Term
- Ash’ariyya (Ash’arite school)
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Definition
o Literal: Islamic theological school emphasizing God’s unrestricted power in the world; founded by al-Ash’ari (d. 935)
o Beliefs: Believed that the Qur’an was uncreated, but that any particular copy of the book was created. On free will they said that human acts are created by God, but that man has a certain level of responsibility for those acts; i.e. God is the author of man’s acts but man is an instrument and participant in the acts.
o Significance: This is one of the schools of thought that was developed partially in response to the extreme rationalism of the Mu’tazila position and the extreme literality of the ahl al-hadith position
o Possibly needs more
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Term
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Definition
o Literal: Negative theology seeking to describe God by what he is not
o Significance: This type of theology was often used by the Mut’tazilla school and is also used by the Ash’arite school and the Sufis. This type of theology can also be seen in al-Wahhab’s Kitab al-Tawhid which strove to define Muslims by what they were not, rather than by what they were.
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Term
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Definition
o Literal: Intellect or rational judgment; a source of law for Shi’a Muslims
o Significance: While Sunni Muslims use qiyas (or analogical reasoning) shia prefer to replace qiyas with ‘aql. This is part of what allows jurists to use ijtihad. If something is not explicitly covered in the Qur’an or Sunnah, this concept allows Shiia jurists to make a decision.
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Term
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Definition
o Literal: Oldest Islamic University, founded in Cairo in 970
o Significance: This University is very prestigious and his turned out a lot of significant Islamic thinking. It is traditionally regarded as a seat of reference for the Islamic community and the scholars it turns out are very highly regarded. It was founded by the Fatimid Dynasty which was Shiia, however, later it was co-opted by Muhammad Ali and turned into a Sunni institution.
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Term
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Definition
o Literal: Spiritual blessing bestowed by a Sufi Sheik, power of blessing
o Significance: The followers of a Sufi sheik believed that they were the inheritors of his Baraka, which was God’s power inherited through the saint. When the Sufi Master passed on, his Baraka would go to his followers
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Term
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Definition
o Literally: Negative innovation which is not based on Islamic scriptural sources
o Significance: This was an extremely important concept for revivalist thinkers who believed that bid’a had been introduced into Islam. Many pointed to the manner in which the people would mix Islamic and local practices. These thinkers thought that to avoid bid’a one had to go back to the original sources of law, especially the Qur’an and hadith
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Term
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Definition
o Literally: The successor to Muhammad
o Significance: The Caliph is the temporal and spiritual head of the Muslim community. The first four caliphs are known as the rightly guided caliphs (they were Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali). This time is generally thought of in the Sunni tradition as the golden age of Islam. The Caliph had hegemony over spiritual power and was the leader of the Islamic community. There are four periods of the Caliphate; Rashidun, Ummayadd, Abassyyd and random. In 1922 the Caliph lost his military power as the Sultanate was separated from the Caliphate. In 1924 the caliphate was abolished officially.
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Term
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Definition
o Literally: The abode of Islam
o Significance: These were the lands which Muslims controlled and which Muslims could basically travel about freely. This butted up against Dar al-Harb (the abode of War) which was controlled by non-Muslims. During the early stages of Islam, people in Islamic territories did not really have a concept of nationality and were able to travel anywhere they liked within Dar al-Islam. Some of the reformists believed that Muslims should remove themselves from the Dar al-Harb and move to Dar al-Islam
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Term
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Definition
o Literally: non Islamic territory or the abode of war
o Significance: These were territories not under Muslim control and which were ruled by unbelievers who did not have a treaty with Muslim lands. Some reformers believed that Muslims should perform hijra and leave non-Muslim lands for lands of pure Islam (Dar al-Islam)
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Term
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Definition
o Literally: Active remembrance of God or repetition of the names of God
o Significance: This is an extremely important concept in the Sufi tradition and it is part of the process of Sufi mediation. The Sufi will repeat the names of God in order to get closer to Him. This is an important ritual in the attempt to get closer to God.
