere preferably to the Muslim treatise writers, who, albeit with variants and alterations, reflect the original Mu'tazilite framing of the problems.

II. THE SOURCES

They are the same as those of fiqh, except the last, the qījās, since the adaptation of the analogical criterion to dogmatic norms is not conceivable.

III. GOD

In treatises of Muslim dogmatics, the treatment of the doctrine of God is often preceded by the exposition of general notions of metaphysics and philosophy, marked by the distinction between substance and accident and by the principles of atomism. As for the doctrine of God, it consists of three parts: essence, attributes, and works.

1. Essence

God, who reveals himself to men both through his envoys and by direct communication to the heart and to reason, is demonstrated essentially by way of causal proofs, that is, as the author of the existence of beings, of their nature, and as the first element of the becoming of the universe, since for Muslims the concept of the infinite is inconceivable.

By his essence, God is neither corporeal substance nor accident, he occupies no determined place, he is invisible except to the blessed in paradise (thus orthodoxy against heterodox beliefs). The uniqueness of God is affirmed with great vigor, and the denial (īrkh) of this principle is a capital sin. In polemic against Christian Trinitarianism, it is affirmed that God has neither wife nor children. To him belong "the most beautiful names," as the Qur'anic epithets are called, very numerous in themselves and then further increased by tradition. Their whole reveals a strongly transcendent conception of the divinity, in which power and absolute dominion prevail over every other character.

2. Attributes

From the epithets, theology has selected the attributes of God, classifying them into two main groups: to the first belong existence, being without beginning, being without end, dissimilarity from all that is created, autonomy, uniqueness (the last five called negative attributes); to the second group belong life, knowledge, power, will, hearing, sight, speech. The Māturīdīs add creation to these. These attributes, against the Mu'tazilite theory, are eternal and distinct, but not separated from God ("neither him, nor other than him, nor part of him"). They are to be understood, and with them also the anthropomorphic expressions of the Qur'an, in a real sense, not figurative: yet in a manner different from the human, which man must admit without being able to define (bilā kajf, "without how").

If the attributes are eternal, the Qur'an also is eternal, the word of God. Its reproduction and its recitation, however, are not.

3. Works

The works of God are his acts of creation, by which he places and keeps in life the universe and its components. On creation, theology has gathered and elaborated the Qur'anic data, themselves the fruit of the Judeo-Christian background. Accentuating the power of God as direct author of everything, it has given rise to an atomistic and occasionalist cosmology: God creates the atoms (substances) with their accidents, and recreates them at every instant, thus giving rise to their continued existence. This is therefore only a habit, which can be broken by the simple intermission, even partial, of the successive creative acts. A reciprocal causality of natural phenomena, subject to the will of God, is instead admitted by the Ḥanbalīs.

Among created beings, a category superior to men is distinguished first of all, consisting of angels, demons, and jinn. The angels are subtle substances, created from light, normally invisible, without sex or vegetative life. Their function is to serve and exalt God. Among them are distinguished: Gabriel, bearer of the Revelation; Azrael, the angel of death; Israel, who sounds the trumpet on the day of judgment. Satan is a fallen angel, for having refused to adore Adam; he is the seducer of Adam and Eve and commands a series of demons. A typical belief of Arab paganism, accepted by Muhammad, is that of the šinn, invisible and proteiform sprites, endowed however with sex and vegetative life. They are in part good and Muslim, in part evil.

God is the creator of man, from the earth, according to the most beautiful form and with the purpose of serving him. The conception of original sin is present in Islam, but it has had neither ample nor organic development. Besides man himself, God also creates, and at every moment, his acts, in harmony with the cosmology mentioned above. This doctrine automatically poses the problem of predestination, which was long debated in the history of kalām. As has been said, Ash'arism inclines decisively toward predestination, leaving to man only the execution of the acts preordained by God. Greater autonomy, relatively, is posited by the Māturīdīs, in giving man the possibility of inclining toward good or evil. And even more so the Ḥanbalīs, hostile to philosophical subtleties, consider God the creator of human will and power, but these responsible for the direction they choose, albeit within the limits of the broader providential framework and of constant superior aid. The continual incitement of theologians to action has moreover been rightly noted, precisely in conjunction with the divine prescriptions: and this by way of correcting a superficial though well-founded idea of Muslim fatalism, which has spread in the West.

IV. PROPHETOLOGY

From time to time God sends prophets to individual peoples to admonish them and call them back to the faith. Such a sending, according to orthodox dogmatics, is gratuitous, that is, not owed by the deity as the Mu'tazilites wanted on the criterion of justice. The prophets are mortal men and as such can sin; their mission, however, ensures the truthfulness of the message they transmit: they are responsible for it only within the limits of its transmission. The "signs" with which they present themselves to men are the revealed books. Muhammad mentions as such the Pentateuch, the Psalms, the Gospel and finally the Qur'an: they are all successive manifestations of the word of God and confirm one another progressively, although the possibility of certain innovations and abrogations remains. Muhammad accuses Jews and Christians of having falsified their Scriptures, especially in order to remove from them the announcement of his future mission. The Qur'an is the definitive revelation, containing the exact word of God. Other "signs" of the prophets can be miracles.

The prophets are very numerous. The Qur'an names 25 of them, giving to some of them the additional title of "messengers" (rusul), which according to some theologians implies a higher rank, connected with the communication of a religious law as well as with the admonition of peoples. The majority of the Qur'anic prophets are made up of excellent figures of the Old and New Testaments: Adam, Noah, Lot, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Ishmael, Joseph, Moses, Aaron, David, Solomon, Elijah, Elisha, Jonah, Job, Zechariah, John the Baptist, Jesus. Others belong to the Arab legendary heritage: Shu'ayb, Hud, Salih. For some the identification is less certain: Idris

(Enoch), Dhu 'l-kifl (Ezekiel?). As regards the biblical figures, it is interesting to note that almost none of them are prophets in the Holy Scriptures, while on the other hand the principal prophets are missing. Probably Muhammad's sources were predominantly post-biblical and apocryphal, as indeed appears from the content of many accounts. The stories relating to the prophets are modeled on the example of Muhammad, with the aim of showing the unbelief of the ancient peoples and the punishments they suffered for it.

Among the various figures, the object of particular veneration is that of Jesus. Muhammad denies that he is God or the son of God, while acknowledging him as "word," and does not accept the dogmas of the Incarnation and the Redemption. He recounts, however, his prodigious birth from Mary (moreover confused with Miriam, sister of Moses), says he was assisted by the Holy Spirit and recounts his miracles, among which some evidently come from apocryphal sources. Interesting is the account of the descent from heaven of a set table, a curious disguise of the Eucharist. The Qur'an denies the death of Jesus on the Cross, asserting that one of his enemies was crucified in his place (docetism).

After Jesus, the last great prophet is Muhammad. He insists in the Qur'an on his human and mortal nature, asserting indeed that his only miracle is the revealed book that he brings to men. Nevertheless later tradition accentuated the Qur'anic hint of the night journey from Mecca to Jerusalem and attributed to Muhammad the splitting of the moon in two. His predominance over the other prophets consists in his being the last and definitive one ("seal"), sent to transmit the exact word of God and to restore his religion which, after Abraham, Jews and Christians had corrupted.

V. SOTERIOLOGY AND ESCHATOLOGY

Under the heading "the promise and the threat of God" the problem of the future life (eschatology) is set out by the Mu'tazilites and developed by later dogmatics, and to it the question of the conditions required for it (soteriology) serves as an introduction.

Islamic soteriology, as has been seen, crystallized after a long controversy over the criterion of the faith that saves. Only the unbeliever, guilty of kufr ("unbelief") or of širk ("polytheism"), is damned to eternal punishment. The sinful Muslim (fāsīq) remains a believer if he does not outwardly abjure the faith and observes its legal precepts; if he is the head of the community, obedience is nonetheless due to him; judgment on works is referred to God. Even if they are recognized as guilty, these Muslims will have a temporary punishment, not an eternal one. Various questions are debated concerning faith: its value in one who accepts it on the authority of others, its capacity for degrees, and other problems. The decisive value of faith for salvation reduced in orthodox dogmatics the function of penance: various questions are raised about it too, such as that of God's freedom to accept or not accept repentance.

Muslim eschatology is almost entirely already defined in the Qur'an: the announcement of the universal judgment is a dominant theme from the very first preaching, so that only detailed elaborations on this subject were left to dogmatic theology and later tradition. After death, the body is buried, and immediately it receives the interrogation of the two angels Munkar and Nakīr about faith and works. For unbelievers and for sinful Muslims there is talk of a "torment of the tomb." The prophets, however, and the martyrs of the faith go straight to heaven. The fate of the soul until the resurrection is debated: according to some theologians it dies and rises again with the body, according to others it survives uninterruptedly.

The universal judgment takes place on a day known only to God. Various portentous signs will announce it, such as the rising of the sun in the west, discord in the world, the appearance of a "beast of the earth" and the coming of the Antichrist. Jesus will reappear and kill him. The masses, more than the theologians, insist on the mahdi, a messianic figure who restores justice; his conception was developed and made heterodox by the sects.

The first sound of the trumpet of Israel will bring about the end of the world; at the second the dead will rise and gather on the plain of judgment. God will show himself among the angels and Muhammad will intercede for the souls. The actions of each will be weighed on the scales; to the good will be given the book of the works they have done in the right hand, to the wicked in the left. Then the souls will pass over a bridge as thin as the blade of a knife, stretched over hell (gāhannam = gehenna). The wicked will fall headlong; the good, through the "basin of the prophet," will reach paradise (firdavā = rasāśasavā).

The representation of the otherworldly kingdoms is notoriously materialistic. Hell is a fiery valley, in which the damned suffer the torment of hunger, of smoke and of chains. It has 7 gates and popular tradition attributes to it 7 concentric circles (cf. E. Cerulli, Il «Libro della Scala» e la questione delle fonti arabo-spagnole della Divina Commedia, Città del Vaticano 1949).