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Term
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Definition
o Literal: Traditions and sayings attributed to Muhammad. What the prophet did, said, or silently confirmed; this is a passing down of the Prophet’s sunnah
o Significance: The hadith is one of the most important bodies of text within Islam and it is one of the sources of Islamic law. The hadith literature covers a wide variety of subjects which can affect the daily lives of Muslims. It is classified based on the soundness of the tradition and it requires an isnad (a list of names going back to the time of the Prophet which authenticates the hadith). Many Islamic revivalists and salafists such as al-Wahhab, Wali Allah, and Fudi advocate a return to the primary sources, the hadith and the Qur’an being the most important.
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Term
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Definition
o Literal: Pilgrimage to Mecca, one of the five pillars of Islam
o Significance: The hajj is supposed to be carried out at least once in a Muslims life time if he or she is able to do so. It occurs at a specific time of the year and there are many other rituals associated besides that of just going to Mecca (i.e. circumnavigation of the Kabah).
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Term
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Definition
o Literal: Pre-Islamic monotheist (non-Christian or Jew)
o Significance: These people rejected shirk in the Jahiliyya period and are seen by Muslims as having maintained the true monotheistic religion of Abraham. This is a derivative of the word Shah Wali Allah uses when he says that God has created a tolerant, easy, monotheistic (hanifi) religion (see Conclusive Argument).
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Term
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Definition
o Literal: Muhammad’s migration from Mecca to Medina in 622 in order to escape persecution
o Technical: The movement of Muslims from non-Muslim areas to purely Muslim areas
o Significance: This was advocated by both al-Wahhab and Fudi during his later periods. They believed that Muslims should leave places of unbelief for places of belief because Muslims living in places ruled by un-believers is bad for them. Fudi declared a kind of political takfir against those who decided to stay in non-Muslim lands. (look at Fudi again for elucidation.
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Term
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Definition
o Literal: son of
o Significance: when it occurs in a name it means son of. This is important because, I suppose, one could trace back the line of an historical figure more easily, but I really don’t know why this would be here…
o Other: fem bint
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Term
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Definition
o Literal: Wahhabi militia which helped ibn Saud conquer Arabia but which later revolted and had to be put down in 1929
o Significance: Ibn Saud conquered a large portion of the Arabian Peninsula between the beginning of the 20th century and the official establishment of the state in 1932. He was assisted by the fanatical Ikhwan which was primarily composed of Bedouin. This group was very extream and regarded themselves purifying and unifying Islam as they conquered. However, they revolted against ibn Saud after his pragmatic policies (such as not allowing them to attack neighboring states) butted up their more fundamental ideas.
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Term
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Definition
o Literal: Religious and political leader; has different meanings in Sunni and Shia Islam
o Significance:
§ Sunni Islam: The imam is a prayer leader and leader of a mosque. A member of the ulama
§ Shia: One of the twelve infallible Imams beginning with Ali and ending with Mahdi who is the present Imam and is currently in occultation
§ There are many meanings of the word imam, but in Sunni Islam an imam is generally someone who can engage in ijtihad
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Term
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Definition
o Literal: discussion
o Technically: Islamic Theology/ Muslim speculative theology/ theological disputation
o Significance: This is the speculative theology; it has given rise to many schools, the most important of which are the Mut’azilla and the Ash’arites. Kalam was generally condemned by more traditionally inclined schools because they saw it as bid’a (the earliest Muslims did not practice kalam and because they saw some of the debates as forbidden topics). Kalam dealt with issues such as the choice of the next Caliph, the createdness of the Qur’an, the status of a grave sinner, free will, the divine attributes of God, and other such topics
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Term
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Definition
o Literal: A Sufi lodge and a place of Sufi congregation
o Significance: Some of these lodges were sponsored by the state, which helped to create a kind of homogeneity in legal organization and education and cut down on factionalizism. These were the places where the dhikr would be performed and where the sheik(s) would live
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Term
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Definition
o Literal: cloak bestowed on a Sufi devotee
o Significance: The khirqa represents the bond between a Sufi Master (pir) and his devotee. Though the khirqa is generally thought of as a cloak made of rough materials, the item does not necessarily have to be a cloak and does not even have to be a physical object at all. The khirqa can be a method of passing on spiritual authority and many Sufis believe that the cloak of their master will help them on the path.