Paradise, on the other hand, is an expanse of gardens and meadows, through which flow streams of water, milk, wine and honey. Great lotus trees spread their shade. The blessed, who wear precious garments and jewels, rest on rich couches adorned with cushions and carpets. They feed on delicious foods and drinks; as companions they have the būr (uri), most beautiful maidens of ever-renewing virginity. The only spiritual note of this picture is the vision of God.

VI. ECCLESIOLOGY

An important chapter of dogmatic theology concerns the community of believers and the imām, that is, its head. The famous edict promulgated at Medina by Muhammad defined for the first time the new concept of community: it replaced the tribal bond with that of faith, making the believers a family of equals under the direct jurisdiction of Allāh.

In this organism the magisterium belongs to God, through the Qur'anic revelation. In I. there are lacking organisms of divine institution intended to preside over dogmatic development and to sanction definitions in such matters; that is to say, there are no counterparts of the Papacy and of the Catholic councils. I. has only interpreters of the divine magisterium, the learned ('ulamā', fuqahā'), among whom, moreover, no organization of clergy or caste exists.

The ministry reflects a similar situation: there is no organized priesthood, just as there are no sacraments to administer. Furthermore, the nomism typical of I. almost ignores the internal forum of the believer, or at least does not consider it the object of this matter; it translates problems instead to the external forum, transforming them into judicial facts to which the judges (qāḍī) give daily solution.

A third aspect of the life of the community is the empire, that is, political direction. Here the polemic was bitter at the beginnings of I. and from it depended the fragmentation into sects. According to the original orthodox theory, for the head, who cannot be lacking and must be one, the following fundamental conditions are required: to be free, male, adult, healthy, endowed with moral qualities and with sufficient knowledge of the law. It is naturally necessary that he be a Muslim, that he belong to the tribe of the Qurājā, but not obligatorily to the family of the prophet. His designation is carried out by the most authoritative citizens, possibly on the indication of the predecessor. His prerogatives are the direction of prayer, of pilgrimage, of holy war and a control over religious and social life. He can be deposed only for failure in his obligations.

This theory, fairly democratic and bearing in itself the mark of the pre-Islamic Arab tradition, has almost never had practical application. The institution of the caliphate, having become hereditary with the Umayyads and the 'Abbāsids, and then progressively deprived of authority through the most exaggerated absolutism, underwent periods of fragmentation and of alternations, culminating in its transfer to the Ottoman Turks and in its suppression.

IV. SPIRITUAL THEOLOGY.

I. ORIGINS OF SPIRITUAL THEOLOGY (taṣawwuf)

I. is not in itself much inclined to asceticism and mysticism. It is in fact a religion of a predominantly legal and formalistic character; and moreover, because of its adequacy to the human and its character of equilibrium between earthly and heavenly goods, it lacks that powerful impulse to earthly renunciation which is given, in Christianity, by the absolute and revolutionary pre-eminence of spiritual values. That said, it is also true that there are in the Qur'an germs of ascetic and mystical life. The very absolute transcendence of the divinity and its unlimited power move one to confident refuge in it; nor are there lacking passages in which appear the presence of God in the human heart, his teachings to it in the form of parables, and also the idea of higher degrees and states in the life of the spirit. Moreover, these Qur'anic germs were linked to the powerful impulse of the Christian example, whose monasticism Muhammad himself loved and pointed to as an example. And it is without doubt to Christianity that Muslim asceticism and mysticism owe much of their most genuine tradition, even if it is not easy to identify the direct lines of the progressive influence; whereas the cultural and philosophical heritage of Neoplatonism and of Gnosis, which penetrated at a later time into Islamic spiritual theology, will be responsible for many of its deviations. The action, invoked by some, of Indian mysticism must be considered slight and peripheral.

II. HISTORICAL ELEMENTS

Massignon has acutely revealed elements of asceticism, and even of mysticism, in the most ancient Muslim generations, even before the effective action of external currents could be determined. Among the companions of the prophet, Abū Darr and Ḥudajfah are especially cited, known for their condemnation of sinful rulers and for precepts and sayings of the spiritual life. Some of these early ascetics led a public life of preaching; others preferred retirement. In general, the dominant element of the most ancient Muslim spiritual life is the fear of God's threats, which has its roots in the Quranic announcements of the imminent Judgment. The first centers are formed in the great cities: at Baṣrah, toward the end of the 1st century, the figure of al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī stands out, author of sermons on the intimate life of souls; he remained known also for having, in the name of the good of the community, upheld against the āl'iti and ḥāṅgīti the legitimacy of the Umayyad family, while not concealing its defects and faults. In him there transpires a first tendency toward the systematization of the ascetic-mystical vein and toward its reconciliation with the other parts of theology, which would later find ample development.

The 2nd century of the hegira marks the progressive defining of asceticism and mysticism. The name of ṣūfī appears, whence tapawwaf or ṣūfism, from the woolen cloak (ṣūf) worn by the adherents of these currents. The name ṣūfism would from then on serve to define spiritual theology. The concept of the fear of God is integrated with a clearer sense of love for Him, which finds high expression in the mystic Rābi'ah (d. 801-802). Other principal figures are Rabāḥ (d. ca. 800) and 'Abd al-Wābid b. Zajd (d. 793), founder of the first Muslim monastery.