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Term
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Definition
o Literal: secessionists or rebels
o Technical: Early puritanical sect in Islam which declared other Muslims as infidels
o Significance: They were former followers of Ali who rebelled against him after the Battle of Siffin when Ali agreed to negotiate with his enemies; they assassinated Ali in 661. From there they developed into an opposition group which was fairly active during the early Caliphates. Today they are very small and are primarily concentrated in Oman, although under a different name. They believed that the caliph should not be decided by decent but should be elected by the community of Muslims and should hold his position only so long as he was sinless in the conduct of his office. The Kharijites only accept Abu Bakr and Umar as rightly guided and believe that Uthman had fallen from the path of justice and that Ali had deviated when he agreed to arbitration on the subject of his predecessor’s death. They thought that only a blameless person was a true Muslim and that any person who commits a sin is a kafir (unbeliever) unless he repents. They believe that they are the only true Muslims.
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Term
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Definition
o Literal: Muslim school or seminary
o Significance: These schools are very important in the Islamic world and they served as centers of education for the upper class until modern education institutions began to take their place after modernity began to creep into the Middle East. In early Islam the madrassa was the primary means of communicating Muslim truths. These schools were not only educational in nature; they were also centers for propaganda and political action. Many of these schools were sponsored by the state, this helped the regime establish a measure of uniformity. One of the most famous and influential madrassas in Islam is the Al-Azhar madrassa in Cairo established in 970
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Term
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Definition
o Literal: Shiite Islam’s awaited messiah
o Significance/other: The Mahdi comprises and important part of Shia eschatological beliefs. He was the twelfth Shia Imam who is believed to have gone into occultation. The greater occultation began in 941 after the Mahdi stopped communicating with his followers though intermediaries. He will return to bring justice to the world and restore pure Islam before the last day. There have been times throughout history when many thought the Mahdi had returned and some reformers claimed or were thought to be the Mahdi. This is a concept of intercession (an idea which is very important in Shiia Islam) and that Wahhab and his predecessor ibn Taymiyah would have found abhorrent. They believe that believing in intercession is a form of shirk.
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Term
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Definition
o Literal: Islamic legal concept of public interest
o Significance: This is a legal concept which is used in the interpretation of Islamic law; it is invoked to promote, permit, or prohibit something on the basis of the public good. Maslaha means ‘public interest’ while istihsan means to ‘seek out the public interest’. Shah Wali Allah was a proponent of taking into account the public good believing there were two types of laws and that the second more flexible type is based on human interest and the betterment of society. The former is also pertains to societies interests but these must be followed even if one does not understand why.
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Term
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Definition
o Literal: Renewer of the Islamic faith who appears approximately every hundred years to revitalize the faith
o Significance: This idea comes from a hadith. Someone who is a mujaddid has spirituality on the level of that of the early caliphs (?) and therefore has great power among his followers. Many of the people we are studying, such as Uthman don-Fudi, were regarded as mujaddid by their followers.
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Term
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Definition
o Literal: Islamic theological school emphasizing rationality or reason; practitioners of kalam
o Beliefs: Held that sinners were neither true Muslims nor infidels, but were somewhere in between and were still part of the Muslim community. They upheld God’s unity and transcendence, however, they believed in free will for mankind because if they were not free then God would be the cause of evil. They believed that God’s being, the universe, and human nature are all rationally ordered and knowable to human intellect. They believed God created the universe with reason and that once he created it, he could not change it and even God’s justice is constrained by the laws of good and evil. They also hold that the Qur’an is created and that God’s essence is reason. This position was not accepted by the majority of Muslims.
o Significance: One of two major conflicting positions of Muslim theology in the 9th century (the other, the ahl al-hadith, which holds the divine being as inscrutable) and which is still held by a small minority of Muslims today, primarily in Oman
o Other
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Term
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Definition
o Literal: One who guides
o Technical: Head of a Sufi Order
o Significance: His role is to guide and instruct his disciples on the Sufi path. A disciple is supposed to have complete devotion to his sheik. This person has already reached the state of ecstasy and is a Sufi Master.