The 3rd century brings ṣūfism to its highest level, in the also theoretical gradation of the ascetic-mystical way. al-Muhāsibī of Baṣrah (d. 857) and the Egyptian Dū 'n-Nūn (d. 856) are among the preeminent figures of this period. But the clarifying of the ascetic-mystical way already shows the ṣūfī its extreme degree. With Abū Jazīd al-Biṣāmī (d. 874) there is outlined the concept of union and identification with the divinity that would later inspire the famous al-Ḥallāǧ, who died on the cross at Baghdad in 922 for having affirmed that he was God.

In the defining of the spiritual way there already appears the action, besides that of Christianity, of Greek philosophy and of gnosis. An action which, carrying ṣūfism more onto the doctrinal plane, accentuates its contrast with orthodoxy, already in embryo from its earliest phases. The affirmation of al-Ḥallāǧ was indeed the last stage of a process that could not but sound offensive to the guardians of transcendence and of God's absolute dominion.

There thus occurs, under the action of philosophical ideas, a fragmentation of the ascetic-mystical current: on the one hand it receives from them a theorizing force which, inspired by principles of moderation, tends progressively to bring it closer to the dogmatic and legal theory of orthodoxy; on the other, in a somewhat later period, Neoplatonic-Gnostic emanatism and monism carry it ever further from the religion of the community. It is certainly not in this second current, and perhaps not even in the first, that the most genuine and authentic tradition of ṣūfism lies, which must always be recognized in the most ancient generations.

In the 4th and 5th centuries the theorization of asceticism and mysticism is illustrated by the treatises of al-Makkī (d. 996) and of al-Quājārī (d. 1074). Shortly afterward, the work of reconciliation, or rather of introducing the ascetic-mystical vein into orthodoxy, reaches its most definite expression in the work of the aforementioned al-Gazzālī. His fundamental writing, The Revivification of the Religious Sciences, is a constant exhortation to experience and to the heart's adherence to the religious life.

The conciliatory action of al-Gazzālī favored in the Islamic world the organization of the ṣūfī, of which the confraternities (ṭarīqah) are a manifestation, congregations that hold periodic meetings for the exercise of ascetic and mystical practices, often accompanied by music, singing and dancing. They do not imply monastic life and have various degrees of affiliation. The confraternities had great development and are currently very numerous in the Muslim world. One of the best known is that of the Senussi. Many of their leaders have received the halo of sanctity, a conception foreign to primitive I. and developed only later through the preeminent action of ṣūfism.

If spiritual theology thus arrived through these paths at a rapprochement with orthodoxy, it was on the other hand preparing to detach itself from it definitively. From Neoplatonism and gnosis there came to it elements of emanatism and of pantheism, or monism as it has been preferred to call it. From these follow moral quietism, anomism, adogmatism. In his law of love and of union with God, the mystic considers himself beyond good and evil, beyond creed and dogma. Esotericism develops, through which these extreme forms join the heritage of gnosis on schismatic ground, in particular to Ismā'īlism (v. further on). The most celebrated exponents of such currents, the Spaniard Ibn 'Arabī (d. 1241) and the Turk Galāl ad-dīn Rūmī (d. 1273), if they often reach a high religious lyricism, are on the other hand by now very remote both from orthodox I. and from the primitive vein of Muslim spiritual theology.

III. DOCTRINAL ELEMENTS

Sufism has a technical terminology that defines the successive elements and degrees of asceticism and then of mysticism. Notable correspondences with the concepts and terms of Christian spiritual theology are easily identifiable.

One who follows the ascetico-mystical path is first a mubtadī "beginner," or murīd "aspirant"; then sālik "progressing," having reached the ascetic degree; ṭrāsīl "arrived" or kāmil "perfect," having reached the mystical degree.

Asceticism, which has a propaedeutic function with respect to mysticism, is called ṭarīq "way" or muǧāhadah "struggle." In it the one advancing is led by a murīd "guide." The successive stages of asceticism are called ma-qāmāt "stations." Their classification varies; in any case the first of them is penitence and the last, through the various degrees of renunciation, conformity to the divine will (rīḍā).

To the "stations" of ascesis there correspond in mysticism the "states" (aḥwāl). Their classification too is manifold; at the foundation stands the love (maḥabbah) of God, at the summit union (tawḥīd) with him. There are three kinds of union, of which only the first is admitted by orthodoxy: ittiṣāl "conjunction" (cf. συνάφεια); ittiḥād "unification" (cf. ἔνωσις); ḥulūl "infusion" (of God into the soul of the mystic: cf. ἐνόλησις or κατόλησις). Of this last form al-Ḥallāǧ was accused. To union with God are connected the concepts of fanā' and baqā'. The first is the disparitio potentiarum, the momentary annihilation of the mystic in the divinity; the second instead expresses "permanence" in the state of union and constitutes the maximum and exceptional limit of mystical experience (cf. "transforming union").

Many mystical schools distinguish union with the actions, with the attributes, and with the essence of God. Others limit themselves to union with Muhammad.

V. HETERODOX ISLAM.

I. THE SECTS

Heterodox Islam, in its political, dogmatic and legal elements, is flanked by a series of sects, to which the absence of a hierarchical church and of councils, and the religious and philosophical traditions with which Islam came face to face in the course of history, granted ample scope for genesis and development.

The essential original element of these heterodox currents lies in the historical events that centered around the figure of 'Alī. Šī'at 'Alī ("party of 'Alī"), or more simply šī'ah, is the name given to that complex of sects, by far the most important and numerous (ca. 20 million), which recognizes the right of political and religious governance over the Muslim community only to 'Alī and his descendants. Opposed to the 'Alids stand the hāriġites (ca. half a million), who separated from 'Alī when he accepted arbitration with Mu'āwijah and remained against him and his enemies. Finally, if the hypotheses formulated especially by Guidi are true, the tendencies favorable to the Umayyads were carried to excess, and thus fell into heterodoxy, by sects that deified the members of that family and especially Jazīd I (Jazīdī). The phenomenon of Yazidism is practically severed from the body of Islam, just as are many extremist sects that developed historically from the šī'ah: all these movements will therefore be discussed in greater detail under their respective entries.

Some heterodox movement also arose independently of the events that centered on 'Alī. Such is the aḥmadījah in India at the end of the last century.

The theocratic character of the Islamic community automatically transferred political opposition onto the religious plane.

II. ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE Ī'ah

The origins of the ī'ah go back to the very beginnings of Islamic history, to the strong groups of believers who disapproved of the election to the caliphate of Abū Bakr, 'Umar and 'Uṯmān, considering the major rights of 'Alī, cousin and son-in-law of the prophet, to have been violated. The subsequent government of 'Alī brought this tendency a temporary victory; the Umayyad advent definitively thrust it back into opposition, initiating a periodic cycle of insurrections and repressions that was to continue for centuries. Of the two sons of 'Alī and Fāṭimah, al-Ḥasan and al-Ḥusajn, the first died in private life, probably poisoned by Mu'āwijah; the second fell at Karbalā' in 680. There thus began the fragmentation of the Ī'ah into sects, according to the successors to whom the right to the imāmate, that is to the supreme political and religious authority, was attributed. The 'Alids almost always lacked a strong unified organization and capable leaders, which was the chief cause of their defeats.

The history of the Ī'ah is not merely a periodic political vicissitude; it is rather the history of an intense religious evolution, in which upon the original Islamic trunk there are inscribed, in successive syntheses, elements of the surrounding environment, among which emerge the philosophical-religious experience of gnosis and the Iranian tradition of the Manichaean and Mazdakite movements. Elements which, tempered in the tendencies of greater moderation, ended instead by prevailing in the extreme Ī'ah, carrying it very far from Islam.

The development of Šī'ism is extremely intricate and complex. Its successive elements are given by the appearance of the various imāms, often many at the same time and even in conflict with one another. An element of clarification and guidance may be constituted by the distinction within the ī'ah of three great groups or tendencies, according to the varying degree of divine assistance or nature attributed to the imām: moderate, median and extreme ī'ah.

1. Moderate Šī'ah

It is constituted by the Zaydites, so called because they are followers of Zayd b. 'Alī, who died in 740 rising up against the Umayyad caliph Ḥišām. According to the Zaydites the imāmate belongs to those descendants of 'Alī who know how to earn it by merit. For them the imām has no divine prerogatives, but is merely assisted by the divinity. The Zaydites founded a state in Yemen at the beginning of the 10th century, which still endures. They number ca. 1 million.

2. Median Šī'ah

It is represented by the imāmites or Twelvers, so called because they believe in 12 imāms, namely 'Alī, al-Ḥasan, al-Ḥusajn, and then in line of descent 'Alī Zajn al-'Abidīn, Muḥammad al-Bāqir (and not the younger brother Zayd, on whom the Zaydites depend), Ġa'far aṣ-Ṣādiq, Mūsā al-Kāẓim (instead of the elder brother Ismā'īl, who predeceased his father; to him, instead, the ismā'īlites, extreme šī'ites, are attached), and then his successors down to Muḥammad al-Mahdī. The latter is considered to have disappeared and is awaited as mahdī, savior at the end of time.

The Twelvers affirm the immanence in the imām of a particle of divine light, which makes him an infallible interpreter of the revelation. Several dynasties adhered to this tendency, among which the most important are those reigning in Persia from the 16th century down to our own days. The Persian šāhs are held to be lieutenants of the hidden imām.

Groups of imāmites are at present found also in India, in Mesopotamia and in Syria (mutawālī). Altogether the Twelvers amount to ca. 17 million and are by far the most numerous šī'ite group.

From the Twelver šī'ah there broke away, at the beginning of the last century, two movements of religious reform, strongly influenced by doctrines of an extreme tendency. The first is bābism, founded by 'Alī Muḥammad of Šīrāz, who proclaimed himself bāb, that is "gate" between the faithful and the twelfth imām during the latter's absence, and subsequently also nuqṭah, that is place of manifestation of the divine revelation. He upheld emanatist doctrines of the ismā-

'īlite type and a singular complex of cabalistic principles (based on the number 19), of legal reforms and of progressive norms of life. From bābism derived another movement, bahā'ism, founded by Bahā'ullāh, who proclaimed himself manifestation of God himself, developing the progressive principles of bābism into a religion of universal brotherhood with freedom of worship and of liturgy.