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Term
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Definition
o Literal:
o Technical: Islamic judge
o Significance: Because Islam makes no distinction between religious and secular domains, the qadi has domain over all aspects of the law involving Muslims. The ruling of the qadi should be made in accordance with the ijima (consensus) of the ulama (generally though some, like Wali Allah were more inclined to think of ijima as the entire community) and should rely on the sources of Islamic law. According to my notes the qadi is appointed by the King (India)
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Term
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Definition
o Literal
o Technical: Supplication or prayer protecting someone from bad things, including jealousy
o Significance: This was forbidden by al-Wahhab in his Kitab al-Tawhid as a form of shirk. The only time ruqya was allowed was in the case of scorpion stings and jealousy. Even though ruqya generally constituted the use of Qur’anic verses, he still viewed this as shirk.
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Term
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Definition
o Literal: Highest Islamic Judge (Iran, India)
o Significance: Has none; this shouldn’t be on here because we haven’t talked about it and it’s not that important. It means “breast” or “foremost thing” in Arabic and this person probably would have played an important part in the administration of the empire and dealt primarily with religious law.
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Term
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Definition
o Literal: Pillar of Islam; fasting
o Significance: Good Muslims are supposed to fast during the month of Ramadan (though fasting is not confined to that month. Sawm reminds the believer of God and curbs lust (as noted by Walli Allah)
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Term
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Definition
o Literal: Intercession or Prayer to God on someone’s behalf
o Significance: Wahhab did not believe in Shafa’ a and believed that seeking intercession with someone other than God constituted a form of shirk. Even the Prophet was not allowed to intercede on the behalf of his own daughter. The shiia believe that Imam Hussein, though his sacrifice, has intervened for them
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Term
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Definition
o Literal: Martyrdom or it can also refer to one of the five pillars of Islam
o Significance:
§ This means to attest to faith in God though personal sacrifice or
§ The profession of faith “There is no God but God and Muhammad is his messenger. This is generally thought to be the most important pillar as uttering the Shahada truthfully (and generally in front of a member of the ulama) means one is a Muslim. It is part of the muzzein’s call to prayer
o Other: Husain is one of the most famous martyrs in Shia Islamic history
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Term
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Definition
o Literal: Martyr
o Significance: This is an important concept which generally refers to those Muslims who have died during jihad fighting for Islam. Muslims believe these people will get many rewards in paradise and they are especially revered. In Shia Islam the most famous martyr is Hussein and his martyrdom has informed much of the practices and tone of shia Islam
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Term
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Definition
o Literal: elder
o Technical: Muslim head or leader of a Sufi order
o Significance: The Sheik is the head of a tribe or following or Sufi order. Most of the religious reformers we have studied were sheiks. The Sufi sheik leads his devotees and is supposed to be given complete loyalty. See pir.
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Term
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Definition
o Literal: Association of something else with God
o Technical: Associating partners with God (the sin of polytheism)
o Significance: This was idolatry and it was strenuously objected to by the reformers of Islam. Wahhab emphasized this sin the most and had a very inclusive definition for it. Inside the sin of shirk, he included visitation and veneration of saint’s graves, taqlid, ruqya. These were practices that many Muslims engaged in and therefore his pronouncement that they were engaging in shirk and were not true Muslims was very trying.
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Term
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Definition
o Literal: Consultative council
o Significance: This basically indicates consultation of the community and is the manner in which the ijima is implimented. It means coming together to decide a point of Islamic jurisprudence. This was imporntat to thinkers like Wali Allah because he wanted to bring together the schools of law for intellectual synthesis and to involve the entire Muslim community. Most Muslims maintain that the first four rightly guided caliphs were chosen by shura.