3. Extreme Šī'ah (guluvv, "excess")

It is constituted by a series of sects whose common characteristic is that of considering the imām as god or as prophet. Part of these sects is connected to the descent of al-Husajn, part to that of Muḥammad b. al-Ḥanafijjah. Among the movements of the extreme šī'ah the most important is the ismā'īlite one, which arises on septenary bases, that is, stopping the line of the imām at the seventh: from Ġa'far aṣ-Ṣādiq the descent passes to Ismā'īl and, since the latter predeceases his father, the title of imām goes to his son Muḥammad. The ismā'īlites are also called bāṭinites because of the esoteric character of their doctrines, common moreover to the extreme šī'ah in general. Within the framework of ismā'īlism are born - and to it belong - the greatest movements of the extreme šī'ah: qarmaṭi, fāṭimids, druses, assassins.

The Qarmaṭa movement, founded in the 9th century by 'Abdallāh b. Majmūn and developed in Syria and Mesopotamia up to the 11th century (remnants remain now in Arabia), brings to explicit definition the Ismā'īlite doctrine, consisting of an emanatist monism of the Gnostic type, based on the number 7. From God emanate the universal intellect, the universal soul, prime matter, space, time, the terrestrial world. Time has 7 cycles, each with a "speaking" prophet, assisted by a series of 7 imāms, of whom the first is the "silent" one (also called the "base"), who esoterically spreads the doctrine. The sixth cycle has as its speaking prophet Muhammad, as its silent imām 'Alī; the seventh has as its prophet Muḥammad b. Ismā'īl, as its imām 'Abdallāh b. Majmūn himself. A marked characteristic of the Qarmaṭa movement on the social level was communism, through which the Mazdakite influence shines through.

From Qarmaṭism, to which a series of bloody revolts against the 'Abbāsids is owed, developed the Fāṭimid dynasty, which dominated Egypt and Syria from the 10th to the 12th century, declaring itself to be descended from the seventh imām through a series of hidden successors. With the Fāṭimids, Ismā'īlism became the official religion, assuming a character of greater moderation. The only exception to this is the interlude of the sixth caliph al-Ḥākim (996-1020 A.D.), who proclaimed himself the definitive incarnation of the divinity. His followers took the name of Druze from the propagandist ad-Darazi, who spread the movement in Syria, where it is still present today. The Druze emanatist system, outlined by Ḥamzah b. 'Alī, is analogous to the Ismā'īlite one, with modifications in favor of al-Ḥākim and Ḥamzah.

Further Ismā'īlite groups formed after the death of the Fāṭimid caliph al-Mustansir: followers of his son al-Musta'īl, who prevailed in the succession, were the Musta'īlites, of whom there are currently remnants in Yemen and in India under the name Bohōrā; a follower instead of the other son Nizār was a group led by al-Ḥasan b. aṣ-Ṣabbāh, who, having moved to Persia and Syria, constituted the sect of the Assassins (so called from the inebriating herb ḥaṭīf). Remnants of them are found in Persia, in Afghānistān and above all in India, where they take the name Ḥōǧah. Their head is the Aǧā Ḥān.

Among the extreme-Shī'ite sects not linked to Ismā'īlism, mention must be made, in the most ancient phase of Islamic religious history, of the group headed by Muḥammad b. al-Ḥanafijjah, called Kaysānite. Some believed this son of 'Alī to have disappeared and awaited him as mahdī. Others transferred the imāmate from him to his son Abū Ḥāšim, and from him they split in various directions. Among these the most important is the 'abbāsijjah, which, asserting the testamentary transfer of the imāmate from Abū Ḥāšim to the 'abbāsid family, theoretically legitimized its accession to the caliphate.

There remain today some sects of extreme šī'ah, besides those of Ismā'īlite derivation. Among them are the nujajrī or 'Alawites of Syria, originating in the 10th century, assertors of a trinity composed of 'Alī, Muhammad and Salmān, a Persian slave who became a companion of the prophet. Another living sect is that of the 'Alī-ilāhī, divinizers of 'Alī, spread from the 17th century in Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, Persia and Transcaucasia. In Persia the ḥurāfī survive from the 14th century, characterized by a complex symbolic system founded on the letters of the alphabet. The doctrines of the ḥurāfī influenced the Sufi confraternity of the beḳtāṣī (v. BEKTĀSIJJAH), in which numerous beliefs proper to extreme šī'ism are found.

III. DOCTRINAL ELEMENTS OF THE šī'ah

The doctrinal content of the šī'ah, whose multifaceted development has been traced up to this point, is stamped by the conception of the imām, decidedly different from that of orthodoxy: the imām must belong to the family of 'Alī, and the assistance or the presence of the divinity in him, according to the various tendencies, renders him infallible. He therefore has an authority extremely greater than that of the orthodox caliph, a simple guarantor of religious practice; there follows a devaluation of the sources of dogmatic and legal theology in the face of his living magisterium (ta'līm).

To the doctrine of the imām is coupled that of the mahdi. Known also by orthodoxy, this savior of the end of times assumes in the fī'ah a more direct and precise function. If for the moderate tendency, as for orthodoxy, he is a future being, the middle and extreme šī'ites identify him instead in one or another imām, asserting his disappearance in order to return at the end of the universe. Here, as elsewhere, the fī'ah is under the action of Iranian influences, which soon altered its characteristics.

The theory of the imāms and mahdis is integrated, in the extreme fī'ah, by complex emanatist doctrines of the Gnostic type. With them are accompanied an accentuated allegorism, intended to identify the inner sense (bāṭin) of the Koran and of the traditions, esotericism, the secret character of the sects (according to the doctrine of the taqījah the šī'ite must conceal his faith for its own good).

This complex of doctrines directly links the guluwa to the Gnostic heritage; other elements, such as, for example, the communism of many even extreme sects, reveal the action of Iranian religious movements, essentially Mazdakism and Manichaeism, which moreover were linked to Gnosis. It is undoubted that the extreme fī'ah developed within the sphere of action of non-Arab currents, which led it very far from primitive Islam and often made it the manifestation of the Persian revolt against conquering Arabism. The same non-Arab currents arrived progressively attenuated at the middle and moderate fī'ah, leaving more room for positions close to orthodoxy.

Having established these general characteristics of the šī'ite currents, their dogmatic and legal theology, although differing in some points from the orthodox one, is on the whole not very dissimilar from it. In dogmatic theology the moderate šī'ites essentially follow the Mu'tazilite system, and so do the middle ones, who however do not accept eternal punishment for unrepentant Muslims. The emanatist doctrines carry the extreme šī'ites outside even this dogmatic system.

In legal theology the Zaydites follow the rite of the same name, which they trace back to Zayd b. 'Alī, and which is very similar to the orthodox ones. The Imāmites and also the extreme šī'ites follow the ǧa'farite system, so called from the sixth imām Ga'far aṣ-Ṣādiq. The greatest divergence of this rite from the others is the admission of temporary marriage (mu't'ah).

The šī'ites have their cities and their sanctuaries, to which they make pilgrimages. The most important center is Karbalā', where the tomb of Ḥusajn is found. The šī'ites celebrate with rites of mourning the anniversary of his death, on the 10th of muḥarram.

IV. OTHER SECTS

1. The Khārijites

These are those followers of 'Alī who broke away from him when he accepted the arbitration of Ṣiffīn, holding that judgment belonged to God alone. The name is explained as "those who go out from the camp" or, in the opposite sense, according to a recent hypothesis of Guidi, "those who go out into the field." The Khārijites set themselves against the Shī'ites and against Mu'āwiyah, and as such they continued the struggle during the Umayyad dynasty and the early times of the 'Abbāsid one. One branch of theirs, the Ibāḍites, moved to North Africa, where it founded small states and still survives. It is essentially to them that we owe our knowledge of Khārijite dogmatic and legal theology.

The essential thesis of Khārijite dogmatics, connected with the origins of the movement, centers on the problem of faith and works: a Muslim guilty of grave sin becomes by that very fact an infidel. Therefore the Khārijites recognize as caliphs only Abū Bakr, 'Umar, 'Uthmān up to the seventh year of his reign, and 'Alī up to the arbitration. Belonging to the tribe of the Quraysh or to the family of the prophet is not necessary for the caliph: any Muslim can be such, provided his works are upright; when he falls into sin, he must be deposed. On the remaining points of dogmatic theology, the Ibāḍite treatises follow the Mu'tazilite theses, except that of free will, on which they agree with Ash'arite orthodoxy.

In legal theology the Ibāḍites have their own rite, very similar on the whole to the Sunnite one.

2. The Yazidis

They number some tens of thousands of people, of Kurdish origin and language, with a main nucleus near Mosul and others in Mesopotamia, Syria, Armenia, the Caucasus and Persia. They believe in a supreme God, from whom emanate 7 angels. The first is the peacock angel, melek tā'ūs, an angel who fell but then repented and is therefore a principle of good. He is the ruler of the world; he becomes incarnate in Jazid and then in Ṣaḥj 'Adī, a Muslim mystic saint taken as the central figure of this sect. The other 6 angels also have incarnations. The doctrine of metempsychosis is present among the Yazidis, together with other Gnostic and Iranian elements (remnants of dualism). In the rite there are broad Christian and Jewish influences. The cult centers on the annual pilgrimage to the sanctuary of Ṣaḥj 'Adī near Mosul.

3. The Aḥmadīyah

A sect founded by Gulām Aḥmad of Qāḏān (d. 1908) in India. He maintained that Christ had died in India at the age of 120; he declared himself Messiah and mahdi; he affirmed the spiritual character of holy war and therefore, in the particular case of India, respect for British power. At his death the sect split into the groups of Qāḏān and of Lahore. - See plate XIX.