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Term
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Definition
o Literal: Sufi – a mystic, adherent of Sufism (mystical Islam)
o Significance: In the early days of Islam, Sufis were important to the spread of Islam. The Sufi movement could encompass the diversity of the new lands Islam was taking hold in and Sufis often traveled to new lands. The Sufi experience represented an emotional and religious experience with God as the worshiper would try to unite with Him. Eventually Sufis organized into brotherhoods called tariqahs which were organized around a sheik to which the devotee pledged to serve. Sufi’s were also important in the establishment and preservation of the Ottoman and Safavid Empires (I think, maybe). Today, Sufism is still very important and it acts as an opposition movement; especially in countries like Egypt and Iran. Revivalists often condemned what they saw as the excesses of Sufism, such as trying to unite with God, however, they did not all condemn to the same degree. Wahhab completely rejected Sufism while Wali Allah criticized its excesses, but did not completely reject it (both he and his father were Sufis as was Fudi)
o Other: early in the Sufi movement, devotees embraced the acetic lifestyle until realizing they needed inner asceticism rather than worldly asceticism
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Term
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Definition
o Literal: Period of Ottoman reform between 1839 and 1876
o Significance: After the Ottomans recognized the military and technological superiority of the West, they tried to play catch up with tanzimat. This was partially brought about by the invasion of the French of Egypt in 1798 and the loss of Algeria to the French in 1830. The Ottomans focus on education, building, and the construction of a bureaucratic system
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Term
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Definition
o Literal: Followers of the twelve imams
o Significance: This group of shia are the largest and comprise approximately 80% of the shia community. They follow the twelve Imams beginning with Ali and ending with the Mahdi who has been in the greater occultation since 941. They believe that the Mahdi will return to bring justice to the world and to purify Islam before the last days. The reformers we have studied in this class have been Sunni and they generally regarded the Shiia as heretics.
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Term
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Definition
o Literal: people
o Technical: The Muslim polity or community
o Significance: This concept is crucial to the Muslim understanding of unity and is differentiated from the communities of the Jahiliyyah time by the fact that it is based on a common religion rather than on blood relationships. In the Constitution of Medina the ummah had a territorial as well as a political and religious basis. The ummah is a large part of what connects Muslims across territorial boundaries. This concept was important for the reformers we are studying because many of them, like Shah Wali Allah were seeing a breakdown of the ummah and desired to unify the Muslim community. The other reformers also saw their programs as a cleansing of Islam and by extension the ummah (I think)
- Another important thing to note is the fact that ummah does not always refer to the Muslim community when used in documents during Muhammad's time i.e. the Qur'an and the Constitution of Medina
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Term
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Definition
o Literal: Islamic tax paid by Muslims; approx. 2.5% of disposable income at the end of the year
o Significance: This is one of the five pillars of Islam and it is basically alms giving. It reminds Muslims to be generous and to think about the disadvantaged members of society.
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Term
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Definition
o Literal: Independent Reasoning based on the four sources of Islamic jurisprudence
o Significance: This is an extremely important concept and it played a large role in the Islamic “fundamentalist” revival movements. Most revivalist thinkers believed that one should not rely on earlier scholars work and blindly follow them (taqlid) but instead go back to the earliest sources and use them to make rulings. Thinkers like al-Wahhab and Wali Allah disagreed as to how ijtihad should be implemented. While Wali Allah believed ijtihad was a communal obligation, al-Wahhab believed it should be limited to the ulama
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Term
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Definition
o Literal: Age of ignorance and paganism before the arise of Islam
o Significance: Many of the scholars we have examined in this class have been concerned with the return to jahiliyya and they sometimes classify those lands outside of Dar al-Islam as in jahiliyya. Wahhab believed those Muslims who did not follow his brand of Islam were in jahiliyya.
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Term
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Definition
o Literal:
§ Legal: Holy war (also the lesser jihad)
§ Spiritual: War with the self; war to conquer personal demons (also the greater jihad)
o Significance: There is a hadith which states that after Muhammad came back from war they had completed the lesser jihad. Both Fudi and al-Wahhab carried out jihad in the course of their reform movements. For Fudi jihad was basically a byproduct of his vision for Muslim society (according to Brenner) and for Wahhab it was a way to purify the Muslim community and spread his version of Islam. Both al-Wahhab and Fudi had to use the doctrine of takfir because they were fighting against people who believed they were Muslims; takfir made shedding their blood legal.