For Islamic art: v. MUSULMANA, ARTE.

History. General bibliography: J. Sauvaget, Introduction à l'histoire de l'Orient musulman. Éléments de bibliographie, Paris 1946 (very useful).

General works: C. Brockelmann, Geschichte der islamischen Völker und Staaten, Munich and Berlin 1939 (updated translations: English, New York 1947 and 1949; French, Paris 1949); P. K. Hitti, History of the Arabs, 4th ed., London 1949 (up to the period of Sasanian hegemony excluded). Excellent genealogical and chronological tables in E. de Zambour, Manuel de généalogie et de chronologie pour l'histoire de l'I., Hannover 1927. The great annalistic works begun by L. Caetani have remained incomplete: Annali dell'I., 10 vols., Milan 1904-26 (translation or summary of the sources and critical analysis, up to the year 40 of the Hijra); Chronographia islamica, Paris 1912-22 (collection of the sources for each event, up to the year 132 of the Hijra), continued in the Cronografia generale del bacino mediterraneo e dell'Oriente musulmano, fasc. 1, Rome 1923 (up to 144 of the Hijra).

On the Umayyads: J. Wellhausen, Das arabische Reich und sein Sturz, Berlin 1902. Also a series of studies by H. Lammens and F. Gabrieli (see the indications of J. Sauvaget, op. cit., pp. 119-20).

On the 'Abbāsids: G. van Vloten, De Opkomst der Abbasiden in Chorasan, Leiden 1890; A. Mez, Die Renaissance des I., Heidelberg 1922 (on 'Abbāsid civilization of the decadence).

For specific bibliography from the era of the autonomous states onward see the entries relating to the individual peoples and regions; furthermore J. Sauvaget, op. cit., p. 129 ff. On the most recent events: M. V. Seton-Williams, Britain and the Arab states, A survey of anglo-arab relations, 1930-48, London 1948; cf. also the journal Oriente moderno, 1 (1921) ff.

Religion. General works: I. Goldziher, Vorlesungen über den I., 2nd ed., Heidelberg 1925 (French translation by J. Arin, Le dogme et la foi de l'I., Paris 1920); H. Lammens, L'I., croyances et institutions, 3rd ed., Beirut 1944 (Italian translation by F. Gabrieli, Bari 1940); G. E. von Grunebaum, Medieval I., Chicago 1946; M. Guidi, Storia della religione dell'I., in P. Tacchi Venturi, Storia delle religioni, II, 3rd ed., Turin 1949, pp. 303-337. Modern I.: R. Hartmann, Die Krisis des Islams, Leipzig 1928; H. A. R. Gibb, Whither I., 1, London 1932; id., Modern trends in I., Chicago 1947. Anthologies of texts: J. Schacht, Der I. mit Anschluss des Qa'dan, Tübingen 1931; A. J. Wensinck, The muslim creed: its genesis and historical development, Cambridge 1932.

Legal theology: Th. W. Juynboll, Handleiding tot de kennis van de mohammedaansche wet volgens de leer der sjeffitische school, 3rd ed., Leiden 1925 (Italian translation by G. Baviera, Milan 1916); D. Santillana, Istituzioni di diritto musulmano malichita con riguardo anche al sistema sciofista, 2 vols., Rome 1926-43 (fundamental); J. Schacht, G. Bergsträsser's Grundzüge des islamischen Rechts, Berlin and Leipzig 1935.

Dogmatic theology: A. S. Tritton, Muslim theology, London 1947; L. Gardet and M.-M. Anawati, Introduction à la théologie musulmane. Essai de théologie comparée, Paris 1948 (comparative study with Christian theology).

Spiritual theology: R. A. Nicholson, The mystics of I., London 1914 (Italian translation by V. Vezzani, Turin 1925); id., Studies in islamic mysticism, Cambridge 1921; L. Massignon, Essai sur les origines du lexique technique de la mystique musulmane, Paris 1922; id., Recueil de textes inédits concernant l'histoire de la mystique en pays d'I., ibid. 1929; A. J. Wensinck, Oostersche mystiek, Amsterdam 1930; M. Smith, Studies in early mysticism in the Near and Middle East, London 1931.

Heterodox I. The best introduction, with bibliography, in the entries of the cited Handwörterbuch des I. Furthermore A. S. Tritton, op. cit. Shī'ites in general: D. M. Donaldson, The shi'ite religion, London 1933. Zaydites: R. Strothmann, Der Kultur der Zaiditen, Strasbourg 1912; id., Das Staatsrecht der Zaiditen, ibid. 1912. Twelvers: R. Strothmann, Die Zwölfer-Schī'a, Leipzig 1926. Khārijites: J. Wellhausen, Die religiös-politischen Oppositionsparteien im alten I., Berlin 1901; F. Gabrieli, Sulle origini del movimento khārijita, in Rend. R. Accademia d'Italia, Scienze morali e storiche, 7th series, 3 (1941), pp. 110-17; M. Guidi, Sui Khārijiti, in Riv. degli studi orientali, 21 (1944), pp. 1-14. For the other sects, see the relevant entries.

Sabatino Moscati