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Term
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Definition
o Literal: Poll tax levied on non-Muslims
o Significance: This is proof of Muslim dominance and the non-Muslim population’s acceptance of that dominance. Those who pay the tax are exempt from military service and are given the right to practice their own religion. This tax only applies to the ahl al-kittab (i.e. Christians, Jews, and sometimes Zoroastrians); it does not apply to pagan populations. Though the Constitution of Medina put equal military service on both Jews and Muslims, the Jizya developed later and exempted them. This was endorsed by Fudi in his Caliphate at Sokoto.
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Term
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Definition
o Literal: Muslim theologians
o Significance: These people practiced kalam. Two of the best known schools of kalam were the Mut’azali school and the Asher’ite school. See kalam.
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Term
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Definition
o Literal: declaring another Muslim to be an infidel
o Significance: If a Muslim is declared takfir, it is permissible to spill his blood. This concept played a large role in the thought of some of the thinkers we’ve examined and it played an especially large role in the jihad movements of Wahhab and Fudi (political takfir). Muslim scholars disagree on what qualifies a Muslim as takfir, some say that the believer must specifically renounce Islam and others say that person can be takfir based on a grave sin or lack of knowledge. Wali Allah said that only a explicit statement qualified a Muslim for takfir and Fudi generally maintained that only statements and actions could qualify a Muslim for takfir, not what was in his heart.
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Term
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Definition
o Literal: Emulation in religious or legal matters or in tradition
o Significance: Though most traditional Sunnif scolars accepted Taqlid the more reformist minded advocated ijtihad over taqlid. Some like al-Wahhab even believed that taqlid could count as a form of shirk. Wali Allah thought that taqlid was acceptable for an ordinary Muslim that could not engage in ijtihad but that independent reasoning should be used by those who could engage in it. He also set limits on taqlid i.e. that the person should know that the imam is not infallible and that it is not obligatory to follow a specific imam. Fudi, on the other hand, whole-heartedly accepted taqlid. This was probably because he was worried about how ordinary (mostly illiterate) Muslims could practice their faith.
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Term
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Definition
o Literal: Unification
o Technical: unity of God
o Significance: This is the monotheism of Islam and it asserts that there is no other authority or deity besides God. It constitutes the first part of the Shahada and is a foundation of Qur’anic interpretation. It is an incredibly important concept for the revivalist movements, especially for that of al-Wahhab for whom tawhid was the most important thing. Al-Wahhab’s conception of tawhid made shirk anything that gave anything besides god spiritual power; that included popular devotional practices such as visitation of tombs and asking for intercession. His conception of tawhid which brought everything under God and extends religion into the political and economic realms.
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Term
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Definition
o Literal: Muslim scholars or clerics
o Significance: This is the educated class of Muslim scholars who can generally engage in itjihad and lead the community of Muslims. Some of the revivalists believed that the ulama comprised the ijama (al-Wahhab) and that the people should follow them (Fudi was a proponent of taqlid) while others believed that the ijima should be comprised of the entire Muslim community. Many of the reforms also believed that the ulama needed to be reformed. Walli Allah believed that the ulama had failed in their duty to preserve the inner caliphate thereby creating social ills and Fudi criticized the ulama for teaching students without having taught their own wives and children the basics of Islam.
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Term
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Definition
o Literal: Follower of Muhammad ibn ‘abd-al-Wahhab (d. 1792), the founder of Wahhabism
o Significance: This group was founded by al-Wahhab and spread with the help of jihad and the Sa’ud family. Its mission, under Saudi political leadership, is the basis of the modern Saudi state. This doctrine emphasizes tawhid (oneness of God, radical oneness of God) and its followers do not accept the name wahhabi and prefer those who affirm the oneness of God. They believe assigning spiritual power to anything besides God is a form of shirk. This declares many popular practice as shirk. This movement started as a fundamentalist movement and was able to show other movements what was possible, thereby inspiring followers. Today, however, as it is the basis of a modernizing state it has had a moderating and conservative influence on the Middle East.
§ Hanabbali school of law
§ Ibn Tamiyah
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